STOP PRESS The police confirm their investigation of the Whitefield School child abuse scandal continues, which seemingly contradicts what Council Leader Grace Williams has told residents
The Metropolitan Police Service [MPS] has just confirmed its investigation of the Whitefield School child abuse scandal is continuing.
The facts are that in April 2024, the MPS was told that previously unknown offences of ‘perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office’ were alleged to have occurred in relation to Whitefield; and as a consequence, in November of the same year, it launched a formal investigation into these matters, which continues today.
So what’s the link with Cllr. Williams?
Well, on 27 November 2024, one day after the BBC’s Noel Titheradge had produced another of his shocking reports about Whitefield, Cllr. Williams responded with a public statement which included the following:
‘We have worked closely with the academy trust, Ofsted, Department for Education, and NHS to support the police investigation [into Whitefield]. Now that the criminal investigation into staff at Whitefield has concluded, safeguarding partners will commission an independent expert to carry out a Local Children Safeguarding Practice Review to ensure the lessons of this distressing case are learned’.
Cllr. Williams’ words were clearly meant to be reassuring and suggest that she and her colleagues were acting responsibly.
They had patiently waited until the MPS had done its work, and ‘now’ that it had, could take the next step, and launch a Local Children Safeguarding Practice Review.
Ostensibly laudable, of course.
Yet whether her statement stands up to scrutiny is doubtful.
To start with, some of the details in the statement are contradicted by MPS evidence.
Cllr. Williams strongly implies that the MPS investigation into Whitefield staff had just ended.
But according to the MPS, it had terminated its investigation of Whitefield staff after Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reviews in August 2022 and July 2023, that is, many months beforehand.
Perhaps Cllr. Williams was a bit confused, and was thinking of the MPS investigation into non-Whitefield staff (meaning other professionals who had been in some way involved) which had started in August 2022.
But that doesn’t work either, because, again according to the MPS, this investigation had ended after CPS reviews in August and November 2023, and been finally terminated at the start of June 2024.
However, there is a much bigger issue here than these details.
For when Cllr. Williams made her statement, she failed to mention the MPS’s ‘perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office’ investigation which is referenced above, and this certainly appears to be rather strange.
Cllr. Williams might argue that as the MPS investigation in question only formally started on 28 November 2024, i.e., one day after she issued her statement, her omission was, strictly speaking, justified.
But a more detailed look at the relevant timeline shows that, if made, such an argument would be unconvincing.
The MPS confirms that the date when it first learned of new offences allegedly having been committed was the 23 April 2024.
Recall that the MPS had already worked closely with LBWF on Whitefield since at least 2021.
Given that context, is it really likely that the MPS didn’t tell LBWF anything about the allegations of 23 April 2024 until it launched its formal investigation seven months later?
Doesn’t that strain credibility?
Re-reading Cllr. William’s statement, then, makes her decision to publish it puzzling.
Perhaps LBWF as a whole was caught out by Mr. Titheradge’s report, and she was advised by LBWF spinners to rush out a response so as to prove that LBWF was doing something, anything, and the comment about the MPS was just a convenient peg to hang the story on?
Perhaps, she was just poorly briefed about dates?
Who knows?
But the muddle reported here does her little credit, and only adds to the feeling that, as regards the Whitefield scandal, the full truth is as elusive as ever.
