This item was first published on the FACT website on 1st January 2005
Happy New Year. Today also sees the implementation the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This provides a useful opportunity for F.A.C.T. to use the Act to serve the interest of its members. F.A.C.T. is therefore interested is setting up a special interest group regarding access to information both at a national and a local government level. If you have an interest in this are please contact the Secretary
You can obtain more information about the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998 on the Information Commissioners website
Statistics
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
This item first appeared on the F.A.C.T. website on 3rd January 2005
The following statistics published by the NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) may be of interest.
Allegations and Suspensions of staff:
As published by DFES: "Proposals for dealing with allegations against teachers and other staff". 18th November 2004
Between September 2003 & August 2004:
122 LEA’s reported recorded allegations: 1, 629 allegations 55% resolved in under a month and 30% in under a week. But 22% took upto 3 months to complete with 10% upto a year.
10% = 162 people suspended for over a year! Of these 162 people 66% of the allegations would be physical abuse or inappropriate handling of children. 66% = 106 people suspended for over a year around an allegation of inappropriate handling or physical abuse of children.
At least every other day there is an adult that will be suspended for over a year and that the allegation will centre around inappropriate handling procedures.
This item first appeared on the F.A.C.T. website on the 10th January 2005
Press release
16 December 2004 COMMISSION REFERS SEXUAL OFFENCES CARE HOME CONVICTIONS OF JOHN SIDDALL AND IAN BROOKE TO THE COURT OF APPEAL
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred the convictions for sexual offences of John Siddall and Ian Brooke to the Court of Appeal. Both men were convicted at Leeds Crown Court after a police inquiry into alleged abuse at West Yorkshire care homes in the 1980s.
Mr Siddall was convicted on 29 July 1999 of three charges of indecent assault and one count of indecency with a child. He was sentenced to four years in prison. A Single Judge refused Mr Siddall leave to appeal in December 1999. Mr Siddall applied to the Commission in August 2000.
Mr Brooke was convicted on 4th April 2000 of three charges of rape, indecent assault, and another serious sexual offence and was jailed for 10 years. A Single Judge refused Mr Brooke leave to appeal in July 2000. A further appeal was heard by the Full Court but dismissed in May 2001. He applied to the Commission in August 2001.
Having considered a range of issues, and reviewed new material relevant to the cases, the Commission has decided to refer both cases back to the Court of Appeal.
The Commission is the independent public body set up in 1997 to investigate suspected miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and decide if they should be referred to the appeal courts.
The legal representative for Mr Siddall is Mr E F Conybeare, of Shulmans Solicitors, Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 4LT, Tel: 0113 245 2833
The legal representative for Mr Brooke is Mr A Hewitt, Thompsons Solicitors, Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 4DL, Tel: 0113 205 6300
This press release was issued by Boris Worrall, Head of Communication at the Criminal Cases Review Commission on Tel 0121 633 1806.
Insurance Alert
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
This item first appeared on the F.A.C.T. website on 14th January 2005
Insurance Alert
It has been reported that some members have experienced difficulties in getting their property insured following their release from prison. Some companies refuse to insure property at which a convicted sex offenders live. If you have experienced difficulties please let the Secretary know.
If you are in this position you might like to consider insuring with More Than insurance who are particularly understanding of the issues involved.
If you have been released from prison and have not informed your insurance company of your changed circumstances you should do so now. They will undoubtedly consider their risk to have increased. If you do not inform them of this then you may invalidate your insurance with them.
This item first appeared on the FACT website on the 19th January 2005
The following case may be of interest to F.A.C.T. members
Case No: 0200128 B1 Date: 18/01/2005
Heading: Criminal Law, Evidence
Sub-heading: Appeal against conviction, Indecent assault on male, Buggery, Unavailability of witnesses
Extract: An appeal by a convict (B) against the decision of Peter Jacobs HHJ sitting in the Crown Court at Cardiff, which had convicted him on two counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery. The complainants were three boys, who had been residents in a remand home where B had been employed as a teacher. They alleged that B had committed the offences against them during their stay at the home. In the lower court, most of the documents that had been relied on were missing and most of the potential witnesses were either dead or unavailable, which resulted in a considerable delay in the trial proceedings. The lower court had found B guilty of the alleged offences and had convicted him. B appealed. He submitted that his conviction was unsafe given the absence of crucial documents and witnesses. The court was required to determine whether there was any merit in his submissions.
Relevant documents, which would have shown that B had been on duty on the day the offence against the first complainant had been committed, were missing. In the absence of such crucial evidence, B's conviction on one count of buggery, alleged by the first complainant, was unsafe. However, his convictions on the remaining counts of buggery and indecent assault were safe. In those cases, even if the relevant documents and the witnesses had been available, it was unlikely that B would have relied on them or even called for them in his evidence. Therefore, the absence of those documents or potential witnesses did not make his conviction unsafe on the remaining counts.
Appeal partly allowed; partly dismissed.
Outcome: Appeal Against Conviction Dismissed
Trial of Anver Sheikh
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
This item first appeared on the FACT website on the 21st January 2005
We have just received the news that Anver was convicted of all four charges and has been sentenced to 22 months imprisonment. It appears that Jury's decision frankly surprised the prosecution and the Judge. We understand that an immediate appeal will be launched.
This item first appeared on the FACT website on the 25th January 2005
The news of Anver's conviction has been devastating for Anver and his family and friends. It also represents a setback for all who believe in justice for falsely accused carers and teachers. The situation is so important that we must do all we can to overturn this injustice. FACT intends to lends it weight to the wider legal action being taking and to be me more that just 'supportive' of Anver, his family and legal advisors.
We have already received some helpful suggestions for progressing matters, however this is one of those cases where the help of everyone is needed.
Could I please ask you to spend just a few moments thinking about some thing FACT could do to help Anver along the way. These could be specific things in relation to his case or things which go beyond his case e.g.
- We can all send him a card and letter of support. If people what to send cards to his family as well they can send them to me and I will pass them on
- We can be proactive in supporting the Government's initiative in consulting about whether or not jury deliberations should be researched into
- We can lobby the CRE (Commission for Racial Equality) to help ensure that racial equality is central to the work of investigative agencies, the prosecution bodies and the JURY ROOM. We could also ask them whether or not there is a need, in their view, to consider whether the reporting of alleged crimes in care and teaching environments has a racial element etc
If you want to help please let me know.
This item first appeared on the F.A.C.T. website on 25th January
The Innocence Project UK have a new web site. It contains details of forthcoming events, links to other innocence projects worldwide, and access to news and relevant articles
This item first appeared on the FACT website on 31st January 2005
My attention has been drawn to an interesting article by James Le Fanu which was published in the Daily Telegraph.
There are apparently now more counsellors in Britain than there are members of the Armed Forces. Some observers, such as Prof Frank Furedi, of Kent University, take a dim view of this, claiming that this army of therapists is seeking to redefine normal experiences and emotions as being stressful or damaging. No doubt he has a point. But it could be argued that the rising number of therapists is an appropriate response to the previously unfilled needs of the many with depression, anxiety and other psychological afflictions that used to be met, often inexpertly, by the family doctor. Certainly, therapists are the bulwark of our practice, and their sympathy and robust good sense are indispensable.
The problem arises with those therapists who maintain that most psychological disturbance can be explained by some hidden trauma in the past, which must be brought to the surface and "worked through". The concept is a potent one but, no matter how many times it is shown to be harmful nonsense, it keeps returning in another guise.
The dreadful Mr Freud started it with his notions of repressed infantile sexuality. Then, starting in the 1980s, came the epidemic of "recovered memories", where, every year in Britain and America, hundreds of troubled women (mostly) remembered, while in therapy, having been seduced, traumatised or raped, usually by their father but sometimes by brothers, uncles or other male friends of the family. This not only had a catastrophic effect on those accused, but the "victims" caught in this web of lies and deceit became ever more psychologically disturbed.
Thankfully, and not before time, in 1998 Sydney Brandon , professor of psychiatry at Leicester University, destroyed the credibility of the concept of recovered memories in a devastating report commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Now it has reappeared again, this time under the auspices of, amazingly, the Church of England. In a policy document published last year, Protecting All God's Children, the Church, whether from naivety or stupidity, has endorsed the bible of the recovered memory fanatics, The Courage to Heal , as an "important and useful book". Its insights include the claim that "if you think you were abused, and your life shows the symptoms, then you were". It also encourages so-called survivors of recovered memory syndrome to engage in "pleasurable fantasies of murder and castration against those who have hurt them so terribly" (I kid you not).
There is also a strong Church of England involvement in the Trauma and Abuse Group (TAG), whose chairman, Mike Fisher, is executive director of the Christian Counselling Service. TAG promotes the theory that people develop multiple personalities in response to "repeated and overwhelming childhood trauma, especially sexual and physical abuse" - a theory which has been discredited by, among others, Prof Howard Merskey of the University of Western Ontario (The Persistence of Folly: A Critical Examination of Dissociative Identity Disorder, The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, September 2004). The group's forthcoming conference, to be held in Derby in April, features a contribution from a therapist who has apparently worked for six years with survivors of satanic rituals who, she claims, are forced "to persecute other children and animals during ceremonies". Meanwhile, Mike Fisher urges the necessity to "keep a balance between demonstrating the unconditional love of Christ and professional good practice". No doubt the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will be seeking more details from the British False Memory Society (BFMS), which has just published an excellent booklet, Counselling or Quackery? ( pounds 6.75 plus p&p), providing an insider's view of the consequences of these harmful theories.