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The
Dominion
December 2, 1997
Hundreds falsely accused, says group
by Annie Gray
A Ministerial inquiry is being called for into cases where men have been
convicted of sexual offences on the basis of uncorroborated testimonies.
Casualties of Sexual Allegations Inc, or Cosa, is seeking the inquiry. Cosa
president Felicity Goodyear-Smith says that while the Peter Ellis case in
Christchurch has attracted a great deal of media attention, there are many
innocent people who have been falsely accused in less sensational abuse
cases.
She says she has on record dozens of cases where men have been convicted on
the basis of uncorroborated testimony and she points the finger at an
ideology which assumes that women and children always tell the truth.
Cosa was set up four years ago and has 350 members, two-thirds of whom are
people directly involved with false allegations. Others are friends and
family of accused people or interested professionals.
Dr Goodyear-Smith concedes that her group has no way of knowing whether any
of its members are guilty, but she says members can often produce cases where
the evidence overwhelmingly points to their innocence.
Cosa aims to offer support to people falsely accused and to disseminate
information about the policies and practices they believe have been inherited
from the United States,
along with lobbying to change legislative issues surrounding sexual abuse
cases.
In the 1980s Dr Goodyear-Smith was a GP often working with the police in
examining victims of sexual abuse. She was involved in establishing the HELP
Foundation for sexual abuse victims.
She says that while there was a need for changes to be made to the way abuse
victims were treated, the pendulum has now swung too far in the complainants'
favour.
Dr Goodyear-Smith is married to John Potter, son of Centrepoint founder Bert
Potter who is serving a nine-year prison sentence for perjury, child sex and
drugs charges. John Potter spent four months in jail in 1993 for indecent
assault involving two under-age girls at Centrepoint. Dr Goodyear-Smith says
he was aged about 20 at the time. She met him after that time and has never
been a member of the Centrepoint community.
She says she is not unaware of the irony of the situation, but she had
started speaking out about these issues years ago, and while she would prefer
someone else to pursue the issue, no one else has taken up the challenge.
She says a change in approach means complainants are always believed. She
blames an ideology imported from the United States which covers
training, literature and protocol for dealing with abuse cases.
"Implicitly now, we believe them (the complainant) . . . we have case
after case after case of what I see as people accused on the basis of
uncorroborated testimony."
Dr Goodyear-Smith says that in the past the judge in an abuse case had to
warn of the dangers of convicting where there was no corroborating evidence,
but that legislation was changed in 1986. Cosa would like it reinstated.
"I think the police will admit that cases now come to trial which would
not have got past the front counter in the past . . . there is a lot of
pressure now to believe the complainants."
Detective Inspector John Doyle of the Christchurch CIB says that in all
cases, including sex abuse cases, the facts have to be established before
going any further. He says that when a complaint of sex abuse is received
police will investigate it. If the complaint is untrue this will surface and
not every case brought to the police gets to court. He says that the changing
environment in the past 10 to 15 years has meant that more people are coming
forward.
Police evidential interviewer Constable Karen Vaughan, of Wellington Central,
says that of 179 cases she has interviewed there has been only one
retraction. And at the end of each interview, she says, complainants are
given the chance to retract or change anything.
As an interviewer, Ms Vaughan says, she is careful not to offer positive
reinforcement. She says all cases are fully investigated before coming to
trial.
Ms Vaughan says there is probably too much emphasis put on children making
false complaints. The police prefer to see children as soon as a complaint
has been made and before they have been through intensive therapy. A lengthy
period of therapy can make the task of establishing complaint details more
difficult, she says.
Dr Goodyear-Smith says several of the cases her group sees involve acrimonious
custody disputes where a mother has accused an estranged husband. She says
that the Family Court does not need to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt
and many fathers end up with supervised access only.
"This is very painful for them and incredibly destructive for the
children."
A spokesman from the Department for Courts, Barry Ebert, says that
allegations of sexual abuse have to be backed by evidence before the Family
Court will deny access or impose supervised access. While the Family Court does
apply a different test, basically there has to be enough evidence to persuade
the court there is a real risk to the child.
Dr Goodyear-Smith says that she has cases where fathers who have been charged
and acquitted of sexual abuse in the criminal courts are still denied access
to their children.
One man is denied access to his daughter because, while it is accepted there
has never been abuse, his daughter is "so contaminated" by the
process that she has come to believe she has been abused and is afraid to be
with her father.
Dr Goodyear-Smith says she is also concerned that current ideology assumes
some behaviour in children is automatically the result of sexual abuse and
that there is little perception on just how easy it is to feed ideas to
children. She says children who deny any abuse are not believed.
However, she says, interviewing techniques have vastly improved and there is
a lot more knowledge now about suggestive techniques.
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