UK government ‘effectively allowed’ child sexual abuse, campaigners say

Maggie Oliver Foundation taking action over government’s alleged failure to adopt changes recommended by inquiry

Campaigners have accused the UK government of in effect allowing child abuse to continue by having an “inconsistent and arbitrary” approach to implementing recommendations from a seven-year statutory inquiry.

The claim was made at the high court in London where a judge said a legal action against the Home Office could continue.

The Maggie Oliver Foundation is taking action over the government’s alleged failure to adopt all the changes recommended by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), which conducted multiple investigations between 2015 and 2022.

At a hearing on Thursday, Mr Justice Kimblin allowed the legal action to continue, saying it was arguable that the foundation had a “legitimate expectation” that the government would implement the recommendations. The Home Office is defending the claim.

Oliver set up her foundation after quitting her job as a detective with Greater Manchester police to become a whistleblower and speak out about police failings in child exploitation.

Christopher Jacobs, for the foundation, told the court that 17 of the 20 recommendations made by the IICSA had not been implemented as of 8 July 2025.

The three recommendations at the centre of the claim relate to recording the age, ethnicity, religion and occupation of perpetrators of child sexual abuse, ending the use of pain-inducing restraint on children in custody and ensuring those in care have greater access to justice.

Jacobs said about 500,000 children were sexually abused every year and that the government had “effectively allowed the abuse to continue” by taking an “inconsistent and arbitrary approach” to the recommendations.

In written submissions, he said: “The claimant maintains that the obfuscations, denials and delays by successive governments in implementing the thorough and extensively reasoned recommendations of the seven-year inquiry must have contributed to thousands of otherwise preventable cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of children over the last three and a half years.”

Jacobs also said the government was failing to set a timetable for when these recommendations would be implemented.

He said: “The failure by successive governments to respond to the ongoing threat of child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation is a matter of national importance and urgency.”

Jack Anderson, for the Home Office, said in written submissions that the claim was “not arguable”.

He said: “The government is not obliged to implement the recommendations of IICSA. They are recommendations, but no more than that.”

The barrister also said the home secretary had “accepted in full” the four recommendations that relate to her department.

In relation to setting a timetable, Anderson said the government “wants to get policy right, and that takes time”.

He said: “The government has indicated the steps it is taking, but not all of them can be assigned a definite end date having regard to the desirability of consulting stakeholders, the policy work required and the myriad pressures on public business.”

The IICSA was established in 2015 to look into child abuse in England and Wales. It found that child abuse was “endemic”, permeating all sections of society, with its incidence likely to be much higher than recorded.

Speaking after the high court hearing, Oliver said: “We brought this action, knowing that the chance of winning was remote. When we went in there today, though, I felt that the judge was human.”

She said the legal action was about “fighting for every child that is failed by a system that doesn’t work”.