|
|
Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
|
A Ministerial
inquiry is being called for into cases where men have been convicted of
sexual offences on the basis of uncorroborated testimonies. Casualties of
Sexual Allegations Inc, or Cosa, is seeking the
inquiry. Cosa president Felicity Goodyear-Smith
says that while the Peter Ellis case in Christchurch has attracted a great
deal of media attention, there are many innocent people who have been falsely
accused in less sensational abuse cases. She says she
has on record dozens of cases where men have been convicted on the basis of
uncorroborated testimony and she points the finger at an ideology which
assumes that women and children always tell the truth. Cosa was set up four years ago and has 350 members, two-thirds of whom are
people directly involved with false allegations. Others are friends and
family of accused people or interested professionals. Dr
Goodyear-Smith concedes that her group has no way of knowing whether any of
its members are guilty, but she says members can often produce cases where
the evidence overwhelmingly points to their innocence. Cosa aims to offer support to people falsely accused and to disseminate
information about the policies and practices they believe have been inherited
from the In the 1980s
Dr Goodyear-Smith was a GP often working with the police in examining victims
of sexual abuse. She was involved in establishing the HELP Foundation for
sexual abuse victims. She says that
while there was a need for changes to be made to the way abuse victims were
treated, the pendulum has now swung too far in the complainants' favour. Dr
Goodyear-Smith is married to John Potter, son of Centrepoint
founder Bert Potter who is serving a nine-year prison sentence for perjury,
child sex and drugs charges. John Potter spent four months in jail in 1993
for indecent assault involving two under-age girls at Centrepoint.
Dr Goodyear-Smith says he was aged about 20 at the time. She met him after
that time and has never been a member of the Centrepoint
community. She says she
is not unaware of the irony of the situation, but she had started speaking
out about these issues years ago, and while she would prefer someone else to
pursue the issue, no one else has taken up the challenge. She says a
change in approach means complainants are always believed. She blames an
ideology imported from the "Implicitly
now, we believe them (the complainant) . . . we have case after case after
case of what I see as people accused on the basis of uncorroborated
testimony." Dr
Goodyear-Smith says that in the past the judge in an abuse case had to warn
of the dangers of convicting where there was no corroborating evidence, but
that legislation was changed in 1986. Cosa would
like it reinstated. "I think the police will admit that cases now come
to trial which would not have got past the front counter in the past . . .
there is a lot of pressure now to believe the complainants." Detective
Inspector John Doyle of the Christchurch CIB says that in all cases,
including sex abuse cases, the facts have to be established before going any
further. He says that when a complaint of sex abuse is received police will
investigate it. If the complaint is untrue this will surface and not every
case brought to the police gets to court. He says that the changing
environment in the past 10 to 15 years has meant that more people are coming
forward. Police
evidential interviewer Constable Karen Vaughan, of Wellington Central, says
that of 179 cases she has interviewed there has been only one retraction. And
at the end of each interview, she says, complainants are given the chance to
retract or change anything. As an
interviewer, Ms Vaughan says, she is careful not to offer positive
reinforcement. She says all cases are fully investigated before coming to
trial. Ms Vaughan
says there is probably too much emphasis put on children making false
complaints. The police prefer to see children as soon as a complaint has been
made and before they have been through intensive therapy. A lengthy period of
therapy can make the task of establishing complaint details more difficult,
she says. Dr
Goodyear-Smith says several of the cases her group sees involve acrimonious
custody disputes where a mother has accused an estranged husband. She says
that the Family Court does not need to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt
and many fathers end up with supervised access only. "This is
very painful for them and incredibly destructive for the children." A spokesman
from the Department for Courts, Barry Ebert, says that allegations of sexual
abuse have to be backed by evidence before the Family Court will deny access
or impose supervised access. While the Family Court does apply a different
test, basically there has to be enough evidence to persuade the court there
is a real risk to the child. Dr
Goodyear-Smith says that she has cases where fathers who have been charged
and acquitted of sexual abuse in the criminal courts are still denied access
to their children. One man is
denied access to his daughter because, while it is accepted there has never
been abuse, his daughter is "so contaminated" by the process that
she has come to believe she has been abused and is afraid to be with her
father. Dr
Goodyear-Smith says she is also concerned that current ideology assumes some
behaviour in children is automatically the result of sexual abuse and that
there is little perception on just how easy it is to feed ideas to children.
She says children who deny any abuse are not believed. However, she
says, interviewing techniques have vastly improved and there is a lot more
knowledge now about suggestive techniques. --------------------
CAPTION: OTHER VICTIMS: Nick Wills, left, falsely
accused of rape . . . David Dougherty, below, spent three years in jail after
being falsely accused of rape |
