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"It's everyone's job to make sure I'm alright"
Report of the Child Protection Audit and Review

Chapter 2: The children in the case audit sample

The children
The nature of abuse
What were the reasons for abuse?
Key Messages

2.1 The audit methodology identified a broad sample of children who were experiencing a wide range of abuse and neglect.

The Children

2.2 The sample consisted of 100 girls and 88 boys ranging in age from 1 month to 17 years. ³ The age and gender of the sample is shown below.

Figure 2: The age and gender of the sample

2.3 From the information provided by the various agencies, the majority of children were identified as white, although there were nine mixed race children, two Asian/Pakistani and one Black/African. There were two children of Iranian asylum seekers. We asked agencies to provide information according to the OPCS classification. ⁴ Many did not or were unable to provide this information and it appears that information about ethnicity and race is not routinely collected by all the agencies we inspected.

Figure 3: The ethnic origin of the sample

2.4 Twenty-two children were noted, by practitioners, to have emotional and behavioural difficulties and 18 to have some form of special needs. The fact that special needs were not noted did not necessarily mean that children did not have them.

2.5 Wider definitions of child abuse, for example runaway youth, underage sexual activity, child prostitution or forced marriages did not appear as the initial reason for referral or concern. Although agencies indicate that these are child protection issues, they did not appear in sufficient numbers to have formed part of the sample.

2.6 The majority of cases involved one child or a sibling group and one parent or parents. There were no cases in the sample of institutional abuse, internet abuse or children where it was alleged that there were a number of abusers.

Table 1: Comparison of sample with national statistics

2.7 Half the children (95 of the 188) were on the child protection register. The main reason for registration was provided in 78 cases; a secondary reason was also given in 24 cases. Compared with the Scottish figures for 2000, the case audit sample had more children registered for physical neglect and fewer for physical injury.

2.8 The reasons for registration are not, however, a good indication of the nature of abuse most of the children experienced because:

• many children experienced more than one form of abuse;
• knowledge about other forms of abuse sometimes emerged after registration; and
• some forms of abuse were more easily evidenced than others and so were noted for registration purposes.

The nature of abuse

Neglect

2.9 Agencies noted neglect in 53 cases. There were a further 32 cases where parental skills or life style (with a high risk of neglect) were noted as major concerns. Overall, we estimated that 85 children (between a third and a half of the sample) were experiencing neglect.

2.10 There were some very serious cases of neglect. Sometimes the full extent of abuse and neglect became apparent only after a child was removed from home. In addition to the more evident signs of neglect children also suffered from lack of adequate sleep, absence of an effective structure to their lives and poor self-esteem. Very young children did not meet their developmental milestones as a result of inadequate food and stimulation.

Physical injury

2.11 In 43 cases there were concerns about actual or risk of physical injury. Babies were particularly vulnerable to physical abuse. Injuries also occurred as parents struggled to cope with children's behavioural problems. Some children experienced physical violence from peers or from siblings.

Sexual abuse

2.12 Thirteen children were registered because of sexual abuse. For many others sexual abuse was an unsubstantiated concern. Abuse included exposure to pornographic material, sexual innuendo, inappropriate touching, oral sexual activities and penetration. Almost all sexual abuse was committed by men, usually fathers, maternal partners, grandfathers or neighbours, but an aunt, stepsister, half-sister and siblings were also implicated as perpetrators. Some children were subjected to unwanted sexual behaviour from other children. Sometimes this could be explained as sexual exploration, but on occasion it was more explicit.

Emotional abuse

2.13 Only 19 (10%) of the 188 children were registered on the grounds of emotional abuse. All forms of abuse and neglect have an emotional impact upon children, however, and the number of children we encountered who were subjected to direct emotional abuse exceeded the numbers who were formally registered under this category.

2.14 In many but not all instances, children's emotional difficulties were related to other forms of child abuse and parental substance abuse. Some children were not deliberately emotionally abused by their parents, but in putting their own needs first, parents caused emotional difficulties for their children. The children's emotional problems often related to the inability of the adults in their lives to provide a firm and loving structure for them.

Impact of problem drug or alcohol misuse or domestic abuse

2.15 Seventy-six children were living with parental substance misuse. Where parents had serious addiction problems, children were at risk when their parents were affected by drugs. Health visitors or social workers found parents incapable in the house when they visited and young children at risk from fires or other household appliances. Some parents tried to protect their children from knowledge of their drug use and from possible harm by locking them in their bedrooms for long periods of the day or night. This solution created its own abusive problems, not least children urinating and soiling in their bedrooms.

2.16 As a result of their parents' alcohol or drug misuse school-age children often adopted the role and burdens of caring both for the adults in their lives and for younger siblings.

2.17 Domestic abuse featured in at least 56 cases. In some cases it formed the main concern and was an enduring feature of the child's life - one man who was violent to his wife had also physically assaulted three of his children; another man threw a child across the room during an attempt to murder the mother. In other cases domestic abuse was a background feature, referred to in files, reports and interviews as one of a range of stresses in the family likely to impact upon the children.

Self harm

2.18 In a small number of cases, the main risk to the children and young people derived from their own uninhibited or risky behaviours:

• aggression and violence;
• lack of a sense of danger;
• self-harming; and
• inappropriate sexual activity.

In some instances these behaviours were linked to very low self-esteem and possible previous experiences of abuse. In other cases conditions such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) provided the trigger. Some abused children's behaviour was so harmful to other children, adults or property that distinguishing between the risks they faced and the risks they posed was not possible. It seemed that, the older a child was, the more likely they were to be perceived as an 'offender'. Sometimes this was the only route through which they might receive help, as in the case of a 15-year-old boy referred to the Reporter on offence grounds, but who had been identified as needing help from age 2.

What were the reasons for abuse?

2.19 There were a number of identifiable causes of abuse:

• parents who lacked adequate parenting skills, often as a result of weaknesses in their own upbringing - in 14 cases parents were recorded as having experienced abuse or neglect in their childhood; a further 21 mothers and two fathers had been in care;
• parents with addictions to alcohol or drugs who consistently or at times of pressure gave greater priority to their addiction needs than to their children's welfare (76);
• parents who lacked effective budgeting and prioritising skills (15);
• physically- or sexually-abusing adults within the family or extended family (16);
• parents with mental health problems (48);
• unstable family groupings which resulted in children being exposed to changing and often unsuitable parental role models; and
• bitter marriage or relationship break-ups where children's welfare became a source of conflict for parents.

2.20 More mothers than fathers were identified as having problems but more children were brought up by lone mothers and agencies focused more on mothers' parenting skills than they did on fathers. In one case a mother, rather than both parents, was prosecuted for neglect.

Key messages

• Many children experience very serious levels of hurt and harm and are forced to live in miserable and unhappy situations.
• Many children are subject to more than one type of abuse or neglect; the reasons for registration are not a good indication of the nature of the abuse most children experience.
• It is clear that parents' serious personal and social problems are the cause of much harm to their children.

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