The Lesson? Check your sources.

Okay. Pardon my french, but this is retarded, and it's not getting enough face time, even in Ontario:

CityNews Exclusive: The Mother, The Child, The School Board And The Psychic

Monday June 16, 2008
CityNews.ca Staff

Colleen Leduc already had a lot going against her. The Barrie woman was holding down a job while struggling to raise her autistic 11-year-old daughter. She couldn't afford to give the child the intensive therapy she needed, and was forced to send her to a public school in the area.
So she was completely unprepared for what happened to her and the youngster, an almost unbelievable tale of red tape involving a strange claim from a teaching assistant, a bizarre decision by a school board, a visit from the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and most improbably of all, the incorrect pronouncements of a psychic.

The psychic told the kid's EA that one of her students was being sexually abused by a man in his 20s. The student's name started with "V".

So Leduc drops her kid off, gets a phone call at work, and rushes to the school, met by the administration, who tell her that they have phoned Children's Aid. They tell her that her kid has been sexually assualted, and I presume they disclose their source. Apparently there had been other indicators, besides the psychic:

Victoria, who is non-verbal, had also been exhibiting sexualized behaviour in class, actions which are known to be typical of autistic behavior. (See other typical actions here) That lead authorities to suspect she had a bladder infection that may have somehow been related to the 'attack.'

This is wild. first, the allegations are dismissed quickly by CAS. Good for them. Incidentally, there's proof (and not just that the psychic was wrong):

The mom, who is divorced and has a new fiancé, adamantly denied the charges, noting her daughter was never exposed to anyone of that age. And fortunately she had proof. The mother was long dissatisfied with the treatment her daughter had received at the school, after they had allegedly lost her on several occasions.

As a result, the already cash strapped mom had spent a considerable sum of money to not only have her child equipped with a GPS unit, but one that provided audio records of everything that was going on around her.

So she had non-stop taped proof that nothing untoward had ever happened to her daughter, and was aghast that the situation had gone this far. But under the Child and Family Services Act, anyone who works with children and has reasonable grounds to suspect a youngster is being harmed, must report it immediately - and the CAS has an obligation to follow up.

And so a case worker came to the Leduc home to discuss the allegations of sexual misconduct, only to admit there wasn't a shred of evidence that anything had ever happened at all. They labelled Leduc a "diligent" mother doing the best she could for her child under difficult circumstances, closed the file and left, calling the report "ridiculous."

I'd say that this has quite clearly kicked this scam artist's credentials in the chakras. I only wish that the offending fraud's name had been publicized, so that s/he could never do this to anyone else.

But WTF. The school admin needs to be reprimanded, the EA needs to have her head examined, and the mother needs to get her kid the fuck out of the care of these suckers.

And the province, the school board, or the losers at the school need to pay for enhanced care.