Church backs Starmer on reporting abuse

The Church has welcomed a call from the former Director of Public Prosecutions for teachers and other professionals who fail to report child abuse to face criminal prosecutions, writes Paul Wilkinson.

Keir Starmer QC, who stepped down from his post on 1 November, was speaking on BBC television’s Panorama, broadcast on Monday evening. He said it was time to “plug a gap in the law” that had been there for a “very, very long time”.

In response, Danny Sullivan, chairman of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission for England and Wales, said: “We don’t have any problem with a new law because we think it’s a good principle. Since the Lord Nolan review [in 2001 on the state of child protection in the Church in England and Wales] it has been part of our policy to refer any allegation, whether historic or current, to the statutory authorities. In principle we are already doing it.”

He was interviewed by Panorama and was asked about historic abuse at the leading Catholic school, Downside, in Somerset.

“I didn’t defend the indefensible,” he said. “If there had been statutory reporting then, there would not have been further abuse. This is putting the needs and the rights of the victim at the centre.”

He added that the new law would be “a message to perpetrators that if somebody reports them, then it’s got to be done in a statutory way.”