Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

evidence could be found among other families
who had lived in the vicinity, the father was
released and charges dropped. His girlfriend’s children
were kept in foster care.
Then, in June of 1992, the young teenage
daughter of one of the other neighboring families
ran away from home and accused her father of
raping her. Both parents pleaded guilty. This incident
convinced authorities that the boy’s description
of what seemed to be a sex ring was factual.
By the end of the year, a dozen people had been
charged (all pleaded not guilty) and eighteen children
had been taken into foster care.
The actual trial began in early 1994. The most
dramatic testimony involved accusations of
Satanic ritual sex orgies at a wide variety of
different sites. There was, however, a dramatic
twist when two prosecution witnesses testified
that they had been blackmailed into confirming
the children’s story: The substance of the threat
was that if they failed to confirm the lie, they
would have their own children taken away into
foster care.
A half-dozen of the accused were acquitted or
cleared. The other half-dozen were convicted,
despite the obvious manipulation of witness testimony,
lack of physical evidence, and the improbably
broad scope of the accusations. Like many
other instances of alleged Satanic ritual abuse, in
this case authorities interviewed the children in
ways that have been shown to implant false information.
There were also indications that the children
were actually intimidated into making accusations.
Most significantly, the children began
revealing abuse after investigators had attended a
joint agency training seminar led by a Satanic
ritual abuse expert. This same “expert” had previously
been blamed for unreasonably inciting fears
of a Satanic conspiracy in a child abuse case in
Nottingham in the late 1980s.
See also Satanic Ritual Abuse; United Kingdom,
Ritual Abuse in
For Further Reading:
Robinson, Bruce A. “Pembroke, UK Ritual Abuse
Case.”
http:\\www.religioustolerance.org\ra_pembr.htm
Woffinden, Bob, and Margaret Jervis. Independent.
London. October 8, 1995, p. 5.
Peretti, Frank E. 207
Peretti, Frank E.
Frank E. Peretti is an evangelical Christian novelist
whose works—especially his best-selling This
Present Darkness (1986) and Piercing the Darkness
(1989)—feature “spiritual warfare” between
Christian demons and angels. The action in these
novels moves back and forth between two interacting
levels: While angels and devils cross swords
in the spiritual realm, Peretti’s human heroes and
heroines do battle with new agers, witches,
psychologists, secular education, and other groups
viewed as being under demonic influence by
conservative Christians. One of the keys necessary
for understanding Peretti is the belief that the
concentrated prayers of Christians provide power
and protection for warrior angels. This “prayer
energy” empowers God’s angels to win their
battles against supernatural demons. A decisive
defeat of Satan’s legions in the spiritual realm
disempowers Satan’s earthly minions, which in
turn leads to their defeat.
Frank Peretti, 1995 (Dan Lamont/Corbis)