Welcome to another week.
Lawyers representing child sexual abuse survivors have asked that Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, be called to give evidence at the nation’s Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse.
The request comes after evidence from several witnesses suggested that Gove intervened in an investigation into alleged sexual abuse by a priest. The claims, which allege that Gove telephoned to ask about the priest and requested a report on the complaint, were made by two child protection professionals. Gove denies the claims.
The lawyers believe that Gove should be questioned at the Inquiry in order to resolve the contradicting testimonies.
The Guardian reports:
“Clare Winter, the deputy director of children’s services responsible for children’s social care at Somerset county council, told the inquiry in 2017 that she received two telephone calls in 2010 from Gove and his office inquiring about the investigation.. The second call, she said, came from “somebody who said they were the secretary of state for education” who repeated a request for information about the progress of the investigation into a priest, known only as F65, suspected of having oral sex with a 16-year-old boy.
Jane Dziadulewicz, another safeguarding official responsible for child protection, told the inquiry that she helped produce a report for Gove’s office on the progress of the Downside investigation following the calls.”
MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has connections to Downside school, never responded to the Guardian’s questions in relation to whether he had discussed the investigation with Gove.
As the communications to the professionals were not made in person, it is possible that an individual was pretending to be Gove in order to access information. If calls were recorded by councils, this would have offered strong evidence and helped to clear up the conflicting testimonies in this case.
Our question this week then, is just this: do you think councils should record their calls?
Researching Reform 
Not really because in local government they tell so many fibs and make so many false promises that recordings would show up all this and local government might then collapse !
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They deserve to collapse if they are Corrupt.
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Would it not just have been simpler to have a procedure in place that when calls of that nature are taken that the persons details are taken – to state all such be emailed or posted and/ or replies only to the official office of the caller?
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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I believe Whole Court Process that includes Chancery, Queens Bench, and Family Courts need to be more user friendly and FAIR. The adversarial system of justice is outdated and unfair. There is a need to be made to ensure equality of arms by requiring the facts of the case to be set out in detail in Pre Court Protocol formal documents that are scrutinised by Court Staff to ensure compliance with Practice Directions and CPR. This will ensure disclosure and a failure to disclose facts that are then tendered in evidence should be sufficient to demand disclosure and prevent a judgement unless it can be seen as concealment – which should be treated as deception and therefore criminal conduct – Researching Reform must include the whole Justice System not just “Family Courts” – This then may go some way towards “Open Justice” Choice Fairness and Accountability. The biggest injustice is caused by lack of accountability – where legal errors or mistakes are made – and lessons are not learned. The Government know what needs doing as set out in two government publications “Small mistakes Big consequences” and “JOYS” the Judge Over Your Shoulder”.
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I agree with what you say except that when someone wants to take your baby for forced adoption any court however structured will end up as a battle !
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I don’t want you to think I don’t agree with you. I have been in the “family Court” for my own child. – I was represented – and although I was represented – I spoke up (against the ‘advice’ of my lawyer). – This meant I had to argue my case against the other side lawyer (and watch my Lawyer put his head in his hands and ‘hide’. – I did not “Win” on my own account, The Winning was in the hands of my own child who was called into the Judges Chambers – following which the Judge awarded me custody care and control. – My family court experience – is just one side of the coin. The other sided is much darker and much deeper and involves an abuse of process by a crooked solicitor who has used the Court Process to cover up his fraud and has caused the High Court to make an Order outside the power of the Court that has evicted my son and I from my own privately owned house for it to pay for proceedings that were unlawful from the start…. My aim is to prevent the Courts Systems from abuse. This can only be done by making every effort that Human Rights are protected.
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“The adversarial system”, “Small mistakes Big consequences”, “the solution must be in removing these obstacles..”.
Your stick’s in the heart of the Hornets nest.
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Where there is a will there is a way. The door is now open for crowdfunding of litigation The Association of Litigation Funders (the ALF) is an independent body that has been charged by the Ministry of Justice with delivering self-regulation of litigation funding in England and Wales. This means organisations and individuals that could not previously afford litigation can try crowdfunding. I am exploring this avenue but special interest groups may choose to do their own research.
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Most official contacts state that calls are being recorded for ‘training purposes’ so perhaps this procedure might be a way of safeguarding those who call and those who listen.
There may be questions of ethics, but on the whole it might be appropriate to have perfect recall of what was said and who said it – or at least who purported to be on the other end of the telephone.
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Yes.
but then i would think Councils have already been recording calls for many years.
We know Social workers record Contact sessions without parents knowing about it. its a Secret Camera culture to spy on people.
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I am sure we can agree that there is a duty of care – and that records need to be kept – the pure intentions are unknown but before actions can be taken we need to know all the relevant facts so the right choices (decisions) can be made to ensure the fairest results. We each have a conscience but this is tempered by a lack of transparency and accountability – were vested interests are a problem where the solution must be in removing these obstacles..
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