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The letter from Sarah
Smuts-Kennedy (March 21), misinterpreting Frank Haden's column about Peter
Ellis as an assertion that children who claim to have been sexually abused
should be disbelieved, counters by saying children will continue to be
sexually abused "until society starts believing" them. This attitude -- that children's
accusations should be taken as gospel -- not only renders hypocritical her
description of Haden's remarks as "bold statements", but is also
one of the main reasons why males are terrified to enter the teaching
profession. In such situations neither side
deserves to be either believed or disbelieved, and after the typically
homophobic investigation and farcical trial to which Ellis was subjected this
remains the case. If I, like the likes of
Smuts-Kennedy, arrogantly regarded wrongful conviction for paedophilia as
less serious than paedophilia itself, I too would be happy to moronically
interpret the findings of Ellis's jury as irrevocable fact. |
