Thousands of teens at risk in charity shops

Thousands of teenagers may be at risk of sexual assault in charity shops because staff do not undergo criminal checks, a whistle-blower warned last night.

sexual exploitation of teenage volunteers in oxfam shops was under-reported and left unchecked, the charity’s former safeguarding chief said.

helen Evans said there were three allegations of child volunteers being abused by adult staff at shops in January and February 2015, shortly before she quit.

she said she had been made aware of an allegation of physical assault on a young boy, an alleged sexual assault and a claim of inappropriate sexual conduct.

she also revealed a case from 2014 of ‘sex with a child volunteer’. up to 4,000 teenagers work at oxfam every year, many as part of the duke of Edinburgh award scheme.

Earlier this year the Mail revealed that oxfam had faced 123 alleged incidents of sexual harassment in its stores in nine years. But Miss Evans said that the problem was not confined to oxfam.

she told MPs on the Commons international development committee that she wanted ministers to close a loophole that means charity shops are not required to carry out disclosure and Barring service checks on shop workers.

‘There is an exemption that means shop managers in charity shops don’t need to be DBS checked,’ she said. ‘so you could be looking after 14-year-old children on your own every saturday.’ oxfam now carries out DBS checks and in written evidence to the committee, it said it had tripled resources for safeguarding issues.