Hundreds, if not thousands, of ritualistic abuse cases against children have gone unreported in the last four decades, as experts described it as the “most shadowed form of abuse”.
An analysis of police data undertaken by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) revealed a “gap”, with just seven cases investigated in 2024 out of 4,450 instances of child abuse, marking just 0.2 per cent of all investigations.
However, when the NPCC assessed data from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), it found that within a sample of 36,700 calls to their helpline between July 2016 and January 2025, 1,311 or 3.57 per cent, mentioned organised and ritualistic abuse.
A similar survey of 100 UK psychologists found that 38 per cent had dealt with one or more cases of satanic or ritualised abuse, with a new report calling for urgent training across safeguarding practices to recognise such practices.
The term is usually applied to a group of perpetrators or individuals who use rituals as a form of prolonged and repeated torture with the aim of controlling, silencing and terrorising their victims.
In recent years, there have also been nine case reviews involving witchcraft, spirit possession and ritualistic abuse (WSPRA), with the children impacted ranging from six weeks old to 14 years old.
This includes voodoo practices, informing victims that they have been “possessed” by evil spirits and must be subjected to “cleansing and purification”.
In early 2025, eight members of a “monstrous” paedophile ring in Glasgow were jailed, with seven receiving life sentences, after they abused four children with Class A drugs, alcohol and subjected them to “rape nights”.
While charges of witchcraft were dropped from the case, the court heard that the group had attempted to murder a young girl in a microwave, had forced her to eat dog food, locked her in a cupboard with spiders and chased her while wearing devil masks.
In evidence played to the court, one of the children described the abuse: “Two witches holded my legs down, it felt uncomfortable, all the witches and wizards were watching.”
A new report by the NPCC and NAPAC found that in the last 40 years, there have been at least 14 cases in which people have been convicted of sexually abusing children, with their use of ritualistic practices acknowledged in court.
This stems back to 1982, with infamous cases including eight-year-old Victoria Climbie, who was tortured to death in 2005 after accusations of witchcraft were levelled against her by her great-aunt Marie-Thérèse Kouao and her partner Carl John Manning.
They claimed she was possessed by evil spirits and was exorcised by a pastor, with a post mortem examination discovering 128 injuries on her malnourished body.
The latest review, conducted by clinical psychologist Dr Elly Hanson, found that most survivors of organised ritualistic abuse report adult family members as primary perpetrators, meaning it often occurs in closed networks and within community settings.
Dr Hanson said: “We see children growing up in households where they are routinely neglected, abused and subjected to every day sexual abuse.”
Given that abuse of this nature can be intergenerational, and can see the perpetrators once being victims themselves, it creates “intense pressure” to remain silent and compliant.
NAPAC chief executive Gabrielle Shaw said that cases can often involve claims of the supernatural and the need to purify, with some children forced to carry out abuse on others.
She said: “What makes this so dreadful, but also so effective as a form of abuse, is that the victim survivors themselves are made to feel part of it.
“You’re part of this. You’re on the inside now.”
Perpetrators may also sometimes deliberately use outlandish tactics to lower the chances of their victims being believed and keeping them trapped, experts believe.
Conspiracy fictions such as QAnon, which has promoted narratives of extensive satanic ritual abuse, have similarly caused “widespread harm” and have fuelled a “discourse of disbelief” around such crimes.
Recommendations include targeted training to front line staff to differentiate between culturally legitimate practices and harmful abuse designed as belief, as well as each police force designating a Single Points of Contact and a clear pathway to share intelligence across forces.
