The Irish Catholic
February 19, 2004.
by Hermann Kelly
In the concluding
part of a series about victims of abuse allegations, Eddie Hernon
talks about his fight to restore his good name after being wrongly accused of
abusing his own daughter by discredited doctor Moira Woods. Now exonerated, he
tells Hermann Kelly about his long personal struggle.
"From the time I was first accused of abuse I wanted to shout from the
rooftops, 'I am an innocent man, falsely accused." This was the initial
reaction of Eddie Hernon after he was accused of
molesting his daughter in 1985.
Eddie is a small wiry man with clear penetrating blue eyes who looks at you
straight and speaks with clear definite purpose. That purpose is to prove that
he is a good father who never hurt or sexually abused his own child. He had to
do this against the word of now discredited
medical doctor, Moira Woods.
A sixty-four-year-old builder's labourer, Eddie left school at 13 years of age,
after attending North Brunswick St CBS,
During the 1980s he split up from his wife and took up with another woman,
Bernadette with whom he had a child, a girl named Cherie.
When they came to visit him during Christmas 1985 in
Bernadette was then advised to take Cherie to Dr Moira Woods, then head of the Rotunda Hospital Sexual Assault Treatment Unit (SATU)
for confirmation that nothing untoward had taken place. This is where Eddie's
personal hell on earth began.
Even though two doctors, one in
She saw hundreds of children in her time in the Rotunda, 600 children in 1987
alone. Eddie Hernon's daughter Cherie was one of
three groups of children who the Medical Council had found that Woods wrongly
claimed to have been abused. According to Woods herself, there were no physical
signs of abuse, and not even a verbal complaint by the girl, but Woods
alleged that abuse had taken place. Her interpretation of the way the girl
played with dolls was cited as a reason for her concern during the medical asssesment. Woods claimed she had the evidence on video. It
later emerged, during the Medical Council enquiry, these tapes were destroyed.
What then transpired would have killed many another
man and indeed, fueled by distress, Eddie twice
attempted suicide.
As a result of Moira Woods' report which accused him of sexually molesting his
own child, Eddie lost access to his daughter for three and a half years. At one
point he could only meet her when a group of people observed them together from
behind a double-sided mirror. "You have absolutely no idea what this was
like," he said.
The report of Dr Woods was accepted, and acted on by Dr Fred Lowe, a senior
clinical psychologist from the EHB.
When Eddie tried to bring the case to the attention of the Gardai
and the courts, the EHB is alleged to have told Cherie's mother that they would
take the child into care if she sought to have medical records released to the
courts.
In 1989, Harry Colley on behalf of the EHB acknowledged in writing that
"there is not and never was sufficient evidence to warrant a fit person
order" in relation to the case. The EHB withdrew from the case and Eddie
got unrestricted access to his child again. However, this was not enough for Mr
Hernon.
After many years of struggle he lodged a formal complaint against Dr Moira
Woods to the Medical Council in 1992. Although delayed for years by legal
obstructions, in January 2002 the Medical Council found Dr Moira Woods guilty
of professional misconduct in relation to the diagnosis of sexual abuse of 11
children during the 1980s. She failed to apply necessary standards of judgement
and competence, and acted in a manner derogatory to the reputation of the
medical profession, it said.
In many ways, this was a vindication for Eddie Hernon.
Since the allegations arose, Eddie has proclaimed his innocence to all who
would listen. As he said himself, "I just kept plugging away. No-one ever
thought that I would get Moira Woods for professional misconduct, but I
did."
Asked about the case's effect on his life, Eddie said: "You have no idea
what it was like. It has destroyed the last 17 and a half
years of my life. At times it has been a living hell."
For all this distress, he has never once received a public statement of apology
from Dr Moira Woods for the allegations that were made against him.
Moira Woods is believed to have sold her extensive property holdings in
Asked how such a deplorable scenario could come about, and why such an exceedingly
high rate of child abuse was reported from the Rotunda SATU, Mr Hernon puts the blame firmly on the shoulders of what he
calls "the small clique of radical feminist ideologues who wish to paint
all men as potential child abusers and rapists. Their attack is on the
biological
father and the family."
Moira Woods' involvement in this story is central. The Government was made
aware that there was a problem with exaggerated reports of child sexual abuse
in April 1987 during which time Dr Woods was in charge of the unit. Joe Robins,
a civil servant in the Dept of Health wrote in a memo at the time to the
Department secretary: "There have been far too
many exaggerated comments and statistics put out by persons such as Moira
Woods, Ann O'Donnell and Clodagh Corcoran who are
turning child sexual abuse, in particular, into an industry."
Incidentally, these three people, author, Clodagh
Corcoran, Ann O'Donnell, then director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, and
Moira Woods; along with Fred Lowe and others were members of a working group
set up by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties with government funding in 1984
to make recommendations about policy and law on child sexual abuse.
By June 1987, the government proposed to close down the Rotunda Hospital Sexual
Assault Treatment Unit. This they quickly did with the stipulation that none of
the staff previously employed in the Rotunda SATU were allowed to take up posts
in the new purpose built child treatment units in the St Louis and St Clare
clinics.
Woods' medical career however, was not ended by the closing of the Rotunda
SATU. She went on to become clinical director of CARI (Children at Risk
in
Dr Fred Lowe went on to be the clinical psychologist involved in the assessment
of the girl at the centre of the 'X case'. He currently sits on the
Investigation Committee of the Laffoy Commission to
inquire into child abuse.
And what about Eddie Hernon?
He now lives in a small pensioners flat in north
"No-one puts food on my table," he says. So financially, he must
continue to go out to work, doing what he knows best: construction. He gets on
very well with his daughter Cherie and sees her quite often. It is telling that
one of his most prized possessions is a family photograph of his son's family
surrounded by an engraved mirror on which is etched phrases
such as:
Fathers are a child's protector and hero;
He gives life to a dream;
A father is a child's best friend and role model.
Eddie Hernon has kept his sanity and kept his faith.
Although having lost trust in institutions, and no longer practising as a
Catholic, still he prays every day, dropping occasionally into a Catholic
church to do so. There is a calendar of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Perpetual
Succour on the kitchen wall.
For such a physically small man, he has shown he is willing to make a stand not
only for his own good name but as he points out, for all those who have been
falsely accused of the abuse of children.