MAY’S ABUSE VOW SHAME Her promised probe is delayed 7 months
TODAY marks 196 days since Theresa May announced her inquiry into historic child sex abuse – and the nation is STILL waiting for it.
The Home Secretary now has the choice of 100 candidates to chair the inquiry after two she appointed slipped through her fingers.
But Mrs May is still dithering over who it should be.
Last week we put six crucial questions to her which she declined to answer. So today the Sunday People launches the Mayo-meter to monitor how long survivors of abuse are to be denied justice.
We want to shame the Home Secretary into pulling her finger out before the General Election in May.
On 7 July last year s he announced an independent inquiry to investigate the way public bodies handled child sex abuse claims.
It was to be led by former judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.
But a week later the baroness stood down because her late brother Sir Michael Havers was attorney general in the 1980s, when much of the abuse was alleged to have happened. It
When will your inquiry begin?
Why is there still a delay in getting it off the ground?
What evidence have you gathered in the meantime?
Will the existing panel be disbanded?
Are you any nearer to appointing a chair for the inquiry?
Will you be looking abroad for a new chair? was later claimed he himself was involved in sex parties with rent boys. On 5 September Lord Mayor of London Fiona Woolf was named as new head of the inquiry.
But by 31 October she was gone after it emerged she dined five times with former Home Secretary Lord Brittan in 2008-2012.
Labour MP John Mann said yesterday: “This has dragged on far too long. Victims are losing faith and the Home Secretary must sort this mess out.”
But a Home Office spokesman said: “We have to balance the need to make progress with the need to get this right. The Home Secretary is committed to ensuring the inquiry has the confidence of survivors.
“She has made it clear the inquiry should be placed on a statutory footing with powers to compel people to give evidence. She is considering options.”