1. Gardner Claimed That Pedophilia and Incest Are Not Child Abuse

Jennifer Hoult
Vol. 26 ♦ No. 1 ♦ Spring 2006
Children’s Legal Rights Journal
Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome
http://209.198.129.131/images/EvidentiaryAmissibilityofPAW_Hoult_CLRJ_2006.pdf 

Excerpts see page 19-20

1. Gardner Claimed That Pedophilia
and Incest Are Not Child Abuse

The increase in reported incest during the 1980s
led to allegations of a hysterical epidemic of false
child abuse allegations. Gardner claimed that
“hundreds (and possibly thousands)” are currently
incarcerated in the U.S. for sex crimes they did
not commit,
348
 without citing even one case to
support this claim.
349
 The New Yorker ran an
article claiming that “thousands” of people had
been accused of child sex abuse based on false
memories,
350
 but when a leading psychiatrist asked
how many of these “thousands of cases” the
reporter had documented, he cited one case in
which a man confessed to sexually abusing his two
daughters and pled guilty to criminal charges.
351
 
 In fact, there is no evidence of an epidemic of
false child abuse allegations, whether in intact or
divorcing families. The APA Task Force reported
that “[c]ontrary to widespread beliefs, research
findings suggest that reports of child sexual abuse
do not increase during divorce and actually occur
in only about 2% to 3% of the cases,” noting that
during custody disputes, less than ten percent of
cases involve child sexual abuse allegations,
further noting that these reports are “as likely to
be confirmed as reports made at other times.”
352
In keeping with studies indicating that approximately twenty-five percent of American girls and
ten percent of American boys are sexually abused,
most in their own homes,
353
 Gardner claimed that
“probably over [ninety-five percent]” of all sex
abuse allegations are valid.
354
 He acknowledged
that “intact” intra-familial settings are at “quite
high risk for sex abuse” but, nonetheless, maintained that the majority of sex abuse allegations in
“vicious custody dispute[s]” are false,
355
 premising
PAS on the alleged “epidemic” of false child sex
abuse allegations created by divorcing women.
356
 
 While Gardner vociferously denied that his
work was sexist,
357
 he claimed that women project
“their own sexual inclinations” onto their divorced
husbands, fueling false sex abuse accusations and
PAS, and are driven by the “‘hell hath no fury like
a woman scorned’ phenomenon;”
358
 that divorced
women seek female therapists who are themselves
“antagonistic toward men;”
359
 that professional
Child Advocates are primarily “overzealous
women” who act “in the service of venting rage
upon men;”
360
 and that “[f]ueling the program of
vilification is the proverbial ‘maternal instinct’…
Throughout the animal kingdom mothers will
literally fight to the death to safeguard their
offspring and women today are still influenced by
the same genetic programming.”
361
 Throughout his
PAS publications, Gardner portrayed women as
paranoid, irrational, selfish, and psychopathic
liars,
362
 and men as the hapless, passive victims
363
of unjustified female rage.
 Gardner’s attempt to distinguish between
true and false allegations of child sex abuse led to
his creation of various tools including PAS and
the Sexual Abuse Legitimacy Scale (“SALS”).
364
 In
fact, SALS does not actually measure whether an 20  Jennifer Hoult
Children’s Legal Rights Journal
allegation  is  true  or  false.  Gardner  designed  it  to
grade some real cases of abuse as “false” by using a
“legal preponderance” standard.
365
 While Gardner
specified that SALS was not designed for use in
extra-familial child abuse cases,
366
 neither this
limiting statement nor SALS’ preponderance
standard are mentioned in the SALS diagnostic
definition. Thus, practitioners and legal professionals might be unaware of its limitations. Like
PAS, SALS appears to have a high error rate. One
author applied SALS to a case involving oral sex
and attempted rape of a six-year-old, crimes that
were witnessed by a neighbor, and to which the
perpetrator confessed. SALS graded the claim as
predictive of a false claim and indicated the child’s
mother’s behavior was evidence that the “sex
abuse allegation is extremely likely to have been
fabricated.”
367
 
 Since Gardner’s child sex abuse assessment
tools purport to determine legal fault under the
guise of medical diagnosis, it is not surprising that
legal precedent holds them inadmissible. The
court in Page v. Zordan  held  that  SALS  “was  not
supported by any evidence concerning its recognition and acceptability within the scientific community,” and that its admission was one basis for
reversible error.
368
 The Loomis decision, one of the
two cases that set precedent holding PAS inadmissible, cited Page noting that SALS had been found
to be “not generally accepted” and thus inadmissible under  Frye.
369
 The court in  Tungate v.
Commonwealth of Kentucky  held inadmissible
Gardner’s twenty-four “indicators for pedophilia,”
which purported to identify pedophiles, because
the testimony impermissibly addressed the issue
of guilt or innocence and the profile did not
satisfy either Frye or Daubert.
370
  Jennifer Hoult
Vol. 26 ♦ No. 1 ♦ Spring 2006
Children’s Legal Rights Journal
Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome
http://209.198.129.131/images/EvidentiaryAmissibilityofPAW_Hoult_CLRJ_2006.pdf