Her Majesty's Stationery Office Description: This is a highly detailed, 320 page report of the Cleveland, England scandal wherein two physicians diagnosed child sexual abuse on the basis of the anal dilatation reflex. In a brief period of time, three large waves totaling 121 children were diagnosed as sexually abused, removed from their homes, and placed into care. On June 19, 1987 Reverend Michael Wright set up a special support group for the falsely accused to process their trauma. The British courts gradually realized that most of the children had not been abused and 98 of the children were later returned to their parents. The book details as all past British command papers have, in chronological order, the entire scandal with typical fairness and open-mindedness. The book is divided into 16 chapters, covering all significant segments and areas of the child abuse problem involving many different professions and their mistakes. The exhausting report cost the British taxpayer some 4 million pounds, and calls for many changes in the child abuse-sexual abuse investigation process. Although the book criticizes many professions, it highlights the critical need to use scientific evidence, not our values, in diagnosing. The final reasons deduced by the committee to explain the Cleveland scandal were:
The social services department was chided for prematurely
siding with the pediatricians against the parent and child (p. 243-44) and not
performing a "wider assessment" and being a danger in a narrow
concept of the child's best interest position, "The child is a person and
not an object of concern" (p.245). Comment: This report will terrorize innocent parents, who (in this case) take children to the hospital for routine illnesses only to have them placed in a foster home. Despite the fact that the children denied sexual abuse, their statements were not accepted, nor were they ever asked for consent to anything. The report warns of violating children's rights in an effort to protect children's best interests, as determined by adults. Readers, however, will be particularly interested in Chapter 2, "Parents" and how they instituted collective action to correct the problems with physicians and social workers. To engage in professional behaviors unsupported by scientific data that may result in removal of a child from home, or criminally convict a parent requires many safeguards. In Cleveland, all team members unquestionably accepted the diagnoses by the physicians. Team membership is not always a light, clear assignment and the team approach exacerbated the development of errors. The report recommends a second opinion by other professionals on all cases. The lessons to be learned from this report are important as
the sexual abuse hysteria is spreading to other countries besides the U.S. and
Great Britain (For example, see M. Kendrick, [1988] Anatomy of a Nightmare
( The book remains a searing indictment of the child abuse system that does not fare well for children in the future. (For an American example of failure to save children's lives if it involves attacks on social agency inadequacies, see H. Lewis, [1986, December], The community as child abuser, Hastings Center Report, 17-18.) Reviewed by LeRoy Schultz, School of Social Work, West Virginia University.
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