This Flawed Child Sex Abuse Inquiry Needs a Clear Focus

Daily Mail
October 15, 2016

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3839189/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-flawed-child-sex-abuse-inquiry-needs-clear-focus.html

What a deplorable fiasco the child sex abuse inquiry has become. Allegations of racism and misconduct against former chairman, Justice Lowell Goddard – coming shortly after the abrupt departure of the inquiry’s lead counsel Ben Emmerson and his junior – are just the latest in a catalogue of disasters.

Before mysteriously resigning, claiming it had been difficult to leave behind her family in New Zealand, Dame Lowell is said to have told colleagues that the growth of paedophilia in Britain was a result of the large number of Asian men living here, and complained of having to travel 50 miles from London to see a white face – all of which she denies.

She is also alleged to have thrown frequent tantrums, treated her staff with contempt and struggled to grasp key points of English law.

Certainly Dame Lowell was deeply unimpressive. In her first year in the ?500,000-a-year job, she spent three months on holiday or overseas

Disturbingly, the Home Office is accused of knowing about her shortcomings – but covering them up to avoid embarrassment. Two chairmen had already quit since the then Home Secretary Theresa May set up the inquiry in July 2014.

Certainly Dame Lowell was deeply unimpressive. In her first year in the ?500,000-a-year job, she spent three months on holiday or overseas.

But unsuitable as she undoubtedly was, there is a much bigger problem with this inquiry. Its brief is so impossibly wide that in its present form it is doomed to failure.

Mrs May’s original remit was woolly enough – to examine the duty of care owed by public bodies to children and determine whether enough was being done to protect them from abuse.

Since then the inquiry has taken on a life of its own. There are now 13 investigations jammed into one amorphous bundle, with allegations going back 50 years. Beyond the basic issue of child abuse there is little – if anything – to connect them.

There are hundreds of accusations against the police, courts, NHS, BBC, Catholic and Anglican churches, local authorities, political parties and the security services – not to mention individuals including the late Labour peer Lord Janner.

Many have already been investigated elsewhere. Indeed one, the Rotherham abuse scandal, was the subject of a comprehensive report by Professor Alexis Jay, who succeeded Dame Lowell as chairman of the inquiry. Does she really need to rake over it again?

Let us be clear. The Mail has profound sympathy and compassion for the victims of paedophilia. It is an evil crime that ruins lives and, shamefully, has not been taken seriously enough by the authorities in the past.

And if there was an Establishment cover-up over the decades, then this needs to be nailed.