Savile was able to abuse at just about every institution he came into contact with. The present system of discretionary reporting failed at every one of those hospitals where he abused.
Think on that. Every. Single. One.
At the moment, nobody has a legal obligation to report suspected or
even known abuse. An NHS manager could in principle even have witnessed
Savile raping a child and would have had no legal obligation to report anything to anybody.
Savile
didn't abuse at just a few institutions with poor child protection
arrangements. He seems to have been free to abuse at every institution
he came into contact with. That suggests a massive failure of our
arrangements to protect children. If that failure is not corrected,
there will be another Savile, probably sooner rather than later, and
hige numbers of children will have their lives wrecked. The effects of
abuse can be devastating and lifelong.
In fact, there has
been another Savile - Cyril Smith seems also to have been a lifetime
abuser on a prolific scale. How many more are there or will there be?
So,
our current system of discretionary reporting seems to have completely
failed. People have used that discretion to not report. The time has
come for mandatory reporting within schools, hospitals and other
institutions which care for children and vulnerable adults.
Friday, 27 June 2014
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I am curious as to Savile's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and elsewhere. It appears to be an area that has not received sufficient or indeed any scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the nature of that relationship? Who sponsored Savile so that he could receive those Papal 'gongs'? Did Savile have access to different institutions operated and managed by the Roman Catholic Church? Did he get the 'key to the door" to such institutions as he did with Broadmoor? Were there complaints from 'victims' and how were they handled?
Savile'[s criminality against children and other vulnerable people begs such questions.
Is there any possibility of widening the remit to include such an investigation?
The 1982 photo of Savile with the then pope at Southwark RC Cathedral in the company of its hierarchs explicitly portrays the urgent need to seek answers to such questions. If he could get so close to the then pope how close did he get to less well protected people- vulnerable and fragile children?
I wonder if they have given Rolf Harris Father David's old cell in HMP Wandsworth.
ReplyDelete