Parties back call for law on child abuse disclosure

The National Party and ACT want to make knowing about child abuse but failing to report it a criminal offence, punishable by three years in prison.

It follows a call from Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft this week for the ‘right to silence’ to be abolished or amended in cases of child abuse.

The push for new laws comes after a case of a four-year-old boy from Flaxmere who was critically injured in a suspected case of child abuse.

The boy – who will likely be permanently brain damaged if he survives – was admitted to hospital late last month, after police were called to a family violence incident at a property in Ramsey Cres, where they found him badly bruised and suffering from a severe head injury.

Opposition Leader Simon Bridges said that under National, the new offence would have a maximum penalty of three years in prison. The law would require someone to give police information unless they had a reasonable excuse not to.

It would be similar to a ‘Failure to Disclose’ offence introduced in the Australian state of Victoria in 2014 for child sex abuse cases, he said.

Bridges, a former Crown Prosecutor, told assembled media that he understood the issues.

‘‘I can’t stand by and watch stories in the news about children being killed and injured where nobody is held to account.

‘‘There are more that should have come to me to prosecute but they never made it to court because those involved refused to tell police what had happened. Those children never got the justice they deserved,’’ he said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the National Party’s previous changes to child abuse laws had not worked but the issue did need to be looked at.