The Consolation Assault

On 1992-05-05 Mollbeck gave the police a very detailed account of the consolation assault. Note that this is a very early time – only one week after the first police interrogation, in which Elvira had no recollections of any sexual abuse.

Nevertheless, Mollbeck claimed that she was merely passing on what Elvira had told her on the night before while she sobbed and cried a lot. The consolation assault took place as follows. The father had been depressed and had lay down beside Elvira in her bed. He had started to (decently) fondle her. But the fondling had gradually changed into rape. Mollbeck also stated that this event was the last assault committed by the father, and that it happened in April 1991.

Let us suppose that the father had a strong paedophilic drive, which he had satisfied without restrictions for many years. Then how did he manage to abstain from abusing his daughter during the subsequent four months, while Elvira still lived with her parents and sister And Elvira will later state that her mother had abused her as late as October or November 1991. Then why did she exclusively focus on paternal assaults during the first half of 1992

According to the incest therapist Elvira did not recount any concrete events until after the first police interrogation. Not until May (and definitely not before May 7th) did she begin to have "an image" that her father was laying on top of her. "She had asked herself if it was possible that he could have done so." Clearly it was not a memory at that time.

None of Elvira's accounts are even remotely as rich in detail as Mollbeck's account. On the 8th May she delivered an altogether different version of the consolation assault to her therapist. Her father was depressed and lay down beside her in bed. He started to fondle her. But from that point onwards Elvira has no memory of what happened. – This version was not reported as an image but as a real memory. But it contains no indecent or criminal constituents. It is also in complete agreement with the account provided by the incest therapist. The latter merely added that Elvira had later told her that this had been the last assault, and that it had happened while her mother was taking a four-month course in another town. The course ended on 1991-05-10.

Although we shall never learn the truth, it is a recurrent pattern that recovered memory therapists take their point of departure in authentic but trivial events, which they transform into sexual assaults. If Mollbeck's version were true, it is incomprehensible why Elvira should tell her therapist the decent and non-criminal version to her therapist. By contrast, the reverse pattern presents no problems.

In the police interrogation of 1992-06-04 the police officer asked: "What I would like to know is what happened, how daddy proceeded, you said that he used his hands." Before answering this question Elvira inserted a most illuminating prologue:

		"But it's very difficult, is it, because what I told Fanny [Mollbeck] sometimes wasn't correct. One recounts a lot of things that aren't really correct, but such that one will have to change them a little. But would you be prepared to receive information if it isn't really correct" [Q-14:1]

And then Elvira went on to say that what she will tell now is the same [incorrect] thing she told Mollbeck. The first stages of the event do not differ from the other versions. But then she continues:

		"his fondling became more brutal and finally it was no longer fondling, suddenly it was hard, although I didn't want to and tried, and although I hit him, it was so hard that I can't get rid of the image of the girl who is lying there and is about to be strangled; in the end it was so hard that my entire body had gone to sleep, so that all my body was asleep so that all my body was asleep and all of me was scared and all of me felt deadly agony, oh, I can't feel it." [Q-14:2]

The Lucia assault has already been described. Elvira recounted it for the first time during the police interrogation of 1993-01-18, where she explicitly stated that this memory or image that had emerged recently. At that time her father had been convicted by two courts and had exhausted his right to further appeal.

The Lucia assault is mentioned here because it is difficult to assess whether it is this event or the strangulation version of the consolation assault that is most detailed. One reason is that the account of the Lucia assault was not audio- or video-taped. However, of all the events reported by Elvira before her father was convicted beyond appeal, the strangulation assault is the most comprehensive. Yet it is flagrant that it contains very much fewer details than Mollbeck's account.

Moreover, we should not forget Elvira's explicit statement that the narrative she is telling the police, is not correct. We should ask ourselves why she delivered a false version to the police, if she had been in the possession of authentic recollections. We should also ask wonder whether other narratives might likewise be false.

An effective interrogation officer would have tried to obtain information about what parts of the story were untrue, as well as about which other non-told constituents were true instead.

The officer should have inquired about several fundamental features, inter alia the aforementioned questions, and also whether other accusations were likewise wrong. Furthermore, we have seen how prone Elvira was to retract her accusations, if the police showed any form of disbelief. Elvira seems to have said that Mollbeck was the person who decided that what was wrong. But then Mollbeck should have been interrogated about these events. What constituents were wrong And how could Mollbeck know that they were wrong

The best guess is that Mollbeck was not satisfied with a narrative, because it did not contain a sexual accusation. Elvira does not state that her father partially strangled her in order to break her resistance against being raped. On the basis of Mollbeck's narratives outsiders (such as the police officer) might be inclined to guess that this was what happened. But Elvira has elsewhere stated that her father had done certain things to both his daughters, though not for any sexual reason but in order to express his hate.

It is highly unethical and against all rules of objectivity that the authorities accepted Mollbeck'?s "improvement sessions", when she "helped" Elvira to make her accounts "better", and that the authorities even encouraged such behaviour.

Note also that when it comes to genuine memories, it is extremely rare for human beings to view themselves from the outside, just like an external observer would do.

A very brief police interrogation conducted on 1992-06-17 is solely devoted to one single question: Was the consolation assault genital or anal Elvira cannot say. – But note that this question is indefensible because it is strongly presupposing. In contrast to Mollbeck, Elvira had not in any of the 40 police interrogations said that a sexual constituent was involved in the consolation assault. – Unfortunately, I have seen many examples of the failure of judges and prosecutors (and also of many defence counsels) of detecting whether the person who makes certain statements was really the injured party or merely some of her "allies" (e.g. a social welfare officer who was also present during the interrogation).

Finally, it would be dishonest and sophistic to try to save Mollbeck's narrative by suggesting that three different consolation events had occurred.

It is a remarkable fact that none of the judges attributed any evidential power to Elvira?s own statement that her information was not correct. They did not even ask her what features were incorrect, and what other feature were correct instead.

In due course we shall see that Mollbeck was the one who decided what was not correct.






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Uppdaterad: 2009-11-19

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