1 Major reforms to protect thousands of vulnerable children hidden from sight has taken another crucial step forward today. Major reforms to protect thousands of vulnerable children hidden from sight have taken a crucial step forward now the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill had its second reading in Parliament on 8 January.

According to the latest government data, around 111,000 children and young people are home educated, up from an estimated 55,000 before the pandemic. This is alongside the 150,000 children missing education all together at some point during the last year. The bill will bring in unprecedented safeguards for home educated children, ratchet up powers for councils and compel local authorities to establish dedicated, multi-agency safeguarding teams to keep track of children.

The recent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel Annual Report 2024 highlighted that children experiencing harm outside the home, including exploitation, were likely to be not enrolled in school, missing education or have poor school attendance, and that’s why the Bill will strengthen multi-agency safeguarding arrangements to quickly identify significant harm.
Measures include:

• All councils will be required to hold a register of children who are not in school. Councils will be able to require parents and providers of out of school education to share information like name, address and the nature of the education children are being provided.
• A unique number for every child – in the same way every adult has their own national insurance number – to join up systems and make sure no child falls through the cracks. A consistent identifier will allow those responsible for the safeguarding and welfare of children to better join relevant data and identify children who will benefit from additional support.
• The removal of the automatic right for parents to educate children at home if their child is subject to a child protection investigation or under a child protection plan. Schools will need to check with the local authority where a parent asks to remove a child from school to home educate, to establish whether the local authority’s consent should be obtained.
• If any child’s home environment is assessed as unsuitable or unsafe, local authorities will have the power to intervene and require school attendance.
• Making sure every council operates best practice ‘multi-agency’ safeguarding panels, that bring together all the professionals that can best make sure children are kept safe both inside and outside the home.

Wider measures in the Bill include capping the number of branded items schools can require as part of their uniform.
Primary school children will also benefit from the option to attend a free breakfast club, which could save parents up to £450 a year. Clubs will launch from April 2025 at schools taking part in the early adopter scheme.

2 Stricter age-verification checks for all knife retailers
Under the new measures a person may need to submit a copy of a photo ID such as driving licence or passport, as well as proof of address such as a utility bill, before showing ID again when the package is delivered. This could also include a person submitting a current photo or video of themselves to an online retailer alongside their ID.

It will also be illegal to leave a package containing a bladed weapon on a doorstep when no one is in to receive it.

The measures are included as part of the Crime and Policing Bill which is expected to be introduced to Parliament by the spring, with more proposals still to come in the coming weeks.

3 Serious crime laws to be overhauled to combat people-smuggling gangs
In a major upgrade to Serious Crime Prevention Orders, new Interim Orders will allow immediate action to disrupt and deter suspected serious criminality. These orders are part of a stronger approach to serious crime including organised immigration crime which will form part of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill , with new powers mirroring those which are already used to disrupt other harmful criminality such as knife crime, slavery and trafficking.
The new orders will form an important part of preventing organised immigration crime while complementing the UK’s relentless pursuit of criminal gangs.

Restrictions will vary on a case-by-case basis but could include:

• Travel restrictions
• A ban on laptop or mobile phone usage
• A ban on accessing social media networks, including via a third party
• Restrictions on whom someone can associate with
• Restrictions on devices and communications with certain individuals
• Restrictions on their finances, helping to prevent criminal proceeds from going under the radar.

Breaching an Interim Order could lead to up to five years in prison.

4 The Children’s Commissioner for England describes the changes she is putting forward, as needed in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Dame Rachel de Souza writes:
“As Children’s Commissioner, I want England to be the best place for children to grow up, where every child can be safe, healthy and happy. My role was born out of the need to hear children’s voices, who too often are excluded and overlooked in a system designed for adults.
"The death of Sara Sharif, and the recent resurfacing of the crimes by grooming gangs have highlighted that too many services children rely on are failing – whether that is children missing out on the benefits of school and education, or children living in social care who, instead of getting the care they deserve and need, grow up in wholly unsuitable and illegal children’s homes.
"Children have told me that they don’t feel listened to by decision makers. In The Big Ambition survey, just 22% of children agreed that the people who run the country listen to their views. "The Bill sets out important first steps, but there will be a need for further legislation in this parliament that focuses on children, not least those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). A clear vision of reform for this long-overlooked area of support is crucial and must not be seen in isolation from other improvements to children’s services.
"There are a number of areas where I would like to see proposals strengthened to go further:

• Protection from assault: This is the opportunity to give children the same protection from assault as adults in England. The Bill should send a clear message to children that the state is there to protect them and should eliminate any shades of grey which leave parents, carers, professionals – and children themselves, uncertain about what level of violence is acceptable.
• Illegal children’s homes and deprivation of liberty: Some of the most vulnerable children in the country are being placed in illegal children’s homes, denied safe and appropriate care, or are having their liberty deprived without proper safeguards. This legislation is an opportunity to bring an end to both.
• Home education: I warmly welcome the introduction of a register of children not in school but believe the Bill should go further to both improve the support for children in home education and to introduce a clear national framework for data sharing, so that local Children Missing Education teams can quickly identify and support children missing education to return to education.
• Child protection: To better protect children, I would like to see a requirement introduced to obtain consent from the local authority before a child is removed from school where a child has been referred to social services for a Child in Need or Child Protection enquiry in the last 12 months where the primary need was abuse or neglect. Where children have a Child in Need Plan or a Child Protection Plan, for these reasons, there should always be a named school.
• Schools as safeguarding partners: Alongside the police, local authorities and health settings, I would like to see schools made the fourth statutory safeguarding partner. Education settings play a vital role in safeguarding. The Bill only puts in place measures to require education partners’ participation, it does not make them a partner and therefore does not put them on an equal footing with social care, health and police.

1 New SCIE guidance ‘Tackling inequalities in care for people with learning disabilities and autistic people’,
People with learning disabilities and autistic people continue to experience unacceptably poor health outcomes in comparison to the rest of the population, leading to lower life expectancy and a higher number of avoidable deaths.

During the pandemic, a report from Public Health England, Deaths of people identified as having learning disabilities with COVID-19 in England in the Spring of 2020 found that people with learning disabilities were four times more likely to die from COVID-19, with researchers estimating the real rate may have been as high as six times once accounting for unreported deaths.

Following the report, SCIE was funded to produce guidance building on the experiences of people with learning disabilities and autistic people. It aims to close the gap in skills and knowledge across the adult health and social care workforce. and will give commissioners and practitioners the practical steps, confidence, and legislative awareness needed to improve experiences of care and support.

SCIE established the SCIE Fliers, a group of people with lived experience of learning disabilities and autism and worked with them as part of this project to understand their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and draw out lessons and opportunities for learning.

A video has been created in collaboration with the SCIE Fliers to sit alongside the guidance as an audiovisual guide.

2 Guidance published by NICE, Gambling-related harms: identification, assessment and management.
This guidance covers identifying, assessing and treating gambling-related harms. This includes people aged 18 and over who are experiencing gambling that harms, and people of any age affected by someone close to them who is experiencing gambling that harms.

For more information, visit Helping people affected by gambling-related harms

The Charity Commission

1 The Charity Commission is engaging with trustees of Church charities following the Makin Review
The charity regulator is engaging with the Church of England over the urgent need to improve its safeguarding arrangements, following the publication of the independent and ahead of key debates at the Church’s General Synod (Parliament) next month.

A meeting was held between senior representatives of the Commission and the National Church Institutions, including the Archbishop of York, the Commission is writing to all members of the General Synod who are also trustees of Church charities to draw attention to their legal duties, specifically their duty to take reasonable steps to protect from harm people who come into contact with their charity. This includes ensuring that processes, procedures and training are fit for purpose, and that safeguarding concerns are not able to be ignored or covered up.

The Commission’s letter encourages trustees on the Synod to consider the extent to which any proposals “will enable you to comply with your duty to take reasonable steps to keep all who come into contact with your charity safe.”

The Commission will continue its regulatory engagement to ensure trustees of Church charities are able to fulfil their duties.

2 Regulator disqualifies trustee after finding Brighton Mosque “poorly managed”
The Charity Commission has published the findings of its statutory inquiry into Brighton Mosque and Muslim Community Centre.The report is critical of the charity’s former trustees for failing to resolve a serious dispute which damaged the charity’s governance and management. The dispute arose after one of the charity’s former trustees was convicted of encouraging terrorism. The failure to resolve it threatened the charity’s ability to prevent future harm, leading to intervention by the regulator.

The Commission issued an Official Warning to the charity after determining that the then-trustees knew, or ought to have known, of the risk posed by the former trustee. The warning set out that the trustees had failed to adequately safeguard the charity and its beneficiaries and required actions to be taken to prevent similar abuse in the future.

After opening its inquiry, the Commission appointed an Interim Manager in place of the trustees to take immediate charge of the charity’s management and bank account, which included depositing donations totalling over £17,000 in cash. The Commission found that both the former trustees, as well as the group claiming to have taken over as trustees, are responsible for misconduct and/or mismanagement.

In addition, the inquiry took steps to disqualify Dr Karim Aboutayab, one of the former trustees, who it found had been particularly culpable for a number of failings, including the failure to properly resolve the dispute within the charity.

The Interim Manager undertook an open recruitment exercise to identify new trustees, who were then formally appointed by the Commission using its power.

1 Predators who create sexually explicit ‘deepfakes’ could face prosecution as the Government bears down on vile online abuse.
The proliferation of these hyper-realistic images has grown at an alarming rate, causing devastating harm to victims, particularly women and girls who are often the target.

To tackle this, the government will introduce a new offence meaning perpetrators could be charged for both creating and sharing these images, not only marking a crackdown on this abhorrent behaviour but making it clear there is no excuse for creating a sexually explicit deepfake of someone without their consent.

The Government will also create new offences for the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to commit these offences – sending a clear message that abusers will face the full force of the law.

These new offences follow the Government’s action in September 2024 to add sharing intimate images This put the onus on platforms to root out and remove th.is type of content - or face enforcement action from Ofcom.

The new offences will be included in the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill, which will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. Further details of the new offences will be set out in due course.

2 Better protection for victims thanks to new law on sexually explicit deepfakes
The measure has been tabled by the Government as an amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill currently before Parliament, to ensure the new law is on the statute book as quickly as possible. The new offence will target heinous abusers who create these artificial images either for sexual gratification or to cause alarm, distress, or humiliation. Those found guilty face an unlimited fine.

The new offence has been carefully designed to apply to new developments in technology and to provide the best protection to victims. It will apply to ‘purported sexual images,’ including those appearing to show someone naked or engaged in a sexual act.

This builds on existing legislation which outlaws sharing or threatening to share intimate images, including deepfakes, without consent.

The Government also committed to create new offences for the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to commit these offences, sending a clear message that those who commit intimate image abuse will face the full force of the law.

In September 2024 sharing intimate image offences were made priority offences under the Online Safety Act 2023. This ensures platforms are responsible for finding and removing this type of content - or face enforcement action from Ofcom.

3 Age checks to protect children online
Children will be prevented from encountering online pornography and protected from other types of harmful content under Ofcom’s new industry guidance which sets out how the public expects sites and apps to introduce highly effective age assurance.

Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the Online Safety Act 2023. It requires services which allow pornography or certain other types of harmful content to introduce ‘age assurance’ to ensure that children are not normally able to encounter it. Age assurance methods – which include age verification, age estimation or a combination of both – must be ‘highly effective’ at correctly determining whether a particular user is a child.

They have published industry guidance on how to expect age assurance to be implemented in practice for it to be considered highly effective. While providing strong protections to children, the approach also takes care to ensure that privacy rights are protected and that adults can still access legal pornography. As platforms take action to introduce age assurance over the next six months, adults will start to notice changes in how they access certain online services.

The Online Safety Act divides online services into different categories with distinct routes to implement age checks.

• Requirement to carry out a children’s access assessment. All user-to-user and search services – defined as ‘Part 3’ services – in scope of the Act, must carry out a children’s access assessment to establish if their service – or part of their service - is likely to be accessed by children.
• Ofcom will publish Protection of Children Codes and children’s risk assessment guidance in April 2025.

Services that allow pornography must introduce processes to check the age of users: all services which allow pornography must have highly effective age assurance processes in place by July 2025 at the latest to protect children from encountering it.

4 New pilot shows way for smaller platforms to play big part in online safety
A new pilot scheme is showing how even the smallest platforms can help play their part in preventing the spread of child sexual abuse imagery online. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and cyber security company Cyacomb have launched a pilot programme which allows small platforms to benefit from world-leading tools to block and disrupt the spread of known Child Sexual Abuse Material.

Cyacomb Safety is a tool which allows platforms to match content their users upload or share against IWF lists of known child sexual abuse imagery without compromising their user’s privacy.

It gives smaller businesses and platforms, which may not have the infrastructure or the capacity to handle sensitive data a solution to make sure their users are kept safe, and that they are playing their part in preventing the spread of criminal child sexual abuse imagery. It will also help platforms become compliant with the Online Safety Act, which will come into effect for them in 2025.

5 Call for Prime Minister to intervene as IWF uncovers record levels of online child sexual abuse imagery
A letter has been written to Sir Keir Starmer from the IWF to warn that, without his intervention, the new Online Safety Act will be a missed opportunity to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse imagery online. This comes as the IWF, which is the UK’s front line against online child sexual abuse, publishes new data revealing 2024 as the worst year on record for online child sexual abuse imagery.

The letter coincides with new data from the IWF which shows that in 2024, the IWF acted to remove images or videos of children suffering sexual abuse, or links to that content, on 291,270 webpages. Each page can contain at least one, if not hundreds or thousands, of images and videos. This is the most child sexual abuse webpages the IWF has ever discovered in its 29-year history and is a five per cent increase on the 275,650 webpages identified in 2023.

Action Fraud issue new alert warning to look out for unusual messages or phishing emails from hotel accounts using the Booking.com platform
Those using the platform Booking.com to book their holidays or accommodation are being warned they could be targeted with emails or messages requesting payments from hotels who have had their account taken over by fraudsters. Between June 2023 and September 2024, Action Fraud received 532 reports from individuals, with a total of £370,000 lost.

Insight from Action Fraud reports suggests the individuals were defrauded after receiving unexpected messages and emails from a Booking.com account belonging to a hotel they had a reservation with, which had been taken over by a criminal. Using this account, the criminals send in-app messages, emails, and WhatsApp messages to customers, deceiving them into making payment and/or requesting credit card details.

For more information about how to protect your Booking.com account, please visit: Safety Tips for Travellers at Booking.com

1 The Lucy Lamplugh Trust Statement on John Cannan’s death
“John Cannan was a prime suspect in the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, who went missing on the 28th of July 1986. Suzy’s body has never been found, and no perpetrator ever convicted, but she has been presumed murdered and was legally declared dead in 1993. Though not convicted, in 2002 he was named as a prime suspect in her disappearance by the Metropolitan Police.

Cannan was jailed for life in 1989 for raping and murdering Shirley Banks, aged 29. He was convicted of a further sexual offence, an attempted kidnapping and two offences of abduction at the same trial. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of these women.

We recognise that this is a difficult time for the family of Suzy Lamplugh as they process this news. We would like to take this opportunity to recognise the work of Suzy’s parents who set up the Trust to enable individuals and organisations to be and feel safer through campaigning, education and its specialist support services for victims of stalking. We are indebted to their persistence, resilience and their focus on ensuring that what happened to Suzy doesn’t happen to others. Our mission remains focused on reducing the risk of violence, aggression and abuse in society.

We have spent the last 38 years delivering our mission, but there is still critical work to be done to reduce violence and aggression perpetrated in our society, especially against women and girls. We continue to strive for a society in which people are safer- and feel safer- from violence, aggression and abuse. If you, or someone you know, has been a victim of stalking, you can contact the National Stalking Helpline at 0808 802 0300.”

2 New reforms and independent commission to transform social care:
Immediate investment and reforms are announced to improve adult social care, and Louise Casey is appointed to head an independent commission and build cross-party consensus.

Thousands more people with disabilities will be supported to remain in their homes thanks to immediate action government is taking to improve adult social care, support the care workforce and take pressure off the NHS, the government announced on Friday 3 January.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting confirmed a £86 million boost to the Disabled Facilities Grant for this financial year – on top of the £86 million announced for next financial year at the Budget, taking the annual total to £711 million - to allow 7,800 more disabled and elderly people to make vital improvements to their home, allowing them to live more independent lives and reducing hospitalisations.

1 Doctor jailed for sexually assaulting female patients
A GP from Salford has been jailed after being found guilty of sexually assaulting women whilst examining them. Dr Wayne Davis, 69, was jailed for eight years at Manchester Crown Court on 13 January 2025, after conducting unnecessary, intimate examinations and procedures on two women between 1995 and 2006.

In 2006, one young woman was suffering with gynaecological issues when she sought the help of Dr Davis. Preying on her innocence, he told her he was performing a procedure, but he sexually assaulted her. Having worried about what happened for years she reported the offences in May 2020, and Davis was arrested.

In June 2020, a second young woman read about the arrest of Davis and came forward to report a similar incident in 1995 when Davis had performed an unnecessary gynaecological examination on her.

During the police investigation Davis denied committing the offences, claiming any procedures he carried out would have been necessary.

On 14 December 2023, Davis was convicted of two sexual offences. He was found not guilty of two offences and a verdict could not be reached in relation to a further count.

He was subsequently found not guilty of the remaining count on 5 December 2024.

2 Former surgeon jailed for five and-a-half years after admitting offences including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and child cruelty during multiple male circumcision operations
A former surgeon has been jailed for a combined total of more than five and-a-half years (67 months) on Wednesday 15 January at Inner London Crown Court having admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, child cruelty and administering a prescription only medicine to several young and vulnerable patients whilst ignoring basic hygiene rules and performing non-therapeutic male circumcision whilst ignoring basic hygiene rules and performing non-therapeutic male circumcisions.

Dr Mohammad Siddiqui, 58, from Birmingham pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court on 29 October 2024 to a total of 25 offences which included, 11 counts of actual bodily harm, 6 counts of cruelty to a child and 8 counts of administering prescription only medicines contrary to the law. The prosecution was brought because of the methods Siddiqui used which showed a complete disregard to patient health, safety and comfort in private residences between 2014 and 2018.

Between June 2012 and November 2013, Dr Siddiqui provided a private mobile circumcision service whilst working as a clinical fellow in paediatric surgery at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. In this capacity he was able to source the anaesthetic Bupivacaine Hydrochloride which is a prescription only medication.

In 2015 Siddiqui was ‘struck off’ the General Medical Council Register after a panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found him guilty of failures in performing non-therapeutic male circumcisions in the homes of four babies.

Despite having been ‘struck off’, Dr Siddiqui continued to promote and provide a mobile circumcision service. No longer being considered a ‘Health Care Professional’ he was able to do so because non-therapeutic male circumcision is unregulated with no requirement to be carried out by a medical practitioner. Dr Siddiqui continued to use Bupivacaine Hydrochloride and carry out circumcisions in unsafe, unsanitary and harmful ways. He advertised his services across the United Kingdom and by appointment performed non-therapeutic male circumcisions on young patients up to the age of 14 in their homes.

A serious organised crime prevention order was granted after being sought by the Crown Prosecution Service, which would prevent Dr Siddiqui from undertaking non-therapeutic circumcision following his release from custody. Without such an order or any license provision he could engage in these activities. For this reason, the order would be significant to safeguard children in the future.

3 Former US government advisor who arranged to rape a child is jailed
Source: Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) published on this website Thursday 30 January 2025.
A former advisor to the US government who flew to the UK to rape whom he believed to be a nine-year-old child has been convicted and jailed for 11-and-a-half years. International investment banker Rahamim Shy, 47, travelled in February 2024 to Bedfordshire to have sex with the girl following more than a month of planning. He was promptly arrested.

However, unbeknown to Shy, the girl did not exist.

Following a trial at Luton Crown Court, Shy was found guilty of arranging the commission of a child sex offence – namely rape and possessing indecent photographs of a child.

He was sentenced on the same day to a total of 11 years and six months' imprisonment.

That's it for this month and with February being a short month, you won't need to wait long for the next issue.

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