Betrayal of Memory

by Sophie Meddowes, David Meddowes

Recently there have been many reports in the media of arrests of prominent men in the world of celebrity. These men are mostly in their 70s and 80s and have been arrested because of allegations of historic sexual abuse made by now adult women. These allegations have been mainly prompted by press reports of the Jimmy Savile case in the U.K. But what if your own daughter at the age of 42 makes allegations to the police that you raped her over many years from the age of seven? What if, up until that time, you had a perfectly normal relationship with your daughter? How would you feel if you were arrested by the police and had no idea what it was you were supposed to have done? Back in the 1980s there was a wave of hysteria and belief that if you had any one of a checklist of symptoms that you were most probably suppressing memories of child sexual abuse that could be later 'recovered' using hypnosis or questionable psychoanalysis. Fathers were falsely convicted and ended up, in a number of cases, with long prison sentences. Some of these fathers are still in prison to this day serving time for a crime they did not commit. Although the number of accusers has been declining since the 1980s there are still 1000s of cases worldwide happening to this very day. This book tells the story of my husband, a wonderful caring man who was a well respected general practitioner in the south of England and the nightmare he underwent when his eldest daughter, at the age of 42, accused him and others of sexually abusing her over an eight year period from when she was seven years old resulting in an illegal abortion at the age of 15. She had no recall of such events until she received 'hypnoanalysis' from an ill qualified therapist. Being falsely accused of child sexual abuse is devastating and destructive for everyone involved. It has a far-reaching effect on the accuser, family, friends and work life. There is also the notion held by some that, when such an accusation is made, there cannot be 'smoke without fire'. Thankfully all our family and friends have been totally supportive. These are people my husband has known since childhood and during university. They know absolutely that he is not capable of such a heinous crime. My aim in writing this book is to make the public aware of such 'therapeutic' practices in 'recovering' false memories of childhood sexual abuse and the role and attitude of the British police in such cases. I will also endeavour to explain what I have learnt about how memory works through the extensive research I have carried out since we first learnt about false memory syndrome just over three years ago. This story is on-going. For most families and accusers involved in such false accusations there is rarely a happy ending.