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Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent): I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he agree that one of the changes that will be greatly welcomed when it is finally implemented is that it will be an offence of child abuse for an adult to buy sex with someone under the age of 16? At the moment, people who buy sex from youngsters, often children, get treated much more leniently in the courts than they should be.
Mr. Ashton: The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, which I was going to come to later in
response to what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said about another Bill, perhaps in the next Session of Parliament, on sexual offences. It is not possible to put everything in this Bill; if we were to try to do so, it would take six months to get it through. The hon. Gentleman is right, as was the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield. According to figures that he gave, 8 per cent. of men had suffered sexual abuse as a child, and I think that he said that the figure for women was 12 per cent. According to The Guardian, the figure for women was 20 per cent., revealing that abuse of women as children was far more prevalent.
People who did not know where to turn go to court when they are 25 or 30 years old and, quite rightly, receive massive damages, which the councils have to pay. The crux of the matter is that, when abuse has been discovered, it has been covered up. That has been the case with teachers. Teachers have told me that they are not happy with the Bill, which they regard as a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They say that the number of teachers involved is very small--certainly only a few get caught and are prosecuted.
As the Utting report showed repeatedly, schools, teachers governors and councils do not want the bad publicity. Cases have been covered up. In the Evening Standard, there was, quite rightly, a big row about Islington council and the extent of child abuse there. It was hushed up, not for political reasons but because of demands by staff and headmasters who do not want other parents to take their children from the school. They do not want parents storming down to the school, protesting and telling teachers that they are not doing their job. That has gone on for years.
Mr. Paul Stinchcombe (Wellingborough):
Does my hon. Friend share with me the concern felt by many that insurance companies effectively compel local authorities to keep their information hidden lest they lose their insurance cover?
Mr. Ashton:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. About eight years ago, I was a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. We undertook an inquiry into criminal injuries compensation legislation. We considered various cases, one of which involved a man who had sodomised his wife and stepson, for which he had gone to prison. He was beaten up by other prisoners and then put in a claim for criminal injuries. The claim was of course kicked out because he was not entitled to compensation.
In the Select Committee, I asked who had claimed for the boy. There was no answer, only a deadly silence. No one had claimed for him--no councils were claiming for abused children. However, the case started an avalanche of claims. If I remember rightly, the insurance company Municipal Mutual ran into serious difficulties as a result. It put a great deal of pressure on local councils to get rid of the offenders and not to take them to court, because that would have saved them a lot of money.
List 99 was supposedly a blacklist of teachers who had been sacked. I understood that there were about 100 teachers on that list. I am grateful to the Daily Mail, which--again since the previous debate on this matter--printed an analysis of a survey by the BBC2 education programme, "Just One Chance". That survey found that 39 authorities were keeping blacklists, and that more than
1,000 teachers had been sacked who had never been placed on List 99. They were suspected, but never convicted, of abusing children and were still working freely in schools. They appeared on the informal blacklist, but that information was not passed on. The Association of Chief Education Officers says that the rules operated by the Government's official central register, List 99, are too tight because it effectively contains only those people who have been convicted in a court.
There was obviously a conspiracy of silence. Paedophiles have a network. One can gain access to that on the internet and buy child pornography. They move around the country from the care of one education authority to that of another and start their practices all over again.
The situation has reached the stage where, for some local councils, the most important consideration is not looking after the poor abused child but keeping quiet and not blowing the whistle. Anybody who blows the whistle is ostracised. The average county council or borough council discipline code for employees who have to be sacked or suspended--they can be suspended for six or nine months on full pay--consists of about 200 pages of procedures that must be followed. The union can provide a defence. The whistleblower is hauled up before the inquiry committee and may change his evidence because he is put under pressure. At the end of all that, everybody says of the alleged abuser, "For God's sake, let's get rid of him and move him on." He moves on to abuse again.
We should be grateful to newspapers for highlighting those matters. Detective Chief Inspector Gould of Avon and Somerset police warned about children at risk on foreign exchange trips. He had uncovered 500 cases of abuse and neglect involving children sent on trips by schools and firms. He said that
I said that I welcomed the Bill, but I have a couple of doubts. I do not blame my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for those doubts, which relate not to a loophole but to a serious social problem.
Parents have rights too. I have received a lot of criticism from the National Association of Head Teachers saying that head teachers are being put under a great deal of pressure, but the response from parents has been overwhelming. I have also received letters from women aged over 40 who said that when they were 16--above the age of consent--they fell in love with their music teacher. They had wanted to be professional musicians and had a close relationship with their teacher, but they bitterly regretted that. When their parents complained to the school, the response was that the girl was 16 and the school could do nothing.
Men wrote saying that they had wanted to get into the football team. They knew that what their teacher was doing was against the rules but they had badly wanted to get into the team because they had wanted to be a professional footballer. I shall not reveal names or addresses, but those letters were cries from the heart. Many people, who were over the age of consent, suffered an emotional trauma.
I mentioned two loopholes to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. People have asked about cases involving 16-year-olds at work, whose boss is on to them. They do not want to lose their job and they are frightened of being made redundant or not being promoted. I understand that the Bill does not cover 16 and 17-year-olds at work who are being harassed because they can generally go home and tell their mother and father. They have somebody to go to, to lean on, whereas a youngster in a boarding school or a young offenders institution, or who lives with a foster parent, has not. That is why such youngsters have to seek help from Childline, which was set up by Esther Rantzen.
I am happy with what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has done with regard to work, but there is another category of youngsters who are terribly abused: those who are put on the streets by pimps. Such people run away from care or a foster parent because of abuse, and find a friendly face on the street who, in two or three days, has them on drugs and selling themselves.
I know that we do not want to make the Bill so big that it covers every sexual offence. My original amendment concerned authority, supervision and trust. I think that a pimp who puts a young woman on the game, as it is called, by supplying her with drugs has authority over her. I hope that, in Committee, we can alter the Bill to include authority, especially concerning those who give drugs to a 16 or 17-year-old in order to make some financial gain.
"English children . . . have unwittingly been placed by their school with known paedophiles in Spain, France and Canada."
Of course people should be responsible for that. We should know which schools have not made checks.
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