Children, toddlers and babies were subjected to horrifying abuse as institutions turned a blind eye to protect their reputations, a years-long inquiry into sexual abuse has concluded.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published its final report last week after nine years of work, originally prompted in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal. The final report is a clarion call for tough new laws making it a legal duty for anyone in regulated work or a position of trust to report child sexual abuse.
The IICSA involved 15 separate investigations into scandals in different areas of society, and heard more than 6,200 accounts of child sexual abuse, as part of its Truth Project. One of those investigations focused on the experiences of boys sent to St Aidan's Children's Home in, Widnes, and St Vincent's, in Formby, where dozens of lives were ruined in the 1970s and 1980s.
