ACAL are supporting a campaign to make mandatory reporting a criminal offence. This evening on Panorama at 8.30pm the subject is debated on TV.
Keir Starmer appears to be supporting us, but some of the children’s charities are against it, which might seem curious.
The BBC article reads:-
“Teachers and other professionals who fail to report child abuse suspicions should face prosecution, the former director of public prosecutions says.
Keir Starmer said that under a “mandatory reporting” law, those who failed to act could be sent to jail.
Declassified files uncovered by BBC Panorama show how schools and hospitals have repeatedly failed to protect children from sex offenders.”
Esther Ranzen now appears to be in favour of it, as set out in the Mail on Sunday here
Meirion Jones, the producer of the Panorama programme, puts the article in the Guardian here and entitled it “After Savile, the mandatory reporting of abuse could protect other children”. He relates how Savile with his power managed to silence all those to whom reports were made about him during his lifetime.
The government are against it. Even though it is the law in most commonwealth countries and more besides even Malaysia and Mexico, it is not the law in the UK. Even Northern Ireland has had it as part of their law for many years, so why does England lag behind?
The Mandate Now coalition of charities have an online petition that you can sign here.