Earlier today, in a Speech from the Throne, the Queen announced that the Government will take forward measures to tackle child neglect. Quite simply, this is a momentous achievement.
I am proud to have supported Action for Children’s campaign to update the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, alongside other Liberal Democrat colleagues including Mark Williams MP and Annette Brooke MP.
The criminal law should be able to protect children from all forms of abuse. For too long we have viewed non-physical harm of children as less serious than physical harm.
In the 81 years since this law was drafted, our understanding of the harm caused by emotional abuse has developed significantly. We know that emotional abuse can have devastating, life-long consequences for children leading to mental health problems and in the most severe cases it can lead to suicide later in life.
I have heard some harrowing stories about children subject to emotional abuse. Samantha (name changed) suffered for too long because the abuse was not recognised. While she was never beaten, she grew up seeing her father physically abuse her mother, their family crumbling under his alcoholism and violent temper. On top of this, he treated her differently from her siblings, singling her out for punishments. As a result, Samantha suffered from incredibly low self-esteem throughout her life.
It is time that we catch up with other countries around the world where emotional abuse of children is explicitly recognised in the criminal laws. Action for Children has commissioned research across a number of jurisdictions in Europe, Asia, North America, Africa and Australia, finding that England and Wales fall behind when it comes to providing a legal framework that can best protect children.
As this legislation passes through Parliament, we must ensure that the changes affect the right people. Where there are concerns about child neglect, the vast majority of parents and carers can be effectively supported to improve their parenting. This is what workers in the youth sector do on the ground, every day.
The proposals for a new offence seek to protect the most vulnerable children by capturing only extreme cases of child neglect. It is not intended to criminalise vulnerable parents and carers, including those who do not have the capacity to change their behaviour.
Updating the criminal law to include emotional abuse is one, crucial, step towards addressing the wider issue of child neglect. I am pleased that the Coalition has taken this important first step, and I hope that colleagues from all parties (and none) will continue to engage in this important area of work.
* Mike Storey, Lord Storey CBE, is the Liberal Democrats’ education spokesperson in the Lords. He is Co‐chair of the Party’s committee on education, family and young people. He was previously Headteacher of a large inner‐city primary school, a Liverpool Councillor (1973‐2011), Leader of Liverpool City Council (1998‐2005) and Lord Mayor of Liverpool (2009‐10). He is a member of the Independent Advisory Panel for the Regional Growth Fund, and takes an active role in education, the arts, and regeneration matters in the Lords. Follow his work via TheyWorkForYou.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
High Fell leaflet watch (2)
No, Leave didn't win the Brexit referendum because of Northern working class voters
Two new Makerfield by-election polls gives Burnham 5 and 12 point leads
Reform under water
Geoffrey Payne
Richard Whelan
David Raw
Tom Reeve
12 Comments
I welcome these proposals to prosecute cases of extreme emotional abuse but this kind of law could be open to abuse itself.
A potential problem arises when parents who perhaps are simply flawed and without the skills that others might have, become open to prosecution from hyper-vigilant individuals whose standards are different. How does a member of the public, notwithstanding the law, delineate between extreme cases and moderate or simply different styles of parenting?
We know that some parents do have more robust styles than others – some parents shout, others never shout but spend hours reasoning with their toddlers/children – are all parents potentially under scrutiny now? How do we avoid parents being unfairly reported or prosecuted by the over-zealous or the nosy neighbour? How do we avoid prosecutions by adult children who unfairly claim emotional abuse by their parent in years gone by? This could potentially set children against parent and parent against children.
The last thing we need are more witch hunts and politicians’ excessive willingness to jump on a bandwagon , (from whichever party – and we have seen this happen in the past), after a harrowing case makes the media headlines.
Helen, it is not the public who will be making such decisions, so your concerns there are addressed by the system itself.
The Law has recognised non-physical harm for some time now and the problem has never been ‘over zeal’ use of the powers, but under-use.
That is what this Law will be at risk of suffering from; however, practical ‘difficulties’, notwithstanding, this is one of those important areas that needs addressing and that we will need to have some belief in the experts who administer it.
Most of those working in these industries take their roles seriously and do know what they are doing, even if it is difficult.
@ Liberal Al: I don’t doubt that emotional abuse goes on and that it has profound effects on children. As I worked as a teacher for a couple of decades, I am aware of this and I know how hard charities work and social services etc.. to protect children from harm. This does not mean I am an expert on this but I simply raise potential concerns.
My concern is that we go from under -use to over-use. That does not mean something doesn’t need to be done now but that we need to be mindful of balance.
I didn’t say that over -zealous members of the public would make the decisions but could involve themselves through reporting flawed parents to social services. If you are sure this won’t happen, that’s reassuring to know.
I simply think these concerns need to be raised and discussed because questions like this will be asked – by parents – if no one else.
Sorry, Helen, if I sounded as if I was ignoring your personal experience or implying you did not realise this occurs. I image that as a teacher, you are more than qualified to speak on these issues. Teachers are often some of the first to see and tackle these issues (when bureaucratic rubbish does not stop them).
However, although I do not work in Criminal law, I did spend some time volunteering in that area (and have family members who work in mental health) and was talking from that perspective. To clarify myself, often the social workers, charities and other important parties (such as teachers) do know of these children, but due to the ineffectual nature of the Law in this area, they find themselves powerless to prevent it or protect these most vulnerable members of our society.
This means that it is often not until it is ‘too late’ (i.e. the harms inflected are so serious that the child/adult whose childhood was affect need to go hospital to deal with their issues that the relevant authorities can act, and even then, much of the time, those who caused the harm go untouched).
Hopefully, this can be changed and we can give these people the tools they need protect vulnerable individuals.
I can appreciate your concerns about witch-hunts; however, I honestly believe that the Law can resist that influence (though, I agree that MPs are less so; however, sadly, they get involved regardless of the Law).
Often (not always) the police are quite good at using their powers in these kinds of areas appropriately (and know that if they do not, the Media will be on them in a flash).
That’s a bit of a scary headline. It can easily be read as implying that emotional abuse is rampant, even the norm. I’d hate to think that LibDems might be using this kind of thing for political advantage.
The article itself is rather devoid of facts. No information on what the definition of emotional abuse might be, or who will be responsible for detecting it, or how cultural bias or perceptions or class or other rather significant issues will be managed, or who might serve as an “expert” on it in a court case, or how this will help social services, or whether they support it, or what the relevant charities say, or what the experience of other countries has been. Even Samantha’s story looks like the storyteller has a rather unreal understanding of that kind of situation.
And why is this limited to “only the most extreme cases”? Why is there no action planned on this wider issue of child neglect?
if you are not careful with how this is handled you will find women who are subjected to horrible domestic violence being dragged onto this as a cause of the emotional harm when they are victims themselves.
A wonder how this applies to parents who stops another parent having contact with a child after a relationship breakdown/divorce.
In the example given, I am not sure how the criminal law can help solve the problem of someone being an alcoholic.
It would be nice if Mike could comment on how things would have been different in this case if the law had been changed.
” On top of this, he treated her differently from her siblings, singling her out for punishments. As a result, Samantha suffered from incredibly low self-esteem throughout her life.”
I’m not downplaying what would be an awful experience for a child, but are you seriously suggesting we can legislate to defend children against favouritism or unfair treatment by parents? How would this work? A child in this situation would undoubtedly suffer from low self-esteem, but that doesn’t make it any easier to legislate for.
I have no doubt that emotional abuse goes on. But it is absurd to imagine that the state is competent to legislate and act on these matters. It can’t even educate our children properly.
We would have subjective judgments made about the correct emotional treatment of children, in secret family courts, with total anonymity. These proposals are utterly horrendous.
The nanny state meets the Gestapo.
If the system didnt treat adults so badly by our somewhat draconian measures within the system itself then guess what, kids would be less likely to witness or be subjected to that type of abuse too. Deaths in police custody shows that considerably and some of those did not commit an offence and asked for help from the police. Having said that do you consider disciplining a child as emotional abuse? I would rather a bad parent discipline their child than a bad policeman or teacher thanks. The system itself has for sure abused me emotionally post an outsider to my family and somewhat a stranger causing me physical harm and in connection to it. Our society is bullying and abusive end of. Look at that before you start slamming individuals for it. that is the only trickle down affect we have because we dont seem to have that when it comes to money which puts strain on the alleged rogue parents.
Further to the previous, over show emotion or affection and what do the parents then get accused of?? I’m not a touchy feely mother does that make me an abuser above parents who are? So we teach kids to be mollycoddled and their every whim and fancy must be catered to, to then send them into a society as adults that is down right mean and selfish caring only for the rich.. Gety real!
Thanks for the comments.
The current offence in s.1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 only applies to physical harm done to a child. Although the term ‘mental derangement’ was probably directed at non-physical harm, in 1981 a House of Lords ruling restricted the offence to a child’s physical needs.
In the civil law, which governs local authority child protection and family court proceedings (1989 Children Act), emotional abuse is defined as “the persistent emotional maltreatment of the child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development”. This widely accepted definition is in stark contrast to the antiquated definitions in the criminal law. Police and social workers are therefore working to different definitions of child neglect in respect of the same family.
Where there are concerns about child neglect, the vast majority of parents and carers can be effectively supported to improve their parenting. The proposed new offence seeks to protect the most vulnerable children by capturing extreme cases of child neglect, allowing the police to intervene and put children in safer situations. It is not intended to criminalise vulnerable parents and carers, including those who do not have the capacity to change their behaviour. In these cases a social response is required, not the criminal law.
And lastly. extending the offence in the criminal law to cover emotional as well as physical abuse will not lower the level of seriousness of a crime.