A women’s rights group has warned “something needs to be done urgently” after it was revealed thousands of rapes and sexual assaults took place in hospitals

A women’s rights group has warned “something needs to be done urgently” after it was revealed thousands of rapes and sexual assaults took place in hospitals over a two-year period.

Women’s Rights Network’s (WRN) spokeswoman Claire Lonergan appeared on GB News’ to discuss the report that highlighted how more than 6,500 sexual abuse incidents occurred in hospitals between 2019 and 2022.

On average there were 33 rapes and sexual assaults committed in UK hospitals every week, according to the new report by the WRN.

Ms Lonergan told GBNews: “It is very shocking. “These statistics cover the period of lockdown, so whether there was better or worse security in the hospital, who knows? Perhaps it was because so many people were covered in PPE. We don’t know who the victims are and who the perpetrators are, so it’s really hard to find out who’s guilty and to get them charged.

“Something certainly needs to be done urgently. And it certainly shouldn’t be up to private citizens to resolve this. Who has oversight and hospitals in respect of these offences? We need to have much better collating of the information, the police need to hold the information better, not all of the police forces who we asked for information, were able to give us the information that we wanted.

“None of the police forces in Scotland, for instance, or Northern Ireland responded. So, we certainly need better management of the data. But somebody needs to be held accountable. All we’ve seen is a whole lot of handwringing and no accountability.”
She continued: “The volume of sexual assaults and rapes is even more horrific when you consider that this data covers the pandemic when much of the country was in lockdown and hospitals were supposedly even more vigilant.”

The WRN, a network of women whose primary focus is to defend women’s sex-based rights, issued Freedom of Information requests to 43 police forces in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is believed eight forces failed to provide the full data.