Angie Jones from The Hydrant Programme, was recognised yesterday, at the annual Violence Against Women and Girls/Op Soteria recognition event

Angie Jones was nominated for this award by Richard Fewkes, the director of the Hydrant Programme, and on behalf of the wider analysis and research team for their work in creating a national dataset for child sexual abuse.

Richard said: "Responding to child sexual abuse and exploitation can only be done effectively with the appropriate insight, understanding and evidence base for action. Angie Jones and her team have been pivotal in developing policing's understanding of the threat posed to children through the introduction of the Child Protection and Abuse Investigation (CPAI) Dataset and Complex and Organised Child Abuse Database (COCAD.) Analysis of this data is now used to inform national, regional and local strategic and operational responses as well as feeding into government to provide insight to policy makers. Angie's determination to ensure this project's success was evident from the outset and with the support of her amazing team she has been able to deliver an asset that will shape the response to child sexual abuse for years to come."

Multiple national reports have highlighted that policing’s inability to understand child sexual abuse data from a national perspective was hampering the understanding of scale and nature and the risk and thereby compromising its ability to respond effectively. This includes several recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.? Angie has led the effective implementation of data collection and analysis process through the use of available technology to address this issue.

?

Over the course of 12 months the team collected data from 44 forces relating to child sexual abuse crime . It’s analysed quarterly and covers over 300 crime codes, and more than 50 different metrics.

?

A team of analysts and researchers, led by Angie, process the data to collate a single national data set, called the Child Protection Abuse and Investigation (CPAI) dataset. This single dataset is then shared with colleagues in the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme who use it to produce the Assessing the Totality of Police Recorded Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Crime - Analysis of offences reported to police across England and Wales, and with colleagues in the National Crime Agency’s National Assessment Centre who use it to inform the National Strategic Risk Assessment. This is the first time a single child sexual abuse data set has been collected in this way.

?

Under Angie’s oversight, the team then populate the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Database (CACAD), which identifies those records where multiple suspects commit crime against one or more victims and survivors. (This meets the group and network based CSE definition provided by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse). The COCAD crimes are categorised into 4 thematic areas which follow the internationally accepted models of organised child sexual abuse developed by Professor Michael Salter, these being institutional, familial, child sexual exploitation and ritualised abuse.

?

Reports are now produced at a national, regional and force level, providing an evidence base for the development of policy and strategy that previously did not exist. Reports are used by government, national policing and recently have been provided to Regional Organised Crime Units and every police for in England and Wales to support the operational response. Further the ability to deep dive into the data and understand the risk presented by emerging themes, like children offending against children, now exists.

?

Following a briefing about COCAD, Professor Michael Salter said:?“the UKs ability to understand its networked and organised crime is now far in front of all other European countries.”

?

Angie’s dedicated leadership, un-paralleled work ethic, tenacity, and a passion for this area of work has been instrumental in improving the use of technology to deliver a data solution to support the response to child sexual abuse which previously did not exist.