ANN-MARIE STAPP - Ritual Abuse - "Sunday Times" exposed FVPCC, Ritual Action Group, Stapp, Frances, Good - 28/11/93
Winston Wealleans
Wellington, New Zealand.
November 28, 1993.
Page 6.
"SUNDAY TIMES"
Wellington, New Zealand.
November 28, 1993.
Page 6.
RITUAL ABUSE STORY GROWS EVER STRANGER
*A Ritual Action Group operating out of Social
Welfare-administered offices has been giving workshops
around the country to 'educate' social workers, police and
others on perceived widespread ritual or systematic abuse.
Alan Samson investigates.
A senior Gisborne police officer was recently startled to
receive a deputation from two women with a tale that one of
them had been repeatedly raped and terrorised for daring to
speak out about abuse she had suffered as a child.
If that was not startling enough, the woman proceeded to
tell him that as a child in Wellington she had been
inveigled into Satanic cults by a Masonic grandfather.
She told a bizarre tale of sexual abuses and satanic
invocations before her real bombshell: she had seen human
babies and animals slaughtered.
Their blood had been drunk and certain parts of their bodies
eaten - the cult believed the life source was in blood.
Recalling the incident this week, Gisborne police district
commander Rana Waitai said the baby killing had apparently
happened in Wellington in the woman's youth.
The woman who claimed to have been raped had belonged to
"one of the more flaky religions", he said. Her supporter
had been Ritual Action Group worker Jocelyn Frances, also
known as Jocelyn O'Kane.
There was more: the women with others, had hidden in bushes
in an attempt to catch the rapist, but he never turned up.
Frances, Waitai said, had been referred to him by Wellington
(abuse specialist) senior sergeant Laurie Gabites.
Gisborne police not only dismissed the saga, described in
the latest issue of the feminist Broadsheet magazine, as
nonsense, but Waitai was so concerned about the nature of
the allegations he faxed other police district commanders to
warn them about Frances.
But the extraordinary part of the story may be that it is
not unique. Other dramatic abuse tales are being researched
and professional people - including social workers,
counsellors and police - are being "educated" about the
problem in a series of workshops about the country.
These workshops - at $80 a head - have heard that widespread
and systematic abuse is being conducted in New Zealand, by
networks of Freemasons, judges. senior policemen and other
respected professionals.
And the organisation known as the Ritual Action Group has
not only been funded by government and Roy McKenzie
Foundation grants, but has operated out of Social Welfare
Department-administered offices.
The secretariat offices of the inter-governmental agency
Family Violence Co-ordinating Committee were, till recently,
managed by the committee's executive officer Raewyn Good.
Police and social welfare investigations are now believed to
be under way after an in-house audit of the secretariat.
After a police raid of the offices and good's home, former
Wellington Regional Councillor Good was arrested on cannabis
possession and fraud-related charges. In February she was
ordered to do community service for possession, though later
found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud.
Despite her involvement in drugs (she has earlier
convictions for importing and trafficking in class B drugs),
Ms Good - though "shoved sidewards" - remains employed by
the department.
Last week her colleague Frances was sentenced to nine
months' periodic detention and 12 months' supervision for
defrauding the department of $30,000.
Although FVPCC says the Ritual Action Group is an
independent organisation, till recently it operated out of
FVPCC offices.
FVPCC's community help magazine Reach Out gives the same
address and phone number for both organisations.
And a call this week to FVPCC for a Ritual Action Group
contact elicited the postal address PU Box 11-626 - which
according to NZ post's private box directory belongs to R V
A Good.
The ritual sex abuse seminars, estimated at more than over
the last three years, have been attended by Social Welfare
staff, police members, other departmental staff and
community workers.
Senior Sergeant Gabites confirmed this week that police at
several New Zealand centres had attended the seminars or
workshops, "especially in the lower North Island -
Wellington, Levin, Napier".
At least one of them was held at Wellington Police regional
headquarters.
The seminars have been followed by allegations of ritual
abuse, and senior academics and New Zealand Skeptics believe
there is a direct relationship.
The suggestions that Freemasons and (or including) senior
policemen, doctors, lawyers and judges are involved - as
well as in a "cover-up" which has precluded the finding of
any evidence - have led to formal complaints from some of
those groups to police and social welfare.
The survivor account in Broadsheet refers to a 33d degree of
Masons. a shadowy level of control also referred to in
fundamentalist end-of-world beliefs.
Mr Waitai said O'Kane had demonstrated a "dislike for
Freemasons and Catholics."
People who have been associated with Good, O'Kane and the
Ritual Action Group have been cautious in their responses to
events.
Frances, who says she was subject to ritual abuse as a
child, said this week that some people had a vested interest
in saying ritual abuse doesn't exist. Others had taken an
"academic stance" without making contact with the survivors,
She insisted that ritual abuse was widespread, occasionally
as part of group worship, occasionally as part of sadistic
group activity.
The abuse "spilled over", she said, into churches, scout
groups and daycare centres.
"I think there's a network of people who do similar things .
. . the survivors tell us that."
She made specific reference to the Masonic "33d degree" but
also to "Catholics". "There are also Anglican clergy . . .
and Jehovah's Witness, but only some tip over into satanism.
"It's the same authoritarian, rigid structure with God at
the top."
"I believe there are people in the world who believe in the
opposite force and commit their life to unleashing that
force.
"I know that I'm right. I know what I know."
According to Frances, ritual or "systematic" abuse has
happened in every New Zealand city and most of its small
towns and it is "sad" that the work should be "under
attack".
Another woman involved in the ritual abuse group, researcher
Ann-Marie Stapp, who is about to publish an account of
"organised systematic abuse survivors", confirmed that the
Ritual Action Group had been funded by a FVPCC grant, but
would not disclose the amount.
She, too, insisted the abuse was real, saying, "I have
enough knowledge from the last 20 years."
But she also said, "We have to keep an open mind .. . I
think everything should be questioned." She said she
supported calls by Christchurch's Facade group calling for a
public inquiry into all sexual abuse following the Peter
Ellis Childcare centre case.
Mr Gabites said he had become interested in the subject of
ritual abuse during an overseas trip. The evidence overseas
led him to believe the subject warranted investigation.
"You have to take an absolutely unbiased approach. Go
straight down the middle and investigate . . . if you don't
find it, then you don't find it."
He also said it was a mistake to talk of ritual and satanic
abuse as one: "ritual" was systematic abuse of more than one
child of the sort seen in recent childcare cases.
Asked about the workings of FVPCC members and the Ritual
Action Group, he said: "I haven't worked in the field for
over 12 months. I wouldn't have much credibility on that."
The commissioner's nominee to FVPCC, Inspector Dave Smith,
also confirming that police attended seminars, said on the
basis of overseas literature he had believed the ritual
action people "might not' be up the wrong track".
But to suggestions of babies being killed in New Zealand, he
replied: "The alarm bells have to ring when you talk about
that."
Mr Smith said he had not worked with the Ritual Action
Group, though had often discussed things with Frances who
"had shared the FVPCC secretariat office".
Psychologist Vera Levett, who had worked with the group,
stressed her belief that ritual abuse was happening in New
Zealand, "including by cops and judges and lawyers". "I'm
sure there have been some and possibly are some. Overseas
there's no question there have been. There's so much smoke
there's got to be fire,"
She also said that when the police raided the FVPCC office
and took away all the material about ritual abuse there had
been concern "what if part of high rank cops are part of a
cult?".
But she distanced herself from the organisation, saying she
had played no part with it for a year and a half. "If it's
still going, it must be Jocelyn on her own."
Social Welfare's social policy agency manager David Preston
- who was Good's senior in her former and present position -
said any questions had to be in writing. He has since not
responded to a series of written questions.
Attempts to speak to Ms Good have elicited a lawyer's letter
advising any questions must go through the legal firm. A
request for a response from Ms. Good had hot been answered
at the time of going to press.
ann-marie stapp
and thanks for the clipping. I didnt have this one in my records.
Winston Wealleans wrote in message ...