Failing to report child abuse could become a crime as NSPCC backs law change to prevent cover-ups

By Matt Chorley
Daily Mail
July 9, 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685678/Failing-report-child-abuse-crime-NSPCC-backs-law-change-prevent-cover-ups.html

The Prime Minister said the Government was considering plans to change the law on reporting child abuse

Mr Cameron suggested he favoured changing the law to make it illegal not to report child abuse

Individuals and organisations could be placed under a legal obligation to report child abuse

Home Secretary Theresa May says the wide-ranging inquiry into abuse will examine mandatory reporting

The Government is considering making it illegal not to report child abuse, David Cameron revealed today.

The Prime Minister's remarks came after NSPCC chief Peter Wanless said it should be a crime for someone to keep abuse secret in order to protect an organisation or an individual's reputation.

Mr Cameron, speaking during Prime Minister's Questions today, said: 'It may well be time to take that kind of step forward.'

Home Secretary Theresa May had earlier left the door open to a change in the law in response to allegations that politicians, and institutions including the government, the BBC, the NHS and the Church were part of an Establishment cover-up of decades of sexual abuse.

In a major change in policy, Mr Wanless, who is leading a review into the Home Office's handling of abuse allegations, said he now backed so-called 'mandatory reporting' of abuse.

Mr Wanless told the BBC: 'If someone consciously knows that there is a crime committed against a child, and does nothing about it because they put the reputation of the organisation above the safety of that child, that should be a criminal offence.'

He also backed the idea of imposing a duty on hospitals, boarding schools and children's homes to report abuse.

As recently as March the NSPCC said it was opposed to 'blanket mandatory reporting'.

The charity previously said it felt 'criminal sanction against those who hesitate is unfair', but added that the law should focus on people in positions of responsibility who have failed to act.

The government has ordered two inquiries in response to growing public concern about the way allegations of abuse were dealt with.

Mr Wanless is examining how the Home Office dealt with records dating from 1979, after it emerged 114 relevant files are missing, presumed to have been destroyed.

A separate, more wide-ranging, inquiry into how abuse was dealt with in every corner of society is being carried out by a panel chaired by former High Court judge Baroness Butler-Sloss.

Former Tory Cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan has urged the government to consider mandatory reporting of abuse as part of the reviews.

'As there is still no duty to report suspected abuse, .... the inquiries [should] look again at mandatory reporting of suspected abuse in regulated activities.

'I have already discussed that with the for Education and hope that the Home Secretary will take it up as well.'

In the Commons, Mrs May indicated that she expects the panel inquiry to examine whether there are 'any gaps in what we currently do that mean we are not properly protecting children and, if there are, what appropriate mechanisms could be put in place to ensure that those gaps are filled'.

The prospect of mandatory reporting has been welcomed by other charities.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said: 'I think this is a really significant U-turn for the NSPCC and hugely welcome - it's a big step in the right direction.'

A lawyer who represents 176 victims of disgraced television personality and serial abuser Jimmy Savile welcomed the NSPCC's turnaround.

Liz Dux, a lawyer with Slater & Gordon, said: 'The NSPCC's backing for mandatory reporting is a welcome and significant moment in our fight to protect future children from predators like Savile, Harris, Smith and Hall.

'This, coupled with an announcement earlier this week by Theresa May that an independent inquiry is to be held, signals we are moving in the right direction - the victims will take some heart.

'Universally the victims I work with say they want change, they support mandatory reporting.

'We must not pass up this opportunity to protect our children and we must not delude ourselves that outrages like these ones will never happen again - if we don't act they could.

Ms Dux called for mandatory reporting to be brought in in open institutions such as schools, as well as closed institutions.

'I would urge the NSPCC to go one step further and back mandatory reporting for both open and closed institutions,' she said.

'There are examples where mandatory reporting would have stopped offenders in open institutions as well, why should the children there not be afforded the same safeguards?'