The United Kingdom has three distinct legal systems with a separate prison system in each: one for both England and Wales, one for Scotland, and one for Northern Ireland.
Dame Janet Hilary Smith,, styled The Rt Hon. Lady Justice Smith, is an English barrister and former High Court Judge and President of the Council of The Inns of Court. She was the judge who prepared The Shipman Inquiry, a report on the activities of the British serial killer Harold Shipman, and the Dame Janet Smith Review, a report on the activities of the British media personality and paedophile Jimmy Savile.
The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes in the counties of Clwyd and Gwynedd, in North Wales, including the Bryn Estyn children's home at Wrexham, between 1974 and 1990. The report into the scandal, headed by retired High Court judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, which was published in 2000, resulted in changes in policy in England and Wales into how authorities deal with children in care, and to the settling of 140 compensation claims on behalf of victims of child abuse.
Sir Ronald Gough Waterhouse, GBE was a judge of the High Court of England and Wales between 1978 and 1996. As a judge his highest profile case was when he presided over the acquittal of comedian Ken Dodd on charges of tax evasion. Immediately upon his retirement he led a three-year inquiry into the North Wales child abuse scandal, which reported in 2000.
Tony Vinson was an Australian academic, regarded as "one of Australia's leading social scientists and outspoken public intellectuals". His career spanned the disciplines of social work, social policy, psychology, education, public administration and social research.
Peter David McClellan,, was a judge of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the highest court in the State of New South Wales, Australia, which forms part of the Australian court hierarchy. He was appointed to the position in February 2013 and retired in February 2018. McClellan was the Chief Royal Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse from January 2013 to December 2017. He was previously the Chief Judge in Common Law in the Supreme Court, a position to which he was appointed in 2005.
Peter Wilfred Ball CGA was a British bishop in the Church of England and convicted sex offender. In 1960 he and his twin brother established a monastic community, the Community of the Glorious Ascension, through which Ball came into contact with many boys and young men. He was the suffragan Bishop of Lewes from 1977 to 1992 and the diocesan Bishop of Gloucester from 1992 to 1993, when he resigned after being cautioned for sexual abuse; he continued to officiate at several churches after that.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Victoria is part of the alleged Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Australia and the much wider Catholic sexual abuse scandal in general, which involves charges, convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. The Catholic Church in Victoria has been implicated in a reported 40 suicides among about 620 sexual abuse victims acknowledged to the public after internal investigations by the Catholic Church in Victoria.
The Jersey child abuse investigation 2008 is an investigation into historic child abuse in Jersey. It started in the spring of 2007. Before that, social worker Simon Bellwood had made a complaint about a "'Dickensian' system" where children as young as 11 were routinely locked up for 24 hours or more in solitary confinement in a secure unit where he worked. The wider investigation into child abuse over several decades became public in November that year. It received international attention when police moved into Haut de la Garenne, then being used as a youth hostel.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic sexual abuse scandals elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions. Criticisms of the Church have centred both on the nature and extent of abuse, and on historical and contemporary management of allegations by Church officials. Internally, the Church began updating its protocols in the 1990s, and papal apologies for abuse in Australia were made by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. A number of government enquiries have also examined church practices - most notably the 2015-17 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Royal Commission established that some 4,444 claimants alleged incidents of child sexual abuse in 4,756 reported claims to Catholic Church authorities and at least 1,880 suspected abusers from 1980 to 2015. Most of those suspected of abuse were Catholic priests and religious brothers and 62 percent of the survivors who told the commission they were abused in religious institutions were abused in a Catholic facility.
Nic Parry is a commentator on Welsh football on BBC in English and S4C in Welsh. He is the regular presenter of the Welsh language football programme Sgorio. He also hosts the sports quiz for young people, Pen Campau.
David Martin Shoebridge is an Australian politician, environmental and social justice activist and former industrial law barrister. He has been a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since September 2010.
The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), also known locally in Bahrain as the Bassiouni Commission, was established by the King of Bahrain on 29 June 2011 tasked with looking into the incidents that occurred during the period of unrest in Bahrain in February and March 2011 and the consequences of these events.
Jimmy Savile (1926–2011) was an English media personality who was well known in the United Kingdom for his eccentricities and, at the time of his death, was generally respected for his charitable work. He was knighted in 1990. In late 2012, almost a year after his death, reports surfaced indicating that Savile had committed sexual abuse throughout his 50-year career, his alleged victims ranging from prepubescent girls and boys to adults.
Dame Julia Wendy Macur, DBE is a British judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, and since April 2017 is the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales.
In 2012 and 2013, the British Broadcasting Corporation was involved in a series of investigations, accusations and scandals related to sexual abuse committed by employees, and the reporting of allegations of abuse by others. The issue of child sexual abuse by BBC employees was publicised nationally in October 2012 as part of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal. Savile was a radio DJ and TV personality who presented the programmes Top of the Pops, Jim'll Fix It and Clunk Click, and was a well known charity fundraiser. Allegations of sexual abuse by Savile and other BBC employees were reported to have taken place in a number of locations across the country, including BBC Television Centre.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales was announced by the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, on 7 July 2014. The inquiry was established to examine how the country's institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.
The 2014-2016 Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, often referred to as the HIA Inquiry, is the largest inquiry into historical institutional sexual and physical abuse of children in UK legal history. Its remit covers institutions in Northern Ireland that provided residential care for children from 1922 to 1995, but excludes most church-run schools. The Inquiry was set up in response to the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse Act 2013. Following a request to extend its timescale, the Inquiry's Report was delivered to the First Minister and deputy First Minister on 6 January 2017, shortly before the deadline of 18 January, and published on 20 January. The cost was estimated at £17-19m, with 30 people working on the enquiry according to its Frequently Asked Questions as of January 2017. There are provisions for witness support. The Inquiry had statutory powers to compel witnesses living in Northern Ireland to appear before it and evidence held in Northern Ireland to be given to it; to take evidence under oath; and to be held in public except where necessary to protect individuals' privacy. Inquiry Rule 14(3) does not allow any explicit or significant criticism of a person unless the chairperson has sent them a warning letter, with a reasonable opportunity to respond.
Dame Lowell Patria Goddard, is a former New Zealand High Court judge, from 1995 to 2015. She is thought to be the first person of Māori ancestry to have been appointed to the High Court. In 1988, she was one of the first two women to be appointed Queen's Counsel in New Zealand and in 1989 became the first woman to hold a Crown warrant. In 1992, she became Deputy Solicitor-General for New Zealand. Between 2007 and 2012 she chaired New Zealand’s Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA). In 2010 she was elected as an independent expert to the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) and served in that capacity until 2016. From February 2015 until August 2016, she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales.
