Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
Paul Beresford Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
We will certainly do so. I am happy to talk further to the hon. Gentleman about the matter. We, too, have spoken about the issues surrounding mandatory reporting not only of female genital mutilation, but of child abuse more widely. There is a strong case for making sure that professionals across the board are aware of the serious damage being done to young people as a result of these awful crimes.
We welcome the proposals to strengthen the law on domestic abuse. I pay tribute to Women’s Aid and Paladin, which have campaigned for the strengthening of the law so that it recognises the cumulative impact of different forms of psychological abuse, as well as physical abuse, and the way that that can trap women in particular and men in abusive relationships, causing huge harm to them, their families and the children. We look forward to discussing the clauses in detail.
On protection for children, I pay tribute to Action for Children for its campaign to strengthen the law on child cruelty, and to the campaign by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and by Lord Harris, who argued, with our support in the other place, that the Bill should include a new offence of sending a sexual message to a child.
As an overall response to the scale of serious crime, however, the Bill does not yet go far enough, because crime is changing and serious crime is a grave and growing problem. Over the decades there has been a welcome fall in the number of high-volume crimes, including most theft offences, domestic burglaries and car crimes, but the number of many of the most serious crimes is going up. Reported rapes continue to rise at about 30%, yet new figures show that the number of arrests has gone down by 8%. Arrests as a proportion of recorded rapes have dropped from 90% to 63% in the past few years. That is completely unacceptable. Violent crime is also increasing, but prosecutions and convictions are falling.
On sexual offences, the Home Secretary sometimes refers to a Yewtree effect and historical offences, but that is not the case, because the latest figures show that the majority of the increase in reported sexual offences has occurred in the previous 12 months. Reported child sex offences are perhaps one of the most troubling areas of all.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
Does not the right hon. Lady accept—I hope she does—that people are reporting because suddenly they have an opportunity to do so and are going to be taken seriously? That was not the case before, and the issue was discussed when the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was put through by a Labour Government.
Yvette Cooper
The honest truth is that we do not know what is happening to underlying prevalence, but we do know that reporting has increased. I have been very careful to talk about the reporting of rape: reports of rapes and sexual offences have increased. We want more people to come forward and report crimes because we know that many of them have been underreported. However, the serious problem is that, although more cases are being reported, fewer cases are being prosecuted and reaching conviction. I am not talking about a simple proportion of crimes: these are absolute numbers. Fewer rape arrests are taking place even though more rapes have been reported to the criminal justice system. That is a serious weakness and I am concerned about what is happening in the criminal justice system and policing under this Government.
Sir Paul Beresford
The right hon. Lady ought to look at the Committee stage of the 2003 Act, where a Labour Government, with assistance from the then Opposition, considered that very point and the extreme difficulty involved. Before she tables any amendments, I ask her please to read that Hansard report. The issue was faced then.
Yvette Cooper
I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that we want more rapes to be reported, because we know they are underreported at the moment. It is significant that, over many years under a Labour Government, we saw an increase in arrests, prosecutions and convictions, both for serious sexual offences and for domestic violence. Over the past few years we have seen a drop in the proportion of domestic violence offences reaching conviction and a drop in the number of rape arrests and prosecutions for the most serious sexual offences. That is a serious problem. Those numbers are not falling because the number of crimes is falling. The situation is quite the reverse: they are falling because the criminal justice system and policing under this Government are not able to deal with the scale of the problem and are not conducting sufficient investigations or taking sufficient action.
For example, the number of child abuse prosecutions has fallen from 9,235 in 2010-11 to 7,998 in 2013-14, at a time when more child sex offences have been reported to the police. The number of prosecutions has fallen and there are 800 fewer convictions as a result. That means that more abusers and dangerous criminals are getting away with it. That is a serious concern.
Where in this Bill are the national standards we need and the commissioner to tackle violence against women and girls? Where is the policy for mandatory reporting of child abuse and for compulsory sex and relationship education to prevent abuse in the next generation? Where is the policy to ban the use of community resolutions for domestic violence so that cases are not diverted to inappropriate apologies rather than taken through the courts? Where is the policy to stop people with a history of domestic violence owning a gun? The Government could introduce so many more policies, but they are not included in the Bill.
Where is the action to enforce the existing law? It is a serious concern that the child abuse inquiry, which has already been stopped twice by chaos over the chairs, is still not established on a firm footing and it is taking the Home Secretary months to work out how to give it the full powers it needs. This is extremely important and it is incomprehensible why it is taking her so long to get it established on a proper footing.
Where, too, is the action to tackle some of the most serious offences of all? I am particularly concerned about the rapidly escalating problem of online child abuse. The Bill includes some measures, which we welcome, but I have pressed the Home Secretary repeatedly to do more and to level with Parliament about the scale of the problem and the challenges that the police and agencies face in addressing it, and so far she has repeatedly refused to do so. She knows that the National Crime Agency has details of between 20,000 and 30,000 cases of online child abuse through Operation Notarise alone, yet she has refused to confirm that figure and so too—I presume under her instruction—has the NCA. Why is that? Surely we have a right to know the scale both of that crime and of the information given to the NCA, so that we can debate the Bill’s measures and whether they are sufficient. Evidence from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre shows that a significant proportion of those who engage in online abuse go on to commit contact abuse.
The number of arrests under Operation Notarise so far totals just over 700 out of more than 20,000. How many of those 19,300 cases could be involved in contact abuse? When will those cases be investigated? The police and the NCA have briefed the media that not all of them will or can be investigated, but is that true? The Home Secretary ought to tell the House as part of the debate on this Bill. Even if they are eventually investigated, how long would it take?
There have already been unacceptable delays in Project Spade, an international operation that caught more than 2,300 people purchasing online child abuse imagery. Their information was passed to CEOP by Toronto police in July 2012, but it was not disseminated to police forces until November 2013. That intelligence included information on Myles Bradbury, who was arrested in December 2013 on the basis of Project Spade but who had abused children in the period when no intelligence was being passed on. There can be no repeat of the Myles Bradbury case, yet the long delays in investigating cases under Operation Notarise risk exactly that. I urge the Home Secretary to tell us what the figures are, how long the delays are, how many of the cases have not yet been investigated and how many children could potentially be at risk by the failure to do so.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I think all of us accept that this very broad Bill covers some very important issues. We discussed whether it could be called a Christmas tree Bill and decided that it could not, as it is after Christmas. However, as an ethnic minority immigrant to this country, I am informed by my wife, who is English, that Christmas decorations can stay up until 6 January, so we have just made the guillotine.
I support all of the Bill but I will not cover all of it. I watched the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary try to cruise through it, and that should be a warning to anybody who wants to go home tonight and speak before 10 o’clock.
Many of us have, as constituency MPs, seen aspects of the serious and organised crime elements of the Bill. On a number of occasions I have had very upset people in my constituency surgeries. They were the little people—not PayPal or the big firms, but the little people who had been damaged by serious and organised crime—such as the man who for the second time informed me that he had won the lottery even though he had never bought a lottery ticket. He lost £27,000, which was his life savings and fortune.
Europol has been mentioned. I visited Europol on the second day of a two-day campaign it was conducting across Europe against serious and organised crime. It was fascinating to watch the co-ordination of police actions, with members of gangs across Europe being arrested at exactly the same moment. It was spectacular, and if anyone did not understand about serious and organised crime and its spread, that would have brought it home to them.
Mention has been made of my interest in child protection. Two Members have mentioned the clause updating and clarifying the offence of child cruelty. Given that it updates a 1933 Act—the Children and Young Persons Act 1933—the action is, to use a colloquial phrase, an obvious given. The question one is tempted to ask is why it took us so long.
In the same vein, I am delighted about the new offence—in relation to which the Home Secretary mentioned my name—making it illegal to possess paedophile manuals. The measure is an ingenious way of dealing with the use by paedophiles of written child pornography. I was on the Home Office taskforce that was behind the Sexual Offences Act 2003. With me was DCI Dave Marshall—then head of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit—and we tried at some length, but to no avail, to get legislative changes such as those introduced in this Bill. We wanted to fill this gap in 2003, and I have been trying ever since with Ministers of the previous Government. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) mentioned the classic example of it being possible to persuade Ministers, only for it to fall foul of the civil servants. It happened again and again and again.
This Government have recognised the activities of people who sexually abuse children using the written word to stimulate themselves. Sometimes the written word in this area is blatantly a “How to do it” paedophile instruction manual. This was made obvious to us as a nation in the BBC three-part documentary “Hunting Britain’s Paedophiles”, produced by Bob Long. This was the first programme that I know of that really showed how predatory paedophiles operate. It shocked the nation, and as it came out in 2002 it helped support the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Approximately a third of the Act covered sexual offences against children, including grooming. The first two parts of this three-part BBC film showed the Metropolitan police paedophile unit led by Bob McLachlan and DCI Dave Marshall, whom I have already mentioned, tracking, arresting and prosecuting a paedophile ring that had been operating for 30 years. If I recall correctly, the lead in this ring was a predatory paedophile by the name of Julian Levene. Again, if I recall correctly, he actually produced an action-by-action guide or manual on grooming and sexually abusing children, which was used by the gang for 30 years, with updates. In spite of this, as I have already mentioned, Dave Marshall and I were unable to persuade the then Government to take action.
With this Government, my nagging—it has got to be nagging; my wife instructs me on nagging and I am becoming very good at it—of Ministers first at the Home Office, then the Ministry of Justice and even No. 10 was aided by a strong case being put by the Metropolitan police paedophile unit and by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. The wording of the Bill is, I have to admit, far superior to my earlier approaches. The example I have just given is of a blatant manual. However, much of the written word of paedophile abuse that I have seen or heard of is, in effect, an incitement and guide by example to the sometimes appalling sexual abuse of children.
During the debate on the Queen’s Speech I briefly mentioned the case of a young girl in Kent who was kidnapped, brutally abused and killed by a paedophile. He had written his intended actions clearly and explicitly in a form that, sadly, turned out to be his personal manual. He is away in prison, I hope for ever, but the young girl is dead.
I have noted that in the debate on Report in the other place, Lord Harris of Haringey—we used to be in conflict with each other on local government, but are now, amusingly, the co-chairmen of the all-party group on policing—introduced an interesting amendment, which I hope will be taken on and introduced by the Government at the next stage of this Bill. The amendment would make it an offence for an adult to elicit from a child a sexual photograph or send a sexual message to that child. Apparently, there is a tiny loophole not covered under grooming. He posed the example of a young girl in her bedroom on her smartphone sending messages to her friends, one of whom was someone purporting to be a boy who was in love with her but who was actually a man 30 years her senior. Lord Harris asked whether, if she was encouraged, cajoled and coaxed into sending a sexual image of herself, that would be an offence committed by the older man. I understand that this concern has also been expressed by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
I would add my concerns, but from a slightly different angle. Some months ago we discussed with one of the senior members of CEOP just such a scenario, albeit from the different angle of the photographs being used for blackmail either financially or for other purposes—I will leave that to the imagination—in order to control and coerce a child. Another source of damage is that many firms looking to employ a youngster will look on the internet at, for example, YouTube and find such photographs, which is not good for the young person’s job application. Many of us forget that once a photograph has been placed on the internet, it is almost certainly there for ever, damaging that individual for ever. I would therefore be delighted if the Minister stated in summing up whether I am right in understanding that this is what the Home Secretary was talking about when she mentioned an amendment to be introduced at the next stage—at which, with a bit of luck, I will be there to help and assist.
Historical Child Sex Abuse
Paul Beresford Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend makes a good point and one that I have heard him make before. He is a veteran of taking an interest in this issue and ensuring that a spotlight is placed on these horrendous crimes. That was more difficult back in the ’70s and ’80s, when there was what I call the “Oh, it’s only Jimmy” mentality. What we now recognise as vile crimes against vulnerable children were swept under the carpet. It was assumed that that was just what went on and people did not want to rock the boat, for all sorts of reasons. It was harder for people to stand up and point the finger in the ’70s and ’80s than it is now. We should pay tribute to those people who, under whatever duress, brought such matters into the open.
It would have been better and easier if the overarching inquiry had started two years ago. Some of us wrote to the Prime Minister soon after the Savile revelations broke to say, “This is going to be really important. This is going to lead to a serious undermining of confidence in the child protection system in this country, and all sorts of allegations about cover-ups will start to come out.” The floodgates had been opened. The only compensation of the Savile case is that it raised the profile of child sexual abuse and emboldened victims to come forward who for years and decades had been told to go away and forget about it, and had been treated almost as the perpetrators, as the hon. Member for Rochdale said, rather than the victims that they were or the survivors that they are. If the inquiry had got under way before the floodgates opened, I think there would be more trust that the Government and politicians were taking a lead and wanted to uncover it all, but alas that did not happen.
I pay tribute to the Home Secretary, who stuck her head above the parapet and agreed to hold the overarching inquiry that we called for in July, appreciating—almost uniquely—just how important and necessary it was. No less than any of the gang of seven and the rest of us who are interested in this issue, she wants to get to the truth and leave no stone unturned. She wants justice to be done for the survivors and to ensure a child protection system that is fit for purpose in 2014.
However, there has been an unfortunate train of events. Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf were both excellent candidates to chair such a high-profile inquiry, but circumstances conspired for them to lose credibility in the eyes of survivors. In many respects, one could not win. Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has huge experience in child abuse inquiries and the family courts. She had a connection with a Government Minister—her brother—back in the 1980s, and decided that that would overshadow the great experience that she could have brought to the inquiry. I think that was unfortunate. Fiona Woolf had no connections with the family courts and seemed to have no baggage or agenda, but, alas, she too was not able to carry the inquiry forward. We should not see that as a deliberate intention to try to undermine or rig the inquiry; they were two, honourable heavyweight candidates, but unfortunately, because of the delicacy and sensitivity of this issue, they were not able to continue.
It is vital to get on with the inquiry and, as the Home Secretary announced, in the absence of a chair the panel must get the work under way. We heard from the permanent secretary at the Home Office that a new candidate is unlikely to come forward until the new year, and the Home Affairs Committee, on which I serve, will be asked to give them a confirmatory hearing. That person—or perhaps persons, as we may need dual chairs—must be allowed to get on with the job. If they cannot, the inquiry will never happen, and we must hold this inquiry.
This overarching inquiry is important for three reasons. First, we must put into historical context exactly how such things were allowed to happen, and learn when things changed and improved. Children are much safer in 2014 than they were in 1964, ’74 or ’84. Did the advent of the Children Act 1989 or the shocking high-profile revelations about the north Wales care homes in the 1990s make society take child abuse more seriously? We must put into context all those different things, which are confusing people with almost weekly revelations of new historical child sex abuse inquiries.
Secondly, the inquiry is necessary to give the survivors a voice at last, ensure that they are listened to, and discover whether the perpetrators are still out there—we know that abuse is still going on, hopefully in a lesser form than it was previously. After decades of not being listened to, people still feel raw. I have met many survivors, and the Home Affairs Committee held a private meeting with survivors who are palpably still traumatised by experiences many decades ago. Survivors must be listened to and feel that they are being listened to, and they must be able to achieve some sort of closure at long last.
The third reason the inquiry must get on with its work is that we must consider whether all major institutions in this country that have significant dealings with children and young people have instituted child protection policies and practices that are fit for purpose in 2014 to deal with modern-day perpetrators of abuse. Rotherham was the tip of the iceberg; there will be more Rotherhams I am afraid, and unless we have assurances and can restore confidence in the public that child protection systems in this country are fit for purpose, people will continue to be worried on behalf of their own children and friends. The inquiry will be vast. Its nature means that it will have to go anywhere and everywhere it needs to go, and it may take many years. That is the nature of the beast that we are dealing with, and it is a beast indeed.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
May I add a fourth reason? There is now confidence among many victims who want to come out and talk about their experiences but not to the inquiry—they have gone to the police. The Met police, particularly the Sapphire unit, is working closely with victims who would not have come forward if it were not for this inquiry.
Tim Loughton
That is right. We must recognise the enormous pressure that the police services are under to look into historical cases of abuse. Many victims, quite rightly, have bravely been emboldened to come forward, having sat on the issue and been repulsed over many years. I realise that a huge amount of distrust and scepticism from survivors surrounds the inquiry, and I agree with the hon. Member for Rochdale that it is not helpful simply to write them off as conspiracy theorists. During my time as children’s Minister, and subsequently, I met many survivors. They are very raw and there are great sensitivities. It is also difficult to determine who speaks for what is inevitably a disparate group. Some say they would like a judge to head the inquiry. Some say that a judge is the last person they would want. Some say they would prefer to wait a further two, three or six years to get the inquiry right before we start it. Others say we need it now because we need closure now. We must also not forget that there are current victims who need to be helped by the implications of an overarching inquiry.
There are conspiracy theories coming from a very different direction. I received a letter—I should think other hon. Members received it as well:
“I am not one of your constituents. Until last Friday I was only very dimly aware of your existence as an MP, but last Friday evening you appeared on ‘The World Tonight’ and ‘Newsnight’ to discuss the resignation of Fiona Woolf. In both programmes, you repeated allegations about the late Jimmy Savile which you appear not to have verified or investigated in any way.”
There are people standing up for Jimmy Savile, saying that he has been misrepresented in some way. There are extraordinary theories going around, which is why we need an inquiry to get to the truth.
In conclusion, what action should be taken going forward? The whole inquiry could have been handled better. The survivors should have been consulted earlier, before the processes and structures were set up, but we are where we are and we need to move forward and get the inquiry going.
First, we need to get on with appointing a chair, or possibly dual chairs. There will be circumstances where certain people being investigated as part of the overarching inquiry will be known to a chair. It is impossible, frankly, to get somebody with the calibre to chair such an inquiry who has no knowledge of all sorts of people who may have been on the periphery. If that does happen, perhaps they could step aside temporarily and an alternative chair could come in for the part of the investigation which involved somebody with whom they may have had a connection. We must remember, however, that these are not trials of criminals now. This is an overarching inquiry and it is for other police investigations to nail down perpetrators and bring charges.
Secondly, I have got to the stage where I believe the inquiry needs to be chaired by a judge, or judges. Many judges have turned down the invitation, which is not surprising. It is a poisoned chalice. We may have to go overseas to find somebody who does not have connections and baggage. It will perhaps be difficult to find somebody with the knowledge of the way the systems have worked in this country to lead the inquiry, but this is not the Oscar Pistorius trial. This is not a one man or one woman show; it is a panel of experts which includes, at the behest of many of us who went to see the Home Secretary, the survivors. The survivors should be represented at the heart of the panel to ensure that their perspective is included.
Thirdly, it is possible that the inquiry will have to become statutory. The Home Secretary has, perfectly reasonably, cited the Hillsborough inquiry as a very good example of an inquiry where everybody—bar one, I think—came forward with the information required of them. She has promised full co-operation from all Government agencies and Departments including, I would hope, the intelligence services, but we have got to the stage where the inquiry may need to be put on a statutory basis.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
We have heard two interesting speeches, one of them particularly emotional, which is understandable. Anyone who has worked, as I have, for some considerable time in this area will have great difficulty not getting emotional about it. One needs only to hear the stories.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) appeared to start from the 1970s, so I would refer him to a period before that. A film appeared on BBC2—it is still available—called “Hunting Britain’s Paedophiles”. It was produced by a man called Bob Long, who followed the Metropolitan police paedophile unit, tracking a gang that had run its own institution of dance studios and the like since 1959. Members of that gang were finally put away earlier this century. They used manuals and induced the kids, and the number of children involved over 40 or 50 years would have been vast. However, that was the start of a real rethink, resulting in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which brought grooming into the picture. At that stage, and still to a degree, this country was ahead of anywhere else in the world on that particular aspect of dealing with this problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) was involved in that as a Minister, and many of us worked in the background. He talked about the high-profile cases. I am bothered that in concentrating on those cases, we may be missing thousands—and there will be thousands—of children elsewhere who have been abused over many years by gangs. We have got to be broad, and the advantage of dealing with the high-profile cases is that it makes it absolutely sure that it will appear in the media and in people’s minds, which has a positive effect.
Coming right back to the title of today’s debate, I find it interesting that so soon after the commencement of this historical child sex abuse inquiry, today’s debate is looking at progress. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary bravely anticipates an initial report before Christmas. In addition, the Home Office says that it does not expect a full report before the next election.
It is worth looking at the Northern Ireland Assembly, which set up a similar inquiry into child sexual abuse in Northern Ireland’s institutions. The population of Northern Ireland is much less than here, the number of institutions is much smaller and the terms of reference much narrower—perhaps, after recent accusations, too narrow. The inquiry commenced in January 2012. I have not followed its progress carefully but I understand that the first part, interviewing witnesses behind closed doors, will be complete by Christmas. Educated guesses are that the report for this much smaller inquiry will come out in 2016, 2017 or later.
We need to decide whether we want a speedy inquiry that comes forward with possibly predictable things that we already have and with no depth, or exactly the opposite, in which case the inquiry will go on for years. Our inquiry is much broader, potentially involving vast numbers of institutions and others. Many of these will wish to hide, and are capable of hiding, past sexual abuse. We will not catch them all; we will not get to the bottom of it all; but we might get enough from those we look at to bring about some dramatic changes to build on what has already happened.
I first became interested in legislation relating to protecting children from abuse and enabling the better prosecution of abusers, particularly child sex abusers, many years ago. My interest resulted from the shock of a day spent with the Metropolitan police paedophile unit, which would completely shake anyone, unless they had the tendencies. At that time, it was the leading unit in the country and probably still is, alongside the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. CEOP and the Met unit work in the same area of protection, but act differently: one can arrest, the other cannot.
At the time, the head of the Met unit was DCI Bob McLachlan—a very tough character. His unit was small, especially in comparison with the current Met unit, but it had a much broader geographical link, look and vista, including overseas, than one would expect for a Met unit.
Years ago, I asked Bob McLachlan how many active paedophiles he and his team thought there were in this country. He said that, in about the year 2000, he and his team had undertaken an exercise on just that subject, and had estimated that there were 230,000 active paedophiles—enough, he said, for there to be one in every street in the country. He also said that 20% of those paedophiles were women, and that half of them—that is, 10%—were women who actively took part in the abuse, sometimes of their own accord rather than being goaded. In those days it was hard to prosecute female abusers because juries would not believe that females were capable of abuse, but cases that have arisen over the last few years have proved that they are. Predominantly, they seem to act in institutions, but we should be very aware that that is not always the case. Given the huge progress of the internet and the “dark web”, there must have been a large increase in the number of paedophiles since 2000. Bob’s figure of 230,000 was a guesstimate.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a fascinating but also very depressing speech. Does he share my concern about sentencing? A high-profile figure in my community was found in possession of 50,000 of the most extreme images imaginable. He went to jail, but came out after nine months, and received no rehabilitation of any sort. It is inconceivable that he does not now pose a threat to children in my community, and there are probably 200 or 300 people like him on my patch alone.
Sir Paul Beresford
I agree with my hon. Friend. The Law Officers in the present Government have chased many of these individuals, and they have a list. However, what we need is an inquiry—conducted by the Attorney-General rather than the Home Office—into the sentences imposed, compared with those that are available.
My hon. Friend spoke of 50,000 indecent images. Judging by many cases that I have looked into, 50,000 is a drop in the ocean. Some of these individuals have hundreds of thousands of images, which may run into the millions. What they do with them is beyond me, but they have them, and we have changed the law so that we can now have access to them. They may not be accessible because they have been encrypted, but another recent change in the law, which I initiated, means that these individuals can be sent to jail for failing to allow the encryption to be broken.
I did not ask Bob, the policeman, for a definition of “paedophile”. Perhaps I should have, because there are various definitions. For the purposes of the inquiry, it needs to be recognised that the vast majority of child abuse, and child sex abuse, happens in families—including extended families—and not in institutions. The inquiry should not forget, and we should not forget, that there is more going on outside institutions than inside them. Having said that, however, I should add that, historically as well as today, predatory paedophiles—both male and female—can and do use institutions in which they are in a position of trust as their field of operations.
Julian Smith
I do not know whether my hon. Friend saw a Channel 4 documentary entitled “The Paedophile Hunter” earlier this week. It raised some quite concerning issues relating to how we as a country have dealt with paedophiles, and referred to academic research which suggested that we should be doing more of what is being done in Germany—helping paedophiles who want to come forward and be given counselling to do so. What conclusions has my hon. Friend reached about the validity of such work?
Sir Paul Beresford
There was a similar programme on Channel 4 about paedophiles as neighbours. The individual in the Channel 4 programme went to Germany, but he did not need to do so. The facilities are available in this country, and have been for a considerable time. They are used in the Prison Service, for instance, and in a world-famous organisation called the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. The system works rather like Alcoholics Anonymous, and the success rate is very high. The problem with the success rate is the cherry-picking, but that does not bother me. If such organisations catch these individuals early enough and stop them, they are being proactive, and that is what we really want.
On occasion, Bob McLachlan would catch these individuals before they did anything and say, “Lad, go and get treatment. If you don’t go and get treatment, I’ll take you to court. If I catch you a second time, you’re going to court.” I have drifted a little way from what I was saying.
In debates such as today’s, Members may be tempted—we have had a bit of this—to add to the inquiry. My only addition relates to the members of the team. It does not have, as the Northern Ireland one does, a highly experienced and recently retired police officer expert in this area. No one on that team has actually looked for these people, arrested them, talked to the victims as part of the campaign and the whole programme. I hope that the Home Office will think about that.
The Northern Ireland inquiry was wise enough to take on an expert who served for many years with the Met police. He is a very recently retired Met DCI who is renowned for his success not only in catching and convicting offenders but in caring for and helping victims, introducing new systems—for example, face recognition—at the Met to find victims. The fact that his nickname in the police is Postman Pat indicates how he is able to approach both victims and offenders so successfully. I do not know how he does it. He interviews victims and they warm to him. He interviews the paedophiles and they warm to him until he reaches the point where he has to leave the room because he feels absolutely disgusted. I can say that now because he is no longer doing it.
I hope we recognise that if we have a decent report on the issue it will probably resemble the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” in volume. I also suspect that the inquiry will report in 2016 if we are lucky, 2017 possibly, but probably even later if it is to be of real value. The inquiry team has a vital role in listening to victims and unearthing currently hidden activities in institutions, as set out in the terms of reference. Merely listening to victims will enable help to be provided to them, as well as potential lines of investigation to be passed to the police. As I said earlier, people will be encouraged to go to the police of their own accord. However, we must recognise that over the past 10 to 12 years there have been huge changes in the protection of children. There have been massive changes in legislation, which I am proud to say I have had a subtle, low-profile hand in putting through. There have been massive changes in attitude and public awareness, and the number of officials, especially police, in this field has gone up enormously. CEOP has been set up, and I believe that all police forces now have paedophile units. They did not 20 years ago. The Met and Birmingham units were the only ones. The Met unit is probably more than 10 times the strength it was when I visited it on that first day of shock. In addition, the Met have their Jigsaw team throughout London, actively monitoring those on the offenders list.
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) mentioned the individual who came out of prison after nine months. It is not finished for him. He will be being watched by the Jigsaw team. We can guarantee that the moment he steps out of line he will be back there.
It is probable that the inquiry will rehash lessons we have already learnt but, probably more usefully—my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham touched on this—it will show where we have the legislation and experience and we are not using it.
Zac Goldsmith
I am sorry to interrupt—I will make a speech shortly—but I have spoken to members of the Jigsaw team in my patch and other areas. My hon. Friend is right to say that there is monitoring afterwards, but talk to any member confidentially and they will say that they are not satisfied with the current regime. They feel that they have an impossible task because of the sheer number of people they have to monitor. There are incidents all the time relating to people who are supposed to be monitored by Jigsaw teams. A tiny number of police officers are monitoring a vast number of very dangerous people. It is not a satisfactory situation at all.
Sir Paul Beresford
I completely agree. I have talked to some of the Jigsaw team, too. It is putting together a programme of suggestions that it will bring to the Home Office. Perhaps my hon. Friend can join me and we can use my subtle-ish methods of sliding legislative changes through, so that the Home Office will agree and we can put them through. That is why we have ten-minute rule Bills and private Members’ Bills. It is possible to put such changes through. It does make one vulnerable to accusations from the BBC—recently I put a piece of legislation through that was on the Floor of the House for just 17 minutes because everybody agreed on it, and I think everybody will on this area, too.
It is probable that the inquiry will rehash lessons already learned, but not always acted upon. The legislation that is in place has also not always been acted upon, partly because many of the non-specialist police officers do not know what is available.
I hope we will relax a little over the inquiry, and let it get on with the job. It is a big job that will take a long time, and we should leave the inquiry team alone for a while to get on with it. Having said that, I want to repeat my small inquiry to the Minister, who is half-listening on the Front Bench: that team is excellent, but it does not include a police officer or ex-police officer, and I can recommend one or two if I am asked—and I am willing to be asked.
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend makes the point well and puts it on the record.
Sir Paul Beresford
I want to intervene on the intervention, because I have been in the same situation as that described by my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), and it was part of the police process of gathering evidence. I saw it in a positive way because the lady may not have told the police what she told me and I gave a full statement which added to what they already had. I saw it positively, not negatively.
Zac Goldsmith
I am going to bring my remarks to a close. We have a chance now to put these appalling wrongs right. That is partially thanks to intervention by people in this House and people outside it. Survivors have played a crucial role, but so, too, did the intervention in this House by the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). That was crucial in shifting this process forward, as was the exposé of Cyril Smith by the hon. Member for Rochdale. Above all, I wish to pay tribute to the extraordinary work by the investigative journalists at Exaro, particularly David Hencke. That organisation has led the campaign on so many fronts. The mainstream press, who have been so slow to pick up on what is really happening in this scandal, have become heavily dependent, and rightly so, on Exaro. I sometimes feel that because it is online and does not have the magazine on people’s desks, it is somehow invisible to people who are not paying attention. But Exaro is crucial; David Hencke has encyclopaedic knowledge of something that I do not ever want to have encyclopaedic knowledge of, and he is an extraordinary figure.
There can no longer be any doubt that powerful people have done terrible things and that they have been protected by the establishment. We know that some of the key figures are alive today, and the measure of success for the police investigations is that those people face justice before they die. This process really needs to happen now. Justice must be done and it must be seen to be done. It is no good waiting years and years for some of these people to fade away and be punished in their absence—that is not good enough. The measure of success for this inquiry is that we and the wider public understand how these conspiracies and cover-ups have been able to happen. Only by understanding how they form will we have any hope of preventing them from forming again.
Sir Paul Beresford
My hon. Friend has touched on the key point. The key point we have to learn, which we have been learning, using and considering in the changes to legislation, is that we must be proactive. We have to get the individuals before they get the children.
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
Let me end by putting it on the record that I am grateful to the current Home Secretary for having had the courage to initiate this process. She is often described as having been bullied and hectored by a bunch of MPs, but, as someone who has done a lot of lobbying on the subject in the four and a half years that I have been here, I can say that it was not difficult to get her to act. She gets the importance of the issue. I do not doubt her absolute commitment and believe that she will leave no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of the matter.
Child Abuse
Paul Beresford Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman’s question about counselling support for victims is more appropriate for other Departments to consider, but I will certainly raise it with my colleagues. In relation to the way in which we discuss this issue, he is right that many people are working assiduously to protect and safeguard children, and I in no way wish to undermine the work that they are doing. It is important for us to look at a number of allegations and cases where people have been prosecuted for historical abuse, but we have of course seen more recent cases of abuse—I mentioned a number of areas in my statement—and it is important for us to learn from those cases to ensure that we have the best systems in place to provide the protection for children that we all want.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. Does she not agree that the situation has dramatically improved since, say, 2003? The public attitude has improved, and legal changes have led to improvements; in fact, the authorities are now in a position to be proactive when they get the chance and when information is brought forward. Does she agree that agencies such as the police and social services should have a legal obligation to provide information to the inquiry on request, and to act in a positive manner towards it?
Mrs May
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that all agencies should act constructively and positively in relation to the inquiry—I encourage them to do so—because that is how we can get to the truth. We have seen that in similar inquiry panels that have taken place. On his first point, I commend my hon. Friend for the work that he has done over many years in looking at the legislative structure, dealing with the issues and working with the police to ensure that the best possible support is given in relation to the activities of paedophiles. Most recently, we have of course seen the new offence of possessing paedophile manuals in the Serious Crime Bill.
Home Affairs
Paul Beresford Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
That was quite an extraordinary speech. It did not focus on the Queen’s Speech. It did not focus on the Bills that were listed. Incidentally, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) should recognise that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre does not arrest—it passes information to individual police forces to deal with.
I was impressed with the list, and the Home Secretary, for the sake of the rest of us who want to speak, went through it quickly. She did not touch on everything; there is more there than she mentioned. I am here to say a personal thank you to the Ministers—
Sir Paul Beresford
I will meet him on the rugby field and we will see.
I am coming to the point. After 12 or 14 years of working to try to bring legislative changes, with considerable success on, among other things, dealing with paedophiles, there is a tiny element—that last element, which has taken me 14 years—included in the Serious Crime Bill. It is little. The Home Secretary did not mention it. My specific interest is in part 5, clause 63. It has not been noticed by many. It is a change to help prosecute child sex abusers. The clause is headed simply, “Possession of paedophile manual”, and as I read the measure, the definition is broader than the sort of straight manual that one would see on car repair. That said, in the past much of this kind of material has been similar to a repair manual.
Two of my ten-minute rule Bills have effectively been on the same subject—I was supported by Paul Goggins, whose name has been mentioned several times. Such material has also been the subject of my continual pressure on Ministers of the previous Labour Government—including one who is present—and of this Government. The problem was first highlighted by the Home Office taskforce of which I was a member in 2001-02, which preceded the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Along with a few senior Met officers—particularly retired DCI Dave Marshall, who is highly respected in this area—I have persistently raised the issue ever since. Recently, CEOP has swung heavily behind the need for legal changes.
The existence of real manuals and their effect came to the fore when BBC 2 broadcast a three-part programme called “The Hunt for Britain’s Paedophiles” in 2002. It involved Bob Long of the BBC following the Metropolitan police paedophile unit for two years. The first of the three parts involved hunting down a group of individuals who, if my memory is correct, were members of a paedophile ring that had been abusing children in London since 1957—not quite 50 years. One of the more active members was a Julian Levene, who produced a manual on the grooming and abuse of children for the use of the members of the ring, and any others who were interested.
Many paedophiles write, either in hard copy or on a computer, guidance or descriptions of their abuse activities, whether real or imaginary. They are, in effect, manuals, and can clearly be seen as guidance. The Bill looks broad enough to catch such material. For many, the written word is more effective than child pornographic photographs, pseudo-photographs and so on.
I would like to give a simple example from CEOP. A man from Kent recently wrote describing his wish to kidnap an early-teenage girl, strip her, sexually abuse her and then, in an appalling way that I will not detail, slowly kill her. It is horrific, especially as his writings inspired him to carry it out. He is now in prison, hopefully for ever, but the teenager is lost. With this legislation, perhaps the early discovery of the writings could have helped, especially given that the police will have the power to act.
Having pondered, with legal help, over quite how to phrase legislation to cover this problem, I congratulate the Secretary of State and her Ministers on the ingenious approach that they have taken. It is broad, it is clever, it will do the job, and lessons have been learned from the Terrorism Act 2006. I also congratulate Ministers on following the approach of much of the child protection legislation. The change will be able to be used actively, proactively and retrospectively. I thank the Ministers again.
Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]
Paul Beresford Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
This being a lawyers’ Bill, I am tiptoeing in with great caution. I will touch briefly on two issues, the first of which is self-defence.
I learned a little about the self-defence issue a few years ago when I observed one of my neighbour’s windows being jemmied open by a gentleman. As he went through the window, I collected him by his heel and brought him back. He and I had a physical discussion, shall we say, and when the police arrived to collect him, he pointed out that his face was a different shape from the face that had arrived on the premises. While saying “I know my rights,” he asked the police to arrest me. Fortunately for me, the police took the gentleman away. When the policeman came back, he said to me, “At least you remembered to turn him round before you hit him. Therefore, it’s self-defence.” I did not say a word, but I went off and prayed, which is rare.
In my constituency, there are a lot of shops in the villages, most of which have accommodation attached. Many of them are burgled on and off by people coming down from London, and this change will give them just a little more of a feeling that they can use self-defence. Some of them do so—some of them use self-defence that comes on four legs with a lot of teeth. I hope that the retail aspect of the provision will cover more than just shops, because many of my villages have cafeterias, restaurants and pubs. I wonder whether the Bill will apply to pubs as well as shops, because almost all my local pubs have residents above them.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)
indicated dissent.
Sir Paul Beresford
From the way the Minister is shaking his head, perhaps it will not.
The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) mentioned CEOP, and I must congratulate him because it was a wonderful invention. It has been very effective and is getting more so. Unlike him, however, I believe that it should be in the NCA. CEOP works nationally and works for the UK internationally, examining individuals, gangs in the UK, international trafficking gangs and some of our citizens who take their child sex activities overseas. It is a logical step to link it with the organised crime police teams, the immigration teams, the border teams and so on.
The previous chief of CEOP was opposed to the proposed change and resigned in a bit of a huff, which I really think was illogical. Peter Davies, the newish head of CEOP, is right behind the change. I believe that is as well, because we are starting to see new nasties appearing in the field. There are signs of increasing trafficking, ritual abuse and possible multiple murder. The depths to which child abuse appears to be able to sink are beyond what any of us would have thought. The police are fighting it, but setting up the NCA with CEOP as part of it must help us, and I certainly support the Bill and CEOP’s move into the NCA.
Child Sexual Exploitation
Paul Beresford Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I will start by apologising for the fact that I have to be in my constituency later today and so, alas, will be unable to stay for the wind-ups. I have written to Mr Speaker about that and apologised to the Front Benchers and to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who moved the motion.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon and the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing the debate and on the powerful and well-informed points they made. I know from bitter experience, over many years in opposition and then in government, that debates in this House on children’s issues or on safeguarding children are hard to come by. At last we are having a debate on child protection and child sexual exploitation. Perhaps that explains why the Press Gallery is deserted. This is not about celebrities, the structural overhaul of the BBC or senior politicians possibly being connected with paedophilia; it is about child sexual exploitation, a subject of huge concern to all our constituents and members of the public and something that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children says affects at least 64 children every day of every year, one in four of them aged under 11. ChildLine has had almost 16,000 contacts on just that subject. It is hugely important. Frankly, the recent media circus with sensationalist celebrity scalp hunting has really undermined the importance and severity of the issue we are at last discussing today. I think that the media should take note of that.
I must say that it is puzzling and disappointing that the Minister responsible for child protection will not respond to the debate and, indeed, that no Minister from the responsible Department, the Department for Education, is on the Front Bench. One of the responses to the “Puppet on a string” report produced by Barnardo’s was that one Minister should have overriding responsibility across Government for tackling child sexual exploitation. I took on that responsibility in my previous ministerial role and I think that my successor has also done so. Perhaps the Minister who is here today could explain whether that arrangement has changed. It is disappointing and puzzling, as I have said.
The media circus of recent days has concentrated on the BBC and political links, so it has gone almost unnoticed that there have been further arrests in the Rochdale case, an arrest in the Savile case and arrests regarding a further paedophile ring operating in Leeds. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said, the fact that more of these cases are hitting the news and coming to court is a sign of success in that they are being taken more seriously by the police and other agencies, who are pursuing them and making the charges stick. We need much more publicity about that.
This is an important issue now, but it was also important in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, when, as has become apparent in recent days, we failed to look at it properly. Even now, the NSPCC estimates that only one in 10 cases of child sexual abuse is reported. Back in the ’70s and ’80s we would have been lucky if one in 100 was reported, let alone prosecuted and the perpetrators brought to book.
Let us take stock of recent history. An almost beatified celebrity in the form of Jimmy Savile has now been connected with some horrendous crimes involving young children. Other celebrities might be involved, and it might involve practices within the BBC. Yet when it was going on it was apparently an era of “nudge, nudge” and people saying, “Well, it’s just Jimmy—that sort of thing happens.” In fact, “nudge, nudge” and “That’s just Jimmy” was about serious sexual crimes against children, as we now recognise them to be. That is how it appears from the information that is emerging, although there is still much investigating to be done.
We then had the rumours about links with high-level politicians, which so far have not been based on any properly researched evidence. I have to say that certain allegations that were made without that evidence, both in this Chamber and in poorly researched “Newsnight” programmes, have not helped this case. However, as I said some weeks ago, why should we be surprised if there are people in political life connected with child abuse? It has affected the Church and it has affected children’s homes; it has involved people in positions of trust supposedly caring for vulnerable children. It is affecting the entertainment industry. Why should we be surprised if politicians are also involved? This is a cancer that has gone on for many years, under the radar, across a whole range of institutions that we did not previously consider.
The Waterhouse inquiry, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said, was very thorough. It was supposed to take a year and took over three years, and it uncovered 12,000 documents and hundreds of witnesses. It is right that we should make sure that all the evidence from that inquiry has been properly looked at. However, since last week we have had an inquiry into an inquiry. That is why I take the view, as I did some weeks ago when the Savile allegations started to come to light, that we need an overarching inquiry that goes back to the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s to look at what happened, why it happened, what stopped it happening, and what has changed to make sure that the perpetrators, who may still be at large, are at last brought to book. Importantly, it would ensure that the victims come forward and this time have their stories taken seriously and believed and, where appropriate, acted on, so that, we hope, they get some sort of closure. Even more importantly, it would help us to ensure that in 2012 every institution that has significant contact with children and young people has a robust child protection policy in place that can make these horrendous crimes much less likely.
Only today in my own area, in the diocese of Chichester, as a result of the report by Lady Butler-Sloss into allegations of child abuse, there have been two further arrests involving a former bishop. This goes everywhere, and we must not be blind to looking into every nook and cranny and under every carpet where it has been swept in the past.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree, from his experience, that the age group of victims goes from 16 to birth, so a considerable proportion of the victims cannot speak out? In the baby P case, we used legislation against witnesses that has since been expanded. We might want to look at that aspect so that those who stand by and watch, and do not speak out, could be brought to book as well.
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend makes a good point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon said, the Government cannot solve this on their own. The stories we have heard over recent weeks and months have made it clear to all of us that everybody has a responsibility of vigilance, while those in positions of care and trust have a greater responsibility than the rest of us. There is now no excuse for not realising that child abuse goes on and no excuse for someone not doing anything about it when they see it happening, or suspect that it might be happening, in their street, community, school, church, business, or whatever it might be.
Tim Loughton
There is merit in that idea. One of my concerns when I was in the Department was the weak link of safeguarding within the health service, and that has always been the case. LSCBs often say that health representatives are the weak link and the reluctant partners. I believe that is changing. I set up some cross-departmental protocols with my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who was then a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department of Health. It would be sensible to give a safeguarding role to the health and wellbeing boards. We have LSCBs, public health boards, safeguarding boards and overview and scrutiny committees in local authorities, but we desperately need to link them all up, because the problem of children being abused does not change. We need the right people to exchange the right information and for somebody to pick up the ball, run with it and act on it so that children are protected and safer.
Sir Paul Beresford
My hon. Friend has not mentioned—no one has so far—the fact that legal changes since the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which was crucial, have resulted in a new power, which received bipartisan support, that enables police, those who chase paedophiles on the sex offenders list, and judges to address the crime of grooming.
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend was involved in bringing that about. It was difficult to define what amounted to child sexual exploitation. Although technology is a wonderful enabling tool, its emergence also enables people such as groomers to do evil things by it. We have to keep up with such people. On my visits to CEOP and Scotland Yard, I saw police officers trawling through all sorts of extraordinary, horrific imagery on their computers. It is often the case that paedophiles and traders in extreme pornography who take advantage of children are technologically one step ahead of law enforcers. We must never shirk from making sure that, technologically, our law-enforcement agencies are up to speed in doing their job, because paedophiles are really clever at using technology to peddle their vile trade.
Are we safer in 2012? I believe that we are, but we still have a long way to go. I believe that the modern equivalent of the abuse that took place in north Wales children’s homes in the ’70s and ’80s, and other similar events that are now being revisited, is child sexual exploitation gangs. Most of those that have come to light so far happen to involve British Pakistani men, but we will also see other gangs with different cultural backgrounds around the country. It is child sexual exploitation of a different sort from, but on a similarly serious scale to what happened in those children’s homes. It is not happening in children’s homes any more—we have well-regulated, well-inspected, better-equipped people—but it is happening outside children’s homes in too many cases. That is why we must be absolutely vigilant and make sure that we learn the lessons of Rochdale, Derby, Bradford and all the cases that have and are still to come to light. The knowledge that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon has of the cases that may come to light in her own part of the world will bring further gasps at the fact that such savagery can actually take place. This will continue to happen.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I add my congratulations to the three musketeers. If we had had this debate 15 or 20 years ago, the number of Members in the Chamber would be half what it is today. There is now an interest and understanding that we did not have previously.
My interest in child sexual exploitation began when I did the police parliamentary course 10 or 12 years ago. I spent a day with the paedophile unit at Scotland Yard and came out feeling very shaky. I did not realise such people existed or that they did such things. I occasionally go back there to be topped up. I have put together a series of changes to the law that the Metropolitan police paedophile unit felt were necessary. With the help of Ministers of both this Government and the previous one, I have introduced half a dozen or a dozen changes that have strengthened the police’s opportunity to put some of those people away, and their ability to find and help victims. We must remember that they have that double role.
Much of the subject has been covered, so I will not go on about it, but when I was first at Scotland Yard, I asked the head of the paedophile unit whether it had done a guesstimate of how many predatory paedophiles there are in the country. Like the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who is no longer in her place, he said that most paedophile activity or sexual abuse of children happens in the home. Most of it is dealt with by hard-working, overworked, busy social workers. We must applaud them. They have been plodding away at the problem for centuries—it must feel like that to them—and making a difference.
The paedophile unit looked particularly at predatory paedophiles. The head of the unit gave me a guesstimate that there were broadly enough of those for there to be one active paedophile for every street in the country. He told me that 20% of those were women, and that half of them—10% of the total—were women who actively took part. That shook me, and we need to think about it. We have obvious examples such as Myra Hindley and Rose West, but there have been recent cases in which women running or working in day nurseries have been predatory paedophiles.
The waking up for many of us came when a programme was broadcast by BBC 2, which was very brave to put it on, called “Hunting Britain’s Paedophiles”. I mention that because hon. Members have spoken about cases going back to the ’60s and ’70s. The first two programmes focused on how the paedophile unit trapped, caught and eventually helped to convict, thanks to the courts, a group of paedophiles whose job was paedophilia. They lived on money that they gained through their system and all they did was chase children. They put together a grooming manual on how to make a predatory attack on children. They started, I think in Tooting, in 1957, and they were not put away until about 2001. How many children they touched in a bad way is beyond fathoming. They got away with it because the kids were not believed. One of the things I tell people when I talk about this issue is that paedophiles, like these individuals, are nice people, because if they were not nice the kids would not like them, but underneath they are appalling. That case woke me up as well, and I think it woke up an awful lot of people. I remember someone saying to me, “I remember, when I was kid, the man with the box Brownie camera down at Tooting lido taking photographs.”
There have been huge changes since then. The law is very much stronger. We are starting to recognise the importance of helping victims, and there are a large number of organisations helping them, including the police. The Metropolitan police’s Sapphire unit helps people who have been victimised—and by “people” I mean women and men. Another point that the paedophile unit made to me was that more boys are abused than girls. Why? I do not know and neither did it.
There is help for paedophiles. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation has a good success rate for those it takes on board and tries to help. It works a little like Alcoholics Anonymous. To be blunt, the reason for its success is that it cherry-picks—it picks the ones it thinks it can help. To my mind, that is best value for the money available. Scores of organisations help victims. We need every single one of them, and we need their expertise. Child Victims of Crime was set up by the police to help child victims, particularly victims of paedophiles, because we as a nation—I find this distressing—did not have a decent organisation to do that. It is still going, is very successful and does an awful lot of good work.
As the Minister is here, and if he will listen for two minutes, I ask him to go through tomorrow’s Hansard with his highlighter pen, as some very good suggestions have been made. Will he assess them and act on them? I will throw in two suggestions. First, having looked at the change to the legislation and the increase in penalties, will he set up a small study to look at the actual sentences and those that are available, and have a think about having a little discussion with the judges? A lot of people have been convicted, sentenced and, to my mind, not gone away for long enough.
Secondly, we are looking for some way of creating the opportunity for victims to come forward. As I said, many are little children. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). It is not the magazines on the shelves that paedophiles use, but the internet—it is the muck that is available on the internet and the way in which kids are groomed on the internet. I saw on an internet site—I was just too shocked by this—a Polish gentleman abusing a baby with the umbilical chord still attached. The Metropolitan police acted very quickly, and I understand that he has gone away for a long time, because they made a phone call to Poland.
Finally, I would like to make a suggestion. The Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims (Amendment) Act 2012, which I introduced to the House, extended this area of law to cover violent abuse. It was the Act under which the baby P case was prosecuted. Perhaps we should consider making a tiny change to that legislation to include sexual abuse, so that those who observe and stand by, or know and stand by, are duty bound by law to speak up for the victims.
Child Abuse Allegations (North Wales)
Paul Beresford Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that many fresh allegations could come from individuals who have hidden the appalling attacks made on them so many years ago, and who will be reluctant to come forward because that would disturb the life that they have built since? Do such people not need the reassurance and protection that can be provided by CEOP, the police and others if they do come forward?
Mrs May
That is an important point. For many victims who wish to come forward, it will not be an easy process but a very painful process, which, as my hon. Friend says, could disrupt the lives that they have been able to build subsequently. However, I assure him that CEOP is well able to deal, and well used to dealing, with people who are in difficult circumstances and who may find it difficult to come forward. That is why I think it so important for CEOP’s ability and specialism to be brought to bear on the investigation.
Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill (Money)
Paul Beresford Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
This is a small private Member’s Bill, but before referring to it I must welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his new job.
I thank Members on both sides of the House for their support for the Bill, which we hope will progress to consideration in Committee fairly promptly as it is clearly important. During 2011, 7,422 illicit phones and SIM cards were found in England and Wales, and the figure for Scotland—1,335 phones and SIM cards—is proportionate to that. The Bill is sufficiently broad to enable us to hope that, as technology changes and moves forward, it can be adapted to meet whatever the technology comes up with. It is supported not only by the prisons hierarchy, but by the prison officers. We might have that support explained to us in a moment.
I visited a prison last week and there had just been an incident where, due to special timing, warders managed to pick up seven phones with cocaine attached. SIM cards and so on were lobbed over the wall, but they were collected and therefore cannot be used. The key point is not just the phones, but the SIM cards. One small phone does not cost much money, and its adapter and charger can be used for goodness knows how many SIM cards.
These measures will be implemented in such a way that anyone phoning illegally will suddenly find that their phone is engaged constantly, whether they are phoning in or out, and it will be possible to track the phones and pick up the various numbers, which will be useful for anti-crime activities. That is important, because there is ample evidence of the range of activities involved in the commissioning of serious crime and violence, and many of the heavy boys and girls in our prisons have been organising crime outside while they are inside. If one believes only half of what one reads in the Daily Mail, one will agree that things such as the harassment of victims and gang activity happen, and that there is also the existence of extremist networks.
It will be possible to set these measures up in such a way that certain numbers will go straight through. By that I mean important numbers. I understand that the Coke machine in the prison can dial outside and tell the supplier that it is about to run out, so the supplier can rush more supplies in. I consider such a provision to be vital.
This is a little Bill with support from both sides of the House, and I hope that it makes progress. I also anticipate the money resolution receiving the support of the House tonight.
Sir Paul Beresford
I hope that, on second thoughts, the hon. Gentleman will realise that introducing such a facility will reduce the time spent on, for example, searches. There will be savings on one side, which will compensate for the costs on the other.
John McDonnell
I hope that that is the case and I see the rationale behind the hon. Gentleman’s case, but start-up costs will need to be met, particularly with regard to resourcing the training. If existing staff are to implement the legislation, they will have to be taken off other jobs, which will put stress on other Prison Service staff, unless some additional resource is made available. Assurances need to be given to the professionals who will implement the legislation that that will not be at a cost to their role elsewhere in the Prison Service.
Public Disorder
Paul Beresford Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Gavin Barwell
No, I cannot give way because other people want to speak.
I do not pretend to have all the answers to the long-term problems. On Tuesday night, I had to go home and explain to my eight-year-old son why people behave in this way. It seems that the choice being offered is that this is about either morality or poverty, but elements of both are involved. There is an issue about upbringing. Too many young people in my town are brought up in highly unstable environments, without parental role models. Many parents feel they no longer have the power to discipline their children, and there are clear issues about discipline in schools, which the Secretary of State for Education is trying to sort out. Too many young people have no respect for other people or authority. They are very conscious of their rights but not of their responsibilities to others. Sadly, in this great city of ours there are people who are marginalised and who feel that they do not have access to the huge opportunities that many Londoners enjoy. We need to address all those issues, however uncomfortable they are for those of us on the centre right or centre left of politics.
It is no coincidence that these events took place in the summer holidays. We need to make sure that people have something productive to do when they are not at school or when they are out of work.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
As my hon. Friend will recall, I have a faint connection with Croydon Central.
My hon. Friend’s second and fourth points are united. One of the problems is the feral children aspect. It is all very well to talk about parenting, but they have no parents of any value, and conviction would not keep them away from crime.
Gavin Barwell
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. There is a great charity in Croydon called Lives Not Knives that tries to help people out of gang culture. Many of the former gang members whom I meet have come from backgrounds with no parental role models. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been passed from foster home to foster home, and people have been abused while in care. That is absolutely an issue. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is in the House, but we must consider intervening earlier when young people first show signs of getting into difficulty, rather than waiting until there are real problems.
My real hope is that something positive will come out of what has happened over the past few days and that we will see in this country not just measures for a few days to restore public order, but a completely fresh approach to how we tackle crime, how we treat our young people, how we interact with them, how we bring them up, how we listen to what they have to say and how we try to build a stronger, more cohesive society in this country.
My constituents sent me a clear message before I came to the House today. They are not looking for party political bickering, squabbling or point scoring; they are looking for Members to show some leadership, to look into the underlying problems, to restore order and to find a long-term solution. I hope that all Members will focus on exactly that point as we go forward in the debate.