Author: Richard Webster
Publisher: The Orwell Press
Price: £7.95
Isbn: 9780951592281

Webster’s analysis of the British children’s home pædophile panic of the 1980s and 90s, The Secret of Bryn Estyn (reviewed in FT208), is one of the great solo investigations. Webster showed that the entire series of episodes, the result of a nation-wide ‘trawling’ by the police for pædophile networks preying on the residents of children’s homes, was a fantasy, the result of bad journalism, offic­ials afraid of being blamed for ignoring a scandal, and lies told by some of the children who were motivated by the police promise of large compensation for any abuse. Webster dismantles the whole thing and concludes that over 100 wrongful convictions ensued.

This much smaller book (Bryn Estyn was 750 pages; this is 105) describes a similar outbreak, again in a group of municipal child­ren’s homes, Casa Pia, this time in Portugal. But while in the British witch hunt – despite the many court cases – the tales of child­ren being abused by the Great and the Good never got beyond rumour, in Portugal a group of public figures – politic­ians and Portugal’s best-known television personality among them – were accused and eventually tried and convicted in 2010. It is as if Ken Livingstone and Terry Wogan (among others) were found guilty of being part of a homo­sexual pædophile ring in Bernardo’s homes in London.

Once again Webster shows that the evidence is false, the result of the same elements which caused the British version: amplifi­cation and invention by the media; the fear and incompetence of politic­ians, social workers and the pro­secuting authorities; and the lies of some children (and one politic­ian). The fact that the major witness and some of the children have recanted since the verdicts has not yet overcome the profound embarrassment of a huge section of Portugal’s civil society at being swept along in the holy hunt for today’s witches.

Much of forteana takes place in the intersection of human perception, psychological need and religious belief, where answering the question “What is going on here?” becomes more interesting as it gets more difficult; and little is currently more difficult to deal with than allegations of pædophilia. Webster shows that it is still possible to navigate through this foggy, booby-trapped interior landscape; but he also shows how difficult the journey becomes once the mob begins to gather.