Child Protection
The case coincided with several other cases in the United Kingdom which highlighted possible problems with the efficiency of child protection services. The whole country was said by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to be appalled at the crime and the many chances there may have been for the abuse — which continued for 28 years — to be stopped.
The father was said by his sister-in-law to have been motivated in part by wanting to keep for himself the money paid to him by the state in child support for the numerous children. There were said to have been 150 opportunities for authorities to notice what was happening. For several months the girls tried to pay their father to stop raping them by giving him £100 a month. They gave him whisky, hoping his drinking would lead to his death. They had called ChildLine, but were not reassured that their children would not be taken from them, which their father had said would happen, so they ended the call.
Read more about this topic: Sheffield Incest Case
Famous quotes containing the words child and/or protection:
“Mothers seem to be in subtle competition with teachers. There is always an underlying fear that teachers will do a better job than they have done with their child.... But mostly mothers feel that their areas of competence are very much similar to those of the teacher. In fact they feel they know their child better than anyone else and that the teacher doesn’t possess any special field of authority or expertise.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the laws’s protection most!—and listens to their testimony.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)