BishopAccountability.org

DOMINIC LAWSON: How petulance and paranoia will NEVER lead the chaotic abuse inquiry to the truth

By Dominic Lawson
Daily Mail
November 21, 2016

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3955702/DOMINIC-LAWSON-petulance-paranoia-NEVER-lead-chaotic-abuse-inquiry-truth.html

Over the weekend, its chairwoman, Alexis Jay, complained about the 'almost continual attacks' against the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

The previous chair, Lowell Goddard had to quit

Lead counsel, Ben Emmerson, deserted in September, as did his deputy, Elizabeth Prochaska

Paranoia has set in at the top of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Over the weekend, its chairwoman, Alexis Jay, complained about the 'almost continual attacks' against it, going on to blame 'people who would like to see it fail because it suits their agenda not to want dark institutional failings brought into the light'.

She went on to rail against her inquiry's 'critics' — presumably newspapers such as the Mail which have, indeed, attacked the incompetence of a process which has so far spent over two years and £20 million without even starting its public hearings.

I can understand why Jay — the fourth head of an inquiry which has already chewed up and spat out three previous chairwomen — feels got at.

But she is deluded if she is insinuating that its media critics have 'an agenda' to protect 'dark institutional failings'. Let me reassure Professor Jay that papers such as the Mail have no agenda in this, other than a desire to report the facts, however inconvenient either to her or the Government.

And the facts about this inquiry are astonishing. It is in chaos. Its most central legal figures have been abandoning it — and I don't just mean the three judges who quit, to leave Jay (previously just a member of the inquiry's panel of experts) holding the increasingly dilapidated fort.

Its lead counsel, Ben Emmerson, deserted in September, as did his deputy, Elizabeth Prochaska. She herself had been taken on only after Hugh Davies QC had resigned as deputy to Mr Emmerson.

Blunders

More recently, Toby Fisher, the counsel responsible for its contentious investigation into the late Labour peer Lord Janner, also quit. And last week the barrister leading its investigation into abuse in Catholic and Anglican establishments, Aileen McColgan, threw in the towel.

At least some of these resignations were caused by the chaotic leadership of the inquiry — and none by journalists with a 'dark agenda'. Nor is the Press responsible for the fact that Emmerson — according to a statement made in Parliament under privilege by the Labour MP Lisa Nandy — has been accused of a sexual assault at the headquarters of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

Emmerson's lawyers vehemently insist this accusation is 'categorically untrue'.

We shall learn more about all these matters in the coming days, when the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee publishes a letter sent to it by Hugh Davies QC, in which the IICSA's previous deputy lead counsel is believed to have set out his criticisms of the way the inquiry has handled accusations of sexual assault in its own offices. Given that Jay claimed last week that she would 'shine a light' on the 'dark institutional failings' which she seems to say the Press are attempting to keep hidden, this is irony almost beyond parody.

Professor Jay's contention that the attacks on the inquiry came only from those determined to see it fail was in any case demolished last week by the announcement from the largest 'survivors' group' that they had lost faith in it.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, representing hundreds who claimed to have been abused at children's homes in Lambeth, south London, declared the inquiry was 'failing publicly and tragically' and they wanted no further part in it.

This is an especially deadly blow, as the inquiry was set up by the then Home Secretary Theresa May, after she had met groups such as that from Shirley Oaks. They are the reason the IICSA exists: its moral authority depends upon their support.

The Shirley Oaks group had a particular beef against Professor Jay because she is a social worker, and they had been placed in those homes by social workers.

Actually, it's most unjust to assume Jay would twist proceedings to protect her profession: I am sure she would not. But a social worker is still a completely inappropriate chair of what is a quasi-judicial process, involving complex matters of law and long sessions of cross-examination of witnesses.

One reason the previous chair, Lowell Goddard, had to quit, was because it became embarrassingly clear that this New Zealand judge was ignorant of what she termed 'local' — that is, English — legal procedures.

Incidentally, it was the Press which brought this to light. The Home Office, which was well aware of Goddard's failings, tried to hush the matter up.

The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, claimed to MPs that she accepted Goddard's resignation purely on the grounds that the New Zealander was 'lonely' and wanted to go home. Later, evidence came to light that Ms Rudd had, indeed, been told by her officials that Goddard's basic competence had been called into question.

Similarly, the Home Office just stood by as the Metropolitan Police committed blunder after blunder in its investigations into claims by a man known only as 'Nick' that he had been a victim of sexual torture by a group including the late Prime Minister Edward Heath and Britain's most distinguished soldier, Field Marshal Lord Bramall.

It was all lies, without a scintilla of evidence — even though the policeman in charge of the investigation blithely declared to the BBC that 'Nick's' story was 'credible and true'.

It was only when an exasperated Lord Bramall finally decided to tell journalists how inept, credulous and dilatory were the police in this matter, and we started to look into 'Nick', that the public began to realise what a scandal this was.

Depravity

Did we have a 'dark agenda'? No, unless that describes the concern we felt for a 92-year-old war hero treated like a dangerous gangster by the 20 police officers who raided his Surrey home, crawling over it for ten hours, even as his wife lay dying there.

And when real abuse needs uncovering, it has been the Press that has led the way.

Last week, Professor Jay's colleague at the Inquiry, Dru Sharpling, rushed to her defence, citing the sexual abuse of children by British Asian gangs in Rotherham: 'One woman uncovered that abuse — and that was Alexis Jay.'

It is true that Jay delivered the blistering 2014 report into sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which led to the resignation of a number of those in authority who had failed to act. But the person who 'uncovered that abuse' was a journalist, Andrew Norfolk.

Starting in 2012, the Leeds-based Times reporter defied the local police's threats and persuaded his editor — at considerable legal risk — to publish details of the depravity he had discovered.

As one of the victims of the serial abusers Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain, said: 'People were trying to come forward and they were just being ignored. Andrew Norfolk published my story and thank God he did. That triggered off the Jay report . . . everything that has happened was due to Andrew printing the story.'

So, Professor Jay, don't insinuate that your inquiry's critics in the Press have an agenda to cover up 'institutional failings'.

On the contrary: we reveal them. Including those now under your authority.




.


Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.