Sunday 01 September 2024
Internal Reference Number: FOI_8050
Date Request Received: 16/07/2024 00:00:00
Date Request Replied To: 25/07/2024 00:00:00
This response was sent via: By Email
Request Summary: Employees accused of Child Sexual Abuse
Request Category: Private Individuals
| Question Number 1: Pursuant to the UK's Public Records Act, I hereby request the following: A list of the number of all employees accused or arrested on charges of child sexual abuse from January 1, 2019, until the day this request is fulfilled. Please consider the timeframe listed in request (1) above for all subsequent requests below. | |
| Answer To Question 1: This information would be held by other public authorities or already reasonably accessible (section 21 of the Act). It is possible that an employee or former employee, has been accused or arrested on suspicion of these charges without notification to the Trust. In these circumstances, if there was no case to answer, then the Trust would not hold this information. The Trust may get notified of the arrest or accusation, by the individual or by the police in some circumstances. If there were any accusations made to the Trust directly, these would have been dealt with following the Trust’s disciplinary processes and where necessary, the police and if the person was a clinician, the person’s Regulator (such as the GMC, NMC, etc.) would have been notified. Therefore, for accurate information this should be requested from the Police. If there were any cases brought against an employee or former employee, these details are accessible from public Court documents. Additionally, any cases where the charges were proven, the person prosecuted would have been added to a sex offenders register, which is public. | |
| Question Number 2: A breakdown of the different crimes reported: rape, grooming, groping, lewd acts, anal or vaginal penetration, and other examples listed as crime by the Home Office. | |
| Answer To Question 2: As per question 1 above. If the Trust held any information on current employees and the accusation did not have enough evidence to support a case, a duty of confidentiality is owed to the person who made the accusation and also the person that was accused. Therefore, details would not be provided and the Trust is neither confirming nor denying any information is held about current employees. Any cases brought against employees or former employees would be in public records held by the Courts. | |
| Question Number 3: All disciplinary files or records of employees investigated for child sexual abuse. This request relates to employees whose names have already been released into the public domain and as such, Section 40 of the Act which exempts sensitive information on the identity of these employees cannot be applied to this request. | |
| Answer To Question 3: As per Q1 and Q2, the Trust cannot confirm nor deny if information is held. For awareness, s40 would apply to this request, save for information which is already in the public domain – such as information held in Court Records. This information would be exempt under s21 as per Q1. | |
| Question Number 4: An annual summary from 2019 of all legal costs, settlements, or restitution paid to affected families of these children. Such public records should include, but not be limited to, all complaints; allegations; claims; investigatory reports; analyses; summaries; memoranda and/or notes; interview recordings; transcripts and/or notes; reviews; emails, text or other electronic messages, voicemails, and/or other communications and/or correspondence; determinations; decisions; orders; resignation letters; employment reclassification documents; offers in compromise and/or settlement agreements; termination and/or transfer papers; letters of reproval and/or other disciplinary actions, whether imposed or not; referrals to law enforcement, administrative, and/or licensing agencies, departments, and/or bodies; appeals; court filings and/or rulings; and all similar materials notwithstanding the use of other terminology, nomenclature, or categorization by this or other involved public agencies. When fulfilling this request, please exclude emails from mailing lists, which can often be identified by excluding emails with keyword "unsubscribe." If the records office has an alternative method for excluding emails from mailing lists, kindly employ that methodology. If you determine that any of the information qualifies for an exemption from disclosure, I ask you to note whether the exemption is discretionary, and if so whether it is necessary in this case to exercise your discretion to withhold the information. In any event, please provide a signed notification citing the legal authorities on which you rely if you determine that any of the information is exempt and will not be disclosed | |
| Answer To Question 4: The Trust does not hold this information as if there was a claim against the trust with regard to negligence leading to avoidable harm any such payments would be made by the NHS Resolution our insurer under the relevant insurance scheme. | |
| To return to the list of all the FOI requests please click here |
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