“This year I spent 2 months in Australia arriving just as the terms of reference for a Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse were published. Ironically, the terms were published on the same day as the report in to abuse by the late DJ Jimmy Savile and in the same week as a study by the UK Ministry of Justice, Home Office and Office for National Statistics found that in the UK up to 500,000 people are victims of sex crimes every year. The statistics are awful but, the sad truth is there is no rape epidemic; it’s just that finally rape has become big news. Rape is endemic across the world and has been for generations. It occurs in homes, in institutions, in the street and is a war crime. Ask any criminal barrister and they’ll tell you that the Criminal Courts are full of serious cases of rape, abuse and sexual violence but for years the public gallery has been empty. Ironically, the glut of cases is the inevitable consequence of improvements in data collection and in prosecuting offences. As counsel, we deal with matters that should have been tried decades ago but people were inhibited or prevented from complaining. It is the secrecy of abuse that allows it to perpetuate. The public may not like it but my prediction for 2013 is that they will hear a lot more about abuse and that knowledge should inevitably inform their day to day conduct. “Dirty old men” and abusive women will be exposed far more than they ever were in the past……..”
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