Care workers led children to invent sex allegations
By Jack O'Sullivan - Health Services Correspondent.

A CONFIDENTIAL report on alleged Satanic abuse of children in Nottinghamshire has accused social workers of leading children into making unfounded allegations.

The report, leaked to Central Television, details evidence from one child psychologist that "the disclosure procedures followed by social workers may well be doing positive harm to the young people they are questioning".

It finds no evidence of ritualistic abuse, which was described by children during interviews with social workers. It says that much of the evidence of alleged Satanic abuse was merely a product of a suggestive questioning technique. [Almost allways by Christians.--sd]

The conclusions of the report and the failure to publish its contents has provoked bitter resentment among the social workers who feel unable to argue with leaks from it.

A spokesman for NALGO, the union representing the social workers, said: "This report has been leaked to the press, yet our members have been unable to see it. They would welcome the outcome of the full report at the earliest time possible so that they can gain recourse."

The inquiry was set up last year after eight members of a family and a male friend were jailed for a total of 43 years in Britain's biggest child sex abuse case which resulted in 23 children, 18 from one family and all aged under 12, being taken into care.

As suspicions rose that the well documented abuse may have had "ritual" aspects to it, an inquiry was set up including three social work managers not involved in the case.

The inquiry team claims that after three months of therapy by social workers one female child alleged acts of cannibalism and witnessing seven murders.

The submission of the team is that "the interviewing techniques deployed by social workers on her amounts to interrogation with pressure being gradually increased until answers are provided which social workers want to hear". Another member of the team claims: "The limited choice questions such as 'you killed three or thirty babies?'...can be interpreted as a typical psychological ploy to induce confession."

The report adds that in one police interview a girl claimed she fabricated the whole story. All the information she had, she stated, had come from social workers who pressured her.

In the case of a young woman constantly questioned by one young woman, the team reports: "It is hard not to draw the conclusion that she will remain a highly confused individual in terms of what happened and what didn't... as a direct result of social work practice. Will she go through life believing she is a child abuser having participated in the killing and eating of babies?"

There have been increasing reports of children being "ritually" abused in bizarre ceremonies. In March, The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said that seven of its teams had reported cases of children who had directly experienced such abuse.

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Commentary. How much of YOUR tax dollars are going toward witch- hunts such as this? Could it be that said abuse is only found by religionists that WANT to find it? The facts says that this is the case! - Shy David

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