son.
Bell made the aims of his disgraceful campaign clear when he said: idea that we are a nation of child abusers dangerous. The time wil come, if this goes on, when half parents in the cott to will are tre look after their own children.' Without presenting a single fact on the cases in Cleveland Bell's aim is to screw the lid back : on the massive scale abuse revealed by dozens of studies most spectacularly Childline, but also the National Society for the Prevention Cruelty "Incest Children (NSPCC); Crisis Line, local social service agencies, and studies in the United States elsewhere.
Bell has delighted the Cleveland's cases child laVC manufactured in an 'empire ed i do fraudulentse exercise designed •to carve out a larger social services budget. No wonder he was echoed by Tory MP Tim Devlin who described local social services as 'another organisa tion with the initials SS Bell has opened up a witch hunt against social THE DAILY MAIL, Stuart Bell MP, and most of Fleet Street have spent the past few weeks trying to reverse the results of a decade of gradually growing awareness of the colossal scale and enormous misery inflicted upon tens of thousands of children through sexual and physical abuse within the family. That is the real drive behind the press hysteria against Cleveland health authority and one of its paediatricians Mrietta Higgs and social worker Sue Richardworkers.
Of course mistakes occur - and given the utter despair involved for parents and children in any case wrongful separation justice must be done every Cleveland and everywhere else. But to believe the chief problem in Britain today is wrongful accusations of child abuse, rather than the massive reality • of child abuse is to stand the world on its head. As with he one per cent of cases of wrongtul accusations the fact that errors occur and must be righted, does not make it any less necessary to tackle a problem whose enormous scale is only starting to be understood.
Clare Short MP, was quite right to reply in the Commons debate that the Cleveland case showed that the problem of child abuse had been massively underestimated for years and only now were social services trying to deal with the problem Facts and figures are hard to come by but those that do exist correlate remarkably.
After its launch on TV Childline received 12,000 calls during its first two days from children. Since then estimated 10,000 children a day have tried to get through. Roughly 500 a day succeeded in talking to a Childline councillor half children have tried to contact Childlien since it was established.
The NSPCC estimates 6,330 cases of child abuse were dealt with nationally in 1986 - with an increase of child sexual abuse which in turn was 126 per cent over 1985 cent up on 1984.
A survey of children registered local authorities as in danger of abuse, released this month, showed a national increase of 22 per cent, rising to 30 per cent in London, 36 per cent Yorkshir higher elsewhere don't nest mean sexual abuse Calater increasing. They mean that more sexua abuse Is detected as awareness of it is increas and for the • first time cu. small steps are being taken to do something about it.
Us when the first child abuse programs were set up similar results were shown: in San-Jose 30 families were referred in 1971, 1n Aurora County Colorado 134 cases in 1977, 653 ir 1979; in Hennepin County Minnesota 14 cases of incest in 1972 and 200 in 1977.
In the context of these figures the increase suspected sexual abuse cases in Cleveland to 83 so far this year, does not ap pear incredible Nor Cleveland's figures totally out of line with those of other local authorities. Since Lecds social services began to register child sexúal abusi the figures for child abuse have risen as follows: sexual abuse to enc 1985 (156 sexual abuse) December 1986, a further 177 (65 sexual abuse) ada ed to the register to May this year.
In Manstield cases of child abuse have trebled in the past two years with cases rising sexual abuse most rapidly A series of studies in, dicate figures of one in ten children being subjected to some form of sexual abus before the age of between one and two per cent being subjected severe sexual abuse Eighty per cent of sexua : takes place in the family and by relatives.
The weight of evidence is overwhelming. it point not to an over-reaction in Cleveland but an under reaction elsewhere.
Incest anc the sexual abuse of children is a col ossal phenomenon which classes makes the lives of tens of thousands of children scale secondly a large expansion study and debate - not the attempt by Stuart Bell and his allies re-establish the conspiracy of silence and deny the nightmare exists.
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