NSPCC refers itself to regulator for not reporting high-risk Childline cases

Exclusive: Internal review found charity failed to pass on 37 incidents to authorities over a six-month period The NSPCC has referred itself to the charity regulator after admitting it failed to flag high-risk Childline cases to the police and local authorities. An internal review found that over a six-month period, 37 contacts from children categorised as high-risk – which includes reports of physical and sexual abuse, neglect and suicidal thoughts – were not passed on to the relevant authorities. Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the NSPCC, which runs Childline, said the charity was “truly sorry” and that the organisation had “fallen below the standards we set for ourselves”. “We operate to a high confidentiality threshold, but in a number of cases children should have been referred to the relevant local authority or the police and that didn’t happen at the time, so we’ve had to make a retrospective disclosure,” he said. “That means a number of children might not have received the immediate support they should have had, and deserve to have, and on behalf of everyone at Childline, we’re truly sorry.” Sherwood said the NSPCC had sent a serious incident report to the Charity Commis