Education Committee 

Oral evidence: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, HC 943

Tuesday 17 January 2023

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 17 January 2023.

Watch the meeting 

Members present: Mr Robin Walker (Chair); Caroline Ansell; Miriam Cates; Mrs Flick Drummond; Anna Firth; Nick Fletcher; Kim Johnson; Andrew Lewer; Ian Mearns.

Questions 1 - 66

Witnesses

I: Professor Alexis Jay OBE, Chair, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Ivor Frank, Panel member, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and John O’Brien, Secretary, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Professor Alexis Jay OBE, Ivor Frank and John O’Brien.

Q1                Chair: Good morning and welcome to today’s session on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Before we start, I want to make sure that anyone watching the session is aware that some of the content discussed might be of a distressing nature. If you are concerned about anyone who has experienced sexual abuse, please contact the NSPCC or 999 if they are in immediate danger. You can also find some suggested support organisations listed on our Committee website.

Professor Jay, thank you very much for joining us this morning and congratulations on what is a monumental piece of work. It is harrowing and makes for very distressing reading at times, but I think we can recognise that the sheer scale of what you have pulled together in these multiple inquiries is incredibly important and invaluable and will help our Committee, as I know you have been helping a number of other Committees in their work.

It would be helpful if you could set some of the context around how the inquiry into child abuse came about. I will hand over to you to do that and perhaps you can introduce your fellow panel members as well.

Professor Jay: Thank you, Chair. We have Mr Ivor Frank, who is a panel member. Do you need any further introduction?

Chair: That is fine. I think we have some background as well.

Professor Jay: We also have John O’Brien, who is secretary to the inquiry, one of the three statutory roles associated with the public inquiry.

I anticipated that you might want some introductory statement, which I am happy to provide. To give you a very brief overview of the inquiry’s work over the past seven years, the inquiry was set up by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary. That was in the wake of a number of high-profile issues around child sexual abuse that had come to light at that time and were of increasing public concern, I think it is safe to say.

The inquiry was asked to examine whether state and non-state institutions in England and Wales had failed in their responsibility to protect children from sexual abuse. There were no time parameters set for the inquiry. The furthest back we went was to the beginning of the child migrant scheme in the 1920s. We made that our first investigation because the victims were ageing and many were deceased, so that is why we started there.

Through our investigations, we looked in depth at 15 separate areas of institutional life, including religious institutions, schools, local authority care and custodial institutions. We held 325 days of public hearings, processed over 2 million pages of evidence and heard from 725 witnesses, and we made 107 recommendations in total. We made 87 recommendations as we proceeded with publishing the individual reports as we conducted the public hearings. In the final report, we made a further 20 recommendations, making a total of 107. Six of the 20 were repeated from previous recommendations; you may want to ask us about that. That was because we were dissatisfied with the response that had been made to them at the time they were originally published.

We heard from over 7,300 victims and survivors; 94 complainants and victims and survivors gave evidence at the public hearings in person and others gave evidence in different ways. Over 6,200 shared their experiences at the inquiry’s Truth Project. The Truth Project was a unique feature of this inquiry, or any public inquiry; trained facilitators listened to victims and survivors give their accounts of abuse on a confidential basis. People came forward of their own volition to be heard in the confidential Truth Project, and of course we can comment further about that.

Lastly, nearly 1,800 joined our Victims and Survivors Forum, with many providing their views on different issues that the inquiry was considering. The extent of the involvement was part of our remit that victims and survivors should be at the heart of the inquiry. That is briefly how we did that and ensured that that occurred.

This work was complemented by a range of research and engagement projects, including significant research and analysis of the experiences of victims and survivors. In total, over the past seven years, the inquiry has published 61 reports examining different aspects of institutional responses to child sexual abuse in England and Wales. Our findings are based on this body of work.

The nature and the scale of the abuse we encountered was shocking and deeply disturbing, and it is not just an historical aberration. You will have heard myself and others say this. This did not just cover issues and horrible crimes that happened decades ago. This is an ever-increasing problem and we considered it to be a national epidemic. As an illustration, in any year group of 200 children, it is estimated that 10 boys and more than 30 girls will experience sexual abuse before the age of 16—one fifth of the total.

Child sexual abuse is vile and degrading and its consequences are frequently lifelong for the victims, affecting education, employment, income, physical and mental health, relationships and many other areas. It is often accompanied by extreme violence and acts of sadism intended to humiliate the child victim.

Turning to the institutional responses to child sexual abuse, I will briefly highlight some of our findings. We found that institutional culture and complacency often demanded silence on the subject. Some institutions went to extreme length to avoid contact with the statutory agencies when allegations arose and they did not always inform parents. There was too much deference to those seen as persons of prominence, within institutions and by those whose job it was to investigate concerns. We found that poor leadership, poor training and poor staff support in some care and educational settings left staff unaware of how to respond to concerns about sexual abuse or too afraid of potential consequences to act. Identification of indicators of sexual abuse were also problematic in some settings and in others it was simply normalised as a means of dealing with it.

There was also a widespread failure by institutional staff to recognise that sexual contact between children and young people could be coercive and extremely harmful. Of course, we were also hugely concerned about the growing problem of online facilitated child sexual abuse. As you know, the scale of abuse in this area is staggering, and I am sure that we will discuss that further in this session.

Turning to the report’s recommendations, as I have said, we made 20 recommendations in our final report. These are based on the evidence and information the inquiry has gathered over the past seven years. They are designed to operate as a package and we did not consider them a list from which a number could be selected. As I have already said, six of the recommendations that had been made by the inquiry previously were not accepted by the Government. We have restated them as we consider them critical. These fall into areas that I understand may be of interest to this Committee, including the care system and custodial institutions.

I will not go into the individual recommendations at this stage. We will come on to that. However, I would like to conclude by saying that because the inquiry has now finished its work, we will not be here to scrutinise the Government’s responses to these recommendations and, therefore, it would be of great assistance if the Committee could consider doing so as part of its overall scrutiny of this area. Thank you.

Q2                Chair: Thank you very much. That was a very comprehensive and very useful introduction, which touched on a number of the issues that we will want to come back to in our questioning.

You mentioned the point about the recommendations and following through. One of the things that I was very impressed by on your website—compared to many public inquiries where you can see something that is quite static; it will have the recommendations and you will have to look elsewhere for the responses—was the very helpful guide as to what feedback you had had on the recommendations from the English and Welsh Governments. That was very useful to be able to see and scrutinise in our work.

It was striking how many of the recommendations could be described perhaps as a work in progress rather than things that had been implemented, I think, from reading through some of those. How have you felt the Home Office, DFE and other relevant Departments have reacted to your recommendations overall?

Professor Jay: At this stage, we can say that there are those that have been accepted—that accounts for nearly 80% of them—but that is not the same as being implemented. We have some information about those that have definitely been implemented, which Mr O’Brien can provide with if you would like.

Chair: That would be helpful, thank you.

John O’Brien: So far, we have had 46 that have been both accepted and implemented. We have had 10 accepted with implementation currently under way. Twelve have been accepted, but we are not aware of any action that has been taken since those were accepted. Six are under consideration and 13 have been rejected by various bodies. I have a further breakdown, which I can leave at the end if you would find that useful.

Q3                Chair: The Committee would be very happy to look at that if you can send us something in writing afterwards. We can certainly take that into account. That, again, is a helpful summary and, as I say, one of the more impressive and useful resources is being able to look through the website. You made the point that, obviously, your inquiry has concluded. You have made your final report now and the panel will soon disband. What steps do you think this Committee, and indeed other parliamentarians, can now take to help ensure that the inquiry’s recommendations are taken forward? Also, you mentioned your Victims and Survivors Forum. Will that be able to continue?

Professor Jay: I am afraid not because it was specifically set up under the aegis of the public inquiry and, of course, the funding of it came from the public inquiry. A lot of it was virtual. It is possible that Mr O’Brien could say something more about that, but we are unable to take anything further beyond 31 March. We know that a number of victims and survivors are very keen to continue to press for the implementation of the recommendations and wish to be actively involved in it in some way or other.

John O’Brien: The Victims and Survivors Consultative Panel was at various points about eight people specifically employed to provide advice to the chair and the panel on the victims’ perspective. They are all very keen to continue in some way, shape or form and have been talking to various organisations, academic and others—I know that some of them met their local MP to talk about an all-parliamentary committee on this. Even though we cannot continue with them, they are keen to continue to do that and are seeking to do that in ways that would expand beyond the life of the inquiry.

Q4                Chair: That is helpful to understand. More broadly, the public inquiry comes to an end, in terms of that. I mentioned your website and the resource there, and presumably, that can be kept going in some form. Does the Department take that on, the Home Office who commissioned the inquiry or how does that—

John O’Brien: Yes, the website will effectively be frozen with information on it. There will be some records that go to the National Archives and will be subject to the normal restrictions of however many years are applicable to that particular category, and some will go to the Home Office. Some will be destroyed, particularly direct testimony from victims and survivors in the Truth Project because it contains information of a very personal nature. But there will be sufficient on our website and that goes to the archives for the public and those who want to do research on this to have access to the majority of the information that was redacted.

Q5                Ian Mearns: From my perspective, the crucial point is that while you have outlined there, John, how many different recommendations have been accepted and implemented, the ongoing implementation is vital. I think Andrew will come back to the suggestion about having a moderating agency to do that, but it seems to me that this has to be constantly watched. Do you have any particular thoughts about how that should be done?

Professor Jay: You are absolutely right. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Public inquiries don’t come along all that frequently and we have to grasp the findings of this inquiry and take them forward. It is essential that that happens. We did, of course, make an important recommendation in the final report about the creation of a child protection authority. We had anticipated that, at that stage, it could concentrate on the implementation issues and take that forward and make it an important part of its work.

However, as we know, these things don’t happen overnight and we think there is a potential hiatus here that, given the many important activities that Parliament is dealing with, would make it easy for this to be overlooked. We are very keen that there should be some role for this Committee, and any others who have a direct interest in this, to ensure that that does not happen.

Q6                Ian Mearns: The other question is that a number of the recommendations seem to have been rejected outright by the Department. I know that you followed up on that by making further recommendations. How do you suggest that, as a Select Committee of Parliament, we could help with that particular element of the findings and recommendations that you have made?

Ivor Frank: Thank you for the invitation to be here and thank you for the question. It has been absolutely clear to us from day one that there was something quite unique about this inquiry, and about the constituency we had been asked to examine and who contributed so much to it. They have been most anxious from the beginning: “What is going to happen when you cease to exist?” That is why we have concentrated—you see it in some of our recommendations—on making recommendations that will continue beyond the life of the inquiry.

I am sure that we will come back to some of those individually in due course, but one of the things that this Committee could do most helpfully is to ensure that the message gets across that this is not a smorgasbord to pick and choose which we like and which we do not, what is easy and what is not. This is an integrated package that is designed to protect children from serious crime. For that reason, we urge that the message gets across.

If I may use this simple example—it may be over-simple—on a freezing cold day like today, we do not send our children out with one shoe and one glove. We put on them both shoes, both gloves, a hat, a scarf and an overcoat, and we make sure they are protected from the danger in that instance of the cold. But you get the point: it isn’t a pick and mix. You won’t say to a child, “Well, you have one shoe on. That will do you.”

I have to say that some of the rejections we have seen give the impression that someone has not got that point on board. One thing that this Committee could very usefully do is make sure that the message gets across that this is an integrated package of protection for children from a serious crime; it is not a pick and mix.

Q7                Chair: On that protection and the reasons for it, you have already set out, Professor Jay, that the figure of around one in five children are likely to suffer from this, which is genuinely shocking. It is something that we should all be deeply concerned about. Can you go into any more detail on that prevalence? Also, I think the report highlights that this is not about history. This is, unfortunately, ongoing. It is a real and present threat. Is there anything more you can say about that prevalence over time?

Professor Jay: In almost every investigation report that we published following public hearings, we made the point that the prevalence that we were describing—for example, in a school or in a series of children’s homes in a local authority area—is likely to be an underreporting of it because it is a crime that was continuous, not to be fully identified for a start, and underreported.

The figures we gave you I think were provided by the ONS—so they were as good as we could find about all of this and, indeed, they have been supported by other organisations that take a statistical interest in these matters. However, we all have to say that they are underreported and, indeed, go back decades. Even then there must be tens of thousands of children and adult survivors who have experienced this who have had no help and certainly no justice.

In general, we continue to believe that there is a significant amount of underreporting because of the nature of the criminality concerned, and partly because of society’s attitude to this crime and the wall of silence that has surrounded it for so long in every decade, including now. We make a number of statements about this, including in the final report, stating that we have to get past that and make it part of a national conversation about this hugely damaging crime, just as we would with other similarly serious forms of criminality.

To do that, we have to get people to start talking about it and, most especially, feeling confident that there will not be the barriers that we have identified to what we call disclosure at all levels. We have seen that, absolutely, throughout the inquiry and continue to, for all sorts of reasons that we could discuss with you, but that remains a continuing feature and a serious concern.

We refer to the fact that in the descriptions of what happens, people are reluctant to use the proper language for describing this, the nature of sexual abuse or words like masturbation or mutual masturbation or whatever. They are very reluctant to use those descriptions about oral and anal sex and various other forms of terminology that tend to obfuscate the seriousness of what has actually happened to children in our lifetime and in the past.

We are very keen on improving the openness about these matters—certainly not to be prurient but to describe it as it ought to be described, factually, correctly—and the ceaseless, perhaps unintended collusion to obfuscate the crime of child sexual abuse. We are very keen that that should happen.

I should also say, when we looked, for example, at other religious organisations—other than Anglicans and Catholics, which are the dominant religions—we found that, in some areas, they did not actually have words for some of what we were describing. That was an additional problem for anybody trying to make a disclosure—that they did not have the language at all.

Q8                Chair: Those words and descriptions, if you look at some of the publications within your Truth Project element, are quite striking from the perspective of using very blunt, but, as you say, accurate terminology that perhaps we are more used to being covered up in speech.

You commented in your report that limitations with the current data collection hampered the inquiry’s ability to conduct a realistic assessment of how many children are at risk. What can be done to improve that and where do you think the gaps still are in the current data?

Professor Jay: There is one particular one that we drew attention to and, in fact, made a recommendation on. For the benefit of the Committee, I am not sure that everyone would be aware that there is a distinction between child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation, and the gap there is extraordinary. For example, in child sexual exploitation, we have made a recommendation that the police and local authorities must identify the ethnicity of children and those who are the subject of allegations or investigations. We looked at case studies in six areas of the country, geographically balanced. None of the police forces in those areas, for example, recorded the ethnicity and few of the local authorities did. There are important reasons, and we do this in lots of other walks of life, but they were not doing so.

In some instances, when we asked the police why they weren’t doing it, it was for fear of offending people by asking about ethnicity. Of course, that does not seem to apply elsewhere, but that applied there. They did not know how to ask and were embarrassed about it and so they just don’t do it. That has meant that a false impression is being created of the position overall.

As well as that, in general terms—for example, with child sexual exploitation—we have a further distortion of the volume and the nature of it and where it is occurring, which in our view has led to the wrong impression that this is a problem on the wane, and it is not. It is a serious and continuing problem. But I tell you about the distortions and the poor data collection because there might be a view that child sexual exploitation is something that occurred about 10 years ago and only in northern towns. None of that is correct.

That is an example of a recommendation we have made in general terms about child sexual exploitation data collection. There are others as well at different points, but that is the most important one.

Q9                Chair: There is a specific recommendation for recording of ethnicity. From memory, that has been accepted by the police generally, but are you saying that, culturally, it is not being done effectively?

Professor Jay: This was a very recent area of investigation for us in six geographically diverse areas, and none of them was accurately reporting the level of this. At the same time, we looked at individual child cases in each of those areas, where it was perfectly clear there were children who were the subject of sexual exploitation. None of that was recorded elsewhere.

Q10            Chair: Your report also picks up that children who are widely considered to be at risk of exploitation are not necessarily being registered as such, so they are not getting the protection that they should be offered.

Professor Jay: Absolutely, and they are not getting the kind of support that they need. We regard it as a very significant lacuna.

Q11            Ian Mearns: Robin has already hinted at the data, and I think the inquiry made the recommendation that the UK and Welsh Governments improve data collection by establishing a core dataset. Could you explain how data on sexual abuse is currently gathered by separate agencies and how a core dataset would work in practice, and would that help to address the problems you describe?

Professor Jay: As far as we are aware, it would be up to local areas to determine what data they collect. There isn’t a national core dataset on any of the areas of child sexual abuse. For example, the local safeguarding partnerships might collect local data. There is nothing wrong with that because they need to respond to local need, of course, but there is no national position where a core dataset is applied everywhere.

Q12            Ian Mearns: I am aware, because I am long in the tooth, that the previous Labour Government was in the process of trying to establish a core dataset about children called ContactPoint, which may well have been helpful in this regard, to some extent. Children, particularly if they are vulnerable and are being abused, can quite often be moved between the geographical areas represented by different safeguarding panels, so I take it that you are suggesting a national database of that nature would be extremely useful.

Professor Jay: We absolutely do and you are quite right to point that out, often to the huge detriment of the children concerned. Data sharing is another issue, as I think you were hinting at there, but absolutely. We do not have an accurate picture, but the one area in which the data collection is much better is the work carried out by the Internet Watch Foundation on online facilitated abuse. Mr Frank wants to say something.

Ivor Frank: Yes. Again, thank you for the question. The importance of this recommendation for a dataset is perhaps illustrated by something that we have recommended and which has been accepted—marvellous, but what is the reality behind it? We know that for many years now we have had special measures available to protect witnesses who are victims of sexual abuse when they give evidence in court in criminal cases. We know, thanks to the work of this inquiry, that that is to be extended to civil cases as well now—marvellous.

I remember asking—this is fresh in my memory—the head of the CPS England and the head of the CPS Wales, “What evidence do you have that these measures are applied for in criminal cases in England or in Wales?” and the answer was, “We have no way of knowing”. No one is asking the question. No one is writing it down or collating the information. One of the things that illustrates the importance of having a child protection agency is to ensure that questions like that do not go unasked.

Q13            Ian Mearns: Thank you very much. What evidence did you hear about the impact of sexual abuse on victims and survivors’ education and their prospects for the future?

Professor Jay: We heard a very great deal about that from the victims and survivors through the various means that I described earlier. It was one of the most important aspects, even going back to the child migrant scheme in the 1920s and, further, when children were sent to different parts of the Commonwealth usually with the promise of a better life. Too often, young children were simply put to work—hard labour—and their education was never provided at all.

From the crudest and worst examples of that all those years ago, the effect on the education of children who had been abused was terrible and, of course, it affected their life chances as well. As I mentioned earlier, there were so many ways in which that had an impact on them. Of course, they lacked confidence. Some of them could not read and write, and that was quite recently as well. On most occasions, the school did not pick up the indicators, signs and symptoms that something might not be right with the children. I can come back to that and we can talk about that—the residential school setting and so on. This could equally apply to the children who were being abused in a different network or in a family setting or whatever.

Of course, there were other issues around children who were being abused in an educational setting by teachers and ancillary workers and others, which is a different set of problems. The impact on their direct experience of education was enormous and it affected their entire life of course: their income and career as such, but also because they were so damaged by the experience and nobody recognised the trauma in the school setting or outside it. They were not given any form of remedial help that we were aware of. There are many things that have improved, certainly in the last 20 years, but nevertheless, that continues to be an issue.

Q14            Ian Mearns: Given one of the statistics that you gave us at the outset—that something like 20% of youngsters are still subjected to some measure of abuse now—that is quite obvious, isn’t it?

Professor Jay: Yes, but I would separate that from the other issue—the abusers or the perpetrators within an educational setting is a different matter.

Q15            Ian Mearns: The inquiry report states that some victims and survivors were prevented from attending school or receiving an education. That is probably self-evident for some individuals, but were there particular ways that children were being prevented from attending school, and by whom? Was it usually by the perpetrator themselves or someone in collusion with a perpetrator?

Professor Jay: It depends on what the setting for the abuse was. As we have mentioned, it was so often accompanied by violence, which clearly would have been evident. Therefore, avoiding the potential for the school to identify that would be part of it. However, most of the issues in educational settings concerned staff in those settings and the barriers they put up to children, rather than outwith, although that was a factor, of course.

Q16            Ian Mearns: Is there any sort of current evidence to your inquiry suggesting that that sort of exclusion from school by perpetrators or family members or by people within educational settings is still continuing to any great extent now?

Professor Jay: It depends on the status of the abuser—if it was in the school setting, of course—whether they could impose such a thing or exclude. We were primarily looking at the institutions’ responses to abuse taking place rather than within the family. That was a hugely important area, but it was not necessarily directly within our scope.

Q17            Ian Mearns: One of the questions that springs to my mind, because it is something that we deal with quite regularly now, in the aftermath of covid—I know that we are not over it completely yet, but in the aftermath of the lockdowns and so on—is about the fact that we have seen a significant burgeoning of the number of youngsters who are not in an educational setting being educated at home. Is that a very significant concern to you and your inquiry panel members?

Professor Jay: It wasn’t specifically part of the remit of the inquiry to look at any of that but, of course, we were aware of the dimension of the lockdown and how that affected child protection. I can only talk about it from that perspective—that it was almost like captive victims in a home setting where the source of the abuse was in that setting.

We did identity in our final report that, for example, social workers were prevented from entering a household, so were confined and felt very bad about the fact that they were conducting assessments and investigations on the doorstep, which I think offended their professional sense of what was right and proper to do. It was certainly inadequate. There was no specific data on this that we could find, but we certainly heard evidence that that was a serious problem in the assessment of child protection, where children were not in school.

Q18            Mrs Flick Drummond: One of the things that we are very keen on is a register of home-schooled children. Do you think that that would help identify and get the statutory authorities involved more?

Professor Jay: I am afraid I cannot answer that, because it is not part of our scope. The problems that we were identifying in educational settings concerned those who were abusers primarily in those settings or associated with those settings. It might be within the school grounds or it might be with coaches. I think Mr O’Brien referred to tutors and coaches as part of the recommendation that they ought to be registered.

Q19            Anna Firth: On exactly the same point, I understand that this is not in the scope of your inquiry but, none the less, it is hugely helpful for us to have you here today. The context is that we know that in 2020-21, 116,000 children were apparently home-educated. That is an increase of 34% on the year before and it is a growing trend.

One thing that was in the Schools Bill was a measure to place a duty on local authorities in England to establish and maintain a register of children not in school. Of course, that would be not only to ensure those children are getting a suitable education, but for safeguarding vulnerable children. Therefore, it would be very interesting for us to have your expert view on whether you think that is a sensible proposal and one that this Committee should continue to push for.

Professor Jay: I am afraid that that is, again, not within the scope of the inquiry but, undoubtedly, what you are describing has been an issue for a very long time and of course has had further scrutiny. I am pleased to say that one of the positive things to emerge from this is how important it is to know when children are out of school or, indeed, moving around in different settings where there is no trace of the child. This was not an area we covered, but I can appreciate that there are clearly benefits in having a proper register.

Q20            Ian Mearns: One other aspect, given that we are the Education Select Committee, is victims of child sexual abuse being lost to the education system in total. Did you have any strong evidence of youngsters just dropping out of the system—and then potentially, by the way, not just dropping out of education but becoming embroiled in the criminal justice system? Did you get any significant evidence of that?

Ivor Frank: May I preface my response to that with this observation? You will appreciate that the terms of reference that we were working under were not the same as yours. I know you understand that, but this is being live-streamed. The public should understand that our focus was on the sexual abuse of children, not on more granular issues relating to their education. However, we recognise that there is a huge amount of overlap between the interests of this Committee and the work we were doing, but the emphasis might be slightly different. That is the point.

Much of the evidence we heard about the paucity of education for victims and survivors of sexual abuse came not in the direct public hearings, but from what we heard in the Truth sessions. The point about those sessions is that they were led by the victims and survivors themselves. We did not probe and cross-examine. We specifically made a point of not doing that to make it a comfortable experience for them. Therefore, much of the granularity that we would have been interested to explore we did not, for good reason.

What that emphasises again, if I might come back to this, is the importance of the fact that although we as an inquiry must come to an end, that does not mean that the work of the inquiry must come to an end. The questions that we were unable to explore with that degree of granularity, which this Committee, happily, is already doing to some extent, should continue and we encourage it to do so. Of course, I come back—I may sound like a broken record—to the importance of our recommendation No. 2 for the child protection agency and the Minister.

Chair: Thank you. I think you made a very strong case for this Committee to continue to look into these things, which we undoubtedly shall. I will hand over to Miriam on the subject of residential schools.

Q21            Miriam Cates: One of the investigations that your inquiry conducted was into sexual abuse in residential and other schools. How many schools did you investigate and what was the range or type of schools?

Professor Jay: I will briefly tell you the detail of that. This investigation was in different phases. Phase 1 was residential specialist music schools and special schools—four music schools, all of which had had allegations being made, with five former staff being convicted or cautioned at three of the four. Phase 2 was mainstream schools where staff had been convicted. We looked at one state school for four to eight year-olds, one state secondary and one independent boarding school.

Separately to that, we did something called the closed schools report. This covers schools that were operational between the 1950s and the early 1990s but had subsequently either been taken over or closed. There were eight schools in the closed schools report. Four were fee-paying prep schools. I can tell you where they were if you are interested—Sherborne, St George’s and so on. Three were described as schools for “unruly children” and that included St William’s, which was a community home.

For all of those in what was called the closed schools report, there were no systems of safeguarding in existence, even throughout that 40-year period. We also considered educational settings in many other areas that were residential, including the English Benedictine Congregation—Ampleforth, Downside and St Benedict’s—and unregistered schools in the religious organisations and settings that were quite separate from that. We did a literature review summarising the existing research in 15 mainstream and residential school settings and, as Ivor has said, an analysis of the Truth Project data on school settings.

Perhaps I can respond on another aspect that I am sure you would want to know about. Residential educational settings were described to us—I think by the Chief Inspector of Prisons at the time—as the ideal environment for grooming, as the children have an increased dependency on all of those around them. You would know that. Other vulnerabilities included children with disabilities, where there have been relatively few convictions in these settings, which we suspect should have been much higher. One of the very few factors that is research-based about sexual abuse is that children with disabilities were three times more likely to experience sexual abuse in these settings. Signs went unnoticed and unresponded to and they were very often not referred at all to statutory agencies. Some staff remained reluctant to report concerns or seek advice about any of the issues that were of concern to them.

In a closed environment, in many settings, it tended to make children much more vulnerable for all of those reasons, including, especially, children in residential special schools, who were often at some distance from their parents. Often, again by the nature of the specialist disability that they had, there might be very few settings that would be appropriate for children with certain kinds of disabilities across the UK, for example. It could often be the case that their parents would be at a distance, not by choice. The contact with parents and their communities was much harder, and much more so for those with disabilities, who occasionally had communication problems, so they could scarcely tell anyone, and the sense that there were no trusted adults or people who understood. It creates an environment where children are not encouraged or enabled.

That didn’t apply to all, but we did think, of course, that it was—as in many other areas—under-reported, with the desire to contain these matters within the school. There were many other things that were a problem, including the governance. That was very problematic in many places.

Q22            Miriam Cates: The report found that even when children did have the courage or the opportunity to speak truth to power, power wasn’t interested in taking it any further. What were the range of reasons for that and what do you think is the most prevalent one today?

Professor Jay: The most prevalent response across almost the entire inquiry was the concerns we had about the protectionism of the institutions. That is not every institution and not all of the time—of course not. But where this matter was concerned, the desire, especially of institutions of longer standing, and we looked at many of those, was to prioritise the reputation of either individuals or the institution—schools are a very good example of that, including, of course residential schools—over the protection of children. It became far more important that this information did not get out into the public domain. Even in the sense of contacting the statutory authorities for advice, help and assistance with leading investigations, that was a primary problem. It is a curve across the board, but especially so in traditional establishments where change was slow.

Q23            Miriam Cates: The inquiry reported, as you have made clear, that school is not as safe for some children as it should be, and you drew attention to the fact that many staff are not aware of their roles in safeguarding.

Professor Jay: Yes, that is right.

Q24            Miriam Cates: We have a situation now in most schools, I imagine, where there is a safeguarding lead who is supposed to co-ordinate safeguarding concern responses, but do you think that—I do not know how to phrase this—lets other staff off the hook? Do you think that teachers without specific safeguarding roles have an adequate understanding of their responsibilities and what they should do?

Professor Jay: It is difficult for us to judge across the piece, but more or less up to date—some of them who were in the residential schools investigation, of course, were very well informed. It may well have been more non-recent there, but in general terms, training on its own will not do it. This is about a much bigger issue than being adequately trained. That is essential—that is a basic—but there are all sorts of issues that we may come on to about proper selection of staff and doing far more, apart from basic checks, to understand a little more about individuals who could potentially be predatory. There is no formula for doing that, but the selection of staff and the culture and leadership from the top applies to all institutions, not just schools, but schools are a very strong example of that. Issues around culture and leadership and governance really mattered as well.

Q25            Miriam Cates: I guess you are referring to the idea of safer recruitment processes that actively put off people who are predatory from applying for the job in the first place and then are designed to discover those people in the process if they do. But it is human nature, sadly, isn’t it, that most of us think that the people we know or someone we have been working with could not possibly commit a crime like this?

Professor Jay: Absolutely.

Miriam Cates: How do you continually embed this healthy suspicion in people working with children to be constantly on the lookout?

Professor Jay: It is very difficult. Of course, the basic checks must always be carried out, and that was another weakness we found—around carrying out basic checks, not just some time ago but currently, although there are clearly systems. Again, Mr O’Brien can talk about the DBS and issues surrounding all of that. We did hear in the religious institutions, for example—a completely different setting, but of course many of them run schools as well—that they were introducing psychological testing. This was for the recruitment of priests and others, but it is certainly not widespread. Given the prevalence that appears to be the case in so many schools, it feels like these children in residential schools, and especially the ones we have talked about, are captive victims at times, if we don’t ensure that all of these checks are carried out. It has been said, of course, that this could put good people off. Well, the protection of the children is more important.

Q26            Andrew Lewer: This question follows on from that. What you just said at the end there is very relevant—that in recent years, there has been more emphasis and much of the thrust of the report is rightly about taking accusations of abuse seriously. Also, rightly, the vast majority of today’s meeting is all about abuse victims, but there are other victims, and those are people who have been falsely accused. As you said in your report, public opprobrium is rightly directed at those who deliberately set out to abuse children, but also at those who have not done so. Consequently, opprobrium falls on those who have been falsely accused of these crimes, such as with Operation Midland and Carl Beech—not at all the only fantasist around who makes unwarranted accusations towards people. There are a lot of other individuals who have done that and are still doing that, and also those within education whose lives can be damaged or indeed destroyed by false accusations.

In seeking to implement your recommendations, the recommendations of the report and, more broadly and absolutely rightly, to tackle abuse, how do we avoid a culture of unwarranted suspicion and take care and heed of those who may be subject to false accusations, either from young people now or historically, given the damage it can do to those individuals’ lives?

Professor Jay: I certainly don’t underestimate the significance and the impact on those individuals who have indeed been falsely accused, but it was not the purpose of our inquiry to look at that at all. The focus was on the victims. It does occur, but I can only say that a much more open culture and proper investigation of everything that may be raised is hugely important. Allegations should always be taken seriously and they should always be thoroughly investigated, and I emphasise “thoroughly”. We believe all of that is relevant to the incidents where people have been falsely accused. Before rushing to any kind of judgment or public statements, it must be thoroughly investigated, but the alleged victims must always be taken seriously. Ivor, do you want to say anything?

Ivor Frank: Yes. Of course, there will be instances of accusations that are not borne out. Some of them will be not borne out because there wasn’t evidence enough to prove them, not because they were not true. There is a difference, but bear in mind that there have been instances where they are plainly not true and people have been falsely accused. They are devastating to those individuals and we, as an inquiry, have been very conscious of that from the beginning. It is right to say that the evidence that we heard from what I regard as relatively objective observers on this issue—the people who dole out money when things go wrong, the insurance industry—was that the instances of untrue allegations being made are infinitesimally small. There were very few such allegations. It doesn’t mean that they are not serious when they are made, but it is important to keep perspective on it. It is, of course, devastating from any individual’s point of view. I am very much conscious of that, but perhaps people don’t always recognise this.

One of the advantages of having a mandatory reporting obligation is that if an allegation is made and investigated, it does not mean that it carries any implication that it is true. It means that it is being investigated and no more, so the fact of an investigation does not need to carry the stigma that we have seen to date. I am not saying that it won’t necessarily absolve any individual who is under suspicion of all stigma. It may be almost impossible to do that—by the very nature of the allegation that is being investigated, I am not sure we will ever do that. Perhaps we should not want to reach a status where society regards allegations of child sexual abuse as, “Oh, it’s just another allegation”. I hope we never reach that stage.

It is immoral, it is illegal, it is unlawful and it is criminal and it should remain so, but that does not mean that every individual who is under suspicion should be treated as if they are guilty. We still have a position in this country where you are innocent until proven guilty and long may that remain the case.

Andrew Lewer: We do have that, but I think it is fair to say that it has an enormous impact on the lives of everybody subject to accusations like this. I am interested in what you say there, Professor Jay, about drawing  a distinction between an investigation and something that becomes public. As I say, it is entirely right that the vast majority of today’s discussion is all about the huge numbers of people we have heard about who have suffered abuse, but this is a real category of people whose lives have been severely damaged. Your report inevitably has implications for those people, because of the manner in which accusations are investigated or a change to the way they are investigated as a result of what you have produced in your report.

I am interested in what you say and I hear some of the distinctions you draw, but I think this is important, in the light of Operation Midland and teachers and others who have had their lives damaged this way—as well as the obvious and right thrust of the report on the huge numbers of children who have suffered over many years.

Q27            Mrs Flick Drummond: I want to ask about recommendation 15 on limitation. I know this is more of a Home Office issue, but I wanted to know the impact on children if they know that there will only be a short time when they can let the authorities know about their abuse. What are your views on how it should be structured and what it should be?

Ivor Frank: First of all, you will appreciate that this emerged in the course of the evidence that we heard of the number of victims and survivors who had been through a legal process. Some of them were involved and embroiled in it for decades before they were told, “You have no remedy because of the operation of the Limitation Act”. We also know that, on a number of occasions, the courts have said, including the Court of Appeal, “This is not a matter that we can do anything about. This is a matter for Parliament to deal with the Limitation Act. We cannot do it.” I think there was even an instance where the Law Commission recommended to Parliament that it get on and do something, but nothing was done. We took that on board, and we looked at the impact on victims and survivors and the evidence we heard. We came to the conclusion that the operation of the Limitation Act appeared to be acting as an engine of injustice. For that reason, we made the recommendation that we have.

It is obviously a matter for Parliament to work out the exact detail of that, but it seemed to us that the vast majority of those who were in the category of what we call “core participants” were in favour of this—there were some who were not—but it is not a difficult thing to understand. With the very nature of child sexual abuse, it very often is not something that comes to the fore or can be articulated for many years after it has happened, so it is a very unusual category in that sense. I am not sure that, at the time the Limitation Act was passed, they ever had children who were sexually abused in mind. They almost certainly did not, so it is right that we should look at that in the context of the situation today.

It is not a difficult matter to resolve. It would not absolve any complainant in any forensic environment from having to prove their case. It would simply mean that that artificial barrier to having a case heard would be removed. I hope that we have couched it in sufficiently robust, but sensible terms that make that clear.

Professor Jay: I add that of the over 6,000 participants in the Truth Project, the average length of time before making a disclosure to anybody was 25 years.

Q28            Mrs Flick Drummond: Should it be limitless or set at 25 years?

Professor Jay: We don’t have a figure in mind, but you can see that the present position is simply not fit for purpose.

Q29            Kim Johnson: Good morning, panel. I have a couple of questions on looked-after children. Your report states that children in the care of local authorities, especially those in residential and foster care, are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation. In your experience, can you tell us how widespread it is and the impact of outsourcing child social care, including unregulated care, given that many children are now placed out of area?

Professor Jay: I think we are fairly clear that this adds to the vulnerability of children, without any question—children placed out of area or at any distance. Indeed, I understand that the concerns that we had have partly been addressed, but children were being placed in the most unsuitable settings at one stage. It appears that for those who had been the subject of child sexual exploitation—who are particularly vulnerable if they are left on their own, of course—it is the worst possible thing that could happen. We heard at one stage of children who were on a barge or in a tent—it was ridiculous. Even though they are 16 to 18 year-olds, for example, it was entirely inappropriate for them to be placed in that kind of setting. Those children who were subject to child sexual exploitation were absolutely vulnerable. There is no question about that.

I understand that something has subsequently happened and that should not be the case; they should always be in a group setting. We heard that, in some instances, there was a care worker assigned to these kinds of settings during the day, but not 24 hours. I recognise that there are clearly issues around the availability of suitable accommodation for certain ages of looked-after children. There is no doubt about that, but the answer is not for children—and even 16 to 18 year-olds—to be placed in completely inappropriate settings.

Ivor Frank: In due course, as I understand it, you will see from Mr O’Brien a schedule of the individual recommendations and their status. When you do that, may I draw your attention now to one of the recommendations that we made and which has been rejected, specifically on this point? One of the recommendations that we made was that there be a ban on unregulated placements of 17 and 18 year-olds who are experiencing or at risk of child sexual abuse. As I understand it, the reason for that rejection by the Department for Education was, “We do not believe a blanket ban would aid local authorities”. Wait a minute—we are supposed to be protecting children; we are not here to aid local authorities. Of course, we don’t want to be obstructive to them, but the primary purpose ought to be to protect children. We asked the question, “On the rejection, what is the proper basis for that ban?” Thank you for the question, it is very apposite. The question that remains is how on earth can it be justified.

Q30            Kim Johnson: Thank you, Ivor. I think our Select Committee has heard in previous inquiries the impact that unregulated care has and the fact that so many local authorities are using unregulated accommodation. In your view, does it have a greater impact on young people in terms of being subject to sexual abuse and exploitation?

Professor Jay: Absolutely. Their exposure to sexual abuse for the category you describe is unquestionably a concern and it raises the risk level.

Q31            Kim Johnson: Ivor, you mentioned the recommendations. We are aware that the report has asked for all care staff working in care homes to be registered, and that you have put this twice. I am interested to know where that is up to at the moment and about the response from the Government on that particular recommendation.

John O'Brien: I will send you the entire list, but I think that is still, from memory, a rejected one. I will double-check that as I go through this, but I am pretty sure that that one has stayed in the rejected stage.

Professor Jay: I am sure you are aware that this is already in place in other parts of the United Kingdom and has been in place, as I know, in Scotland since 2002. The priority categories for workforce regulation in social care was, first of all, social workers and, secondly, residential childcare workers. That was from 2002 in Scotland. It is a scandal, quite frankly, that it is not implemented in England.

Ivor Frank: Can I add this by way of clarity? Forgive me, we have 107 recommendations; it is difficult to pull them all out of our heads at once. We found that our recommendation, which was made in April 2018, has been rejected by the Department for Education in relation to children’s home staff being professionally registered. It carried out a consultation following our recommendation but decided to take no further action. It committed to keep it under review, which means that nothing will happen.

Q32            Kim Johnson: Thank you for sharing that information with us, Ivor. Like so many other Government reports, we see a plethora of recommendations that are often not implemented. I am sure you believe, like me, that actions speak louder than words when it comes to protecting vulnerable children and young adults.

I want to ask a couple of supplementary questions, because you mentioned the impact that sexual abuse has on adults. I know from the work I did before I was elected that so many people self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. You mentioned the victim panel earlier. What support was available to the people who were involved in giving evidence during those sessions?

John O'Brien: I will deal with the Truth Project first. The Truth Project was where people came along and were in control of what they told us about their experience. We had a team of professional staff who were properly trained to give all sorts of advice and care to victims. Two weeks before they came along, a person would reach out to them, explain the process, talk them through what it would look like, what the environment was like, any difficulties they might have in attending, and ask things like, “Would you like to bring a colleague with you?” Anything that would make the decision to come and share their experience was highlighted at that stage two weeks out. That same support worker would stay in touch with the victim and survivor all the way through. If they did come to the day, that person would be available on the day. If they wanted them to sit in the room while the experience of sharing was happening, they would be allowed to ask the person to sit in the room. If they wanted to bring a friend or another supporter, they could do that.

They then had a debrief, I think is the best way to describe it, with the same support worker after the session itself. After they had left, there was a follow-up that went to 10 days beyond the session, at which point if they still felt that they needed, or might need, support at some future point, we would make sure that they were signposted to the available organisations in their local authority that were able to provide that to them. Essentially, from the inquiry’s perspective, we gave them a month of support. We made sure that they really understood what they would be doing if they came to talk to us, so that they were able to make that decision properly. We supported them on the day itself and for two weeks afterwards.

Q33            Kim Johnson: Thank you, John. I have a final question. The inquiry recommends that the Children Act 1989 be amended so that a court can prevent a local authority from taking action if it concludes that a child in local authority care is at risk of experiencing harm. How would that work in practice, and how would it help address the problems you have identified?

Ivor Frank: First of all, I want to put this in very clear boundaries. I have been campaigning on this issue for decades, but I am here as a representative of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, not specifically on children in care generally. I make that distinction because I know this is a public hearing and others are listening.

The point is that when children in care are let down, they are wholly dependent on the local authority for any remedy. There is nowhere else for them to go, and the fact is that local authorities have consistently let them down. You don’t need me to tell you that. You will remember that, last year, Lambeth paid out £100 million in redress to children who had been in its care over decades who had been abused—not just sexual abuse but in all sorts of different ways. The point is that that is only one example. There are other cases in the pipeline. We can’t speak about them because they are in the pipeline, but we are aware of them. This is a serious issue and it is not cost-free.

The point about this is that because they are totally dependent on local authorities, if they are let down, they have nowhere to go. Why? The reason is section 9(1) of the Children Act makes them second-class citizens. Every child in the country has a right to go to a court and make an application under the Children Act 1989 specifically for remedies under section 8 of the Act—a residence order, a specific issue order. They can do that, but section 9 of the Act specifically says a court cannot entertain an application if it is made on behalf of a child who is in care. The very category of child who is most likely to need to resort to it is excluded from it. They are second-class citizens.

Recommendation 6 of our report is important—for those who do not have it in front of you, I urge you to read about this from page 178 onwards—because of what it entitles a child to do, who, for example, is moved to a home in some seaside resort, because the property is cheap, but they are there in a building next door to a place where the Home Office is putting prisoners who have just been released from custody for sexual offences against children. This is not made up; we know it happens. A child in care has no remedy. The point is if we allow them to make an application to a court, removing the barrier in section 9(1) of the Act, they can go to a court and say, “Please do not let the local authority put me there. If it has put me there and it is happening, please make an order prohibiting it from leaving me there. Please make sure that I am not subjected to child sexual abuse at the hands of people we know are living next door.” We know why it is done. This is full of it, people doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons. We are used to it, for decades.

Q34            Kim Johnson: Can I ask whether that recommendation has been supported by the Government? Where is it up to?

Ivor Frank: As far as I know, it has not yet been. Let’s be realistic: we are likely to get 151 out of 151 local authorities opposing it because they will see it as “them and us”. It isn’t them and us. That is the point to get across.

Chair: Ian, come in very briefly on this and then we will have to make some progress.

Q35            Ian Mearns: What you have described there was shown to us and we gathered evidence on it in a previous iteration of this Committee. We visited Margate, for instance, where many different London boroughs placed children. The complexities in the neighbourhoods where these residential settings were showed that the scenario that you outlined was exactly what was happening. The complexities of the particular neighbourhood, the type of tenure and the type of property showed that there were people living in houses of multiple occupation, many ex-offenders living very close, cheek by jowl, and offending rates were really quite high.

This is exactly the sort of area where these houses for children from local authorities in London were being set because of property value. That was the main driver. Just a little anecdote: we had one local councillor out, a lovely lady, who told us that even local authorities up north were sending youngsters there. I said, “Where up north?” and she said, “Peterborough”—it was a different up north. That stays with me, and it was evidence that we were gathering about the welfare and the education prospects of children in the care system.

Ivor Frank: I have limited myself specifically to child sexual abuse matters. I welcome the opportunity, should it come, to come back to this Committee and deal with other aspects of children in care on another occasion, when it is appropriate to do so. I also volunteer, if it helps you, to give you a copy of a report that I wrote 15 years ago on this subject from the Centre for Social Justice, which I will hand you. You may find it helpful on some of the questions that you are dealing with. I am absolutely passionate about education for children in care and breaking the link between care and custody. I am sure that you will appreciate that there are major impacts on the question of education.

Chair: Thank you. I will bring in Nick, and I know that a number of colleagues are interested in the issue that your report focuses on of online-facilitated sexual abuse. I am aware that we have a lot of ground to cover. You have done a monumental piece of work, so I encourage colleagues to try to keep their questions as sharp as possible, but also if the panel are happy for us to overrun slightly on our time, I am happy for this session to run a little bit long.

Q36            Nick Fletcher: Thank you, panel, for coming here today. The inquiry focused on another area, which was online-facilitated child sexual abuse. To what extent are online platforms being used to facilitate this crime? That is to you, Professor Jay.

Professor Jay: I will begin with an introduction about this, but this was a huge issue for us. The speed of growth of online-facilitated child sexual abuse was an enormous concern—there is no question about that. The numbers involved are staggering, difficult to compute, with worldwide referrals to law enforcement running into the tens of millions. This is a very serious issue for us and was of great concern. The advances in technology will only increase that challenge and inevitably create new opportunities to abuse children. The industry has an important role to play and must do more. The Government’s Online Safety Bill should be strengthened, and we have recommended ways in which that ought to be done, making pre-screening for illegal images and age verification mandatory, so that that is just the position.

Ivor Frank: We published our interim report on the internet in 2019. It is already old news. This is an area that is growing and moving so fast. There is a reason for that. It is important to understand the background to the way in which we have conducted this aspect of it. The fact that we called it “the internet” and we didn’t deal with social media more generally indicates just how old-fashioned we probably sound already, but the point is that, at the time we started, this was the state of the learning. It has moved on hugely since then. We dealt with it in two phases and did two separate hearings. In phase 1, we dealt with the law enforcement response to online abuse; that reported in 2018. We had a separate hearing on an industry response, and that reported in 2019. That is in the interim report, which, again, I hope you will have a chance to see in more detail.

Interestingly, what we learned then has probably been to some extent superseded by what we now know. Let me give you an example. In the course of the law enforcement phase, part 1, we heard from Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who, as you know, was the then lead in Operation Hydrant; he has done fantastic work in this area. One of the questions we asked was, “What is the relationship between law enforcement and the industry?” His evidence to our inquiry at that point was that, on the whole, the relationship was pretty good—that is, they had many service providers who were quite co-operative. Similarly with the NCA, there was a high degree of co-operation on many areas.

They had two specific areas where they were concerned, one of which was encryption and the other was data sharing, particularly in relation to overseas offenders, where they had to rely on mutual legal assistance, which was completely outdated as far as they were concerned. But beyond that, there appeared to be a high degree of co-operation. It was very difficult to found a recommendation that was punitive of the industry on the basis of that evidence, because what they were looking at was more co-operation, not sanctions. It is important to understand that.

We all remember last year that Chief Constable Simon Bailey was on record as saying that the threat to children from online abuse and imagery is a bigger threat to children than the threat from terrorism. Those were his words. That appears to be a somewhat different perspective. It puts our report in a different perspective as well. That is why we have limited ourselves to those matters that were clearly evidenced on what we heard: pre-screening and age verifications. Those are our two recommendations and we adhere to those, but undoubtedly there is more to be done.

That is another reason, first, why it is great that this Committee is interested in this subject; and secondly, why we urge, as a matter of real urgency, the creation of a child protection agency to do that, which we are simply not in a position to do. It needs to be kept under professional review. It is not something that can be left to chance.

Q37            Nick Fletcher: The Online Safety Bill obviously has taken quite a long time to get where it is, but has the panel followed it carefully? With the recommendations that Members in this place have put forward and which the Government are dealing with, right up to the end of yesterday, do you think we are in a good place with that now, or do you think there is more we could do?

Ivor Frank: My instant response is that we have to be very careful as to what we as our inquiry have recommended. We did not make a specific recommendation on sanctions for CEOs. That was a degree of granularity that we could not arrive at at that point, but what I can say is that if you look at the thrust of our proposals as a whole, first, we urge that this matter be taken very seriously, that there be greater powers and that the law be strengthened. That is certainly the case.

Secondly, we have made recommendations on sanctions in other areas that would be consistent with what you have proposed in this regard, but I must be very clear—it is right that I am—that we have not made that recommendation in our report and it is not a recommendation that I can therefore say, on behalf of the panel as a whole, that we are urging. It is a matter that needs to be kept, thankfully, under review and pursued—not just reviewed but pursued, as you have done—by others who are more up to date, because, necessarily, we published our report in 2019. Although we published our final report at the end of last year, there was no new evidence for us to consider that would enable us to take the matter any further than that.

Q38            Miriam Cates: Again, this may be out of the scope of your inquiry because obviously, as you have said, things have moved on so quickly. My concern is that pornography on the internet, and particularly child abuse pornography, is driving demand for these images, such that we have not yet scratched the surface of the potential harms that can be done to our children. I share the view of probably most people here that the Online Safety Bill is needed, and we are trying to make some improvements, but do you think we are getting to the point where it is just simply unsafe for children to have smartphones that allow access to these kind of images?

Ivor Frank: We had a submission from counsel that every child would have their phone removed from them when they go to school. There was a look of horror on behalf of most of the other people who were in the room at the idea of how on earth you would achieve that. It is very difficult to see how a sanction of that kind can seriously be enforced. It is absolutely right to recognise the gravity of the matter. One of the things that is of interest is that we learned that much of the imagery that is being streamed into this country is coming from our near neighbours in Europe.

Miriam Cates: Holland, yes.

Ivor Frank: We know, because this inquiry made it happen, that we are now signatories to the Lanzarote convention on protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. That enables us to have an avenue to go to those countries and see if we can find a way of getting co-operation to reduce the level of material that is being streamed. It is not a panacea, but it is one thing that can be done relatively easily, one would have thought.

Q39            Miriam Cates: You mentioned pre-screening of images. Apple recently piloted an update where it would screen all photos on iCloud for potential child sexual abuse images, but it has withdrawn the update in response to industry pressure. Obviously, that is extremely concerning from a child safety point of view, but the House of Lords is currently looking at amendments that it might make to the Online Safety Bill. Is that something that you would recommend that it looks at to enforce that, rather than relying on the goodwill of the tech company?

Ivor Frank: It is easy to say I would encourage it to look at it, of course. The question is what it can realistically do, bearing in mind—this is a matter that was adverted to in evidence by Chief Constable Bailey—that this may require international legislation, because many of these service providers are completely outside the jurisdiction. How do you enforce it? We are not like America in that we pass these long-arm statutes almost every day of the week. It does not happen very often. One of the reasons is that they are not that easy to enforce.

This is my personal view, not a panel view: definitely encourage it to be looked at. But we have confined ourselves—we had to—to what we heard evidence about, and we focused on two recommendations where we know the technology exists and can be achieved for the protection of children now.

Q40            Anna Firth: What you say about escalation and the fact that everybody is trying to grapple with this is very interesting. Would you accept that the industry, and those who are set on making money out of this depravation, will ultimately always try to find ways around whatever systems, however clever they are, and that the final bastion for protecting children from all this stuff lies with parents and carers and institutions that have children in their care? You mentioned in your recommendations a public awareness campaign on child sexual abuse. Would you agree about, or what is your opinion on, a massive child awareness campaign focused on online harm and the need for parents, carers and all those who have responsibility for children to do what is necessary to make sure that the children are not using their phones at night or at school or when they are in their care?

Ivor Frank: I think that there may be a difference of emphasis here. It is very difficult to put the burden on parents to regulate that which they barely understand. There are very few walks of life where children are exposed to danger, where we say you as a parent must take ultimate responsibility for that. If a child goes out into the street and is run over by a car because there are no adequate markings on the road, we do not say it is the parents’ fault, however much the parents will educate their children about the importance of obeying the highway code and so forth. I know that you are not quite saying that, but it is—

Q41            Anna Firth: I am certainly not in any way castigating parents. This is a very difficult area. What I am saying is: don’t we need to support parents to be able to help protect their children in what is the wild west?

Ivor Frank: Yes, indeed. As you will see, one of our recommendations is that there be a public awareness campaign for that very purpose. Forgive me, I know that it was just a difference of emphasis. I know that we are not at cross-purposes on this.

Q42            Caroline Ansell: Thank you to the panel for this hugely important work and, through you—as you have said, it is a public hearing—to all those who have had the courage to take part in the Truth panels and to provide their testimony.

On the aspect of your report that focuses on custodial institutions, I think we all understand that those who find themselves in those places will have come with a great deal of baggage. They may, indeed, have been victims of sexual abuse. You said that from adult survivors of child sexual abuse relaying their experiences, they were among the worst that the inquiry had heard. Can you elaborate any further on that?

Professor Jay: Certainly. We did some research on this. Children in custodial institutions primarily reported to our piece of research that their top priority was fear of violence, followed by sexual abuse. I think that that tells you quite a lot about the nature of the institutions for under-18-year-olds. We considered them to be among the most vulnerable children in society, who are in the custodial institutions that we referred to. We heard of the most appalling violence and sexual abuse that were perpetrated in these institutions.

Q43            Caroline Ansell: Can I ask for one point of clarification? Was that abuse experience primarily and exclusively a member of staff on a child or young person, or were there some incidents among the young people themselves, peer on peer?

Professor Jay: That is a perfectly legitimate question. It was certainly both. One example was of an 11-year-old boy being sexually assaulted by two members of staff simultaneously. Other examples involved staff watching the most degrading and humiliating sexual assaults without intervening, knowing that this was going to occur, and of one child knowing that he intended to go into a room with another child and defecate on his face. They knew about it and apparently it caused some amusement.

Q44            Caroline Ansell: What you relay there is just so heartbreaking and appalling to hear. Compounded by that was a further comment in the report that said that such instances had been picked up and had been reported—by Ofsted, by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons—and still nothing further had come about that. Can you speak to that?

Professor Jay: I can’t elaborate on the particular instances but, of course, you are correct that that is what we said. It is illustrative of the emphasis and where it lies in custodial institutions on these matters, unfortunately.

Q45            Caroline Ansell: Were there any recommendations within the package—I think you describe them as that—that related to work in this area? As you say, we are looking at the most vulnerable children in society.

Professor Jay: I will pass you over to Ivor Frank in a minute, but it was all made worse by the generally violent atmosphere that we determined was the case in many of these institutions and by the approach to restraint, strip-searching and pain compliance. That is why we strongly recommended, and have done so twice now—

Q46            Caroline Ansell: The prohibition. My understanding of that recommendation is that the response from Government has been that it will be more effectively monitored and that there will be more training around that, but do you continue to advise for total prohibition?

Professor Jay: Yes, we do, because it is state-sponsored child abuse, as far as we are concerned. What is permitted by the MOJ guidance involves bending a child’s thumbs and wrists back, for example.

Q47            Caroline Ansell: This is over and above any form of physical restraint that could be deemed in a child safety—

Professor Jay: It is allowable, yes, absolutely.

Caroline Ansell: It is not about handling or holding. These are specific interventions that are designed to control behaviour, to regulate behaviour, by inflicting pain in response.

Professor Jay: Yes. They are referred to, and we refer to them, as “pain compliance techniques”. We understand the other issues, of course, for various other reasons, and proper training should be provided in holding and restraint, but in our opinion, we consider that this particular permitted form of pain compliance must cease.

Q48            Caroline Ansell: Were there others? You mentioned thumbs. Were there other strategies?

Professor Jay: Wrists, thumbs and wrists being bent back. Sorry, Mr Frank, do you want to—

Ivor Frank: Yes, I just wanted to supplement that very briefly. I think you have already heard that those custodial institutions that we looked at were young offenders institutions at Feltham, Werrington, Medway and Rainsbrook and secure training centres at Vinney Green and Aycliffe. Those are the ones we looked at. Our findings were, first, that the number of incidents of sexual abuse were much higher than previously understood; that is to say, 1,070 incidents of alleged sexual abuse in a period between 2009 and 2017, which is very high, given that the population is only about 900—

Q49            Caroline Ansell: If, in the general population, the figure you gave was one in five, what would be the figure in a custodial institution?

Ivor Frank: It is much higher because we have only 900 here.

Caroline Ansell: So what would that be?

Ivor Frank: It is not in my head but it is certainly very much higher.

Secondly, these allegations of abuse are mostly levelled at staff and they are often alleged to have taken place during body searches and instances of restraint. That is why the issue relating to restraint is so important, because, very often, those instances where restraint is being used seemed to be accompanied by allegations of sexual abuse as well.

You asked about recommendations. That is one of them. That is our recommendation 5, and I draw that to your attention. There is also recommendation 8, which is that there be the registration of staff who are in care roles in young offender institutions. There are two specific recommendations dealing with that issue. I hope that is helpful.

Q50            Caroline Ansell: It is very helpful. On DBS, because I think that was separate to the further recommendation, what would a robust DBS look like to preclude such widespread recruitment of people who would do harm to children?

John O'Brien: On the specific DBS regulations, we made a recommendation that the access to the barred list should be widened so that it is available to a much wider group of people. The relevance of the barred list, of course, is twofold. There are two barred lists: one barring you from working with children and one barring you from working with vulnerable adults. If you are on the children’s barred list, you are not allowed—it is a criminal offence—to put yourself forward for a role working with children. That would widen that, so that there was a check up front that they had not been barred 20 years ago in a different environment and were coming into an institution such as a secure children’s home and so on.

I think the more important one relates to this issue: there is already a requirement for an organisation that employs somebody looking after children or vulnerable adults, where they open an investigation into that individual, to report the opening of that investigation to the Disclosure and Barring Service. The reason for that is that people are very often not barred for one specific thing; they are barred because a combination of things has occurred that means that the DBS now considers that they are unsafe to work with children. By not reporting those things to the DBS, they deny the DBS that information that might lead to those people being placed on the barred list in the first place.

It seems such a small thing to say but it is incredibly important. There is already a duty to do this. The British Medical Association and the teachers’ unions are all required to report this, but if you talk to the DBS, it gets a very small number of reports from these organisations that people have had investigations opened into them. Organisations like that will often say, “We didn’t think it was a particularly serious offence, and we would have told you when we completed it”. But, as I say, the DBS might already have 15 pieces of information like this. If you go back all the way to the Bichard inquiry and Holly and Jessica in Soham, it was that very circumstance—not sharing low-level information—that led to Ian Huntley being able to get the job in the school that allowed him access. It is a really important recommendation that we beef this up. The DBS is only as good as the information that it receives.

Q51            Caroline Ansell: I am still not wholly clear on what has gone so spectacularly wrong that these concerns were picked up by Ofsted and by the inspectorate, yet nothing further ensued. What teeth did they not have, or what recourse to restate or to re-refer? It sounded very much like the trail went cold, yet all those proper safeguarding measures that are in place had been duly triggered and there should have been change.

John O'Brien: It is our recommendation, as you know, that the MOJ, which is responsible for that, strengthens the guidance around the use of pain compliance techniques. Ultimately, the only way they will be stopped is if the MOJ scraps that guidance and makes pain compliance something that cannot—

Q52            Caroline Ansell: That I understand, but if they were reporting incidents of sexual abuse or other abuses, and they were then not progressed, or there wasn’t prosecution or disciplinary action around them, what was amiss in that respect?

John O'Brien: Some prosecutions did take place of staff that had offended, but we go back to what Alexis and Ivor alluded to. In many instances, institutions kept the investigation of the abuse internal at the time that it happened because of the need to protect the reputation of the institution. Sometimes it is the passage of time that makes the progressing of that very difficult.

Caroline Ansell: We would be back to the requirement to report.

John O'Brien: Yes.

Q53            Kim Johnson: My next question is about leadership and child protection. Alexis, in your opening remarks you mentioned that you believe the prevalence of child sexual abuse is a national epidemic. The inquiry reported having found examples of leaders who demonstrated indifference and even hostility to victims, despite evidence of wrongdoing. Can you explain in which institutions this was most prevalent? How confident are you that such behaviour has improved since the publication of the report?

Professor Jay: I am trying to think of which of the institutions we particularly referred to at the time. There is no doubt that the custodial institutions were certainly relevant here, and hugely important. Are you asking about which particular institutions within the custodial settings, or was it an entirely different question?

Q54            Kim Johnson: Just across the board, really. I know that we have spoken about residential care homes. In which of those institutions do you believe it is most prevalent?

Professor Jay: For all sorts of reasons, it is extremely difficult to compute the number of issues reported and unreported, of course. Some of that information simply was not available to us in any great detail, especially where it may well have involved commercial institutions or others, rather than, necessarily, public institutions, which are required to keep that data. John, I don’t know if you have any thoughts about this generally.

John O'Brien: I think that it is very difficult to pick one. In every investigation in which the panel heard evidence, it heard of poor leadership being one of the reasons why abuse took place in the first place and, perhaps more importantly, was allowed to flourish, and that children went through many years of being abused simply because it was not stopped at the point that it should have been stopped at. It does not matter which one you look at, but if you look at the reports into religious institutions, you can pick up any one of them and you will find specific examples of very poor leadership being given in evidence as reasons why child sexual abuse either happened in the first place or was allowed to flourish.

Q55            Kim Johnson: The second part of my question was whether you thought that things had improved. I know that we have talked about the recommendations and how some of them have not been supported.

Professor Jay: Of course, we did a short report on leadership, and leadership from the top that supports the changes that are necessary is hugely important. We saw a very mixed picture there. For example, I think we said something like the worst examples of poor leadership that did what you were suggesting were those involved in the institutions who showed indifference and even hostility to those whom they were purportedly paid to care for, despite evidence or suspicion about whatever happened—there was almost hostility to them. These attitudes were somehow communicated by the leaders of these organisations as being acceptable and it left the victims with very few adults to trust, of course. That was a major concern about the organisations and the leadership in them.

Ivor Frank: I am very conscious—perhaps I would just invite you to be reminded of this—of the way in which the inquiry was set up in its structure. We published the way in which we selected the institutions that we looked at—our criteria for selection, one of which was that there had been evidence of child sexual abuse. There is an inherent bias in the way we have selected the institutions where, first, there was sexual abuse and, secondly, there was likely to be poor leadership as well. It would be very unfair to seize on one particular institution or one segment of society and say that is the most prevalent. It was everywhere. There wasn’t a category that was exempt from poor leadership, but on the other hand there was some good leadership, too.

We did debate at one point whether we should draw up a list—the good, the bad and the ugly—and make it public on the basis that the public pressure of being on the list might encourage people. The feeling was that, first, it would be difficult to administer and, secondly, we would not be around to administer it. You see the point. It is a very valid question to ask about where good leadership is, but when you identify it, encourage it as well as condemning what was bad.

It is important to recognise the inherent bias in the way in which we selected our specific investigations. I think that would make it difficult to give a fair answer to that question.

Chair: Andrew, I will bring you in on the very important issue of a child protection authority.

Q56            Andrew Lewer: All this started off with your statement about a child protection authority, and we have filled out a lot of detail. Could you encapsulate why you feel the existing child protection system, even as it has evolved in recent years, is not sufficient and why the creation of a child protection authority is necessary?

Professor Jay: We looked at this very carefully, of course. While it was entirely recognised that safeguarding in the wider sense was extremely important, it appeared at some stages to be at the cost of not looking specifically at child protection. It is necessary and it must be there, but we felt that there was insufficient focus on child protection specifically and what that involved. We thought that it had somehow got lost in understanding the wider context.

Q57            Andrew Lewer: One of the points that you made when you gave evidence to our colleagues in the Home Affairs Select Committee was that leadership of child protection—this is a quote—is “diffused across the piece”. Could you expand upon that a little bit? How would a child protection agency change that? How would that change?

Ivor Frank: If I may, I will give an example of a recommendation that we have made that highlights the very point. On religious institutions, not just the Catholic Church, not just the Anglican faith, but all religious institutions—we had a hearing, as you know, and we published a report on it—we examined 38 different religious organisations, everything from Pagans to Zoroastrians to Jains to Buddhists, across the board. We made a recommendation that they each adopt a child protection policy. In response to that report, we have had nine responses from nine institutions. That means that two-thirds of those have not responded at all.

Who is going to take responsibility for making sure that children are safe in those religious institutions? Bear in mind that they don’t just give religious education; they give education across all aspects of life. This is important for the child’s education. When we look at those, who is responsible for regulating this field? The answer is nobody. There is a diffuse power to intervene that goes from 10 different Government organisations—not one but 10. Who is going to take responsibility for that? The answer is that we don’t know.

It perfectly illustrates the point that when we come to child protection, it is not something you can leave to chance. Someone has to take responsibility; otherwise, it is not going to happen. I think that illustrates—from our experience, the evidence we have and the recommendation that we have made that has not been carried through effectively—the importance of there being someone to do that. It is outside your remit because it is not specifically an educational matter, but then who has responsibility? The answer is nobody. Someone needs to have that. It is just an example because it happens to be fairly recent.

Q58            Andrew Lewer: There have been concerns expressed that Government creates agencies at some top strategic level as a way of saying, “We have sorted that out now. We have a new agency; we have a new body.” In creating a child protection authority, as opposed to increasing the powers of existing agencies, would some of those existing agencies be folded into the child protection authority, or would this just be another extra layer altogether?

John O'Brien: I think that it would be another layer altogether. Ivor and Alexis have both said that one of the issues with the existing agencies is that they have a whole multitude of things they have to look at, inspect, regulate—not just child protection, but the state of schools, the performance of teachers. They have a whole range of things that they need to look at, so necessarily when they go in, the focus on any one of those areas is limited to the amount of time they can spend on it during the course of that inspection.

You have heard from Ivor the evidence we had of organisations making strange deference to prioritise their reputations—to prioritise believing staff over children when accusations of child sexual abuse were made. We think that all the evidence points to a singular lack of focus on how to protect children properly and also on what happens when a child discloses that they have been sexually abused. The response from organisations is mixed at best. We think that this singular focus on an agency being able to go in and focus on child protection is crucial.

We identified a number of areas that are currently not regulated at all. Unregulated schools is an example where you really rely on the expertise of those working in those organisations to pick up the things that we have been talking about today. Those gaps have been well understood and have existed for some time, yet at no point has anybody suggested that the current inspection or regulatory organisations ought to be responsible for them.

We think from the evidence we heard that we now need somebody—an organisation—with a singular focus on child protection and able to do two things. One is to help organisations raise their game—this is not just about hitting organisations for getting it wrong—to better understand all the things we have talked about that make good child protection possible in an organisation, but also having the teeth to go in and look at those organisations if they are getting it wrong.

Lastly on this, it is important to be read in conjunction with the recommendation that the panel made for a Minister of children. When the panel alluded to it being a package of recommendations that work in conjunction with each other, it is that child protection organisation reporting directly into a Minister whose singular focus is the protection of children that the panel thinks gives added impetus to making sure that it improves the protection of children going forward.

Q59            Chair: I was going to come to that very specific recommendation because I think that you recommended a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for children. Obviously, there is a Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, but I think that is at Parliamentary Under-Secretary level, reporting into the Secretary of State for Education. To what extent do you feel that fits with the inquiry’s idea, or to what extent do you think that they need to go further?

John O'Brien: It is the Cabinet level that the panel thinks is important, and perhaps the singular focus on children and child protection. Giving the Minister responsible for that a voice in Cabinet the panel felt was very important to work in conjunction, as I have said, with the CPA to raise the voice on what is happening in the world of child protection, and to make sure that in future the recommendations from the CPA, were it to be created, have the voice in Cabinet to give them that prominence among everything else that people have to decide.

Q60            Ian Mearns: I will preface this by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with this recommendation, but the existence of an Environment Agency does not prevent effluent from routinely being put into our rivers. The creation of an agency, unless it has the powers, the teeth and the resources, would not be enough in itself. How would you see this working, and has it been a significant disappointment to you that it has not already been established?

Ivor Frank: This is a matter that we have given a great deal of thought to. Without belabouring you for an hour and a half on this, can I invite your attention to be given to page 161 of our final report, where we set out what we think the powers and responsibility of this agency should be? May I also indicate—because we have been asked the question in another context and it is relevant to ask it—why we are not saying that this agency should have the power to regulate institutions, which I think is probably behind the question you are asking?

There is a wisdom to that, which we have learned in the course of this inquiry, from our own point of view. You will appreciate that, as a result of our terms of reference, we do not have the power to convict anybody of a crime or to make damages or to make civil findings. It has been a blessing because if we had had that, we would never have got to the end of our work. It would have been impossible because we would have been taking on an administrative role that we were simply not able to fulfil. It would have been a huge disappointment to everybody.

It is with that in mind that we have framed our recommendation very carefully to enable this child protection agency to have inspectorate powers but not regulatory powers. That may be a subtle distinction that not everyone will understand but I know that this Committee will understand it. It has been done with great care. I hope that answers the question. Again, I would direct you to the—

Chair: I want to bring Flick in on this.

Q61            Mrs Flick Drummond: This is slightly related, on recommendation 19 on the redress scheme. There was evidence produced that when a victim wanted a quick sorry or some help, institutions were banned by insurance companies or even the Charity Commission, too. It had tight conditions on charities to say absolutely nothing. How do we get around that? What can we do about it? Would this new authority help with that?

Ivor Frank: To some extent, that has already been dealt with because the insurance industry has come up with a protocol that enables that to happen now. In a sense, that has already happened.

To your more general point on those matters that are not yet addressed and how the agency deals with those, as I said, we have envisaged that it would have an inspectorate power and a power to call for evidence on matters that it regards as important to its investigations. It is not for us to tell it what to do. It has the obligation and the power to regulate its own affairs.

Q62            Mrs Flick Drummond: Would it sort out redress as well and see it all the way through, basically? It would be guiding that individual all the way through the process.

Ivor Frank: Yes. Of course, redress is a very specific recommendation here. We have experience that a previous recommendation that we made on redress was implemented very quickly and, as we understand it, very successfully. I think that, within less than 12 months of our recommendation, the redress scheme for child migrants was up and running. As you will also appreciate, our redress scheme is also time-limited. Its purpose is, to some extent, circumscribed. The obligation on any child protection agency to look into it will be limited. Your general point about other things that need continually looking at I think is well made.

Chair: I will come to Anna Firth on the final couple of questions.

Q63            Anna Firth: Thank you very much for your time today and for considering these issues in so much depth, and with so much sensitivity and expertise. We really appreciate that.

The Government published their tackling child sexual abuse strategy before your inquiry published its final report into child sexual abuse. What discussions did you have with the Government about your inquiry before your report was published?

John O'Brien: We are an independent inquiry, so we had almost no discussions with Government on what our findings would be, because that would be inappropriate, to say the least. Having heard all the evidence, the panel was bound to make recommendations and write a report where the evidence took it. There were almost none, is the answer.

Q64            Anna Firth: That may mean that we can guess the answer to the next question. Did you have any input into the Government’s tackling child sexual abuse strategy directly before it was published?

Professor Jay: I am trying to remember whether there was anything that could be construed as that but wasn’t called that, and the answer is no.

Q65            Anna Firth: Does the Government strategy in your opinion do enough to tackle child sexual abuse in England and Wales?

Professor Jay: There are many good things in it and we did note those, but this situation is pretty fast moving. There were limitations on what we read. On the whole, it was helpful, but there were still areas that were emerging that we thought needed further work on the tackling child sexual abuse strategy. Would that be fair to say?

Ivor Frank: Insofar as it falls short of implementing the recommendations of our report, there is more for it to do.

Q66            Anna Firth: Thank you. This is my last quick question. You have highlighted the removal of the three-year limitation period as one of your recommendations for personal injury claims, but the Limitation Act 1980 has a very wide-ranging clause in section 33 for the judge to lift the limitation period in cases of personal injury and, indeed, in cases where sexual abuse has been alleged, and that has been done successfully already. What is it about section 33 of the Limitation Act, therefore, that you do not feel is sufficient to cover this eventuality?

Ivor Frank: The evidence that we heard from victims and survivors was that the Limitation Act was being used as a way of dissuading them from pursuing their allegations at all. They would not even get to the stage of a matter being heard by a judge because they would be told, in effect, “You haven’t got any prospect because a judge is going to rule against you”.

The other thing is that so many of these people have no financial support before they start their litigation. On the whole question of investigation of the application of the Limitation Act, there is no funding for it. The lawyers have no incentive to engage in it because they won’t get paid. Victims and survivors are dissuaded by the threat of the application of the Act, so they never get to the stage of it being considered by a judge. Of course, they have no idea what the outcome of a judicial determination would be.

Anna Firth: Thank you. That is very helpful.

Chair: Thank you very much. I am very grateful to the panel for giving us the extra time. We have run over our usual allotted two hours. It has been an extremely useful session. You have set us a number of challenges, which, as Chair, I very much recognise, and you have given us a lot of food for thought and, indeed, questions for Ministers in the months and years ahead. Thank you very much.