Witchcraft

We watched a documentary on Wednesday night. It was about The children involved in the Rochdale Satanic rituals case back in 1990. The film covered what the events had done to the lives of those involved.

20 Children were taken from their homes in dawn raids by social services. They spent 34 years in care between them, one kid was in care from 6 to 16. The whole thing was a media fuelled witch hunt based on spurious comments made by the kids in interviews which were later condemned as unprofessional by the trail judge. Any one who asked questions about the way the investigation was being handles was immediately under suspision themselves or at best seen as sticking up for child abusers. One local councilor upon being told by the Police that the allegations included children having their fingers chopped off and nailed to an upturned crucifix in the local graveyard said "and have your officers checked the local schools to see if there are any four fingers kids knocking about?" Of course they hadn't and his seemed to have been a lone voice of common sense in the whole affair. Seeing the kids talk about this time in their now ruined lives made both Ruth and I cry. What was more chilling was that it had happened here in the UK in the last 16 years!! The programmed finished by saying that at the time there were over 30 separate different enquiries of this type all over the UK and not one allegation was shown to be true,

The whole sorry affair reminded me of Arthur Miller's astonishing play 'The Crucible' based on the Salem witch trials in America it was his response to the McCarthy political (anti Communist) witch hunts in the 1950/60's. In my amateur acting days I had the chance to play the main character John Procter in this play. What a priviledge thas was. Indeed the actor Robert Carlyle sites The Crucible as the reason he decided to go on the stage. Once you have read or performed this play you can never join the crowd in denouncing someone or some group without asking questions. As another hero of mine Oliver Cromwell said "In the bowels of Christ consider it possible that you may be mistaken". Advice he himself didn't always take of course.

I feel that this play and the issues around it should be required study for everyone, because when you look round the world and even this country today, its is obvious that the witch hunters have not gone away.