In 1875, Andrew Doyle, a barrister and civil servant, reported to parliament that child migrants sent to Canada were “exposed to suffering and wrong”. Two years later the policy was said to be “inhuman”, and the children open to “great disadvantage and much obloquy”.

Last month, 140 years later, the harsh reality behind these words was revealed in the first report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which detailed the sexual, emotional and physical abuse suffered by 4,000 children sent by charities and institutions to Commonwealth countries