ANOTHER VOICE
How to save the children from a new wave of sex-abuse zealots
AUBERON WAUGH
The implications of the Cleveland con- troversy go far beyond the question of the apparently almost unbridled power of child abuse enthusiasts employed by a local council to kidnap children at will and hold them incommunicado, without any pros- pect of parental appeal or redress. They certainly go beyond the apparent power of child abuse enthusiasts to seize any child at will and force it to submit to a humiliating and sometimes painful internal examina- tion for evidence of sexual abuse. The questions we should ask ourselves, I feel, are first of all why they have been allowed to accumulate these extraordinary powers; secondly whether our adversarial system of justice, even if it were allowed to intrude on their deliberations and decisions, is competent to protect parents and children from these social workers; and finally whether any alternative to the adversarial system exists in the present moral and intellectual climate of the country.
If the sexual abuse of children by their parents is half as common as the enthu- siasts maintain, it is hard to see what all the fuss is about. Dr Jane Wynne, of Leeds, claims that one in three children is a victim. One cannot sustain a high level of moral indignation against something which appears to be more or less standard prac- tice. What is surprising is the way that the level of moral indignation manages to be sustained even as the professionals ex- aggerate its incidence in order to increase the importance of their speciality. To do her justice, I do not think Dr Marietta Higgs falls into this trap. She does not demand savage penalties for the monsters, but, fortified by a sublime belief that nearly everybody is doing it, hopes to reform the world by counselling. She is not a wicked woman, and is certainly a sincere one, as I understand her. In fact it was her refusal — and the reluctance of other social workers — to call in the police and press charges (thus providing the Sun newspaper with some juicy headlines) which helped bring the whole matter to public attention.
But it is still a very serious thing to remove children from their homes forcibly, and to smear their parents with the label of monstrous perverts, as advertised in the Sun and News of the World. The two different standards cannot ride in harness, yet the powers enjoyed by Dr Higgs undoubtedly derive from the hysteria against child abuse which is whipped up by the prurient press. At this stage one should point out that there are undoubtedly cases of child violation which merit the immedi- ate removal of children, as a preliminary to the criminal prosecution of the offending parent. What nobody can condone is the wholesale removal of children on the off- chance that they might be being sexually abused, or on an 'expert's' hunch, without any suggestion of a criminal charge to follow. The trauma to children in being forcibly removed from their parents and lodged with strangers is often comparable to the trauma of sexual abuse, even with- out the additional trauma of medical ex- amination and intimate questioning, but it is by no means the case that the cure is invariably worse than the disease.
These extraordinary powers of kidnap- ping children could not have come into existence simply by virtue of popular hor- ror of the crime; social workers were also agitating for them. They are an affront to the British sense of justice because the accused parents are given no chance to plead their innocence or put their case or even to be represented when the decisions are being taken. In Middlesbrough, it is true, we have an example where the adversarial system of justice has finally been called into operation, as a result of intensive publicity. Without the publicity, there would have been no question of the children being taken out of local council care and being made wards of court, no question of the parents' arguments being heard. Even so, the baby-snatching started in May and it was not until last Friday, 14 August, that Judge Hall, in the Middles- brough High Court, released the first five children from wardship of the court.
Let us suppose that there was the right of immediate appeal against improper use of these draconian powers to confiscate chil- dren. How would it work? The parents would have to go to a solicitor, who might have to brief a barrister. In most, if not all, cases they would have to apply for legal aid, filling in innumerable forms and they would then have to hear their case argued in law, following procedures and formulae with which they were unfamiliar and in a language they scarcely understand.
I am not even sure that legal aid would be available in a case brought against the local authority for restitution of kidnapped children. It is awarded rather grudgingly in civil actions. Last week the National Con- sumer Council's enquiry into the workings of civil law revealed that whereas institu- tions and businesses were represented in the civil courts, individuals are scared off by the cost and the taradiddle. It reckoned that two million cases a year never came to court for this reason. Even in the small claims courts, designed to help individuals, two thirds of plaintiffs are businesses. What chance, then, of distressed and bemused working-class parents cutting through the taradiddle, let alone raising the money? In Cleveland, the seizure of children was on such a scale that a few energetic parents managed to form an ad hoc parents' association, but nobody would join a permanent association of that sort for the good reason that none of us supposes our children are likely to be singled out in this way. In any case, it is absurd that voluntary associations of tins sort should be expected to match the entrenched resources of the enthusiasts, backed by the local authority. The only alternative to the traditional, adversarial court procedures must be some sort of independent-minded juge d'instruc- tion who will speak to the parents and social workers and decide whether the extreme resort of child-confiscation is justi- fied. Magistrates are supposed to fulfil this role, but they don't. Juvenile courts, by and large, act as a rubber stamp for the recommendations of police or social work- ers — the 'experts'. There is no tradition within the British system for independence of mind, although I suppose that coroners come closest to it, being trained to estab- lish the truth rather than adjudicate be- tween adversaries. Training in the law more or less disqualifies anyone for the task, since the law is not interested 10 truth, only in postures and procedures. I doubt whether many judges even under- stand ordinary English. They give little enough sign of it.
It would be absurd to claim that open- mindedness no longer exists among the British, but I should judge that for the task in hand it is in too short supply. Look for a Wise Man and you come up with some clapped-out old sentimentalist, left-wing bigot or punishment freak. Nobody is protected by the civil law, except the rich. Preposterous as it may seen, I believe our only real protection against these zealots lies in the free press which helped to create them in the first place.
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