Child grooming offences up by 32% in a year amid warning abuse is happening in every town and city
- 495 sexual grooming offences recorded by police in the year to June
- Figure has risen by a third since on 376 offences uncovered in 2013
- Lynne Featherstone warns abuse is not confined to any one area
- Home Office minister says exploitation can ‘take on many different forms’
- Council leaders hold summit on how to protect children from sex gangs
- Child abuse inquiry members to give evidence to home affairs committee
By Matt Chorley, Political Editor for MailOnline
Published: 10:40, 20 January 2015 |
The number of child sex grooming cases
uncovered by police has soared by a third in just a year, ministers have
admitted amid warnings abuse is happening in every town in the country.
The Home Office has revealed that 495
sexual grooming offences were recorded by police in the year to June, up
32 per cent on the same time in 2013.
It comes as council leaders hold a summit today on how to protect youngsters from being exploited by gangs of sex offenders.
Home Office Lynne Featherstone revealed
that 495 sexual grooming offences were recorded by police in the year
to June, up 32 per cent on the same time in 2013
Police say they have been inundated with
reports of child sexual exploitation, including historic cases and
allegations of grooming and trafficking across the country.
It follows high profile historical cases
involving celebrities such as Jimmy Savile and revelations about sex
gangs in Rotherham and Rochdale.
Fleur Strong, director of Parents Against
Child Sexual Exploitation (Pace), told MailOnline last month that this
type of abuse is ‘in every town’ and warned that people retreated to a
‘comfort zone’ of thinking grooming and abuse only happen ‘elsewhere’.
Challenged about the remarks, Home Office
minister Lynne Featherstone insisted the risk of child abuse and
grooming was not limited to certain areas.
‘We know that child sexual abuse and
exploitation are not confined to any particular areas of the country,’
she said in response to a parliamentary question. ‘It can take on many
different forms.’
Revealing the sharp rise in sexual
grooming offences recorded by the police in England and Wales of 32 per
cent, Ms Featherstone added: ‘This Government is absolutely determined
that every case of child sexual abuse or exploitation is fully
investigated and all perpetrators prosecuted, we will do nothing to
jeopardise those aims.’
We know that child sexual abuse and exploitation are not confined to any particular areas of the country.
Lynne Featherstone, Home Office minister
Today the Local Government Association
(LGA) is holding a high-level summit to examine what more can be done to
tackle historic weaknesses in councils in dealing with child abuse.
David Simmonds, chairman of the LGA’s
children and young people board, said: ‘Keeping children safe is the
most important thing that councils do, but we know we cannot do it
alone.
‘Protecting children does not fall only to
councils, but to the police, health services, schools and local groups.
Inspections must reflect this.’
But Labour MP John Mann criticised the
event, , claiming victims were being excluded from the platform at the
LGA ‘talking shop’ in Westminster.
He said: ‘There has been a shameful lack
of support for the survivors of child abuse. I met with a constituent
last week for example who was refused support by local mental health
services.
‘It doesn’t appear that a single
representative of survivors’ groups will actually be speaking at the
meeting … in London and unless they are members of the LGA it will cost
them over £345 to even attend.’
There has been a rise in reported cases of abuse following revelations about sex gangs in Rotherham and Rochdale (pictured)
Also today experts involved in the Government’s troubled child sexual abuse inquiry will appear before MPs.
The inquiry set up by Home Secretary
Theresa May has stalled following the resignations of the two people
appointed to chair it and uncertainty about how it will be granted extra
powers.
Two members of the inquiry panel and the
body’s expert adviser Professor Alexis Jay, who wrote the damning report
on sexual exploitation in Rotherham, will appear before the home
affairs select committee.
Fleur Strong, director of Parents
Against Child Sexual Exploitation (Pace), said child abuse and grooming
is happening in every part of the country
Mrs May revealed in a letter last month
that she was considering standing down the panel in favour of a royal
commission or a new inquiry on statutory terms.
As well as Prof Jay, the MPs will hear
from panel members Drusilla Sharpling and Professor Jenny Pearce as part
of their investigation into the inquiry, which is without a chairman
following the resignations of Baroness Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf
after each became entangled in allegations of conflict of interest.
There has been a rise in reported cases of abuse following revelations about sex gangs in Rotherham and Rochdale.
But campaign groups and the police warned parents and officials not to assume the problem was restricted to some areas.
Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation
has warned of an increase in people using so-called ‘legal highs’ to
groom youngsters for sex and the crime was widespread across Britain.
A major problem for police and social
services is that where teenagers have been groomed they are not even
aware that they are being abused and often believe they are in a loving
relationship.
Ms Strong said last month: ‘It’s a global
crime so the concept of it only happening in a section of the country is
wrong, it’s across the whole country. This type of abuse is in every
town.’
She said one of the problems was that
parents and other adults prefer to think that child sex abuse is not the
sort of thing that happens where they live.
‘We are all in a much better comfort zone
if we think this type of abuse happens elsewhere and its other people
who are affected and it’s other people doing the crime, that there is
another ring going on.
‘And it’s something that we need to try and change.’
She said she knew of serious cases involving families in Exeter, Norfolk, East Anglia, Cumbria, the Borders and Torquay.
She warned that it was wrong to think only children in major cities were at risk.
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