Child Abuse: Waterhouse Inquiry

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

It is true that there is now a large number of inquiries. The noble Baroness says 10 and my brief says nine, but I take the point. The Government did not rule out an overarching inquiry, but there is a time to pause on this. Some of the accusations have been put into perspective by rushing to judgment in an overheated way, through Twitter and the new technologies that we live in. Those in authority need to have confidence. We are talking about child abuse; a very serious crime, which people who have evidence of should report to the police. It is not a responsibility of judicial inquiries to find wrongdoers. It is for the police, and if there are people with evidence, they should take it to the police.

There is public concern about whether Waterhouse missed anything. We have asked a distinguished judge to do a specific task in relation to that: to look at whether any specific allegations of child abuse were missed by that investigation and then to make recommendations to the Secretary of State for Justice and the Secretary of State for Wales. That is the right place to be in.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I read the report. I was a colleague of Sir Ronald Waterhouse. He produced, as both the noble and learned Lords have said, an impeccable report. If the terms of reference were, “Are there allegations that were not put to Sir Ronald that have now arisen?”, they would be acceptable. However, the Government have—and the Minister really should be taking this on board—cast aspersions on the report suggesting that he did not do a good enough job. If the terms of reference are changed, which I would ask the Minister to do, to say that any allegations not made to Sir Ronald Waterhouse should be investigated, I suspect the House would be a great deal happier.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, three of our most distinguished judicial Members have spoken out very strongly about Sir Ronald Waterhouse’s integrity. I associate myself completely with them. That was not the situation we faced. We faced growing public concern about whether child abuse allegations had not been investigated. The judge in charge of the new inquiry is taking time to look carefully at what she needs to do the job and will look again to see whether the plethora of allegations that are around need re-examining and whether something was missed in the details of inquiry. I do not accept that that impugns the integrity, processes or findings of the original report. We dealt with a situation of real public concern. I hope the way Mrs Justice Macur now takes it forward will meet that public concern.

I repeat that I associate myself entirely with the comments of senior judicial colleagues about Sir Ronald Waterhouse and his work. It is important to get this on the record. We are indebted to the senior judiciary for so often being willing to take on these very difficult tasks on behalf of society as a whole.