The abuse team welcome Kathleen Hallisey who has joined Hugh James as a senior associate. She specialises in abuse claims and has a specialist knowledge of cases concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In this podcast the team reflect on the recent Hugh James/NSPCC Abuse conference.
In particular, they discuss the talk given by Professor Michael Salter, Scientia Associate Professor in Criminology, University of New South Wales: “Betrayed by my body”.
The team highlights the taboo subject of victims of CSA not consenting but their bodies not resisting which can lead to misplaced shame and guilt, and often leads to psychological damage.
The issue of consent is still not readily understood by society and probably the legal system.
Just because a victim did not say “No”, or appeared to “enjoy” the sex, does not mean they must have consented. This is not so as explained by Prof. Salter in his talk.
This leads the team to discuss the abuse of children on-line. The internet and social media are misused to access and groom children and young people.
At the conference we heard from Simon Bailey, Former Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary and Chair of Embrace, Child Victims of Crime whose talk was titled: “Challenges Facing Professionals Protecting Children”.
We also heard from Nuria Lorenzo-Dus, Professor of Linguistics, Project DRAGON-S, Swansea University whose talk was titled: “Dragon Spotter and Shield”.
What is clear is that we need to get ahead of the curve in combating on-line CSA.
It is staggering the number of abusers and “incidents” on-line but can we catch-up and is IT the answer?
The team make the point, perhaps, that it is in the interest of those organisations that host the platforms to ensure IT develops to get ahead of the abusers otherwise litigation may evolve to force them.
