Mansfield Chambers Press Release regarding the Judicial Review of the Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry

Mansfield Chambers Press Release regarding the Judicial Review of the Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry

In Mansfield Chambers With 5 Comments

The Chambers of Michael Mansfield QC supports the Survivors' two grounds of judicial review. Firstly, that the Survivors of Sexual Abuse are excluded from membership of the Inquiry panel because of a claim that they will lack the necessary objectivity. It should be noted that this bar to membership of the panel in fact only targets Survivors who have disclosed their abuse; this of course serves only to punish and stigmatise Survivors.
Secondly, that the Victims and Survivors Consultative Panel (VSCP) involvement is so limited as to be meaningless. The VSCP was said to have been created to allow Survivors to participate at the centre of this Inquiry. Instead the VSCP will meet with the Inquiry team on two days per month and not have access to the Inquiry papers. Each of these decisions sidelines the participation of the Survivors. As Michael Mansfield QC has said:
" The process has been marred by a Government which has tried relentlessly to manipulate the appointments, remit and terms and conditions of any Inquiry. The only way forward is to ensure a collective approach by survivors standing firm and together on clear objectives."

Notes to editors:
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was announced by the Home Secretary on the 12th of March 2015
The Hon Justice Goddard DNZM has been appointed to Chair the Inquiry; in her letter posted on the 12th of March she stated that "the appointment of victims or survivors to the panel will not, in my view, be consistent with the objectivity, independence and impartiality that is required of members of an independent panel"
On the 9th of April the Inquiry team announced that the VSCP would be limited to two days per month and stated, to Survivors, that members of the VSCP would not be provided with Inquiry papers.

  • analiensaturn

    Seems to me the government already has a conclusion and everything they do is about getting to it.

    • Retired Nurse

      they write a narrative and just find the evidence that supports it and ditch the rest.
      Same as Neuberger’s LCP ”impartial review” – only a judge can summons evidence on oath, and they have abused ministerial discretion on ordering another since Leveson!

  • Retired Nurse

    identical to what happened with both the liverpool care pathway coverup AND the gosport war memorial hospital coverup!
    In the former, they appointed someone who was already a trustee of the national coalition that the copyright owners belong to as a ‘patient rep’ – the other panellist, Denise Charlesworth Smith walked out in disgust at the way she was treated by la Neuberger.
    Most of the gosport relatives are boycotting the bishop of liverprick’s farce as they are deliberately mixing in case of old people who were genuinely dying, with the majority who were non terminal and simply waiting to come home in an area with service shortfalls – they have a right to protect their legal interests.
    I hope you’re aware what they do behind the scenes – the minutes of one of the gosport liaison meetings actually has a govt. official admitting that 2 of the hillsborough cases fell because they failed to get a statement that the evidence had all been handed over to them!
    They are using paralegals as a cheap alternative to a judge, sifting through the state’s evidence first, and losing loads by typing convenient keywords into the computer. e.g. if you do a system search on ‘end of life care’ you conveniently lose all of those about the liverpool care pathway!
    Bent, non article 2 compliant whitewash and coverup!

  • Robert Chewter

    The rigged enquiry has little to no experience on this matter and Teresa May should look at her own department regarding cover ups of late

  • Phil’s Petition

    The child sex abuse inquiry continues to baffle logic.
    It is a house of mirrors where the reflection that needs
    investigation is that of those that can’t be seen,
    the ones holding the mirrors in the halls of power.
    Survivors who have had to bare the innermost reflections
    of their past are continually sidelined, have had to
    fight tooth and nail for a justice and transparency
    against those who have no idea what it is like to look in the
    mirror and see the pain of surviving child sex abuse.
    That pain is tempered and measured, that pain is
    what makes a survivor of child abuse even more
    even handed to ensure justice is done and seen to be done.
    Those involved in the inquiry should look in the mirror
    and ask themselves is this true justice or more
    smoke and mirrors and who holds the mirror glass?
    I am a survivor of child abuse