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Police investigating allegations of child abuse should tape interviews with people who claim they have been victims, a report by the home affairs select committee has recommended, writes Sally Gillen.

The report, based on an inquiry conducted over the summer into historic abuse in children’s homes, calls for the introduction of a number of safeguards designed to minimise the risk of wrongful convictions.

It highlights "deep concerns" over the interview techniques and "trawling" methods used by the police in such investigations, which it says has led to a "new genre of miscarriages of justice that has arisen from the over-enthusiastic pursuit of these allegations".

In the last five years 34 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have been involved in investigations of historical child abuse in children’s homes and other institutions. But between 1997 and 2000 the Crown Prosecution Service rejected 79 per cent of cases of institutional abuse referred by the police.

Committee chairperson Chris Mullin MP said: "I am in no doubt that a number of innocent people, who have not been convicted, have had their lives ruined."

But the committee has rejected a ban on trawling, instead recommending that guidelines on how to conduct investigations and how to contact potential victims are revised.