F.A.C.T.

Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers

Fighting injustice – lobbying for change

Paying the Price – the false allegation tradegy

An article by Iris Jensen

The Compact English Oxford Dictionary defines disaster as: a sudden accident or a
natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life; an event or fact leading to
ruin or failure.
Whenever we think of a disaster, we tend to think of the former definition, as something
that comes about quite unexpectedly, leaves a trail of chaos in its wake and affects a
number of people at one time. In fact, for the majority of people, disaster is more likely
to be events or facts that lead to ruin or failure. Sometimes the likely outcome can be
foreseen and dreaded. Steps may be taken to try to avert it, but like an unstoppable
avalanche of misery and woe, the events finally overtake the victim who ultimately has
to succumb to the inevitable.
What an apt description of what has happened to so many victims of false accusations of
abuse, particularly historic allegations. These people suffered from the moment an
allegation was made against them. They did all in their power to convince the police and
local authorities that there were no grounds for the accusations; they complied with all
that was required of them; they cooperated fully, as law abiding citizens do, particularly
when they know that they have done nothing wrong, content in the knowledge that the
truth and British Justice would protect them. But despite all this, they came to realise,
more and more clearly as the time dragged on, that the inevitable was going to happen.
No matter how hard they fought against it, no matter who was prepared to speak up for
them to explain that the alleged offences could not have happened and did not happen,
without concrete and irrefutable evidence to prove that non-events did not take place
some twenty or thirty years earlier, they would to be labelled as paedophiles, and for the
rest of their lives, would pay the price. The truth and British Justice had forsaken them.
The former type of disaster is usually headline news for days, whether it is a coach or a
rail crash, or some other tragedy that has occurred to take the lives of several people, to
seriously injure many more and to distress and traumatise an even greater number. The
names and often photos of the victims are published together with heartrending stories
of their grieving families left behind. Those whose lives have been wrecked by their
injuries are also given publicity and an inquiry is held so that whoever is deemed
responsible is ‘made to pay’.
The latter type of disaster does not receive general headline news though some
components of it may be individually headlined for a while. Perhaps the most bizarre
thing about this type of disaster is the strange phenomenon it generates - the victims of
it are vilified, whilst those causing the pain and misery are hailed as heroes, to be
compensated and treated with kid gloves.
This is precisely what has happened in the disaster created by false allegations of abuse
against carers, teachers, nursery workers, youth club leaders and parents. When the
allegations are of a historic nature, it compounds the problem in that the greater the

Page 1
time lapse between when the assaults are said to have occurred and the allegations are
made, the more difficult it is to prove innocence. This highlights another strange
phenomenon in that anyone accused of assaulting a child, whether physically or
sexually, is immediately assumed to be guilty until they can prove their innocence. The
long honoured and much vaunted basic principle of British Justice, that of being innocent
until proved beyond all reasonable doubt to be guilty, does not apply to them.
This particular disaster has all the components of any disaster and the inevitability of a
Greek tragedy. From the moment the first allegation of assault within a children's
establishment was reported, (whether that particular one was true or false), in the
current climate of drama, hysteria and the popular need for vicarious thrills, a monster
was created. This monster has gathered up victims in its wake, regardless of the
possibility, or even probability of their innocence, it has been fed by the need for
investigators to prove that they were not ignoring the perceived needs of the
underprivileged, nurtured by the prejudices of the investigators and given validity and
respectability by the testimony of self-styled experts and those with no knowledge of the
times or circumstances that pertained when the abuses were said to have occurred. Just
in case this monster seemed likely to falter, the added incentives of massive cash
compensation and the promise of reduced prison sentences were added to desires for
revenge among those who adopted the monster as their own when other sources of
gratification and remuneration were unavailable These claims are, of course, consistently
denied by the various authorities and agencies concerned but there is ample proof to
substantiate them.
The false allegations tragedy, like any other tragedy has left bereaved families in its
wake. A causal link can be traced between many deaths and false allegations. There
have been instances of the shock of being accused proving fatal, of men taking their own
lives, trying to protect their families from the shame and humiliation that inevitably
follows such an allegation, even though it has no substance whatsoever. Some people,
when falsely accused, have just given up, being unable to continue with the unfair and
impossible struggle to prove their innocence against deeply entrenched prejudice. In
other instances, it is a close family member, often a husband or wife, for whom the
ordeal has proved too much and they have succumbed to the overwhelming pressure.
For the survivors, the tragedy has been as disastrous and life changing as any physical
injury or trauma could possibly be and has had an equally deleterious effect on their
entire families. From the moment a false allegation is made, the accused is suspended
from his or her job and should a close family member also work with children, that
person’s job will also be under review, if not actually lost. Local media will probably give
publicity to the case and should the accusations be sufficiently scandalous, it will be
taken up by national media. Many accusations are known to be promoted and by the
time they have been ‘investigated’ by representatives of various agencies, each of
whom brings his or her own personal ideologies and biases to bear, the original
allegation, (whether true or false), would be unrecognisable.
Extreme instances have been the satanic abuse allegations, where so-called experts
have given credibility to outrageous claims. Many of the claims have not only been
denied by the accused parents but also by the children said to be the victims. However,
because such denials did not fit in with the perceptions of those with ‘expert knowledge’
of such events and because many of the public were only too happy to accept the gutter
press assertions that ‘such things’ went on, families were split up. Screaming children
had to be physically removed from loving parents; parents grieved for their children
while they were in prison where, despite Home Office denials, those suspected or
convicted of sexual assaults on children, (even when there is no tangible proof of their
guilt), are treated very differently by authority and also by other prisoners, no matter
how vicious or violent their own crimes may have been. The fallacy of the
unsubstantiated claims of satanic abuse was finally established, but not before whole
families had suffered irreversible harm and the parents, whilst fully vindicated, will
Page 2
always carry the “scars” in the form of their own fears and the suspicions of others, from
which they will never be entirely free.
National media attention is not usually something that victims of false allegations have
to endure, but the local media can be just as intrusive and damaging. It is not unusual
for someone who has been arrested to be named and should charges follow, for each
one to be published. In many instances, the case is not proceeded with, but readers and
viewers are left with the impression that the named person must have been guilty since
they have seen nothing to contradict this impression. Many employers, including local
authorities and charities, are then loath to reinstate the person in their former position.
If the case is brought before a court and the person acquitted or even if the case is
dismissed, they insist on holding their own inquiry and refuse to re-employ the person to
work with children. This attitude naturally has a knock-on effect on efforts to secure any
other employment and many of the victims are never able to work again.
For those who are convicted by a jury who has watched a drama unfold, in which truth,
evidence and justice play no part, but histrionics, lies, pathos and blatant emotionalism
take their place, a whole new horror awaits. Being treated differently in prison does not
only mean that they sometimes suffer severe physical abuse, which prison officers may
ignore, or sometimes promote, it means that the normal procedure of being eligible for
parole when half the sentence has been served does not automatically happen for those
convicted of sexual abuse. In fact some men are never granted parole and have to serve
two thirds of their sentence until they are entitled to mandatory release, provided there
is nothing adverse in their record. They are of course still subject to licence until the
expiry of the term of their sentence as they would be had they been granted parole.
Parole depends on a number of factors which are taken into consideration by the Parole
Board, the major one being risk assessment although a body of research has shown the
Parole Board’s assessment of risk to be fundamentally flawed. If the prisoner has not
attended the various courses designed to help him come to terms with his offending and
help him to admit his guilt and indeed, if he is still protesting his innocence, (as an
innocent man would), he is deemed to be ‘in denial’ and considered to pose a greater
risk than someone who admits his guilt.
Research by Hood, Shute et al shows the exact opposite to be true. Despite the
strenuous efforts most men make to be paroled, there are many who admit that there
have been times when they have wished they were back in prison. Their treatment at
the hands of the Probation Service has been demeaning and has taken no account of
their rights as a human being. The innocent men who have continued to protest their
innocence when told to complete tests designed get them to acknowledge their guilt,
have been threatened with a return to prison.
There are of course, a whole group of other victims caught up in all this and who will also
pay the price for being related to, or remaining friendly with, a kind, caring, honest and
loyal person who had the grave misfortune of being falsely accused of a crime abhorrent
to society. How often do those caught up in a disaster speak of “being in the wrong
place at the wrong time?” The victims of the false allegations tragedy most certainly
were “in the wrong place at the wrong time”. The question is: was the wrong place the
care home, nursery or school when they were caring for youngsters who needed them,
or was it being part of a society some years on when greed, dishonesty, malpractice and
the total lack of fairness and justice abounded?
The false allegations tragedy is not a tragedy that occurred in one heartrending moment,
but has unfolded over many years. If it were possible to quantify the total number of
victims this tragedy has claimed to date, it would be clearly seen to be one of the
greatest man-made tragedies in British history and one for which so many innocent
people are still paying the price.

Page 3
I. M. Jensen B.A. (Hons.)

Page 4