ABSTRACT
Controversy has always surrounded the area of child sexual abuse. Over the last decade in particular extraordinary allegations, including serial sexual satanic abuse have been made that whilst having no substantive evidence to back their claims have resulted, on some occasions in securing convictions. The following outlines some examples of these cases as well as highlighting how advocates of the claims have argued their case. Many of their beliefs rest on a poor understanding of memory and are little more than verbal legerdemain. In contrast the chapter outlines research on memory that suggests "repression" and spontaneous memory of previously forgotten serial sexual abusive events are a very unlikely phenomena. The lack of validation for any of the claims or memory-related phenomena such as repression that they are packaged with suggests a far more sceptical outlook upon such fantastical allegations should be strongly promoted.
