UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
I was a minister at the time and he was happy with our response. Now Leon Brittan should be left in peace
David Mellor
The Guardian, Monday 7 July 2014
Home secretary Theresa May continues to surprise her sceptics, with an assured announcement of two reviews, looking into how public bodies undertook their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse, and whether any legal gaps in child protection remain. These could put back on track a totally legitimate concern to root out and punish paedophiles, especially those in high places, which was in danger of spilling over into a witch hunt.
Her Hillsborough-style inquiry will rightly embrace all parts of our national life – not just the poor benighted Home Office, which has received such a good kicking in recent days.
My only reservation would concern the frankly rather emptily populist decision to put the chief executive of the NSPCC in charge of the inquiry into how the Home Office handled abuse allegations. Far more sensible, but, I admit, not so sexy publicity wise, would be to invite a boring lawyer to review what were, after all, legal or quasi-legal decisions, not social worker stuff.
The government needed to act decisively, because the rush to judgment among certain politicians and sections of the press was becoming unbearable.
I was a Home Office minister when Geoffrey Dickens brought in his dossier, amid a welter of press publicity. He was received courteously by then home secretary, Leon Brittan, and his documents were passed to officials for appropriate action. Brittan then wrote to him, detailing what he had done, and Dickens did not express any dissatisfaction with what the home secretary said or wrote. Indeed, three years later Dickens put in Hansard his thanks to the Home Office for its efforts.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.