Canada: John Furlong case shows how easily sexual abuse accusations can ruin lives

Story here. Excerpt:

'Beverly Mary Abraham, Grace Jessie West and Daniel Morice: let their names stand as stark evidence of the kid-glove treatment so often given the modern accuser.

In 2013, these three aboriginal people filed civil lawsuits against the former Vancouver Olympics boss John Furlong, alleging, in the most lurid detail, how he had sexually and physically abused them while they were students at Immaculata Elementary school in Burns Lake, B.C., and he was a young volunteer teacher.

This week, the last of the suits — Mr. Morice’s — was dismissed by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elliott Myers. As it turns out, Mr. Morice received $120,822 from Ottawa in compensation for similar abuse allegedly committed by another man at a residential school in a different town during the same time period he claimed in the civil suit that Mr. Furlong had been abusing him.
...
Ms. West’s case was tossed in February by Supreme Court Justice Miriam Gropper, who concluded that on the evidence, Ms. West “did not ever attend Immaculata.”
...
Yet the vaunted fourth estate, mostly adheres to the conventions of assuming to believe accusers, especially if they are female or native or from an otherwise marginalized group.
...
This is the growing evidence that the mere levelling of an allegation of any sort of sexual impropriety is enough to destroy a career, and a life.'