This paper highlights important considerations for Research Ethics Committees on the importance of preserving confidentiality of disclosures by adults of non-recent abuse.

Researchers in the UK have no legal or ethical duty to report disclosures of previously unreported non-recent CSA by their participants.

This paper recommends that reports should not generally be made without the consent of the research participant because removing control over disclosure is likely to be particularly damaging in this context.

Researchers should only consider reporting these disclosures if they have reason to believe the reported perpetrator of the abuse has access to, and therefore may pose a current risk to, vulnerable persons (especially children under the age of 18).”

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