Child Abuse

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The review looked at the way in which the information that had come in from Geoffrey Dickens—and, indeed, any other information—had been handled, to ensure that it was being handled appropriately. The evidence that it found was that matters that should have been handed over to the police for investigation were indeed handed to the police for investigation. As I have said, four pieces of information have subsequently been passed to the police because it was felt that it was now appropriate to do so. The review will look at the whole question of what the investigator did and what evidence they found. It will ensure that that investigation was done properly and that the handling of those matters was entirely appropriate, in order to give greater confidence precisely because questions have been raised.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

In the early 1980s, I was working in child protection in south Wales, and rumours such as those that have been circulating this weekend were also circulating then. Many of the people who were working in child protection in the 1980s have now retired. Will there be a confidential access line to enable such people to come forward and reveal what they saw happening at the time? Such material might not be suitable for a police inquiry, but it might well help to build a picture of what was prevalent then and of what engagement took place between the police and other authorities and those who had concerns about children being picked up at the end of the lane in large cars but found that they could get nowhere with those concerns.

[Mrs May]

It is precisely in order to learn the lessons that we need to know what was going on, and the inquiry is obviously going to have to look quite widely in order to find that out. It will have to look at the documentary evidence from the reviews that have taken place. I do not want to dictate to the inquiry what it should do or how it should undertake its work, but I am sure that the chairman and the panel will be alive to the fact that, in order to get to the truth, they will need to hear from those who have felt unable to speak out in the past.