Tuesday 9 June 2015

David Cameron was a member of a past inquiry into child abuse

I'm grateful to Tim Wilkinson without whose research I wouldn't have found this information.

In the Parliamentary Session 2001-2002, David Cameron was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee which carried out an inquiry into the investigation and prosecution of cases of (alleged) institutional child abuse.

An HTML version of the Committee's inquiry, including evidence sesssions, can be found here:
Home Affairs - Fourth Report

A PDF version of the Report itself is here:
The Conduct of Investigations into past cases of abuse in Children's Homes

I have only done a limited amount of reading so far.

I was struck by this comment in paragraph 2 of the Report:

It has been suggested, and we believe it to be so, that a new genre of miscarriages of justice has arisen from the over-enthusiastic pursuit of these allegations.
On the surface at least, it looks like David Cameron put his name to a Report which expressed the view that pursuit of historical child abuse allegations was, at least at times, "over enthusiastic".

Did Mr. Cameron seek in 2001-2002 to undermine future prosecutions for historical child abuse?

Someone should ask him, I suggest.

I also suggest that the Report and the evidence sessions might repay detailed study.

Another surprise in the Report is that Tom Watson was also a member of the Committee.

No comments:

Post a Comment