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(Norsk overskriftskommentar av NSMFIA)
(se dommen i sin helhet under url 1,2 & 3 i annet avsnitt)
Det er et udiskutabelt faktum at rettsikkerheten
for ofrene etter falske incestanklager i Norge undermineres av våre
myndigheter og at provokatørene beskyttes.
England ligger langt foran oss. Her omtales
en dom av 30 juli 2002 som betraktes som en milepel i deres streben etter å forfølge
de falske incestprovokatørene – samt gi de uskyldige ofrene en klekkelig
erstatning for det offentlige overgrepet.
Barnepleierne Dawn Reed og Christopher
Lillie fikk hver £ 200.000 (nok 2.4 millioner) i erstatning og oppreisning
for hva den falske incestindustrien hadde påført dem
Rettens administrator, Hr. Dommer
Eady sier : ”Jeg er meget tilfreds med at hver av de anklagede har fortjent
den høyest mulige erstatning. Ja, de har fortjent den mangfoldige ganger tatt
i betraktning omfanget, alvoret og hårdnakketheten av påstandene og de
overdrevne fabrikasjonene” :
Landmark decision in the
High Court
Margaret Jervis writes:
 The victory of the two falsely accused
Newcastle nursery nurses in the High Court in London on 30th July 2002 is a
landmark decision for investigative reliability in child abuse accusations.
After a trial lasting 74 days, Dawn Reed and Christopher Lillie were each
awarded £200,000 in maximum damages for having been maliciously libelled by a
Newcastle City Council-appointed review team of three social workers and one
psychologist. "I am quite satisfied that each of the Claimants [Chris
and Dawn] have merited an award at the highest permitted level", said
the trial judge, Mr Justice Eady. "Indeed, they have earned it several
times over because of the scale, gravity and persistence of the allegations
and of the aggravating factors."
In his 400 page judgment, (available online in three parts [1], [2] & [3]). the judge highlights the
intellectual dishonesty of the review team in compiling their report, Abuse
in Early Years. The report, published in 1998, had branded the two innocent
former nursery workers as bizarre and dangerous paedophiles who were abusing
young children both in the nursery and in the local area in concert with
others in an unknown 'paedophile ring'.
The full judgment is a model critique of the flawed investigative techniques
and theories that arose in the 1980s in tandem with the 'recovered memory'
methodology which affected so many families in the 1990s. Dawn's original
solicitor contacted the British False Memory Society in 1993 as the case
against her and Chris mushroomed along similar lines as the notorious
McMartin and Kelly Michaels daycare cases had done in the US.
At that time, the susceptibility of young children to the creation of false
narratives by virtue of the beliefs of the investigators, was already
recognised in the United States. The research by Stephen Ceci and Maggie
Bruck into children's suggestibility formed the basis of an authoritative
amicus brief - a consensual opinion by leading psychologists to help the
Court - that became the linchpin in quashing the conviction against Kelly
Michaels in New Jersey.
Ceci and Bruck's research discredited the application of Roland Summit's
accommodation theory which was being used as a potent and dangerous
diagnostic and investigative tool in suspected cases of sexual assault. The
Summit theory postulated a whole range of symptoms as evidence of 'hidden'
memories of severe abuse. Even an absence of symptoms could be taken as an
abuse indicator. Absolute denial or gradual, often contradictory, disclosure,
according to Summit, needed to be nurtured through play props such as
anatomically correct dolls, in order that the presumed psychological trauma
could be exposed thus allowing the 'victim' to be 'healed'. The
'accommodation theory' was the therapeutic engine which drove the Shieldfield
allegations way beyond the criminal pre-trial acquittal of the nurses in July
1994. New allegations were still being made as a result of therapy even as
the review team, by then appointed by Newcastle City Council, started to
examine the case in 1996.
Because it was aware of the damage caused by the defective methods and
beliefs employed in the investigative process, the BFMS sent the review team
the Kelly Michaels amicus brief and other information about the US cases,
including the Ceci and Bruck research. This should, at least, have alerted
the team to the similarities between the cases on both sides of the Atlantic,
but when the Abuse in Early Years report appeared, not only was the tainted
police and social services investigation upheld, but the key material sent by
the BFMS was denigrated as being 'unsolicited' and irrelevant. This implied
smear was made not only against the BFMS but included psychologist Dr Bryan
Tully, a BFMS advisory board member. Dr Tully, a defence expert for the
criminal case, had offered to give evidence to the review team; evidence
which he maintains would have helped the team to come to entirely different
conclusions, but the team deliberately chose to refuse to hear his evidence.
This biased hostility arose again at the libel trial when counsel for the
review team tried to insinuate that Chris and Dawn had been pushed into
bringing the case by the BFMS - an accusation which had no foundation in
fact. The BFMS does however stand by its commitment to provide relevant and
accurate scientific information in the interests of justice.
Through his careful judgment, which rejects the investigative methodology of
both the review team and the initial police and social services inquiry, Mr
Justice Eady highlights the fact that the team ignored the relevant
scientific knowledge, some of which had been provided by the BFMS. But what
was not revealed during the trial was why it might be predicted that certain
members of the review team would take a blanket oppositional stance to both
the BFMS and any other objective analysis which could have been provided to
the team.
One of the social work experts appointed to the team was Judith Jones. Ms
Jones, together with her partner, journalist Beatrix Campbell, has been a
longstanding opponent of the BFMS. As part of a campaign to uphold 'recovered
memory' theory, both Campbell and Jones have sought to blacken the name of
the BFMS over many years. The most flagrant example of this was in their 1999
co-written book Stolen Voices which sought to portray, through misinformation
and misrepresentation, the BFMS and other critics, as part of a 'paedophile's
lobby'. Unsurprisingly, the totally unfounded slurs in the book resulted in a
queue of people intending to take legal action. Responding to the first of
many potential claims, the publishers withdrew the book the day before
publication.
One facet of Ms Jones' campaign against the BFMS was the setting up of a
group of therapists and 'recovered memory' clients, Daughters and Their
Allies (DATA). Based in Newcastle, the group's specific object was to
discredit the BFMS and promote 'recovered memory' claims. However, very
little is known about this shadowy organisation.
Ms Jones was also, under her married name Judith Dawson, an instigator of the
'satanic abuse' scare in Nottingham in 1989. Her pivotal role in
disseminating false information fuelled the Rochdale and Orkneys abuse
fiascos. The reckless approach adopted by Judith Dawson/Jones in
investigating these cases was identified by a joint police social services
inquiry in the JET report. However, having been accepted by
the police, and social services director, David White, planned publication of
the summary final report was successfully blocked by Ms Dawson and her team
who waged a campaign of slur and innuendo against the authors of the report.
The upshot was that belief in satanic abuse and the unsound methods of
investigation continued to permeate the world of welfare professionals and
activists, with Ms Dawson retaining unjustified influence for many years.
The one psychologist on the Newcastle panel, Dr Jacqui Saradjian, also had an
ideological axe to grind. A former teacher, she studied under psychologist
Helga Hanks at Leeds University. Dr Hanks was a supporter of 'satanic abuse'
and a member of the Leeds team that included Drs Jane Wynne and Christopher
Hobbs. Their promotion of the now discredited 'anal dilatation' diagnosis of
sexual abuse created havoc and injustice in Cleveland in 1987 when it was
applied by Dr Marietta Higgs and others. Ms Saradjian, who has specialised in
women as abusers, is also a believer in the 'recovered memory' method of
accessing narratives that reinforce her ideology, including her belief in
'satanic abuse.'
All that was required to
promote the production of a report which would, in the words of the judge,
include "fundamental claims [the Review team] must have known to be
untrue" was for Newcastle City Council to appoint Dr Richard Barker, a
social work lecturer, as leader of the team. The judge stated that Dr Barker
was a man who "eschewed rational analysis in the approach to his task
from the outset". His evidence was so poor that the judge said he
"was unable to place reliance upon anything said by Professor Barker,
for any significant purpose, unless it was independently corroborated".
Acting as "a law unto himself" Barker and the team were to
"promulgate to the Council and to the wider public what was recognised
within days … to be a specious and disreputable document".
Now that the Shieldfield
Nursery abuse fiasco has finally been laid to rest, questions must be asked
as to how it came to develop from the outset. Close critical scrutiny needs
to be paid to a wide range of welfare services and the professionals
involved, not least Dr Camille San Lazaro, the consultant paediatrician who
falsely diagnosed so many children as having been abused. Mr Justice Eady
said, "The truth is that where physical findings were negative or
equivocal, Dr San Lazaro [who had trained with Dr Marietta Higgs] was
prepared to make up the deficiencies by throwing objectivity and scientific
rigour to the winds in a highly emotional misrepresentation of the
facts."
The fact is that many of
the key personnel in the Shieldfield case are part of an ideological axis
stretching back through Nottingham to Cleveland. That it has taken nine years
to nail the myth of Shieldfield indicates that the misinformation this
faction continues to promulgate within the welfare, police and criminal
justice systems continues to cloud professional judgment. Unfortunately the
media, as was seen in the trial with the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and other
mainstream newspapers, all too often follows suit. It is therefore all the
more remarkable and gratifying that Mr Justice Eady has been able to cut a
swathe through their emotive, pseudo-scientific claims.
Anyone involved in this
field should read the full judgment; not only does it endorse sound theory
and practice in child abuse investigations, but it calls for a return to the
fundamental principles of natural justice, reason and humanity.
*****
see also 'News Page' for the Newcastle City Council Statement on
the Review Team Appeal
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