Mush...I saw this in yesterday's Sunday Times.
My first thoughts were that this was another attempt by the establishment, to kick the whole issue of historical child sexual abuse into touch. There is plenty of evidence that wholesale fraud and corruption has happened in the past. People like Smith and Savile would have died in jail, if the establishment hadn't corruptly intervened, and interfered with the judicial process.
But given the breadth of this Inquiry, it is inevitable that it is going to take a long time to come to a conclusion. It could be argued that the previous Government faffed about and lost valuable time setting it up, and they did, without doubt. But now that it is ongoing, let Justice Goddard get on with it, as fast as she can. There is no reason why she should wait until the very end before releasing any interim conclusions.
Of course, we mustn't confuse this Enquiry, with the ongoing Police investigations into suspects, who are clearly still alive and kicking. The Police and the CPS have no need to wait until Justice Goddard has completed her work, before they act, if they sufficient evidence now. Indeed, they seem to be taking the bull by the horns as it were, in ways that they didn't in the past. The cat is most certainly well outside the bag now, and there is no going back
Also, there is an opinion that all this happened years ago, back in the 60's and 70's. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hardly a week goes by without some man or group of men being sentenced in a Court of Law for abuse of children in the past. There was a week last month when 3 such cases were in the papers. Not all the perpetrators were Knighted or high up in the Church, Politics, Judiciary, Armed Forces, etc.
What I want to see from this Enquiry isn't just the prosecution of elderly dirty old men. I want to see a sea change in the way that child sexual abuse is dealt with at every level in our society. I want children to be listened to and I want the dirty old men of today, and of tomorrow, to realise that they can't get away with abusing children as they had years ago. I also want to see that people of importance and influence cannot use their position to hide away their activities anymore.