On 5th February 2007 the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) was formally launched. The new Association brings together Confed and the children’s element of the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS).
(read more about the launch)The purpose of ADCS is to provide a national leadership organisation in England for DCSs appointed under the provisions of the Children Act 2004. The Association will provide a national voice as a champion for children with local and central government and with the public. The Association corporately and its members individually are committed to a national framework for children’s services with a clear definition of accountabilities, powers and responsibilities; local delivery of children’s services that are accountable to local communities through the democratic process; promoting research, development, innovation and learning across children’s services. Within local government ADCS is the professional contact point on children’s services issues with central government
After a period of rest and reflection the charity L.O.V.E (Let Our Voices Emerge) is planning to reform. The group was set up by Florence Horsman Hogan in Ireland and has had considerable success in challenging false and exaggerated claims of child abuse in religious institutions.
In a statement issued to the Press Florence said:-
"Due to the extradinorary and unexpected inquiries flowing into the Let Our Voices Emerge charity, the trustees have taken the remarkable decision to reconsider total disbandment.
We have been approached by a other high profile human interest groups who feel as we supported the Religious through the current crisis, our existence should not be allowed fade away without a strong fight.
We hadn't realised our services were seen as so valuable to so many people.
There are now talks in place where there may be a possibility that we can amalgamate with groups of similar interest, and continue our valuable and challenging work.
These groups will avail of our charity status, and help us in our work.
This is a very exciting move and will whichever groups we decide to take on, the strength of charity status, with our wealth of experience to bolster their efforts.
We would like to give any other group a chance to join. Applications are to be made to Florence: 01-28211414, or 086-8762148. Closing date:30-02-07.
A Woman arrested at a rowdy house party cried rape in the hope of being released quicker from the police station.
Nicola Jane Irvine's false claim led to an innocent man, who had not even been at the party, being arrested in a dawn raid at his parents' home.
Durham Crown Court heard the man, who has no convictions, was held for eight hours at a police station, when he was photographed, finger-printed and gave a DNA sample.
Richard Cowen, prosecuting, said it was only as the man was being interviewed about the rape that Irvine revealed, in a simultaneous statement to police, that she made up the allegation.
Irvine, 28, of Barnard Castle, County Duham, was yesterday jailed for eight months, after Judge Richard Lowden said there had to be "an element of deterrence", to persuade others against making such claim
Mr Cowen said that on October 9, Irvine's boyfriend was arrested at a house party to celebrate a soldier's return from duty in Afghanistan.
"She remonstrated to an extent where she, too, was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and taken to the police station.
"While there, it was noted she was bleeding and a female officer asked if she needed assistance.
"It was at that stage that she alleged she had been raped earlier that night."
Mr Cowen said the man she named as being responsible was a former supermarket work colleague, whom she had not seen for some time.
When asked later why she made the allegation, Irvine told officers she thought it would result in her being allowed to leave the police station sooner.
"But, instead, it led to her being kept there much longer, as she was taken for a medical examination," said Mr Cowen.
Irvine admitted committing an act intending to pervert the course of justice.
Anne Richardson, for Irvine, said she is ashamed for behaving, "in such a totally unacceptable way"
Source Northern Echo
A young Bedford woman is facing an almost certain jail sentence after admitting making a false allegation of rape.
Zoe Davydaitus, 24, claimed she had been raped by a man on wasteground near the Britannia Wharf development in Kempston Road in July 2004.
She was later charged with perverting the course of justice and maintained her denials until Monday, when she was due to stand trial.
But she pleaded guilty during an appearance at Luton Crown Court.
The charge says she perverted the course of justice between July 16, 2004 and March 23, 2005 by falsely alleging to police that she had been raped.
Her story that she was attacked while walking her dog sparked a police investigation and an appeal through the media for information.
Six months later a 46-year-old man was arrested and taken into custody.
Davydaitus, of Fenlake Road, was granted bail while psychiatric and pre-sentence reports are prepared. She will be sentenced next month.
Judge Jeffrey Burke QC told her: "You must realise that it is overwhelmingly likely that you will receive a custodial sentence for what is rightly regarded as a serious criminal offence. But first we have to see what the reports say about you."
Matthew Kirk, defending, said Davydaitus had handed her lawyers a letter of apology to the man who was arrested.
BBC Radio 4 19th March 2007
Some 20 years ago, the Cleveland scandal made headline news. It made us question how widespread child sexual abuse was, how infallible doctors were, and how powerful social workers ought to be.
Now, Jenny Cuffe investigates the roots of the crisis and examines how relevant those questions still are. She talks to people, some have never spoken publicly before, who were caught up in events in Cleveland in 1987, including now-adult children who were taken away from home, and professionals who were involved in making tough decisions in the maelstrom that followed.
The follwing article by Sharon Asplin appeared in the East Anglia Daily Times website on 8th February 2007
POLICE have condemned women who maliciously make false rape claims, accusing them of undermining their work with genuine victims.
Their comments come after a 20-year-old Chelmsford woman received a suspended prison sentence at Chelmsford Crown Court after making made a false allegation of rape against her then boyfriend.
Laura Halpin had pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and wasting police time and on Friday was sentenced to nine months imprisonment suspended for two years, 140 hours of community service and made subject of a curfew from 8pm to 6am for six months.
Halpin, of Beeleigh Link, Chelmsford, made the allegation against her then boyfriend, a 20-year-old Chelmsford man, on September 17, 2006.
Pc Jo Barlow, of Chelmsford CID, said: “The police service has gone to great lengths to ensure that victims of rape and other sexual offences are dealt with sensitively and sympathetically.
“We have officers specially trained in interview techniques and forensic medical examiners to deal with them in premises set aside for the purpose.
“Women who make false and malicious allegations jeopardise the work we have done with other agencies to reassure victims of sexual assault that they can have confidence that they will be believed and their allegations properly investigated.”
An Essex Police spokesman said the boyfriend, who has not been named, was out celebrating his birthday with friends and it appeared Halpin took exception to this.
They exchanged text messages which resulted in her visiting his address in the early hours, where she was seen by his father. She then made her way towards her home but rang police from a telephone kiosk and alleged that she had been raped by the boyfriend.
He was arrested and spent more than 11 hours in custody before being released once Halpin admitted that her allegation was false.
A former childcare worker walked free from the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday after his conviction for the alleged buggery and indecent assault of a 14-year-old boy was quashed.
In 2001, David Murray (63) was sentenced to jail for 10 years for indecent assault and buggery of a 14-year-old boy during a camping trip in Glendalough, Co Wicklow, 25 years ago.
Murray, with a County Dublin address, had appealed both the sentence and the conviction.
The Appeal Court ruled that, on grounds of failure to disclose documents which were said to contain material new evidence, the conviction of Murray was unsafe.
The appeal against conviction had not been opposed by the Director of Public Prosecutions and when the Court of Criminal Appeal said yesterday it would order a retrial in the case, counsel for the DPP said he was not seeking a retrial because of passage of time since the alleged offences.
The conviction which was set aside yesterday related to offences alleged to have occurred between October 1980 and September 1981, when Murray worked at Scoil Ard Mhuire, Oberstown, which closed in 1985.
Presenting Murray's appeal, Feargal Kavanagh said that log books in relation to the running of the school and the employment records of the school were not disclosed to the defence until the morning of the first day of the trial in 2001.
Other material was also not provided to the defence and this had limited its ability to more extensively cross-examine the complainant, Mr Kavanagh said.
When all the documents were fully disclosed, new material came to light, counsel said.
The result of this was that Murray had been prejudiced. Murray, counsel added, had served almost six years of his sentence.
Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding, over the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal, said that she and her fellow judges believed that the conviction was "unsafe" and should be set aside.
Our attention has been brought to the following article by Cormac Murphy which appeared in Dublin Evening Herald, on 5 February 2007
Garda Probe As Builders Blackmail City Councillors With False Sex Abuse Claims.
Builders are blackmailing councillors with false allegations of child abuse to prevent them from opposing planning permission.
Gardai are investigating two separate claims that property developers have falsely branded Dublin city councillors as paedophiles after planning decisions went against them. The hateful practice has been slammed by Fine Gael councillor Gerry Breen who said that he is aware of the two cases in question.
Cllr Breen is now calling for protection for councillors against such slanderous allegations. “If you try to defend yourself against it people say ‘there’s no smoke without fire’. We need to make sure councillors are protected against unfair allegations”, he said.
Public representatives became aware of the verbal threat after Gardai were called to the home of a shaken Dublin city councillor after a builder made false allegations against him. And in a similar incident, another councillor was threatened with being branded a paedophile.
The councillors subsequently sought the advice of Gerry Breen who has brought the matter to the attention of the local authority.
He wants council bosses to take action to protect against the fear of being slandered while carrying out work as a public representative. “One of the councillors made a complaint to the council at the behest of residents and residents groups over what was alleged to be a planning infringement.” Cllr Breen told the Evening Herald.
“The infringer then rang the Gardai and made allegations that the councillor had molested a child. That changed to the councillor having touched up the child and morphed into an allegation of trespassing on private property, “ he said.
Gardai called to the home of the distressed politician but the matter was not pursued. Cllr Breen said that the problem with these types of allegations was that it is like being asked ‘so when did you stop beating your wife’.
“If you try to defend yourself against it people say ‘there’s no smoke without fire’. We have to make sure councillors are protected against unfair allegations” he said.
Cllr Breen added: “My view is that the councillors should be able to go the (city council) law agent and get advice and instruction.”
When the issue was raised at a committee meeting of the council, executive manager Hugh Fitzpatrick felt it was up to councillors themselves to deal with the allegations.
ACTION
Mr Fitzpatrick said it is up to each individual councillor to take whatever action he, or she, felt is necessary to defend against whatever accusation has been made.
But Cllr Breen said: “If those councillors had issued proceedings against the blackguards the allegations would have come out into the open.
“You are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If they defend themselves they stand accused but if they leave it alone it would disappear.”
It is understood that the developers in question have a history of planning infringements.
...
The following story appears in the Daily Mail here
Shoppers at the sprawling Cheshire supermarket would have had no reason to take any notice of the man sorting out the jumble of trolleys in the busy car park this week. Mark Berry, after all, is an ordinary-looking man doing an ordinary job.
But 26-year-old Mr Berry’s life has been far from normal of late.
In recent months, he has undergone a terrible ordeal which continues to hang over him to this day: last year, on a warm September evening, he was arrested at home on suspicion of rape.
Thrown into police cells overnight, the terrified and bewildered employee could only repeat what he knew to be the truth - that he’d only ever spoken to his 22-year-old ‘victim’ twice and had never so much as laid a finger on her.
Only after several tense days - days in which he was suspended from work and made to feel like a pariah in his local community - were the charges dropped. Confronted by flaws in her story, Abigail Gibson was forced to confess that she had fabricated the whole incident.
The unfortunate Mr Berry told the Mail this week: "Since the arrest, I get terrible flashbacks to what happened and keep crying about it. I was detained in a custody suite overnight. It was very cold in the cell and I felt terrible.
"I should not have been there in the first place. I was unable to sleep and totally confused. I was terrified about what would happen to me."
In total, Berry spent 18 hours in custody, during which he was forced to undergo a medical examination.
And shockingly, he is not the only man to be so humiliated at the hands of Abigail Gibson.
In the past few years, she has made three other false accusations of rape, including one against her own father, a Methodist minister no less.
It is a grim roll call, and one for which Gibson is now, finally, being punished.
Last week, she began a two-year jail sentence for what Chester Crown Court was told were her "wicked lies".
The news has come as some comfort for her string of victims .....
..... as she settles into her cell at Styal women’s prison this week, Abigail Gibson has all the time in the world to contemplate the legacy of her terrible lies.
For her own sake - and for the sake of the men whose lives she has tarnished with her fantasies - we can only hope she has learned her lesson.
The following letter in this Sunday's Observer caught our attention
Your report, 'Crackdown on therapists who abuse vulnerable', (News, last week) will have been welcomed by the thousands who have had their lives wrecked by poor quality therapy and counselling.
We at the British False Memory Society deal every week with people who have been falsely accused of historical sexual abuse. More often than not, the accusation is made by a now-adult child against his or her parent, often following prolonged counselling sessions. In our experience, too many therapists are all ready to conclude that a person's problems have arisen because they were abused as a child. Once this theory is suggested, it can be easy for a vulnerable individual to be suggestible to the idea that these events happened and, with the guidance of the therapist, recall 'repressed memories', which can cause irreparable damage.
The therapy industry has had years to get its house in order. Now hundreds of families are looking to the government finally to bring evidenced-based practice to the thousands of vulnerable people seeking help.
Madeline Greenhalgh
Director
Matt Smith
External Communications Manager
British False Memory Society
Wiltshire
Pupil charged over teacher attack. A teenager has been charged after an alleged assault on a headmaster which was captured on another pupil's mobile phone, according to police.
The so-called "happy slapping" attack happened during lunchtime in a school canteen in the Borders.
Footage from a pupil's mobile phone is said to show another teacher intervening to stop the incident.
Police said a 15-year-old had been reported to the Children's Panel.
Scottish Borders Council declined to comment because of the Lothian and Border Police inquiry but said there were rules in place regarding mobile phones in their schools.