Child abuse inquiry ‘could be extended back to WWII’

The New Zealand judge chairing the inquiry suggested the investigation could even go back further – saying fixed cut-off points tended to be “artificial”.

Read: Survivors call for full inquiry into decades of abuse

Home Secretary Theresa May recruited the judge after two other senior figures had to step down over their establishment links. It had been thought that the probe would focus on allegations of illegal activity after 1970.

But Justice Goddard told the Mail on Sunday the period was “elastic”. She said: “The terms of reference talk about going back to 1970 but there is a push from certain quarters to take it back to about 1945. A cut-off point is always a bit artificial – someone who falls on the wrong side of it is aggrieved.”

According to the newspaper, Mrs May supports the judge’s position and is ready to remove all time limits. But Justice Goddard plans to issue a series of interim reports to avoid a repeat of the controversy over the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War, which has been held up for six years.

Nobody should be beyond the reach of the law. Justice Lowell Goddard

Justice Goddard said she “wouldn’t shrink” from summoning prominent people to give evidence. “I don’t feel intimidated,” she said. “Nobody should be beyond the reach of the law.”

She added: “Sexual abuse of little children has never been anything short of a serious crime and that does not alter through religious or cultural mores or a different era or time. “If criminal offending is evident it will be handed to police. There are people who need to be given a voice about what has happened to them.”