EXCLUSIVE: Secret service infiltrated paedophile group to 'blackmail establishment'

BRITISH security services infiltrated and funded the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange in a covert operation to identify and possibly blackmail establishment figures, a Home Office whistleblower alleges.

By: Tim Tate and Ted Jeory
Published: Sun, June 29, 2014
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A number of allegations of child sex abuse emerged after MP Cyril Smith's death [REX]
The former civil servant has told detectives investigating the activities of paedophiles in national politics that the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch was orchestrating the child-sex lobbying group in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The whistleblower, who has spoken exclusively to the Sunday Express, says he was also warned off asking why such a notorious group was being handed government money.
It emerged late last year that PIE was twice gave amounts of £35,000 in Home Office funding between 1977 and 1980, the £70,000 total equivalent to over £400,000 in today's money.
Those details surfaced only after the whistleblower highlighted his concerns to campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson and his revelations have triggered an ongoing Home Office inquiry into why the cash was given to PIE which was abolished in 1985 after a number of prosecutions.
Until now, speculation about the grant has centred on Clifford Hindley, the late Home Office manager who approved the payments. However, the whistleblower told the Sunday Express he thought higher and more sinister powers were at play.
He has given a formal statement to that effect to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, which is looking into allegations of historic sex abuse at the Elm Guest House in south-west London.
PIE, now considered one of the most notorious groups of the era, had gained respectability in political circles. Its members are said to have included establishment figures, and disgraced Liberal MP Cyril Smith was a friend of founder member Peter Righton.
In 1981, Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens used Parliamentary privilege to name Sir Peter Hayman, the deputy director of MI6, as a member of PIE and an active paedophile. In 1983 Mr Dickens gave the Home Office a dossier of what he claimed was evidence of a paedophile network of "big, big names, people in positions of power, influence and responsibility". The Home Office says the dossier no longer exists.
Whistleblower Mr X, whose identity we have agreed to protect, became a very senior figure in local government before retiring a few years ago. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was a full-time consultant in the Home Office's Voluntary Services Unit run by Clifford Hindley.
In 1979 Mr X was asked to examine a funding renewal application for PIE, but he became concerned because the organisation's goal of seeking to abolish the age of consent "conflicted" with the child protection policies of the Department of Health and Social Security and asked for a meeting with Mr Hindley, his immediate boss.
Elm House in London where it is alleged child abuse incidents took place [MARK KEHOE]
Mr X recalled: "I raised my concerns, but he told me that I was to drop them. Hindley gave three reasons for this. He said PIE was an organisation with cachet and that its work in this field was respected.
"He said this was a renewal of an existing grant and that under normal Home Office practice a consultant such as myself would not be involved in the decision-making process.
"And he said PIE was being funded at the request of Special Branch which found it politically useful to identify people who were paedophiles. This led me not to pursue my objections. At that time, questioning anything to do with Special Branch, especially within the Home Office, was a no-no'.
"I was under the clear belief that I was being instructed to back off and that his reference to Special Branch was expected to make me to do so.
"Hindley didn't give me an explicit explanation of what Special Branch would do with information it gleaned from funding PIE, but I formed the belief that it was part of an undercover operation or activity. I was aware a lot of people in the civil service or political arena had an interest in obtaining information like that which could be used as a sort of blackmail."
He said he asked for a file the Home Office kept on PIE, but his request was refused. However, he was certain then Tory Home Office Minister Tim Raison, who died in 2011, must have signed the 1980 funding application.
Mr X has given a formal written statement to the inquiry set up last year into former Home Office links with PIE but has refused to meet the inquiry in person because he fears "repercussions" under the Official Secrets Act.
Yesterday Tom Watson said: "The whole sorry business makes it absolutely imperative the Home Secretary bows to the will of the 114 MPs demanding a full, fearless public investigation into child sexual abuse."
Special Branch was an integral part of the intelligence service gathering intelligence on spies and political threats to the state. In 2005 it merged with the anti-terrorism branch to form a Counter Terrorism Command.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/485529/...stleblower

Quote:Baroness Butler-Sloss was behind controversial paedophile ruling

Retired judge who has been appointed the head of a major review of child sex abuse allegations said warnings could not be issued about dangerous paedophiles


One child protection expert said Baroness Butler-Sloss' involvement in the ruling had the unintended consequence of allowing paedophiles to get away with their crimes. Photo: PA


By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent

8:00PM BST 13 Jul 2014

Baroness Butler-Sloss, the retired judge appointed to investigate claims of an establishment child sex abuse cover-up, was responsible for a controversial ruling which prevented warnings being issued about dangerous paedophiles.

Senior social workers attacked her decision - made when she was an Appeal Court judge - and warned that it would have "major ramifications".

As the Government faced growing pressure to review its decision to appoint Lady Butler-Sloss to the major new inquiry, one child protection expert said the peer's involvement in the ruling had the unintended consequence of allowing paedophiles to get away with their crimes.

Lady Butler-Sloss was appointed by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, last Tuesday to lead an overarching review of allegations of child sex abuse by prominent politicians and other figures in institutions such as the Church and the BBC.

But critics have claimed the judge cannot be impartial because her late brother, a former Attorney General, played a key role in the affair in the early 1980s, and it has also been claimed she kept allegations about an Anglican bishop out of a report she wrote three years ago into a paedophile scandalin the Diocese of Chichester.

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Lady Butler-Sloss led a panel of three judges who overturned a previous ruling which said councils could warn other local authorities about two men who had been found to have had inappropriate relationships with children.
Neither man had been convicted in a criminal court but in civil proceedings judges had ruled they had been involved in improper sexual relationships with children.
One man, who can only be identified by the initial L', then 36, was acquitted of attempting to rape his step-daughter and of indecently assaulting his five children but care proceedings in the family courts later found he had been responsible for sexual abusing three children in his care.
He posed a "significant risk" to the three youngest children, the court held.
Croydon council, in south London, where L had lived, sought to secure L's new address from the court to alert the local authority about his sexual behaviour.
A judge ruled in 1997 that Croydon could go ahead but Lady Butler-Sloss overturned that decision the following year.
Hannah Miller, Croydon's then director of social services, said at the time: "This is a bleak day for social services departments across the country in their crackdown on child sex abuse."
In the second case, a man only known as W' was found by Bournemouth county court in 1997 to pose a risk to children he coached at a junior football league.
A judge found "overwhelming evidence of an unusual and unhealthy relationship" between W and his partner's youngest son.
W was a "risk of significant harm" to his partner's sons and Bournemouth social services put restrictions on his access to the children and asked the courts permission to write warning letters to the football club and the football league.
A judge approved Bournemouth's application but this, too, was overturned by Lady Butler-Sloss.
With Lord Justice Hutchinson and Lord Justice Chadwick she ruled it was inappropriate to disclose information which had emerged as part of family court proceedings under the Children Act. Appeals by L and W were allowed.
Robert Hutchinson, of the Association of Directors of Social Services, said at the time: "This decision has major ramifications for all of us [with] public protection responsibilities. The commonsense approach would be to share information about people considered a danger to children."
The NSPCC also voiced its concern about the ruling, as a spokesman for the children's charity said: "information such as this should be passed on to parties who need to know in orderto give children protection."
[SUB]Jimmy Savile, the BBC entertainer exposed as a serial paedophile[/SUB]
Lady Butler-Sloss went on to become the most senior judge in England and Wales dealing with child abuse and other family issues, as president of the family division of the High Court from 1999 to 2005.
The way local authorities and police shared intelligence about suspected sex offenders was later the focus of an inquiry into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 11, in Soham, Cambs, by school caretaker Ian Huntley in 2002.
Mark Williams-Thomas, a former detective who presented a television documentary in 2012which led to Jimmy Savile being exposed as Britain's worst-ever paedophile, said: "This ruling led to a significant change in attitudes on the exchange of information and it caused real problems.
"In a way, it assisted offenders in the 1990s to get away with their offending behaviour.
"I'm sure [Lady Butler-Sloss] made that finding in the best of spirit, but it would not be something that would be acceptable today. Around that time there was confusion about what could and could not be shared between agencies - but things are clearer now.
"It heaps more pressure on the Government, which must take a very clear stance on this to say that, for the sake of clarity and for the victims, they need to take another look at this appointment."
Mrs May is understood to have invited to a meeting at the Home Office this week seven MPs who have led the campaign for an investigation into the child abuse allegations.
They are believed to include Simon Danczuk and Tom Watson, the Labour MPs who exposed a series of revelations about alleged paedophilia in Westminster, and Tessa Munt, the Liberal Democrat who last week disclosed she had been abused as a child.
Several of the members attending the meeting will ask Mrs May to reconsider Lady Butler-Sloss' appointment, sources said.
A Home Office minister has refused to rule out appointing a co-chairman to lead the child sex abuse inquiry alongside Baroness Butler-Sloss, as new detail emerged of her role in a controversial paedophile ruling.
James Brokenshire, the security and immigration minister, insisted the Government was still working out the "precise detail" of the inquiry which will examine allegations of a wide-ranging cover-up of paedophilia in Westminster and other British institutions.
Asked by Dermot Murnaghan on the Sky News channel if the panel members would have "equal powers" or be "co-chairs", Mr Brokenshire said: "Well I think it's this precise detail that we are working on at this stage because it is important that we do draw on the right experts."
If ministers appoint another senior figure to sit alongside Lady Butler-Sloss it would be seen as recognition of concerns over the peer's impartiality.

And from The herald of Scotland:

Quote:

Why the truth can never emerge

Ian Bell
Columnist



Sunday 13 July 2014

WHEN Peter Cook opened a Soho comedy club in 1961 he called it The Establishment.


The joke didn't need to be explained. Satire began because there was a lot about Britain that demanded satire. Something in the country was rotten and the rot, said the smart young cynics, started at the top.
The word "Establishment" is handy. It can serve to describe an elite. It can explain - as in "established procedures" - the elite's customs and practices. It can also convey the sense that the Establishment, like an established Church, is in with the bricks, embedded in the fabric of society. Cook's choice of comedy targets - politicians, judges, clergy, tycoons, public school buffoons and military types - told that story.
In Britain, we are accustomed, dangerously so, to all of this. We take the existence of the Establishment hierarchy for granted. We watch them emerge from their handful of schools. We see their stately ascent up the ladders of politics, media, the law or the civil service until honours and peerages arrive. We do not flinch, or not too often, when each denies membership of the Establishment, or denies that such a thing even exists.
There's a small fuss every few years when coincidences become too obvious, when it can no longer be denied that a minority sharing a narrow social and educational background seem to monopolise power and influence. A quick, pointless discussion of the "whatever happened to meritocracy" variety soon extinguishes unease. The Establishment protects itself. That's its reason to exist.
Norman Tebbit, of all people, explained as much to Andrew Marr in a TV interview last weekend. The issue was deeply serious, but the peer of the realm gave an analysis that was only too plausible.
So, why might there have been an alleged cover-up of alleged organised child abuse at Westminster in the 1980s?
Tebbit said: "At that time I think most people would have thought that the Establishment, the system, was to be protected and if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into it."
Tebbit was not attempting to justify such behaviour. He sounded, nevertheless, as though he was explaining the obvious: even evidence of truly heinous crimes would be swept away if exposure put "the system" at risk. He believed "there may well have been" a "big political cover-up" to protect the well-connected, but - in so many words - that's just the way things were. His attempts to say that things have changed, a claim recited by eminent types when historic wrongdoing emerges, were less convincing.
The Establishment has been exposed repeatedly in recent years. Politicians on the fiddle, press grandees in the gutter, bankers rigging rates, governments lying their way into wars, sleazy celebs shielded from justice: at every turn, it has been a story of deceit, denial and defensiveness. Now we are told two things: that the abuse of trust, with children at stake, has been of the worst kind imaginable, and that the Establishment has covered things up for decades to protect itself and its members.
Timescales provide a clue to the nature of the standing conspiracy. The Establishment, as every student of 1960s satire knows, endures no matter what. The chief case in point would be the civil service, the service that now owns up, without much of an apology, to disposing of 114 files relating to child abuse. Governments come and go, but the civil service, guarantor of continuity, is as near eternal as makes no difference. The Establishment depends on the fact.
There's a small problem with that. The rest of us go through the palaver of democracy periodically in the naïve hope that sometimes, just occasionally, our votes will bring change. The very existence of the Establishment, that elite freemasonry, says we are conned - and con ourselves - utterly.
One of the claims made about child abuse is that each of the main Westminster parties is implicated. Another turns on the cover-ups allegedly sanctioned by institutions such as the civil service and the BBC. A third element is less a claim than a fact: time and again, police and prosecutors did nothing. Not once down the decades has a party leader swept to power and upset the elite apple cart. In the end, all shall have ermine. For no-one can point the finger.
They can have inquiries, though. There is always time enough and money enough for another of those. These affairs are ideal for demonstrating that "something is being done" even when, as in the case of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, it is obvious, first, that nothing useful is being done and, second, that the Government and the civil service are engineering a highly satisfactory state of affairs.
When the game is easy to rig, the Establishment can grow a little slapdash, even by its standards. Plainly, no-one at the Home Office - where the 114 files met their mysterious fate - imagined that anyone would dare object to the appointment of Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to head the Home Secretary's "wide-ranging" inquiry into historical sex abuse. Who could be better than a retired appeal court judge, formerly of the family division, who distinguished herself in the late 1980s by leading the inquiry into the Cleveland abuse scandal?
Some would call judges typical Establishment figures, but it's hard to inquire judiciously without them. Butler-Sloss is a revered peer, however. By some accounts, certain individuals still picking up their attendance allowances in the Upper House could figure in her work for Theresa May, the Home Secretary. That doesn't sound clever.
Then there is the fact that the former judge had a brother, the late Michael Havers, a Tory politician. He was Attorney General during the 1980s when, it is alleged, paedophilia committed by political figures was covered up. It is a matter of record that as a government legal officer, Havers chose not to proceed against a diplomat involved, and more, with the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Butler-Sloss sees this as no barrier to her inquiry work. She refuses, in fact, to stand down, despite knowing full well that she would never have sat as a judge in a case involving one of her family. But that's another Establishment trait: it does not see itself as others see it. For this elite, their interests and the public interest are one and the same. And how dare anyone - in this case, even the victims of abuse - suggest otherwise?
Cyril Smith, the late Liberal MP, was investigated on three occasions over three decades for abusing children. On each occasion, no action was taken. Only now, too late, have the Crown Prosecution Service and Greater Manchester Police conceded that Smith should have been prosecuted on the grounds of "overwhelming evidence".
One Liberal non-entity was protected for all those years while he wrought God knows what damage. So what about others? Does anyone believe, amid a torrent of claims from victims, that Smith was one of those "isolated cases" that so comfort the Establishment? And does the Establishment still insist that Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, brilliant and blameless as she may be, will do?

I need to confirm but I think she has stepped down. It would be the only thing she could do under the circumstance.

Yes confirmed. Might be because of this that made it untenable but there were many reasons really.
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5328/b...sa-inquiry

Wonder who the next safe pair of hands they choose will be?

Yes she stepped down citing conflict of interest. It took a week to reach that decision that she should have taken 7 days ago. Everyone else knew instantly her name was announced that she should recuse herself.

Well, at least she's gone. The inquiry now will have to have a decent name to run it. But the Establishment will simply use another strategy to tie his/her hands using the terms of reference and/or not allowing access to classified material or not being able to use classified material. I will amount to the usual Whitehall whitewash --- as always.

They need some one acceptable to the victims. Some one with an understanding of bureaucracy. Some one with a security clearance. It really needs to be a panel too. Not just one person. Terms of reference need to be open and broad. It will be illuminating to see if they try to restrict it and how. I'm sure they will try but it also just exposes them as part of a cover up. Like choosing Butler Sloss.

Aye. I think they're bound to try to find a candidate that can be controlled somehow --- or else never publish the report (a stroke they've pulled before as I recall), because they won't let all this out, as it goes everywhere and leads to all the deeper filth. Take one brick out of this house and it will all come down. So they will be seeking a more flexible way out.

Meanwhile, the bloody awful May spills innocence. As if.

Quote:

Butler-Sloss stands down: Theresa May under fire over appointment of former judge as Westminster paedophile inquiry head

The Home Secretary indicated she had been taken by surprise by allegations that Sir Michael Havers attempted to thwart an attempt to expose paedophile activity

NIGEL MORRIS , ANDREW GRICE


Monday 14 July 2014



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Theresa May came under repeated fire over her failure to look in enough detail at the family background of Baroness Butler-Sloss, who today stepped down as chairman of a wide-ranging inquiry into child abuse claims.

The former High Court judge's dramatic resignation, just six days after accepting the post, has severely embarrassed the Home Secretary.
In fiery exchanges with MPs, Mrs May insisted she stood by the appointment of a woman of "absolute integrity" to head the government-commissioned panel of inquiry.
However, the Home Secretary indicated she had been taken by surprise by allegations that the peer's brother, the late Sir Michael Havers, attempted to thwart an attempt to expose paedophile activity.
Lady Butler-Sloss's panel would have had to investigate whether Sir Michael, who was Attorney-General from 1979 to 1987, failed to act on allegations of child abuse involving senior establishment figures.
Sir Michael also reportedly tried to prevent the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens from using parliamentary privilege to name the diplomat Sir Peter Hayman as a paedophile.
Asked about the Hayman allegation, Mrs May told the Commons home affairs select committee: "This is an issue that has been raised in the last few days."
The Home Secretary insisted that "consideration was given to the nomination" and she stood by the short-lived appointment of the retired judge.
"It is a mark of the woman that she herself has come to this decision. I respect it. I'm disappointed, but I respect it," Mrs May said.
But the committee's chairman Keith Vaz said: "She has shown better judgment, has she not, than the Government. This is the due diligence you and your officials should have carried out."
He urged Mrs May to consult more widely over her replacement to avoid he or she being "put in the invidious position Lady Butler-Sloss appears to be in".
The Labour MP, Ian Austin, told the committee: "It is now clear the child abuse inquiry has no chair, no terms of reference and it doesn't seem to me to have any agreed purpose."
The Tory MP Zac Goldsmith MP welcomed Lady Butler-Sloss's decision, claiming that Sir Michael had ensured the terms of reference for an inquiry into paedophile activity at Kincora boy's home in Northern Ireland were narrowly drawn.
In a statement, the 80-year-old peer acknowledged a "widespread perception, particularly among victim and survivor groups, that I am not the right person to chair the inquiry".
She added: "It has also become clear to me that I did not sufficiently consider whether my background and the fact my brother had been Attorney General would cause difficulties."
Downing Street said Lady Butler-Sloss reached her decision over the weekend after discussing the issue with Mrs May.
The Prime Minister's spokesman insisted she had been chosen for the right reasons and that no one had questioned her expertise or integrity after she headed an inquiry into child abuse in Cleveland in the 1980s.
Pressure grew over the weekend amid claims the retired judge kept allegations about a bishop out of a review of how the Church of England dealt with two priests allegedly involved in paedophilia.
Baroness Butler-Sloss reportedly told a victim that she did not want to name the bishop because "the press would love a bishop". Bishop Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester was later charged with indecent assault and misconduct in a public office.
Baroness Butler-Sloss responded that she "never put the reputation of any institution, including the Church of England, above the pursuit of justice for victims".
Alison Millar, a lawyer who is representing some alleged abuse victims, said: "This was the only sensible decision to ensure that survivors and the public could feel confident the inquiry was not going to be jeopardised by accusations of bias."

Exaro has been asking readers their recommendations. There have been some very good ones too. Some have already said they cannot take that role due to their other commitments but it would put the Home Secretary on the back foot if they reject any of these fine independent and qualified people.

There's a lot of news reports at the moment, concerning the appointment of Butler-Sloss and then her resignation in the wake of her brother's involvement in the Kincora Boys Home scandal 30 years ago. By heavily restricting the terms of reference, Attorney General Michael Havers ensured that "visitors" to the boys home were outside the writ of the then inquiry - including MP's, police, clergymen, military intelligence and others. Exaro story HERE.

Exaro are also opening the flood gates on the paedophile "abuse parties" by MP's at Dolphin Square, home to dozens of MP's HERE and HERE and HERE. Although Exaro have been understandably careful not to name the two MP's referenced in the story at this stage, their names are well known anyway - see HERE. Interestingly, or not (?) Dolphin Square residents named by Aangirfan include David Steel, former leader of the Liberal Party and William Hague, formerly (until yesterday anyway) Foreign Secretary of the present government. In a move that caught everyone by surprise, Hague resigned his post as Foreign Secretary yesterday and announced he will be leaving Parliament altogether at next year... see HERE. The timing does strike me as quite remarkable - but perhaps it's related to his alleged involvement in covering up the paedo lusts of another former Home Secretary, who he sent packing to Brussels as an EU Commissioner? -- representing the usual government punishment i.e., loss of office and exile -- see HERE, comment 15, and HERE for further background.

Although I do caution anyone reading this that these are allegations only at this stage, such has been the extent of the continuing cover-up and so often do the same names appear, that the question one might ask is the one about where there's smoke is there fire? And if you believe the Aangirfan report linked above, you might also be wondering why Ken Clarke left government yesterday -- coincidence or a cull of a particular kind?

What is pretty clear is that this continuing story goes so deep and penetrates through so many past levels and decades, that it literally leads everywhere -- all the criminal dealings, corruption, greed and dirty work, not to mention "wet work" that underlies the ruling British Establishment.

The powerful are not constrained by the law or the normal moral codes of behaviour that the rest of us take for granted.

More of the usual "we're/they're above the law" stuff:

Quote:Scotland Yard detective 'removed over plan to investigate child abuse claims'

Detective chief inspector claims he made people 'uncomfortable' by looking into alleged abuse at Lambeth children's homes

• Ben Quinn
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014 00.45 BST
  

Retired detective chief inspector Clive Driscoll said that his work was "all too uncomfortable to a lot of people". Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

A former Scotland Yard detective who won plaudits for his work on cases including the murder of Stephen Lawrence has claimed that he was moved from his post earlier when he revealed plans to investigate politicians over child abuse claims.
Speaking about his inquiries in 1998 into activity alleged to have taken place in Lambeth children's homes in the 1980s, retired detective chief inspector Clive Driscoll said that his work was "all too uncomfortable to a lot of people".
The Metropolitan police has now reportedly asked to discuss the claims with Driscoll, who told BBC Newsnight that he had a list of suspects he wanted to look at, including local and national politicians, adding: "Some of the names were people that were working locally. Some people that were if you like, working nationally, there was quite a mix really because it appeared that it was connected to other boroughs and other movement around the country."
He claimed that he was removed from his post after sharing his suspicions at a meeting with other officers.
"I certainly in a case conference disclosed suspects' names, 100%, but I was informed that was inappropriate and I would be removed from my post," he said.
"Whenever people spoke to you and shared their fears and their story about what they had seen, it was almost on the proviso that they wouldn't make a statement and that they would be scared if you released who those people were that were talking for fear of reprisals to both their selves and their families."
Investigations are believed to have continued into more than 20 children's homes after Driscoll was moved.
Driscoll, who served for more than 30 years with the police, retired this summer against his will after leading the reinvestigation that saw two men convicted of murder of Stephen Lawrence in 2012, 19 years after the killing.
He claimed on Newsnight that there had been discussions within the force about holding back certain documents from an independent inquiry into the original murder investigation.
Driscoll also said that he believed there were "disruption tactics" during his successful investigation.
Asked by Newsnight if he would now trust the Metropolitan police if he was the Lawrence family, Driscoll replied: "No, I probably would not."
Duwayne Brooks, the surviving victim of the attack that killed Lawrence, has warned that the best chance to catch more of the gang who were involved in the racist attack may be lost because of Driscoll's departure.
Brooks has described Driscoll's departure as a "terrible blow" and said that many breakthroughs in the case were down to the detective's personal style. He claimed that he and many other witnesses would talk only to Driscoll because he had spent years winning their confidence.