“Civil servants and lawyers are holding back key evidence” – head of abuse inquiry

Friday 14 August 2015

Reports, emails and investigations are some of the key documents that are being held back from the abuse inquiry, according to the senior lawyer leading it.

Frances Oldham QC has made the explosive allegation at the end of the current phase of hearings, saying that States departments and government lawyers are refusing to hand over some critical evidence, and handing some files over too late to ask questions of key witnesses.

The inquiry has avoided making public statements while the inquiry is ongoing, but her comments will pile pressure on civil servants and lawyers to disclose the files.

In her remarks, Ms Oldham said that the inquiry is now considering setting a final deadline for the disclosure of the evidence – and that if the files are not handed over, they may have to assume that some people in government didn’t want to evidence to see the light of day.

The current set of hearings is now over, but politicians will start to be called to give evidence for the first time in September to give evidence about what they knew about abuse in care homes and what they did about it.

So far, the inquiry has heard evidence from abuse victims about the sustained physical and sexual abuse that they were subjected to by staff while in care. Evidence has been heard about the Beast of Jersey at children’s homes, that the head of Haut de la Garenne raped a young girl at the home, and that notorious paedophile Jimmy Savile had been in Jersey.

In her statement, Ms Oldham said: “During this phase of evidence, the Inquiry has received excellent cooperation from the vast majority of witnesses, who have assisted the work of the Inquiry.

“However, we have been hampered by the late and non-disclosure of important documents, largely by the various States’ Departments, but also from the Law Officers Department. These include HR records, disciplinary and other investigations, policies, procedures, reports and emails, which have either failed to be disclosed, or have been disclosed after the relevant witness has given their evidence. Over the coming weeks, the Inquiry will review the recent disclosure and any documents which are forthcoming and will consider whether witnesses need to be recalled as a result.

“Furthermore, in relation to specific disclosure requests that have been outstanding for a number of months, the Inquiry will consider setting a final date for the provision of these documents or written confirmation that the documents do not exist.  Failure to provide documents may lead to adverse inferences being drawn by the Inquiry in its final report.”

Earlier this year, the States agreed a proposition by Chief Minister Ian Gorst to give the inquiry an extra £14 million – taking its total budget to £20 million. That is more than three times the original budget, and more than ten times the £1.9 million paid out to victims in the “Historic Redress Scheme”.

As part of the agreement for the funding, a deadline of the end of 2016 was set for the publication of the inquiry’s final report.

The following phase hearings will focus on decisions taken in relation to the timing of the police investigation into historic child abuse and the prosecutions of alleged abusers.