Cleveland child abuse scandal

In the years prior to the scandal, levels of reported child abuse in the Cleveland area were consistent with those of other parts of the United Kingdom.

[1] However, in 1987, during the period of February to July, many children living in Cleveland were removed from their homes by social service agencies and diagnosed as sexually abused.

[2] The 121 diagnoses were made by two paediatricians at a Middlesbrough hospital, Marietta Higgs and Geoffrey Wyatt, using reflex anal dilation for diagnosis (later discredited).

[1] Controversy increased when Mr Justice Hollis ruled that 19 of 20 children who had been made wards of the court should be returned to their parents due to the weakness of the medical evidence.

[5][1] In 1997, a controversial television documentary, The Death of Childhood, claimed that "independent experts under the guidance of the Department of Health later found that at least 70 per cent of the diagnoses" were correct.

In 2023, Beatrix Campbell published Secrets and Silence, in which she describes out what she considers new information about the scandal, drawn from official records now publicly available, including the impact on those children affected.