Butler-Sloss Quits: Is David Cameron’s Judgement Fatally Flawed?

UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Nick Assinder Political Editor
July 14, 2014

The decision by Lady Butler-Sloss to stand down as head of the major inquiry into child sex abuse in Britain has pitched the entire process into disarray and underlined the shambles that marked its creation in the first place.

And it raises significant questions over the judgement of the prime minister and home secretary in apparently failing to see the glaring conflict of interest created by the appointment.

It was met with an instant barrage of criticism over the fact Butler-Sloss was not only part of the very establishment she would be investigating but more specifically that her brother, the late Sir Michael Havers, had been attorney general at the time of the abuse and cover-up claims.

The weekend saw more claims about both his role in failing to pursue evidence of a paedophile ring in Westminster in the 1980s, but also that she previously wanted to exclude a bishop’s name from a child abuse report because she wanted to protect the reputation of the church.

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