In 1996, the National Health Service made a grant to London psychotherapist Valerie Sinason to determine whether stories of Satanic child abuse could be corroborated. She concluded that she was inclined to belief because of the repetition of identical elements in the accounts related to her by many of her patients.1 One of these consistent elements was the witnessing of a baby sacrifice. In reality, of course, if babies were killed that frequently, we would indeed expect some agreement between accounts – for example, on the place or date of such a sacrifice, or perhaps the discovery of some remains – but, in the history of the Satanic ritual abuse scare, this kind of corroboration has been completely lacking.

Far from converging in agreement, witness accounts tend to differ greatly – even accounts of the same event by the same witness given on different occasions.