About David Greenwood
David Greenwood - Child Abuse Lawyer
The Child Abuse compensation department at Switalskis solicitors, headed by David Greenwood, multi award winning Child Abuse Lawyer has pursued thouands of cases of child abuse, enabling survivors of child neglect and abuse to achieve justice.
The department has been instrumental in exposing failures by both the Local Authority (Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council) and South Yorkshire Police in the Rotherham area regarding Child Sexual Exploitation.
These cases have been in the spotlight nationally and internationally following the publication of a report by Prof Jay into failings by the Local Authority which were made public on the 19th August 2014, and since then have continued to grab the headlines.
Switalskis involvement in this case started because of links that David Greenwood had with social workers at Rotherham council who had expressed to him their concerns regarding the inaction of the Local Authority in circumstances where young girls were known to be having inappropriate relationships with adult men. These social workers relayed their concerns to David Greenwood, and he and his team began to investigate further. These investigations involved taking extremely sensitive statements from vulnerable clients and gathering additional evidence, particularly around who knew what and when about this street sexual exploitation.
Whilst working with vulnerable clients is something that David and his team at Switalskis are used to doing, compensation claims for Child Sexual Exploitation is cutting edge work. Since the abuse in Rotherham came to light David Greenwood and his team have been working to help the innocent victims of CSE in the Rotherham area. This has included accompanying them to meetings with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), helping them make and maintain relationships with Independent Sexual Violence Advocates (ISVA’s) alongside assisting them with their claims against both the Local Authority and South Yorkshire Police. After several years of pursuing these cases and after numerous successful criminal trials and convictions, 2017 has seen several of the initial cases settle for significant sums of money. Switalskis are hopefully that this marks the start of a shift in attitude by the Defendants to these claims, and that many more deserving victims of Rotherham CSE will receive compensation in due course.
The settling of these cases demonstrates a significant achievement in this relatively new area especially in relation to the claims against South Yorkshire Police. The willingness of Switalskis to undertake to pursue such work in the face of adversity and reluctance from the Defendants, shows the dedication and commitment that we have to survivors of CSE. Whilst is has been possible for some cases to be funded by way of legal aid, other cases have been funded under a deferred fee agreement, where the client has not had to pay up front for legal work. This has enabled those that aren’t eligible for legal aid to still pursue their claim.
The Child Abuse department at Switalskis solicitors is unique. We provide access to justice for survivors of abuse, and for many this is especially important because they may have been let down by the criminal justice system.
Based in Yorkshire and working Nationally, we are a dedicated team of professionals and are committed to helping our clients through a very difficult and painful part of their lives. We have established and maintained our national reputation for the excellent work that we do. We are also committed to campaigns and to developing influential national links with other organisations to promote the rights of survivors of child abuse.
The department is headed up by David Greenwood, who has been dedicated to representing victims of childhood abuse since 1992. David Greenwood leads a team of 16, which includes solicitors, para legals and associated support staff. Alongside these key individuals, the team also work closely with Counsel and medical professionals (psychologist and psychiatrists) in order to achieve success for hundreds of victims of childhood abuse. It is dedication, hard work and commitment that have enabled this team to progress to their current position where they are nationally recognised and respected in this fast moving area of law, often in the face of resistance from Defendants and their insurers. Their reputation for dedication and professionalism has spread throughout the Country and the team now commands a national reputation for the litigation that they undertake on behalf of vulnerable clients.
As a department the team has worked on several high profile cases that have gone to the House of Lords (Lister and others v Hesley Hall Limited [2001] UKHL.22 – vicarious liability, the A v Hoare, C v Middlesbrough, X v Wandsworth, H v Suffolk, Young v Catholic Care [2008] UKHL.6 – re limitation) and also the Supreme Court (Various v Institute of Christian Brothers [2012] UKSC56) which extended the boundaries of vicarious liability.
The team at Switalskis is one of only two large scale providers to the Legal Aid Agency in this area of work in the Country. Aside from this, the team also undertake a huge amount of pro bono work for hundreds of claimants every year.
David pushes at the boundaries of the law to improve redress and justice for survivors. He has made detailed recommendations to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and will be pressing the Government to implement his dreams of Mandatory Reporting and an Independent Redress scheme for survivors of abuse.
This team are clearly highly respected experts in this fields and their dedication in this niche area is proven.
David is author of books including Responding Badly and Basically Innocent (listed on Amazon) with proceeds to a survivors support charity.
For further examples of his work please see:
http://www.channel4.com/news/hundreds-of-child-sex-offenders-identified-in-rotherham
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-08-28/rotherham-victims-not-concerned-with-who-resigns/
http://www.channel4.com/news/rotherham-victims-to-sue-council-lawyer-speaks-video
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04hcg6z/panorama-stolen-childhoods-the-grooming-scandal
Channel 4: ‘I’m not impressed with police’
Sheffield Star: Rotherham child abuse victims take legal action against police and council
Telegraph: Rotherham sex abuse scandal: Victims seeking millions in compensation
Daily Mail: Child victims of Rotherham sex abuse scandal could be in line for compensation totalling £140m says solicitor representing them
Daily Mirror: Rotherham child sex scandal resulted in 100 babies as abuse victim reveals she fell pregnant twice
The Sun: Cops to reopen at least 1,000 old Rotherham sex abuse files
Telegraph: Rotherham: Paedophile, 26, jailed for raping 13-year-old girl is back on the streets
Daily Mail: Rotherham paedophile Mohsin Khan back on the streets after less than 4 years in jail
Guardian: Rotherham abuse scandal: Theresa May calls for crime commissioner to resign
ITV: Rotherham victims ‘not concerned with who resigns’.