It's not been an edifying couple of weeks for anyone charged with investigating the truth of complaints of abuse by children, both contemporary and historical. The Jimmy Savile affair came hot on the heels of a multiple scandal involving the abuse of children in the Rochdale area – a scandal that is continuing, according to the co-ordinator of the council's crisis intervention team. Sara Rowbotham, an expert on sexual health among young people, told the Home Affairs Select Committee on 6 November that the abuse had started in 2004, not 2007, and that she had made 103 referrals of vulnerable people, yet there had only been nine convictions. The lessons have apparently not been learned and the abuse continues, according to Ms Rowbotham.
Another historical chapter of exploitation has also resurfaced: that concerning the Bryn Estyn children's home in Wrexham, which has seen allegations about figures as diverse as senior politicians and Savile himself being made. Again, there are claims that the investigation carried out in the early 1990s did not uncover the whole picture because its remit was not broad enough.
The whole series of sorry affairs paints a picture of the British establishment as closing its eyes to a dark world of sexual deviance and abuse that used to be thought of as some kind of parody. Where will it end?
• Anyone who has tried to make a voice recognition system understand them will have sympathy with the Birmingham councillor who complained that the council's own automated telephone system didn't recognise the Brummie accent! The council reportedly spent £11m on the system, which has a Geordie accent. Apparently, the system is run by a company jointly owned by the council and those experts in language issues, Capita.
The development of voice systems continues apace, however. Nuance, the company that markets such software for home and business computers, has just launched a specialist product for lawyers. It's called Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 Legal – which is surely an oxymoron. Lawyers speaking naturally? If it were called ImpenetrablyConvoluted it would surely catch on.
• The satirical legal blog The Epilogue – part of the Professionals in Law site – has what it claims to be the definitive answer to the age-old question of whether it's better to have a career as a clown or a lawyer. The answer it came up with is, of course, that it's better to be a clown. The clincher, according to the piece, was that lawyers come out at number seven in the Daily Telegraph list of 'Ten least trusted professions', whereas clowns don't figure in it at all. Aha! I thought triumphantly. Knew it; lawyers can't be trusted. But wait a minute – at number two in the list are journalists, ahead of not only lawyers but bankers, accountants and estate agents and behind only politicians! Still, it's the Telegraph; what do they know?
Chris Stokes