IICSA Investigation Report: The Roman Catholic Church

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (“IICSA”) has published its report into the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales (“the Church”) following a series of public hearings held in October and November 2019. The investigation focuses on the extent of failings by the Church to protect victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

The Inquiry also examined how allegations of child sexual abuse were dealt with within the Church, the experiences of the victims and the adequacy of the Church’s safeguarding policies and regimes. The Inquiry focuses on the themes and issues throughout the investigation, in particular the evidence from the Inquiry’s case studies on Ampleforth and Downside Abbey, Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School and the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales

The Inquiry found that the Church received around 931 complaints between 1970 and 2015. 81% of those complaints were said to have been reported to the statutory authorities, 17% were not reported and it was unclear whether the remaining 2% had been. From 2016 to 2018, the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission (NCSC) reported that the Church receives, on average, 100 allegations of abuse per year.

Recommendations

The following recommendations have been made as a result of the investigation. The Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales should:

1.  Nominate a lead member of the clergy for safeguarding to provide leadership and oversight on safeguarding matters.
2. Ensure that safeguarding training is mandatory for all staff/volunteers and regular refresher training should be completed. This training should consider the impact of child sexual abuse and should be developed in conjunction with the Survivor Advisory Panel.
3. Publish a framework for dealing with cases of non-compliance with safeguarding policies and procedures. This should identify who is responsible for dealing with these types of issues.
4. Have an effective external audit programme regularly validated by an independent organisation with the reports of the audit being published.
5. Request the Holy See redraft the canonical crimes relating to child sexual abuse as crimes against a child.
6. Review its policies and procedures manual and the documents within it, ensuring they are consistent, accessible and easy to follow.
7. Publish a policy for complaints about the way a safeguarding case is handled.

Conclusions

IICSA acknowledged that the Church had made progress since the Nolan report was published in 1995, but that the progress was slow and concluded that there is much room for improvement as the overall historical response to complaints and support provided to victims and survivors was not sufficient.

As a result of the investigation a number of issues have emerged which the Inquiry have stated they will return to in due course. These issues include, but are not limited to, mandatory reporting, the law of limitation in respect of non-recent child sexual abuse and the applicability of section 2 of the Compensation Act 2006 in cases of vicarious liability. We expect to see further reports on these issues in the future.

 For more information, please contact Shannon Boyce.