A VICTIM of childhood sexual abuse who says he was ignored for years before police finally took steps to put his tormentor behind bars says he is disgusted by the ‘pathetic’ apology he has received and furious that South Yorkshire Police has admitted it has learned ‘no lessons’ from his complaint.
Sean Hughes, 40, suffered sexual and physical abuse as a child in Barnsley. He was left locked in the cellar crying and screaming with only bread and water for up to two days by his baby-sitter Harvey Sayles. Sean, about seven at the time, was stripped naked and tied to a chair.
Only last year was Sayles jailed for 14 years.
When the case was reported last year, Sean, who now lives out of the area, waived his legal right of anonymity, so he could speak out about the abuse he had suffered. He then made a complaint to South Yorkshire Police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission because he claimed police missed several opportunities to investigate the crimes more than 20 years ago.
The IPCC upheld his complaint and ordered South Yorkshire Police to reinvestigate his complaint.
This week Sean told the Chronicle he had received a letter following that reinvestigation which includes what he called a ‘pathetic apology’.
“They’ve said there is a case to answer but they’re not going to take any further action because it’s impossible to find out which officer it was who I told.
“It’s like they’re apologising, but they’re not accepting any responsibility.
“It even says at the back of the report, ‘lessons learned - none’. How can they have learned no lessons?
“They hope I’ll just give up and go away, but I’m not going to.”
Sean has now referred the case back to the IPCC via an appeal.
His complaint included four main elements, mainly concerning his allegations that he had reported the abuse he had suffered to police officers in Barnsley several times in the early and mid 1990s.
He says officers told him it was ‘probably too late’ to report the abuse which had happened in the 1980s, but that they would look into it and get back to him. He never heard anything further from the police.
It is that element of the complaint which South Yorkshire Police has now accepted probably happened.
“They’ve said there is a case to answer, but because it’s impossible to identify the officer no action is going to be taken.
“It says they want to apologise for any distress caused by this officer’s failings. And that’s it, that’s the only apology I’ve got.”
Sean said all he has ever wanted was a full apology from police, and the assurance that lessons had been learned to make sure what happened to Sean can never happen to anybody else.
“They’ve actually said in the letter they haven’t learned any lessons. I think it’s just disgusting.”
A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: “Following an appeal made by Mr Hughes to the IPCC, South Yorkshire Police Professional Standards Department revisited aspects of its initial investigation and this activity has now concluded.
“Officers followed guidance outlined in the IPCC’s ‘Statutory Guidance to the Police Service on the Handling of Complaints’, but due to the historical nature of the case, with the incidents occurring during the 1990s, it has not been possible to identify all of the officers involved at the time Mr Hughes’ official complaint was received.
“Despite great efforts by investigators, comprehensive records do not exist pertaining to officer activity at the time.
“It is recognised that Mr Hughes did not initially receive the level of service that was required at the time of his complaint, which led to a delay in offenders being brought to justice. South Yorkshire Police has gone through a great deal of change and introduced procedural improvement since that time, and continually seeks to improve the service it provides.”
