Joint statement to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood: Conditions for survivors to return to inquiry panel
Dear Home Secretary,
We, the survivors who have resigned from the Victims/Survivor Liaison Panel, are writing to you directly to set out what it would take for us to consider rejoining this inquiry.
When we agreed to join this panel, we did so in good faith, believing that after decades of being dismissed, silenced, and called liars by the very institutions meant to protect us, things might finally be different. Instead, we have watched history repeat itself. We raised legitimate concerns about the inquiry's direction based on our direct experiences in the process that you called 'justified', and in response, your safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, called our accounts "untrue". Evidence has since proven we were telling the truth. Being publicly contradicted and dismissed by a government minister when you are a survivor telling the truth takes you right back to that feeling of not being believed all over again. It is a betrayal that has destroyed what little trust remained.
These are not unreasonable demands. These are the basic standards we need to have any faith that this inquiry will be conducted with integrity.
We can only consider returning to the panel only if the following conditions are met:
1. Jess Phillips resigns as Safeguarding Minister. Her conduct over the last week has shown she is unfit to oversee a process that requires survivors to trust the government. Her departure would signal you are serious about accountability and changing direction.
2. All survivors on the panel are genuinely consulted on the appointment of a chair, who must be a senior sitting or former judge, with no major conflicts of interest in policing or social services.
3. Victims are free to speak openly with their support networks without fear of reprisal
4. The inquiry's scope remains laser-focused on grooming gangs and group-based child sexual exploitation, as Baroness Casey recommended, without expansion or dilution.
5. There are serious concerns about the suitability of the current victim liaison lead, we would like to see her replaced with an independent mental health professional
We have been failed by every institution meant to protect us. We were failed as children, failed by police who didn't believe us, failed by social services who blamed us, and failed by a system that protected our abusers. We will not participate in an inquiry that repeats those same patterns of dismissal, secrecy, and institutional self-protection.
These conditions represent the absolute bare minimum for survivors to trust that this inquiry will be different from every other process that has let us down. Without them, this inquiry risks becoming yet another exercise in protecting the reputations of failed institutions rather than seeking truth and justice for victims.
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth Harper
Fiona Goddard
"Jessica"
Ellie-Ann Reynolds
