Historical Child Sex Abuse

Debate between Simon Danczuk and Julian Smith

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Simon Danczuk]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which has shone some light on the questions that need to be answered.

For every person who commits child abuse, very many people are complicit in that abuse or know information that could help, and it is absolutely vital that those people—they could be civil servants, cab drivers or even neighbours—come forward. More significantly, a large number of police officers, both retired and serving, have information to give. We simply need to get the full picture, and to get those people to speak at the inquiry. The Home Secretary must ensure that there is a full amnesty for any officer, so that they are not worried about the Official Secrets Act or their pensions.

We must make sure that we create the best possible conditions in which survivors can come forward and speak to the inquiry. I know how hard that will be for many of them. I have spoken to many survivors who have been silent for decades, and they are struggling to come to terms with what happened to them. That can be a hugely painful and traumatic experience. We need to provide full support and access to therapies that might be required by those people. We have failed them once, and we must not do so again.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

I apologise for not being in the Chamber for the start of the hon. Gentleman’s speech.

On the issue of support, what is the hon. Gentleman’s view of the financial implications of what he is saying? It seems to me that there is a need for money to support counselling services across this whole area. Will he say what money might be needed for the survivors in relation to the inquiry?

[Simon Danczuk]

I have made no calculation of what the cost might be of therapies or support for the survivors, but it is minuscule in comparison with the damage done to them. I have no doubt that the Home Office will consider the point that the hon. Gentleman has made.

Another group of people should come forward to the inquiry—the perpetrators of child abuse. To those people, I would say: “I urge you to think about the people you have abused, and to think about your victims. Damaged as children, they continue to suffer now, well into their adult lives. You have inflicted untold misery on them and their families. In many cases, what you did has made it impossible for them to live normal lives. Now they must suffer again by coming forward and speaking about what you did to them. They will have tried desperately to bury the memories of abuse, but they will now have to drag them back into the light. They will have to relive that trauma. But you can spare them some of that suffering. You can come forward and admit your guilt. If you admit what you have done, some of that pain can be saved, and some people can begin to rebuild their lives. So I say again: as a perpetrator of these crimes, you must come forward to the inquiry and take responsibility for what you have done. You can never undo the wrong, but you can at least prevent further agony.”

So far, my speech has focused on the historical aspects of child abuse, but the grim reality is that child abuse is a fact of life for hundreds of children in modern Britain. In places such as Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford and Telford, children are still being abused. This is not a thing of the past; this is happening to our children in our towns now.

We know from the Jay report on Rotherham that there were more than 1,400 victims over a six-year period in just one town. The Communities and Local Government Committee, on which I sit, conducted an inquiry into Rotherham, and our findings were worrying. The same failures and bad practices that allowed children to be abused in Rotherham are common across local government areas. Rotherham is simply the tip of the iceberg. We are yet to discover the true horrific extent of child abuse in this country. When it is revealed, nobody will be in any doubt that this is one of the most appalling crimes of our times.

In these circumstances, it is vital that the police get to grips with the issue and that resources are made available to solve abuse cases and catch the abusers. I am not convinced that that is happening. I have spoken to serving Met police officers, and they have described in graphic detail abuse crimes that are being committed, but are being ignored. I have the same concerns with regard to Greater Manchester police, my local force.

Victims have been ignored by the police because they were poor, white, working-class kids. Police and social workers have insulted them and left them to be abused. The survivors—often as young as 11—were accused of making lifestyle choices. The attitude in one agency was so warped that when an abuser got a young victim pregnant for the second time, the social worker insisted that the rapist, who was married with a family of his own, should attend the antenatal classes. I am still struggling to believe that such a culture could exist in our public services. As a result of that culture, the police failed to arrest rapists, who moved on to new victims year in, year out, and the perpetrators’ confidence was bolstered so that they thought they were untouchable.

My own town of Rochdale has also suffered from this crime. Not only did Cyril Smith and others abuse children in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but we had the Rochdale grooming scandal just a few years ago. It does not stop there. Yesterday, eight men were arrested across Rochdale, Oldham and Manchester, accused of grooming three children—one was 15, and two were just 13—in our town. I am glad that the police are acting and making arrests, but it is shocking that after all the town has been through, people are still out there trying to sexually abuse children on our streets. In this case, the abuse is alleged to have occurred between September and October this year, so the accusation is that at the very time we were all learning about the horrendous abuse in Rotherham, these men were still brazenly continuing their abuse. It is just sickening.

Before I bring my remarks to a close, I want to reflect for a moment on the consequences of child abuse. It is a difficult and distressing subject. I know that it is all too easy to turn away from the distasteful headlines and harrowing stories, and to think that it is something that will never touch us. We think that this kind of abuse could never happen in our town or to anyone we know, but it affects all of us. Child abuse ruins lives, strips people of their dignity and is creating a growing underclass of people who have been abused.

We must think about the consequences of child rape: it sets people back in school and damages their life chances; it pushes people to the margins of society, where they often end up involved in crime and drugs, putting pressure on the police and other agencies; and it leaves people with terrible physical problems, often preventing them from having children of their own. It is a crime that stores up all sorts of problems that are felt across society. Like all violent, senseless crimes, its consequences are felt long after the crime is committed. The psychological damage that it causes to survivors is impossible to overestimate.

With that in mind, and considering the hurdles that we must cross to get the inquiry moving, I am hopeful that the whole House will unite and renew its efforts to bring justice to the victims of child abuse. The survivors are crying out to be heard. It is time we started listening.