Government child abuse inquiry dilemma

The resignation of Dame Lowell Goddard as chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) earlier this month—the third chair to resign since the inquiry was established in 2014—has caused anguish among abuse survivors and a headache for the new Home Secretary. 

Whoever takes up the mantle and oversees the most ambitious public inquiry ever established in England and Wales will have to contend with criticism that the inquiry’s remit is impossibly wide, as well as questions about whether the inquiry can continue in its current format, or needs to be reformed. 

In her resignation statement Dame Lowell referred to a “legacy of failure” which had been hard to shake off, adding that it would have been better to have started afresh.

Writing for NLJ online this week, Richard Scorer, an abuse lawyer at Slater & Gordon Lawyers (UK), who represents 50 abuse survivors in the inquiry, says the new chair will need to ensure that the inquiry’s nature and purpose is better communicated to the public at large. “In the public mind the inquiry has become overly conflated with some of the more lurid abuse allegations featured in the media,” he says.

According to Scorer, because the chair exercises judicial powers, he or she probably needs to be a lawyer, preferably a judge. “Technically, a statutory inquiry does not require a legal chair. However, given the gravity of the issues being considered by the inquiry, and the likely resistance from some of the institutions under scrutiny, a lawyer is probably required. But equally, the new chair needs to have a background in issues relating to child abuse, otherwise he or she would face an impossibly steep learning curve,” he says.

The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has confirmed that the inquiry’s work will continue without delay and that its success remains a priority for the government. Issue papers asking for comments on the effectiveness of the criminal compensation and the civil justice systems for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in England and Wales are live on the inquiry’s website. The closing date for submissions is noon on 29 September 2016.