False claims ruin innocent lives

ALLIANCE Victim Support has spent many years trying to help victims of abuse by campaigning, advocating on their behalf and introducing them to the services they need.

We, like so many others, are absolutely horrified by some of the stories of abuse that have come out in the last number of years.

I agree wholeheartedly with Hermann Kelly’s intelligent column (August 21).

I have also just read his book, Kathy’s Real Story, appropriately subtitled A Culture of False Allegations Exposed, and I am shocked by the long litany of innocent people who have been falsely accused before being later found innocent.

Mr Kelly makes an extremely well argued and factually backed-up case that the level of claims of abuse exponentially jumped in number once the Government offered money through the Redress Board, all allied with a virtually non-existent level of proof.

The consequence of this is a culture of false allegations meaning that the innocent have been herded in with the guilty abusers, so that many good people have had their lives torn apart and were publicly humiliated. This is an appalling injustice.

It raises very serious questions about the Redress Board which asks for no proof of abuse allegations, save the accusers actually attended the institutions. A strong case has now been made that the taxpayer has also been abused by this scheme.

We call for the redress scheme to be scrapped and for the Government to introduce tougher legislation to ward off false allegations of abuse.

We are shocked that such an important book, and the issues in the Irish Examiner column, have not been discussed by RTÉ, the national broadcaster, on TV or radio. RTÉ was happy to commission and transmit States of Fear by Mary Raftery and Dear Daughter by Louis Lentin, which made serious allegations of abuse against Catholic religious.

We are now calling for RTÉ to initiate on air a debate about the finding of false allegations unearthed in Kathy’s Real Story.

If RTÉ refuses to fulfil its obligation to provide balance of the issue of false allegations, it should hand back its licence.

Tom Hayes

Secretary

Alliance Victim Support

30 Castle Gardens

Richill

Co Armagh