Sunday Business Post
Sunday December 23 2001

Family seeks Medical Council documents in Woods inquiry
by Kieron Wood

A man who was falsely accused of sexually abusing his daughter is to apply to the High Court to allow publication of documents relating to a private Medical Council inquiry

The Dublin man's partner and their daughter, who is now aged 20, will also apply to lift the High Court ban on publication of their names. The move follows the decision of the Fitness to Practise Committee of the Medical Council to defer until January 29 a decision on whether to publish a report into an investigation of professional misconduct against Dr Moira Woods.

Woods studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, qualifying in 1957. In the 1960s and 1970s she worked as a journalist and was medical correspondent of the Irish Press. She began part-time work in a family planning clinic in 1978 and from 1979 to 1996 she worked in general practice from a surgery at her home, specialising in family planning and sexual assault. In the late 1970s and 1980s she was involved with the Rape Crisis Centre and was a counsellor at the Well Woman Clinic.

In 1983, she was a member of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties working party on sexual abuse, and she was also a member of the Department of Health's working party on rape. In the mid-1980s, Woods was the senior doctor in the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. In her first six months there she interviewed 51 children, and validated or confirmed that sexual assault had taken place in every single case. In 1987 she saw 600 children and identified 511 perpetrators of sexual abuse. Between 1985 and 1987 she saw 1,320 children. As a result of her inquiries, a number of men were accused of sexually abusing their children and many children were taken into care by the Eastern Health Board.

In 1992 one of the fathers complained to the Medical Council. As a result, seven years later, the Fitness to Practise Committee began an inquiry into the cases of five families and 11 of their children. The parents wanted to have the inquiry held in public and the Medical Council agreed, but the Eastern Health Board refused to release documents relating to the cases, on the grounds of confidentiality. In the High Court in April 1998, Mr Justice Robert Barr ruled that the health board could release the documents to the inquiry, provided that the hearing was held in camera, behind closed doors. In his ruling, Barr said that, at the conclusion of the inquiry, the Fitness to Practise Committee "may publish their findings thereon, but on terms that the anonymity of the children and their parents shall be preserved."

This weekend, the Dublin father said he hoped to achieve "openness, transparency and accountability" by bringing all the facts about the matter into the open. "This has been going on for me since December 1986 and it has robbed me of my life and humanity," he said. "It's like a cancer which eats at you day in and day out, knowing that you have been accused of such a heinous crime yet it is impossible to prove your innocence. "There were arson attacks on our homes, fathers - and mothers - were attacked and beaten up. The mothers were vilified for standing side-by-side with their husbands. To this day the finger is still pointed.

"The in camera rule is used as a weapon, a weapon of silence. It doesn't protect the families; it only protects the experts, the social workers and the lawyers," he said.

Woods has been on sabbatical leave since 1996.