Over 60 children in Stockton at risk of being groomed for sex exploitation - task force warns

Following The Jay report into Rotherham child abuse scandal, local authorities are reviewing their own Vulnerable, Exploited, Missing, Trafficked protocols

More than 60 children in Stockton were identified as potentially at risk of being groomed for sex exploitation, a review has found.

But the true scale of child exploitation in Stockton “is unknown” warned a new task force, and must be investigated further - including seeking evidence from children.

And while strong measures are in place to tackle what children’s charities warn is a growing problem, there is “no room for complacency”, say council chiefs.

Following The Jay report into the Rotherham child abuse scandal - which criticised the Metropolitan Council for failings in the handling of abuse - local authorities are reviewing their own VEMT (Vulnerable, Exploited, Missing, Trafficked) protocols for identifying and dealing with the problem.

The Department of Education defines sexual exploitation of children as involving exploitative situations and relationships where young people receive things like food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes affection, gifts, or money for sexual activities.

The Task and Finish Review of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) found that in Stockton during 2013/14 a total of 61 children and young people were looked at under sex exploitation protocols

Of these 46 were female and 15 male, 59 were under 18 and 42 were thought at risk of child sex exploitation.

The Task and Finish Group - made up of representatives from the council and partner agencies - were also made aware of a number of current live investigations.

But “the true scale of the problem was not known and victims often did not recognise themselves as being victims of abuse,” the report went on.

Other findings included:

• The grooming and exploitation of young people could take many different forms and both perpetrators and victims could come from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds

• The majority of victims lived at home, however, looked after children accounted for “a disproportionate number of victims”

• Boys and young men can also be victims and women could be perpetrators primarily in helping to procure victims. Sometimes victims were also perpetrators.

• In Stockton, the occupations of known perpetrators were varied with no recurring themes.

Stockton’s A Way Out outreach and prevention charity also highlighted issues to the committee, including:

• There was an extremely high incidence of childhood sexual exploitation among women involved in “survival sex work”.

• Young girls and boys did not realise they were being subjected to online exploitation

• The development of an online educational course for children and parents as a preventative measure would be beneficial

But agencies were proactive in Stockton in tackling child exploitation, the Task and Finish Group reported.

Multi agency working “allowed the sharing of intelligence”, although this was harder when children moved out of the borough/area, its report said.

Stockton Council and partners were “proactively seeking intelligence about CSE activity”.

All local schools had “a designated safeguarding officer and all staff received safeguarding training.”

But the committee said it “is acutely aware that this important issue merits further investigation.

“The Task and Finish Group believe that it is vital that feedback from children is also sought to assess the quality of the council’s and partners’ response to this issue.”

Councillor Ann McCoy, Stockton Council’s Cabinet member for children and young people, said: “The report found there was strong commitment from all Stockton Borough Members, officers, partners and providers to tackle this problem and strong measures were in place.

“By definition this is a difficult issue to quantify because victims do not always recognise themselves as being victims of abuse so we know there is no place for complacency. We will look at the group’s recommendations carefully to see how we can continue to improve to tackle this problem, identify those who need our support more quickly and make our young people aware of the dangers associated with inappropriate relationships.

“Anyone who would like to report concerns about Child Sexual Exploitation in Stockton Borough can contact 01642 527764 or firstcontact@stockton.gov.uk”