LONDON—A British public inquiry into child sexual abuse said Tuesday that hundreds of children in the care of a London authority faced “hard to comprehend” levels of abuse and neglect over several decades. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said that between the 1960s and the 1990s, local authority staff in the south London borough of Lambeth treated children in their care as if they were “worthless.” It said staff members in the south London borough put vulnerable children in the path of sex offenders, who infiltrated children’s homes and foster care settings with “devastating, life-long consequences for their victims.” “Over several decades, children in residential and foster care suffered levels of cruelty and sexual abuse that are hard to comprehend,” the head of the inquiry, Alexis Jay, said. “For many years, bullying, intimidation, racism, nepotism, and sexism thrived within the council, and all against a backdrop of corruption …