Five sex offences reported EVERY week in mosques, temples and churches, by Laura Mowat, Express (July 25, 2016)

According to the shocking figures obtained by a Freedom of Information Request by The Mail on Sunday, 725 crimes were reported in the past year with 368 of them relating to children.

Spokesman for the charity Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, Phil Johnson, said: “We’ve seen numbers increase dramatically in the past few years because of the Jimmy Savile effect, but those that go to the police are in the minority.”

Most cases were in churches but the figures also included offences at mosques and Sikh temples.

Graham Wilmer, of The Lantern Project, which supports child sex abuse victims, added that based on the number of those who do not report crimes, the real number of offences could be ten times higher.

Justin Humphreys, Head of Safeguarding at the Churches Child Protection Advisory Service, believes reporting of sexual abuse has improved since the Jimmy Savile case.

He said: "The Savile effect, as it's often described, has resulted in a wider range of reporting, people getting the confidence to speak when they didn't have it before, which is all good.

"But I think alongside that there's also differences in how the police will report and record such crimes, they are getting better at it."

He added: "As alarming as these figures are, they are part of much of a wider set of figures."

This comes as The Church of England published a horrifying report on the abuse of young people at a former children’s home the day that Theresa May became the UK’s Prime Minister.

The review presented evidence of physical and sexual abuse at Kendall House in Gravesend in Kent over a 20-year-period.

The report has revealed that vulnerable girls were often over-medicated on antipsychotic drugs, locked in isolation rooms, physically abused and even raped, during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

The Church of England issued a “wholehearted apology” following the investigation’s revelations.

The review described Kendall House as “a place where control, containment and sometimes cruelty was normalised”.