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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 30 August 2007

Important questions over these diaries

• HAVING read the New Journal’s reports of the latest developments in the Salma ElSharkawy case, I am puzzled.
It was reported that “a mysterious revelation” in Salma’s diary, has prompted an inquiry by the police child abuse investigation team.
It was also reported that Salma’s family have been given Salma’s belongings but not any of her diaries.
It would seem that the family is not to be informed as to what is in the diaries which could be being investigated.
In the interest of public confidence all the pages of the diaries should be copied, right now and accounted for by, say, a ‘legal person’ who is totally independent from the child protection police, the social services and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
The public will expect that all the pages of the diaries are accounted for ‘independently’ at the start of any investigation and that they are seen to have remained intact throughout.
Lessons have been learned from previous social services investigations where vital paperwork has gone missing or has been discovered to have been deleted.
I am sure that with the correct advice Salma’s family will be enabled to obtain the assurance that every page of the diaries is accounted for, now, in the order in which they were written and that not one page will be enabled to go missing.
In this case any suspicion that any paperwork has been lost or altered would be a very bitter blow to the already beleaguered image of child protection and childcare, in practice.
Transparency and clarity and complete honesty must be seen to be achieved in this case.
name and address supplied, W11

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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