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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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“Michael” |
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KAREN (INTRO): Imagine being imprisoned for a crime you didn't
commit. Worse than that, sent to jail for supposedly abusing your own children.
This is the story of a father who lived through that nightmare, locked up for
14 months before he was acquitted, wrongly convicted on sex charges against
his own son, the victim of a system which worked on the basis that children
never lie. The 39-year old Aucklander found out last week he's to be paid damages
for his ordeal - the first New Zealander to be compensated for wrongful imprisonment
since Arthur Allan Thomas. KAREN (V/O): The money has been a long time coming. His innocence was
established four years ago. But the waiting for this admission that someone
got it wrong has been a time of pain and paranoia. FATHER: No father should ever have to go through this if they're innocent.
It consumed me every day. But I tell you what, it feels great now. It feels
really good to actually hear people saying that I am innocent. And I’ve
always wanted that. KAREN (V/O): It’s two years since 20/20 started filming this story...two
years since we first interviewed father and son. (I/V): Do you know what
innocent means? SON: Roughly yeah. KAREN: Do you know what guilty means? SON: Yep. KAREN: Is your Dad innocent or guilty? SON: Innocent. KAREN: And was the stuff you told true? SON: About Dad? Nope. I just made it all up. KAREN (V/O): From the mouths of babes, stories of abuse, of things
no father should ever do to his son. There was good reason to doubt the boy’s
stories. But people in the system believed the lies. And this father paid
dearly for their mistake. FATHER: The question I ask is why did they do this?. If there was doubt,
why did they continue on with this case? Why did they continue on to put me
into jail? Why did the system let this happen? If the system had been doing
its job I would never have gone through this hell, my boys would never have
gone through this hell. KAREN (V/O): How can we possibly begin to understand what it's
like to be falsely accused of abusing a child, knowing you're innocent, yet
powerless in a system which generally accepts that children do not lie about
this sort of thing. (TO (V/O): The father's ordeal began six years ago. Dad was
living apart from his wife and two sons. He'd have the boys at weekends. His eldest
son was seven. A difficult child, hyperactive and unpredictable. He was
starting to show some alarming sexual behaviour. Both parents thought he
might have Attention Deficit Disorder. The mother took both boys to this
woman, an ROB HARRISON: From my
understanding of what I saw of the notes of evidence her initial view was
that the child had been sexually abused and the most probable person was the father.
Now that's a quantum leap for a counsellor, for anyone, to take on the basis
of a boy's behaviour that's not the norm. KAREN (V/O): Lawyer Rob Harrison
has acted for men accused of sexual abuse, including ROB HARRISON: In this case it was
really obvious that from the first contact the counsellor had a preconceived
idea about what the child's problems were. So in other words there was a
blinkered approach to the child's problems and her approach was that the
child had been abused and that the father had been the abuser. KAREN (TO (V/O): A report prepared for the father's appeal gives an
expert view on how the counsellor conducted the sessions. VOICE READING FROM REPORT:
“Evidence indicates that she used closed leading questions, and introduced
suggestions of specific abuse in a manner that children will comply with.
That runs a serious risk of false disclosures.” KAREN (V/O): The report was by a psychologist experienced in interviewing
sexually abused children. VOICE KAREN (V/O): We wanted to speak to the counsellor about those sessions.
She wouldn't be interviewed, but the boy remembers his time with her. (I/V): Did she ask you lots of questions? SON: Yep, just the same questions, over and over again. KAREN: What kind of questions? SON: Like, um, did your Dad abuse you, did he do this, did he
do that? Just like that. Just kept saying it over and over. KAREN: And you kept saying, ‘Yes he did this, he did that.’ SON: And I just got sick of it. VOICE READING FROM REPORT:
“Repeatedly asking a child to tell more when they don't seem to be disclosing
anything, has, in my research experience, led to embellishments and false
information.” ROB HARRISON: Children can be
liars, if there is sufficient motivation. Young children may not understand
the significance of what they are saying. Children can be led to say things
that are perhaps not true. Children can be led into believing things are true,
that are not true. KAREN (V/O): The allegations made in counselling began as
statements by the boys that their father had touched them in the shower. The brothers
told similar stories, but the older boy was seeing the counsellor more
frequently and it was his allegations which were the most damning. (I/V): When your oldest son said Dad touched me in the shower,
that’s actually true isn't it? FATHER: Yeah, well of course, I was trying to teach my children how to
clean themselves properly, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. I
know plenty of other fathers and mothers who have done the same thing and
they haven't been accused of being paedophiles. KAREN: You're saying a simple hygiene lesson got twisted into sexual
abuse? FATHER: Yes. It got to the stage where I picked up my son, and it was
turned into a sexual thing. Everything that I had ever done was turned into a
sexual thing. KAREN (V/O): When the boy first told the counsellor Dad did rude things
to him in the shower, it coincidentally came soon after his father had
smacked him for swearing. He now says he wanted to get him back. SON: 'Cos back then, he was, he was mean to me. Like he used
to give me hidings and, so I was trying to pay him back, sort of. KAREN: Just hidings for being naughty, when you were naughty, something
like that? SON: Yeah. KAREN: Did you know that what you were saying to her was really serious,
that your Dad would perhaps be in big trouble because of what you'd said? SON: No. I didn't think he'd get in trouble. Just get him
back. KAREN (V/O): Once the boys had made definite allegations to the counsellor,
she referred them for a video-taped interview. Supposedly skilled people
questioned both boys, but failed to detect the lies. With the boys’
allegations on tape, the police stepped in. The father says he'll never
forget his first meeting with the police officer in charge of the case who we
are not allowed to identify. FATHER: He said something to me, he said, “You're in your 30's, you're
divorced, you're overweight, you're the perfect description of a paedophile.”
And I said, “What?” And he didn't carry it on after that, but he said that to
me. And that was the first time someone actually ever called me a paedophile.
He asked me question after question. I denied, I denied, I denied. People say
you're in denial and this sort of thing. Well maybe denial is... I suppose I was
in denial because I hadn't done anything, you know. He kept asking me
questions, ‘Why would I do this, why would the boys say this?’ and I kept
saying, “I don't know, I don't know.” How do you deny being a paedophile? KAREN (V/O): Despite his denials, charges of indecent assault were
laid. In the year it took to get to trial, the charges grew more severe...sexual
violation. At the trial, video evidence was the first he'd seen of his sons
for fourteen months. FATHER: Watching those boys on the video, I just sat there in total, what's
the word? Disbelieved, I just couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand
why they were saying things like that. KAREN (V/O): The trial lasted five days. It took seven hours for
the jury to reach a verdict, seven hours he spent in a courthouse cell. FATHER: Two packet of cigarettes, in a little wooden cell, pacing up and
down. I cried and I shouted and I tried to sleep and I paced and I think I
went to the toilet about 15 times. I spat. I hit my head against the wall. KAREN: But thinking all the while this nightmare is going to be over
very soon? FATHER: Yeah, course the jury is going to find me not guilty. Why not?
I was an innocent man. KAREN: What do you remember of the minutes immediately after you heard
the guilty verdict? FATHER: I was shaking. And they said, the jury, how do you find me on
the first count? And they go, “Guilty.” And I just...I broke down...I just
broke down. And I couldn't hold myself up. I remember my mother saying,
screaming out, “You've got the wrong man, you've got the wrong man.” How true
that was. KAREN (V/O): Convicted of abusing his eldest son, but not the youngest,
he was sentenced to six years. That first night behind bars, stripped naked
in an isolation cell at FATHER: Your whole life, it's gone. You've trusted in the system, you've
lost your boys, the whole world thinks you're this hideous creature. So yeah
suicide was a real bloody option that night. But thank God I didn't do it.
Because I thought, ‘You bastards aren't going to get me beat, I’m going to
beat you. You ain't gonna win.’ KAREN (V/O): He spent seven and a half months in FATHER: What you've got to remember is that all the time I was in there,
I knew I was going to get out. I knew the truth would come out sooner or
later. And that's what kept me going. KAREN (V/O): And slowly the truth did come out. His appeal lawyer discovered
a document, dated February the 27th, five months before the original trial.
It's a letter from the counsellor to the police, outlining "important
developments". It mentions the older boy saying to his mother, ‘Dad did
not play rude games’ but that ‘Andrew had been playing rude games.’ The
counsellor says the boys later changed their story back again, and that such
retractions weren't uncommon. Even so, this piece of evidence should've been
passed on by the police to the defence. That never happened. (I/V): How important, how crucial to the case was the
information about the boys making retractions? ROB HARRISON: It was very
significant. If the defence counsel at trial had been armed with that sort of
information then quite properly he could have put that to the boy and
therefore it would have been in front of the jury. KAREN (V/O): So why didn't the police hand the letter on? In an affidavit,
the boys' mother recalled a conversation she had with the detective in charge
of the case. She says he told her, “It could be detrimental to the trial”,
and because so many children apparently do retract on what they've said, he
didn't feel it was worth jeopardising the trial and putting it forward. So he
chose to get rid of it. She also said the officer indicated he was going to
shred the document. ROB HARRISON: I think that is
serious. Especially in this situation, it shouldn't be an ‘us and them’
situation. It should be ‘let's try and find out if something really has
happened.’ And if the child is saying it hasn't happened or someone else has
done it, then that's got to be examined closely. KAREN (V/O): It was another retraction made nine months after the trial
which probably clinched the father's freedom. The oldest boy approached his
mother with this question. SON: “Does God know when you're telling lies?” And she said,
“Yes he does.” And I said, “Well I’ve been telling lies about Dad.” KAREN (V/O): The boy was sobbing, so upset, so adamant his father was
innocent, his mother called him in jail. FATHER: I, yahoo, screamed at the top of my voice, on top of the world,
you know. I thought it's over, it's finally over. The truth had finally come
out. KAREN (V/O): Things moved swiftly now. The case was heard by the Court
of Appeal. QUOTE FROM COURT OF APPEAL:
“Having considered the evidence, there must be a real risk of an injustice,
if these convictions were to stand.” KAREN (V/O): The convictions were quashed and the boys were
reunited with their father. SON: I heard a knock on the door and said, ‘I’ll get it’, and
went out and started crying and said, ‘Mum, it's Dad’, and gave him a big hug.
And my brother came out. And I think Dad was crying. KAREN: Happy tears though. SON: Yeah. KAREN: Not sad tears. SON: Yeah, happy tears. KAREN: Did you feel any anger or bitterness towards them? FATHER: To my boys? No, they didn't do anything wrong. They were taken
over by the system, they were taken over by so-good people, people who
thought they knew everything. My boys, I don't blame my boys at all for this.
KAREN: Your Dad had been in jail a long time before you told the truth?
SON: I didn't think he was going to get in jail. Just get in trouble,
something like that. But not go to jail. KAREN: And what was the truth? SON: That Dad had been not been abusing me and Andrew had been
abusing me. KAREN (V/O): Andrew, another face we can't identify, was the boys'
stepfather. In a cruel twist, it emerged that he had in fact been abusing the
brothers all along. While the eldest boy did name his father as the abuser,
he also on several occasions pointed to his stepfather. But for reasons
unknown, neither the counsellor or the police took this any further. So for
almost three years, while their real dad was being investigated, tried,
convicted and put in prison, the boys were being abused by the new man in
their mother's life. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two and a half years.
That's less than half the sentence meted out to boy's father, who went to jail
protesting his innocence. He's reunited with his sons now. They're happily
living with him and his partner of the last five years. But he hasn't found
it easy picking up the pieces of his life. FATHER: People say to you, get over it, get on with your life. Well you
know, you be accused of being a paedophile. You tell me if you can get on
with your life. You can't. It is a stigma, it just sticks with you. It never,
ever goes away. (RADIO ANNOUNCER) Strange way to
find out. Just get out of bed and there it is. NEWS READER: The Cabinet is
expected to decide shortly on the amount to award an FATHER: After all this time, all this waiting, it was very gratifying. KAREN (V/O): He's still waiting to find out how much money is
coming his way. Some wonder whether he should be getting compensation at all.
(I/V): Why should the Crown be held responsible for this
boy's lies? Why should the Crown pay up? ROB HARRISON: Well, why was the
son put in the situation where his lies would have such a compelling effect
on his father's life. We have, as a society put those processes in place.
When they go horribly wrong we should be prepared to put the wrong right, and
try and, not only compensate for the loss of family and the loss of time in
prison, but also it's an acknowledgement by society if you like at large,
that we got it horribly wrong and we are sorry. KAREN (V/O): The man's biggest regret is that neither of his
parents lived to see the day he was proclaimed innocent. FATHER: In some ways it cost them their lives because the stress it put
them under. I mean they mortgaged their house and moved to another suburb,
moved to another town, and started working in their ’60s when they should
have been enjoying their retirement. They were out there working their guts
out. And I can never, ever forget that. KAREN (V/O): With their help, he's now at last cleared his name.
And he hopes, by speaking out, to spare other men, other fathers, who may one
day find themselves facing the same horrifying accusations. FATHER: Don't be naive. I relied on the system, I relied on lawyers, I
relied on counsellors, I relied on the police. I relied on everyone to prove
that I was innocent, but you don't. If you ever, ever get accused of
something like this, just fight, fight, fight, fight. You fight them. |
