No one case is more important than another. The victims of Mohamed Fayed and related perpetrators are not owed more than the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, or of David Sullivan, or of the other powerful men whose conduct was known, tolerated, and left unchallenged for years. We are, all of us, victims of the same thing – a culture of impunity that has been allowed to flourish in Britain, one that protects the powerful and abandons those they harm.
This week the Victims Minister, Alex Davies-Jones, acknowledged that the Government is looking at a public inquiry into that impunity – one capable of drawing together the UK activities of Jeffrey Epstein, the abuse enabled at Harrods and linked entities, and the allegations reported against David Sullivan, among others. By the following morning, Downing Street was already stepping back, saying it was “not actively considering” any such inquiry.
That retreat, inside 24 hours, is not a distraction from the problem. It is the problem, demonstrated in real time. This is how impunity is maintained in Britain – not by open refusal, but by quiet withdrawal once the cameras move on. Survivors have watched it happen for decades. We are not willing to watch it happen again.
No One Above has always said this is wider than any single predator. It is a system – of enablers, advisers, employers, and institutions that knew and did nothing, or knew and were paid to look away. A system is not dismantled by condemning the men at its centre once they are dead or disgraced. It is dismantled by establishing, on the record and beyond refusal, how they were protected: who knew, who profited, who turned victims away, and why not one of the institutions around them ever brought it to an end.
That is why the vehicle matters. An inquiry into impunity must be a statutory public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, with the power to compel documents and require witnesses to give evidence – failure to comply being a criminal offence.
Parliamentary scrutiny can and should begin at once. But a select committee cannot compel a hostile witness, cannot reach Ministers or the Crown, and cannot be the substitute for an inquiry with real powers. The individuals and institutions at the heart of this will not volunteer the truth. They must be made to answer. Anything less invites them, once again, to decline.
The fear that survivors should never be asked to trust institutions investigating themselves is one we share completely. That is an argument for an independent, judge-led inquiry – not against one. An independent inquiry with statutory teeth is the answer to self-investigation, not another instance of it.
We say all of this in solidarity with every survivor and every group seeking justice in these cases. Our point is simple: no survivor’s suffering ranks above another’s, and the thread that connects all of it is impunity.
And this has never only been about the past. Impunity that is not broken is impunity that repeats – on other victims, in other institutions, against other young women and children. The only way to make sure this does not happen again is to dismantle the systems that enabled these men. That is not vengeance. It is how a country keeps its children safe.
– No One Above
To find out more about No One Above, the work they do and how you can support them please visit their website
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