Samaritans volunteers met vulnerable clients for sex after phone consultations

The Samaritans have introduced new safeguarding measures after volunteers met vulnerable callers for sex.

The charity, which offers a helpline to people in distress, will reportedly monitor calls in future to prevent inappropriate relationships.

The Telegraph newspaper highlighted incidents of middle-aged men using their position to meet up with female callers for sex.

The charity said it did not dispute that a “very small number of safeguarding incidents” had taken place.

Samaritans chief executive Julie Bentley said the “extremely rare” incidents had been identified and that swift and appropriate action had been taken.

According to the Telegraph, a memo to volunteers said 44 serious incidents had occurred since 2017.

Samaritans chief executive Julie Bentley said that these incidents were rare but a memo to volunteers indicated 44 such incidents had occured in the last 4 years:

“Running any national service on this scale means that, on extremely rare occasions, high standards are not always met and from the millions of calls answered, a very small number of safeguarding incidents were identified.

Our robust investigation procedures meant these incidents were handled swiftly and appropriate action taken.

Any safeguarding matter is one too many and as such we review our practices on an ongoing basis and have introduced further measures as part of our commitment to delivering a consistently high-quality experience for our callers.”