内容摘要：: “Well, I haven’t talked to [Kennedy] about it yet, but it sounds OK to me. You know, it’s possible.”

: “Well, I haven’t talked to [Kennedy] about it yet, but it sounds OK to me. You know, it’s possible.”

Joanna Nicolas, an independent social worker, has her own take on this. She has spent more than 30 years in child protection and adult safeguarding, and believes that people’s readiness to forgive or explain away what happened is one of the main reasons that abuse “gets swept under the carpet”.Over the years she has worked with schools, churches, financial organisations, Parliament, as well as theatres, including the Old Vic. She is also called in to assess people in positions of trust in schools and churches when an allegation of historic abuse - whether sexual or emotional - has been made, including cases where there hasn’t been enough evidence to lead to police charges.

“People will often say to me ‘he is such a good egg’ and they will want to give me character references,” she explains.Part of her role is to weigh up whether or not the person accused is safe to continue in their role.“You have to be black-and-white about child abuse,” she continues. “I say to the alleged perpetrator, ‘It doesn’t matter if you have done 50 brilliant things, if you have abused a child’.

“You always go in with an open mind,” she adds. “And in emotional abuse cases, sometimes a teacher, for instance, is not aware of the power they have.”Understanding and unpicking power structures is key to combatting sexual abuse and the secrecy that allows it to thrive, argues Tom Squire. “That means swimming against that power dynamic.”

If concerns aren’t acted on with "diligence and robustness,” that could, in his view, "potentially be interpreted by abusers as a bit of a green light”.

Overall, he believes that child protection has improved over the years but there is no room for complacency. “We need to open our eyes and our ears to what children and young people are telling us and to be curious.”Attacking the Tories and Plaid Cymru, Drakeford told the Senedd: "There is no other budget that can be endorsed here this afternoon."

He said voting against it was a "vote against" extra treatments in the NHS, the employment of teachers, extra child care places and other policies.Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth intervened and accused Drakeford of a "spurious argument".

"Whilst we can agree with elements of the budget, of course we can – this is a flawed Labour budget."Drakeford responded: "If you were to succeed everything I have outlined this afternoon would be lost."