Out of sight, out of mind

The child abuse scandal unfolding in Jersey has concentrated minds on how so many children could be victimised with near-impunity. But are disabled children even more at risk? Katharine Quarmby investigates

As many as 160 alleged victims of child abuse have contacted Jersey police with tales of abuse in a number of care home settings on the island. It is almost certain that some of those abused are disabled, according to Senator Stuart Syvret, an island politician who has campaigned for years on child protection issues. An exhaustive review of the mental health services available to disabled children on the island, carried out by the charity YoungMinds in 2006, concluded, prophetically: “Jersey has been fortunate not to have experienced a tragic case leading to a high-level review that would delve in detail into services caring for children.

The lack of robust governance arrangements would leave Jersey vulnerable to criticism should such a situation arise.”

The fact that disabled children are far more likely to be abused than non-disabled children has not filtered through to public consciousness, although a number of studies have demonstrated an increased risk. A 2004 Norweigan report found that deaf women reported childhood sexual abuse twice as often as hearing women and deaf men three times more often. A large American study in 2000 found that disabled children were three times more likely to be abused. The NSPCC says that research in the UK has been “extremely limited” but what there is echoes those findings. Margaret Kennedy, who has been researching the abuse and neglect of disabled children for 20 years, has found a similar pattern. Professor Hilary Brown, an expert in child protection, says that the evidence suggests that disabled children face more risk of child abuse, are less likely to be believed if they do complain, are less likely to see their assailants face justice and are given far less help to recover from abuse.

Ms Kennedy has uncovered a number of horrifying cases. Michael Hill, a paedophile priest, abused nine children. Three were disabled. Another priest, Fr Neil Gallanagh, was given a six-month suspended sentence when he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two deaf children at St John’s Catholic School for the Deaf in Boston Spa between 1975 and 1980 – despite the fact that the Church knew of a previous sex offence conviction. Two other priests were convicted of abuse of children with learning difficulties at Thingwall Hall, in Merseyside. Asked why she thinks that so little attention is paid to such cases, she answers: “It’s as if people think disabled children are from Mars.” She adds: “I asked one senior official from a leading child protection charity what they were doing for disabled children facing abuse. She said, ‘Margaret, let me deal with the normal children first.’ It’s as if people think that disabled children are so damaged anyway that it doesn’t matter.”

Some cases are worryingly recent. Last year, news broke of Norfolk’s biggest ever child cruelty scandal. Five members of staff at Banham Mills College, a special school, were charged with cruelty and other offences stretching from 1979 to 2002. Many disabled victims came forward. Charles Jarman, a Hollywood stuntman, told of permanent damage to a broken hip after college head George Robson refused to let him walk with crutches because it would ruin a new floor. One child was forced to destroy his birthday toys and another was forced to eat regurgitated food. Two children were forced to fight each other. Robson was found guilty of child cruelty last year – and was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence.

Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey, who were foster carers for Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, abused four boys between the ages of eight and 14 from 2003 onwards. Their victims included a teenager with Asperger’s. During the trial, the defence barrister said that the teenager had the intellectual capacity of a seven-year-old, had a need for attention and “was displaying extre­mely sexualised behaviour even before he went to stay with these two” – focussing attention on the child’s impair­ment, not on the abuse he endured.

In another case, a Gloucestershire foster carer, Eunice Spry, was convicted last year of multiple charges of child abuse and cruelty towards three children over a 20-year period. One was a wheelchair-user, who came into care when she was recovering from an operation on a cleft palate, and the other two children were diagnosed as having ADHD. Although concerns about the children were expressed on 12 separate occasions, social services did not remove the children from her care.

Disabled children remain at risk of being abused by unscrupulous, predatory adults because of the lack of safeguards. One pressing problem is that many live away from home in residential schools but do not have “looked-after” status. A number of charities have called for such children to have independent advocates, a call echoed by a recent report by the Commons children, schools and families committee. The government is considering such a move for disabled children. The National Children’s Bureau, which has led campaigning on the issue, says that if this right is not secured, the government “will be letting down thousands of the country’s most vulnerable children”.

Anne Patmore, a consultant who trains carers of disabled children, is concerned. “We place our most vulnerable children in situations where they are even more likely to be abused. A child with a complex mix of impairments will often be placed a long way from home. Social workers can’t do a spot check, parents are less likely to turn up on spec.”

Then there is the problem of grooming. Ms Patmore says: “If you were a paedophile, finding a child with a communication impairment would be very appealing… There is the barrier of disclosing, the barrier of people believing them, they are less likely to be seen as good witnesses, so the cases tend not to go to court.” Margaret Kennedy adds that she suspects that predators are attempting to become foster carers as social services place more children in such care – an allegation strengthened by the cases above.

Very few cases of abuse of disabled children ever become public knowledge. Many disabled children, because of the nature of their impairment, receive personal care from a number of adults – and it can be difficult to distinguish between appropriate and non-appropriate behaviour. And many social workers, faced with the difficulty of finding carers for disabled children, don’t want to believe abuse allegations. Reporting is also poor – local authorities do not have to note whether a child is disabled when they are placed on the child protection register.

So what should be done? Disabled children’s rights organisations suggest the following steps.

Firstly, parents should be supported to keep their children at home – a statutory right to regulated short breaks would help. Secondly, disabled children placed away from home need independent advocates. Thirdly, care workers need better training in spotting abuse – a number of cases have highlighted that abuse has been confused with impairment-related issues. Fourthly, the criminal justice system has to champion the rights of disabled child victims to redress.

We approached the Department for Children, Schools and Families for a comment but none was forthcoming.

Margaret Kennedy says: “We are still catching up with the abuse of disabled children, which so many people think does not happen. They think that abuse is about sex and that disabled children wouldn’t be targeted for that. But it’s about power.” Until society grapples with that uncomfortable fact, disabled children will be attacked with near-impunity.