Charity Commission's Harvey Grenville (currently a senior technical advisor) on the Watch Tower Britain and Manchester New Moston inquiries:
We clearly recognise the right of charities to challenge our decisions when they think that we have got it wrong, but we are on record as saying, in particular in respect of the Manchester New Moston and The Watchtower inquiries, that the level of legal challenge that we received, which I think numbered five in two years, is simply unprecedented. In the instance of -- I think it is separate for Watchtower, but in the instance of the Manchester New Moston inquiry, it was the primary factor why we were unable -- alongside the very limited co-operation that we received from the trustees and Watchtower as to why it took the length of time that it did. Essentially, we had to compile our findings independently of any engagement, or significant engagement, with either the trustees of Manchester New Moston or the branch -- the central office, and the only engagement that we received was at the end when we submitted the draft inquiry report for comments on factual accuracy.
...I think, overall, the characterisation or implication that somehow The Watchtower charity and the Branch Committee are fully co-operative with us is not a characterisation I would recognise.
...Most recently, we wrote to Watchtower with concerns about sufficiency of the policies and procedures that the congregations are using, with the expert and third party professional support. They responded with some concerns to those comments. I rang one of the Branch Committee members up in December, urging or requesting that we just simply meet face to face to discuss those items. They declined to do so, and, in response, we received pre-action correspondence of further potential litigation.
...the purpose of opening the inquiry into Watchtower was because, as a result of our earlier engagement, we understood that Watchtower was the charity that produced the child protection safeguarding policy for adoption by the congregations, and rather than us opening a class inquiry into 1,300 congregations, we sought to work directly at the centre. So the obstruction or the delays are, in our view, in a large part, due to the fact that Watchtower are not fully and actively co-operating with the inquiry. There is information we have requested that is outstanding.