LONDON (TIP): A judge says Britain has been stunned by revelations about child sexual abuse, warning that the true scale of the crime has been underestimated and one in 20 children may have been a victim.

Justice Lowell Goddard opened a public inquiry into decades of abuse on July 9, vowing that “no one, no matter how apparently powerful, will be allowed to obstruct our inquiries.”

In the past few years, revelations of abuse have implicated taxi drivers, entertainers, clergy, senior politicians and others. There have been claims that police failed to investigate allegations of abuse for decades.

Goddard, a New Zealand judge, was appointed earlier this year to head an inquiry into how public agencies —including government bodies, police, hospitals, churches and the BBC — handled child-abuse allegations.