Rosie Waterhouse examines how cases in Nottinghamshire led to hysteria about 'ritual abuse'

Soon afterwards the children began telling their foster mother strange stories of witches, snakes, monsters, babies and blood.

As instructed by the judge who made the children wards of court, the foster mother kept a diary of everything noteworthy they said.

Nottinghamshire social workers were baffled and alarmed by the children's stories and sought advice from sex abuse experts on "witchcraft". They were told of an apparently new phenomenon sweeping towns and cities across the United States: Satanic child abuse. They were then given a checklist of "Satanic indicators", the signs and symptoms that would show if a child had been the victim of such abuse. Using the checklist, the joint team of NSPCC and local authority social workers were confronted by further disclosures: of bizarre black magic rituals which included sacrificing animals, drinking blood and killing and eating babies.

It seemed they had stumbled across one of the first British examples of children being victims of a Satanic cult. The 21 children in their care had been horrifically abused - the case went to court and eight members of a family and a friend were jailed. But of the Satanism claims, the police could find no evidence at all.

That sequence of events was uncovered by an inquiry into the allegations of Satanism set up by Nottinghamshire's chief constable and director of social services. The report was completed last December but it is still unpublished [SAFF Ed: now available on mirrors around the net - search for Nottinghamshire J.E.T. report] and the findings are confidential. It helps explain how hysteria about Satanic child abuse began and has spread across Britain from Kent to Strachclyde, with similar panics in Cheshire, Merseyside Manchester and now Rochdale.

There are striking similarities in the Rochdale case, in which, over six months, 20 children have been taken from their families by a team of NSPCC and local authority; social workers and police officers and made wards of court; Fifteen are in care; five have been returned but are wards of court. Police found no evidence of Satanic rituals and said no criminal prosecutions were expected.

The parents are fighting to get their children back. Sir Stephen Brown, President of the Family Division, is to examine the evidence tomorrow and decide if and when wardship proceedings should go ahead.

The Rochdale stories of monsters, ghosts, killing babies, slaughtering sheep and drinking blood can all be related to various versions of Satanic indicators that have been circulated to all NSPCC and most council social workers, as well as to police and other child-care professionals.

Peter Thompson, a local councillor, believes the stories originated in the imagination of a six-year-old boy who was allowed to watch vile horror films, and were wrongly interpreted by "over zealous" social workers using the Satanic indicators for guidance.

The "diagnosis" of Satanic abuse in Rochdale came a few weeks after a police officer, at least one social worker and the director of social services, Gordon Littlemore, attended a seminar on the subject. [SAFF Ed. Littlemore later resigned over the mistakes made saying: "I would like to say that we regret the mistakes that were made and we accept the comments and recommendations of the judge."]

In Nottingham, the inquiry team established that childrens' talk of monsters and witches came only after the "disclosure" interviews of four children by an NSPCC social worker. They found that all the social workers confused different techniques for disclosure and therapy.

The inquiry team concluded that the Satanic abuse scare in Nottingham was produced by the introduction by the NSPCC social worker of symbols suggesting witchcraft and Satanic rites; the use of Satanic indicators originating from the US; the spreading of stories between the children while in care; unreliable testimony from adult witnesses; and above all, the interview techniques used by all the social workers involved.

Professor John Nelson, head of the Child Development Research Unit at the University of Nottingham, who advised the enquiry team, found that the interview techniques were tantamount to brainwashing". He said: "Throughout this report I nave expressed my concern that the disclosure procedures followed by social workers may well be doing positive harm to the young people they are questioning. I therefore strongly recommend that these be discontinued."

The inquiry team particularly criticized the use of leading and limited choice questions such as: "you killed three or thirty babies?"; "did you sexually abuse the little boy before you were made to kill it?"; "who ate it?" and 'what parts did you eat?"

The NSPCC has played a crucial role in the spread of the Satanic abuse scare. In Manchester, where a case has been investigated but no evidence of Satanism found, the NSPCC first warned police to watch out for Satanic or ritual abuse early in 1988. They were given further warnings and literature after five Manchester NSPCC social workers attended a conference on the subject in Reading in September 1989.

The charity was sent a dossier of alleged cases from a group of evangelical Christians including the Rev Kevin Logan and Maureen Davis of the Reachout Trust. The NSPCC issued several press statements saying the stories were spreading. In March the charity claimed that after a survey, seven of its 66 child protection teams were dealing with allegations of Satanic abuse. The form sent to teams asked questions based on the Satanic indicators.

Apart from the NSPCC's role in spreading the stories, many local authority social workers have ' also come to believe in Satanic abuse, almost with a blind faith.

Elizabeth Newson, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Nottingham, who was also consulted with her husband in the Nottingham case, believes social workers are not adequately trained to deal with sexual abuse and that a nationally co-ordinated and approved training system should be introduced.

She said: "If there is no evidence for Satanic abuse - and there remains no evidence - then we have to consider that what is operating may be professional hysteria.

"There is a sort of excitement about ritual abuse. I'm wondering whether these are professional myths, like urban myths. I would like the NSPCC to give us chapter and verse not allegations but evidence."

Additional reporting by Sarah Strickland and John Thompson

Source: Independent on Sunday 23 September 1990

"The inquiry team concluded that the Satanic abuse scare in Nottingham was produced by the introduction by the NSPCC social worker of symbols suggesting witchcraft and Satanic rites.."

 Catherine Gould's Infamous List of SATANIC INDICATORS

Symptoms Characterising Satanic Ritual Abuse Not usually seen in sexual abuse cases
Preschool Age children

By Catherine Gould PhD. Clinical Psychology

• "1) Preoccupation with urine and feces. Use of words for urine and feces that are not used at home (especially 'baby' words like 'poopoo').
• "2) Discussion of feces or urine on the face or in the mouth. Constant discussion of urine and feces at the dinner table.
• "3) Urine or feces strewn or smeared in the bathroom.
• "4) Inability to toilet train a child because the child is afraid (as opposed to not ready to be toilet trained or in a power struggle with the parent). The child may reveal fears of having to eat the feces if (s)he uses the toilet.
• "5) Preoccupation with passing gas. Using mouth to make gas sounds repeatedly, attempting to pass gas purposefully, wild laughter when the child or someone else passes gas. Use of words for passing gas that are not used at home.
• "6) Aggressive play that has a marked sadistic quality. The child hurts others intentionally, and seems to derive pleasure from doing so. Child destroys toys.
• "7) Mutilation themes predominate. Child acts out severing, sawing off, twisting or pulling off body parts. Aggressive words include cut, saw, slice, chop. Taking out eyes or removing other parts of the face and head are common themes.
• "8) Harming animals, or discussion of animals being hurt or killed.
• "9) Preoccupation with death. Child 'practices' being dead, asks if (s)he will die at age 6 (the Satanic number), asks whether we eat dead people. Questions are distinguishable from normal curiosity about death by their bizarre quality.
• "10) Fear that there is something foreign inside the child's body- e.g., ants, ice, a bomb.
• "11) Fear of going to jail, being tied up or caged. References to the police coming after the child.
• "12) Fear of ghosts and monsters. Child's play frequently involves ghosts and monsters.
• "13) Fear of 'bad people' taking the child away, breaking into the house, killing the child or the parents, burning the house down.
• "14) Child is clingy and may resist being left with baby sitters, especially overnight.

• "15) Child's level of emotional or behavioural disturbance or developmental delay seems inconsistent with the parent's level of functioning.
• "16) Preoccupation with the devil, magic, potions, supernatural powers, crucifixions. Questions about these topics in families who do not believe in or discuss them are significant.
• "17) Odd songs or chants by the child that are sexual or otherwise bizarre, or that have a "you better not tell" theme.
• "18) Numbers or letters always written backwards (as opposed to a child who sometimes or often reverses numbers or letters). This is the 'devil's alphabet'.
• "19) References to drugs, 'pills', candy, mushrooms, 'bad medicine', or injections that seem peculiar for a preschool age child. References to drug-like or diaretic (sic) affects.
• "20) Constant fatigue, illness, flare-up of allergies. Vomiting.
• "21) References to people at school who are not school personnel. (This is because other adults join teachers for the abusive activities.)
• "22) References to 'my other daddy', 'my other mommy', or 'my other family' (meaning 'at school').
• "23) References to television characters as real people. (this is because perpetrators take on names like "Barney Flintstone" so child's disclosures will be dismissed as television-inspired fantasies).
• "24) References to people in scary costumes, especially monsters, ghosts, devils, dracula.
• "25) References to sexual activity with other children at school.
• "26) Discussion of being taken to people's houses or other locations (junkyard, church, hospital, another school) that are not normal school outings for which parents have given permission.
• "27) References to pictures or films being taken at the school at times other than when school pictures would normally be taken. Peculiar descriptions or references to nudity, sexual acts, unusual costuming, or animal involvement when discussing photography at school.
• "28) Marks on the child's back, unusual bruising, especially in patterns.
• "29) Nightmares or dreams of any of the above."

This Was The Press Conference Which Started The Satanic Panic

Press Association

July 17, 1989, Monday

OFFENSIVE LAUNCHED AGAINST SATANIC CHILD ABUSERS

BYLINE: Sally Weale, Press Association

A child protection society warned tonight that it was becoming "increasingly concerned" about the ritualistic abuse of children in occult ceremonies.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children urged parents and professionals not to simply dismiss childrens' accounts as "fantasy" but to listen and offer help and protection.......

The NSPCC said a major fear must now be that some children have been killed during ceremonies and that others were seriously at risk.

The problem is highlighted on ITV tonight by The Cook Report.

After the investigative programme, helplines will be opened for people who have fallen victim to satanic groups.

Cases which have come to light involve young girls being raped and babies being induced five-and-a-half months into pregnancy then killed and eaten during satanic ceremonies.

The national network of counsellors is made up of experts from organisations already dealing with occult-related problems and has been brought together by the Evangelical Alliance, an inter-denominational church body.

Copyright 1989 The Press Association Limited

But as we all now know, the claims turned out to be FALSE.
The Guardian put it this way:

The [NSPCC] press release claimed that children throughout Britain were being exploited by a highly organised and planned sexual abuse, involving not only sex rings and child pornography but satanic rituals and rituals and bizarre ceremonies such as using masks or costumes, drinking blood or urine, bizarre use of animals, invocation of satanic powers and sexual activity in front of or involving children....

But the NSPCC made these claims about satanic practices without any firm evidence. There is no corroboration for any of it; the police officer in charge of the Scotland Yard unit Investigating child sex rings says he's had no evidence of such ritual abuse of children.

To make such claims without proper evidence is, to put it mildly, exceedingly unwise and ill advised...

[The NSPCC] themselves seemed belatedly embarrassed by their own presentation; references in their briefing notes to human sacrifice and a baby in a microwave were deleted from their remarks, although the Daily Mirror got hold of them and duly plastered them across its front page. The charity's press manager said these claims were "uncorroborated" — but since all the other claims were similarly unsubstantiated. what's the difference?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this was the NSPCC's latest publicity stunt to raise funds in a viciously competitive financial climate for all charities.

Melanie Phillips: COMMENTARY: Guardian 16th March 1990