Well within living memory, the British state, alongside charities and churches, was engaged in the mass abuse of children. In what was virtually a modern system of transportation – but without even the semblance of justice in those older cases of the deportation of convicts – thousands of children were in effect removed unlawfully from the UK to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The final destination of the White Commonwealth dominions added a little racism to the toxic mix, and these children were indeed treated little better than livestock.

This grotesque system of child disposal only dragged to a halt in 1974. It is, then, not some horror tale from the middle ages or the Victorian workhouse. It’s very much in our time.

The children, as we know now, were sent very often without their parents’ knowledge, let alone permission, and against the wishes of the child. They were dispatched because they were “in care” – the ugly irony echoes down the decades – and because they were perhaps too much bother for the authorities to deal with. They were knowingly sent to work and to be mistreated, and, above all, to be forgotten.

Although the public knew little about these crimes – there is no other word for it – there is evidence that the Government knew as early as the mid-1950s about the scale of the abuses, noting in one official report the “indecent haste” with which children were chosen to be sent away. And who was doing the choosing? Without being sensationalist, many were undisputedly paedophiles.

Child sex abuse inquiry

Like the case of Jimmy Savile and the child abuse scandals uncovered in the Roman Catholic and other churches, the sheer magnitude of these abuses is difficult to comprehend. How could such blatant cruelty against vulnerable children occur? And how could so many parents be deliberately deprived of their offspring, and deceived about what happened to them, all without any complaint or protest in officialdom? Where were the MPs asking questions in the House? The newspaper investigations? The police?

Today, many (probably most) of those young victims are still alive, in their fifties and above. They have just as much a right to justice as when they emerged from their stolen childhoods to cope with the legacy of their abuse all the way through adulthood and now into older age.

It is less likely that the perpetrators are still with us, but some may be, and if so they must pay the price for their actions, even at this distance. There is no statute of limitations for such offences, and nor should there be. Those who abuse children, sexually, physically or emotionally, should know that there will never be the certainty that they can escape prosecution and punishment, and they will forever have to live with that fear.

As a society we also deserve an explanation as to how those who ran these supposedly worthy charities and local authority “care” homes could behave with such inhumanity for so long, and with so little attention being paid to them. Modern Britain has a duty to look into that historical mirror and to face the consequences, which include the pursuit of justice and the payment of generous compensation to victims. DNA testing could be used to perhaps unite some former child migrants with long-lost parents or other relatives.

The child abuse enquiry has had its false starts and its controversies. It should have started much, much sooner – decades sooner. It should also have been split into a series of parallel separate inquires into each aspect, the better to gain swift results.