Truth
November 12, 1999
Abuse Claims Costing us all
by Maryvonne Gray
Families apart by child abuse accusations are being urged to back a call for
a Royal Commission of Inquiry into what's been dubbed the "sex abuse
industry".
Gordon and Colleen Waugh, who run Casualties of Sexual Allegations (COSA),
say millions of dollars are dished out for ACC claims each year--on little or
no evidence.
Gordon Waugh was a victim of a false abuse complaint which instigated an ACC
payment, despite the police throwing the case out.
Waugh says: "The quickest way to break up a family is to say Dad
sexually abused us. If the theories about repressed memory were true, where
are are all the cases now?
"Many ACC compensation claims were based on this nonsense, but we have
yet to see ACC reclaiming the unwarranted compensation payments.
"Nor have we seen counsellors actively involved in helping to reconcile
the clients and families they so badly damaged."
COSA is calling on all members--past and present--to support an inquiry in
the light of the Peter Ellis case.
Five judges of the Court of Appeal last month rejected Ellis' second appeal
but admitted there were "matters worthy of a Commission of
Inquiry".
Waugh says: "A Commission of Inquiry is the best way of opening this
entire topic to public scrutiny.
"Before counsellors adopted their unproven theories and beliefs about
sexual abuse, ACC dealt with only a few hundred claims for compensation a
year.
Millions
"Since then, tens of thousands of claims have been made, which costs the
taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars."
He says ACC still receives about 168 claims a week but police have reported
an 18 percent drop in recorded sexual crime in the past five years.
Waugh says the system also fails to recognise the rights of the 76,000 men who,
since1988, have been accused of sexually abusing family.
"Accused men must be given an absolute right to be told of the
allegations and to challenge these attacks on their integrity," he says.
"A commission must examine these systemic flaws."
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