In another hugely disappointing turn for the nation’s Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse, Chair Lowell Goddard has just handed in her resignation.
Giving no reason for the decision, she simply asks the Home Secretary to accept her decision to resign with immediate effect.
Some are speculating that the move is a reaction to the recent criticism over Justice Goddard’s decision to take a three month holiday since first being appointed as Inquiry Chair. Others have suggested that the press interest in her confusion over British law, reluctance to fully incorporate survivors within the Inquiry and questionable rank within the New Zealand judiciary could be factors in her departure.
Whatever the reason, Researching Reform takes the view that the Inquiry urgently needs to rethink its core PR strategy and start to engage with the public at large, not as a means of gaining popularity, but as a crucial tool to gain the trust and respect of the nation and most importantly the survivors both taking part in the Inquiry, and watching on.
Whoever takes up the mantle must inspire confidence and not be afraid to let in the world as the Inquiry does its work.
Good luck, contestant number four.
Lowell Goddard
Researching Reform 
No surprise.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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Perhaps a good thing and I expect a few things may come out in press re Goddard, but the fact is she didn’t even understand the English legal system there.
I couldn’t agree more re
“Whatever the reason, Researching Reform takes the view that the Inquiry urgently needs to rethink its core PR strategy and start to engage with the public at large, not as a means of gaining popularity, but as a crucial tool to gain the trust and respect of the nation and most importantly the survivors both taking part in the Inquiry, and watching on.”
The English have messed up badly. It’s time they owned that. They have created a top down model where the inquiry is bloated by lawyers who are earning a fortune at the expense of CSA survivors. They need to look at the Scottish inquiry model that used a human rights methodology and more importantly they need to look closely at the Australian model as per Institutional Responses to CSA which has undoubtedly been the best public inquiry model used to date to investigate CSA.
This isn’t rocket science England. If you want to empower survivors at least have the decency to ask them (the victims) what they want. More importantly, listen to them. Pop over to Oz and ask your ex cons how they did things – perhaps even bring in some Australians to help facilitate the inquiry. Why is that they got it so right while you have it so wrong??
Point really being is given the shambles your inquiry has become you are plainly doing something wrong. The question now is how do you fix that?
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Well we saw Lady Macur dismiss 700 abused victims from Wales and the Goddard enquiry has gone on 2 years then take in the Lambeth abuse and so many more, some guy on BBC news this morning said there are 4 million victims well if correct the enquiries will go on and on going no where because people have to realize the insurance company that insures all kids in care will run out of money, and Tony Blair is part of that and so child abuse in this so called British Empire has to be the most corrupt in the world it includes Governments Police medical world who use kids in care for experiments the courts many legal people judges charities and we all know of one well known charity that sold thousands of kids to other countries and continues to be a charity continuing to SUPPOSSIDLY help kids and with the amount of more kids taken from families on allegations only there will never be an end to the child abuse in the UK perhaps the untold victims in care many thousands have been trafficked murdered to shut them up and there will never be a person to lead an investigation unless the victims have a person to head an investigation such as Michael Bailey a Barrister who is the most wanted man on the planet he is not a Barrister for money he is a person for justice for the kids in care, also on BBC news today is the amount of money the foster agencies are making from doing deals directly with the foster carers by offering them £3.000 to work directly with the agency and not the councils then the agencies charge the councils my god the corruption it goes on and on, and children will always be SCREAMING TO BE HEARD as they have for untold hundreds of years and as we know the victims now adults are asked where is your evidence or you are out of time much also goes back to Jack Straw and Tony Blair and as Straw said kids abused in care are not allowed to speak out and that law was not passed but to present day kids cannot speak, as we know on a contact if a kid tells the parents they are being abused the contact is stopped from that minuet, and no one knows better then I as reported every day from the helpline, and what of the kids in care in present day being abused still not allowed to speak out I could tell the world of the truth of kids abused in care but like the Goddard enquiry all will go no where and if it did the insurance company would go broke and Blair and Shaw would lose untold pounds and the bloody rest of the gang all IN A CHILDS BEST INTEREST
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Pingback: Abuse Inquiry Chair Resigns, Blaming A “Legacy Of Failure” | Researching Reform
Good luck indeed, contestant number four. So many of the British public are now totally disillusioned with politics, inquiries, officialdom and the State, you will have a mountain to climb.
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You say in you post :
“Whatever the reason, Researching Reform takes the view that the Inquiry urgently needs to rethink its core PR strategy and start to engage with the public at large, not as a means of gaining popularity, but as a crucial tool to gain the trust and respect of the nation and most importantly the survivors both taking part in the Inquiry, and watching on.”
You are correct. I and a colleague from Mandate Now met with Ben Emmerson on 8th May 2015 to discuss this subject. Following the meeting we sent a letter confirming the scope and content of our discussion. It’s available here: http://goo.gl/dATGgW
Little has changed, and it needs to urgently. IICSA advertised a senior media relations role in January 16. Even if a highly competent individual has been appointed, what impact might s/he be permitted to make?
There appears to be a ‘command and control’ culture at IICSA. Did this have anything to do with the decision of Hon Dame Lowell Goddard DNZM to resign? She did say “its legacy of failure was hard to shake off” and “with hindsight, it would have been better to have started completely afresh.”
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Reblogged Alice through the Looking Glass
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