Incest

Yesterday and today have been cold, grey and rather depressing winter days. The atmosphere has not been improved by the announcement of yet another spectacular failure of the social services; not one but several social service departments spread across two counties. Yet again, we have a case that has been and will continue to be shrouded in secrecy. We must not know the names of anyone involved in order to protect the identities of the victims - that I understand - but the perpetrator has, apparently, shown no remorse and continues to make demands of the victims from his prison cell. No doubt, all will be revealed, disastrously, at a later date.

This story is set in South Yorkshire and in Lincolnshire and involves a man, now 57, who over a period of 35 years raped his own daughters over 1,000 times, producing 18 pregnancies and seven living children. For many years it was suspected that the pregnant women had been involved in acts of incest but, in spite of the activities of 100 care workers, 28 agencies, numerous conferences, countless complaints - even one from the man's own son, 13years ago - the abuse has gone on for so many years. The man is no more than a drink sodden, violent bully who beat his children all the time - and his wife as well, until she left in 1992. He has collected buckets of money in benefits and moved home 67 times to make keeping track of him that much harder. It seems that the social care workers were afraid of him and avoided taking positive action - preferring to have a quiet word. It only needed one of that vast army of people to take action and the abuse could have been stopped. Concerns were expressed by ambulance workers, by school teachers, by relatives - in addition to the son - but, unbelievably nothing was done and the abuse continued. The judge at the trial in 2008 wondered what the social services had been doing for the previous 20 years. The report on the disaster was published yesterday and an army of officials lined up to say that they were sorry. The man is now in jail serving 25 life sentences which was set at the original trial - was it held in camera? - with a recommendation that he should serve a minimum of 19 years but which, for some obscure reason was reduced to 14 years on appeal. Why? Why? Why? If ever there were a man who should be locked away with no possibility of ever being released, this was he, so why was the sentence reduced? Had I been an appeal court judge, I would have increased the sentence to ensure there was not the slightest chance of this man ever being let out. Forget any rubbish about rehabilitation and release, after 35 years of calculated violence and abuse he should be made to pay a severe penalty for his actions. This was no single act, no unusual aberration, no forgivable mistake. In times past, we hung children for sheep stealing and nowadays, we treat a man like this with kid gloves. I am a consistent opponent of a death penalty for any crime but something like this must give us cause to wonder if there are some crimes that warrant the severest of sentences.

What makes this story so appalling is not just that it is probably the worst case of incest ever brought before a British court but that so many people did nothing in spite of an avalanche of data. Not every social work could have been expected to know and understand what was happening but, surely, some of the most senior people involved - many paid very considerable wages for their expertise - should have realised that there were serious matters that needed to be fully investigated. But apparently not! No one has been disciplined; no one has been held responsible; no action is being taken beyond the usual issuing of statements that are no more than bureaucratic nonsense of platitudinous waffle. "Lessons have been learned." This will do until the next disaster. Soon they will tell us something about "sending the right messages."

I suppose the next thing we have to look forward to is a knee jerk reaction from the government and possibly some grandiose scheme to test every family in the land for potential incestuous relationships - ignoring the fact that evidence in this case came charging at the social services like a high speed train - and still no one noticed.

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