06/11/2012

Home Secretary To Announce New Inquiry Into Abuse Claims

Home Secretary Theresa May will outline plans to MPs for a fresh inquiry into allegations of child abuse in north Wales later today.

The new inquiry comes after a man who claims he was abused by a senior Thatcher-era Conservative said an earlier inquiry did not fully investigate abuse claims.

Steve Messham however said there was little point in "an inquiry into the inquiry" which did not examine the abuse claims.

William Hague ordered an inquiry into the abuse in 1996, when he was Welsh secretary. Over the course of three years, it heard from 650 people who had been in care from 1974.

A report was published in 2000 by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, who died in 2011.

Concerns have now been raised that the remit of the inquiry was too narrow, and that it failed to consider allegations about children being taken out of the homes to be made available to abusers.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mrs May said: "It is right we say let's have a look at that inquiry. Let's make sure that inquiry did what it should have done.

"What we need to do is what the government is doing, which is saying - given the nature of these concerns, given the background, given the appalling nature of child abuse - we need to look very carefully to make sure that what was done in the past did indeed cover everything that it needed to do, and was done properly."

(H)

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