UNITED KINGDOM
Independent
OLIVER WRIGHT Author Biography , PAUL PEACHEY Friday 31 October 2014
Theresa May has been accused of presiding over “appalling incompetence” at the Home Office after the second head of the Government’s historical child sex abuse inquiry was forced to quit over her links with a key figure in the scandal.
Fiona Woolf, the Lord Mayor of London, announced that she was stepping down after she failed to declare that she lived on the same street as Lord Brittan and had attended five dinner parties with the former Conservative cabinet minister.
Lord Brittan was Home Secretary in 1984 when ministers were handed a dossier on alleged high-profile paedophiles. The files have disappeared, leading to allegations of a political cover-up. He was expected to be called to give evidence to the inquiry
Mrs Woolf also admitted allowing the Home Office to help redraft a letter explaining her relationship with Lord Brittan seven times in a way that appeared to distance herself from him.
Ms May is to make a statement to the House of Commons on the scandal next week. She will be questioned about why a Home Office vetting team failed to uncover links between Mrs Woolf and Lord Brittan which were publicly available on the internet.
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