ABSTRACT
The medical and sociological literature in this area has mushroomed in recent years and this helps to feed the impression that child abuse itself is increasing in similar fashion. The greater part of family law as related to the protection of children in England and Wales is now consolidated in the Children Act 1989. The court cannot make an assessment order if it believes that an emergency protection order ought to be made, but an application for an assessment order may be treated as one for an emergency protection order. It has been very difficult for doctors not to become more aware of the problem of child abuse, so powerful has been the propaganda in the field since the mid-century. Although instances of child sexual abuse are often associated with incest, this is by no means always the case; the two are, however, combined sufficiently often to justify a short consideration of incest.
