Content warning | This blog post discusses the organised ritual abuse, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse of children. This includes references to rape, violence, and torture.

Earlier this year, seven individuals in Glasgow were handed life sentences following convictions for horrific abuse perpetrated against (mainly) three children. The offenders trapped the youngest child in an oven, a freezer, and a cupboard full of spiders, forced her to eat dog food, and gang raped her when she was still young enough to wear nappies. Much of the sexual abuse happened on organised ‘rape nights’ during which the children were forced into sexual acts with one another, and some of the assaults were filmed and money changed hands. The court also heard how the children were forced to consume alcohol and drugs, and were chased by people wearing devil masks.

Whilst the children had already been known to social services because of concerns around neglect, this systematic torture only came to light after they built trust with caring adults in the local community who had been trying to ensure they were well fed. On the back of their disclosures, police launched a large operation involving detailed forensic searches at several properties and the gathering of medical evidence.

This case is one of at least fourteen in the UK in which people have been convicted for child sexual abuse that has been widely acknowledged to involve ritualistic or supernatural-themed torture and terror (in this case, the pretence of devils and witchcraft)¹ Nine of these cases involved more than one perpetrator. And there are several others similar in nature, in which multiple family members have been convicted for the sadistic abuse and torture of their children over many years.

The wider picture

This week my report, Organised ritual abuse: degradation, deception and disavowal, was published by the Hydrant Programme and the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC). In it I draw on extensive research to explore the nature of this type of abuse, the impact it has, and why it has been societally shadowed for so long. The evidence I review indicates that these convictions for ritual abuse represent the very small tip of a very serious iceberg. Severe, long-term abuse by multiple perpetrators involving ritual or supernatural narratives is consistently reported by survivors to helplines, therapists and other trusted persons, but rarely makes it to police investigation.

And there is little, if any, societal acknowledgement. In fact, the dominant media narrative has been one of disbelief, in which reports of ritual abuse are written off as ‘satanic panic’ and the work of suggestive therapists, gullible social workers, and fundamentalist Christians prone to seeing Satanists at every turn. This has resulted in a perverse and grossly unjust situation, in which victims and survivors of this extreme, long-term abuse are left without recourse to acknowledgement and safety, justice and healing.

If we listen to what people disclosing this abuse tell us, what do we learn? Several major research studies provide a rich picture, consistent with what survivors disclose to therapists and others they trust. The childhoods these survivors describe have both striking similarities and differences. On the one hand, there is wide socioeconomic variance: some describe affluent, well-connected families who present as ‘picture perfect’, whereas others grew up in families struggling with poverty and difficulties visible to the outside eye. Across nearly all accounts however, there is the experience of navigating childhoods where those tasked to care and protect them were instead colossal and constant sources of danger. In most cases of this abuse, the primary perpetrators are victims’ adult family members, although in some situations children are targeted by offenders operating through institutions such as care homes and churches.

Intersecting forms of abuse

Typically, survivors describe suffering several interrelated forms of abuse. There is routine cruelty, neglect and sexual abuse embedded in everyday life and frequently, rapes and assaults from being sold to others or for CSAM (child sexual abuse material) production. Then, occurring less frequently, there is also abuse through rituals that legitimise and encourage extreme cruelty, and that evoke particular terror and shame. During rituals, victims are often placed in forced choice situations in which they are made to feel complicit (for example, being asked to choose between hurting a child or an adult hurting that child even more). The supernatural rhetoric that the offenders use narrates themselves as powerful and righteous, and victims as bad and toxic, in need of punishment or redemption (achieved through abuse).

“What can appear to be really dorky or harmless – as a child, these things, they are connected to things that are absolutely terrifying. It might seem hammy, pretending to be vampires and witches and things, but, as a kid, you’ve seen them go through with it.”

• Survivor quoted by Michael Salter (2012), a criminologist who has extensively researched organised abuse.

It is not uncommon for survivors to describe homicides occurring during these rituals. At times, these memories might be explained by tricks offenders play (for example, pretending a doll is a baby), but not all are explicable as such. Whilst many doubt such reports, they are plausible in light of offenders’ modus operandi (for example, their choice of vulnerable victims) and the weaknesses of societal systems.

“And people say ‘Oh, how can people be killed and not be found?’ Now I hate to say it, but there’s a lot of missing people. And they stay missing. And it didn’t happen all the time. It didn’t happen on a regular basis. But it did happen.”

• Survivor quoted by Michael Salter (2013)

A single incident of this abuse would be enough to floor anyone, yet children are forced to endure this treatment for years on end. Core to surviving it is dissociation – this is an umbrella term for the many ways humans have learnt to psychologically ‘cut off’ from intolerable, overwhelming experiences. At different ages, we are better at dissociating in different ways. At young ages, there is not yet a fully coherent sense of self, so the mind can develop what is called Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously termed Multiple Personality Disorder). Instead of one self, multiple selves (or parts) develop to hold different traumas (and different layers of a trauma), and one or some may have no knowledge of the abuse at all. Dissociation is a vital toolkit, and at the same time, it can mean that survivors (or at least, parts of them present in everyday life) can go for long periods without knowing about their abuse.

Societal disavowal to acknowledgement and action

Across wider society, there are many reasons for the default disbelief that shrouds this form of abuse, not least the natural human desire to believe that the society we live in is, by and large, safe and fair. This can be an adaptive illusion, but causes problems when we deal with evidence to the contrary in ways which increase the injustice we are trying to protect ourselves from. Unhelpful strategies people often adopt in the face of gross injustice include victim blaming (“you kind-of had it coming”) and minimising (“it wasn’t that bad”). But these strategies aren’t tenable as a response to ritual abuse, which is so obviously horrific abuse perpetrated against the most vulnerable. So instead, irrationally high thresholds of belief are applied (“I’m going to believe it didn’t really happen”).

So, listening to the voices of victims and survivors of ritual abuse presents us with a choice – do we stay with this knowledge and take action, or do we turn away, choosing to disbelieve or simply forget? And if we face it, what might we do differently?

My reports ends with a set of recommendations, including key actions for those within the criminal justice system. These include developing systems to hear and act on anonymous intelligence and third-party reports, revising approaches to missing people, and creating (or using existing) legislation which captures the unique wrongdoings within ritual abuse.

In addition, research reveals organised abuse (sometimes with a ritual dimension) to lie behind much CSAM production, and so investigators in these cases should hold this possibility in mind.

More widely, there is much we can all be doing to build a society less conducive to abuse, including sharing awareness and understanding, and getting better at hearing and acting on children’s distress.

“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.”

• Judith Herman (1992)

To learn more about this abuse and read my recommendations in full, download Organised ritual abuse and its wider context: Degradation, deception and disavowal