(The Broxtowe CSA case was, to quote the blog, one of the first "Satanic Panic" cases in the UK. The Team 4 social workers were the ones who investigated and "found evidence" of Satanic Ritual Abuse - naturally, it was complete tosh.)

This week we’ve been discussing the 1987–89 Broxtowe child abuse case, arguably the first “Satanic panic” case in the UK. (To trace how the 1980s Satanic panic made its way across the Atlantic from its genesis in the USA, we’ve found this article on the SAFF website very useful.) Following up on yesterday’s post about the response of Team 4 to the groundbreaking JET report, today we’re looking into the unredacted bits of the Appendices to the Team 4 report, which contains information which was used by the Team 4 social workers in drafting their response to the JET report.

We owe a very large debt of gratitude to Rebecca Hemsley, who put in an FOI request for the Team 4 response to the JET report in September 2015, and received it in 2016. To our knowledge, ours is the first publication of that report and its Appendix. Looking at the index, and then at what’s actually been left unredacted, it’s hard not to feel just a bit disappointed. For example, it might have been edifying to read “8. [Redacted]’s detailed account of her work, a prepared report and a detailed response to JET Case Conference Minutes”.

Instead, we are left with “Misunderstandings of Mallus Maleficorum (sic)”; an excerpt from a 1980s zine called NOX; and some material outlining just the sort of guidelines which the JET report states that Ray Wyre gave to the foster parents to guide their diary-keeping about the children in their care, and which the Team 4 response emphatically states he did not.

However, even the dregs of the Appendix have a great deal to show about the approach taken by Team 4, as we shall see.

The Malleus Maleficarum (Witch Hammer or Hammer of the Witches), written in about 1486 by two members of the Dominican Order, Johann Sprenger and Heinrich Kraemer, was a theological treatise intended to be used as a handbook for discovering and destroying witches in Europe. It served as a spur for the witch hysteria which gripped Europe for several centuries, and was adopted by Protestant as well as Catholic witch hunters. (Keep in mind that in those days, “witches” were considered to consort with Satan, whereas now we think of “witches” as belonging to the Wiccan tradition.)

But to find the Malleus indexed and turned into a resource for child protection professionals in the late 20th century is—how shall we say? Fucking ludicrous?