A solicitor on Scotland’s independent child abuse inquiry raised “real concerns” about government interference just months before the chairwoman was ousted.
Susan O’Brien QC was appointed to lead the inquiry in May 2015 but resigned a year later. She claimed at the time that a government official had threatened the “nuclear option” after being told the inquiry should be left to its work, independent of the Scottish government.
It has emerged that concerns over ministerial meddling were raised by Andrea Summers, the solicitor to the inquiry, when she met Donald Henderson, a senior civil servant, in January 2016. Summers, who is still in post, described the meeting as “challenging”.
In an email to O’Brien summarising the encounter, Summers claimed that Angela Constance, the former education