General Chat

A victim of historical child sexual abuse has launched a legal challenge to the choice of Fiona Woolf as the chair of the inquiry investigating the issue.

A judicial review application, seen by the BBC, claims she is not impartial, has no relevant expertise and may not have time to discharge her duties.

Downing Street said it had "full confidence" in her doing the job - isn't that what Downing Street were saying before Lady Butler-Sloss stepped down?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29719090

OFITG

Just goes to show how out of touch the government are. Beggars belief.

Just one big cover up methinks.

Von - Fiona Woolf said when answering questions put to her by the Home Affairs Select Committee, that she lived in the same London street as Lord Brittan and had invited him and his wife to dinner on three occasions, and had two dinners at their house between 2008 and 2012 and said he was not a "close associate" - so is she saying they are not good friends :-S

Exactly. She was on a committee with Lady Britten and met for coffee as late as April 2013.

There must be plenty of other lawyers who don't have connections with any ex members of the government.
I know there are 9 other people involved in the inquiry
but the chair person would have a great deal of influence.
Who is it they are trying to protect?

Edit to say that the inquiry can't start until she has finished her other duties

Still stuck on the starting line. This debacle is making a long story even longer.

If you were selected to sit as a juror and it was discovered that, you had wined and dined on several occasions, with any of the individuals in the dock, you would have to stand down and you would be replaced by some else.

Is the role that Lord Brittan played in the issues to be investigate by this inquiry - not in the dock :-S

Harrowing tales continue to emanate from Ireland not dissimilar to the subject of this thread.

The powers that be there - both religious & state - have a history of burying bad & inconvenient disgraces. There’s hardly a carpet in Convents or Government Ministers’ Offices without something nasty lurking underneath.

The latest tale of woe concerns the discovery of dumped orphan children’s remains in a disused Convent cesspit - death caused in many cases by untreated ailments coupled with harsh lifestyles.

Primitive practices in a relatively modern age.

Not any time soon and crucially no report before May 2015..

Fiona Woolf has a solid background as a commercial lawyer mainly with CMS Cameron McKenna's. She is of course very well connected otherwise she would not have become 2nd female Lord Mayor of the City of London.

Due to her mayoral duties she cannot get started until mid-November 2014. Even then any start will be delayed as an application for judicial review of her appointment has been made and there will be no decision until end 2014.

F Woolf has no background whatsoever in criminal law of any sort. OTOH she has a very fine analytical mind and has plenty of experience in rooting out truths in the murky world of high finance which many would prefer unfound. That she is a member of the establishment may well help as she will know which stones to look under and who to ask. An experienced criminal lawyer with no connections would be flying blind.

The real problem is that the whole system for young people in care by various institutions in the UK & its nearby crown dependencies (and Eire, IOM) is a horrible on going mess going back more than half a century. On top of that all sorts of abuse of young people through online pron and "grooming" is a a cancer running right through the country. Rotherham is certainly not an isolated case - some towns on the south coast may well be next.

Any useful witnesses to Fiona Woolf's enquiry will need to be brave souls. I certainly would not want to rely on the protection of the Met. Who will guard the guardians?

It is one of the strengths of our legal system that it is possible to question the choice of chairman of the committee of enquiry.

That so much trouble is being taken over the choice would, I hope, mean that a great deal of importance is being attached to it.

Possibly it will lead to some fundamental changes in the way society treats it's children.

"Possibly it will lead to some fundamental changes in the way society treats it's children."

It should and it could but it won't.

The maltreatment of children is something deeply embedded into the UK and is probably beyond fixing. All the same that is no reason to give up and cover up.

The problem with having members of the establishment sort out child abuse problems is that most of them rarely see their progeny who are mainly looked after by nannies and then disappear to prep followed by public school . As the ruling class find public schools "normal" they have difficulty in understanding the problem though things are far better than 40 years ago. The Catholic church remains unconvinced that it is not a state within states not subject to temporal law. The Pope has "got it" but so far not his merry men.

Fiona is very much a product of the elite private schools system in Scotland though afaik she was a day pupil.

The police are fond of making spectacular 4am busts on private houses in order to seize items for YewTree etc. It is going to take time for them to work out that what they are looking for may well be stored thousands of miles away outside the power of any search warrant. They also seem less than keen to take on powerful corporations and take their searches onto corporate and government servers. Fishing trips are ok against small fry but not against great white sharks.

Despite the blustering of Cameron & May the trafficking of young people is worse than ever. Savage cuts in the budgets of the Border Police and other organizations are not of course a factor .....

:-(

I would nominate Her Honour Judge Sally Cahill QC to chair the inquiry, she does not appear be afraid of challenging the establishment.

In a report, on the inquiry she chaired, an inquiry that was commissioned by the Church of England, it is reported that yesterday she allegedly said that a former, Church of England Archbishop, covered up the crimes of a senior member of the clergy who was accused of having been a serial child sex abuser.

She is reported as stating, that the Archbishop in question, allowed a senior member of the clergy to escape exposure or punishment for his actions, adding that the former Archbishop's concerns for the welfare of the member of the clergy seemed to have been paramount.

The article is in the Daily Mail - which I would add "is not my favourite newspaper"

This is from the Archbishop of York's website:-

http://www.archbishopofyork.org/articles.php/2948/archbishop-announces-independent-inquiry

Well you can hope. There is a bit of a difference between a circuit judge and a top rank London lawyer or Judge of the Supreme Court. As it is the inquiry will have no powers to force witnesses to appear and give evidence under oath, demand evidence etc. At least Fiona will have the necessary clout to get some sort of result. Sally Cahill QC steeped in Yorkshire grit and common sense would get nowhere. At least they can't threaten her hubby.

I can also think of several current and retired senior judges from the High Court of Justiciary of Scotland that would be suitable candidates - appointing one of them would reduce the possibility of links to the "establishment" in England ;-)