This guide explains how any police professional in a criminal investigation into concerns around child sexual abuse can minimise trauma, and take account of the child’s needs and best interests during their visit – whether it relates to concerns of harm or abuse within or outside the family.
A social worker may visit the child with the police as part of a joint social work and police enquiry, as agreed at a strategy discussion. Read this alongside Children’s social care lead a child protection enquiry.
This information is also relevant for other professionals involved with the child, to help them understand what this stage of the criminal justice process involves and to enable support to the child(ren) and their family and to help them understand the processes in place.
When will a single-agency or joint visit happen?
A multi-disciplinary strategy discussion or meeting will be held to decide what actions should be taken. This may include:
- A single agency visit to the child (officer in the Case and another officer).
- A joint agency visit to the child (police and social care).
Before this point, the police may already have made an immediate safety visit to the child and obtained some information.
How may the child be feeling?
Children may be experiencing a mix of feelings:
- Relief and hope that something will be done and that the abuse, if it is ongoing, will stop.
- Anxiety about what may happen to them, their family and/or the person who has abused them.
- Apprehension about the police visiting their home and what will happen next, particularly the impact for them and their family.
- They may have had previous involvement with the police and/or social workers or other services, and this might influence how they are feeling. They may also have negative messages about services from their family or community, which may need to be responded to.
“The police officer was like six foot tall and really skinny, [and] the social worker was like really big and also six foot tall. So at the time I was 11, to an 11 year old that’s kind of scary.”
“If you report a crime, [the police] walk into your front door, and they take charge, you know; it’s not ‘Come in’, it’s ‘Boom!’, right into the house, so it renders you completely irrelevant and at their beck and call.”
“[The police] come to your school and say, ‘We need to talk to this student’ so then you have to get taken out of class and your friends are all like ‘where are you going?’ and you have to make something up.”
“[The police officer] held me, she looked after me and she looked after my Mam, she put her arm around me, she wasn’t harsh, she understood.”
There are many ways to help the child.
- Ensure that you have all the information about the child and the concerns raised, including any evidence obtained to date.
- If this is to be a joint visit with a social worker there will need to be a planning discussion about how the visit will be conducted, roles and responsibilities and how the needs of the child and their family will be met.
- Establish whether the child has any communication needs, related to their ethnicity, disability, neurodiversity, or other need.
- Consider the context of the abuse - abuse within the family environment, outside the home, or abuse online require different responses.
- Consider whether the child needs a medical assessment or examination .
- Gather as much evidence as possible.
- Remember to apply the civil standard of proof to the child safety needs and the criminal standard of proof to decisions about criminal justice.
As the Officer in the Case, your role focuses on protecting the child, identifying suspect(s), and securing physical and other evidence.
Protecting the child
- The child's safety is the first priority.
- Consider whether there is ground to arrest the suspect.
- If there are not grounds for arrest, you may advise the suspect to leave the home for the duration of your visit.
- Consider the context of the abuse and what steps should be taken. For example, viewing child sexual abuse material; harmful sexually behaviour by another child; technology assisted harms; and sexual abuse by an adult, or sexual abuse outside the home all require different responses.
- Consider whether the child needs to be removed from the home for their protection, using Powers of Police Protection or and Emergency Protection Order.
Communicating with the child and their family members
- Consider the child and families communication needs.
- Explain what is going on.
- Ensure the child has their non-abusing parent(s) or another safe adult with them.
- Gather verbal evidence from the child and record it in their own words in a contemporaneous note.
- Gather information from other family members.
- Talk about next steps, including what the child wants to happen. Let them know their options.
Supporting the child
You may have been tasked with the following at the strategy discussion or meeting:
- Refer the child to a sexual assault referral centre (SARC).
- Support the child to access to an independent sexual violence adviser (ISVA) or a child and young person’s sexual violence advocate (CYPSVA) for support.
- Support the child to access victim support services.
All professionals should consider how to support the child's emotional needs and consider what support the non-abusing family members may need.
After the visit:
- ensure that all the available and known evidence, including any report following the medical examination, is collated, secured and preserved.
- Identify what further evidence (if any) is needed to establish that an offence has taken place.
- Consider whether the suspect needs to be arrested or interviewed.
- Where the suspect is a child who is above the criminal age of responsibility, you may need to arrest them – but bear in mind that they may themselves be victims of abuse.
- Where there is insufficient evidence to arrest a suspect, consider using appropriate civil orders.