No one who was at the public inquiry into the death of Maria Colwell will ever forget it.

Whether they were the officials directly involved with the case or Bill Sansom, the amiable policeman who kept order when emotions ran high, it was an emotive occasion.

It was the first inquiry ever held into child abuse and it attracted enormous public interest. Held between September and December 1973, it attracted huge headlines in the national papers each day it sat.

I was there for much of the time. Even now after all this time I can remember the names of most of the main actors, whether they were barristers or social workers. I use the word actors with care because although this was a sober inquiry it was also something of a stage production.

The chairman, Thomas Field-Fisher, revelled in the publicity although he conducted the inquiry with fairness. There was a rigorous examination of the issues, which were mainly whether Maria should have been allowed to stay with her foster parents rather than her natural mother and why there was such a lack of liaison among the many concerned experts who visited her home. It resulted in beneficial changes in the law and in society's attitude towards battered children.

At the end of it all, we said such a dreadful thing should never happen again. But of course it did and the latest shocking example is the case which the Argus revealed last month of three dead and four neglected children in Brighton.

There was striking similarities with the Colwell case. The often violent father has been sent to jail. The children were kept with their parents although plainly this should never have happened.

But there are also differences. One is that in this case three children died rather than one. Another is that neither of the parents was convicted of killing because it could not be proved which, if either, was responsible.

A third is that because there are children still living, the family and babies cannot be identified. The last and most important is that so far there has been no public inquiry. This is partly because there has been so much secrecy, some of it justified, surrounding the case that it has been hard to build up a lot of steam.

But the authorities should be under no doubt that there is widespread revulsion and anger over what happened in this case. Most people asking, as the Argus did, why this was ever allowed to happen.

There has already been an inquiry by the area child protection team which has resulted in changes. But this was held in private.

Back in 1973, East Sussex County Council, then in charge of social services, arranged for a little local inquiry into the Maria Colwell case. But public opinion forced the Government into the full-scale inquiry.

Whether this will happen again remains to be seen. But the council should remember the Colwell inquiry acted as a safety valve for emotion as well as leading to fundamental change.

Without some sort of public examination, there will be festering resentment about this triple tragedy and a greater chance that the mistakes which led to it being repeated.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.