The reality of organised ritual abuse
Elly Hanson
In 1986, three months after entering care, a three year old boy in Broxtowe, Nottingham-shire, started disclosing to his foster carers sexual abuse and degradation at the hands of his family members. This was the first in a set of extensive allegations made by him, his siblings and his cousins about a family organised around sadistic abuse led by their grandfather. They described being starved, injured and humiliated, and sexual abuse that involved multiple perpetrators subjecting them to ritualistic and extreme acts. They talked about being made to eat faeces, animals being ‘sacrificed’, and adults dressed as witches, the devil, clowns and monsters. The subsequent court case led to the conviction of ten adults for abuses relating to twelve children.
Some years later, journalist Beatrix Campbell interviewed one of the convicted mothers coming up to the end of her prison sentence. She described a similar childhood to that of her children, including parties where adults dressed up and ‘Dad was the devil’ – ‘when I was a child my parents talked about the devil all the time. They said I was “born for the devil”’. When she grew up and had her own children, ‘my Mum and Dad said, “they’re not children to be loved… they’re an ornament to be messed with”’. This intergenerational element was picked up by local MP Graham Allen when he commented at the time of the convictions that ‘child sex abuse can run on in families from generation to generation. We must now break this link of depravity that runs through generations for good.’
Sadly four decades on, we haven’t moved much closer to achieving this ambition, although I believe we are now at a time where there is a building momentum of awareness raising and change.
An abuse that is hidden though its extremity
The National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) defines organised ritual abuse as:
“The organised sexual, physical and psychological abuse of children (and often adults) by a group of individuals who use rituals as a form of prolonged and repeated torture (often alongside other forms of abuse) with the aim of controlling, silencing and terrorising their victims. As part of this control, perpetrators train children into a supernatural belief system, which they may or may not believe themselves.”
The Broxtowe case is one of at least 14 in the UK in which people have been convicted of child sexual abuse, and their use of ritualistic practices within it has been widely acknowledged by criminal and/or family courts. The most recent of these was the conviction of seven individuals in Glasgow in 2024. Yet survivor reports to helplines, therapists, researchers and other trusted individuals reveal that convictions are the very small tip of a large iceberg. Across twenty years or so of working in the field of sexual abuse and trauma, I have supported a number of ritual abuse survivors alongside many colleagues who have done the same. We are not alone; a survey of over 100 Clinical Psychologists in 2013 found that 38% had ‘dealt with one or more cases of satanic/ritual abuse’ and the majority judged most reports of this abuse credible.
Survivors’ disclosures reveal that this abuse often starts young, involves family members, and occurs against a backdrop of other child maltreatment (for example, neglect and physical abuse). It also often intersects with the production of child sexual abuse images and the sale of children to be raped (child sex trafficking). The ritual abuse tends to take place on specific occasions in which multiple perpetrators subject their victims to abuses enacted within ‘ceremonies’ and the like, and according to supernatural narratives (for example, abuse is denoted as a sacrifice, worship, ritual punishment etc). Such elements work to empower those abusing, whilst further silencing, shaming and terrorising the victims. Moral injury, a form of abuse in which victims are forced to act against their moral core (for example, through being made to choose between abuses to others) leaves many with a profound sense of complicity and guilt.
As is evident, such childhoods involve multiple experiences of extreme abuse, of which a single incident would be enough to floor a person. Survival depends in part upon various forms of dissociation (ways of psychologically distancing or shutting off from the abuse). Most survivors report living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, an adaptation to chronic childhood maltreatment in which the psyche develops different parts or ‘selves’ to cope with the contradictory demands of the abuse and its otherwise overwhelming nature. DID often means that adult parts of a person may be unaware for long periods that they are survivors of this abuse. And when they do become aware and reach out for help, many are faced with widespread disbelief – people turn away from what they saying, seeing it as too outlandish or extreme to be true.
The discourse of disbelief
A UK survey of 58 survivors of ritual abuse and 10 supporters found that most had experienced or witnessed poor practice from police, health and/or social services in response to disclosures of this abuse, with disbelief being cited as the most major problem. These service responses form part of a wider societal stance of disbelief – this developed and reached its peak in the 1980s and 90s but has exerted a long shadow ever since. Reports of ritual abuse are often met with a default scepticism and discounted as the product of moral panic, false memories and suggestive questioning. This narrative operates to rewrite history according to its wishful thinking, and Broxtowe is a clear case in point. In my report I detail how the case came to wrongly be retold as a cautionary tale of ‘satanic panic’ to the point that its entry on Wikipedia now concludes ‘that there was no evidence of the satanic ritual abuse claims.’
This default disbelief then works to perpetuate itself, working in lock-step with silencing. There is evidence of victims not mentioning ritual aspects of their abuse to avoid disbelief, police demanding more evidence before they investigate it, and prosecutors dropping these elements from cases when they get to court.
The damage that this discourse has caused is hard to overstate. Not only has it been a gift to those who perpetrate the abuse, providing cover for continued abuse, it is also a profound invalidation of survivors, working to amplify and entrench the invalidation at the heart of the abuse. As one survivor recounted to researcher Michael Salter:
“the psychiatrist I went to see, he summed me up within ten, fifteen minutes. He’d turned around and basically told me I was crazy, and I was a victim of… ‘false memory syndrome’… It’s just hard for me to even think about, it was one of the worst things that has ever… I walked out of that place so – I hadn’t been that suicidal in years.”
A collective effort for societal change
Facing the reality of ritual abuse involves shedding comforting myths about our society. We must confront the fact that people within our midst are hurting children in these most heinous of ways, and we must let this knowledge change us.
But perhaps we are collectively more ready for this than we’ve ever been before? The internet has forced a wider reckoning with the extent of sexual abuse and sadistic violence, and there is a groundswell of grief, acknowledgment, and desire for change.
It’s time to build on this foundation with actions that specifically address the shadows and complexities of organised ritual abuse – that work to bring prevention and support, healing and justice. Jon below takes a look at what some of these key next steps should be.
Practice, policy, and strategy implications: Responding to Organised Ritual Abuse
Jon Brown
Working in child safeguarding for over 30 years, often with a particular focus on preventing and addressing the impacts of child sexual abuse I have been very aware of the lack of recognition of the extent and impacts of organised ritual abuse. This important research highlights its profound impacts and the urgent need for systemic change. For practitioners, managers, and leaders across all agencies the implications are clear and urgent: our practice, policies, and strategies must evolve to respond to the impacts of this form of child abuse and to meet the complex needs of survivors and prevent further harm.
1. Embedding Trauma-Informed Practice
A central recommendation is the embedding of trauma-informed approaches across all sectors that encounter victims and survivors – social care, health, policing, education, and beyond. Trauma-informed practice means recognising the pervasive impact of complex trauma and dissociation, including dissociative identity disorder (DID), and responding with compassion, curiosity, and empowerment. Training must go beyond basic safeguarding to equip professionals with the skills to understand, identify and respond to the dynamics and specific impacts of organised and ritual abuse.
2. Open, Informed Belief in Disclosures
Survivors face immense barriers to disclosure, including shame, fear of disbelief, and threats from those who have, or who are harming them. The research urges practitioners to adopt a stance of open, informed belief—meeting disclosures with validation and support, rather than scepticism or ideological disbelief. This approach fosters safety and healing, which can counter the alienation and harm caused by societal silence and disbelief.
3. Raising Awareness and Challenging Disbelief
The “discourse of disbelief” surrounding ritual abuse has led to underreporting, inadequate responses, and further trauma for survivors. Leaders across all the sectors who engage in prevention and protection must champion awareness-raising initiatives, ensuring that survivor voices are heard and respected. Media and public messaging should avoid sensationalism and conspiracy narratives, instead focusing on evidence-based understanding and survivor empowerment. The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, Local Safeguarding Partnerships and the planned development of the new Child Protection Authority should have a lead role in raising awareness and in continuing to improve practice.
4. Improving Child Protection and Safeguarding
Professionals must be equipped to recognise and respond to the subtle and overt signs of organised and ritual abuse. This includes developing purposeful, facilitative conversations with children, and revising guidance to reflect the realities of complex abuse. Systems for missing children, birth registration, and home schooling require reform to prevent vulnerable children from becoming invisible to protective services.
5. Multi-Agency and Long-Term Support
Effective responses demand multi-agency collaboration—bringing together social care, police, health, education and survivor organisations. Survivors need long-term, relational therapeutic support, with funding and commissioning frameworks that make this accessible. Peer-support initiatives, led by charities and survivor groups, should be developed with robust ethical safeguards. Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships, and their equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a key role to play in developing and improving local approaches and coordination.
6. Legislative and Systemic Reform
Legislation must be reviewed to address the complexities of ritual abuse, including protections for victims who fear prosecution and recognition of new crimes related to ritual and deception. Learning from past cases—both successes and failures—is vital for continuous improvement.
Conclusion
The implications of this research are clear: society and key professional sectors (such as social care, criminal justice, health and education) must move beyond disbelief and silence, embracing trauma-informed, survivor-centred, and collaborative approaches. By embedding these principles into practice, policy, and strategy, we can begin to challenge the shadowed legacy of organised ritual abuse, which for too long has been misunderstood and ignored.
