Bernard Gallagher

I have worked as a researcher, specialising in child protection, since 1987. I have directed child protection research projects since 1992. From that time, I have carried out major projects into organised child sexual abuse (CSA), the physical and sexual abuse of children by strangers, the attrition of cases of child abuse and neglect in the criminal justice system, and international and internet CSA. I have also carried out research into looked after children. I have had research grants from the Charity Commission, the Department of Health, the Economic and Social Research Council (3), the Home Office, New Horizons (Child Care) Ltd., the NSPCC and The Nuffield Foundation.

Prior to this, I worked with Jane Gibbons on a Department of Health funded follow-up study of physically abused children (1988-1992), David Farrington and Donald West on the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (1984-87), and Sue Creighton in the NSPCC Research Unit (1987-88) Before becoming a researcher, I worked as a residential social worker, for almost four years, in a variety of children’s homes in London.