LETTER: Council are silencing ‘Voice of Hope and Despair’

I was shocked at what the leader of the council said when he was asked about being truthful when lies and dishonesty by officials at RMBC have been evidenced surrounding a publication called Voices of Despair, Voices of Hope being purchased and then not utilised in a way to inform staff and officials at RMBC what the voices are from the community regarding lived experiences in relation to child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse.

These voices should be heard and the leader was emphatically wrong on this issue when he refused on to be truthful on Monday.

No action taken to remedy the situation means we have an absence of truthfulness and an absence of justice. The person asking the question was in an Upper Tribunal Hearing on Thursday February 20 in relation to getting to the truth on this issue. The results of that are yet to be seen.

The leader’s response was to concede that further information exists but will not be released for reasons unknown.

This leader is telling people whose voices should and must be heard that in effect he won’t be truthful and not only that, he won’t say why that is.

I’d encourage people to watch the Cabinet meeting from February 17; search on Google for “RMBC webcasting library” and the meetings are listed on there.

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