Government "Effectively allowed abuse" of children, court told
The comments came during the ongoing court case between The Maggie Oliver Foundation and the Home Office
The Government has "effectively allowed the abuse" of thousands of children by not implementing some recommendations following an inquiry into child sexual exploitation, the High Court has been told.
The Maggie Oliver Foundation is taking legal action against the Home Office over its alleged failure to adopt all of the 20 major reforms suggested after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
At a hearing on Thursday, Mr Justice Kimblin allowed the case to continue, saying it was arguable that the foundation had a "legitimate expectation" that the Government would implement the recommendations.
The Home Office is defending the claim.
Concluding in 2022, the inquiry lasted seven years at a cost of £200 million and it was launched to examine how public and private institutions failed to protect children from sexual abuse.
Ms Oliver, who attended the High Court hearing on Thursday, set up her foundation after leaving Greater Manchester Police, where she was a whistleblower about the force's inaction over grooming gangs.
Christopher Jacobs, for the foundation, told the court 17 of the 20 recommendations had not been implemented as of July 8, 2025.
The three at the centre of the claim relate to recording the age, ethnicity, religion and occupation of perpetrators of child sexual abuse, ending the use of pain-inducing restraint on children in custody and ensuring those in care have greater access to justice.
Mr Jacobs said around 500,000 children are sexually abused every year and that the Government has "effectively allowed the abuse to continue" by taking an "inconsistent and arbitrary approach" to the recommendations.
In written submissions, he said: "The claimant maintains that the obfuscations, denials and delays by successive Governments in implementing the thorough and extensively reasoned recommendations of the seven-year inquiry must have contributed to thousands of otherwise preventable cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of children over the last three and a half years."
Mr Jacobs also said the Government is failing to set a timetable for when these recommendations will be implemented.
He added: "The failure by successive Governments to respond to the ongoing threat of child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation is a matter of national importance and urgency."
Jack Anderson, for the Home Office, said in written submissions that the claim is "not arguable".
He said: "The Government is not obliged to implement the recommendations of IICSA, they are recommendations, but no more than that."
The barrister also said the Home Secretary had "accepted in full" the four recommendations that relate to her department, while the statement from the previous Home Secretary "is not a clear, precise and unambiguous representation that the recommendations of the IICSA will be implemented".
In relation to setting a timetable, Mr Anderson said the Government "wants to get policy right and that takes time".
He added: "The Government has indicated the steps it is taking, but not all of them can be assigned a definite end-date having regard to the desirability of consulting stakeholders, the policy work required and the myriad pressures on public business."
Speaking outside court after the hearing, Ms Oliver said: "We brought this action, knowing that the chance of winning was remote.
"When we went in there today, though, I felt that the judge was human."
She said: "We are fighting for every child that is failed by a system that doesn't work.
"And a seven-year national inquiry made 20 recommendations, including, you can't torture children, that a child should be protected, that we need all sorts of changes made.