Questions & Suggestion by Team Inspire at Home Office to Justice Goddard

Meeting at the Home Office, Marsham Street, London with Justice Lowell Goddard et al
10^th February 2015 at 4.00pm
Questions/Suggestions:
1.What is Justice Goddard’s background/experience in her own words of such an inquiry
2.Are there any conflicts of interest?
3.What does Justice Goddard know about the British institutional systems
4.This CSA Inquiry will inevitably cover England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
5.Hopefully Jersey too – as has been called for many times
6.Is Justice Godard aware that children have been trafficked all over the UK including Northern Ireland and Jersey and worldwide
7.Justice Goddard needs to consider in this inquiry FGM, Honor Marriage, Honor abuse,
Trafficking including the grooming, coercion and control processes; all cultures must be included
8.These all have differing systems – what does she know about these systems
9.How will Justice Goddard ensure she is informed as quickly as possible regarding all the UK systems, including the following:

• Schools – Boarding & day/Private & maintained/Faith & Church Schools –  all schools
• including their Senior Leadership Teams
• Mosques & cultural departments of all descriptions throughout the UK including leaders
• Taxi services throughout the UK
• UK Department for Education
• Local Authorities nationwide
• Local Councils
• Ofsted
• Safeguarding Boards both adults and children
• Social Services both adult and children and including the Courts, Cafcass
• Children’s Centres
• Police/PCC’s/Crime Commissioners throughout the UK
• NHS/Hospitals/Doctors/GP’s
• Care Homes & their management
• Parliament, MP's and its members – current and historic; dead or alive
• Large national charities/NGO’s including NSPCC and Barnardo’s
• The church in all its denominations and church children’s homes – current/historic
• Children’s homes nationally including Church homes/hostels/women & baby homes
• Prison Service
• Military
• Masons
• Familial abuse must be considered, as this is where it starts
• Paedophile organisations including PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange), OSC (Online Sex Community), Elm Guest House, Dolphin Square, Kincora et al

10.Is she aware of the amount, and the depth, of cover ups dating back to at least 1940 in the establishment, charities, government departments and private organisations
11.Is she aware there is no safe place for whistle blowers in the UK
12.How will she ensure whistle blowers are looked after and made safe
13.What does Justice Goddard know about the establishments in the UK?
14.Is she aware many registered sex offenders continue to have access to a computer and the internet whilst on bail and on release from prison
15.What, and how much, knowledge does Justice Goddard have regarding safeguarding & child protection policies and procedures in the UK
16.Is Justice Goddard aware that it is not Mandatory Reporting by law (with criminal consequences) if an individual chooses not to report a safeguarding and/or child protection disclosure to the relevant authorities in the UK
17.There have to be regional meetings for as many Survivors to come forward nationally as possible and in small towns NOT just large cities and not just a few as we see now
18.Victims and survivors/whistle blowers need to be able to come forward safely
19.Disability and Special Needs must be catered for adequately and safely
20.Safeguarding/counselling/psychotherapy needs to be adequately funded and put into place nationally and not just with the large charities; small ones need support too
21.Counselling etc must be open ended, no time limit & funds available
22.Nominations must be made from the public domain for the panel as for the Chair
23.Transparent up to date information must be regularly placed on the new CSA Inquiry website for survivors to feel informed and the NEW website must NOT resemble the Government in any way
24.Transparent information/updates need to regularly be put out in the media and social media/TV/News/Newspapers
25.Funding applications for all those who wish to apply must be made simple and paid quickly to help sustainability
Child abuse is, and has been, endemic in the UK and there have been serious cover-up’s which are still going on today in all areas of organisations and the establishment linked to children and adults being abused and reporting/disclosing on all levels and of all descriptions. This Inquiry has to bring an end to this and change systems and procedures in order to make our children safe.
We hope we did not miss too much, if anything, but if we did, hopefully others organisations and individuals covered it in their own questions during the meeting.
This document was given to Justice Goddard to take away from the meeting.
Elaine Hook, Team Inspire
Published on blog 12.02.15 for transparency
Justice Goddard and her support team answered all questions put to her in the opinion of Team Inspire satisfactorily at the time of the meeting.

@inspire4UMeUs

Meeting with Justice Goddard

Yesterday, 10th February 2015, Elaine Hook and Jenny Tomlin, Founders and Directors of Buckinghamshire charity, Inspire You Me & Us CIC attended a meeting at the Home Office, London to meet with Justice Goddard, new chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

With over twenty representative groups in attendance and several individuals, the meeting room was buzzing with energy, suggestions and information sharing. Every attendee was given the opportunity to share their individual and organizational reasons for supporting this inquiry and what each one of those attending wished for victims, survivors and the results of the inquiry as a whole.

It was an extremely positive meeting with all voices heard and listened to. All opinions were respected and noted by Justice Goddard and her Home Office team of administrative supporters as well as all those representatives groups and individuals in attendance. The general consensus was that all in attendance agreed that this inquiry must get started, hear survivors, believe, eventually obtain evidence, justice and convictions where appropriate. Disclosures must be handed to the relevant authorities.

Justice Goddard was gracious and humble and assured all attendees of her long lasting and enduring commitment to the job in hand. Justice Goddard and her whole support team thanked all those in attendance (together with those not present) for their hard work, stead fastness, determination and commitment to getting to where we are today.

This whole process has been, and will continue, to be a huge learning curve for everyone concerned; patience is called for as the CSAinquiry Chair and Team now get going.

All in all extremely positive for all concerned.

Lets ensure its onward and upward from now on.

Best wishes

Elaine Hook
Team Inspire
@inspire4UMeUs
11.02.15

Statement by Ben Emmerson QC, Counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Statement: New Chair for Inquiry

Posted on 4th February 2015

Statement by Ben Emmerson QC, Counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse:

 

“The Home Secretary is extremely fortunate to have secured the services of Justice Lowell Goddard, one of the most respected and experienced judges in the Commonwealth, to act as Chair of the new statutory inquiry that was announced in the House of Commons this afternoon. Justice Goddard has all the key qualities necessary to lead the Inquiry’s work – absolute independence from the executive, a proven track record of holding state and non-state institutions to account, and the forensic skills necessary to digest and analyse vast quantities of evidence. She is a judge with a longstanding commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights, both in New Zealand and within the United Nations system. She has the courage, independence and vision required to run a major national investigation into the failure to protect vulnerable children against sexual abuse, which has reportedly taken place on an almost industrial scale in institutional settings in the United Kingdom over many years.

 

I have personally reviewed the selection and due diligence processes used by the Home Office in the appointment of Justice Goddard. These processes were carried out in unprecedented depth and detail, and meet the highest possible standards of pre-appointment scrutiny. As part of the selection process, the Home Secretary has consulted – personally and through her officials – with victims and survivors, and she has listened carefully to their concerns and priorities in framing these new arrangements.

As a result of this review, the original panel appointed last September has been dissolved and a new panel will in due course be selected by the Home Secretary in consultation with Justice Goddard, following an objective appointment process conducted in accordance with transparent criteria. Despite a number of difficulties, the original panel managed to do some important groundwork in the short time that it was in place. This work will help to inform the decisions that Justice Goddard will now have to make in framing the inquiry’s methodology.

But it is important to stress that this is a completely fresh start. The inquiry that the Home Secretary has announced today will be a statutory inquiry established under the 2005 Inquiries Act. Unlike the previous panel inquiry it will have powers to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence by institutions and individuals. Justice Goddard and her legal advisers will be able to review open and classified sources. This new inquiry will therefore have all the powers it needs to penetrate deeply into the institutions that have failed children in the past, and to identify those institutions that are reportedly continuing to fail children today. And it will do so under the leadership of an exceptionally experienced judge.

 

This new inquiry will begin its work on a fully professional footing from the outset. Every effort will of course be made to keep the public sufficiently informed about the progress of the inquiry, with as much transparency as possible. However, some of the inquiry’s work will necessarily be conducted under conditions of confidentiality which are essential for the effective investigation of such serious and sensitive allegations.

I am pleased to say that the independent Secretariat, which has been working hard to lay the groundwork for this inquiry, will continue to serve as the Secretariat for the new statutory inquiry. The members of this dedicated team have been recruited from across government departments and beyond. They are committed to the success of this new inquiry and will be answerable to Justice Goddard and the new panel, and to no one else. They are, and will remain, fully independent of Government.

 

I am also pleased to confirm that I have accepted an invitation from the Home Secretary to act as counsel to the Goddard Inquiry. In this capacity I have already had the opportunity to speak to Justice Goddard personally and to begin discussions with her about the challenges ahead. She will be arriving in the United Kingdom next week for a meeting with Home Affairs Select Committee.

 

I would like to acknowledge the clear commitment that the Home Secretary has shown throughout this process to the success of this new inquiry. In order to ensure that the arrangements she has now put in place are robust and sustainable she has taken a very close personal interest in the process and has met regularly with a range of stakeholders to canvass their views for herself.

 

All those involved in this process are committed to confronting the scourge of child sexual abuse in this country, shining a light into the murkier corners of some of our most powerful national institutions.”

 

Kindest regards

 

Issued by Usha Choli

Head, Engagement and Stakeholder Relations

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

 

Published with permission of the Secretariat by Team Inspire

04.02.15