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Previous News Items from 2001
Just Joan, Agony Aunt "I've been
accused of being a pervert" - The Scottish Daily Record, 23 January
2001
Prisoner cleared after girl admits rape lie,
by Laura Peek, The Times
A farmer's son who was jailed for nine years for the rape of a young
girl has been cleared after she admitted that she lied to get her mother's
attention.
Roger Beardmore, 37, who has served more than three years of his sentence,
had his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal. The girl, now 14,
told police that she made up the allegations. "I have put a man in
prison for no reason," she said.
Mr Beardmore, from Stoke-on-Trent, was convicted of rape and attempted
rape by Stafford Crown Court in March 1998. The Court of Appeal judges
found that there was "no material" to uphold his conviction
after the withdrawal of the girl's statement. He had been freed on bail
in May shortly after the girl made her admission.
Mr Beardmore was living in a farmhouse 15 miles from Stoke at the time
of the alleged offences, between 1991 and 1993. The girl told her mother
that between the ages of three and six she had been raped and interfered
with when visiting the farm.
Lord Justice Mance, sitting with Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Mr Justice
Leveson, said that she was "a troubled young woman. She was confused
about her sexuality. She thought she wasn't getting enough attention from
her mother. She says now she never wants to see her mother again. She
has expressed the wish to right a wrong which had been keeping her awake,
crying all night."
Hamish Noble, for Mr Beardmore, said after the hearing: "My client
was wrongly accused of one of the worst possible offences. The allegations
originally made were completely untrue. My client is, however, pleased
that the complainant withdrew her allegations. This took courage.
"None of us can imagine how it feels to be falsely accused of rape,
knowing all the time that you are completely innocent. The jurors would
have asked themselves, 'Why would the complainant make this up?' Several
years later, it was established that the complainant did indeed fabricate
those allegations. My client is pleased that the conviction has been quashed."
*****
'Therapeutic' abuse claim litigation attacked
by judge
Raymond Marks' attempt to claim a share of his late mother's will on
the basis of alleged physical, sexual and emotional abuse failed in the
high court on July 16, 2001. (The Guardian, 17.7.01). The judge
ruled that Mr Marks, 48, had not proved the allegations to the requisite
standard and criticised the use of litigation by the claimant as a therapeutic
exercise.
In court Mr Marks had claimed the sexual abuse had begun when he was 5,
with the knowledge of his father, and had culminated in full sexual intercourse
when he was 13. In 1998, prior to her death two years ago, Mrs Marks had
changed her will after receiving a letter from her son blaming her for
his traumatic childhood and saying he wanted nothing more to do with her.
The judge rejected claims that Mrs Marks, though anxious and troubled,
was psychotic or had a personality disorder, saying "In my view there
is not the cogent evidence required to satisfy a court that sexual, physical,
verbal and emotional abuse occurred."
The judge criticised Mr Marks' reason for bringing the claim to establish
"closure" saying that the litigation was a "clumsy and
ineffective tool" to use as a therapeutic exercise.
(See below for original story)
*****
Abuse-claim man contests mother's will
A test case of whether bulimia is reliable symptom of child sexual abuse
was heard in the High Court in London on 9 July (The Guardian 9.7.01).
48 year-old Raymond Marks of Poole, Dorset attempted to claim a share
of his deceased mother's estate, despite being cut out of her will, because
she had allegedly sexually abused him from an early age. Mr Marks claimed
his father, who died in 1995, was aware of the abuse which included full
sexual intercourse when he was 13.
Mr Marks, who had suffered from an eating disorder since childhood, claimed
that his bulimia had worsened in 1996 when his mother had allegedly made
'sexually suggestive remarks' to him by phone after he helped her sort
out his father's affairs and was paid £1000. Though at this point
his mother, who had a history of psychiatric disturbance, had made a will
in favour of Mr Marks and his son, she subsequently instructed solicitors
in 1998 to make a new will dividing the quarter of a million pound estate
between her two sisters and explicitly excluding him.
An expert witness for the claimant was due to give evidence supporting
the claimant's contention of bulimia as a common symptom of sexual abuse.
While defence expert opinion questioned whether there was reliable evidence
that the abuse had happened.
The press were barred from court when the case opened on 9 July, 2001.
At the time of writing (17.7.2001) it was still ongoing. (An update
on the outcome will be added to the site when judgment is given).
*****
Sinason and Freud slated by psychiatrists
Jeremy Laurence in the Independent reported on a poll among 200 "specialists
in mental health from around the globe" who had drawn up a list of
the worst publications in the history of psychiatry. He states "They
show a psychiatric profession at the start of the 21st century throwing
off the shackles of the past and dismissing some of the greatest names
of the last century."
Prominent among the winners were psychotherapist Valerie Sinason's Treating
the Survivors of Satanist Abuse at number two and the Complete Works of
Sigmund Freud at number six.
Poll organiser, Maudsley psychiatrist Simon Wessely, was reported to
have commented that the Freud inclusion was "slightly tongue in check"
but also "reflected the widespread view that despite having a major
literary and cultural impact he had done nothing for patients." He
added that "research carried out in the name of psychiatry over the
last century reached in some cases bizarre and disturbing limits."
Here are some extracts from the Top Ten:
2. Valerie Sinason: Treating the Survivors of Satanic Abuse, 1994.
Reopened controversy about ritual abuse of children. "Credulous,
superstitious, iatrogenic illness-inducing , self-righteous, incendiary
garbage," a nomination read.
6. The complete works of Sigmund Freud: 1880-1930.
Nomination said: "His teaching led to the great psychodynamic movement
with its tribalism and hostility to other models of mental illness and
treatments. From this root we could select the mish-mash of persons excited
about multiple personality disorders, sexual trauma in infancy and other
nonsense
10. DSM-IV - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: (4th ed).
Containing every psychiatric diagnosis, it is criticised for reducing
psychiatry to a checklist. "If you are not in DSM-IV you are not
ill. It has become a monster, out of control."
Source: The Independent, 19.3.2001 "Ten Things that Drive
Psychiatrists To Distraction".
*****
Court lets father sue police over abuse case,
by Ian Cobain, The Times
A HUSBAND who endured a decade of suspicion after his mentally-ill wife
accused him of abusing their child was given permission to sue for compensation
yesterday.
He was prosecuted after his wife falsely accused him of serious sexual
abuse of the girl, then aged three, in 1990, the Court of Appeal was told.
Lord Justice Otton said it transpired that the mother was suffering from
Munchausen's syndrome by proxy and had fabricated her account.
Father and daughter, who now live together, are suing Reading Borough
Council and Thames Valley Police for substantial damages. Their lawyers
claim a social worker and a police officer were negligent in the manner
in which they interviewed the girl in April 1990 and should have quickly
realised that the abuse allegations were unfounded.
Their case was thrown out by a judge at Reading County Court who ruled
in March last year that the action against the Thames Valley Police had
"no real prospect of success". Yesterday, however, the case
was reinstated, and their claim against the police and the council will
now go ahead.
*****
I was wrong about cannibalism, so now I'm
eating humble pie, by Jeremy Laurance, The Independent
Let's not beat about the bush. I've been had. A reporter in search of
a story has, not for the first time, fallen foul of an excess of enthusiasm,
credulousness, and someone's idea of a good joke.
Last week, a story by me appeared in The Independent, saying that police
were trying to close down an internet site that carried pictures of a
man eating a dismembered baby. There was a suggestion, which I reported,
that this gave credence to claims of ritual or Satanic abuse, including
human sacrifice, which have been the subject of fierce controversy for
more than a decade.
It turns out, as several readers have brought to our attention with notable
glee, that the pictures on the Californian website show, not human sacrifice,
but a Chinese performance artist who has been shocking audiences in the
Far East with his images of cannibalism. Distasteful as his pictures will
seem to most people, they are not
evidence of Satanic abuse.
So here I am eating humble pie. I apologise for misleading readers about
the proper context of the pictures (which was unknown to me). But the
story behind the story is, I believe, interesting in its own right - for
the light that it casts on the controversy about Satanic abuse.
I was contacted a fortnight ago by Valerie Sinason, a child psychotherapist
who has, almost single-handedly, kept alive the notion that some children
in Britain have been the victims of ritual or Satanic abuse for more than
a decade. She has, she says, 51 adult
patients who are survivors of child abuse and who, during therapy, have
disclosed details suggesting that the abuse had ritual elements.
I was well aware of Ms Sinason's controversial background and have myself
been a sceptic about Satanic abuse since the first allegations were made
in the late 1980s. I visited Rochdale in 1990, one of the alleged centres
of the practice along with Nottingham and Orkney, and concluded in a piece
I wrote for the Sunday Correspondent that the most likely explanation
for the strange goings-on could be found on the horror shelves of the
local video store.
However, I decided to take Ms Sinason's evidence at face value and check
it. I accessed the website and there, sure enough, was a man apparently
eating a dead baby. I spoke to the police officer she put me in touch
with - Detective Inspector Clive Driscoll - and he gave me some bloodcurdling
quotes about murder and human sacrifice and said a senior forensic pathologist
who had examined the pictures considered the dismembered baby to be real.
There were, admittedly, no candles or crucifixes, and the man was obviously
posing, but, on the face of it, cannibalism had been caught on camera.
Once again, however, allegations of ritual abuse have turned out to rest
on very little. A year ago, Valerie Sinason appeared on Radio 4's Today
programme claiming she had "clinical evidence" of babies who
had not been registered at birth being involved in ritual abuse. The implication
was that the babies had been conceived and raised secretly for use in
rituals that sometimes ended in their sacrifice.
Most experts poured scorn on these claims and pointed out they could do
serious harm by their very outlandishness - by making the whole of child
abuse seem less likely and easier to dismiss. But they gained a measure
of credence because Ms Sinason had been commissioned by the Department
of Health, together with a colleague Dr Robert Hale, to write a report
detailing her findings, which was submitted to the department last July.
I contacted the health department to ask what had happened to Ms Sinason's
report and ask for a comment. What I received, by e-mail, was one of the
longest and most carefully worded statements I can remember receiving.
The health department said, in summary, that they had received the report
by Dr Hale and Ms Sinason, submitted it to peer review and returned it
to the authors with reviewers' comments. They had no plans to publish
it. They also cited separate research that they had commissioned from
Professor Joan La Fontaine of the London School of Economics, who found
"no independent material evidence" to support allegations of
"Satanic child abuse and devil worship".
The coup de grace came in the final paragraph: "In the Government's
view, the conclusion of the study they commissioned by Professor La Fontaine
... has not been rendered invalid by Dr Hale and Valerie Sinason's study."
In other words, the claims about Satanic abuse are a load of tosh. To
my knowledge, this is the first official declaration by a government department
to this effect.
Professor La Fontaine said: "It is not surprising to me that patients
who are having treatment by Valerie Sinason would produce stories that
echo such topical issues as the recent trial for receiving internet pornography
and the publicity for the film Hannibal. There is good research that shows
the "memories" of abuse are produced in and by the
therapy."
It would be helpful now to everyone, especially those charged with the
protection of children, if the debate about whether or not ritual abuse
exists were drawn to a close. Allegations of Satanism should be directed
where they belong - at the horror films and videos that almost certainly
triggered the scare a decade ago, and have fostered it ever since.
*****
British police discover more
child abuse horror on internet, by Jeremy Laurance, The Independent
A further insight into the extent of child abuse and exploitation
published on the internet was revealed yesterday when British detectives
said they were trying to close a website showing pictures of a man eating
a dismembered baby.
Scotland Yard is liaising with the FBI in the US to close the website,
based in California, which has been linked with the ritual abuse of children.
Last night the website was still accessible.
The discovery of the site comes just a week after seven British men were
jailed for their involvement in the Wonderland paedophile ring.
While this site was not specifically uncovered by Operation Cathedral
which investigated the ring, British detectives are currently at the forefront
of efforts to close it down. A second website showing similar scenes of
sadistic and ritualistic abuse has been successfully shut.
The existence of the websites was revealed by two patients at the Clinic
for Dissociative Studies based in London's Harley Street and run by Valerie
Sinason, a psychotherapist who specialises in the treatment of adult survivors
of child abuse.
Dr Sinason has attracted controversy in the past over her claims that
some children are abused in Satanic rituals involving ceremonies and animal
or human sacrifice. She submitted a report on her claims, based on the
treatment of 51 patients, to the health department last July, which funded
her research. Other researchers have disputed her claims. Professor Jean
La Fontaine, who carried out a separate study also funded by the health
department, found no evidence of ritual abuse.
The Metropolitan Police have provided an officer to work with Dr Sinason's
clinic for half a day a month to investigate claims of abuse made by patients.
Detective Inspector Clive Driscoll, a specialist in paedophile crimes,
said he was working with colleagues in America to track the origin of
the picture of the man eating the baby. The website, which acknowledges
that the act pictured "is unlikely to be legal under any jurisdiction"
says it received the pictures from an anonymous source but they were "probably
taken in Hong Kong or Japan".
Mr Driscoll said: "The pictures are awful. It is your worst nightmare
unfolding in front of you. I took them to a very senior forensic pathologist
- a man I have a lot of faith in - and he looked me in the eye and said:
These are the pictures I hoped I would never see.' For me it's a murder
scene because I don't know how that child died. That is why I have got
massive concern about it and I think something should be done about it."
Dr Sinason said: "I heard accounts of the websites from two different
survivors of abuse who didn't know each other. It is a further sign that
if you want to do anything bizarre you will get away with it because no
one will believe it or speak about it."
*****
Just Joan, Agony Aunt "I've been accused of
being a pervert" - The Scottish Daily Record
Q: WHEN I was 25 - I am now nearly 60 - I lived with an older
woman and her daughter. To begin with, I was only the lodger, but she
made a play for me and back then, when someone offered you sex, you grabbed
it.
She was also a nice woman and she taught me a lot. I got on okay with
the girl, who was 11 or 12, although as far as she was concerned, I was
just lodging with her mum and wasn't a boyfriend.
Our relationship lasted a couple of years until I met a woman of my own
age and we married. There was no ill feeling between me and my ex.
I have since divorced and re-married and never gave the woman a thought.
But last week, I got a letter from her daughter in which she accused me
of sexually abusing her all the time I stayed with her mum.
She says unless I admit it, she will go to the police. I swear I never
touched her. My wife says she believes me, but I heard her tell her son
not to bring his wee girl round unless she was there.
I wrote to the woman and denied it, but I got another disgusting letter
back. How do I clear my name?
A: TO be accused of this terrible thing when you are innocent
is appalling. I've only got your word for it, but I am willing to believe
you. I'm sure your wife does as well.
Of course you're hurt because of what she said to her son, but no- one
can afford to take any chances these days so I can't blame her, but you
should talk about it so she understands how bad this made you feel.
As for the woman who has made these allegations, should she carry out
her threat to go to the police, I would be surprised if it went to court.
For advice from others who have been in a similar situation, contact
the British False Memory Society, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1NF.
Tel: 01225 868682.
*****
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