Letter to East Sussex Safeguarding — Adverse Inferences & Unexplained 19‑Year Delay

Legal Letter out to safeguard team

From: Martin Newbold

Date: 8 September 2026

To: East Sussex County Council — Safeguarding Team

Subject: Safeguarding matter — 2009 independent review (Fiona Lewis, IRO) — adverse inferences arising from unexplained delay and absence of evidence

I refer to the principle of adverse inference which I have set out in published form: where substantive matters remain unanswered, and evidence that ought to exist cannot be produced, it is reasonable to draw the inference that the missing evidence would not support the public authority’s position — unless a full, satisfactory explanation is provided. I am applying that principle directly to this safeguarding history. https://www.stealingofemily.world

You stated we already hold the 2009 record. It establishes clearly what was in train at that time: the placement, care proceedings, contact arrangements, the outstanding risk‑assessment issue, and the review chaired by Fiona Lewis in her capacity as Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO). There is no need to ask you to “reconstruct” what Fiona Lewis did in 2009. Her role, her function, and the entire safeguarding and review process were yours to discharge, to record, and to retain.

The issue is not whether any single document can now be located. The issue is this:

East Sussex County Council had this safeguarding matter properly before it 19 years ago. That situation has been permitted to drift, unresolved, for approximately 19 years — without any demonstrable, documented safeguarding resolution.

If the Council cannot now produce the records and evidence that ought to exist — showing how the situation was properly resolved, how Emily was safeguarded, and how the case reached a proper conclusion — then adverse inferences may reasonably be drawn from that failure.

In short:

“You carried statutory responsibility for this matter. You held the records. You possessed the safeguarding mechanisms. Nineteen years later you still cannot demonstrate a proper resolution. If the evidence that should prove that resolution cannot be produced, I invite the inference that the missing evidence would not support East Sussex County Council’s position.”

Fiona Lewis matters because she was the person specifically appointed within your established safeguarding framework to identify, challenge, and escalate unresolved concerns. The fact that the matter nevertheless drifted — unresolved — for nearly two decades requires your explanation, not a request that you now go and investigate what she might have done.

An adverse inference is not proof. It is an invitation to answer. I therefore ask East Sussex Safeguarding to address directly:

Why was this safeguarding situation permitted to drift unresolved for approximately 19 years?
What does your own record show was done — by Fiona Lewis in her independent reviewing capacity, and by the Council — to identify, challenge, and resolve the outstanding concerns?
At what point does the Council assert the safeguarding concern was actually and properly resolved?
Where are the records that demonstrate that resolution was achieved at that time?

If the Council cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for how a matter subject to independent safeguarding review was permitted to remain unresolved for this length of time, then the inference arises:

The safeguarding and independent‑review responsibilities specifically intended to prevent exactly this kind of drift were not effectively discharged.

That inference is open to being rebutted. The Council can answer it simply by explaining: what was done, when it was done, what the IRO did to discharge her independent function, and how the safeguarding situation was ultimately and formally resolved.

What is not sufficient is for the passage of time to stand in place of an answer. What is not acceptable is to treat this as a request for me to specify “which document is missing” when the entire duty to create, maintain, and produce those records was yours from the outset.

The central question I place before you is:

How was a safeguarding matter, subject to independent review, permitted to drift unresolved for approximately 19 years — and what does your own record show was done by the Council and by the Independent Reviewing Officer to prevent or resolve that drift?

Please treat this as a substantive safeguarding matter and respond directly to that question.

Yours faithfully,

Martin Newbold
www.martinnewbold.co.uk

September 8, 2026