Child abuse investigation command – child protection update

Report: 12
Date: 8 December 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report provides an update on the steps being taken to identify and reduce faith-related child abuse, comments on the implications of Service Modernisation on Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5), and updates on activities to combat child trafficking. It also reports on Operation Safetynet and related activities tackling paedophilia. Finally, it provides an update on the specific implications for SCD5 of implementing the Children Act.

A. Recommendation

That members receive this report.

(It will be helpful to read this in conjunction with the reports submitted by SCD5 for 12 May 2005 and 13 October 2005 Planning, Performance and Review Committee (PPRC) meetings.)

B. Supporting information

Project Violet

1. Following the conviction, of two African adults for child cruelty in East London, Project Violet (‘Violet’) initially focussed on building relationships with faith communities practicing deliverance ministry. Detective Inspector Bob Pull was nominated as Project Manager for Violet on secondment from the Diversity Directorate. Significant progress has since been made, including the completion of phase one of the Community Partnership Project. Overall, the need to broaden Violet has gained significant momentum and Violet now has four main strands:

• Direct work with black majority churches
• Awareness raising through conferences and other forums
• Community Partnership Project – phase 2
• Proactive and reactive investigations

2. A great deal of the primary work on Project Violet has been research and networking within Black and Minority Ethnic Christian Communities. Current non-statutory partnerships, include the African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Church Child Protection Advisory Service and Premier Christian Radio. A joint initiative for a weeklong radio campaign to encourage adoption of child protection policies and procedures in churches is well advanced. It is proposed that the campaign will take place in early Spring 2006 to coincide with the launch of a child protection brochure for black majority churches. This brochure will specifically address Project Violet issues within the broad area of safeguarding children in churches.

3. As part of the prevention strategy, approximately 600 church leaders from Black Majority Churches in London will meet with a member of Project Violet in the New Year. These seminars and discussions will include practical assistance to develop and implement child protection policies.

4. Significant progress has been made in building trust with Congolese Christian Communities. On 10 October 2005, 35 Congolese Pastors met with Detective Inspector Pull, at a venue in Tottenham and indicated that they and another section of their community wished to work with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to develop child protection policies. A similar meeting has also been arranged with the Kimbanguist Church (National Church of Congo), which has two parishes in London and is expanding nationally. Additionally, a conference for the wider Congolese community was held on 30 November 2005 in North London.

5. Between 9 May 2005 and 4 October 2005 there have been 12 recorded incidents, classified as ‘faith based ritual abuse’ involving 19 children. Social Services and/or local Child Abuse Investigation Teams have dealt with these incidents, generally involving minor injuries to children. To put this into context, during the same period there were approximately 3,750 other child abuse allegations, not recognised as ritualistic.

6. The Department for Education and Skills and Home Office have agreed to financially support the Community Partnership Project phase two, and an invitation to tender is being drafted to engage a project coordinator on a consultancy basis. Working closely with a project manager (supplied by SCD5), the project coordinator will employ and manage Community Partnership Officers working in six Boroughs for at least 12 months. A parallel research and evaluation initiative is also being conducted and the London Child Protection Committee is hosting the multi-agency project management team. The long-term vision is for every Local Safeguarding Children Board to engage a Community Partnership Officer with pan-London strategic support and overview, probably via the London Child Protection Committee.

7. Detective Inspector Carol Hamilton and colleagues won the Police Review 'Diversity Team in Action Award' on 17 November 2005 for a crime prevention initiative focussing on female genital mutilation (FGM). This is a national, highly coveted award won in the face of strong competition from 18 other nominees. FGM remains one of the issues being addressed through Violet and Phase 2 of the Community Partnership Project.

Service Modernisation

8. The implications of Service Review for SCD5 are not yet fully developed and the long-term proposal to create a public protection command requires a thorough feasibility study and careful consideration. This is especially important in light of the latest Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies’ Thematic Inspection, which concluded that a centrally directed, locally delivered command is the most effective and efficient structure for child abuse investigation. SCD5 is so structured and this model works well in the MPS.

9. Decisions on which elements of public protection should merge under which business group location remain matters for consideration by management board led by Stephen Rimmer. Key members of SCD5 management team have provided information to Stephen Rimmer on structure and delivery, to ensure that he remains fully sighted on the value of the current structure, as developed during the past four years.

Child Trafficking

10. The ‘Paladin Child’ recommendations have developed to the degree that, on 17 October 2005, a joint working team commenced operations at Heathrow Airport. This team is made up of five SCD5 officers and UK Immigration Service officers, led by Detective Inspector Gordon Valentine.

11. In November, a multi-agency, national safeguarding children pilot operation, initiated by UK Immigration Service and operated by the Ports Safeguarding Team commenced. Based on analysis of existing intelligence, the first phase will monitor unaccompanied children flying to Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester between 31 October 2005 and 28 January 2006 from one specific location. The initiative will be informed and developed through regular monitoring and monthly, multi-agency intelligence meetings. Work on this pilot will inform the development of a substantial work-stream to monitor flights from countries and continents known for high levels of child migration.

12. Using the number of unaccompanied children presenting themselves at the Asylum Screening Unit at Lunar House Croydon as a guide, we currently estimate that about 100 ‘trafficked’ children arrive in London each week. There is general agreement amongst safeguarding children practitioners that most children exploited through trafficking remain isolated and undetected. SCD5 are working with the London Child Protection Committee to produce detailed guidance and training to raise awareness and improve practice in this area.

Operation Safetynet

13. Since April 2005, SCD5 have initiated 96 proactive operations against those that abuse or seek to abuse children.

14. SCD5 has three main units tackling paedophilia over and above the investigations conducted by the Child Abuse Investigation Teams in respect of abuse within the family and carers. They are:

• Intelligence unit
• Source Unit
• Paedophile unit
• Child-Abuse Hi-tech crime unit

15. Two SCD5 Major Investigation Teams pro-actively support these activities.

16. The intelligence unit was created following the deaths of Victoria Climbié and Sarah Payne. In both it was recognised that there was a need to be able to centrally assess and develop intelligence relating to those involved in child abuse to properly safeguard children. It currently employs 22 staff including the source unit and authorities unit, and has regional teams and a core desk.

17. A recent review of working practice has led to a significant increase in work. Much of the new work centres on suspects displaying indicative behaviour at the lower end of the scale (e.g. parking outside schools and clubs and watching or following children and indecently exposing themselves) but is nevertheless directed to combating individuals that present a clear risk to children. Much of this work is tasked to the paedophile unit. The unit develops intelligence and carries out tactical and strategic assessments, conforming to the national intelligence model.

18. The SCD5 ‘source’ unit (developing and managing informants providing information on paedophilic activities) is the only unit of its kind in the country. Most police forces do not have the skill, resilience or capability to manage high risk ‘sources’ of this nature. The use of this resource has provided SCD5 with unique opportunities to obtain intelligence and has resulted in the identification of a large number of child victims through debriefing offenders. In the past twelve months the intelligence unit has:

• Disseminated 277 intelligence taskings nationally and internationally
• Researched and developed 272 intelligence packages for proactive operations
• Managed the dissemination of 360 intelligence taskings for the MPS in respect of Operation Safetynet

19. The paedophile unit currently employs 19 detectives. The unit has responsibility for targeting predatory paedophiles, predominantly using covert policing methods. Recent successes include Operation Peoria leading to the conviction of Victor Kelly for grooming, and the dismantling of his criminal network, and Operation Southwold leading to the conviction of Alexander Killpatrick for travelling abroad to commit sexual offences against children and within the UK.

20. Since April the paedophile unit has conducted 59 investigations against both individuals and groups. Due to the nature and pattern of offending some of these are long-term operations requiring significant resource allocation. Many require surveillance capability. The unit regularly provides support to borough Public Protection Units where intelligence indicates a significant risk to children. As a direct result of this relationship, two Sex Offence Prevention Orders have been obtained against Registered Sex Offenders.

21. The High-Tech Crime unit was created to support child abuse investigations where a computer or the Internet is used. This unit was established following recognition of the exponential use of technology and the Internet by criminals involved in this type of abuse. Since its inception in April 2003, this unit has developed a two-day turn-around facility for the evidential examination of seized computers. This has resulted in increased capability, the development of an evidence-based risk assessment processes, and earlier resolution of investigations. Whilst the hi-tech crime unit aspires to examine all seized computers the workload prevents this and the computer service laboratory (and some out-sourcing) continues to support the team.

22. Through a targeted, proactive investigation, SCD5 obtained the first conviction in the UK for arranging and facilitating a child for the purpose of sex, and the first on-line grooming offence. The unit is constantly developing intelligence-based operations against subjects and has assisted other Commands with a number of high-risk missing person investigations (where the Internet was considered a factor) and assisted in race hate allegations following the events of 7 July 2005. It has also assisted Homicide (SCD1) with allegations potentially linked to the murder of children.

23. The two SCD5 Major Investigation Teams conduct proactive and complex abuse investigations across all 32 boroughs. The East team are currently undertaking an investigation into an international network of paedophiles, believed to have been operating for decades. These teams also investigate intra-familial child murders and have solved nearly every case to date.

24. Operation Safetynet is the operational name for subjects who are suspected of possessing, making or distributing indecent images of children using computers or related media, and developed from Operation Ore. SCD5 intelligence unit has managed 270 research packages this year. These are managed through the SCD5 tasking process and are the responsibility of the command as a whole with the paedophile unit absorbing, pro rata, the majority of investigations.

25. A risk-based approach has been instigated to manage the research and tasking of this work from receipt to completion. This work will continue with operational requests coming to the MPS on an almost weekly basis. We are aware that the MPS will be expected to absorb some new, large-scale disseminations in the next few months.

Children Act

26. Although a detailed update report was provided for the October PPRC meeting, there are a number of implementation issues specific to SCD5 that may usefully be expanded here.

Common Assessment Framework

27. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) will have a significant impact on both SCD5 and Territorial Policing. Implementation of this Framework requires the MPS to review the way information on children at potential risk of harm is processed. Current policy requires officers to report interactions with children at potential risk of harm by way of a MERlin ‘coming to notice’ report, which is then automatically forwarded to the local SCD5 Child Abuse Investigation Team. Following development of the information – including a risk assessment – information is generally passed to social services for their information. SCD5 process over 100,000 MERlin reports a year and this requirement places a growing burden on Child Abuse Investigation Team ‘referrals desks’.

28. Borough officers generate the vast majority of MERlin reports. At present, borough officers have little specific training on safeguarding children and largely rely on SCD5 to process the information appropriately.

29. The CAF is currently being piloted in a number of Authorities. Wandsworth is the only London borough engaging in a formal government pilot although some other boroughs are piloting locally designed CAF processes. SCD5 and Territorial Policing are currently working with the Wandsworth CAF Coordinator to develop processes whereby local police officers work closely with the multi-agency CAF team. This development will test an alternative process to the MPS ‘coming to notice’ system by providing information directly to the Wandsworth CAF. Concentrating initially on six schools in four wards, Safer Neighbourhood officers will receive sufficient training to enable them to complete a ‘pre-assessment checklist’ and, where the need for a full CAF assessment appears appropriate, process this as a request through the CAF Coordinator.

30. This pilot is important because it challenges the MPS cultural position that welfare-related matters affecting children are the almost exclusive province of SCD5. Although this has never been the case (police protection and youth offending processes are clear examples), there is a strong culture that militates against non-SCD5 officers accepting ‘safeguarding children and promoting welfare’ responsibilities. If the pilot is successful, the likely future model would shift the responsibility of processing the majority of MERlin reports to a borough-based ‘safeguarding children’ function.

31. Section 11 of the Children Act, which came into effect on 1 October 2005, requires all police officers to have an understanding of their duty to safeguard children and promote their welfare; the realisation of which manifests in a corporate responsibility to enable all operational officers to fulfil this duty. In future, it is likely that front-line officers will service the majority of pre-investigation ‘safeguarding’ activities and the CAF will provide a good testing ground for a procedural review in this area. Any ‘public protection’ command could provide a supportive infrastructure for borough-based ‘safeguarding children’ information sharing and assessment processes, linking with local multi-agency teams.

Working Together – Statutory Guidance

32. The new ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ will be published early next year and will, for the first time, contain statutory guidance for all agencies, including the police. The consultation draft effectively removes the child protection register and introduces new requirements for dealing with unexpected deaths of all children.

33. The government is keen to phase out the child protection register as it has been used as an inappropriate means of accessing scarce services for children and families. This has left professionals having to choose between designating a case ‘child protection’ to access critical services and risk stigmatising a family, and working with a family outside this system in the knowledge that referrals for support are unlikely to be available because of the volume of critical cases. Consequently, the child protection register has been working against the ‘every child matters’ early identification and prevention agenda, epitomised by the CAF.

33. The new regime will still have child protection conferences which will decide whether or not to make a child the subject of a child protection plan (as opposed to registration as a child ‘at risk’). Details of all children subject to a child protection plan will be held on the local ‘integrated children’s system’ (a standardised, electronic social care record), which will be searchable at all times. At present SCD5 maintain systems for flagging children on the child protection register, both by address (via Communication and Dispatch) and by name (via MERlin). The discontinuance of the register will probably mean that these systems will be unsustainable and the MPS will have to rely of accessing the social services integrated children’s system to ascertain a child’s ‘at risk’ status.

34. Whilst this will reduce some of the growing administrative burden on SCD5, it will effectively prevent the proactive flagging of addresses, a system currently used to inform officers responding to incidents. The latter ‘negative’ is probably not critical; indeed it will prevent officers relying on ‘systems’ information when assessing the dangerousness of a situation for children. In cases of potential concern, officers will be able to request a check of the relevant ‘integrated children’s system’, which is likely to contain more accurate information than our existing ‘third-party’ system. Government will only phase out the child protection register when the integrated children’s system is running smoothly.

35. Two complementary systems are proposed for responding to and monitoring unexpected child deaths. Early response teams – specially designated paediatricians working with police investigators – will attend the scenes of all unexpected child deaths. This will require SCD5 Detective Inspectors to visit the scenes of these deaths either with the designated paediatrician or, if the scene is visited separately, confer before agreeing a course of action. In parallel, multi-agency child death review teams, convened under the auspices of the Local Safeguarding Children Board, will monitor all child deaths, whether or not they were unexpected, to identify trends and ensure that serious case reviews are being commissioned appropriately.

36. Although theoretically attractive, there is much consternation across all agencies about these proposals and the MPS is not alone in suggesting that government withdraw them until their impact can be better understood. Within SCD5, Project Indigo is assessing the likely impact of these proposals.

Project Indigo

37. From 1 April 2005 the Child Abuse Investigation Command took responsibility for the investigation of all sudden unexpected deaths of children under the age of two. SCD5 now deal with all suspicious and non-suspicious child deaths within the family, including homicide. One catalyst for change in investigative practice was the Attorney General’s review of child deaths following a spate of miscarriages of justice including Sally Clark, Angela Canings and Trupti Patel. It was also influenced by the inter-collegiate working group chaired by Baroness Kennedy, which published a national protocol on the multi-professional investigation of child death. The transfer of business from other areas has consolidated the experience and expertise in investigating these complex investigations within the Command, allowing the rapid escalation or de-escalation of resources as appropriate. This work has also enhanced the development of relationships with other professionals including medical experts and those engaged in the welfare of children. The Commissioner has recently received a letter of congratulation from Baroness Kennedy in relation to Project Indigo. SCD5 have investigated 54 cases of child death since 1 April 2005 including six suspicious deaths and four homicides.

38. The Children Act 2004 expects all boroughs to establish child death screening teams between April 2006 - 2008. They will have two primary functions.

• To co-ordinate a rapid response, multi-professional team, to the scene of all unexpected deaths of children under the age of 18, this will range from murder and suicide to accidental death.
• To review and analyse child deaths within their borough, identify issues and take forward prevention initiatives.

39. Project Indigo is now engaging with the Department for Education and Skills and partners to consider how child death screening teams should be implemented across London. It is proposed to hold a series of workshops to discuss the challenges for multi professional working in this field, standardised data sets, strategy and governance, national research and analysis, and the development and coordination of prevention initiatives.

40. This new legislation is clearly designed to place the safety of children at the fore and the implications of meeting the proposals will need to be carefully considered in the debate around the formation of the proposed Public protection Command. The example of child death screening teams is in our view, a further example of the benefit of a centrally directed and locally delivered structure providing consistency, corporacy and economies of scale.

C. Race and equality impact

Faith-related child abuse and Child Trafficking have substantial equality and diversity implications. There is a risk that policing in these environments be perceived as institutionally racist as it potentially stigmatises black, and minority ethnic communities. SCD5 is mitigating this risk by working directly with communities, taking regular advice from the Safeguarding Children Independent Advisory Group and working in concert with professional partners, including non-governmental organisations and pressure groups. The overall imperative is that the welfare of children comes first and that such concerns must not deflect us from this purpose. Lord Laming understood the risk that professionals might be diverted from this mission through fear of being labelled racist, and commented upon this in the Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report.

Policing paedophilia potentially stigmatises the gay community as some offenders engage in same-sex relationships with boys. The sexual and emotional dynamics also render this group particularly vulnerable to stigmatisation within the community and locale and can lead to some suspects considering self-harm and suicide. To mitigate against these risks, SCD5 undertake detailed research before making planned arrests and conduct pre-release risk assessments on every person arrested. Community issues are dealt with by way of consultation with the Safeguarding Children Independent Advisory Group and the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Trans-sexual Independent Advisory Group.

The SCD5 Control Strategy clearly demonstrates that resources are being targeted according to a full Strategic Assessment and that policing activities are properly directed according to need.

Implications in relation to the Children Act are fully documented in the report for the 13 October PPRC meeting.

D. Financial implications

SCD5 currently employ a Detective Inspector, a Detective Sergeant and four Detective Constables on Child Trafficking duties. A bid has been submitted to Maxim for additional funding but to date this has not been authorised. The resources are currently diverted from child abuse investigation work. To set up a Ports Unit with adequate resources (including human resources), £534,000 will need to be found in the first year. Ongoing costs per annum will amount to £493,000, excluding pay rise factors to sustain the work of this unit. This is new work to address emerging trends in trafficking and is currently being managed within existing budgets.

Police Conference Liaison Officers were recruited shortly after the creation of SCD5 to relieve police officers from attending case conferences and the related administrative burden. This allowed SCD5 investigators to focus more exclusively on child abuse investigation and anticipated some of Lord Laming’s recommendations. Police Conference Liaison Officers perform a critical function and are now well established and highly regarded, both internally and by partners. In the Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD) budget allocation for 2005/2006, the funding gap has led to the under-funding of these posts, a situation being addressed by the SCD accountants to identify budget adjustments to maintain these posts in the next financial year.

Project Violet, and a second phase of the Community Partnership Initiative, will place additional demand on the SCD5 budget in the region of £350,000 over and above the opportunity funding to support some of this work through Department for Education and Skills (DfES). In the present financial climate, the prospect of realising the full potential of these projects is uncertain and their progress will remain under close review by SCD5 management.

The Hi-tech crime unit was set up with specific Metropolitan Police Authority approval for funding through the realignment of existing budgets. Training costs for 2005/2006 are estimated at £67,000. The purchase of a server to allow faster examination, intelligence and evidence sharing to coincide with the impending move of the unit to Cobalt Square is estimated at £65,000. These developmental costs will have to be met from existing SCD budgets this year.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Detective Chief Inspector Ian Angus

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

List of abbreviations

• MPS – Metropolitan Police Service
• SCD – Specialist Crime Directorate
• PPRC – Planning, Performance and Review Committee
• CAF – Common Assessment Framework
• DfES – Department for Education and Skills

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback