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National
Radio
Checkpoint
July 24 2006
False Complaints
Mary Wilson (Radio NZ):
The police have warned that women making false complaints of sex attacks
could face jail after some apparently fake claims in New Plymouth. They
believe five out of six recent alleged attacks didn't happen. They are
frustrated they are wasting time dealing with them. But agencies dealing with
victims are worried the warning will discourage genuine complaints. Here's
our Taranaki reporter Craig Ashworth.
Craig Ashworth (Reporter):
In the last fortnight, six girls and women in New Plymouth have alleged
sex attacks. But only one 50 year old man has been charged. However a 47-year
old woman has been charged with making a false complaint, a 16-year old has
been referred to youth aid on similar grounds, and there are no charges in
the other three cases. The head of New
Plymouth CIB says the cases are not connected, and police spent a lot of time
treating the allegations as genuine, before deciding otherwise. Detective
Senior Sergeant Grant Coward says false complainants need to be warned they
could be jailed, but hopes that publicity won't discourage real victims
coming forward.
Grant Coward (Police):
We don't want that to happen, we want genuine victims to come forward
still. I mean we are not giving this story to put genuine complainants off.
What we are saying is that their account of what happened has to be
thoroughly investigated so if a victim is coming to the police and not
telling us the truth they could suffer the consequences and those
consequences are being charged with making a false complaint.
Craig Ashworth (Reporter):
Mr Coward says false complainants can be jailed for 3 months or fined one
thousand dollars. Until recently, Lorraine Jans managed the Taranaki Safer
Centre, and she still counsels rape and abuse victims who go there. She
accepts the police warning is reasonable, as false cases can absorb a lot of
police resources.
Lorraine Jans (Rape and abuse counsellor):
But I also think what it might it have done is increase the level of
distrust a lot of sexual abuse or sexual assault survivors will be feeling
about going to the police. If they haven't got an open and shut case does
that mean to say that I might be charged with making a false complaint. So I
think what it has done is its increased the level of doubt that people will
have about making complaints to the police.
Craig Ashworth (Reporter):
But Lorraine Jans says she's confident in assuring women the city's
police do deal with rape and abuse sensitively. The co-ordinator of New Plymouth's Women's
Centre, Mary Allen, is pleased the police are explicitly inviting genuine
complaints. She says women who make false allegations are far outnumbered by
those who have been attacked but don't go to the police.
Mary Allen (Co-ordinator of New
Plymouth's Women's Centre):
There are people that we have seen who have been through a lot of abuse,
ongoing, and have never reported it. It's not easy going to court standing up
there and pointing the finger at somebody and saying, you know, that person,
there, did this to me. A lot of women don't want to be a victim. They don't
want to be seen as a victim and they don't want to be disbelieved either.
Craig Ashworth (Reporter):
Grant Coward says more often than false complaints, police deal with genuine
offenders who say their victims are lying. Despite previous denials, an Eltham man,
Mark Hadden, this morning pleaded guilty in the high court in New Plymouth to
indecently assaulting a girl under 12 years old, and to a representative
charge covering a number of other incidents. In New Plymouth for Checkpoint, Craig
Ashworth
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