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victims of child abuse and grooming His convictions for child prostitution will be overturned after years of “appalling injustice”.
New measures announced by the government this week will help victims convicted or warned as children The crimes of vagrancy and soliciting prostitution have been automatically ignored and forgiven.
Announcing the plan, the Home Office admitted that “rather than not.” supported as victims”, the affected people were “convicted for acts committed under duress, fear and coercion”.
The Home Office said, “In many such cases, the true perpetrators – the adults who exploited them – escaped prosecution, while the victims were left with the stain of a permanent criminal record.”
It adds the measures, which are expected to help hundreds of people, will address “the lasting psychological burden, social stigma and barriers to employment and other freedoms that these historic convictions have caused”.
The scheme will apply to those who were convicted of such crimes under the age of 18, before the concept of child prostitution was abolished from law in 2015.
Minister for Safety and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, said: “These amendments send a clear message: we will not allow the failures of the past to define the future of those who have been let down by the system in so many ways.
“Victims and survivors of child sexual abuse deserve nothing but compassion and support, not a criminal record. Today, we are taking decisive action to right that.”
The new measures included in the Crime and Policing Bill were in response to a recommendation made by Baroness Casey in her recent review into child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs.
The change to automatically set aside historical convictions will mean that victims and survivors will no longer need to request it.
Gabriel Shaw, chief executive of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood (NAPC), said he welcomed the government’s move to “restore justice”.
“Our own research, drawn from over 46,000 conversations with victims, tells us that both recognition of the abuse and being believed are integral to how victims themselves define positive justice outcomes,” she said.
“The decision to set aside and pardon these convictions is an important step toward building a justice system that can provide better, more survivor-centered outcomes.”
The Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ) said the move was an “important step”, but said the government should go further by decriminalizing loitering or loitering altogether and extend the scheme to punishment and warnings for those aged 18 and over.
The charity said: “Many women historically convicted of prostitution and vagrancy first entered street prostitution as children, when they were forced to sell sex by pimps and other exploitative adults.
“The abuse and exploitation did not end when they reached the age of 18, yet the women we have supported and acted for in litigation continue to suffer the consequences of criminal records resulting from serious criminal acts committed on them by adult men who were rarely punished.”
Harriet Wistrich, CEO of CWJ, said: “This is an important first step to correct the reprehensible treatment by the criminal justice system of children who were victims of adult rapists, but who did not suddenly become free to choose when they reached the age of 18.
“We urge the Government to extend the neglect and amnesty scheme to all those now historically convicted of soliciting and loitering.”
The charity said MP Tonia Antoniazzi had previously introduced an amendment to the same bill which would have done this, and the same amendment is now to be introduced in the House of Lords by Baroness Helena Kennedy Casey.