Former victims commissioner Vera Baird criticizes police handling of a historical grooming case, highlighting the 15-year delay in securing a conviction. She emphasizes the importance of safeguarding and expresses frustration with the institutions' failure to protect the victim.
We spoke to the former victims’ commissioner Vera Baird, to get her reaction to our report on a grooming victim breaking her silence after her justice was denied. I want to ask you, first of all, for your reaction to the piece – to the story in the piece. I mean, obviously, the police would say any successful conviction for a historical sexual abuse crime, we know that is difficult, that that is in itself a success.
But that length of time – we know some of the girls spoke out in 2009/2010 – what’s your assessment of why it would have taken almost 15 years to get a conviction? I’m afraid I think it is just extremely poor policing and not being willing to take on the task. If they had acted on that information, Ellie Reynolds would never have had to be abused. But are you sympathetic at all to the idea that, yes, the girls did initially speak to the police, but they did withdraw cooperation precisely because of this level of extraordinary intimidation. I mean, are you sympathetic to that? No, I mean, there’s a whole raft of things that has to happen when something like this happens. The primary thing is safeguarding. I mean, the classic neglect of safeguarding is Ellie, isn’t it? They tell the parents that she is being groomed. The parents corroborated by the story they tell you of her jumping out of windows, all kinds of nonsense. And she is suffering in the most appalling way. They’ve got all manner of things they can do to take a girl away, put her in a safe place where her parents can see her. Give her some support from the right social worker so she gets over it. They leave her exposed to all of what they’ve told the parents is happening. Ellie Reynolds does go to the police. They do send a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, but the Crown Prosecution decides not to prosecute on the grounds that she is facing an allegation of blackmail. I mean, this is absolutely hopeless, isn’t it? So the CPS don’t just have her testimon
Grooming Sexual Abuse Justice Delay Police Failure Victim Support
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