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

The United Kingdom, Ritual Abuse in 269
had been a modern day witch hunt which had
ruined the lives of many innocent people.
With respect to the social workers, the Joint
Enquiry Team concluded:
In our view two years later on an unshakable
belief system in Satanic ritualistic abuse
appears to have developed which could easily
lead into a modern day “witch hunt” (as has
happened in the USA). All the elements
appear to us to be present; rigid preconceived
ideas, dubious investigative techniques, the
unwillingness to check basic facts, the
readiness to believe anything, however bizarre,
the interest in identifying prominent people,
with widening of the net to implicate others
and the unwillingness to accept any challenge
to their views. [We therefore conclude that:]
That there is no evidence of Satanic ritual
abuse in the Broxtowe case or its aftermath.
That it is doubtful whether the practice of
the type of Satanic ritual abuse being
promulgated by the Social Services
Department actually exists. It has never been
substantiated by empirical evidence. We have
come to the hypothesis based on [ . . .]’s case
that evidence can actually be “created” by
social workers as a result of their own
therapeutic methods.
That parts of the Social Services
Department appear to have developed over
the last two years a belief system in ritualistic
Satanic abuse which is unwittingly resulting
in children being encouraged to believe in
and allege bizarre abuse. This could lead
eventually to grave injustice and if
unchecked it has the ingredients of a
modern “witch hunt.”
Their recommendations included, “the use of
the current information on ‘Satanic’ ritualistic
abuse/witchcraft within Social Services should be
stopped immediately in the absence of any empirical
evidence to support it. Presentations using this
material, which in our view has no validity, should
also cease immediately as it is contagious.”
However, because of the suppression of the JET
report, SRA “experts” continued to spread their
misinformation. Thus, shortly after an SRA training
seminar for police and social workers in
Pembroke, West Wales, a new spate of accusations
emerged, leading to the largest ritual abuse trial in
British history.
After these and other cases, the health secretary
of the British government, Virginia Bottomley,
commissioned a study of SRA in 1991. Professor
Jean La Fontaine headed up a team at Manchester
University that evaluated all known cases of ritual
abuse in the U.S. The report, issued in 1994,
confirmed the JET report. On the basis of this
report, The Extent & Nature of Organized Ritual
Abuse, Bottomley concluded that Christians had
been “a powerful influence encouraging the identification
of Satanic abuse.” La Fontaine
concurred, saying: “I think the Evangelicals
created the climate in which people could believe
this sort of thing was happening” (DoH Devil
Report, website).
At the time, La Fontaine’s report appeared to
be the final word on SRA in the U.K. However,
apparently yielding to pressure from SRA “believers,”
another section within the Department of
Health (DoH) sponsored yet another study that
claimed SRA was real. News about the report was
leaked and appeared as a front page story in the
Christian magazine New Christian Herald on
October 5, 1996. The article criticized La
Fontaine’s report, and asserted that the new report
“will turn on its head the previous findings and is
set to call for a U-turn in Government thinking.”
The author of the report, Valerie Sinason, was
one of the social services officials to give the original
SRA claims credence. Announced in 1996, it
had not yet appeared in 2000, two years after it was
due. In a letter to the head of the Department of
Health section, which had authorized and
provided £20,000 (about $30,000) for the study,
La Fontaine pointed out that,
the only valid reason for repeating a piece of
work is that there is evidence that renders its
conclusions suspect. There is no mention of
such evidence and it seems unlikely that there
was any because the proposed research by
Valerie Sinason and Dr Hale did not propose