Crime and Policing Bill

Written evidence submitted by Melanie Kay McLaughlan, Usame Altuntas and Professor Marion Oswald MBE (corresponding author) (Northumbria University) , to the House of Commons Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill (CPB67)

Executive Summary

· Chapter 2 of the Crime and Policing Bill 2025 introduces a duty to report child sexual abuse, but several gaps and weaknesses should be addressed. In our opinion, there are four key weaknesses surrounding the Bill’s proposed duty.

· First, the duty to report does not extend to individuals in managerial or supervisory roles (e.g., clergy, bishops, or institutional leaders), focusing solely on those with direct contact with children. This creates a significant gap in accountability.

· Secondly, the Bill applies only to known abuses, excluding suspected abuse, which could result in many incidents being overlooked. It also does not account for the role of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) in detecting and highlighting suspected abuse.

· Thirdly, the lack of criminal penalties for failing to report known abuse undermines the effectiveness of the mandatory duty, as there is minimal deterrence for non-compliance. Although it is expected that professional sanctions and implications for disclosure and barring checks would result, the Bill does not appear to make such sanctions obligatory. The omission of criminal penalties for failure to report known abuse also contradicts the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

· Finally, the Bill specifies that reporting does not breach any confidentiality obligations or information disclosure restrictions. However, mandatory reporting is not clearly stated to be a paramount duty. We would recommend that a clarificatory amendment is made to avoid uncertainty.

Introduction

1. This submission reflects the findings of an ongoing research project at Northumbria Law School, Northumbria University focusing upon the Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse and the implications of AI. The research team is comprised of Melanie Kay McLaughlan, Usame Altuntas and Professor Marion Oswald (corresponding author).

2. The views expressed are our personal academic perspectives on the topic and do not necessarily represent the views of Northumbria University.

Clause 47: reasons to suspect child sex offence may have been committed

3. The Bill currently covers only four scenarios related to known abuse (e.g., witnessing abuse or receiving a disclosure from a child or an offender). This narrow scope risks underreporting due to the high threshold of knowledge required. According to the IICSA 2022 report, findings from the Truth Project reveal that many children showing signs of abuse hesitate to disclose the offence and offender (IICSA Report, p.226). Furthermore, the IICSA Report comments that the chance of abuse being witnessed is ‘rare’ and affirms ‘it is not the responsibility of the child to come forward’, but for adults working within institutions to be able to identify child sexual abuse (p. 207).

4. The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (the Lanzarote Convention), ratified by the United Kingdom in 2018, requires parties to the Convention to adopt specific legislation to prevent all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children and to protect children (Article 4). The Lanzarote Convention clearly distinguishes between knowledge and suspicion (e.g. ‘any person who knows about or suspects’ child sexual abuse must be encouraged in good faith to report). Moreover, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK in 1991, uses the language of ‘identification, reporting, referral’ of child sexual abuse for the purposes of judicial involvement, with identification connotating a proactive approach as opposed to the limited witnessed and disclosed abuse in the Crime and Policing Bill, which suggests further incompatibility with established and ratified children’s rights Conventions. Article 12 of the Lanzarote Convention uses the terminology ‘reasonable grounds for believing that a child is the victim of sexual exploitation or sexual abuse.’

5. It is also stated in the Lanzarote Convention that persons in relevant professions with regular contact with children must have an adequate knowledge of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children as well as how to identify such scenarios for the purposes of reporting (Article 5).

6. The Bill incorporates the first two circumstances listed in the IICSA 2022 report but omits the third: ‘the duty to report for those who observe recognised indicators of child sexual abuse’ (IICSA Report, p.225). To address the significant number of unreported cases, we recommend expanding the duty to report by including suspected abuse based on recognised indicators, such as children who display knowledge or interest in sexual acts inappropriate to their age, children who use sexual language or have sexual knowledge that you wouldn’t expect them to have, or children who ask others to behave sexually or play sexual games with them, and so on (IICSA Report, p. 208). For example, the Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL] would impose the reporting duty on those who have reasonable grounds for suspecting the commission of sexual abuse (Section 1). Inclusion of recognised indicators of child sexual abuse into the reporting regime would prevent further harm at a much earlier stage than if the duty only arises when a child has made a disclosure or if abuse is witnessed.

7. With regards to the Human Rights Act 1998, it could be argued that making reports on the basis of recognised indicators of child sexual abuse/suspicion may interfere with a suspect’s Article 8 right to respect for private and family life. We would submit however that Article 8 is a qualified right and hence can be restricted for a legitimate aim such as the protection of the rights of others (children) as well as for the prevention of crime (child sexual abuse offences). Child sexual abuse is a violation of the affected child’s Article 3 right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, which is an absolute right that cannot be restricted under any circumstances.

8. Another consequence of the proposed narrow duty is in relation to the use of innovative technologies and data analytics techniques. If tools, such as AI and predictive algorithms, often deployed in child protection and policing contexts, highlight a high risk of harm due to a combination of recognised risk factors (thus raising suspicions of abuse), no obligation to report would arise under the Bill’s framework. Given AI’s increasing contributions to crime prevention and public protection, the Bill should future-proof its provisions to account for the integration of such technologies into the child protection infrastructure and thus the mandatory reporting frameworks. In addition to the extension of the duty to suspected abuse, we advocate for the addition of clear information retention and sharing obligations, taking into account the importance of ‘joining the dots’ between reported incidents and relevant organisations that may have contact with a child. This is because ‘unsubstantiated reports do not necessarily equate to false reports’ (Oswald, 2013, p. 275), and therefore patterns and connections can be identified where the same alleged offender is repeatedly involved in reports and/or connected incidents.

The Responsibility of Supervisory Roles

9. The Bill does not designate individuals in supervisory roles (e.g., clergy, bishops and managers/leaders in other organisations and professions) as mandated reporters. Schedule 7, Part 2 lists mandated reporters but only considers two primary ways of interacting with children: ‘the person is regularly involved in caring for, training, or supervising the child’ and ‘in the course of the person’s involvement, the person has regular unsupervised contact with the child’ or ‘the person looks after the child on an individual basis in the course of those activities’ (the latter of which applies differently depending on the profession listed). This creates a critical gap, as supervisors may oversee individuals who interact with children, and have access to collated information and data analysis (often unavailable to others, including those who have the direct contact with children) that highlights possible suspected abuse, harm or risk, but lack direct involvement with children themselves.

10. This gap is illustrated by Paragraph 17 of Schedule 7, Part 2, as the Bill extends the duty to those who ‘in connection with training, supervising, or instructing a child for the purposes of a religion or belief…’, but the following condition eliminates supervisory roles from mandatory reporting: ‘if the person has regular unsupervised contact with the child in the course of those activities.’

11. We recommend the inclusion of supervisory role holders in the duty to report. This would deter individuals who ignore indications of abuse by their subordinates and encourage those in supervisory roles to take a more proactive approach in detecting child sexual abuse within their institutions (or of which their institution is aware), such as by using information analysis or AI as mentioned above. The Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL] provides a useful precedent by extending the duty to those in ‘a managerial or general welfare role, who are deemed to stand in a position of trust and have direct contact with children’ (Paragraph 4 of Part 2).

12. Article 19, paragraph 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that parties to the Convention must take appropriate legislative and administrative measures to protect children from sexual abuse while in the care of parent(s), legal guardians(s) or any other person who has care of the child. The meaning of ‘care’ in the Convention is not attached to various quantifiers of how care of a child should be interpreted, as opposed to the narrow definition in the Crime and Policing Bill. In the Convention, there is no temporal quantifier attached to care of the child, which would suggest that an adult who has care of a child on an irregular basis or one-off basis who had reason for concern/reason to suspect should be reporting.

The Absence of an Offence for failed reporters

13. A significant flaw in the Bill is the absence of an offence for failing to report disclosed and witnessed abuse. Without a criminal offence, the mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse lacks an effective deterrent for non-compliance. According to the Explanatory Notes to the Bill (paragraph 471), failure to report child sexual abuse only results in ‘disciplinary action by their professional regulator (where applicable) and/or inclusion on the children’s barred list maintained by the Disclosure and Barring Service.’ However, this disciplinary action is not guaranteed as guidance states that those who fail to report child sexual abuse ‘may’ be referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service (Crime and Policing Bill: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Recommendations).

14. Based on the IICSA report’s recommendations, a balanced approach should be adopted: criminal liability for failure to report known abuse, and mandatory professional sanctions for failure to report suspected abuse. This framework ensures a proportional response to different levels of knowledge regarding child sexual abuse. However, the current Bill falls short by imposing limited sanctions even when knowledge of abuse is definitive.

15. Therefore, we recommend establishing a criminal offence for individuals who fail to report known child sexual abuse (i.e., cases where they receive a disclosure from a child or perpetrator or witness an incident of abuse directly or through an image or recording) and imposing professional sanctions (disciplinary action by their regulator and/or inclusion on the children’s barred list) for individuals who fail to report suspected abuse (which might include suspected abuse due to the results of AI/data analysis).

16. We would also submit that as child sexual abuse is a violation of children’s Article 3 right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, which is an absolute right that cannot be restricted under any circumstances, this would support a criminal offence sanction for a failure to comply with the proposed reporting duty, where knowledge of abuse is definitive.

Confidentiality

17. Clause 45(10) of the Bill specifies that any relevant disclosures do not breach any obligation of confidence or any other restriction on information disclosure. The IICSA emphasised that the mandatory reporting duty is an absolute obligation, which should override any legal or religious confidentiality obligations (IICSA, pp. 109). The Bill’s provisions, however, only ensures that reporting does not lead to legal claims for breaching confidentiality obligations. The Bill does not state that mandatory reporting is a paramount duty, although this might be implied by the phrasing of Clause 45(1). We would recommend that this matter requires further clarification and possible amendment.

References

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report (October 2022)

Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL] 2024 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3743

Policy Paper: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Recommendations Crime and Policing Bill: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse recommendations - GOV.UK

Marion Oswald, ‘Mandatory reporting of child abuse-necessary medicine for "nervous Nellies" or a remedy too far?’ (2013) 3(3) International Data Privacy Law 163 https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipt017 accessed 29 March 2025.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) (2013) Mistakes were made: HMIC's review into allegations and intelligence material concerning Jimmy Savile between 1964 and 2012. London: HMIC. 

April 2025