Assessing the veracity of children's recantation of sexual abuse disclosures
Presentation prepared by Olumide Popoola
Germanic Society of Forensic Linguistics Roundtable 2015
Case Background
-Brother and sister aged 8 and 9 made allegations of sexual abuse with ritualistic elements involving their father and teachers at their school.-Disclosure first made to mother and her new partner ('Abraham') and then to the local police. -Police conducted three Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) interviews with the children. In the first two interviews the children maintained their allegations. -In the third interview the children told a different story and blamed 'Abraham' for 'making them say' what they had said before. -The criminal investigation was closed and the case deemed to be an issue for the Family Courts.
Recantation and retraction in child sexual abuse cases
" Investigating child sexual abuse allegations, Malloy et al. (2007) found that
children’s vulnerability to adult familial influences predicted recantation
(i.e., those who were younger, had made accusations against a parent figure, and had nonoffending caregivers who reacted unsupportively to disclosure were more likely to recant). However, recantation was unrelated
to whether children’s allegations were corroborated by external evidence
(e.g., medical evidence, suspect admission) or to whether custody issues affected the involved parties. In other words, it appears that at least some children recanted true allegations of sexual abuse, seemingly due to familial pressures. It is imperative to be attentive to both concerns about the risk of
false allegations as a result of children’s suggestibility, and the potential
external pressures that may exist for children (and adults) to falsely deny or recant allegations of wrongdoing."from 'Recantation in Legal Contexts' By Lindsay C. Malloy, Jillian Rivard, MA, Allison P. Mungo, BA, and Peter Molinaro, MA AP-LS News | March 2014