The Sunday Times
December 9 2001

Irish families vindicated by child sex abuse inquiry
by Maeve Sheehan and Brian Dowling


Five families who claim that they were wrongly accused of abusing their children by a leading Irish doctor are pressing the Medical Council to publish the Report that found her guilty of professional misconduct.

Moira Woods, the doctor who headed Ireland's first child-abuse clinic, was censured by the Fitness to Practise Committee of the Medical Council last week. Woods was investigated over allegations that she made false claims of child sexual abuse involving five families during the 1980s.

The families will be at the Medical Council on Thursday to hear its registrar make a submission to publish its findings, according to a spokesman for the group. The spokesman said the Fitness to Practise Committee's finding vindicated a lengthy 15-year campaign to have their allegations heard. The inquiry initially opened two years ago in public, (error) but a legal challenge by the Eastern Regional Health Authority resulted in the rest being heard in private.

Woods, the former head of the sexual assault treatment unit at the Rotunda Hospital, was accused of making false claims of child sexual abuse dating back to the 1980s. Eleven children in five families were said to be involved, some of whom were taken into care. The hearings, which lasted over a month, (error) ended in April. Dozens of international experts (error) and witnesses testified in what was one of the biggest inquiries of its kind.

The Medical Council must decide whether to accept the findings of its to Practise Committee. If it finds against Woods, it can publish the report. Woods, who was a prominent social campaigner, has vehemently denied the allegations and may appeal against the report's findings to the High Court. The Medical Council will meet next month to consider the report. She was first accused of misdiagnosing sexual abuse in children in 1992. Other families later came forward with complaints against her.

She was regarded as a pioneer in the field of diagnosing child sexual abuse. She was appointed to the first clinic at the Rotunda hospital until it was closed towards the end of the 1980s (error).

Two years ago Joe Higgins, the Socialist party deputy, revealed details of a document in which a principal officer in the Department of Health admitted to one of the families that an injustice might have been done. The document, which Higgins read into the Dail record, stated: "I am conscious of the possibility that an injustice may have been done in one or more of the cases raised by the group, most of which relate to the mid-1980s, when our services for investigating allegations of child sexual abuse were not as developed as they are today."

According to Higgins, the document suggested the prospect of compensation and a statutory inquiry. "Short of establishing a statutory inquiry, it would be impossible for us to have the original evidence reviewed." Higgins said he believed an inquiry should be set up to examine the families to allow them to resolve what could be a serious miscarriage of justice.