British Home Secretary Theresa May said that the problem of child sexual abuse problem in the United Kingdom is much greater than it is commonly known.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The extent of child sexual abuse problem in the United Kingdom is much greater than it is commonly thought, British Home Secretary Theresa May said Saturday, two days after she launched a major inquiry into the handling of such cases.

“During one of my first meetings with survivors, one lady said to me: ‘Get this inquiry right and it will be like a stick of Blackpool rock. You will see abuse going through every level of society.’ I fear she is right. I have said before and I shall say again, that what we have seen so far is only the tip of iceberg,” Theresa May wrote in her article for The Telegraph.

On Thursday, May made an announcement on establishing the Independent Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry to compel witnesses to determine whether British institutions have done their best to protect children from sexual abuse.

May said that the need for a probe was clear because of reports on systematic abuse of girls in Derby, Oxford and other towns around the United Kingdom, as well as on an alleged Westminster pedophile ring.

According to the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, one out of 20 children in the United Kingdom have been sexually abused. The most recent available statistics for the years 2012-2013 show that around 23,000 cases of sexual abuse had been registered. The figures, however, exclude huge number of unreported cases.