Focus on celebrity sex abuse scandals ‘puts victims at risk’, warns NSPCC chief

By The Press Association12th October 2015News EnglandChild Abuse, News England, Non-Recent / Historic Abuse, Sexual Abuse

Focusing on alleged VIP and celebrity sex abuse scandals could be putting victims at risk, the head of the NSPCC has warned.

Peter Wanless, the charity’s chief executive, said concentrating on allegations involving high-profile figures in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal could leave victims of abusers from “ordinary” backgrounds in danger.

Writing in the Observer, Mr Wanless said there was a “very real danger that children could be put at risk if we concentrate solely on celebrity offenders”.

He said: “High-profile cases have helped keep child abuse under a spotlight and at the forefront of people’s minds but we must not allow it to distract from the reality that VIP child abuse is not typical.

“Around 90% of sex offences against children are committed by someone they know – a relative, family friend, an acquaintance of some sort. And the vast majority of these offenders are from what you might term ‘ordinary’ backgrounds.

“So while the media focus is, understandably, trained on particularly high-profile allegations we have to ensure nothing is done to reverse the progress we have made and slide back to the dark days of the 1980s, where child abuse existed in the shadows.”

Sex offences against children increased by more than a third last year, according to figures obtained by the NSPCC from 43 police forces in England and Wales.

More than 31,000 crimes – 85 a day – were recorded, including rape, sexual assault and grooming, with the majority of victims aged 12-16 and nearly 3,000 aged five and under, the charity said.

Mr Wanless led a review into how the Home Office handled allegations of a Westminster paedophile network last year but found no evidence that records were deliberately removed or destroyed.

Former prime minister Edward Heath and ex-home secretary Leon Brittan are among the political figures who have been linked to allegations of child sexual abuse.

It has since emerged that Mr Brittan, who died of cancer earlier this year, was never informed that a rape allegation against him had been dropped before his death.