"[5] During the investigation of the Belgian serial killer Marc Dutroux, a number of women approached police claiming to be adult survivors of a network of sexual offenders.
[8] In 2003, five members of the Superior Universal Alignment cult in the Amazonian town of Altamira were convicted for the ritualistic murders of three children and the castration of two others.
Their genitals were removed and used in satanic rituals by 75-year-old village clairvoyant Valentina de Andrade, the leader of the Superior Universal Alignment cult.
[9] De Andrade had previously been sought by police in Argentina and Uruguay prior to her arrest in Brazil on suspicion of involvement in other satanic ritual killings.
In 2007, a jury at Dublin County Coroners Court unanimously ruled that an infant found stabbed to death over three decades ago was the daughter of Cynthia Owen (then 'Sindy Murphy').
[20] Ms. Owen made claims about a stillborn second child buried in the family garden, but police found no human remains after digging up the plot.
Theresa Murphy committed suicide on February 24, 2005, as a result of childhood sexual abuse, a finding that was supported by police evidence.
[23] Following the findings of the Coroner's Court, Owen has raised questions regarding the disposal of her daughter's body and the failure of the police to investigate the murder.
[29] Owen's father, Peter Murphy Senior, and three of her sisters won the right to appeal the findings of the inquest from the High Court.
[39] The victims included the girlfriend of the cult leader, a young runaway who had joined the group, and a woman apparently intended as a human sacrifice.
Immediately after the conference, the print and TV media started a moral panic about alleged ritual abuse of children.
[42][43] In 1994, Wellington Hospital worker Geoffrey David Scott was jailed on eight of 20 charges of child sexual abuse and sentenced to seven years.
In 1989, the conservative Christian news program Tijdsein reported allegations that included satanic ritual abuse, to which there was no official response.
[51][52] The State Secretary of Justice responded to the allegations by appointing the Werkgroep Ritueel Misbruik multidisciplinary workgroup to study satanic ritual abuse in the Netherlands, which produced a report in 1994.
[53] The report concluded that it was unlikely satanic ritual abuse had occurred or the allegations were factually true, suggested the allegations were a defence mechanism produced in part by suggestive questioning by 'believing' therapists, and that the stories were contemporary legends dispersed through a network of therapists and patients who were concerned with dissociative identity disorder.
[53] In 1990, Gert van Rooyen and his accomplice were accused of murdering several young girls, ultimately committing suicide while running from the police.
[54][55][56] The case was so similar to crimes committed by Marc Dutroux that multiple agencies investigated a possible international smuggling ring in prostituted children and body parts.
[59][60] In 1990, there was a case in Rochdale in which around twenty children were removed from their homes by social services, who alleged the existence of satanic ritual abuse after discovering 'satanic indicators'.
Social workers' training, methods, and judgment were given special condemnation, and the report stated that the concept of "ritual abuse" was "not only unwarrantable at present but may affect the objectivity of practitioners and parents".
A 600-page report on the incident concluded that there was no evidence of the satanic ritual abuse claims made by children or corroborating adults.
Though the children may have been 'sadistically terrorized', allegations of organized satanic abuse were found to be baseless, and the indicators used by the Social Services department were without validity.
A 2005 investigation by the Social Work Inspection Agency found extensive evidence of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and neglect.
[70][71] The prosecution said they practised "free sex" and were influenced by Aleister Crowley, a practitioner of ceremonial magic who founded the belief system of Thelema.
They dressed in hoods and read from Crowley's The Book of the Law, the central text of Thelema, and some victims were made to wear inverted crosses.
[74] Police found no evidence of any crime, and the two accusing children soon admitted they had lied under duress after their stepfather, who had threatened and forced them to make up the stories.
It was eventually determined that no satanic abuse took place in these cases but that the allegations were due to false testimony and police misconduct.
[77] Despite strong medical findings of sexual assault, all other charges were dropped after the young child witnesses decompensated under the duress of the criminal trial.