Don’t cancel the child abuse inquiry. No matter how much it’s hurt us survivors

By James Rhodes
Guardian
September 30, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/30/child-sexual-abuse-inquiry-survivors-children-theresa-may

‘As home secretary Theresa May fought for this inquiry … now in an even better political position she needs to do more for all of us.’ Photo by Leon Neal

In early August when I heard that Lowell Goddard had chosen to step down from the child abuse inquiry, I literally started to cry. That she initially resigned without any explanation made it even worse. It was a sharp shock. Survivors of sexual abuse are used to the world opening up underneath their feet and dropping down into nothingness, and that same feeling of upset returned to me from over 30 years ago when I heard the news. The chaos, rumours, resignations and industrial-strength ineptness that have both preceded Goddard and, more disconcertingly, followed her exit – culminating this week in not only the departure of Ben Emmerson QC but also his deputy Elizabeth Prochaska – have left me with just a single question: what the actual fuck is happening here?

The key issue for me, and probably for most of the survivors who this inquiry was designed to give a voice to, is one of trust. Theresa May fought for this inquiry. She fought for us. Back in July 2014 when she announced it as home secretary, you could almost see the eye-rolling going on among certain Tory party members. Yet, to her immense credit, she persevered. And then came the catalogue of mistakes, disasters and obstructions that, to all but the most naive of us, simply scream cover-up.

I don’t like the term “victim”. I prefer “survivor with shrapnel”. And speaking as one of those survivors, let me make it clear that even more debilitating than the physical pain of abuse, is the loneliness: for a child who is suffering sexual abuse, fear, when coupled with exhaustion, leads to indescribable isolation. Family members are often the worst people to speak to (in many cases they are the perpetrators, or they are aware of what is happening and are doing nothing), and there is often no one else to turn to. Even if there is a friendly teacher, the fear of what will happen if you speak out is invariably greater than the courage it takes to do so.

Because that’s what paedophiles do. They terrify, they manipulate, they threaten and they find a thousand different ways to tell their prey to shut up. And so, when a prominent member of government commits to something as big and far-reaching as this inquiry, it counts. It counts as much as anything has ever counted. It is an absolute, ringing endorsement that shouts out to the world, “We hear you, we believe you and we will do all we can to make this right.” May herself said: “Where there has been a failure to protect children from abuse, we will expose it and we will learn from it.”

And Christ do we need words like that and the actions to back them up. We live in a country where a primary school teacher can walk into a classroom, see another teacher raping a seven-year-old girl, quietly close the door and leave them to it, and she can do this without committing a crime because we are one of the only countries in the world that does not have mandatory reporting (if you’re anything like me you will refuse to believe this until you research it, and then you’ll likely want to throw up in disgust).

In 2014-15 there were 47,000 recorded sexual offences against children in the UK. This is the highest number of offences in a decade. The discovery rate of child abuse is between 5% (according to the NSPCC) and 12.5% (the children’s commissioner 2016 report). So the real number will be much higher.

The opportunity for good that this inquiry proffered was extraordinary. To give a voice to the hundreds of thousands of people (some of whom have survived, some of whom didn’t make it, most of whom have survived to simply exist rather than to live) is a profoundly humanitarian and kind thing to do. It engenders trust in a group of people for whom trust is an almost unthinkable concept. And yet when many of these survivors are prepared, finally, to dig deep, open their mouths and speak out, they are met with an incompetence, mistrust, abandonment and rejection that is as appalling as it is consistent.

It has to stop. May, in an even better political position now to fight for this inquiry, needs to do more for all of us. Break it down into manageable pieces if necessary: the sheer bloody necessity of it having such an immense scale should horrify us all. Hire Michael Mansfield if necessary, hire 100 Michael Mansfields. Offer them every possible resource, make things completely transparent and reassure us that no matter how long it takes and no matter the cost, this inquiry will happen, accountability will be sought, and we will learn from our mistakes. And then put those same exact resources into today’s child protection services to ensure that, for once, there is a chance that “never again” really means “never again”.