Today, acknowledgement of the prevalence and harms of child sexual abuse is counterbalanced with cautionary tales about children and women who, under pressure from social workers and therapists, produce false allegations of ‘paedophile rings’, ‘cult abuse’ and ‘ritual abuse’. Child protection investigations or legal cases involving allegations of organised child sexual abuse are regularly invoked to illustrate the dangers of ‘false memories’, ‘moral panic’ and ‘community hysteria’. These cautionary tales effectively delimit the bounds of acceptable knowledge in relation to sexual abuse. They are circulated by those who locate themselves firmly within those bounds, characterising those beyond as ideologues and conspiracy theorists. However firmly these boundaries have been drawn, they have been persistently transgressed by substantiated disclosures of organised abuse that have led to child protection interventions and prosecutions. Throughout the 1990s, in a sustained effort to redraw these boundaries, investigations and prosecutions for organised abuse were widely labelled ‘miscarriages of justice’ and workers and therapists confronted with incidents of organised abuse were accused of fabricating or exaggerating the available evidence. These accusations have faded over time as evidence of organised abuse has accumulated, while investigatory procedures have become more standardised and less vulnerable to discrediting attacks. However, as the opening quotes to this introduction illustrate, the contemporary situation in relation to organised abuse is one of considerable ambiguity in which journalists and academics claim that organised abuse is a discredited ‘moral panic’ even as cases are being investigated and prosecuted.

~ Michael Salter

Michael Salter Accusations Attack Authority Blame Child Abuse Child Protection Child Sex Confabulation Cover Up Coverup Crime Cult Cult Abuse Debate Denial Disbelief Discrediting Evidence Horror Hysteria Innocence Investigation Justice Law Legal Media Memory Miscarriages Of Justice Moral Panic Multi Perpetrator Multi Victim Organised Abuse Organized Abuse Paedophiles Pedophile Pedophile Rings Prosecution Recovered Memories Ritual Abuse Ritualised Abuse Satanic Ritual Abuse Sexual Abuse Social Workers Society Denial Testimony Therapists Victim Blaming

Allegations of multi-perpetrator and multi-victim sexual abuse emerged to public awareness in the early 1980s contemporaneously with the denials of the accused and their supporters. Multi-perpetrator sexual offences are typically more sadistic than solo offences and organised sexual abuse is no exception. Adults and children with histories of organised abuse have described lives marked by torturous and sometimes ritualistic sexual abuse arranged by family members and other care-givers and authority figures. It is widely acknowledged, at least in theory, that sexual abuse can take severe forms, but when disclosures of such abuse occur, they are routinely subject to contestation and challenge. People accused of organised, sadistic or ritualistic abuse have protested that their accusers are liars and fantasists, or else innocents led astray by overly zealous investigators. This was an argument that many journalists and academics have found more convincing than the testimony of alleged victims.

~ Michael Salter

Michael Salter Abuse Of Power Accusations Allegations Authority Blame Child Abuse Child Protection Child Sex Colin Batley Contested Cover Up Coverup Crime Cult Debate Denial Disbelief Eye Of Horus Grooming Horror Incest Investigation Kidwelly Law Legal Media Memory Moral Panic Multi Perpetrator Multi Victim Organised Abuse Organized Abuse Paedophiles Pedophile Pedophile Rings Prostitution Recovered Memories Ritual Abuse Ritualised Abuse Ritualistic Satanic Ritual Abuse Sexual Abuse Society Denial Testimony Victim Blaming Wales