The Victim's Right to Review is definitely a good thing

I was on Radio 5 live at 7.05am this morning - when no doubt most of you were just waking up - to air my views on the newly announced "Victim's Right to Review". I was saying it was a good thing, and well overdue, whereas Helen Simms from Pannone was putting the case for the accused, whom, she feared, would suffer the uncertainty of whether or not he/she was going to be prosecuted hanging over his/her head for longer than was fair.

The new procedure is quite simple.The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has today launched a new policy that enshrines a victim’s right to request a review of any decision taken by the Crown Prosecution Service to not charge a suspect or to stop a prosecution. A 3 month consultation starts today

To quote from the press release

“The criminal justice system historically treated victims as bystanders and accordingly gave them little say in their cases. The decisions of prosecutors were rarely reversed because it was considered vital that decisions, even when later shown to be questionable, were final and could be relied upon. This approach was intended to inspire confidence, but in reality it had the opposite effect. Refusing to admit mistakes can seriously undermine public trust in the criminal justice system.

“It is now recognised by the criminal justice system that the interests of justice and the rights of the victim can outweigh the suspect's right to certainty. This is already reflected in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, but more needs to be done to correct this historic imbalance and ensure that the people affected by our decisions can hold us to account. Victims’ Right to Review is a major step in the right direction. It recognises that victims are active participants in the criminal justice process, with both interests to protect and rights to enforce.”

Any victim of crime, which includes bereaved family members or other representatives, can now ask the CPS to look again at a case following a decision not to charge, to discontinue proceedings or offer no evidence. Those entitled to an enhanced service under the Victims’ Code will also be offered a discussion with a prosecutor about the outcome of the review.

Mr Starmer continued: “These reviews will be an entirely fresh examination of all the evidence and circumstances of a case. If a charge is justified and there are no legal barriers to prosecution, the mistake will be put right. Making fair decisions and delivering justice is the priority.”

The point is that we have acted for hundreds if not thousands of victims of child abuse over the last 20 years. There comes a point in every victim's life, when it feels right to start talking about what happened to him/her. The appropriate time may be 30 to 50 years after the event. So distressing is the memory that it often remains a shameful secret for many years. During that time they can tell no one. All the painful thoughts and memories turn inwards, and cause harm to the victim.

So courageous and difficult is their decision, that it often unleashes torrents of pent up anger and hunger for justice. So when they approach the police, and are given hope that their story is going to be believed rather than rejected as a lie, it rekindles their faith in the system of authority, which previously they may have distrusted.

So imagine how the victim feels when they are told by the Crown Prosecution Service that they don't have a case, or that their hope of punishing their abuser has been dashed. They suspect foul play, corruption, or just give up again feeling deflated.

It is important that victims of abuse are heard and believed. Often they have tried to complain as a child, and been disbelieved, or called liars. In the worst cases, they may have been severely punished for speaking out, and/or been threatened by their abuser with terrifying fates. So having tried to complain once, they decide that it is not worth telling anyone about what happened to them. They thus remain silent for the next 30 to 50 year, or perhaps take the sad memories to their grave after, usually, leading a dysfunctional life.

Thus the journey of complaint in later life is a rocky one, and fraught with difficulty. Under the old regime, the victim's only route to overturn a decision not to prosecute was judicial review, which is expensive, and with cuts in Legal Aid, unlikely to receive funding.

Will the victim be entitled to an advocate at public expense to express his/her wishes? Doubtful.

To be fair the published guidelines do contemplate a fairly speedy process, so the thoughts of the accused remaining in limbo for too long are, to some extent, mitigated.

So this review process is to be welcomed as it gives the victim a voice. They often end up at our door, frustrated because they have been unable to achieve the justice they deserve and seek. We often cannot help them, but suggest the alternative route of a compensation claim. So maybe this new system will mean fewer claims.

Sadly, I suspect that the weakest, most badly damaged victims, will not have the energy to pursue a complaint or "right to review", and will retreat back into the hole from whence they came. Let us hope that the overstretched National Health Service can take up the need for mental health treatment that will inevitably follow. Let us also hope that the Welfare State will provide them with much needed financial support as they struggle to function in the difficult world of post disclosure.

Is the North Wales recent report into abuse a surprise?

North Wales Police warned sex offenders

The recent report into North Wales Children's Homes from Operation Pallial does not surprise me at all. I was involved with North Wales way back in the late 1990's. It was clear then that resources prevented the police from conducting as thorough an investigation as they would have liked.

It was thus no surprise that the victims thought there had been a cover up, when they maintained that abuse outside the children's home in a pub in Wrexham by visiting paedophiles had been ignored by the Waterhouse enquiry. The fact was that the enquiry did not have the budget to be as wide spread as it would have liked. They thus set the boundaries as abuse in children's homes rather than outside of the homes. This angered the victims and led them to believe that there was a definite attempt to cover up the abuse of well known individuals. The leakage of a name was fatal to the BBC as we all heard.

I am sitting in the Green Room at the BBC in Salford, having just done an interview as the President of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers. The interviewer was concerned that the victims are unlikely to get prosecutions and thus justice due to lack of resources. Will the message get through to the victims? I doubt it to be honest. Will they be angry? Definitely. They have had the courage to come forward, yet they will not be successful in getting justice before the criminal courts.

It is made clear in the BBC report that the enquiry led to "140 allegations of historical abuse between 1963 and 1992.

Seventy six new complainants have also come forward.

The claims centre on 18 homes involving offences against boys and girls aged between seven and 19.

A total of 84 suspected offenders have been named - 75 male and nine female. Of these, 16 have been named by more than one complainant.

It is believed that 10 of the 16 may be deceased."

The problem is of course that the abuse happened many years ago - like Savile - the alleged abuser is dead. Thus there is no possibility of a prosecution and no justice for the victims.

Unless they go to civil lawyers to claim compensation. It is common for Claimants to come forward because the police cannot prosecute. Their burden of proof is different to ours -

The Police - "Beyond reasonable doubt"
Civil Claims - "On the balance of probabilities"

We have brought many claims against the employers of abusers who are themselves dead. It all depends upon the preponderance of the evidence - and strength in numbers. The longer ago it is the more difficult the task.

Never say never. We specialise in winning the un-winable.

We have a specialised helpline for the victims of abuse  0845 604 7075

Sadly and understandably, many victims will have had enough and retreat back into their caves of inner contemplation that they have been living in ever since the abuse took place. Lonely and dank though the cave is, it is safer than the outside world of disclosure and pain.

Should the British Government behave like the Irish did towards Magdalene Laundries?

The Film - Magdalene Laundries

For some reason, the Irish Government get it, when it comes to their attitude towards abuse and the protection of children, whereas the British Government don't get it in the same way. You may have noticed the recent apology from the Irish Prime Minister in relation to the Magdalene Laundries scandal. The BBC News Site stated:-

"The Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Enda Kenny, has formally apologised on behalf of the state for its role in the Magdalene laundries.

Some 10,000 women and girls were made to do unpaid manual labour in laundries run by Roman Catholic nuns in Ireland between 1922 and 1996."

Would we have seen a British Prime Minister apologising in the same way? I leave you to answer that question. No doubt we would have seen multiple enquiries set up and a promise of "transparency", but not an apology.

The Irish government have also announced the setting up of a compensation scheme for the victims of the laundries. It is in its early stages but according to the BBC " victims are being urged to register with the Republic of Ireland's Department of Justice in preparation for the provision of compensation and support services"

"People may contact the Department of Justice on 01-476 8649 or by writing to: Magdalene Laundry Fund, c/o Department of Justice and Equality, Montague Court, Montague Street, Dublin 2."

Some of the background facts about Magdalene Laundries:-

• Originally termed Magdalene Asylums the first in Ireland was opened in Dublin in 1765, for Protestant girls
• First Catholic home was founded in Cork in 1809
• Envisaged as short-term refuges for 'fallen women' they became long-term institutions and penitents were required to work, mostly in laundries on the premises
• They extended to take in unmarried mothers, women with learning difficulties and girls who had been abused
• The facilities were self-supporting and the money generated by the laundries paid for them
• Between 1922 and 1996 there were 10 such laundries in the Republic of Ireland
• Many Irish institutions, such as the army, government departments, hotels and even Guinness had contracts with Magdalene laundries
• The women toiled behind locked doors unable to leave after being admitted and while the laundries were paid, they received no wages
• The congregations which ran them were the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy, the Religious Sisters of Charity and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd

The Irish deputy Prime Minister (Tanaiste), Eamon Gilmore, said he wanted to tell the survivors that "we have heard you, we believe you, and we are profoundly sorry for what was done to you". The atmosphere in the Irish Parliament was emotional, and the survivors in the public gallery received a standing ovation - how refreshing - we can learn lessons in England from this display of emotion.

An inquiry chaired by Senator Martin McAleese found more than 2,000 women and girls were sent to the laundries by the state authorities, and many Irish institutions, such as the army and some government departments, had contracts with the laundries.

Women were forced into Magdalene laundries for a crime as minor as not paying for a train ticket, the McAleese report found.

The report also confirmed that a police officer could arrest a girl or a woman without warrant if she was being recalled to the laundry or if she had run away.

This is not the first time that the Irish government has done the right thing by the victims of abuse - in 2001 there was a similar apology by the Taoiseach in relation to abuse in Irish Institutions where widespread abuse took place for many years in the past. A list of homes was compiled, with the noticeable omission of the Magdalene Laundries. The government then set up the Irish Redress Board, which closed its doors again, after making many compensation awards in 2005

We at Abney Garsden acted for about 80 claimants to the Board who were successful in their cases. Whilst it is a shame that the Laundries were not included in the former Redress Board remit, at least the Irish Government have rectified the earlier omission.

The exact terms of the scheme have not yet been published, and are awaited with interest. It is likely to be of interest to many Irish emigrants who fled the homeland to escape not only memories of their experiences but also a lack of opportunity. The authors of the McAleese Report estimated that over 800 former residents are still alive.

Many energetic women have campaigned tirelessly. There will be, however, many others, who have never come forward, and should consider doing so.

Was William Roche right to criticise the victims of abuse?

William Roache apologises for his remarks.

If you have not seen the headlines, William Roache (Ken in Coronation Street) has been slammed for making insenstive remarks to a New Zealand TV interviewer about the victims of abuser celebrities. He more or less said that young girls are drawn to celebrities, and then complain of abuse when it all goes wrong.

He is no doubt influenced by the pending prosecution of  Michael Le Vell from Coronation Street who faces 19 charges of abusing young girls and is facing trial at Preston Court, or Stuart Hall, or indeed Andrew Lancel who played Frank Foster in Corrie

He said ""Paedophilia is absolutely horrendous. Paedophiles should be sought out, rooted out and dealt with.

But there's a fringe of people who, particularly pop singers, they have these groupies, these girls, who come, they're sexually active, sexually mature, they don't ask for their birth certificate, they don't know what age they may be.

But they're certainly not grooming them and exploiting them, but they can be caught in this trap.

These people are instantly stigmatised, some will be innocent, some will not, but until such time as it's proven there should be anonymity for both."

Roache has since apologised deeply for his remarks after the child abuse charities rightfully blasted him for his remarks which suggested that victims "brought these thing on themselves".

It is not surprising that abuse has remained a secret for so many years. It is very common. It is much easier to believe that someone whom you know and like - most paedophiles are likable, as otherwise they would not be able to get close to children - is innocent rather than guilty. Whether or not those charged are innocent or guilty, is of course a matter for the courts not the media.

Generally speaking, however the problem in the country has not been the profundity of allegations, but the suppression of allegations by those in a position of power, until the victim has the courage to speak out many years later.

We must encourage those who have been abused to speak out, not silence them with suggestions that they are to blame. Generally speaking, what causes the most damage in a victim of abuse is not the abuse itself, which indeed is manifestly harmful, but the guilt surrounding the crime, and the thought that they are to blame.

Most victims think that they must have encouraged the crime by the way they were as a child, or the way they behaved, which of course cannot be true, particularly where there is a huge age difference, and the abuser is in a position of trust.

Should there by anonymity for the abuser like the victim? I don't believe so. If the abuser's name is broadcast, it often provokes other complaints against the same person, as paedophiles rarely operate in isolation. Usually they have been caught doing something that has been repeated on many occasions in the past, but never been discovered.

As an abuse lawyer I know NAPAC personally, and agree with what they say. This comment is an insult to the victims of abuse, and should be the subject of an apology. It is welcome to hear Roache apologise for what he said, and rightfully so.

Mandatory Reporting of Abuse recommended by Inspector of Constabulary

Jimmy Savile

The recent report commissioned by Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary entitled "Mistakes were made" into the allegations and material concerning Jimmy Savile between 1964 and 2012 stretches to 61 pages, and makes 5 recommendations on the final page.

Mandatory Reporting of abuse is one of them -

"Recommendation 3
We consider that a system of mandatory reporting should be examined whereby those who, in the course of their professional duties, become aware of information or evidence that a child is or has been the victim of abuse should be under a legal obligation to notify their concerns to others."

The report describes how failures to action complaints by the police contributed to the failure to investigate and convict Savile in his lifetime. This is well documented elsewhere in the media, so I will skip over it for the time being.

The point is that a number of charities, including NAPAC, Innocence In Danger (whom I am working with), and the Survivor's Trust (representing over 100 survivor charities) have joined together with me to push for a change in the law. We are trying to encourage the support of parliament in a campaign.We will shortly be launching a petition.

To explain - mandatory reporting is explained above. It means that if a professional type of person (it can and has been extended to the public in some American jurisdictions) looking after children in "regulated activities" becomes aware that a child has been a victim of abuse, then he/she has a legal obligation to tell someone appropriate about it. Failure to report abuse then becomes an offence punishable in the Courts. That person could be a Local Authority officer or the Police. It matters not.

It is said in the report that:-

"there will always be instances in which the victim does not feel able to tell the police what has happened but does confide in others, such as health professionals. In addition, we recognise that, in those cases where there may be a pattern of sustained abuse, there are often behavioural changes that may alert those trained to recognise such signs. The issue then arises about what, if any, obligation should be placed on those third parties to notify others that they suspect that someone whom they know may have been the victim of sexual abuse.

...it is interesting to record that every State in the United States of America, all bar one Australian state and all bar one state in Canada have adopted some form of mandatory reporting requirements where there are allegations of child abuse or neglect."

I wrote to my MP in order to get a change in the law to introduce mandatory reporting. The official government position is set out in a letter of 27th February 2013, which I received from Damien Green MP, Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice. He says:-

"The Government is of the view that mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect would not improve the robust reporting procedures already in place.....the current law, along with the local safeguarding boards and other social services that are in place are adequate"

 In other words, thank you but no thank you.

It is thus heartening that the Police agree with us that mandatory reporting should become a criminal offence in the same way as it is in all other Commonwealth Countries. In fact it is also a criminal offence in countries such as Northern Ireland, Sweden, Argentina, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, Rwanda, Spain, and Sri Lanka. So why not England and Wales if the rest of the World think it is a good idea.

Mandatory Reporting has been a criminal offence in most states of America since the early 1960's.

In my experience of manifest abuse taking place in many institutions such as childrens homes from the 1960's to the 1980's, had it always been a criminal offence not to report, then it is much more likely that the abuse which took place would have been reported. The police would also have been able to report wardens in charge of Children's Homes, whom they knew had turned a blind eye to abuse in their children's home.

The Catholic Church who have repeatedly moved abusive priests from one parish to another could have been brought to book. It is also much more likely that Jimmy Savile would have been prosecuted in his lifetime rather than waiting until he died to carry out a retrospective dead end investigation.

Watch out for our petition launch and sign it. This law is vital to protect our children from harm.

BBC News 24 Interview on CPS guidelines

I am giving my opinion on the Keir Starmer interview tonight on BBC News 24 at 7pm

It will be a good opportunity to push the need for mandatory reporting of abuse becoming a criminal offence and our proposed petition with a view to changing the law.

Will be a good chance to also dispel the myth of trawling being something the police shouldn't do.

New CPS Abuse Guidelines from Keir Starmer are welcome

A new policy for prosecution of abuse announced

In my position as President of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, and a solicitor specialising for the last 19 years in abuse cases on behalf of victims, I welcome the announcement of Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who has announced that the guidelines used by the Crown Prosecution Service will be overhauled because prosecutors have recently been "too cautious" in their approach to deciding whether or not to commence criminal prosecutions against child sex offenders. He has said that we must avoid another Savile situation, where decisions as to whether to prosecute during the DJ's lifetime went the wrong way.

We constantly have to advise victims who have tried to have their abuser prosecuted by the police, but, for various reasons, been unable to do so. They thus turn to the civil process in an effort to exact some justice. That is to say, they launch a compensation claim, not to enrich themselves, but so as to do something to right wrongs that were committed in the past.

Keir Starmer talked about the pendulum swinging back to the middle from an over cautious approach. Back in the mid to late 1990's abuse investigations were crude, and new to all professionals alike. That is to say, lawyers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, and psychiatrists/psychologists. It was all so shocking that it was tackled with a moral enthusiasm, that came to be criticised by the allegedly wrongfully accused.

At one time 41 out of 43 police forces had a major abuse investigation in their area. Policemen with children became tasked with responding to and investigating allegations of abuse committed many years ago in various institutions, usually children's homes. The abuse spanned 3 decades from the 60's to the late 80's. It was decided at a very early stage, that if a sex offender was abusing a boy in a children's home, it was very unlikely that it was an isolated offence, and that in all likelihood a career paedophile was at work.

The Police were of course right, in that various men were prosecuted for abusing many victims over periods of years whilst working as care workers in homes. In most homes brutality was also practised in a climate of fear, threats, and intimidation. The victims were vulnerable, and in need of care and affection - they got the wrong type of attention. Instead of being cared for they were abused. The infamous North Wales enquiry is only one of scores of other enquiries which took place.

Eventually an organisation called FACT ("Falsely Accused Care Teachers") united to mount a campaign designed to stop the prosecution of allegedly wrongfully convicted care workers. They teamed up with journalists who specialised in the subject. There was then a Panorama programme by David Rose, for which I was unfairly edited, and wrongfully implicated as an encourager of false allegations.

Closely following thereafter was a Home Office Select Committee Enquiry in 2002, into alleged false allegations. It was motivated by desire to stop the police investigations in their tracks, by discrediting the approach of "trawling" for evidence - the process whereby the police went looking for allegations by contacting as many former residents of children's homes as they could find.

One can read the select committee report on the net. They did not interview any victims, and simply took what the convicted abusers, their supporters, lawyers, and investigative journalists had to say at face value, without realising that they all had an axe to grind. By the time of the enquiry, the police had produced a manual in which the practise of trawling was discouraged, as being the reverse of normal police methods. I gave evidence. I thought the committee would be interested in my suggestions for a change in the law - far from it - they wanted to accuse me of being hand in glove with the police for personal gain, which was not only insulting to my professionalism, but also an insult to my intelligence.

The Home Office rejected the conclusions of the report, but the die was cast. Despite me meeting with the Chief Constable of Dwyfed, who produced the investigator's manual, and pleading him to change nothing, procedure did change, the allegedly falsely accused had won, and the police became "over cautious" in their approach to the investigation of abuse. Between 2002 until the Savile scandal the pendulum had swung too far away from proper investigation.

Keir Starmer is implying that the police will have another look at the process of trawling, which, of course, is a perfectly proper method of investigating a crime. If there is a sex offender on the loose, the police want to find ALL his victims whether or not they have come forward, particularly those who have been attacked and got away. If he was operating in a children's home, it would be quite natural to interview all the residents who had come into contact with him, in an effort to find corroborative evidence. As long as the process takes place properly without encouraging people to make allegations it is perfectly proper, and is not "the reverse of normal police methods"

I have to say that back in 2002, after the select committee enquiry, I feared that we would end up in this position. It is a shame that it has taken Savile to wake everyone up.

What is the solution? Make mandatory reporting of abuse a criminal offence. If there was a legal obligation on those with the care of children to report abuse which they witness, and for the failure to report to be a criminal offence, as it is in all Commonwealth Countries, and even Ruanda, then abuse in the past might have been reported rather than covered up, as it has been in the Catholic church.

I am campaigning hard for a change in the law through support groups and Parliament. Shortly there will be a petition to sign on the Internet. Sign it please.