UNITED KINGDOM
The Times
Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
November 2 2016
The Times
The public inquiry into child abuse in major institutions could drop its investigations into the BBC and the Jimmy Savile case under a review of its workload. The Independent Investigation into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has begun 13 investigations but said in a progress report yesterday that it will “commission new investigations only if we consider they are necessary”.
The inquiry, now chaired by Alexis Jay, had said that it would undertake 25 investigations under its remit to examine institutional child abuse in England and Wales. Those it has committed to carrying out include the cases of Lord Janner, the Catholic and Anglican churches, abuse of children sent overseas and Cyril Smith, MP, and his involvement with children’s homes in Rochdale.
In its opening statement in July 2015 the inquiry said it would also hold investigations into the media, the NHS, the armed forces, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. None of those investigations has been formally commissioned and, with the inquiry yet to hear a word of evidence in public, it is unclear if they will ever start.
Abandoning proposals to look at the BBC and abusers such as Savile and Stuart Hall would be a major blow to victims. The Savile case is seen as pivotal in exposing the extent of child sex abuse in Britain and helped to create the momentum that led Theresa May to establish the public inquiry in 2014. Professor Jay, its fourth chairwoman, could drop the BBC strand without breaching her terms of reference, which make no mention of the organisation. She is holding an internal review of the inquiry’s workload with a view to speeding up its work. Professor Jay has said that if it adopted the traditional public inquiry format for all the institutions that it is meant to investigate then the inquiry would never finish.
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