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Waikato Times
March 14, 2001
ACC pays $100 million to sexual abuse claimants
NZPA
More than 47,000 people claiming to have been sexually abused have received
$100 million in cash and counselling from ACC since 1992.
Most -- about 80 per cent -- were adults claiming for sexual abuse that
happened when they were children, according to Accident Rehabilitation
Compensation and Insurance Corporation statistics issued yesterday.
ACC offered counselling and, in some cases, regular weekly payments to those
it accepted had been mentally injured from sexual abuse.
It began collecting statistics on payments by its sensitive claims unit in
1994 -- two years after it was established.
Information issued yesterday showed it had paid out more than $94 million on
sex abuse claims since then.
Because many retrospective claims were filed in the early 1990s, statistics
indicated it would have paid out more than $100 million since 1992.
The 47,000 cases arose from more than 70,000 claims understood to have been
lodged since July 1992. Most unsuccessful claims were understood to have been
voluntarily withdrawn.
Sexual assault researcher Felicity Goodyear-Smith said past fears that many
claims were false, arising from suspect repressive memory therapy sessions,
had subsided since the early 1990s when a phenomenon of false claims was at
its peak.
Dr Goodyear-Smith believed many of the lump-sum payments made by ACC in the
early 1990s would have been inappropriate.
About 98 per cent of claims made then were granted on the basis of what
someone remembered had happened to them.
The claims were seldom tested.
Latest statistics showed the sensitive claims unit was granting a much smaller
percentage of claims.
Nevertheless, without evidence to back up people's claims, it would be
impossible to know for sure if someone had been abused, she said.
ACC has issued new guidelines for counsellors dealing with adult survivors of
child sexual abuse.
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