UNITED KINGDOM
New Statesman
When is is a crisis not a crisis? After the departure of seven senior lawyers, three chairs, several survivors’ groups, £15m of public money, two years and little progress to show for it, Theresa May and her Home secretary are increasingly lone voices in their insistence that all is well on the child abuse inquiry that May, as Home secretary, rightly established in the wake of distressing revelations about Jimmy Savile.
It was always a daunting and complex task to shine a spotlight into institutions characterised by secrecy and cover up, where abusers were able to operate in plain sight without challenge or consequence. The inquiry spans decades, covers hundreds of institutions and relies on the accounts of many survivors who have struggled on for years without support. Now they must face the prospect of detailing abuse at the hands of the powerful, to the powerful. How to find a chair with the legal expertise and commitment to command the confidence of survivors, the public and the inquiry staff, a person with vast experience but without personal connections to the accused?
And yet it has been done. In Australia, a Royal Commission has begun to uncover the truth since it was set up in 2013. By contrast, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been dogged by problems since the outset, losing its first two chairs within months because of connections to the accused, before being re-established on a statutory footing. The appointment of its third chair, Dame Lowell Goddard, was so rushed and confused that the Home Affairs Committee took the unusual step of releasing a report criticising May for potentially bringing “the whole process into disrepute”.
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