London, Dec 1 (IANS) Tens of thousands of vulnerable individuals in Britain are suffering physical and mental abuse by the very people expected to take special care of them.
The number of reported cases of abuse against vulnerable adults, usually at the hands of carers or family, has risen by 23 percent or 21,000 in a year since 2010-11, the Daily Express reported.
There were a total of 130,000 cases of abuse reported to 121 councils in the same period, according to data from councils in England.
Councils received 31,000 allegations about social care workers and 24,000 about family members carrying out abuse, most often physical attacks, followed by neglect, then financial abuse, according to provisional figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
Almost half concerned disabled people, 60 percent involved those aged 65 and over and a similar proportion were women.
