Sex Scandal Involving UK Politicians Widens

LONDON (Dispatches) -- The row over an alleged Westminster child sex ring took a new turn after the British government admitted that 114 secret files on pedophile cases have gone missing.

Date: 06 July 2014 - 22:01

News ID: ۲۴۴۰

And four new cases of alleged child abuse, possibly dating back decades, are to be investigated by police.
The development came as the Home Office ordered a full-scale legal inquiry into claims there has been an establishment cover-up of a powerful network of child sex abusers linked to parliament and No?10.
A top lawyer is to investigate the government’s handling of a dossier alleging high-level pedophile activity, which was first passed to Home Secretary Leon Brittan by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983 – but subsequently lost.
Mark Sedwill, the Home Office permanent secretary, told David Cameron that the new investigation would examine whether the findings of a review of the ‘Dickens dossier’ conducted last year ‘remain sound’.
The earlier review failed to find the dossier and said its contents had been broken up, with relevant information passed to the police and the rest destroyed.
As public fears of a cover-up grow, Cameron has been forced to order a fresh hunt for the missing dossier.
The prime minister said:  "It’s right that these investigations are made. We mustn’t do anything that could prejudice or prevent proper action by the police."
For the first time, Sedwill also revealed there had been previous attempts to find the dossier – and how huge numbers of Home Office files have either vanished or been destroyed.
He said a massive review of 746,000 Home Office files covering 1979 to 1999 had identified "573 relevant files which had been retained".
However, he added: "The extensive analysis of the central database identified 114 potentially relevant files had been destroyed, missing or not found.

Ex-Home Secretary Questioned
The former cabinet minister Leon Brittan has been questioned by British police under caution in connection with an alleged rape, The Independent reported.
The former Conservative home secretary has been accused of raping a 19-year-old student at his London flat in 1967 before he became an MP.
The alleged female victim is believed to have claimed that Lord Brittan, who went on to serve as home secretary from 1983 to 1985, raped her in his central London flat after a blind date.
The veteran Conservative figure, who was made a life peer in 2000, is understood to have been questioned by police at the central London offices of his lawyers Mishcon De Reya last month.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed an allegation of rape had been made against a man in his seventies over an incident in 1967. The spokesman said: "The woman was over the age of 18 at the time of the incident. The allegation is being investigated by officers from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command. In June 2014, a man aged in his seventies was interviewed under caution by appointment at a central London location in connection with the allegation. He was not arrested. Enquiries continue."
The detectives who questioned the veteran Conservative politician are understood to be part of Scotland Yard's Operation Fairbank inquiry team which was launched after Tom Watson MP made allegations of widespread child abuse in parliament. The specific rape allegations against Lord Brittan are understood to have nothing to do with the Met's Operation Fernbridge investigations into child abuse.