Examination of victims of sexual violence--the problem of false reports

Some people claim to be victims of sexual violence and abuse the judicial system by filing a false police report. Generally, motivation for such behaviour is assumed to be that the self-proclaimed victims try to avoid taking responsibility for a sexual act in which they have been an active, willing participant. Concise motivations include attempts to mask a sexual affair from a partner, or to mask a first sexual intercourse by pretending to be the victim of an act of violence. By the nature of many judicial systems that are abused for such purposes, clinical forensic specialists are confronted with such cases far more often than clinical doctors not serving judicial authorities. In adults, history, injuries and other findings often show patterns that can be recognized as evidence of deception or as signs for self-inflicted injury for the trained specialist. This is far less often the case in infants and children.