Plaid rapped by inquiry over safeguarding policy

PLAID Cymru has been rapped over the knuckles by an official inquiry into child sexual abuse for not publishing details of its safeguarding policies in relation to children.

In February 2020, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse – which answers to Home Secretary Priti Patel – published a report which examined seven key issues: police misconduct, political parties, whips’ offices, the Paedophile Information Exchange, prosecutorial decisions, the honours system and current safeguarding policies in government, parliament and political parties.

The inquiry found a consistent pattern of deference towards people of public prominence, with political status repeatedly valued above the welfare of children.

Former police officer Robert Glen told the inquiry his team had enough evidence to prosecute Rochdale Liberal MP Cyril Smith in the 1970s for offences against young boys. However, he said the investigation was thwarted by senior officers who claimed it was “too political”. Meanwhile, Liberal Party members, who were likely to be aware of allegations against Smith, did nothing to inhibit his political progress.

Even now, the report found that safeguarding remains a crucial problem for political institutions to address. In 2017, Green Party election candidate Aimee Challenor was able to appoint her father as her election agent, despite the fact that he had been charged with 22 offences, including false imprisonment, rape and sexual assault of a child.

One of the inquiry’s recommendations was that all political parties should ensure they had robust safeguarding policies in place to protect children, and that such policies should be published.

A spokeswoman for the inquiry said: “As is stated in the inquiry’s Westminster report, at the time of the hearing of this investigation, Plaid Cymru did not have a specific safeguarding policy in place.

“In the Westminster report, our chair and panel made a number of recommendations based on their findings. As stated in the report, the inquiry expects institutions to whom recommendations are addressed to publish their response to our recommendations, including the timetable involved, within six months of the publication of the report.

“Since the publication of the Westminster report, the inquiry has written to Plaid Cymru in line with our published process for monitoring recommendations, noting the following recommendation which is relevant for Plaid Cymru: ‘Government, political parties and other Westminster institutions must have whistleblowing policies and procedures which cover child sexual abuse and exploitation. Every employee must be aware that they can raise any concerns using these policies and that the policies are not limited to concerns specific to a person’s employment.’

“Although Plaid Cymru has written to the inquiry noting the steps that it has taken to respond to this recommendation, to date this response has not been published. Until they do so, we are unable to record their formal response to our recommendations and update our own website accordingly.”

A spokesman for Plaid Cymru said the party had implemented a comprehensive safeguarding policy in 2020.