Scotland Yard defended its use of the word “victim” to describe accusers

Parliament must act to stop police automatically believing that people who make allegations of sexual abuse are “victims”, a retired high court judge said yesterday.

Sir Richard Henriques produced a critical report on the failures of a Metropolitan Police investigation into a fantasist’s allegations of a VIP paedophile ring.

Scotland Yard is refusing to accept his recommendation that police and the legal system should refer to people who make allegations as “complainants” rather than “victims”, a report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary says.

Sir Richard told The Times that it was a “major issue” to describe someone as a victim before allegations had been proven as it was “linguistically inaccurate and unfair to defendants”.

“For those who are falsely accused of sexual offences it’s