WHEN is child abuse, not child abuse, apparently when its done by a government department?

Some organisations, including local authorities, private schools and religious groups, including the Catholic church, “have been criticised after trying to claim sex abuse victims ‘consented’ in a bid to avoid compensation pay-outs.”

Children’s Commissioner Ann Longfield (in a national newspaper) insisted: “No child ever gives their ‘consent’ to being abused”. 

It is good to hear someone in authority make such a statement, because since the mid-1980s health authorities have been allowed to legally sidestep the age of consent in order to provide confidential contraception, the morning-after pill and even abortion, on the basis that if a young girl requests contraception she must be mature enough to enter a sexual relationship. 

Relying on such requests, (even without parental knowledge) which, coming from those too immature to make important life decision must be seen as a plea for help - the law undermined the law. The rest is history – one long saga of officially facilitated child sexual abuse. 

It is no wonder that some organisations are unscrupulously employing the same argument to avoid financial responsibilities incurred through failure to protect children in their charge; meanwhile generations of children are paying the price for the state’s cynical abandonment of child protection. 

Norman Plaisted
Vivian Road
Newport