Little Stars Nursery case shows how Mandatory Reporting could prevent child abuse.

Paul Wilson - life sentence

The story of the Little Stars Nursery touches every heart string - no pun intended that this story appeared on the Heart FM page after they, together with thousands of other media outlets featured it yesterday - you can read the whole story here.

If Mandatory Reporting was introduced then the chances of this abuser remaining unreported and unchecked would have been much less likely. In simple terms it is not, and has never been, a criminal offence in this country for a professional to witness or suspect that abuse is taking place, yet fail to report it to either the police or the LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer). We are way behind our Commonwealth partners, America, and many other countries round the world, where it is an offence punishable through the criminal courts. I have repeatedly blogged about this already.

The abuse of toddlers is particularly shocking, particularly during a nursery session. How must parents feel, when they know that the very person entrusted to look after their children abused them.

The abuser in this case was quite young - only 23 - one wonders what sort of upbringing he must have had, if he has chosen to abuse children. The statistics show that 95% of child abusers were abused in childhood. I am sure that the criminal court which gave him a life sentence, will have had the benefit of expert psychiatric or psychological evidence to help it.

Locking him up for life without some sort of investigation into his past will keep him away from the public, but we will not, as a society, find out why he did such an appalling thing, unless money is invested into a proper investigation. We need to find out why, so that we can detect the warning signs in others before it is too late.

Obviously the media are focusing on the victim rather than the perpetrator, who does not appear to have been demonised in this case.

The report in the media, however, focuses on the serious case review which has uncovered repeated failings by not only the nursery staff, but also Birmingham City Council, and Offsted. The obvious sanction is a criminal prosecution, but the police are powerless and toothless.

To quote the article,

"The inquiry's found council workers, Ofsted and staff at the nursery in Birmingham all failed to act...knowing he had a 'special relationship' with the child

In a statement, a spokesman for Birmingham City Council said the authority was sorry that it had failed to properly respond to concerns about Wilson.

Wilson is known to have raped the toddler on separate occasions about six months apart during his employment at Little Stars, which began in October 2009."

So what is the answer - change the law to make Mandatory Reporting a criminal offence. Join our petition, now, and invite all your Facebook friends to sign it also. Go to our petition by following this link.

More training for barristers, judges, and protection of victims of abuse is needed

Snaresbrook Crown Court

It seems that the media's thirst for abuse stories is unquenchable. Every day we hear about another aspect. Sentences of paedophiles are too lenient, and barristers are making insulting remarks to child witnesses in abuse cases. I am about to give an interview to Smooth FM in which I will give my opinion on the story which made headlines this morning.

A 41 year old man who abused a child of 13, denied his guilt, and made the victim give evidence. He was convicted and given an  8 month suspended sentence at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

The prosecuting barrister called her predatory when addressing the court.Charities have made the very good point that if the man was 41 and the girl 13, then there is no doubt who was the predator.

The Attorney General is looking at the sentence, and considering whether it was so lenient that it needs to be referred to the Court of Appeal.

The Bar Council have commented that they hold training courses for barristers to make sure that they behave properly, and respect the wishes of victims, which is laudable.

Victims of abuse find it very difficult to come forward, and the law has moved a long way in this direction since I was first involved in this subject back in 1994. Vulnerable adults now enjoy the same protection as children, which is a move in the right direction.

Why a member of the Crown Prosecution Service should criticise his own witness, and call her predatory, when he is on the side of the witness is difficult to understand. Presumably he must have been asked to comment by the judge?

The Defendant is said to have thought that the girl was older than she was. The judge took into this into account when passing sentence.

At one time it was not possible to refer lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal, whereas now it is. The rights of the individual have become much more important than the interests of the state in an increasingly consumer orientated world.

Human Rights are now much more ingrained in our legal system, despite complaints by politicians, who maintain they interfere with the sovereignty of parliament. Personally I think it provides much needed balance to a previously precedent led system.

What do I think? I am very much in favour of protecting the rights of the victim, who usually has much less power than others, be it their abuser, parents, policemen, courts, government, or school. Balance of power, however is fundamentally important in a civilised society.

Daniel Pelka deserves better. The law needs to change - Mandatory Reporting

Daniel Pelka

Yet another tragic child death - Climbiee, Baby P, and now poor Daniel Pelka. This time the authorities say they were conned by the parents, yet there were obvious signs of abuse which were missed. Both parents were on drugs, and probably didn't know what they were doing.

Whilst cases of child deaths caused by parents are rare - less than 100 per year, inevitably they attract headlines, raw emotions, demands for heads to roll etc.

In the case of Baby P the head of social services at Harringey was dismissed in a rather hurried fashion after the political involvement of Ed Balls, then succeeded in proving unfair dismissal with an award of compensation.

If there had been a mandatory reporting obligation at the time, then it would have been possible to prosecute someone for failure to report signs of the child abuse.

In the USA the law since 1963 has made failure to report abuse a criminal offence. Indeed England is one of the only commonwealth countries where it is not yet a breach of criminal law.

The government are resisting attempts to make it contrary to the criminal law, one presumes because of vested interests in opposition.

One does not want to impose criminal prosecutions on professionals save in the most exceptional cases.

The rule would operate rather like corporate manslaughter in the field of health and safety breaches in factories, where a director of a company can be prosecuted if a death occurs for breach of safety regulations.

There are perilously few criminal cases, but the deterrent effect works.

Hopefully tonight on News 24, I will be able to interest the government in changing the law. There is an opportunity at the moment as the Children's and Families Bill goes through Parliament.

Together with the Survivor's Trust, Innocence in Danger, NAPAC, and Survivors, I am challenging the government to do the right thing.

Our petition needs signing - sign it now

Mandatory Reporting - the latest

Picture courtesy of Nick Ballon of the Guardian

Interest in our campaign of mandatory reporting is slowly gathering momentum - in summary we are pushing government to make it a criminal offence to fail to report abuse that someone is aware of taking place to a child. We have narrowed the offence to those professionals whose job it is to look afer children. You can sign our petition here. So far we have nearly 2000 signature.

It is illegal in most commonwealth countries - Canada, & Australia, as well as Argentina, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Sweden, USA, and now the Republic of Ireland, which has recently held a referendum found to be in overwhelming support of the new law. In these countries, if you do not report abuse you are aware of it is a crminal offence.

Louise Tickle of the Guardian wrote this excellent article on the subject, which is centred around the recent appalling case of Nigel Leat who abused girls at Hillside School under the noses of teachers. It is entitled "Sex abuse in schools: the parents who want a change to the law." Complaints were made of the abuse to the headmaster, who did not pass them onto the police or social services. Leat hoodwinked everyone with his charm, and was not suspected for years. Leat was culpably negligent, and went to prison for an indefinite period of time two years ago.

A serious case review heavily criticised the headmaster for not passing on this complaints to either the police or the local authority. They allege that staff registered their complaints and made about 30 different complaints about Leat, 11 of which went to the headmaster. None of the complaints went anywhere. The point is that if the head had acted on any of the complaints, Leat would have been reported to the police, year earlier, and scores of children would have been saved from years of abuse.

No one wants to prosecute scores of headmasters/teachers, or social workers who turn a blind eye, because most of them are hardworking dedicated adults. It is the deterrent factor which will work on the minds in charge of child care, and encourage them to report.

Think about it - a private fee paying school with a good reputation has a child abuse problem. The headmaster knows that, if he reports the abuse to the LADO, there will be an investigation, scandal, and no one will want to send their children to the school. What does he do?

1. Report the paedophile and risk the downfall of his school, OR
2. Do nothing in the hope that the problem goes away. This way he keeps the pupils, his income, his, but the abuse carries on.

One can see that whichever he chooses there is a conflict. If he knows that if he doesn't report at the time, he will be committing a criminal offence and risk going to prison, then surely that will act on his mind and encourage him to contact the LADO (Local Authority Disclosure Officer).

The government line is that is not necessary to have a criminal sanction for this and that they can rely upon regulations, which provide for the very guidelines which are not being obeyed it seems. There are very clear guidelines which say abuse should always be reported to the police.

The teachers associations are one of the opponents. They do not want their members prosecuted and are lobbying the government hard not to legislate, but rather to relay on the internal guidelines. This was the attitude to the press for years, and look what has happened to them?

The Home Affairs Committee report into “Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming” was published on 10 June 2013 and Recommendation No.36 says :

We also recommend that the Government examine the Florida Protection of Vulnerable Persons Act passed in 2012 in order to ascertain whether the mandatory reporting of child abuse could, and should, be implemented in England and Wales.

One of our supporters Jame Rhodes, the pianist, will be broadcasting a fabulous programme on Channel 4 on 24th July at 10pm. He will be talking about his childhood abuse. He is advocating a change in the law to make mandatory reporting a criminal offence, and has said so on Twitter.

So once again SIGN OUR PETITION

Will Irish Magdalene Laundries Victims get the justice they deserve as compensation scheme is announced?

Magdalene Laundry at New Ross

The new controversial Magdalene Laundries compensation scheme was announced by the Irish Government last week for all the badly treated women at the hands of the religious congregations which ran them for many years.

The sequence of events which led to the announcement is the pinnacle of many years of hard campaigning by the Magdalene women for justice they dearly deserve.

Thousands of women and girls were forced into unpaid labour at the Catholic-run workhouses that operated for decades in the Republic of Ireland.

Last February saw the publication of the 1,000-page McAleese Report. It found that approximately 10,000 women and girls had been put into the laundries between the founding of the State and 1996 when the last one closed. The Irish government were implicated, and embarrassed by the findings.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny in a tearful address apologised in parliament for the "national shame" of the laundries after a report found that a quarter of the women were sent there by the Irish state.

The Irish government has agreed to pay between 35m and 58m euros (£30m to £50m) in redress to about 600 women. Out of respect for the needs and feelings of the victims one would have thought that the government would want medical evidence, and would assess the harm that was caused, in the usual way that compensation schemes work. So the more damage that was caused, the larger the figure awarded.

Not so with the Irish scheme. Mr Justice Quirke has recommended that the women in question should all receive cash payments in the range €11,500 (if their duration of stay was three months or less) to €100,000 (duration of stay of 10 years or more).

Judge Quirke’s other recommendations include:

• The Magdalene women should all be granted access without charge to a wide range of services (GP, hospital, drugs, dental counselling etc.) i.e. an enhanced medical card;
• All Magdalene women who have reached pensionable age should have an income equivalent to the State contributory pension;
• All Magdalene women who have not reached pensionable age should have an income from the State of €100 per week;
• The cash payments should be exempt from income and other taxes and should not be taken into account for the purposes of means testing social welfare or other entitlements and should not affect funding under sections 38 and 39 of the Health Act 2004;
• The creation of a dedicated unit to provide advice and support, assistance in meeting with the religious congregations, social opportunities to meet other such women and to provide for the creation and maintenance of a memorial park;
• The extension of the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009 so that persons are appointed to look after on an individual basis the best interests of Magdalene women;
• Any previous payments made to these women under the Residential Redress Scheme should not be taken into account

So the scheme has been made somewhat two dimensional and simplistic. Why? Somewhat naively to make it possible to avoid victims having to use lawyers to help them with their applications. The point is that if the victims were badly educated, then they will need help with the forms, and correspondence. They are also likely to be damaged by their experiences, and will want to avoid dealing with the details repeatedly. The same applies to people who do their own probate after a near relative has died. This serves as a constant reminder of the grief that is ever present.

The Irish Redress Scheme which is now closed encouraged lawyers to be involved and paid their fees for so doing. It recognised that due to a lack of education, literacy etc. the victims would need help. The Magalene Laundries should have been included in the Redress Scheme. If this mistake had not been made, then the victims would have been entitled to instruct a lawyer without charge.

What the motive is behind the Irish Government's determination to exclude lawyers this time, I don't know. It is an easy jibe to say that as a lawyer I would say that wouldn't I? I have been acting for the victims of abuse for nearly 20 years. I know how they struggle emotionally, and how much help they need. The process is painful in itself. They need the assistance of someone to support their emotional and legal needs.

What reaction has the scheme received from the survivors? Mixed. Some are welcoming it, and others angry that it isn't enough. Ex-resident Maureen Sullivan, from Magdalene Survivors Together, said her campaign group had "rejected the deal".She said the amount of money she personally would be entitled to through the redress scheme had not been worked out yet, but it was "not very much".

Abuse carries with it life long scars. It is wrong to award money based upon how long the women were in the laundries. One has to assess the medical effects on each person. It is not unusual of someone to sustain massive damage from one incident if they are particularly fragile, whereas others who suffer serious abuse can react in a particularly robust way. This crude method also disrespects the feelings of the victims, and does not treat them as individuals.

It is sad that a motive to save money has been cloaked in a dig at lawyers - nothing new there however. I have looked at the Irish Redress Board figures. Far from "much of the money" being spent on lawyers as reported by RTE News, the figures I saw for 2010 and 2011 showed that legal fees were  between 20 and 25% of the compensation awarded.

We will see what develops, as the figures have not been finalised yet. It is said that as many as 600 women have been sent letters. Let us hope that whether or not they seek help, they get the justice they truly deserve.

Is it wrong for a pupil to have a sexual relationship with a teacher?

Jeremy Forrest in Court

The title of the BBC News Magazine article which spurred me on to write this article is entitled "How often do abusive teacher-pupil relationships occur?" The recent prosecution of Jeremy Forrest has brought this discussion to the surface

A different breed of abuse allegations by girls who are in teenage years, and actually adored their abuser in a sense at the time is coming to the fore in view of the Savile cases. Teacher cases have been around for many years. Abuse of power by someone in a position of responsibility is always wrong, no matter who the dominant and servient characters are. The point is that the degree of acceptance by the public varies depending upon the facts. The following are examples:-

1. Male Teacher/Careworker on teenage boy of 14 involving grooming, anal abuse, and violence. The abuser used mental techniques to confuse the victim by one day being nice, and the next day ignoring him/her - obviously unacceptable and wrong.
2. Female Teacher/Careworker on teenage boy of 15, who claims he enjoyed being seduced and engaging in intercourse, but later realised how wrong it was, when approached by the police who were investigating allegations by other younger girls. Sometimes the police have to remind the survivor that what happened was a  crime, because he was under age at the time.
3. Male Teacher rapes girl of 15 - obviously wrong. Girl claims she fell in love with teacher and seduced him. Also wrong, but would she ever report the crime?
4. Female survivor of abuse aged 17 who was indecently assaulted by a celebrity pop star in an inappropriate way after a pop concert in 1968 when the age of consent was 18.

The list of examples are endless. The points are:-

1. All the examples are abusive and could result in prosecutions by the police now.
2. In some examples, the allegations may never result in a report to the police.
3. The public if asked in a random way would consider some allegations less blameworthy than others.
4. The attitude of the public will vary depending upon how well liked the celebrity is in their eyes.
5. Some "fans" of celebrities take the view that anyone who complains of abuse against their idol is at fault. Some of them send hate mail to anyone who takes action against the idol. One thinks of Michael Jackson.
6. There is a view which is gathering pace, and which, unfortunately, takes the side of the abuser saying that if the abuse took place many years ago it should remain in the past, as opposed to raking up old allegations and ruining the life of an "old man", who is ill.
7. So manipulative are abusers, that even many years later, the victims are still under his/her spell to the extent that they feel guilty in reporting the crime.
8. One imagines that all survivors will be angry at any sentence of imprisonment claiming it is insufficient. This is not true. Some actually feel sorry for the guilty man going to prison.

Many of the actors in Coronation Street are now in Court facing allegations of abuse. I just hope that the reaction of the public to such famous cases will not turn the wrong way, and discourage victims of abuse from coming forward.

To make disclosure even many years later can be cathartic, and help heal the wounds of the past. Abuse gives survivors a life sentence. Complaints can help them seek justice. One hopes that they will have the courage to come forward instead of taking their secret to their graves.

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.