Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
Debate between Judith Cummins and Tessa Munt(1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
I refer the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and particularly to the fact that I am a director of WhistleblowersUK, a not-for-profit organisation. I am the last remaining MP of the seven Members of the House of Commons who originally called on Theresa May to hold an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. My experiences are also on the record. I therefore particularly welcome the acceptance of Professor Alexis Jay’s recommendations and Baroness Louise Casey’s rapid review into child sexual exploitation.
May I, however, draw the Home Secretary’s attention to my concern about police investigations? She has referred to the matter of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and to reopening cases, but I am concerned about people marking their own homework and we know that there is an institutional resistance to being found lacking and to deep scrutiny.
One of the primary whistleblowers with whom I was involved has waited years for the truth to out, and senior police officers have threatened to sue her. It would appear that complaints can only be made about junior officers who are called and investigated, and that there is no ability to complain about senior officers. I ask the Home Secretary to look at the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Independent Office for Police Conduct reports, whether they have been published or not—particularly where they have not been published—and where there have been threats, as I understand it, from the police to sue members of those organisations about their findings. It is incredibly serious that we have organisations such as the IPCC and the IOPC—
