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Child abuse inquiry to begin taking victims' testimony in private hearings
By Sandra Laville
An ambitious project to take testimony from thousands of victims of child abuse across the country will begin within days as part of an independent inquiry into institutionalised abuse. The Truth project, set up by the Goddard inquiry into child abuse, will begin pilot hearings in Liverpool next Tuesday, where it will take evidence in private from victims in the north-west and north Wales. The commission said regional offices elsewhere in the country would be set up afterwards to take testimony from other victims. It is hoped that the project – which is similar to one undertaken by the Australian Royal Commission – will provide a broader picture of the scale and nature of institutional child abuse. Anonymised accounts of the hearings will be published when the inquiry reports. Justice Lowell Goddard, the chair of the inquiry, travelled to Liverpool on Wednesday to open the Truth project. She met staff from Merseyside Rape and Sexual Abuse support centre (Rasa) and Stepping Stones, based in north Wales, which support victims of child sexual abuse and will be providing support and advocacy for victims at the hearings. “The Truth project will enable victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to contribute to the work of the inquiry,” Goddard said. “It will help us gain a better understanding of the patterns of abuse, and will assist in explaining why many crimes went unreported and undetected for so long, often leaving other children at risk of abuse in later years.” She said the launch of the Liverpool hearings next week marked the first time the inquiry was opening its doors to victims and survivors to give their experiences of abuse over many decades. “I have no doubt how informative and how important these sessions will be in enabling us to shape the full Truth project, which we aim to have fully up and running in the new year,” she said. “I am grateful to all of those who have come forward so far offering to share their experience with us; your input is of huge importance to the inquiry. For those who have not yet come forward, I urge you to do so whatever your city, town or village, regardless of how big or how small. If you have suffered because any organisation within England or Wales has failed in its duty to protect you as a child from sexual abuse, we want to hear from you.” The inquiry was criticised by some victims after it revealed that it had permanently deleted submissions made via the “share your experience” section of its website due to a technical problem on the site. But the inquiry team hopes that the beginning of the truth hearings will show that the inquiry is committed to taking its work out of its London base to hear testimony from thousands of people across the country. The inquiry has promised to set up five more regional offices as part of the Truth project following on from the Liverpool pilot. Joy Dyment, director of Stepping Stones in north Wales, said: “We know from our work over many years how much support victims and survivors need in order to share their experiences and bring perpetrators to justice. The victims and survivors we work with tell us how important it is to be able to tell someone what has happened to them and to be believed. The Truth project element of the independent inquiry will hopefully give that opportunity to many more people who have, until now, been living silently under the shadow of child sexual abuse.” Jo Wood, of Rasa, said: “It’s a really important part of the independent inquiry that victims and survivors of child sexual abuse have the opportunity to share their experiences, but equally important that they get given access to the appropriate support before during and afterwards. We look forward to working with the inquiry … to make sure the sharing of experience happens in as sensitive and supportive way as possible.”
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