Ritual abuse accused win compensation

[biaothanatoi]

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-sex-abuse-lies-that-ruined-a-family/2005/07/05/1120329448447.html" target="top">The sex abuse lies that ruined a family</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>I’m not weighing in on whether the accused are guilty or not – I know from experience that police investigations are more complex and ambiguous, and unearth more, then can be covered in a newspaper article.<br><br>However, I find a few things interesting:<br><br>The oldest daughter’s allegations of ritual abuse are supported by her three sisters. The judge finds the children’s claims ‘inconsistent’ and ‘implausible’ – although a shattered narrative and inhibited recall is characteristic of severe trauma-related disorders. What would a five-year-old released from Auschwitz sound like, if they had been there since birth? <br><br>The investigating police officer is blamed for reading a book on ritual abuse. Shall we presume that no police officer should do research on a case he is working on? Where is the link between reading a book and the disclosure of the children? How did he ‘transmit’ the contents of a book to four children, one of whom made her initial disclosures before meeting him? Is there any other area of law enforcement and criminology in which research equates to 'contamination'? <br><br>The judge links one child’s deeply disturbed emotional and psychological state to the investigation itself (!) although some charges and arrests made against both parents were found to be lawful, and the children were removed from their parent’s care after manifesting sexually inappropriate behavior. Are we to presume that incestuous behaviour is the direct result of a police investigation?<br><br>I also note one child’s disclosure that she was “sexually abused during menstruation” – see my last (and mildly controversial) post. <p></p><i></i>

[jenz]

I do not know the news item referred to, however it is well worn territory and may be a reason why Police fight so shy of pursuing ra cases with the vigour one would like, (ie. at all). I am aware of the details of a case (UK), where the perp, against whom charges were dropped, in a long convoluted mess of a case, has been given leave to sue Police. This is something of a first, and may create a precedent as far as I understand the legal twists. Normally, Police would not owe a 'duty of care' to a person in this man's position, but it has been allowed that he can sue, and make a case for the harm he says he suffered. The mainspring of ra is money. against the funds which these criminals can bring to bear to lawsuits, innocent parties have no chance. <p></p><i></i>

[Starman]

This case is deeply troubling (the link was given in Biao's posting), the story itself very-poorly written, but enough big flaws and inconsistencies stuck-out to question whether 'justice' was really served or, far more likley, it was an incredible perversion that covered-up the incredible crimes that happened -- why else would the children have been so terribly, deeply emotionally and psychologically disturbed? Again, this shows a tremendous institutional bias against giving sexual/RA abuse victims the benefit-of-doubt. Because it's so hard to prove, there ought to be greater emphasis on the appearance of something 'wrong'. ie., If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, one can make reasonable inferences that underneath the feathers it may well BE a duck.<br><br>That the police dept.s are grossly undertrained about how to identify and treat RA crimes is evident in the absurd discreditation of the investigation because the investigator read a book on Ritual Abuse. Good Gawd, he should have been familiar with dozens of books and articles and reports on the subject -- how else to recognize something as insidious and disguisable as RA crimes!<br><br>I dunno what THE 'answer' is, but the problem is severe. -- In the absence of rigorous investigation practices and direction for suspected RA cases, the granting of a clear bias supporting suits against malicious prosecution is going to provide a keen disincentive for rigorous prosecution of such cases -- which might be the hidden intent by powerful interests who exploit RA, to increase it's exclusion as a difficult, risky crime to prosecute. Something's really, really wrong.<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>

[tabasco1776]

Starman, you said: <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"this shows a tremendous <br>institutional bias against giving sexual/RA abuse victims <br>the benefit-of-doubt. Because it's so hard to prove, there <br>ought to be greater emphasis on the appearance of <br>something 'wrong'."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>But if something is hard to prove, do we <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>really</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> want <br>law enforcement to be giving everyone's story the benefit of<br> doubt? George W.Bush, as Governor of Texas, sent many <br>an innocent person to Death Row on the basis of some <br>accuser's "benefit of doubt". And the "appearance of <br>something wrong" can be easily found when you want it to <br>be.<br><br>I do think any reports of <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>any</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> crime - be it ritual abuse <br>or burglary - should be investigated by police and never, <br>ever, be swept aside just because it 'sounds weird'. This <br>applies to any other 'fringe' matter like UFOs, Men in Black,<br> etc.<br><br>Like most things in life, there is no real solution to the <br>problem. There are many people out there who are victims<br> of RA and cannot get anyone to listen to their stories. But <br>how do we separate them from the crazies, loonies, and <br>liars? Law enforcement agencies don't have the resources to<br> sort them all out, and I for one am not in favor of giving <br>law enforcement agencies any more funding and power than<br> they already have. <br><br>And sometimes, when something WANTS to be presumed to<br> be a duck, it will quack like a duck, waddle like a duck, and<br> wear feathers like a duck. <p></p><i></i>

[biaothanatoi]

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>But if something is hard to prove, do we really want law enforcement to be giving everyone's story the benefit of doubt?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>And this is the crunch. We don’t. It would be a disaster to demarcate a ‘special area’ around ritual abuse in which the burden of proof is lower, for the very reasons that Tabasco maps out. <br><br>No system will have perfect coverage across all the random ambiguities of life, and ritual abuse is one of those ambiguities that falls well outside the system for various reasons. It’s up to the non-government sector to create services that bridge the gap between the realities of ritual abuse and the demands of the system. <br><br>At the moment, the burden of proof is actually higher in cases of ritual abuse, so high that severely traumatized survivors cannot meet them. Our legal definition of ‘evidence’ has an empirical bias, but the legacy of torture is experiential, not empirical – the art of torture is never leaving a mark, hence the use of electrocution, near-drowning, etc. In short, our legal system was never designed to prosecute torture, and so it doesn’t. <br><br>However, if survivors were connecting with a framework of services that comprehensively met their needs, whilst non-intrusively collating evidence that could translate viably to other sectors (law enforcement, policy), then we can start to advocate for a more appropriate response at the top.<br><br>Jeanne and Linda at Persons Against RAT are collating one-paged statements from survivors and caregivers to take to the United Nations in 2006, and they are circulating a petition as well. If you are interested, you can contact them <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/contact.htm" target="top">here</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->. <p></p><i></i>

[Dreams End]

I went to the RAT site and I was not impressed with their "research". That is not to say that I discredit what the subjects of their "kitchen table research" had to say, but that this gathering of unsubstantiated narratives has no probative value. It may have value in terms of looking at commonalities assuming that the stories offered are true in the first place, but there's nothing there to convince even an open minded person that the phenomenon is real or is at all widespread.<br><br>What I'm curious about is whether anyone has done research in which RAT survivors' stories are substantiated as much as possible. Here is a link to one such research project, but it only involves "recovered" memories of sexual abuse with no ritualistic elements considered. What a surprise (not) , by the way, to find that these recovered memories are as reliable as continuous memories. The researchers went back to family members, physicians, etc to attempt to corroborate the recovered memories. They did quite often, even obtaining some confessions! <br><br>Note: this link is to a whole page of abstracts with similar conclusions but different methodologies. Some studies found records of reported abuse and then followed up years later to see the accuracy of memories. Some studies asked the participants who had recovered memories if they'd been able to corroborate those memories. Lots of good stuff to look over: <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/">www.jimhopper.com/memory/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><br>But there is absolutely no discussion of ritual abuse on this site. None. I find this rather flawed. Two types of studies could be done. One, that I proposed above, may be quite impractical or even dangerous, which is looking for confirmation of these stories (which don't actually have to be "recovered" memories at all, actually.) It does seem that there ought to be some way to go about this, however. Even simple things such as locating the places which the victim remembers being taken to. (I think of the McMartin "tunnels" which were never found...until someone actually bothered to look for them!)<br><br>The other is to find cases such as the recent Louisiana case that happened some years ago and were "proven" by law enforcement or some other evidence. That is to say, photos or physical evidence at the scene or perpetrator confessions. I know that this doesn't happen too often, but there are such cases, aren't there? News reports of such cases would be sketchy, but I'd be interested in interviews with victims to see how their stories gibe with those of people making "unsubstantiated claims". <br><br>I wonder about cases in which the perpetrators were found guilty but more "fantastical" elements were dismissed (as opposed to cases in which the whole case is dismissed due to the fantastical elements.) That is to say, there was clear evidence of abuse by a father, say and that father was prosecuted. However, the testimony of the victim indicated many other families and ritual elements which were dismissed as embellishments of a childish mind. Normally, I suspect, such "embellishments" result in dismissal of charges but are there times that some of the testimony is substantiated while the rest is dismissed. The above studies suggest that memories of the abuse are reasonably accurate, even when "recovered" later in life (by the way, by far most "recovered memories" are triggered in ways not involving therapy, by something on TV or in a movie, for example. I don't know that the FMSF has a position on these memories or not as there are no "bad therapists" involved.) So I would be inclined to give highest credence to such testimony.<br><br>I'm just thinking out loud, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of such research. The link above was surprising to me in terms of how much good research there is on "recovered" memories, despite the efforts of the FMSF. Is there such for RAT?<br> <p></p><i></i>