Woman found to have “falsely accused” ex husband

The BBC reports on a High Court case from Belfast where a woman involved in a divorce case falsely accused her ex-husband of sexually abusing their children. Justice Weir said that the woman’s “lurid and extreme” allegations were so incredible and inconsistent that he initially thought she was suffering from some form of paranoid delusion.

The problem of false allegations of child abuse has concerned society for some time. The Home Affairs Committee Report of 2002 considered the investigations undertaken by the police involving the location of thousands of former care home residents. Inevitably this mode of investigation (known as “trawling”) led to the charge that the prosecutions were flawed and that miscarriages of justice were occurring. In 2001 to 2002 the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee undertook an enquiry entitled “The Conduct of Investigations into Past Cases of Abuse in Children’s Homes” (published by HMSO HC 836-1). The Committee was concerned to look into allegations that the trawling methods employed by the police were suspect, and moreover that witnesses were fabricating or exaggerating their account in order to gain compensation. The Committee also looked at making changes to the criminal justice and compensation system. Some of the Committee’s recommendations can now be seen in the Domestic, Crime and Victims Act 2004.