FOLLOWING the ongoing and seeming unending sexual abuse investigation failings that keep occurring in Oxford, I feel moved to write to you following the weak disciplinary process taken against a detective who failed to investigate an underage girl having sex with an older teenager.

I am an educator and campaigner on the prevention of abuse by identifying behaviours and the very real impact of abuse which is manifested in behaviours.

And I am a mother whose three sons were groomed and abused by the headteacher at their CofE primary school inThames Valley.

The abject failures of Oxfordshire County Council and Thames Valley Police are something so appalling heads should roll.

We should not be rewarding people with pay-offs and new jobs.

Children’s lives have been destroyed – we are not talking of a minor traffic accident.

Crucially, children must be heard and believed – few make this stuff up.

Where is any integrity, compassion, professionalism, responsibility and accountability? Not acting on any of these issues leaves those wide open for rightful public critique.

Has anyone in these ivory tower empires ever asked how it feels to be an abused child or adult? Has anyone imagined the walk in the shoes of the abused?

How does it feel to be a mother of abused children? I can tell you it makes hell look like paradise.

Public servants are exactly what it says on the tin. We pay their salaries from our taxes and have the right to know the facts with all transparency.

The former Chief Constable Sara Thornton promised the findings of the investigation in the latest failing would be published but Thames Valley Police has not honoured that this week.

We, the public are not stupid.

Please stop patronising us with trite words clearly protecting your own backsides, all which are transparent to us and lead us to know you don’t really care or you don’t care enough.

MARILYN HAWES
CEO and Founder enoughabuseuk.com