Child Abuse - or occult rituals? ROSIE WATERHOUSE traces the events leading to trauma for

 Child Abuse - or occult rituals? ROSIE WATERHOUSE traces the events 
               leading to trauma for Rochdale families


            Satanic cults: how the hysteria swept Britain
                                   
           FROM: The Independent On Sunday 16-09-90, Page 3


TWO  WEEKS  before satanic child abuse was "diagnosed" on  a  Rochdale 
council  housing estate, social workers and a police officer from  the 
area attended a seminar on the subject.

At  the  course in London in March, they and the council  director  of 
social services were warned of a nationwide increase in satanic sexual 
abuse  and  given literature on the signs and symptoms to  watch  for. 
They soon thought they had found them.

An  investigation by the Independent on Sunday has revealed  that  the 
subsequent chain of events is becoming frighteningly familiar in other 
towns  and cities. A pattern has emerged which suggests  the  Rochdale 
case will not be the last.

Some children undoubtedly suffer sexual abuse. But the suggestion that 
covens  of  witches  and  satanists are  luring  children  in  bizarre 
black-magic  rituals,  sacrificing babies, drinking  their  blood  and 
eating them has become a dangerous new phenomenon.

Sine  the  lurid  stories first appeared in Britain  in  1988,  it  is 
possible  to  trace  the  spread of what has  become  an  outbreak  of 
hysteria through a network of contacts. 

Police  in  Rochdale  and other forces  which  have  found  themselves 
dragged  into  similar investigations are convinced that  after  being 
propounded  and  perpetuated  by  a core  of  believers,  the  satanic 
child-abuse myth has taken a life of its own, and is out of control.

In  Rochdale it led, over six months, to 20 children being taken  from 
their  families, made wards of court and put into council  care.  Five 
have been returned, but remain wards of court.

When the council applied to the court for care orders, the allegations 
included  "satanic"  sexual abuse. But, last  Tuesday,  Gordon  Little 
more,  Rochdale's director of social services, said: "We  are  dealing 
with  allegations  of emotional abuse,  degredation,  humiliation  and 
exposure  to  acts of violence which would not necessarily  result  in 
physical injuries."

On Thursday, Greater Manchester police said that the case of the  last 
three  children,  taken  into care on 7  September,  was  still  being 
investigated. But in the case of 17 children, no evidence of  satanism 
or  sexual  abuse  had  been found, and there  would  be  no  criminal 
charges.

Yet  the  parents of the 12 children who remain in  council  care  and 
foster  homes  have no prospect of getting their children  back  until 
January, when the case is expected to be heard.

As  the  Independent  on  Sunday  revealed  last  month,  the  satanic 
child-abuse  myth  originated in the US in the early 1980s  after  the 
publication  of  a book by a "survivor". Stories  spread,  largely  in 
Fundamentalist  Christian  circles, and satanic abuse is  accepted  as 
fact by many psychotherapists and police officers.

The  first British story of satanic abuse appeared in  the  Colchester 
Evening  Gazette  in  January 1988 in the form of  an  interview  with 
"Satan's Cop": Sandi Gallant from San Francisco police department  was 
in  England on a conference circuit to issue warnings that in  the  US 
satanic  cults were sacrificing animals and killing children,  and  it 
was likely to happen here.

During  1988  a  group  of  loosely  connected  people  began  telling 
newspapers increasingly ghoulish stories about how satanic cults  were 
luring children into the occult and how animals were being sacrificed. 
Teenage girls, they said, were being used as "brood mares"; they  were 
deliberately impregnated and the foetus was aborted for sacrifice and, 
in  come cases, eaten. The Evangelical Alliance, which represents  one 
million  Christians in Britain, set up a committee to investigate.  It 
included those spreading the stories.- Maureen Davies, director of the 
Reachout  Trust based in Rhyl, North Wales, a charity to  help  people 
who  have been involved with the occult; the Reverend Kevin  Logan,  a 
vicar  from  St Johns Church, Great HArwood, near  Blackburn  who  had 
written  a  book, Paganism and the Occult; Doreen  Irvine  and  Audrey 
HArper, who confessed to being former witches who had survived satanic 
abuse;  Diane  Core,  founder  of a  charity  called  Childwatch,  who 
compiled a dossier of cases. 

The  first suspected cases investigated by social workers  and  police 
appeared like a rash late in 1988, in Kent, Nottingham, and Congleton, 
Cheshire.

In Kent, a two year old boy was showing signs of disturbed  behaviour. 
He kept wanting to take his clothes off, would laugh hysterically, and 
told  about strange drinks that made him feel funny. Norma  Howes,  an 
independent social worker from Reading, was brought in. She  consulted 
an  American  expert  on child abuse, Pamela Klein,  who  diagnosed  a 
classic case of satanic abuse.

A  list  of "satanic indicators" was sent by Ms Klein to  help  social 
workers.  Classic  signs and symptoms are said to include  an  unusual 
preoccupation  with  urine and faeces, fear of  ghosts  and  monsters, 
aggressive play, and the child being "clingy", reciting nursery rhymes 
with  indecent overtones, suffering from nightmares and  bed  wetting, 
preoccupation with "passing gas", using mouth to make "gas sounds" and 
wild laughter when the child or someone else "passes gas".

Copies  of  these satanic indicators were given to social  workers  in 
Kent,  whose team leader is chairman of the Social Workers'  Christian 
Fellowship. Police found no evidence of satanism.

Copies  of  the satanic indicators were also given to  Ray  Wyre,  who 
trained to become a baptist minister and who now runs a clinic for sex 
offenders.  He passed a copy to social workers in Nottingham who  were 
investigating an incest case. In November 1988 they concluded that the 
case  involved a satanic ring. Nine adults were later jailed  for  sex 
offenses  against children and 21 children are still in  care.  Police 
found no evidence of satanism.

The  satanic  indicators were passed to social workers  in  Congleton, 
Cheshire,  who  were also dealing with a case of  incest.  One  social 
worker  associated  with the Congleton case is the  secretary  of  the 
Social  Workers  Christian Fellowship. The  Congleton  social  workers 
sought  advice  from  their counterparts  from  Nottingham,  Christine 
Johnson and Judith Dawson, who are widely consulted on satanic abuse.

Three  key  conferences on satanic abuse for  social  workers,  police 
officers,  psychotherapists and other child-care groups,  followed  in 
April  and September 1989. The first was organised by the  Association 
of Christian Psychiatrists. Norma Howes and Pamela Klein the organised 
two more conferences, in Reading and at Dundee University.

Main speakers included Ms Klein and a Chicago police officer who  told 
how four babies were cooked in a microwave oven (a week later a rumour 
surfaced  that  this had happened in Derbyshire, and the  NSPCC  later 
reported  it had been encountered by a child protection team). At  the 
Reading  conference  the Nottingham social workers first  went  public 
with their claims that their child-abuse case involved a satanic ring. 
Maureen Davis of Reachout said she knew of 35 cases of satanic abuse.

A  series  of investigations followed: in November 1989  in  Trafford, 
Greater  Manchester,  where  social workers had the  list  of  satanic 
indicators; also late in 1989 in Manchester, where social workers  had 
attended the Reading conference and received advice from the  Reachout 
Trust  and the Mr [Rev] Logan, police were also advised by Judy  parry 
from MAnchester, who was trained by Maureen Davies; in December  1989, 
in  Knottingley  near Pontefract in west Yorkshire,  where  Childwatch 
campaigner Diane Core passed on literature; in March 1990 in Rochdale, 
after  social workers and a police officer attended a  London  seminar 
and received satanic indicators originally circulated by the  Reachout 
Trust.

Judy  Parry  was  also  consulted by some parents;  in  June  1990  in 
Liverpool,  where  social  workers sought advice  from  the  Congleton 
social workers and police were advised by Maureen Davies the Mr  [Rev] 
Logan  and  Diane Core; at the end of July 1990 in  Strathclyde  where 
social workers attended the Dundee conference and took advice from the 
Nottingham social workers.

In  these cases a total of 52 children have been made wards of  court, 
most remain in care, three men face charges including child abuse, but 
police have found no evidence of satanic abuse.

Virtually  every  British  police  force  has  received  the   satanic 
indicators. And although they might regard them as absurd, the  social 
services  inspectorate  has sent similar "memoranda" to  every  social 
services department in Britain.

One  Rochdale  policeman involved in the case has a  theory:  "What  I 
think is happening is there are some cranks among social workers. They 
are  getting wind of these documents and they are trying to tie it  up 
with  routine  abuse  cases.  If  social  workers  came  to  us   with 
allegations of this nature we have to investigate. I don't see how  it 
can be stopped from happening again."

* Additional reporting by Adam Sage and Sarah Strickland.


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