Satanic abuse key witness says: I lied

• Lewis woman retracts her story
• Police officer's warnings ignored

Lorna Martin, Scotland editor
Sunday September 24, 2006
The Observer

A key witness in one of Scotland's most notorious child abuse cases has admitted lying to the police, The Observer can reveal. Angela Stretton, whose evidence was vital in bringing a case of satanic sex abuse against eight people on the island of Lewis, has written to police confessing that some of the allegations she made were false.
This newspaper has also discovered that a senior police officer expressed concerns about Stretton's reliability at the time, but was ignored.

Stretton, 39, who has learning difficulties, said that after repeated questioning she told police and social workers she witnessed her mother, brother and several other islanders abusing children.

'I had lots of meetings with police and social workers. They kept questioning me about diff erent people. It was a diff erent person every day. They had a list of names, including my mum and brother. They said things about taking photos and killing animals and drinking their blood,' she said.

'At first I said no, they wouldn't do that. But they kept on and on at me. They said I had to tell the truth for the children. I felt really under pressure, so I suppose I told them what they wanted to hear. I just agreed with what was being said.

'Plus at that time I wanted to get my own back on my mum. I know this is wrong. I just want to try and put things right. I want to say sorry to them and clear their names.'

The developments have raised critical questions about the handling of the investigation and whether lessons have been learnt by the police and social workers following false allegations of ritual child abuse in the Orkney, Rochdale and Cleveland scandals. In all of these cases, the authorities were criticised for their interview techniques.

In Lewis, eight people, including a 75- year-old grandmother, appeared in court accused of raping and otherwise sexually abusing children in black magic rituals. The court was told of wife-swapping orgies and the sacrifices of cats and chickens whose blood was drunk.

The case made international news. Yet it was quietly dropped nine months later with no explanation, leaving those falsely accused feeling that their lives had been destroyed. Three years on, they say they are still fighting to clear their names.

An independent social work report published last year said the three children at the centre of the case were horrendously neglected and subjected to a catalogue of physical, emotional and suspected sexual abuse. Alexis Jay, the chief inspector of the Social Work Inspection Agency, said a team found the children's parents had 'consistently failed' to care for or protect them.

The report said too much emphasis was given to the rights and duties of the parents rather than the children, who should have been removed from their home much earlier in their lives. More than 220 incidents involving them were recorded by professionals between 1990 and 2000. One child was forced to sleep in a cupboard and eat cat food.

For reasons which have never been explained, the authorities instead focused their inquiries on allegations of an island-wide satanic abuse ring.

Lawyers involved in the case criticised the police for building a case which relied on Stretton, who had a conviction for making hoax calls to the emergency services, as the only adult witness. They said it enabled those really responsible to escape justice.

David Brookens, a solicitor advocate who represented Susan Sellwood, one of those falsely accused, said the prosecution evidence was of such poor quality that the case should never have proceeded as far as it did. 'This latest development strengthens enormously the case for the accused [in such cases] not to be named by the police or Crown Office,' he added.

'In this case people were hung out to dry. In addition, by relying on her as a witness, the door has been closed on prosecuting those who should have been prosecuted. Police spread the net very widely in this case and caught nothing.'

Documents seen by The Observer show that a senior police officer expressed concerns about Stretton's evidence during the investigation. He informed his superiors that each day Stretton said someone different was involved. However, he was overruled .

Last night, several of the accused demanded an apology. Susan Sellwood, who is still fi ghting to clear the names of herself and her husband John, said: 'We were subjected to vigilante attacks and our lives have been destroyed physically, fi nancially and emotionally. People think the case was dropped because they didn't have enough evidence, rather than because police and social services made appalling mistakes.

'All we want is an apology from the authorities. Until we get that, it is still left in the air that we are guilty of the most appalling crime.'

David Disney, another of those wrongly accused, said he had alerted social workers to Stretton's history of making false allegations: 'I hold police and social workers responsible for making such a mess of this case and for destroying people's lives.'

A spokeswoman for Northern Constabulary said a copy of a letter from Stretton had been received and further inquiries would take place.

A Crown Office spokeswoman said extremely serious allegations were made by a number of witnesses. 'It was necessary for such serious allegations, involving children under the age of 16, to be thoroughly investigated. The Crown has a duty to investigate, and it did so in a thorough and professional manner.'

Fass answer

to this amazing proof that the law and social services techniques were not only wrong but contavened all the lessons learnt from the Orkney case and many others.

1. We know of a document that Angela wrote that ALL the allegations she made were false, We would like to say how proud we are of her it took a lot of guts to stand up and tell the truth, at the same time being very frightned by the very people who made her make the statement in the first place.

2.Just a note of interest it was 9 people who were arrested and the ninth one has not even heard officially that the case as been dropped can you imagine how that person feels dumped by her lawyer because one of the other cases would make more cash for them, leave you to pnder that one.

3.They questioned Angela about photos were are they homes accross the country were raided yet no photos were found.

4.The Police and social workers knew Angela was weak yet they exploited this to prove some thing that was clearly not true, we asume that the children were question in the same manner ( nearly everyday a case lands on our desk saying the same old things ). What really is evil is that a lot of times such questioning leads to the children actually believing this did happen. It is our findings that the social services have destroyed these childrens lives and such should be accountable. On this note it is interesting that this all came about as a new social worker enters the scene she should be sacked without delay and the social worker that dealt with the children originally should come forward and ask were are the documents that have ' gone missing'.

5.Those of us involved with the family do accept that the parents and social services 'consistently failed to care and protect the children from the neglect of very disfunctional parents.

6.In the article it mentions 220 incidents recorded by professionals, that includes every time allegegations by the mother, and every time the children fell down or had accidents etc.that is over a 10 year period not a lot is it really considering also it was not untill 2000 that David and his wife became involved when the social workers made the father leave the house and they had the 24/7 job of trying to keep the family together, something that should have been done years before by the professionals.

7. In this pathetic swia report it also mentions that one child was MADE to sleep in a cupboard this is totally untrue as the social worker at the time knew that this child when she wet the bed would make her self a bed elsewhere in the house the cupboard mentioned is A very large walk in cupboard and she used this as a den so many times, in fact the first thing David had to do when the girls came to him was to build dens out side.

8.It is also stated that one was given cat food to eat no yet another twist of truth, she did eat some cat food for a laugh, not good we agree but just a childish prank and this too was known by the then professionals.

9.In this article it is stressed that because of Angela's previous convictions for false allegations this helped the REAL guilty escape justice, It is very clear that up untill 2000 nothing had happened to the children in the ways stated and many of the accused lawyers fell into the trap that maybe some thing did yet why the missing documents if the professionals had proof why hide some of the documents that maybe prove other wise.

10. David Brookens is right when he say's that this case is an example of why those accused should remain anon untill proved guilty. But again he is quoted has 'saying that the door has been closed on prosecuting those that should have been'

Who's that then????? I sujest that it should be at least one of the police officers and the social worker behind the forcing a vunerable adult to tell lies.

11. Why was the police man not listened to, could be he knew he overstepped the mark by giving Angela words to say and knew he had made a mistake and would be found out.

12. It is clear that none of the accused will get the apology that they deserve because along with the SWIA the police are covering thier own backs and cannot be seen to be honest in tyhis matter.

13. No one questions the fact that the police had to become involved just they should have done the job properly.

14. In conclusion we want a private inquiry to make very public just what damage has been done by so called professionals.