No remedy for sexually abused children

DP and JC v UK (Application No 38719/97) ECtHR TLR 23 October

The applicants were a sister and brother who complained to social services that they were being sexually abused by their step-father. No action was taken. Fifteen years later, the police were informed, as a result of which the stepfather pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted rape and three of indecent assault for which he was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. JP accepted an offer of £1,500 compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, but DP refused an offer of £3,000. Both applicants tried unsuccessfully to bring proceedings against the local authority for failing to protect them from the sexual abuse they suffered as children. They complained to the European Court of Human Rights that the local authority had failed to protect them from the abuse they had suffered and that they had neither access to court nor an effective remedy in respect of those complaints. They relied on articles 3, 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention. The court unanimously held there had been a breach of article 13, which requires the provision of a domestic remedy to deal with the substance of an ‘arguable complaint’, under the Convention and to grant relief, although contracting states were granted some discretion as to the manner in which they conformed to their Convention obligations. In addition to the payment of compensation where appropriate, a thorough and effective investigation, capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible, including effective access for the complainant to the investigation procedure, should be available. Article 13 could not always require that the authorities undertook the responsibility for investigating the allegations, but there should be available to the victim or the victim’s family, a mechanism for establishing any liability of state officials or bodies for acts or omissions including the breach of their rights under the Convention. An effective domestic procedure enquiry would have offered more prospect of establishing the facts and throwing light on the conduct reasonably to be expected from social services in a situation where the applicants demonstrated the long-term and serious problems that arguably might have called for additional efforts to investigate to uncover the reality of the family dynamics. The applicants did not have available to them an appropriate means of obtaining a determination of their allegations when the local authority failed to protect them from serious ill-treatment or the possibility of obtaining an enforceable award of compensation for the damage suffered thereby. The court awarded each applicant €5,000 for non-pecuniary damage and, jointly, €12,500 for costs and expenses.