The Marlborough Express
January 9, 2002
Abuse of compensation
Editorial
In Blenheim letter boxes
yesterday appeared a flyer alerting people to a Christchurch legal firm's
preparedness to act in seeking ACC financial compensation for victims of sexual
abuse.
The move is audacious but at least the flyer, reportedly sent to a million
ACC has confirmed the pamphlet's claims that payments can be made to a maximum
of around $175,000 - without the police or courts having assessed the veracity
of the sexual abuse allegations.
Instead, ACC will from April 1 make such payments if it accepts the word of
someone alleging sexual abuse - and their counsellor or doctor.
Let's be clear. Sexual abuse is very real and present in every suburb, perhaps
most streets in
The trouble is that not every allegation of sexual abuse is true. There are
plenty of examples where courts have found that complainants have made up
claims. While nothing may be more devastating to a young life than being sexually
molested, nothing can destroy someone so much as being accused of sexual abuse.
There are very real problems in accepting the advice of counsellors who are
treating those claiming sexual abuse. Not unnaturally, counsellors tend to be
very sympathetic to their patients, who in most cases are indeed victims. But not always so.
A leading child psychologist was fined and censured last November for botching
a sex abuse investigation that left a man wrongly accused of molesting his
young children. Prue Vincent had pleaded guilty to
charges of conduct unbecoming after allowing the mother to be present at
interviews with the children, using leading questions, accepting the mother's
testimony "without question", not interviewing the father as a
reference source.
The father had spent $82,000 proclaiming his innocence and trying to get access
to his now estranged children.
ACC proposes to restore lump-sum compensation for sexual assaults, abolished in
1993. There were 13,000 such payments for sexual assault that year; when
compensation started in 1988 there were 221.
While any victim of sexual abuse deserves every sympathy and support, the
potential for the payments to be abused is wide-open. If these are legitimate,
what about those who've suffered physical though not sexual assaults?
ACC's plan to accept claims of sexual abuse - without the need to contact the
police or name the alleged perpetrator - will undoubtedly cause a deluge of
applications. Perhaps the next category of victims seeking compensation will be
those falsely accused of being sexual abusers.