The Sunday Mirror has launched a campaign to highlight the number of children murdered by their parents after a nine-month probe carried out by the tabloid. 

The probe found that 63 children had been killed by their parents from 2004 to 2019.

The data collected confirmed that 52 of the 63 children were killed by fathers known to authorities for domestic abuse. A further seven children were killed by both parents in cases where the fathers had similar histories. 

All of the children who died had parents who were known to either police, social workers or family courts for being violent. 

The investigation also revealed that family members often tried to warn authorities about the dangers but were ignored. 

The “Save Kids from Violent Parents” campaign aims to ensure that parents and carers convicted of violent crimes, child abuse or sexual offences and known to the authorities do not have automatic access to their children.

The campaign is calling for an amendment to the Government’s domestic abuse bill which would make it harder for violent parents to have contact. 

Shadow Home Office minister Carolyn Harris is set to table the amendment to the Government’s domestic abuse bill in response to the newspaper’s investigation.

Domestic violence charity Refuge is working in collaboration with the Sunday Mirror. 

Chief executive Sandra Horley told the Sunday Mirror:

“Domestic abuse needs to be taken more seriously by family courts as children are paying for decisions around contact, sometimes with their lives. Ending unsafe contact and improving how family courts respond to domestic abuse is essential if we are to end this widespread problem.”

The Sunday Mirror’s campaign features three demands:

“1. A change in the law, which means anyone who has been convicted of violent crime, child abuse or sexual offences can’t have automatic, unsupervised access to their kids. The same rules would apply to those who’d had similar findings made against them in the civil courts.

The ban could only be overturned by a judge if the parent had undergone a thorough assessment by an independent expert proving they have been rehabilitated.

2. Mandatory, standardised training in domestic abuse for judges, social workers and any other professionals involved in child access arrangements.

We also want to see domestic abuse training for coroners overseeing domestic homicide inquests.

3. More State funding to support the hundreds of thousands of children in the UK affected by domestic abuse – including the 3,627 kids currently being supported by Refuge.

It is only with the right support, such as specialist therapy, that these children can recover from the trauma they have experienced.”

You can read more about the campaign here. (WARNING: The article contains details about child deaths). 

Welcome to another week.

Several high profile peers called on the government to introduce legislation that would make it compulsory for child welfare professionals to report suspicions of child abuse in a debate in the House of Lords.

The calls came during a discussion on the Victims of Crime (Rights, Entitlements, and Notification of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill, on 19 July, which was having its second reading.

The Bill contains a clause (clause 11), which places a statutory responsibility on “any person who works in a regulated profession or works with children in a regulated activity [to] make a notification… if, in the course of his or her work, they discover that a child appears to have been subject to an act of sexual abuse.”

The Bill could also be amended to place a duty on members of the clergy to report child abuse after the Archbishop of Canterbury told the nation’s child abuse inquiry that reporting by clergy should also be made compulsory.

The government dismissed proposals for legislation to make reporting mandatory after it carried out a consultation on the matter in 2016. The results of the consultation were published in 2018.

The Department of Education said that the majority of submissions it received argued against the idea of a mandatory duty to report. That was not the case.

Of the 768 responses it received, 12% wanted to implement a duty right away, while 63% were in favour of allowing the Government’s existing programme of reforms time to be implemented before considering additional statutory measures.

Ireland made reporting child sexual abuse mandatory in 2017. 

The debate in the Lords highlighted several important points. The first was that the consultation was carried out at a time when the government’s understanding of child abuse was not as great as it is now.

A growing body of research shows clearly that mandatory reporting does not interfere with the running of child protection agencies or bodies, nor does it cause harmful delays or increase costs inside the child protection system. We also know from the research that it can reduce instances of child abuse.

Calls for a mandatory duty to report during the discussion came from Baroness Brinton, the Bishop of Rochester, Lord Marks of Henley-On-Thames and Baroness Benjamin.

The debate also outlined significant findings by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) on the rise of child sexual abuse images online, particularly imagery involving girls between the ages of 11 and 13. Some of the data shared in the debate included the finding that from 1 January to 30 June, the IWF handled 22,484 reports of self-generated child sexual abuse content. Of those reports, 96% featured girls.

Although the minority of IWF reports included boys, we must not forget them. A study carried out by Interpol in 2018 found that while boys accounted for one third of child victims online, they were more likely than girls to suffer the worst kinds of child sexual abuse. 

While the peers didn’t look at this aspect of abuse in relation to boys, they chose instead to address the abuse boys suffered at the Peterborough and Southampton Football Clubs by football coach, Bob Higgins.

They also discussed the double jeopardy rule and how it affected child sexual abuse cases, making reference to a meeting with solicitor Dino Nocivelli, who is representing six of the football club abuse survivors. Dino launched a petition asking the government to remove the double jeopardy rule for all sexual offences.

This debate is a must read, for its advocacy on a compulsory duty to report – which Researching Reform fully supports – and for the very important information it contains.

Further reading:

• Should child welfare professionals be made to report child abuse? – The case for and against (Lexis Nexis)
• Victims of Crime (Rights, Entitlements, and Notification of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill – Second Reading (The debate)
• Victims of Crime (Rights, Entitlements, and Notification of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL] 2017-19 (Follow the Bill here, and read the draft documents)
• Government To Launch Consultation On Mandatory Reporting Of Child Abuse (2016)
• Government Explains Reason Behind Blocking Duty To Report Abuse (2018)
• Department For Education Blocks Mandatory Reporting Of Abuse – And Survivors From Suing Councils (2018)
• ITV Exposé On Sexual Assaults At Boarding Schools Calls For Mandatory Reporting Of Abuse (2018
• BBC’s ‘Three Girls’ Re-Ignites Debate Over Mandatory Reporting Of Child Abuse
• Survivor Calls For Mandatory Reporting Of Child Abuse (2017)

A British family has been escorted off a plane after holidaymakers made allegations that the family’s children were being abused, reports Birmingham Live.

The family, who live in Liverpool, had been on holiday in Turkey when guests and staff at the hotel the family were staying at started to raise concerns.

Reports of  the father striking one of the children around the back of the head and dunking another child in the holiday pool by their feet were passed on to officials. It is not clear whether any other allegations were made.

The reports led to Thomas Cook, the family’s holiday provider, cutting their holiday short and moving the parents and their children to another hotel until they could be placed on the next available flight.

The travel agent also booked two separate rooms so that the father could stay in accommodation separate from the mother and their children, and placed agency staff on the same floor of the hotel as a safeguarding measure.

Landing in Manchester airport, a police team along with social services, escorted the family from the plane.

Responding to the incident, a spokeswoman for Thomas Cook said: “We have a duty of care to all of our customers, and have clear policies in place, including a child protection policy, which we will not hesitate to act upon to ensure the wellbeing of our customers and colleagues.”

New research suggests that family court judges are more likely to award custody of a child to a parent after they make an allegation of parental alienation in cases where the other parent brings up an allegation of child sexual abuse.

Professor Joan Meier’s and Sean Dickson’s research published in 2017 found that family courts only believe a mother’s claim of a child’s sexual abuse 1 out of 51 times (approximately 2%) when the accused father alleges parental alienation.

The investigation also discovered that in cases where alienation is not mentioned, family courts only believe mothers’ claims about child sexual abuse 15% of the time.

Professor Meier, who is a nationally recognised expert in the US on domestic violence and the law told Forbes in August 2018 that a lack of belief in mothers’ claims impacted the way custody decisions were made.

Meier noted that mothers lost custody of their children 28% of the time when they alleged child sexual abuse, with mothers losing custody of their children more than half the time (56%) when alienation was mentioned in the decision.

Meier told Forbes, “Once again we have found that child sexual abuse allegations brought by mothers and children against fathers are almost never credited… In addition, the data confirms what we have seen in the courts — that rates of mothers losing custody to alleged abusers are at their highest when the mothers allege child sexual abuse.”

A report from Court Watch in 2014 also highlighted concerning practices around domestic violence cases in Montgomery County, which Forbes also mentions. The report notes that judges “sometimes appeared to second guess the mother’s description of risk to herself and her children… At times, the manner of these judges appeared highly skeptical, incredulous, even trivializing of the petitioner’s claims.”

Professor Meier has been the national lead on several domestic violence projects in the US, has co-written several important pieces of federal and state legislation, and also trains attorneys, judges and a range of professional organisations.

Sean Dickson is the Senior Manager of Health Systems Integration at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.

Useful links:

• Mapping Gender: Shedding Empirical Light on Family Courts’ Treatment of Cases involving Abuse and Alienation (Meier’s Research)
• Bitter Custody – Podcast mentioning Meier’s research
• How family courts treat abuse and accusations of alienation – Radio interview with Professor Meier

Baroness Doocey, a Liberal Democrat peer and Chair of the House of Lords Finance Committee, asked the government to make breast ironing a standalone criminal offence on Tuesday, in a written question to the Home Office. The government rejected the call.

Breast ironing, which is sometimes also called breast flattening, involves pounding and massaging of a pubescent girl’s breasts, using hard or heated objects, to try to make them stop developing or disappear. The ritual is often associated with honour-based abuse.

Last month the Home Office vowed to address the practice and advised the police to prosecute offenders under assault laws, but Baroness Doocey would like the government to implement legislation which would make the ritual a separate criminal offence.

Replying to Baroness Doocey, The Minister of State, Home Department, Minister for Equalities Baroness Williams of Trafford said:

“Breast ironing is child abuse and it is illegal. The Government is committed to challenging the cultural attitudes that underpin so called ‘honour-based’ abuse (HBA), as set out in our cross-Government Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, published in 2016.

The Government is committed to ensuring that front-line practitioners who may encounter women and girls who are at risk of, or who have undergone, breast ironing, are aware of this issue and have the confidence to tackle it.

Border Force Officers at UK ports and airports are trained to look for those at risk of HBA and conduct regular joint operations (‘Operation Limelight’) with the police at airports across the country to raise awareness with potential victims of HBA, including breast ironing. A specific briefing on breast ironing has also been shared with regional Border Force Safeguarding and Modern Slavery leads.

In addition, the following documents provide advice and support for professionals in respect of safeguarding children from abuse, including HBA:

• Keeping Children Safe in Education (p.80-82): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education–2

• Working Together to Safeguard Children: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children–2

• CPS Legal Guidance on Honour-Based Violence and Forced Marriage: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/honour-based-violence-and-forced-marriage

The police have a range of offences at their disposal to deal with any cases of breast ironing they encounter, including common assault, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm. There are also specific offences of child cruelty and causing or allowing a child to suffer serious physical harm, both of which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. As such, the Government does not have plans to introduce a stand-alone criminal offence.

No assessments have been made of the prevalence of breast ironing in the UK.”