Theresa May Scraps Panel for Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse

Theresa May's 'fire suppression' leadership style has moved this inquiry steadily along in 'reverse' direction. We are now farther from an inquiry than we were 4 months ago. It's back to the drawing board.

May put her decision down to concerns raised about the panel by abuse survivors

Theresa May is to scrap the panel for the independent inquiry into child sex abuse, it has been reported.

The home secretary wrote to each member of the panel to tell them she is considering turning it into a statutory inquiry, or setting up a fresh statutory inquiry or a Royal Commission, according to the Exaro News website.

The letter, which followed a meeting between May and panel members on Monday to discuss the future of the inquiry, added that any statutory inquiry panel would be newly appointed, and that existing panel members can apply for positions on the new panel.

She put this decision down to concerns raised about the panel by abuse survivors. May wrote: “As I said on Monday, I am currently considering these three options and I appreciate this has implications for the members of the panel.

“I should like to make clear that I appointed each and every one of you for your experience, your professionalism and your undoubted commitment.

“I know that it has not been easy, that you are working in an incredibly sensitive and difficult subject area and that some of you have faced significant personal criticism.”

Current panel members have accused May of listening to a vocal minority instead of the majority of abuse survivors, and urged the home secretary to convert the inquiry to statutory status and keep the current panel.

One panel member, Sharon Evans, chief executive of Dot Com Children’s Foundation, which promotes child safeguarding, and herself an abuse survivor, wrote in a response to May that she felt “devastated at the prospect of the independent inquiry being halted”. She said that it had been made clear to the panel “off the record” that the panel will be stood down in the New Year.

Sharon Evans, chief executive of Dot Com Children’s Foundation

“As a person who suffered sexual abuse between the ages of three and seven, it was important that the experiences of victims and survivors were integral to the inquiry,” Evans wrote. “It was agreed by the panel that these experiences would form our line of questioning of institutions and ‘the experiences of victims and survivors would be at the heart of the inquiry’.”

The independent panel inquiry into child sexual abuse was set up to consider whether public bodies and other non-state institutions failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales.

Previously, the inquiry lost two chairs over accusations of conflicts of interest and survivors told May that they had also lost confidence in the rest of the panel.

Earlier this month it was revealed that two members of the panel had been accused of sending threatening or insulting emails to victims who had criticised the inquiry. Lawyers for one abuse survivor wrote to the home secretary to complain of a string of unsolicited communications, including an allegedly threatening email sent two days before an official meeting in November that both panellists and an abuse survivor were due to attend. The victim, who is on medication for post-traumatic stress disorder, was left too anxious to attend.

Evans noted, however, that the panel met with more than 70 representatives of victims and survivors of abuse, 90% of whom supported the independent panel. “There has been a small number of individuals and survivor groups engaging in personal attacks on panel members though social media and the press,” she wrote. “In the face of hostility by certain individuals, my concern is that the independent panel has been controlled to such a degree that it was unable to rebut or refute allegations.

“My second concern is that halting the inquiry at this point would send a very negative message to so many people we have already met and who have promised they can have confidence in us to do the right thing.”

Also...
It was also reported on Saturday that a former local newspaper executive who claimed that he was issued with an official warning against reporting on an exclusive paedophile ring, was interviewed by an officer working for Operation Fernbridge, the criminal investigation examining claims of sexual abuse and grooming of children by a VIP ring of paedophiles that included MPs, police officers and people with links to the royal family.

Hilton Tims, 81, had claimed that his paper, the Surrey Comet, was issued with a D notice – an official warning not to publish intelligence that might damage national security – when he sought to report on a police investigation into Elm Guest House in 1984.

Theresa May’s Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry Faces New Storm

Burning Home Secretary, Theresa May, gets to practice her 'fire suppression' style of leadership again as two inquiry board members send questionable emails to child sex abuse survivors and potential witnesses at the inquiry, who are calling for their resignation.

Burning Home Secretary, Theresa May

Theresa May, the home secretary, has already apologised for delays in finding a chair for the abuse inquiry. Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters

Two members of Theresa May’s panel inquiring into child sex abuse are facing calls to resign after being accused of sending threatening or insulting emails to victims who had criticised the inquiry.

Lawyers for one abuse survivor have written to the home secretary to complain of a string of unsolicited communications, including an allegedly threatening email sent two days before an official meeting that both panelists and an abuse survivor were due to attend.

The victim, who is on medication for post-traumatic stress disorder, was left too anxious to attend the “listening meeting” in November. The development will be a huge embarrassment to May, who has already seen two chairs to the inquiry stand down since it was launched in July, both over conflicts of interest. A source close to the inquiry’s secretariat said the emails should not have been sent, leaving the fate of the panel members in doubt.

The inquiry has been set up to consider whether, and the extent to which, public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales from 1970 to the present day.

At a meeting on Friday between government officials and victims of abuse, survivors were told by the Home Office’s director of safeguarding that the allegations against panel members were being examined by an unnamed QC. Survivors told officials they had “lost all confidence” in the inquiry as it was currently constituted. Seriously, when could they ever have had confidence in the inquiry to lose?

Andrew Lavery, whose whistleblowing has led to a police investigation into abuse by monks at a Catholic boarding school in Scotland, has complained that he was left highly distressed after receiving an email from panel member Graham Wilmer.

A letter sent by Lavery’s solicitors at Leigh Day claims that their client, who first had contact with Wilmer in 2013 through his charity, the Lantern Project, which offers help to abuse victims, “has received a number of unsolicited communications from Mr Wilmer following the end of their telephone contact”.

The letter adds: “These have included repeated requests from Mr Wilmer asking Mr Lavery to get in contact with him. Mr Lavery has not responded to these requests. Mr Lavery’s key concern is raised in relation to an email which he received from Mr Wilmer on 5 November 2014. This was sent following Mr Lavery’s conversation on 5 November 2014 with a member of the child sex abuse inquiry secretariat about attending a meeting with the inquiry on 6 November. Mr Lavery regards the contents of the email to be threatening. Mr Lavery is of the belief that as a panel member, Mr Wilmer should not be contacting individual survivors in this manner. He was very distressed by the contents of the email and consequently did not feel comfortable about attending the meeting.”

Wilmer as
a child

Wilmer, who was himself abused as a child, has denied that he intended the email to be threatening. His email, which has been seen by the Observer, suggests he was provoked into emailing Lavery by a social media row between a separate abuse victim and his adult son, Rory, who had sought to confront those who criticised his father’s place on the panel.

Graham Wilmer

In his email, which accuses his critics of “crossing the line”, he writes: “I’m looking forward to meeting you on Friday. I’ve watched and listened to your media interviews over the past few days, and I’ve looked at all the Twitter feeds you and Ian [McFadyen] have pumped out. The insults you have issued about me, I have no problem with; you are entitled to your opinion. However, what has been said about my son, Rory, is a different matter.”

Alison Millar, a lawyer for Leigh Day, told the Observer: “The panellist’s private communications with our client, a man who is deeply traumatised by his experience of abuse, certainly seem ill-advised to us.”

Lavery, who lives in Newcastle, said that he did not want Wilmer to be humiliated, but that he needed to stand down for the sake of the credibility of the inquiry.

Meanwhile, Peter McKelvie, a former child protection manager whose allegations led to the launch of the ongoing Operation Fernbridge police inquiry in 2012, has complained about an inappropriate email from a second panellist.

After McKelvie publicly raised questions about Barbara Hearn’s appointment, she falsely accused him of posing as a female blogger who had been causing her distress.

McKelvie, 65, who has no presence on social media, said he would continue to call for Hearn’s resignation because of her previous employment at the National Children’s Bureau, where a leading member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, Peter Righton, worked as a consultant between 1972 and 1974.

McKelvie also highlighted a potential conflict of interest in Hearn’s connections with social work managers from the Labour-controlled Islington council in north London, when there was widespread sexual abuse in children’s homes. Hearn was appointed to the NCB in the 1990s by John Rea Price, who had been director of social services at Islington council.

Is it that difficult to find people who have no ties to pedophiles? Good grief!

Home Secretary Shut Down VIP Pedophile Ring Investigation

Detectives are investigating claims that former Conservative Home Secretary William Whitelaw ordered police to drop an investigation into a VIP paedophile ring.

Whitelaw allegedly told a senior Metropolitan Police boss to quash a year-long investigation into a gang accused of abusing 40 children, the youngest of whom was six.

The alleged intervention came in 1980 after a newspaper revealed the country’s chief prosecutor was considering 350 offences against the gang, including allegations it ‘obtained young boys for politicians, prominent lawyers and film stars’.

Whitelaw pictured with Margaret Thatcher in 1964

The report, published on July 7 that year in the Evening News – a daily London newspaper – revealed police had passed evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and that up to 12 men could face trial for procuring boys and sexual assault.

Jeff Edwards, the journalist who wrote the story, claims that just days after it was published he was summoned by police to an interview and threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

Mr Edwards also claims his source, a serving police officer, was disciplined and fined six months’ wages for leaking the story.

He also says he was told by his police source that Whitelaw called a senior police boss and told him to halt the inquiry.

Mr Edwards said: ‘My source told me the Home Secretary had spoken to a senior Met Police boss and demanded action was taken to make sure nothing more was printed about the affair and that the investigation be dropped.’

The Mail on Sunday can reveal Mr Edwards has spoken to senior detectives working on the Met’s Operation Midland about the incident, but the Met would not confirm this. Midland was set up last month to investigate sensational claims that boys were murdered and abused by Conservative politicians at parties held in Dolphin Square, an upmarket block of flats close to Westminster popular with MPs, in the 1980s.

Mr Edwards said he had been invited to give a statement to detectives in the next few weeks and hopes to give evidence to the upcoming Home Office inquiry into historic sexual abuse.

Last night, campaigning MP Simon Danczuk described the allegations as ‘a breakthrough’ in the Westminster child abuse scandal and suggested it was strong evidence there was a paedophile network operating at the heart of the Establishment.

The article, unearthed by The Mail on Sunday from newspaper archives, provides a fresh line of inquiry for police probing claims a paedophile network with links to Westminster.

Reporter Jeff Edwards was threatened with
prosecution under the Official Secrets Act
after he did a story on the 1980 investigation

It revealed six officers in a special unit were conducting the operation from Arbour Square police station in East London. Police had taken statements from 40 youngsters, it said, and established the gang had links between London and Liverpool.

It said 12 children in Liverpool from schools for the ‘educationally subnormal’ had given police information. Mr Edwards told The Mail on Sunday his police contact, an experienced detective sergeant who was part of the Arbour Square team, told him when the story broke it ‘caused an eruption at the top in Scotland Yard’.

‘My friend told me the anti-corruption squad, then known as A10, had been told to carry out an urgent investigation about how this matter had got in the press,’ he said.

‘He told me he had been threatened with demotion. Within a day or two I was summoned to the anti-corruption branch HQ at Tintagel House in Vauxhall [South London]. At the end of the interview, which went on for two hours, I was told I could be in breach of the Official Secrets Act and the matter would be formally reported to the DPP to consider whether I should be prosecuted.’ 

This was most likely a bluff, and it's unfortunate that Mr. Edwards didn't call it; he might have prevented decades more of horrific child sex abuse, and possibly a few lives.

Mr Edwards, who is president of the Crime Reporters Association and was chief crime correspondent on The Mirror, said he heard nothing more from police or the DPP. The Mail on Sunday asked Scotland Yard whether Mr Edwards’s police source, who is now in his 80s and in a care home, was disciplined. It refused to answer questions and claimed it was ‘unable to pursue such historical inquiries’. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough information in Mr Edwards’s article to search DPP records.

Viscount Whitelaw, who was Deputy Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government from 1979 to 1988, died in 1999. Mr Edwards’s claims come amid a flurry of allegations politicians were involved in a VIP paedophile ring.

Operation Midland was started after a man came forward to say he witnessed a Tory MP murder a boy at a party. The man also claimed that a different Tory MP watched as a boy was sexually abused.

The Met’s Operation Fernbridge is looking into claims that politicians, lawyers and pop stars abused children at the Elm Guest House in Barnes, South-West London, in the 1980s. Police have confirmed disgraced former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Cyril Smith was a visitor and this year The Mail on Sunday interviewed a boy he abused.

Last night, Mr Danczuk said: ‘This is the strongest evidence yet that there was a paedophile network operating at the heart of the Establishment. The fact we now know hundreds of child abuse offences linked to politicians and other prominent people were being examined by the DPP is a breakthrough.'

‘That Cabinet Ministers and police helped shut this investigation down through collusion and cover-up is something the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry must look at.’ 

Horribly Abused Boy Still Being Abused by the 'System' 30 Years On

With numerous inquiries into alleged child abuse either up and running or poised to begin, is there a risk the individual voices of victims might get lost? One survivor believes so. This is his story.

"I was trafficked to Wrexham, Cornwall, Plymouth and London and forced to perform sex acts on men there."

The person making the claim - we will call him Michael - was at the time a young teenager in the care of Suffolk County Council.

Now in his late 30s, and still living in Suffolk, Michael's is a case which demonstrates the great difficulty survivors face in trying to get their voices heard.

He told the authorities about the abuse 20 years ago. He claims nothing was done. He raised them again with both Suffolk Police and the county council again last year.

Michael claims again, nothing has been done. Worse still, he maintains the authorities have actively worked to discredit him in order to ignore his claims.

His allegations against the police and the county council have been put in detail to both organisations by the BBC. Suffolk Police said it would not comment on individual cases and the council said an investigation was under way.

Michael says society needs to be more vigilant in the protection of children and young people

His account of abuse spans several years at different locations. On the surface these episodes of abuse might appear unrelated, but Michael believes they were connected in that an abuser who knew an abuser knew an abuser. And he was effectively passed along that chain.

"It wasn't quite a paedophile ring," says Michael. "More an affiliation of abusers who all knew each other." I think they might call that a 'ring'.

The physical and sexual abuse, Michael says, began at the hands of his sister when he was aged between three and four and continued later when a boyfriend of his mother allegedly seriously sexually assaulted him.

He was taken into local authority care aged 13 to be housed at a now-closed adolescent unit in Suffolk where, after refusing to perform a sex act on a visitor, he was locked in a cupboard for 32 hours. On finally being released, he was sexually assaulted.

He was then moved to a children's home - again, now closed - where, he says, a number of adults, including uniformed police officers, abused children.

He told of one man who gave sweets or cigarettes to children who masturbated him.

Young people were taken from both the unit and children's home to north London to perform oral sex and were anally raped by men.

Children who refused, he says, were beaten.

In 1992 he was moved to the Stowmarket home of a single male foster carer where he was to remain for about six months.

The abuse started on the fourth night and escalated, says Michael, from being asked to perform sex acts (to then being told he was dirty and threatened about reporting the abuse) to rape.

It did not end there.

Michael was taken on "trips away" to Plymouth, Portsmouth, Wrexham, Cornwall and Islington, where he would be expected to perform sex acts for other abusers.

Occasionally, the children were given a little money - usually a £10 note.

"You'd find yourself thinking, at least I got a 'tenner' for it," says Michael.

An assessment of his foster carer's suitability for the role was carried out by the local authority and has been seen by the BBC.

Michael says he was trafficked to various parts of the UK
including the west country, north Wales and London

It tells how the foster carer's "major source of fulfilment and satisfaction has been with young people" and that children "should have some responsibility and would want to give them this within the household regime". It also mentions how he had given up "often two evenings per week" to help out a school currently under at the centre of a separate major investigation into child sex abuse.

This foster carer was later - after caring for Michael - convicted of sexually abusing another boy.

On leaving Stowmarket, Michael describes living in "slave" conditions on a country estate in Suffolk where he came into contact with the now dead Peter Righton, a consultant to the National Children's Bureau who was eventually unmasked as a paedophile. Righton repeatedly sexually abused him, Michael claims.

Michael claims a senior police officer had visited the estate to raise concerns about Righton's presence there. Suffolk Police would not respond to this allegation or say whether there had been any investigation into alleged activities at the estate.

The abuse largely stopped after he left care - though Michael says he was occasionally taken to parties, where he would be paid to commit sex acts.

But he tells how men at these parties would demand "fresh flesh" and how some who had already abused him lost interest in him.

Cyril Smith died in 2010 without ever
facing the abuse claims against him

Looking back at the abuse he suffered, Michael says: "It was just horrendous."

"Society needs to be more proactive with these things."

Child abuse investigations

The Metropolitan Police's Operation Fernbridge, which is investigating allegations of a network of abusers in the late 1970s and 1980s at the former Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London - the scene of alleged parties involving MPs and other members of the establishment

Greater Manchester Police are conducting a new investigation into allegations of abuse by Cyril Smith in Rochdale, including at Knowl View, a children's home which closed in 1994

28 NHS hospitals have published reports on allegations involving the late BBC DJ and presenter Jimmy Savile. Four other hospitals are due to report in the autumn. A former judge is also looking into whether culture and practice at the BBC enabled Savile to carry out the sexual abuse of children

Operation Yewtree - set up following Savile's death in 2011 - has seen a string of high-profile entertainers being prosecuted for alleged sex crimes

And local authorities have been instructed to investigate claims that Savile abused children at 21 children's homes and schools in England in the 1960s, 70s and 80s

Operation Cayacos, which is among numerous other ongoing historical child abuse investigations around the UK, is investigating allegations of a paedophile ring linked to Peter Righton, a founding member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, a group that campaigned to make sex between adults and children legal

He says the council "conspired" to have him "declared mentally ill, and have consistently ignored my complaints of historic sexual abuse."

This, he claims, has enabled "other agencies to ignore complaints I have made".

He has formal complaints lodged against both Suffolk Police and the county council.

Peter Righton

Council documents seen by the BBC do indeed refer to Michael having a "dissociative personality disorder" and makes various other suggestions about his mental health - but this is contradicted by a consultant psychiatrist who assessed Michael late last year.

This psychiatrist, who works for the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust, said "no history of mental illness has been found" and that Michael "showed no features of mental illness".

The confidential council documents also mention Michael was arrested on suspicion of rape and murder in 1994 - he was found to have had nothing to do with either crime.

A spokesman for the authority said: "We are aware of this complaint which, like any, we take very seriously.

"In terms of the allegations of historical abuse, we have advised the complainant to contact the police and have appointed an independent advocate to support him.

"In addition, we are also investigating related practice issues. We are currently awaiting the outcome of that investigation."

The allegations were also put to Suffolk police which said: "Suffolk Constabulary takes all allegations of sexual assault seriously and the allegations are always fully investigated, however we are not able to comment on individual cases." Yeah, that's what they all say.

Michael, who is currently in contact with the Met Police, said he is not seeking any compensation in relation to his allegations or complaints against the authorities.

He does, however, want an apology and those involved held accountable.

Deborah Dennis, spokeswoman for the charity Stop it Now, which campaigns to prevent child sexual abuse, said: "Extreme cases such as this, which involve organised abuse, do happen but, thankfully, they are rare. Far more often abuse happens at home either by the family members of the abused or someone else very close to the victim.

"Often we think abuse only happens in big cities. It doesn't. In this case it is Suffolk. Any area can be affected by sexual abuse and exploitation."

More Ammunition for Cops Investigating Historical VIP Child Sex Abuse Ring

A probe by the Sunday People and investigative website Exaro uncovered evidence the tape is believed to be among a batch of films seized and handed to MI5.

Gateway: Port of Dover where the video was seized

A former Tory cabinet minister was pictured in a video allegedly featuring child sex abuse, it has been claimed.

The tape is believed to be among a batch of films seized by customs officials and handed over to MI5, reports the Sunday People.

No details about it have ever been made public. But the customs officer who seized the haul is said to have identified the ex-minister in the footage.

However, he declined to say whether or not the politician was participating in the alleged child abuse.

A probe by the Sunday People and investigative website Exaro has ­uncovered evidence that the cassette was ­confiscated at Dover in 1982.

A seizure notice shows a customs ­officer took custody of three 8mm films, three video cassettes and an order form.

The notice said the items were “seized as liable to forfeiture upon the grounds that the said goods are indecent or ­obscene articles”.

Friends of the customs officer, now retired, have confirmed he told them this week that he recognised the minister in the film – but would not say anything else after his former bosses reminded him he had signed the Official Secrets Act.

This week the officer was too frightened even to open his front door, and said he was unwilling and unable to comment.

He said: “I am bound by all these regulations until I die.”

The existence of the video is likely to be seized upon by Operation Fernbridge cops investigating claims of a historical VIP sex abuse ring.

Amsterdam: The tape came from Holland

They are understood to have already spoken to the ex-minister about another video that places him at a sex party involving teenage boys three decades ago.

Now they are expected to speak to the customs officer.

The video was seized at Dover’s Eastern Car Terminal along with other child pornography.

It was being brought into Britain from Amsterdam by Russell Tricker, a British-born businessman based in the Dutch capital. He was held for two hours and officials confiscated the tape.

The customs officer then passed the case over to senior managers at Customs and Excise – since reorganised as part of HM Revenue and Customs.

They took no further action against Mr Tricker, and are understood to have passed the tape to MI5.

The seizure notice gave brief details of some of the material, showing one of the videos was titled “GB10”.

A child abuse victim has told Exaro that this video showed boys, some of them “runaways”, who could be ­“ordered” by paedophile clients.

Another video was called “Amsterdam Tramway Museum” and featured images of boys from elsewhere in Europe who could be procured by perverts.

The video started with a few minutes of train footage before turning to ­pornographic images of boys.

Mr Tricker confirmed he was stopped by customs officials when travelling through Dover as a passenger in 1982. But he claimed he did not know what was inside the sealed packages. That's it then. He must be telling the truth - we all carry sealed packages across international borders without knowing what's in them, don't we?

He said: “I have nothing to hide. I was asked to take some brown envelopes to England. They were seized by Customs. I did not know what was inside them.”

Mr Tricker said a business associate had asked him to take the packages into the country and then post them to an address in the UK. And did we get the business associate's name? What business was he in?

Asked whether he was aware of claims that an ex-minister and child sex abuse featured on one of the videos, Tricker denied any knowledge of the content.

“They were just confiscated, and I was allowed to continue my journey. They detained me for two hours,” he said.

Mr Tricker confirmed he was convicted of a child sex offence in the Netherlands in 1992 and jailed for two-and-a-half years, but said he was cleared on appeal and released after five months.

His lawyers were able to show that the boy concerned had carried a false ­identity card and had pretended to be above age, Mr Tricker said. Good grief!

The boy was later shot dead in Amsterdam, he said.

“It is a sad story,” he added.

Tricker denies being a paedophile but confirmed he was a personal friend of Peter Glencross, who was commercial manager of Spartacus International.

At the time, Spartacus International was used to attract new members to the Spartacus Club, an underground network for paedophiles.