UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Peter Walker, Harriet Sherwood and Sandra Laville
Friday 5 August 2016
The government should reconsider the scope and remit of the huge public inquiry into institutional child abuse in the UK in the wake of the resignation of its third chair in little over two years, victims’ representatives and experts have argued.
Dame Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge who was appointed in February last year to chair the unprecedented inquiry into decades of child abuse and its cover-up, announced her resignation on Thursday evening, saying the inquiry was beset with a “legacy of failure”.
Following a brief resignation letter to the home secretary, Amber Rudd, Goddard released a statement that indicated that the controversies and challenges of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, set up in 2014, were insurmountable.
Rudd said she was sorry to receive Goddard’s letter and accepted her decision but emphasised that the government’s commitment to the inquiry was undiminished.
Sue Berelowitz, the former deputy children’s commissioner, called for a review into the inquiry, which was established by Theresa May when she was home secretary.
“There should be a review of where it has got to and how it is doing,” Berelowitz said. “It seems to me the inquiry has lost its way. The real importance of learning lessons about institutional failings in the past is to stop children being abused today.
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