Shocking figures reveal 6,500 sexual assaults in hospitals in just three years

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By Inderdeep Bains Deputy Chief Correspondent 00:04 Apr 17, 2023 Updated at 02:12 Apr 17, 2023

A damning report revealed today that dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault occur in hospitals every week.

Official figures reveal the horrific scale of abuses – 6,500 attacks were reported in just three years.

These include gang rape and child abuse. The stats were released today by the Women’s Rights Network whose founder Heather Bening said they are just “the tip of the iceberg.”

She added, “Hospitals are places where everyone – patients, staff and visitors – should feel completely safe, but cases of rape and violent assaults occur in hospitals every week.”

The numbers show that hospitals are not just safe places. They are almost a market for sex offenders. It’s very terrifying.

Official figures reveal the horrific scale of abuse – with 6,500 attacks reported in just three years (file photo) Heather Bening (right) said police had not done enough to follow up on allegations of sexual assault and rape in hospitals.

She said the sheer scale of the problem had echoes of the Jimmy Savile scandal and his patient abuse at Stoke Mandeville.

The figures are based on freedom of information requests made to police forces in England and Wales.

Read more: Why women are more likely than men to kill in the kitchen: A leading criminologist’s fascinating psychological analysis of why killers choose to strike somewhere in the home.

At least 2,088 cases of rape and 4,451 sexual assaults were reported between January 2019 and October 2022 – an average of 33 cases per week. The data does not say whether the offenses were committed in the NHS or private facilities. But one in seven trauma occurred on hospital wards.

Only 4.1 percent of crimes resulted in the suspect facing a charge or summons.

Benning claimed this “added to the horror” and showed that hospitals and police forces failed to protect the vulnerable.

She said: ‘The police are not doing enough in terms of properly recording and prosecuting crimes – these are places with security cameras and restricted access. Why is the shipping rate so low?

Her WRN group is calling on the NHS, the Care Quality Commission and the police to recognize this ‘hidden area of ​​sexual violence’.

Ms Bening said: “These statistics are staggering. We started this investigation out of concerns about the safety of women and children on NHS wards, but are horrified by what we have discovered.

“The scale of sexual assaults and rapes is even more horrifying when you consider that this data covers an epidemic, when much of the country was on lockdown and hospitals were supposedly more vigilant.”

The reported offenses include the rape of a girl under the age of 13 and the rape of a woman by “a number of offenders” in West Midlands hospitals.

Three girls and a boy reported being raped at facilities in Cambridgeshire while six girls were said to have been assaulted in Lancashire hospitals.

Joe Phoenix, the University of Reading professor of criminology who authored the report, said the findings showed the NHS trust was ‘failing in its duty to protect patients and staff alike’.

Joe Phoenix, professor of criminology at the University of Reading who authored the report, said the findings show the NHS trust has ‘failed in its duty to protect patients and staff alike’.

She added: ‘The fact that 95.9 per cent of all reports took no further action or were not recorded (officially as offences) is truly appalling. Although there is no reasoning in the research for this alarmingly low number, it is clear that there seems to be an inherent lethargy in dealing with this failure of protection and policing.

WRN researchers sent freedom of information requests to 43 police forces. Eight, including those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, were unable to provide data.

Benning added: “The real numbers will undoubtedly be much higher. Crimes of this nature are known to be reported as is, plus there is a lot of data missing.”

WRN said there is a need to keep better records of crime in healthcare facilities, and called on the Home Office to create guidelines for the police to build a more accurate picture of the problem.

The report also called for the repeal of rules stating that trans people must be accommodated “according to their width” in hospital wards.

It states that there should be “single-sex exceptions for hospital wards in order to ensure the protection of women and girls in particular”.

Other recommendations include clear procedures for reporting and recording allegations. The NHS and private hospitals are also being urged to review existing safety measures.

“This is serious, it’s not going away and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t deal with it,” Benning added. We thought we were past the days when someone like Jimmy Savile could walk in and roam the wings unchallenged. This has echoes of that.

An NHS England spokesperson said the figures were “unacceptable”.

They added: “All NHS trusts and organizations must ensure that robust measures are in place to ensure immediate action is taken in any cases reported to them, and anyone who has experienced misconduct or violence must come forward and report this and seek help.”

The mother, 75, died of injuries following the rape on the ward. The 75-year-old was admitted to the Stroke Unit at Victoria Hospital in Blackpool and was recovering long before the attack

Valerie Knell died of her injuries after being raped in the hospital ward.

The 75-year-old woman has been admitted to the stroke unit at Victoria Hospital in Blackpool where she is said to be recovering well.

Her devastated family initially thought she was in good hands and died from a second stroke. But a routine autopsy revealed her harrowing ordeal and saw Lancashire Police launch a murder investigation.

An investigation found that the grandmother died of massive bleeding after suffering a horrific internal injury resulting from a “forced sexual assault after admission to the hospital”.

However, more than four years after her death in November 2018, her loved ones are still seeking justice for Ms Kneale who has been described as ‘the centerpiece of the family’.

In March 2021, a healthcare professional was arrested on suspicion of murder, rape and sexual assault but was not charged.

A £20,000 reward was offered in the hope that it would help supply the essential piece of information needed to “help open the case”.

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