Police investigate 1,400 child sexual abuse suspects

The figures were revealed by Operation Hydrant, a group set up by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to explore links between child sexual abuse committed by “prominent public persons”.

The (NPCC) said they have seen a surge in the number of reports of abuse following the Jimmy Savile scandal in 2012.

Laying bare the sheer scale of the alleged abuse, police revealed they estimate they will receive around 116,000 reports of abuse by the end of 2015 – a 71% increase from 2012.

And the claims cut to the very heart of society, with schools, religious institutions, children’s homes and sports clubs all implicated.

Norfolk Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the NPCC’s lead on child protection, said: “The referrals are increasing on an almost daily basis. The numbers I refer to today are a snapshot in time.”

‘Tip of the iceberg’

Ian McFadyen, a survivor of child sexual abuse, said that the numbers would come as little surprise to other survivors. “Everyone has said we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg, I’m saying we haven’t even got in the boat to go to the iceberg.”

He told Channel 4 News that he felt the timing of the police’s announcement was likely to be a plea to the Home Secretary Theresa May for the resources to handle the cases. “The number of cases is mind-blowing, as is the fact that the number has been released. Is this about Theresa May and money? I am ever the sceptic but the police are going to be swamped by this.”

Mr Mcfadyen said that those officers who have experience of dealing with cases of child sexual abuse need to be given dedicated roles in order to pass their specialist knowledge on.

‘Unprecedented increase’

Out of the 1,433 suspects identified by police on Wednesday, 216 are now dead.

Mr Bailey said that out of these 1,433 suspects, 666 relate to institutions and 357 separate institutions have been identified by the operation.

He said 261 are classified as people of public prominence, of these 135 come from the world of TV, film or radio, 76 are listed as politicians, 43 from the music industry and seven are from sport.

Mr Bailey said: “We are seeing an unprecedented increase in the number of reports that are coming forward. That has brought about a step change in the way the service has had to deal with it.”

He said it is projected that police will receive around 116,000 reports of historic child sex abuse by the end of 2015 – an increase of 71% from 2012.

‘Thousands of victims’

He added: “There is no doubt (Jimmy) Savile has had an effect on us. We are getting dealing with more and more allegations. The service now looks upon child abuse very differently and victims are getting and can now expect a very different response.

“But these figures do raise the question, is more abuse being perpetrated? I don’t have the evidence at this moment in time to prove this one way or another. But I do know that the internet Is being abused in a manner for which it was never intended.

“And, as a result, I cannot help but think that more abuse is in fact being perpetrated. More research is going to be needed to prove this one way or another.”

Mr Bailey said no figures are available to give the number of victims, but “it’s fair to say that it is going to run into the thousands”. He added that forces are having to shift resources from other departments to focus on historic sex crimes.

The figures come from a new police coordinating hub known as Operation Hydrant, established last summer.

The figures have been taken from police forces across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and relate to reports of sex abuse alleged to have taken place a year before it was reported.

They refer to reports of abuse, or live investigations into abuse, police across the UK were dealing with around five days ago.

He denied the figures are a “damning indictment” of past policing in this area and said the “vast majority” of the reports are new allegations that have not previously been investigated.

He said: “This is not, absolutely not [a case of] ‘we have got this all horribly wrong’. Far from it, it is us rising to a challenge.”