Perception counts in sensitive area of sex abuse

BY ROSEMARY MCLEOD

OPINION: Someone up there must love Felicity Goodyear- Smith, but some do not, and I guess her life would have been less complicated had she never met her husband.

Dr Goodyear-Smith is Auckland University's medical and health sciences professor.

More controversially, a change in ACC policy, now reversed, that had an impact on help for victims of sexual abuse has now been partly sheeted home to her door.

Her critics are amazed she was commissioned to provide input on this sensitive area.

They see her as stigmatised by close association with the family of former Centrepoint guru - and convicted child sex and drugs offender - Bert Potter.

She is married to his son, and was formerly the GP for the controversial community, where the consensus on sexual relations between adults and children seems, in hindsight, to have been not only potentially damaging, but loony, and the use and manufacture of drugs there downright reprehensible.

At the core of criticism is the view she has put forward that sexual contact between adults and children may not necessarily be harmful.

To be fair, she cites research which could point to that conclusion.

To be fair to her critics, there are compelling counter-arguments.

Prof Goodyear-Smith also attacks the idea of recovered memory, famously featured in retrospective sexual abuse claims made after counselling, which, by the way, she is not convinced does much good. You can see why she could be unpopular.

I rather like mavericks, and for that reason I admire Prof Goodyear-Smith's perversity in taking up the cause of the injustices done to some men by false claims of sexual abuse of children.

I expect this false reporting does happen, especially in custody disputes: it's hard to prove or disprove, and the harm caused by an accusation would be almost impossible to shake off.

She acts as an expert witness for accused men, set up a group that specialises in that area, and can hardly be surprised that some people see that as tending to minimise what her husband (convicted of sexual contact with a child) and her father-in-law (who got a stern jail sentence) were charged with.

Because of her academic standing, that background may not have occurred to her as being a problem when she agreed to help ACC.

But academic credentials aren't everything: perception counts, too. It would have been wiser of her to see the big picture and opt out, and much wiser of ACC not to ask her in the first place, since her views are well- known, and polarising.

If you disliked her, you'd say it was a bit like asking a ferret to give advice on the care of chickens.

If you supported her, you'd advise her against it because it was sure to rebound on both her and the corporation, for whom she does other, less- controversial work.

I'LL give her this: we have lived in strange times with our attitudes to sex, and history may well look back at all of us and laugh.

Plenty of seemingly sensible people supported the teachings of Bert Potter, who is unrepentant, in the commune's heyday, and adults were bonking all over the place, coupling at his direction, and in front of the children.

Solemn TV documentaries were made, and clever people joined up, handing over their worldly possessions to the former pest controller's wise governance.

Then, seemingly in no time at all, there was a complete reversal of attitude, and we became obsessed with child sex abuse.

What was all Arcadian innocence yesterday suddenly had a dark side, and ACC began shelling out $10,000 payments to women who claimed they'd been sexually abused, without asking for corroborative proof.

Women swiftly signed up for this by the tens of thousands, to nobody's great surprise, and against that background Prof Goodyear-Smith told a newspaper the "ACC scam's one of the biggest there is".

Not the most useful view to have on record when contemplating research destined to have an impact on policy in that very area.

How odd - and perhaps revealing - that Prof Goodyear- Smith didn't see that for herself.

- © Fairfax NZ News