The sheer length of the recently published IICSA report was intimidating when I started reading it last Thursday. How can anyone summarise a piece of work with 483 pages, and which has been some seven years in gestation?  The focus of the report, the issue of child sexual abuse (CSA) in Britain, is, of course, by no means just a church matter.   CSA stretches its evil talons right across British society, as this report makes clear.  But whether CSA takes place in the home, school or a church, its cruel effects on victims are going to be the same.  To quote the report: ‘the devastation and harm caused by sexual abuse cannot be overstated’. Why should our children have to endure devastation of this kind? No one in society can completely escape the shame of what is revealed in this report.   For those of us who are members of the Church of England, we find that we have been part of an organisation where cover-up and denial have been practised for decades.  So none of us can say that this is outside our concern.  All of us to a greater or lesser degree are caught up in the guilt and the shame of what has been done, not only by individuals, but also by the institution itself.  The sheer seediness of an institution, like the Church, practising power games in order to protect its name and reputation has diminished us all.  Long after IICSA and its reports have been forgotten, there will be a lasting impression about the CofE in some people’s minds.  That is the group where CSA took place, and the main concern of leaders was to put up barriers preventing the discovery of the truth.  That may be a thoroughly unfair judgement, but we cannot blame the public for picking up such an impression. The task of safeguarding and protection of the young has taken a long time to become a priority matter in our Church; even now we find it hard to listen to the witness of victims/survivors.  We have also been guilty over a long period of time of failing to hold to account those guilty of abuse.

One of the striking features of the report is that it does something that in-house church reports seldom do. It gives the victims of CSA an effective and compelling voice right at the beginning of the narrative.  So often in our church inquiries and reports, victims and survivors are not at the centre.  Even if a narrative is clearly recounted, there is still an apparent reluctance on the part of the institution to learn from what is being said, let alone suggest providing the help that is needed for the purpose of helping a victim’s/survivor’s recovery.  It has always been a complaint of mine against the National Safeguarding Team that they seem to regard it as unnecessary to employ a trauma-trained member of staff for the purpose of listening to the abused.   The last time I looked at the professional background of those employed by the NST, there seemed to be an emphasis on legal and social work skills rather than anything from the psychotherapeutic professions.

The expedient of recording verbatim some of the words used by the 5,000 + victims who came forward to tell their stories to the Inquiry through the Truth Project is powerful.  These words are thus unmediated by the prism of any interpretation.  They stand out starkly and convey to us the horror of the experience of CSA.  The report also shares with the reader the range of the other types of abuse, some to do with neglect or physical violence.  The headings of part C in the report give us some of the flavour of what was shared with the Inquiry about abuse right across the board, especially in children’s homes or in a domestic setting.  ‘I became a punch bag’, ‘I was neglected and surrounded by chaos’, ‘I had a deep sense of loneliness’.  Many of the victims quoted in Part C seem to be victims of a Care System functioning poorly.  Others had to live with inadequate or absent parents.  But, for whatever reason and in whatever context the child was made to suffer, the testimony influences the reader.  No doubt the Inquiry wanted to ensure that everyone reading the report would not remain unaffected.  The more that an evil is identified, the greater the chance that those among us who have the power to create change will feel moved to do so.

The Section D, which deals with what is at the heart of the report, the experience of CSA, is also hard to read.   Not only does the child have to cope with the awfulness of the original experience, but the legacy of the attack remains.  The report acknowledges the variety of the ways CSA manifests itself after the original event.  We too easily forget the subtle ways in which CSA can attack the personality of the young person.  It affects many aspects of behaviour, such as the ability to trust and make relationships.  Also, all too easily the victim becomes addicted to self-destructive behaviour, such as alcoholism or drug abuse.  Although CSA takes place right across a variety of different settings and institutions, there is nothing about church abuse that makes it any less harmful and negatively life changing.

This IICSA report does what few reports have successfully done before.  It makes sure that the child victim is placed firmly at the centre of the entire narrative.  If we were to divide the report into three sections, the first one would be telling the story.  The second could be summarised as the consequences of these grim events.   The third section concerns the societal and legal attempts to respond to the awful betrayal of so many innocents within our society.

Beyond the deeply shocking and revelatory tales of abuse, are the attempts, some successful, to reach out for help.  Some victims found therapeutic support which was timely and effective; for others the help offered was inadequate or out of its depth.  There seems to have been something of a postcode lottery in this respect.  Mental health services are much stretched in this country and privately available counselling is an option available for only a few. Perhaps one of the biggest blockages in the past was finding therapists who understood that the abuse of a minor was not in some way consensual.  This ‘myth’ about child sexual behaviour was apparently current among the police investigators in Rochdale.

My comments about the IICSA report are admittedly subjective and do not attempt, for example, to do justice to the extensive legal material.  Of relevance to church interests is the question of mandatory reporting.   IICSA does recommend the imposition of an obligation, enforced by criminal sanction, to compel the reporting of incident of CSA to the relevant authorities.  This is a demand that has been sought by the organisation Mandate Now for some time.  While strongly supporting this proposal, I find myself more drawn to what the report has to say about the provision of support to victims/survivors in Part H.  Existing regulations, under the Code for Victims of Crime in England Wales (Victims’ Code), already state that victims and survivors have the right to be referred to services that support victims. We learn, from the report, of the existence of specialist independent sexual violence advisers (IVSAs).  Such helpers work within the criminal system and help victims/survivors negotiate their way through system of justice.  They can also access therapeutic support.  Other models are mentioned including the Barnahus model originating in Iceland.  One issue that IICSA identifies is the way that a victim has repeatedly to tell their story to a succession of investigators and social workers.  This can be very taxing   Therapy from trauma-trained counsellors was found to be beneficial, but it is not widely available.  One individual had to travel 200 miles to receive this form of specialist support.  Funding, waiting lists and time limits all undermined the possibility of suitable help going to any but the few.  It is clear, according to the report, that the current system for commissioning support services is not working well. There is scope for the UK government to require the introduction of a local commissioning partnership to coordinate support services for CSA.  In summary, after noting the current failures of support and provision for child victims, the report makes as Recommendation 16 ‘the introduction of a national guarantee that child victims of sexual abuse will be offered specialist and accredited therapeutic support … fully funded.’

The task of safeguarding vulnerable people is enormously complicated both in terms of practical action and of legal process.  Most of our bishops and church leaders have been reluctant to get involved in the minutiae of what is involved. There is nothing particularly rewarding about setting up structures to do the necessary prevention work. The safety of children should be something we take for granted but doing all the hard work to make that happen has no obvious sign of a job well done. You cannot measure success in this area when it is something which should be there anyway. It seems clear that many who take on this area of responsibility do not feel much appreciated by others in the Church.

Reading (or more accurately in my case skim reading) this very long IICSA report reminds us that church CSA is just one manifestation of an extremely serious social evil.  The idea that the Church is not a particularly safe place for children comes as no surprise to those of us who have been observing the scene for a number of years, but this report may help to undermine the complacency that has prevailed in so many.  We need alertness to the dangers of CSA together with a passionate desire to support the survivors among us.  Once again we are alerted to the fact that it is only by dint of the hard work of many that we can hope to preserve the cause of justice and prevent the reputation of our Church from being completely destroyed.

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/31216/view/report-independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-abuse-october-2022_0.pdf