‘Gold standard’ facility supporting victims of child sexual abuse in Nottinghamshire

How do you get them to give an account of things they are simply too young to understand?

And how do you secure that account in a way that meets the high evidential standards demanded by the courts?

Those are questions that most people will never have to answer, but for our specialist child abuse detectives they are part and parcel of their everyday work.

The answers depend largely on the unique characteristics of the child involved, but in Nottinghamshire at least this process is supported by an “exemplary and Gold Standard” medical facility described by a government minister as an example to the rest of the country.

Based at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre, the East Midlands Children and Young People's Sexual Assault Service (SARC) serves babies and children up to the age of 18.

Designed to gather the best possible forensic evidence and witness testimony from victims of all age, the rebranded Coral Cove facility was recently reopened by Home Office Minister Jess Phillips MP after an extensive refurbishment to bring it up to the latest very high standards demanded by government.

In recent years, the service has had improvements to ensure it meets the needs of its patients, including a new dedicated video interview suite, improvements to ensure it is forensically secure and increased clinical recruitment into roles such as forensic nursing, some of which has been funded by Nottingham Hospitals Charity and Nottinghamshire Police.

Speaking after the reopening, Detective Inspector Gail Routledge, child abuse lead at Nottinghamshire Police, explained the importance of the facility and its vital role in bringing offenders to justice.

She said: “Gathering the kind of evidence we need to bring child abusers to justice really is one of the most challenging, yet rewarding jobs in policing.

“When dealing with an adult victim you are in most cases talking to a survivor who knows they’ve been a victim of an appalling crime, who understands what’s happened to them, and who wants to tell you about it so the perpetrator can be brought to justice.

“When dealing with a very young child obtaining these details is challenging because they simply don’t yet understand the seriousness of what that family member, family friend or other adult has done to them.

“They will just know that they didn’t like what happened to them, that it hurt and that they don’t want it to happen again.

“But because they don’t know they have been the victim of a crime they don’t have that same desire to tell you about it.”

Using the newly refurbished Digitally Recorded Interview Room (DRI) at the SARC, officers will use anything from creative play to communication aids in order to obtain an evidential account from the children involved.

Care is taken not to lead or put words in the child’s mouth, but to provide them with a safe and supportive environment in which to tell officers what happened to them.

Sitting alongside that evidential account is an advanced, forensically secure pod for collecting any necessary forensic samples, detailing injuries and conducting medical examinations to support prosecutions.

DI Routledge added: “It’s really a team effort between the police, health practitioners and social care.

“All of us share the same determination to safeguard victims and bring perpetrators to justice, and Coral Cove is helping us to do that.

“How we approach each case depends very much on the child. Above all we want them to feel safe and supported, which is why we work so hard to build and maintain trust and rapport with them.

“This is especially important when dealing with older children who – even though they know what is happening to them is wrong – maybe reluctant to tell us about it.

“We have to remember that abusers of children are often highly-skilled at manipulating and controlling their victims – especially in a domestic setting where a child may fear the breakup of their family and the loss of their home if they speak out.

“We’re also not naïve and know that some older children may not be telling us the truth – so our challenge is to obtain and test those accounts in a way that is appropriate to children.”

Nottinghamshire Police currently employs eight teams of specialist trained Detectives, each of whom is given enhanced wellbeing support to deal with the unique emotional challenges of the role.

Over the last year they have supported many victims and secured multiple criminal convictions. These include:

Man jailed for raping and abusing girl | Nottinghamshire Police

‘Predatory’ child rapist jailed | Nottinghamshire Police

Child rapist condemned by DNA evidence | Nottinghamshire Police

Detective Inspector Routledge added: “People join the police for all sorts of different reasons, but I think an ambition we all share is to protect the public from harm.

“And there really is nothing more important to me than protecting children from these kinds of offences.

“Sadly, we know that people who fall victim to sexual abuse in childhood are far more likely to suffer with debilitating mental health implications later in life, which is why the people who do this work are so passionate about it.

“Put simply we want to stop those things from happening as soon as possible, and to bring to justice some of the most serious and insidious offenders in society,

“For obvious reasons that work is rarely shared in public but its importance to victims of childhood sexual abuse really can’t be understated.”