Bishop of Bath + Wells Faces a Morton’s Fork over MR. CofE Imagineers Attempt to Conceal ‘U’ Turn
The Home Office consultation ‘Reporting and Acting on Child Abuse’ was secured on 28th October 2014 as a result of Amendment 43 tabled by Baroness Walmsley (LibDem) during the passage of the Serious Crimes Bill.
Sometime before the Bill arrived in the Lords, Mandate Now had been advised by an individual close to our pressure group that the Church of England was fully subscribed to mandatory reporting in Regulated Activities. News reached us that the Lord Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, who at the time was Chair of the Church’s National Safeguarding Panel and Lead Bishop for Safeguarding in the Church of England, intended supporting Baroness Walmsley’s amendment not least because Justin Welby was in agreement. Here was a ‘Regulated Activity’ acknowledging that without law, no one can place reliance on child protection in any Regulated Activity because policies are grounded on nothing more than a hope that someone will have the courage to do the ‘right thing.’ It’s an arrangement designed to fail. We said so in the statement that opened our submission to the Consultation dated 6/10/16 : (more…)
#MR Bill Underway for USA Athletes following Senate Hearing and Grey-Thompson Now Wants It
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson’s – ‘Duty of Care in Sport’ report is published today.
A key paragraph is on p.20 under in ‘Theme 5’- safeguarding.
Mandatory reporting
It should be recognised that organisations that work with children and vulnerable adults can attract individuals who will seek to exploit and abuse them – there is a need for continual vigilance. The government should therefore consider extending a Duty to Report to all sports organisations. This would mean that if a person knows, or has suspicion of, any abuse taking place, they must report it to the relevant body for action to be taken.
Mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse are essential for kids and society: Professor Ben Mathews
Professor Ben Mathews is a researcher in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He has led some of the largest studies ever undertaken into mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse.
In the UK, 18% of girls and 5% of boys experience contact sexual abuse (one in eight children), and the figures are even higher for all kinds of sexual abuse. The mean age of onset is 9-10. Most children unlucky enough to suffer sexual abuse are unable to tell anyone, because they are terrified of the abuser’s power, have been threatened, feel ashamed, depend on the abuser, or are too young to understand it. (more…)
Child Protection in Football – An Article in The Independent Reliant on Hearsay and Hope
On Wednesday 1st March Ian Herbert, Chief Sports Writer for the Independent, under the banner ‘Football is not rife with child abusers, so it is time for the Offside Trust to explain what they are for,’ writes a eulogy to the FA’s current child protection framework. Is it right to do so? We examine his claims and the foundations on which they are grounded.
The piece informs us: (more…)
West Berks SCB – The Unconvincing Serious Case Review into Child Sexual Abuse at Kennet School
The report was released by West Berkshire Safeguarding Children’s Board at noon today.
A copy of the review is here: Kennet School Serious Case Review
This is the Mandate Now review of this opaque production.
The SCR doesn’t actually describe what failings have occurred and whether as a result the abuse could have been prevented or could have been halted earlier than it was. (more…)
Alternative Perspective to NSPCC – closing ‘Loopholes in Sport’ VictoriaLIVE 26.1.17
- The NSPCC suggestions for changes to the DBS system will only protect children from abusers who are already known.
- The shortcomings arising from the DBS being relaxed in 2012, which can permit ‘barred’ people to work with children periodically if they are supervised, was debated in the House of Lords during the passage of the Protection of Freedoms Act in November 2011 by two peers with distinguished sporting backgrounds. Why only now has the NSPCC alighted on this issue? Should it not have been raising this point and objecting to the legislation when it was going through Parliament?
- The NSPCC proposal to extend duty of care to 16 and 17 year olds, which already exists in education, is a sound principle. It will though have a limited effect in practice because data [Characteristics Children in Need 2014-15 Table A3 – https://goo.gl/TDiFgq ] indicates the proportion of children suffering abuse or neglect (both sexes) in this age group is 14% while in the younger group, which is already included within the scheme, it is 86%. Furthermore the proposal is still dependant on ‘discretionary reporting’ of known and suspected abuse which data reveals is unreliable leading to under reporting. An example. England and Wales are out of step with the majority of jurisdictions in the rest of the world in not having some form of mandatory reporting of known and suspected child abuse.