Abney Garsden McDonald solicitors

Child Abuse Lawyer Takes Fight to Commons

Manchester Metro 14th June 2002 by Rachel Brody

A Cheadle Hulme solicitor has slammed a House of Commons inquiry into cases of abuse at children's homes.

Peter Garsden, of Abney Garsden McDonald solicitors, was questioned for 90 minutes about his opinions on whether people have been wrongly accused of abuse in children's homes.

The House of Commons was asking, amongst other things, if there is a risk that advertisements of prospective awards of compensation encourage people to come forwards with fabricated allegation. It is also concerned about "trawling for evidence"

A full report will be printed in the autumn.

Peter Garsden, a founder member of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, is acting for 400 alleged victims of abuse and co-ordinating the claims of a further 400.

He rejected claims by some MP's who suggested that Mr. Garsden had specialised in the area simply for the money.

He said "if there are any false allegations, I'm the first to say they should be overturned immediately and the victims should get good and proper compensation.

"I qualified as a lawyer because I believed in justice, but the House of Commons inquiry wants to blame me for doing my best and acting for the poorest and most disadvantaged in our society.

We should not separate child abuse claims as a special case. They are being prejudiced against victims of abuse as a group because it is very easy to be prejudiced towards people who may have a string of convictions and can be seen as liars. But what we are doing is making the same mistake that were made 30 years ago when they were abused - ignoring them"

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