‘I never, ever want to not feel’: meet Britain’s first independent public advocate

“When I see people fighting for 20, 30 years, I think to myself: ‘How could we, as a country, allow that to happen?’ And I also ask why is it that they have to become investigators, campaigners, archivists, legal experts?” Cindy Butts, the UK’s first independent public advocate (IPA), is standing in a small room in Notting Hill’s Tabernacle community centre in west London, surrounded by a dozen or so display boards that highlight the country’s most shaming scandals, from the infamous Aberfan colliery and Hillsborough stadium disasters, to the more recent Grenfell Tower tragedy, to the almost forgotten “tinker experiments” involving the Gypsy Traveller community and Gresford coalmine explosion in north Wales in 1934.

Her words fizz with indignation and outrage. “Families do it not because they want to, but because they have to. They’ve been given no choice. And I often think: ‘My God, what would their lives have been like had they not had to do that?’” For family members bereaved through major incidents, as well as surviving victims whose lives have been devastated, truth and justice are often scarce commodities, particularly when they find themselves up against the state.

The IPA’s function is to provide independent support for all those affected; the role was devised by Labour peer Michael Wills, former MP for Swindon North and a justice minister in Gordon Brown’s government. Lobbying his own party to adopt it did not work, so he kept going and ended up persuading the Conservative government of its value. “Theresa May, amazingly, put it in her 2017 manifesto,” Wills says, “and when she lost her majority, she still put it in the Queen’s speech.”

Even so, it took another seven years for the job to be advertised. Butts was appointed last autumn, after roles as commissioner at the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Perhaps tellingly, she sees her visceral determination to fight for people suffering harm because of state and corporate failures as continuing the legacy of her mother, Orlene, who came to Britain in the 1960s from Guyana, settled in Ladbroke Grove, west London, and ended up advocating for people arrested under the “sus” – suspected person – laws.

“I’ve inherited that from her,” she says simply. A 2016 vigil in Liverpool for the victims of the Hillsborough disaster. The IPA is contracted for two days a week, until a major incident occurs, when the government decides whether Butts is deployed. Four days into the job, she heard reports of the Heaton Park synagogue attack . Within hours, she was on a train to Manchester, attended a vigil to meet grieving families and has worked full time ever since.

She is never truly off duty, however, and has a bag packed and ready to go by her front door. Related articles: ‘A defeat for lies’: Lula’s surprise win is met with relief worldwide Israelis flying home to vote could help give Netanyahu the boot What can she offer devastated families who are typically suddenly and shockingly bereaved? Simply having time to listen properly is vital, she says. “You’d be surprised how many families tell me that they wrote to this minister or that official and just get ignored or fobbed off.”

A big part of the IPA’s role, she says: “is trying to tackle that imbalance where people don’t have the power or the knowledge or the understanding of how systems work”. The access she has to government and civil servants means she can “amplify their voices”. Butts is keenly awaiting the passing of the long-delayed Hillsborough bill – officially known as the public office (accountability bill), which has just completed its committee stages in the House of Lords.

She explains that this legislation, which resulted from the decades of misery endured by the Hillsborough families searching desperately for the truth, introduces a new statutory duty of candour for state bodies, officials and public sector contractors. This holds a criminal sanction if not adhered to. A second new statutory offence will criminalise intentionally misleading the public. Third, there will be legal aid for victims and families so that, unlike in the past, they do not have to represent themselves, drain savings, or remortgage their homes to afford lawyers who state bodies and corporates can hire with ease.

Whistleblowers are most likely to be given additional protection, and the duty of candour could be extended to accounts given by involved parties to the IPA. Butts wants her role to have express recognition in the bill, and insists I speak to Pete Weatherby KC, who she describes as its “architect”. I catch him during a lunch break during the Southport inquiry; as with the fresh Hillsborough inquests that ran from 2014 to 2016, he is representing families affected by the attack at a dance class in July 2024 in which three children were killed and eight injured, along with two teachers.

“The vast majority of ordinary decent public servants don’t want to lie and obfuscate,” he says. “The example we keep giving is a police officer on the pitch at Hillsborough where the crush occurred. And, 25 years later, she gave evidence at the end of her career that she had written a truthful statement about what she had witnessed about police incompetence. A senior police officer stood in front of her, ripped it up and made her write something that wasn’t right.”

There has just been a six-month tussle, he adds, over whether the security services will be made subject to the duty of candour. “And now they will, fully,” he says. Culture change, it seems, is being forced into even the most secretive corners of the state. A silent march through London in June protesting the lack of criminal prosecutions over the Grenfell Tower fire. How long is constant close contact with other people’s anguish sustainable?

Butts acknowledges that this is “very difficult work” and getting the balance right is critical to her ability to carry on. But she also insists: “I never, ever want to not feel.” This means that care must go into looking after herself and her team of three. “Some of that is about reflective practice, and we’ve had trauma-informed training. And I make sure I’m nourishing my friendships.” She laughs as she adds: “I like to bake bread. It’s my way of dealing with the stress, and I like dancing, so every now and then I’ll go out and have a little boogie.”

With Andy Burnham now prime minister, Butts may have a top boss who understands why her role is so crucial. As shadow home secretary, his speech to the House of Commons in 2016 after the Hillsborough inquest verdicts of “unlawful killing” was impassioned, fluent and furious. So maybe he will be able to give Butts the clarity she wants about when the bill, once passed, will actually “commence” – meaning, start to apply – rather than languishing on the statute books, as some legislation does.

Maybe he will give her more money too. The annual budget is just over £500,000 for Butts and her team of three. In the view of Wills, this is not enough. “Funding her and her office properly would cost a relatively small sum of money and save millions, or possibly hundreds of millions, that can easily end up being spent on lawyers and public inquiries,” he says with some vigour. Butts, meanwhile, is clear that funding the IPA properly “is a diversity issue”.

Who, she points out, can take a job on two days a week that might scale up overnight to full-time, and then drop back again when the IPA is stood down? “Rich white men who’ve got independent means,” she says wryly. “Because what I know is that some people would have ruled themselves out of applying for this role. Good people.” Like mother, like daughter. Orlene’s spirit carries on. Portrait by Antonio Zazueta Olmos Additional photographs by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images, Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images Justice Human rights Interviews News Politics National Grenfell Tower Fire Andy Burnham