PROFESSOR WARNS OF SATAN MANIA DANGERS

     Mail On Sunday 16.09.90 Page 15 - Inset To File MS160990.ASC


MANY  social  workers  are  over-influenced  by  what  they  hear   at 
professional  conferences  about abuse, child  psychologist  Elisabeth 
Newson believes.

Professor  Newson,  who  acted  as  consultant  in  the  child   abuse 
investigation  in Nottingham, said; "Social workers are told at  these 
conferences: 'Watch Out, it's coming your way.'

"So  when they get back to their own patch they start seeing signs  of 
ritualistic  abuse. When you are told something at a conference  there 
is a tendency to believe that it must be true."

Professor   Newson,   director  of   Nottingham   University's   Child 
Development Research Unit, believes there may be a direct link between 
conferences and the current mania for exposing alleged Satanic abuse.

She said: "Social workers are under pressure to have learned something 
from conferences. People in their department refer to them for advice, 
so they become the expert.

"The  situation is self perpetuating. They come across examples,  then 
they are the speaker at the next conference.

"This  means they have a very strong commitment to believing in  it  - 
their reputation is on the line.

"Children's  evidence must be taken seriously, but that does not  mean 
it must be believed without question. 

"There  is  a danger some social workers are losing  perspective.  And 
when  you  find yourself waking a child at 7am to take him  away  from 
home, then that's losing perspective.

"But  social workers become emeshed in their own beliefs. In order  to 
draw  children  out, they sometimes ask loaded questions  which  would 
never be accepted in court.

"They are acting on their own convictions that abuse is taking  place. 

"The children may believe they have been involved in ritual abuse.  It 
doesn't  mean they have. It needs corroborative evidence -  and  there 
has been no corroboration in these cases."