Child abuse is far too complex for a single inquiry

By Barbara Ellen
Guardian
August 6, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/06/sex-abuse-inquiry-resign-lowell-goddard

Dame Lowell Goddard. Photo by Dan Kitwood

Since Dame Lowell Goddard became the third person to resign as chair of the independent inquiry into child abuse (IICA), much time and energy has been wasted denigrating her for “bailing”, and sniping about her salary, her lack of grasp of British law and the extended “holidays” at home in New Zealand.

Presumably at some point, it will be revealed exactly what happened. The only thing that matters right now is that her appointment has failed, as did then-home secretary Theresa May’s other appointments, Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss (strong establishment links, including a brother who was lord chancellor during the era being scrutinised), and Dame Fiona Woolf (accused of too close an association with the late Leon Brittan, who was being investigated). What a hot mess, and it’s not the only one.

The IICA was established, post-Savile, to investigate how public bodies and established institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. Now not only is a new chair needed, but so too arguably is a completely fresh approach. The inquiry has been widely criticised for becoming overwhelmingly broad in scope, complex, incoherent, impractical, and expensive. Reading about the IICA in detail is not only to invite a pounding headache, but also to understand why Lowell Goddard resigned, and why there’s not a stampede to take over the job.

A recurring criticism is that the inquiry has become so overblown and complicated as to doom it to eventual failure. It’s a fair point. Then again, what did people expect? This was always going to be a wide-ranging, multi-faceted, decades-spanning historical inquiry, requiring painstaking investigation, involving personal testimonies from multitudes of abuse survivors and third parties. What screams “quick and simple” about any of that?

Part of the problem seems to be this misplaced belief that such a complex nuanced enterprise as this inquiry could ever hope to come to a tidy, fulfilling quasi-Hollywood conclusion within a satisfyingly short timespan. This was never going to happen. Similarly, while abuse survivors may get a bit closer to the truth, this may be all they get, and it has to be enough. While their testimonies are invaluable, and it’s crucial that they are believed, the inquiry has not been set up as a form of holistic personal therapy, even though, for some people, it may help.

In a wider way, this has become not only about those directly affected, but also about the country demanding – to coin the tiresome American term – “closure”. It’s understandable that the grotesque crimes of Jimmy Savile, and the added insult of him escaping justice, make the idea of roughly shaking all the institutional skeletons out of the closet very appealing. However, this inquiry was always too serious to risk being turned into some three-ring circus of showbiz disgraces, salacious headlines and relentless conspiracy theories about “establishment cover-ups”. The latter sometimes sounded feasible and worthy of examination; at other times, they arrived wrapped in the same time-wasting ideological tinfoil that make people rant online about grassy knolls and UFO sightings.

With all this and more to trawl through, is it any wonder that the IICA has struggled and stalled (though progress has been made)? It would appear to go with the territory of doing a hellishly complicated job properly. Certainly it would be an ethical catastrophe if, as some have suggested, the IICA were to end up scrapped. A better idea seems to be a rigorous rethink – to assess whether it should remain as one gargantuan body trying to cover every area, or should splinter into smaller, more practicable units covering separate aspects?

If IICA does remain as one body, there’s the issue of who should be appointed to lead it … and this time stay leading it. Those who were abused, past and present, deserve better than what amounts to a farcical game of political musical chairs.

Sasha, daughter of President Obama, has got herself a summer job in a fish restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The Obamas have said they want their daughters to live as normal lives as possible, so good for Sasha for earning her own “spends”. If, in this instance, the “normal life” thing was slightly compromised by the presence of six secret service agents, then that couldn’t be helped.

As a former teenage waitress, I feel duty-bound to warn Sasha of the inherent perils of the trade. These include bad tippers, non-tippers, people who click their fingers at you when they want attention, people who do that cheesy writing on the palm mime when requiring the bill, people who think the term “waitress” means “medieval serf completely at my mercy”, groups of teenage boys who order one can of soft drink with five straws and stay there all day, parents of “adorable”, “excited” toddlers who were secretly sired by Satan.

I could go on, but I think I’ve been depressing enough. On the plus side, all human life will be there. After a few shifts, Sasha may feel that she’s experienced all the “normality” she’s ever going to need.

Pity David Cameron. He was trying to relax on a beach holiday in Corsica with his wife and children, when the paparazzi took a series of unflattering shots showing the former prime minister to be committing the cardinal sin of not being in the best physical shape of his life at the age of 49. Extremely unkind, judgmental descriptions were bandied about: “flabby”, “out of condition”, “torso like the White Cliffs of Dover made flesh” – oops, sorry, my mistake, that last one was shouted at me when a gust of wind blew my blouse up during my last beach holiday.

The critiques of Cameron were so vindictive that the impossible happened – even Daily Mail readers started to feel sorry for him, and were moved to stick up for his “dad bod”.

I would join them in defending Cameron except for the little matter of Brexit, which I’m still a tad sore about (It’s nice that someone has enough wedge to cavort about in Corsica, and not have to worry that the crazy Euro exchange rate means that a poxy bowl of olives will soon cost approximately £750).

Besides, Cameron is only getting a little taste of what female politicians have to go through all the time.

It’s the lot in life of female politicos to have their appearance criticised and insulted, and that’s just when they’re working, and they’ve got all their clothes on.

I imagine that very few female politicians would dare to frolic in swimwear in the waves on holiday – to do so would be to invite relentless chastisement at spectacularly failing to be Gigi Hadid.

Compared to that ongoing parliamentary chauvinistic comedy of bad manners, Cameron being mocked for paddling in his trunks seems to be rather small beer.