A review of the Metropolitan Police’s handling of cases involving child sexual exploitation has found improvements need to be made, particularly in their treatment of missing children, and around ‘victim-blaming’.
An investigation of the force by the police watchdog has found that the Met doesn’t always do enough to find missing children, often grading children who may be at high risk of harm of exploitation as lower risk. In one instance the force took no action when a 14 year old boy went missing, and had previously been a victim of a stabbing. The assessing officer graded the risk as ‘medium’, and no officers visited the boy when he returned.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) undertook this inspection following a 2023 review of the force’s practices which found significant areas of concern. These included the police response to missing children reports, the investigation of child exploitation cases, and the use of victim-blaming language, which hindered progress in tackling child exploitation. The latest report has listed changes that have made ‘positive progress and provided better outcomes to the children of London.
Although they are found to have improved their practices, challenges remain. One change made since the previous review has been the introduction of a new IT system, intended to gather all information about a child at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation. However this latest review found information was still being stored in various different places, not shared with key individuals or agencies, and was often simply incorrect, including mis-spelled names, missing information, or stating a child was at risk of criminal exploitation when they were in fact at risk of sexual exploitation.
The Met Police has in response outlined its Children Strategy from September 2024 as a ‘five-year plan’ to ‘transform the way the force keeps children safe from crime’, to ensure officers take a ‘child first’ approach.
The force introduced new measures, including ‘improved oversight of its response to missing children, enhanced training and staffing in child exploitation teams, and a stronger focus on challenging victim-blaming language through blogs and podcasts’.
The latest report did also showcase multiple administrative difficulties, which causes ‘delays in the sharing of information with the force’s safeguarding partners’. There have also been some cases of delays in investigation and lines of enquiry that were not followed, though it was noted that there was an ‘overall improvement’ compared to the previous review.
Improvements are still needed to expedite cases involving the criminal and sexual exploitation of children, the police watchdog has held the police commissioner accountable for his plans in order to ensure continued progress.
Lynn Berry, Chief Executive of the charity Barnardos, said: ‘For too long, these children have been treated as criminals, rather than victims in need of protection’, and called for a ‘clear definition of child criminal exploitation’.
