Re: Children Do Lie.
Rex Goode (rexg@IMS.COM)
Thu, 19 May 1994 09:33:37 PDT
Since someone just mentioned this story as it relates to
hammocks and modesty AND since I noticed it on the witchhunt
mailing list, I thought I'd forward it.
---------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------
>From: GORE@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU (Dr. Robert W. Gore)
Subject: Children Do Lie.
To: witchhunt@MIT.EDU
The assumption that children rarely lie
about molestation and other abuses is the
basis for many wrongful accusations that
have put many innocent people in jail recently.
But children, in fact, do lie!
An article in the TUCSON CITIZEN, May 18, 1994, about
a teacher in Chicago is a frightening example.
Here is a sample from the article:
FOURTH-GRADER PAYS PEERS TO TESTIFY AGAINST TEACHER.
(Classmates get $1 each for falsely accusing the man of molesting them.)
CHICAGO-- When 11 fourth-graders accused their substitute teacher
of molesting them, authorities were ready to believe them.
Even the teacher agreed that children so young rarely lie about
such things.
This time, they did lie--prodded, police say, by a classmate
who had offered them $1 apiece to accuse the teacher falsely.
"What's so scarey - and so sad - is that you've got
9-year old kids sophisticated enough to know they can get a teacher
by saying he fondled them," Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman
Jackie Gallagher said.
"You just don't want to think that our little kids who
you're still reading nursery rhymes to are figuring they're
going to stick it to their teacher."
Albert Thompson told police his class at Fuller Elementary
School on Chicago's South Side became unruly during his May 9
assignment. He said some children ran out of the classroom,
and he had to stand by the door to keep others inside.
When Thompson threatened to report their misbehavior, a
9-year-old girl offered to pay 10 classmates--nine girls and a boy--
$1 each if they joined her in claiming that Thompson fondled them,
police said.
Thompson, 43, never was charged. Police cleared him after some
of the children made inconsistent statements and one admitted they
had made up the story to get him in trouble. The 9-year-old also
recanted, police said.
But he hasn't gotten another teaching assignment.
"We're in a society where you're guilty until proven innocent,"
Thompson said yesterday. Political correctness and children's rights
"override my rights," he said.
.........(and the article goes on from there).
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