Concerns new child abuse investigation unit not up to task

Police Scotland unveiled the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit this week – which comprises 50 dedicated officers.

Assistant chief constable Malcolm Graham (pictured) said one of the units aims was to ensure abused children come forward rather than wait until adulthood.

However, Alan Draper, an academic who is involved with a campaign for a public inquiry into abuse allegation said he thinks the inquiry will be overwhelmed once the terms of reference are published, which will mean the police will not be able to properly investigate every claim.

The new unit has been established at a time when the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said that sexual crime, including sexual offences relating to children, made up three-quarters of cases at the High Court of Justiciary.

Police Scotland’s new unit will be located in Livingston and will have officers operating in Aberdeen, Inverness and Dalmarnock in Glasgow.

Mr Graham said: “Emergent forms of child abuse, such as child sexual exploitation, have demonstrated the need to have suitably skilled people able to provide assistance with these often complex inquiries.

“We welcome the object of a public inquiry. We’ve yet to see what the exact terms of reference will be, but we will support it fully and one of the requirements to support it will be that police will provide information about activity that we’ve been responsible for as legacy forces in the past. That job will come to the unit as well.

“It’s impossible to give a number of how many historical investigations are taking place because every day people are coming forward and reporting that something has happened to them at some point in the past. There’s a whole range of very good reasons people would delay in reporting, particularly with this type of abuse.

“We know that most children will wait until they are an adult to report they have been abused. Part of the remit of this unit is to turn that around, to make sure children can forward and report at an earlier stage.”

However, Mr Draper expressed worry the new unit lacks enough resources.

He said: “We’re pleased that it’s getting off the ground. Our concern as a group is the resources they have been allocated.

“Here we are, we have a national public inquiry. I think that if the inquiry scope is right, then thousands of survivors will come forward.

“Are the police geared up ? You can’t go back decades without getting thousands of victims, given the sort of appalling criminal behaviour that has taken place.”

He added: “Survivors will still be suspicious of people in authority because they have been let down so often over decades.”

Kathleen Harper, head of COPFS’s Sexual Crimes Unit said sexual crimes accounted for a quarter of prosecutions in the High Court less than 10 years ago but today make up between 65 and 75 per cent of prosecutions.

She said: “There’s been an incredible increase in these cases, sexual abuse of children and adults.

“When I first started prosecuting in the High Court some seven or eight years ago, sexual crime was 25 per cent of the prosecution rate, it’s now something along the lines of 65 to 75 per cent.

“A large proportion of that will be in relation to child sexual abuse, so we are dealing with a large increase in this sort of crime.”

More details of the inquiry into historical abuse are expected from education secretary Angela Constance next week.