That is an issue that we come across regularly. We have a national helpline and every day we speak to older people or family members who have been affected by elder abuse. The vast majority of people who call our helpline are family members—only a very small proportion of callers to the helpline are the older people themselves. Without speaking to older people directly, it is difficult to know why that is the case, but we can perhaps safely assume that it is because they find it difficult to report their loved ones.
Our definition of elder abuse makes a clear distinction between situations in which there is an expectation of trust but that trust has been abused and opportunistic crime. Our definition focuses on situations in which there is an abuse of trust, which is why we specifically deal with family members, friends, carers and health professionals. We would not include doorstep crime or bogus tradesmen and other scams. It is very difficult for older people to speak up about the type of crime that we deal with.
I mentioned that family members are most likely to be the perpetrators of such crime. The most recent prevalence study found that 66 per cent of perpetrators were family members, which broke down to a fairly even split between partners and spouses on the one hand and other family members on the other. In our experience, it tends to be grown-up sons, followed by grown-up daughters, who are the most common perpetrators after spouses or partners.
Sometimes older people will call the helpline to discuss their concerns about their grown-up children or other family members. Occasionally, I take helpline calls, and some of the people I have spoken to have told me that they are in a quandary: they are embarrassed and feel guilty that their own children could do that to them, yet at the same time the perpetrator is still their child and they do not want to report them.
The type of abuse most commonly reported to us is financial abuse. That is fairly consistent across various local authorities. We often hear of abuse of trust over things such as power of attorney. We find that there are two types of people who abuse power of attorney. First, there are people who know that it is wrong and who use the power as a means to steal from an older relative. Secondly, there are people who do not realise that they are misusing the power. There are many misconceptions about what power of attorney is and what it can and cannot be used for. Some people who have power of attorney for financial issues believe that it gives them the power to spend that money however they like.
Sometimes we get callers to the helpline who will say things like, “But it’s my mum. She would want me to have this money,” or “She wouldn’t mind because it would be coming to me anyway,” or that their mum would want them to spend it on such and such. We tell them that it is not their money and ask whether they have asked their mum or dad whether they want it to be spent in that way. Many people genuinely do not realise that they are doing the wrong thing. For the people that that is happening to, it is very difficult to report.
We have heard of older people who are struggling financially and going into debt because they do not want to stop giving money to their children. It is a very difficult issue. We give them all the support and encouragement that we can, but if the older person does not want to report it, there is nothing that we can do about it. It is that person’s right not to report it. That is why we need to be more creative in how we encourage them to seek support elsewhere.
I mentioned that many older people are very lonely. They might choose to put up with the situation if think that if they do not give their son that money, their son will not visit, they will not see the grandchildren, their son will not drive them out and about and so on. That is why we need to think about what other support we can signpost that older person to so that they are not completely reliant on their abuser to meet their social or care needs. We need to think about it from that point of view, too.
It is not always about criminalisation. At the same time, we think a lot more needs to be done to criminalise such behaviour so that there is a real deterrent and so that children and other family members think twice if they are considering it.