Senior lawyer on national child abuse inquiry resigns after being suspended

The top lawyer in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has quit a day after being suspended from his role.

Chairwoman Professor Alexis Jay said she had accepted Ben Emmerson QC's decision to step down from the post of senior counsel after two years.

Mr Emmerson was suspended on Wednesday night amid reports he was about to resign following disagreements with Prof Jay.

His departure was announced just hours after his junior colleague Elizabeth Prochaska confirmed she had also left her role.

In a statement Prof Jay said: "There is no truth in suggestions that he has resigned due to a difference of opinion with me about the next steps for the inquiry."

Prime Minister Theresa May had earlier said the "really important" inquiry would go ahead as planned, amid claims it was in "crisis".

In his resignation letter, posted on the inquiry's website, Mr Emmerson said he would be "sad" to leave and remained "totally committed to securing a fair and just result for those who matter most, the victims and survivors of childhood abuse".

He added: "Shortly after you (Prof Jay) took over, you announced a review of the Inquiry's ways of working to identify any changes that may be necessary in the public interest.

"When you decided to re-appoint me as counsel to the Inquiry in early September, I had my personal doubts about whether I was genuinely the right person to steer that review process.

"Since then, it has become clear to me that I am not the person to take this review forward on your behalf.

"There is no truth in suggestions that I have resigned due to a difference of opinion with you about the next steps for the Inquiry."

Mrs May has insisted the wide-ranging investigation will not be scaled back despite the recent controversies.

These also include the sudden resignation of its previous chair Dame Lowell Goddard, who cited the "legacy of failure" from its beginnings as one of the reasons for standing down.

Mrs May, who set up the inquiry in 2014 when she was Home Secretary, said: "The current Home Secretary (Amber Rudd) has made clear the original terms of reference were the right ones and I think that's important.

"We should always remember why it is that the inquiry was set up in the first place and when those terms of reference were set they were agreed with victims and survivors and it is victims and survivors who are at the heart of this inquiry."

:: The UK's child abuse inquiry in numbers

The £100m probe has been dogged by controversy since its launch and as already had four chairwomen including Prof Jay.

It was branded a "categorical disaster" by child abuse survivors and leading lawyers after Mr Emmerson's suspension, which reignited the debate around whether it should be broken up to make it more manageable.

The inquiry's brief stretches back 60 years and covers institutions including the church, schools, councils and Westminster.

It was set up amid claims of an establishment cover-up following allegations that a paedophile ring operated in Westminster in the 1980s.

Labour MP David Winnick, who sits on the Home Affairs Committee, has called on Mrs Rudd to make a statement to the Commons when it returns after the summer break on 10 October.

He also said Prof Jay and Mr Emmerson should appear before the committee.