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| May asks NSPCC boss to heads child abuse review | May asks NSPCC boss to heads child abuse review |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The head of the children's charity NSPCC is to lead a review of historical child sex abuse allegations, Home Secretary Theresa May has announced. | The head of the children's charity NSPCC is to lead a review of historical child sex abuse allegations, Home Secretary Theresa May has announced. |
| Peter Wanless's review, which will cover how police and prosecutors handled information given to them, is expected to report within 10 weeks. | |
| A Hillsborough-style inquiry will also be held, led by an independent panel of experts on law and child protection. | |
| This would be wide-ranging and would not report before the next election. | This would be wide-ranging and would not report before the next election. |
| Mrs May, who said the panel inquiry could be converted into a full public inquiry if necessary, said she wanted to ensure the public had confidence that serious crimes were being looked at. | |
| "Our priority must be the prosecution of the people behind these disgusting crimes," she added. | "Our priority must be the prosecution of the people behind these disgusting crimes," she added. |
| Mrs May, addressing MPs after weeks of increasing questions about how past claims of child sex abuse were handled, said Mr Wanless would be assisted in his review by a senior legal figure. | |
| She said the probes were prompted by concerns were that in the 1980s the Home Office failed to act when allegations of child sex abuse were raised - and that more generally in past decades public bodies had not taken their responsibility to care for children as seriously as they should have done. | |
| She anticipated that witnesses would be able to "speak freely", although she would have to consider the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act in some cases. | |
| "It's only if people can speak openly that we can get to the bottom of these matters," she said. | |
| Mrs May's statement comes as ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan defended his dealings with a dossier on alleged child sex abuse handed to him by the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in the 1980s. | |
| Former Labour home secretary Jack Straw asked that both reviews looked "very carefully" at archive and record keeping at the Home Office, which he believed had had failings for many years. |