Justice for victims of child abuse!

Submitted by Matthew on 16 July, 2014 - 10:56

On Monday 14 July, Lady Butler-Sloss resigned as the chair of an inquiry into the sexual abuse of children by MPs and other high-profile, powerful people in the 1980s.

It was less than a week since she had been appointed.

It is almost unbelievable that she had been appointed in the first place. Her brother, Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general in the same period that is under question.

Much has been made by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, and others, of Butler-Sloss’s “integrity”. It is certainly right that she resigned, and that in her resignation she cited concerns from victim and survivor groups as one of the reasons for her going.

But as Beatrix Campbell writes in the Guardian, even without the familial conflict of interest, Butler-Sloss would still be the wrong person to head this inquiry.

She is very much a part of the establishment, and has more of an interest even than some other members of the ruling class in respecting the current “order”.

More importantly, there have been justified criticisms of her handling of the Cleveland Report in 1988, which investigated reports of child sexual abuse by two paediatricians in the North-East of England. After this public inquiry, a confidential report was sent to the Department of Health.

This confidential report apparently suggested that in many cases, the paediatricians’ diagnoses were accurate. Yet there was nothing made public, and Butler-Sloss’s conclusions, that they acted in good faith but were over-zealous or put too much store in inaccurate tests, are still generally accepted today.

Time and time again we hear about cover-ups of instances of powerful people in our society raping children. It feels like the papers are full of stories of famous and privileged paedophiles.

Where is the justice for the victims of paedophiles and child abusers? Why are the most important questions not being asked? Why on earth would the Home Secretary appoint Lady Butler-Sloss?

It smacks of not taking the issues seriously, of a bloated and complacent establishment, and of a desire to protect the government’s interests by giving the job to a ‘safe pair of hands’.

The survivors of child abuse deserve much, much better.

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