Child abuse is far more widespread than has previously been acknowledged, with "huge numbers" of victims, a child protection campaigner who tried to draw attention to the Rotherham scandal more than 10 years ago has warned.
Hilary Willmer, the chair of trustees at the charity Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation (Pace), was speaking out following the report into the Rotherham abuse scandal, which found more than 1,400 youngsters were abused over 16 years.
She suggested that similar numbers of children may have been abused in other areas, saying it is a "vastly wider issue".
"I wouldn't want to bandy figures around but it's certainly a huge amount that is going on," she said.
Willmer worked with families in Rotherham in the late 1990s and was a colleague of the author of a 2002 report into the unfolding scandal, which was never published. The document, by a home office researcher, was "effectively suppressed", according to Professor Alexis Jay who wrote the report into events in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. (more...)
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