Western Isles; falsely accused remain demoralised.

By Daryl Dobson

I am the uncle of the three girls at the centre of this case and the brother of their mother. For legal reasons I am not writing under my real name. My concerns for my nieces’ well-being led me to offer help as a worried family member knowing that my sister and her husband were very neglectful. I have no reservations in stating that her family undoubtedly needed help from social services and brought to the attention of the child protection agencies. My sister had a history of making false allegations of abuse before coming to the islands, where she continued to make them.

When the recent Social Work Investigating Agency (SWIA) Report concluded that the children were definitely sexually abused, I and the others falsely accused were extremely depressed knowing that the message going out, in order that the authorities could be let off the hook, was that we had got away with it. The inference was that the guilty had escaped because the authorities had made mistakes – not that the we were innocent and the investigators had displayed unbelievable gullibility and credulousness

As a close family member I have no hesitation in saying that the children suffered from very serious neglect regarding their basic welfare and their mother and father had inadequate parenting skills. However, in all sincerity I do not think they were sexually abused, despite the findings of the SWIA Report. My wife and I had extensive knowledge of their situation, as we looked after them for a considerable time, trying to show them that there was a better way of upbringing than they received from their parents.

The sad fact is that the problems of a seriously dysfunctional family, which we tried to help keep together, spread out to embrace a number of perfectly innocent people. They were caught up in the zealous methods of the investigation agencies influenced by the corrupting, and often insane, beliefs of those who influence; educate and train them.

In our case it was the mad ideas about organised, satanic paedophile rings, hidden in God-fearing society, practising ritual abuse on children. In echoes of the much earlier Orkney’s case, where they played up a mysterious minister with his sinister cloak and stick, we had investigators and social workers fixated on Pagans, cape and mask wearing Mormons who slaughter cats, other animal sacrifices and human killing, and confusing Paganism with Satanism.

Throughout our ordeal, I thought we were going to be caught up in that injustice within the British judicial system, which I believe is much greater in numbers than those wrongly jailed for murder, armed robbery and IRA bombing, namely wrongful conviction of child sexual abuse.

To conclude, the following transcript from the interview of one of the falsely accused exposes the lunacy in the investigating police officer’s mind. This, and the other aberrations in the case should have been at the heart of the SWIA Report, exposing the recklessness of the investigators and the childrens’ charities workers in the background. Significantly, they were not. The transcript is ample proof of the evidence, that we were caught up in the bizarre thinking on satanic paedophile rings of those determined to jail us, no doubt convinced by the lurid tales they had encouraged my vulnerable nieces and unbalanced sister to tell.

Police Officer.

Do know anyone else who, or have you heard of anyone else who, practices the occult?

IC. No. I don’t know of anyone who practices that kind of religion.

PO. Have you any knowledge of the use of statues in practising the occult? What about the ritualistic killing of animals? Ritualistic dress, as in gowns, that type of thing? Do you have any books about witchcraft?

IC. Umm, Wicca witches and things like that? Yes in the kitchen?

PO. Wicca witches? What’s that?

IC. Well paganism, you don’t know about paganism?

PO. I don’t.

IC. It is not against the law. Paganism is basically about people who believe in mother earth. It’s not witchcraft as in, you know, flaming voodoo sort of things.

PO. I have information that you were involved in devil-worshipping ceremonies. Have you ever been into devil worship?

IC Not at all.

PO. The information we have is that it has taken place and that you did use it to dress up in a long white gown and wore masks, as did your wife, and that you carried out some sort of ceremony during which there was dancing, and that your children were dressed up in a similar manner to yourselves and there was music being played, described as Indian music.

And also that during this, some form of chanting and praying took place. Further to that, there was information given to us that whilst this was being conducted, it was being videoed on a camcorder.

Have you been in a position of seeing any videos which would depict serious sexual abuse? People being killed, and I’m not talking acting here? Have you ever drank the blood of a chicken? Have you ever witnessed anybody else doing that? Ever drink the blood of any other animal?

The interview ends with a howl of anguish from IC as he is charged with rape.