The legacy of Jimmy Saville strikes again, this time in that hive of scum and villainy known as Westminster
Indy
and todays morally dubious appointment goes to....Judges, peers and MPs are among 20 prominent public figures who abused children for decades, a former child protection manager has said.
Peter McKelvie, who worked on the conviction of paedophile Peter Righton, said there was a “powerful elite” of paedophiles who carried out “the worst form” of abuse.
There is evidence linking the former politicians to an alleged paedophile network, he said.
Lord Warner, the former health minister, said the allegations were credible.
Mr McKelvie triggered a police investigation in 2012 when he revealed there were seven boxes of potential evidence of a powerful paedophile network, including letters between Righton and other paedophiles, being stored by West Mercia Police.
The former child protection manager in Hereford and Worcestershire said: “I believe there is a lot of strong evidence, and information that can be converted into evidence if it is investigated properly, that there has been an extremely powerful elite, amongst the highest levels of the political classes, for as long as I have been alive.
“There has been sufficient reason to investigate it over and over again certainly for the past thirty years, and there has always been a block, and the cover-up and collusion, to prevent that happening.”
“We are looking at the Lords, the Commons, the judiciary – all institutions where there will be a small percentage of paedophiles, and a slightly larger percentage of people who have known about it but have felt in terms of their own self-interest and self-preservation and for political party reasons it has been safer cover it up rather than deal with it,” he told the BBC.
“I would say we are looking at upwards of 20 [people] and a much larger number of people who have known about it and done nothing about it, who were in a position to do something about it,” he said.
The alleged abuse involved rape, beatings and being moved between paedophiles “like a lump of meat”.
Lord Warner, the former Labour health minister, said the claims were “possibly true”.
Children’s homes provided “supply lines” for child abuse and were targeted by “people in power” during the 1980s, he said.
“Sexual abuse of children is a power drive, that's what a lot of it is about.
“What I am suggesting is that it's possible that people who were authoritative, powerful, in particular communities did sometimes have access to children's homes.
"I had to fire two managers of children's homes... for abusing children in their care.”
Today Mark Sedwill, the permanent secretary of the Home Office, will be questioned by MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee.
He oversaw last year’s review of how the department handled allegations from MP Geoffery Dickens, in the form of a dossier handed to Home Secretary Leon Brittan, about an establishment paedophile ring.
The review found the allegations were handled properly but the questioning is likely to focus on the 114 “potentially relevant files” that the review found had been lost or destroyed.
Yesterday Theresa May, the Home Secretary, announced two new inquiries. Political parties and MI5 will have their files examined in a probe into allegations of child sex abuse by politicians, while the BBC and religious organisations would fall under the remit of a major new inquiry into whether those in power turned a blind eye to abuse claims.
Lord Warner said the Home Secretary must “clean the Augean stables” in order to maintain public trust in the establishment.
Graun
TL;DRLady Butler-Sloss, the retired high court judge appointed as chair of the inquiry panel examining child abuse, faced a backlash on Wednesday as Labour MPs and a victims' lawyer called on her to stand down over conflict of interest.
The Home Office was forced to defend the appointment of Butler-Sloss "unreservedly" after critics pointed out that her brother, the late Lord Havers, was attorney general from 1979 to 1987 when some of the controversy over the failure to prosecute child abuse cases could have arisen.
Havers, who later served briefly as lord chancellor, backed the decision of the director of public prosecutions not to prosecute Sir Peter Hayman, a diplomat and subscriber to the Paedophile Information Exchange. Hayman was caught sending paedophile literature through the post but was not prosecuted.
Butler-Sloss insisted she had been unaware of reports saying her brother tried to prevent the former MP Geoffrey Dickens airing claims about the diplomat in parliament in the 1980s. "I know absolutely nothing about it," she told the BBC. "If people think I am not suitable then that's up to them."
But Alison Millar, a lawyer with Leigh Day, who is representing some of the victims of child abuse, likened the appointment of Butler-Sloss to asking a relative of the head of South Yorkshire police to chair the Hillsborough enquiry. Millar told The World at One on BBC Radio 4: "Baroness Butler-Sloss is an extremely eminent legal figure with a very distinguished career. However, it has become apparent that she has very close connections to the very establishment this inquiry will be investigating – namely her brother.
"To give an analogy, it would be rather like appointing someone who was a close relative of the head of South Yorkshire police, however eminent a judge, to chair the Hillsborough inquiry. [The inquiry] will lose credibility.
"Picking someone who will be seen at the start potentially by survivors as someone who is very much of the establishment, linked to the establishment at the time, is not going to give people any confidence to come forward and be frank and fearless in front of this inquiry."
Butler-Sloss, 80, was appointed on Monday by the home secretary, Theresa May, to chair the panel of enquiry that will examine handling of child abuse allegations by public institutions. May cited Butler-Sloss's work as chair of the Cleveland child abuse enquiry in the late 1980s.
The actor Nigel Havers, son of the late attorney general and nephew of Butler-Sloss, rallied to his aunt's defence. He told The World at One on BBC Radio 4: "I know my aunt very well. Had she felt any form of bias, or any idea that she shouldn't be doing this inquiry she would have pulled out this morning. The very fact she hasn't means to me she feels she has absolutely had no political ties to my father and knew nothing about what was going on in the House of Commons at that time. Therefore she has every right to lead the inquiry.
"I know her well enough to know she is totally honest, totally transparent, highly respected and very, very, good at her job. I don't think the fact that my father was attorney general at the time makes any difference whatsoever."
But Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, criticised the Home Office for apparently failing to take account of the role of Butler-Sloss's brother as attorney general in the 1980s. Thornberry told the Daily Politics show on BBC2: "I don't question this admirable, extraordinary woman's integrity … but I'm surprised the Home Office didn't look at this, because I think they have put her in a very difficult position."
Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, highlighted party concerns, saying perception was important and victims had to have confidence in the inquiry. Harman told The World at One: "It is a Home Office appointment. It is not our appointment. But we are supporting it being as open and transparent as possible. We absolutely respect Elizabeth Butler-Sloss but we are determined that the victims must have confidence in it, and perception is important."
Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP who has played a leading role in calling for a full enquiry into allegations claiming public institutions failed to deal with child abuse, said: "She's part of the establishment and that raises concerns, and the relationship in terms of her brother is too close for comfort. I think that's the conclusion most people will reach."
A Home Office spokesperson said: "Baroness Butler-Sloss has had a long and distinguished career at the highest levels of this country's legal system. Her work leading the Cleveland child abuse inquiry and as president of the high court's family division make her the perfect person to lead this important piece of work. As the permanent secretary told the home affairs select committee yesterday, the integrity of Baroness Butler-Sloss is beyond reproach and we stand by her appointment unreservedly."
The row over Butler-Sloss came as David Cameron indicated that the government might change the law to accept a recommendation by the NSPCC to enforce mandatory reporting of child abuse.
The prime minister spoke out after Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, who is leading a Home Office review into the handling of papers relating to child abuse, called for a new criminal offence to cover failure to report child abuse.
Cameron said: "Should we change the law so that there is a requirement to report, and make it a criminal offence not to report? The government is currently looking at that. It may well be time to take that sort of step forward."
A decades old cabal of high profile ministers/lords/civil servants are thought to have been pedophiles and managed to cover it up, and silence those who were going to reveal them. There are a number of theories bouncing around about if this is how Saville managed to get away with it until after his death. Another possible addition is that the alleged abuse at Haut de la Garenne and other such....institutions may also be connected, but as with all such things, you can see links and patterns in an attempt to try and make something seem logical.
