The Press
June 25 1989.

Lecturer speaks on child abuse study
by Sue Lancaster

Canterbury people interested in child sexual abuse crammed the Christchurch School of Medicine's lecture theatre yesterday to listen to a visiting American child abuse researcher.

Dr Gail Goodman, of the University of Denver, spoke to the group of about 300 people on her research into using children as witnesses.

Her research, involving about 400 children aged from three to nine, found that they were more reliable as witnesses than society had been led to believe in the past.

She cited the case of a child, aged three, who went missing in the United States that reminded her "somewhat of the case going on right now in Napier."

As in the Teresa Cormack case, the community was involved in an intensive search for several days. The American girl was finally found "almost dead from exposure" in the toilet pit of a deserted mountain hut.

Her identification of the abductor, from a 12-person photograph line-up, was argued by defence counsel in court to be unreliable. Because the evidence eventually boiled down to her word against the defendant's, the prosecutor agreed to a plea-bargain, and the abductor was given three years jail.

"People do tend to question the child's reliability to give evidence in the cases and the creditability of the person who interviewed the child," said Dr Goodman.

Her research found that while children often had poor accuracy with detail, they were more likely to leave things out than to tell everything.

Dr Goodman, who is assistant professor and director of the Denver University's dual degree programme in psychology and law said' children were more often abused by someone they knew than a stranger.

When children were abused over a long time they could get confused between what happened on each occasion although they knew in general terms what had happened, she said.

Lack of detail was often used by defence counsel because jurors were sometimes swayed by the belief that a child who could not remember the details could not remember events.

Although research was under way on using videotape testimonies, closed-circuit televisions, anatomically correct dolls, hearsay evidence, and the effects of children testifying in open court, more study was still needed, said Dr Goodman.

As well; as changes in the legal system, the public needed to change some of their attitudes, she said.

"There is a real resistance to people believing that these; types of things occur and that children do not have wild sexual fantasies.”

Ms Nicola Taylor, advisory officer for the National Advisory Committee on the Prevention of Child Abuse, said the committee, which was set up in 1986 by the Minister
of Police, focused on improvements in child abuse investigations and legal reforms.

Cases involving a young child and no corroborative evidence were "going nowhere” at present in New Zealand, she said.

The committee had found cases in which convictions were not being made and which did not get to court because of problems with the child's testimony. One case last year was dismissed because the judge would not allow a victim, aged six, to give evidence.

The committee was assessing the use of hearsay evidence, expert witnesses (to give evidence about the child or their testimony), video tapes, and closed-circuit television.