Steve Ogilvie Rape Conviction
Brian
I have received a copy of a press release from COSA
Casualties of Sexual Allegations :
Dr Felicity Goodyear Smith
President COSA
23 April 1998
Re: Steve Ogilvie Rape Conviction
On TV1 Assignment documentary tonight, the case was
presented of Steve Ogilvie, found guilty by a jury of
rape and imprisoned despite the qualms of Judge
Tompkins who said at the sentencing:
"at the delivery of the verdict, and afterwards, I
felt, and still feel some unease about the result"
Likewise, three Appeal Court judges were later to
report:
"if the decision on the facts rested with us we would
have to say it is indeed a case where it is difficult
to credit that events could have happened as stated
by the complainant without anyone else in the
house becoming aware that something untoward was
going on. However, all the matters in the dispute
were factual ones for the jury to resolve."
Because the jury had decided he was guilty, there was
nothing that either the trial judge or the appeal
judges could do to reverse the verdict.
The case rested on the uncorroborated story of a 16
year old girl about something she said had happened
nearly two years before when she was 14.
We heard tonight that her allegations against Steve
Ogilvie were preceded by accusations against his
nephew, who also adamantly denies them, but who never
had the chance to clear his name in court.
COSA has on file a number of cases where multiple
false accusations are made against alleged offenders.
Such serial accusers, who are often teenage girls
(for example in the case of Alan Rust), are able to
make such accusations with impunity, and are seldom
held accountable for the devastation they cause to
so many people's lives.
Allowing charges and convictions to be based solely
on uncorroborated evidence is one of the raft of
legal changes referred to by law lecturer Bill Hodge
on the TV documentary. Introduced to make the trial
process easier for the complainant, these have lead
to the situation where there is a presumption of
guilt whenever a sexual accusation is made. This is
epitomised by police policy to consider all complaints
as genuine, and to call the complainant "victim" and
the defendent "offender" as soon as the allegation
is made. The presumption of innocence is supposed to
be a foundation stone of our justice system, with
which we tamper at our peril.
As our Minister of Justice, Hon Doug Graham outlined,
where the only evidence is an uncorroborated story,
the case rests on whom the jury believes - the girl
who says she was raped or the man who says that it
never happened. Convictions should not depend on
belief, but on evidence. We are asking the impossible
of our juries to make such decisions.
COSA calls for the reintroduction of the requirement
for judges to caution juries about the dangers of
conviction in the absence of corroboration.
Brian
Dave McL
Brian wrote:
>
> On TV1 Assignment documentary tonight, the case was
> presented of Steve Ogilvie, found guilty by a jury of
> rape and imprisoned despite the qualms of Judge
> Tompkins who said at the sentencing:
> "at the delivery of the verdict, and afterwards, I
> felt, and still feel some unease about the result"
>
> Likewise, three Appeal Court judges were later to
> report:
> "if the decision on the facts rested with us we would
> have to say it is indeed a case where it is difficult
> to credit that events could have happened as stated
> by the complainant without anyone else in the
> house becoming aware that something untoward was
> going on. However, all the matters in the dispute
> were factual ones for the jury to resolve."
>
> Because the jury had decided he was guilty, there was
> nothing that either the trial judge or the appeal
> judges could do to reverse the verdict.
This cuts right to the heart of why I would do away with the jury system.
Under this fatally flawed system, even if the judge thinks the jury was
wrong, the judge, it seems, cannot overturn the jury's verdict.
Nor, it seems can the judges of the Court of Appeal.
What a mockery of "justice."
Juries are little more than lynch mobs, a dozen red-necked, idle,
prejudiced talk-back listeners.
Far better to have trials conducted by judge alone. Judges are trained in
the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
to bamboozle the jury.
Dave McL
Auckland New Zealand
"While Parliament is in session, no working person's income, nor anyone's
rights and freedoms, are safe from plunder by their elected
representatives."
.-- M.R. Johnson, April 22 1998
"Thank the byelection, Parliament isn't sitting this week, so we're safe
for a few days yet." .-- D.J. McLoughlin, April 23 1998.
Brian Harmer
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:10:27 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>This cuts right to the heart of why I would do away with the jury system.
(snip)
>Juries are little more than lynch mobs, a dozen red-necked, idle,
>prejudiced talk-back listeners.
Or alternatively, the jury is a dozen ordinary earnest citizens who would
rather be doing almost anything else, but who are doing their best in the
situation the law places them in.
>Far better to have trials conducted by judge alone. Judges are trained in
>the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
>bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
>to bamboozle the jury.
Fine upstanding practitioners like Judge Martin Beattie do you mean?
It seems to me that the potential for flawed justice is as real under both
systems. Judges are both as human and as fallible as the members of the
jury. They are of course better informed on matters of law, but that
doesn't put them in closer touch with Justice.
I listened to the minister of Justice this morning pontificating on the
notion that an acquittal doesn't prove the accused didn't do something. For
such a learned man, he seemed not to grasp that if the crown can't prove
the accused did it, the accused should not be penalised either in terms of
legal costs or time in jail. As it is, his position seems to be that if we
think he's guilty, he deserves all he gets.
I would guess that if Doug Graham had not been a minister of the crown, he
would have been a judge by now. Do I think his concept of "justice" is
better than that of 12 randomly selected citizens? Hell no!
Brian Harmer
(expressing his own view)
Dave McL
Brian Harmer wrote:
> Or alternatively, the jury is a dozen ordinary earnest citizens who would
> rather be doing almost anything else, but who are doing their best in the
> situation the law places them in.
With all due respect, Brian, in my experience, the only people who sit on
juries are those with nothing better to do with their time. Anyone else
opts out, or, if they look slightly intelligent, is challenged. Juries
are not juries of our peers.
>
> Fine upstanding practitioners like Judge Martin Beattie do you mean?
Not at all to defend his idea of legitimate expense claims, but actually
he was regarded as a good, fair judge. John Banks despised him, which is
a good recommendation to me.
> I would guess that if Doug Graham had not been a minister of the crown, he
> would have been a judge by now. Do I think his concept of "justice" is
> better than that of 12 randomly selected citizens? Hell no!
Doug Graham once said to me, in a conversation on this very kind of
topic, that he would rather have his rights protected by a judge than a
politician.
Of course you can get some awful judges, but you always get awful juries.
Eric Stevens
>I would guess that if Doug Graham had not been a minister of the crown, he
>would have been a judge by now. Do I think his concept of "justice" is
>better than that of 12 randomly selected citizens? Hell no!
The trouble is, they are not 12 randomly selected citizens. They are
12 citizens very carefully selected from a much larger number of
randomly selected citizens. Anf guess who selects them.
Eric Stevens
Chaos is found in the greatest abundance wherever order is being
sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organised.
-: Ly Tin Wheedle
Peter Kerr
Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:
> Far better to have trials conducted by judge alone. Judges are trained in
> the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
> bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
> to bamboozle the jury.
I would rather have a 2/3 verdict from a full bench, than one judge who
had a bad lunch...
--
Peter Kerr bodger
School of Music chandler
University of Auckland NZ neo-Luddite
rob
In article <353FCA...@iprolink.co.nz>, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>Under this fatally flawed system, even if the judge thinks the jury was
>wrong, the judge, it seems, cannot overturn the jury's verdict.
>
>Nor, it seems can the judges of the Court of Appeal.
>
>What a mockery of "justice."
>
>Juries are little more than lynch mobs, a dozen red-necked, idle,
>prejudiced talk-back listeners.
I've heard experiences from within juries from both ends of the scale:
red-necks vs a very stable-minded groups of people with clear understanding
of complex issues and practical common-sense. Never having been on a jury
myself, I can't comment, but it would, on the face of it, seem that you are
being somewhat broad-brushed in your position on this one.
>Far better to have trials conducted by judge alone. Judges are trained in
>the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
>bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
>to bamboozle the jury.
Too often we've seen that the outlook of many judges has been little more
than a personal view of the world (for example, bizarre comments regarding
women that have been raped as 'asking for it' by wearing skimpy clothing,
etc.).
Life isn't *always* like LA Law or Melrose Place David! :)
Rob
--
puf...@ihug.co.nzzz
remove zz from end of address to send email
Kerry C
Dave McL wrote in message <353FDC...@iprolink.co.nz>...
>Brian Harmer wrote:
>
--------snip--------
>With all due respect, Brian, in my experience, the only people who sit on
>juries are those with nothing better to do with their time.
Such cynicism! In my case and that of several others I came across, most
appeared to be merely volunteering to do one's bit for the system knowing
that you're going to be financially penalised but never-the-less willing
enough to shoulder that bit of responsibility to help the system work as
intended. Call such people ultruistic if you like.
Anyone else
>opts out, or, if they look slightly intelligent, is challenged. Juries
>are not juries of our peers.
A retired bank manager (then working in another field), a manager of an
internationally known hydraulics firm, two very businesslike women, a
housewife, a househusband, a process worker and an engineer, made up part of
the jury on which I sat. Is this too unusual? Maybe we all put on a stupid
look that day and got through the selection process.
>> Fine upstanding practitioners like Judge Martin Beattie do you mean?
>
>Not at all to defend his idea of legitimate expense claims, but actually
>he was regarded as a good, fair judge. John Banks despised him, which is
>a good recommendation to me.
>
>> I would guess that if Doug Graham had not been a minister of the crown,
he
>> would have been a judge by now. Do I think his concept of "justice" is
>> better than that of 12 randomly selected citizens? Hell no!
>
>Doug Graham once said to me, in a conversation on this very kind of
>topic, that he would rather have his rights protected by a judge than a
>politician.
>
I can understand your view on juries well enough, but on balance and despite
their shortcomings I am of the opinion that in the majority of cases there
is no better way. I would like there to be, but even having one's fate
decided by a trio of judges (as is the case in Malaysia - or is it
Singapore, or both?) has its shortcomings, IMO.
Kerry C.
Frank van der Hulst
Brian wrote:
> Introduced to make the trial
> process easier for the complainant, these have lead
> to the situation where there is a presumption of
> guilt whenever a sexual accusation is made. This is
> epitomised by police policy to consider all complaints
> as genuine, and to call the complainant "victim" and
> the defendent "offender" as soon as the allegation
> is made. The presumption of innocence is supposed to
> be a foundation stone of our justice system, with
> which we tamper at our peril.
It is standard practice (a lawyer told me in 50% of cases) for women
to accuse their ex-partners of sexually abusing their own children.
"In the best interests of the children" the children are effectively
separated from their father until the accusations have been
investigated. When the accusations are found to be baseless some
months later, it is found to be "in the best interests of the
children" that the status quo be maintained... ie the children remain
with the mother.
These reprehensible tactics almost inevitably result in the woman
gaining custody of their children, with absolutely zero repercussions.
Frank.
Dave McL
Brian Harmer wrote:
> I listened to the minister of Justice this morning pontificating on the
> notion that an acquittal doesn't prove the accused didn't do something. For
> such a learned man, he seemed not to grasp that if the crown can't prove
> the accused did it, the accused should not be penalised either in terms of
> legal costs or time in jail. As it is, his position seems to be that if we
> think he's guilty, he deserves all he gets.
Yes, one problem with Doug Graham is that he is totally captured now by
Crown Law office. And of course, as it is the Crown Law Office as "the
Crown" which prosecutes trials, everyone prosecuted must of course be
guilty, even if they are acquitted, because the Crown says so.
I don't know how anyone could have proved themselves more innocent than
David Dougherty.... after all, the Crown claims in trial after trial that
DNA is infallible. Yet still this utter wimp of a minister of "justice"
refuses to accept his innocence.
>Brian Harmer
> (expressing his own view)
Do you express someone else's views in any post without this disclaimer,
Brian????? <g>
Lyndon Watson
In article <6hp0m6$qfp$1...@fep5.clear.net.nz>,
"Kerry C" <k.coo...@clear.net.nz Remove the xyz> writes:
> Dave McL wrote in message <353FDC...@iprolink.co.nz>...
>> juries are those with nothing better to do with their time.
> A retired bank manager (then working in another field), a manager of an
> internationally known hydraulics firm, two very businesslike women, a
> housewife, a househusband, a process worker and an engineer, made up part of
> the jury on which I sat. Is this too unusual? Maybe we all put on a stupid
> look that day and got through the selection process.
Don't confuse Dave's prejudices with facts! He knows, just *knows*,
that the system is wrong and unjust, that juries don't work, that an
inquisitorial system where the functions of preliminary judge and
director of the prosecution overlap, is so much better than any system
of impartial judges and adversarial testing of the evidence. If the
facts don't fit, they must be wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyndon Watson deslash L.Watson/@/csc/./canterbury/./ac/./nz
------------------------------------------------------------------------
postmaster@localhost,abuse@localhost,ro...@mailloop.com
cat/dev/zero/tmp/...`@localhost,halt@localhost
Lim-Bim-Tim-Wim
Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote in article
> the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
> bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
> to bamboozle the jury.
I agree with you. BUT, could we have unbiased judges?
I know many will agree with that.
So! The best compromise would be perhaps to have multiple judges. That
would be very expensive though.
3 Judges would seem like a nice round number..
Kerry Thornbury
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:44:25 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
> On TV1 Assignment documentary tonight, the case was
> presented of Steve Ogilvie, found guilty by a jury of
> rape and imprisoned despite the qualms of Judge
> Tompkins who said at the sentencing:
> "at the delivery of the verdict, and afterwards, I
> felt, and still feel some unease about the result"
Some unease....not enough for him to lay the judgement aside
> Because the jury had decided he was guilty, there was
> nothing that either the trial judge or the appeal
> judges could do to reverse the verdict.
The trial jury were the ones asked to decide upon the guilt or
innocence of Mr Ogilvie...who else should have decided he was guilty?
Trial judges have been known to set aside jury verdicts. What was the
reason the judge did not do so this time?
>
> The case rested on the uncorroborated story of a 16
> year old girl about something she said had happened
> nearly two years before when she was 14.
Lots of things that are uncorroborated happen to 16 year olds. Does
it make the allegation false?
>
> We heard tonight that her allegations against Steve
> Ogilvie were preceded by accusations against his
> nephew, who also adamantly denies them, but who never
> had the chance to clear his name in court.
That's because he was never charged. He could have taken her to court
for slander if he wanted to clear his name I imagine.
.
> Such serial accusers, who are often teenage girls
> (for example in the case of Alan Rust), are able to
> make such accusations with impunity, and are seldom
> held accountable for the devastation they cause to
> so many people's lives.
Teenage girls are also raped with impunity, and entitled to ask for
redress if this happens.
> Allowing charges and convictions to be based solely
> on uncorroborated evidence is one of the raft of
> legal changes referred to by law lecturer Bill Hodge
> on the TV documentary.
So if no one sees you being raped, you aren't raped? How many women
will be conveniently raped in public and entitled to have their rapist
charged?
> Introduced to make the trial
> process easier for the complainant, these have lead
> to the situation where there is a presumption of
> guilt whenever a sexual accusation is made.
There is actuality of guilt when many sexual allegations are made.
> never happened. Convictions should not depend on
> belief, but on evidence. We are asking the impossible
> of our juries to make such decisions.
When the only possible evidence is the missing corroboration of other
witnesses a crime never occured?
Children often let the time of obtaining physical evidence pass. Are
there no criteria whereby children can depend upon the apprehension of
those who abuse them, because they took some time to report the event?
>
> COSA calls for the reintroduction of the requirement
> for judges to caution juries about the dangers of
> conviction in the absence of corroboration.
Offences happen in the absence of corroboration.
Television documentaries will of course present matters in the manner
that suits their case. Is this authoritative? The trial judge chose
not to set aside the jury decision, and this has been exercised in Nz
in the past, why not this time?
My argument is not that Mr Ogilvie is guilty, but it looks to me like
COSA are demanding that the pendulum swing far to much to the side of
a potential offender.
Crimes are usually committed in private. There is often no
corroboration. That does not mean that offences do not occur. To
demand corroboration will mean that we will be dragged back to the
days where rapists were rarely convicted because the word of a woman
was not enough.
There must be another way to improve the system.
Kerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure,
and the intelligent are full of doubt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kerry Thornbury
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:30:06 +1200, Frank van der Hulst
<fra...@pec.co.nz> wrote:
>Brian wrote:
>
>> Introduced to make the trial
>> process easier for the complainant, these have lead
>> to the situation where there is a presumption of
>> guilt whenever a sexual accusation is made. This is
>> epitomised by police policy to consider all complaints
>> as genuine, and to call the complainant "victim" and
>> the defendent "offender" as soon as the allegation
>> is made. The presumption of innocence is supposed to
>> be a foundation stone of our justice system, with
>> which we tamper at our peril.
>
>It is standard practice (a lawyer told me in 50% of cases) for women
>to accuse their ex-partners of sexually abusing their own children.
>"In the best interests of the children" the children are effectively
>separated from their father until the accusations have been
>investigated. When the accusations are found to be baseless some
>months later, it is found to be "in the best interests of the
>children" that the status quo be maintained... ie the children remain
>with the mother.
>
It is terribly distressing if that is true Frank. I cannot understand
why any mother who *loved* her children would think they could be
advantaged by courts, lawyers, psychologists and the severing of the
relationship with their father.
Of course some men do etc etc etc, but people who use allegations like
this to 'protect' their children are just scum. Total selfishness.
>These reprehensible tactics almost inevitably result in the woman
>gaining custody of their children, with absolutely zero repercussions.
Tragic
Hugh Grierson
In article <353FCA...@iprolink.co.nz>, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:
>Under this fatally flawed system, even if the judge thinks the jury was
>wrong, the judge, it seems, cannot overturn the jury's verdict.
>
>Nor, it seems can the judges of the Court of Appeal.
Perhaps, rather than disposing of juries altogether, it would be a step
forward if the Court of Appeal was able to order a retrial.
-H
Cliff Pratt
Dave McL wrote
>
>Juries are little more than lynch mobs, a dozen red-necked,
>idle, prejudiced talk-back listeners.
>
idle. And I don't listen to talk-back radio.
The juries I have been on have uniformly tried to consider
all the facts and all have uniformly listened to the judge.
Cliff
Dave McL
Scooter wrote:
> Dave McL wrote:
> >Far better to have trials conducted by judge alone. Judges are trained in
> >the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
> >bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
> >to bamboozle the jury.
> that scenario?
There could be such a problem. A good point. Who chooses the judges?
Basically, other judges and lawyers. But see below.
> The problem I see is that judges are no better than lawyers with
> no ambition to make better money as defense lawyers.
But judges tend to be our *best* lawyers. We have some very good judges,
some of the finest legal brains in the country (and the world) and great,
fair-minded humanitarians. Many excellent lawyers aspire to be judges to
serve the interests of justice, not to make megabucks. The art-collecting
partners of Russell McVeagh rarely become judges. Partners of
small law firms, independent barristers and QCs frequently do. I think
this speaks for itself.
> I think judges should be elected by the people like politicians
> are elected, they should present a platform of their sentencing
> proposals within the existing laws and let people decide wether
> they want lenient or "strong" sentencing.
Okay, I strongly disagree here. My apologies, and I fully understand your
point. However I have studied the system in various US states where
judges run for office, and it appalls me. They run for office promising
to execute more people than the next candidate. That to me is not
"justice." It is a lynch mob.
I like our justice system, generally. It is the jury system I have great
qualms about.
Dave McL
Thank god at least one sane person makes it to the jury.
I have been challenged every time so have never got the chance. Margot,
who would love to serve on a jury, has never even been summonsed and
wonders why my name keeps coming up so monotonously.
Kerry Thornbury
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 19:41:28 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>I have been challenged every time so have never got the chance. Margot,
>who would love to serve on a jury, has never even been summonsed and
>wonders why my name keeps coming up so monotonously.
I've never been summoned for jury service either, even though others
in my family are regularly. I have never declined because of family
responsibilities etc, and I am always on the roll
wonder why
K
Brian
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:10:27 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>This cuts right to the heart of why I would do away with the jury system.
>
>Under this fatally flawed system, even if the judge thinks the jury was
>wrong, the judge, it seems, cannot overturn the jury's verdict.
>
>Nor, it seems can the judges of the Court of Appeal.
>
>What a mockery of "justice."
>
>Juries are little more than lynch mobs, a dozen red-necked, idle,
>prejudiced talk-back listeners.
>
>Far better to have trials conducted by judge alone. Judges are trained in
>the law and having been experienced lawyers, well able to see through the
>bullshit theatrics presented by prosecutor and defence in their attempts
>to bamboozle the jury.
>
I've been a jury foreman. My personal experience left me with a
surprised degree of confidence in the system.
But most criminal cases before the courts allow the jury to deal with
the facts in a relatively unemotional way. Juries take their
responsibilities seriously. They study the facts. They weigh up
evidence, and corroborating evidence.
For crimes of a sexual nature however, facts may not necessarily play
a significant part. Given that corroboration of an offence is not
required for a conviction, a disturbing number of cases are determined
by the *beliefs* of the jury. As you say, the jury may be a dozen
red-necked, idle, prejudiced talk-back listeners.
Very much a lottery.
Maybe juries do a good job in many cases, but too many "lose" the
lottery in this Russian Roulette mode of justice. If we must stay
with the current laws that allow conviction without corroboration in
crimes of a sexual nature, perhaps the defendent should be allowed to
choose whether a jury, or a judge should determine his/her fate?
Perhaps for crimes of this nature, it is time to consider some other
form of determining truth? Some inquisitorial means? I'm only
throwing this in for discussion. Pros? Cons?
Whatever, something is dreadfully smelly with the current system, and
it is time that the rotten fish is thrown out.
With a prayer for Peter Ellis, and others suffering similarly,
Brian
Brian
>I listened to the minister of Justice this morning pontificating on the
>notion that an acquittal doesn't prove the accused didn't do something. For
>such a learned man, he seemed not to grasp that if the crown can't prove
>the accused did it, the accused should not be penalised either in terms of
>legal costs or time in jail. As it is, his position seems to be that if we
>think he's guilty, he deserves all he gets.
>
>I would guess that if Doug Graham had not been a minister of the crown, he
>would have been a judge by now. Do I think his concept of "justice" is
>better than that of 12 randomly selected citizens? Hell no!
He's a twit.
1. David Dougherty was convicted of rape.
2. The prosecution never claimed that any more than one
person was involved in the rape
3. DNA evidence proved that the semen was *not* from David
Dougherty.
4. David Dougherty was acquitted.
What *more* does David Dougherty have to do to prove his innocence?
What other evidence does Doug Graham have to suggest that David may
not be innocent?
If he has any such evidence that David was involved in any way, then
David should be given the opportunity to refute that evidence.
______________________________________
| |
| Doug Graham is Minister of Justice? |
| An oxymoron. |
|_____________________________________|
Brian
Brian
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 15:13:34 +1200, nob...@no.spam (rob) wrote:
>I've heard experiences from within juries from both ends of the scale:
>red-necks vs a very stable-minded groups of people with clear understanding
>of complex issues and practical common-sense. Never having been on a jury
>myself, I can't comment, but it would, on the face of it, seem that you are
>being somewhat broad-brushed in your position on this one.
The majority of the problems (not all) appear to be alleged crimes of
a sexual nature.
Cases where juries have to make a decision, based on the conflicting
testimony of defendent and accuser, with no corroborating evidence.
Who *seems* the most believable.
Brian
Brian
>> The case rested on the uncorroborated story of a 16
>> year old girl about something she said had happened
>> nearly two years before when she was 14.
>
> Lots of things that are uncorroborated happen to 16 year olds.
> Does it make the allegation false?
That is not the issue.
The issue is whether uncorroborated evidence should be sufficient to
allow a conviction.
Or the more limited call that COSA are asking for in their press
release: that there should be a reintroduction of the requirement for
judges to caution juries about the dangers of conviction in the
absence of corroboration.
>>
>> We heard tonight that her allegations against Steve
>> Ogilvie were preceded by accusations against his
>> nephew, who also adamantly denies them, but who never
>> had the chance to clear his name in court.
>
>That's because he was never charged. He could have taken her to court
>for slander if he wanted to clear his name I imagine.
Given that it is possible for a person to be found *guilty* of an
accusation of a sexual nature without corroborating evidence, what
chance do you think a person has to prove that he is a victim of
slander?
>.
>> Such serial accusers, who are often teenage girls
>> (for example in the case of Alan Rust), are able to
>> make such accusations with impunity, and are seldom
>> held accountable for the devastation they cause to
>> so many people's lives.
>
> Teenage girls are also raped with impunity, and entitled to
> ask for redress if this happens.
Of course. If a teenager is raped that is a tragedy.
To be raped is a nightmare for the victim.
But the fact that teenage girls are raped, is no excuse for any
teenager to make false allegations of rape against anybody else.
To be falsely accused of rape, is also a nightmare for the victim.
>
>
>> Allowing charges and convictions to be based solely
>> on uncorroborated evidence is one of the raft of
>> legal changes referred to by law lecturer Bill Hodge
>> on the TV documentary.
>
> So if no one sees you being raped, you aren't raped? How many
> women will be conveniently raped in public and entitled to have
> their rapist charged?
Based on your argument, we may as well dispense with any pretense of a
trial. If a person says she is raped, then simply lock up the person
she has accused.
What safeguards do you suggest to prevent an innocent person being
convicted of rape?
>> Introduced to make the trial
>> process easier for the complainant, these have lead
>> to the situation where there is a presumption of
>> guilt whenever a sexual accusation is made.
>
>There is actuality of guilt when many sexual allegations are made.
Whenever a sexual allegation is made, there is one party guilty of
something. Both possibilities are extremely serious. The crime of
rape, and the crime of a false allegation of rape, *should* both be
treated extremely seriously.
>
>
>> never happened. Convictions should not depend on
>> belief, but on evidence. We are asking the impossible
>> of our juries to make such decisions.
>
>When the only possible evidence is the missing corroboration of other
>witnesses a crime never occured?
>
>Children often let the time of obtaining physical evidence pass. Are
>there no criteria whereby children can depend upon the apprehension of
>those who abuse them, because they took some time to report the event?
The issue is how can our justice system prevent innocent people being
convicted, just as much as it is important to convict those who are
guilty.
>
>>
>> COSA calls for the reintroduction of the requirement
>> for judges to caution juries about the dangers of
>> conviction in the absence of corroboration.
>
> Offences happen in the absence of corroboration.
Of course.
But should convictions?
>
>Television documentaries will of course present matters in the manner
>that suits their case. Is this authoritative? The trial judge chose
>not to set aside the jury decision, and this has been exercised in Nz
>in the past, why not this time?
In the past there were different laws with regard to requirements for
corroborating evidence.
>
>My argument is not that Mr Ogilvie is guilty, but it looks to me like
>COSA are demanding that the pendulum swing far to much to the side of
>a potential offender.
It is for every person to examine their own souls, and answer where
they want the pendulum to rest. How many innocent people are you
prepared to be allowed to be convicted in the interests of convicting
the guilty?
I'm not expecting that the answer will be the same for everybody.
Those who have had experience of being a victim of any sort, will
undoubtably have their experience colour their opinion.
>Crimes are usually committed in private. There is often no
>corroboration. That does not mean that offences do not occur. To
>demand corroboration will mean that we will be dragged back to the
>days where rapists were rarely convicted because the word of a woman
>was not enough.
The alternative, seems to be, if New Zealand experience in the last
ten years since the laws were changed here, that we allow the
conviction of the innocent. And if too may innocent people are
convicted, the interests of victims of these sorts of crimes will not
be met either, as their stories will be less likely to be believed.
>
>There must be another way to improve the system.
I'd love discussion of these alternatives.
Brian
Brian
>In article <353FCA...@iprolink.co.nz>, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:
>>Under this fatally flawed system, even if the judge thinks the jury was
>>wrong, the judge, it seems, cannot overturn the jury's verdict.
>>
>>Nor, it seems can the judges of the Court of Appeal.
>
>Perhaps, rather than disposing of juries altogether, it would be a step
>forward if the Court of Appeal was able to order a retrial.
On what basis though? In the case of Steve Ogilvie, the jury heard
all the "facts" available, and came to the conclusion he was guilty.
Which doesn't leave much room for a basis for appeal.
It is crucial that the system minimises the possibility of innocent
people being convicted at the initial trial stage.
Brian
Brian
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:36:54 +1200, "Cliff Pratt"
<Cliff...@vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
>Dave McL wrote
>>
>>Juries are little more than lynch mobs, a dozen red-necked,
>>idle, prejudiced talk-back listeners.
>>
>I've been on several juries. I am not a red-neck. I am not
>idle. And I don't listen to talk-back radio.
How many red-necks admit to being so?
How many idle people admit to being so?
Usenet?
We're no better than talk-back radio, are we? :-)
Brian
Brian
>
>It is standard practice (a lawyer told me in 50% of cases) for women
>to accuse their ex-partners of sexually abusing their own children.
This happens in far too many cases. But I'd be extremely surprised if
the percentage was anywhere near as high as you say.
The devastation caused by just one such accusation is extremely high
though. And the loser is the child, or children.
>"In the best interests of the children" the children are effectively
>separated from their father until the accusations have been
>investigated. When the accusations are found to be baseless some
>months later, it is found to be "in the best interests of the
>children" that the status quo be maintained... ie the children remain
>with the mother.
>
>These reprehensible tactics almost inevitably result in the woman
>gaining custody of their children, with absolutely zero repercussions.
Reprehensible? Absolutely.
Evil.... definately.
Brian
Brian
>
>It is terribly distressing if that is true Frank. I cannot understand
>why any mother who *loved* her children would think they could be
>advantaged by courts, lawyers, psychologists and the severing of the
>relationship with their father.
>
>Of course some men do etc etc etc, but people who use allegations like
>this to 'protect' their children are just scum. Total selfishness.
Yes.
Perhaps one of the reasons that these types of allegations come about
is because we live in a society where lip service is given to the
value of fatherhood.
Our Society is already paying a very high price for the number of
children growing up in single parent families, most without their
fathers.
Rhetoric says that many fathers abandon their children. While this
may be true in some cases, there are many fathers who are either
prevented from seeing their children, or have many obstacles placed in
front of them so that they are not able to see their children with any
meaningful relationship.
Brian
Betty
Frank van der Hulst <fra...@pec.co.nz> wrote in article
> It is standard practice (a lawyer told me in 50% of cases) for women
> to accuse their ex-partners of sexually abusing their own children.
I would be VERY interested to see where this figure comes
from....documented statistics ?...or maybe in the opinion of some lawyer ?
Betty
Brian <bri...@wave.co.nz> wrote
> The issue is whether uncorroborated evidence should be sufficient to
> allow a conviction.
>
> Or the more limited call that COSA are asking for in their press
> release: that there should be a reintroduction of the requirement for
> judges to caution juries about the dangers of conviction in the
> absence of corroboration.
Tell me..how does a eight year old boy made to perform oral sex in a car by
the roadside provide corroborating evidence ?
How does a five year girl abused in the night by a family member provide
this evidence ?
A child molester jailed recently in ChCh was only caught up with because
his victims grew up and were then able to find a voice ..it turned out he
had previous convictions....you must be very careful about calls such as
the one you make above....of all crimes this is the one where often there
is no corroborating evidence
Brian
On 24 Apr 1998 19:54:30 GMT, "Betty" <melw...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>Brian <bri...@wave.co.nz> wrote
>
>> The issue is whether uncorroborated evidence should be sufficient to
>> allow a conviction.
>>
>> Or the more limited call that COSA are asking for in their press
>> release: that there should be a reintroduction of the requirement for
>> judges to caution juries about the dangers of conviction in the
>> absence of corroboration.
>
>
>Tell me..how does a eight year old boy made to perform oral sex in a car by
>the roadside provide corroborating evidence ?
>
>How does a five year girl abused in the night by a family member provide
>this evidence ?
>
>A child molester jailed recently in ChCh was only caught up with because
>his victims grew up and were then able to find a voice ..it turned out he
>had previous convictions....you must be very careful about calls such as
>the one you make above....of all crimes this is the one where often there
>is no corroborating evidence
I think the issue you present above is very real.
The law changes that were made a little over ten years ago, seem to
have been made on the basis of the problems that you have outlined. A
thought process that proceeds along the lines of "Obtaining evidence
is difficult, and pedophiles are scum, so let's not bother too much
with evidence" Such a rationale I guess has done wonders for
ensuring that guilty men are able to be convicted, but it has extreme
consequences for those people who are actually innocent.
Innocent until proven guilty? Hmmmm.
I think that everybody needs to examine their own conscience for where
they would like the pendulum to finally rest, in the difficult area of
ensuring that the guilty are convicted, and the innocent are
protected.
The answers for everybody will be different. Those people who have
suffered as either victims of a sexual crime, or suffered as being
falsely accused of a sexual crime, will undoubtably have very
different responses. Each of those groups of people should try and
put themselves in the shoes of the other group. The majority of
people, who are victims of neither, should try and consider themselves
in the shoes of both groups.
Cases such as Nick Wills, David Dougherty, Allen Collier, "Michael",
Alan Rust, and now Steve Ogilvie have hit national news in the last
couple of years. I am aware of another TV documentary being prepared,
of yet another case. Peter Ellis continues to be in my prayers.
These sorts of cases are just the tip of the iceberg, of a larger
number of men and women who have been falsely accused, and/or
wrongfully convicted.
The reasons for the iceberg are complex. Some ideas that I have
include:
1. A rightful anger against sexual crimes, and especially crimes
of child sexual molestation.
2. A realisation that there were many children and adults who
had their experiences discounted, which led to a rightful
anger on their part that they had not received justice.
3. In the courts, law changes that made corroboration for crimes
of a sexual nature, not required to enable a conviction.
Judges no longer caution juries of the dangers of convicting
in the absence of corroboration.
4. The rise of militant feminism in the last twenty years (as
opposed to the principles of feminism based on achieving
equality and justice). The sort of attitudes that "all men
are bastards", and that an accused man is almost definately
a guilty man.
5. A hysteria about child sexual abuse, that reached it's peak in
early years of this decade, but is now thankfully declining to
some extent. Such an hysteria feeds on itself, growing, and
growing. Media plays a large role in feeding the frenzy. In
the end, it will be the media who will be able to kill the
hysteria, and leave us somewhat closer to the truth.
6. The rise of a movement of thought amongst mental health
professionals that "children do not lie". Presumably such
thought processes grew originally from those professionals
without children.
7. A change in police policies and guidelines to treat people
accused of sexual crimes as "guilty until proven innocent"
...although they would deny such an accusation. The police
are however taught to believe the complainant, and their
policy guidelines refer to complainants as "victims" and the
people they accuse as "offenders"
8. Counselling practices that are now largely discredited, but
are still responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of people
such as Peter Ellis. Counselling practices which include
multiple interviewing, and where the children are "nagged"
(in the words of one young boy who retracted his "confession"
after his father had served over a year in prison.)
In adult terms its called "leading questioning" and only
taking evidence that supports the counsellor's prejudgement.
If the child says it happened, then the crime happened. If
the child says it didn't happen, then the child is simply in
denial, and the crime still happened.
9. Counselling and Psychotherapy methods, now also largely
discredited, imported from the United States in the late
1980's and early 1990's, which led to a rash of "recovered
memory" type cases. Similar to a cult, the client of
therapy comes to believe something that actually did not
take place.
A mindset among therapists that the incidence of child
sexual abuse is extremely high. (I've had an ACC evaluator
tell me that in her opinion the incidence of incest is "well
over 33%" )
Combined with leading questioning, the misuse of hypnosis,
and similar types of therapy and counselling techniques
disaster seems to happen. I am not an expert of whatever
counselling techniques have been commonly employed, but I
am aware that almost all cases of false allegations have a
counsellor, or psychotherapist sitting in the background
somewhere.
10. School "good touch, bad touch" programmes are a tremendous
idea, for empowering young children to be able to act on
what is right and what is wrong.
I would not advocate the abolition of such a fine idea, but
there is some evidence that appropriate forms of showing
love between a child and parent, are sometimes being
misinterpreted as a "sign of abuse" by some misguided
zealots. The programme is good, but there are
possibilities for doing harm.
11. The empowerment of children is good, but does also seem to
have led to a large number of cases of cases of false
allegations, especially by older children and teenagers,
seeking attention, revenge, or some other gain. I've
referred in previous posts to anecdotal evidence of the
problems in at least one secondary school. Parents, step
parents and relatives can also be victims, especially if
the teenager seeks "help" from the a counsellor who ignores
the possibility of the allegation being false.
Gordon Waugh
On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:44:25 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
I have received the following comments by email from Gordon Waugh.
<g.w...@clear.net.nz> I have been given permission by him to post
his comments to this forum:
Brian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Gordon Waugh:
From my viewpoint, the key points are these :
1. If the power of the State wrongly convicted a
person, the State must compensate the person it convicted.
No person should ever have to "prove their innocence" in
order to gain compensation for improper State actions.
2. The State must also address the causes of the initial
problem, that is, by what means did the wrongful conviction
arise. Most of the wrongful convictions are in the area of
sexual crimes. A few lie elsewhere.
3. A decade of experience with the amendments to the
Evidence Act 1908 (made circa 1986/87) shows how
unbalanced it now is. Those who made the amendments did
not foresee the results.
4. In our justice system, derived directly from the
British system, the burden of proof lies with the Crown. The
Evidence Act amendments have caused a reversal. The burden
of proof now lies with the Defence, and the accused is in
practice required to proven his innocence.
5. Those who made the Evidence Act amendments
failed to understand or appreciate that since the Crown carries
the burden of proof, the complainant has an obligation to the
Crown and to the Defence to provide corroborative evidence.
Moreover, without that corroboration, the Crown is unable to
exercise it properly carry the burden of proof, a result being
that many sexual cases turn almost entirely on witness
credibility. That is an inadequate basis for conviction, in my
view.
6. One of the significant Evidence Act amendments
was to give total credibility to the testimony of children. But
the law also says that a child under sixteen is incapable of
giving consent to a sexual act, the reason essentially being that
they are not competent to make such decision. These two
factors have constructed a serious conflict. Far too many
men have been convicted on the evidence of young children,
uncorroborated by fact.
7. As evidenced by the new police policy on adult
sexual assault investigations, and the new booklet distributed
by the New Plymouth police sexual abuse team, the
fundamental prinicple of a presumption of innocence has
vanished with the replacement of "complainant" with "victim"
and "alleged offender, or the accused" with "offender".
Police preference for victim and offender demonstrates a
clear presumption of guilt.
8. Adequate evidence and reason now exist to
re-balance, by making several key changes : (a) re-introducing
the requirement for judges to warn juries about the dangers of
convicting without corroboration, thus removing the
likelihood of convictions based on witness credibility. (b)
reverting to the use of "alleged offender" and "complainant" -
the presumption of innocence. (c) introducing a five year
state of limitation to preclude historical allegations. (d)
requiring the level of proof in the Family Court to be beyond
reaonable doubt. (e). introducing transparency to the Family
court. (f) repealing Section 8 of the ARCI Act 1992 - the
ACC legislation - which allows claims for sexual abuse (g)
making inadmissable the uncorroborated testimony of
children under the age of 16.
Those changes would go a long way to resolving the problems,
in the matter of alleged sexual abuse, which plague the courts
and society at large.
Brett Hunt
Betty wrote in message <01bd6fbb$a035f4a0$470d...@melwanda.ihug.co.nz>...
>
>
>Brian <bri...@wave.co.nz> wrote
>
>> The issue is whether uncorroborated evidence should be sufficient to
>> allow a conviction.
>>
>> Or the more limited call that COSA are asking for in their press
>> release: that there should be a reintroduction of the requirement for
>> judges to caution juries about the dangers of conviction in the
>> absence of corroboration.
>
>
>Tell me..how does a eight year old boy made to perform oral sex in a car by
>the roadside provide corroborating evidence ?
>
>How does a five year girl abused in the night by a family member provide
>this evidence ?
>
>A child molester jailed recently in ChCh was only caught up with because
>his victims grew up and were then able to find a voice ..it turned out he
>had previous convictions....you must be very careful about calls such as
>the one you make above....of all crimes this is the one where often there
>is no corroborating evidence
>
I haven't posted to this thread yet because I agree with both views. I think
it highlights the difficult nature of this whole area. A lot of rapes happen
where the only 2 people who will ever know anything about it are the two
people involved. There will be no other evidence. Because of this it will
come down to one persons word against the other. This is why we get into
this whole 'character of the person' saga where both sides try to prove the
other is not of sound character and previous sexual liaisons etc are brought
up. This often leads to feeling of being a victim again by the accuser. But
what is the alternative? I don't know of one.
I think there is a pedulum here that has swung too far. Women accussing men
of rape did not used to be believed. We now know they are usually telling
the truth, but not always. This case seems to be one where a false
accusation was made, as do some others. I think rape convicions need to be
made harder to get in situations like this, but I don't know what is
required to make that the case.
I don't think the courts will ever come up with a system that can please
both sides in this debate.
Brett Hunt
Brett Hunt
Brian wrote in message <354088c2...@news.wave.co.nz>...
>On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:25:48 +1200, brian....@vuw.ac.nz (Brian
>Harmer) wrote:
>
>>I listened to the minister of Justice this morning pontificating on the
>>notion that an acquittal doesn't prove the accused didn't do something.
For
>>such a learned man, he seemed not to grasp that if the crown can't prove
>>the accused did it, the accused should not be penalised either in terms of
>>legal costs or time in jail. As it is, his position seems to be that if we
>>think he's guilty, he deserves all he gets.
>>
>>I would guess that if Doug Graham had not been a minister of the crown, he
>>would have been a judge by now. Do I think his concept of "justice" is
>>better than that of 12 randomly selected citizens? Hell no!
>
>He's a twit.
>
>1. David Dougherty was convicted of rape.
>2. The prosecution never claimed that any more than one
> person was involved in the rape
>3. DNA evidence proved that the semen was *not* from David
> Dougherty.
>4. David Dougherty was acquitted.
>
>What *more* does David Dougherty have to do to prove his innocence?
>
>What other evidence does Doug Graham have to suggest that David may
>not be innocent?
>
>If he has any such evidence that David was involved in any way, then
>David should be given the opportunity to refute that evidence.
>
What I can't get is why someone who is acquited of a crime does not
automatically get compensation. It is almost impossible to show innocence
(only 1 instance in over 10 years I can think of) and so almost impossible
to get compensation. It is scary to think I could be accussed of rape,
wrongly imprisoned and sent to jail, get the conviction overturned, have
sold everything to clear my name in the process, and at the end get no
compensation. There is something very wrong about all this. The notion of
innocent until proven guilty doesn't seem to apply here.
Brett Hunt
Dave McL
Brett Hunt wrote:
> What I can't get is why someone who is acquited of a crime does not
> automatically get compensation. It is almost impossible to show innocence
> (only 1 instance in over 10 years I can think of) and so almost impossible
> to get compensation. It is scary to think I could be accussed of rape,
> wrongly imprisoned and sent to jail, get the conviction overturned, have
> sold everything to clear my name in the process, and at the end get no
> compensation. There is something very wrong about all this. The notion of
> innocent until proven guilty doesn't seem to apply here.
You got it. Welcome to "justice" 1998 New Zealand style for men accused
of assaults on women or children. The fact there may be no evidence,
or the fact the accuser simply makes the story up, is of consequence
only to the accused. It's the modern version of the Salem witch trials.
Brian
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 22:36:57 GMT, da...@home.net.nz (DPF) wrote:
>On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:43:21 GMT in nz.general Brian wrote: in
><354088e6...@news.wave.co.nz>:
>
>>On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 06:32:57 GMT, kerryd.remo...@ihug.co.nz
>>(Kerry Thornbury) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> The case rested on the uncorroborated story of a 16
>>>> year old girl about something she said had happened
>>>> nearly two years before when she was 14.
>>>
>>> Lots of things that are uncorroborated happen to 16 year olds.
>>> Does it make the allegation false?
>>
>>That is not the issue.
>>
>>The issue is whether uncorroborated evidence should be sufficient to
>>allow a conviction.
>>
>
>Well if it is deemed not sufficient, then you are basically de-facto
>legalising rape etc as long as it wasn't violent or in public.
Many burglaries happen that are both non violent and not in the
public.
I think mischievious to present the a call for requiring corroborating
evidence as equivalent to legalising rape.
Of course, requiring corroborating evidence (or at the very least
requiring judges to warn juries about the dangers of convicting
without corroborating evidence) *will* make it harder to achieve a
conviction. That's the aim... to prevent innocent people being found
guilty.
I cannot deny that as a consequence that some guilty people will not
be convicted.
>As with all things tis a balancing act of not wanting to penalise
>innocent people, but also not leeting guilty people get away with
>crimes.
What ideas do you have to prevent innocent people being penalised with
the current legislation? Or do you feel the "balance" is about right
now, and that the number of innocent people being caught up in the
hysteria is but a small price to pay for ensuring every guilty person
is convicted?
Brian
Ron or Dane
Kerry Thornbury <kerryd.remo...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:44:25 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>
(snipped)
> > never happened. Convictions should not depend on
> > belief, but on evidence. We are asking the impossible
> > of our juries to make such decisions.
>
> When the only possible evidence is the missing corroboration of other
> witnesses a crime never occured?
>
Brian's statement was the best I have seen in this thread Kerry -- that
convictions should not depend on belief, but on evidence. When the only
possible evidence "is the missing corroboration of other witnesses" then
the verdict surely has to be not guilty. You may believe that missing
corroboration actually exists, but until you produce it, it remains a
beief and is not evidence.
I'm not saying the system is perfect, but my vote goes to acquittal
unless there is evidence of guilt. Any benefit of doubt should go to the
accused because if doubt exists then IMMHO it points to the evidence not
being strong enough to convict.
ron hawker
Moz (Chris Moseley)
Betty <melw...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in article
> Tell me..how does a eight year old boy made to perform oral sex in a
car by
> the roadside provide corroborating evidence ?
>
> How does a five year girl abused in the night by a family member
provide
> this evidence ?
To my mind, we must also answer the question: how can the accused show
that the alleged event did not happen. For a system to be able to
provide justice I think that all four possibilities must produce
reasonable outcomes. That is:
1:the event happened, and the accused was involved;
2:the event happened but the accused was not involved
3:the event did not happen but some other action of the accused
prompted the accusation
4:the event did not happen.
Unfortunately at this stage there is a legal requirement that cases 3
and 4 be treated as case 1, and there is no requirement that cases 3
and 4 even be considered by the investigating body. Case 3 is
specifically disallowed, and evidence regarding it may not be
introduced unless there are exceptional circumstances. I think it is
ludicrous that the only real defense for a man accused of historical
crimes is to assult the credibility of the accuser, but that the law is
deliberately structured to make this difficult. At the very least there
should be a parallel situation for both parties. If one side cannot
have their sexual or legal history brought into court, then neither
should the other side. I have once seen a ludicrous example of this,
where one couple had a long history of legal engagements and these were
always presented to the court as "he has 5 prior convictions for assult
on a female (who cannot be named), while she has no record of relevance
to the present case". Oh, except her similar set of arrests for
assault. On him. But those were never mentioned in court, resulting in
his conviction and her aquittal. Five times.
I would much prefer that sexual cases especially be conducted using the
inquisatorial mode of justice (aka French model), since that seems more
likely to result in a reasonable outcome than the current major
variation from our legal system. Ideally from a male point of view I
think that the standard NZ justice system would be best, but that has
been shown to produce horrible outcomes for most victims so is not
suitable.
Actually, I suspect it would pay to remember that for most men their
only likely direct involvement with a sexual case is as a defendent,
hence most men will be emotionally concerned mainly with the victims of
false accusations (assuming that most men do not commit sexual crimes,
of course). Most women, on the other paw, will be primarily concerned
with the victims of real sexual crimes, since that is their most likely
direct involvement. Direct meaning as either a witness or accused,
rather than as a friend or spectator.
Moz
Brian Tozer
Brian wrote in message <3541119e...@news.wave.co.nz>...
>http://www.philsmith.com/kriseya/
Very interesting.
Thanks for the pointer.
Brian Tozer
Dave McL
DPF wrote:
> Yep so the question is balance. The old saying is that better 100
> guilty people go free than one innocent person is found guilty. Not
> that one can out exact ratios on it, it is a good saying.
Unfortunately, in the kind of cases being discussed here, the "justice"
system assumes that it is better for 100 innocent men to be jailed than
for one guilty man to be freed. Further, the people who drove the 1980s
law changes which allowed this farce to develop actually believe that all
men are guilty anyway.
Good lord, I am starting to sound like Peter Zohrab.
Brian
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:22:00 GMT, da...@home.net.nz (DPF) wrote:
>On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:04:45 GMT in nz.general Brian wrote: in
><35412672...@news.wave.co.nz>:
>>Of course, requiring corroborating evidence (or at the very least
>>requiring judges to warn juries about the dangers of convicting
>>without corroborating evidence) *will* make it harder to achieve a
>>conviction.
>
>Big difference between not allowing a prosecution without
>corroborating evidence, and just warning juries about the dangers of
>relaying on it alone.
Yes. I agree
I personally favour treating sexual crimes like every other crime. The
same standards of proof should be required for a sexual crime, as for
a crime of burglary, or murder. In other words, I'm saying, that in
my opinion, corroboration should be required.
Why *should* the standard of proof required to achieve a conviction be
any less for a crime of a sexual nature, than for any other crime?
We find the crime of murder just as repugnant as a crime of sexual
abuse. Yet there is no call to abandon standards of proof for a
murder conviction, just because we find the crime repugnant.
The call to warn juries, came from the Press Release from COSA. I
don't think that COSA are asking for sufficient law changes.
>
>>That's the aim... to prevent innocent people being found
>>guilty.
>
>Yep - agree 100% there. But also the aim is to find the guilty people
>guilty.
Absolutely.
>
>>I cannot deny that as a consequence that some guilty people will not
>>be convicted.
>
>Yep so the question is balance. The old saying is that better 100
>guilty people go free than one innocent person is found guilty. Not
>that one can out exact ratios on it, it is a good saying.
We have moved a *long* way from such a principle.
But a principle like that is important. Even expressed as 10 guilty
people go free than one innocent person is found guilty..
The quickest way for people to lose respect for the law is to convict
innocent people.
>Don't get me wrong - I'm horrified when anyone is falsely accused let
>alone charged and convicted. It's just a matter of whether the
>proposed solution would solve more problems that it creates.
Well, the "solution" actually enacted ten years ago, has been shown to
have caused major problems.
I think a fresh look should be given to what the aims of the law
changes were ten years ago, and revisit solutions that also take into
account the experience of the last ten years.
There were many problems over ten years ago. There were a whole
number of law changes that were made at that time, that almost nobody
would disagree with: making the system fairer for victims of sexual
crimes. The pendulum had to swing... it just seems that it was swung
a little too far to ensure that injustices of the past were remedied.
>>>As with all things tis a balancing act of not wanting to penalise
>>>innocent people, but also not leeting guilty people get away with
>>>crimes.
>>
>>What ideas do you have to prevent innocent people being penalised with
>>the current legislation? Or do you feel the "balance" is about right
>>now, and that the number of innocent people being caught up in the
>>hysteria is but a small price to pay for ensuring every guilty person
>>is convicted?
>>
>
>I don't have any solution. I suspect there is no easy solution
>otherwise it would have been done years ago.
>
>The only other point I would make is that sometimes one should look at
>specific changes rather than general - perhaps looking at the
>reliability of uncorroborated testimony just from children under a
>certain age, or just if it happened a certain period of time ago
>rather than all uncorroborated testimony.
The reliability of children's testimony is one thing... and people
like Peter Ellis, and "Michael" were convicted on the basis of the
testimony of very young children.
But mistakes do happen with older children too. Despite DNA evidence
that proved David Dougherty innocent (proof to the standards required
of every mortal, except Doug Graham it seems), the girl complainant in
that case was sure that David was the offender.
In the Alan Rust case, a serial teenage accuser was involved. In the
Allen Collier case, a grown woman made a false accusation for unknown
reasons. In the Nick Wills case a young woman (student) lied. None
of these fit the specific problem of the testimony of very young
children.
There are many adults who have been led to *firmly believe* that they
have been abused, by questionable counselling and psychotherapy
practices. Such accusers become "honest liars" ..... the real
offender in these cases are the therapists and counsellors who have
been involved with these people. We are learning more and more about
what has been happening, as a growing number of women are becoming
"retractors", in a similar way to people who have managed to escape
from some extreme fringe religious cults.
I consider that the counselling professions in New Zealand are still
potentially very dangerous groups of people, while also understanding
that counselling and therapy, practiced competently has the power to
help people considerably.
What we have not had in New Zealand yet, are similar court cases to
that occurring in the United States, where such incompetent and
dangerous "counsellors" are weeded out of the profession.
What we also have is a large number of "specialist" sexual abuse
counsellors, whose personal interests would not be served by demanding
more professional counselling services, with people trained to look
beyond simple diagnoses of sexual abuse, and determine what is really
going on.
Brian
Brian
There are many examples of injustice in this world. The cases of
Kriseya Labastida and Peter Ellis here in New Zealand, are just simply
a couple of cases that have pulled at my heart strings.
I've been fortunate to have been able to battle my way through red
tape to meet Kriseya a couple of times. She "lives" in a large
concrete building on the outskirts of Las Vegas. As a person, she
provides inspiration to everybody who meets her. The web provides an
email contact.
Dean Bedford
Brian wrote in message <35416b14...@news.wave.co.nz>...
>I personally favour treating sexual crimes like every other crime. The
>same standards of proof should be required for a sexual crime, as for
>a crime of burglary, or murder. In other words, I'm saying, that in
>my opinion, corroboration should be required.
at the moment, sexual crimes ARE treated the same way as in any other crime,
bringing in a requirement for "corroboration" would mean treating sexual
crimes differently.
Dave McL
> >same standards of proof should be required for a sexual crime, as for
> >a crime of burglary, or murder. In other words, I'm saying, that in
> >my opinion, corroboration should be required.
>
> bringing in a requirement for "corroboration" would mean treating sexual
> crimes differently.
Sorry, you are quite wrong here. All that is needed for you, Dean, yes,
you, to be thrown in the slammer is for any woman or child to claim you
sexually abused them. You might not even have ever met your accuser (as
happened in the Alan Collier case in Paeroa) but the fact someone says
you did it is all that is needed. Nothing but the allegation. No other
evidence whatever, medical, forensic, anything, is needed.
This is as a result of law changes in the mid-1980s which applied only to
these kind of cases. The onus of proof has effectively been reversed.
At least in cases of murder, you need a dead body. In cases of robbery,
something has to be stolen. In cases of rape or sexual abuse, all you
need is the allegation.
Dean Bedford
Dave McL wrote in message <354179...@iprolink.co.nz>...
>Dean Bedford wrote:
>> at the moment, sexual crimes ARE treated the same way as in any other
crime,
>> bringing in a requirement for "corroboration" would mean treating sexual
>> crimes differently.
>
>Sorry, you are quite wrong here. All that is needed for you, Dean, yes,
>you, to be thrown in the slammer is for any woman or child to claim you
>sexually abused them. You might not even have ever met your accuser (as
>happened in the Alan Collier case in Paeroa) but the fact someone says
>you did it is all that is needed. Nothing but the allegation. No other
>evidence whatever, medical, forensic, anything, is needed.
>
>This is as a result of law changes in the mid-1980s which applied only to
>these kind of cases. The onus of proof has effectively been reversed.
>
>At least in cases of murder, you need a dead body. In cases of robbery,
>something has to be stolen. In cases of rape or sexual abuse, all you
>need is the allegation.
Dave, if say a woman walks alone through a park, and a man jumps out and
rapes her, that is treated the same in evidence terms as if a man jumps out
and robs her. Im not a lawyer but I think I am right. I spent two years as a
court reporter watching jury trials and I never once saw or heard it
suggested a lesser standard of proof was needed in sex cases. Still if you
can quote the law this is contained in, Ill apologise!
My observation was that it was much harder to convince a jury of guilt in a
sexual case, I certainly saw more not guilty verdicts in sex cases than
guilty, or than in an other sorts of crime. Cases involving children were
particularly hard to convince a jury of guilt because the children were
seldom convincing witnesses. Still, my observations were all in Napier:
perhaps other areas have different experiences.
Dave McL
DPF wrote:
> Dave McL wrote
> >All that is needed for you, Dean, yes,
> >you, to be thrown in the slammer is for any woman or child to claim you
> >sexually abused them.
> To be fair it needs a bit more than that. To get charged the Police
> need to be convinced a crime has happened and that you are responsible
> for it. They of course do not prosecute many allegations.
The police are now required to treat all complaints as genuine, and they
now almost always automatically send all such allegations to court, for
"the court to sort out". This means that such cases are often not even
investigated properly. A complaint is made, a man is arrested and it is
left to the courts to decide if the complaint is genuine. Previously, the
police used to decide if a complaint was genuine.
There was an extensive report on this, written by a gutter journalist,
published last year in a coffee table magazine. Not a single letter from
the police or any other official body was subsequently received by that
magazine complaining that the said article, which quoted the police
extensively, was in any way wrong or inaccurate.
The Police Complaints Authority has just upheld the complaint of the
Tauranga teacher this very article reported had been falsely accused and
prosecuted for an assault the judge repeatedly stated in his judgement
was utterly unlikely to have occurred. Fortunately for the innocent
teacher, his (woman) lawyer knew that juries are lynch mobs and opted for
a judge-alone trial where the judge actually considered the evidence.
> >At least in cases of murder, you need a dead body.
> Actually you don't.
Pedant. I knew someone would say this the moment I pressed "send." I
thought it would be Lyndon. Maybe he'll be next. Of *course* there have
been murder prosecutions sans body, but such cases have had extensive
corroborating evidence, not just a claim out of the blue that "he killed
someone." In scores of sexual abuse cases, innocent men have been
prosecuted and often jailed on the false and uncorroberated claim that
they had abused someone. This farce continues today.
One of the counts Peter Ellis was found guilty of was aiding an unknown
person to commit an offence at an unknown place at an unknown time. What
a travesty of "justice." What would be your reaction if someone was
accused of killing an unknown person at an unknown place at an unknown
time?
Dave McL
Dean Bedford wrote:
> Dave, if say a woman walks alone through a park, and a man jumps out and
> rapes her, that is treated the same in evidence terms as if a man jumps out
> and robs her. Im not a lawyer but I think I am right. I spent two years as a
> court reporter watching jury trials and I never once saw or heard it
> suggested a lesser standard of proof was needed in sex cases. Still if you
> can quote the law this is contained in, Ill apologise!
Dean, this argument is not over such straightforward rape cases. They
have always (at least this century) been treated as the serious crimes
they are.
What this argument is mainly over is the ever-mounting number of cases
where children or adult women go to a therapist for some reason, and the
therapist tells them they were sexually abused by (usually) their father
or sometimes a teacher or some other male figure; that this assualt
happened long ago, perhaps when they were only six months old; that they
can't remember it; but after hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of
ACC-funded therapy at $72 an hour, they will
remember it.
This major act of fraud on the accident compensation system is happening
every day. Sadly, many police sex abuse units continue to prosecute the
innocent men being accused as a result of the "work" of these
money-grabbing therapists. Happily, some units will not -- for example,
Mark Churches of the Auckland Central unit told me last year he will no
longer entertain these patently bogus allegations, though he added that
the Otahuhu unit still does, so the therapists send their clients there.
We got this quackery from the US. There, it is funded by insurance
companies. In the US, however, the authorities have finally realised it
is quackery and most of the falsely charged men have been freed.
Mark Churches became convinced it was all garbage after perusing FBI
reports on this dreadful scam.
Some of the supposed US "victims" are now suing these bullshit therapists
for millions and some huge awards have recently been made. I know of one
case in Auckland where a therapist is at last being sued.
There is also the problem of "straightforward" maliciously false claims
of rape. The police used to investigate rape claims to check their
veracity. Now they assume every rape claim is genuine. There have been a
number of recent court cases where the maliciously falsely accused have
been able to prove their innocence (Nick Wills in Hamilton; Alan Collier
in Paeroa are two). Despite this, the falsely accusing women are not
prosecuted, which no doubt encourages others.
Dean, you are a journalist --- make a search through some clippings
files, or even the Internet. You will quickly get the picture. I can give
you some URLs etc if you need them.
tricia
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:52:48 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>There was an extensive report on this, written by a gutter journalist,
>published last year in a coffee table magazine. Not a single letter from
>the police or any other official body was subsequently received by that
>magazine complaining that the said article, which quoted the police
>extensively, was in any way wrong or inaccurate.
Perhaps they don't treat the word of gutter journalists writing in
coffee table magazines seriously, so therefore no rebuttal *grin*
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
tricia
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 15:39:36 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>Good lord, I am starting to sound like Peter Zohrab.
Just a poor imitation I am afraid
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
tricia
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:50:22 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>At least in cases of murder, you need a dead body
Is that strictly true, there have been murder trials without a body
havent there?
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
Kerry Thornbury
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 20:15:46 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>Dean Bedford wrote:
>
>> Dave, if say a woman walks alone through a park, and a man jumps out and
>> rapes her, that is treated the same in evidence terms as if a man jumps out
>> and robs her. Im not a lawyer but I think I am right. I spent two years as a
>> court reporter watching jury trials and I never once saw or heard it
>> suggested a lesser standard of proof was needed in sex cases. Still if you
>> can quote the law this is contained in, Ill apologise!
>
>
>Dean, this argument is not over such straightforward rape cases. They
>have always (at least this century) been treated as the serious crimes
>they are.
>
>What this argument is mainly over is the ever-mounting number of cases
>where children or adult women go to a therapist for some reason, and the
>therapist tells them they were sexually abused by (usually) their father
>or sometimes a teacher or some other male figure; that this assualt
>happened long ago, perhaps when they were only six months old; that they
>can't remember it; but after hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of
>ACC-funded therapy at $72 an hour, they will
Hey who says the thread is about that!
A 16 year old girl reported being sexually assaulted at 14. That is
more than normal, it can take a long time to pluck up the courage to
say anything to anybody. There is no suggestion of 'recovered memory'
in this case, the girl never claimed to have forgotten and remembered.
If you want to start a new thread about recovered memory, be my guest,
but don't try and tell us the thread is about something it patently is
not.
It obviously rang that bell for you, but it ain't what it's about.
Kerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure,
and the intelligent are full of doubt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
tricia
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 09:42:04 GMT, rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 20:15:46 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>
>>Dean, this argument is not over such straightforward rape cases. They
>>have always (at least this century) been treated as the serious crimes
>>they are.
>>
>>What this argument is mainly over is the ever-mounting number of cases
>>where children or adult women go to a therapist for some reason, and the
>>therapist tells them they were sexually abused by (usually) their father
>>or sometimes a teacher or some other male figure; that this assualt
>>happened long ago, perhaps when they were only six months old; that they
>>can't remember it; but after hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of
>>ACC-funded therapy at $72 an hour, they will
>>remember it.
>
>snip some interesting views and thoughts
>
>Dave this is something that I find myself very much in two minds
>about. I probably don't know as much about recovered memory as I
>should (so much to know, so little time *grin*) but it seems to me
>that if a therapist has "planted" an idea into a womans/mans head
>about being sexually abused then that it is probably/becomes a
>sincerely held belief for that person. Perhaps it is the therapists
>that need to be stuck off, educated, strung up whatever. Claims about
>recovered memories of sexual abuse and the work of therapists are
>quite rightly and currently coming under very close scrutiny and
>examination.
>
>I have through my work dealt with ppl who have recovered memories of
>abuse through therapy and others who "actually" remember the abuse,
>there does not to me and this is my humbly held view to be much if any
>difference in the trauma that the women/men are suffering. I would
>hate the thought that some bastard who has perpetrated a horrific
>crime against these women/men gets to walk free.
>
>If the contact that I have with the mentally ill in our society is any
>indication whatsoever there is alot of sexual abuse going on in this
>world, this is not exclusive to females either, I hasten to add.
>
>Quite what the answer is of course I don't know, but I repeat I just
>hate the thought that even one of these bastards gets to walk free.
>
>Tricia
>
>
>
> -----
>
>
>ICQ 1378028
-----
ICQ 1378028
tricia
tricia
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 09:51:23 GMT, rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
oops sorry about the double posting, not sure how that came about
T
-----
ICQ 1378028
Andrew Vallance
Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:
>Dean Bedford wrote:
>>Dave, if say a woman walks alone through a park, and a man jumps out and
>>rapes her, that is treated the same in evidence terms as if a man jumps out
>>and robs her. Im not a lawyer but I think I am right. I spent two years as a
>>court reporter watching jury trials and I never once saw or heard it
>>suggested a lesser standard of proof was needed in sex cases. Still if you
>>can quote the law this is contained in, Ill apologise!
>Dean, this argument is not over such straightforward rape cases. They
>have always (at least this century) been treated as the serious crimes
>they are.
>What this argument is mainly over is the ever-mounting number of cases
>where children or adult women go to a therapist for some reason, and the
>therapist tells them they were sexually abused by (usually) their father
>or sometimes a teacher or some other male figure; that this assualt
>happened long ago, perhaps when they were only six months old; that they
>can't remember it; but after hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of
>ACC-funded therapy at $72 an hour, they will remember it.
Bzzz ***WRONG*** (please play again). The ACC will contribute up to
$50 per session towards therapy by a registered ACC therapist, they
will fund two session (thats right two) to determine wheither or not a
legitimate claim exists. If it is proven to thier satisfaction that a
claim exists they will then fund up to 20 sessions (which *includes*
the intial two to deterimine the claims veracity ie they will fund a
further 18 sessions). They will then routinely fund another 20
sessions (dependent on a satisfactory report from the intial
therapist). However if the therapy goes beyond 40 sessions they demand
a full indepth report from another therapist (selected by ACC)
supporting the need for further therapy, and continue to demand it for
every group of 20 sessions. They get *really* demanding beyond 60
sessions.
You make some serious claims, so how about backing them up with
something other than anecdotal evidence? Keep it simple. How many ACC
registered therapists are there? How many of them use "recovered
memory" techniques? How many sexual abuse claims are there to ACC each
year? How many are based on recovered memories each year? I'm not
asking for anything more than a few basic facts to show that there is
indeed some potential for concern, not that there is any basis for
that concern. Just prove with hard statistical evidence that that the
problem you claim might exist. Thats not too much to ask now is it?
Andrew etc.
a.val...@netaccess.co.nz
http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/abuse/abuse.htm (child abuse)
************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children
************************************************************************
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Gordon Waugh) wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:44:25 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>I have received the following comments by email from Gordon Waugh.
> <g.w...@clear.net.nz> I have been given permission by him to post
>his comments to this forum:
>Brian
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From Gordon Waugh:
>From my viewpoint, the key points are these :
>1. If the power of the State wrongly convicted a
>person, the State must compensate the person it convicted.
>No person should ever have to "prove their innocence" in
>order to gain compensation for improper State actions.
Agreed. A fair point, one I think few people would have any problem
with.
>2. The State must also address the causes of the initial
>problem, that is, by what means did the wrongful conviction
>arise. Most of the wrongful convictions are in the area of
>sexual crimes. A few lie elsewhere.
Evidence please (that most wrongful convictions lie in the area of
sexual crimes). Without evidence to back up this claim it is less than
worthless. However I would agree that any wrongful conviction
(regardless of the crime for which the conviction occured) should be
investigated to see if any steps can be taken to prevent a
reoccurance.
[snip]
>6. One of the significant Evidence Act amendments
>was to give total credibility to the testimony of children. But
>the law also says that a child under sixteen is incapable of
>giving consent to a sexual act, the reason essentially being that
>they are not competent to make such decision. These two
>factors have constructed a serious conflict. Far too many
>men have been convicted on the evidence of young children,
>uncorroborated by fact.
Some hard evidence please. How many of the 800 to 900 convictions for
sexual crimes each year are based on the uncorroborated testimony of a
single young child?
>7. As evidenced by the new police policy on adult
>sexual assault investigations, and the new booklet distributed
>by the New Plymouth police sexual abuse team, the
>fundamental prinicple of a presumption of innocence has
>vanished with the replacement of "complainant" with "victim"
>and "alleged offender, or the accused" with "offender".
>Police preference for victim and offender demonstrates a
>clear presumption of guilt.
True this is inapproriate. The terms should be complainant and
accused.
>8. Adequate evidence and reason now exist to
>re-balance, by making several key changes : (a) re-introducing
>the requirement for judges to warn juries about the dangers of
>convicting without corroboration, thus removing the
>likelihood of convictions based on witness credibility.
You mean the "Rape is a claim easily made and hard to disprove" bit? I
thought we had moved a little beyond "she asked for it".
>(b) reverting to the use of "alleged offender" and "complainant" -
>the presumption of innocence.
True, this should be done.
>(c) introducing a five year state of limitation to preclude
>historical allegations.
Thus ensuring that the vast majority of sexual offenders escape
justice.
>(d) requiring the level of proof in the Family Court to be beyond
>reaonable doubt.
It is already. The reasonable cause for concern level went about a
decade ago.
>(e). introducing transparency to the Family court.
See above.
>(f) repealing Section 8 of the ARCI Act 1992 - the
>ACC legislation - which allows claims for sexual abuse
Brillant move, remove all possiblity of the vast majority of sexual
abuse victims of ever recovering their lives. The tempation of
spending months in counselling and paying $20-$40 per hour to top up
the ridulously low ACC funding is just too great for so many people.
>(g) making inadmissable the uncorroborated testimony of
>children under the age of 16.
Hey why stop there? lets require three eye witnesses of sound moral
character! Now that will really cut down all these false convictions.
Now just how many false convictions have there been again?
>Those changes would go a long way to resolving the problems,
>in the matter of alleged sexual abuse, which plague the courts
>and society at large.
Some hard evidence of the extent of this "plague" would be nice. You
know like how many of those 800 to 900 convictions are based on the
uncorroberated testimony of a single child under the age of 16, or how
many complaints of sexual assault actually result in prosecutions, and
how many prosecutions result in convictions. How about what percentage
of the 10,000 annual claims to ACC are approved and how many of them
are based on recovered memories. Some actual facts might be nice,
rather than emotive rectoric.
Brian
>On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 20:15:46 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>Dean, this argument is not over such straightforward rape cases. They
>>have always (at least this century) been treated as the serious crimes
>>they are.
>>
>>What this argument is mainly over is the ever-mounting number of cases
>>where children or adult women go to a therapist for some reason, and the
>>therapist tells them they were sexually abused by (usually) their father
>>or sometimes a teacher or some other male figure; that this assualt
>>happened long ago, perhaps when they were only six months old; that they
>>can't remember it; but after hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of
>>ACC-funded therapy at $72 an hour, they will
>
>Hey who says the thread is about that!
>
>A 16 year old girl reported being sexually assaulted at 14. That is
>more than normal, it can take a long time to pluck up the courage to
>say anything to anybody.
That is understandable.
But it does make a prosecution more difficult, and a defence more
difficult, with the passing of time. Fouteen year olds *are* victims
of sexual crimes, and that is a despicable offence. But so too are 16
year olds very capable of making false allegations. That too is a
despicable offence.
What seems to be missing in New Zealand is an understanding that
teenagers can get into mischief, and do some very outrageous things.
There seems to be no way that a teenager can gracefully back out of
having made a false allegation, once the wheels of the system take
every syllable that is pronounced as the absolute truth.
>There is no suggestion of 'recovered memory'
>in this case, the girl never claimed to have forgotten and remembered.
Why would anybody want to claim that they have recovered memories in
New Zealand? There is no benefit in doing so.
>
>If you want to start a new thread about recovered memory, be my guest,
>but don't try and tell us the thread is about something it patently is
>not.
However much you would like to place this particular allegation, and
conviction in one "class" or "category" of crime, in truth there are
common threads running through all the reasons for the epidemic of
false allegations, and wrongful convictions.
The attitude of the police, the influence of counsellors and
therapists, the role of ACC, etc etc all cannot be conveniently
categorised.
It is not surprising that any thread dealing with a particular false
allegation, or the possibility of a wrongful conviction will cross
into similar, but different sets of conditions and problems.
The common thing that binds the experience of the falsely accused is
the experience that they are going through, and their innocence, and
not the particular false allegations, of whatever type, that are made
against them.
>
>It obviously rang that bell for you, but it ain't what it's about.
For you.
Brian
with a prayer for Peter Ellis.
Brendon Roberts
>Quite what the answer is of course I don't know, but I repeat I just
>hate the thought that even one of these bastards gets to walk free.
This seems to be an overriding passion for so many people these days though, one
that totally overrides the notion that innocent people equally *shouldn't* be
convicted.
To me, the thouoght that an innocent person is perecuted is abhorrent - how can
we expect people to follow laws when we cannot guarantee that they will not be
convicted of breaking them reguardless?.
Why has rape (a word that has come to mean the rape of a woman by a man) become
a guilty-until-proven-innocent charge?, why has the word of one person become
more beleivable than the word of another?. In our witch-hunt to ensure the
guilty are punished we have trampled the rights of the innocent underfoot, and
in doing so we invite people to ignore the law - because they know it no longer
protects them.
People will ask, "what about the people that are raped?", they will read the
above and think "this is another sexist male who thinks it's OK", they'll seek
to avoid these issues by sterotyping, by accusing without corroborating evidence
- and my point will be proved by people automatically beleiving them.
And my solution to ensuring the guilty are stopped? - my first is to go the
other way, and work to prevent it from happening, education of people, both to
stop them commiting them and to help them prevent it. My second is to find ways
to encourage people to come forward while physical evidence is still available -
to make people aware that they simply should not be scared to speak out when it
happens. Yes there will always be cases where evidence is not available, and
these will always cause problems, but it is time the witch-hunt mentality was
stopped.
Brendon
Gordon Waugh
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:51:23 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
Vallance) wrote:
I forwarded the discussion and comments of Andrew to Gordon Waugh, for
his comment, and Gordon has sent me a reply to add to the discussion,
although he states he has not time to join the usenet discussion
group.
Brian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gordon Waugh
g.w...@clear.net.nz
Phone 09-416-7443
Thanks for all that Brian. I scanned most of the comments.
Some (eg David McLoughlin) show a clear understanding of the
fundamental issues, and I thank them. Others seem to
indulge in superficial comment, without substance
Although my time is rather limited, I would like to make a few
points, particularly to A. Vallance. You might point out to him
that my heirachy of thought is "Fact, Logic and Professional
Judgement". I am not known to dabble in "emotive rhetoric."
The factual background to my statements is readily available in
the public domain. He seems to want fact. There is heaps of
hard data on these topics, if only he would look, and I'm sure he
would then be less inclined to use opinion and be able to
contribute better.
1. ACC Stats & General Matters. My data are from three
successive Ministers for ACC, the Managing Director of ACC,
ACC's Sensitive Claims Unit, and ACC Annual Reports from
1988 to present. ACC now has about 1,000 "approved
counsellors". Pay rates specified in the ARCI Counselling
Costs Regulations 1992 are $56.25 an hour for counsellors,
$72 for Registered Health Professionals.
Paid out claims for those Financial Years were :
1988 = 221
1989 = 445
1990 = 667
1991 = 1,075
1992 = 2,173
At that point, the effects of the experimental and
unscientific theories and practices of counselling became
apparent, coupled with the publicised termination of the
lump-sum scheme. then !!!!!!
1993 = 13,000
1994 = 10,800
1995 = 11,750
1996 = 9,982
1997 = about 8,500
Although the ARCI Act 1992 was supposed to give a three
month transition period, that was extended to three years, and
the lump-sum payments were then supposed to end on 30 June
1995. In the period 1988 to 1996, ACC paid out an estimated
$500,000,000 [Yes ! Half a Billion !] of taxpayer dollars to
claimants and counsellors, the bulk of it being in the four FY's
from 1993 to 1996.
Despite Mr Vallance's sarcasm, there is no logical justification
for sexual abuse to be included in the ACC legislation.
In the description of how ACC handles its claims, it was said
that a two hour assessment period was available to counsellors
and clients, and when sexual abuse was proven to their
satisfaction, a remedial programme could begin. Therein lies
the problem. In the absence of valid, credible, external
corroboration, no counsellor can ever know whether in fact a
client was actually sexually abused, and this comment applies
very much to historical claims of abuse.
2. Police Policy. Much was made of the issue of how police
handle allegations. Police National Headquarters promulgated
a new policy on adult sexual assault investigation, in February
1998. From the outset, it talks of "victims" and "offenders".
That is a clear presumption of guilt. It has been said publicly by
high-ranking police that they set out to prove an allegation is
true. To honour the principle of a presumption of innocence,
they should say "Here is an allegation. What is the evidence
both for, and against, it".
Quote from the policy document : "Policy Principle 1.2. The
police will treat the reported sexual assault of an adult as a
serious criminal act which will be investigated, and when
evidence is available, consider prosecution." They now
assume all complaints are genuine, and that stems directly from
the nonsense of "believe the victim" touted by Doctors for
Sexual Abuse Care (DSAC), Rape Crisis et al.
The Booklet published by the New Plymouth police this month
was put together with the able (!) assistance of Rape Crisis, as
publicised in The Daily News on 7 April. It makes the
astounding clairvoyant claim that "it is estimated that up to 70%
of sexual abuse goes unreported", pretty much straight from the
DSAC/Rape Crisis conference (Wellington, 28 - 30 March
1996) "Rape : Ten Years' Progress ?" To demonstrate the level
of misunderstanding created and perpetuated by this conference,
the NP booklet states on Page 9 "The prosecution of offenders
is a police responsibility...." Police are supposed to prosecute
ALLEGED offenders.
Incidentally, if the Rape Crisis claims of prevalence and
incidence were to be taken as factual, there are about 150,000
rapes committed each year in New Zealand, and on the broader
scale of "sexual abuse", about 1,000,000 incidents annually.
Credible local and international research using prospective
study techniques and sound methodology, put prevalence in
single figures.
The last point I want to make on this matter is the police claim
(also on Page 9 of the NP Booklet, and direct from DSAC) "We
recognise that a large number of men and boys have been and
still are victims of abuse." There is no known justification for
this statement, and it is a silly claim.
3. Family Court. I understand from Family Court sources that
its level of proof is the lower one of Balance of Probabilites.
4. I will repeat that as a matter of principle, if a person is
willing to make an allegation, he/she must also provide the
evidence. To do otherwise abrogates their responsibility to the
Crown's "burden of proof", and denies the accused a fair trial.
Too many trials turn solely on witness credibility.
There is a vast difference between acute and historical
allegations. Whenever an allegation of sexual abuse is made,
it is devastating for the accused et al. A five year statute of
limitation is not unreasonable, nor is it by any means a new idea.
It is always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to mount a
fair defence when historical allegations arise. Even the past
President of the Appeal Court, Sir Robin Cooke, has noted that,
as well as how memory fades even in the short period of two
years in a particular case he commented upon.
Of the many hundreds of allegations I have dealt with in the past
several years, I have seldom seen an historical one which
provided evidence other than the word of the complainant(s).
Sadly, many of those accused were convicted, despite the lack
of credible external corroboration. Almost every case involved
the intervention of counsellors, psychotherapists, or
psychologists.
In the case I am presently working on, the allegations go back
32 years and span some 20 years. They have no credible
substance, but the accused faces four specific charges and ten
representative ones. Allen Collier's conviction is a case in
point. There have in recent years been hundreds of similar
cases.
Brian, as I can't afford the time to join the Usenet, at least at
this juncture, one or more of your correspondents might like to
contact me by e-mail or phone, to discuss background and
detail. Please feel free to give them my e-mail and phone
details : g.w...@clear.net.nz Phone 09-416-7443, day or night.
I don't bite !
Gordon Waugh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cheers,
Gordon
Winston Wealleans
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:22:00 GMT, da...@home.net.nz (DPF) wrote:
>>I cannot deny that as a consequence that some guilty people will not
>>be convicted.
>>
>
>Yep so the question is balance. The old saying is that better 100
>guilty people go free than one innocent person is found guilty. Not
>that one can out exact ratios on it, it is a good saying.
>
>Don't get me wrong - I'm horrified when anyone is falsely accused let
>alone charged and convicted. It's just a matter of whether the
>proposed solution would solve more problems that it creates.
>
Nine years ago, 1989, here is what the Rev John Elvidge, Director of
the Presbyterian Support Services, Christchurch, said in "The Press"
following the screening of a "Frontline" documentary.
13 April 1989 Part one TVNZ "Frontline" documentary on sexual abuse,
Ward 24, Ch-Ch.
16 April 1989 Part two TVNZ "Frontline" documentary on sexual abuse,
Ward 24, Ch-Ch.
"THE PRESS"
Christchurch, New Zealand
18 April, 1989.
MISTAKES 'SMALL PRICE' TO PROTECT CHILDREN
A possibility that some fathers might be unnecessarily accused of
child abuse was a small price to pay to have children and women
protected, said the president of the Canterbury Association for Mental
Health, the Rev. John Elvidge, yesterday.
"While I agree there's a danger that some men, particularly fathers,
are going to be unnecessarily accused, there's a greater worry that
men have been getting away with sexual abuse for a long time, because
they have been able to use the system better."
Mr Elvidge was commenting on the controversy over the handling of
child sexual abuse cases stirred by the television programme,
"Frontilne". Mr Elvidge said he had "some knowledge of the facts"
surrounding one of the cases which was the focus of the programme.
"There's a slanted view given because not all the information was
given, which has resulted in the professionals being slandered."
Mr Elvidge is also the director of the psychological counselling
services offered by the Campbell Centre, which sometimes refers child
clients with behavioural problems to Ward 24.
He was particularly concerned at the community backlash that could be
felt by those working In the area of child abuse and mentat health.
He said it was easy to label as "unprofessional" people who because of
the nature of their jobs could not provide "quick results."
Last evening, TVNZ's "Holmes" had interviews with the Minister of
Social Welfare, Dr Cullen, and an interview with a senior counsellor
for the Equal Parents Rights Association, Mr Des King, who said the
association had been critical of Ward 24's work for about eight years.
Mr King told the "The Press" the association was a support group for
parents in cases where the father in a family had been shown to be
falsely accused of child abuse He said he had known many such cases
and that was a problem that seemed to be "peculiar to Christchurch."
A group of doctors concerned about sexual abuse care is worried about
television disclosures of the distress being experienced by families
as a result of badly handled investigations into child sexual abuse.
It is equally important that children should be protected from child
sexual abuse and that children and families are protected from false
accusations.
"Our organisation has been formed to improve medical care of all
victims of sexual abuse, and to ensure that all work in this area is
of the highest quality," Doctors for sexual Abuse Care said in a
statement.
*********************************************
tricia
>>Quite what the answer is of course I don't know, but I repeat I just
>>hate the thought that even one of these bastards gets to walk free.
>
>This seems to be an overriding passion for so many people these days though, one
>that totally overrides the notion that innocent people equally *shouldn't* be
>convicted.
I certainly don't disagree with that, I equally find it abhorrent that
innocent ppl may spend time in prison for a crime that they did not
commit.
I am sorry my post does not make that clear.
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Gordon Waugh) wrote:
>Brian
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All I am asking for is some corroberation of a claim, no more no less,
claims have been made, I ask for some evidence to support those
claims. Yes I am fully aware of the data available in the public
domain. All I ask is for some hard evidence that there is a massive
occurance of false or questionable claims. Many claims have been made,
as yet I have seen no evidence presented to support them. If you place
such stock in corroberation I don't think it an unreasonable request.
Without facts all debate is just rhetoric; no "fact, logic or
professional judgement". Give me your facts.
How many sexual assault convictions have there been in NZ in the last
8 years based on either recovered memories or the uncorroborated
evidence of a single complainant? and what proportion of the overall
number of convictions do these consitute? Show me a problem. The only
problem I can see in the below figures is an aweful lot of sexual
assualt claimants. Something which to my eyes tends to indicate an
aweful lot of sexual assualts. I see no evidence that any of these
claims are questionable. If this data is in the public domain, show it
too me, or at least give some referrences that I might look at it
myself.
I will state again; where are your facts?
>1. ACC Stats & General Matters. My data are from three
>successive Ministers for ACC, the Managing Director of ACC,
>ACC's Sensitive Claims Unit, and ACC Annual Reports from
>1988 to present. ACC now has about 1,000 "approved
>counsellors".
And what proportion of them use so called "recovered memories
techniques"? Given that one of the requirements for a registered
counsellor is "membership of the relevant professional associations",
how many are flaunting their own bodies guidelines?
>Although the ARCI Act 1992 was supposed to give a three
>month transition period, that was extended to three years, and
>the lump-sum payments were then supposed to end on 30 June
>1995. In the period 1988 to 1996, ACC paid out an estimated
>$500,000,000 [Yes ! Half a Billion !] of taxpayer dollars to
>claimants and counsellors, the bulk of it being in the four FY's
>from 1993 to 1996.
Yes, you have very well illustrated how many claims are made to ACC,
but how many of these claims are based on recovered memories? How amny
of these claims are "questionable"? How many convictions have there
been in NZ based on recovered memories? You claim a massive problem,
all I see is a lot of claimants, or is your objection simply that
there are a large number of claims approved?
And yes $500 million over eight years seems like a lot of money ($62.5
million per annum); but how does it compare with some other ACC
expenditure? The annual cost of rugby injuries, the cost of road
injuries, the cost of workplace back injuries?
>Despite Mr Vallance's sarcasm, there is no logical justification
>for sexual abuse to be included in the ACC legislation.
Here I agree to an extent, being raped is not an accident, the
treatment costs should be born either by the health or justice vote.
However we live in an imperfect world and the reality is that the only
recourse for most survivors is to the ACC. So how would Mr Waugh
suggest funding the treatment/recovery of survivors?
>In the description of how ACC handles its claims, it was said
>that a two hour assessment period was available to counsellors
>and clients, and when sexual abuse was proven to their
>satisfaction, a remedial programme could begin. Therein lies
>the problem. In the absence of valid, credible, external
>corroboration, no counsellor can ever know whether in fact a
>client was actually sexually abused, and this comment applies
>very much to historical claims of abuse.
So a claimant should only receive treatment if they can show external
corroborating evidence?
>2. Police Policy.
[massive snip]
Yes I agreed with you here. The Nick Wills case in Hamilton(?) in
1996(?) clearly showed a failure of police procedure, a few hours of
decent police work would have cleared the accused. Is this has not
already been addressed then it needs to be right now. NO DISAGREEMENT.
>Incidentally, if the Rape Crisis claims of prevalence and
>incidence were to be taken as factual, there are about 150,000
>rapes committed each year in New Zealand, and on the broader
>scale of "sexual abuse", about 1,000,000 incidents annually.
>Credible local and international research using prospective
>study techniques and sound methodology, put prevalence in
>single figures.
1 to 9 incidents? The secret of good humour is in the timing.
>The last point I want to make on this matter is the police claim
>(also on Page 9 of the NP Booklet, and direct from DSAC) "We
>recognise that a large number of men and boys have been and
>still are victims of abuse." There is no known justification for
>this statement, and it is a silly claim.
ROTFL. I guess it all depends on your definition of "a large number".
In NZ 6% of male psychatric admissions will spontaneously admit to a
history of sexual assualt, however when questioned the figure jummps
to 64% (however on 25% are actually ever asked). This alone gives 22%
of male psychatric admissions. Don't know that seems like "a large
number" to me. As Mr Waugh should be well aware, there are a massive
number of scientific studies both here and overseas which indicate
that there are indeed "a large number" of male victims. Here's an
experiment, take a month, record the number of sexual assualt
convictions relating to male victims and female victims reported in
your local newspaper.
>Of the many hundreds of allegations I have dealt with in the past
>several years, I have seldom seen an historical one which
>provided evidence other than the word of the complainant(s).
>Sadly, many of those accused were convicted, despite the lack
>of credible external corroboration. Almost every case involved
>the intervention of counsellors, psychotherapists, or
>psychologists.
Okay, give me something more than anecdotal evidence. What percentage
of the 800 to 900 sexual assult convictions annually are based solely
on the uncorroberated evidence of a single complainant? It is a simple
request, just show some hard numbers that indicate that a problem
might possibly exist. To put it another way, corroborate your
allegation.
Brian
>Nine years ago, 1989, here is what the Rev John Elvidge, Director of
>the Presbyterian Support Services, Christchurch, said in "The Press"
>following the screening of a "Frontline" documentary.
> "THE PRESS"
> Christchurch, New Zealand
> 18 April, 1989.
>
> MISTAKES 'SMALL PRICE' TO PROTECT CHILDREN
>
> A possibility that some fathers might be unnecessarily accused
> of child abuse was a small price to pay to have children and
> women protected, said the president of the Canterbury
> Association for Mental Health, the Rev. John Elvidge,
> yesterday.
>
> "While I agree there's a danger that some men, particularly
> fathers, are going to be unnecessarily accused, there's a
> greater worry that men have been getting away with sexual
> abuse for a long time, because they have been able to use
> the system better."
>
Thanks, Winston, for reminding us of the social and political climate
of the late 1980's, when most of the problems of false allegations
against men started to take hold.
I thought the information posted by Gordon Waugh, about the astounding
rise in claims to the ACC for sexual abuse (from about 300 a year in
the 1980's to a peak of 13000 a year in 1993, also very revealing.
What's happened to Elvidge?
Brian
Brian
>> ACC now has about 1,000 "approved counsellors".
> And what proportion of them use so called "recovered
> memories techniques"?
On your web page http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
you state that you have a psychological condition commonly known as
Multiple Personality Disorder. You also state that you have been
diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
Are you prepared to name these people?
Brian
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
My apologies for replying to the same post twice.
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 04:59:34 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>Vallance) wrote:
>>> ACC now has about 1,000 "approved counsellors".
>> And what proportion of them use so called "recovered
>> memories techniques"?
>On your web page http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
>you state that you have a psychological condition commonly known as
>Multiple Personality Disorder. You also state that you have been
>diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't have a web browser the passages
in question are:
"I "suffer" from a psychological condition known as Dissociative
Identity Disorder. It's more commonly known by it's old name Multiple
Personality Disorder. I don't really like either name, to me it's not
any type of disorder, it's just the way I am. I can't even imagine
being any other way, I find it difficult to imagine what life is like
for all the "normal" folk. Just how do you get by always looking
through the same person's eyes? Must be incredibly boring. Not to
mention how you can get anything done with only one point of
referrence.
I also know that this condition is "Highly controversial" (to quote
the DSM-IV); but I have now been diagnosed by no less than eight
highly qualified people (I won't go into just how and why that
happened); so I suppose I can be fairly confident that I am."
But then again I have made no secret of my own bias (follow the web
link in my sig), but it is irrelevant, since I am making no claims or
statements. I am simply requesting that those making the claims
provide the evidence to back those claims up. A simply request which
has so far proved to be impossible.
>Are you prepared to name these people?
Sure, just as soon as you can show me any relevance to the subject at
hand (ie my request for some shread of evidence to support the
repeated claims of numerous people). Otherwise, may I suggest you play
the ball rather than the man.
tricia
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 08:03:55 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 04:59:34 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>Vallance) wrote:
>
>
>>> ACC now has about 1,000 "approved counsellors".
>
>> And what proportion of them use so called "recovered
>> memories techniques"?
>
>On your web page http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
>you state that you have a psychological condition commonly known as
>Multiple Personality Disorder. You also state that you have been
>diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
>
>Are you prepared to name these people?
Isn't that rather a low blow Brian, what has that to do with the
current debate.
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
Brian
>
>Brian wrote in message <35416b14...@news.wave.co.nz>...
>>I personally favour treating sexual crimes like every other crime. The
>>same standards of proof should be required for a sexual crime, as for
>>a crime of burglary, or murder. In other words, I'm saying, that in
>>my opinion, corroboration should be required.
>
>
>at the moment, sexual crimes ARE treated the same way as in any other crime,
>bringing in a requirement for "corroboration" would mean treating sexual
>crimes differently.
What you say is incorrect, Dean.
The Evidence Act
[23ab Corroboration in sexual cases -
(1) Where any person is tried for an offence against any of sections
128 to 144 of the Crimes Act 1961 or for any other offence against the
person of a sexual nature, no corroboration of the complainant's
evidence shall be necessary for that person to be convicted; and in
any such case the Judge shall not be required to give any warning to
the jury relating to the absence of corroboration.
Brian
tricia
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 07:37:31 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>I thought the information posted by Gordon Waugh, about the astounding
>rise in claims to the ACC for sexual abuse (from about 300 a year in
>the 1980's to a peak of 13000 a year in 1993, also very revealing.
Perhaps a factor in this (I agree astounding) rise in claims is that
we now have an environment in which ppl feel safer revealing that they
have been victims of sexual abuse/assault ...........at least some of
the rise anyway ?????
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
Brian
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 07:51:16 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
Vallance) wrote:
>bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 04:59:34 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>>Vallance) wrote:
>
>>>> ACC now has about 1,000 "approved counsellors".
>
>>> And what proportion of them use so called "recovered
>>> memories techniques"?
> "I "suffer" from a psychological condition known as Dissociative
> Identity Disorder. It's more commonly known by it's old name
> Multiple Personality Disorder. <snip>
> I also know that this condition is "Highly controversial" (to
> quote the DSM-IV); but I have now been diagnosed by no less than
> eight highly qualified people
>> Are you prepared to name these people?
>
>Sure, just as soon as you can show me any relevance to the subject at
>hand (ie my request for some shread of evidence to support the
>repeated claims of numerous people). Otherwise, may I suggest you play
>the ball rather than the man.
I have no wish to play the man. I only repeated enough from your web
page, that I considered very relevant to the *issue*.
The issue that you raised yourself was over the proportion of
counsellors employing specific techniques. You yourself also
admitted that the diagnosis of MPD is extremely controversial.
While you may see no relevance to the subject at hand, would you
concede that others may consider the issue highly relevant?
I again ask, are you prepared to name these people?
Brian
Brian
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:04:24 GMT, sco...@taranaki.ac.nz (Scooter)
wrote:
>
>Your comments above are a particularly sleazy and unprincipled
>invasion of Vallances privacy
Rubbish. I was repeating information from his web page. He sees
nothing wrong with the information that he has published on his web
page, and nor do I.
> and a particularly nasty attempt to discredit his questions.
Rubbish. His questions have validity, but they were replying to
points that were not made by me. I was simply picking on one
specific topic that he included.
The information that he has, based on his own experience, is important
to the debate.
The answer that he may be willing to share in no way discredits facts
that he is willing to share, or questions that he is wanting to ask.
> I can tell you are more interested in "playing the man rather
> than the ball" when you didn't answer a single one of his
> questions.
He was not asking me questions.
I picked an extremely important topic, relevant to the whole debate.
The techniques of counsellors and psychotherapists are extremely
relevant to the field of false allegations.... whether it be
counsellors involved with young children (that were responsible for
the wrongful imprisonment of Peter Ellis), through to the counsellors
and therapists involved with adults and the problem or debate raging
around the topic of repressed memory. The issue of MPD is bound up
in all of this, and Andrew himself is very aware that the diagnosis of
MPD is very controversial.
Playing the man? No.
> To bring up such comments in an attempt to discredit his
> assertions is perhaps the lowest thing that can be done.
>I understand it is a common tactic used by your side in the whole
>child molestation evidence argument.
I repeat that the information is very important to the debate. To
know who eight highly qualified people are who would diagnose MPD is
very relevant.
>>You also state that you have been
>>diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
>
>This has absolutely nothing to do with his questions, are you
>perhaps unable to answer them?
He was not asking me questions.
>>Are you prepared to name these people?
>
> Why should he?
> They have nothing to do with the topic in question.
Incorrect.
Brian
Brian
I agree.
One of the problems of the early 1980's was that women victims of
sexual abuse/assault, did *not* get a fair go. There was a need for
change.
The pendulum had to swing.
But a pendulum swing of 300 to 13000!!!!????
The numbers have slowly declined since the darkest days of 1993, but
are still running at over 8000.
Brian
Kerry Thornbury
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 08:03:55 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 04:59:34 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>Vallance) wrote:
>
>
>>> ACC now has about 1,000 "approved counsellors".
>
>> And what proportion of them use so called "recovered
>> memories techniques"?
>
>On your web page http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
>you state that you have a psychological condition commonly known as
>Multiple Personality Disorder. You also state that you have been
>diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
>
>Are you prepared to name these people?
That is entirely irrelevant to Andrew's claims.
Why should he review his personal medical history to you?
Kerry Thornbury
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:25:46 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>Sure, just as soon as you can show me any relevance to the subject at
>>hand (ie my request for some shread of evidence to support the
>>repeated claims of numerous people). Otherwise, may I suggest you play
>>the ball rather than the man.
>
>I have no wish to play the man. I only repeated enough from your web
>page, that I considered very relevant to the *issue*.
>
>The issue that you raised yourself was over the proportion of
>counsellors employing specific techniques. You yourself also
>admitted that the diagnosis of MPD is extremely controversial.
>
>While you may see no relevance to the subject at hand, would you
>concede that others may consider the issue highly relevant?
>
>I again ask, are you prepared to name these people?
I consider it highly offensive that you introduce personal details
that Andrew never introduced to the discussion. To what purpose? Are
you trying to discredit him? If so, why?
I consider you are offensively introducing red herrings, whilst
refusing to answer Andrew's quite relevant, questions
Brian
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:03:31 GMT, rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>>Are you prepared to name these people?
>
>Isn't that rather a low blow Brian, what has that to do with the
>current debate.
Please refer to my responses to Andrew and Scooter. I have no wish to
talk about any particular person, or discredit what anybody is saying
by ad hominem attack.
But to know who eight highly qualified people are who would diagnose
MPD is very important. To have known that there were eight in the
whole country, would be extremely worrying. To know that one person
has been in contact with eight of them, makes me even more concerned
about the therapy profession.
If the eight people are indeed professionals, then I would expect them
to have no concerns about admitting that they carry out such
diagnoses. A diagnosis of MPD (they changed the name to DID) is not
*unethical* ~ it is a disorder that still appears in the DSM IV
handbook of disorders, but it speaks volumes about the type of therapy
going on. In my experience, therapists who carry out such diagnoses
are not shy about their "expertise", or their faith in the validity of
their diagnosis.
False Allegations and Counselling practices go hand in hand. I am
not surprised about your reaction and probably the reaction of others
that I was simply making an ad hominem attack. Many people are
probably not aware of the close link between the controversies raging
within the psychotherapy profession about repressed memories,
diagnoses of MPD, therapy practices etc.
What I asked had everything to do with the current debate.
Brian
Brian
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:25:46 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>The issue that you raised yourself was over the proportion of
>>counsellors employing specific techniques. You yourself also
>>admitted that the diagnosis of MPD is extremely controversial.
>>
>>While you may see no relevance to the subject at hand, would you
>>concede that others may consider the issue highly relevant?
>>
>>I again ask, are you prepared to name these people?
>
>I consider it highly offensive that you introduce personal details
>that Andrew never introduced to the discussion. To what purpose?
Please refer to my other responses to Scooter and Tricia.
What is important is not personal at all. The names of eight highly
qualified people who would diagnose MPD.
The question directly followed on from one of Andrew's questions, and
is relevant to the discussion.
> Are you trying to discredit him? If so, why?
No. The issue has a far wider importance than the views of Andrew.
>I consider you are offensively introducing red herrings, whilst
>refusing to answer Andrew's quite relevant, questions
He was not asking me questions.
Brian
Dean Bedford
Brian wrote in message <3542f406...@news.wave.co.nz>...
Thats interesting, and I bow to your superior knowledge.
Just as a matter of interest, is corroboration required for any crime? If
not, I may still be partially right.
Harry Johnston
a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew Vallance) wrote:
> Bzzz ***WRONG*** (please play again). The ACC will contribute up to
> $50 per session towards therapy by a registered ACC therapist, they
> will fund two session (thats right two) to determine wheither or not a
> legitimate claim exists. [...]
You're picking on a rather peripheral issue here, aren't you?
(Yeah, I know, Pot, Kettle, Black.) ;-)
Harry.
---
Harry Johnston, om...@ihug.co.nz
One Earth, One World, One People
Harry Johnston
kerryd.remo...@ihug.co.nz (Kerry Thornbury) wrote:
> A 16 year old girl reported being sexually assaulted at 14. That is
> more than normal, it can take a long time to pluck up the courage to
> say anything to anybody. There is no suggestion of 'recovered memory'
> in this case, the girl never claimed to have forgotten and remembered.
This is itself is a major problem. Is there any way we can attempt to
resocialise ourselves - as a culture - to be more forthcoming about
sexual offences?
At least if a complaint is laid immediately, there will be physical
evidence of sex. In the case of an underage victim, this is adequate
in itself for a conviction, but even for an older victim it gives the
courts somewhere to start.
Brian
>>On your web page http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
>>you state that you have a psychological condition commonly known as
>>Multiple Personality Disorder. You also state that you have been
>>diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
>>
>>Are you prepared to name these people?
>
>
>That is entirely irrelevant to Andrew's claims.
>
>Why should he review his personal medical history to you?
I want to be absolutely clear that I have no interest in Andrew's
personal medical history, over and above what he has published
himself.
I do not consider the names of eight highly qualified people who would
make a diagnosis of MPD, personal. I think that information should
be in the public domain.
Brian
Brian
>>The Evidence Act
>>[23ab Corroboration in sexual cases -
>>(1) Where any person is tried for an offence against any of sections
>>128 to 144 of the Crimes Act 1961 or for any other offence against the
>>person of a sexual nature, no corroboration of the complainant's
>>evidence shall be necessary for that person to be convicted; and in
>>any such case the Judge shall not be required to give any warning to
>>the jury relating to the absence of corroboration.
>
>Just as a matter of interest, is corroboration required for any crime? If
>not, I may still be partially right.
>
In crimes of a sexual nature, corroboration is not required. Another
exclusion, is where an accomplice of an accused gives evidence, that
evidence does not need to be corroborated.
In all other cases, an absence of corroboration will be sufficient for
the defence to request the case be dismissed.
Perhaps a lawyer may wish to clarify my statement? I do not put
myself forward as an expert on the law.
Brian
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 07:51:16 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>Vallance) wrote:
>>bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 04:59:34 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>>>Vallance) wrote:
>>>>>ACC now has about 1,000 "approved counsellors".
>>>>And what proportion of them use so called "recovered
>>>>memories techniques"?
>> "I "suffer" from a psychological condition known as Dissociative
>> Identity Disorder. It's more commonly known by it's old name
>> Multiple Personality Disorder. <snip>
>> I also know that this condition is "Highly controversial" (to
>> quote the DSM-IV); but I have now been diagnosed by no less than
>> eight highly qualified people
>>> Are you prepared to name these people?
>>Sure, just as soon as you can show me any relevance to the subject at
>>hand (ie my request for some shread of evidence to support the
>>repeated claims of numerous people). Otherwise, may I suggest you play
>>the ball rather than the man.
>I have no wish to play the man. I only repeated enough from your web
>page, that I considered very relevant to the *issue*.
>The issue that you raised yourself was over the proportion of
>counsellors employing specific techniques. You yourself also
>admitted that the diagnosis of MPD is extremely controversial.
Okay so what your wanting to know is can I provide the evidence that
thusfar nobody else appears either willing or able to do (or: have any
of those eight professionals used the "questionable recovered memory
techniques"); this is the only germane point I can see. Well, its kind
of irrelevant, because at best that would still be no more than
anecdotal evidence. however the point is moot, since the answer is no,
none of them have used those techniques and when questioned all of
them stated catergorically that they did not as it was a breach of the
relevant ethical codes. I have no recovered memories, all the memories
of the abuse I suffered are as fresh as the day they happened and have
not faded with time, I know that may jar with the common perception of
DID, but its not a "common" condition is it. But then again, this is
all only anecdotal evidence isn't it.
>While you may see no relevance to the subject at hand, would you
>concede that others may consider the issue highly relevant?
No, I would not. I make no claims or statements, I simply ask that
some evidence of a genuine cause for concern be presented. Since my
own personal history can not provide any such evidence, it can not be
germane. All my personal history can provide is my motivation, but I
make no secret of that; I state my bias publically and leave others to
make what they will of it.
And to Tricia, Scooter and Kerry; thank you for your concern. However
I do not make any secret of either my abuse or my "condition". I was
the one who was raped, I did nothing wrong, I have nothing to be
ashamed of.
>I again ask, are you prepared to name these people?
Just as soon as you can show how it is relevant to producing
supporting evidence for the claims that there are a massive number of
false allegations/recovered memories and a massive number of innocent
men being convicted.
So I will ask again (and I will keep on asking). Can anybody provide
any evidence of this alleged problem? Specifically, in NZ:
What proportion of sexual assualt complaints result in prosecutions?
What percentage of prosecutions results in convictions?
What percentage of convictions are based on recovered memories?
What percentage of convictions are based on the uncorroberated
testimony of a single complainant?
What percentage of ACC registered therapists used recovered memory
techniques?
What percentage of ACC sexual assualt claims are based on recovered
memories?
Show me a problem, give me some evidence, let us have some actual
facts not just bland statements of a problem; please anyone, I'm not
particularly fussy as to who provides the evidence, hey just give me
the citations and I'll look them up myself.
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:03:31 GMT, rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>If the eight people are indeed professionals, then I would expect them
>to have no concerns about admitting that they carry out such
>diagnoses. A diagnosis of MPD (they changed the name to DID) is not
>*unethical* ~ it is a disorder that still appears in the DSM IV
>handbook of disorders, but it speaks volumes about the type of therapy
>going on. In my experience, therapists who carry out such diagnoses
>are not shy about their "expertise", or their faith in the validity of
>their diagnosis.
The type of counselling that was going on was narative therapy and
cognative behavoural therapy (not that it is any way relevant).
Andrew Vallance
om...@ihug.co.nz (Harry Johnston) wrote:
>a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew Vallance) wrote:
>> Bzzz ***WRONG*** (please play again). The ACC will contribute up to
>> $50 per session towards therapy by a registered ACC therapist, they
>> will fund two session (thats right two) to determine wheither or not a
>> legitimate claim exists. [...]
>You're picking on a rather peripheral issue here, aren't you?
Just correcting some misinformation :*>.
Brian
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:00:21 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
Vallance) wrote:
> Brian wrote:
>> Andrew wrote:
>
>>>Sure, just as soon as you can show me any relevance to the subject at
>>>hand (ie my request for some shread of evidence to support the
>>>repeated claims of numerous people). Otherwise, may I suggest you play
>>>the ball rather than the man.
>
>>I have no wish to play the man. I only repeated enough from your web
>>page, that I considered very relevant to the *issue*.
>
>>The issue that you raised yourself was over the proportion of
>>counsellors employing specific techniques. You yourself also
>>admitted that the diagnosis of MPD is extremely controversial.
>
>Okay so what your wanting to know is can I provide the evidence that
>thusfar nobody else appears either willing or able to do (or: have any
>of those eight professionals used the "questionable recovered memory
>techniques"); this is the only germane point I can see. Well, its kind
>of irrelevant, because at best that would still be no more than
>anecdotal evidence. however the point is moot, since the answer is no,
>none of them have used those techniques and when questioned all of
>them stated catergorically that they did not as it was a breach of the
>relevant ethical codes. I have no recovered memories, all the memories
>of the abuse I suffered are as fresh as the day they happened and have
>not faded with time, I know that may jar with the common perception of
>DID, but its not a "common" condition is it. But then again, this is
>all only anecdotal evidence isn't it.
I do not wish to question your own personal history, or discuss your
personal diagnosis. What you may or may not have been diagnosed with
does not either validate or invalidate anything in your previous
history.
Multiple Personality Disorder, renamed DID, has become quite a
"common" condition over the last twenty years. Some might say that it
seemed to become as common as the 'flu in the late 80's in America,
although only a handful of therapists were responsible for the bulk of
the diagnoses.
Typical of the literature from that time were books by
Bennett Braun, 1986
"Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder",
Frank Putnam, 1989
"Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder"
More recent analysis of this diagnosis offers a different perspective,
and the profession is now becoming far more skeptical of the validity
of the diagnosis.
In Spanos, 1996
"Multiple Identities and False Memories"
the author presents a critique of the assumed connection between MPD,
and the recovery of repressed memories of childhood physical and
sexual abuse. The book examines the complex issues surrounding the
reported recovery of memories of abuse during therapy, as well as the
role of the therapist in the generation and maintenance of MPD.
Spanos also draws parallels between MPD and a number of historical and
sociocultural phenomena such as demonic possession, witchcraft,
glossolalia, and hysteria.
In Piper, 1997
"Hoax and Reality, The Bizarrre World of MPD"
the author states that the diagnosis has become a fad. He asserts that
the surge of MPD cases is largely generated by the doctors themselves,
by their over-inclusive diagnostic criteria and self-fulfilling
therapeutic techniques.
>
>>While you may see no relevance to the subject at hand, would you
>>concede that others may consider the issue highly relevant?
>
>No, I would not. I make no claims or statements, I simply ask that
>some evidence of a genuine cause for concern be presented.
I am not interested in any of your claims, except for the fact that
you say that *eight* highly qualified people have been prepared to
give the diagnosis of MPD.
As well as wanting to know who these particular people are, it may
give some clue as to how widespread such beliefs are within the
counselling and therapy profession in New Zealand.
Is the industry here just going through the stage the United States
was ten years ago, or is the industry in a time warp, stuck with a fad
that is now ten years old?
Are these people all from one area of New Zealand? If so, are they
representative of the industry in other parts of the country, or is
there some particular influence in the community in which you live?
I have a real genuine cause for concern. I think all New Zealanders
should share my concern.
> Since my own personal history can not provide any such evidence,
> it can not be germane. All my personal history can provide is my
> motivation, but I make no secret of that; I state my bias
> publically and leave others to make what they will of it.
I do not wish to discuss your personal history.
>And to Tricia, Scooter and Kerry; thank you for your concern. However
>I do not make any secret of either my abuse or my "condition". I was
>the one who was raped, I did nothing wrong, I have nothing to be
>ashamed of.
Nobody who is raped should feel ashamed of anything. Nor should
anyone feel ashamed of any "condition" that they may have.
>>I again ask, are you prepared to name these people?
>
>Just as soon as you can show how it is relevant to producing
>supporting evidence for the claims that there are a massive number of
>false allegations/recovered memories and a massive number of innocent
>men being convicted.
It is very relevant to the type of counselling and therapy practices
that are going on in New Zealand. The answer will assist in providing
an estimate to one of your specific questions below.
Are you prepared to name these people?
>
>So I will ask again (and I will keep on asking). Can anybody provide
>any evidence of this alleged problem? Specifically, in NZ:
The best person to ask for the answers to these questions is probably
Felicity Goodyear-Smith, who wrote the Press Release that started this
whole thread.
f.goodye...@auckland.ac.nz
Dr Felicity Goodyear-Smith
Hon Research Fellow
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Science
University of Auckland
My understanding (although my information may be incorrect) is that
the number of cases involving the uncorroborated testimony of a
complainant where COSA has a real cause for concern numbers close to
2000. Of course nobody would claim that uncorroborated evidence is
synonymous with innocence.
How many cases of innocent men being accused, and/or being convicted,
would give you cause for alarm? 1? 5? 10? 20? 100? 1000?
Remember we are dealing with a crime that is arguably the most serious
offence that somebody can be accused of.... this is not speeding
ticket territory.
>What proportion of sexual assualt complaints result in prosecutions?
>What percentage of prosecutions results in convictions?
>What percentage of convictions are based on recovered memories?
>What percentage of convictions are based on the uncorroberated
> testimony of a single complainant?
>What percentage of ACC registered therapists used recovered memory
> techniques?
>What percentage of ACC sexual assualt claims are based on recovered
> memories?
>
>Show me a problem, give me some evidence, let us have some actual
>facts not just bland statements of a problem; please anyone, I'm not
>particularly fussy as to who provides the evidence, hey just give me
>the citations and I'll look them up myself.
I'm sure that for some of your questions that the answers will be
impossible to find. For example there is probably not a single
therapist in New Zealand that would admit to using "recovered memory
techniques". The problem is wrapped up in the way that counsellors
have been trained, and their incompetence is largely a result of
ignorance rather than maliciousness.
The answer to your ACC question is less relevant than the answer to
the question: How many of the ACC claims are genuine? Gordon Waugh in
his post outlined how the number of claims skyrocketed from 300 per
year in the 1980's to a peak of 13000 in 1993, from which it has been
slowly declining. Probably the tragedy is that *nobody* can answer
how many of these are genuine. The ACC, at least in the early 1990's
was totally unconcerned about the possibility of fraud... either
deliberate fraud (which *may* have been involved in the Peter Ellis
fiasco), or fraud based on incompetent therapy.
I'm also concerned that whatever answer is given that will not be
grounds for concern. You've seen the tip of the iceberg with the
headline cases of the last couple of years. People who have been
imprisoned and later released. Girls and women who have admitted
making false allegations. It does not take much imagination to
realise that for every one of these cases there is some equivalent
number of people still suffering.
*One* man pricked our consciences in the 1970's: Arthur Allan Thomas.
How many men does it take in the 1990's to be so affected?
Incidentally the problem is not so much of "recovered" memory.
Everybody has many experiences of forgetting something, and then later
remembering that same information. Which could be called "recovering"
that memory.
The argument with sexual abuse, is over whether a person who is abused
at a young age, or repeatedly, will "repress" the memory of the
trauma, until it is safe to "recover" in therapy years later. Most
people who have suffered trauma of any kind know this to be false...
that they may forget minor details of the trauma, but never forget the
event. The theory that some therapists wish to maintain, is that it
works differently with sexual abuse. The label of MPD, of course
helps to explain away why such horrendous abuse could have been going
on, while all external evidence from friends and family show a normal
happy childhood. It's all sort of self fulfilling mumbo jumbo.
Brian
Kerry Thornbury
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:20:50 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:03:31 GMT, rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>
>
>>>Are you prepared to name these people?
>>
>>Isn't that rather a low blow Brian, what has that to do with the
>>current debate.
>
>Please refer to my responses to Andrew and Scooter. I have no wish to
>talk about any particular person, or discredit what anybody is saying
>by ad hominem attack.
>
>But to know who eight highly qualified people are who would diagnose
>MPD is very important. To have known that there were eight in the
>whole country, would be extremely worrying. To know that one person
>has been in contact with eight of them, makes me even more concerned
>about the therapy profession.
Why? There are dozens of psychiatrists in the country, all of whom
would be able to make the diagnosis. It is a legitimate diagnosis, a
dissociative disorder, under DSM IV. DID It is rare but it is well
documented. I would be worried about having a psychiatrist that
couldn't diagnose it myself....
>
>If the eight people are indeed professionals, then I would expect them
>to have no concerns about admitting that they carry out such
>diagnoses.
Why? It is a legitimate diagnosis. Quite commonly observed in those
who were repeatedly physically and sexually abused as children. It
appears to be a self protective mechanism.
> A diagnosis of MPD (they changed the name to DID) is not
>*unethical* ~ it is a disorder that still appears in the DSM IV
>handbook of disorders, but it speaks volumes about the type of therapy
>going on.
What volumes? What do you know about psychiatric illnesses?
A diagnosis speaks NOTHING of therapy. It is a diagnosis, with very
clear definitions of what it is, and what it is not.
> In my experience, therapists who carry out such diagnoses
>are not shy about their "expertise", or their faith in the validity of
>their diagnosis.
I would presume you know little of psychiatrists, psychiatry, or their
work then.
>
>False Allegations and Counselling practices go hand in hand. I am
>not surprised about your reaction and probably the reaction of others
>that I was simply making an ad hominem attack. Many people are
>probably not aware of the close link between the controversies raging
>within the psychotherapy profession about repressed memories,
>diagnoses of MPD, therapy practices etc.
There isn't much controversy about DID, it is part of DSM IV. It is a
diagnosis that is used where appropriate, when the criteria for it are
met.
Repressed memories however, are not recognised under DSM IV, and it is
treated pretty sceptically in medical circles.
Compare apples with apples.
Kerry
Psychol Bull 1996 Jul;120(1):42-59
The sociocognitive model of dissociative identity disorder: a
reexamination of the evidence.
Gleaves DH
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station
77843-4235, USA. d...@psyc.tamu.edu
According to the sociocognitive model of dissociative identity
disorder (DID; formerly, multiple personality disorder), DID is not a
valid psychiatric disorder of
posttraumatic origin; rather, it is a creation of psychotherapy and
the media. Support for the model was recently presented by N.P. Spanos
(1994). In this article, the author
reexamines the evidence for the model and concludes that it is based
on numerous false assumptions about the psychopathology, assessment,
and treatment of DID. Most
recent research on the dissociative disorders does not support (and in
fact disconfirms) the sociocognitive model, and many inferences drawn
from previous research
appear unwarranted. No reason exists to doubt the connection between
DID and childhood trauma. Treatment recommendations that follow from
the sociocognitive model
may be harmful because they involve ignoring the posttraumatic
symptomatology of persons with DID.
Psychiatry 1996;59(3):255-266
Lifetime axis I and II comorbidity and childhood trauma history in
dissociative identity disorder.
Ellason JW, Ross CA, Fuchs DL
Dissociative Disorders Unit, Charter Health System of Dallas, Plano,
TX, USA.
According to DSM-IV, dissociative identity disorder is characterized
by the existence within the person of two or more distinctly different
identities or personality states that
from time to time take executive control of the person's body and
behavior, with accompanying amnesia (American Psychiatric Association,
1994). By retrospective patient
report, dissociative identity disorder usually occurs in conjunction
with severe childhood trauma (Kluft 1985; Putnam et al. 1986; Ross
1989; Ross et al. 1989a, 1990a). The
disorder appears to be the most severe form of disturbance on the
dissociative disorders continuum (Boon and Draijer 1993; Coons 1992;
Ross 1985; Ross et al. 1992).
There is evidence that dissociative identity disorder may be more
prevalent than once believed in the general population (Ross 1991) and
among general adult psychiatric
inpatients (Latz et al. 1995; Ross et al. 1991; Saxe et al. 1993).
Brian
>>
>>But to know who eight highly qualified people are who would diagnose
>>MPD is very important. To have known that there were eight in the
>>whole country, would be extremely worrying. To know that one person
>>has been in contact with eight of them, makes me even more concerned
>>about the therapy profession.
>
>Why? There are dozens of psychiatrists in the country, all of whom
>would be able to make the diagnosis. It is a legitimate diagnosis, a
>dissociative disorder, under DSM IV. DID It is rare but it is well
>documented. I would be worried about having a psychiatrist that
>couldn't diagnose it myself....
It is in DSM IV, yes.
The tragedy will be the length of time it continues to stay there.
Its becoming known now by it's latest name of FAD, replacing MPD, and
DID..... Folie a Deux (between the therapist and the client).
In brief, the whole thing is about as real as the Emperor's New
Clothes.
You are right though, it is still "legitimate", and therapists can not
yet be called to account for giving the diagnosis. As Andrew
Vallance said, the diagnosis is extremely controversial.
I am aware that my statement above will provoke strong disagreement
from those who still believe in it. A response, or responses such as
yours were expected.
I suggest you read the books I referenced. I included a couple of
books by those who actively believe and promote the disorder as
"real", and a couple that expose the disorder for what it really is: a
therapeutic folly.
>A diagnosis speaks NOTHING of therapy. It is a diagnosis, with very
>clear definitions of what it is, and what it is not.
A diagnosis of MPD says *everything* about therapy, and the beliefs of
the therapist. It is, simply a construct between the therapist and
client: A folie a deux.
>> In my experience, therapists who carry out such diagnoses
>>are not shy about their "expertise", or their faith in the validity of
>>their diagnosis.
>
>I would presume you know little of psychiatrists, psychiatry, or their
>work then.
You're making a mistake if you think this comes out of psychiatry
offices exclusively. But anyone can be so duped. Psychiatrists can
be shown to be extremely fallible: Karen Zelas in the Peter Ellis
fiasco, had a view that virtually any behaviour exhibited by a child
was consistent with sexual abuse.
>>False Allegations and Counselling practices go hand in hand. I am
>>not surprised about your reaction and probably the reaction of others
>>that I was simply making an ad hominem attack. Many people are
>>probably not aware of the close link between the controversies raging
>>within the psychotherapy profession about repressed memories,
>>diagnoses of MPD, therapy practices etc.
>
>There isn't much controversy about DID, it is part of DSM IV. It is a
>diagnosis that is used where appropriate, when the criteria for it are
>met.
There is a *major* controversy over MPD (or DID or FAD, or whatever
you want to call it). Read the literature. Even some of the
literature refs you've given indicate the controversy.
When you've finished with the Kluft, Putnam, Ross, Braun brigade read
a little of the other side of the debate. Learn what has happened to
Braun in the legal arena recently. Keep tuned into what will happen
to Peterson in Texas. I'm positive the legal arena in the States
will cut MPD off at the knees in a very short time, along with the
same sort of therapy that is creating the recovery of "repressed"
memory problems. It'll probably take a little longer for the
psychology profession to endorse the solution. Perhaps it'll take
another 5-10 years for such news to reach New Zealand.
>
>Repressed memories however, are not recognised under DSM IV, and it is
>treated pretty sceptically in medical circles.
>
>Compare apples with apples.
A thorn by another name, I'm afraid.
Brian
Brian
>om...@ihug.co.nz (Harry Johnston) wrote:
>
>>a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew Vallance) wrote:
>
>>> Bzzz ***WRONG*** (please play again). The ACC will contribute up to
>>> $50 per session towards therapy by a registered ACC therapist, they
>>> will fund two session (thats right two) to determine wheither or not a
>>> legitimate claim exists. [...]
>
>>You're picking on a rather peripheral issue here, aren't you?
>
>Just correcting some misinformation :*>.
I noted that the information given by David McLoughlin was also later
given by Gordon Waugh (quoted below), and was not misinformation :
1. ACC Stats & General Matters. My data
are from three successive Ministers for ACC,
the Managing Director of ACC, ACC's Sensitive
Claims Unit, and ACC Annual Reports from 1988
to present. ACC now has about 1,000 "approved
counsellors". Pay rates specified in the ARCI
Counselling Costs Regulations 1992 are $56.25
an hour for counsellors, $72 for Registered
Health Professionals.
Are you saying that the information above is incorrect, Andrew?
Brian
tricia
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:35:21 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:59:06 GMT, kerryd.remo...@ihug.co.nz
>(Kerry Thornbury) wrote:
>
>
>>>On your web page http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/index.htm
>>>you state that you have a psychological condition commonly known as
>>>Multiple Personality Disorder. You also state that you have been
>>>diagnosed by "no less than eight highly qualified people"
>>>
>>>Are you prepared to name these people?
>>
>>
>>That is entirely irrelevant to Andrew's claims.
>>
>>Why should he review his personal medical history to you?
>
>I want to be absolutely clear that I have no interest in Andrew's
>personal medical history, over and above what he has published
>himself.
>
>I do not consider the names of eight highly qualified people who would
>make a diagnosis of MPD, personal. I think that information should
>be in the public domain.
Why???
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
Brian
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 18:23:46 GMT, rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>>I do not consider the names of eight highly qualified people who would
>>make a diagnosis of MPD, personal. I think that information should
>>be in the public domain.
>
>
>Why???
I was really worried that my multiple posts on the subject would have
been an overkill, but I've obviously still not made my point.
Andrew's web page publication gives a real clue to the extent of the
problems we have in New Zealand.
1. To help answer Andrew's question on the proportion of therapists
carrying out a certain kind of therapy.
I recall one post saying that there were 1000 registered ACC
counsellors. If eight of these were people who made MPD diagnoses
I'd be concerned. If there are eight in one area, and that number is
representative of the proportion all over the country, we've got
extremely serious problems.
Remember there is no basis for not including those who would make such
a diagnosis....it's in that DSM IV manual, which gives it
"respectability"
2. As a consumer awareness service. Such therapists are doing
nothing legally wrong, and perhaps would even have the endorsement of
their profession (or maybe even in New Zealand the enthusiastic
endorsement of their profession).
Again, it has been pointed out by others that MPD is listed in the DSM
IV manual (by their new sanitised name of DID). But informed
consumers may also be extremely interested (and very concerned) in
knowing beforehand that a counsellor or therapist endorsed this
particular disorder.
I see no reason why anybody would not be willing to publish their
names. If the qualified people are professional, they should stand
proud of their expertise, quote the DSM IV as their Bible, and refute
what I say vehemently.
They are doing nothing legally wrong, and especially if there are
eight of them, they've got a lot of supporters. Whether they have
the support of their profession, the endorsement of their profession,
or the enthusiastic support and endorsement of their profession, are
questions that I'd really like to have the answers to.
Brian
Frank G. Pitt
In article <01bd6fbb$a035f4a0$470d...@melwanda.ihug.co.nz>,
"Betty" <melw...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>Tell me..how does a eight year old boy made to perform oral sex in a car by
>the roadside provide corroborating evidence ?
He doesn't.
The prosecuting attourney provides it.
If there isn't any, there shouldn't be a case
In such a situation, however, it shold be possible to obtain
at least a bit of corroborating evidence, such as the boy's
identification of the genitalia of his attacker, preferably
from a line up, and the identification of the car in a
similar manner.
>How does a five year girl abused in the night by a family member provide
>this evidence ?
Again, she doesn't.
The prosecuting attourney provides it.
If there isn't any, there shouldn't be a case.
>A child molester jailed recently in ChCh was only caught up with because
>his victims grew up and were then able to find a voice ..it turned out he
>had previous convictions....
While these people may actually have been abused an equally likley
scenario, _if_there_was_no_corroborating_evidence is that
they discovered a particular person had previous convictions, and
_then_ decided to falsely accuse them of past abuse to remove them
from the scene.
>you must be very careful about calls such as
>the one you make above....
And you need to be very careful of calling the reverse.
Or, perhaps one day someone might decide to accuse _you_ of abuse.
With no corroborating evidence of course...
>of all crimes this is the one where often there
>is no corroborating evidence
If there isn't any, there shouldn't be a case,
irrespective of the crime.
There could, however be appropriate corroborating
evidence, even in the casse where there is no
physical evidence and no other witnesses, such as
accurate descriptions of genitalia, or a report
stating that this particular child was not prone
to making up stories, that there was some distress
evident, indicating something had happpened
It's not very cut & dried, but the _absence_
of certain reactions might also be considered
evidence _against_ the accuser.
Either way, it's far easier to go for
a blanket "no conviction without evidence" rule.
Of course, then we get to discuss whether
circumstantial evidence can be considered
"coroborating", as in :
"Well, several people saw her in the neighbourhood
therefore the boys story that she abused him
is corroborated"
(Which is essentialy the flawed reasoning of
at least newspaper report I've read )
Frankie
Dave McL
> >Are you prepared to name these people?
>
> Isn't that rather a low blow Brian, what has that to do with the
> current debate.
The identities of therapists is highly valid in a debate like this
Tricia, as there are distinct and warring camps of therapists, all
promoting their versions of the "truth.". If you know the name of a
therapist, you will know what their stance is. I can name you, eg,
therapists who, if you go to them with a problem, whatever the
problem is they will disgnose you as having been sexually abused by your
father in your bassinet, and proceed to milk ACC for months, if not years
until you agree with them.
The same therapists' names pop up all the time in court cases of
uncorroborated and highly unlikely allegations made by adult women who
claim their fathers molested them at very young ages and remembered the
abuse with the help of the kindly therapist.
There are some real doozies of these therapists in Auckland, but
Christchurch is a poisonous viper's nest of them. Andrew Vallance's ISP
is a Christchurch one, so if he lives there and this was where his eight
highly qualified experts are, their names would help others to put his
comments into context.
Dave McL
Auckland New Zealand
"While Parliament is in session, no working person's income, nor anyone's
rights and freedoms, are safe from plunder by their elected
representatives."
.-- M.R. Johnson, April 22 1998
"Thank the byelection, Parliament isn't sitting this week, so we're safe
for a few days yet." .-- D.J. McLoughlin, April 23 1998.
Dave McL
> >The Evidence Act
> >[23ab Corroboration in sexual cases -
> >(1) Where any person is tried for an offence against any of sections
> >128 to 144 of the Crimes Act 1961 or for any other offence against the
> >person of a sexual nature, no corroboration of the complainant's
> >evidence shall be necessary for that person to be convicted; and in
> >any such case the Judge shall not be required to give any warning to
> >the jury relating to the absence of corroboration.
>
> Thats interesting, and I bow to your superior knowledge.
>
> Just as a matter of interest, is corroboration required for any crime? If
> not, I may still be partially right.
To the best of my knowledge, these are the only crimes where no
corroboration, or even evidence of any kind, is required. Many men are in
jail in New Zealand right now as a result of being prosecuted for
allegations of abuse where no evidence exists nor any corroboration
either by witness or medical or forensic findings.
Frank van der Hulst
Betty wrote:
>
> Frank van der Hulst <fra...@pec.co.nz> wrote in article
>
> > It is standard practice (a lawyer told me in 50% of cases) for women
> > to accuse their ex-partners of sexually abusing their own children.
>
> I would be VERY interested to see where this figure comes
> from....documented statistics ?...or maybe in the opinion of some
> lawyer ?
I believe the figure was based on his own experience in family law
practice.
Since then, I've hit up other lawyers about their experience in this
area. They *all* hedged and avoided answering. My interpretation of
this behaviour is that they all know it's too high and aren't doing
anything about it.
Frank.
tricia
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:06:45 +1200, Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz>
wrote:
>The identities of therapists is highly valid in a debate like this
>Tricia,
Well I don't agree so we will have to agree to disagree wont we, no
probs *grin*
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
tricia
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 20:11:30 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>I was really worried that my multiple posts on the subject would have
>been an overkill, but I've obviously still not made my point.
Well gee just call me thick *grin* cause I still don't see the
relevance of naming the therapists to this debate, but like I said
previously to Dave McL we will have to agree to disagree..........such
is life
Tricia
-----
ICQ 1378028
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>om...@ihug.co.nz (Harry Johnston) wrote:
>>>a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew Vallance) wrote:
No, but:
"but after hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of
ACC-funded therapy at $72 an hour,"
clearly is (most claims do not even reach 40 hours, very very few
reach 80, something exceptional would have to be present for them even
to reach 100 hours). Yet another example of the widespread
misinformation that is propogated on the subject.
Andrew Vallance
rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:35:21 GMT, bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:59:06 GMT, kerryd.remo...@ihug.co.nz
>>(Kerry Thornbury) wrote:
>>I do not consider the names of eight highly qualified people who would
>>make a diagnosis of MPD, personal. I think that information should
>>be in the public domain.
>Why???
Because my questions cut right to the heart of the matter (that there
is no hard evidence to support these claims), therefore Brian, Gordon
Waugh, Dave Mcl et al are reduced to creating a strawman to hide the
fact that they have no objective evidence. In answer to my questions
the best that they can come up with is that a lot of claims of sexual
abuse are made and that ergo they can not all be true. To hide that
fact they will seize on the fact that some professionals will after
exhausting all other possibilities accept a controversal diagnoise
(the diagnoise which in itself is threatening to those who claim there
is no such thing as recovered memories, since dissociation provides
the missing mechanism for them); which since they do raise a few
legitimate concerns in amongst everything is rather sad.
Andrew Vallance
Dave McL <dav...@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:
>tricia wrote:
>> Isn't that rather a low blow Brian, what has that to do with the
>> current debate.
>There are some real doozies of these therapists in Auckland, but
>Christchurch is a poisonous viper's nest of them. Andrew Vallance's ISP
>is a Christchurch one, so if he lives there and this was where his eight
>highly qualified experts are, their names would help others to put his
>comments into context.
Rubbish, utter rot. Firstly I have made no comments claims or
statements; I have simply asked that someone match the standards you
set for those making claims of sexual assualt (namely that someone
provides some corroborating evidence). Some serious accusations have
been made (widespread fraud on a massive scale, untold numbers of men
convicted on the say of recovered memories or dubious claims etc). I
have yet to see any evidence advanced in support of these claims. As
such it is totally irrelevant as to who I am in any way shape or form;
I could be the tooth fairy for all it matters, the questions I ask are
just as valid. I actually have an open mind, when valid points are
raised (such as the bias in police investigating proceadures) I will
wholeheartly support them; but I do demand some evidence.
Secondly, my own personal opinions and thoughts on the matter are out
in the open for anyone to see; and are displayed quite clearly in my
sig. Anyone with a web browser can find out exactly were I stand. But
then again, to the matter in hand, they matter not one iota. The
repeated request for the names of the professionals concerned is no
more than a strawman built in a desperate attempt to divert attention
from the real issue I am raising (namely the lack of evidence).
Brian
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:59:45 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
Vallance) wrote:
> rab...@exxxtra.co.nz (tricia) wrote:
>> bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>>>I do not consider the names of eight highly qualified people who would
>>>make a diagnosis of MPD, personal. I think that information should
>>>be in the public domain.
>
>> Why???
>
>Because my questions cut right to the heart of the matter (that there
>is no hard evidence to support these claims), therefore Brian, Gordon
>Waugh, Dave Mcl et al are reduced to creating a strawman to hide the
>fact that they have no objective evidence.
There are of course no statistics of the number of innocent people who
have been falsely accused, or have been convicted. The justice
system would say the number of innocent people in prison is zero.
For evidence that there is a major problem, we have to look for other
(corroborating :-) ) evidence.
>In answer to my questions
>the best that they can come up with is that a lot of claims of sexual
>abuse are made and that ergo they can not all be true.
The rise from about 300 a year through the 1980's to figures peaking
at 13000 in 1993, is however very amazing. You may say that these
figures mean nothing if you wish.
>To hide that
>fact they will seize on the fact that some professionals will after
>exhausting all other possibilities accept a controversal diagnoise
>(the diagnoise which in itself is threatening to those who claim there
>is no such thing as recovered memories, since dissociation provides
>the missing mechanism for them); which since they do raise a few
>legitimate concerns in amongst everything is rather sad.
You have correctly identified the link between the diagnosis of MPD,
and dissociative disorders, and the therapy methods that are
responsible for many of the false allegations.
Circular kind of arguments:
1. "You must have a dissociative disorder (like MPD) because
you would otherwise have always known about the abuse .....
2. "You must have been abused for you to have developed a
dissociative disorder .....
Sort of self fulfilling stuff.
I'll stress however that the diagnosis of such a disorder does not
mean that the person has not been abused.
Brian
Andrew Vallance
bri...@wave.co.nz (Brian) wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:00:21 GMT, a.val...@netaccess.co.nz (Andrew
>Vallance) wrote:
>>>While you may see no relevance to the subject at hand, would you
>>>concede that others may consider the issue highly relevant?
>>No, I would not. I make no claims or statements, I simply ask that
>>some evidence of a genuine cause for concern be presented.
>I am not interested in any of your claims, except for the fact that
>you say that *eight* highly qualified people have been prepared to
>give the diagnosis of MPD.
>As well as wanting to know who these particular people are, it may
>give some clue as to how widespread such beliefs are within the
>counselling and therapy profession in New Zealand.
>Is the industry here just going through the stage the United States
>was ten years ago, or is the industry in a time warp, stuck with a fad
>that is now ten years old?
>Are these people all from one area of New Zealand? If so, are they
>representative of the industry in other parts of the country, or is
>there some particular influence in the community in which you live?
>I have a real genuine cause for concern. I think all New Zealanders
>should share my concern.
So many posts, its hard to know which one is the best to reply too :*>
However, I've picked one so please bear with me if all the points I
address are not perfectly valid for this particular post.
If I understand you correctly, your argument is that the fact that
there are professionals in NZ who are willing to make a diagnoise of
DID is a great cause for concern, since the diagnoise is not
universally accepted and is "controversal"? And therefore the name of
these professionals is germane since they are obviously incompetant.
Well firstly, I fail to see the logic behind your argument. Given the
debate at hand (the absence of evidence), I fail to see how the names
of anyone can be relevant.
However, the facts of my diagnoise actually are very illuminating.
Unlike what it appears you have assumed, none of these people made the
diagnoise lightly; in fact quite the opposite (which is one of the
reasons why there are so many involved). Rather than saying eight
professionals made this diagnoise, it could be better said that the
diagnoise required eight professionals to make it.
The initial therapist, after having exhausted all "normal"
possiblities reluctantly came to consider an alternative and
controvesial diagnoise (and I can not emphasis enough that all routine
possibilities were investigated first). However, mindful of the
controvesial nature of the diagnoise, the professional concerned chose
to seek a second opinion (much like any health professional in any
field should with any uncommon diagnoise). This professional also
investigated all convential possibilities before eventually reaching
the conclusion that the diagnoises was correct. However, just to be
sure (given the highly charged nature of this subject) a third opinion
was sought. Now the ACC was also dubious of the diagnoise as a matter
of policy and asked for yet another independent diagnoise (a fourth
opinion). Latter on ACC was to ask for yet another confirmation (when
the counselling reached 60 hours); thats five. It is routine ACC
proceadure to question and request independent confirmation of all
diagnoises of DID, both upon diagnoise and further into therapy.
Meanwhile some concerns where raised that some organic conditions
could explain some of the symptoms of DID (specifically temporal lobe
epilepsy). Therefore, it was required that this possiblity be
investigated further (this had already been ruled out previously, but
it pays to be sure, we can't have any false claims now can we).
Therefore, an extensive neurological investigation was launched. The
first neurologist found no evidence of any organic disorder and
suggested instead the possibility of guess what? ("a psychological
condition of a dissociative nature") However just to be sure, a second
neurological opinion was sought. It also suggested a dissociative
disorder, but due to the controvesial nature of this diagnoise, this
nuerologist requested a third neurological opinion; which reached the
by now predictable conclussion.
(At this point, I finally reached the level of my tolerance and have
refused to allow any further investigations into alternate diagnoise;
eight is well and truely enough; and the object is supposed to be to
treat the individual concerned, not confirm a diagnoise.)
Thus I see in my (all so ancedotal) case a group of professionals
willing to make a controvesial diagnoise, but only after fully
investigating all other possibilities. If anybody finds anything
concerning in this, I would be most interested to know (the words
"collective butt covering" spring to my mind).
(To head off any comments, the intial therapist only supported the
first two independent opinions, regarding that the diagnoise appeared
to have assumed a greater importance than the patient).