"What did your daddy do?" — letter to the editor

EDMONTON SUN February 17, 2001 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR IT TOOK nearly three years to get the kind of introduction to the community that The Sun gave Parents Helping Parents on Feb. 11, after only six months in the city, in "What did your daddy do?" It is also notable that, although I've been interviewed more than 100 times about allegations in divorce, I've never had a more thorough, relentless, in-depth interview than that required by reporter Scott Pattison, and my hat goes off to him and to this newspaper. Still, there are a few issues I'd like to clear up. The words "guilt" and "innocence" are attributed to me and the one thing I never do is presume to judge, and arrive at such definitive findings in a child-abuse case. Parents Helping Parents will ensure that everyone who seeks our help gets a full and fair investigation, but we always leave judging to the adjudicators of fact. It is true, however, that I can't offer my support to people who are harming children, so that is a judgment of sorts. I would certainly disagree with the report's conclusion that the medical report identified in the story suggests that the child "has been sexually violated." Since the doctor found that the child had no scarring of the hymen, two notches on the hymen, concluding with one scar on the hymen, even a layperson can understand that such findings are a physical impossibility. Such a sloppy report does not lead to any conclusions, and by no means the serious finding that there is evidence that a child has been "violated." It doesn't help that the Child and Adolescent Protection Centre team apparently reviewed the doctor's work and saw no trouble with these conflicting findings. The tragedy here, like [in] many other cases in Edmonton, is that this child may as easily be a victim of a false allegation as she may be a victim of child abuse, and the whole point of the story is that, either way, this child is a victim of one sort or another. Parents Helping Parents is committed to raising the standards of investigations in Edmonton until cases like this are few and far between. We have no intention of leaving until that job is done. Louise Malenfant, family advocate Parents Helping Parents (It was a thorough piece.) Original article: What did your daddy do?