Goddard Inquiry Urged to Extend Remit

This news published by the Celtic League:

Goddard Inquiry Urged to Extend Remit

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

The Celtic League has urged the Goddard Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to include two additional items in its remits.

The League say events at the Kincora Home in Northern Ireland in the 1970s should be probed despite the reluctance of the UK Home Secretary to include them in the remit.

The League also say recent revelations that millions of pounds were paid to settle abuse allegations involving the military cadet forces mean that organisation should also come under scrutiny (see below):

“Hon Justice Lowell Goddard
Independent Panel into Child Sexual Abuse
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

1st May 2015

Dear Justice Goddard,

I am writing to you to ask if you will consider an extension of your remit to two further distinct issues.

I appreciate the nature of your remit is already extensive but I believe these two matters are critical to an appreciation of systemic child abuse within the United Kingdom.

Firstly, whilst I appreciate that your inquiries terms of reference refer to events in England and Wales however the Celtic League believe strongly that your remit should also encompass abuse that occurred in the Kincora Home in Northern Ireland. Many of the allegations surrounding Kincora have a direct link to England in that it has been asserted many years that events at the home were orchestrated by agencies in the United Kingdom . It has also been alleged recently that boys from the home were taken to the UK ( London ) and subjected to abuse there.

I attach correspondence we sent recently to the United Kingdom Home Secretary in relation to this matter in which we urged her to include Kincora in the Independent Panels remit.

On a separate and distinct abuse issue we have been alarmed at the disclosure that the British Ministry of Defence paid several million pounds over a two year period to settle (out of court) allegations of both sexual and physical abuse in the military cadet forces.

Prior to the MOD disclosure (of cash settlements) we had been attempting without success to get the Children’s Commissioners for England and Wales , Scotland and Northern Ireland to look into the circumstances of the cadet forces (albeit our initial concern was over an environment in which children as young as twelve were militarised).

I am bound to say that even we were staggered when the true extent of physical and sexual abuse started to emerge.

On this second point and again mindful of your remit although cadet forces stationed outside England and Wales were also the subject of our initial concerns it is fair to say that a number of the allegations since revealed are germane to all UK jurisdictions because of abuse at training camps which invariably are held at locations in England – albeit the picture is unclear because of the paucity of detail revealed by the MOD to date.

Finally in relation to both issues the Celtic League (which is an accredited NGO of the United Nations) has already raised the military cadet issue with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

We also intend to raise the separate issue of the Kincora Home with the UNCRC in due course.

Yours sincerely,

J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information”

Related links:

May Turns Her Back on Child Abuse in Intelligence House of Horrors

League Notify UNCRC about MOD Cadet Sex Abuse Payment

J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information
Celtic League

01/05/15

(Please note that replies to correspondence received by the League and posted on CL News are usually scanned hard copies. Obviously every effort is made to ensure the scanning process is accurate but sometimes errors do occur.)

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