Home AffairsWritten evidence from Esther Rantzen [LCG 15]

THE GROOMING OF SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN WHO CONTACT CHILDLINE BY PHONE OR ON-LINE

Over the past 26 years, since ChildLine was launched in October 1986, ChildLine’s children have offered a unique picture of the way in which grooming can totally silence a child and prevents her (or him) disclosing abuse.

I believe there is a need for your Committee to hear the voices of these particular children, because they are not known to any other authority. They have been so successfully groomed that they dare not ask for help any other way; they only contact ChildLine because they know it is confidential, and they therefore only feel safe enough to describe to ChildLine counsellors what is happening to them.

Grooming affects children suffering every kind of abuse and neglect. From the time a child can speak, that child is a threat to the abuser, and therefore has to be silenced. Children contact ChildLine if they are brought up in homes with domestic violence, with drug or alcohol addiction, where a child or children are subjected to physical violence themselves, are not adequately clothed or fed, are prevented from attending school, are forced to watch or take part in pornography, and suffer many other forms of abuse or neglect. In all these instances, children have been groomed into believing that it is their responsibility to protect their families and cover up the abuse. One ten year old child rang ChildLine because she was suffering violence and neglect from an alcoholic mother; however, before she told me the circumstance, she said, “I don’t want anything to happen to my mother.” And only when I reassured her that ChildLine is confidential did she feel able to continue.

Because of the taboo which especially surrounds sexual abuse, many thousands of sexually abused children have rung ChildLine over the years, the vast majority of them never having been able to disclose the abuse to anyone else. Since we launched in 1986 we have counselled more than 2.6 million children, and sexual abuse was the most common problem children brought to us when we launched. The vast majority of those who have contacted us have suffered from familial abuse, most of them being girls abused by their fathers, though other members of the family circle, family friends and foster families were also named. When boys suffer sexual abuse, the taboo is even more imprisoning, since they feel utterly humiliated and unable to disclose what has happened to them.

In addition to familial abuse, recently we have received calls and on-line contacts from children and young people who have been groomed over the internet, and have been subjected to abuse by gangs of strangers. In both cases, the men groomed them by assuring them that initially they loved or admired them, or were “boy friends”. The children contacted ChildLine when the relationship became abusive, sexually or violently, or both.

The methods of grooming vary. The aim is to control the child, and to silence her so that she cannot ask for help. In familial sexual abuse, usually by fathers, the abuser uses emotional blackmail, telling the child that he is abusing her because he loves her, or she wants it, and that if she tells her mother it will wreck the family. The child is conflicted between loving the abuser and hating what he does to her. “I cannot tell you where I am” one child told ChildLine, “Because I have two daddies, lovely daddy and monster daddy, and you will take monster daddy, but then I will lose lovely daddy too.” Familial abusers also use threats in order to groom a child; that her father will be sent to prison, that the child will go into care, that he will kill her mother, or the family pet. And in almost every case the child is told that even if she asks for help, she will not be believed.

When there is no emotional relationship, in extra-familial abuse, abusers who wish to have repeated sexual acts with a child or young person also use grooming techniques to establish a controlling relationship with the child. They often target children with low self-esteem, and initially use friendship, bribes or protestations of affection to win a child’s trust.

“Liz” aged 13 contacted ChildLine on-line, and the volunteer counsellor wrote the following note:

“Wants to chat about a man she has been doing stuff with for money. This older man came over to her outside the chippy two or three weeks ago saying flattering things. She went in his car and he took her to his house and they had sex. They smoked and drank alcohol and smoked some drugs but she is not sure what they were now. She says she is pregnant, she made the man buy her a test two days ago. He told her he will kill her if she doesn’t get rid of the baby. She is too scared to call the police, thinks the man and mum will hurt her if they find out.”

(Identifying details have been removed)

Within a group, such as a religious establishment or care home, children can be intimidated into believing that there is culture of abuse which is known to all the adults, and accepted, and that there is no way for them to ask for help. The abuser may hold a position of authority, such as a priest, and ingratiate himself with a child’s family, as one survivor told me: “My parents thought he was a good influence. He met them so often they thought they knew him. But they never really knew him.”

There have been other instances when the abuser held a position of respect in a community, and told the child that if she disclosed, she would be blamed for inventing such a terrible allegation; ”nobody would have believed me. He was a judge”; “my father was a policeman and a Mason, I tell you that because I want you to know how respected and popular he was, but nobody knew what went on in our home when the front door closed behind him.”

(The position of an abuser as being regarded as “above suspicion” of course also applied to the Jimmy Savile case; as one therapist said, when asked how he could have got away with his crimes for decades, “Jimmy Savile groomed the whole nation.”)

When children are groomed by strangers over the internet they are usually told at first that they are loved and admired. For instance a disabled child told ChildLine “he said I was beautiful, and nobody ever told me that before.” This initial persuasion has been used to cajole a child into sending compromising pictures over the internet, and then the child is threatened that the pictures will be sent to parents, or posted generally. From then on control is established, because the child feels too humiliated and guilty due to her own participation in the abuse to ask for help from her family or other adults such as teachers or social workers.

Children groomed by gangs may also be targeted because they are vulnerable, and suffer from low self-esteem. These children report to ChildLine that they have been offered cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or money or any combination of these. The child’s guilt then contributes into the feeling that “I walked into this mess myself.”

The most effective element in the grooming which silences the child is the transfer of guilt. Fear, guilt and shame are the prevailing emotion of children and young people when they ring ChildLine disclosing sexual abuse. And, particularly in familial abuse, the child accepts responsibility for the crime and the consequences, “It was my job to suffer.”

Most cases of sexual abuse never reach the courtroom. If a child manages to disclose, in most cases it is the child’s word against an adult. In these cases, especially if the child is young, or has been badly damaged, the CPS will not take the case to trial, because they believe they will not secure an conviction. But it is not always recognized that grooming plays a significant part in a child failing to stand up to cross-examination, or being muddled or confused by a defence barrister, as one barrister said to me “I don’t care how great a monster my client is, or what it takes to break down a child, it’s my job to do it and I will.”

Under our adversarial judicial system, a child who has already been groomed into believing that she is to blame for what has happened, and that nobody will believe her, will either break down, or retract her evidence when she is accused under cross-examination of lying or being factually mistaken. (I have seen a nine year old child being told 13 times by a defence barrister that she was lying. Her younger sister who could have corroborated her account was not permitted to give evidence as it was felt she could not have withstood cross-examination.)

If children are allowed counselling before a case comes to court, enabling her to give a clear account without tainting the evidence, it can restore a child’s confidence and self-belief. However, in most cases counselling is not allowed, and there the impact of the grooming she has experienced will greatly reduce her capacity to give evidence, and thus any chance of the abuser being tried and convicted is lost.

When ChildLine is contacted by children reporting abuse, the first assurance we offer them is “You know this is not your fault. It is always the adult’s fault.” This is designed to undo the harm done by destructive grooming which invariably causes children to believe that they are to blame themselves for what has happened to them. The fact that ChildLine listens to them helps to undo the second pernicious effect of grooming, which is that abusers convince children that they will never be listened to, or believed.

ChildLine believes that children and adults who work with children need better information about grooming, in order to recognize the process, and the fact that the children are not responsible for the trap which has been carefully set for them. We believe ChildLine, by phone and on-line, offers children a unique source of confidential help, and children should be informed by schools, social workers, police and others that ChildLine is there for them, 24/7. The ChildLine report, entitled “Caught in a Trap”, contains many direct quotations from children who have only been able to tell ChildLine of their sexual abuse, and nobody else. Children describe that they feel “dirty”, that they are disgusted with themselves, and that as a consequence they feel unable to ask for help from teachers or their families. In almost every case they fail to recognize that they have indeed been groomed.

The ChildLine report on grooming, “Caught in a Trap” is to be circulated to members of the Committee. In addition, as I have been listening to the children who have rung ChildLine over the past 26 years and have been approached by many adult survivors who described to me why they were never able to disclose or ask for help, I hope this information is helpful and can be submitted as evidence to the Committee.

Esther Rantzen, CBE
Founder/President of ChildLine

October 2012