Richard Scorer

In his book about abuse in the Catholic Church he presented a selection of case histories running from the 1960s to the present day, including that of John Tolkien. He gave some credit to the efforts of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Vincent Nichols, but the picture he painted was not optimistic. His case was that the Church continued to deny and ignore the scandal of child sexual abuse and he criticised it for the inadequate support it provided for victims, and for delays in laicising convicted priests.[4] He showed how victims were disbelieved and offending priests were moved to different parishes where they found new victims to abuse and then given the chance to vanish before the law closed in.[5] He said that the Papal document Crimen sollicitationis showed that the Church systematically covered up abuse and tried to silence victims.[6]

He represents 68 victims and survivors of abuse before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.[7] including former pupils of Downside School, Ampleforth College[8] and Chetham's School of Music, and victims of the late Cyril Smith MP. In 2019, following oral evidence to the inquiry by Cardinal Nichols, he called for Nichols to step down from his role as Archbishop of Westminster, stating that "the charge sheet against Nichols is a long one. Having failed in his leadership roles in both Birmingham and Westminster, he cannot credibly lead the Catholic Church on these issues in the future. The systemic problems of the Catholic Church in relation to safeguarding are not capable of resolution by a single individual. But the Church needs leaders who command respect on these issues; Cardinal Nichols does not" (Tablet, 11 November 2019).

Addressing the inquiry in March 2020, he called for an end to religious groups' self-regulation on safeguarding and stated that "Religious freedom is not an absolute right. It can legitimately be adbridged to protect the rights and freedoms of others. There are few rights and freedoms more important than the right of children to be free of sexual abuse".

In 2018 he called for Richard Farnell, the former leader of Rochdale Council to be prosecuted for perjury when he was found to have lied under oath to the inquiry. He said that staff attitudes in the council had improved but that Rochdale political culture was still stuck in a backwards timewarp and remained in desperate need of reform.[9]

He has written extensively about the work of the inquiry for the National Secular Society,[10] of which he is vice-president.[11]

David Steel was suspended from his membership of the Liberal Democrat Party in 2019 after he admitted to the inquiry that he had known about Cyril Smith's child abuse. Scorer said “His failure to stop Smith in 1979, allowing him to go on and abuse more young boys, is inexcusable and he must be held to account." He called for him to be stripped of his peerage.[12]

He criticised the Church of England saying that it had orchestrated years of institutional cover-up and denial and could not be trusted to put its own house in order. It had created a perfect environment in which abusers could flourish. He called for an independent body to be set up which could investigate allegations of abuse and override bishops who were unwilling to comply with their responsibilities.[13] He said that Bishop Peter Ball had found his fellow bishops to be the “perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades”.[14]

He criticised proposals to dispense with local safeguarding children’s boards in the Children and Social Work Bill, because there would be no statutory obligation to involve all the relevant agencies.[15]

• APIL Guide to Child Abuse Compensation Claims (with Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC, Justin Levinson and Malcolm Johnson), 2011
• Betrayed: The English Catholic Church and the Sex Abuse Crisis, Biteback Publishing, 2014
• Contributor to Law Reform 2015: A Manifesto for Change, Profile Books/Society of Labour Lawyers, 2014
• Contributor to Justice in an Age of Moral Panic, The Justice Gap e-book, 2015
• Contributor to Justice for Children and Families: A Developmental Perspective, CUP/Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2018
• Contributor to Letters to a Broken Church, Ekklesia Publications, 2019