I’m taking the Government to court over its failure to protect children – enough is enough

On Tuesday 10 November, my charity, The Maggie Oliver Foundation, funded entirely by private donations, begins what I believe could be one of the most significant legal challenges in recent history.

Not just for victims of child sexual abuse, but for every British citizen who believes governments should be held accountable for their promises.

We are taking the Government to the High Court over its failure to implement vital recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

But this is something much bigger.

I believe governments have increasingly used hugely expensive public inquiries to deflect criticism, avoid uncomfortable truths and kick difficult decisions into the long grass, whilst giving the public the illusion that something is being done.

I have spent over twenty years exposing corruption and catastrophic institutional failures to protect children.

I have witnessed the devastating consequences and the extraordinary lengths public bodies will go to protect themselves rather than the children they are supposed to safeguard.

And I believe we are witnessing that same culture of avoidance in the Government’s defence of our judicial review.

IICSA took seven years, heard from over 7,000 survivors and cost taxpayers more than £200 million. It produced 20 recommendations intended to protect children.

Four years later, the key recommendations remain unimplemented.

Yet rather than delivering those changes, the Government has commissioned another three-year inquiry into grooming gangs, costing an estimated £65million.

Another inquiry. Another enormous bill for taxpayers. Another opportunity to kick the ball further down the road.

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I believe public inquiries have become convenient political tools.

When public outrage becomes impossible to ignore, governments announce an inquiry. Political pressure subsides, years pass, governments change, and recommendations quietly gather dust. The problem is again “kicked into the long grass”

Meanwhile, children continue to suffer.

And this is not confined to child sexual abuse.

Look at the families of those murdered in Nottingham, who have also fought relentlessly to expose catastrophic failures by the very agencies entrusted with protecting the public.

Their determination to secure accountability and meaningful change is something I understand only too well.

And now we have the heartbreaking case of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, brutally murdered in December 2025.

His family has had to fight for answers about warnings and opportunities that were missed before his death, and about how they were treated by the criminal justice system afterwards.

Yet another independent review has now been announced.

Different tragedies. Different families. But the same fundamental question: why does it take unimaginable suffering, public outrage and relentless campaigning before the State confronts its failures?

And crucially, what happens when these inquiries and reviews conclude?

This is a horrific neglect of the government’s most fundamental duty, to protect its citizens, particularly its most vulnerable.

Our challenge highlights fundamental protections: mandatory collection of data about sexual abusers and victims; outlawing pain-inducing compliance techniques used against children in custody; proper regulation of staff working with vulnerable children in care; a dedicated Cabinet-level Minister for Children; and ensuring victims’ rights under the Victims’ Code are properly respected.

These are basic safeguards, not unreasonable demands.

Yet what again disgusts me the most is the extraordinary lengths the Government is prepared to go in resisting our challenge.

Its lawyers have seemingly used every trick in the book to prevent the Government from being held accountable.

They argue that neither I nor The Maggie Oliver Foundation has the legal standing to bring this case.

Think about that.

A charity supporting survivors every day, founded by a former detective who sacrificed her career exposing these failures, is being challenged over its right to question government inaction.

If we cannot challenge these failures, then who can?

But perhaps even more astonishing is the Government’s reliance on parliamentary privilege.

Its lawyers argue that promises made by ministers in the House of Commons are protected by parliamentary privilege and cannot be relied upon in the way our legal challenge contends.

They have even sought the intervention of the Speaker of the House of Commons in connection with these arguments, seeking to prevent those parliamentary statements being used to support our case, even though they’ve also been said outside the House repeatedly!

To me, this is yet another “abuse of power”, an attempt to hide behind parliamentary procedure rather than answer the fundamental questions.

What message does that send to the British public?

Are we seriously expected to accept that ministers can stand in Parliament, make solemn promises to protect children, and subsequently argue those promises cannot be relied upon?

If promises made in the House of Commons cannot be trusted, what on earth can the British public believe?

The Government also argues that it is under no legal obligation to implement public inquiry recommendations.

So why spend hundreds of millions investigating failures, hearing heartbreaking evidence and promising change, if governments can simply walk away afterwards?

Our challenge has attracted support from across the country.

Three courageous women, each personally failed in different ways by institutions entrusted to protect them, have provided statements supporting our case.

These women know the lifelong consequences of abuse and institutional betrayal. Indeed, one of them is now bringing up her granddaughter, as her daughter was so hugely failed that she tragically took her own life! It actually would have been her birthday today…

They are standing alongside us because they desperately want to prevent other children from suffering as they have.

Their voices matter.

We are also grateful for the support of children’s rights charity in Article 39.

This case is not about me. It is about those women, and countless others failed by the system, and future generations of children.

Since IICSA published its recommendations in 2022, an estimated two million children have since experienced sexual abuse, based on the inquiry’s annual prevalence estimate.

How many might have been better protected had meaningful action followed?

Instead, public money is being spent resisting our challenge.

In March, a High Court judge granted permission for our judicial review, describing it as “a paradigm example of public interest litigation”.

Yet the Government continues to challenge our right to bring it.

On Tuesday, our legal team will address these arguments as we ask the Court to examine the Government’s failure to honour its commitments.

I sincerely hope the judge recognises the enormous significance of what is at stake.

Because this case could have far-reaching consequences for every future public inquiry, every ministerial promise and every citizen who expects those in power to be accountable.

We want the new Grooming Gangs Inquiry to succeed. We are working constructively with our team. But unless something changes, what prevents its recommendations from being ignored too?

The families of the Nottingham case and Henry Nowak deserve more than another report gathering dust. So do the thousands of survivors who trusted IICSA with their most painful experiences.

An inquiry must be the beginning of accountability and change, not the end of it.

And all of this doesn’t even begin to address another enormous issue — the almost complete absence of personal accountability for those responsible for these catastrophic failures.

Time and again, children and vulnerable people are failed, lives are destroyed, and yet those in positions of power who made the decisions, ignored the warnings or turned a blind eye rarely face any meaningful consequences.

No criminal accountability. No personal responsibility. Just more apologies, reviews, and promises that lessons will be learned.

But that is another battle, and a subject for another day.

I have spent much of my life challenging powerful institutions that would rather protect themselves than confront uncomfortable truths.

I will not stop now.

Public inquiries must deliver change, not provide governments with an expensive escape route from responsibility.

The greatest cost of government inaction is not measured in millions of pounds.

It is measured in children’s lives, shattered childhoods and suffering that could have been prevented.

Those children deserve better.

The British public deserves better.

And promises made to protect our children MUST mean something.