"ELDER ABUSE - A ONGOING SCANDAL WE ALL NEED TO ADDRESS" - LYNNE

2.35.50pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 18th Jun 2007

Liz Lynne, Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands and Co-Chair of the Parliament's Intergroup on Ageing, has welcomed a new report which exposes the extent of elder abuse in the United Kingdom.

On the eve of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, the two-year Comic Relief and UK government-funded report, carried out by King's College London and the National Centre for Social Research will be formally launched today in London. It concludes that in 80% of cases the abuser is known to the victim. Earlier research had already revealed a suspected half a million people in the UK suffer abuse or neglect.

Speaking today from Brussels, Liz said:

"The results of this report are horrifying but unfortunately no great surprise to anyone involved in care for elderly people."

"I am encouraged by the government's announcement of new guidelines in the future but we cannot escape the fact that compared to attitudes towards child abuse, the UK is decades behind in attention to elder abuse."

"More needs to be done urgently to end physical, financial, emotional and other forms of abuse regularly suffered by elderly people. As Co-Chair of the European Parliament' Ageing Intergroup, I shall continue to raise such issues at EU level until a better level of protection is attained."