Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:47 pm on 18 January 2017.
Deputy Presiding Officer, can I pay tribute to Julie Morgan for that most eloquent and moving speech, and also for all the work she’s done over the years for children, and her current work for the all-party group on children? I’ve also had the honour of meeting Cedric Moon, and I also pay tribute to him, in this particular case, for bringing this matter to our attention, but also for his general work for people with a hearing impairment. I just want to make one additional point to what Julie has said. As the prevalence of child abuse is becoming more and more starkly apparent, in the last 20 years we have stopped being naive and we’ve started to see the world as it is. As this has happened, many people who are now in old age, who may have buried a lot of these memories, are obviously seeing these matters being discussed and are thinking about their own experiences and a need for some counselling and some restorative statement to be made. Given that the school has gone, and the alleged perpetrator is long dead—but we need to do something because these people were failed by society.