Member

As a couple of examples, we can imagine that clause 73, as currently drafted, means that a senior leader of an organisation who chooses simply to move on an employee they suspect of committing child sexual abuse, rather than to ensure that they are reported to the authorities, may not be caught under the offence around preventing someone else from reporting, if their actions do not actively prevent or deter that reporting explicitly. Other actions could include communities, institutions or authorities destroying evidence of historical child sexual abuse in order to prevent it being reinvestigated, or in some other way hampering or interfering with investigations that are taking place. It could also include someone burying evidence of child sexual abuse after it has been reported to the authorities, so that it cannot be properly investigated. The Bill provides us with a strong opportunity to deal with some those issues, and I hope the Government will look at that as the Bill moves through the other place.