Olivia Robey

Olivia Robey is the Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Policy Lead for the Centre for Social Justice’s Child Sexual Abuse Commission. She has previously advised the Anti-Slavery Commissioner and the Home Secretary on crime, safeguarding and vulnerability.

Child sexual abuse survivors are being let down

From our UK edition

The Crown Prosecution Service’s latest grim statistics show that, despite the increasing number of police recorded rapes over the past five years, the prosecution rate has reduced. This state of affairs, has been branded as the 'decriminalisation of rape' by the Victim’s Commissioner Dame Vera Baird QC. And the data's fine print also reveals a heart-breaking truth: the victims suffering from the worst outcomes are children. Just 16 per cent of victims aged 10-13 saw their abuser charged for the abuse they inflicted, with 55 per cent then seeing no prosecution take place. By contrast, the charge rate in the 25-59 victim bracket was 46 per cent, while the no prosecution rate was 30 per cent.

Controlling lives, controlling money: how to tackle financial abuse

From our UK edition

34 min listen

Domestic abuse services are braced for an avalanche of new cases as a result of social distancing. Of these cases, not all have or will be physically violent - instead, Women's Aid reports a significant proportion of cases in which access to money was used as a form of control. In the government's Domestic Abuse Bill, economic abuse will be for the first time recognised as a form of coercive control. So how can it be identified, and how can the women and men who are its victims be helped? Katy Balls speaks to Jess Phillips, Labour MP and domestic abuse campaigner; Olivia Robey, a safeguarding and vulnerability advisor and former SpAd at the Home Office; and Fiona Cannon OBE, Responsible Business, Sustainability and Inclusion Director at Lloyds Banking Group.