UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Sandra Laville
Wednesday 14 January 2015
Theresa May is under intense pressure to save the independent inquiry into child abuse after survivors groups condemned it as a mess and demanded she rip up the process and start again.
Seven months after the announcement by May of an inquiry to examine institutional culpability for decades of abuse of children, victims met in the House of Commons to voice their demands for reform of the process.
The inquiry has been beset with problems. Two chairs, Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss and Fiona Woolf, were forced to stand down after complaints from victims that they were too connected to the establishment, and the appointed panel faces being disbanded after some survivors raised objections to its composition. No new chair has been appointed, and some victims are now pursuing a judicial review to challenge the way the home secretary set up the process.
Phil Frampton, a survivor and spokesman for the victims and campaigners who gathered in the Commons on Wednesday said: “There were more than 300 people gathered today and what was so clear was it was a demonstration of our will. We want the inquiry to go forward. At the moment it is a complete mess. What we want is for Theresa May to rip it up and start it again to put it on a sound footing, to make it fully transparent and to make sure survivors can be proud to engage in the process.
“At the moment it doesn’t have a clear purpose, the focus must be narrowed towards getting justice. When you look at MPs’ expenses, the MPs met, people were taken to court and perpetrators were jailed. That is what we want.”
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