Two adult women win right to sue for false claims of child abuse against their father.

As seen in this report, two New Zealand women have won Privy Council backing to sue a social worker and a psychologist who they claim removed them from their father in 1988 after false allegations of sexual abuse. In its decision, the Privy Council overturned High Court and Court of Appeal rulings that stopped the women from suing for $550,000 damages each for upset to their lives and the trauma of being removed from their father after one of them falsely made allegations of abuse when aged five.

The New Zealand courts refused to hear their suit, saying protection workers investigating abuse allegations might overlook the best interests of a child if they knew their actions might be subject to minute evaluation in a damages action.

The father was interviewed by police, but never charged with an offence. He was separated from his children for months and put under supervision for three years after they were returned to him. According to their claim, the five-year-old said within two weeks that her allegations were untrue and had been made to "the ladies who had come to see her and her sister at the school because she was allowed to tell lies at school". The older girl denied their father abused them. Their claim says the psychologist and the social worker were negligent by not investigating important factual errors in the false claim and for ignoring statements denying abuse.