View of Children Altered by False Accusations

David Allen Ward loves children. He loves playing with them, making them laugh. But since being accused and cleared of child molesting, Ward has dropped his Kermit the Frog imitation and Mickey Mouse voice.

He is afraid a child may lie again.

“I was sure I wouldn’t change toward children, but I already have,” Ward said. “I always thought all kids are nice. The reason kids are kids is because they haven’t had a chance to get screwed up. They haven’t had a chance to be adults yet. You grow into being a jerk.”

On July 23, Ward, 31, made a substitute run for a bus driver with a migrant education program at an elementary school in Escondido. At route’s end, a boy and several girls aged 7 to 12 accused him of abusing and molesting them, and Ward was arrested for investigation of felony child abuse. He was jailed about 14 hours and released on $11,000 bail.

Newspapers in northern San Diego County ran the story. Days later, the children told the district attorney’s investigator they had made up the story about Ward. The charges were dropped. Two months later, on Oct. 9, Ward’s record was sealed.

‘Everybody Knows’

“I guess if anyone ever asked me, I could say I was never arrested,” Ward said in an interview. “But everybody knows. Everybody has read something or seen something. They must be afraid to have their kid near me.”

Child abuse experts say Ward’s case is rare. For years, it was believed that children were incapable of lying about such things, that they could not invent stories with explicit details because they lacked that experience.

“As a rule, kids don’t lie. But . . . with the increased public awareness and the increased awareness by children of child abuse and molestation, questions are going to be raised which in the past were not . . . a second-guessing of motive,” said Dr. Perry Bach, a child psychiatrist.

Ward thinks that two children he scolded on the morning run for fighting and calling each other names made up the story and got others to go along with it.

Authorities “are satisfied it was not criminal behavior,” said district attorney’s spokesman Steve Casey said.

Parents Would Not Help

The district attorney’s office had trouble with the case from the start. When the children’s parents, some of them undocumented alien field workers, refused to cooperate, the four felony counts were reduced to misdemeanors. The parents also declined interviews.

Police officers who investigated the case were convinced that the parents were afraid to cooperate because they feared that their status in the United States would be questioned and that they might be deported.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Phil Walden said the children’s stories seemed vague and sketchy. When a Spanish-speaking investigator questioned the children, the youngsters admitted lying.

“There’s a very strong tendency for kids to recant when they find out what some of the consequences are,” said Dr. David Chadwick, director of the Center for Child Protection at the Children’s Hospital and Health Center in San Diego. “As the implications of (abuse charges) become clear, it is possible that the parents influenced them. I don’t know if that’s the case here.”

Chadwick said child abuse experts usually can determine the validity of a child’s story before criminal charges are brought.

‘These Is a Big Gap’

“I wouldn’t say this could be done before an arrest is made--an officer makes an arrest on probable cause, a strong suspicion. Between probable cause and beyond a reasonable doubt, there is a big gap of certainty,” he said.

“I think if the interviews are well done, (and) a physical exam is done, it should be determined whether there is a reason for the case to go forward,” Chadwick said.

Ward is out of work now. He cannot drive because of recent elective foot surgery, and he is not sure he wants to drive school buses again. He has vague plans about returning to school to pursue a broadcasting career.

Ward said he has been depressed and frustrated. But he said he has never been angry with his accusers.

“I thought it was just that somebody was confused or something. I didn’t understand why this would happen,” he said. “It didn’t occur to me that somebody would be that malicious, especially a kid like that. But I guess it’s possible.

“People have always told me, mostly positively, that I’m crazy,” Ward said. “Some people are, I guess, repelled that I am animated, gregarious or outgoing. That’s just the way I am.