Operation Hydrant is a British police investigation into allegations of "non-recent" child sexual abuse. It co-ordinates a number of other investigations by police forces throughout the United Kingdom. [1] [2] It is headed by Simon Bailey, the Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary. [3] It began after the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal prompted more complainants to come forward. [4]
In May 2015, Operation Hydrant had information on "1433 suspects of which 216 are deceased, 666 suspects related to institutions, 261 classified as people of public prominence, [of which] 506 are classified as unidentified, [and] 357 institutions have been identified within the scope of the operation". [3]
By December 2015, there were 2,228 suspects under investigation by Operation Hydrant, of whom 302 are classified as of "public prominence", (including 99 politicians and 147 celebrities from the media), and 1,217 operated within institutions (including 86 religious institutions, 39 medical establishments, 25 prisons/young offenders institutes, 22 sports venues, 10 community institutions, 81 other institutions such as guest houses, and 6 unknown). [5] 286 were dead, and 554 classified as unknown or unidentified. Of the prominent suspects, 39 were from the music industry and 17 from the world of sport.
In July 2019, the BBC reported: "Some 7,396 possible crimes on its database have now had a final outcome. Of those 2,043 - or 29% - ended in a conviction." [6]
Operation Winter Key was set up by the Metropolitan Police (Met) in Greater London in June 2015 and absorbed earlier Met operations, including Operation Yewtree and Operation Fairbank. [7] Allegations referred to the Met by Operation Hydrant are handled by Winter Key. [8] By March 2019 Winter Key had cost £20 million. [7]
In February 2020 the following statistics relating to allegations of abuse were released:
Category | Number of allegations | Note |
---|---|---|
No further action by police | 5,284 [4] | In over a third of these cases the suspect was dead. [4] |
Conviction in court | 4,024 [4] | |
No further action by CPS | 1,313 [4] | |
Acquittal in court | 719 [4] | |
Caution | 10 [4] | |
Total | 11,346 [4] |
Since the launch of the operation, some 7,000 suspects have been identified, with 11,346 allegations of attacks from 9,343 victims. [4] Some allegations date back to the 1940s and all concerned child sexual abuse. [4]
Allegations where no further action was taken were broken down into the following percentages:
Reason | Percentage |
---|---|
Suspect deceased | 36 [4] |
Suspect not identified/traced | 22 [4] |
Victim did not support police action | 17 [4] |
Insufficient detail/evidence | 9 [4] |
Chief Constable Simon Bailey said: "We are now having to come to terms, as a society, and we are going to have to recognise and accept, that during the 1970s and 1980s in particular, there was widespread sexual abuse of children taking place." [4] He also said "These allegations and the vast majority of cases were never reported to the authorities. Some victims did not think they were going to be believed. There was one constant factor: there was an abuse of power … to satisfy their sexual desires." [4] Regarding the scale of the crimes he said "There was an epidemic of it in the 1970s and 1980s. We do not understand the true scale of it. There is a lot to come out. There are a lot more victims who are yet to come forward." [4] Regarding the impact of abuse he said "The really difficult thing to come to terms with is the untold damage that’s been done to victims and survivors. Some could not cope. It’s the toll that it has taken on their lives. Some victims committed suicide. Some coped, some are in the mental care system. The horrors bestowed on these children are horrific." [4]
Gabrielle Shaw of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood said "We know from what victims and survivors tell us that being able to report what happened to the police is healing for many people, sometimes even when a case cannot be pursued. Thirty-five percent of offenders brought to justice for non-recent abuse is very encouraging." [4]
Sir Cyril Richard Smith was a British Liberal Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochdale from 1972 to 1992.
Various individuals, courts and the media around the world have raised concerns about the manner in which cases of child sexual abuse are handled when they occur in congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses. An independent 2009 study in Norway was critical of how Jehovah's Witnesses dealt with cases of child sexual abuse but stated there is no indication that the rate of sexual abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses is higher than found in general society. The organization's stated position is that it abhors child sexual abuse.
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.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
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.
The response of the Haredi Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York City, to allegations of sexual abuse against its spiritual leaders has drawn scrutiny. When teachers, rabbis, and other leaders have been accused of sexual abuse, authorities in the Haredi community have often failed to report offenses to Brooklyn police, intimidated witnesses, and encouraged shunning against victims and those members of the community who speak out against cases of abuse.
Operation Yewtree was a British police investigation into sexual abuse allegations, predominantly the abuse of children, against the English media personality Jimmy Savile and others. The investigation, led by the Metropolitan Police Service (Met), started in October 2012. After a period of assessment, it became a full criminal investigation, involving inquiries into living people, notably other celebrities, as well as Savile, who had died the previous year.
It emerged in late 2012 that Jimmy Savile, a British media personality who had died the previous year, had sexually abused many people throughout his life, mostly children but some as old as 75, and mostly female. He had been well known in the United Kingdom for his eccentric image and was generally respected for his charitable work, which associated him with the British monarchy and other individuals of personal power.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
The Elm Guest House was a hotel in Rocks Lane, near Barnes Common in southwest London. In a list produced by convicted fraudster Chris Fay, several prominent British men were alleged to have engaged in sexual abuse and child grooming at the Guest House in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Labour MP Tom Watson, having heard testimony from Carl Beech, suggested in an October 2012 statement to the House of Commons that a paedophile network which had existed at this time may have brought children to parties at the private residence.
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal consists of the organised child sexual abuse that occurred in the town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Northern England from the late 1980s until 2013 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", with one report estimating that 1,400 girls were abused by "grooming gangs". 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 Telford child sexual exploitation scandal is an ongoing scandal spanning over several decades in the United Kingdom involving a group of Pakistani men who were convicted of engaging in sexual contact with local female minors between 2007 and 2009 in Telford in the English county of Shropshire. While media reports had suggested there were 100 or more victims and around 200 suspects, the Sunday Mirror reported in March 2018 that up to 1,000 may have been affected, with some even murdered, in incidents dating back to the 1970s. Social workers and police cast doubt on this report, denying that Telford had a "discernible problem compared to other towns".
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.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales was an inquiry examining how the country's institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. It was announced by the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, on 7 July 2014. It published its 19th and final report on 20 October 2022.
Operation Whistle is an investigation by the States of Jersey Police into allegations of historical sexual abuse of children in Jersey. In a press release by the States of Jersey Police, they have stated that it is being carried on under the auspices of Operation Hydrant. It is cooperating with Operation Yewtree due to the involvement of entertainer Jimmy Savile.
Simon Robert Bailey is a senior British police officer. Between 2013 and 2021, he was the Chief Constable of the Norfolk Constabulary. Bailey is also the National Police Chiefs' Council lead on child protection. He previously worked as a detective, and was involved in the investigation of the murder of Rosemary Nelson.
The Halifax child sex abuse ring was a group of men who committed serious sexual offences against under-aged girls in the English town of Halifax and city of Bradford, West Yorkshire. It was the largest child sexual exploitation investigation in the United Kingdom. In 2016, the perpetrators were found guilty of rape and other crimes in several separate trials at Leeds Crown Court. In total, as many as a hundred men may have been involved in child abuse. Twenty-five suspects were charged by West Yorkshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service and 18 of these were found guilty, totalling over 175 years of prison time. A further nine men were convicted in February 2019 for grooming two underage girls in Bradford and sentenced to over 130 years in prison. The majority of those charged and later convicted come from the town's Asian community; there were fears that their arrests might impact race relations in the town.
A child sexual abuse scandal involving the abuse of young players at football clubs in the United Kingdom began in mid-November 2016. The revelations began when former professional footballers waived their rights to anonymity and talked publicly about being abused by former coaches and scouts in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This led to a surge of further allegations, as well as allegations that some clubs had covered them up.
The Newcastle sex abuse ring were a gang of seventeen men and a woman who sexually abused adolescent girls and young women from 2010 to 2014 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, after plying them with alcohol and drugs. The men were of Albanian, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, Eastern European and Pakistani heritage who were aged between 27 and 44. The victims ranged in age from 13 to 25.
Amberdale children's home was a council run home in Stapleford in Nottinghamshire, England, where staff committed serious sexual offences against girls and boys in the 1980s. Some staff received significant prison sentences.
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