Former Co-op chairman Paul Flowers will be formally questioned about his role in an alleged ‘cover-up’ of appalling sex abuse at a school founded by paedophile MP Cyril Smith.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal the ex-Methodist minister faces an official inquiry into claims that he and others ignored a series of damning reports.
At the time, he was vice-chairman of Rochdale Council’s social services committee, which oversaw Knowl View School during a time it was described as ‘a sweet shop for paedophiles’.
Boys as young as seven were abused by Smith and his depraved cronies in what is now viewed as one of the country’s worst-ever child sex scandals.
Despite countless warnings, the authorities failed to act and the crimes at Knowl View – for children with learning difficulties and behavioural problems – were kept hidden from the public.
This week Flowers will receive a letter saying that he must answer questions from Andrew Warnock QC, who is leading the investigation into Rochdale Council’s handling of the allegations. Nine others will be put on notice in the same way.
Rochdale Council leader Colin Lambert told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The letter is quite strong and lengthy, and they should be worried because the allegation is that they took part in a cover-up. So if they knew and decided not to do anything that is a very serious matter. There are criminal issues here.’
Mr Lambert said Flowers ‘is mentioned in a number of documents because he was involved in at least one of the committees which had an interest in Knowl View’.
The inquiry’s findings will be passed to Greater Manchester Police, which last night revealed it is investigating two new reports of abuse. Since late 2012, the force has been looking at a number of allegations relating to the school.
Mr Warnock’s inquiry, which will cover the years 1985 to 1995, is to focus solely on the alleged cover-up. The QC intends to begin interviewing Flowers and the others early next month.
Mr Lambert said: ‘If they don’t want to co-operate and answer certain questions then that is enough in itself. ‘The review will be passed on to the police for further investigation and then they will have to answer questions. We are essentially advising certain people that it would be foolish not to talk at this stage.
‘I said in November that no stone would be left unturned in finding out whether there was a cover-up at the council in relation to Knowl View. It is imperative that public trust is restored.’
Flowers was copied in on a confidential letter discussing the council’s response to a report by the local health authority alleging that paedophiles from a wide area had access to the boys aged seven to 16.
Yet alarm bells were being rung constantly by health professionals from 1988 to 1992, when Flowers held key council posts.
Between those years three reports were issued detailing serious sexual abuse at Knowl View, yet no one was held to account.
While there is no suggestion that Flowers was involved in any abuse at Knowl View, his time on the council coincides with key developments in the alleged cover-up.
It was in 1988 that Dr Alison Frazer, a child psychiatrist at Birch Hill Hospital, first alerted Rochdale’s Education Department.
Flowers, then ministering at the Methodist church in Drake Street, was elected as a Labour councillor that year and joined the council’s education committee.
Three years later, Phil Shepherd, a health authority HIV specialist, made a sex education day visit to the school and was appalled by what he discovered.
In a devastating report, he wrote at the time: ‘One boy who is homosexual has contact with an adult outside the school. Several of the senior boys indulge in oral sex with one another.
‘Reputedly five of the junior boys (seven to 13) have been or are involved in “cottaging” in and around public toilets.
‘Men as far away as Sheffield are believed to be aware of this activity and travel to Rochdale to take part. One eight-year-old is thought to have been involved . . . some boys have been “forced” to have sex with each other.’
He concluded: ‘We are committed to preventing the spread of HIV. The boys in this school look to us to be increasingly at risk.’
Mr Shepherd’s report was first sent to the-then director of education, Diana Cavanagh. In her reply, she promised action would be taken, but asked him to circulate his report no further and ‘not to undertake any independent action.’
At this time, Flowers had moved on to become vice-chairman of the social services committee. It is unclear if he read the contents of the report.
But he was copied in on a letter, written on April 16, 1991, by the acting director of social services, Ian Davey, to Pam Hawton, chairman of Rochdale’s health authority, discussing the council’s response to Mr Shepherd’s report.
Mr Davey wrote about a ‘concerted approach to the problem involving police, education and social services’, concluding: ‘I hope you will feel reassured that there is professional action being taken to address the issues at Knowl View.’
In response to Mr Shepherd’s report, consultant clinical psychologist Valerie Mellor carried out an inquiry on behalf of the council.
She concluded that a quarter of the pupils at the 48-place school had been involved in serious sexual incidents, ‘over a very long period of time’. Five months later, a pupil and former pupil, both aged 14, were cautioned by police for soliciting in Rochdale’s Smith Street toilets.
And it was not until 1994, when the Shepherd and Mellor reports were discovered by chance by the school’s head of care, Martin Digan, that Knowl View closed.
By this time, Flowers had left the council, having been moved in 1992 to Bridlington in Yorkshire by the Methodist Church. Mr Digan said: ‘I have seen with my own eyes the damage done to the lives of the pupils at Knowl View, some of whom have taken their own lives as a result of the abuse they suffered.
‘For decades now they have been let down by everyone especially the police and the local authority who allowed this sweet shop for paedophiles to exist even when they knew what was happening.
‘I am pleased the council has appointed a QC . . . and I will be sharing my knowledge with him.’
Even after the school was closed in 1995, the council’s then-chief executive, John Pierce, was insisting there had been no cover-up.
Mr Pierce said at the time: ‘The police have also stated quite clearly they do not believe there is any substance in allegations of a cover-up relating to incidents at the school, and that all the issues involved were investigated at the time by a number of agencies and the necessary action taken.’
The police did investigate the crimes again in 2000 and, in 2002, a man was jailed for a year for three counts of indecent assault and eight counts of gross indecency.
At the time, however, officers said there was not enough evidence to charge other individuals and that no specific allegations were made at that time against Cyril Smith.
Two years after the MP’s death in 2010, the authorities admitted that Smith had been protected and should have been charged.
Last week, Greater Manchester Police admitted that seven people had come forward to report abuse by the MP and others at Knowl View from the 1970s onwards, and that officers were looking at ‘at least 11 suspects’.
One former pupil, 41-year-old Chris Marshall, who was seven when he attended the school, said: ‘Our lives were a living hell. Teachers would take pupils to a public toilet in Manchester where the boys would have sex with men who had travelled from all over the North.
‘Men would come to the school and we were made to have sex with them. I was forced to perform a sex act on the late MP Cyril Smith, who we called “the Fat Man”. It had such an effect on us that some of the boys have either committed suicide or are in prison.
‘I feel let down by the council because we were vulnerable children and they were supposed to be taking care of us. Instead we were exposed to the most horrible acts of depravity.’
Around the time of the reports, Flowers and his colleagues on Rochdale social services committee were facing calls to resign over the Satanic abuse scandal when 16 children were wrongly taken from their parents and rehomed, some in Knowl View.
Flowers had close political links to Smith – they were members of Rochdale council at the same time.
Smith, originally a Labour councillor in Rochdale, later became a Liberal and then a Liberal Democrat MP for the town from 1972 to 1992. His brother, Norman Smith, who was mayor of Rochdale in 1986-87, said that Flowers sat on council committees with Smith.
‘Cyril was more involved with [Flowers] than me,’ he said. ‘They knew each other by being on the council, and of course he was a prominent minister. They were on committees together.’
Last night Flowers’s lawyer Andrew Hollas said: ‘I have no wish to engage in any discussions with anybody from your newspaper.’
THE DAMNING PAPER TRAIL... AND SIX TROUBLING QUESTIONS
1) 1969: CYRIL SMITH SETS UP KNOWL VIEW SCHOOL FOR VULNERABLE CHILDREN
Pupils as young as seven lived at the school in Rochdale, the Northern mill town where Cyril Smith was a councillor before being elected its MP in 1972. However, at the same time the school opened, Smith was being investigated by local police for spanking young boys at a hostel he had set up in the 1960s.
Q - How was a man suspected of indecent assault allowed to run a special school?
2) 1988: REPORT OF ABUSE IS SENT TO ROCHDALE COUNCIL
Child psychiatrist Dr Alison Frazer was asked by the council to interview Knowl View pupils, and her worrying report was sent to Rochdale’s Director of Education. Flowers was a member of the council’s education committee at the time – but it is not known if he or others read the study.
Q - Did Flowers and council do anything about first warning?
3) 1991: FLOWERS AND OTHERS ARE WARNED OF PUPILS' SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR
Aids prevention officer Phil Shepherd was shocked to discover illegal behaviour at the school. His damning report – which revealed that paedophiles flocked to public toilets in Rochdale to take advantage of Knowl View boys as young as eight – was sent to the council. Flowers was copied in on the council’s response.
Q - Why did Flowers and council ignore second report?
4) 1994: REPORTS FOUND ON HEAD'S DESK SENT TO POLICE
Knowl View’s head of care, Martin Digan, discovered by chance two earlier reports into sex abuse at the school in the headmaster’s office.
He took them to police and the Knowl View was closed down by the council in 1995. However, there were no prosecutions.
By this time, Flowers had left the council, having been moved in 1992 to Bridlington by the Methodist Church.
Q - Why did police fail to investigate these reports?
5) 2012: SMITH DIES. MP ALLEGES COVER-UP... POLICE LAUNCH INQUIRY
Two years after Smith’s death in 2010, the new MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, revealed to the Commons what the ‘29-stone bully’ (400 pounds) had really been like, and asked the Home Secretary to investigate if MI5 had helped cover up his paedophilia.
The Crown Prosecution Service then admitted Smith should have been charged decades earlier, while Greater Manchester Police and Lancashire Police said they would re-open their inquiries.
Q - Why did it take police so long to start a thorough investigation?
6) 2013: MoS REPORT PROMPTS ROCHDALE COUNCIL TO INVESTIGATE
This newspaper revealed last year, right, that Flowers had been vice-chairman of Rochdale’s social services committee at the time increasing numbers of sex abuse allegations were being made about Knowl View School.
As a result, in January Rochdale Council instructed barrister Andrew Warnock QC to review its handling of the special school in the 1980s and 1990s.
Q - Did Flowers, his Rochdale colleagues and police cover up abuse for 26 years?
7) THIS WEEK: FLOWERS WILL RECEIVE LETTER FROM QC ANDREW WARNOCK HEADING OFFICIAL COVER-UP INQUIRY
The Mail on Sunday can reveal the ex-Methodist minister faces an official inquiry into claims that he and others ignored a series of damning reports.
 |
| Paul Flowers, the former chairman of the Co-operative Bank and a Methodist minister, has been charged with possession of cocaine, methamphetamine and ketamine. He is due to appear in court on May 7th. |
Boys as young as seven were abused by Smith and his depraved cronies in what is now viewed as one of the country’s worst-ever child sex scandals.
Despite countless warnings, the authorities failed to act and the crimes at Knowl View – for children with learning difficulties and behavioural problems – were kept hidden from the public.
This week Flowers will receive a letter saying that he must answer questions from Andrew Warnock QC, who is leading the investigation into Rochdale Council’s handling of the allegations. Nine others will be put on notice in the same way.
Rochdale Council leader Colin Lambert told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The letter is quite strong and lengthy, and they should be worried because the allegation is that they took part in a cover-up. So if they knew and decided not to do anything that is a very serious matter. There are criminal issues here.’
Mr Lambert said Flowers ‘is mentioned in a number of documents because he was involved in at least one of the committees which had an interest in Knowl View’.
The inquiry’s findings will be passed to Greater Manchester Police, which last night revealed it is investigating two new reports of abuse. Since late 2012, the force has been looking at a number of allegations relating to the school.
Mr Warnock’s inquiry, which will cover the years 1985 to 1995, is to focus solely on the alleged cover-up. The QC intends to begin interviewing Flowers and the others early next month.
Mr Lambert said: ‘If they don’t want to co-operate and answer certain questions then that is enough in itself. ‘The review will be passed on to the police for further investigation and then they will have to answer questions. We are essentially advising certain people that it would be foolish not to talk at this stage.
‘I said in November that no stone would be left unturned in finding out whether there was a cover-up at the council in relation to Knowl View. It is imperative that public trust is restored.’
Flowers was copied in on a confidential letter discussing the council’s response to a report by the local health authority alleging that paedophiles from a wide area had access to the boys aged seven to 16.
Yet alarm bells were being rung constantly by health professionals from 1988 to 1992, when Flowers held key council posts.
Between those years three reports were issued detailing serious sexual abuse at Knowl View, yet no one was held to account.
While there is no suggestion that Flowers was involved in any abuse at Knowl View, his time on the council coincides with key developments in the alleged cover-up.
It was in 1988 that Dr Alison Frazer, a child psychiatrist at Birch Hill Hospital, first alerted Rochdale’s Education Department.
 |
| Younger Flowers |
Three years later, Phil Shepherd, a health authority HIV specialist, made a sex education day visit to the school and was appalled by what he discovered.
In a devastating report, he wrote at the time: ‘One boy who is homosexual has contact with an adult outside the school. Several of the senior boys indulge in oral sex with one another.
‘Reputedly five of the junior boys (seven to 13) have been or are involved in “cottaging” in and around public toilets.
‘Men as far away as Sheffield are believed to be aware of this activity and travel to Rochdale to take part. One eight-year-old is thought to have been involved . . . some boys have been “forced” to have sex with each other.’
He concluded: ‘We are committed to preventing the spread of HIV. The boys in this school look to us to be increasingly at risk.’
Mr Shepherd’s report was first sent to the-then director of education, Diana Cavanagh. In her reply, she promised action would be taken, but asked him to circulate his report no further and ‘not to undertake any independent action.’
At this time, Flowers had moved on to become vice-chairman of the social services committee. It is unclear if he read the contents of the report.
But he was copied in on a letter, written on April 16, 1991, by the acting director of social services, Ian Davey, to Pam Hawton, chairman of Rochdale’s health authority, discussing the council’s response to Mr Shepherd’s report.
Mr Davey wrote about a ‘concerted approach to the problem involving police, education and social services’, concluding: ‘I hope you will feel reassured that there is professional action being taken to address the issues at Knowl View.’
In response to Mr Shepherd’s report, consultant clinical psychologist Valerie Mellor carried out an inquiry on behalf of the council.
She concluded that a quarter of the pupils at the 48-place school had been involved in serious sexual incidents, ‘over a very long period of time’. Five months later, a pupil and former pupil, both aged 14, were cautioned by police for soliciting in Rochdale’s Smith Street toilets.
And it was not until 1994, when the Shepherd and Mellor reports were discovered by chance by the school’s head of care, Martin Digan, that Knowl View closed.
By this time, Flowers had left the council, having been moved in 1992 to Bridlington in Yorkshire by the Methodist Church. Mr Digan said: ‘I have seen with my own eyes the damage done to the lives of the pupils at Knowl View, some of whom have taken their own lives as a result of the abuse they suffered.
‘For decades now they have been let down by everyone especially the police and the local authority who allowed this sweet shop for paedophiles to exist even when they knew what was happening.
‘I am pleased the council has appointed a QC . . . and I will be sharing my knowledge with him.’
 |
| Andrew Warnock QC |
Even after the school was closed in 1995, the council’s then-chief executive, John Pierce, was insisting there had been no cover-up.
Mr Pierce said at the time: ‘The police have also stated quite clearly they do not believe there is any substance in allegations of a cover-up relating to incidents at the school, and that all the issues involved were investigated at the time by a number of agencies and the necessary action taken.’
The police did investigate the crimes again in 2000 and, in 2002, a man was jailed for a year for three counts of indecent assault and eight counts of gross indecency.
At the time, however, officers said there was not enough evidence to charge other individuals and that no specific allegations were made at that time against Cyril Smith.
Two years after the MP’s death in 2010, the authorities admitted that Smith had been protected and should have been charged.
Last week, Greater Manchester Police admitted that seven people had come forward to report abuse by the MP and others at Knowl View from the 1970s onwards, and that officers were looking at ‘at least 11 suspects’.
One former pupil, 41-year-old Chris Marshall, who was seven when he attended the school, said: ‘Our lives were a living hell. Teachers would take pupils to a public toilet in Manchester where the boys would have sex with men who had travelled from all over the North.
‘Men would come to the school and we were made to have sex with them. I was forced to perform a sex act on the late MP Cyril Smith, who we called “the Fat Man”. It had such an effect on us that some of the boys have either committed suicide or are in prison.
‘I feel let down by the council because we were vulnerable children and they were supposed to be taking care of us. Instead we were exposed to the most horrible acts of depravity.’
Around the time of the reports, Flowers and his colleagues on Rochdale social services committee were facing calls to resign over the Satanic abuse scandal when 16 children were wrongly taken from their parents and rehomed, some in Knowl View.
Flowers had close political links to Smith – they were members of Rochdale council at the same time.
Smith, originally a Labour councillor in Rochdale, later became a Liberal and then a Liberal Democrat MP for the town from 1972 to 1992. His brother, Norman Smith, who was mayor of Rochdale in 1986-87, said that Flowers sat on council committees with Smith.
 |
| 400 lb Sir Cyril Smith |
‘Cyril was more involved with [Flowers] than me,’ he said. ‘They knew each other by being on the council, and of course he was a prominent minister. They were on committees together.’
Last night Flowers’s lawyer Andrew Hollas said: ‘I have no wish to engage in any discussions with anybody from your newspaper.’
THE DAMNING PAPER TRAIL... AND SIX TROUBLING QUESTIONS
1) 1969: CYRIL SMITH SETS UP KNOWL VIEW SCHOOL FOR VULNERABLE CHILDREN
Pupils as young as seven lived at the school in Rochdale, the Northern mill town where Cyril Smith was a councillor before being elected its MP in 1972. However, at the same time the school opened, Smith was being investigated by local police for spanking young boys at a hostel he had set up in the 1960s.
Q - How was a man suspected of indecent assault allowed to run a special school?
2) 1988: REPORT OF ABUSE IS SENT TO ROCHDALE COUNCIL
Child psychiatrist Dr Alison Frazer was asked by the council to interview Knowl View pupils, and her worrying report was sent to Rochdale’s Director of Education. Flowers was a member of the council’s education committee at the time – but it is not known if he or others read the study.
Q - Did Flowers and council do anything about first warning?
3) 1991: FLOWERS AND OTHERS ARE WARNED OF PUPILS' SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR
Aids prevention officer Phil Shepherd was shocked to discover illegal behaviour at the school. His damning report – which revealed that paedophiles flocked to public toilets in Rochdale to take advantage of Knowl View boys as young as eight – was sent to the council. Flowers was copied in on the council’s response.
Q - Why did Flowers and council ignore second report?
4) 1994: REPORTS FOUND ON HEAD'S DESK SENT TO POLICE
Knowl View’s head of care, Martin Digan, discovered by chance two earlier reports into sex abuse at the school in the headmaster’s office.
He took them to police and the Knowl View was closed down by the council in 1995. However, there were no prosecutions.
By this time, Flowers had left the council, having been moved in 1992 to Bridlington by the Methodist Church.
Q - Why did police fail to investigate these reports?
5) 2012: SMITH DIES. MP ALLEGES COVER-UP... POLICE LAUNCH INQUIRY
Two years after Smith’s death in 2010, the new MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, revealed to the Commons what the ‘29-stone bully’ (400 pounds) had really been like, and asked the Home Secretary to investigate if MI5 had helped cover up his paedophilia.
The Crown Prosecution Service then admitted Smith should have been charged decades earlier, while Greater Manchester Police and Lancashire Police said they would re-open their inquiries.
Q - Why did it take police so long to start a thorough investigation?
6) 2013: MoS REPORT PROMPTS ROCHDALE COUNCIL TO INVESTIGATE
This newspaper revealed last year, right, that Flowers had been vice-chairman of Rochdale’s social services committee at the time increasing numbers of sex abuse allegations were being made about Knowl View School.
As a result, in January Rochdale Council instructed barrister Andrew Warnock QC to review its handling of the special school in the 1980s and 1990s.
Q - Did Flowers, his Rochdale colleagues and police cover up abuse for 26 years?
7) THIS WEEK: FLOWERS WILL RECEIVE LETTER FROM QC ANDREW WARNOCK HEADING OFFICIAL COVER-UP INQUIRY
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