The police didn’t have enough evidence to charge Lenny Morgan, but the criminal investigation continued. Based on the physical evidence and Bridget Morgan’s statement the conference recommended that Bobby be removed from his family and placed in foster care unless his father agreed to voluntarily stay away. Daily contact would be arranged but father and son were never to be left alone.
Bobby spent five days in foster care before Lenny agreed to leave the family home and live separately until the al egations were ful y investigated.
The second case file begins with a contents page. I scan the list and continue reading. For three months the Morgan family was shadowed by social workers and psychologists, who tried to discover exactly how it functioned. Bobby’s behavior was monitored and reviewed, particularly during the contact visits with his father. At the same time Erskine interviewed Bridget, Lenny and Bobby separately, taking detailed histories. He also spoke to the maternal grandmother, Pauline Aherne, and Bridget’s younger sister.
Both seemed to confirm Bridget’s suspicions about Lenny. In particular Pauline Aherne claimed to have witnessed an example of inappropriate behavior when father and son were wrestling at bedtime and she saw Lenny’s hand inside Bobby’s pajamas.
When I compared her statement to Bridget’s, I noticed how they used many of the same phrases and descriptions. This would have concerned me if it had been my case. Blood is thicker than water— never more so than in child custody cases.
Lenny Morgan’s first wife had died in a car accident. A son from the first marriage, Dafyyd Morgan, had left home at eighteen without coming to the attention of Social Services.
Several attempts were made to find him. Child-care workers traced his teachers and a swimming coach, who reported no cause for concern in his behavior. Dafyyd had left school at fifteen and been apprenticed to a local building firm. He dropped out and his last known address was a backpacker’s hostel in western Australia.
The file contains Erskine’s conclusions, but not his session notes. He described Bobby as “anxious, fidgety and temperamental y fragile” and also displaying “symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“When questioned about any sexual abuse, Bobby became increasingly defensive and agitated,” Erskine wrote. “He also seems defensive if anyone suggests his family is not ideal. It is as if he is working hard to hide something.”
Of Bridget Morgan he wrote: “Her first concern is always for her son. She is particularly reluctant to al ow any further interviews with Bobby because of the anxiety these create. Bobby has apparently been wetting the bed and has had problems sleeping.”
Her concern was understandable. At a rough count, I estimated Bobby was interviewed more than a dozen times by therapists, psychologists and social workers. Questions were repeated and rephrased.
During free play sessions he was observed undressing dol s and naming body parts. None of these sessions were recorded, but a therapist reported that Bobby placed one dol on top of the other and made grunting noises.
Erskine included two of Bobby’s drawings in the file. I hold them at arm’s length. They’re rather good in an abstract sort of way— a cross between Picasso and the Flintstones. The figures are robotlike, with skewed faces. Adults are drawn excessively large and children very smal .
Erskine concluded:
There are several significant pieces of evidence which, in my opinion, strongly support the possibility of sexual contact between Mr. Morgan and his son.
First, there is the evidence of Bridget Morgan as well as that of the maternal grandmother, Mrs. Pauline Aherne. Neither woman appears to have any reason to be biased or embellish their accounts. Both witnessed occasions when Mr. Morgan exposed himself to his son and removed his son’s underwear.
Secondly, there is the evidence of Dr. Richard Legende who found “two or three strap marks about six inches long across both of the child’s buttocks.” More perturbing was the evidence of scar tissue around the anus.
Added to this we have the behavioral changes in Bobby. He has displayed an unhealthy interest in sex, as well as a working knowledge far beyond that of a normal eight-year-old.
Based on these facts, I believe there exists a strong likelihood that Bobby has been sexually abused, most probably by his father.
There must have been another case conference in mid-November. I can find no minutes. The police investigation was suspended, but the file left open.
The third file is ful of legal documents— some of them bound in ribbon. I recognize the paperwork. Satisfied that Bobby was at risk, Social Services had applied for a permanent care order. The lawyers were set loose.
“What are you mumbling about?” Mel is back from her shopping, balancing two cups of coffee on a ledger. “Sorry I can’t offer you anything stronger. Remember when we used to smuggle boxes of wine in here at Christmas?”
“I remember Boyd getting drunk and watering the plastic plants in the foyer.”
We both laugh.
“Bring back any memories?” She motions to the files.
“Sadly.” My left hand is trembling. I push it into my lap. “What did you make of Lenny Morgan?”
She sits down and kicks off her shoes. “I thought he was a pig. He was abusive and violent.”
“What did he do?”
“He confronted me outside the court. I went to use a phone in the foyer. He asked me why I was doing this— as if it was personal. When I tried to get past him, he pushed me against the wal and put his hand around my throat. He had this look in his eyes…” She shudders.
“You didn’t press charges?”
“No.”
“He was upset?”
“Yes.”
“What about the wife?”
“Bridget. She was al fur coat and no knickers. A real social climber.”
“But you liked her?”
“Yes.”
“What happened about the care order?”
“One magistrate agreed with the application and two claimed there was insufficient evidence to sustain the argument.”
“So you tried to get Bobby made a ward of the court?”
“You bet. I wasn’t letting the father anywhere near him. We went straight to the county court and got a hearing that afternoon. The papers should be al there.” She motions toward the files.
“Who gave evidence?”
“I did.”
“What about Erskine?”
“I used his report.”
Mel is getting annoyed at my questions. “Any social worker would have done what I did. If you can’t get the magistrates to see sense, you go to a judge. Nine times out of ten you’l get wardship.”
“Not anymore.”
“No.” She sounds disappointed. “They’ve changed the rules.”
From the moment Bobby became a ward, every major decision on his welfare was made by a court instead of his family. He couldn’t change schools, get a passport, join the army or get married without the court’s permission. It also guaranteed that his father would never be al owed back into his life.
Turning the pages of the file, I come across the judgment. It runs to about eight pages, but I scan them quickly, looking for the outcome.
The husband and wife are each genuinely concerned about the welfare of the child. I am satisfied that they have in the past, in their own way, attempted to discharge their obligations as parents to the best of their ability. Unfortunately in the husband’s case, his ability to properly and appropriately discharge his obligations to the child has, in my view, been adversely affected by the allegations hanging over his head.
I have taken into consideration the countervailing evidence— namely the husband’s denials. At the same time, I am aware that the child wishes to live with both his father and mother. Clearly, the weight given to those wishes must be balanced against other matters relevant to Bobby’s welfare.
The child welfare guidelines and tests are clear. Bobby’s interests are paramount. This court cannot grant custody or access to a parent, if that custody or access would expose a child to an unacceptable risk of sexual abuse.
I hope that in due course, when Bobby has acquired a level of self-protection, maturity and understanding, he will have an opportunity to spend time with his father. However, until that time arrives, which I see regrettably as being some time in the future, he should not have contact with his father.
The judgment bears a court seal and is signed by Mr. Justice Alexander McBride, Catherine’s grandfather.
Mel is watching me from the far side of the desk. “Find what you were looking for?”
“Not real y. Did you ever have much to do with Justice McBride?”
“He’s a good egg.”
“I suppose you’ve heard about his granddaughter.”
“A terrible thing.”
She spins her chair slowly around and stretches out her legs until her shoes rest on the wal . Her eyes are fixed on me.
“Do you know if Catherine McBride had a file?” I ask casual y.
“Funny you should ask that.”
“Why?”
“I’ve just had someone else ask to see it. That’s two interesting requests in one day.”
“Who asked for the file?”
“A murder squad detective. He wants to know if
your
name crops up in there.”
Her eyes are piercing. She is angry with me for holding something back. Social workers don’t confide in people easily. They learn not to trust… not when dealing with abused children, beaten wives, drug addicts, alcoholics and parents fighting for custody. Nothing can be taken at face value. Never trust a journalist, or a defense lawyer, or a parent who is running scared. Never turn your back in an interview or make a promise to a child. Never rely on foster carers, magistrates, politicians or senior public servants. Mel had trusted me. I had let her down.
“The detective says you’re a subject of interest. He says Catherine made a sexual assault complaint against you. He asked if any other complaints had ever been made.” This is Mel’s territory. She has nothing against men, just the things they do.
“The sexual assault is a fiction. I didn’t touch Catherine.”
I can’t hide the anger in my voice. Turning the other cheek is for people who want to look the other way. I’m sick of being accused of something I haven’t done.
On the walk back to the Albion Hotel I try to put the pieces together. My stitched ear is throbbing but it helps focus my thoughts. It’s like being able to concentrate with the TV turned up ful volume.
Bobby was the same age as Charlie when he lost his father. A tragedy like that can take a terrible tol , but more than one person is needed to shape a child’s mind. There are grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends and a huge cast of extras. If I could cal on al of these people and interview them, maybe I could discover what happened to him.
What am I missing? A child is made a ward of the court. His father commits suicide. A sad story but not unique. Children aren’t made wards of the court anymore. The law changed in the early nineties. The old system was too open to abuse. Precious little evidence was required and there were no checks and balances.
Bobby had shown al the signs of being sexual y abused. Victims of child abuse find ways of protecting themselves. Some suffer from traumatic amnesia; others bury their pain in their unconscious minds or refuse to reflect on what has happened. At the same time there are sometimes social workers who “verify” rather than question al egations of abuse. They believe that accusers never lie and abusers always do.
The more Bobby denied anything had happened, the more people believed it had to be true. This one cast-iron assumption underpinned the entire investigation.
What if we got it wrong?
Researchers at the University of Michigan once took a synopsis of an actual case involving a two-year-old girl and presented it to a panel of experts, including eight clinical psychologists, twenty-three graduate students and fifty social workers and psychiatrists. The researchers knew from the outset the child had
not
been sexual y abused.
The mother al eged abuse based on her discovery of a bruise on her daughter’s leg and a single pubic hair (which she thought looked like the father’s) in the girl’s nappy. Four medical examinations showed no evidence of abuse. Two lie detector tests and a joint police and Child Protection Service investigation cleared the father.
Despite this, three-quarters of the experts recommended that the father’s contact with the daughter be either highly supervised or stopped altogether. Several of them even concluded that the girl had been sodomized.
There is no such thing as presumed innocence in child abuse cases. The accused is guilty until proven otherwise. The stain is invisible yet indelible.
I know al the defenses to arguments like this. False accusations are rare. We get it wrong more times than we get it right.
Erskine is a good psychologist and a good man. He nursed his wife through MS until she died and he’s raised a lot for a research grant in her name. Mel has passion and a social conscience that always puts me to shame. At the same time, she has never made any pretense of neutrality. She knows what she knows. Gut instinct counts.
I don’t know where any of this leaves me. I’m tired and I’m hungry. I stil don’t have any evidence that Bobby
knew
Catherine McBride, let alone murdered her.
A dozen steps before I reach my hotel room I know something is wrong. The door is open. A wine-dark stain leaks across the carpet, heading for the stairs. A potted palm lies on its side across the doorway. The clay pot must have broken in half when it sheared off the door handle.
A cleaner’s cart is parked in the stairwel . It contains two buckets, mops, scrubbing brushes and a col ection of wet rags. The cleaning lady is standing in the middle of my room. The bed is upside down, littered with the remains of a broken drawer. The sink— wrenched from the wal — lies beneath a broken pipe and a steady trickle of water.
My clothes are scattered across the sodden carpet, interspersed with torn pages of notes and ripped folders. My sports bag is crammed inside the bowl of the toilet, decorated with a turd.