Alert over child abuse trials splits lawyers

A warning by the country's most senior judge that dozens of men might have been wrongly convicted of child abuse divided the legal profession on Friday.

The claim by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, in an interview with The Independent, that child abuse allegations might be motivated by claims for compensation was questioned by a lawyer who is an expert in such cases.

Alan Levy QC, the chairman of the 1990-91 Staffordshire "Pindown" inquiry, said that in his experience most people who made allegations of child abuse were genuine. "Who would want to go through the ordeal of a criminal trial and put their credibility on the line?" he asked.

Mr Levy said the system was "far from foolproof" and that there was no room for complacency. But he added: "I don't think there is an epidemic of miscarriages."

Malcolm Fowler, a senior member of the Law Society's criminal law committee, agreed with the sentiments of the Lord Chief Justice, which were published yesterday. Mr Fowler said the circumstances of many convictions in child abuse cases were a source of concern.

"This is getting into Alice in Wonderland territory where we go through an expensive and elaborate quadrille just so we can convict the defendant. It's almost like having the sentence before the trial."

Mr Fowler also said compensation should be seriously considered as a factor when child abuse claims were being brought.

David Wilson, a criminology professor at the University of Central England, said there appeared to have been a change in police tactics when investigating such crimes.

He said: "If six or 16 people say it happened, the police assume it happened. They are allowing the number of people making the allegation to determine whether it's true or false, rather than just investigating the case on the evidence. I think Lord Woolf's fears are absolutely right."

Lord Woolf made his comments on the day that the disgraced pop impresario Jonathan King, 56, was jailed for seven years for sexually assaulting boys.

In a letter to newspapers, King claimed it had been "virtually impossible" for him to defend himself in court because of the length of time since the offences.

He said he wanted to highlight flaws in the legal system in an effort to "prevent one more person suffering the ordeal that I have gone through".

King said he could not claim the trials were unfair, but said the legal system allowed "serious potential injustices. The removal of the need for corroboration of witnesses means that the accused is effectively presumed guilty unless innocence can be proved," he wrote.

Campaigners have been trying to persuade the Government to make it more difficult for child abuse cases to reach the courts.

Last year, the former Southampton football manager David Jones was cleared of allegations of sexual abuse and indecent assault of children in his care dating from his career in care homes.

George Williamson, the chairman of Action Against False Allegations of Abuse, which is based in Leeds, said yesterday: "We are very concerned by corroboration by volume to persuade juries of somebody's guilt. They put all these allegations together and then at the end of the case the judge says to the jury you must treat them all separately."