SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland
WHEN the Scottish Government announced the public inquiry into historic cases of child abuse in care in 2014, the then Education Secretary Angela Constance said it was an opportunity to confront the mistakes of the past and learn from them. She also insisted the Government would learn from the debacle of a similar UK inquiry and consult with abuse survivors about who should sit on the panel. The aim, said Ms Constance, was to ensure a brighter future for every child.
Sadly, it has not gone according to plan. Only last week, one member of the inquiry, Professor Michael Lamb, stood down because he said he did not believe it could act independently. And now the chair herself, Susan O’Brien, has resigned after facing the sack over comments she made at one of the inquiry’s sessions.
There are widely different interpretations of what was actually said but Ms O’Brien insists she was trying to lighten the mood. The consultant clinical psychologist Dr Claire Fyvie, who was also present, has a different view and says the comments were inappropriate, and the Deputy First Minister John Swinney appears to agree with her – before Ms O’Brien resigned, he had started the process to remove her.
Miss O’Brien may well, as she says, have been trying to lift the mood and it will not have been easy to take on what is in many ways an impossible job given the complex brief. But as the chair of such a difficult inquiry involving vulnerable witnesses, she should have been aware of the need for extreme sensitivity and how remarks can be mis-interpreted. Survivors of abuse have also had a difficult relationship with the inquiry and from the start an ill-judged comment from the chair had the potential to upset the inquiry, as indeed it now has.
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