Today (Thursday 3 July) the National Police Chiefs’ Council in partnership with the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) is publishing Organised ritual abuse and its wider context: Degradation, deception and disavowal Ritualistic abuse – A research review and analysis by Dr Elly Hanson. The report unpacks the nature of organised ritual abuse, its motives and dynamics, the harm it causes and the barriers survivors face in speaking out. It also looks at the discourse of disbelief and conspiracy fictions which have kept it hidden for so long.

Humans have the potential to treat one another with extreme cruelty and this report deals with behaviour of this worst kind. To identify and surface the nature of ritual abuse and the abuses surrounding it, Dr Hanson draws extensively on primary research – this then providing the basis for a set of recommendations that lay out a whole system approach necessary to respond rightfully to this most horrific of crimes.