In a Canadian courtroom a man, accused by his now adult adopted daughter of raping her many years earlier when she was a child, was awarded almost $500,000. The award will be paid by the Montreal police department and his accuser. The judge, in his ruling, pointed out that no evidence was brought forward to corroborate the woman's testimony and none was sought by the primary investigator or by the prosecutor (1).

It turned out that the 25 year old daughter was making inconsistent statements and was mentally disturbed. This information was brought forward by the defense together with 40 affidavits from people who challenged the daughter's accusations. The judge stated that the prosecutor destroyed the life of a man on very little evidence.

Are these facts enough to understand what happened? Of course not, but at least some additional facts will provide the basis for a brief commentary of the course of Justice in our society: the accused man was a prominent political figure who had run for major of Montreal and was a leader of the opposition party in city hall.

Now the question that is naturally raised is: what if he had been just an ordinary man, with no special resources to mount an aggressive defense? What if he could only gain the services of a public defender who earns a pittance from each case he or she defends? These lawyers routinely urge their client to plea bargain to avoid a virtual life sentence (jurors do not take kindly to child molesters) and to "get off" with 10 years, in egregious child assault cases like this one seemed to be. They do not have the time or resources to hire investigators to turn over every rock and subpoena every witness -- in short , to pursue an adequate defense in many cases. Often they also believe the allegations, as this is the easy and fashionable belief system today. After all: "Why would anyone make such an accusation if it were not true?" (The hysterical personality diagnosis has become unfashionable with the rise of feminism since it seemed to be applied by male practitioners to their female clients with an untoward frequency and was implied support for a paternalistic theory -- Freud's).

Thus, that the accuser might be lying or fantasizing seems more unbelievable to many practitioners and experts than the possibility that an otherwise sane and well regarded person (however humble in his station) would commit a horrendous act such as that described by the adopted daughter in this case. It is also apparently easy to believe that the alleged victim would keep the traumatic secret for many years from everyone -- but even from her closest friends?

Expert witnesses can be found who would claim that the nature of a trauma is such that the memory of it is forgotten, repressed deep in the mind (strangely with a call to Freud for backup support).

It is an extraordinary example of modern mythology that this theory of repression of traumatic experiences has gained widespread credence amongst many therapists (2), despite the fact that such experiences cannot be forgotten; indeed, many war victims, for example, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have recurring flashbacks and nightmares -- their chief complaint is that they cannot forget!

Can it be that "repression" occurs because the statute of limitations begins to run (or "toll") only AFTER a memory is "recovered" and not from the time of the original alleged crime? (A behavioral model of positive reinforcement of repression could be applied here perhaps). Of course, this Freudian theory of repression does not rule out the usual process of forgetting. All memories are subject to assaults of distortion and fading. Since recent research has shown that not all sexual molest is experienced as traumatic, such memories would not be subject to the above argument of the apparently indelible imprinting of traumas. Hence normal forgetting (supported in this regard by the "not caring to recall" or "too embarrassed to recall" phenomena) can account for those cases in which molest reports may arise, apparently at random or under the probing of the therapist or family member (3).

If this latter "theory" proposed here is accepted as a reasonable, ordinary and parsimonious view of forgetting, then the notion that an alleged victim CANNOT have recalled a particularly traumatic event (as the alleged rape by Mr. Andre) except years later becomes especially incredible. To resolve such an impasse, the Freudian theory of repression has been mustered for heavy and sinister duty -- to account for such a counter-intuitive phenomenon, and so as to put people away for many years for crimes too gruesome to recall for many years but which suddenly and most mysteriously become acceptable to recall. Many are the negative consequences of this protean pseudo-science belief system spawned by Freud (4).

But the thoughtful reader may wonder about the law's surprising alacrity in these instances of "recovered memory" and ask: what about corroborative evidence from others at the time? Other victims? Or friends and family recalling emotional disturbance in the alleged victim which might lead to suspicions of sexual abuse? This type of evidence would seem to be essential -- in the absence of physical evidence or a confession. Yet we know that dramatic and apparently sincere testimony in the courtroom can override scepticism especially if the descriptions are gruesome. Yet Gary Ramona of California sensationally prevailed in court in just such a case, in the face of molest acusations stemming from a daughter's recovered "memories" in therapy and hypnosis (5).

The credibility of outlandish sex abuse accusations may arise partly from what I will call the WHY THIS STUFF factor: "WHY would anyone make up THIS STUFF?" Many instances have now generated enough data to allow that people can make up this stuff -- and more! Students of human behavior can always be bemused by the strange ways of our species, and especially in the courtroom, and untutored jurors even more so. However, this is the arena in which Justice is to be served exclusively, and as with other crimes, corroborative evidence is essential to the credibility of the single accusatory voice in court. Yet in sex abuse cases, often for the judge or jury, after all the sordid details are duly recorded, the question boils down to a mundane subjective matter of which is stranger or the more improbable -- the solitary accusation or the horrible act.

To conclude: I believe that former Montreal city counsellor, Alain Andre, is a lucky man to have won his case on its merits -- perhaps because he had a judge and not a jury to convince. I wish I could know all the facts, but I love to speculate too.

References:

1. The Montreal Gazette, Friday September 17, 1999, "Vindication in sex-case nightmare" by staff writer George Kalogerakis.
2. Herman, Judith L. (1992) Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, NY.
3. Ofshe, Richard and Watters, Ethan (1994) Making Monsters. Charles Scribner's Sons, NY.
4. Acocella, Joan (1999) Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder. Jossey-Bass, NY.
5. Johnston, Moira (1997) Spectral Evidence: The Ramona Case. Houghton Mifflin, NY.

Philip Kaushall, Ph.D.
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San Diego, CA 92013
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10/19/99