Speak up and protect vulnerable children

Despite myriad heart-rending revelations about decades of child abuse in this country, yesterday’s report on celebrity paedophile Jimmy Savile, knighted for his charity work, makes for deeply disturbing reading.

Any parent, any person with even a basic understanding of how very vulnerable trusting, star-struck children and teenagers can be, cannot but be struck by how this evil, predatory man hid in plain view and, for six decades, abused young people in BBC facilities around Britain, in schools, in 13 hospitals and even in a hospice. The report detailed some 214 crimes, including 34 of rape or penetration. His youngest victim was an eight year-old boy, the oldest was a 47-year-old person with learning difficulties.

This was abuse on a gargantuan scale and, even though it is natural to recoil from the memory, it cannot but remind us of some of the most active and evil paedophiles uncovered in this jurisdiction. It reminds us too that child abuse, so strongly associated with clerics, is an evil found in all sections of society and that the great majority of abuse occurs in a domestic environment.

The reality of Savile’s rampage is appalling but that he preyed on children with impunity for so very long, despite that fact that his behaviour was suspected if not known by a good number of powerful people, may be the most frightening aspect of the tragedy. If even one of those who suspected him had the courage or the character to challenge his behaviour, scores of his victims might have been spared his attentions.

Unfortunately, the same can be said about some of those who callously — and casually — abused children in this country.

Nevertheless, it shows how a conspiracy or culture of silence, even in an institution as independent, as powerful and as respected — and as informed — as the BBC, can facilitate evil.

Maybe that is the lesson that needs to be reiterated after this episode — that if suspicions of child abuse, sexual or physical, psychological or emotional, cannot be dismissed, then silence is not an option.

Though legislation and changes in policing practice have made it easier to report such suspicions — indeed reporting is mandatory in many situations — we still have a historical reluctance to report suspicious behaviour to authorities. In the case of child abuse, and other crimes too, that is no longer acceptable and it’s time our culture embraced the habits that serve the greater good rather than shield wrongdoers.

That shift should be encouraged by the recent court case in which an individual wrongly accused and pursued by authorities had his name cleared and was awarded very substantial damages in the courts. We need to work too to make it easier for victims of any sexual assault to feel more secure, more certain, that they will get the kind of support they should expect from authorities if they report crimes.

Earlier generations may regret not being more assertive, more alert or less easily deflected but they lived in a different time when deference and intimidation played far too great a role than in our society. Today, there is no excuse for silence other than indifference and that would be a crime on a par with those committed by Savile and other sex attackers. None of us should have any doubt about where our obligations lie on this issue — speak up, protect the vulnerable.