Last month, whilst being questioned by the Home Affairs Committee, Lowell Goddard, new Chair for the Child Abuse Inquiry tentatively suggested the creation of a separate panel for survivors and victims of child abuse. She also explained her desire to create a separate panel to that of the core Inquiry panel – and it is this reasoning that has this week ignited a new row.
Although Justice Goddard offered up the suggestion of a standalone panel for survivors and victims in order to give them a voice within the Inquiry, she also clarified her decision not to integrate them onto the core panel. The reason she gave was that she felt they would not be impartial investigators, and therefore a potential source of difficulty for the Inquiry.
This morning victims have lashed out at Goddard and Home Secretary Theresa May for what they feel is a marginalisation of their role in an Inquiry which needs them and a decision which, they argue, is prejudicial. Currently, survivors and victims are not prevented from acting as judges or jurors in abuse cases under British Law so why have they been excluded from the central Inquiry panel?
The previous panel, which was an integrated board that included survivors of abuse, was disbanded after months of internal rows and a very public altercation between legal counsel to the Inquiry Ben Emmerson QC and panel member Sharon Evans, a survivor of abuse herself. Graham Wilmer, another former panel member and a survivor of abuse, was also the subject of criticism after an email he sent to a victim of abuse left the victim feeling highly distressed. What followed was a very visible change in panel makeup and background – the new Inquiry panel is heavily dominated by legal minds and of course, no survivors in sight.
Goddard’s comment about survivors’ objectivity at the Committee meeting last month was telling. Given past embarrassing scraps amongst panel members, legal counsel to the Inquiry, Emmerson, who at the time was effectively Inquiry Chair for procedural and other purposes, may have been tempted to throw his new found weight into the debate on the creation of a new panel and suggest a lawyer-dominated and survivor free board to minimise conflicts and disagreements. That action, regardless of its provenance, has now cost the Inquiry dearly.
A campaign to force a U-turn on the proposed membership criteria for the Inquiry Panel has been signed by over 200 survivors, whistleblowers and child protection professionals. It has also been backed by Michael Mansfield QC who at one stage was the survivor’s and victims’ favourite to hold the position of Inquiry Chair. In an open letter to the Home Secretary, the group expresses dismay at current Chair, Goddard’s view that survivors and victims lack sufficient objectivity to be quasi-judicial members of the Inquiry.
The Inquiry must get a handle on survivors and their culture before it is too late. For Home Office officials to still take the view, after these many months, that survivors and victims of abuse are at best a homogeneous group and at worst, dysfunctional and disruptive cogs in their investigative machinery, is a mistake. The secret to a succesful panel does not lie in excluding survivors, but in creating a panel with excellent chemistry, and that must include the right survivors for the task at hand.
Sabine Kurjo McNeill said:
Reblogged this on National Inquiry into Organised, Orchestrated & Historic Child Sexual Abuse.
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artmanjosephgrech said:
For what has now been 8 months I have become concerned and frustrated by the obsession some survivors, their representatives and supporters have had with the Official inquiry, now statutory Inquiry set up by the Coalition Government with support from the Official Opposition and a significant across party membership of the House of Commons.
Inquiries do not change anything and as someone who participated in one major inquiry and kept abreast with those before and since, the evidence is beyond doubt and in this this instance while the scale of what has and is happening has never been made public and the extent and nature of the cover up may now have been systematically investigated everything that there is need to know has been known, accumulating over the past 50 years.
The other problem is that majority of survivors who have spoken out and some of their supporters do not appear to know how the country is and has been run since the accession of Elizabeth as head of state. They appear ignorant of the role of the Privy Council which sits above Parliament and where its proceedings as those between Government and the Heads of state are kept secret.
In fairness to the present Coalition government which remains in power until a new government is formed after May 7th they have set in motion a large raft of measures which collectively will have positive consequence as long as the resources are made available together with the trained personnel and effective monitoring.
However more fundamental changes are required to a range of what in simple terms are establishment bodies which control and influence the lives of the majority of people.
There had been much praise for the documentation review led by the establishment member the Bishop of Liverpool established by one administration and supported by another of different political parties. However the reality is that the new Inquests about what took place in Sheffield all those decades ago has still several months before its findings are made public and then it may be that some of those responsible for the cover up will be held to account. What the present Coalition is attempting with Opposition support in setting up the new Statutory Inquiry is a bold move to achieve through one operation Leveson I and 2 alongside the police investigations and judicial processing. It is questionable whether Leveson 2 will in fact go ahead. and Incidentally what happened to the Leveson 1 recommendation despite leaning over backwards to. accommodate the national newspaper owners and their legal advisers..
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daveyone1 said:
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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onevoicegroup said:
Maybe it is finally time to rise up and lawfully rebel against the private-interest Monarchy-controlled & owned Crown Corporation – which is the ‘holding company’ for all the atrocities spoken about here….? All UK children are in danger. The People are coping with illegal transference of their assets, land-grabbing by the State, and property theft through Her Majesty’s Land Registry, HMCTS and the Banking fraternity who houses legions of criminal banksters….no one in UK is safe to own property nor rear children here any longer – By their fruits we know them: ban the Crown Corporation and expose this evil entity to its fullest – it is the impersonal ‘machine’ that is oppressing all human lives in England, such a beautiful country but controlled by bestial thinkers who engage in bestial acts of treason.
Its worse than orchestrated child abuse, it is endemic corruption where the opportunity of trafficking and abusing children for money and corporate ‘servicing’ was seized and exploited years ago – so they turned children into mere commodities, and have treated them as such ever since – hence they criminalise the innocent, persecute mothers and illegally incarcerate them and any whistleblower who dare defend them or the children, and condone acts of wickedness of ‘social workers’ and the link, who are suffering acute dissonance.
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l8in said:
Reblogged this on L8in.
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A6er said:
Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.
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