7. The words ‘accountability’ and ‘reparations’ mean different things to different victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Through the evidence that we heard, a number of key elements emerged.

7.1. Punishment of offenders: Many victims and survivors wanted perpetrators brought to justice and punished – that is, prosecuted in the criminal courts, convicted and imprisoned.

7.2. Holding institutions to account: Victims and survivors wanted the institutions they saw as responsible for the abuse held to account for any failures that had allowed the abuse to occur.

7.3. Acknowledgement and recognition: We heard that acknowledgement and recognition of the abuse was important to victims and survivors. For some victims and survivors, this meant having their ‘day in court’. They wanted to explain in public what had happened to them and for there to be recognition of the abuse that they had suffered. Some, but not all, also wanted the opportunity to face their abusers.

7.4. Apologies and explanations: The majority of victims and survivors we heard from wanted apologies from the institutions and bodies that they thought had failed them, rather than from the abusers themselves. The importance of a genuine and effective apology was made clear, with some people saying that it should be face-to-face and not a simple ‘sorry’ on a piece of paper. Victims and survivors stressed the importance of those in authority acknowledging the abuse and explaining why it had been allowed to happen.

7.5. Assurances of non-recurrence: Many victims and survivors wanted assurances that other children would be protected in the future. They felt that listening to and recognising the abuse they had suffered might help prevent it from happening again.

7.6. Redress: Some victims and survivors told us that no amount of money could ever compensate them for what they had been through. Others did want financial compensation and hoped that the money might go some way towards helping them to achieve the things that they had been unable to because of the effects of the abuse. However, victims and survivors made clear that reparation was not just about financial compensation. Several spoke of a lost education and the inability to live fulfilled lives.

7.7. Support: Many victims and survivors told us that the provision of support was an important form of reparation.

8. The importance attached to each of these elements varies between different victims and survivors, and individuals’ opinions about their significance may also change over time. This makes it impossible for any one system, whether civil justice, criminal compensation or support services, to satisfy everyone.

9. More fundamentally, none of these systems is designed to deliver all of these elements. For example, prosecutions of offenders can only occur through the criminal justice system. The settlement of civil claims may occur without any admission of liability being made by the institutions and without any ‘day in court’ for victims and survivors. Even where institutions are held legally liable for the abuse, this may not amount to an acceptance of responsibility for the abuse where the claims are based upon vicarious liability. Awards by the CICA are not accompanied by any findings of wrongdoing by the perpetrators or the institutions in which they have abused children.

10. Even where these systems can potentially deliver some elements of accountability and reparations, most obviously financial compensation, we heard evidence that difficulties may arise from the way in which these systems operate for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Civil justice in England and Wales is adversarial and governed by the legal principles and procedures applicable to all personal injury litigants, not just those who have suffered child sexual abuse. Victims and survivors of child sexual abuse are often left re-traumatised by the process, including the experience of the ‘day in court’ that so many of them seek. Criminal compensation orders (CCOs) are rarely made by the courts in child sexual abuse cases. Victims and survivors may be prevented from receiving awards from the CICA due to criminal offending, even where the offending is attributable to the abuse they suffered.

11. The Inquiry cannot redesign the systems of civil justice and criminal compensation in order that each and every element of accountability and reparations identified above is deliverable to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. However, it can consider improvements to the operation of these systems for those victims and survivors of child sexual abuse who continue to seek accountability and reparations through them. The question of whether or not there could be more fundamental change or an alternative to these systems, although raised in this report, will be considered further in the next phase of this investigation.