Many people may wonder, rightly so “How does an innocent man go to prison?” or “How can a child lie in court and withstand vigorous cross-examination?”
This is not a new topic and has been addressed in many countries dealing with Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) cases.

This “problem” was covered in many protocols designed by some leader countries to assist with the issue of “forensic child interviews”.
South Africa does not have such a protocol per se, but the general rules are shattered in many common laws and statuaries. For example, you cannot intimidate another, you cant threaten anyone illegally, you may not lie under oath, you cannot interfere in a police investigation, etc.
Many social workers claim in their “forensic assessment” reports that they have followed certain international protocols, it all sounds very fancy and legit, until you read up on these protocols and their requirements.

Protocols to be followed:

All acceptable CSA protocols have the following basic guidelines as standard practice:

1. All audio must be recorded and where practically possible, a video recording must be made,
2. There must be peer review present, or another expert must review the procedures and concur
3. A parent or a legal guardian must be present or at least within earshot of what happens in the interview, and sessions must be limited in time not to exhaust the interviewee. There is a third option and that is when a court order is in place allowing the interview by a competent professional.
   

It is our view that none of these criminal elements’ testimony will stick in court if there was a recording made, the recording is immediately handed over to the police for proper preservation and logging of the “chain of evidence”.
Some of these social workers cannot even control their urges to coach a child when a parent is present or another recorder is on the table. This became evident in another case where the evidence of a social worker was rejected. Sadly, notwithstanding her being reported to the SACSSP for her misconduct, she was never properly investigated allowing her to continue the damage.

It is for this reason that Raaths will ask the court to make it compulsory that all child interviews be recorded and the court have an opportunity to ensure the child was not told what to say. And this is where everything went wrong in the Raaths case: There were no recording, video, or social worker notes available for the court to assess her report.

For this reason, we ask visitors to PLEASE refrain from personal attacks, mudslinging, and bad-mouthing anyone that is trying to expose the truth. This will not be further tolerated in this group. There is a lot at stake here, and you may not have all the relevant information to enable you to start blaming anyone. There is more than just Abrie’s freedom at stake, there are other fathers innocently in prison, and children are being abused continuously by these unscrupulous individuals. Blaming the wrong person serves absolutely no purpose other than potentially derailing our mission plan.