Sexual exploitation in Cheshire gets more attention from the police.

Chief Constable of Cheshire, Simon Byrne

I was interviewed on BBC Merseyside this morning about the Cheshire Police announcement of a new initiative to take a more protective and proactive approach to the possibility of sexual exploitation in Cheshire by announcing that each Children's Home will have its own designated officer.

I hasten to add that there is no suggestion in the police press release that exploitation is going on right now. It is more a case of prevention rather than cure, which has to be prudent and insightful bearing in mind what we have heard in Rochdale and Rotherham.

At QualitySolicitors Abney Garsden we have, in the past, dealt with large scale Cheshire Police enquiries into children's homes which are now closed such as Danesford in Congleton, Greystone Heath in Warrington, St. Aidan's in Widnes, St. Joseph's in Nantwich, Newton Hall in Frodsham, and Kilrie in Knutsford. They all involved abuse by care workers many years ago. I think I am right in thinking that most of the homes were closed by the Thatcher government in the 1990's, if not before, for various reasons including cost.

Now we notice that Cheshire Police, after consultation with young people and relevant organisations about what their requirements are have assigned a special officer to each children's home so that young people can talk about anything they want to in safety, which has to be a good thing. It is a shame that the same thing didn't happen many years ago at the homes where abuse took place.

A similar initiative was attempted at Danesford in Congleton many years ago by a child advocacy organisation called NYAS on the Wirral. The idea was that the children should have their own independent voice and means of support outside the home. It was planned that they should have their own telephone number to ring. The move failed, of course, because the care workers within were, at that time, abusing the boys. The last thing they wanted was an outside body coming in to discover what was going on.

If there are any potential sexual exploitation incidents of children being taken out of the homes for sex, then the police force will be able to show that they have done anything they can to prevent issues before they start happening, or take root.

The big difference between sexual exploitation and other crimes, is the difficulty of the police force to bring prosecutions because the victims are:-

1. Young and vulnerable
2. Threatened in a most aggressive way by the abusive gangs.
3. Unwilling to give evidence out of fear and intimidation.
4. In need of intensive witness protection.

Thus the police have to go out looking for crimes rather than waiting for the victims come forward to them. It is therefore resource intensive and difficult to detect. Most forces are advised to have a specialised unit assigned to this crime. It is against the grain for the police to go out looking for crime. They are taught to believe that they should be reactive to complaints and investigate rather than "trawl".

It is the Jimmy Savile scandal that has brought about a whole new attitude to the investigation of allegations of sexual abuse, and long overdue it has been. Historical abuse has now a higher priority than it used to, and hurray for that.

Is there a whole new breed of abuse hidden in the army just waiting to be discovered?

Anne Marie Ellement

The recent story about the suicide of Anne Louise Ellement, and her inquest, demanded and orchestrated by her family and campaigning lawyer, made me realise that there is a huge undiscovered area of abuse in the military, it seems, at the moment, more against women than men. It would not surprise me in the least if, in a very male and power dominated environment, that male on male abuse is not also commonplace.

The inquest revealed that a female soldier, albeit with a fragile mental health background, was bullied ruthlessly for reporting two soldiers for raping her at barracks in Germany. Because the military do not have to hand over allegations of a sexual nature to the civilian police, it was decided to take no further action. This then prompted the accused's soldier's girlfriend to bully her cruelly for being a "slag" etc. The upshot, eventually after this had gone on for more than a year also by others was the successful suicide of the soldier. Because this soldier was disliked, presumably in view of her accusations, she had been overworked, and given unreasonable amounts of work which she was unable to complete, hence allegations of work related stress.

An interesting article of quite outspoken comment appeared in the Guardian Society Pages, written by a former soldier, Joe Glenton, which in summary alleged that there is institutional sexism in the army - to quote

"Let us dispense with the idea that the British military is in a meaningful sense a slightly quaint but essentially harmonious family. Healthy families do not regularly inflict acts of sexual violence upon each other, and in the British forces rapes and sexual assaults seem to have become something of a banality. No comparable professional group in the UK appears to rival the military for rates of colleague-on-colleague sexual violence. I would argue this stems from a poisonous mix of unchallenged sexism, unaccountable power and an archaic military justice system."

I then started to compare the way it is in the army with abuse in the civilian world and came up with some startling conclusions:-

1. To exist, abuse requires a cloistered environment where an abuser can be alone away from the prying eyes of those who might judge, prevent, and prosecute - the army is its own world with its own police force and internal rules. To justify this existence it needs to produce a fighting force which can protect our nation. This justifies making individuals who will not think twice before killing another man in cold blood. But how does this fit in with a morally sensitive environment and a caring attitude to allegations of rape?

2. The way in which abusers manage to operate in secret for many years is by abuse of power, which is indeed what abuse is. Whilst sexual assault is usually the outcome, the driving force and perversion is always abuse of power which makes all abusers manipulative and coercive of their victims and any authority which attempts to investigate and punish them. The army lives on power and command. It is insular, and male dominated. It has to be powerful to survive and win wars.

3. The way in which one can route out abuse is by creating an open and protected system of reporting. Mandatory reporting exists in most countries which use civilised systems of law - apart from England of course - which makes the failure to report abuse witnessed a crime. What better environment exists to suppress the reporting of abuse a crime than the army . They use their own military police to investigate most crimes. To make a report, one presumably has to go through the echelons of power rather than being able to report outside of the army to the police. It is thus easy to contain any corruption internally and at source. Indeed it was not until 1999 that it became possible legally to bring any civil proceedings against the Crown. Prior thereto it was the law that the Crown was immune from any sort of civil suit.

4. The more traditional and inward looking an organisation (the Catholic Church for instance), the less likelihood there is of any abuse being investigated and changes made to prevent it happening in the future. One definitely gets the impression that the Army has all the hallmarks of making the process of investigation and change extremely difficult.

Having done my analysis I feel quite pessimistic that the abuse which exists in the army will be routed out and its culture changed. I fear we have a long hard path to tread, and a long way to go.....

Is there a new wave of abuse compensation claims?

This is the question I was asked by a researcher from BBC Wales who referred me to two articles on the BBC News website. She was wondering if things were changing because of all the publicity, and perhaps that local authorities would not be able to afford claims for massive damages akin to the American system. The answer to the question is simply that because of all the publicity more people are coming forward to the police wanting to prosecute their abusers, and to lawyers, wanting to pursue claims for abuse against either their abuser of his/her employer if appropriate.

The two articles I was referred to were "Lawyers seek US-style damages for abuse at public schools" which is an article sourced by some American Lawyers who have come over from the States, where damages are many times higher in value than in the UK, not just in the field of abuse, but also generally. This is for two reasons:-

1. American Lawyers are paid a percentage of damages - as high as 40% in some cases on what is called a contingency fee basis - now legal in England since April 2013 but in a slightly different form - damage based agreements.
2. Juries often assess damages - their view of how valuable a case is often tops to some degree what a conservative judge might think.

I do agree that United Kingdom damages are too low. When one considers that abuse is a life long period of suffering, then compensation of between £30,000 and £50,000 is to little. It equates to about a nice Starbucks coffee per day. The problem is that the ceiling for damages is scaled down from the most serious injuries, the figure for which is not high enough. The figures are set down by the Judicial Studies Board Guildelines. Even though a 10% increase was announced in April 2013, UK damages dwarf the US.

The other article announced that a group of 10 new claimants had come forward to make claims against Cardiff County Council for abuse committed by an employee called David Leighton Davies who had been convicted for offences at Cyntwell High School in Ely as long ago as 1977. The article made it clear that it was the insurers were responsible for meeting the awards, but still there was a worry that it might affect the finances of a local education authority.

My points were:-

1. The attitude of the police to investigating past incidents of abuse has changed radically due to new guidelines brought out by Keir Starmer, and in response to cases like Jimmy Savile.
2. There is a feeling by the authorities that celebrities were allowed license to abuse young girls in the gaze of those in authority many years ago, and that this should never happen again - hence Operation Yewtree and the many prosecutions of celebrities presently taking place.
3. More disclosures of abuse is a good thing. Victims should not have to keep their secrets hidden for fear that the events were their fault, or that they will not be believed.
4. Disclosure can be painful, but is better out than in. There is an abundance now of support by way of counselling and charitable groups that can assist any individual go through the process.
5. It is now much more acceptable to admit that someone has been abused in childhood, indeed it is commonly on the news almost daily. Most victims remain, however, ashamed and silent. It is understandable. 
6. What we are now witnessing in the media is still the tip of the iceberg.

I don't think we will ever reach the heights of American damages for victims going to the Courts of England and Wales. Victims do, however, deserve more than they get. Let us hope there is no backlash designed to squash genuine claims like there was around 2001 and 2002, when the Home Office launched an enquiry into alleged false allegations of abuse from children's homes - for which see my previous blog.

The Police interview of Jimmy Savile shows what a manipulative paedophile he was

Savile with OBE

When you read the recently released interview by Surrey Police in 2009 of Jimmy Savile with the hindsight we have now, it is almost a textbook exercise in the manipulative powers of the paedophile. At the time, he was Sir Jimmy Savile OBE who gave heaps of cash to charity, and did benedictory work for the disadvantaged with friends in high places and influence with media and politicians alike. So how could anybody possibly believe that throughout his life, he abused under age girls, and boys?

Well, what are the necessary tools which a paedophile needs to hoodwink, groom and then abuse a child?
Fundamentally, child abuse is an opportunity and desire by a sex offender to abuse whatever power he has to entrap a victim.

1. Charm - no child will go off with a dirty old man in a mack.
2. Persuasion - but not in a dominant or bombastic way - with guile and intrigue, possibly some humour.
3. Manipulative - he has to have this in spades. Not only does he manipulate his victim, but also all those around the child who might protect him/her from harm. So how does the manipulation work?

Now let us go back to the Savile interview. How does "Sir" Jimmy manipulate his interviewer at the police force who were interviewing him?

1. Savile had persuaded them not to interview him at the police station, which presumably was in Surrey, but rather on his home turf at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where he was more in control of the situation than he would have been if he had been interviewed at a police station in Surrey. The HMIC said it was wrong to allow Savile to choose where and when his ‘ineffective’ interview took place.
2. He quickly takes over the conversation, in order to avoid having to answer difficult questions by simply making a speech, which was nothing more than a self image boasting rant, designed to convince his interviewers that all the serious allegations of sexual abuse did not amount to anything they should even investigate.
3. His tone is overtly casual, relaxed and fluent, but has an undercurrent of malevolence and threats, which are intended to hint at how much power he has to make life difficult for the police if they misguidedly decided to prosecute him. 
4. He says he has friends in high places not only with the police in Leeds whom he shares his threatening letters. He implies they share his view that these girls are just after some money by making false allegations against him.
5. He refers to the girls as midges who chase him, and  "you can brush them away like midges and it's not much of a price to pay for the lifestyle." What greater image of ultimate power is there than a large human swatting a midge. This just makes him sound more powerful.
6. He refers in the interview to being able to sue newspapers who cross him, or indeed anyone who gets in his way. He even suggests that they police could end up taken by Savile to the Old Bailey if they are not careful.
7. Ironically he emphasises his power, belittles his victims saying they are like flies who buzz around him for attention, whom he can pick and choose at will by virtue of his incredibly powerful celebrity status.
8. In typical paedophile fashion, he blames the victims for lieing and simply being interested in his celebrity status and money, which they need for "Christmas". He says his blackmail and threats do get worse at the season of "goodwill".

If one were to write a textbook on how to be a successful paedophile in complete control of everything around you, to enable you to abuse children at will, then the life of Savile and this police interview are a good but frightening example of how to go about it.

Abuse of power is a very dangerous thing. Countries have been dictated and fallen because of its evil side effects. It is like any quality. In extremis it is frightening.