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The spotlight is back on Peter Ellis, as High Court Justice Sir Thomas
Thorpe begins investigating a petition on his behalf. Meanwhile, a paper on
the background of satanic abuse, by
But they had. The "signs" included
being locked in a cage, being buried in the ground in a box, being tied
upside down and hung from a pole or hook, seeing children or babies killed,
having blood poured over them, participating in a mock marriage, and being
taken to a church or graveyard for ritual abuse. In a newly published paper tracing
the evolution of the satanic scare from the Ms Hudson identified 16 satanic
indicators; the Professor Hill recalls that the
mother claimed her son told of being "forced to kill a boy and
animals", of visiting a church where children had been made to take part
in a marriage ceremony and of a visit to a graveyard, where he had been
placed in a cage with a cat. Among other claims was the
much-reported "circle incident", where children were taken to a
Hereford St address and put in a tunnel beneath a trapdoor; they were later
made to stand naked in a circle of adults, including all five creche workers
initially accused. Indecencies were reported to have
been committed on them, and the children were made to kick each other in the
genitals. Professor Hill's investigative
paper precisely traces the history of what he says is the social hysteria
that led to numerous reports of ritual atrocities without any physical
corroboration. Ever. Satanic abuse a la Professor Hill
started with the 1980 publication in Michelle recalled as a
five-year-old being tortured in houses, mausoleums and cemeteries, being
raped and sodomised with candles, being forced to defecate on a Bible and a
crucifix, witnessing babies and adults butchered, spending hours naked in a
snake-filled cage, and having a devil's tail and horns surgically attached to
her. Despite lack of corroboration, the
book was an international bestseller. The same year, the third edition
of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric
Association listed categories of "dissociative identity disorder"
and "post-traumatic stress disorder" -- to become the most common
diagnoses applied to the thought victims of satanic abuse. Very soon, Professor Hill says, a
group of eminent American psychiatrists who specialised in hypnotism had set
up an organisation to advance the treatment of multiple personality and
dissociation. And the treatment spread
"like pyramid selling". Most famous of the satanic scares
that followed was the McMartin Preschool case, after a mother complained her
boy had been sexually abused. After the police alerted 200
parents of the "possibility" of abuse, elaborate stories began
filtering in, seemingly under the guidance of new social worker interview
techniques. Social worker Kee MacFarlane used
anatomically correct hand puppets in interviews, and children were told that
if they could not remember incidents at the preschool, this was because they
were "dissociating". It was perceived to be the job of
the interviewers to help them remember, leading to a form of insistent
interviewing in which children's denials of abuse were discounted in the
search for "truths" that the interviewers believed were being
suppressed. At the same time, psychiatrist
Roland Summit said that children never fabricated accounts of sexual abuse
and so were to be believed -- regardless of how incredible their accounts
were. Children who had been victims of
incest, however, would often retract "in order to maintain family equilibrium".
The McMartin case ended, after two
hung trials, the first of 28 months being the longest criminal proceeding in
American history, with various acquittals and dropped charges, though not
before a male defendant had spent a year in jail. Among other figures central to
what he classifies as the early hysteria, Professor Hill identifies David
Finkelhor, who published three dozen ritual abuse case studies, without
evaluating the reliability of any of the allegations. MORE important to This was taken as an abuse
indicator at a Glenelg Health Camp investigation in The next figure to be considered,
Professor Hill says, is Next came Pamela Hudson and her
list of 16 reported forms of physical and psychological abuse. Ms Hudson also
had a particular interest in the robes and masks that perpetrators were
alleged to wear. In Professor Hill's analysis,
satanic abuse came down under in 1986, when It was attended by Mr Summit, Ms
MacFarlane, Dr Heger and Professor Finkelhor, all of whom gave papers. Within
two years, it was followed by a day-care centre abuse complaint of children
being abducted, given drugs, assaulted with knives, forced to watch animal
sacrifices and satanic rituals, and of sexual abuse and pornographic filming.
Their abuser was named as a
"Mr Bubbles". The following year the Ritual
Action Network -- later to be called Ritual Action Group -- was set up in The key members, Professor Hill
says, were social workers Ann Marie Stapp and Jocelyn Frances, also known as
O'Kane, the latter practising hypnosis and recovering memories of satanic
cult abuse; policeman Laurie Gabites, who visited the The group received public funding
from the Social Welfare Department through its Family Violence Prevention
Coordinating Committee, a committee exposed in a 1994 internal audit for
"grandiose overspending", including "well catered"
breakfasts, lunches and dinners, uncontrolled use of taxi chit books, and
wrong accounting practices. And in 1993 Professor Hill says the group
attracted considerable credibility, successfully propagating its views among
social welfare staff, police and staff from other government departments. But the main focus of satanic
allegations was to be in In August 1991, American Christian
sexual abuse therapist Mitchell Whitman came to His claims included "that the
usual damage caused to children by satanic ritual abuse was a
multi-personality disorder . . . research showed that about half the children
suffering (such) disorders had been victims of satanic ritual abuse". Professor Hill records that six
days later, Ms Stapp and Frances presented a paper at a family violence
prevention conference on behalf of the Ritual Action Group. It claimed that children were
subjected to ritual and indoctrination to convert them to "the worship
system of the group" and intimidated into silence. After listing signs of a
progression to "higher rituals" -- including hatred to family and
religion, drops in grades, cuts to the body, increased use of illegal drugs,
satanic nicknames -- it suggested parents should be looking for particular
items. These included a black-covered
book listing types and locations of rituals and contracts for suicide or
homicide, ceremonial knives, candles, chalice, robes, satanic books and
animal and human bones. A later workshop at the Later Mr Gabites returned to Seventeen days after this story
appeared, the first allegations were made against Peter Ellis, a male
childcare worker at the Christchurch Civic Creche -- by a mother who had
earlier written a pamphlet on sexual abuse. Though the apparent hysteria has
died down, Professor Hill argues that as long as courts and other authorities
accept the "expert" word of pseudo-scientific claims, the satanic
scenario may persist. Professor Hill concludes:
"Satan's Ellis remains in jail.
"I would like to thank the
board for the opportunity to appear here today and, in particular, for
allowing both my mother and my counsel to be present. "There are two reasons why I
think it is important for me to be present today. "Firstly, because I wish to
show my respect for the board by personally explaining my position regarding
parole and, secondly, because it gives me the opportunity to say myself that
which I have had to rely on others to say for me for the last six years. "I cannot accept any parole
that you could offer me because the board can only release me as a guilty
man. "I am a human being and of
course I very much want my freedom, but I simply cannot accept it, if it is
to be given, on the basis that I am a guilty man. "I am not a guilty man. I am
an innocent man." Signed: "Peter Hugh McGregor
Ellis." |
