Strengthen Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to address peer on peer abuse, says abuse team lawyer
Leigh Day abuse team solicitor Andrew Lord has joined with Rape Crisis and other campaign groups to call for improved guidance to schools on the subject of peer on peer abuse.
Posted on 19 January 2025
Rape Crisis has written to Education Secretary Bridget Philipson and Home Office under secretary Jess Philips to ask for changes to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which says it aims to “strengthen the role of education in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements to better protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation”.
In the letter, Rape Crisis says it thinks there is a need for clearer and amended statutory guidance to protect victim-survivors of peer-on-peer abuse, by providing support for schools, teachers, and students.
It says sexual violence and abuse of girls in schools is now so widespread that it is normalised. It says there needs to be better guidance to schools in handling such incidents.
No Further Action (NFA) decisions become a reason to simply “go back to normal”, it says.
There is often a lack of transition period or proper risk assessment, placing victim-survivors in a position where they are re-traumatised by the institution that is responsible for providing safety, and where young boys perpetrating harm are not provided with appropriate support to manage their behaviour.
Some of the very youngest victim-survivors are left unsupported, and schools fail to learn and prevent future incidents from occurring.
Schools that do not appropriately tackle sexual harassment and abuse can find themselves in breach of equalities law.
Pupils – specifically girls - are currently being failed by schools, who do not properly protect them from the perpetrator(s) when criminal justice proceedings are concluded, or when the perpetrator is under the age of criminal responsibility.
Leigh Day solicitor Andrew Lord represents families whose children have experienced sexual abuse by fellow pupils. He has settled claims against schools where such incidents have taken place.
Andrew Lord said:
“I am pleased to join forces with organisations calling for more to be done to prevent sexual violence in schools. This is an issue that policymakers have known about for several years now, and yet we are still not fully grappling with how to tackle this in a meaningful way. I continue to hear from families of those impacted by child on child abuse on a frequent basis, in schools up and down the country. This issue is not going away any time soon without concrete and bold action.”