News / Human Rights

1400 investigated in child sex abuse inquiry

Wednesday, 20 May 2015 3:55 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2015 3:55 PM ]

British child sex abuse probe yields over 1400 suspects.

UK police have investigated more than 14,000 individuals, including politicians and celebrities, over allegations of child abuse in the past.

The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) revealed on Wednesday that the group, which coordinates separate abuse allegations across Britain, is looking into potential links between multiple British investigations into past child sex abuse.

It classified 261 of the suspects as people of public prominence; 76 are politicians- both national and local figures, 43 are from the music industry, 135 from TV, film or radio and seven from the world of sport. It also said of the total, 216 are dead now.

The report suggested most of the other suspects were offenders who operated inside schools, children's homes and religious bodies.

Norfolk Police Chief Constable Simon Bailey said the referrals were "increasing on an almost-daily basis" with the numbers released being a "snapshot in time".

"We are seeing an unprecedented increase in the number of reports that are coming forward…That has brought about a step change in the way the service has had to deal with it."

Bailey also said police were expected to receive about 116,000 reports of historical child sex abuse by the end of 2015 - an increase of 71% from 2012. He warned that the number of victims could run into the hundreds of thousands, and called for much more support for survivors of child abuse.

"These figures raise the question, is more abuse being perpetrated?...I don't have the evidence at this moment in time to prove this one way or another."

“The government has allocated millions of pounds to provide additional support, but I am not sure that is going to be enough. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of victims,” Bailey added.