Two of the most inflammatory words in the field of child abuse are “cover up” – implying a conspiracy to conceal abuse of vulnerable young people, thereby allowing it to continue. The BBC in Britain, the Catholic and Anglican Churches in various countries, indeed many other public and private institutions including schools and children’s homes, have been implicated in the past. And now even the official inquiry into child abuse and the institutions responsible has been tainted by a home-grown charge of cover-up. It is alleged that ministers and officials knew, but refused to admit, that the quality of the leadership of Dame Lowell Goddard as chairwoman of the inquiry was said to be jeopardising its success.

Dame Lowell has resigned while denying all such allegations, and panel adviser Professor Alexis Jay has stepped in. But there is a deeper truth to the coincidence that an investigation into institutional cover-ups seems itself to have fallen prey to the same human failings.