McMartin Pre-School Molestation Trial

The July 13 Times article about the opening of the McMartin Pre-School trial highlights that the “credibility of the children is the key.” I am writing to question whether The Times’ reporting is giving this credibility a chance.

No one who has followed the case can fail to observe that it has been beset with investigative difficulties. Over this looms the almost unthinkable possibility that the alleged abuses actually may have been perpetrated.

Nevertheless, complexity and the understandable wish to deny that such depravity may have occurred do not excuse The Times from its mandate for reporting balance.

The most prominent example of bias is the description of the therapists’ credentials. The article tells us that one of the therapists is an “unlicensed social worker.”

The facts that this therapist has passed a national exam accepted in a number of states as equivalent to licensure and has over 15 years of clinical experience in the field of sexual abuse were not mentioned. Why were we told that this therapist holds a certificate in welding? If Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner had completed a course in gourmet cooking, would this have been listed among his credentials?

It seems equally inexcusable that the reporter chose to omit the fact that this “unlicensed social worker” is also the author of over 50 publications, including a book on child abuse that has received national recognition.

The reporter’s apparent effort to undermine the credibility of the therapists seems designed to undermine that of the children.

Don’t The Times’ readers deserve to do their own assessment from a balanced presentation of the issues?

No one in the field will claim there is any one “right” way to conduct sexual abuse assessment interviews. Establishing rapport, gaining trust and adapting interview techniques to the child’s emotional, cognitive and moral levels of development are but a few of the issues involved.

Wouldn’t an objective discussion of these issues have been more informative than the skewed sample of interviews with obvious leading?

Let’s not forget 350 children, many with supporting medical evidence, were diagnosed as having been sexually abused.

Are we to believe that in 90-minute interviews these therapists had the power to put words describing such unspeakable acts into the mouths of hundreds of children?

These children are entitled to more credibility than The Times’ reporting is giving them.

ANN W. WILLIAMS, Ph.D.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Santa Monica