Child sexual abuse witchhunts

Bettina talks with Mark Smith, Professor of Social Work at the University of Dundee, Scotland, an expert on residential child care settings. This background led Professor Smith to research relevant child sexual abuse scandals such as the Jimmy Savile saga. Bettina and Professor Smith discuss the current panic over assumed endemic child sexual abuse in residential care: how and why the moral crusade against child abuse took hold, from the McMartin preschool investigations through to Satanic Ritual Abuse scandals in the UK, to more recent events involving Jimmy Savile, and Carl Beech, who falsely accused members of the British elite of being part of a paedophile ring.