“Child sex abuse inquiry ‘hasn’t listened to victims’”, The Times
Lucy Bannerman, London, June 11, 2018
Survivors of child sexual abuse have accused the public inquiry into institutional abuse of “squandering public money on ill-advised PR” rather than listening to victims.
In a letter to The Times survivors express their disappointment with the progress of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, led by Alexis Jay. They are frustrated by the lack of dialogue with the inquiry and say that the last meeting of its victims and survivors forum, set up by the inquiry to “make it easier for victims to engage with us”, was 14 months ago.
Phil Johnson, Tom Perry, Mark Samaru, Mark Smalley and Jonathan West said that the meetings had served more as progress reports from the inquiry, rather than any attempt to listen to victims.
“Four of us are survivors of institutional child sexual abuse and feel deeply disappointed in the conduct of the inquiry, which squanders public money on ill-advised PR, marketing and research without first consulting with survivors of abuse. Survivors deserve better than this,” they write.
Mr Samaru feared that “the inquiry will choose what it wants to hear. There is a huge feeling that the inquiry does not serve or engage with the very people who are supposed to be at the heart of it. Without engagement you cannot have participation. And without participation, you cannot have justice.”
Mr Perry, said: “When there is [a meeting], it is not a dialogue, it’s a diktat. Until they listen and communicate sensibly with survivors, it’s pointless.”
A spokeswoman for the inquiry, which was established in 2014, said that the forum had “held eight smaller consultation groups in the past year, and hosted face-to-face meetings with all forum members who have requested one. Now there are nearly 400 members in the inquiry’s forum who the inquiry contacts regularly regarding its work.”