1. Victims and survivors often felt a strong need for the child sexual abuse to be acknowledged and for someone to be held accountable.

2. Despite this, a considerable number of victims and survivors said that they had never sought any form of acknowledgement or accountability. Some did not know how. Many worried that it would be a traumatic experience without any meaningful benefit. Indeed, those who had negative experiences of seeking acknowledgement or accountability often said that they felt there was “no point” reporting child sexual abuse:^[1]

“I have no faith in the system or that justice will be done. It would have been much better if the council had said, ‘We are listening’ without judging me and then conducted a proper investigation without a fight.”^[2]

L25, Children in the care of the Nottinghamshire Councils investigation

3. This Part describes a combination of recent and non-recent experiences. It was more common for positive experiences to be recent. However, the themes that emerged from negative experiences were similar, irrespective of the time period in which they happened.