She’s not a judge. That’s the beginning and end of it. The Government’s appointment of Anne Longfield, former Children’s commissioner, to head the inquiry into the scandal whereby thousands, probably tens of thousands, and conceivably hundreds of thousands of white girls were raped by gangs of men, overwhelmingly men of Pakistani and Muslim heritage, over decades, is handicapped by this awkward fact. Victims of those gangs, including some of those who resigned from the Government panel on the inquiry, have repeatedly asked for a judge-led inquiry. They didn’t get one. Instead they have got a good woman with an undoubted concern for child welfare to chair the inquiry, who was recommended by Dame Louise Casey. And it’s not quite good enough.
A police whistleblower who has represented victims, Maggie Oliver, went on the record today to say that Baroness Longfield’s appointment won’t do. Her concern for vulnerable children is beyond question, but as Maggie Oliver points out, she will not be seen as independent, being a Labour peer, even though she has resigned the whip to take up this post. More to the point, a judge has the authority, legal expertise and political impartiality to deal with the often complex legal issues to do with the accountability of the various bodies which signally failed the young girls who were systematically violated and whose attempts to seek help were ignored. God knows, I am not an abject fan of the British judiciary, some of whose judgements strike me as wilfully wrong-headed, but they know their stuff; a former High Court or former Supreme Court judge would have an authority that a former Children’s Commissioner lacks.
