UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph
THERESA MAY
AUGUST 2016
This article was originally published on 14 March 2015 when Theresa May was Home Secretary. We republish as Dame Lowell Goddard quits as chair of the child sex abuse inquiry
This week marked a new beginning for the independent panel inquiry into child sexual abuse. The announcement on Thursday of a four-person panel, the confirmation of the power to compel witnesses and the removal of any cut-off date from the Terms of Reference, means the chairman, Justice Lowell Goddard, can now take the inquiry forward, following the evidence wherever it takes her.
We already know the trail will lead into our schools and hospitals, our churches, our youth clubs and many other institutions that should have been places of safety but instead became the setting for the most appalling abuse. However, what the country doesn’t yet appreciate is the true scale of that abuse.
And that is quite understandable. I have only learnt about the extent and breadth of the problem since I first announced an overarching inquiry into whether public bodies and other non-state institutions had failed in their duty of care towards children.
It is a matter of public record that the inquiry had a difficult beginning. We did not realise the degree to which survivors mistrusted the political establishment. And we set up the inquiry in the way Whitehall always sets up inquiries. But it wasn’t enough for survivors to have the inquiry, its chairman and its terms of reference presented to them as a fait accompli. We needed to work with survivors if we were going to get those things right. It was through this collaboration that my understanding of this complex issue grew.
I learnt the way in which words and phrases can unintentionally cause distress. I was asked not to use the word “historical” in relation to child sexual abuse as to every person who has suffered there is nothing “historical” about what happened to them. They live with the knowledge and the consequences of their abuse each and every day of their lives.
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