by Sophie Goodchild, Home Affairs Correspondent, Independent on Sunday
 
A specially commissioned government report will this week conclude that satanic abuse does take place in Britain. It will say that its victims have suffered actual abuse and are not suffering from "false memory syndrome".

The report, ordered by the Department of Health, focuses on the experiences of 50 "survivors". Compiled by Dr John Hale, director of the Portman Clinic in London, and psychotherapist Valerie Sinason, it will reopen the debate which started a decade ago with testimonies from children in Nottingham, Rochdale and Orkney.

Its findings contradict the claims of a report ordered by the Conservative government in 1994, which concluded that satanic abuse was a "myth".

It follows the growing concern of child protection agencies, and the Government, over organised child abuse.

Last week, it emerged that police were investigating the alleged sexual and physical abuse of up to 4,000 children in care homes and council-run homes in Devon.

Ms Sinason, who has treated 126 ritual abuse survivors, said yesterday that in many cases children were tortured by being held under water or made to believe they had witnessed the murder of infants as part of the satanic ritual.

"Some children are born for the purpose of abuse and are not registered on birth certificates," she added. "The abusers use trickery to convince children they have taken part in murder. This increases the power of the abuser."

The report will point to the difficulty of bringing prosecutions because of the problems of putting abused children into the witness box. There are currently at least five cases involving ritual abuse in the hands of lawyers.

Lee Moore, a barrister who founded the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, and was himself a victim of ritual abuse, said it was hard to persuade people to give evidence, particularly after the 1994 report claiming satanic abuse was a myth perpetuated by social workers.

The latest report was welcomed by Dr Joan Coleman, a Surrey psychiatrist who has spent 14 years treating victims. "A lot of children are born into satanic families who indulge in this ritual abuse," she said. "It's only now that child sexual abuse is being exposed that people are beginning to believe ritual abuse exists."

The report will be studied by John Hutton, the health department minister with responsibility for child protection. He is expected to order an investigation into its findings.

Professor Jean La Fontaine replies:

Please allow me to comment on your account of an alleged report by Rob Hale and Valerie Sinason on evidence for ritual/ satanic abuse ("Satanic abuse no myth, say experts", 30 April). Their research was commissioned under the aegis of the Conservative government at least four years ago. My research to which your report also refers was not "ordered" by the Government, but came from my own professional interest in the cases. My research concerned children; Dr Hale and Ms Sinason have focused on adult "survivors", mostly women, although there are some teenagers among them, I believe.

We all approached the Department of Health for funding, although in my case the proposal was given a searching peer review and was funded by the research department; they were given funding by the policy department.

They were to undertake research, together with the relevant police forces, to establish evidence to corroborate allegations of ritual abuse. The report of this research was due two years ago.

t has been noted that the statements Ms Sinason made about her patients before the Department of Health had funded her were substantially the same as those she is making now.

Mark Pendergrast replies:

It is astonishing that anyone would continue to give credence to the myth of "satanic ritual abuse", which has been utterly debunked here in the United States, where it originated, and in the UK ("Satanic abuse no myth, say expert", 30 April). Yet in the UK a group of earnest but pseudo-scientific "true believers" such as Valerie Sinason continue to promote belief in this absurdity.

We all know that sex abuse is far too prevalent, but there is absolutely no evidence to support the myth of ritual abuse, other than in memory-induction of adults and suggestive questioning of small children. Shame on the Independent on Sunday for publishing this lunacy as "news" without at least seeking comment from competent memory scientists and other critics. You compounded it by citing Sinason et al as "experts". They are as much experts as those who conducted the Inquisition were "experts" in identifying witches.