Parliament: Tories attack judges – calls for heavier sentences – Debate on child abuse (30.11.85)

The Times (London), 30th November 1985

Two Conservative back-benchers bitterly criticized judges for some of the sentences passed in child abuse and other cases. Mr Raymond Whitney, Under Secretary of State of Health and Social Security, who replied to a Commons debate on child abuse, said sentencing was beyond the responsibility of the DHSS.

However he said there was undoubted public concern about sentencing which must be recognized. Mr Michael Meacher, chief Opposition spokesman on social services, called on the Government to heed the campaign for family courts, but Mr Whitney pointed to the lack of agreement about them.

Points made in their review of child court law could fit either the existing court system or a new family court.

Sir Bernard Braine (Castle Point C) said it was high time the Lord Chief Justice laid down strict and tough guidelines for the judges, who must heed the voice of the Parliament. He called on the Home Secretary to draw the atention of the Lord Chief Justice to public anxiety about disparity in sentences for atrocious crimes against children, women and the elderly. It is as if (he said) they do not live in the same world as the rest of us. Mr Geoffrey Dickens (Littleborough and Saddleworth, C) said that in the Charlene Salt case, the DPP and the judge between them let a barbaric murderer off with six years when life imprisonment would have satisfied, in the absence of capital punishment.

However, Mr John Ryman (Blyth Valley, Lab) considered it was wrong for MPs to attack judges over sentencing. Judges were best able to decide sentences because they knew the full facts. Reporters heard only what was said in court.

Recent cases of serious injury and death in child abuse cases had shocked and angered the nation, Dr Norman Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow, Lab), said in opening the debate on a motion calling on the Government to encourage and facilitate the development of means of prevention, detection and treatment of child abuse.

All were anxious, he went on, to see a dramatic decline in abuse cases and the easiest way to catch the headlines was to malign the social worker, he was aware of the problems they faced and the difficult and demanding task they undertook. The Government had a responsibility to see that social workers caring for children were given necessary support, guidance, supervision and management. Administrative procedures should also be examined to ensure that effective merchanism existed for the removal of the child if necessary.

It was time for Parliament to look at the casual relationship between the rise in pornography, the increasing lack of responsibility of film makers and those responsible for television programmes who put out a continous steam of screen violence and brutishness.

The high priests of permissiveness (he continued) have thrown their hands in horror at the slightest suggestion that there is a causual relationship. They have had their day. Like the rest of us, they should be able now to see the carnage and social wreckage they have helped to cause.

The most revolting aspect of this increasingly dirty and pitiless scene is child abuse.

Mr Michael Hancock (Portsmouth South, SDP) said insufficient resources were being made available to allow social services departments to react properly. It was a form of child abuse for local authorities to put families with three children on the fourteenth floor of a tower block.

Mr Geoffrey Dickens said big sums of money were involved where evil people wanted sexual relations with children. As names had come into his possession, so the threats had come: threatening telephone calls followed by two bulgaries of his London home and his name on a hit list.

Organizations which interested themselves in adult-child sexual relationships should not be allowed to exist, they should be proscribed.

When he had been trained as a magistrate in the 1960s he was instructed that sentences should be designed to punish, reform if possible, deter, and to protect society.

The Charlene Salt case was one example of how the Director of Public Prosecutions department had made grave errors, as had the judge.

The father had said he banged her head on the arm of the settee and possibly on the wall because she would not stop crying. Brain haemorrage resulted.

That was murder in anybody’s book (he said) not manslaughter; not wilful ill-treatment but grievous bodily harm. The Solicitor General replied to me in a five page letter but I remain unconvinced because Charlene was a little baby only a few weeks old.

It was open to the judge to direct that there should be a further indictment for murder.

Most of the social services were hard-working and caring but social services attracted some doubtful recruits.

Mr Alexander Carlile (Montgwmery, L) said they should not indulge in social worker bashing. It did not help. It was a complex and difficult job in child abuse and not one which could be satisfactorily done on the basis of general social work training alone.

Mrs Virginia Bottomley (Surrey South West, C) said teachers had an important role to play in the system as they saw a child from day to day especially in PE class when any injuries would be more apparent.

Mr Roger Sims (Chislehurst, C) said he feared there would always be inadequate and incompetent parents so there would always be some cases of child abuse. social workers were human and bound sometimes to make mistakes. But with cooperation and extensive training of social workers drawn from a growing body of experience in this field, such cases could and must be reduced.

Mr Michael Meacher said that in the light of intense public disquiet on the issue, the Government should set up a royal commission to examine all aspects of child abuse and the provisions for children in care because they were at risk.

Only this would draw together on a sufficiently comprehensive and authoritative bais, a new and systematic reconsideration of the issue that was clearly needed in the light of the recent series of horrifying tragedies.

Mr Raymond Whitney said the Government believed the present system provided adequate powers but there were certainly important changes needed in the law in addition to simplification and clarification.

A working party report published in October recommended a substantial set of proposals to be taken through a consultation process. They must proceed with due measured tread.

There was broad agreement on the need to establish a mininum standard of practice and a guidance circular would be issued.