UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Alan Travis and Sandra Laville
Tuesday 20 January 2015
The chaos behind the scenes of the official inquiry into child abuse has been laid bare with accusations of bullying and silencing members as the investigation has struggled to get off the ground.
One panel member, Sharon Evans, an abuse survivor and chief executive of the Dot Com children’s charity, told MPs that the inquiry’s counsel, Ben Emmerson QC, had effectively taken it over in the absence of an appointed chairman, and been guilty of making threats and intimidating panel members.
She made the accusations to the Commons home affairs select committee as the home secretary, Theresa May, considers whether to disband the independent panel and replace it with a fresh statutory inquiry.
The inquiry set up in July in the wake of the Savile, Rotherham and other child sex abuse scandals still has no chairman after the home secretary’s first two nominees were both forced to step down because of their connections to the establishment.
Evans was giving MPs an update on the progress of the inquiry along with other inquiry members, Drussilla Sharpling, Prof Jenny Pearce and an adviser, Prof Alexis Jay who wrote the report revealing that there were 1,400 child sex abuse victims over 16 years in the Rotherham area.
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