Introduction

Cause for optimism?

Surely in the UK we are now tackling child sexual abuse (CSA) more successfully, giving us all confidence for continuing progress? Consider the vast array of child protection procedures and guidelines now in place, and the almost weekly media publicity about CSA, which suggests this hidden crime is now being addressed more openly and more effectively. Consider the powerful impetus which shocking revelations of large scale, unrecognised or previously unaddressed sexual abuse against children has given to efforts against its repetition. That includes widespread revelations of sexual abuse by clergy, particularly by Catholic and Anglican priests; and growing acknowledgement of the silencing power which was held over victims and prospective whistleblowers by these religious figures, by showbusiness celebrities and by politicians.

A succession of inquiries in 2013 and 2014 followed the televised exposé in October 2012 into many hundreds of assaults over five decades by the late disc jockey and presenter Jimmy Savile, whose targets included disabled and mentally distressed young hospital patients. Few attacks had been reported, and none prosecuted (Gray and Watt, 2013). Convictions of the artist and international entertainer Rolf Harris and the broadcaster Stuart Hall for sexual offences against girls followed (BBC News, 2014a; Spillett, 2014). Longstanding abuse of boys by the late Cyril Smith MP had apparently been concealed for decades by the authorities, while investigations were also launched into suspected child sexual abuse by several prominent former members of the British Parliament (Glennie, 2013; MacKean, 2013; BBC News, 2015c; Grierson, 2015).

Then police inquiries were belatedly reopened into in-care abuse rings where perpetrators allegedly included influential figures from politics, business and social care, for instance in North Wales and London (Dobson, 2013). Following a raft of new individual inquiries, inquiries into historical abuse were set up in both England and Wales and Scotland – though it has proved a fraught process in England, involving first the resignation of its first two nominated chairs (Chorley, 2014; Constance, 2014; STV News, 2014; BBC News, 2015d, 2015e; Davies, 2015).

Meanwhile there was widespread public and professional shock at child sexual exploitation scandals which erupted in English towns and cities including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxford (Williams, 2012a, 2012b; Rawlinson et al, 2013; Jay, 2014; and Chapter Four).