Guernsey’s Housing minister and some of his States colleagues will today meet the Law Officers to discuss what is claimed to be a lack of prosecutions for child abuse, particularly sexual.

The anecdotal evidence of that seems significant. In recent weeks we have published some alarming accounts of abuse as recounted by the victims themselves. The sense of injustice, outrage and hurt that the perpetrator has got away with their crimes is evident.

It is also clear that the police are diligent in investigating all such reports and the victims themselves are generally satisfied with the way officers have pieced together their case.

However, it is what happens next that causes concern: the gap between the number of police investigations and any subsequent court appearance.

Whether that is actual or perceived is something the deputies will hope to clarify but it exists in the mind of those who told their stories to the Housing minister and to this newspaper.

The prosecution service is, rightly, independent and operates under an objective Code for Crown Prosecutors which is, in part, designed to ensure that victims are treated fairly and that there is consistency of impartial prosecutions.

What the Housing minister will question is whether there is a reluctance for Guernsey’s service to prosecute and he will no doubt be told that Guernsey’s director of prosecutions proceeds when a case passes the necessary evidential tests.

For a lay person, however, this is an issue of where to draw the line. The code sets the threshold for prosecution as more likely than not that a conviction will result but that prosecutors must act in the interests of justice and not solely to gain a conviction.

One of the difficulties here is that the figures are not available to show the ratio of successful and unsuccessful cases, unlike the UK, so there is no way of assessing where that line is drawn locally.

Again, unlike the UK, there is no independent assessment by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate of how Guernsey operates.

Given today’s questions by a group of politicians, that looks like an opportunity missed to reassure islanders about the quality of their own service.