UNITED KINGDOM
BBC Newsnight
By Jake Morris
BBC Newsnight
A 600-strong survivors’ group has lost faith in the independent inquiry into historical child sexual abuse, its leaders have said.
Shirley Oaks Survivors Association told the BBC it would recommend withdrawing from the Lambeth strand of the inquiry because it was not “truly independent”.
Ex-inquiry chair Justice Lowell Goddard has said she was prevented from picking her own staff, and that civil servants were prioritised by the Home Office.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd denied this.
The treatment of children in care in Lambeth, south London, during the second half of the 20th Century is one of 13 areas that the inquiry is looking at.
But the Shirley Oaks group said the Home Office was one of the institutions that had failed children in care in Lambeth in the past – and that the scale of its presence in the inquiry staff represented a conflict of interest.
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