The following report appears in the Swindon Advertiser
A 20-YEAR-OLD woman who wasted more than 200 hours of police time when she lied about being raped has been ordered to repay the community.
Limara Crewe, of Conan Doyle Walk, Liden, was told to do 150 hours of unpaid work when she appeared at Swindon Magistrates' Court yesterday [16th may 2006]
The court heard that officers spent five days hunting three men of Eastern European appearance after the young mum concocted her story.
They carried out door-to-door inquiries and viewed hours of CCTV in a bid to catch the culprits, dedicating 222 hours to the case.
More than £500 was spent on medical tests alone after Crewe, pictured left, reported the phoney attack in Cambria Bridge Road on March 18.
Prosecuting, Marion Langford, said that police began to suspect she was lying when witnesses came forward with contradicting information.
Ms Langford said: "All in all considerable work and effort on the behalf of the police force was put behind this inquiry.
"She gave a very detailed account of what happened.
"She was given ample opportunity to withdraw the allegations but she still maintained that this rape occurred."
Officers' inquiries led them to a taxi driver and one of Crewe's friends who disputed her tale.
"In due course witnesses did come forward but witnesses that led police to believe the circumstances were not as she had said."
A taxi driver said that he had taken Crewe, another woman and two men to an address in Odstock Road, Penhill.
The woman at that address said that she had heard Crewe having sex with one of the men in a bedroom and thought nothing of it.
"There was nothing to support this defendant's story," Ms Langford said.
"Police time was obviously diverted away from other genuine inquiries to concentrate on what was a very serious allegation."
Crewe was arrested on March 23 on suspicion of wasting police time and said to the officers: "I can't believe this. I was so drunk. I can't really remember what happened."
When she was cautioned she said: "I'm just really sorry for wasting your time."
In police interview Crewe said that she had lied about the area and the offenders but maintained she had been raped by the man she went to the house with in Odstock Road.
Police are not investigating any further rape allegation.
Defending, Rob Ross, said that his client had been embarrassed about what happened that night.
"It's a sad case because you have a young woman in front of the court who has to be sentenced for her behaviour in acting very foolishly when she went to the police," he said.
"Thankfully she came clean quickly. Thankfully no-one was ever arrested.
"In some way it's a wake up call to her.
"Possibly it will be a wake up call for a lot of other people, that you don't need necessarily to go out and put yourself in a position where this sort of thing can happen.
Magistrates ordered Crewe to complete a 12-month community order.
She must also pay £511.73 compensation to the police for the money spent on medical tests and £73 court costs.
After the case Det Insp Mark Garrett, who headed the investigation, said: "Swindon police takes every rape allegation seriously and this case caused a dedicated team of detectives to be assigned and a lot of hard work and effort was put into the investigation.
"All cases proved to be false and malicious will be considered for prosecution but we still want to make sure that all attacks of a sexual nature are reported.
"They will be treated seriously and investigated thoroughly. The victim is paramount."
The following article by Gregg Lewis appears in Sec Ed
Incidents of suicide and attempted suicide by accused teachers, including some just days ago, have been highlighted at a conference addressing the subject.
Members of Falsely Accused Teachers and Carers are demanding fresh safeguards and the anonymity of the accused up until conviction.
They say urgent measures are needed to protect teachers from the “life-threatening” trauma of being accused of abuse. Speaking at the organisation’s spring conference on Saturday, Mike Barnes, national secretary of FACT, highlighted the number of teachers harming themselves after accusations.
He pointed to high profile cases such as those of David Baines, a north Wales support worker, and Alastair Wilbee, a headteacher on the Isle of Wight, who both killed themselves while under suspension.
“The trend of people looking to harm themselves once they have been accused seems to have been increasing,” he said. “In the days before our conference I know of two people falsely accused who attempted to take their own lives.
“The support systems that employers are supposed to put in place are largely non-existent. Accused people are told they can’t have contact with their place of employment or the staff that worked with them and they’re left totally abandoned.
“Although the government has said that people who are suspended should be given support, it rarely happens.”
The 200 conference delegates heard calls for schools to make health and safety risk assessments of false accusations. There was also widespread support for the accused to have anonymity right up to the point of conviction.
“In the main there seems to be an acceptance that anonymity should be provided up to the point a person is charged, that’s the position that the home affairs select committee and government officials have said there’s an arguable case for,” explained Mr Barnes.
“As far as we are concerned that doesn’t go far enough. We think anonymity ought to last at least for the duration of the trial. It would be even-handed, as invariably the complainant gets anonymity and we see no logical reason why that shouldn’t be extended to those that are actually accused.”
The conference heard that a trend for senior teachers, including deputies and heads, to be accused might relate to “pupils resisting change in the school”.
Mr Barnes added: “It may well be that, for some, raised expectations of pupils’ behaviour is creating a climate of resentment.”
Chris Keates, general secretary of National Association of School masters and Union of Women Teachers, said last week:
“It’s become common to have reported to me that children respond to teachers by saying, ‘I’m going to make an allegation against you and you will lose your job’. An allegation is seen as proof of guilt.”
Greg Lewis was a guest speaker at the F.A.C.T. Spring conference on the press and false accusations.
The following article appeared in the Warrington Guardian on 29th May
The scandalous past of Chaigeley School is being dragged up as former pupils prepare to sue over sexual abuse claims.
History will repeat itself as the Thelwall boarding school is again accused of abusing pupils when civil papers are served tomorrow, Friday.
Abney Garden McDonald Solicitors are heading a legal case to gain compensation for child abuse on behalf of 20 people who attended the school.
The alleged incidents happened from the late 1970s to mid 1990s - a number of staff were investigated by police... (full story)
Can you help .....
Posted by News Editor
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
We have received this request from a sudent
My name is Paul Rees, and I am a 42 year old dual-qualified nurse working in the fields of mental health and learning disability. A few years ago I managed a low-secure unit in the private sector, looking after people with long histories of difficult and challenging behaviour, including a number of people with histories of making false accusations against staff. Having built a strong staff team who, in my opinion, were providing a very effective service, I had to sit back and watch the service disintegrate due to false allegations of physical and sexual abuse made against a number of staff, who were subsequently subjected to a protracted criminal investigation under POVA legislation.
Having moved on from this role, I am currently in the final stages of an MSc in Healthcare Management at the University of Glamorgan, and my dissertation is examining the negative impacts of POVA upon services and individual staff members. While I am obviously looking to gain my academic qualification, my ultimate goals would be to achieve publication, to stimulate further research into the problem, and to highlight to legislators and professional bodies that aspects of the policy are actually having a negative effect upon the lives of people whom the legislation purports to protect.
I was tehrefore wondering if it might be possible to post a message on your website asking for people who have been falsely accused under legislation to contact me, with a view to being interviewed about their experiences. It goes without saying that any information given would remain entirely anonymous, and would be used simply to identify common themes and the scale of the problem.
Many Thanks, Paul Rees.
The following article by Stefanie Marsh appears in the Times Times 2
A few years ago a celebrity endorsed recruitment campaign alleged that You Never Forget A Good Teacher. I was reminded of that claim this week when I saw Molly Gee clasping a photograph of her dead son, Darryl. Darryl Gee had died in prison while serving an eight-year sentence for allegedly having raped one of his students. “Allegedly”, because shortly after his premature death, Gee, a physically disabled former music teacher, had his conviction overturned when it emerged that his accuser, a girl of 11, made the whole thing up.
Even if Gee had never been convicted, his life would have been ruined by this vindictive and baseless lie. Any teacher accused (although not yet convicted) of wrongdoing by a student is legally identifiable — and will remain so if the Government rejects opposition calls for anonymity in the Commons tomorrow.
It’s true you never forget a good teacher. But more vividly I remember the teachers whose working lives we, a coven of girls, made a misery. They shared with Gee a chink in their armour: underconfident slumped shoulders or an unfashionable hairstyle. In the packs in which they socialise, teenage girls become fierce champions of bland conventionality. No bald patch, lisp or whispy moustache will escape their combined attention and censure. Unlike her male counterpart, a teenage girl is easily revolted. And what revolts her most is the thing that also most fascinates her in the world, anything to do with sex.
So it was that every one of our female sports teachers were accused of predatory shower-curtain twitching. We lobbed ink and tampons at an English teacher we despised for his supposed celibacy. Fourteen-year-old girls would brazenly excuse themselves from his lessons “because I’ve got my period”, or elaborately attach their bras to his chair, watching on spitefully while he spent the best part of The Mill on the Floss inexpertly unfastening them.
Although men were incontestably all “perverts”, every schoolgirl’s dream was to have an affair with a teacher. When an unpopular girl said she’d been to bed with her tutor she became a minor celebrity. Our ambivalence about sex was best demonstrated the day a man exposed himself to a group of us from inside his BT truck. We screeched with horror and disgust, but delightedly chased him around the block. The difference between then and now is that the scandal we made up and spread about our teachers was rarely taken seriously, even by us. We didn’t know about our rights and in truth we didn’t have rights the way children have had since 2000 when the 1998 Human Rights Act came into effect.
The idea that it might be demeaning to us, as some human rights groups have successfully argued, to be put in detention or to do lines or to be made to stand in the corner for bad behaviour was inconceivable then (although if we’d known about it we would have doubtless recognised the law as a convenient means for evading punishments or grinding a petty axe). Of course we hated the power our teachers held over us. It’s not hard to see how, her head full of hormones and her rights, a teenage girl ends up accusing her teacher of inappropriate behaviour.
Inappropriate behaviour is all she thinks about.
Add to this a generation of anxious parents who seem now to share with their teenage offspring a hypervigilance about the sexual proclivities of teaching staff. Guilty until proven innocent, as the current legislation on anonymity emphasises. A nursery school teacher friend of mine tells me about the rules implemented to allay parents’ own hysteria about sexual perverts. No sobbing toddler is allowed on to a teacher’s lap without an intervening cushion.
Why? In case my friend is harbouring a secret erection. This paranoia goes right through all schools.
It is 14 years since I left school but I still come into contact with plenty of school children. At a youth club at one of the council estates in my area I watched as a sea of pubescents were first frisked at the door for knives and then went on to display a range of anarchy and inarticulacy that made even the supervising adults who had grown up on the estate mutter darkly about the “youth of today”.
The staff showed me the results of a survey. From a long list of options — “further education”, “jobs”, “travel” and so on — the children were asked to rank them in order of priority. What preoccupied them most, it turned out, was the category that said “My rights”. Empowerment is all very well for grown-ups. But do we want our children to be empowered? Do children themselves want it? And if so, I say perhaps it’s not up to them. The number of allegations of physical and sexual assault made by pupils about their teachers has risen from 41 in 1991 to 192 in 2004. Only 69 of 1,782 complaints in the 10 years to 2005 led to a conviction. When a child cries wolf about a teacher it not only undermines the credibility of genuine victims but cripples the lives of the falsely accused.
I’m all for remembering good teachers. But what about the decent yet socially awkward teacher who will never be able to bury the memory of that one, very bad student?...
F.A.C.T. would like to thank all those who attended or supported our Spring conference in Birmingham yesterday. The three excellent speakers, Karen Booth a practising solicitor, Greg Lewis an investigative journalist and Mark Newby from the Historical Abuse Appeal Panel gave their address to a packed audience. The audience included a number of people recently released from prison who were attending their first F.A.C.T. conference.
The day was also topped off with a presentation to Molly Gee on her wonderful achievement in clearing her son's name. Molly gave a powerful and emotional address in which she thanked F.A.C.T. for all their support throughout her campaign. Needless to say she received a richly deserved standing ovation - the type of which many policticains can only dream about.
A full report of the conference will appear in the the next FACTion.
According to a report in todays Mail on Sunday nearly 1,500 innocent people have been wrongly branded as criminals by the Home Office, leading to them losing jobs or being barred from taking up courses.
Nearly 1,500 innocent people have been wrongly branded as criminals by the Home Office, leading to them losing jobs or being barred from taking up courses, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
In an extraordinary series of blunders, law-abiding citizens ranging from court ushers to teenage students have been labelled pornographers, thieves and violent robbers by the department's Criminal Records Bureau. The errors have led to people being refused jobs or university courses and even being threatened with the sack. Victims have to suffer the indignity of going to their local police station to be fingerprinted in order to prove they are not criminals. And incredibly the Home Office initially refused to apologise for this latest fiasco - and instead blamed the victims for having similar names and dates of birth to convicted criminals.
"This is not about the CRB making 'mistakes'," a spokesman said. "Where there has been a mismatch, it is because the individual's details are similar or even identical to someone else's conviction data on the Police National Computer." The 1,500 figure also represents only those who have successfully appealed in the past two years - suggesting that hundreds or even thousands more may have been wrongly labelled criminals without even knowing.
The revelation will pile further pressure on embattled Home Secretary John Reid, already under huge pressure after a senior Home Office mandarin admitted he did not have "the faintest idea" how many illegal immigrants were currently in Britain. Days later, five were found working as cleaners at the Home Office.
That followed the prisoner deportation fiasco which cost Charles Clarke his job and has seen his successor Dr Reid forced into a series of admissions about the true scale of the Government's failure to send foreign criminals home after the end of their sentences.
'Not our fault'
Despite its refusal to accept the blame for the latest blunder, the Home Office has quietly made a string of compensation payments to the people it has wrongly branded criminals.
The criminal records checks are made every time someone wants to take on any role - either paid or as a volunteer - which involves having access to children or vulnerable adults. As well as teachers, this includes minibus drivers, scout assistants and even parents who agree to take foreign exchange students into their homes.
The CRB is run by Capita, the IT firm with a string of major contracts from New Labour but an appalling record of problems and technical failures.
"Standard" checks, costing £29, are for all posts that involve contact with children or vulnerable adults and includes lawyers and accountants.
The £34 "enhanced" checks are for those with a far greater degree of access, like agency nannies, au pairs or babysitters, as well as teachers, care workers, registered childminders and sports coaches.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night lambasted the Home Office and said the fiasco added to the growing sense that the Government had simply lost control of the department.
"Every one of these errors could lead to an injustice and is therefore a disgrace,' he said. 'The fact that this Government admits to nearly 1,500 mistakes is very worrying because these reflect only the errors they have discovered, not ones where the injustice may have gone unnoticed."
'I had my fingerprints taken'
One of those whose lives have been ruined by the CRB is 19-year-old Emma Budd, from Maesteg, Glamorgan, who is still fighting to have her records amended after being wrongly accused of having two convictions for theft. She was rejected for two jobs teaching disabled children as a result of the mistake and has now spent almost two years trying to have the error rectified.
In 2004, she applied for a position at the National Children's Home and paid £34 for the CRB check - only to be told to her horror that she had two alleged "convictions" for theft.
Emma said: "I have never stolen anything in my life. But I was devastated - I felt like a criminal even though I knew I wasn't one. I disputed the results. I had to go down to the police station and have my fingerprints taken. It was mortifying."
She added: "The police blamed the Criminal Records Bureau for the mistake and the CRB blamed the police. It was all down to the bureaucracy. Nobody would take the blame."
Finally the police told her that her name had been cleared and she applied to work as a home carer - but to her amazement, the required criminal records check again listed her as a convicted thief.
She has now been reassured that her records have been amended but says she will not believe this until she sees it working in practice.
David Mansfield, 58, was prevented from taking up a post as an assistant for children with learning difficulties at a local college after the CRB wrongly identified him as a peddler of hardcore pornography.
Mr Mansfield, from Hertford, who spent a lifetime working in the transport division of the NHS before taking early retirement, said: "The CRB record claimed I had been convicted for selling hardcore pornography in Bournemouth in 1972. It was absolutely ridiculous.
"It was a horrible slur on my character and I was determined to clear my name. But you find you're dealing with a nebulous, faceless bureaucracy which makes it worse.
"It was hard work to get any replies and I was always chasing them. But I was determined to have my name cleared because it meant I would be debarred from doing any community or social or voluntary work.
"Eventually, the CRB admitted they had made a mistake and sent me £150 as an ex-gratia payment, but there was no apology."
Ironically, he spent the interim period working as a court usher after the college withdrew its job offer. Having cleared his name, Mr Mansfield now works as a learning support worker at the college.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We would apologise if people had to go through the whole dispute process and they had done nothing wrong. In cases where this has gone on longer, those would be instances of maladministration and compensation would be paid and that is what has happened in these cases."
He added: "If it turns out it was somebody of the same name with very similar details, we have to sort that out later.
"But we cannot risk giving a clean bill of health when there has been a direct hit from a search on the police national database."
...
Articles in The Times
Posted by News Editor
Sunday, May 21, 2006
There have been some very supportive and understanding articles in The Times concerning people who are factually innocent of allegations of alleged child abuse. These include article on Thurday 18th May by Camilla Cavendish titled How Can This Happen Here in which she says
"... I dont know quite how we have created a situation where [child] abuse has become the default diagnosis in the case of the unexplained ... the only way to avoid miscarriages of justice must be to throw open these decvisions to thorough scrutiny"
and another one on Friday 19th concerning the cases of Daryl Gee and Charlie King. There is also an excellent leader which is reproduced below
Telling tales
Teachers deserve the same protection as their accusers
The rising tide of unfounded malicious allegations against teachers has a host of consequences. It can wreck the lives of innocent teachers who are forced to endure lengthy suspensions in the glare of publicity. It makes people even more wary of teaching as a career. And it fuels the impression that children and parents can lie and get away with it.
Schools are right to take allegations seriously. Children with a genuine grievance must know that they will always be heard. But it is time to redress the balance between teachers and those who set out to wreck their careers: by granting teachers anonymity while they are under investigation.
The figures are staggering. Of 2,210 accusations of physical or sexual abuse recorded by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers in the past 15 years, only 88 — less than 4 per cent — have led to a conviction. More than 80 per cent of cases have never come to court: the police have decided there is either insufficient evidence to mount a case, or no truth in the allegation. The vast majority of cases are utterly without foundation.
Allegations are made not only by pupils but also by parents, some of whom hope for compensation. Others wilfully misunderstand their child’s story and go straight to the police without checking with the school. In the case of Pamela Mitchelhill, the head teacher whose case attracted enormous publicity when she was accused of slapping a six-year-old girl three years ago, the pupil did not mention any assault in her police interview.
Once an allegation is made, a head teacher has no choice but to alert the police and social services. While these bodies investigate, teachers endure suspension, alienation and ridicule. There is surely no reason for them also to endure the glare of publicity. Teachers should be accorded the same privilege as their pupils, whose identities are kept confidential. Only if they are found guilty should they be named. It is a tragedy that teachers have killed themselves while under investigation, protesting innocence but unable to bear the stigma.
Government guidance currently advises schools, local authorities and the police to keep names private. But teacher unions feel this does not go far enough. A Conservative amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill seeks to provide statutory anonymity. Ministers are understandably concerned about creating a precedent for teachers. But there are very strong grounds for considering them as a special case.
If anonymity is not guaranteed, the National Association of Head Teachers says that it will support teachers who sue for defamation. But few will want to take that step. It is, nevertheless, quite wrong that there are no repercussions for those who make these allegations. They should surely be treated as serious disciplinary offences that could lead to expulsion.
Last month a jury took less than an hour to clear a teacher who had been suspended for 18 months after being falsely accused of groping a pupil. The girl is thought to have made up the claims in an attempt to postpone an exam for which she had not prepared properly. This is an unacceptable state of affairs. Cases should be resolved more speedily, and teachers should know that at least they will not have to suffer public ignominy as well as malice at the school gate.
According to a report in the Herts, Essex News a man whio falsey accused a barman of rape has been sent to prison for 18months.
The gay barman from Bishop's Stortford who falsely accused another man of raping him has been sentenced to 18 months' jail for perverting the course of justice.
Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Barbara Mensah told Daniel Schwan, 29, of Edinburgh Gardens, his lies about being attacked by Jeffrey Slominski in November 2004 had destroyed the latter's standing in society.
Schwan, who worked at Chicago Rock Café in Anchor Street, told police he had been raped by Slominski after a night out at the town centre bar on November 18 and maintained the allegation throughout his own trial.
But evidence from eyewitnesses and a taxi firm, which took Mr Slominski home to Sheering that evening, proved the two men could not have been in the same place at the time Schwan claimed the assault occurred.
On Tuesday, Mr Slominski, 26, told the Observer he was satisfied with the result. "He deserved it," he said. "It's not just me; it's the justice system he has messed around." In the wake of the rape allegation, he suffered verbal abuse and threats of violence in the street.
"I had a sentence myself for 18 months, waiting for the trial, and now it's his turn to do his sentence and his is going to be much harsher than mine," he added. "He is going to learn his lesson the hard way." He said his name had finally been cleared.
His sentiments were echoed by Det Sgt Richard Thomson, from British Transport Police, who investigated with Dc Basil Dias. The sentence, he said, reflected the gravity of Schwan's lies and the fact he wasted weeks of police time.
"I still haven't got to the bottom of why Daniel Schwan actually did it," he said. "We have to remember that if it hadn't been such an implausible story, it may well have been that Mr Slominski could have stood in the dock for raping him, with the chance that he could have been found guilty - we shouldn't overlook that."
Full story
You may have read a F.A.C.T. report of news item on the 24th April which comments on a report, backed by MPs, of concerns that innocent parents were being accused of child abuse, and that the hunt for 'abusers' was out of control.
You might like to know that there is now a Cross Party Group of concerned MPs who intend to look at this issue more closely.
F.A.C.T. understands that the All Party Group have a meeting on the 16th May when they will meet a respected medical figure and discuss whether Government guidelines have gone too far. The Chair of the group is Dr Richard Taylor an independent MP [email] [website]
Why not ask you MP to support this initiative and join the All Party Group. You can find your MP's email address here
There is a report by Steve Henshaw in the SecEd magazine of an increase in accusation made by former pupils. The article says;-
Teachers are facing increasing incidents of former pupils making false accusations against them years after leaving school.
Anything from accusations of sexual abuse and physical assault to allegations that failure to recognise problems such as dyslexia have adversely affected their careers.
Bob Carstairs, assistant general secretary with the Association of School and College Leaders, says in most cases a robust and direct defence sees the allegations collapse before reaching a courtroom.
Mr Carstairs feels the whole issue of allegations has been exacerbated by firms of solicitors, which encourage accusations.
“It’s getting more and more common. More increasingly nowadays people who left school get advised by some firm of solicitors or local community organisations that they have suffered because of whatever happened at school.
“They say a reading disability wasn’t recognised at school and they come back aged 28 and say they could have got a better job if it had been recognised.”
Mr Carstairs says ASCL is handling a handful of these kinds of cases and allegations are split 50-50 between those of sexual abuse and physical assault. Allegations that failure to recognise disabilities form a third string of cases.
“A lot of the difficulty is getting proper evidence together from the accusers and as such a lot of these cases collapse once they realise we’re putting forward a robust defence.”
Mr Carstairs says headteachers and deputies also have to deal with children’s parents who unquestioningly take their child’s side and come “steaming” into school to confront staff. “It’s a symptom of this shift from family values,” he adds.
Surveys by the Teacher Support Network around this subject show some alarming statistics.
Around 16% of teachers have experienced discrimination or harassment from pupils’ parents as a result of their sexual orientation while 15% of teachers would consider leaving the profession because of parental aggression or demands. Around 12% of teachers say they have been abused or assaulted by parents.
Sec Ed also have a Dont Abuse My Name campaign and have a downloadable poster which is suitable for display in schools and staff rooms.
Their web site also includes a number or relevant articles which are well worth reading. These include
According to an article in
News Shopper a teenage falsely accused of rape is set to join the police after they helped clear his name. Nineteen-year-old Ben Guerin has applied to the Met to become a Police Community Support Officer, 10 months after a girl told police he raped her after a party in March 2003.
In the time since Jemma Taggart, aged 19, made up the allegation, Mr Guerin has feared for his life and the safety of his family. The former Ravensbourne School pupil was attacked with a glass bottle on the doorstep of his home by someone claiming to be Taggart's boyfriend.
He was worried the man would come back and attack his family at his home in Launcelot Road, Grove Park, when he was out. Mr Guerin's social life and relationships have also been destroyed by the allegations .....
..... Taggart, of Reading Court, Grove Park, was found guilty of making a false declaration tending to pervert the course of justice at Croydon Crown Court on April 27. She was granted bail until June 1 and warned by Judge Cedric Joseph a prison sentence is almost inevitable.
Mr Guerin thinks prison could be good for Taggart. He said: "I feel her problems stemmed from her family and I feel custody will be good for her. "She's committed herself to a life sentence because this will stick with her, which I'm pleased about. People won't trust her....."
..... Mr Guerin now has a 16-week wait to hear whether the Met will accept him. He eventually wants to become a police officer. He said: "I have just submitted my application to join because of everything they were able to do. "I was impressed with their professional decisions and I felt I wanted to be a part of that."
Full story
The following report by
Michelle L. Start appears on the on the News-Press web site (Originally posted on May 02, 2006)
Charged with safeguarding the state's most vulnerable children, protective investigators spend more time tracking down unsubstantiated abuse reports than legitimate calls.
Of the 7,580 abuse reports the Department of Children & Families received in 2005 for District 8, there were indications of abuse 950 times. In 62 percent of the cases, though, investigators found there was either no abuse or no indication of abuse. District 8 includes Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties.
"The majority of it is custody cases," said Bob McHarry, operations manager for the Department of Children & Families' District 8. "They're bitter custody battles. It's family. You get the allegation, and it's clear that's what is going on when you are doing the investigation."
For every abuse call, investigators must go through extensive steps that include examining prior reports, meeting with the alleged victim and all household members, looking through medical records, talking to people who know the family, meeting with the Child Protection Team and talking to law-enforcement officers.
Within 48 hours of receiving the call, the investigator must determine the risk to the child. Within 45 days, documents have to be submitted to a supervisor for final review. Within 60 days of a report, the case needs to be closed one way or another. "All of the same steps have to be taken," said Tina Morgan, operations management consultant II for DCF District 8.
There is one exception to the rule, but it is quite rare. In those cases, there can be no prior reports, no evidence, no allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, exposure to substances, domestic violence or medical neglect, the victim cannot be younger than 3 or have a disability or inability to communicate. "It could be a report of a dirty home where the child is over 3," Morgan said. "And even with on-site investigations, there are still things they have to do."
The process is time-consuming for a department that has about 70 child protection investigators, particularly when more than half the calls are unsubstantiated and a portion of those are fraudulent reports. State attorney spokeswoman Cheri Avery said false reporting is a third-degree felony, but it is difficult to prove in court. "First, you have to prove that it was indeed that person who filed the report," she said. While reporters give contact information, Avery said it is possible for it to be fraudulent, as well.
"We would also have to prove there is no abuse going on," Avery said, "and ... that the reporter knew there was no abuse going on and made the report maliciously." DCF spokeswoman Coral Conner felt it had a case, officials there would turn it over to the local law-enforcement agency that would then have to prove the various aspects. "What it comes down to is the reporter has to say it was a false report or there has to be evidence that it was a false report," Conner said.
Acknowledgement
A Midland headteacher has led calls for schools to consider legal action against pupils who falsely accuse their staff of abuse.
The National Association of Head Teachers wants moves to target a test case to go before the courts to set a legal precedent.
Such action would help deter parents and children from deliberately levelling malicious accusations at teachers in future, heads argued.
Delegates at the NAHT annual conference yesterday unanimously backed a motion urging the union's leaders to investigate how to sue pupils or their families.
Michael Murphy, from Corpus Christi Primary School in Wolverhampton, said teachers who are victims of false allegations had to suffer "public humiliation, gossip and rumour" and the fear of losing their jobs (more)
It will not have escaped FA.C.T member's notice that the recent statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister in respect of his personal difficulties included the comment that:
"It is totally unacceptable for the Mail on Sunday and other newspapers to trawl through a long list of people - some hardly known to me, ex-staff members, family and friends - offering large amounts of money to make allegations without substance."
F.A.C.T. have of course been saying this for some years. Trawling or dip sampling as it known is an abomination and an affront to justice.
Perhaps The Deputy Prime Minister will now convey his views to the Prime Minister and to the Home Secretary.
For fuller quotes of Mr Prescott' statement see
The Times
Guardian Unlimited
Observer
BBC
Sky News
FACT Spring Conference
Posted by News Editor
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Deatails of the F.A.C.T. Spring Confrence can be found on our
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According to a report in the Irish Examiner on the 30th March by Vivion Kilfeather a Supreme Court Judge has called for a change in the procedure that would allow the disclosure to the prosecution of all material relating to old cases of alleged child sexual abuse. The reports says:-
A Supreme Court judge has called for a change in procedure that would allow full disclosure, to defending lawyers, of all material relating to old cases of alleged child sexual abuse.
Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said a special jurisprudence has arisen in relation to child sex abuse allegations, in which prosecutions are routinely permitted after a lapse of time that would not normally be allowed.
He said that the decision to allow the trials of very old cases carried with it a positive duty to take steps to ensure a fair trial.
“Lapse of time undermines memory and often makes it difficult or impossible to challenge the complainant’s account, in any detailed way, or to find evidence with which to contradict him or her,” he said.
The judge added that, as the law stands, the elaborate procedures for discovery in civil cases do not apply to criminal cases, and, despite the recommendations of a working group in 2003, no provision has been made for preliminary hearings to address these problems.
Referring to the recent Nora Wall case, where a nun was wrongly convicted of the rape and indecent assault of a 10-year-old girl in Waterford, the judge said: “Moreover, the courts have had recent experience of disturbing cases of grave shortcomings in disclosure. The included non-disclosure of the fact that a prosecution witness had previously made a dubious allegation of rape against another party.”
Mr Justice Hardiman said that it was his view that, until a satisfactory provision for disclosure or discovery in criminal cases comes into being, applicants were entitled to raise the question of disclosure in judicial review proceedings.
“It appears to me that an applicant in an old sex abuse case may be entitled to sight of all statements in the nature of complaints or disclosures of alleged abuse.
“It will clearly be of the greatest importance to establish if there is consistency over time in the complaints made, or if they evolved over time, and, if so, why.”
The judge’s remarks were made during a Supreme Court dismissal of an attempt to halt his trial by a man accused of – more than 20 years ago – raping his niece and sexually assaulting his nephew.
The five-judge court unanimously ruled that the delay in reporting the alleged offences had been explained, that it did not deprive the man of a fair trial and that the non-disclosure of material was not a reason for prohibiting his trial.
Vivion Kilfeather, Irish Examiner
SAFARI
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
In this issue
- Derby City Council apologises to wrongly accused father - and pays out!;
- Ian & Angela Gay have their conviction for manslaughter overturned;
- definitions of malfeasance and misfeasance; g
- ender issues in report writers; how to complain;
- check your Oasys file;
- plea bargaining - follow the cardinal rule!;
- IEPS: Lobby your MP;
- join the SAFARI campaign for changes in the law; and more!
There have been several reports in the Press concerning David Willetts call for teachers to be protected against malicious allegations by being given a statutory based anonymity during investigations.
Reports can be found in the The Times (here), the Telegraph (here) , The Daily Express (here), Financial Times (here) and on the NUT web site (here) and the BBC (here)