MLA: Kincora revelations make case for full inquiry

NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Sam McBride
sam.mcbride@newsletter.co.uk
Monday 24 August 2015

A DUP MLA has said that it is “indefensible” for the Kincora scandal to be left out of a UK-wide inquiry into historic child abuse after declassified files showed that civil servants in the 1980s privately believed that aspects of the scandal had never been fully investigated.

East Belfast MLA Robin Newton said that documents reported in Monday’s News Letter meant that the Secretary of State’s opposition to Kincora being included in the Home Office’s UK-wide inquiry was “indefensible”.

Files show a consensus among senior civil servants that the scandal should be investigated by the most thorough form of public inquiry – yet that did not happen.

Different high-ranking officials repeatedly gave the view that an inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 was unavoidable given the level of concern about allegations that boys had been abused over 20 years at Kincora by senior public figures and that their crimes had been covered up. But the officials were ultimately overruled.

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.