Sexual Offences: Investigation and Prosecution

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I think that all agencies are now very much on the alert. However, we are in effect looking back and trying to recover a situation that should never have got to this point. The intention of government should be to ensure that this does not happen again. Anyone whose job involves the protection of children should be alert to this fact. That includes local authorities, the police and those who are responsible for care homes, health agencies, schools, the probation service and housing. All these elements must come together. We have a statutory body—the local safeguarding children boards—in every local authority in this country. What are they doing if not seeking to protect the young children who are their responsibility? The Government are very alert to this and I hope that I am reassuring the House that we are determined that the system should protect the very people it was designed for.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the themes that underpins the reporting of the child abuse scandals of the past is that the victims have failed to come forward because they did not think that they would be believed? There is plenty of evidence that the authorities charged with looking after these children did not believe the accusations when they came forward. What steps can be taken to improve the situation by ensuring that those victims coming forward—who have the courage to come forward—are going to be believed and listened to and that their complaints will be investigated?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, Damian Green, has set up a group designed to ensure that this is the case and that the police forces themselves are aware of the difficulties and the need to lend a positive ear to complaints from young children. My noble friend makes a very good point—that the point of failure in the system is that these allegations have not been listened to or taken seriously by the authorities in the past.