UK law to protect children from sexual abuse criticised by campaigners

Legislation to protect children from sexual abuse does not go far enough, say campaigners. Photograph: Mito Images/REX/Shutterstock

Tougher laws promised by the government to protect children from sexual abuse will not apply to doctors, teachers or nurses, it has been revealed.

The long-awaited “duty to report” legislation falls far below recommendations by the seven-year independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IISA) and has triggered outrage from campaigners, lawyers and survivors of abuse.

“The government’s ‘mandatory reporting’ amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill is a confused and contradictory sham,” said Michael Causton, from Voices Unbound, the support group for survivors of private school abuse.

“It is worse than useless: this legislation will put back the cause of getting good law in place to protect children today in any institution, from schools and care homes to hospitals and sports club,” he added. “Failure to report abuse of a child should be a criminal offence punishable through the court system.”

Last February, James Cleverly, the home secretary, announced he was bringing forward laws to better protect children from sexual predators. He promised to give a legal requirement for anyone in regulated activity relating to children in England, including teachers and healthcare professionals, to report it if they know a child is being abused.

“Those who fail to report child sexual abuse they are aware of, falling short of their legal duties, face being barred from working with young people,” he added. “Anyone who actively protects child sexual abusers – by intentionally blocking others from reporting or covering up the crime – could go to prison for seven years.”

But the amendment of the criminal justice bill, published on Thursday, means that the seven-year sentence only applies to “officers of the crown” – diplomats and armed forces; very few of whom ever work with children. Headteachers, football club managers, scout leaders or care home executives are unaffected by the new legislation.

Furthermore, the bill doesn’t mandate reporting of suspicions or indicators of abuse: it says that only hard evidence triggers that duty – seeing the abuse or photos of it taking place, or disclosure by the child or the abuser.

“There’s no real punishment,” said Alex Renton, a survivor and campaigning author. “Evidence from other countries is that effective child safety needs to be backed by clear sanctions for failure to report. None are specified in this legislation, except for where someone intentionally prevents another from making a report.

“Further, the proposal allows a teacher unilaterally to decide not to report evidence of child sexual abuse if they think it not in the child’s interest, or that someone else is or is about to report it,” he added. “It makes criminal the act of preventing a report – but only if you’re an ‘officer of the crown’ – leaving the headmasters who enabled our abusers to continue to cover-up.”

Jonathan West, director of Mandate Now, a campaign group for the introduction of law requiring staff who work in ‘regulated activities’ to report all sexual abuse of children, said the new duty to report “will not significantly change the behaviour of those responsible for the care of children and will make almost no difference to the number of child sexual abuse reports made, and the government knows and intends this”.

He added: “The government’s own estimates of the effect of its legislation is a rise in the range 1% to 3% in the number of reports, which is trivial in comparison to what it knows needs to be done.”

The Home Office has been approached for comment.