UK police expect 30,000 new child abuse reports

New figures in the UK show the number of child sex abuse cases reported to police is dramatically on the rise, with cases being passed to police at a rate of 100 a month by the public inquiry set up following the Jimmy Savile scandal.

The number of sexual abuse cases being reported to police in England and Wales rose 80 percent between 2012 and 2015, according to The Guardian.

Simon Bailey, head of the national coordinating unit Operation Hydrant, said his team was expecting to be given 30,000 reports of new child sexual offences by the end of the Goddard inquiry.

Operation Hydrant is a UK police investigation into allegations of “non-recent” child sexual abuse. It coordinates a number of other investigations by police forces throughout Britain.

The Goddard inquiry was established in 2014 to examine how the country's institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.

Reports of child abuse to police across the country are continuing to rise, said Bailey, who is the chief constable of Norfolk.

He calculated that the continuing increase would mean that by 2020 police across the country would be investigating 200,000 cases of child sexual abuse.

The chief constable said that the rise in investigations was due not just to increased reporting but to more children being abused, with the Internet acting as a facilitator for pedophiles to contact children.

“It is fair to say I am surprised by the extent of abuse being exposed, it is shocking. In trying to get a message across to the public about the scale of this, it is important to remember that behind each of these figures there is a victim,” Bailey added.

“We are seeing a significant rise in the number of referrals each month from the Goddard inquiry, and these allegations relate to abuse in a range of institutions from the church, to schools, the scouts and hospitals.”

Justice Lowell Goddard is running 13 investigations into institutional abuse, which include inquiries concerning Westminster, the Catholic Church, Church of England, and Lambeth borough, and concerning grooming and sexual exploitation in Rochdale, Devon, Cornwall, Oxford and Rotherham, and at the Medomsley detention center in Durham.

Another 12 investigations will be pursued during the inquiry. Most of these 25 investigations will lead to public hearings.

Two thousand victims have already contacted the inquiry to give details about experiences of child sexual abuse.

In Australia where a royal commission into child abuse is being held, the number of people who have come forward has surpassed predictions. Bailey said that the same would be true of the Goddard hearings.

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