Half of calls to sex assault line from under-18s

The Sexual Assault Referral Centre received 120 calls in its first year

Nearly half of all calls to a sexual assault helpline in Guernsey were made by children under the age of 18, the service has said.

The Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC), which is one year into its three-year pilot scheme, said it had received 120 calls since it began in October 2023.

It said people had reported cases of new and historic sexual violence, asked for advice, referrals and asked for forensic medical examinations.

Manager Katie Thomas said the service was helping remove the barriers to reporting sexual assault or abuse but it was unclear why under-18s were over-represented in the figures.

Sexual Assault Referral Centre manager Katie Thomas said victims struggled to come forward

Ms Thomas said: "Historically, anyone under the age of 18 years old would have had to be flown off island to see a specialist trained forensic doctor.

"Some of our sexual offence examiners can see these children on island from the ages of 13 and upwards.

"We've developed our service with a forensic room and we've got them equipment so we can see these children on-island."

'Big barriers'

Ms Thomas said previously people would need to go to their GP, police or the emergency department to ask for help.

"They can be quite big barriers to somebody wanting to get support," she said.

"Some people want to keep it completely separate from the home life and when you have a family GP they really struggle with coming forward.

"Now that we can offer that service [where] they can speak directly to the professionals, we are seeing a lot more phone calls for support, advice."