NSPCC: Police failure to tackle child sex abuse ‘not good enough’
'It’s simply not good enough that the police are still failing to properly investigate child sexual abuse and exploitation'
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The police response to child sexual abuse has been patchy, with some forces failing to live up to their initial commitments to confront the scale of the crime, according to an official report.
The NSPCC said that it was “simply not good enough” that police were still failing to investigate properly serious allegations despite a huge shift in resources to child protection units after the exposure of Jimmy Savile and a series of scandals involving institutional abuse.
The handling of child abuse complaints by one force, Surrey, was criticised as “inadequate”. The force’s departing chief constable, Lynne Owens, has been named as the new head of the National Crime Agency, the body that leads national and international investigations into paedophile rings.
“It’s simply not good enough that the police are still failing to properly investigate child sexual abuse and exploitation,” said an NSPCC spokesman. “We understand police forces are under tremendous pressure but child protection is not new and we are deeply concerned that they are still falling short in some areas.”
The report by police watchdog the Inspectorate of Constabulary said that there was a wide variation in training between forces.
Three other forces have been given the same inadequate rating for their handling of domestic abuse investigations, including Essex, which was investigated for a string of blunders that led to the deaths of three women and a child in cases in 2008 and 2011.
The watchdog found that detectives were close to being overwhelmed by a surge of domestic abuse cases that are blamed for the deaths of seven women every month. Inspectors uncovered a “postcode lottery” within England and Wales with some men suspected of attacking current or former partners being more than twice as likely to be arrested by some forces than others.
However, the inspectorate said there had been a marked improvement in the way that police handle complaints of domestic abuse, 18 months after an earlier damning report that showed a “startling lack of awareness” about the issue.
Surrey police said it was investing an extra £4.9m to protect the vulnerable, but had struggled to keep up with a big increase in reported crimes.
Chief Constable Lynne Owens said: “We want the public to feel confident to report what are some of the most horrific and insidious crimes, and know they will get the support they need from us.”