Up-to-date news and expert insight into the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and other abuse claims related matters. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has launched a landmark television public awareness campaign to ensure all victims and survivors across England and Wales have the opportunity to come forward to the Truth Project. Find out more: https://www.truthproject.org.uk/whats-involved
Category Archives: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)
IICSA has published its long-awaited findings in relation to the child protection in religious organisations and settings investigation.
The inquiry acknowledged the complexity of some of the religious organisations featured in the report, such as the structure of the organisations and, in many cases, the autonomy that many places of religious worship had from the organisations themselves. They determined it was often not in the religious organisation’s remit to regulate or govern their members.
IICSA’s work touched upon not only the religious settings themselves, but schools (including unregistered schools) operated by the religious organisations, out-of-school settings, as well as other community services offered.
IICSA has prepared a dashboard as part of its research programme, which provides information about the 5,440 victims and survivors who attended at the Truth Project from June 2016 to June 2021.
The dashboard provides information about:
the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse
the nature of the abuse that they experienced
where the sexual abuse took place and who the perpetrators were
the impacts of child sexual abuse, and
whether those victims and survivors told anyone about the abuse.
On the 13 July, IICSA published the following press release:
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has published new research which finds that tactics exploited by perpetrators working in institutions enable child sexual abuse to continue even today.
Based on analysis of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) case files between 2017 – 2020, the research examines the offending strategies of alleged perpetrators across a wide range of contemporary institutional contexts, such as schools, sport and foster care, as well as the nature of abuse and responses of professionals.
Across the 43 cases examined, alleged perpetrators used similar methodical grooming strategies, including:
targeting and isolating children
building friendships which developed into sexually abusive ‘relationships’, based on trust and codependency with children
befriending children’s friends and families over time.
The research revealed that alleged perpetrators, such as teachers and sports coaches, harnessed their professional reputations and authority to manipulate other adults, and perpetrate child sexual abuse undetected.
Creating cultures of fear, they threatened, blackmailed or intimidated children to deter them from reporting the child sexual abuse and with limited opportunities for disclosure, children often had noone to turn to.
Informal social relationships, social gatherings and contact between adults and children was normalised within institutions, whilst technology, in particular social media, was found to provide new opportunities for adults working in institutions to access and sexually abuse children.
The research report reveals that in many cases, individuals denied the allegations or constructed a mitigation narrative to justify, explain or minimise the child sexual abuse. This included framing sexually abusive relationships as consensual and romantic, or putting the blame on the child. Some alleged perpetrators claimed that they had made “mistakes” or “poor judgements” whilst others disputed that they held ‘positions of trust’, therefore safeguarding policies did not apply to them, and had therefore not been breached.
There were also a number of examples where the institutions did not believe children’s disclosures, in particular in cases where alleged perpetrators denied the allegations against them. In some cases, it was clear that institutions chose to preserve the alleged perpetrator’s reputation and their own, above protecting children who reported child sexual abuse.
The research also found that there were numerous missed opportunities to safeguard children because concerns were not escalated and institutions and staff did not always share, record and respond appropriately. A lack of coordination with agencies, weak vetting processes and poor record keeping allowed individuals to offend multiple times within institutions, or to continue offending across institutional contexts and over long periods of time. There were also instances where the onus was placed on the alleged perpetrators to declare their own criminal histories.
Despite significant safeguarding policies being in place, these were not upheld and inaction or institutional complacency enabled alleged perpetrators to operate without being detected and continue to sexually abuse children.
Principal researcher Julienne Zammit said:
“This groundbreaking research provides new insight into the behaviour of perpetrators across contemporary institutional contexts, finding the use of similar tactics to groom and sexually abuse children. Alleged perpetrators denied or minimised the sexual abuse, in some cases even blaming the victim.
“Sexually abusive relationships were often framed as consensual and social media was frequently exploited to groom and perpetrate child sexual abuse, providing access to children in unsupervised and unmonitored online spaces.
“Where reports were made, opportunities to safeguard children were missed or actively blocked because concerns were not escalated and disclosures were not always believed. In some cases, it was clear that institutions chose to put their reputation above protecting children who reported child sexual abuse.”
Survivors of child sexual abuse can share their experiences with the Inquiry’s Truth Project over the phone, via video call or in writing. Visitwww.truthproject.org.uk for more information.
This research is the first of its kind involving both men and women added to the DBS Children’s Barred List.
For many readers of this blog, the information set out above will just sadly confirm much of what they know already to be the case when considering this topic.
However, there are simple lessons to be learned in terms of future safeguarding, children of any age, background, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation and/or vulnerability can be abused, there is no typical victim. Equally abusers can be from any background, socio-economic status, gender and/or sexual orientation they can be men, women or young people. The single most important thing for abusers is to create an opportunity to access children that they can abuse. If we are to safeguard children effectively in the future in the real and the virtual world, it is these opportunities that we must identify and regulate. We must ensure all the necessary safeguards are in place in the first instance and are fully utilised by all the relevant personnel when abuse of children is suspected and/or reported.
Written by Sharon Moohan at BLM sharon.moohan@blmlaw.com
The Truth Project was set up in 2015 (as part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse) to offer victims and survivors of child sexual abuse the chance to share their experiences and be heard in a respectful way. The aim was to provide recommendations to the government and institutions for changes in how to protect children in the future.
IICSA’s expenditure for the financial year as of 31 December 2020 is £22,945,197 bringing its total expenditure to just over £159 million since it began in 2015.
The Cambridge House, Knowl View and Rochdale investigation exposed how child sexual abuse targeting the most vulnerable of children was allowed to persist for a disturbing length of time. During three weeks of public hearings in 2017, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse heard of the vulnerability of the children at the council-run Knowl View School and of child sexual abuse spanning a period of 25 years. It found staff complacent and arguably complicit.
In this our second blog comparing the recent reports published by IICSA into the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches we look at redress and accountability.
IICSA has reviewed the varying approaches taken with respect to redress across the Anglican Church and Roman Catholic Church, looking at how victims are compensated financially in addition to emotional support and apologies given.
On 6 October 2020 the much awaited report detailing the outcome of IICSA’s investigations into whether the Church of England and the Church in Wales had protected children from sexual abuse in the past and the effectiveness of current safeguarding arrangements was published.
The report found that the Church of England had failed to protect children and young people from sexual predators within their ranks.
This week IICSA published its investigation report into the Roman Catholic Church (the Church). The report aims to examine the extent of institutional failings by the Church in England and Wales to protect children from child sexual abuse and examine the Church’s current safeguarding regime. The report draws on evidence from the Inquiry’s three case studies and the final public hearing held in October and November 2019.
On 14 October, IICSA published a summary of victims and survivors’ views on redress.
The Victims and Survivors Forum (the Forum) is open to all victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. It was set up to facilitate IICSA’s engagement with victims and survivors, making it easier to ask questions, offer suggestions, and for IICSA to gather the views of victims and survivors.
