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The Press
May 13, 2004
MP names doctor accused of health-camp abuse
Young girls were sexually
abused at Glenelg Health Camp in Christchurch by a woman health officer who
then accused their fathers of sexual offences, it was alleged in Parliament
yesterday.
ACT MP Deborah Coddington said families were destroyed by those accusations
while successive governments ignored a "dreadful scandal".
She said that in 1987 three girls went to the health camp and were put in the
care of the state.
"A state employee sexually abused these little girls and no government
has ever done anything except sweep this scandal under the carpet," she
said.
Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Coddington named then officer of
health Dr Diane Espie as the woman involved.
"Dr Espie, without the parents' permission and with no other adult
present, repeatedly examined these little girls in a way that can only be
described as sexual abuse," she said.
"She inserted swabs into their vaginas. She measured their vaginas with
tape measures, not once, not twice, but over and over again. She kept saying
to these little girls `This is what your fathers do to you, isn't it?"'
A 1995 television documentary on the allegations said Espie had interpreted
large vaginal openings in the girls as a sign of sexual abuse.
Coddington said Espie convinced the Department of Social Welfare that the
girls were being sexually abused by their fathers, and they were not allowed
home to their families until their mothers agreed to separate from their
husbands.
"The police investigated these men and found not a shred of evidence
that these men had sexually abused their daughters," she said.
"These families have been destroyed."
Coddington said there had to be an inquiry. "She (Espie) might well be
innocent but she needs to be brought to an inquiry, which I have asked this
House to instigate," she said.
The Children's Health Camp Board, which controls the Glenelg Health Camp, did
not respond to a request for an interview from The Press last night.
Dr Espie could not be contacted last night.
In a July 1987 story in The Press Espie was reported as saying she had
already examined 40 sexually abused children that year.
Most of her examinations were done at the Glenelg Health Camp, where she
conducted medical examinations and diagnostic interviews of suspected child
abuse victims.
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