Charity chief calls for law to make it illegal not to report those who commit child abuse

A charity has called for tighter laws to ensure child abuse is properly reported A charity has called for tighter laws to ensure child abuse is properly reported
The head of a child abuse charity has warned fresh scandals will continue to erupt unless laws are introduced forcing people working with children to report colleagues who attack youngsters.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), says further abuse scandals such as those in North Wales’ care homes or surrounding disgraced TV presenter Jimmy Savile are “inevitable” without a change in the law.

NAPAC is campaigning for a mandatory reporting law that would see the likes of teachers and care workers prosecuted for failing to shop abusers.

In North Wales the Serious and Organised Crime Agency’s Operation Pallial is continuing to probe historic allegations of child abuse in the region’s care homes.

Mr Saunders, who maintains he was sexually abused by three different men between the ages of seven and 14 at his primary and secondary schools, said: “It’s an inevitability (that there will be further care homes scandals without a change in the law). (Jimmy) Savile two is currently in manufacture.

“One of the things that came out of the Savile exposure was that nurses at Stoke Mandeville Hospital were telling children to pretend to be asleep when he came around.

“What is it that nurses saw or heard that prompted them to tell child patients this on a regular basis? What is it that had not been reported?”

Napac wants the law changed so that those who work with children have a legal duty to pass on concerns to a Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) or the police.

The group says all too often when an allegation is reported up a chain of command, the LADO is not informed because there is no clear legal requirement.

Last year paedophile teacher Nigel Leat was jailed indefinitely for abusing children at Hillside First School in Weston-super-Mare.

A review found he was able to film himself abusing young girls because of a “lamentable failure” by school management.

Retired teacher Gwen Hurst, who worked at notorious Wrexham care home Bryn Estyn, says the existing system works.

Mrs Hurst said the current system worked in Bryn Estyn in the 1960s when – as is chronicled in the Waterhouse Report – former head David Ursell resigned after colleagues complained of his “excessive” use of physical force.

Bryn Estyn has been at the epicentre of the North Wales care homes scandal .

Among Bryn Estyn staff jailed was former house master Peter Howarth, who was locked up for 10 years in 1994 for violating boys as young as 12. He died behind bars.

Howarth created a “flat list” of young boys he selected to visit his flat after hours. It was there he would indecently assault them.

Mrs Hurst, who never stayed overnight at Bryn Estyn, admits she knew about Howarth’s flat list before he was arrested.

But to this day she maintains he was innocent and his flat list was simply devised to reward those boys who behaved themselves with the chance to watch TV.

Mrs Hurst, who has always claimed that the extent of the child abuse has been exaggerated by compensation-hungry former residents, added: “They couldn’t get there (to Howarth’s flat) fast enough. They would be asking to help with the washing up and the sweeping up and asking, ‘Can I go to the flat?’

“Is that fear? I don’t think so.”

A Welsh Government spokeswoman said there were plans to amend the Social Services and  Well-being Wales Bill to introduce a requirement to report  child abuse.

The legislation was introduced in January and was aimed at  protecting adults, but will now  be redrafted to also cover children “where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a  child might be at risk of, or is  experiencing, abuse or neglect”.