Posted 10th June 2004
Here is the extract article from Friday's Manchester Evening News.
Manchester Evening News Friday May 28 2004
HUNDREDS OF 'VICTIMS' WHO CLAIM CARE HOME ABUSE BID FOR PAYOUT
Hundreds of alleged victims of child abuse are taking actions against Manchester council in a bid to win compensation. About 200 people are taking the civil action, claiming they were abused in social services run care homes decades ago. More than half relate to allegations of abuse at an assessment centre in Wythenshawe - where children were sent for short periods while the authorities decided which home to send them to. Cheadle Hulme based lawyer Peter Garsden, who is co-ordinating the legal action, said the council was negotiating settlements and so far, 27 victims had been awarded £285,000 between them. He said 111 of the alleged victims claimed to have been abused at the Rosehill assessment centre in Wythenshawe.
The allegations relate to a time from the 1960s to the 1980s. Many staff members were now old or dead and some criminal cases had been abandoned due to the elderly defendants' medical conditions. Mr Garsden said: "A huge amount of abuse is alleged to have gone on there. It was described as a very brutal regime by many of the victims.
"A lot of people at Rosehill escaped justice because so many kids went through the home and it was very difficult to get enough evidence to tell the police. The alleged abuse cases may have been serious, but they happened once or twice. But people have been badly damaged by what happened there. The route to compensation is part of the healing process for these people. There's a lot of anger inside them and by going through with this they can get rid of it in the right direction. "A lot of them perceive that the people who were really at fault were those higher up the chain who allowed it to operate right under their noses."
A Manchester council spokesman said: "Prior to the cut-off date for this group action in November last year; a number of claims were submitted for claimants who were at Rosehill. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage."
Posted June 10th 2004
If you are having difficulty in persuading the police to investigate a criminal act(including by its own officers e.g. perjury) you might like to keep in mind the Crouther case CRO.Eliz 654 which governs a refusal by a Constable to pursue a felon.
This case essentially states that when a Constable is on notice of a crime, and refuses to act or investigate, then this becomes "MALFEASCANCE" (an illegal deed by a public official, which must then be corrected)
Posted 13th May 2004
For the legally minded there is a very interesting article in the Criminal Law Review titled CROSS CONTAMINATION - TIME TO EXTEND THE ABUSE OF PROCESS DOCTRINE by Mark Summers and Julian Winship, published in 2003. The article discusses the problems of witness cross-pollination in cases where there are multiple witnesses of fact, and discusses what steps can be taken to safeguard the interests of the defendant. It goes on to say this is an area of evidence that has yet to receive the full attention of the principles of abuse of process but, in the authors' opinion, is ripe for argument. Criminal cases in which there exist multiple witnesses of fact are commonplace. In the majority of those cases, there can be no real suggestion made that the statements of those witnesses are not truly their own accounts, either because the witnesses will be wholly independent of each other or, if not, statements will have been obtained by the police soon enough after the event so as to negate any real likelihood of cross-contamination. However, cases can and often do arise where the evidence tends to show that, at some point prior to trial, the evidence of one witness might well have been contaminated by the evidence of another...
[As with all law reports it is important to read the whole article. If you have problems locating it please contact the secretary
Posted 21st May 2005
I received this request from a FACT member. Can you help
I'm endeavouring to complete a HOLMES (Home Office Large Enquiry System) self help guide for INNOCENT, in the first instance, this will be the original system rather than HOLMES2
I'm keen to be able to show examples of the various data documentation that HOLMES generates, I currently have examples of the following data functionality:
- ALLOCATION OF NOMINAL NUMBERS
- ACTIONS
- REPORTS
- MESSAGES
DOCUMENT SCHEDULE
I recently identified an additional functionality from an article by Linzi McDonald {who was David Jones Solicitor]that of:
'The Nominal Record - Every person entered onto the HOLMES database is given a unique number. Every time his name is mentioned in a report, statement, action or message, there will be an entry on his Nominal Record with a short explanation as to why it is there. One can compare this document with the disclosure given and use it to identify documents referring to the client or a key witness that have not been provided' - my emphasis.
I do not have an example of a Nominal Record - is there any member of F.A.C.T. who may be able to provide me with an example - as with the above data at 1-5 - I will ensure all identifying case factors and names are blanked out
Posted 15th March 2005
(There is an article in Community Care from Alison Taylor which pours scorn on the opportunities available to young people once they leave care. Ms Taylor uses the case of Darren Laverty, a former care home resident who was prominent in the North Wales Abuse Inquiry led by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, to illustrate her concerns.
Despite having a degree Mr Laverty was was recently turned down from a possible appointment as a care worker. (see here). Ms Taylor is critical of F.A.C.T. North Wales for questioning the appropriateness of Sir Ronald Waterhouse's decision to provide Mr Laverty with a reference.
Note: If you read the article you will find Ms Taylor falsely alleges that I "probably viewed Laverty's self-made documentary contribution to the BBC season (Beyond Reform? BBC2 Wales, 17 February), where Laverty described his dismay and frustration with an equally jaundiced eye"
In fact I have never seen the the programe nor indeed been aware of its content. The fact that this false allegation should have been printed by Community Care without reference to myself will be pursued with the editor of Community Care.
Posted on 15th February 2004
February 15, 2004
Sex abuse myth 'is rife in Ireland'
Dearbhail McDonald
AN ORGANISATION established to fight false allegations of sexual abuse in Britain claims the Irish redress system has created a “myth-making machine”, with many complainants making extreme allegations about abuse. The claim, which has fuelled a bitter row with the main support group for victims of institutional abuse in Ireland, will be spelt out in Ireland this week by Margaret Jervis, a legal adviser to the British False Memory Society, which aims to raise public awareness of the dangers of using unscientific methods to recover memories of abuse. “The Irish are great storytellers and many it seems are making extreme allegations,” she said. “The further you go back in years with allegations of abuse, the taller the stories become.” Jervis will travel to Dublin this week to meet a group of people who claim to be victims of false abuse allegations. She will address the group on the issue of “recovered memory” and modern child abuse witch hunts.
The closed meeting on Wednesday will be hosted by
Let Our Voices Emerge (Love), a group of people with positive memories of institutional care who want to defend members of religious orders they believe have been unjustly accused of abuse. Jervis, who compared the thousands of claims of abuse in industrial schools to the “epidemic” of similar allegations prompted by recovered memory therapy in Britain in the early 1990s, said that the scale of alleged abuse in Ireland is incredible.
“It beggars belief that it (the abuse) could have been that bad. The scale of alleged abuse must surely be connected to the open-ended compensation scheme offered by the Irish government and the very broad description of what constitutes abuse. The definition of abuse is beyond belief, and the longer it goes on, the greater the hype”. The government has defined abuse as “the wilful, reckless or negligent infliction of physical injury on, or failure to prevent such injury to, the child”. The extent of the institutional abuse caseload emerged last month when the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, formerly chaired by Justice Mary Laffoy, revealed it was studying 4,128 allegations by 1,712 complainants. Laffoy resigned last September because she believed the inquiry was effectively rendered powerless by the government. The decision by Jervis to address Love’s members has sparked fury among members of Irish-Soca (Survivors of Child Abuse), a support group for victims. It claims the British adviser “knows absolutely nothing about Ireland” and has been drawn into “a nasty black propaganda war against the state’s former child prisoners”. In a letter to Jervis last week, Jim Beresford, a researcher for Irish-Soca, warned that she was “dabbling in the dirtier end of Irish politics”. “The BFMS seems to think that we have all been hypnotised into falsely recalling our history,” said Beresford. “This pathologises us and incriminates us. The false memory society is in fact a false history society”. Patrick Walsh, the UK-based spokesperson for Irish-Soca, also wrote to Jervis last week, asking her to reconsider the engagement. “What does she know about abuse in Ireland?” said Walsh. “She is making comments on a situation in a faraway country which she knows absolutely nothing about. It is quite extraordinary.” Walsh claims members of the Irish group are “dabbling in the black arts of crypto-eugenics”.
Florence Horsman-Hogan, Love’s co-founder, angered abuse victims earlier this year when she stated that some former residents of state and religious institutions who received treatment for alcoholism, addictions, depression, and mental illness were genetically predisposed to such conditions. “We were affected before we ever went into institutional care as our own parents couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of us,” said Horsman-Hogan. “The usual cause was that they themselves suffered from mental illness and addictions. While environment is a factor in these conditions, they are also genetic — so had we never been in care we were programmed to go on to develop these conditions.” The debate about compensation being paid to alleged victims of institutional abuse has intensified in recent weeks. A dispute has emerged following allegations by Tom Hayes of the Alliance Victim Support Group, which represents more than 300 former residents, that institutional abuse had created a “cottage industry” of support groups. Jervis said that protests would not deter her from travelling to Dublin and that she felt the correspondence from Soca was “emotionally intimidating”. She added: “I’m surprised at the aggressive tone of the group. It is unpleasant to be harassed in that way. What are they so worried about?”
We are grateful to
LOVE for this information
Useful statistics
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Posted 25th March 2004
The following information which appears in the
Times Educational Supplement on the 20th Feb 2004 has been brought to my attention.
American StudyAn
American study which surveyed more that 3000 teachers found:-
56% were aware of false allegations made against a colleague
36 % expressed concern that they might the subject of false allegations
42% advised against a new teacher being alone in room with a student
62% warned against casual touching
70% against hugging or putting an arm around a pupil
Disclosure of Soft information - possible breach of human rightsIn the same edition Patrick Andrews (a solicitor and FACT supporter) states that "his firm may seek justice [about the disclosure of soft information held by the police] in the European Courts. He is keen to test out Article 8 Schedule 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which gives every body the right to privacy. "Disclosure is a form of discrimination because by virtue of being accused a teacher no longer enjoys the same rights as everyone else".
NASUWT - Audit of AllegationsAccording to the NASUWT figures during the past 12 years show that:-
1800 allegations of physical and sexual abuse were made against teachers and that the number is growing. In 1991 there were 44. In 2003 there were 183. Only 200 of those 1800 allegations made it to Court. 73 were convicted. Of the 160 cases reported in 2002 twenty cases were still outstanding.
Posted 6th February 2004
For news of Anver Sheikh's successful appeal read the article in today's Times
here and
here There is also an article about
Michael Brizzalari
Posted 23rd February 2004
The following article appeared in The Big Issue (9th -15th Feb)
"The Care Leavers Association (CLA) has voiced concerns tha investigations into the convictions of 100 former carers and teachers for child abuse is pandering to powerful supporters of an organisation that is trying to "smear" care leavers. Last week a conviction against a care worker Anver Daud Sheikh was quashed by the Court of Appeal. The Criminal Case Review Commission and Historical Abuse Appeal Panel are now investigating other cases.
Phil Frampton, a member of the CLA, criticised the move. "we are all in favour of justice," he said but the law has bowed to the powerful supporters of F.A.C.T. (Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers), an organisation that is smearing care leaver's cries for justice as being driven by greed. After the horrors of the Soham case and the revelation that thousands of adults in this country finance paedophile web sites, the Government should be pressing for more child abusers to be put before the Courts.
Note: We shall be writing to the CLA and The Big Issue pointing out that FACT is not trying to smear care leavers. FACT accepts that some young people in care have been abused by their carers and teachers but believes the extent to which this has happened has been exaggerated. All we ask is that care leavers accept that sometimes false allegations are made, and that in these circumstances the falsely accused and/or wrongly convicted are entitled to seek justice. We shall also point out that F.A.C.T .does not permit anyone into its membership who is found in possession of child pornography.
Posted 26th February 2004
Title: The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic
Author: Mary de Young
PUB: McFarland Publishing
ISBN: 0-7864-1830-3
280pp. tables, notes, bibliography, index
Cost $45 Softcover 2004
Available from Godfrey Whitmore Books
Description: In the United States during the early 1980s, hundreds of day care providers were accused of sexually abusing their young charges in satanic rituals that included blood drinking, cannibalism, and human sacrifice. The panic surrounding the ritual abuse of children has spread quickly to Canada, Europe, and Australasia, and its rapid dispersion has been unimpeded by international investigations that found no evidence to corroborate the allegations and warned that a moral panic was thrusting them into professional public attention.
This work is a sociologically based analysis of the day care ritual abuse panic in America. It introduces the concept of moral panic and analyzes its relevance to the ritual abuse scare, explores the ideological, political, economic, and professional forces that, fomented the panic, discusses the McMartin Preschool case as the incident that brought attention to satanic menaces and children, and examines the discourse between the various interest groups that stirred up and spread the moral panic and the day care providers accused of ritual abuse.
Also covered are the popular culture representations of day care ritual abuse, the diffusion of the scare to areas overseas, the institutionally symbolic and ideologically contradictory social ends of the panic, and the outcomes of the panic in various settings. The book ends with a discussion of moral panic theory and how it needs to be changed for a complex, multi-mediated postmodern culture, and what lessons can be learned from the scare.
Mary de Young, a professor of sociology at Grand Valley State University, is also the author of The Ritual Abuse Controversy: An Annotated Bibliography (2002, $49.95). She lives in Grand Rapids,
Posted 7th January 2004
A complete change of attitude towards abuse has been called for to reduce the risk of people like Ian Huntley devastating more families. F.A.C.T. (Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers) says society needs to cultivate a culture which encourages people to complain of abuse at the time it happens. A spokesperson for the campaign group said, "We need to reverse the position by which victims of abuse understandably feel they cannot report assaults upon themselves. "We need to replace this with an attitude that victims of abuse have a public responsibility to make their complaints at the time the abuse occurs - that it is OK to complain"
The group has welcomed the Home Secretary's decision to set up an inquiry into the investigative failings which resulted in Huntley being able to obtain a job at a secondary school in Soham. "FACT shares the indignation that all right-minded people feel regarding his callous behaviour and brutal killing of two young children," continued the spokesperson. "It is also right that the police and child protection agencies learn lessons from this terrible tragedy. '"The failings which have resulted in Huntley being undetected are the same failings that have resulted in many innocent people being falsely accused of abusing children. The system needs to be completely overhauled."
Note: the above article appeared in the Western Mail 7th January 2004
Posted on 8th January 2004
There is a long but very interesting and informative article in The Times (Times 2) today on Prof Loftus's work on false memory - well worth reading. The article also draws attention to some work by Prof Corwin which can be found here under the heading "child maltreatment".
Other articles by Prof Loftus and Mel Guyer on the dangers of a single case history can be found here and here. Recommended Reading
Ryan Commission report
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Posted on 20th January 2004
For those of you interested in Irish affairs Judge Ryan has published his report into the working of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. A summary of the report can be found
here. The full report
here
NSPCC criticised
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Posted 23rd January 2004
An interesting article written by Frank Ferudi
.... The NSPCC is shameless about its obsession with publicity. Its website proudly displays the logo 'PR Week Award 2003'. A press release published in December 2003 boasts that its 'hard-hitting' cartoon TV and poster campaign gained an award for being 'the best charity ad in the world'. These ads featured a child in the form of a cartoon character who is thrown from wall to wall by a real live father. Viewers see the 'child' having a cigarette stubbed out on his head, being punched and then thrown down the stairs. Another ad portrays images of distraught cartoon babies covering their ears in terror to keep out the noise of their father battering their mother next door. The NSPCC's publicity crusade relentlessly portrays a world where parents, particularly fathers, systematically brutalise their children.
In 2003, slick adverts made by Saatchi and Saatchi compared a baby's scream to a road drill and depicted a father slowly losing his temper to the point where he rushes towards his child. The message is crystal clear - fathers can't handle a toddler's tantrums without reacting violently.
While the NSPCC is brilliant at self-promotion, its research verges on the banal. Today, it launches new 'research' in order to promote its 'Someone To Turn To' campaign. Ostensibly, the aim of this campaign is to get children to talk to people about their anxieties. However, its real objective is to target children and to get them to communicate their family problems and parental misdeeds to disinterested lobby groups like the NSPCC.
Why should this be necessary? Because the NSPCC research 'shows' that children are anxious about their life and also worry a lot. If you read the NSPCC' s advocacy research, you can discover that 34 per cent of 11- to 16-year-old children go so far as 'to say that they are always worrying about something'. And apparently, surprise, surprise, 82 per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds worry about exams and 42 per cent worry about not having a boyfriend or girlfriend....
Posted on 27th Jan 2004
The judgement relating to the decision of the Appeal Court to free Angela Cannings can be found here. It is quite harrowing. If you don't feel up to reading all the detail scroll down to the bottom of the page and read the conclusions.
Welcome News from HAAP
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Posted 30th January 2004
News from the Historic Abuse Appeal Panel
We have just received this news from Mark Newby, Director of the Solicitors Appeals Panel
Dear Friends,
Since we last met at the September Conferences in Dinas Powis and London a lot has been happening and I wanted to send you a brief note to let you know what is going on.
Firstly and most importantly I am delighted to tell you that the Panel has reached an agreement with the Legal Services Commission to provide funding for individual care home appeals.
We will be shortly launching a full professional panel office and as you can see we now have a professionally designed Logo which will appear on a new Website being launched on 5th February 2004 .
Look out for the first HAAP Conference in 2004
New offices are being put in place and staff recruited to provide a dedicated Panel Office which will enable cases to be driven forward and other cases with Panel Legal teams to be supported by the Panel office.
Its been a bit of a hard haul over the last few months but now we have a real opportunity to drive forward appeals significantly in the following few months with additional resources.
We have received many requests for assistance and again we thankyou for your patience, we are moving cases forward and over the next couple of months we shall put in place the infrastructure that will enable us to make a real difference.
Speaking of which please keep your eye on the media during the week commencing 2nd February. Brizz has his appeal and then on Thursday Anver Sheikh appears before LJ Kennedy . As you know from the Appealer Sheikh was the first appeal to attract significant support from the Legal Services Commission to prepare an Appeal and this led to leave being granted by LJ Rose on 14th July 2003 .
I am delighted therefore to say a little over 6 months later we are going back to the Court of Appeal with the Crown conceding the Appeal – because we have proved Anver was not a carer at the school at the time the first complainant alleged he was abused.
The decision is still in the hands of LJ Kennedy but we expect on the evidence that his Lordship will wish to bring Anver’s nightmare to an end.
We have achieved a lot in 12 months since Mark Barlow, Chris Saltrese, David Woods & I first had the idea of the Panel. But we need to follow next week’s events with many similar happy occasions.
More News Soon.
Regards.
Mark Newby
Director Historical Abuse Appeal Panel
Solicitor Advocate
We are particularly pleased to hear from the Panel as I am sure this week has probably been one of their busiest ever.
HAAP Need Your Help
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Posted 30th January 2004
The very welcome news from the Historic Abuse Appeal Panel reminds me. Clearly they are having an impact and some success. Although the Panel get their results by hard work they also need your support and encouragement. You can provide this by:-
- Telling your solicitor about the panel and getting them to join.
- Join the panel yourself as a 'family member/supporter. (You can join on line, and will receive a regular newsletter)
- Hand over your papers (or copies) to the Panel so they can 'map' individual homes/complainants histories. This is the most effective way of demonstrating how individuals contaminate the investigative process. Even if you have never been convicted (or even charged) your material may well ensure someone else's innocence - and freedom. If its the sort of help you would have appreciated do it this week end - you feel better for it!
More importanlty perhaps, if you know any one who is subject of current (or future) proceedings make sure they speak to the Panel. You can contact them by phone 01303 309 831, or by email
Posted 22nd December 2003
Launch of a new group for falsely accused.
F.A.C.T. has received news that a new 'falsely accused' group called SAFARI (because its a jungle out there) has been formed.
SAFARI stands for Supporting All Falsely Accused with Reference Information. The aim of the group is to act provide research information about the falsely accused. The group will disseminate information through a monthly newsletter, and would welcome links with people associated with law and order, criminal justice, local authorities, police, probation, social services, concerned politicians, and with the falsely accused their friends and families.
For further information contact Phil Faber, 170 Poplar Road South, Merton Park, London, SW19 3JY. If you would like a newsletter please enclose a large, stamped addressed envelop.
Posted 27th December 2003
Interesting Speech by Jane Hickman
Our attention has been drawn to an interesting speech by Jane Hickman in her capacity as Secretary of the Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association (CALA) given to the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation earlier this year. It is well worth reading.
Thanks to Helga from SOFAP [Support Organisation for Falsely Accused People] for pointing it out.
Posted 6th November 2003
On 4th November FACT North Wales and FACT South Wales undertook a joint presentation for Assembly Members. In a wide ranging talk they called upon the Government to adopt a more ethical investigative model, and improved suspension policies for local authority staff. Concern was also expressed about Police trawling methods and increasing evidence that those involved in therapeutic intervention in child protection cases can (and do) unwittingly promote unreliable and sometimes false allegations. A spokesman for FACT North Wales said that the talk was well received by the Assembly Members present. Following television criticisms of racism in North Wales police force and serious and persistent investigative malpractice in the South Wales police area Assembly Members were particularly interested in FACT's views regarding the police's role in investigative procedures.
In addition Assembly Members were informed of FACT's concern regarding the conduct of the Waterhouse Report which prompted one assembly member to make the comment that "I think it is now accepted that the way Sir Ronald Waterhouse went about his inquiry was wrong" Members were given a number of suggestions for ensuring that the issue of false allegations is confronted. These included the need to ensure that whenever reports are commissioned into failing services or as a result of investigations into complaints of abuse recognition must be given to the possibility that some of the complaints may be exaggerated or false. FACT also called for measures to ensure that all child protection procedures include a section on 'identifying and managing false allegations'.
Overall FACT's message was summed in the statement that the pendulum had swung too far in favour of complainants. FACT accepted that children were sometimes abused by their carers and by teachers - all that they were asking is that others accept that, sometimes (and increasingly so) carers and teachers are wrongly accused of abuse. For too long now it has not been possible to mention child protection and false allegations in the same sentence. FACT believe that false allegations are a matter of child protection and must be accepted as such. If investigative agencies are genuine in their desire to establish the truth it should possible to talk about child protection and false allegations - they are not after all mutually exclusive subjects.
Our thanks to Janet Ryder, Assembly Member for North Wales for sponsoring this event.
Posted 22nd December 2003
The F.A.C.T. prison vigils in Cardiff and Wakefield were reported to be a great success. Despite the bitterly cold weather over 40 people attended at Wakefield. In Cardiff a few less stood in respectful silence to all those falsely accused. Attendance figures at other locations are not known. The Committee are grateful to all those who took part. Thankyou.
Posted 11 December 2003
F.A.C.T. North Wales are to meet John Marek, Assembly Member for North Wales, on Friday 12th December 2003. A number of issues will be brought to Dr Marek's attention including concerns regarding the Waterhouse Inquiry, the need for the Welsh Assembly to be more proactive in acknowledging that children (and parents) sometimes make false or exaggerated complaints, the need for anonymity for carers and teachers accused of abuse, and the need for local authorities in Wales to develop written polices for dealing with staff who might find themselves being suspended.
Witch hunt metaphor
Posted by News Editor
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Posted 11th December 2003
Those of you interested in the witch hunt metaphor in the investigation of allegations of abuse may find this article interesting
Posted 20th Feb 2002 (also on Dea Birkett's website)
It Needs To Be Stopped. Full Stop
The Guardian, February 19, 2002
The NSPCC is far more concerned with filling its coffers than protecting vulnerable children
The NSPCC obviously thinks there's no such thing as bad publicity. Yesterday the NSPCC's director, Mary Marsh, gave her closing statement to the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, brutally murdered by her great-aunt and her boyfriend in February 2000. It was the last chance for Britain's leading childcare charity to come clean. Victoria had been referred to an NSPCC-run family centre in north London seven months before her death, by which time she was being regularly beaten, trussed up in a bin bag and left in freezing baths. No one from the centre went to see her. The inquiry wants to know why.
But yesterday these matters seemed of scant concern to Marsh. After glancing over to Climbié's parents and saying "I'm very sorry", she took little more than 10 minutes to explain how they so catastrophically mishandled Victoria's case.
The rest of her allotted half hour was spent outlining the restructuring and extolling the virtues of her organisation. Attention was drawn to the NSPCC's £3m Saatchi Full Stop campaign. As if addressing a fundraising dinner, Marsh pronounced: "It's our mission to end cruelty to children," words that must have rung very hollow with Victoria's watching family.
Mary Marsh's cynical attempt to use the inquiry as a publicity platform is no surprise. Self-promotion is, after all, what the NSPCC is all about. Last year, just £36m of its annual £82m budget was spent on direct services to children; much of the rest went on publicity and campaigning. The efficacy of these efforts is questionable. The NSPCC has been around since 1884, but the level of child abuse has remained constant. Yet posters in bus shelters, rather than hands-on help, is the charity's preferred way of tackling child abuse. Last autumn, they closed 16 child protection schemes. The centre which so failed Victoria has been shut down. It seems that the national body of the NSPCC hopes the case against them will be similarly dismissed.
But when the self-proclaimed protector of children is party to one of the worst child abuse cases known in Britain, we should demand proper answers. The NSPCC has compounded its failure to help a tortured child with its failure properly to examine its own actions. Asked to submit original documentation, the NSPCC presented the inquiry with photocopies of Victoria's records, with staff names blanked out, claiming the original paperwork was lost.
Only under pressure did those originals then appear, with different wording to the copies. The copy was marked "accepted for ongoing service"; the original "no further action". Marsh dismissed this seeming discrepancy as "confusion with documentation", claiming "at no time did the NSPCC attempt to alter records in any way". Others have called it a "cover up", claiming that once Victoria died the NSPCC doctored her records to hide their own failings.
Marsh herself is very precise with her language; the reason she gave for staff not acting on the referral was because they were preoccupied in organising a "community event", otherwise known as a party. Other accusations simply remain unanswered. Why didn't the NSPCC even know it was involved until January 2001, almost a year after Victoria's death and when the criminal trial was already under way? (During the trial, Marsh was quick to call for total overhaul of child protection procedures, not realising that her own organisation was implicated.) In the same month that Victoria was referred to the centre, another child known to them was brutally killed. Haringey social services, in no way blameless themselves, recommended that procedures at the centre be investigated. With another tragic death so fresh in their minds, why didn't the NSPCC act more swiftly in Victoria's case? The subsequent internal management review was not conducted by an independent party, as is required by the Children Act. Ironically, the NSPCC flouted the very guidance they were so instrumental in drawing up.
But the NSPCC seems to have lost all sense of what is important in the fight against child abuse. The size of their coffers is what concerns this charity. The Full Stop campaign has raised almost £100m, with a target of more than twice that amount. Go to the NSPCC website, and the home page is about how to make donations. A spokesperson for the NSPCC came to my daughter's school and gave a talk about cruelty to children and what her wonderful organisation was doing to tackle it.
The nice lady gave each child a leaflet, which my daughter brought home. It asked the bearer to raise £50 to help alleviate the atrocities they had heard about. My daughter was eight years old. Perhaps her pocket money would be spent, not helping other children, but to pay for the NSPCC's legal defence at the Climbie inquiry, costing £50,000.
In her closing statement, Marsh made much of the restructuring the NSPCC has undergone as a result of Victoria's death. But this avaricious organisation, inflated by its own sense of self-importance, doesn't need to be restructured: it needs to be dismantled. The NSPCC has grown too big for its boots. It needs to be stopped. Full stop.