She was just four years old when it began. He was a friend of her mother's and had started coming around more and more, offering to help around the house.

She describes the first time she met him as "normal." It was around Halloween and he had brought a pumpkin for her and her sister to carve. The second time was different.

"He wanted to tell me a secret, and that secret that he wanted to tell me was like he liked little girls, like how I was at the time," says the Halifax girl, who is now 17. "But he didn't like big girls, like how my sister, eight years older than me, was."

This 17-year-old, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, says she was sexually assaulted from the time she was four to nine years old. (Eric Woolliscroft/CBC)

It was the first of what she says were repeated sexual assaults that continued from the time she was four until she was nine, sparking a lengthy journey for justice.

Thirteen years after the abuse began, Darren Julian Kennedy was charged, and he recently pleaded guilty to sexual assault. The 52-year-old returns to Halifax provincial court on March 1 for sentencing.

"He'd touch me inappropriately. He'd try and get me to touch him inappropriately and stuff like that," says the girl, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

The girl and her mother are now sharing their story in hopes it will help other sexual assault survivors, but also out of concern for how long the police investigation took before Kennedy was finally charged.

Darren Julian Kennedy has pleaded guilty to sexual assault. He's set to be sentenced in March. (Kayla Hounsell/CBC)

The girl's mother had met Kennedy through a telephone chatline.

"We had talked on the phone for many many hours before I met him," says the mother, who cannot be identified in order to protect her daughter. "I didn't invite him to my home right away, but after I got to know him I did, I invited him over."

The girl says Kennedy regularly tried to get her away from her mother.

"She would either be like doing laundry, cleaning or like cooking supper, and he'd try and get me away from her, either like taking me to my room or going to the basement or shed."

She recalls being scared and trying to hide, locking herself in a room until he left.

"I didn't really have friends," she says. "I felt like if I brought my friends around it kind of would happen to them too."

At one point, her mother became suspicious when a babysitter reported she found Kennedy and the child upstairs, lying on a bed with the lights down low. But when she questioned him, he said he had a headache. She also directly asked her daughter if he had been touching her and she said he had not.

A month later, the mother says, her daughter came running into her room.

"She said, 'Mummy, mummy, I'm so so sorry to have lied to you,'" she recalls. "And she was crying from her heart, and she said, 'Darren is touching my vagina.'"

Journey for justice

Her mother called police, but it would take three interviews over a number of years before they had what they needed to lay a charge.

"The first time she didn't say exactly what happened, the second time she came a little bit closer to saying what happened, but the third time is when she told the full disclosure," says her mother.

By then, her daughter was 14 years old.

The investigation continued, but it was still three more years before Kennedy was charged.

"The explanation I was provided on several occasions is that the officer that was investigating had to be moved to a different department because there was a lot of murders in Dartmouth area at once," says the mother.

'It's probably one of the most difficult types of investigations you can do,' Staff Sgt. Don Stienburg, who runs the Halifax police sexual assault investigation team, says about assault cases involving child victims. (Eric Woolliscroft/CBC)

Staff Sgt. Don Stienburg, who runs the Halifax police sexual assault investigation team, says investigators have to be careful when questioning children. They cannot lead them, but they also have to obtain enough evidence to make a charge stick.

"It's probably one of the most difficult types of investigations you can do," he says, noting his investigators receive special training.

Stienburg says that at one time, sexual assault investigators did get pulled to work in other units, but that changed as a result of recommendations following a review of the Rehtaeh Parsons case in October 2015.

"At one time, if we had a homicide for example, we would bring those investigators in to help out for the short period of time, say that 24-hour period when you're trying to get as much work done and a lot of stuff is coming in," Stienburg says. "We don't do that anymore."

He says it is possible an investigator could be permanently transferred to another unit but also continue with the sexual assault files they're already working on because they have a rapport with the child.

There are currently two sergeants and 10 investigators dedicated to the sexual assault unit.

Speaking out

Kennedy was supposed to be sentenced last week, but there has been another delay in the court process. The Crown and defence have jointly asked for a sexual assessment to determine Kennedy's risk to reoffend.

Both Kennedy and his lawyer, Chris Manning, declined to comment for this story.

The girl and her mother say justice shouldn't take this long.

"I kind of want him to go away for all the years that he took away from me," says the teen, who has been diagnosed with anxiety and says the experience has affected her entire life.

"I have like really panicky thoughts. My mind races. I'm just nervous all the time. It could happen again, any day, any time," she says.

"I really don't want people to feel like it's their fault, and they should talk about it because once you talk about it, it's not as scary anymore," she says. "You honestly feel better about yourself."