Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse

It should ... become required study for all those whose task it is to assess the truthfulness and reliability of allegations of sexual assault police investigators, prosecution lawyers and trial judges. Anthony Heaton-Armstrong, Counsel Magazine. A very important academic contribution to an increasingly worrying contemporary debate. Sir Henry Brooke This is a ground-breaking book. It will undoubtedly become a major reference work for criminologists, sociologists, legal researchers and legal professionals. It deserves also to be read by policy makers, parliamentarians and social commentators ... The arbitrary nature of false allegations are discussed with a clarity that is thought-provoking ... An authoritative and ambitious book which exposes the injustice of untrue allegations. Dr Kevin Felstead, British False Memory Society The book, part academic, part polemic, is an essential read for any and all involved in the criminal justice system - which means everyone: investigators, interviewers, social workers, police, prosecutors, defenders, judges and the public (as potential jurors). To me, this book is a genuine 21-faceted diamond - and how, how, I wish it was available some 25 years ago. As a whole, it is one large cautionary tale. To finish on a practical note for criminal lawyers: this book is a virtual directory containing a gallery of experts, their expertise and their experience, with excerpts of their work. If for no other reason than that, you may want to think of acquiring it - or, at the very least, consulting a copy. But if you do just try to use it as a directory, I venture the thought that the content, its substance and its strength, will lay a hold on you. Nigel Hampton QC, LawTalk The experience of those accused of such heinous crimes is little explored and understood. This month, a new book is published Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse - making an important contribution to the debate. Jon Robins, Criminal Law & Justice Weekly This is an important book which raises serious issues not only for academics but also for criminal justice policy-makers, practitioners and commentators. It illuminates some troubling features of the justice system in Britain and the United States and of modern western society more generally. It deserves to be widely read, not least by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse which the British Government set up in 2014. David Faulkner CB, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford Happily - if anything can be so described in such a context - Oxford University Press published Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse, edited by a senior research associate at that university's Centre for Criminology, Ros Burnett. Its 21 contributions from experts in this field, both legal and academic, set out how public horror at the thought of sexual abuse of children has led even apparently sophisticated legal systems into extraordinary injustices. Dominic Lawson, The Sunday Times The one thing this book isn't, most emphatically isn't, is a demolition of any particular claims of sexual abuse. It is far, far, cleverer than that. It is a careful analysis, expert by expert, of the psychological pressures that might lead to a wrongful allegation; of the ways in which policing methods may contribute towards this; the economic pressures on therapists and personal injury lawyers; how judicial thinking is formulated and best of all, several chapters on how we could move forward in the future, in the best interests of both complainants and defendants ... I hope that people, particularly journalists and activists, from both sides of the great divide as the issue of historic allegations of abuse has become, will read this book, cover to cover. If you are going to argue, debate, or be an activist on the subject - then you should be in possession of all the facts. Susan Cameron-Blackie