Mandate Now
@mandatenow
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Since 2005 we have led the agenda for the introduction of mandatory reporting of suspected + known child sexual abuse by those who work in #RegulatedActivities
South East England
Joined December 2012
What kind of government, facing huge publicity over a wave of overlapping child sex abuse scandals, brings forward a measure which by its own estimates will increase reports to the police by a mere 0.3%? This government.
Under the Conservatives, the Home Office published an Impact Assessment of the measure. The central estimate was that it would increase the number of reports to the police by 0.3%.
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What kind of government minister would claim to be implementing a public inquiry recommendation on mandatory reporting of child sex abuse, in legislation that makes reporting non-mandatory? One in today's government.
Closing the debate for the government today, Lord Hanson of Flint said that "introducing a statutory duty delivers the intention of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. I am confident that the measures we have brought forward strike the balance that we need.
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What kind of government, bringing forward an offence to prevent or deter someone from reporting child sex abuse, writes the measure in such a way that in effect it cannot be prosecuted? Today's government.
It gets worse. In the description of the offence "It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the conduct alleged to constitute the offence consisted only of making representations about the timing of a notification under section 72 ...
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What kind of government, receiving a public inquiry recommendation for mandatory reporting of child sex abuse with a criminal sanction for non-reporting, responds with legislation involving voluntary enforcement of voluntary duty to report? Today's government.
Now to the enforcement mechanism. The IICSA public inquiry recommended a criminal sanction for non-reporting, concluding that nothing less would increase reporting rates. The Bill doesn't have this. Instead, non-reporters might be referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
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What kind of government, after a public inquiry which described an epidemic of unreported child sex abuse, brings forward a reporting measure designed not to help 90-95% of those abused children? Today's government.
This means that 90% to 95% of abused children will gain no additional protection from this Bill, because in the absence of a disclosure from them, anybody noticing something wrong can perfectly legally ignore it.
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What kind of government, faced with the Smyth scandal that brought down the Archbishop of Canterbury, would bring forward a child protection measure that would have done nothing to prevent those abuses? Today's government.
But Makin did not document a single instance of somebody being prevented from reporting or being threatened if they did report. Instead, there was an unspoken consensus - all the way up to the Archbishop of Canterbury - that keeping quiet about Smyth was the right thing to do.
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Without the criminal sanction we continue to have the existing regime of discretionary reporting which IICSA found to have failed large numbers of children. Same old policy, just with a new name. More children will be avoidably harmed because of this.
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The Bill does not "deliver the intention" of IICSA. The measure is missing the key defining feature of IICSA's recommendation: enforcement by means of a criminal sanction for non-reporting.
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But the Bill manifestly does not do that. The IICSA recommendation on mandatory reporting was specifically for a duty to report backed by criminal sanctions for not reporting.
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Closing the debate for the government today, Lord Hanson of Flint said that "introducing a statutory duty delivers the intention of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. I am confident that the measures we have brought forward strike the balance that we need.
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The Labour government took a "mandatory reporting" measure on child sex abuse originally introduced by the Conservatives. They knew from the Home Office's own estimates that the measure would have no effect. And they adopted anyway.
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To put that in actual numbers, it's about an extra 310 reports per year, or half a report per parliamentary constituency.
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Under the Conservatives, the Home Office published an Impact Assessment of the measure. The central estimate was that it would increase the number of reports to the police by 0.3%.
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This is all very deliberate. The government knows exactly what it is doing. This section of the Bill is an almost word-for-word copy of a measure the last Conservative government would have passed had the General Election not intervened.
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What exactly is the difference between preventing a report and indefinitely delaying a report is completely unclear. It makes the offence impossible in practice to prosecute.
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... in light of the best interests of any person whom they reasonably believe to be a relevant child." There's no limit to how long that delay can be.
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It gets worse. In the description of the offence "It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the conduct alleged to constitute the offence consisted only of making representations about the timing of a notification under section 72 ...
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So even had this Bill been in force at the time, this offence could not have been used against anybody. the course of the scandal would have been entirely unaffected.
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But Makin did not document a single instance of somebody being prevented from reporting or being threatened if they did report. Instead, there was an unspoken consensus - all the way up to the Archbishop of Canterbury - that keeping quiet about Smyth was the right thing to do.
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The biggest abuse scandal to hit the Church of England in recent years was the horrifying abuses perpetrated by John Smyth. Keith Makin produced a detailed report into events for the church. This led to the resignation in disgrace of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury.
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