Counsel to Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry Believed to Be Close to Resigning

By Ben Quinn
The Guardian
September 27, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/28/reports-counsel-ben-emmerson-could-quit-child-sex-inquiry-raise-fresh-doubts

Ben Emmerson QC, counsel to the independent panel inquiry into child sexual abuse. Photograph: PA

Fresh doubts about the future of the beleaguered independent inquiry into child sexual abuse have arisen amid concerns that its most senior lawyer is about to quit.

Ben Emmeron QC, who is counsel to the inquiry, is believed to be preparing to resign against the backdrop of differences with the body’s chair, Alexis Jay, who took up her position following the resignation of Dame Lowell Goddard last month.

The question marks over Emmeron’s continued involvement could not have come at a worse time for the inquiry, which was plunged into uncertainty following the resignation of Goddard, a New Zealand judge, who was the third person to have been named as inquiry chair.

Jay, a child protection expert with more than 30 years’ experience, led the official inquiry into the Rotherham scandal, which found that at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town between 1997 and 2013.

A spokesperson for the inquiry said on Tuesday that Emmerson, a founding member of Matrix Chambers and a specialist in international and domestic human rights, had not resigned. However, they declined to comment on whether there was a disagreement between the chair and the inquiry’s counsel.

Asked by the Guardian about suggestions he had written to his legal team to inform them that he was considering his position, Emmerson told the Guardian: “I am not in a position to comment at the moment.”

Emmerson is believed to favour a restructuring to reduce the inquiry’s workload while Jay, Amber Rudd, the home secretary, and No 10 want it to keep to its original terms of reference, according to a report in the Times.

The appointment of Jay, who has been a member of the inquiry panel from its start in July 2014, was welcomed by some survivor groups. However, other survivors have been critical, with one core participant stating that they did not want a social worker running the inquiry.

Announcing her resignation at the beginning of August, Goddard said the inquiry was beset with a “legacy of failure”

Victims’ representatives and experts subsequently called on the government to reconsider the scope and remit of the inquiry, which was announced in July 2014 to examine claims of abuse made against public and private institutions in England and Wales. It has yet to hold an evidence session.

Goddard quit 24 hours after being criticised in reports for taking three months’ holiday since being appointed in April 2015, although her statement suggested there were deeper reasons for resigning, which date back to the inquiry’s inception and its troubled beginnings.

Its first chair, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, stood down in July 2014 amid questions over the role played by her late brother, Michael Havers, who was attorney general in the 1980s. Her successor, Woolf, resigned following criticism over her “establishment links”.

Theresa May, who was then home secretary, redrew the inquiry under Goddard in March 2015, responding to demands from victims’ groups that it be placed on a statutory footing, which meant it had the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.