UK hospitals see 6500 sex crimes against patients of all age in just 3 years: Data

London: A recent report has exposed horrifying stories of sexual assaults with children and adults inside NHS hospitals of England and Wales. According to recent statistics from the Women’s Rights Network (WRN), more than 6,500 sexual assaults were reported in just three years. According to reports, patients, staff members, and visitors have experienced horrendous crimes like gang rapes and child sexual assaults. Based on freedom of information requests made to police forces in England and Wales, the statistics were compiled. Between January 2019 and October 2022, at least 2,088 rapes and 4,451 sexual assaults were reported, or 33 per week. The answers of the government could not provide specifics on whether the incidents took place in NHS or for-profit establishments. However, a startling one in seven occurred in hospital wards. As per the report, only 4.1% of the crimes led to a charge or summons being issued to the suspect. The findings, according to WRN’s founder Heather Binning, are “just the tip of the iceberg” and demonstrate that hospitals “just aren’t safe spaces.” They are practically a market for sexual criminals, she said. It’s horrifying beyond belief. “The police are not doing enough in terms of properly documenting the crimes and pursuing them, as these are locations with CCTV and restricted access,” she claimed. What causes the poor charge rate? Her WRN organisation is urging the police, the NHS, and the Care Quality Commission to recognise this “hidden domain of sexual violence.” These statistics are astonishing, according to Binning. “We started looking into this because we were worried about the safety of women and children on NHS wards, but we are shocked by what we found,” she said. When you consider that this data covers the epidemic, when part of the country was in lockdown and hospitals were purportedly significantly more attentive, the volume of sexual assaults and rapes is even more horrifying. The reported offences include the rape of a little girl under the age of 13 and the rape of a woman in West Midlands hospitals by “multiple offenders.” In Cambridgeshire, three young girls and a boy claimed to have been sexually assaulted, while six girls allegedly suffered attacks in Lancashire hospitals. According to Jo Phoenix, the report’s author and professor of criminology at Reading University, NHS trusts were “failing in their duty to protect both patients and staff” as a result of the results. She added: ‘The fact that 95.9 percent of all reports were either no-further-actioned or not recorded (officially as crimes) is also truly appalling. Although there are no reasons given within the research for this alarmingly low figure, what is clear is that there appears to be ingrained inertia in dealing with this safeguarding and policing failure.’ Freedom of information requests were sent to 43 police forces by WRN researchers. There were eight that couldn’t offer the information, including those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. “The true figures are going to be significantly higher,” Binning continued. Even now, crimes of this sort frequently go unreported, and there is also a great deal of information that is lacking. The WRN argued that improved documentation of crimes committed in healthcare facilities was necessary and urged the Home Office to issue directives to the police so they could create a more realistic picture of the issue. “This is serious, it won’t go away, and if we don’t get a handle on it, it will only get worse,” Ms. Binning continued. We thought we were past the days when someone like Jimmy Savile could go in and wander the wards unchallenged. This does have echoes of that.’ The statistics, according to a representative for NHS England, are “inacceptable.” Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.