Chair of Scottish Abuse Inquiry Quits over "Government Interference"

By Libby Brooks
The Guardian
July 4, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/04/chair-of-scottish-abuse-inquiry-quits-over-government-interference

Susan O’Brien said her position had been ‘actively undermined’. Photograph: Scottish government

The chair of the Scottish government’s inquiry into historical child abuse, Susan O’Brien QC, has resigned, stating that her position has been “actively undermined” by officials in recent months.

Scotland’s deputy first minister, John Swinney, announced on Monday afternoon that he had accepted O’Brien’s resignation after initiating the formal procedure to remove her from her post.

Swinney said he had done so following an incident in which O’Brien had “revealed views that were interpreted by an expert in child abuse trauma who witnessed them to indicate a belief system that is incompatible with the post of chair of such an inquiry” and to be “offensive to survivors”.

O’Brien did not dispute that she had made the comments, but insisted they had been taken out of context and said she would “never underestimate the gravity of child abuse”.

Swinney said O’Brien’s comments, made during a private training session for inquiry team members, had raised serious concerns and “lacked any context in which they could be seen as acceptable”.

He added: “Given the severity of those concerns, I felt I had a duty to initiate statutory proceedings which could have led to the removal of the chair from post. Ms O’Brien’s resignation clearly now means that process has not been concluded and frees me to now share the facts of the case with parliament.”

Publishing both the correspondence relating to the original complaints and O’Brien’s resignation letter on the Scottish government website, Swinney added: “I am happy for a committee of parliament to consider this matter and any claims made by the chair.”

The published correspondence reveals that at the end of one training session O’Brien referred to a survivor of child sex abuse who had described it as “the best thing that had ever happened” to them in a manner that potentially breached confidentiality.

Claire Fyvie, a child abuse expert, said: “Even if this was an attempt to lighten the mood, I believe it was a wholly inappropriate attempt, and for the remark to be made by the chair of a public inquiry into child abuse in my view demonstrates a shocking level of misjudgement.”

O’Brien said she had “accurately reported, without endorsing, what a survivor had said to me about their attitude to their own abuse”.

Fyvie also wrote that during a separate discussion O’Brien queried the evidence presented at the trial of a teacher found guilty of sexual offences, and “suggested that the teacher in question had simply had a hole in his trousers”.

O’Brien responded that the complaint had arisen from “a misunderstanding of what I knew about the case at the time, and my purpose in referring to it when discussing the reports with legal colleagues who had been prosecutors.”

Fyvie also alleged that the chair was making decisions regarding the inquiry’s strategies and processes “unilaterally … with no regard to the advice of professional colleagues or external consultants” – a charge that O’Brien and other panel members have denied.

In her resignation letter to Swinney, O’Brien said she was stepping down with great regret because she could no longer reassure the public “that this inquiry will be conducted independently of government”.

She wrote: “My trust that the Scottish government will actually respect the independence of the inquiry has gone. You have therefore left me with no alternative but to resign. I do so with a heavy heart, as I am clear that there is a real need for this inquiry to take place.”

She referred to the resignation last week of another member of the panel, Prof Michael Lamb, who characterised the inquiry as “doomed” by government interference.

O’Brien wrote: “I agree with him. Scottish government officials have sought to micro-manage and control the inquiry, and I have resisted this. What Professor Lamb did not say, but he knew, is that my position as the independent chair of this inquiry has been actively undermined by some Scottish government officials over the past months.”

Swinney said the Scottish government “absolutely rejects any charges of interference in the independence of the inquiry”, and said he would ensure that O’Brien’s departure “has as little impact as possible on the progress of the work needed”.

The inquiry, which is expected to last for four years, is tasked with investigating the abuse of children in care, and does not extend to abuse outside residential institutions such as in parishes and youth organisations. It has already been dogged by criticism from survivors who wanted the remit to be widened.