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1.01  On 17 June 1996 the Secretary of State for Wales, the Rt Hon William Hague MP, informed the House of Commons of the Government's decision, subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament, that there should be a judicial inquiry, with the powers conferred by the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, into the alleged abuse of children in care in the former county council areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd since 1974

1.02  The Secretary of State announced also that the terms of reference of the Inquiry would be as follows:

(a)  to inquire into the abuse of children in care in the former county council areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd since 1974;

(b)  to examine whether the agencies and authorities responsible for such care, through the placement of the children or through the regulation or management of the facilities, could have prevented the abuse or detected its occurrence at an earlier stage;

(c)  to examine the response of the relevant authorities and agencies to allegations and complaints of abuse made either by children in care, children formerly in care or any other persons, excluding scrutiny of decisions whether to prosecute named individuals;

(d)  in the light of this examination, to consider whether the relevant caring and investigative agencies discharged their functions appropriately and, in the case of the caring agencies, whether they are doing so now; and to report its findings and to make recommendations to him.

  1.03  On the same occasion the Secretary of State for Wales announced that the Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Stephen Dorrell MP, had arranged for a further review of the safeguards against the abuse of children living away from home in England and Wales to be conducted by Sir William Utting, the former Chief Social Services Inspector at the Department of Health. That review was completed in July 1997 and Sir William's published report of his review, entitled "People Like Us", has been of great assistance to us in our own task.

  1.04  On 20 June 1996 resolutions were passed in both Houses of Parliament declaring that it was expedient that a tribunal be established for inquiring into a definite matter of public importance, namely, the abuse of children in care in the former county council areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd; and on 30 August 1996, by warrant, the Secretary of State for Wales appointed the three of us to be a Tribunal for the purposes of the inquiry. He decided also to appoint an assessor to the Tribunal to advise us in respect of police matters and Sir Ronald Hadfield QPM, DL, a former Chief Constable successively of Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands, was appointed in this capacity.

  1.05  Having regard to the scope of the inquiry and the length of the period under investigation, an immense amount of preliminary work had to be undertaken before we could begin to hear oral evidence. We are grateful to the Treasury Solicitor for providing the services of a team of lawyers under Brian McHenry, who was appointed Solicitor to the Tribunal, to direct and conduct this preliminary work and to assist the Tribunal generally in the course of its hearings. In addition, three counsel, namely Gerard Elias QC, a former leader of the Wales and Chester Circuit, Gregory Treverton-Jones and Ernest Ryder, who was appointed QC at Easter 1997, were nominated by the Attorney-General to act as Counsel to the Tribunal. They began work as soon as the Tribunal was appointed and were assisted by a team of para-legals and appropriate administrative staff provided by the Welsh Office.

  1.06  Additional detail about the work of the Tribunal and its procedure is provided in Appendix 4 to this report. It is appropriate to emphasise here, however, the scale of the preparatory work involved. It included consideration of about 9,500 social services files made available to us, perusal of some 3,500 statements to the police made in the course of their own investigations together with many associated documents and the tracing and interviewing of potential witnesses, including those who responded to our public advertisements addressed to everyone who might be able to give relevant evidence. This task of gathering and assimilating the potential evidence could not have been accomplished without the full hearted and enthusiastic effort and support of the Tribunal's staff, to whom we pay warm tribute.

  1.07  It was necessary for us to hold four preliminary hearings to deal with such matters as legal representation, recommendations as to costs and procedure generally. These took place on 10 September, 15 October and 26 November 1996 and on 3 January 1997. We are grateful to counsel, solicitors and the witnesses themselves for their outstanding co-operation in enabling us to deal with these matters expeditiously and with proper regard for the saving of costs whenever this was both fair and practicable.

  1.08  Without going into unnecessary detail, it is appropriate to mention that two decisions of considerable importance to our deliberations were made at an early stage. Firstly, the Attorney-General authorised the Tribunal to say that anything that any witness said in evidence before the Inquiry would not be used in evidence against him or her in any criminal proceedings, except in relation to any offence of perjury or perverting the course of justice. Secondly, bearing in mind (amongst other things) the wide terms of sections 1 and 2 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, which prohibit identification, in any written publication or broadcast programme to be published in England and Wales, of a complainant who alleges that a sexual offence has been committed against him or her, we decided to issue the following information for the assistance of the press and media:

"The Tribunal wishes to indicate that it will regard the following as prima facie evidence of a contempt of court:

publication of any material in a written publication (as defined in section 6(1) of the 1992 Act) available to the public (whether on paper or in electronic form), or in a television or radio programme for reception in England and Wales, which is likely to identify any living person as a person by whom or against whom an allegation of physical or sexual abuse has been or is likely to be made in proceedings before the Tribunal, with the exception of those who have been convicted of criminal offences of physical or sexual abuse of children in care."

  We said also that this was a general intimation but that it was open to the Tribunal to give a different ruling in relation to any specific witness.

  1.09  Our main reason for issuing this notice was that we considered that there was a substantial risk that the course of justice in our proceedings would be seriously prejudiced or impeded in the event of such publication, not least because potential witnesses might be deterred from testifying, or from testifying fully, to the Tribunal. The guidance was particularly necessary because it was impracticable for us to grant anonymity in the actual hearing itself to witnesses giving evidence to the Tribunal, whether as complainants or as alleged abusers, having regard to the numbers of persons involved on either side. Any form of index by letter or number would have been both intolerably time consuming and potentially confusing. Nevertheless, for both complainants and alleged abusers, the giving of oral evidence about events alleged to have occurred many years earlier was a very painful experience, involving discussion of matters and their surrounding circumstances of which probably very few within their present social circle were aware. It was clear to us, therefore, that witnesses who were prepared to speak of these matters within the comparative privacy of the Tribunal hearings would be significantly deterred if they were to be identified in the press or otherwise publicly and might be tempted to trim their evidence to avoid recrimination or other adverse consequences.

  1.10  We are grateful to the press and broadcasting authorities for following this guidance and for seeking clarification from the Tribunal whenever it was thought to be needed. In the event it did not prove necessary for the Tribunal Chairman to certify to the High Court as contempt of the Tribunal's proceedings any publication or broadcast. An adverse consequence of our ruling may have been that the evidence heard by the Tribunal was less widely reported in the national press than it would otherwise have been but we believe firmly that it did have the effect of encouraging witnesses to come forward and there were comparatively few who declined to give oral evidence once they had made a written statement to a member of the Tribunal's interviewing team.

  1.11  We were told at the outset that our hearings were likely to last at least a year because of the breadth of the Inquiry and our initial target was to begin in mid-January 1997. In the event we sat for three days, beginning on 21 January 1997, to hear opening statements and were able to start hearing oral evidence on 3 February 1997. In all we sat on 201 days (excluding the four preliminary hearings) to hear evidence and submissions, ending on 7 April 1998. In that period the Tribunal heard the oral evidence of 264 witnesses. For a variety of reasons it was agreed also that we should receive in evidence the written statements of a further 311 witnesses, which were incorporated in the transcript, either in full or in summary form, but this was done on the footing that the contents of the statements were not agreed by all the parties and that counsel were at liberty to comment critically on the statements. Strenuous efforts were made to limit the almost intolerably voluminous documentary evidence by a strict application of the test of relevance to our terms of reference and all the documents admitted were scanned and filed on the Tribunal's computer for ease of reference. In the end 12,000 documents, some of which ran to many pages, were dealt with in this way.

  1.12  Finally, we arranged a seminar, which was held at Ewloe on 6 and 7 May 1998, after the hearings of evidence and submissions had been concluded. The purpose of this seminar was to enable the Tribunal itself and the parties to the Inquiry to put to a selected panel of experts for their comment possible recommendations for the future designed to strengthen existing safeguards for the protection from abuse of looked after children. We invited Sir William Utting CB, Sir Ronald Hadfield QPM, DL, Adrianne Jones CBE, Brian Briscoe, Secretary of the Local Government Association and Dr Anthony Baker[1], a Consultant in Psychiatry with a special interest in the needs of children in care, to form our panel. We are very grateful to them for agreeing to take part and for the very helpful discussion that ensued.

Footnote:

1   Nominated by Counsel for the complainants