Survivors speak out against church proposal that investigations should only last six months
Sex abuse victims are “outraged” at a draft Church of England document suggesting that investigations should only last six months and make just six recommendations for change.
The report, seen by The Telegraph, aims to reform the process for publishing Lessons Learned Case Reviews (LLCR). These are the periodic, case study reviews on instances of abuse or abusers within the institution and are meant to be the religious equivalent to local authorities Serious Case Reviews.
However, survivors of abuse within the Church of England – as well as members of the General Synod, the church’s legislative body – have spoken out against the new safeguarding proposals, claiming they are “woolly” and that: “We need something far stronger – not language and structures which will normalise abuse.”
“If I were a perpetrator,” one victim said, “I’d be reading this thinking: whoopie! They’re never going to look at what happened properly nor do anything about it.”