Serious concerns for child protection?

By CRFR associate researcher Dr Sarah Nelson

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Several points about the absolute discharge given in Scotland last week by Lady Scott to Daniel Cieslak, who was convicted of raping a 12 year old girl, will greatly concern child protection campaigners for their potentially far-reaching implications.

First, the sentence and the judge’s remarks could be seen as in effect lowering the age of consent. The reason Mr Cieslak was convicted of rape, rather than of an under-age sexual offence, was that consent (which must be informed consent) is legally impossible under any circumstances for children under 13.

However, despite this legal impossibility the judge, who accepted that the accused genuinely believed the girl was over 16, was reported to say "Here the victim willingly participated in the sexual intercourse and there was, in fact, consent.” So there could not be consent: and yet there was. That contradiction surely needs urgent clarification. Otherwise both the absolute discharge and the judge’s remarks risk giving a “green light” to anyone wishing to have sex with a child under 13, by saying that they looked over 16. The current law is also undermined.

Secondly, while mitigating factors may well exist in an accused’s individual case – which can be reflected in length of sentence – sentencing is always also a statement of how seriously a society takes particular acts. It also deters others. So for instance the increased sentences for domestic abuse, for drink driving or dangerous driving, and other offences now taken more seriously by modern society. The absolute discharge and the remarks made a very different form of public statement.

Thirdly, there are strongly suggestive indications that the victim may have already been a vulnerable child in need of extra protection. Two girls of 12 and 13 were wandering alone in Edinburgh city centre in the small hours of the morning. One of them, it was reported in some media, quickly showed sexualised behaviour with a stranger, Mr Cieslak, whom she had met in a taxi queue, then later had sex with him. These behaviours are very common reactions in some children and young people who have already been sexually abused or exploited, and would be recognised as such by anyone working with survivors of these crimes.

Was an investigation made before the trial into their circumstances, and were the girls already known to anyone who should have been protecting them? There had been more than time enough to find out between the incident in 2015 and the court case. If so, was this information passed to the court?

The reason those questions are especially important is twofold. It has now emerged that countless vulnerable girls of similar ages and behaviours to this girl were carefully groomed into agreeing to sex, then raped and brutalised by gangs in the child sexual exploitation scandals of Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Derby and elsewhere. The reason most were left unprotected for years by police and social services was because they were dismissed as willing partners, as “little slags”, or as “child prostitutes” by the authorities themselves. Many had been vulnerable children, already previously abused or neglected.

This knowledge, which we all possess now, makes it especially important for authorities and courts to protect children showing early sexualisation or “difficult” behaviours, not simply to accept as Lady Scott did of the girl in the case that she had “no concerns, and there was no suggestion of her being distressed". If we allow them to be dismissed as “willing” or “active” participants”, we surely contradict both Scotland’s child protection policies and its National Plan to counter child sexual exploitation.

Even where a young person is between 13 and 16 - and may indeed have limited consent, Scotland’s “National Guidance on Under-age Sexual Activity: Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People and Identifying Child Protection Concerns” recommends factors which must be considered in judging risk and the need for protection. They include informed choice, the circumstances of the sexual activity, a history of being in care, and a history of previous abuse.

In the (English) Neil Wilson case in 2013, appeal judges and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) strongly criticised a judge who leniently treated the abuser of a vulnerable 13 year old, and said the girl was a predator and “egging you on”. Appeal judges made the highly important statement: “An under-age person who encourages sexual relations with her needs more protection, not less. The Attorney General is therefore right to say that the victim's vulnerability was an aggravating, rather than a mitigating feature”.

Is it time for such unequivocal statements – and for a Crown appeal against this sentence – north of the Border?

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Student who admitted sex with 12-year-old cleared as judge calls girl ‘active participant’, Daily Record, 17-3-17. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/student-who-admitted-rape-12-10045698

Full details of English child sexual exploitation scandals in: Nelson, S (2016). Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical approaches to prevention, protection and support, Policy Press, Chapter 4.

Scottish Government (2010) National Guidance. Under-age sexual activity: Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People and Identifying Child Protection Concerns” [para 47]. Available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/333495/0108880.pdf

Barrister suspended from sex cases after court comments BBC News (online), 07/08/13; Attorney General's Reference (No 53 of 2013) [2013] EWCA Crim 2544 (para.20). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23605577

Maybe He’s Caring: Responding to disabled women who experience domestic abuse

In this post Dr Jenna Breckenridge (Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh) explores the unique domestic abuse experiences of disabled women and discusses opportunities and challenges for improving the response to this important issue.

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• Disabled women are two times more likely to experience domestic abuse than non-disabled women.
• A large study of domestic abuse prevalence across Europe (including 28 different countries) found that 50% of disabled women have experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime¹.
• Disabled women are four times more likely to experience sexual abuse².
• On average, disabled women experience abuse for up to 2 years longer than non-disabled women³.

This is a significant problem in which gender discrimination and the widespread oppression of disabled people, known as disablism, collide. Disablist attitudes portray disabled people as weak and dependent, meaning that perpetrators may perceive disabled women to be easier to control and overpower. Society often portrays disabled women as asexual, undesirable and undeserving of intimate relationships and, as a result, they are often disbelieved when they disclose domestic abuse. This is especially the case when the perpetrator of abuse is also the woman’s main carer.

A unique form of abuse

Although disabled women experience all forms of domestic abuse – sexual, psychological, physical and financial - they also experience a unique form of abuse that specifically targets their impairments. Women say this abuse makes them more disabled than they need to be. For example, women have described how their perpetrators remove batteries from power wheelchairs, refuse personal care, sabotage communication devices, deliberately cause injury to assistance animals or purposefully mismanage women’s medications.

Yet, despite experiencing more severe, more prolonged and more frequent abuse, disabled women are less likely to receive sufficient domestic abuse support from agencies across health, social care and the third sector.

How do we make support more accessible?

This might involve providing more accessible forms of communication, particularly for women with learning disabilities or sensory impairments, to ensure that women understand what help is available to them. Refuges need to consider how women’s basic care needs can be met – for example, assistance with mobility, activities of daily living, transportation - especially when her abusive partner has also been her main carer. Ultimately, however, different women, with different impairments, will have different support needs and it is important that domestic abuse services have a better understanding of the unique barriers facing disabled women and develop strategies for overcoming these. The crucial first step in achieving this is to listen to disabled women and work collaboratively with them to design domestic abuse support that is inclusive and accessible to all.

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References

1. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2014) Violence against women: an EU-wide survey. Accessed at http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/violence-against-women-eu-wide-survey-main-results-report
2. Martin SL, Ray N, Sotres-Alvarez D, Kupper LL, Moracco KE, Dickens PA et al. (2006) Physical and sexual assault of women with disabilities. Violence Against Women, 12: 823-838.
3. Young ME, Nosek MA, Howland C, Chanpong G, Rintala DH (1997) Prevalence of abuse of women with physical disabilities. Archive of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 78: S34-S38.

Sexual Abuse: A Crisis for Football?

Following her CRFR seminar series on childhood sexual abuse, CRFR Associate Researcher Dr Sarah Nelson reflects on the recent disclosures of abuse in football.

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In the space of a mere three weeks, since several former professional footballers spoke publicly about their sexual abuse as young players, more than 850 people have called a special NSPCC helpline. More than 55 professional and amateur clubs have been linked to allegations; in excess of 20 police forces are investigating; and helplines receive more calls daily.

Does this mean that football is somehow more prone to childhood sexual abuse than other sports? The answer to that anxious, understandable question is likely to be “no”.

Football is played more widely than any other sport among 11-15 year old boys, and thus the sheer number vulnerable to abuse is bound to be greater. In addition, it is not a particular sport, a particular religion, profession, or group within society which is most likely to have perpetrators of child sexual abuse (CSA) within it. It is the way in which particular values and other factors come together, encouraging abuse to continue in that particular setting.

Especially with respect to abuse from outside the family – as in this case - they include:

• The extent of power the adult has over children (in football, control over the boy in achieving his longed-for, dream career);
• The importance of children’s obedience to adults (in children’s sports, the coach’s role; in many other settings, strongly patriarchal values towards women and children);
• The extent to which parents and community trust, or defer to, the abusive adult (in children’s sports the selfless, helpful coach; with clergy, supposed men of God);
• The social stigma and low credibility faced by some children and teenagers (only relevant to some children in this case, but very relevant to abuse in care and child sexual exploitation);
• The culture of the particular setting, in silencing, dismissing and/or disbelieving victims (“macho” male values and bravado in football, rugby, boxing or snooker; in some ethnic and religious groups, the power of shame).

It may perhaps seem surprising that opportunity is not included above. However, the factors described create it in themselves. Also, abusers rarely need special or additional opportunity. They skilfully create opportunities out of little, even in “plain sight” of others - as the prolific abuser Jimmy Savile demonstrated.

Football coaches are not somehow more dangerous than people elsewhere. It is not that most coaches are abusers, but that youth football is one ideal setting to which the minority of abusers against boys will gravitate. This is precisely why no-one involved in coaching should take personal offence at the need for clubs and schools to be extremely vigilant about their recruitment and monitoring.

Nor should men involved in coaching the sport now protest that they are not trusted any more, that children or parents will think they are unsafe, and that they are put off volunteering at all. There can be a defensive self-indulgence about this, though it may sound harsh to say so. Adults working in professions where there have been scandals can be assured that children and young people sense when the ways in which adults talk, behave and touch are safe or unsafe. Survivors of sexual abuse will confirm this. If you are a safe person, and with no sexual interest in young people, they will sense it.

It is still very understandable that parents will feel more anxious than before. They can find at least considerable reassurance in the children’s safeguarding initiatives, in football and other sports, which are now in place. They can take an active interest in what these are, and how they might be improved, in their own children’s clubs.

One of the greatest of safeguards lies in parents telling their children repeatedly to let them know straight away if anyone makes them feel uncomfortable in a sexual way, and that they will not be angry with them, will not dismiss nor blame them -whoever that person is - even a family friend, relative or respected member of the community.

When parents say this, they need to mean it too. So they should talk through with each other, or with a support organisation, any understandable difficulties they would have in taking on board difficult information about somebody they trust.

Amongst the genuinely disturbing scale of current revelations about football there are some very encouraging aspects. In a “macho” sport notable for silencing any issues of sexuality which do not involve boasting about women, numerous men continue to come forward publicly with courage and strength, to talk openly and angrily about an abuse which still fills many men with deep shame and humiliation.

They have set a striking example to others who remain silenced. They have spurred on inquiries about past, unacknowledged crimes – and a greater alertness to current ones.

Sarah Nelson is author of Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical approaches to prevention, protection and support (Policy Press, 2016). Several chapters in this book describe research carried out at CRFR, including research with male survivors.

http://www.children1st.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-help/safeguarding-in-sport/

https://sportscotland.org.uk/about-us/our-publications/archive/child-protection

The Scottish Football Association urges anyone with any information relating to abuse or inappropriate behaviour – whether current or historic – to get in touch via the NSPCC’s helpline 0800 023 2642, or email childrenswellbeing@scottishfa.co.uk

Lessons of the Rotherham report

What can Scotland learn from Rotherham? Sarah Nelson draws very clear conclusions from the Rotherham report - in what it tells us about the  attitudes held by authority figures towards vulnerable young people and why guidance to identify victims of child sexual abuse has been ignored.

Since last week’s publication of Alexis Jay’s explosive report, which found that at least 1400 children had been sexually exploited in Rotherham over 16 years, there have been repeated claims that “political correctness” caused failure to prosecute the perpetrators, mainly men of Pakistani heritage. Alleged fears of being thought racist or of stirring racial conflict have been seized upon by some politicians and commentators, to suggest this proves a wider failure of multicultural policies in Britain.

But while such fears were one factor for some staff and councillors in the prolonged inaction, were they the key issue? The police after all prosecute Asian suspects over other offences, such as drugs or suspected terrorism. Hugh Muir in the Guardian, highlighting that minority ethnic people are over-represented in prisons and the courts, concluded sarcastically: “if authorities didn’t use their powers against minorities for fear of giving offence... it would be a first.

“If a backlash was feared, where would it have come from? There is no minority lobby for criminals and paedophiles. So long as communities knew the issue was one of law enforcement rather than an assault on those communities themselves, they would have supported tough action by the authorities” (as they did in London over gun crime).

Thus in attempting to learn lessons from these distressing events, we need to ask what was different about this particular crime, and whether the principal answer lay not in the perpetrators but the victims. Were they not considered worth protecting, nor worth risking community tensions?

Many in the police and social care, even the public witnessing grooming “in plain sight”, seemed to share the abusers’ derogatory view of these vulnerable girls, who were often already in care, under supervision through previous abuse or neglect, or otherwise vulnerable. Some were “difficult”, reacting to harm with chaotic or desperate acting-out behaviours. But they were also just children.

Despite Professor Jay describing brutality, callousness and exceptional violence towards girls as young as 11, she found “the police gave no priority to child sex exploitation, regarding many child victims with contempt”......Hilary Willmer, colleague of a Home Office researcher whose 2002 report on CSE was suppressed, said the authorities responded that the "girls had chosen this lifestyle to feed their drug habit...the perception (was) that these were errant teenagers who were just a nuisance...(that) they are going out with these men, and have almost got what they asked for.”

Such attitudes were unearthed in every recent child sexual exploitation scandal. Sara Rowbotham of the NHS crisis intervention team in Rochdale, who had fruitlessly referred more than 100 girls to social services, told MPs “It was attitudes towards teenagers. It was absolute disrespect that vulnerable young people did not have a voice. They were overlooked. They were discriminated against. They were treated appallingly by protective services."

Why did authorities continue for more than a decade to flout laws and guidance which clearly stated that children involved in “prostitution” should be treated as victims, as children in need, and their coercers prosecuted? Why, as Alexis Jay revealed in Rotherham, did they also continue to ignore worrying local reports, years of training and publicity on the issue?

Feminist columnist Suzanne Moore saw links with wider treatment of women in her harsh conclusion: “The macho environment in which the girls were not listened to, or even seen as children, is part of a continuum of thought in which girls, once deemed sexually active, even if it is against their will, are seen as damaged goods. Thus they can be bought and sold in a market that has made it apparent it no longer considers them worth protecting”.

Also influential, given that boys who become involved in child sexual exploitation also face dismissal as “delinquent”, is the persistent failure by authorities and communities to recognise behaviours which many of these young people exhibit as the consequence of past abuse, or present sexual exploitation: not as an invitation to it. Running away, school truancy and exclusions, apparent “promiscuity” through confused sexual boundaries and a sense of debasement, substance misuse to blot out the trauma (or through abusers creating addiction); anger and rage, extreme distrust of authority following betrayal: these have been listed for decades in child protection guidelines and training, and discovered time and again through research.

A massive awareness-raising programme for professionals and communities focussing on this very point, and using direct testimony from young people, may need to be instigated if these derogatory attitudes are finally to be uprooted and further child sexual exploitation scandals prevented. For professionals, that programme needs to include painful reflective work on why they ignored information about children’s reactions to abuse, which was widely available for decades.

Finally, given that these scandals so far have been English, can we be complacent about child sexual exploitation here in Scotland? The Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee carried out an Inquiry into child sexual exploitation in 2013. It heard from the National Working Group that estimates by Scottish agencies of likely child sexual exploitation victims ranged from 64 to 300 for each agency. The NWG found much concern about under-recognition of the issue, particularly in rural areas.

Strathclyde University’s CELCIS team concluded from its case study research that provisionally, “a prevalence of child sexual exploitation at least approaching 25% (one in four) would seem likely for children in the care population. ... we expect this to be considerably higher for older age groups, for girls and for children placed in residential care.”

In February 2013 Scottish police established Operation Dash to scope the extent of child sexual exploitation in the 12 local authorities of the (then) Strathclyde Police force area, working closely with Barnardo’s, and its work continues.

Everyone concerned with the welfare of vulnerable young people in Scotland will hope that in their attitudes to our most troubled teenagers, the authorities will now choose respect and understanding above contempt.



REFERENCES

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham 1997 – 2013. Alexis Jay OBE. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, 2014.

The Scottish Parliament, Public Petitions Committee. The 1st Report, 2014 (Session 4): Report on tackling child sexual exploitation in Scotland: SP Paper 449; PU/S4/14/R1.

Internet sex offenders: a danger in the "real world"?

A recent TV debate - on whether offenders who view images of child sex abuse online are also likely to commit contact assaults against children – saw some heated exchanges, at a time when child sexual abuse cases (CSA) are in the news almost daily. In this blog, Dr Sarah Nelson, CRFR Research Associate at The University of Edinburgh provides comment.

 Professor Richard Wortley, a criminologist and psychologist from University College London, said research suggested that only a small minority went on to abuse children physically. But Jim Gamble, former chief executive of the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP), angrily pressed his conviction that a majority were dangerous to children in the “offline” world. He called for "consistent and persistent investigations".

The debate followed the arrest of 660 suspected paedophiles in the UK after a six-month police operation targeted people accessing child abuse images online. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said they included teachers, medical staff, former police, a social worker and scout leader. Only 39 of the 650 were registered sex offenders: the rest, worryingly, had remained under the radar.

Many offenders had accessed the so-called “dark net”. Its content doesn’t appear on normal search engines. They often use virtual currencies to avoid detection, showing effort and commitment: they do not stumble on such images by mistake.

As McGuire & Dowling (2013) confirm in their research review, current evidence exploring the links between possession of online abuse images and offline sex offending against children is mixed and conflicting. Some studies suggest that viewing indecent images of children is often a prelude to contact offences, and an important risk factor. CEOP’s thematic assessment, (A Picture of Abuse, 2012) for instance found possession of online abuse images and online grooming were risk factors for contact CSA. Other research, as the review demonstrates, refutes such a link, or finds small numbers of dual offenders. However, the second category appears to receive far more belief and publicity among practitioners.

As a longstanding researcher into child sexual abuse and its effects throughout life, I have concerns in case two temptations may be reducing perceived risk that viewers of child abuse images are also contact abusers. First, many internet offenders have been discovered to be respectable, middle class professional men with no previous criminal records, such as deputy heads of schools, IT consultants, health service managers, clergy and so on. For many practitioners and researchers they have been disconcertingly “people like us”, without the typical risk factors for sex offenders which have featured on risk assessments. That creates a temptation to feel, whatever the genuine wish to be impartial: “surely they’re less likely to be dangerous”. An alternative possibility, however, is that they may have been more skilled and resourceful at concealing their behaviour.

Secondly, the number of men (these particular offenders are overwhelmingly men) found to be in possession of indecent images of children has spiralled enormously in recent years, and grows year upon year. The criminal justice system- even the police resources required to examine their computers – has been overwhelmed. However, making numbers manageable by minimising the dangerousness of many is not necessarily a safe way to deal with a genuine social problem.

One group of people, not solely males, may indeed be viewing abuse images of children without abusing in the “real world”. These are those sexually abused young people and adults who have retained their empathy to others, but who through confused post-traumatic reaction are drawn to replay repeatedly acts perpetrated against themselves, without gaining resolution of that trauma. Often they will feel extremely guilty, their self-esteem further shattered: just as some of the abused men in my own research (Nelson 2009) felt huge self-disgust at re-enacting their abuse through anonymous sex with men in public places. It’s important that skilled help is available to them and that they feel able to ask for it, for they help sustain the international trade in child abuse images, and their trauma remains unresolved. But their own pain is not a reason to downplay wider risks to children from internet offenders as a whole.

The claim that most who gain sexual gratification and excitement from repeatedly viewing violent and perverse sexual assaults, or even torture, on young children are not likely to want to abuse children offline is at root a hope, not a scientific finding. It is fostered by the claims of the offenders themselves. Evidence from studies which suggest this low risk is inadequate, for two reasons. First of all, it relies heavily on official follow-up of known recorded sexual offences. But most sexual offences are carried out in secret, and will not be known, or if experienced will not be reported.

Secondly, evidence that internet offenders have resisted committing contact abuse with children could only be convincing if their previous, present or future victim targets were a) identified by the authorities; and then b) able to speak up and tell the truth about whether they had been offended against or not. But most abused children and young people are not identified, find it extremely difficult and shameful to tell, and are often disbelieved when they do.

Accumulated knowledge of sex offenders suggests that they often offend compulsively, and indeed individual collections of vast quantities of abuse images suggest compulsive behaviour. Thus we must ask how realistic it is that they would so drastically change their behaviour after being caught that, for instance in the Seto & Eke study (2005) “in an average of 2.5 years only 3.9% of child pornography offenders reoffended for that offense, and those (internet) offenders with no prior criminal record ...had a contact sexual offense only 1.3% of the time...(and) only one of the offenders with only child pornography offenses committed a later contact sexual offense in the follow-up period.”

The widely-heard theory of gradual, even accidental interest in abuse images is also questionable. It is surely insulting to men as a whole to suggest that while watching adult pornography, or after accidentally clicking on child abuse websites, they suddenly discover a deepseated urge - unrealised all their lives - repeatedly to watch shocking images of children, babies and toddlers being sexually assaulted, and to collect great numbers of these images. Without, subsequently, any wish to try this on actual children. The alternative hypothesis is that those who access abuse images of children on the internet are typically already sexually attracted to children, already seeking sexual gratification from watching sexual abuse, and have actively sought out these images. That must, therefore, represent a genuine risk to children.

Survivors of sexual abuse have for decades tried to tell both support groups and researchers of being abused by, for instance, teachers and doctors, clergy, sports coaches, foster parents, residential care managers or TV celebrities. Their testimony is also evidence. It needs to be asked if the disturbing new statistics may simply reflect more closely the numbers of abusers who have always existed, but who previously had far less opportunity or technology to view abuse images. Spiralling numbers of offenders may simply be reducing the very large disparity between numbers identified in the criminal justice system until recently, and the high prevalence of child sexual abuse revealed retrospectively by adult survivors.

If so, policymakers need to address the scale of protection and preventive education, especially of young people, which they need to prioritise. Meanwhile, campaigners like Jim Gamble have called- as CEOP did in their 2012 study A Picture of Abuse-- for proactive investigation of “possession offending”; and for more specialist, well-staffed and equipped, police investigative units, who can manage their caseloads in a timely comprehensive way. At the forefront of all the investigations, they urge, “should be the notion that any case may result in the identification of a victim of contact sexual abuse”.

Contact: Sarah.Nelson@ed.ac.uk

REFERENCES

CEOP 2012. A Picture of Abuse: A thematic assessment of the risk of contact child sexual abuse posed by those who possess indecent images of children. Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

McGuire M. Dowling S. 2013. Cyber crime: A review of the evidence. Research Report 75, Chapter 3: ‘Cyber-enabled crimes - sexual offending against children’. London: Home Office.

Nelson, S. 2009. Care and Support Needs of Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. CRFR, University of Edinburgh.

Seto, M., and Eke, A.(2005) ‘The future offending of child pornography offenders ’Journal of Sexual Abuse , 17, pp 2 01-210

Savile: A Panic For Our Times?

CRFR publishes this guest post from Mark Smith, Viv Cree and Gary Clapton on the first seminar in the 'Moral Panics' series:

Last summer when three colleagues in Social Work, each with interests in different child abuse ‘scares’ got together the collaboration resulted in three journal articles.  Each of the ‘scares’ we wrote about shared a common feature. The subject matters had become the subject of moral evaluation. Once a subject is so moralized, responses to it can lose any sense of proportion. Given the right (or wrong) set of individuals and circumstances a panic can ensue.

The notion of moral panic seemed to offer a useful analytic lens through which to consider our interests. The term is not a new one; it came to prominence in 1972 with the publication of Stan Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics. In the book, Cohen analysed reactions to outbreaks of fighting among mods and rockers on Brighton Beach during the 1960s. A number of prominent academics subsequently applied the concept of moral panic to other social scares and anxieties.

There were indications of interest in our work from other academics at Edinburgh and elsewhere in the UK, so we made a bid to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to hold a seminar series entitled ‘Revisiting moral panics: a critical examination of 21^st century social issues and anxieties’. The bid was led by Professor Viviene Cree at the University of Edinburgh and involved six Higher Education Institutes, nine academic disciplines and sixteen academic staff drawn from the four countries of the UK.  We received support from the ESRC for three seminars: ‘Moral panics and the family’, ‘Moral panics with children and youth’ and ‘Moral panics and the state’.

The first seminar was held in Edinburgh on Friday 23 November and attended by 70 people. Stan Cohen was too ill to attend the seminar but sent his best wishes. In his absence we attracted the next wave of moral panic scholars, Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda who together wrote the book, Moral Panics: The social construction of deviance and Chas Critcher, who was one of a group of sociologists to use the concept in relation to law and order and subsequently the media. The field of international experts was completed by Angela McRobbie, Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths University.

Little did we know when we applied to hold the seminar series that the first of them would coincide with the UK being engulfed in a moral panic over the Jimmy Savile affair.  The Savile affair highlights a number of features of moral panics. It would seem to have some obvious basis in behavior that should not have been considered acceptable at any point in time. So, it’s not that there is nothing behind this or any other panic; there invariably is. It is just that the initial and legitimate kernel of concern gets blown out of proportion. In the Savile case, are there really suspects and fellow perpetrators in every town and hamlet? How much of what is written is exaggerated?  In such a febrile climate people can make claims for all sorts of reasons. They are not all true.  We are thus faced with questions as to whose claim is justified?  Who must be heard?  Who are we not listening to? The resultant heat of the moral panic distorts debate, making it hard to offer alternative points of view. The resolve of the police to get to the bottom of all that went on is unlikely to shed any real light on what did and, moreover, will create its own injustices as innocent people become caught up in their investigations.

In times of panic, denial is just as likely a consequence as over-statement and disbelief. The dust of moral panic often has to settle before facts can begin to get in the way. However, another of the effects of a moral panic is that it leads us to take some things too seriously and others not seriously enough.  Does the preoccupation with Savile’s wrong-doings prevent us engaging with the prospect of increasing child and family impoverishment as a result of so-called reforms to welfare?   Discuss.

If you want to engage in the debate join us at our subsequent seminars in Bath in May 2013 and Cardiff in November 2013.

Mark Smith, Viv Cree and Gary Clapton

Listening – or really hearing victims of abuse?

Sarah Nelson, CRFR Research Associate, writes on the implications of the Jimmy Savile abuse revelations:

Amid shock and dismay at the unfolding revelations of the Savile sexual abuse scandal, many people ask how we can better protect children in future. Perhaps the most frequent demand from professionals, politicians, media and the public has been that we “listen more to the victims”.

That is understandable, and indeed true, especially in relation to stigmatised young people who are often still disbelieved when they report: as the Rochdale sexual exploitation case among others has graphically revealed. But it skirts the awkward problem that the majority of Savile’s victims did not report him, and most children do not report sexual abuse. Too often, we would be listening for a merely silent victim.

In my own research with sexually abused young people and adults, both at CRFR and during 2011-12 with Open Secret in Falkirk, survivors described how intense shame, self-blame, hopelessness, distrust or fear of reprisal kept most of them silent until well into adulthood. One small group of young people came up with fourteen different reasons why they did not tell.

In particular, very few children tell the agencies they are urged to tell, such as teachers, police or social workers. They are more likely to turn to a school friend or their mother. The child protection system urgently needs to take these uncomfortable facts on board and to reflect the way real children think, act and behave, in order to ensure that current distressing revelations leave a more positive legacy for our children. Otherwise, it will continue to unearth very few cases of child sexual abuse.

In my own research studies, these are some suggestions for change which survivors themselves, both male and female, have made:

• Children very often try to tell in oblique, childlike or roundabout ways. Always ask sensitively if for instance they keep being tearful or very withdrawn, or persistently act out distress through bad behaviour.
• An independent counsellor in a school or youth setting, posters placed anonymously on school lockers or inside toilets, and other discreet or anonymous publicity is very helpful in reducing the shame and stigma teenagers feel, at the prospect of becoming known to their peers as a victim.
• In my own research, male survivors in particular were often excluded from school for acting-out in bad behaviour. This placed them in much greater danger on the streets, and safe alternatives to school exclusions need to continue to be sought.
• Peers and mothers need greater support when they are the recipients of information about current abuse.
• There is now “third-party reporting” available for hate crime such as homophobic crime, and race crime. People can report to certain voluntary agencies if they fear or distrust to report directly to police or social work and that could be extended to the reporting of childhood sexual abuse.
• Both adults and young people who have been abused felt strongly that social stigma has assertively to be combated with publicity campaigns, since many families and communities still prefer victims to avoid shaming them by speaking out. Likewise they wish schools to tackle the perceived stigma of being a victim: just as many schools now encourage pupils not to stigmatise, for example, young people who self-harm, or young gay people. That might reduce many boys’ fear of being branded a “poof” if they reveal abuse.

Between 2006-2011 Sarah was joint lead professional adviser to the Scottish Government's National Strategy, SurvivorScotland.

For further discussion of the experiences of survivors of childhood sexual abuse, please read:

Nelson, S. (2009) Care and support needs of male survivors of childhood sexual abuse, CRFR Research Briefing, no.44, Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.

Nelson, S. (ed) (2008) See us hear us: schools workign with sexually abused young people, Dundee: Dundee Young Women's Centre.

Nelson, S. (2002) Child sexual abuse: fracturing family life, CRFR Research briefing, no.5, Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.