Scotland launches major drive to tackle child sexual exploitation
Joe Lepper
Friday, April 24, 2015
A pioneering initiative to tackle child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the wake of the Rotherham scandal has been launched in Scotland.
The National Child Abuse Investigation Unit (NCAIU) involves 40 specially trained officers with experience of complex child abuse cases being drafted in to support local police investigations into CSE, child neglect and abuse as well as online child abuse and grooming.
Police Scotland chief constable Sir Stephen House said: “Child abuse, including child sexual exploitation, is a complex, challenging area of policing and we owe it to all those affected, whether now or in the past, to thoroughly investigate each and every report we receive.
“The NCAIU is about providing specialist investigative support. However, part of our success in delivering child protection is local officers working with their partners in communities throughout Scotland.
“To be clear, the abuse and neglect of children is an issue for all of our communities. This is unacceptable.
"Children and young people should be allowed to live their lives without the fear of abuse or exploitation.
"We will proactively target those who pose a risk to children and work with our partners to ensure that support is available for victims."
The launch this month follows a gradual building up of the NCAIU team since January. This has included setting up a national base in Livingston and investigative teams in Aberdeen, Inverness and Dalmarnock.
Officers in the unit will also work closely with other specialist units including the National Rape Task Force.
The Scottish government’s cabinet secretary for education, Angela Constance, said: “The launch of this new police unit should enable more to be done to target, and bring to justice, those who seek to harm children and is a welcome development.”
Similar plans for England, which were announced in March in response to the Rotherham CSE scandal, have yet to get off the ground.
These include plans to set up a National CSE Taskforce of specialist police, health and social work experts to help councils.
There are also plans to set up a national centre of expertise to share evidence of successful schemes to tackle CSE and improve training for police on the issue.
Also last month the Labour Party’s shadow children’s minister Steve McCabe said if elected in May the party would create a “child protection delivery unit” to work across government to improve information sharing.
The extent of the CSE problems in Rotherham were highlighted in an independent review by Professor Alexis Jay, which was published in August 2014.
