System Abuse of Children: The Orkney Case
| Published date | 01 September 1991 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059103800304 |
| Date | 01 September 1991 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
System Abuse of
Children: The
Orkney Case
Judith and Glynis Cousin, Stephen McGrath and Robert
Fine examine the recent actions of Orkney Social Work
Department as an object lesson in the dangers of
dogmatic, over-confident assertion of social work beliefs
and power, at the expense of children’s needs and the
rights of abusers and suspected abusers. The Children Act
provides probation officers with greater responsibility to
address the balance of interests more fairly.
South Ronaldsay, Orkney. Police and
social workers descend on
four families
to remove their children. Most flew in
from the mainland. They arrive at the
houses in groups of about eight. They
have a chartered plane ready to fly the
children away. It was an orchestrated
dawn
swoop calculated to surprise un-
suspecting families. The aim was to
wrest nine children from
their alleged-
ly ’lewd and libidinous’ parents, an an-
cient charge fraught with problems of
contemporary interpretation. At the
same time, the police arrive to search
the house of the Reverend McKenzie
for evidence of his alleged ritualistic
sexual abuse of children.
None of the parents nor the pastor
knew why the social workers and
police had come. None had been in-
formed, consulted or even assessed
beforehand. The
parents were told that
their children were being taken away
on
the basis of Place of Safety warrants.
hiofl None of the children wanted to leave
their parents and homes. Nothing was
explained to them. Three children
locked themselves in bathrooms. From
121
the Reverend McKenzie’s home the
their homes needs to be questioned. It
police removed a funeral robe and a
must no longer be treated, as it was in
broken cross, and from the children’s
this case, as a device of first resort,
homes an assortment of books, a
whatever the rationale of Social Ser-
statuette, a written quotation in Latin
vices in terms of its alleged benefits.
and French, and the like, the purported
The growing culture of removal is the
paraphernalia of ritual abuse.
most alarming sign of a new
authoritarianism.
One child said that the only abuse she
Fourth, also at issue are the
could recount was that of the medical
grounds on which social work in-
examination itself.
terventions are being made. In Orkney
no one is clear about the evidence of-
One 11 year old was seized sleeping
fered or the ’balance of probability’ on
from her bed; she woke
I
up in the com-
which decisions were made. Apparent-
pany of strangers outside her home.
ly, in this case the original allegation
Her mother’s pleas that she be allow-
came from another family uplifted in
ed to check that her daughter had
November. Having been in care since
essential medication were denied. The
November and having undergone
requests of parents that GPs and
’disclosure therapy’, they were finally
solicitors be called were denied. Their
said by social workers to have ’named’
requests that their children be allow-
the nine children who were removed
ed to take personal possessions -
like
and twenty more island children.
toys, comforters and clothes -
were
Sheriff Kelbie commented that ’the
denied. Their requests that they use the
manner of interviewing the first three
bathroom or have breakfast before they
children amounted to repeated
were removed were denied.
coaching’. Kelbie added that when one
-- - -~
of the three children said: ’Did you
The Rupture
.
know
that this was all a lie?’, the remark
The circumstances of this operation
was brushed aside.
raise four major issues. First, the
evidence is clear that these children,
Stripping old identities
as in Rochdale and many cases
This rupture marked the beginning of
elsewhere, said that they did not wish
a process in which the children were
to leave home. It is crucial that their
systematically removed from all their
stated wishes should be a key determi-
old associations. Paul Lee, Director of
nant of social work’s response to
Orkney Social Work Department,
allegations of abuse. Removal of
justified this practice on the ground
children against their will, as occurred
that its aim was to ’disorient and
in Orkney, is unavoidably
a violent act
deprive the children of all sense of
of dispossession for the children
...
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