Child sexual abuse survivor calls for sentencing reform
Man talks of "long shadow" cast by child sexual abuse
Friday, 25th August 2023 — By Tom Foot
A MAN who was sexually abused as a child by a Scout leader has laid bare the “long shadow” the brutal experience has cast over him as he calls for support in reform of sentencing guidelines.
The survivor, who was targeted at a Camden primary school in the 1970s and early 1980s, said he feels let down by the judicial system after his attacker was released from prison after five years.
Speaking to the New Journal this week on the condition of anonymity, the man who grew up and has lived in the borough most of his life, spoke about his decades-long struggle with crippling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
He said regular therapy had helped him summon the strength to report his attacker to lawyers and give testimony that led to a crown court conviction in 2017.
But after a gruelling prosecution process, he was stunned to discover that sentences handed down for historic crimes are based on what the penalties were at the time – not what they are now.
The man, now in his 50s, has opened up about his lifelong ordeal in the hope of building support from abuse survivors, human rights lawyers and campaigners in a “class action” on child abuse sentencing guidelines.
He told the New Journal: “The fact is that in the early ’70s and ’80s the law on this was inadequate. Society was in a huge amount of denial about child sexual abuse.
“The sentencing guidelines back then seemed to bear no relation to the long shadow child sexual abuse casts on people’s lives. It is decades and you never really recover. That is why it is such a grave offence. It has such a disturbing impact on your psychology because you are so vulner- able when you are young.
“My prison sentence has been the past 40 years. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through it will understand this.”
Ian Barker pleaded guilty to indecent assault with penetration, mid trial at Blackfriars Crown Court in November 2017.
The man told the New Journal how he had been singled out after spending break time at school stand- ing around alone in the playground, because he was not good at sports. He was encouraged to join the Scouts where the abuse took place.
The New Journal has reported on Barker, who lived in Camden Town, and was found during the investigation to have preyed on other children in the Scouts. The man said he had been told by officials that his attacker had been released on licence after serving five of his 10-year sentence.
Under current sentencing guidelines, the same brutal crimes committed against a child under 13 could be punishable with a life sentence.
Explaining what it is like living with complex PTSD, the man said: “In the normal course of events you develop memories about things, and those memories have emotions associated with them. In the normal course, the brain kind of records the context of each event and this gives you perspective. But people with complex PTSD, that mechanism for context doesn’t always work. The memory doesn’t make it into the right part of the brain and what that means in behavioural terms, you get flashbacks. You can’t control them.
“They are triggered by sounds, smells or places; whatever. They take over your mind. I could be in a task that requires focus, and this happens and I can spend 10 minutes just sit- ting there preoccupied in the flashback. You can appear odd, unpredictable. Maybe you tick, have a tick that expresses yourself. People can shy away from you. Your reactions can seem disproportion- ate. Trusting people is really difficult. Any form of sexual intimacy is really traumatic.”
He said a psychologist’s report submitted as evidence to the court during the trial had said that even with the “skilled attentions of caring clinicians the victim will never make a full recovery”.
He said: “It puts such huge pressure on social services, the NHS, the police. Some people can’t hold down jobs, so they are pushed into a life of crime. Some people with complex PTSD who aren’t supported or in treatment end up killing themselves because they can’t bear the symptoms. Some people who can enter relation- ships end up destroying those relationships. It’s not because they want to, it’s because they have been screwed up. If there was one issue the politicians need to take seriously, it is this.”
But the man said he had been stonewalled by human rights lawyers, campaigning charities and politicians since 2017 – leaving him at a loss as to how to take the campaign on.
“The sentence happened and I got some compensation from the Scouts,” he said. “But I’m just one individual. AndI feel like there are so many people out there who this affects. I’m up against a bunch of powerful people, in funny wigs and the rest of it. I feel like I’ve been bashing on legal doors and political doors and saying ‘why can’t you hear what I’m saying?’”
He said: “Do I have faith in the justice system? Not really. Am I glad I reported him?Yes I am. But do I feel supported? No. The sentencing guidelines are made by naive people that have not experienced the suffering and pain that is meted out by sexual abuse. If they did, they would revise them.”
The man has set up a petition and hoped anyone with similar feelings will contact the New Journal in the hope of building up a head of steam.
Debate over historic offences
RECENT trials for sex offences committed between the 1960s and 80s have raised many questions about how those convicted of historic offences are dealt with by the courts and how the consequences of such a passage of time between offence and sentence should be considered.
The basic position when an offender is sentenced is that it should be according to the law at the time the offence was committed, not the law at the time when they are sentenced.
This has been reinforced by Article 7 of the European Convention of Human Rights. It is a general legal principle that the law should not be applied retrospectively – so that people are able to know the penalty for an offence.
Sentence levels have generally been increasing over the past few decades and changes to the law relating to sex offences are a good example of this trend.
This reveals much about how attitudes towards these offences have changed over time. For example, sentencing for the offence of indecent assault on an underage girl has undergone several changes to sentence levels over the years. Between 1957 and 1960 the maximum was two years’ imprisonment. It then changed in 1961 to a maximum of five years if the victim was under 13 years old, and in 1985 it increased again to 10 years.
While the maximum sentence for sexual assault remained at 10 years, it increased to 14 years in cases where the victim was under 13, and assault by penetration was given a maximum sentence of life.
Some sentence levels have also decreased. If someone had been sentenced for murder in the early 1960s, they could have faced the death penalty and some may think that if people have to be sentenced as the law was at the time of the offence, they therefore should get the death penalty.
– The Sentencing Council for England and Wales
