Rise in child sexual abuse cases stuck in crown court backlog 'leaving young victims in limbo'
Open child sexual abuse cases have risen to almost 7,000 in the past year, new figures show, a 9 per cent rise on the previous 12 months.
Open child sexual abuse cases have risen to almost 7,000 in the past year, new figures show, a 9 per cent rise on the previous 12 months.
This is putting thousands of young victims’ lives on hold, the NSPCC said, and leaving them trapped in the criminal justice system struggling to move past the horrors that befell them.
The Ministry of Justice data, shared with The Yorkshire Post by the NSPCC, shows that in 2024-25 there were 6,989 child sexual abuse and exploitation offence cases awaiting trial at crown court.
These, like many cases, are being hit with court delays, with the average timeframe of a child rape case now taking around 18 months to complete.
Childline has heard from young victims saying that these waiting times have a devasting impact on their mental health and wellbeing.
The youngsters say they are causing or worsening depression, leading to suicidal thoughts and or struggles with post-traumatic stress.
One girl, 17, said: “We’re still waiting on the case to go to court. I can’t move on with my life in the meantime.
“I want to focus on school and my friends but find myself talking about what happened instead. I didn’t realise how dragged out the process would be.”
Another 14-year-old said: “The other person is getting on with their life while I’m stuck feeling anger, frustration, feeling numb, just waiting. I need the court case over with.”
One victim, who was abused by someone close to her family, received therapeutic help from the NSPCC’s Letting the Future In (LFTI).
“It has allowed me to kind of piece together the person that I wanted to be, when I'd lived so long as just like an empty shell,” she said.
“It made me realise that there was a lot of dissociation and like derealisation and things like that that I was struggling with.”
As a young teenager, she had to go through two trials until her abuser was convicted, and she revealed that she often felt like she was the one on trial.
“I was told that I wasn't allowed to have any sort of mental health support until after the trial had ended,” she said.
“I went through three years of abuse, two years of not saying anything and two years going through the whole justice system with no support whatsoever other than medication.”
Debra Radford, the NSPCC’s assistant director for the North which covers Yorkshire, said: “It's very difficult for children to talk about child sexual abuse in the first place, and then to not know when it's going to be over is really impactful in all sorts of ways.
“If you think about some of the children who are going through the court process, years of a child's life is a really significant percentage of their lived experience.”
The NSPCC wants the Government to try and “fast-track” court proceedings for child sexual abuse cases.
It said the Young Witness Initiative Protocol, which expedites trials with witnesses under the age of 10, to be increased to 16.
Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones said: “Anyone waiting for justice is one person waiting too long.
“Sadly, we are facing a crown court backlog that is ever growing, and no amount of funding being put into that, no amount of extra sitting days is going to fix that on its own.
“What we need is radical and bold reform of our criminal court system if we are actually going to make a dent into this to make a difference for those victims.”
Ms Davies-Jones was in Leeds to visit the LFTI, a sexual abuse recovery service for children from the ages of four to 18.
The Victims Minister said: “It's truly incredible and genuinely transformational to the victims and survivors that the NSPCC are working with here.
“The type of therapeutic support that they're offering is really making a difference, and it's helping people to recover, rebuild and move on with their lives, and they're having incredible results.
“It's been really heartening to see how dedicated everyone is here as well in terms of delivering that support and helping people.
“As we know these victims and survivors are waiting far too long to get justice.
“In order to maintain themselves within the criminal justice system and then to help rebuild their lives afterwards, they desperately need that therapeutic support, and having this here has truly been described as a lifeline.”
Whether you want to report child abuse and neglect, or are worried about a child and not sure what to do, the NSPCC has advice for you.