Police unable to act on complaints about adults having sex with teens in their care due to 'outrageous' legal loophole; NSPCC's Close the Loophole campaign calls for all adults working with children, such as sports coaches, to be covered by the law.
Byline: Katie Collings
Police in the North are unable to act on 160 complaints about adults having having sex with teenagers in their care due to a legal loophole, shocking figures have revealed.
The loophole means that individuals such as sports coaches and faith leaders aren't covered by the law so have freely got away with having sexual activity with 16 or 17-year-olds that they supervise.
This is despite the fact that they have a significant level of power, responsibility and influence over the child.
At present, only people such as teachers, care workers and youth justice workers are legally in a position of trust, meaning it is against the law for them to do so.
In the last four years police in the North of England have recorded 259 crimes of Abuse of Position of Trust of a sexual nature. Over the same period, in the whole of England and Wales, police recorded 1,025 crimes.
But council figures obtained by theNSPCCshow a further 160 complaints were made in theNorth of Englandand a total of 653 in England and Wales over the same period about adults who are not currently covered by the criminal law having sex with children in their care.
And the true extent could be even higher because not all councils, fromNorthumberlanddown to Merseyside, provided figures.
At least 10 of those complaints were made in the North East alone butSunderland City Councildid not provide any figures, so there could be more.
Councils recorded the adults' jobs or volunteer roles in 495 of the 653 cases nationwide.
Of these, 31% were about adults working in sports settings, 14% related to adults in faith settings and 11% related to youth work.
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Other jobs included in the figures include driving instructors, charity workers and those who work with scout and cadet groups.
The NSPCC'sClose the Loopholecampaign is calling for these laws to be extended to all adults with responsibility for young people, to stop children being preyed upon as soon as they turn 16.
One athlete reported being targeted by her sports coach, who was in his thirties and had been training her since she was 13 years old.
When she turned 16, the victim says he began sending her sexual messages, before starting a sexual relationship with her when she was 17.
He received a temporary coaching ban but because sports coaches aren't covered by the criminal law, police were not in a position to bring charges against him.
The victim said: "We used to speak on web cam and he...
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