We-Together is a new charity formed by survivors of sexual abuse, clinicians, and others. We formed the charity because we know that many victims of sexual abuse never reveal this to anyone and that many people who commit sexual abuse are serial offenders with many victims. We want to give victims of sexual abuse a voice, and we want to identify serial abusers so they can be brought to justice. We know that victims of sexual abuse often do not report due to fear of not being believed or threat of further abuse.
We want to give victims a safe way of letting people know about their abuse knowing that legal authorities will only be informed if more than one victim is identified. Knowing that you are not alone will hopefully empower you to go further.
Your information is very important. What you write will be added to that of the many other victims who have suffered abuse and have been strong enough to let us know. In some cases this may lead to the identification of a “cluster” of victims of a single abuser. All the information will be available to build up a picture of abuse in the United Kingdom.
We know that reporting abuse rarely results in successful prosecution. This is because cases are normally examined as individual occurrences and doubt is cast on all evidence because of this. Because there are rarely witnesses or independent evidence, defence barristers will highlight that there have been no other convictions even if there have been previous attempts at prosecution. If, like many perpetrators, your abuser has committed many crimes we will be able to identify the other victims. If we can bring the information from several victims together it will greatly increase the possibility of a successful prosecution.
There are two reasons we don’t ask for the abuser’s name. Firstly we may be in breach of Information Governance rules if we have information that can specifically identify an offender. Secondly, and much more importantly, by not giving the information there is no risk of you going into the criminal justice system until you are ready to do so. This is also the reason we do not ask for the abuser’s specific address.
Definitely. While the police will investigate your abuse, they may not be aware of other potential victims who have not reported. Entering the information on the web site may be vital in identifying serial abusers. This is also true if the perpetrator has been convicted.
Your contact information is needed in case you are identified as part of a cluster. If this is the case, by entering information on the web site you are giving permission to be contacted by the police. To do this they will need your contact details. These details will not be accessible by anyone else.
Yes, if you are supporting the abused person and they are not in a position to enter the information themselves. However, you must only do so if you have permission from the abused person. There is a box to be completed that will show this.
The main reason for developing the web site is to aid the identification and successful prosecution of serial sex abusers. To be successful in this your details will need to be passed to the police if you are identified as belonging to a “cluster” of victims. This process is mainly automated within the web site but a trained report assessor will review this information and decide whether it is significant. This person will ensure the confidentiality of your data and no-one else will have access to your personal information. If you are not identified as being part of a potential cluster your information will not be actioned by anyone.
Information on your abuse may be used by experts in the field to get a better picture of abuse in the UK. However this will be totally anonymised.
Yes. If your abuse happened a long time ago, it is still important that it is recognised. Historic cases of abuse by serial offenders have been successfully prosecuted, mainly because of the number of victims who have come forward. Also, many abusers carry out their abuse over a number of years. Even if your abuse is in the past, it does not mean the offender is not still abusing victims.
The web site is intended for the UK and not for other countries. However, you can still enter information if you are not a UK citizen but the abuse happened here. Information can also be entered if the abuser is from the UK but the abuse happened abroad.
Your report is stored safely and securely on our web site. It will also be compared against reports entered by other victims who have had the courage to enter their information. If there are no matches with others you will not hear anything. If there are other people who may have been victims of your abuser, the information will be passed to the police who may contact you. Remember that people are entering reports all the time and it may take some time before other victims enter their information and a match is made, so you may be contacted a long time after you entered yours.
Even though you are a survivor, the term victim is used in the criminal justice system, which is why we use it here.
