UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
Child abuse victims unite to demand inquiry chair Fiona Woolf resigns over links to Tory peer Lord Brittan
By TOM MCTAGUE, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE
The head of the Government’s child abuse inquiry was facing mounting pressure to resign this morning after victims groups said no-one backed her appointment ahead of a crunch Home Office meeting.
Fiona Woolf was already facing mounting calls to quit because of her personal relationship to the Tory peer Leon Brittan, who is at the centre of allegations of an Establishment cover-up of sex abuse claims in the 1980s.
But it emerged last night that she re-wrote a letter to the Home Secretary seven times in order to play down her links to Lord Brittan.
With help from the Home Office, she made more than half a dozen alterations to the document to remove language that alluded to her closeness to the Conservative grandee.
The different versions of the letter emerged yesterday two days after a Labour MP used parliamentary privilege to link Lord Brittan to ‘improper conduct with children’.
Victims described the latest revelations as ‘extraordinary’ and renewed their calls on City lawyer Mrs Woolf to step down.
Representatives of alleged child abuse victims will meet officials from the inquiry for the first time today and are expected to call for Mrs Woolf’s resignation. Mrs Woolf is not expected to attend.
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