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Adrian Bingham provides the first rigorous survey of coverage in the twentieth-century British press of what we now call ‘child sexual abuse’.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 30, 2024

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This video video discusses the history of child sexual abuse in Britain, focusing on the role of newspapers in shaping public understanding and discourse on the topic from the First World War to the present. It identifies three key phases in the representation of child sexual abuse in the press:

1. **1920s to 1940s**: Child sexual abuse cases appeared in court reports but were often presented euphemistically and lacked clarity. The coverage was mostly factual and aimed at public curiosity rather than sparking social change or debate.

2. **1950s to 1960s**: There was increased discussion of sexuality and sex crimes, with newspapers beginning to sensationalize cases. However, the terminology remained vague, and child sexual abuse was still conflated with broader issues of indecency and sexual perversion.

3. **1970s onward**: The emergence of specific terminology like "pedophile" and legal distinctions led to child sexual abuse becoming recognized as a distinct social problem. This video video era saw more aggressive reporting, with tabloids often framing individual perpetrators as evil figures, and more editorial focus on solutions and the impact of these crimes on society.

The author highlights that discussions around child sexual abuse have always existed, contradicting the notion that it was previously a taboo subject. The evolving language and media portrayal reflect broader societal changes. While increased visibility has helped raise awareness, the text warns against solely focusing on individual cases, as this can obscure systemic issues that enable abuse to persist.

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In recent years, we've become aware of

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how widespread child sexual abuse is, how it affects,

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so many people's lives.

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And, and there've also been a series of prosecutions

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of historical offenses.

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And, and, and that's opened up questions about the extent

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of, of child abuse in, in the past

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and what has changed over time.

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So this research, forms part of a wider project

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where we were trying to understand what we can learn about,

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child sexual abuse in Britain since around the,

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the first World War.

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And my part of the work focused on, on the press and, and,

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and there are source three

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or four reasons why newspapers are, are useful sources.

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First, they bring together lots

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of information from different parts of society, whether

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that's political, law in the courts culture.

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Um, they're also very widely read.

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They're a central part of, of, of popular culture.

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And also what's useful

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for historians is they're published in,

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in broadly the same format across time.

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So you can trace changes in types of content and,

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and language, over a long period of time.

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So I went around doing

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that from about the First World War up to, the sort

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of end of, of the 20th century to see

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what we could find out.

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And in relation to child sexual abuse in particular, we, we,

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found sort of three particular things about

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newspapers first.

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Um, they have an agenda setting role.

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Um, so the extent of press coverage, the amount,

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that it gets into the headlines, the amount

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of space allocate to it can determine the,

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help determine the level

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and urgency of, of public debate and, and action.

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Secondly, newspapers help to frame the way that we,

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understand social issues, social problems, the nature

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and tone of of press coverage can prioritize certain

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understandings of an issue.

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You know, maybe, there there's more

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of a threat from strangers say than from within the family

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or, or the, the law is inadequate

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or, or, or, or whatever.

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And, and thirdly, and finally,

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we found newspapers are an information resource.

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Um, press coverage gives, survivors a a language

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and a framework to understand their own experience.

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Um, they're also provide knowledge for institutions

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and authorities and campaign groups

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who look at newspaper coverage

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and reporting of, of court cases and,

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and of, of what is going on to, to,

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to learn about the society they're in.

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So we found that newspapers were a really useful source

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for opening up, the, the study of child sexual abuse,

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the central finding.

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What's really interesting is

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that there was never a silence about child sexual abuse

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or what we would now call child sexual abuse.

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I mean, some people have sort of said in relation

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to recent cases, well,

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people didn't ever used to talk about this stuff.

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Um, you know, it was never visible.

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Well, that, that's absolutely not the case.

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But what we find from studying the newspapers is that

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how it has been written about

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how it's been spoken about has changed

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dramatically over time.

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And, and, and we've identified three main phases,

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and I'll, I'll run you through those really.

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I mean, so in the first phase, from sort of the end

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of the first World War, sort of 1920s, up to say the 1940s,

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we do see what we would now call, child sexual,

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abuse in newspapers in court reports.

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So, and, and, they, they're often very brief,

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very factual, and they often have euphemistic headlines.

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So it'll say thing like grave offenses or serious charges,

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but you can see them there.

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They're definitely there.

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There's, there's often a lack of clarity

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about the specific offense,

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and to some extent, you need to read

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through the euphemisms of, of the time.

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They're not called child sexual abuse. It's not called that.

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But we can see, that these cases are, are coming up.

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Sometimes used words are used like incest,

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which are more specific and,

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and which really do reveal the nature of the case.

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Sometimes it's hidden around sort

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of the words like indecency, but they are there.

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Um, and, and they're relatively

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frequent in the, the court columns.

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Um, but what we see is, is, is really the,

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these court reports, are there for, the curiosity,

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and to some extent the sort of, e entertainment

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of the reading public rather than providing social

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commentary or generating any momentum for change,

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there is very little coverage of any policy debates,

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very little coverage of any sort of campaigning around this.

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There's very limited scrutiny

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of individuals or institutions.

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And so we do see a discussion of child sexual abuse,

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but it's, it's, it's hidden away, in,

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in these court reports.

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And, and there's very little momentum,

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for, for, for change.

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Then we move into a second period in sort

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of the 1950s and 1960s.

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And, and this is a period where there's a, a,

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a greater discussion of sex and sexuality.

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There's a, a greater use of sort

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of medical psychological terminology.

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There's more overt campaigning.

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We see discussions of, you know, the rise of the teenager,

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the permissive society, sexual revolution

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and, and things like that.

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We also see, sort

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of sex crime reporting being more sensationalized.

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There's sort of, extended

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reports about sort of sex maniacs

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and the hunt for, for, for, for per perpetrators.

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And we start to see newspapers like, the Daily Mirror,

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and some of the sort of Sunday papers starting to

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investigate cases, of

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what we would now call child sexual abuse.

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But the real problem with all of this,

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although it's starting to, be, become more visible,

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there is no conceptual or linguistic

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or indeed legal clarity about child sexual abuse.

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There's not a term, and it's still wrapped up in this idea

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of indecency or perversion.

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And the problem with that in particular, it was

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that it conflates

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and roles together, sex relations with adults,

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and, and, criminal offenses with, with children.

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So there's a, a, a real blurring of, homosexuality,

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and, and, and child sexual abuse.

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And so there is, a sort of very indiscriminate nature

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to the reporting and the specificity of,

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child sexual abuse as a particular problem is not

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really identified.

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And it's only in, in the third period,

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really from the 1970s onwards that we start to see,

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the pedophile labeled named,

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and child sexual abuse emerge as a specific, offense

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and a specific social problem.

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Um, so three factors, involved in that.

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One is sort of, new languages coming out of,

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of social work, of medical professions,

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and, feminism as well, trying

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to raise the vis visibility of offenses against, women

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and, and, and girls.

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There's also legal changes so that the decriminalization

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of homosexuality starts to separate out different types of,

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of, of, sexual, behaviors.

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And so we can start to see child sexual abuse

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as a separate thing.

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Um, and the third part of the mix is that we have a more,

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populist and outspoken tabloid press,

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particularly in the wake of, of, the,

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the modern Rupert Murdoch sun, from the late sixties.

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And, and crime reporting becomes far less passive

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cases are sort of packaged and sensationalized and,

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and used in the service of political social causes.

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And so what we see is, is the pedophile becoming one

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of the defining problems of, you know, the permissive era

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and, the, the problem

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of child sexual abuse rising up the agenda.

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And so by the sort of 1980s, we we're seeing when there are,

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are notable cases, the sort of disaster style coverage

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where, you know, front page, whole set of,

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inside pages, center pages, editorials, are,

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are committed to, the, the issue of child sexual abuse.

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There are sort of, you know, focus on, sort of sex rings

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and conspiracies and, and things like that.

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And, and there's a lot of editorial discussion from the

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tabloids about, law

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and order solutions, very moralistic.

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We need to name and shame and, and,

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and so this really leads us, this is

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where we are in this modern phase of, you know,

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it's, it's quite visible.

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Um, there's a, a focus on, sort of evil individuals

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who are, who are doing these things,

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and they, they should be punished in particular ways.

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They should be named and, and, and, and shamed.

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And so we see a real evolution from it, it being,

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there, but not really generating much discussion

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to it being one of the defining problems of, of the age.

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I think, yeah, it's a combination of, of both things.

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I mean, we certainly have become more,

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explicit in our discussion of what would once have been sort

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of private, affairs, sexual issues.

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Um, we have a sort of, language of, of, of,

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of psychology and,

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and sexuality in, in the way that we, we didn't have before.

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Um, but it's also partly

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because, you know, the tabloid press in particular,

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but television two has, has pushed into new areas

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and has wanted to generate discussion around some

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of, these issues.

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And so, you know, we have a much more assertive,

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media and we have, you know, much more space to fill and,

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and there's a greater demand for discussion of,

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of, of sexual issues.

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But, and that's, that's also

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as we have become increasingly clear about different types

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of sexuality and,

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and separated things out, you know, whereas

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before it, it tended to be a sort

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of conventional married sexuality,

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and then pretty much everything else was sort

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of perversion in decency or, or,

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or something to be, you know, frowned upon.

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Now we have a, you know, a much clearer sense of,

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of different types and, and, and,

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and sort of fluidity of, of sexuality as well.

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One of the key things is, there was never a silence.

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There was, it is not about there being a silence.

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And, and that's really important

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because, people can think, this is a new issue.

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It wasn't there in the past.

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What is it about, you know, contemporary society

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that has allowed this to happen?

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Well, it was, it was, it was always happening,

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and it was indeed discussed.

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And the fact that it was discussed actually

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makes us think about how society, has changed

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and the reason that it's now got a different profile

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and we're using different languages.

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Um, I think, the, the nature of, our culture

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and society and our legal processes allowed,

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child sexual abuse to be marginalized for such a long period

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of, of, of time.

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Um, and now that we're in era,

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in an era when there is sustained media coverage in,

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in some respects, that's a positive thing in terms

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of bringing an issue to light.

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But it has its dangers too, in the sense

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of there is often a focus on the evil

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of particular individuals.

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Um, and we get a lot of attention on those individuals,

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but it, it can disguise the fact

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that there are often continuities in, in structures

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and practices, and it,

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and the continue to allow people, to offend.

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And so, you know, someone like Jimmy Savile, for example,

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was offending all the way through a period

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where this was, you know, very

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Much, much part of public discussion.

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And so, you know, a, an intense discussion

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of particular individuals doesn't necessarily mean

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that we solve all the, the deeper structural issues

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that are allowing child sexual abuse to continue,

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unpunished.

Evolution of Child Sexual Abuse Awareness

00:00:00 - In recent years, we've become aware of how widespread child sexual abuse is, how it affects, so many people's lives. And, and there've also been a series of prosecutions of historical offenses. And, and, and that's opened up questions about the extent of, of child abuse in, in the past and what has changed over time. So this research, forms part of a wider project where we were trying to understand what we can learn about, child sexual abuse in Britain since around the, the first World War.
00:00:34 - and there are source three or four reasons why newspapers are, are useful sources. First, they bring together lots of information from different parts of society, whether that's political, law in the courts culture. they're also very widely read. They're a central part of, of, of popular culture. And also what's useful for historians is they're published in, in broadly the same format across time.
00:01:04 - and language, over a long period of time. So I went around doing that from about the First World War up to, the sort of end of, of the 20th century to see what we could find out. And in relation to child sexual abuse in particular, we, we, found sort of three particular things about newspapers first. they have an agenda setting role. so the extent of press coverage, the amount,
00:01:34 - of space allocate to it can determine the, help determine the level and urgency of, of public debate and, and action. Secondly, newspapers help to frame the way that we, understand social issues, social problems, the nature and tone of of press coverage can prioritize certain understandings of an issue. You know, maybe, there there's more of a threat from strangers say than from within the family or, or the, the law is inadequate
00:02:04 - And, and thirdly, and finally, we found newspapers are an information resource. press coverage gives, survivors a a language and a framework to understand their own experience. they're also provide knowledge for institutions and authorities and campaign groups who look at newspaper coverage and reporting of, of court cases and, and of, of what is going on to, to, to learn about the society they're in. So we found that newspapers were a really useful source
00:02:36 - the central finding. What's really interesting is that there was never a silence about child sexual abuse or what we would now call child sexual abuse. I mean, some people have sort of said in relation to recent cases, well, people didn't ever used to talk about this stuff. you know, it was never visible. Well, that, that's absolutely not the case. But what we find from studying the newspapers is that how it has been written about how it's been spoken about has changed dramatically over time. And, and, and we've identified three main phases,

Media Coverage of Child Abuse: Historical Perspectives

00:03:07 - I mean, so in the first phase, from sort of the end of the first World War, sort of 1920s, up to say the 1940s, we do see what we would now call, child sexual, abuse in newspapers in court reports. So, and, and, they, they're often very brief, very factual, and they often have euphemistic headlines. So it'll say thing like grave offenses or serious charges, but you can see them there. They're definitely there.
00:03:39 - about the specific offense, and to some extent, you need to read through the euphemisms of, of the time. They're not called child sexual abuse. It's not called that. But we can see, that these cases are, are coming up. Sometimes used words are used like incest, which are more specific and, and which really do reveal the nature of the case. Sometimes it's hidden around sort of the words like indecency, but they are there. and, and they're relatively
00:04:10 - but what we see is, is, is really the, these court reports, are there for, the curiosity, and to some extent the sort of, e entertainment of the reading public rather than providing social commentary or generating any momentum for change, there is very little coverage of any policy debates, very little coverage of any sort of campaigning around this. There's very limited scrutiny
00:04:41 - And so we do see a discussion of child sexual abuse, but it's, it's, it's hidden away, in, in these court reports. And, and there's very little momentum, for, for, for change. Then we move into a second period in sort of the 1950s and 1960s. And, and this is a period where there's a, a, a greater discussion of sex and sexuality. There's a, a greater use of sort of medical psychological terminology.
00:05:12 - We see discussions of, you know, the rise of the teenager, the permissive society, sexual revolution and, and things like that. We also see, sort of sex crime reporting being more sensationalized. There's sort of, extended reports about sort of sex maniacs and the hunt for, for, for, for per perpetrators. And we start to see newspapers like, the Daily Mirror,
00:05:43 - investigate cases, of what we would now call child sexual abuse. But the real problem with all of this, although it's starting to, be, become more visible, there is no conceptual or linguistic or indeed legal clarity about child sexual abuse. There's not a term, and it's still wrapped up in this idea of indecency or perversion. And the problem with that in particular, it was

Evolution of Child Sexual Abuse Discourse

00:06:12 - and roles together, sex relations with adults, and, and, criminal offenses with, with children. So there's a, a, a real blurring of, homosexuality, and, and, and child sexual abuse. And so there is, a sort of very indiscriminate nature to the reporting and the specificity of, child sexual abuse as a particular problem is not really identified. And it's only in, in the third period,
00:06:49 - the pedophile labeled named, and child sexual abuse emerge as a specific, offense and a specific social problem. so three factors, involved in that. One is sort of, new languages coming out of, of social work, of medical professions, and, feminism as well, trying
00:07:17 - and, and, and girls. There's also legal changes so that the decriminalization of homosexuality starts to separate out different types of, of, of, sexual, behaviors. And so we can start to see child sexual abuse as a separate thing. and the third part of the mix is that we have a more, populist and outspoken tabloid press, particularly in the wake of, of, the,
00:07:49 - And, and crime reporting becomes far less passive cases are sort of packaged and sensationalized and, and used in the service of political social causes. And so what we see is, is the pedophile becoming one of the defining problems of, you know, the permissive era and, the, the problem of child sexual abuse rising up the agenda. And so by the sort of 1980s, we we're seeing when there are,
00:08:19 - where, you know, front page, whole set of, inside pages, center pages, editorials, are, are committed to, the, the issue of child sexual abuse. There are sort of, you know, focus on, sort of sex rings and conspiracies and, and things like that. And, and there's a lot of editorial discussion from the tabloids about, law and order solutions, very moralistic. We need to name and shame and, and,
00:08:49 - where we are in this modern phase of, you know, it's, it's quite visible. there's a, a focus on, sort of evil individuals who are, who are doing these things, and they, they should be punished in particular ways. They should be named and, and, and, and shamed. And so we see a real evolution from it, it being, there, but not really generating much discussion to it being one of the defining problems of, of the age. I think, yeah, it's a combination of, of both things. I mean, we certainly have become more,

Media Evolution and Child Sexual Abuse Awareness

00:09:24 - of private, affairs, sexual issues. we have a sort of, language of, of, of, of psychology and, and sexuality in, in the way that we, we didn't have before. but it's also partly because, you know, the tabloid press in particular, but television two has, has pushed into new areas and has wanted to generate discussion around some of, these issues. And so, you know, we have a much more assertive,
00:09:56 - and there's a greater demand for discussion of, of, of sexual issues. But, and that's, that's also as we have become increasingly clear about different types of sexuality and, and separated things out, you know, whereas before it, it tended to be a sort of conventional married sexuality, and then pretty much everything else was sort of perversion in decency or, or, or something to be, you know, frowned upon. Now we have a, you know, a much clearer sense of, of different types and, and, and,
00:10:28 - One of the key things is, there was never a silence. There was, it is not about there being a silence. And, and that's really important because, people can think, this is a new issue. It wasn't there in the past. What is it about, you know, contemporary society that has allowed this to happen? Well, it was, it was, it was always happening, and it was indeed discussed. And the fact that it was discussed actually makes us think about how society, has changed and the reason that it's now got a different profile
00:10:58 - I think, the, the nature of, our culture and society and our legal processes allowed, child sexual abuse to be marginalized for such a long period of, of, of time. and now that we're in era, in an era when there is sustained media coverage in, in some respects, that's a positive thing in terms of bringing an issue to light. But it has its dangers too, in the sense of there is often a focus on the evil
00:11:31 - and we get a lot of attention on those individuals, but it, it can disguise the fact that there are often continuities in, in structures and practices, and it, and the continue to allow people, to offend. And so, you know, someone like Jimmy Savile, for example, was offending all the way through a period where this was, you know, very Much, much part of public discussion. And so, you know, a, an intense discussion of particular individuals doesn't necessarily mean
00:12:06 - that are allowing child sexual abuse to continue, unpunished.

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