Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Personal Views Personal views

The police should take the lead on protecting children from criminal abuse

BMJ 2003; 326 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7384.343 (Published 08 February 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:343

Rapid Response:

Abuse of children and systems

Professor Southall writes: 'We need an international response to
criminal abuse namely, an effective, police led protection force.'

Once again I find myself fully in agreement with him.

The crucial task before us all is how this police force is trained,
and by whom. They must know what they are looking for, and at, and they
must not be influenced or intimidated by the apparent status of eminent
folk who may offer to train them.

Operation Ore has unearthed multiple thousands of paedophiles,
criminal child abusers, who hid behind closed doors and behind the cloak
of middle class and professional respectibility. They were all men.

One of these works/worked at North Staffordshire Hospital.

The act of giving false statistics and failing to reveal information
about life threatening infection in a child, set down in prosecution
files,thereby influencing a Jury and sending an innocent woman to prison
for life, is, in my view, an act of gross criminal abuse against the
family, including the child who has had to cope without his mother because
she was falsely accused and falsely imprisoned through such abusive acts.

The police are beginning to realise, with Harold Shipman heading the
way, that some medics are also criminals and child abusers.

Hopefully, with this increasing awareness, the thorough Laming report
and recommendations and the details about the utter tragedy of both the
Victoria Climbie and the Sally Clark cases, in future our police forces
may be much more successful in preventing criminals committing child
abuse.

Competing interests:  
Gave evidence to the Griffiths Inquiry on false evidence, omission of real evidence and use of shock tactics in Court, leading to gross miscarriages of justice.

Competing interests: No competing interests

08 February 2003
Lisa C Blakemore-Brown
Chartered Psychologist
UK