The future of the Professor Jay chaired Statutory inquiry
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Questions and Concerns.
1 The issue of the Past
In 1992 the former
Director of Social Services for Norfolk, Emlyn Cassam was contracted by
Sunderland Council to undertake an independent investigation and to report on
matters I had had raised with the Council, with the Department of Health and which
said to me that the then Secretary of State for Health, Mrs, now Baroness
Virginia Bottomley had been informed of the attempt to obstruct the instructions
and advice being given. I met with Mr Cassam at his request providing the
information requested and he subsequently advised of his findings and the
approach being taken. I then accepted an
invitation from the Municipal Editor of the Sunderland Council, now a Labour Councillor,
to visit her home and she showed me a copy of his draft report adding that Mr
Cassam was under pressure to concentrate on the present and the future and not
the past.
Mr Cassam also
undertook the first independent investigation into allegations at Islington
when again the emphasis was on the present and the future. In both instances it
became necessary for a second independent investigation, and in both instances
these investigations failed to include all the matters meriting attention and
indeed in relation to Sunderland Council, negligence by the NSPCC contributed
to one set of criminal proceedings being aborted in 2000. In 2014 a
representative of the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police mentioned at a
witnessed meeting that only recently had a conviction been gained against a
former staff member of one of the establishments that had been under
investigation by the Department of Health over two decades before and closed
for a decade.
This situation has been
and continues to be repeated throughout England and Wales as hundreds of former
residents of homes or who had contact with staff of the institutions of the
state, of religions and of the world of entertainment have come forward to the
Statutory child care and protection Inquiry concerned with allegations of child
sexual abuse and exploitation. A key aspect of the Truth project that has been
set up, by what is now the Alexis Jay led Inquiry, is for victims to be able to tell what happened
to them in past and since, to have this recorded and if requested to have their
allegations investigated or reinvestigation by the police, or by the body that
investigates allegations that the police did not their job as they should,
although in fairness, the obstacle to gaining justice, has also been the Crown
Prosecution Services, or the details of the law in force at the time when the alleged offence was
committed. I am writing separately from the perspective of the survivor victim
about the importance of the Truth Project, as I am about other aspects of the
terms of reference and Inquiry process.
What prompts this
writing is that on August 19th of this year the Inquiry announced
that the former Stanhope Castle Approved School had been added to the Investigation
covering Accountability and[CS1] Reparations. As an appendix*,
I attach in full the details of the Accountability and Reparations Investigation
provided on the Inquiry Internet site, together with the details of the case
studies included so far. **
The second reason is
the written statement made to the Home Affairs Select Committee meeting held on
September 7th under the chairmanship of Tim Loughton by the former
chairman, the third chair to resign in two years, that the Inquiry should focus
on the present and the future. This was roundly condemned by the new Home
Secretary, and I believe will be formally condemned by the Home Affairs Select Committee
after the appearance of Dame Lowell Goddard QC if she agrees to the request to
attend and explains the allegations and consequential recommendations made in
her written evidence. I have previously published together with the written
evidence of Justice Goddard, the information document about the inquiry and its
background circulated to the Home Affairs Committee members, and the verbatim
record of the meeting with the relevant exchange of letters. I have separately
published my immediate thoughts on the resignation and future of the Inquiry on
one of my new Goggle Blogger sites Child Care and Protection. (The main site
which reflects my separate ongoing work activity has over 1600 postings).
First I will explain
why the announcement concerning the former Stanhope Castle Approved School
attracted my immediate attention. In 1997 a local solicitor, now a District
Judge, arranged for a group of former children in the care of Sunderland Council
to visit my home to seek help which I was able to do by writing to the
respective Conservative and Labour (Frank Dobson) Secretaries of State, before
and after the General Election, and who invited Sunderland Council to undertake
further investigation, appointing a member of the Department of Health to
liaise with me. The Group was assisted by the Sunderland Echo who had first
contacted me with information in 1991, (information which had been confirmed
with my predecessor through his son in law who worked for the paper), help from the local branch officer of the National Union of Local Government
Officers, the local Members of Parliament who included the Sunderland South
Member of the House of Commons and Chairman of the Home Affairs Select
Committee, Chris Mullin, and a locally based voluntary worker with contacts with a specialist
national police investigation unit. In 1998 following contact with the office
of the Attorney and Solicitor Generals, I followed the written advice provided
by someone who is now Permanent Secretary at the Department of Justice and who
held a similar position at the Cabinet office during the period of Coalition
Government 2010-2015.
Through the
organisation, now known as Liberty, legal advice was provided by the
International law firm Lovells, pro bono, and Counsel Opinion by the Lord
Brennen, appointed by the Bar Council, also pro bono, and with this legal
assistance, I was able to undertake preparatory work to provide evidence in
what became a successful Class Action conducted by a number of law firms on
behalf former children in the care of Sunderland Council, settled by agreement
out of Court in 2003.
As part of the
preparation to give evidence, I was able to check through the information
provided by the 60 claimants against my original list of potential victims, and
where under a 1993 High Court Order by agreement all the documentation has had
to be retained unless I authorise its destruction, which I have not, or
Sunderland Council make application. The information provided in 2002 made
reference to the individual staff at a large number of establishments by each
claimant. On the 2002/2003 class action list the Stanhope Castle establishment
was mentioned. I cannot remember the year of the complaint incident(s), and
therefore if this was before the establishment became an Assisted or Controlled
establishment under the 1969 Children and Young Person’s Act which abolished
the Approved School Order and attempted to integrate Approved Schools in the
new system of Community Homes with Education on the premises and which were
provided through a new mechanism of Children’s Regional Planning and here in
the North East with a regional financial pooling system which enabled children and young people to be placed within the region at a fixed price,
irrespective if the individual costs per resident of the establishments included in plan.
That children
throughout the North East could be placed in any establishment within the
region which best suited their needs without reference to its actual running
costs was of crucial importance and made even more extraordinary the decision
of Newcastle City Council to send 69 of its children in care to the high cost
establishment privately owned and the exceptionally profitable Bryn Alyn in
North Wales, where the Director of Social Services at the time recommended to
colleagues placement in the homes(in my presence), and where its owner has
since twice been convicted and imprisoned for offences committed against
children in care.
It is likely that
Stanhope Castle has now been included because of publicity concerning the Medomsley
Short Sharp Shock young offender institution, also located in County Durham and which is the subject of an ongoing Police
Investigation and an Inquiry Investigation, with the Inquiry having established
an office in Darlington and on August 25th
announced that LimeCulture had been awarded the contract to provide support to
victim survivors coming forward to the Truth Project and assisting the
Investigations centred on the North East. For those unfamiliar with the work of
LimeCulture their Internet site includes the impressive background of its
founding Directors.
On 17th
October 2010 the Newcastle based Chronicle reported the publication by Alan and
Irene Brogan of their experience in the care of Sunderland Council, “Horrors of
Stanhope Castle School days relived” and that in 1963 he had been committed
because of a relationship with Irene who was also in care, to the Approved
School, living in what he describes as a mixture of fear and brutality until
1969. Alan met Irene again 2004 and they married writing a book of their
experience, “Not without You”. On June
29th 2015, a year after the establishment of the first panel Inquiry Durham Police
confirmed to the BBC that “Stanhope Castle approved School sex claims
investigated.” The report stated that three people had come forward as victims
of sexual assaults at the institution between the 1950’s and 1970’s. The
Northern Echo explained in an article on June 20th of the same year
that the sexual assaults were not alleged as committed by staff but by a male
and a female who had access to the school. The article said the School had been
created by the Home Office during the second World War and that in the era of
the Community Homes the school was taken over by Cleveland County Council
although my understanding is that Durham County Council had responsibility from the
1969 Children and Young Persons Act 1969 until local government
reorganisation in 1974 created Cleveland Council and which has since been
abolished leaving the present Middlesbrough Council to inherit any financial
liabilities.
The Darlington and
Stockton Times reported on 30th July 2015 that “Man alleges brutal
abuse at former approved school. The man a resident of South Shields, which
became part of South Tyneside in 1974 when I was appointed Director of Social
Services (1974-1990) went to the school for six years, he said, for stealing
push bike and that he had been treated more brutally than anything that
happened to him as British army soldier. The Community Home closed in 1981. On
January 4th of this year Tyne Tees News reported that the head of
Durham’s police Safeguarding Team called for complainants to had been at Stanhope
Castle to come forward. A member of a group of 20 ex pupils had expressed
concern at the failure of the police to bring prosecutions. One former pupil
explained that when he first went to the police in 1999 he was told his case
had been closed only to be told later the file had been lost. On Jan 29th
the North West Durham Member of the House of Commons Pat Glass condemned as
deplorable and unacceptable what had happened (Durham Advertiser and the
National Association for Young People in Care was quoted as saying the Council
should do the right thing. On September 8th an article in the series
Blog “The Monsters of Medomsley” on the resignation of Dame Lowell Goddard
refers to the former Stanhope school.
Originally the case
studies included in the Accountability and Reparations investigations centred
on the former Forde Approved Schools and on homes in North Wales which my
understanding covers the local authorities and agencies which provided services
or placed children in North Wales establishments, such as Newcastle City
Council. Since the first announcement St Aidans and St Vincent Homes have been
added together with Stanhope Castle Approved School.
My interest in what
happened in North Wales was first aroused when a former colleague, John Banham,
who was part of the team I led for Cheshire Council Social Services on policy
and service development (1971-1974) visited Washington, Sunderland, to seek my
advice following his appointment to conduct an investigation for a former North
Wales County Council. According to Professor Jane Tunstill in her talk to the
Social Work History Network given on 24 November 2015 between 1974 and 1997
Clywd Council held 12 internal inquiries involving children in its care homes. The
Jillings Inquiry included Bryn Alyn. I cannot remember if it was in the
Waterhouse or Macur Inquiry report that I learnt that John Banham was to have
been part of the Jillings Inquiry until the decision was taken to include a
female member (Professor Tunstill). Only within the last year did I learn that
North Wales Police visited the North East to enquire why children from the
region had been placed in Bryn Alyn. I have been unable to confirm the date
when this happened.
Thus while there are
valid reasons for each Investigation leading to a Hearing and a report with
findings and recommendations it will only be when all the work of
Investigations has been completed that all the interlinking will be unravelled
and for the issue of conspiracy and cover up in the interest of the state and
institutional bodies can be established or if it was to avoid prosecution,
civil action or reputational damage.
This
was my perspective when I read with horror the advice of the departing
chairperson that the inquiry should shift its focus from the past to the
present and the future. Not only this, but she states in the section on
Managing the Inquiry “its vast remit brought realization of the practical need
to narrow its focus dramatically, if outputs were to be achieved within any
reasonable timeframe.” She then confessed that having divided the work into
five broad areas these were “refined” into carefully targeted areas of specific
institutional and thematic investigations. She goes on to admit the decisions
taken were arbitrary. When earlier this year I wrote to Dame Lowell Goddard
about the need to focus on other individual institutions, the response was to
disclose that the thirteen were what she described at a subsequent preliminary
Hearing as the first tranche and where I had assumed from her original
statement on the proposed working if the Inquiry would be five Hearings for
each work stream, 25 in total. Frankly these two statements do not add up.
I have
had no problem that from the outset the Inquiry appeared to have no clear plan
for the Hearings wanting to limit their length to six to eight weeks and then
agreeing to 200 core participant application for the first set of Hearings
which have reached their preliminary hearings because of the decision to have
an advisory panel of individuals representing survivor victim interests
although it is now not clear what part they actually have played in influencing
the way the inquiry has been conducted or in the selection of subjects for
Hearings. The second reason was the
external pressure for some form of public inquisition or show trial where
Greville Janner appears to be the selected alleged perpetrator but not Jimmy
Saville where there has been an
understandable determination by the establishment to prevent anyone
investigating the role of the establishment in
the cover up of his proven crimes
by dividing inquiries between the NHS, the BBC and a number of individual
councils and bodies. Nor has there been an Investigation announced into the
role of Peter Righton, the Paedophile Information Exchange, Government Funding,
Liberty and a number of former Government Ministers. I remain puzzled why?
I have
had no objection to the input of the survivor advisory committee or leaving the
selection of subjects to the chairman and the other panel members without wider
consultation, including with Parliament, if decisions had been based on an adequate
collation and review of all the available documentation. I suggest this had not happened and in effect
cannot happen until the conclusion of all the police investigations which in
fairness was the position of the collation government, and which I shared,
until intense pressure from politicians such as Tom Watson. Tim Loughton and
Zac Goldsmith, social media and other campaigner appear to have forced the
Government to set up the first panel Inquiry in 2014.
It is
also difficult to see how any previous police investigation can be considered
fully closed until there are no more self-referrals to the Truth project. The
same applies to records held for all child care providing bodies and agencies.
When I
went to Sunderland Council in 1991, as its only second Director of Social
Services, the first time I had any indication of what had happened over the
previous two decades was when approached
by the local newspaper, immediately referring this to the Department of
Health and advised the Leader of the Opposition on the Council, who had
requested an independent investigation, that I was advised this was not needed
at that time following an inspection of
files and meetings conducted by two Department of Health officers. After this I was contacted by the Editor of
the paper who had received information which indicated that there had not been
full disclosure by the local authority and it was several weeks before
discovering that there were two sets of files and this led to advising
Northumbria Police and then the Department of Heath who arranged for an
independent inspection by officers from outside the region but only in relation
to three establishments then identified of concern.
At the
request of the Department of Health, their letter to me is clear, I established
a special team securing the files, and placing the team at a secret location to
work with the police team. I would have placed the specialist child protection
officers under the control of the Northumbria Police had I the authority to do
so. I did not need Department of Health Advice about collating and securing
documentation. In 1980 South Tyneside Council agreed to my secondment to
participate in a non-statutory judicial panel of inquiry with core participant
representation and a key aspect was the disappearance of records and the negligent
failure of the local authority to recreate records from other records held in
the department and from all the agencies and authorities with previously
recorded information. The most important
witness refused to attend as the Inquiry although judicial led and run had no
statutory powers. The statutory Inquiry has the power to compel witnesses to
attend while individual Committees of the House of Commons do not have this
power and they cannot compel Dame Lowell Goddard to attend although the
committee asked the Home Secretary to some strong arm twisting on its behalf.
After
meeting two leading campaigners for a national Inquiry on January 2nd
2014 I immediately wrote to the then Secretary of State for Education urging
the collation, securing and reviewing of all records mentioning how important
this had been in relation to the Hillsborough cover up and the associated
political, police and media negligence. I also wrote to the Chief Constable of
Northumbria Police and again to Sunderland Council where I had offered
assistance in a letter to its then Chief Executive in 2013 on learning that the
Council was publishing documentation following a Freedom of Information request
from a third party and where the documentation was protected under the 1993
High Court Order. The Council has since published information which I had
marked personal and confidential at the time without redactions thus revealing
the names of those circulated as well as their designations. I was surprised to
learn that the first act of the original panel inquiry was not to insist on all
documentation being collated and secured before review.
I have
also been surprised that the Inquiry appears to have proceeded with selecting
subjects for Investigation and commenced preliminary hearings and appointing
core participants without completing the basic ground work. The first thing I
did when appointed to the Gates Inquiry by the London borough of Bexley and the
Bexley and Greenwich Health Authority was to acquire copies of as many previous
published inquiries that had taken place, studied them and make contact with
some of the panel who I knew. It was not until 1982 that the Department of
Health published its first limited study of Inquiries 1973-1981. This study did
not include the most important investigation of child sexual abuse in an
individual local authority in England and Wales to date which occurred in
Newcastle because the then Director of Social Services had been allowed to
conduct his own investigation into why the local authority had failed the
children in its care.
Since
1982 the Department of Health published a second study to 1989 which avoided
covering the most important investigation into the role of a Director of Social
Services and the abuse of children in his case (Calderdale) and where the
inquiry was led by the then Director of Social Services for Newcastle. In 2000
Corby, Doag and Roberts in Public Inquiries into the Abuse of Children in
residential care attempted a comprehensive listing and since then social media
activists have attempted to collate and publish information of existing and
ongoing relevant police operations (Operation Greenlight in particular is an
important source) but only through direct contact with every service providing
agency can a comprehensive list of all investigations known to have been taken place be created and
a search made for any documentation which has not been destroyed or misfiled. Has
this been done?
I raise this issue
because on August 25th that is two weeks ago the Inquiry announced it was
seeking bids to carry out research for a rapid evidence assessment on social
and political discourses on child sexual abuse going back to 1940 which is
being commissioned by the Inquiry research team with the self-evident
implication that this has not already been done (The details are available on
the site). Why now? Was this blocked for financial reasons or to
limit the timescale of the Inquiry before the departure of its third
chairperson?) This announcement was after a similar request (August 15th)
from recognised research bodies to conduct two reviews in relation online
sexual exploitation looking at victims and perpetrators separately. Again one
must ask why now: coincidence or related to the departure of Lowell Goddard?
This also suggest that in fact the research team has already been undertaking
the kind and level of research necessary within permitted resources. I hope this has included the commencement of
a relationship database timeline covering everything from all forms of inquiry
to all convictions and if there is evidence that those convicted were in
contact with each other, and who were the government Ministers, the national
and local government or agency managers and officials and had they any direct
contact with convicted perpetrators?
It
would be wrong of me to conflate the self- stated loneliness of Dame Lowell
Goddard at being separated from her family with the decisions which appear to
try and limit the thoroughness and comprehensiveness in which the Inquiry was
set up by Government with the support of Parliament, but where because of
Parliamentary privilege the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee is in a
position to ask, ideally through a personal appearance or through a further
exchange of letters.
As was
stated during the questioning of the Home Secretary by the Committee
government, the Home Affairs Committee and Parliament are between a rock and a
hard place because if there is any attempt to ensure the inquiry is on the
intended right track the complaint will be that the Inquiry is not independent
and is government controlled.
The
issue which appears to be of great concern to survivor groups concerned with
the Lambeth and Medomsley inquiries according to recent reports by the BBC and
Guardian is the possible influencing by the Home Office and by other government
staff which will lead to further covering ups and a failure to address the
issues which concern survivor victims. This is to confuse the necessary links
between government and the enquiry to provide official information especially
in relation to the provision of state secrets. It is also important for the
inquiry to have the right overall management, organisation, legal, financial
and human resource skills to get the job done and these were readily available
when the statutory inquiry was established and there is nothing to stop the
Inquiry appointing who or when it wants as long as the normal rules for
appointing anyone to anything are applied. As was made clear on September 7th
the Inquiry returned £2 million underspent and no one has set a limit on
expenditure or time.
The
need for due process, compliance to employment law, confidentiality and data
protection should be obvious and as was also mentioned on September 7th
it is possible for anyone or body with the money to seek an injunction and a
prevention Order from the High Court, and to raised issues with the Appeal
Court system and the European Court at any time, and where the threat from the
newspaper owners to go to court prevented the panel appointed to the Leveson
Inquiry having any role in the Hearing sessions. There is still no decision if
Leveson 2 intended to deal with the collusion and the cover up, and protectionism
will take place. The Iraq Inquiry went
on for years because of the need for due process and some victims and victim
families in Northern Ireland have to wait another thirty or forty years before
Inquests can be held. It is also important to underline that even a statutory
Inquiry cannot change anything directly. This will be for Government and the
Institutional bodies involved. I have also repeatedly pointed out in broad
terms we already know, and government has known what happened and why in broad
terms. The Catholic Church of Rome is the most obvious example of a religious
body in this respect where every priest from Pope to parish priest will confess
every sin in the process of gaining salvation. Priests confess to Bishops,
Bishops to Cardinals and Cardinals to Popes as well as their peers so any
notion that the church did not know is preposterous and the issue is to
establish the extent of damage to individuals as a consequence and to what
extent the cover up was to avoid damage to individual careers and reputational
damage to the institution as well as to the organisation finances.
The
idea that the issue of Accountability and Reparations can be dealt with in a
six to eight-week Hearing with selected case studies is irresponsible and
unacceptable.
One of
the problems has been that general media perception and from social media
discourse is that the Hearings is what the Inquiry is about or that it is about
the prosecution or bringing down of national politicians and other VIP alleged
perpetrators. In fact, the Inquiry was
set up under intense political and media pressure to draw a line for victims,
campaigners and institutional bodies on the past so everyone’s attention and
resources could be spent on the present and the future.
It is
the failure for a number of reasons, some good, and some very bad, to examine
the past critically but objectively and to do so in an open way, in so far as
national interests and state security permit, that has led to the present mess.
What is needed from the new chairperson,
as soon as practical is a restatement of what the Inquiry will do and how it is
doing it, of the work achieved to date and still to do and the need to for
flexibility and adjustments as the information is available and reviewed. Those
who want the work to stop I simply say damn you and no and for once I am sure I
am not alone in saying this.
*
ACCOUNTABILITY AND REPARATIONS FOR VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS OF ABUSE
An inquiry
into the extent to which existing support services and legal processes
effectively deliver reparations to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse
and exploitation
Scope of investigation
1.
The Inquiry will investigate the extent to which
existing support services, compensation frameworks and the civil justice system
are fit to deliver reparations to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
The investigation will incorporate case specific investigations and a review of
information
available from published and unpublished reports and reviews, court cases, and
previous investigations in relation to the delivery of reparations to the
victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
2.
The Inquiry will consider the experiences of
victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and investigate:
2.1. what
amounts to adequate reparation in the case of child sexual abuse, including a
consideration of what weight should be attached to the right to an independent
and impartial investigation, the right to truth, accountability, compensation,
guarantees of nonrecurrence, and support services;
2.2. to
what extent support services, the civil justice system, and/or alternative compensation
frameworks (including the criminal courts and the Criminal Injuries
Compensation Authority) have delivered each of these elements to victims and
survivors of child sexual abuse, including consideration of:
a. the
adequacy of support services provided by public, private and charitable
organisations;
b. the
extent to which the current civil litigation framework may have obstructed the
delivery of some or all elements of reparation;
c. the
extent to which the current model of insurance, and/or the practice of
insurance companies, may have obstructed the delivery of some or all elements
of reparation;
d. the
extent to which other factors may have obstructed the delivery of some or all
elements of reparation;
e. the
extent to which any of the factors above may also have obstructed the
implementation of effective safeguarding measures by institutions.
3.
To investigate the issues set out above the
Inquiry will identify case studies including, but not limited to, the
experience of victims and survivors of sexual abuse at Forde Park Approved
School and children’s homes in North Wales.
4.
In light of the investigations set out above,
the Inquiry will publish a report setting out its findings, lessons learned,
and recommendations to improve child protection and safeguarding in England and
Wales.
ACCOUNTABILITY AND REPARATIONS
Description
of scope for case studies
1. The
description of scope for the Inquiry’s investigation into accountability and
reparations states that it will examine two specific case studies: North Wales children’s
homes and Forde Park A pproved School.
2. The
Inquiry has decided to add three further case studies in order to obtain as
broad a range of evidence as possible. The additional case studies are: St
Leonard’s children’s home, St Aidan’s & St Vincent’s children’s homes and
the Stanhope Castle Approved School. The selection of these case studies does
not prevent the inclusion of additional case studies at a later date.
3. The
accountability and reparations investigation focuses on the aftermath of child
sexual abuse. The Inquiry is limited by its terms of reference to considering
experiences of child sexual abuse. It is not able to examine other forms of
child abuse.
4. We
will be seeking evidence on the following issues in the four case studies:
a. The
process of making a civil claim for damages;
b.
Criminal compensation schemes (criminal
compensation orders; Criminal Injuries Compensation
Authority (CICA), formerly Criminal Injuries compensation Board (CIBA) awards); and
c. Support
services for victims and survivors who have disclosed child sexual abuse,
whether or not they were involved in a criminal or civil case.
5. The
investigation will not examine or resolve disputed factual issues relating to
the underlying allegations of child sexual abuse.
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