Yorkshire child sex abuse scandals '˜help raise awareness'

Yesterday a joint campaign was launched in Sheffield by the NSPCC and the city’s Safeguarding Children Board aimed at highlighting the issue and preventing vulnerable children from being targeted by sexual predators.

It comes after last week’s airing of the BBC’s hard-hitting drama, Three Girls, based on the true stories of victims of grooming and sexual abuse in Rochdale, have brought the issue to the forefront once again in the wake of the Savile and Rotherham scandals.

Helen Westerman, NSPCC campaign manager for the North, said: “Following programmes like Three Girls, there are more calls for the authorities and the NSPCC to take action, which we are, but this makes the issue more high-profile.

“Any awareness is a positive thing, even if it encourages debate and discussion and that’s what we had on the back of the Jimmy Savile scandal. More referrals were made then and we are expecting something similar this time.”

Commenting on the failure of the authorities to protect the victims of Savile and the grooming gangs in Rochdale, she added: “We are in a different time now. I think professionals are acutely aware of their responsibility to safeguard children. They are more supportive and more receptive to recognising when something isn’t right.

“We hope we won’t see a repeat of this ever again. By launching campaigns like this we hope that it will create a sea of change.”

The year-long campaign, entitled It’s Not OK, will include 
teaching parents about how to keep their children safe online and will highlight the dangers of the internet and how social media and gaming can be used as a grooming tool.

Posters will appear across the city, signposting the new campaign website, the NSPCC helpline and children’s services, and free workshops will be run for professionals, including social workers and teachers.

The initiative will also target children and young people in schools and will include a touring play, which follows four teenagers through their experiences of the internet, relationships and family life.

This is followed by a 
workshop, which encourages 
pupils to explore the issues raised in the performance.

Fiona Richards, NSPCC regional head of service, said: “What children told us is they are a bit sick of just being told the internet is dangerous. The play is a much more accessible way to talk about the issue on a wider level.

“We are hoping it will be seen by all schoolchildren aged 11 to 13 in Sheffield, so we can target that transition between primary and secondary.”

The campaign has already has a successful run in York, and Sheffield has been chosen as the second Yorkshire city to roll out the initiative. It comes on the back of they city’s successful Protect and Respect service, which sees the NSPCC work with agencies such as the police and social services to identify and support youngsters who have been sexually exploited or are at risk of falling victim.

Ms Richards said: “What we aim to do is bring the success and momentum of the York campaign into a larger city where we have got a presence. Because we have shared resources across the safeguarding board, the whole partnership is coming together to replicate the campaign and equip children, parents and professionals with a safe and easy way of talking about child sex abuse and exploitation.

“Raising awareness is really important, but awareness of what we can do and where you can go to get help is the added value of a campaign like this.”

The final three months of the campaign will focus on engaging the Sheffield community and staff working in the night-time economy, including taxi firms, bars and nightclubs, to help them understand more about the issue and where to go for help.

Jane Hayward, Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board independent chair, added: “We will never feel like we are quite in control of it and we need to understand the job is never ‘done’.”

‘Know what they’re up to’

Parents should sign up to social media platforms including Instagram and Snapchat in an effort to gain a better understanding of the virtual world inhabited by their children, according to a leading online safety expert.

At the launch of the ‘It’s Not OK’ campaign in Sheffield yesterday, Jonathan Taylor MSC, who worked as a covert internet investigator within the Metropolitan Police Child Abuse Investigation Command, said parents should know their ‘Snapchat streaks’ from their ‘vamping’. He said: “Sixty to 70 per cent of parents don’t know what their kids are doing online. Sign up to Snapchat, go and find a Pokemon – participate.”

Case study

Man who was abused by his uncle hopes to help others

George Summerson, from York, was just 10 when he was abused by his uncle on a camping trip.

Now he has waived his anonymity to raise awareness of child sexual abuse in the hope he can encourage others to come forward. Mr Summerson, 35, stood in front of teachers, social workers and council staff at the launch of Sheffield’s It’s Not OK campaign and told his story.

He said: “When I was a child I always found it quite difficult to make friends. Because I had a passion for art, my uncle offered to help me out. He took me places and would teach me how to paint. One day we had been out painting in the countryside and we spent the night in his camper van. We played cards and he suggested playing strip poker, which at first I was a little bit shocked by. He reassured me and it got to the point where I had absolutely nothing on. He said if I win the next hand as you have nothing left on you have to let me touch you. I didn’t know what to say. He won the hand.”

The abuse continued. Finally he stopped going out with his uncle.

After bottling it up for 20 years, Mr Summerson, who had turned to drink and drugs to numb the pain, told his brother, who encouraged him to open up to his father. It later emerged that his brother and cousin had been abused by his uncle and he was charged with were 32 counts of indecent abuse. But Mr Summerson was never given justice, as his uncle drank himself to death a week before the trial.

Mr Summerson said: “If you are not sure about something you need to speak to somebody about it.”