ALABAMA
AL.com
By Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
on July 07, 2014
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – People who fit in nearly two dozen job categories, including the clergy, are required under Alabama law to report suspected child abuse or face jail time and a penalty.
The issue of who and when suspected child abuse is to be reported came up last week when a man stepped forward to say that the former pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church in the late 1990s had covered up allegations of sexual abuse by the church’s youth minister Mack Allen Davis.
The pastor, the Rev. Mike McLemore, who is now executive director of the Birmingham Baptist Association, has denied the accusation, although he acknowledged dealing with the situation privately and confidentially with the family, which included forcing a youth pastor to retire early. McLemore said he advised the family what they had the right to do.
Alabama law (code section is 26-14-3) requires people who hold certain jobs, including the clergy, to report suspected child abuse.
Bessemer Cutoff Assistant Jefferson County District Attorney Leslie Schiffman, who handles many of the child abuse cases in that division, provided a synopsis of the law she uses for training. The clergy wasn’t added to the law until an amendment in 2003, she said.
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