Teachers and social workers ‘miss chances to stop sex offending in boys’

Report finds social services and schools ignore patterns of sexually inappropriate behaviour

Teachers and social workers are missing opportunities to intervene early to prevent entrenched patterns of sexual offending developing among boys and young men, according to criminal justice inspectors.

Their report says that social services and schools are sweeping early signs of sexual offending under the carpet, perhaps because they do not want to believe that a child can be capable of such behaviour.

Liz Calderbank, the chief inspector of probation, said that such a reaction was understandable but totally inappropriate: “The behaviour of this small but significant group of children and young people can be extremely damaging, often involving other children as victims.”

She said there were 893 children and young people under 18 convicted or cautioned for sexual offences in 2011-12 in England and Wales, but they accounted for more than one in 10 of all sexual offences. The most common offence for which they were convicted was sexual assault but some involved cases of rape.

“The evidence from our inspection is that these children and young people do respond to intervention from youth offending teams and can be prevented from reoffending before developing entrenched patterns of behaviour,” said Calderbank.

“We were therefore very concerned to find that a sizeable number of these children had been referred on previous occasions to children’s services but the significance of their sexual behaviour was either not recognised or dismissed. This, to us, represented a lost opportunity, both for the children themselves and their potential victims.”

The study, undertaken jointly by probation, police, prison, education, health, care and social services watchdogs, looked in depth at the cases of 24 offenders, all of whom were male, and 10 of whom were under 16.

“Ten of the young people were identified as having a disability. In seven cases this was a learning disability,” said the report, which added that typically the offenders involved were isolated individuals. Their cases were slow to get to court, taking on average eight months, between disclosure and sentence, which led to lengthy periods when little or no work was done with the young person.

In the case of a young man called Bradley, the inspectors said concern had been expressed about his sexually inappropriate behaviour since he was eight years old. He had been referred to both children’s social care services and the police several times and on one occasion charged with an offence, which was subsequently discontinued. The inspectors however found no evidence of any strategy discussions or meetings until Bradley was eventually convicted of an offence when he was 16.

In another case, that of Joel, the inspectors said social care services had been involved with him for more than 15 years. Concerns that he had been the victim of sexual abuse and the presence of adult sex offenders in the home should have triggered an investigation but he was not always assigned a social worker.

“Once these children and young people had been identified and picked up by the justice system, their chances for rehabilitation dramatically improved,” said Calderbank.