UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet
08 May 2014 by Richard Scorer
Reviewed by Eileen Shearer
BITEBACK, 352pp, £20
Tablet bookshop price £18
Tel 01420 592974
Richard Scorer’s account of the sexual-abuse scandals over the past 30 years makes distressing and depressing reading. Scorer is a leading specialist in child-abuse litigation. He has brought together a selection of case histories from the 1960s to the present day that illustrates turning points and recurring themes; however, its analysis of the causes of clerical child sexual abuse is somewhat limited, as is its account of the Church’s developing response to safeguarding vulnerable people.
Although a number of safeguarding officials and some leading figures in the Catholic Church in England and Wales spoke to Scorer off the record (“all were very courteous and helpful”, he says) those currently charged with safeguarding – the Catholic Safeguarding Advisory Service (CSAS) and the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission (NCSC) – did not speak to him, on legal advice, Scorer believes. If this is true, it’s a shame. It risks perpetuating the perception that the Church in England and Wales continues to cover up abuse, and makes it less likely that the real progress that has been made in some areas in recent years will be recognised.
Despite Scorer’s evident desire to give credit where it is due to church leaders (notably to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Vincent Nichols), he concludes that the only substantial achievement of the past decade and a half is that cases are now reported to the police. This is far from the whole story. Even a cursory review of the CSAS and NCSC websites shows that safeguarding policies and procedures that accord with best practice are now in place, and give the most detailed information about allegations of abuse and their outcomes available. Scorer’s focus lies in past decades. The work of the NCSC and CSAS since 2008 is barely touched on. Strangely, the first chairman of the NCSC, Bill Kilgallon, a fiercely independent and principled authority on the safeguarding of children, is not mentioned.
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