The Loudoun Trust was launched at a meeting in the House of Lords in November 2012. This followed several years of consideration by a group of professionals who either worked with child sex abusers or were interested in promoting greater understanding of the problems of the sexual abuse of children.

From the hundred or so of those attending, a group of a dozen was selected to act as Trustees. Funding was provided by Richard Astor, the son of David Astor who had originally suggested such a body prior to his death in 2001. The Trust continues to honour David Astor for his initiative in suggesting that the Trust be formed and his son Richard who continued the work of his father.

The Trustees attach considerable importance to the independent nature of the Trust. It is answerable to no-one, but only to the truth. All the trustees have professional attachments with bodies which have their own policies. Publications and opinions by Loudoun Trust members are independent of such bodies and should not be seen as in any way associated with any other professional or charitable organisation. The Trust functions on a voluntary basis and relies for funding on voluntary contributions.

Specifically, the objects clause in the register of charities states that the trust is set up “To advance education for public benefit about paedo-sexual offending (sexual crimes against children)”

Although the objective of the Trust is to provide reliable educative material so that professionals and the public at large may better understand the root causes of child sex abuse, the creation of the Trust coincided with the publication of the details of the Jimmy Savile affair. This inevitably led general discussion in Parliament and the Press to consider child sex abuse in the past, whilst the Trust’s desire is to consider the future. For this reason, the Trust is taking little part in the current inquiries, except in so far as the Trust is of the opinion that the pressures upon those inquiries may be causing them to deal with specific criminal cases without fully exploring the causes of sex crimes against children. The Trust believes that it may help in that area of any inquiry.

The Trust has recently launched a series of conversations with leading figures in the various professionals involved in child sex abuse, with the intention of launching a series of symposiums among such figures on the general topic of “Child Sex abuse - the next five years.”

A debate in 2014, organised and led by the Trust, on the topic of mandatory reporting of child sex abuse allegations, highlighted the problems behind the amendment on that topic which was then before the House of Lords in the Crime Bill. This amendment was subsequently dropped and will no doubt be returned to the House in some future bill.