Child Abuse Victims Snub Theresa May's "Unfit" Investigation into Sex Exploitation

By Jack Blanchard
Mirror
December 4, 2014

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-abuse-victims-snub-theresa-4751017

Under-fire: Home Secretary Theresa May

Child abuse victims launched a devastating attack on Theresa May and withdrew all support for her stalled probe into sex exploitation.

In a scathing letter, a group of 24 victims and professionals attacked the Home Secretary’s choice of panel members and a decision not to ­investigate cases before 1970.

They branded the investigation “not fit for purpose” and wrote: “The Home Office seems to be running the inquiry to meet others’ needs rather than those of survivors and the public.”

The probe, beset by disaster since it was announced in July, appears on the brink of collapse.

Quit: Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss

Dame Butler-Sloss, the Home ­Secretary’s first choice of chairman, was forced to quit within days over links to establishment figures.

Mrs May then appointed Lord Mayor of London Fiona Woolf but she too had to resign over “establishment links”, particularly with former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, who is expected to give evidence.

In their letter the survivors said similar issues with other panel members have not been addressed.

They added: “We were hoping to take up the invitations to engage with your officers to discuss the child sex abuse inquiry but regret to say we have to decline.

"Its terms of reference are ­inadequate for delivering the declared intentions, namely to investigate government and establishment cover-ups of paedophiles in their ranks and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Quit: Fiona Woolf

“Both your appointees to head the inquiry have had to be forced out because of obvious conflicts of interest and you have failed to address similar issues regarding other appointees.”

The 24 said they had little option but to end engagement with the inquiry until Mrs May scrapped the current panel and replaced it “on a transparent basis”, declared a statutory inquiry, and extended the cut-off to 1945.

Mrs May said she will meet survivors, and insisted the “once-in-a-lifetime” probe will continue.

She said: “I am aware of the letter. I have been speaking to various groups of survivors and representatives of those groups and listening to the issues they have raised.

The Home Office said the meetings will go ahead as planned.