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I wonder how many saw Oliver
Stone's film Indictment -- the McMartin Trial on TV2 recently. It was a
fact-based drama of a family victimised by a modern-day witch hunt ignited
and fuelled by public belief in ritual satanic abuse. After spending up to seven years
in prison without bail, not one of the McMartin family was convicted. Fortunately, ritual satanic abuse
belief has all but died out except in a few countries such as Parallels with the McMartin case
can be drawn, such as the leading role of the media, the credibility and
conduct of the investigators, the absence of corroborating physical evidence,
and the jury's blind belief in stories by children after hours of suggestive
interrogation by dubiously qualified counsellors using medically discredited
methods. The disgraceful difference is that
in our country, the accused was convicted and incarcerated. This will one day
stand alongside the Thomas case as one of our most heinous miscarriages of
justice. And then we will ask ourselves how we could have allowed it to
happen. |
