ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the child protection process and considers the different stages at which professional or judicial intervention endeavours to secure a child’s welfare interests. While a breach of the welfare threshold will activate child protection proceedings it also continues to attract criminal law sanctions. The main legal problems in securing future protection for the welfare interests of a child victim of alleged sexual abuse have been to do with satisfying the standard of proof and providing sufficient corroborative evidence. The law can offer no protection to a child unless the relevant local authority elects to initiate proceedings and it can impose no sanctions on the local authority which chooses not to do so. Child protection is statutorily set aside to facilitate urgent professional intervention and prompt judicial determination as to whether or not emergency powers should be used to secure a child’s immediate protection.
