Cleveland Police has insufficient trained officers to investigate reports of child abuse, neglect and exploitation, an inspection has found.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) said the force also needed to “urgently improve” how it investigates cases of children being exploited online, along with its response when youngsters go missing, both aspects being graded as inadequate. Inspector of Constabulary Michelle Skeer said Cleveland Police had worked hard over the years to improve how it safeguarded vulnerable children and families and she commended officers and staff for their “dedication and steadfastness in a demanding environment”.
But she said the force “needed to do more to achieve consistently good outcomes”. HMICFRS said that the force worked well with local and national partner organisations on safeguarding arrangements for children, but it also pinpointed numerous weaknesses in the force’s approach.
Inspector Skeer said of the latest findings: “The force doesn’t have enough trained officers and staff to investigate reports of child abuse, neglect and exploitation. It must improve how it assesses and responds to children at risk, or harmed by online exploitation.”
The inspection was conducted last June and focused on how the force manages child protection as part of a wider national initiative. A previous report in 2019 found Cleveland Police were failing to identify vulnerable victims and providing poor or significantly delayed responses, giving missing children as an example, with the force being pulled up on this again in this latest inspection.
‘Challenges faced’
Cleveland Police’s Assistant Chief Constable Richard Baker said: “This report reflects the challenges faced across Teesside due to the high levels of social deprivation. The force has worked through each section of the report’s findings and is pleased to confirm that many aspects have already seen considerable improvement, much of which can be evidenced by significant performance improvements and outcomes for children.
“The implementation of a broader improvement plan following more detailed written feedback from HMICFRS has resulted in sustained progress, including the accurate risk assessment of missing children with enhanced internal scrutiny of our approach. Additional, bespoke training has been delivered to key members of the workforce to enhance the identification of vulnerability and cumulative risk, with a particular focus on children.
“We took immediate action to ensure the ownership of all existing online child sexual exploitation investigations has been allocated to the appropriate department with a process in place to capture any investigations incorrectly allocated.”
Assistant Chief Constable Richard Baker
ACC Baker added: “What remains of the utmost importance is that victims, survivors and vulnerable people receive a first-class response every time. I am committed to ensuring the force strives to ensure a high standard of service is provided and the improvements that have already been put in place are sustained and continue to be monitored.
“The protection of children across Teesside will continue to be a key priority for Cleveland Police, and, together with our partners, we will keep working hard so those who are most vulnerable receive the service they deserve.”
What did the inspection report highlight?
It referenced ‘sextortion’ cases, in which children are coerced into sharing indecent images of themselves online so that money can be extorted from them. Often uniformed response officers who were investigating this sort of crime weren’t suitably qualified or trained.
Sixteen cases of alleged online exploitation were reviewed and in 15 of the 16 cases mobile devices weren’t examined and the force didn’t recover evidence. In one instance a woman visited a police station to report that someone was sextorting her 16-year-old son using an online platform.
The woman stated that the person threatened to share sexual images of her son unless money was sent to them, which she had refused. The son was said to be distraught at the blackmail threat, texting the mother to state he wanted to kill himself.
An officer attended the front counter at the station and filled out a crime report with the woman being given an Action Fraud leaflet. The report said: “This was highly inappropriate. The force advised the woman and her son to contact the police again if there were any further offences, and officers closed the investigation with no suspect identified.
“The force didn’t recognise the traumatic impact on the boy. Officers didn’t ask for specialist advice to consider any possible organised crime group involvement.
“Officers didn’t retrieve the boy’s phone to recover any available evidence. As officers didn’t complete a public protection notice, the force’s safeguarding partners weren’t informed. It meant the force hadn’t safeguarded the child or any other possible victims.”
The force was said to have acted quickly to make sure these types of crimes were only investigated by officers with the right skills and experience. The inspection revealed that in a team investigating child abuse and neglect, less than a third of officers had completed their initial crime investigators development programme. Also a complex exploitation team should have consisted of 22 officers, but at the time of the inspection there were only 11 officers in post.
The force said it had a process for assessing children at risk of, or harmed by, exploitation, but officers and staff told inspectors the process was “confusing and disjointed”. The report said: “We saw that there are multiple meetings to manage children at risk of exploitation, with a range of different titles.
“Some meetings are daily, while others are weekly or scheduled on an ad-hoc basis. This inconsistency is contributing to the force’s fragmented approach to managing child sexual and criminal exploitation. The force can’t always be sure there is a consistent level of service to all children at risk of exploitation.”
The report touched on “workload pressures” with officers investigating child protection cases being concerned it was affecting their wellbeing. It said: “Officers from one district told us they felt ‘forgotten’ as they tried to manage what they described as unmanageable workloads.”
Missing kids
Addressing missing children, the report said 6.9% of reported incidents in the 12 months up to the end of March last year were classified as high risk by Cleveland Police, compared to the national average of 11.5%. This gap grew even wider in terms of children in council care – who are particularly vulnerable – with the force assessing just 1.7% of looked after children reported missing as high risk, compared to the national average of 14.2% over the same period.
The report said six missing children case files were reviewed and in three the force graded children as being of medium risk, when it should have graded them as high risk. Referrals to safeguarding partners only took place in half of all missing children incidents, while officers rarely recorded important information, such as where the children went, who they were with and what had happened to them during the time they were missing. When children who had returned home or to a place of care were interviewed, this was often done over the phone with officers not physically interacting with the children.
The report said: “This means the force doesn’t always gain the information it needs to assess whether a child has been the victim of offending, to assess whether they are at risk of exploitation, or to reduce the likelihood of them going missing again.” The force’s response to missing children incidents was “frequently poor”, with delays of up to three hours being found and in one instance a delay of 11 hours.
The report said: “The delays in responding, coupled with ineffective investigation plans, mean the force is sometimes missing opportunities to locate children quickly.”
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