Process When Reporting Historic Sex Abuse

[OneFootintheRave]

Hi can anyone help.

What would be the process/procedure for reporting historic inappropriate sexual activity between a teacher and a 14 year old pupil please. Pupil may have thought some of it was fine but clearly illegal and unable to give informed consent. Back in early 80's.

So we would report at a police station giving names and places. Name of teacher has never come up in Google searches so unlikely any convictions.

I would expect some kind of crime reference number, a computerised letter from victim support and then silence. What do you think?

Thanks

Definitely speak to the police! Yes it may be nothing happens but what if your evidence is the one piece of a missing link to something else? Good luck

Were you the pupil?

Ring the police station and ask for advice. They may come to you, or take you to a special suite that is much nicer than a police interview room. Good luck and we'll done for doing this. No matter how long ago, the teacher was in a position of trust and should never have overstepped that line.

My biological father (no contact for 20 years) has recently did a stretch in prison for a sexual assault he committed in 1991. I know the victim well and although traumatic to go through is glad she did report it, she wasn't expecting a sentance of prison time but just having her day in court to tell her story helped massively in her recovery. They will want you to give every detail possible, where, when, who saw what, who heard what, what did you do and when, what did you tell who etc. They will investigate and follow every lead they can, but this takes a long time and i mean it can be years. Maybe more now with the covid backlog. But i wish you all the best op (assuming your the student in this)

It very much depends on what happened, abuse in a position of trust only appeared in legislation in 2003 so if the offences pre-date that it would be considered under age sex with the position of trust as an aggravating factor. Simply put it wouldn’t be the same offence legally as it would be if reported now. The police would make enquiries and at some point a decision would be reached based on the weight of evidence and public interest about whether they took it forward to court.

I know a few similar cases/timescales where the police took a report but it didn’t go much further. I say that to prepare you for not much happening. In saying that, the police were very sensitive and considerate of the victim and were able to reinforce the wrongness of what happened, and the victims felt satisfied it had been recorded and would be on file should further allegations come to light.

I'm not sure if there's a limit to how long after the fact you can report things but I would imagine police would take it seriously especially if the perpetrator is still having contact with children especially in a teaching capacity. I imagine you would contact police, give them your information, would be given a crime reference number and the name of the officer who will be handling the investigation. You will probably be asked to make a statement, read this over again and sign it if you feel its accurate and provide any evidence you feel is relevant. Then police will likely contact the perpetrator and the school to make further enquiries and it would really go from there depending on what they find. I one thing to maybe be prepared for if it's historic is that the perpetrator may have passed away I

In my experience: You report the crime. Your local police will be in touch with you. You give them all the details that you can. Just verbally in the first instance. They start to look into it - they will also contact the perpetrator.
You then do a video interview. The police will work out the number of charges. This will probably be based on locations and if there were multiple incidents these will become specimen charges. They will ask you if you think there were any other victims - I had my suspicions about another girl - the police approached her and it was true. She also went ahead with the process.
The police can put you in touch with a support worker - you can't have counselling about the incidents at this point though you can about the process. The police will go through your medical and educational records. Eventually if they think there's a case they will forward to the cps for a decision. If cps agrees they charge. You can withdraw at any point. If he pleads guilty it goes straight to sentencing. If not there's a court case. There are many magistrate court and other court hearings before the main one but you don't have to go.
Remember - it's not your case - it's the police's - they may make decisions you don't like - and they'll forget to tell you things you think you should know. You're only a witness.
sentencing will only be according to the guidelines at the time. It's hard work, it's frustrating but hopefully it will be worth it. You never know who else will emerge who will also provide evidence. There are many tales of police poor attitude and incompetence but actually I found them very good.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do and be prepared for a lot of people to behave like dicks - it happened all the time back then/it's too long ago/why are you dragging it up/we all fancied out teachers - it was wrong then and it still is. The policeman I had once said to me - if people aren't supporting you, they're supporting a paedophile, why do you care what they think?

Out of interest how do they gather evidence for a one off alleged offence decades ago?

It depends on the circumstances, it could be speaking to potential witnesses and getting statements, looking at paperwork to verify dates etc. It really depends on the individual case but they'll look to see what they can find.