Margaret Ann Coffey is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockport since 1992.
Sir Malcolm David Evans, is an English legal scholar. He is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Bristol. He has worked extensively on human rights issues for numerous international bodies and NGOs and is currently a member and Chair of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture.
The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes in the counties of Clwyd and Gwynedd, in North Wales, including the Bryn Estyn children's home at Wrexham, between 1974 and 1990. The report into the scandal, headed by retired High Court judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, which was published in 2000, resulted in changes in policy in England and Wales into how authorities deal with children in care, and to the settling of 140 compensation claims on behalf of victims of child abuse.
Child pornography is pornography that exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a child or it may be simulated child pornography. Abuse of the child occurs during the sexual acts or lascivious exhibitions of genitals or pubic areas which are recorded in the production of child pornography. Child pornography may use a variety of media, including writings, magazines, photos, sculpture, drawing, cartoon, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video, and video games.
The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child in May 2012. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet to investigate further claims of abuse with 19 men so far being convicted. Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the police investigation. The men were British Pakistanis, which led to discussion on whether the failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities' fear of being accused of racial prejudice. The girls were mainly White British. In March 2015, Greater Manchester Police apologised for its failure to investigate the child sexual exploitation allegations more thoroughly between 2008–10. Sara Rowbotham, the sexual health worker who first recognised patterns of child abuse in the community and fought to bring these crimes to police attention, was made redundant in 2017.
Sarah Deborah Champion is a British Labour politician and Member of Parliament for Rotherham in the House of Commons.
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal consisted of the organised child sexual abuse that occurred in the northern English town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, from the late 1980s until the 2010s and the failure of local authorities to act on reports of the abuse throughout most of that period. Researcher Angie Heal, who was hired by local officials and warned them about child exploitation occurring between 2002 and 2007, has since described it as the "biggest child protection scandal in UK history". Evidence of the abuse was first noted in the early 1990s, when care home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers. From at least 2001, multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators, several from one family, to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010, when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16. From January 2011 Andrew Norfolk of The Times pressed the issue, reporting in 2012 that the abuse in the town was widespread, and that the police and council had known about it for over ten years.
The Oxford child sex abuse ring was a group of seven men who, in May 2013, were convicted of sexual offences including rape, conspiracy to commit rape, arranging or facilitating child prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and procuring a miscarriage. Their six underage victims were "subjected to sexual violence marked out by its sadism: sexual assaults designed to draw blood, multiple rapes, [and] physical attacks in which [they were] choked". The girls were white and all the abusers were not, leading to renewed discussion as to whether the crimes were racially motivated and whether the initial failure to investigate them was linked to the authorities' fear of being accused of racism.
The Telford child sexual exploitation scandal is an ongoing scandal in the United Kingdom. Originally, a group of men were convicted of grooming local children for sex between 2007 and 2009 in Telford in the English county of Shropshire. While media reports had suggested 100 or more girls had been affected and around 200 perpetrators were suspected, in March 2018 the Sunday Mirror reported that up to 1,000 girls may have been abused, with some even murdered, in incidents dating back to the 1970s.
Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom has been reported in the country throughout its history. In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child. However, cases during the second half of the twentieth century, involving religious institutions, schools, popular entertainers, politicians, military personnel, and other officials, have been revealed and widely publicised since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Child sexual abuse rings in numerous towns and cities across the UK have also drawn considerable attention.
A dossier on paedophiles allegedly associated with the British government was assembled by the British Member of Parliament Geoffrey Dickens, who handed it to the then-Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, in 1984. The whereabouts of the dossier is unknown, along with other files on organised child abuse that had been held by the Home Office.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales was announced by the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, on 7 July 2014. The inquiry was established to examine how the country's institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.
Alexandrina Henderson Farmer Jay, OBE is a British social worker and academic. She is a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde and the independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS).
The United Kingdom Child Sex Abuse People’s Tribunal (UKCSAPT) was created by survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and their supporters, looking to erase the human rights problem of institutional Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom. The initial information meeting was held in London on 4 August 2014. The Report was published in March 2016, having been launched in the Houses of Parliament. Sarah Champion (politician) MP said at the meeting that 'it was a shame you had to draft this Report rather than the State'.
Dame Lowell Patria Goddard, is a former New Zealand High Court judge, from 1995 to 2015. She is thought to be the first person of Māori ancestry to have been appointed to the High Court. In 1988, she was one of the first two women to be appointed Queen's Counsel in New Zealand and in 1989 became the first woman to hold a Crown warrant. In 1992, she became Deputy Solicitor-General for New Zealand. Between 2007 and 2012 she chaired New Zealand’s Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA). In 2010 she was elected as an independent expert to the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) and served in that capacity until 2016. From February 2015 until August 2016, she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales.
Kathleen Anne Marshall is a British solicitor and legal scholar, specialising in child law. From 1989 to 1994, she was director of the Scottish Child Law Centre. From 2004 to 2009, she was Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People. She has been involved in a number of inquiries into child abuse: she chaired the Edinburgh Inquiry into Abuse and Protection of Children in Care and she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Northern Ireland.
Maddy Coy is the deputy director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), London Metropolitan University and has collaborated with the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW).
The Anglican Communion sexual abuse cases are a series of allegations, investigations, trials, and convictions of child sexual abuse crimes committed by clergy, nuns, and lay members of the Anglican Communion.
Carlene Firmin MBE is a British social researcher and writer specialising in violence between young people, and founder of the MsUnderstood Partnership. She is a senior research fellow at the University of Bedfordshire.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry was established in October 2015 to inquire into cases of abuse of children in care in Scotland. It started with opening statements on 31 May 2017. The Inquiry states that, subject to its Terms of Reference, "The overall aim and purpose of this Inquiry is to raise public awareness of the abuse of children in care, particularly during the period covered by the Inquiry. It will provide an opportunity for public acknowledgement of the suffering of those children and a forum for validation of their experience and testimony." The Inquiry is to "cover that period which is within living memory of any person who suffered such abuse, up until such date as the Chair may determine, and in any event not beyond 17 December 2014". It was to report and make recommendations within four years, but this deadline was later changed to "as soon as reasonably practicable".
