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Child sex
abuse hysteria and the Ellis case |
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The wisdom of
Gordon Waugh - Index |
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Detective Sergeant
Brett Tomlinson, commenting on the new police policy for investigating adult
sexual assault (April 14), condemned his own work by saying, "Our policy
supports victims of offences." Good policy is based on
sound principles, contemporary knowledge, and testable methodology. This
five-page policy ignores the principles of justice and investigation, and
lacks impartiality. From the outset, it
calls complainants "victims". It gives credence to every
allegation, and thereby presumes guilt. It reflects the
immature and ideological input given by Rape Crisis, Doctors for Sexual Abuse
Care and their sisters, and ignores the alarmingly high incidence of false
allegations and wrongful convictions they manufacture. Complainants make no
more than allegations. Allegations do not prove guilt. To prove or disprove
the existence of a crime, a primary police task is to gather evidence for and
against an allegation. That demands healthy scepticism, neutrality and
objectivity. Accused people are not
"offenders", and complainants are not "victims", till
proven to be so by credible evidence derived from impartial investigation. The Dominion Police sexual assault
investigation guidelines introduced this year have been criticised for
presuming the guilt of alleged sexual offenders. The 76-point guidelines
were introduced to advise police how to deal with adult sexual assault
investigations and are similar to child abuse guidelines. Felicity
Goodyear-Smith, head of Casualties of Sexual Allegations, said in the group's
newsletter that the guidelines assumed without question that the offence had
taken place. "This document
does not talk about complainants and defendants, but about victims and
offenders," she said. Dr Goodyear said guilt
was presumed from the outset and officers were not advised to take a neutral
or objective approach to allegations. The rights of the
person accused were ignored. "They might also
need to be treated with support and compassion," she said. Dr Goodyear-Smith said
figures from a rape conference in March 1996 showed that only a quarter of
rape charges laid with police resulted in convictions. "Certainly some of
these will be because there is insufficient evidence . . . but many others
are due to the complaint being false in the first place." Detective Sergeant
Brett Tomlinson, head of the "If allegations
are false, that'll be uncovered by an investigation." Mr Tomlinson said that
though the guidelines made no provision for the rights of alleged sexual
offenders, these were covered under legislation such as the Bill of Rights. "Offenders have
certain rights such as a right to a lawyer; our policy supports victims of
offences." He said it was too
early to tell if the new guidelines were effective because data had not been
collected from around The guidelines had been
assembled with the input of outside agencies, including health professionals,
counsellors and community groups, and were fair and could be implemented, he
said. The guidelines advise
that an officer with specific sexual assault training deal with victims, and
that police work in cooperation with outside groups. |
