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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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False accusations of sex attacks ruin lives.
David Dougherty and Nick Wills have now established their innocence. Annie
Gray reports on another man's ordeal after being falsely accused of abusing
his son, and the call for an inquiry into uncorroborated testimony ----------------------
A father who was labelled a paedophile and convicted of
molesting his son, then spent 14 months in jail for an offence he didn't
commit, is living every man's worst nightmare. On his release
from jail he found another man had been molesting his sons. The father was
freed from prison just over a year ago after the Court of Appeal quashed all
charges against him. His parents,
who are in their late 60s and supported him throughout his ordeal, have had
to mortgage their home to pay the $60,000 costs for the appeal hearing. He is angry at
what he has been through, the 14 months lost, the almost three years he could
not see his children. He is angry at what his children have had to suffer and
angry for the stress and anguish his parents and partner have had to endure
over the past three years. Most of all he is angry at the lack of
accountability in a system which failed him so disastrously. His lawyers
are preparing a compensation claim for wrongful imprisonment and civil claims
against the Children, Young Persons and their Families Service, the police
and the therapist who counselled his sons have been filed by his civil
lawyer. At his trial
the falsely accused father was found not guilty of molesting his younger son,
but guilty of indecently assaulting his older son. He lays the
blame squarely at the door of the therapist who counselled his son for over a
year before the charges were laid, along with the police whom he says would
not believe his innocence and did not disclose information about his son
retracting before the trial, and at the system which allows men to be
convicted on the basis of uncorroborated evidence. His ordeal
began in May 1993 when his former wife, who suspected their son had an
attention deficit disorder and was also concerned about the unusual sexual
play he was indulging in, took him to a therapist. According to
the falsely accused father it was brought up at his trial that the therapist
had asked CYPS about evidential interviewing for sexual abuse before she had
even seen the child. She was told
an evidential interview was not indicated till the child was ready to talk
about how he had been sexually abused and by whom. Concerned
about her son's behaviour, the father's former wife asked him to return to In early 1995
the two sons told their mother that their father had not played "rude
games" with them but that another person had. At a
counselling session two days later both boys appeared to withdraw the
retraction. The therapist
informed police of the retractions, which occurred before the falsely accused
father's trial, but they failed to disclose the information to the defence. Other
retractions were also made by the boys at varying times, again being
withdrawn later. The father
says the allegations began as statements that he touched the boys in the
shower. Over time, the statements developed into stories of full-blown abuse.
Then the nightmare began. The father had
never been in trouble with the police before; he had never stepped inside a
court. "We are normal, quiet, private people who have had our lives
turned upside down," he says. But he lays no
blame with his son, who he describes as . . . "brave . . . he held out
for 14 months" (against questioning from the therapist). Today the
father is close to his children and spends as much time as possible with
them. He says that he never doubted he would be found innocent. "We were
awaiting the August 1995 trial date," he says. "I knew I was
innocent and believed the system would find that, too. When they pronounced
me guilty we were stunned." He was
sentenced to six years' jail. But the turnaround came nine months after the
trial when his son asked his mother if God knew whether you told lies. She
said God did, and the boy admitted his father had not done anything to him. The father's
former wife contacted him in jail where he was awaiting a Court of Appeal
hearing, and in October 1996 the court quashed the convictions. A new trial
was not ordered. In an
agonising twist for the falsely accused father, another man, Andrew Craig,
was sentenced this month after pleading guilty to molesting both boys. This
abuse started around October 1993, some months after the counselling had
begun. The falsely
accused father says he is devastated about what this will have done to his
boys and deeply angry at the "evilness" of Andrew Craig, who had
attended his trial. The two boys had named Andrew Craig as one of the people
they said had molested them. THROUGHOUT the
whole ordeal what has upset the falsely accused father was that he was judged
guilty right from the start. "I was
called a paedophile and told I had done horrible things to my sons," he
says As he sees it,
once CYPS had done the evidential interviewing he was on a rollercoaster
ride. "I was
innocent but they chose not to believe me. My former wife was forced to take
out a non-molestation order against me. You are meant to be innocent till
proven guilty, but I was judged guilty from the start. Before the trial I was
not even allowed supervised access to my children." He had no
contact with his children for about three years. He can't say
enough about his partner and his family who have stood by him. Throughout his
ordeal his partner attended the Casualties of Sexual Allegations group, a
body set up to offer support to people falsely accused and their families. "The
greatest fear I have now," he says, "is not of dying, but of
walking down the street and walking past a kid who later says I did something
to him and they track me down -- if it can happen once . . . "It never
goes away, it's always in the back of my mind. It
never leaves you and it never will. "In
prison I kept asking how did this happen to me? How did I get in here?" |
