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The county grand jury is conducting a broad investigation of San Diego's child-protective-services system while focusing specifically on the case of a Navy father who says his family has been destroyed by false accusations that he raped his daughter.

"We have been responding to numerous complaints about the children's services bureau," Carol Hopkins, deputy grand jury foreman, said yesterday. Hopkins said the case of Jim, a 20-year career Navy man who faces criminal charges in the rape of his daughter despite conclusive evidence that he could not have committed the crime, will be a separate probe. Jim's case was the subject of a story in The San Diego Union on Sunday. "The grand jury has determined that this individual case will receive its full attention, and there will be hearings conducted to determine whether there will be any indictable offenses," or if there were acts of malice or malfeasance, Hopkins said.

On May 8, 1989, Jim's 8-year-old daughter, Alicia, was viciously raped. For more than a year, Alicia told police, social workers and others in authority that a man had come in her bedroom window and carried her outside, "hurt her" and then brought her back.

No one believed her story. Instead, investigators accused Jim of committing the attack and took Alicia away from him and his wife, Denise, and their son Joshua, age 8.

At the time, the family was living in Cabrillo Heights, a Navy complex in Serra Mesa. The Union has decided not to use Jim and Denise's last name to protect their daughter's identity.

In June of 1990, following months of counseling and total isolation from her family, Alicia changed her story and said her father had attacked her. Jim was arrested and his daughter testified against him at his preliminary hearing. He is scheduled for a February trial on the charge of committing lewd acts on a child.

The case abruptly turned around, however, when police discovered they had overlooked sperm stains on Alicia's nightgown and clothing. Preliminary DNA tests on those stains, completed earlier this month, have concluded they could not have come from Jim, Deputy District Attorney David Rubin has acknowledged.

Instead, the tests point to convicted child molester Albert Carder Jr., according to a lab report. Police knew Carder was molesting young girls in Jim's neighborhood, sometimes crawling through their bedroom windows to get at them, police and court records show. But authorities insisted Carder's M.O, or method of operation, didn't fit Alicia's case. Rubin has confirmed that Carder, 25, is among about 5 percent of the population with DNA characteristics who could have produced the stains. Further DNA tests on the stains, which can narrow the exclusion to as few as one person in a million, are pending.

Hopkins said the grand jury learned of Jim's case earlier this month after receiving a letter from him. She said the jury checked out the facts of his letter, and determined "they appeared to all be correct." The grand jury then went to Lana WIllingham, deputy director of the county Department of Social Services, and asked her to intervene on behalf of the family.

Hopkins and grand jury Foreman Richard Macfie said Willingham has been cooperative and helped stop an adoption of Alicia by her foster family that was close to being completed.

The investigation of the child-protective system, Hopkins said, has been going on since the beginning of the grand jury's term in July.

People interviewed so far have included members "of the bar, the courts, the social services department, clients, complainants. We are trying to be just as broad as we can," Macfie said.

Both Macfie and Hopkins said they could not discuss the nature of the many complaints the grand jury has received. Except for the case of Jim and Alicia, Hopkins said, the panel has decided not to focus its attention on individual complaints. Rather, it will try to uncover "systemic problems" that are causing them, the grand jurors said.

"This is an ongoing investigation in a rather broad area," Macfie said. "We will be coming out with a report, hopefully by the end of the year." The district attorney's office, meanwhile, is continuing its review of the case. Rubin said yesterday that he could not comment about what investigators are doing -- or when or if a decision will be made to drop the charges against Jim.

Because those charges remain, Jim is prohibited from seeing Alicia. The father and daughter have not been allowed to see one another since October of 1989.

Library Note: The family's name, Wade, was made public in a story in the Tribune on 16 Nov 91. Names are: James Wade, Jim Wade, Alicia Wade.