Previous News Items from 2000

Letter from Margaret Jervis, Legal Affairs Adviser, BFMS - The Times, 1 December 2000, in response to 'Child abuse makes a mockery of justice' - The Times, 28 November 2000

"Denial" by Arnold Wesker - The Independent, 24 September 2000

"Repressed memories" and the law - The Lancet, 29 July 2000

Letter from Margaret Jervis, Legal Affairs Adviser, BFMS - Community Care, 24 August 2000, in response to Community Care magazine comment on paedophile hysteria - Community Care, 27 July 2000

Judge warns of risks to justice - The Irish Times, 7 July 2000

A troubling trial - The Tablet, 10 June 2000

'Historian cleared of abuse after false memory fear' - Daily Mail, 8 June 2000

'A father's fight' - The Sunday Times, 28 May 2000

Unjust accusations and false memory syndrome - Catholic Herald, 26 May 2000

Letter from Madeline Greenhalgh, Director, BFMS - The Independent, 11 May 2000, in response to 'A disturbing tale and a host of ugly conclusions' - The Independent, 8 May 2000

Letters from Professor Jean La Fontaine, author of 'The Extent and Nature of Organised and Ritual Abuse - Independent on Sunday, 7 May 2000 and Mark Pendergrast, author of 'Victims of Memory' - Independent on Sunday, 14 May 2000, in response to 'Satanic abuse no myth, say experts' - Independent on Sunday, 30 April 2000

'Satanic abuse' rides again - February 2000

Media pundits dazzled by MPD 'brainwaves' - February 2000

Call for Government review of abuse convictions - February 2000

Letter from Margaret Jervis in response to 'Child abuse makes a mockery of justice' article by Libby Purves

Burden of proof in child abuse cases

Libby Purves ("Child abuse makes a mockery of justice", 28 November) is right to call for dispassionate reason in the investigation of sexual abuse. Unfortunately in the past 15 years the evolution of guidelines, training, legislation and legal precedent has produced exactly the opposite effect. It is in fact the much-lauded use of close working practices between the police and social workers, emotive training techniques and a concentration on the production of an explicit narrative rather than establishing the existence of a crime, that have resulted in the perpetration of a witch hunt on a massive scale, as Ms Purves fears.

The 17th century witch trials thrived on the admissibility of the "spectral evidence" of "dreams, visions and hallucinations" because it was thought too difficult to prove demonic activity without these rules. Equally today, hideous fake histories of alleged abuse by parents, carers or figures of authority may be readily created by a process of mutual reinforcement between the interviewer and the accuser, without there being any way of testing whether they have a basis in reality nor any requirement by the courts that the evidence be objectively tested.

The old common law corroboration warning, no longer mandatory since 1994, included the sage caveat that experience showed that people did make false allegations of sexual crimes, which was why it was dangerous to convict unless the evidence was independently supported. Ironically we are now in a position where cultural forces and the criminal justice system encourage false allegations of abuse, while the safeguards against wrongful conviction have been drastically reduced.

Only when the evidential requirements for sexual abuse cases are made transparent and objective will the current mania subside.

*****

Child abuse makes a mockery of justice, by Libby Purves, The Times

Extracts from the article follow:-

...... Not only does the plight of the victim cry out to heaven for vengeance, so does the plight of the falsely accused. Imagine it: a man who has never done anything improper is pitchforked into a world without mercy. The legal system which he thought was his safeguard bears down on him with savage force: his home is invaded, his friends and family questioned and brought under suspicion, his children kept from him, his work suspended. Unconvicted, he is on the front page of the local newspaper so that horrified strangers may scan his features for signs of depravity.

All this happens on the word of one accuser. Conviction can follow when it is amplified, not by solid evidence but by the rule of "corroboration by volume", a change in the law since the early 1990s. This means that similar allegations against the same person are held by the courts to reinforce one another, even without independent evidence.

...... The common thread on each side is emotion. The more you read and listen, the clearer it is that those who deal with child or former child victims are violently marked by the experience (note that lawyer's melodramatic "to the grave and back"). As a result they may become prone to exaggerate the problem and see it everywhere. It is just as apparent that anybody who has known a falsely accused man may become equally militant - and unreasonable - in their belief that the world is full of malicious, venal accusers who ought to be punished.

It will not do: this sense of sexual shellshock has no place in courtrooms or police stations. If ever there were a case for dispassionate and tightly regulated adherence to rules of evidence, this is it. The question of compensation should never have become entangled with criminal proceedings (according to victims, it is because "without a compensation claim, there is little chance of finding a solicitor to represent you"). The doctrine of corroboration by volume and the practice of trawling for new complaints should impose an immense discipline on police. All interviews with accusers - as well as defendants - should be recorded, so that if stories change, it is clear to all. The protests of shocked families are not enough to prove a man innocent; but nor is the empathy of distressed victim-counsellors enough to prove him guilty.

Ironically, in this dreadfully human predicament, what we need on both sides is cold, passionless reason. I doubt it will be easy to achieve. But we have to try; just in case the real truth is that we are perpetrating the worst witch-hunt in centuries.

The full article can be found at www.thetimes.co.uk (using the search facility)

*****

"Denial" by Arnold Wesker

In reply to Louise Jury's article (Independent, 17 September 2000) in which she claimed that "Denial" was poorly received, Arnold Wesker had the following letter published:-

'My last play, Denial, about false memory syndrome, which you say "was poorly received", was in fact so well received that it's on its way into London from the Bristol Old Vic with strong interest in New York and Montreal, as well as Sweden, Germany, Greece, Italy and Japan (Lost generation, Focus, 17 September). I've just returned from Tokyo where the musical of the The Kitchen was premiered. A film is scheduled from my last book ........ and so on.'

Arnold Wesker
Powys

*****

"Repressed memories" and the law, The Lancet

On July 20, US District Judge Breyer dismissed a claim by George Franklin for financial compensation that he claimed was due following the quashing of his 1990 conviction for murder of an 8- year-old girl in 1969 (Hanley C, www.nandotimes.com/nofra, accessed on July 24). The jury's finding apparently relied heavily on his daughter's unreliable "repressed memory". She had testified that she had seen her father smash in the girl's skull with a rock. Franklin spent six and a half years in prison before he was released and has since filed claims against his daughter's therapist, the prosecutors, detectives, and expert witnesses, but sought only a token $1 award from his daughter.

Judge Breyer had earlier ruled that the detectives and prosecutors had not arrested Franklin without probable cause or violated his right to an attorney. Now dismissing Franklin's claims against his daughter's therapist and the expert witnesses, the judge also partly cleared his daughter of liability.

Franklin's conviction was quashed when a federal judge decided that the jurors were improperly told that, by staying silent in the face of his daughter's accusation during a prison visit, he had admitted his crime. He also said that the defence should have had the chance to prove that the details that Franklin's daughter claimed to remember first-hand had been published in newspaper articles. Prosecutors abandoned the idea of a retrial after learning that Franklin's daughter had falsely accused her father of a second murder.

This case has fuelled the debate on the concerns about "repressed- memory", "recovered memory", or "false-memory" syndrome, although the syndrome is more usually targeted at recovering alleged cases of childhood sexual abuse. The tidal wave of "recovered" unpleasant repressed memories peaked in the USA in the early 1990s; it damaged and divided families and was the focus of vituperative and polarised debate among psychiatrists, though few therapists using these techniques were medically qualified. In 1992 the False Memory Syndrome Foundation was founded in Philadelphia and soon had a membership of 18 000 families. The British False Memory Society set up the next year had 900 families.

In 1993 the American Psychiatric Association warned in a position paper that repressed memories could be false, especially when therapists were involved in the recovery process. In the UK, the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Working Group on Recovered Memories published its Guidelines for Practice in 1996. The group rejected the concept of massive repression and, as Brandon 1* pointed out, it "did not find convincing evidence that repeated sexual abuse is ever completely forgotten... ". Discussing the controversy about this syndrome, Brandon says : "... particularly disturbing was the beliefs of those employing 'recovered memory therapy' and the methods they used. Some therapists specialising in recovered memory therapy told
their clients that 'intuitively', or perhaps as a result of symptom check lists, they had become convinced that their client had been abused as a child... The fact that they couldn't recall such memories was of no significance. They were encouraged to search for possible memories of abuse or to assume that they had been abused and to try, over as long as a year, to 'think themselves into abuse'... others were subjected to... repeated hypnosis or age regression in which they infallibly regressed not only to the age at which the abuse occurred but to the actual event...".

What weight, if any, should be accorded testimony gathered after repetitive interviews or hypnosis sessions (sometimes combined with drug therapy) and always with strong suggestions that abuse had occurred? Should it even be admissible in a court of law? A judge has discretion to exclude evidence that will not assist the court and/or that has been improperly obtained. The judge should review details of the interview process to ensure that it is acceptable practice and that testimony resulting from it can have any credibility in the light of the witness's psychiatric and emotional history. If evidence is
ruled admissible, the full details of the interview process and evidence of criticisms of it should be put before the jury with a warning of the weight that can safely be given to testimony of this kind, together with, it is hoped, a direction on the need for corroborating evidence.

Interestingly, Brandon's analysis suggests that it was not the medical establishment but the American Insurance Industry's response to the backlash of legal claims that applied the emergency brake. With many US insurance companies now refusing to fund repressed-memory therapy and many US medical institutions forbidding such techniques on their premises, the therapy loses its status and the claims are killed off
at source.

REFERENCES:

( n1 ). Brandon S. Recovered memories: some aspects of the
controversy. Med-Leg J 1999; 67: 25-34.

*****

Letter from Margaret Jervis in response to Community Care article:

While it is clear that the News of the World's tactics in the wake of the tragic death of Sarah Payne will fail to protect children from abuse (Comment 27 July 2000) it is by no means assured that Community Care's sweeping recommendations would fare any better.

The necessary sexual abuse consciousness-raising enterprise has, from its outset, been dogged by poor differentiation between true and false allegations.

One only has to review the eruptions of systematic misdiagnosis, from the discredited "anatomical doll" play therapy techniques through to the "recovered memory" fiasco and "multiple personality disorder"-linked "satanic" allegations to see that there is a problem which is endemic in the theory and practice of sexual abuse assessment and treatment.

This fault-line is not merely of historic interest - it persists to this very day. Recently the "ouija-board" technique of "facilitated communication" surfaced in the high court where Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss denounced it as "dangerous" evidence leading to false allegations of sexual abuse.

The question must be asked why scientifically discredited techniques are being used by mainstream mental health and welfare professionals to elicit phoney allegations of the most heinous crimes. Therapeutically excavated claims can and do end up with innocent men and women being convicted of non-existent crimes with the falsely accused poised to join the ranks of paedophiles and child killers on page 3 of the News of the World.

Tragedies such as the death of Sarah Payne are no less terrible for their rarity, but the fact that the incidence of such crimes has remained constant over the years suggests the child protection system has had a neutral effect on their prevention.

Rather than exploiting outrage to promote more of the same flawed products, Community Care would do better to call for a thorough-going review of the circumstantial reliability of the knowledge-base on abuse as it has developed over the past twenty five years.

Community Care comment on paedophile hysteria, Community Care:

....The identification of convicted paedophiles by the News of the World, in a misguided attempt to protect children (or a successful attempt to sell newspapers), gives voice to the public fears it feeds, and highlights the need to review sentencing, treatment and release of convicted predatory paedophiles. But that is not enough.

Since professionals first understood the scale of child sexual abuse, they have operated in a climate in which the media congratulated middle-aged men for sleeping with 13-year-old girls; in which attempts to raise awareness of sexual abuse were derided as hysteria; and in which children's testimony was dismissed as the result of "coaching" by professionals.

It must be made easier for children's evidence to be heard, if more than a tiny proportion of known offenders are to be convicted. There must be specified funding for therapeutic treatment for victims, and treatment in the criminal justice system for all those who abuse children.

*****

Judge warns of risks to justice, The Irish Times

A Supreme Court judge yesterday highlighted the "special problems" confronting the courts in dealing with cases of alleged sexual abuse dating back many years and warned of "real risks of miscarriages of justice".

Mr Justice Hardiman stressed the need for caution by the courts when it came to dealing with psychological evidence in sex abuse cases. The need for caution was at "its very height" in relation to repression, the repressed memory of abuse which is triggered by therapy or some other stimulus.

It was his belief the risks of a miscarriage of justice increased with the degree to which a trial involves a situation of bare assertion countered by mere denial. If a defendant was put in a position where there was little or no context of indisputable fact which could be used as a specific check on credibility, then justice was "put to the hazard".

Persons in that position were deprived of a true opportunity of meeting the case against them.

There was a duty on all parties concerned with such cases, particularly on the gardaí because of their investigative role, to take all possible steps to establish as many as possible of the facts surrounding claims of sexual abuse.

The Director of Public Prosecutions should also indicate what specific directions he believed should be given by trial judges in lapse of time cases.

The judge said the whole background of cases alleging abuse, including full details of the circumstances in which allegations came to be made, whether the nature of allegations changed over time, whether other allegations were made against other persons and whether repression in the clinical sense was alleged, should form part of a psychological report.

He rejected the view - which he said could be inferred from a psychologist and psychotherapist's report in relation to a case where a man was charged with rape, buggery and indecent assault of a young girl - that a delay in complaining of abuse should be found excusable solely on the basis of the offence.

Mr Justice Hardiman was granting two separate orders preventing the trials of two men on sex charges after finding both applicants had established a real and serious risk of an unfair trial due to specific prejudice in preparing their defence due in turn to the lapse of time between the commission of the alleged offences and their being charged.

The judge said the courts had permitted prosecutions of sex cases to proceed after lapses of time so great that they would normally be fatal to a proposed prosecution. This was because the courts recognised such cases were in a special category and that children needed to be protected against these most objectionable crimes.

As a result, prosecutions for old offences had become commonplace and this had naturally given rise to new problems in ensuring fair trials. The courts had operated on the assumption that complaints of abuse were true.

Mr Justice Hardiman said he had already outlined grave reservations in relation to that assumption but would leave it aside until it was raised in an appropriate case.

He then dealt with the role of psychological evidence in sex cases. It appeared the psychological effects which the court would regard as potentially excusing gross delay in making a complaint of abuse were (a), dominance, particularly if the accused and complainant were closely related or associated and (b), repression or suppression of the alleged abuse.

However, the fact the offence was of a sexual nature was not itself a factor which would justify the court in disregarding the delay, however inordinate, and allowing the trial to proceed.

Mr Justice Hardiman said he agreed with Ms Justice Denham's observation that "our knowledge of the extent and dynamics of child sexual abuse is of very recent origin and is growing".

The courts should have regard to new insights in this field "provided they were fully understood and generally accepted and established by proper evidence in the particular case". However, it appeared there were few aspects of abuse which were uncontroversial.

Mr Justice Hardiman said the growth of knowledge about child sexual abuse was marked by enormous controversy among highly qualified professionals "and by great caution amongst those who try to find a middle way between the controversial poles".

This controversy and therefore the need for caution was at its very height in relation to the concept of "repression". This notion of repression seemed to lie at the heart of the expanded concept of dominion as set out in Supreme Court decisions.

Such controversy did not mean the courts should reject all new and developing insights on abuse but pointed to the need for caution and for full and impartial presentation of psychiatric or psychological evidence, he said.

*****

A troubling trial, The Tablet

Sir, Your report (Home News, 3 June) of the conviction and sentencing of the Jesuit Fr John Pearson for 26 offences of indecent assault and gross indecency on children between 1969 and 1987 made distressing reading. When he was convicted he was 88 years of age and suffering from progressive dementia and a major depressive disorder. The trial judge said that he would be failing in his public duty if he suspended the sentence of two years' imprisonment.

Would he have been? Was justice done? As a retired Supreme Court judge who served for 26 years, I am becoming disturbed by the present police practice of trawling back many years to uncover fairly minor sexual offences alleged to have been committed years before and about which no complaint was made at the time. There is always the danger of complainants having false memories; and the passing of time makes it more difficult to those accused to defend themselves.

Statues of limitation in some countries, including France, prohibit stale prosecutions save for the most heinous crimes. Perhaps we should have one in England.

What public interest was served by sending an old, mentally sick man to prison? Of the classic justifications for judicial punishments, retribution, deterrence, prevention and rehabilitation, only the first applied. Do sensible people think that sending Fr Pearson to prison was a just way of showing public detestation of his crimes?

(Sir) Frederick Lawton

*****

'Historian cleared of abuse after false memory fear' by David Williams, The Daily Mail

A distinguished art historian was cleared of sexual abuse yesterday after a jury heard his accuser may have been influenced by an American self-help book.

The woman had made serious allegations against 49-year-old Philip Shaw, a senior lecturer at the Royal College of Art, based on 'hidden' memories from her early childhood.

These apparently surfaced after she read the book The Courage to Heal, by the American lesbian authors Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, which argues that almost all women have been sexually abused.

All the allegations related to her childhood more than 20 years ago.

They included claims that Mr Shaw had dressed as a woman, used a 'naughty stick' to abuse her and spoke to her in a falsetto voice like 'Mr Punch'.

But after a six-day trial, the Old Bailey jury cleared him of three indecent assaults, cruelty to a child, causing actual bodily harm and serious sexual assault.

The 27-year-old woman claimed Shaw had sexually and physically abused her when she lived in east London between 1978 and 1979.

However, Dr Janet Boakes, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told the court she may have been deluded. She said her account was 'more likely dreamed up after she put herself into a state of auto-hypnosis' when reading the book. Dr Boakes said the women was probably suffering from 'false memory syndrome' after reading the book. At one point the book says: 'Reading this may make you feel uncomfortable but if it doesn't, do not worry, you're just not ready to remember the memories yet.'

She said it also claims: 'If you are unable to remember any specific instances but still have a feeling something abusive happened to you, it probably did.'

Asked by Andrew Hall, defending, what effect the book might have on readers, she replied: 'It might convince people they have hideous and heinous memories.'

According to the doctor, the two psychologists who interviewed the woman had 'taken the case on face value'.

'They did not follow the guidelines recently outlined by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. They ploughed on, accepting what the women were saying as the truth.

'If the clinician believes the symptoms point to sexual abuse, then he or she will find evidence of this.

'Twenty per cent of the population are highly suggestible and open to being lead to believe others' beliefs.

'Constant dwelling on sexual abuse may lead to dreams about it,' Dr Boakes said.

It was also said that the woman may have been prompted to invent the memories when she became suicidal after a relationship broke up.

The court heard that there is often an urge to seek a reason in the distant past for one's present misfortune.

Mr Shaw, of Kilburn, North-West London, said he had never been so shocked when the accusations were first made in 1992. Educated at the Royal College of Art, he is an authority on visual communication design. He is now working on his PhD at Middlesex University.

The case was a retrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict last year.

*****

After being wrongly accused of abusing daughter Jim Fairlie is hitting back, writes Lynn Cochrane, The Sunday Times

Last week on his 60th birthday, Jim Fairlie's five children threw him a surprise party. More than 100 old friends and political colleagues from the Scottish National Party attended, including the former leader, Gordon Wilson, whom he hadn't seen for 10 years. The event, in the Jeanfield Social Club in Perth, was a celebration of a man of truly independent mind who was a former deputy leader of the SNP.

His son Jim toasted his father and read Rudyard Kipling's If, a poem about how to be an honourable man. "There was a lot of emotion that night," says Fairlie.

That emotion ran much deeper than one would normally expect at a birthday celebration. It was a show of support for a man who, five years ago, was falsely accused of abusing his daughter, Katrina. The accusation, based on the now widely discredited recovered memory therapy, tore the close Fairlie family apart.

Now they are reconciled and Katrina, who withdrew the claims, attended the party. "For years we hadn't really had the heart for socialising. But we had a great time. It was a kind of final making up for everything that happened," says Fairlie.

The story is not yet over. Fairlie is suing the NHS and social services for defamation.

When he announced his legal action in 1998, other victims of false memory syndrome applauded his courage. He has needed it.

Two years on, and almost six years since Katrina first made the accusations while allegedly undergoing the controversial treatment, his efforts to clear his name have been almost as traumatic as the original crisis. Even though he has still to step into a courtroom, his legal bills are running into tens of thousands of pounds.

The damage the traumatic events have done to Katrina, now 30, his family relationships and his reputation are inestimable. Yet few would blame him for throwing in the towel and getting on with his life.

Fairlie is fighting on with the support of his wife Kay. He says: "Kay and I said right from the beginning that we were going to see this thing through even if it means selling everything and going bankrupt. It's the only way to make these people take responsibility. We want to encourage others to take a stand against the system."

We meet at his whitewashed Crieff home, which has sweeping views over the Perthshire hills. It may have to be put on the market to meet his legal fees.

The litigation has become an obsession. Every day the family picks over the latest legal titbit or worries about Katrina's well-being - she still harbours suicidal thoughts. Their life is on hold, says his wife Kay. "There was a time when I couldn't see past getting to court. We have all aged."

It was in their son Philip's house on October 16, 1995, that Fairlie and Kay were summoned by four of their five children and confronted with Katrina's claims. Initially Kay, a former nurse, thought the call was to say Katrina had killed herself.

Katrina had been admitted to hospital more than a year previously, originally to have her appendix removed. The doctors found nothing wrong but removed her gall bladder as a further precaution. When that too was found to be healthy and the pain continued, they believed the symptoms were psychosomatic and admitted her to the psychiatric unit. Katrina had been abused by her paternal grandfather as a child, which both her parents knew.

The family had found out when Katrina was 17, after it came to light that two other children had been abused by the grandfather. Kay questioned her children and Katrina revealed that she too had been a victim.

She pleaded with her mother not to tell Fairlie. Her sister Sharon says: "It was because it was his dad. She thought the women in the family knowing was enough. It was an awful position to put my mother in, not being able to tell her husband."

Fairlie remained in ignorance until he found out by accident two years later. He immediately telephoned his father to confront him and, after an angry exchange, severed all contact. The social work department was informed, but the grandfather, who died three weeks ago, was never charged.

After the abuse emerged, Katrina appeared to cope well. She had her own flat and a steady job. Sharon says: "She was always the independent one of the family. She got on with everyone, but she had a rebellious streak. The rest of us were interested in politics, but she always made it clear she found it boring."

Katrina was admitted to the psychiatric unit of Perth's Moray Royal Hospital from December 1994 to March 1996. Her parents wondered if the early abuse might be a factor in her troubles and told the doctors. They came to regret it.

Katrina was allegedly treated using recovered memory therapy, which relies on mind-altering drugs, hypnosis and prolonged interviews. The technique has since been condemned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Katrina's mental health deteriorated rapidly in hospital. Her weight dropped to six and a half stone. She tried to commit suicide. Encouraged to keep a journal and talk about nightmares which turned into hallucinations, she began recalling bizarre experiences attributed to recovered memory.

In the course of the treatment, Katrina accused her father of raping her, then of beating to death another six-year-old girl. Seventeen other men were, she said, involved in the paedophile ring, including two MPs.

Katrina's psychiatrist told her sister Sharon in August 1995 of the abuse, convincing her there was overwhelming evidence that Fairlie was not the loving father he seemed. He said he couldn't say more, Sharon recalls, because of patient confidentiality.

She says: "The only word to describe my feelings is numbness. I just couldn't reconcile two things: either Katrina was lying or my father was an abuser. Both were completely unpalatable to me. I just went into shock."

The psychiatrist asked Sharon to keep the information to herself. However, she couldn't fool her brother Philip, 34. He knew she was deeply unhappy. Eventually she broke down and told him. Andrew, 36, and Jim, 31 were informed and the four children confronted their parents. Kay says: "I just remember being so angry that they were giving credence to the claims."

Fairlie too was furious. He stormed out of the house, booked into a bed and breakfast and downed a bottle of whisky.

The more Kay thought about the allegations, the more she was convinced her husband could never have done such awful things. When he returned home the next day, she told him she didn't believe the children and was standing by him.

Anger and bitterness split the family. Kay and Jim spent their first Christmas without seeing their children and grandchildren. Fairlie couldn't bear to look at his children or be in the same room.

Kay says: "It was the most miserable time. Jim and I didn't have the heart to stay at home so we went to a local hotel. It was terrible."

Fairlie spent long hours alone, walking in the hills or riding his horse. He felt it necessary to inform the local stables about the allegations because he was mixing with young girls there. He is still never alone with his grandchildren. The decision is his, to protect him from further suspicion.

The family rift healed only after a lot of "blood letting". The more information Sharon gleaned from Katrina, the more it became obvious the abuse never happened. A police investigation in December 1995 came to the same conclusion.

Sharon says: "We'd be saying to Katrina, 'look you've never met these people' you are saying abused you."

Kay maintained contact with her sons and gradually realised the pressure they had been put under. The psychiatrist had emphasised that Katrina's life was in their hands. If they didn't believe her, she'd kill herself.

By the summer of 1996, Katrina too realised her accusations were unfounded, and withdrew the claims. Fairlie was never charged.

He is now suing the former Perth and Kinross National Healthcare Trust (now Tayside Primary Care NHS Trust) and Perth and Kinross social services on grounds likely to include defamation, negligence and personal injury. He is outraged by the social workers' handling of his case. Both the NHS and the local authority declined to comment.

Getting the case heard is proving exhausting. Weeks before presenting the final summons to the Court of Session in February, Fairlie's QC withdrew because of differences of opinion about how the evidence should be presented. He is now starting over again with another representative. He hopes a new summons can be prepared as soon as possible.

The QC's departure was a huge setback for Fairlie, whose existence has become an endless round of legal meetings, letter writing and trawling the Internet for legal precedents.

Rage keeps him going. "I tell people I'm not suicidal, I'm homicidal," he jokes, adding gravely, "no one knows what it feels like to be accused of selling your own daughter for drink and cigarettes."

Fairlie's pain is unlikely to disappear completely. The family was always close, making the split all the more traumatic. Jim and Kay popped into their children's homes in Perth regularly. At weekends they baby-sat for their nine grandchildren.

His rebellious streak helps explain why he has stayed the course. Deputy SNP leader under Gordon Wilson from 1981 to 1985, Fairlie stood against Sir Nicholas Fairbairn for the Perth and Kinross seat in 1987. Three years later he walked out of the party in protest at his colleagues' pro-European stance.

He carved out a new role, teaming up with a group of dissident nationalists called Sovereignty, while continuing to take regular swipes at the SNP. Sovereignty urged him to stand against Sir Nicholas as an independent in 1992. "The pressure was enormous," he recalls. "But something had to go and I decided it had to be politics."

After 35 years, he reluctantly abandoned his public profile. He now contents himself with well-aimed pot shots at politicians and psychiatrists in a column he writes for the Perthshire Advertiser under the pseudonym The Spectator.

Whether it is perseverance or stubbornness, it has won Fairlie celebrity status among the 1,300 members of the British False Memory Society. Many would like to take on the authorities, but cannot afford to do so.

Although a report published by The Royal College of Psychiatrists in April 1998 says false memories can and do occur, the treatment still goes on according to the society's director Madeline Greenhalgh. At a meeting of the society in London two weeks ago, Fairlie was depressed to hear that 125 new families had come forward in the past year.

He says: "I met two men who had both been falsely accused of sexual abuse. One had tried to hang himself but failed; the other had a nervous breakdown. It makes me more determined to carry on."

Life is slowly beginning to return to normal. The nightmares which plagued him have lessened.

Katrina remains vulnerable. She lives alone in Perth, still suffering bouts of depression. She cannot hold down a job, and lacks the confidence to tackle basic tasks such as driving.

However, her relationship with her father is fine, Fairlie emphasises. He never blamed her for making the claims. She is now pursuing her own civil action against the authorities.

*****

Unjust accusations and false memory syndrome, Catholic Herald

Letter from a recovering Catholic:

A few years ago I wrote to The Catholic Herald about my difficulties on returning to the Church while still coping with memories of abuse at the hands of my Catholic parents and teachers. Thank you for the sensitivity and compassion which you showed in printing that letter. I am now writing to let you know that one of the memories involved was in fact "recovered" during a hypnotic regression. Although encouraged by other abuse survivors and even therapists to believe what I saw in the regression, I now consider that it was in fact an example of "false memory syndrome".

It was actually an attempt by my unconscious to explain the devastation, of my professional and family life which had occurred about three years before.

From these experiences I have drawn several conclusions: That abuse of children is always wrong. That "recovered memories" can, and in my case did result in false accusations. That those accused of sexual abuse will in some cases certainly be innocent. That their accusers may be deluded rather than malicious. And that survivors of abuse must come to realise that their healing lies in linking back to God, otherwise called religion.

The most cunning ploy of the tempter is to keep us away from the true source of our healing, through resentment and fear. It was my own father whom I accused - a loving, gentle and devout man. Thankfully he did not live to hear my calumny.

Yours faithfully,
A RECOVERING CATHOLIC

*****

Letter from Madeline Greenhalgh in response to article by Deborah Orr:

So "recovered memory syndrome" is an established scientific fact doubted only by extremists, according to Deborah Orr ("A disturbing tale and a host of ugly conclusions", 8 May), is it?

Perhaps she knows something the scientific world doesn't, because the spurious nature of this sudden awareness of completely unknown sexual abuse histories has never been validated. It is strongly correlated with belief in sexual abuse as a hidden cause of adult problems which can be decoded through "memory recovery", which is a form of make-believe.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists' working party report in 1998 validated the sceptics on this issue, and the "recovered memory syndrome" was consigned to history by all responsible professionals.

Since the process of false belief and memory can be highly damaging to all concerned - including the prosecution and conviction of innocent people - it is an open scandal that "recovered memory" theory and practice are still tolerated in mainstream mental health services in the UK today.

'A disturbing tale and a host of ugly conclusions', by Deborah Orr, The Independent

Another story of gross liberties taken with the distressed parents of vulnerable children has concluded with condemnation of medical professionals. The Griffiths report, released yesterday, was launched in response to allegations by parents that they had not been informed when their premature babies were placed in experimental ventilators at the North Staffordshire Hospital trust in Stoke-on-Trent.

The ventilators, which were designed in the US in an attempt to assist babies' breathing without inserting tubes down their throats, are no longer used to treat premature babies in British hospitals. In the experiment, led by Professor David Southall and Dr Martin Samuels, 43 of 122 babies suffered brain damage or died. Of 122 babies treated conventionally in a control group, 32 died or suffered brain damage.

Among the families whose children became involved in this experiment, none was more cavalierly treated than the Henshall family.

Carl and Debbie Henshall lost one daughter in the continuous negative extra-thoracic pressure (CNEP) chamber, while another suffered brain damage. The parents did not know their daughters were undergoing experimental treatment, and they believe that under the usual treatment their daughters might have made full recoveries.

The harsh fact is that there is nothing in the report which upholds their belief. Premature babies sometimes die, whether new treatment is being tried out on them or not. What is wrong here is that the parents were not given the opportunity to make an informed choice. Several, in fact, say signatures on their consent forms were forged. And it is that aspect of this sorry case that the Griffiths report seeks to remedy, with new measures governing the procedures under which consent of this kind is given.

The man who ultimately carries the can for what went on during this four-year experiment is Professor David Southall, who was actually based in London when the trials were begun. But his troubles are by no means over with the conclusion of this inquiry. In the last year, five inquiries have been launched which involve him. Late last year, the first of them, conducted by the North Staffordshire Hospital trust, exonerated him of accusations of personal and professional misconduct.

This inquiry dealt with a quite separate matter - accusations that he had been using hospital resources to fund his charity, Child Advocacy International, which fights child abuse in the Third World. One result of the controversy surrounding Professor Southall is that a lottery grant of pounds 150,000 assigned to the charity has been put on hold.

Professor Southall was suspended by the trust two months after the inquiry vindicated him, this time over allegations made by parents campaigning against his work in child protection. It was Professor Southall who pioneered techniques whereby parents suspected of harming their own children in order to gain attention from the medical profession were secretly filmed. Professor Southall says he has worked with 109 families, in which there have been 43 deaths and 184 children taken into care. Guidelines on the use of covert video surveillance have also been recommended by the report.

But Professor Southall's techniques have angered some parents who say they have been falsely accused. A pressure group, called Mothers Against Munchausen's syndrome by proxy Allegations (MaMa), accuses not just Professor Southall, but 13 other doctors of "perjury, attempted blackmail, and child abuse", and is campaigning to have Munchausen's by proxy discredited as a diagnosis.

The most disturbing story of a mother falling foul of Professor Southall's diagnoses comes from Mandy Morris.

Her son, Lee, hanged himself after being bullied at school, and when her younger son Carl had difficulty in coming to terms with the loss, she confided her worries to a colleague at work. This colleague got in touch with Professor Southall, who said that it was possible that she was suffering from Munchausen's. The colleague, in turn, passed this suggestion on to the police.

Unbelievably, this unsubstantiated diagnosis led to the police and social services arriving in Mrs Morris's doorstep, complete with an emergency protection order. Mrs Morris's son was taken into care, while investigations were made. In an interview with Professor Southall and three other doctors, Mrs Morris was found not to be a sufferer and her son was returned to her.

The case is interesting because it suggests that hospital staff, social services and even police are willing to act on the very mention of Professor Southall's name, however little involvement he himself may have had in diagnoses or decisions. This I'm sure is largely a function of Professor Southall's undoubted dedication and commitment, which those around him clearly find inspirational. But what seems to have been happening is that they have been too willing to accept everything at Professor Southall's own estimation, and wandered into some quite dubious territory in the process.

Professor Southall certainly appears to believe that, to some extent, the end justifies the means. It is not only the case of the respirators and the covert filming that suggest this. Years ago Professor Southall generated controversy when conducting experiments into the possible links between cot death and air travel. His trials exposed babies to 15 per cent oxygen in order to simulate the effects on their health of air travel. This is certainly a high-risk experimental strategy.

But the great danger now is that because of a doctor's over-zealous techniques he has become vulnerable to extremely unfair treatment himself. Many people working in the area of child abuse develop a messianic attitude towards their work, simply because their intimate knowledge of the possibilities of cruelty to the innocent urges them to act too hastily.

Some of those who feel themselves to have fallen foul of Professor Southall's uncompromising techniques have every right to be angry. But some of those allied against him seem almost unbalanced in their hatred. Those who demand that the diagnosis of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy should be banned - it in fact is under investigation as terms are drawn up for a more useful and specific definition - seem as recklessly committed and uncompromising as the groups in the Eighties who began campaigning for it to be recognised that there is no such thing as recovered memory syndrome. Their protestations are so extreme that their cause is hugely damaged.

Those allied against Professor Southall have been campaigning against theories about Munchausen's by proxy since 1992. Finally, their net around Professor Southall is tightening. There are still three enquiries into various aspects of Professor Southall's professional life to be concluded. It is estimated that they could take years.

Meanwhile, Professor Southall remains suspended from his consultancy, with his charity under suspicion and his clinical work effectively over for the time being at least.

Meanwhile, Professor Southall is pinioned by several forces. First there is his own eager unorthodoxy, an unorthodoxy which seems able to transmit itself to less fastidious colleagues and other professionals.

Second there is the very real and intensive campaign against him by those who are not happy with his diagnoses of Munchausen's or indeed with the idea of the existence of such a condition at all. Third there is the beleaguered state of the medical profession, eager now to be seen to be capable of dealing firmly with its members from within.

Professor Southall many have behaved less than perfectly on many occasions. But we must continue to ask ourselves why that may be, rather than be tempted to scapegoat him or even to give any credence to the ugly conclusions that the anti-Munchausen's brigade are so keen to spread far and wide.

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Letter from Professor Jean La Fontaine in response to 'Satanic abuse no myth' article:

Please allow me to comment on your account of an alleged report by Rob Hale and Valerie Sinason on evidence for ritual/ satanic abuse ("Satanic abuse no myth, say experts", 30 April). Their research was commissioned under the aegis of the Conservative government at least four years ago. My research to which your report also refers was not "ordered" by the Government, but came from my own professional interest in the cases. My research concerned children; Dr Hale and Ms Sinason have focused on adult "survivors", mostly women, although there are some teenagers among them, I believe.

We all approached the Department of Health for funding, although in my case the proposal was given a searching peer review and was funded by the research department; they were given funding by the policy department.

They were to undertake research, together with the relevant police forces, to establish evidence to corroborate allegations of ritual abuse. The report of this research was due two years ago.

t has been noted that the statements Ms Sinason made about her patients before the Department of Health had funded her were substantially the same as those she is making now.

Letter from Mark Pendergrast in response to 'Satanic abuse no myth' article:

It is astonishing that anyone would continue to give credence to the myth of "satanic ritual abuse", which has been utterly debunked here in the United States, where it originated, and in the UK ("Satanic abuse no myth, say expert", 30 April). Yet in the UK a group of earnest but pseudo-scientific "true believers" such as Valerie Sinason continue to promote belief in this absurdity.

We all know that sex abuse is far too prevalent, but there is absolutely no evidence to support the myth of ritual abuse, other than in memory-induction of adults and suggestive questioning of small children. Shame on the Independent on Sunday for publishing this lunacy as "news" without at least seeking comment from competent memory scientists and other critics. You compounded it by citing Sinason et al as "experts". They are as much experts as those who conducted the Inquisition were "experts" in identifying witches.

'Satanic abuse no myth, say experts', by Sophie Goodchild, Home Affairs Correspondent, Independent on Sunday

A specially commissioned government report will this week conclude that satanic abuse does take place in Britain. It will say that its victims have suffered actual abuse and are not suffering from "false memory syndrome".

The report, ordered by the Department of Health, focuses on the experiences of 50 "survivors". Compiled by Dr John Hale, director of the Portman Clinic in London, and psychotherapist Valerie Sinason, it will reopen the debate which started a decade ago with testimonies from children in Nottingham, Rochdale and Orkney.

Its findings contradict the claims of a report ordered by the Conservative government in 1994, which concluded that satanic abuse was a "myth".

It follows the growing concern of child protection agencies, and the Government, over organised child abuse.

Last week, it emerged that police were investigating the alleged sexual and physical abuse of up to 4,000 children in care homes and council-run homes in Devon.

Ms Sinason, who has treated 126 ritual abuse survivors, said yesterday that in many cases children were tortured by being held under water or made to believe they had witnessed the murder of infants as part of the satanic ritual.

"Some children are born for the purpose of abuse and are not registered on birth certificates," she added. "The abusers use trickery to convince children they have taken part in murder. This increases the power of the abuser."

The report will point to the difficulty of bringing prosecutions because of the problems of putting abused children into the witness box. There are currently at least five cases involving ritual abuse in the hands of lawyers.

Lee Moore, a barrister who founded the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, and was himself a victim of ritual abuse, said it was hard to persuade people to give evidence, particularly after the 1994 report claiming satanic abuse was a myth perpetuated by social workers.

The latest report was welcomed by Dr Joan Coleman, a Surrey psychiatrist who has spent 14 years treating victims. "A lot of children are born into satanic families who indulge in this ritual abuse," she said. "It's only now that child sexual abuse is being exposed that people are beginning to believe ritual abuse exists."

The report will be studied by John Hutton, the health department minister with responsibility for child protection. He is expected to order an investigation into its findings.

*****

'Satanic abuse' rides again

'Satanic abuse' rides again Claims for the reality of 'satanic abuse' including ritual sacrifice and cannibalism have emerged again, five years after being officially dismissed by the Department of Health as a child-abuse threat.

Psychotherapist Valerie Sinason announced the findings of her research on BBC Radio 4's Today programme (9.2.00), giving the impression that the claims were well-founded and that their publication by the Department of Health was imminent. It was said that a senior police officer from the Metropolitan Police would be investigating further prior to publication. Her findings were based on the interpretation of signs and symptoms displayed in 74 patients who received treatment at her Harley Street clinic. Ms Sinason, a respected therapist with handicapped children and adults, is known to practise a psychodynamic technique of therapy that has been criticised as being highly suggestive in relation to abuse claims. In the past few years she has favoured a 'dissociative model' of alleged trauma akin to the theory of multiple personality disorder. This model has been identified with the production of false narratives of satanic abuse resulting in multi-million dollar law suits against practitioners in the USA.

Further broadcasts on the World at One and PM revealed that although the Department of Health had funded the research, it had not been officially commissioned or vetted by the DoH. In the Mail on Sunday it emerged that that the acting detective inspector assigned to the task was acting in a private capacity.

Interviewed by the BBC, Professor Jean LaFontaine, author of the official report dismissing the phenomenon as an overblown rumour inflated by fears of welfare professionals and evangelical Christians, dismissed the research as methodologically unsound. The claims, she pointed out, were essentially similar to those made a decade or more ago, for which no empirical evidence had ever been found.

Though previously at London's Tavistock Clinic and an erstwhile research psychotherapist at St George's Hospital, Ms Sinason is now director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in Harley St. In 1994 she edited the controversial book Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse based on clinical observations and representations of controversial child abuse cases where satanic networks had been alleged. Two colleagues at her clinic, psychologist Dr Phil Mollon and psychiatrist Dr Arnon Bentovim, were contributors to the book.

On the following day (10.2.00) newspapers reported the claims while The Scotsman included a commentary dismissing the claims as coming from one of the 'weirder homes of psychotherapy' responsible for the 'recovered memory' fiasco. Both the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph ran critical articles. In the MoS Professor Sydney Brandon condemned the research as irresponsible and based on the ramblings of unstable groups of people.

The Sunday Telegraph warned of the danger of 'personal testimony' of self-styled 'satanic survivors' being accepted as sufficient evidence for conviction, echoing developments already established in the case of prosecutions of uncorroborated retrospective accounts of serious sexual abuse, if Ms Sinason's findings were accorded official recognition.

See also forthcoming BFMS newsletter.

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Media pundits dazzled by MPD 'brainwaves'

Recent reports in the New Scientist ('Crowded Minds' 18.12.99) and on BBC's Tomorrow's World suggest that there is scientific proof for the reality of multiple personality disorder as a response to horrendous child abuse. The evidence is in the form of MRI scans conducted on a woman 'Marnie', assessed as having multiple personalities that emerged, following childhood amnesia, during psychotherapy.

The experiment, conducted by Dr Guochuan Tsai* of Harvard University, has convinced the psychiatrist and pundit Dr Raj Persaud, who heralded the findings as a breakthrough in the Daily Telegraph ('The crowd inside her head' 22.9.99) and on Tomorrow's World.

The New Scientist's Robert Adler was equally credulous while the magazine's biology features editor Dr Helen Phillips has stated in correspondence that the childhood abuse held to be a cause of Marnie's condition had all been corroborated through criminal prosecution and police reports.

The evidence for the reality of the 'alters' failed to impress neuroscientist Dr Tonmoy Sharma as being other than representations of emotionally loaded aspects of the patient's personality i.e. it does not refute the sceptics.

In a review of the MPD-MRI controversy to appear in the forthcoming BFMS Newsletter, Dr Ray Aldridge- Morris, author of MPD - A Study in Deception says: 'The place to look for MPD is not in the brain but in the culture, the practice of a sub-group of clinicians and a host of poorly qualified acolytes, and the hypnotic suggestibility of a patient group.'

If however, it is the case - and we do not have the actual evidence to hand - that the memory life-blood of Marnie's alters contains corroborated severe trauma experiences previously unknown to her (as alleged) then the case is indeed a breakthrough because it is a case of corroborated recovered memory of long-term systematic abuse.

For more information on the source material of Crowded Minds contact: Dr Helen Phillips, New Scientist 151 Wardour St, London W1V 4BN email: Helen.J.Phillips@rbi.co.uk

*See 'Functional Magnetic resonance imaging of personality switches in a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder' by Guochuan E Tsai et al Harvard Review of Psychiatry vol 7, p119 (1999)

*****

Call for Government review of abuse convictions

A catholic newspaper has called for an immediate blanket review of retrospective child abuse convictions based on police trawling methods.

In a strongly worded editorial, the Catholic Herald (19.10.99) highlighted the current plight of innocent teachers and care workers incriminated by police trawls for allegations among former care home residents. Opportunistic accusers may be given powerful financial inducements through criminal and civil compensation claims, the leader said, resulting in innocent people comprising 'a significant proportion of those going to jail.'

It continues:

'Residential care workers in particular dare not speak out against the current witch-hunt in fear that cruelly flawed police methods may be applied to them too. To raise their voices in protest at the manifest injustices they are witnessing would be to sign their own personal and professional death warrants.

'Fear among the innocent is not a defining characteristic of a just society, and it is in itself an indictment of the efficacy of the methods used by the police. In a free society, authorities do not cause terror among blameless men and women. If it is wrong for a paedophile to escape justice, it is an even graver injustice that the price of convicting some guilty men should be the imprisonment of others who are innocent.

'There is something desperately wrong about current police methods, which ought to come under the immediate scrutiny of the courts and of the Home Secretary. Most urgent and most imperative of all is an immediate review of all convictions secured by the dubious evidence of those who were, in effect, paid for their testimony.'