10,000 children a year could be at ‘terrible risk’ because they receive no active police response when they go missing, according a parliamentary inquiry published today.
The All Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults –Inquiry into the Safeguarding of ‘Absent’ Children chaired by Stockport MP Ann Coffeyclaims that at least 10,000 children a year could be at ‘terrible risk’ because they receive no active police response when they go missing.
The inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults, supported by The Children’s Society, has called for a controversial police recording system for missing children, introduced in 2013, to be abandoned because it does not safeguard children from harm.
Under the two-tier system, children are classed as either ‘missing’ or ‘absent’ – but crucially only a child classed as missing receives an active police response.
The inquiry heard that children who go missing but are classified by the police as absent slip under services’ radar until the risks, such as child sexual exploitation, become too serious.
The inquiry also heard of cases of children, who were classed as ‘absent’ but who had been groomed for sexual exploitation or criminal involvement such as drug running across county lines.
The committee heard evidence that included a 15-year-old girl, reported by her family as missing, who was categorised ‘absent’. The family were told to stop wasting police time because she was ‘residing with an older boyfriend’. The girl was away from home for four weeks before she was reclassified as missing. It turned out that there were problems with child sexual exploitation, trafficking, criminal gang involvement and drugs.
In another area of the country, there had been an increase in the number of missing boys who had been exploited by adults. These cases did not originally come to light because the boys had been recorded as merely ‘absent’ warranting no police response.
Some children were found to have been recorded as ‘absent’ between 11 and 137 times despite many of them being at risk of child sexual exploitation and of being groomed by criminal gangs to run drugs.
Risks are frequently not being picked up in risk assessments by police call handlers when a child is reported missing. Analysis could identify only 12 police forces that consistently asked about the risk of child sexual exploitation and only seven that consistently asked about any mental health problems of the missing child, other than an immediate risk of suicide.
The longest a child was recorded ‘absent’ was a staggering 20 days and 16 hours.The inquiry found that children who are known to be particularly vulnerable to going missing and to being exploited, such as children in care far from their homes, are still routinely classed as ‘absent’.
The MPs also heard evidence of police call handlers — who take the original distressed call from relatives, friends or carers — being put under pressure from superiors to say children are ‘absent’ not ‘missing’.
MPs on the APPG concluded that the separate ‘absent’ category should be scrapped and instead, all missing children should receive the response that is proportionate to the risks they face. The inquiry recommends that this response should always be informed by a joint assessment between the police and children’s services, in order to build up a picture of the child’s life and the risks they face when missing.
The latest figures show that 9,780 runaway children went ‘off the radar’ in a total of 21,399 incidents in 2014-15 because police classed them as ‘absent’ rather than ‘missing’.
The true figure is likely to be even higher as only 29 police forces, out of 37 who have implemented the system, could provide any data on absent children.
Ann Coffey MP said:
“All the evidence shows that the new absent category is dangerous and should be scrapped. It is not fit for purpose.
“It was introduced to save police time but has turned out to be a blunt, crude assessment tool that leaves children who are regularly classed as absent in danger of sexual exploitation and of being groomed by criminal gangs. It is scary that exploited young people are falling off the radar and no one knows what is happening to them.
“From Rotherham to Rochdale we have seen a pattern of young people and their families not being taken seriously. Our inquiry heard of one mother whose child was classed as absent. She was left to cope alone and drove around all night long frantically looking for her daughter.
“It is also shocking that there are unacceptable inconsistencies between and within police forces in their approach to missing children. It is now time for all police forces to abandon this hit and miss system. Children deserve the same protection wherever they live.
“There needs to be a joint risk assessment by police and children’s services otherwise children can be left at terrible risk which could have been prevented.”
