THE Prime Minister continues to support the appointment of the Lord Mayor of London to chair an inquiry into child sex abuse, after questions about her links with former home secretary Leon Brittan.
City lawyer Fiona Woolf was named on Friday as chair of the independent inquiry, after first choice Lady Butler-Sloss stepped down in July amid claims of a conflict of interest because her brother was attorney general at the time some of the alleged abuse occurred.
But within days, questions were asked about the new chair's position, after it emerged she is a neighbour of Lord Brittan and sits on the board of a City of London conference with the former home secretary.
Lord Brittan is likely to be called to give evidence over a dossier he received from MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983, documenting the alleged involvement of VIP figures in a child sex ring.
Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who has led the campaign for an inquiry, said Mrs Woolf's position would be "untenable" if she was close to the Brittans.
Asked if the PM was happy for Mrs Woolf to remain chair of the inquiry, Mr Cameron's spokesman told a regular briefing: "The view is unchanged, which is about his strong support for and his gratitude to Fiona Woolf for taking this on.
"His view remains about her suitability and that of the other panel members who have already been announced. What he knows is that she has and will bring the experience from her very distinguished career."
Mrs Woolf's appointment was made by Home Secretary Theresa May, but the PM's spokesman confirmed that Downing Street was involved in and fully supported the choice. She will be advised by Professor Alexis Jay, who wrote last week's report into child abuse in Rotherham and is a former Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish Government.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article