Until last week, the law has failed children who have been abused whilst in foster care, providing them with no avenue for financial redress though the civil courts in the form of abuse compensation. Local authorities could only be held to be legally responsible if negligence was proved, but that is notoriously difficult in abuse cases. This left many survivors of abuse in foster care with no legal remedy whatsoever.
Tracey Emmott
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Last week Scotland abolished the long standing time-bar for survivors of childhood abuse to pursue civil damages. In the wake of this historic decision, another look at the time limit problem which still applies in England and Wales is timely.
The English legal system tends not to be overly sympathetic to victims of abuse with regard to the time period within which they can bring their civil compensation claim.
In our blog series we have focused on institutional abuse - abuse in sport, abuse in religion and abuse in the military.
The entertainment industry is another forum which has had the spotlight on it, exposing the prevalence of sexual abuse and sexual assaults. Here I look at both perpetrators and victims of institutional abuse within the seemingly glamorous world of entertainment.
Emmott Snell are delighted to be taking part in the Bedford Legal Walk organised by the Eastern Legal Support Trust.
This 10km sponsored walk will raise money for local advice services who have been affected by funding cuts to allow them to continue to provide support and assistance to those that need it. Emmott Snell are supporting Bedfordshire Victim Support who provide emotional and practical help to those that have been affected by crime.
Three men who subjected a victim that we represent to sexual offences have been jailed for a total of 32 years.
Our client, who was a vulnerable child in care when the abuse started, was groomed by the group of men and found herself the victim of childhood sexual abuse. She was given alcohol and drugs by the group of men and made to be drug dependent, which was then used to sexually exploit her.
Sexual offences committed in the context of the military have reached public awareness before: we remember the death of four trainees at Deepcut barracks, and the case of military police trainee, Anne-Marie Ellement, who was found hanged in 2011 after claiming she had been raped by two army colleagues in 2009.
My experience of representing such victims in civil compensation claims against the Ministry of Defence is that they suffer unspeakable shame and often lifelong damage.
When considering an amendment to the Armed Forces Act 2006 last year, Liberal Democrat peer, Baroness Jolly, expressed the belief that men and women who serve in the armed forces deserve the same level of protection as civilians. She said, "sexual assault is a gross violation which can have serious, long lasting consequences on victims, and unfortunately the military has failed to acknowledge the seriousness of this crime until now".
For many the term ‘institutional abuse’ can conjure up images of huge Dickensian establishments, like Haut de la Garenne in Jersey, where unspeakable crimes were carried out on orphan children by the very people who were entrusted with their care.
But institutional abuse can also be much ‘closer to home,’ in that it is simply the mistreatment of children or vulnerable adults by any system of power.
In this blog post we explore common causes and examples of institutional abuse and offer advice on first steps for survivors seeking justice and compensation
Why institutional abuse occurs
A survivor of sexual abuse by one of Britain’s most notorious paedophile shines light on stories of high level conspiracy allegedly involving senior political and establishment figures.
Stephen Briggs, now living in Scotland, has won a legal action against the school where abuse first took place, and he has been awarded a five figure sum in damages.
Mr Briggs, now 51, was 12 in 1977 when he was first assaulted, whilst a pupil at the Cavendish School in Ealing, London.
Press Release: A former Bedfordshire children’s home worker was today proven to have committed sexual and physical assaults on boys in his care following a 6 week trial at the Old Bailey.
James McCann was found to have committed 42 out of the 50 charges against him, including causing bodily harm, indecent assaults, and indecency with children.
McCann pleaded not guilty to all charges, but on the second day of his trial last month he was taken ill.
One of six high profile former victims of a disgraced paedophile has donated his £30,000 damages award to an orphanage in the slums of Nairobi, in Kenya.
The six men were all abused as children by David Lowe, a former house master at two prestigious catholic schools, Westminster Cathedral Choir School in London and Ampleforth in Yorkshire.
In February 2015, Lowe was convicted at Southwark Crown Court of abusing 10 former pupils between 1978 and 1984, and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.
