Child abuse victims’ group wants panel to be replaced with more powerful body

By Andrew Sparrow
Guardian
December 22, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/22/child-abuse-victims-group-panel-replaced

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said one or two people on the panel were inappropriate.

A leading organisation representing child abuse victims has welcomed reports that Theresa May, the home secretary, may scrap the abuse inquiry panel so that it can be replaced with a more powerful body.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that he did not know any abuse survivors who had confidence in the panel as it currently exists.

He was speaking after it emerged that more than 60 victims and their representatives had written to the Home Office supporting the call for the panel to be replaced with a statutory inquiry that has the power to call witnesses.

Having to wind up the panel and start again would be an embarrassment for May, who originally announced the inquiry in the summer. On Monday Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP who has played a leading role in campaigning for an inquiry, said the Home Office was making so many mistakes that he was starting to suspect it wanted to stop the inquiry getting to the truth.

May announced an inquiry panel, based on the body that investigated the Hillsborough disaster, rather than a full statutory inquiry because she believed that giving the inquiry statutory powers would lead to lawyers unduly prolonging its proceedings.

However, the two women chosen by May to chair the panel – Lady Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf – have resigned, and demands for the inquiry to have stronger powers have intensified.

May told MPs last week that she had decided that the inquiry should have the power to compel people to give evidence. According to a letter leaked at the weekend, she told panel members she was looking at three options that would enable this to happen – two of which would involve the panel being wound up.

Saunders told the Today programme he welcomed May’s change of heart.

“Having had three meetings with the home secretary, where she has patiently listened to the concerns of survivors, if indeed the decision has been made or is made to disband the panel as it is currently constituted, then I know that that would be supported by the vast majority of survivors and survivor organisations,” he said. “I work for Napac. We are the biggest child abuse survivors’ charity in the UK and I have yet to encounter any survivors themselves who have any confidence in the process, and in the panel, as it is currently constituted.”

Saunders said that although most members of the current panel were acceptable, there were “one or two characters” on it who had associations with the past that made them inappropriate.

In their letter to May, victims and their representatives said it was essential that a new inquiry had the power to compel people to give evidence.

They said: “Following the mistakes of the last six months, we consider your proposals as an opportunity to place the inquiry on to a firm footing whereby it can focus on dealing with organised and institutional abuse and cover-ups at the highest levels.

“It is important that the inquiry is centred on bringing perpetrators before the courts, holding those that have failed in their professional duty or covered up allegations or been obstructive to account and delivering justice for survivors.”

Danczuk, MP for Rochdale and co-author of a book about the child abuse perpetrated in the town by the late Sir Cyril Smith, said that the whole inquiry process was “in complete disarray” and that he was beginning to doubt whether the government was acting in good faith.

“You can’t help thinking that they aren’t intent on getting this right,” he told the Today programme.

“There’s a catalogue of mistakes that have been made, some of them fairly basic, and you can’t blame the survivors of child abuse for wondering, because of the allegations of high-profile figures involved in the abuse, that some of this is quite deliberate mistakes by people in central government.”

Asked why the government would deliberately mess up the process, he replied: “Well, because they don’t want to get to the truth. That would be the allegation. And you can’t help people for thinking that, you can’t blame people.”

Tim Loughton, a Conservative former children’s minister, told the same programme that May was determined to get to the truth and that Danczuk’s claim was “really unhelpful”.

He also said that although the present panel was not perfect, it should be allowed to get on with its job.

In her letter to members of the panel, May said she was considering replacing it with a statutory inquiry or replacing it with a royal commission. The third option, which would not involve replacing it, would be to wait for the appointment of a chair and allow them to request statutory powers.

In a reply to May obtained by Exaro, the investigative website, Sharon Evans, a panel member from the child safety group Dot Com Children’s Foundation, said: “I, like other members of the panel, feel devastated at the prospect of the independent inquiry being halted as it has been made clear to us off the record that the panel will be stood down in the new year.”

Asked about the correspondence, a Home Office spokesman said: “The home secretary is determined that appalling cases of child sexual abuse should be exposed so that perpetrators face justice and the vulnerable are protected. She is absolutely committed to ensuring the independent panel inquiry into child sexual abuse has the confidence of survivors. The home secretary is also clear that we have to balance the need to make progress with the need to get this right.”