Report reveals what needs to be done by South Yorkshire Police to avoid repeating mistakes
The report into the review of South Yorkshire police's handling of child sexploitation cases in Rotherham and surrounding areas has been published by Professor John Drew. After more than 12 months of deliberation and interviews involving up to 150 people - from victims through to support workers and the police themselves, the findings do not make good reading for the force.
In Professor Drew's opinion the force missed many opportunities to prevent continuing abuse involving a very familiar group of alleged perpetrators. In his concluding remarks, Prof. Drew sets out what he considers to be the way forward and makes recommendations to ensure lessons are learnt.
Amongst his recommendations he suggested that the force creates a new Action Plan for dealing with child sexual exploitation. They need to also thoroughly review intelligence gathering arrangements to ensure leads or evidence are ciruclated "promptly and appropriately. Further that the force needs to standardise procedure for dealing with investigations.The current structure whilst much better than it was, still needs to be improved.
If you have been abused and need legal advice on your situation - read our compensation section here to learn more about your rights.
The NSPCC release disturbing statistics on the dramatic rise in recorded sex crimes against children
The NSPCC have released some revealing and rather disturbing data following a freedom of information request to 45 police authorities across Britain.
As a result of continued publicity and awareness campaigns, survivors of child abuse are coming forward in greater numbers. But the figures suggest many hundreds of thousands of cases go unreported. The actual number of reported child sex crimes in the last 12 months totalled 45,456, or 124 cases per day. This showed a sharp increase of 31% compared to the year before where only 31,238 reports were formally recorded.
Perhaps the most shocking statistics related to those victims who were classified as being at the pre-school age, around 2400 cases involving under 4's were recorded within the police data.
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The fight against online abuse being helped by Twitter
The online social media platform Twitter has confirmed that they are in talks with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England & Wales to help train prosecutors in the fight against online bullying.
Despite the recent changes in the law to prevent so called "revenge porn" the fact is that many other forms of online bullying go unnoticed by the authorities as perpetrators hide behind the huge weight of social media traffic and the use of fake user accounts. Twitter has agreed to help train key people within the CPS to help with enforcing not only the revenge porn laws but also other forms of bullying as the online world continues to be used as a weapon by many disgruntled ex or indeed current partners.
The move comes as the CPS concluded a successful prosecution against the rapist based in England who abused 5 women he met online via a dating website. It took the police a considerable length of time to join the dots and make the necessary connections between the events. Multiple user accounts were used and this led to confusion during the investigation. With the help and full cooperation of the online services, it is hoped that any future criminal activity can be dealt with more swiftly.
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Compensation advice for rape victims
An atmosphere of fear and adulation at the BBC allowed stars like Jimmy Savile to do as they wished, abusing young vulnerable fans almost at will.
Dame Janet Smith released her long awaited much leaked report today following an investigation into the culture and failings of the BBC that allowed stars such as Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall to commit sex crimes.
The report which can be found in full here focuses on the conduct of the BBC during the 1960's, 70's and 80's a period that was dominated by stars such as Savile and Hall.
An atmosphere of fear and adulation seemed to override any controls or management of the top stars who lauded over executives and young impressionable members of the public alike.
The report which was released today 25th February 2016, paints an extremely bad picture for the BBC and suggests many recorded incidents were glossed over or not taken seriously.
For those subjected to sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile or any other celebrity during this era, compensation may be awarded for any harm caused. Make an enquiry with our team today.
Domestic violence abusers to be offered support
In what may be deemed a bold move, men who are considered at risk of committing domestic violence assault on their family or loved ones, are to be offered 1-to-1 support in order to change their mindset.
Read more about how domestic violence victims can claim compensation in the UK.
A new initiative is to be piloted by two domestic abuse charities SafeLives and Respect in Essex, Sussex and South Wales. The hope is that by re-educating offenders or providing anger management techniques, they can change the way they approach situations that lead to a violent or abusive reaction. The pilot will be called "Drive" and will focus on rehabilitative rather than punitive measures.
Incidents of domestic violence are surging in the UK at the moment with an estimated 1.6 million nationwide occurring yearly, the majority of which go unreported. Whilst keeping victims safe remains a priority, the shift in strategy focusing also on the abuser could well prove to be an interesting experiment.
Thousands missing out on compensation due to unfair compensation deadlines
We are today commencing a campaign to raise public awareness regarding the issue of compensation rights for victims of abuse in the UK.
Thanks to a ludicrously unfair scheme administered by the Criminal Injury Compensation Authority (CICA) many thousands of people who have endured horrific sexual abuse as a child are being prevented from claiming compensation due to unfair deadline rules. Read more here about our campaign against abuse claim deadlines.
