There can be few people in social work better prepared than Professor Alexis Jay to lead the mammoth Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which started evidence hearings this week.
Recounting the early days of her inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, where someone who was working with her to read case files saw a huge stack land on her desk, she says: “She was just handed nearly a thousand cases where child sexual exploitation had featured, and that wasn’t even complete.”
