In 2008 child protection in England and Wales was described in the following terms by the co author of a highly regarded reference book on child protection law in common law jurisdictions:

‘What is the current law?

To start it is important to recognise two problems in the current law relating to child abuse:

It is a patchwork of different types of law often created as a specific reaction to a particular scandal. It has no cohesion and can be contradictory. It is, for want of a better description, the Dangerous Dogs Act writ large.

It is unwieldy. There are hundreds of different rules in different places.’

The co author was expressing opinions shared by others. Here is Sir Roger Singleton on the same subject in 2009 following the publication of his report ‘Keeping Our School Safe‘ which was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Education Ed Balls, just three weeks after the first broadcast of the BAFTA award winning documentary Chosen about institutional child abuse and its long-term effects (more…)

The Home office has entered a joint enterprise with the NSPCC to create a whistle blowing helpline to aid staff who consider their employer has not handled, or been handling, a child protection concern well or correctly. This was reported by the BBC on 13/2/16 

That there’s a helpline is an admission that whistleblowers aren’t protected and the existing child protection system is fundamentally broken. If it wasn’t broken we wouldn’t need whistleblowers!

Grounding child protection on whistle blowing is a non starter which means functioning child protection in organisations is impossible. Examples include an institution such as BBC and Regulated Activities such as schools, faith groups, healthcare, sport,  and care homes for both young and old. The NSPCC’s abuse prevalence statistics further indicate the failure of whistle blowing over 40 years. It claims only 5% of child abuse is detected in this country, and more recently the Children’s Commissioner claimed it to be 12.5%.  By any standard, these figures do not represent anything of which child protection experts can be proud. (more…)

We have reviewed the Corporations current Child Protection Policy. It’s value is extremely limited.  Child Protection at the BBC, as with every institution (and ‘Regulated Activities’) is grounded on ‘discretionary reporting,’ not mandatory reporting.

Here is the BBC’s child protection policy and our review. The areas of particular concern are highlighted in yellow. (more…)

In memory of Neil Todd, a complainant against Peter Ball, who committed suicide in 2012.

Yesterday the story broke in the papers about the letters of support for Bishop Peter Ball received by the CPS and police in 1993 when ‘consideration’ was being given to charging him with sexual offences against young men. He wasn’t charged at the time instead receiving a ‘caution,’ but in October 15 2015 he pleaded guilty to crimes involving young adults and was imprisoned for 32 months. The crimes which were pending against children were ‘negotiated out’ of his admission but they remain on file.

On the Today programme this morning this piece:

Here is an excellent report from the Guardian for which MN provides the front page of the 01 January 2016 edition. (more…)

Over the last few years representatives of Mandate Now have attended presentations and discussions about mandatory reporting in Regulated Activities and listened with great interest to academics, among others, justifying a position against MR grounded in large part on a report by Harries + Clare (2002) and another by Gary Melton. Below are some extracts from a presentation by Professor Laura Hoyano to an audience at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in 2013. Professor Hoyano’s expertise is drawn on from time to time by the NSPCC which might explain the colour used in the slides. (more…)

February 5th 2015 was an important day. The Home Secretary came to the House to deliver a statement on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.  (Turn on the volume on the Parliamentary player)

Many people, including the author of this post, found the speech moving.  It was a seminal moment for many of us who were abused in childhood in institutional settings. Much of what so many abusees wanted was delivered in just twenty minutes by Mrs May. She had heard the roar of  criticism from abusees, as well as members of her own party, about the non-statutory status of the Panel Inquiry. (more…)

By Jonathan West 

‘Hear no evil, see no evil’ was submitted by its authors Professor Eileen Munro and Dr Sheila Fish in September 2015.

There appear to be the following oversights in the submission.

High Reliability organisations

One of the major suggestions in the paper is to examine how “High Reliability Organisations” in industries such as aviation and nuclear power achieve their levels of safety. Techniques mentioned include looking beyond the immediate cause of any error, and encouraging staff to highlight potential problems for action before a major failure arises.It is all very well looking at how these organisations achieve these levels of reliability, but the report’s analysis neglects entirely to examine why these industries decide such high reliability is necessary. (more…)

The last child protection consultation relating to institutional settings which the founder of Mandate Now and a colleague co-contributed to was the Singleton Review – Keeping our School Safe (March 2009). It was announced in late October 2008 just a few days after the first broadcast of the feature length documentary ‘Chosen.’ The film prompted significant activity at the Department of Education where the Secretary of State was Ed Balls. The Chair of a Safeguarding Board suggested during a call to me that there was nothing else on the horizon that could possibly have prompted the review, and no pre-announcement consultation with safeguarding boards had happened. It seemed this was a reaction to the documentary.

Sir Roger’s report has recently been cited in the serious case review published by Hampshire Safeguarding Children’s Board into pupil on pupil abuse at Stanbridge Earls School in Hampshire. Abuse appears to have occurred at the school for a much longer period than suggested by the limited scope of the SCR as this recent recent conviction of a former pupil indicates. Furthermore the report does not suggest boys were abused contrary article.  MN will not comment further on the central detail of this report as we speculate it may well be subjected to significant scrutiny. (more…)

Victims, survivors and abusees who are meant to be at the centre of the inquiry have been ignored by it for months thanks to a communications blackout. The exception was the pre-recess outline announcement on the 9th July.

This paucity of engagement with abusees by the IICSA about the progress of the inquiry has caused significant and unnecessary distress to many of those who are meant to be at the centre of it. This and other matters were mentioned in a letter to Mr Ben Emmerson, following a meeting with him on 8 May 14 at Millbank.

The meeting produced no change.

We provide the print exchanges below. What has become clear from the multiple communications several people known to us have had with the IICSA secretariat, is that the default among the Home Office personnel on secondment to IICSA is an unfamiliarity with the subject of the inquiry. We abusees might as well be widgets or some other inanimate object. Furthermore, there appears to be a disinclination by the executive (The Chair and the Panel) to address the important communications shortcomings. One would have to be living in a cave not to appreciate the havoc this failure has contributed to events since the beginning of the year. The Inquiry has also seen a media officer depart perhaps because he didn’t have a job to do or maybe he had been metaphorically locked in the stationery cupboard. (more…)