Delays to justice after disasters such as Grenfell are ‘stain on society’, says new victims advocate for England and Wales | UK news

The fact that victims of disasters such as Hillsborough and Grenfell have to wait years for justice is “a shame and a stain on our society”, the new Independent Public Advocate (IPA) said in his first interview in the role.

Former police complaints commissioner Cindy Butts said she was determined to prevent people being forced “to become investigators and de facto advocates in times of grief” to deliver justice following tragedies involving state failures in England and Wales.

“Not getting to the truth quickly enough after major events where there are clear failures of the state or its institutions is a shame and a stain on our society,” he said.

“We see the same failures again. People deny the truth, documents are lost or altered, families are blamed, families are not respected. It is inhumane to force people to fight in pain.”

The IPA role, first announced in 2023, emerged from a report that identified shortcomings in the treatment of bereaved families from the Hillsborough disaster by authorities.

The role will be the first of its kind in the world and Butts will be responsible for ensuring victims of major incidents know their rights, access support and are represented in inquiries and investigations, as well as regularly reporting to parliament on their findings.

In addition, it will be able to prepare independent reports on events without the need for ministerial approval.

Just days after Butts began his five-year term in September, he traveled to Manchester to support the victims of the synagogue terror attack. “We have established a dedicated casework function so that within 24 hours, victims, families and the wider community can contact us directly for information, advocacy and practical assistance,” he said.

“This is a clear reminder that this office is not symbolic. It is operational. It is active in real time and is built to stand with victims from the first moment a crisis occurs.”

He said a key part of his job would be to ensure the truth comes out immediately after the disaster, so there will be no need for the major investigations and reports the country has seen in recent years.

“We are there in the early hours, weeks, months and years to avoid having to get to a stage where we have to do a decades-long public inquiry, where truth is rewarded by institutions,” he said.

“That’s the point. The lesson we learned from Hillsborough is not that we need to recreate Hillsborough-type panels, but that we need to build a system where we never need panels again.”

Butts has a long history of advocacy work. She said “Hush” was inspired by her mother, who campaigned on issues such as school exclusion, poor housing and racial disproportionality. [stop and search] He was arrested while growing up in west London.

Butts joined the Metropolitan police, where he oversaw significant changes following the Stephen Lawrence investigation, and served as a commissioner on the then Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) during the Hillsborough investigation.

He also chaired the Independent Equality Commission in Cricket. The commission published a groundbreaking report in 2023 that found the sport was “racist, sexist and elitist”.

He said his biggest challenge as a perennial advocate is building trust with people who “rightfully distrust” the state and the officials who represent it. “My goal is to quickly establish credibility and demonstrate through my actions that my commitment is to the victims, not the institutions,” he said.

Its remit covers events occurring from September 2024 onwards, defined as events “declared in writing by the secretary of state to have caused the death or serious harm of a significant number of people” and includes events such as the Grenfell Tower fire, the Hillsborough disaster and the Manchester Arena bombing.

Butts said he wanted more resources for his office, and that those resources came primarily from the Department of Justice, saying he did not think he had enough funds and personnel to deal with a large-scale incident, but that the agency could “pull money” if needed.

He also said he would be willing to expand his role to include individual deaths in “exceptional circumstances” where there was a significant public interest, such as cases like those of Harry Dunn and Stephen Lawrence.

To help shape his approach, he speaks to bereaved families from previous disasters who are still campaigning for justice decades later, such as relatives of the 50 people killed in the Isle of Man Summerland fire in 1973. “They are not given the space and dignity to grieve because they have to fight for the truth; this is deeply wrong and inhumane,” he said.

One of his first priorities will be to press for full implementation of the Hillsborough bill to pass parliament, which would lead to public officials deliberately covering up state-related disasters facing prisons.

He welcomed the legislation, particularly as it would ensure that “victims’ families are not outnumbered by armies of lawyers” when participating in inquests and investigations, but said it had some significant shortcomings.

“It’s been 36 years since Hillsborough’s parliament got to the stage of legislating on integrity, accountability and equality of arms. But there are no families in the bill. I think that’s a gap. It’s a huge legitimacy gap,” he said. “And it’s a real shame that we need legislation.

“The fact that this legal duty of candour is required shows us how deep and persistent the problems are.”