Specialist abuse lawyers call for public inquiry into church abuse

The Times has today published an article responding to a letter sent to the editor and signed by leading law firms including Pannone Solicitors calling for a public inquiry into abuse within English and Welsh Church institutions.

Richard Scorer, lead author of the letter and head of the Serious Injury Group at Pannone Solicitors, is quoted alleging that the “Catholic Church has an endemic problem, a culture of denial and a culture of cover-up”.

Under Canon law, all clergymen are under an obligation to ensure that in each diocese there is “a secret archive or at least in the common archive a safe or cabinet, completely closed and locked, which cannot be removed”. The documents to be enclosed within these safe places are to be any documents containing “matters of morals” or “criminal cases”, and only the bishop of the diocese is to have the key for access.

Within our letter to the editor as cited by the article, specialist child abuse lawyers call for a public inquiry with powers to access the documents enclosed in these safe areas. As specialists in clergy abuse, we feel that the culture of cover-up within the Catholic Church cannot be challenged without a full public inquiry being permitted to take place.

Whilst we acknowledge that child protection has improved since the Nolan reforms, it is difficult to fully assess this due to the nature of these cases and the period of time before a victim of abuse feels able to talk of the childhood abuse they suffered. Despite these steps towards improving the safeguards and systems in place to identify and prevent clergy abuse, the Times suggests that the Church appears unlikely to accept requests to open the secret archives to scrutiny. The Church fiercely contests the majority of legal cases brought by victims of abuse by priests, by teachers, and by other members of the Clergy.

A public inquiry would help ensure that victims of any abuse as a child can obtain the justice they deserve, whilst allowing the Church to implement further safeguards to prevent future abuse from occurring.