A RANT ABOUT THE WORD "ALLEGED"

Today I'm feeling grumpy. Partly this is because I'm dealing with the fact that my story of being abused by John Smyth QC is now in the public domain. As a private person and an introverted writer, that's quite a transition to manage.

But there's another reason and that has to do with an adjective now perhaps permanently attached to my name.

I am referring to the word "alleged."

Now I get the fact that journalists need to cover themselves. If they suggest that someone is an abuser, they need to guard themselves against litigation. So they resort to the adjective "alleged" before the noun "abuser" because it's a legal requirement. If they're proven right, the adjective can be removed. If wrong, well they only alleged it in the first place.

I also get it from the point of view of the accused. In our legal system, a person should be innocent until they're proven guilty in a court of law. Putting someone's name out in the public domain as a potential abuser is something that should be done only if thorough, extensive and responsible research indicates that there is the strongest probability that this is so.

What I had never got, at least until seven days ago, was how this word feels from the victim's point of view.

You see, the word "alleged" has quite a range of denotations. For example, in popular and non-legal discourse it can suggest "doubtful" or "suspicious." And it is this nuance of spuriousness that's the problem. Until the abuse is proven in a court, victims are forced to live with the word "alleged". They have to live with the feeling that they are in some way to blame!

Perhaps this explains why some institutions that I've belonged to in the past have been so silent - past friends too (especially church ones).

Maybe they think I'm lying, or misusing (abusing?) my storytelling gift, or cynically seizing an opportunity to gratify some kind of self-interested motivation.

Maybe we are fast becoming so disoriented by so-called "alternative facts" that our default setting is to regard all testimonies, even the most credible ones, as "fake news".

There must be a different phrase or word that wordsmiths could now come up with - one that protects reporters, those who are accused, and those who are moved by a great courage to tell their stories of violation.

Maybe "complainant" should replace "alleged victim".

Please understand. This is more than semantics. It's about justice. And the reason it's about justice is because until this change of vocabulary happens, an abuser can continue to exert control over sufferers by keeping them permanently in a state of "alleged" victimization.

For the victims of abuse, this is to add a further layer of suffering on top of the existing trauma.