Lockdown ‘blamed for rise in child abuse cases’

CASES of domestic and child abuse increased during the Covid-19 pandemic as families were locked up at home, an inquiry heard.

The risk faced by youngsters to becoming victims of abuse, and witnessing domestic abuse, went up as the normal safeguards were taken away in lockdown, the Scottish Covid Inquiry was told.

Yesterday, the Edinburgh-based inquiry also heard of the impact the pandemic had on adoption and foster services, with a suspension of IVF helping to push up demand to adopt as foster parents quit.

Martin Crewe, director of Barnardo’s Scotland, said the organisation had ‘safeguarding concerns’ for some children as families were locked up at home.

He added: ‘For some families, particularly during the lockdown period, if you have got the family all together in a small space, with very, very limited activities, and often pressure of finance, not surprisingly in some cases domestic abuse increased and a lot of the normal checks and balances, particularly when the schools were closed, you didn’t have eyes on the child.’

Sarah Trainer, junior counsel to the inquiry, said that in Mr Crewe’s witness statement he revealed ‘child sexual abuse and child exploitation risks certainly increased during the pandemic’.

The charity worker told her ‘exploitation tends to be outside the family’ which led to those risks dropping, but that the ‘risks of abuse within families increased’.

There was also a heightened risk to children’s safety because of their increased online activity as normal activities stopped.

Mr Crewe said: ‘Playing games into the night became more common, and one of the things we’re very aware of is the opportunities for exploitation online.

‘Not just through chats but also related to gaming and things like that, so potentially the risks to children were increased.’

But Mr Crewe said there were some positives which came from pandemic restrictions helping to protect vulnerable youngsters.

He said: ‘We have some specialist child sexual abuse services and during lockdown one of them was aware of a 13-year-old girl who was going missing from her family on a frequent basis. She was actually staying with a 17-year-old male who was sexually exploiting her. And police and social work had tried to make some changes, but she kept on running back to him.

‘And what happened during lockdown was she was then stuck with her family, so she then spent more time in the care of her parents. And she was able to make that break with the young man who was exploiting her.’

Anne Whyte, head of business in family placement at Barnardo’s Scotland, revealed the number of foster care inquires ‘decreased significantly’ while those wanting to adopt babies and children climbed.

The inquiry, before Lord Brailsford, continues.