The scale of child sexual abuse in England and Wales is being exposed by evidence from thousands of victims, with cases being passed to police at a rate of 100 a month by the public inquiry set up following the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Simon Bailey, head of the national coordinating unit Operation Hydrant, said his team was expecting to be given 30,000 reports of new child sexual offences by the end of the Goddard inquiry, and predicted the rate of referrals of allegations of abuse would increase.
Reports of child abuse to forces across the country are continuing to rise, said Bailey, who is the chief constable of Norfolk. He calculated that the continuing increase would mean that by 2020 police across the country would be investigating 200,000 cases of child sexual abuse.
Bailey added: “It is fair to say I am surprised by the extent of abuse being exposed, it is shocking. In trying to get a message across to the public about the scale of this, it is important to remember that behind each of these figures there is a victim.
“We are seeing a significant rise in the number of referrals each month from the Goddard inquiry, and these allegations relate to abuse in a range of institutions from the church, to schools, the scouts and hospitals.” (more...)
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