'Without a Change in the Law There'll Be Another Savile' - Warns Top Barrister

The Irish Independent
November 4, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/without-a-change-in-the-law-therell-be-another-savile-warns-top-barrister-29724675.html

The NSPCC says the Jimmy Savile scandal has changed the way in which people react to abuse

Teachers, doctors and social workers who fail to report concerns over suspected cases of child abuse should face criminal charges, one of Britain’s most senior barristers has said.

Keir Starmer, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, has reignited calls for mandatory reporting which would compel all professionals to report suspicions of child abuse or face legal consequences.

In comments to the BBC’s Panorama programme, to be broadcast tonight, Mr Starmer will call for Britain to consider a “very straightforward, simple scheme” that would “change the law and close a gap that’s been there for a very long time”.

The programme will also claim that senior civil servants knew for decades that children’s homes and schools had covered up cases of child abuse.  Mr Starmer’s call was supported by the Church of England, with Bishop Paul Butler, chairman of the church’s National Safeguarding Committee, saying: “We have to think of the child first, not ourselves, not the institution. [We must do] what’s best for the child.”

Liz Dux, of Slater & Gordon, the law firm representing 60 of Jimmy Savile’s victims, said she believed that, had there been a mandatory reporting law, details of his abuse could have been passed to the police as early as 1964.

“Countless victims suffered sickening attacks in institutions that were entrusted to keep them safe. Without mandatory reporting legislation, we risk another Savile case,” she said.

Mandatory reporting is already  enshrined in law in Canada, Australia, Denmark and several US states including Florida, where a failure to report such cases can result attract a $1m (£600,000) fine. Mr Starmer wants Britain to follow suit with a “direct and clear law everybody understands”.

“The problem is [that] if you haven’t got a central provision requiring people to report, then all you can do is fall back on other provisions that aren’t  really designed for that purpose and that usually means they run into difficulties,” he said.

Freedom of Information requests by Panorama reveal that The Royal Alexandra and Albert School in Reigate, Surrey, employed seven child abusers over three decades. Downside, a Catholic boarding school near Bath, had six monks who either sexually  assaulted children or viewed images of child abuse between the mid-1960s and early 2000s.

Mr Starmer said such cases were indicative of a collective failure  to report. “It’s a very simple proposition. If you’re in a position of authority, and you have cause to believe that a child has been abused, you really ought to do something about it.”

But last night critics warned against creating a “default reporting culture”, arguing that child protection agencies could be overwhelmed and claiming that its success rate was mixed.