Historical Sexual Abuse (Football)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that the police are making inquiries and that the DBS checks would ensure that those with criminal convictions would not be given disclosure certificates allowing them to work with children. They would also probably be barred from working with children.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Football, by its very nature, is a transient sport. Children move from club to club, and, obviously, professional football players move from club to club and even from country to country. Can the Secretary of State confirm that enough resources will be made available to ensure that victims are positively identified, rather than our relying on self-referral to the helpline? We need to understand how many victims there are if we are to assess the scale of the problem and offer support where it is needed.

[Karen Bradley]

It is important to look at patterns of behaviour to establish whether players may have been exposed to perpetrators, as would happen in any other investigation of this nature, regardless of what the background of the contact between the perpetrator and the victim might have been. It is also important for victims to come forward. While I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to go out and actively seek those victims, we will not find any unless some are prepared to come forward. Once again, I pay tribute to the bravery of the victims and survivors who have come forward and told their stories in such an honest way, allowing the police to obtain the evidence that they need, so that we can bring the perpetrators to justice.