The true experience of being falsely accused

We hear stories of people being falsely accused of sexual abuse. In the wake of Jimmy Savile, Jerry Sandusky, Theoren Fleury, Sheldon Kennedy, The Los Angeles Catholic Church Diocese and a myriad other Catholic Church sexual abuse stories, The Boy Scouts of America and numerous other high profile cases, it is hard to remember that, rare as they are, false accusations do occur. For those so accused, the impact is hard.

Recently, in the United Kingdom, the Guardian newspaper has published a first person account of a couple who went through the world of false accusation. It is compelling reading and can be read by clicking this link.

Jimmy Savile and Jerry Sandusky - Hiding in Plain View

Social workers and others who work with children around the world, have much to learn from these two high profile sexual abuse case. The material published in the UK today about the breadth and extent of the sexual abuse committed by Savile farnkly boggles the mind. As the CBC reports today:

Detectives said the scale of Savile's sex abuse was "unprecedented in the U.K." They have recorded 214 offences allegedly committed by Savile between 1955 and 2009, including 34 rapes, on victims aged 8 to 47. In all, 450 people have come forward with information about abuse by the late TV presenter.

Jimmy Savile

The details that are coming out show that the range of sexual behaviors and the settings in which Savile committed his alleged crimes includes children who were pre pubescent and teenagers. He did it under the cover of his fame and charity work. As one police officer has noted, he hid in plain view. The Guardian newspaper in the UK offers insight not only into the staggering size of Savile's crimes but also the utter failing of a system that refused to believe, deal with, or collate the data that was available from victims who had come forward. The system failed those who were willing to seek justice - a system that the report clearly shows bent badly in the wind that blew from the magnitude of Savile's deemed importance.

Like Savile, Sandusky had a huge public reputation which appears to have allowed him to hide as well. The power that both men possessed made coming forward with the allegations incredibly challenging. It would be a brave victim indeed who could challenge the reputation of these powerful men. Bear in mind that sexual abusers have an uncanny capacity to choose victims who are weak, vulnerable and desperate for the attention of the powerful.

These two cases are not unique but rather help us to see, yet again, the role that power plays. We have seen hundreds of victims in the cases of priests in various churches and also in such revered organizations as the Boy Scouts.

Sexual abusers take full advantage of the power of role - Savile as the music industry icon; Sandusky as the winning coach; the priest as the sacred leader; the Boy Scout leader as the person to be trusted as a guide in life. These are all very socially supported and revered positions.

Social workers need to be very mindful of the ability of the predator to use position. The sexual abuser does it time and again. When the social worker hears the stories, we need to be open to the telling. Sexual abusers in these positions count on their reputation and the notion that those speaking against them won't be believed.

The rate of false allegations is small.

I like some key points from Dr. D.L. Reed:

* A substantial proportion of sexually abused children are quite reluctant to disclose their abuse; many are ambivalent about disclosing; many delay disclosing•Disclosure of sexual abuse is typically a “dynamic process” not a “one-time event.” Consequently, confirmed victims often make inconsistent statements•When CSA victims are interviewed only once, they often minimize the extent of their abuse; and some deny it altogether•When children’s abuse allegations include fantasy elements, this does not necessarily mean that they weren’t abused 

 The point is that disclosure occurs in a variety of ways, over time and often with a great deal of shame and guilt (the victim may well think that the abuse is their fault). Victims may let slip little details by accident at the start or as a way to test how people will react. We have a need to just listen and not judge.

There are many more perpetrators out there that have yet to be discovered. Social workers are key in hearing these stories as are parents, teachers, police officers and many others with whom a child has contact. A child alleging it occurred with someone powerful should not deter us hearing them.

Jimmy Savile - Power and Domination

If you follow stories regarding sexual abuse, you would be had pressed to have missed the one about Jimmy Savile. He is the former BBC music icon who is now thought of as one of the most significant serial sexual abuser of our time. It has been reported that his victims may number 300 or more. It is a staggering story but one where prestige, money and power are at the centre.

What struck me is the common thread in so many sexual abuse cases - those who saw that something was wrong failed to act. Because of this, there were more victims. The Guardian newspaper in the UK notes that:

Doctors and managers at Stoke Mandeville hospital were afraid to challenge Jimmy Savile over the free access he enjoyed to wards, out of fear that he would take his fundraising millions elsewhere, a former director of nursing has said, as fresh claims emerged of abuse at the hospital and elsewhere.

It is gaining a position of power that allows abusers to get away with what they do. It gives them access to victims; it creates room for them to groom victims and they do so with the immunity that comes when others fail to act. We saw that in the Jerry Sandusky case in the United States.

As in the Sandusky case, there were a few occasions when someone would tell, but they lacked the power to force action. Like Sandusky, those who could have acted with the information that they were given failed to do so. The Telegraph reported

Jimmy Savile's former director on Jim'll Fix It reveals he saw the presenter having sex with a 16-year-old girl in his dressing room and informed BBC officials who 'did nothing'.

The story adds

David Nicolson, 67, said he reported the incident to his bosses at the corporation in 1988 but was rebuffed and simply told: "That's Jimmy".
He told The Sun newspaper: “I was revolted by his behaviour. They just shrugged it off, saying, ‘Yeah, yeah — that’s the way it goes’.”
“Everyone knew what was going on. That includes senior BBC people — chiefs at the highest levels. 

These are illustrations that organizations become invested in the image, prestige and money that comes with characters such Jimmy Savile and Jerry Sandusky. They become wilfully blind to the reality of what is going on and fail to act ethically. Such organizations need to be held accountable, as has happened with Penn State University in the Sandusky case. Will the BBC also be held accountable? Let's keep a close eye.

Additional Note:

ToledeBlade.com reports that there are further charges in the Sandusky case against those who covered up his behaviour. Former Penn State University President Graham Spanier was charged related to a conspiracy of silence. The report notes:

“This was not a mistake by these men. It was not an oversight. It was not misjudgment on their part,” Ms. Kelly (Attorney General) said. “This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials, working to actively conceal the truth, with total disregard for the children who were Sandusky’s victims.”

Mr. Spanier is, of course, innocent until proven otherwise. This step does send a message that covering up sexual abuse by another brings its own accountability.

You may also find this story on the role of silence to be quite relevant.

Sexual assault, sexual abuse -- life long stories

It is hard to read the papers or professional journals these days without being faced with the legacies that arise from sexual abuse and sexual assault. As I write this entry, the media are covering an audio statement from convicted sexual offender Jerry Sandusky. In it, he claims his ongoing innocence. Given the number of convictions, it is hard to accept his protestations that he has been wrongly convicted.

The Sandusky story is more about the failure of an institution to protect. It is certainly not the only one. But another such story is receiving widespread coverage. The Los Angeles Times carrying extensive coverage on the list of names of child abusers that the Boy Scouts of America is alleged to have improperly protected. The stories suggest that the organization simply failed to ensure that those with known records or those whose sexual abuse activities became known to the organization were properly reported, or in some cases, kept away from children.

Research being released today shows that sexual assault and rape has long term implications for the victims. These impacts are across many areas of functioning. The report on the research published by Science Daily notes that the research

shows that female victims suffer from a wide spectrum of debilitating effects that may often go unnoticed or undiagnosed...

"These findings document that victims of sexual assault, and even victims of attempted sexual assault, suffer psychological and social costs more far ranging than previously suspected," says Perilloux, who earned her Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin in 2011. 

There is no reason to believe that victims of sexual abuse will be any less affected.

The public may grow weary of the ever growing list of organizations that have failed to protect children. The challenge is more than that, however. It is about the ability of the public to believe in the value of societal institutions - to see their inherent worth. As more and more of them are dragged into the public eye in this way, the growing distrust attacks the credibility of institutions in general. Penn State, churches, Boy Scouts in Canada and the United States would have been seen as trustworthy in the past. The public must now wonder - who next? Child protection organizations  do not escape this scrutiny when stories of their failures come out, particularly when it results in the death or serious harm of a child.

Sandusky, Penn State and the Freeh Report

At one level, all of us who work in the field of child protection should celebrate the Freeh Report on the way in which Penn State University handled the sexual abuse allegations regarding former assistant football coach Sandusky. The report is blunt and scathing in pointing out the lack of accountability and responsibility by the university. It makes it clear that these children were not protected and could well have been (not to mention victims that had yet to be brought into Sandusky's abuse).

The report states:

The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims. As the Grand Jury similarly noted in its presentment,1 there was no “attempt to investigate, to identify Victim 2, or to protect that child or any others from similar conduct except as related to preventing its re‐occurrence on University property.”
Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University – President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President‐Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno – failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade. These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well‐being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001. Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child’s identity, of what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001.

These individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University’s facilities and affiliation with the University’s prominent football program. Indeed, that continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims. Some coaches, administrators and football program staff members ignored the red flags of Sandusky’s behaviors and no one warned the public about him. (pp.14-15).

Already we see some of those named coming out to deny their culpability. Certainly, the individuals resposnible should be identified and their actions held up to scrutiny with all of the resultant consequences. What matters most here, however, is what can be learned about sexual abuse in institutions that can be useful elsewhere.

The report is long and has many suggestions.

In my mind, one of the most poignant lessons is that wealth, power, prestige can all combine to make an institution and those who serve it wilfully blind to events that can tarnish that reputation. at best, it can cause them to cover up or act behind the scenes. As I have said before, sexual abusers uses secrecy as one of their best tools to keep going In the Sandusky case, he had powerful allies to Penn State to help him with that.

Critics argue against mandatory reporting laws stating that they will lead to a flood of complaints and further over burden an already over burdened child protection system. They fear that the system will become over intrusive and apprehend children who should not be apprehended. Yet, this report shows that without methods to demand institutions and individuals to do the right thing, many will not.

This avoidance of doing the right thing is not unique to child protection. We need only look at yet another series of banking crises emerging in both the United Staes and the United Kingdom to see that.
We have also seen multiple examples of institutions who avoid accepting the responsibility that comes with managing people who abuse children - Mount Cashel Orphanage in Canada; the Roman Catholic church with their priests and brothers in many countries; the Boy Scouts in Canada; The churches who ran the Residential Schools throughout North America and so on.

Thus, we do need government to legislate and regulate as it seems too many of its citizens and institutions aren't willing to do the right thing.

Let the Sandusky convictions mean something

Throughout North America, if not in many parts of the world, the case of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was followed closely. There may well have been a sigh of relief at his conviction on 45 charges. Some will think justice has been done and with Sandusky, maybe it has. But little such satisfaction should exist.

The larger question is how does a Sandusky come to exist for so long in society without intervention. His is hardly the first such case. Indeed, in the same week that Sandusky was convicted, Monseigneur Lynn was convicted in Philadelphia for assisting in the cover up of abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church. CNN is reporting  that Penn State not only likely knew what he was doing but chose to not report it.

Then there are other cases in Canada such as Graham James who sexually abused minor hockey players for years. There was the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland where the Christian Brothers of Ireland physically and sexually abused boys placed in their care. Canada also saw the rampant abuse of children in the Residential Schools, with the last one closing as recently as 1996. The impact on Aboriginal families in Canada was profound. Many have yet to recover both from the abuse and the extensive fracturing of family systems.

If society truly wishes to see the end of these horrific stories of abuse, then it must be willing to open the proverbial Pandora’s Box and talk about what has and is going on. Sandusky is a high profile case in which some of his former victims found the strength to come forward and tell their story. As so often happens, their disclosures come years after the abuse occurred. Victims routinely fear disclosing because the perpetrators often occupy positions of power over the child – be it a parent who threatens harm if they disclose or a person in authority such as Sandusky whose position is such that victims typically feel they will not be believed. Many victims mistakenly feel that the abuse was somehow their own fault.

The recent report on the failure by the Boy Scouts of Canada to properly address the issues of sexual abuse perpetrators amongst their midst shows that one of the solutions is better institutional policies and responses. Without them, sexual abusers remain hidden to carry on.

Secrecy is one of the most potent tools that abusers have in order to keep abusing.  To change this, we need to allow children to tell their story with confidence that they will be believed. But we also need institutions that are willing to hear those children.

Most children who are being abused will not have their situation brought to anyone’s attention. Thus, it is up to ordinary Canadians to decide that abuse should stop and be willing to speak up when they see it. Failure to do so, is to give it tacit approval.

Cases like Sandusky serve a purpose. They create conversation and awareness. These high profile cases are rare. It is the far less visible cases that require us to act. Sandusky could get away with it because, like so many abusers, he was in a position of power. Why are we so willing to turn a blind eye to such people whether they be coaches, priests, teachers or other professionals and carers for children? The tide will start to turn against sexual abuse when we call out the powerful people in children’s lives who break the trust granted them with our children. 

As Eldridge Cleaver said, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Become part of the solution. As a nation, we need to raise awareness of the impact of abuse and help to create solutions. We can stop abuse by supporting families so that their children are safe. Families that need help will need to be able to find it in communities across the country. If abuse occurs outside the family, we can make it safe for our children to tell. You can do this by hearing the voices of children and making sure that a child who discloses is given a safe place to tell their story. You might be that person.

Why Sandusky matters

The conviction of former Penn state coach Sandusky matters a great deal for child protection. And no, it should not act as the basis for fear mongering that it will lead to more unwarranted apprehensions of children by child protection. Such a suggestion is based upon the notion that child protection workers are incapable of critical thinking when considering cases.

The fear might be that politicians will now try to gain political capital by making pronouncements that they will enact laws that will ensure that there will never be another Sandusky on their watch. That is politics and bad policy.

But Sandusky does matter because it sends to society some very powerful messages. To begin with, it means that the powerful who abuse can be held accountable. It means that the stories of abuse in the past can still be brought forward and the abuser convicted. It means that systems keeping these dirty little secrets should no longer be tolerated in society and that those systems should be held accountable.

Sandusky's defence lawyers argued that one of the motivations for the victims was to be able to sue and gain money. Yes, Sandusky and Penn State should be held accountable and that might mean paying money as a form of restitution. But there is no amount of money that will make up for the permanent, negative impact that sexual abuse will have on a child. There is no mistaking that such abuse creates life long changes that affect all aspects of a person's life.

There is also the good news in the conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn. He is also in Pennsylvania. He was convicted for assisting the Catholic Church in covering up the sexual abuse by priests. This also opens the door for further accountability by institutions and systems for what goes on by those they supervise.

These convictions will not stop sexual abuse. They are public pronouncements that society is one step closer to taking strong stands that it is wrong and it will be something that society will take on stand on and send messages that it should not be tolerated. I should say will not be tolerated but I worry that there are still elements of society where it is going and the systems have yet to take the needed stand. Maybe this will crack open some of those doors.

Maybe also, these convictions will make it easier for other victims to step forward and tell their stories.