A Community-Based Approach to the Reduction of Sexual Reoffending
Circles of Support and Accountability
Stephen Hanvey, Terry Philpot and Chris Wilson
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
First published in 2011
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Chapters 2, 5 and 7 copyright Terry Philpot 2011
Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6 copyright Circles of Support and Accountability UK Ltd. 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hanvey, Stephen.
A community-based approach to the reduction of sexual reoffending : circles
of support and accountability / Stephen Hanvey, Terry Philpot and Chris
Wilson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84905-198-9 (alk. paper)
1. Sex offenders--Rehabilitation--Great Britain. 2. Sex offenders--Services
for--Great Britain. 3. Self-help groups--Great Britain. 4. Community
psychology--Great Britain. 5. Community mental health services--Great
Britain. 6. Sex crimes--Great Britain--Prevention. I. Philpot, Terry. II.
Wilson, Chris, 1957- III. Title.
RC560.S47H37 2011
362.1968583--dc23
2011017937
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 198 9
eISBN 978 0 85700 423 9
Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB
To Elizabeth
Stephen Hanvey
To Paul, for being there
Terry Philpot
To all Circles volunteers whose courageous work tries to ensure there are no more victims
Chris Wilson
Acknowledgements
This book would never have been as good as the authors hope it will prove to be without the four core members and four volunteers who allowed Terry Philpot to interview them. The first group, of necessity, remain pseudonymous, and two volunteers Geeta Patel and Elizabeth Cowie also wished to choose pseudonyms for themselves. (The names of other people have also been changed.)
We wish to thank all interviewees. Few people warm to the prospect of an interview even with the assurance of anonymity if they wish and for people like those here, given what they were being asked to discuss, it cannot have felt easy. (In fact, for two of them one a volunteer and the other a core member it explicitly was not.) For the core members this would have been especially so. Having spoken to them, Terry Philpot is all the more grateful for their honesty, openness and reflection.
The authors hope that the core members will understand that telling their stories may assist others in similar circumstances and that the volunteers, in a way, speak for all their fellow volunteers and may encourage others to come forward. The stories of both groups go a long way to exploding the myths and stereotypes about those who offend.
Terry Philpot also wishes to thank a family trust that provided the necessary funding for him to have time to write his chapters for the book and to conduct the interviews. He is grateful to Circles UK for meeting his expenses to do the latter.
The authors wish to thank Juliet Ennis (North Wales), Annabel Francis (East), Margaret Hamilton (Wessex), Ron Macrae (Hampshire and Thames Valley), Margaret OBrien (Cumbria) and Blair Parrott (Lucy Faithfull Foundation), the regional Circles co-ordinators, for initially making contact with both volunteers and core members and securing their agreement to take part.
Marie Etchels was truly indispensible in transcribing the eight, lengthy interviews. Her many hours before the recording device and in front of the computer screen picked up every hesitation, pause, laugh, idiosyncratic expression and linguistic habit.
Robert Philpot kindly and meticulously read Chapters 2 and 7, bringing a keen eye to errors and infelicities of style, as well as drawing its authors attention to the role of Syd Rapson, the former MP, in the Paulsgrove disturbances referred to in Chapter 7. Rachel Downey also kindly read Chapter 7 with a keen eye and offered helpful comments. Kate Wilson kindly read and commented on Chapters 1, 3 and 6. Robert Curnow provided the same invaluable service for Chapter 4. Roger Kennington, senior chief probation officer and project co-ordinator, National Probation Service Northumbria, made a contribution to an earlier version of Chapter 2.
Thanks are also due to the staff of the NSPCC Library in London who unfailingly answered every question asked by, and found every reference sought by, Terry Philpot in the research for his two chapters, and, on occasion, gave him a desk to allow him to follow up these. Their help reveals again what a superb (and free) resource the NSPCC makes available to researchers and writers.
The authors wish to thank Margaret Carey and her fellow trustees of Circles UK for their initial support for and continuing interest in the book. In particular Dr Birgit Vllm, chair of Circles UKs Evaluation and Research Group, has also provided some invaluable reflection and assistance in the development of the book.
It goes without saying that none of the above is responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation. They rest with the authors alone.
A note on terminology
We have avoided using the terms paedophile or paedophilia as these are far too loosely employed, even by some professionals, as synonyms for child sex offender and so contribute to the idea that men who sexually abuse children are an homogenous group. We have largely used the words offenders and sex offenders as synonyms for child sex offenders, but have sometimes referred to men convicted of child sex offences or (where appropriate) ex-offenders. The men involved in Circles, like many others who have served a sentence and not been reconvicted of further offences, are ex-offenders, men who have been convicted in the past of sexual offences. In the context of explaining the actual work of Circles we have sometimes referred to core members as those formerly convicted of crimes are known.
Most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by men against girls. For ease of reading, we have referred to victims as she unless specifically referring to a male victim, and to perpetrators as he because we make no reference to women who abuse (see Endnote 2 on page 186).
