UNITED KINGDOM
The Times
David Aaronovitch
The child abuse inquiry and the Grenfell investigation are undermined by remarks from those who should know better
Dark Forces eh? True, Professor Alexis Jay, head of the infinite Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, did not actually use this phrase. But, deployed in the headline above an interview she gave at the weekend, it conveyed her meaning. Dark Forces wanted her to fail.
Professor Jay actually told her questioner that “strong vested interests would like to see this inquiry implode”. And she continued: “There are institutions which would prefer to see us fail, because we are such a threat.”
I’d say “dark forces” covers that. Especially since Professor Jay did not offer any suggestion as to who or what these vested interests were, or indeed cite any evidence she had for the claim that they wanted her to fail. I did call the inquiry press office for some elaboration and was told politely that, “We’re not going beyond the interview but thanks for getting in touch”.
Professor Jay will be able to get in contact and put me straight if she does have answers. At the same time she could deal with my contention that, deliberately or not, she created the impression that these dark forces may have tried to undermine the inquiry. In other words that “they” had helped to contrive accusations of sexual misconduct on the part of one of the lawyers associated with the inquiry as a way of killing off the whole thing. (By the way, both the lawyer and Professor Jay herself have been exonerated recently in separate inquiries.)
This return to the language of conspiracism was unfortunate. Because, among all the genuine revelations of historical institutional child abuse (most child abuse, lest we forget, is not institutional), there have been a number of elaborate conspiracy theories about “VIP” abuse and its supposed cover-up. From the Geoffrey Dickens “dossier” to the accusations of murder by the fantasist “Nick” against Harvey Proctor, Lord Brittan, Lord Bramall and Sir Edward Heath, these cases have wasted time, diverted attention and blighted the lives of the innocent.
These phenomena have caused collateral damage to the inquiry. But its underlying problem is nothing to do with vested interests, dark forces or powerful individuals. It is that its scope is far too great and stretches from offering a therapeutic function for victims to discovering the truth; its expense — it employs 200 staff — is huge; the opportunity cost in terms of official time is vast; and its value to present and future sufferers of child abuse is likely to be negligible. Indeed, in her weekend interview Professor Jay more or less suggested that she already knew what the patterns of historical institutional child abuse had been.
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