It appears the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse(IICSA) has restarted using remote hearings and it appears Lambeth Council is under the spotlight.
I've only just discovered that these hearing are taking place so my knowledge of what has happened is very limited. Hopefully, I will find the time to tune in and be able to give you a more thorough report on these hearings.
As a quick introduction to the where's, who's and why's, I will try to explain a little about what's being investigated during the next 4-weeks.
"Children living in care in residential homes and foster families are amongst the most vulnerable children in society. Allegations of widespread sexual abuse in children’s homes run by Lambeth Council demand a thorough and searching examination of what may have taken place."
"In this investigation, the Inquiry will consider the experience of victims and survivors and examine the scale and nature of the abuse that may have taken place under the care of the relevant authorities. We will investigate whether there were child protection failures by the Council, the police, and other public authorities. We will examine the extent to which particular vulnerabilities of any children who were subject to sexual abuse put them at risk and whether this may have shaped how public authorities responded to them."
Shirley Oaks Children's Homes...
Abuse at the Shirley Oaks Children's Homes in Croydon, south London, dated back decades. A report by the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (SOSA) in 2016 outlined abuse on an "industrial scale" and claimed at least 60 abusers were active from the 1950s to the closure of the homes in 1983.
Rachel Langdale QC, counsel to the inquiry, said the council's Angell Road home - which opened in 1981 - was run by the "convicted child sex abuser" Michael Carroll, who was also known as John Carroll.
No doubt this part of the inquiry will be as shocking as those that have already taken place. And yet again we will be learning how the Social Services, the Police, and Lambeth Council all had a hand in covering the tracks of the abusers. I've almost become numb to the level of corruption and evil going on behind the veil of "Child Protection" and "Children's Services" but it is important we still pay attention to this inquiry. From what I have heard today, there are more recent cases of abuse to be uncovered and this just goes to prove that children placed into the care system, voluntary or involuntary, are, more often than not, left in a much more dangerous environment.
With what my own family is having to deal with at the moment, it saddens me more than ever to listen to this but somehow it also gives me the strength to fight back even harder against the Social Services.
The more knowledge and evidence we have, the more capable we are to stop this crooked system from stealing our children and placing them into the hands of monsters who abuse them.
