UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Deborah Orr
Dame Lowell Goddard, brought in to head the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse hasn’t said much about why she has resigned, but criticism has appeared in the media of the amount of time she had spent abroad or on holiday. Maybe she’s unfeasibly thin-skinned. Perhaps she has been looking for some time for a plausible reason to bolt. MPs who yesterday demanded an explanation may get to the truth.
Still, a year is good going for the New Zealander. The first appointee, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, lasted less than a week. The second, Fiona Woolf, didn’t quite make two months. Butler-Sloss resigned because it emerged that her brother, Michael Havers, had been attorney general during failed investigations three decades ago. Woolf resigned because she had social links to the family of Leon Brittan, whose own role at various times would necessarily be part of the investigation.
It’s no coincidence that the inquiry has burned through three chairs already. The demands of the role dictate that any suitably experienced British head will be part of the establishment the inquiry is investigating. Yet it’s hard to see how anyone who isn’t British would have enough understanding of the general culture to grasp the enormity and complexity of the task. Or even grasp quite what the task actually is.
Sure, you don’t have to have been a child in the 1970s to understand quite how ruthlessly Jimmy Savile dominated an enabling media, or what a self-deprecating renaissance man Clement Freud appeared to be, or what a trusted politician Cyril Smith was. But it helps. These men were at the heart of the establishment for most of their adult lives. And there were many more, some now convicted, others dead, and others, probability dictates, still sauntering away from justice.
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.