New child sex abuse inquiry chair 'will not scale back probe'

The new head of the inquiry into historical child sexual abuse has defended the embattled probe and insisted that it will not be scaled back.

Professor Alexis Jay conceded that the inquiry's scale presented a "substantial challenge", but stressed that she was "absolutely committed" to delivering results with "pace, confidence and clarity".

In a letter to the inquiry's core participants, Professor Jay wrote: "I would like to reassure any victim or survivor who is concerned that their experience may be excluded from our work that I have no intention of asking the Home Secretary to revise or reduce our terms of reference."

On Wednesday, Home Secretary Amber Rudd revealed that former inquiry chair Dame Lowell Goddard quit her role partly because she found it a "lonely existence".

Dame Lowell also said there was an "inherent problem" in the inquiry's "sheer scale and size", and called for it to be overhauled.