Issues - False Allegations - Fathers wrongly accused

Fathers wrongly accused, alleges MP
Wellington: Young girls were sexually abused at Glenelg Health Camp in Christchurch by a woman health officer who then accused their fathers of the offences, it was alleged in Parliament yesterday.
Act New Zealand MP Deborah Coddington said families were destroyed by the accusations while successive governments ignored a "dreadful scandal".
She said that in 1987, three girls became state wards and were sent to the health camp.
"A state employee sexually abused these little girls and no government has ever done anything except sweep this scandal under the carpet," she said.
Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Ms Coddington named the woman health officer.
"Dr . . . , without the parents' permission and with no other adult present, repeatedly examined these little girls in a way that can only be described as sexual abuse," she said.
"She kept saying to these little girls, `this is what your fathers do to you, isn't it'."
Ms Coddington said the doctor managed to convince the Department of Social Welfare the girls were being sexually abused by their fathers, and they were not allowed home to their families until their mothers agreed to separate from their husbands.
"The police investigated these men and found not a shred of evidence that these men had sexually abused their daughters," she said.
"These families have been destroyed. One of these girls, who I am in contact with now, is a very, very damaged young lady.
"She was put in foster care, she was abused in foster care, she lived on the streets from age 11. Eventually, she found her way back to her father."
Ms Coddington said there had to be an inquiry.
"She [the woman doctor] might well be innocent but she needs to be brought to an inquiry, which I have asked this House to instigate."
"The state has enormous powers . . . and it has abused those powers. The state can try to do something to put it right."
Ms Coddington released a letter she sent to Justice Minister Phil Goff dated May 6. In it, she said the three girls were publicly identified in a TVNZ Assignment programme in 1995 and she had spoken with one of them and her father, and with the mother of a second girl.
She asked the minister "to immediately order a select committee inquiry into what went on at the Glenelg Health Camp in the years 1987-88". - NZPA

Thursday, 13-May 2004