Danny Jarman Wrote:Great find Jan. I remember when that record came out. The video seems alot more sinister now.

Censored, Savile's private letters to Mrs Thatcher: Files edited two months ago... AFTER child abuse claims surfaced

• Letter from Jimmy Savile to former PM released under 30-year rule
  
• Declares his love for her in gushing 1980 note written following a lunch
  
• Also refers to his 'girl patients' and says 'they all love you'
  
• But other correspondence between the two has been censored
  
• Savile spent 11 consecutive New Year's Eves with Mrs Thatcher
  

Correspondence: A handwritten letter from Jimmy Savile in which he declared his 'love' for Margaret Thatcher after being invited to lunch with her was released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule

Close: The note, written in February 1980, is signed with kisses and bears Savile¿s distinctive signature, with a smiley face in the J of his name

Quote:But parts of some exchanges between Savile and Mrs Thatcher were censored in October this year eight days after claims that he had sexually abused people surfaced in an ITV documentary.
The text of a letter from Savile to Mrs Thatcher and a phone message that he left for her were deleted from the file under the Freedom of Information Act on October 11.

Quote:Abuse scandals probe widens: The man who may hold key to UK's biggest paedophile network ever
11 Nov 2012 09:11


Charles Napier could provide vital evidence for police investigating a child abuse scandal spanning three decades


In the picturesque Dorset town of Sherborne, Charles Napier is an upstanding member of the community.

He is known as a respected retired languages teacher, a playwright and theatre director.

Only last month he gave a lecture on William Shakespeare at the town's literary festival.

But Napier's sordid past threatens to drag him into the heart of new inquiries into a child abuse scandal spanning three decades.

Evidence now being examined by Metropolitan Police detectives links Napier to Peter Righton, one of Britain's most high-profile paedophiles.

Righton is now long dead. But Napier is not. Now 68 and living with his mother in the West Country, he could prove a vital witness to the unfolding police inquiry into child abuse on a massive scale in this country.

Both men were linked to a shadowy organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange which campaigned in the 70s and 80s for what they called the age of "child love" to be reduced to four.

Righton was a founder of PIE, Napier its one-time treasurer. Righton, incredibly, was also one of Britain's leading child protection specialists.

But when police raided his house in Evesham, Worcs, in 1992 they found not only hard-core child abuse images from Amsterdam but a "quarter-century of correspondence" between paedophiles in Britain and around the world.

The probe led police to the kitchen of a flat in South London where they found a letter from 'Napier - who had a child assault conviction 20 years before - boasting of his life in Cairo as a"British Council teacher.

He bragged of easy access toyoung boys and how he could sendObscene images back to Britain indiplomatic bags.

The scandal erupted again when Labour MP Tom Watson raised the matter with David Cameron in the House of Commons last month suggesting a network of paedophiles working in the UK had links to high levels of Government.

He believes there was an Establishment cover-up of the Righton files and his claims are now being investigated by a Scotland Yard team.

Since Mr Watson's first dramatic announcement, dozens of victims have come forward with allegations of shocking abuse by paedophiles at care homes across Britain.

Several names of senior politicians have been put in the frame though, it has to be said, without any evidential corroboration. However, what is clear is that there are real concerns that more could and should have been done after Righton's 1992 arrest and subsequent caution for indecent assault of a boy 30 years before.

Even Michael Hames, then head of Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad, who handled the Righton files expressed disappointment more was not done. Writing in 2000 of the Righton inquiry, he called for a national team to be set up to investigate paedophiles, adding: "I remain convinced that we have only touched the tip of a huge national and international problem."

The story of Charles Napier is an extraordinary one that shows how a paedophile was able to operate with impunity while holding down a thoroughly respectable lifestyle.

It illustrates how there was little or no safety net to prevent child abusers from returning to their sick ways. And it begins at Copthorne Preparatory School, West Sussex, in the late 60s.

This week, respected author and journalist Francis Wheen told the Sunday People how he was just 11 when Napier arrived at the school.

He says Napier, then in is 20s, charmed the youngsters with his sports car, dashing good looks and claims that he was a professional actor.

Mr Wheen said: "He recruited a few of us, saying 'spend more time in the gym' and appointed himself gym master. There was a room off the gym and that became his haunt.

"Four or five of us started regularly going down there, vaulting over horses and things like that, in our gym shorts in all our innocence.

"At the end of it he would take us into his room off the gym and give us beer and cigarettes - bottles of Mackeson's and Senior Service untipped.

"We thought this was terrifically exciting. Here we were, 11 years old, being given beer and fags - we were thinking he's on our side not like any of the other masters. cigarettes , nd king ot like asters.

"And of course this was for an ulterior purpose which very soon became clear when he stuck his hand down my gym shorts and I had to sort of fight him off."

Napier then revealed his terrifying technique for grooming the youngsters by trying to humiliate the 11-year-old Francis.

Mr Wheen said: "He said 'Don't be such a baby' and said I wasn't grown-up enough for that sort of thing. He would point to a couple of other boys, saying 'They let me do it. You just won't let me because you're so babyish.'

"I think he was hoping I'd say 'no I'm as grown up as them' and let him get on with it but I didn't. It meant I was excluded from his 'charmed circle' after that - but by then I knew where he kept his beer and cigarettes so I used to break into his room, steal them and go sit in the woods.

"I could enjoy them without being sexually abused."

Mr Wheen also described the culture of silence that grew up around the assaults, with youngsters reluctant to report the teacher, feeling they wouldn't be believed.

He added: "A year or two after I left, my younger brother - who was still at the school - came back from holidays and told me Mr Napier had been sacked.

"At long last one boy who had been sexually molested had been innocent enough to go to the headmaster and report him.

"There was a very hasty exit made by Napier. He had a flashy sp so up, speed and sports car and as soon as the game was up, he roared off at speed and pranged it on the school gates. I think I got away quite lightly - I can't pretend I've been scarred for life by it. But I'm sure there are children out there who have been badly damaged by Charles Napier."

In 1972, Napier was found to have indecently assaulted pupils at a Surrey school where he was working. After being banned from teaching, he left the country.

In 1978, he was working in Sweden where he taught at a junior school with pupils as young as 11 - and was visited by Righton.

Napier later surfaced in Egypt, where he worked as the assistant head of studies with the British Council in Cairo.

A letter from the time saw him boast to a friend that the city was "full of boys, 98 per cent of them available".

He also helped set up and run a school in Turkey. His picture appears on a website offering English as a Foreign Language, where he boasts: "Most of my posts have been in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East, and for the last eight years I've been in Istanbul, running my own school and writing a series of course books for Turkish students."

Back in England, Napier was jailed for nine months in 1995 for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy he'd lured to his home in the 80s.

He befriended the lad, enticing him with lager and computer games - then abused him.

Prosecutors said: "It wasn't just a stranger grabbing a boy in the park. This was a slow insidious process. The boy was trapped - not forced."

Righton, a founder member of PIE, was at one time the UK's leading authority on the protection of children.

Yet he used his power to not only hide his paedophilia, but to help other child abusers - among them Napier.

The latter's ban on teaching meant he was added to List 99, a precursor of the Sex Offenders' Register.

And Righton - the subject of a 1994 documentary on paedophiles - used his influence to try to have Napier removed from the list so he could be allowed back into schools.

Risk Righton wrote to the Department of Education saying: "Mr Napier is a gifted teacher of both adults and children.

"I believe that during the years since his conviction he has acquired a knowledge and disciplined mastery of himself which would justify the conclusion he no longer constitutes a sexual risk to children in his charge.

"It would give me great pleasure - and cause me no anxiety - to hear the Secretary of State had reviewed his decision of October 24, 1972, in Mr Napier's favour."

In 1981, the ban was relaxed to allow Napier into colleges and universities. In 1990 he applied for the ban to be further relaxed - this time enlisting Dr Malcolm Fraser as his referee.

Dr Fraser was convicted in 1992 for possessing indecent photographs of children. His third conviction saw him struck off - and Napier remained on the banned list.

Mr Wheen thought he'd seen the last of his former teacher but their paths crossed again in 1977, when he was commissioned to write an article about PIE and its desire to lower the age of consent.

A senior group member told Mr Wheen: "You must speak to our treasurer.

He's very good. Very well informed about the issues."

And Mr Wheen was astonished to discover the expert he was being put in touch with was his former teacher - now PIE's treasurer - Charles Napier.

Mr Wheen added: "I didn't really want to speak to him. I couldn't believe what my old teacher had become."

Napier declined to comment yesterday.

Quote:Response to Rob Wilson MP

November 11th, 2012


Dear Rob,


Thank you for your recent letter which I read online yesterday.

I appreciate your concern for the heat to be taken out of the public debate around this issue but as you have raised this with me publicly, I feel duty bound to explain that which I had wished to remain private.

Your central point is that any allegations I receive should go to the police. I am not sure why you have assumed that this is not happening. You are wrong, in any case.

It remains the case that the documents seized in the investigation into paedophile Peter Righton provide clear intelligence suggesting a child abuse ring that links to a former aide of a Prime Minister. In fact this was my sole focus when the matter was raised with the PM in the House. My concern was not the shortcomings of the previous inquiry into North Wales and at the time I was not aware of any allegations made about politicians relating to North Wales.

This is also why I believe the terms of reference for the inquiry announced by the Home Secretary are inadequate and at some point in the future will have to be broadened, as I told the Home Secretary on Tuesday.

As you know, I have some history with the Metropolitan police. We now know that during the hacking scandal, the organisation was sitting on a vast amount of intelligence that provided clear evidential leads suggesting much wider criminal wrongdoing.

In raising the matter with the PM I was seeking to ensure that the new team at the Met were aware that there could be clear intelligence held by them that would warrant a second look in this case too. I believe this is now happening.

Since raising the issue with the PM, a number of other allegations have been made of which I have made the police aware.

My concern is that the institutions that are there to protect vulnerable children may have historically failed. I do not know why this is the case but seek to understand it. This will take time and I would welcome your ideas as to how child protection policy can be improved in years to come.

The former child protection specialist who raised his concerns with me did so because after the Murdoch scandal, he felt I was prepared to speak out on a perceived injustice and see it through to the end no matter where the evidence leads and whoever it affects and regardless of political persuasion. I should point out to you that my few public statements regarding an alleged child abuse ring have taken pains not to identify the political affinity of the suspected perpetrators. Nor have I at any point, publicly identified the time period to which the allegations apply. This is not a fit subject for point scoring.

I hope you now understand that I am fully co-operating with the police and that I will not let this matter drop regardless of what pressure is bought to bear by those that seek to undermine legitimate inquiry.

Quote:Special report: Police revisit the grim mystery of Elm Guest House

Boys in care were allegedly being groomed for sex at parties at a south-west London house attended by well-known and powerful figures. James Hanning and Paul Cahalan investigate

James Hanning , Paul Cahalan


Sunday 16 December 2012

The Independent on Sunday

There is no more ordinary-looking row of suburban Edwardian houses in the country than Rocks Lane, south-west London. But nowhere has given rise to such an outlandish series of allegations than the one formerly known as Elm Guest House. The claims are now being re-investigated by the Metropolitan Police, decades after they were first made. Attempts have been made by care workers to lay bare the secrets of Rocks Lane but to no avail. Whatever the outcome of their investigations in the past, the police seem convinced that a number of serious wrongs need to be righted.

Rocks Lane is a conspiracy theorist's dream, taking in allegations of the grooming of young boys in care for sex, elaborate gay parties involving senior public figures including members of the Conservative Party, charges of a police cover-up and even the suggestion of murder. The police believe that in the context of the Jimmy Savile scandal and renewed claims over the treatment of boys in care in North Wales, there is every reason to look again at an extremely murky saga.

A month ago, in conditions of the utmost secrecy (so much so that nothing was even put on computers), the Metropolitan Police set up Operation Fairbank, to look into, among other things, allegations made by Tom Watson in the House of Commons. The Labour MP had spoken of a "powerful paedophile ring" and its links to a previous prime minister's "senior adviser". Mr Watson has been uncharacteristically diffident about speaking to journalists on the issue since then, saying that he is passing on any information to the police. He said yesterday: "I'm not seeking to add any specific allegations myself, but hope that my comments will help the authorities get to the bottom of this."

What is known is that in the late 1970s, the Elm Guest House on Rocks Lane was a safe, unthreatening meeting place for homosexual men free from the stigma of a sexual orientation legalised barely a decade earlier. According to a former friend of Carole Kasir, the guest house's German-born manager, she initially regarded herself as offering gay men an opportunity to "be themselves" without fear. Rocks Lane, which overlooks a playing field, was known to homosexual men as it is close to Barnes Common, itself popular with gay men for cruising.

But Elm Guest House's willingness to accommodate a small industry ("It became a convenient place for rent boys to take their clients," says one person familiar with the place), began to attract the attentions of the local police force. One neighbour remembers a months-long police stakeout: "They were there all the time. Police hiding behind the trees to look at the property was a running joke with the neighbours."

In 1982, the police learned that one of the guest house's parties was to take place, and the Met's notorious Special Patrol Group, the precursor of the Territorial Support Group, duly raided the property, resulting in a number of charges being brought against Kasir. The fact that two police officers were in the house at the time of the raid has fed the speculation. The IoS has established that, according to an officer closely involved at the time, two officers were embedded as guests in the property for two or three days, one even pretending to have a broken arm, hiding a police radio in a plaster cast to make secret recordings. If there was a cover-up, it appears not to have involved the local police force, who seem to have been assiduous in seeking to have the place closed down.

As many as 12 boys gave evidence to the police to the effect that they had been abused by men at the house, The IoS has established, but the only conviction was the comparatively minor one of running a disorderly house (ie, a brothel). "Abused boys do not always make the most impressive of witnesses once they get into the witness box," someone involved in the case said. "The real unlawful activity was underage sex. The police should have been able to make the other charges stick, but the boys were only ever interviewed with a view to them being witnesses against Carole, not as kids who were abused themselves."

The place continued to attract speculation. Who was at that party has never been established, but as time went on, more and more allegations began to emerge about Rocks Lane. The local police paved the way for the raid, but at some stage Special Branch felt the need to get involved. Why was that, some have asked, unless there was something even murkier going on? Child-protection campaigners alleged that boys had been taken from a local council-run home and abused, a line of investigation that police are now pursuing.

What makes the Rocks Lane story so tantalising for the media is the list of alleged attendees at the parties. One source suggested that Anthony Blunt, former keeper of the Queen's pictures and an exposed Soviet mole, used to go the parties, but then Blunt's notoriety made him a magnet for any number of fanciful theories. Those who knew him say the idea is absurd, and that his sexual tastes were far more conventional. Others have spoken of two High Court judges and a Foreign Office official attending. Chris Fay, a social worker who worked for a small charity, the National Association for Young People in Care (Naypic), has alleged that a terrified Kasir had shown him about 20 photographs of middle-aged men with young boys, taken at what he said were kings and queens fancy-dress parties, attended by a number of powerful and well-known people. One, Mr Fay alleged, featured a well-known public figure wearing nothing but a French maid's apron alongside a young boy nude apart from a tiara.

In 1990, at the age of 47, Kasir was found dead in her flat. The coroner's inquest concluded that, a diabetic, she had suffered an insulin overdose. Two Naypic employees told the coroner they believed that because she seemingly had not had an insulin injection for three days, she had been murdered, the victim of powerful people who feared she knew too much. Nonetheless, she was found to have committed suicide, worn down by an eight-year battle to have her son, who was taken into care after her conviction, returned to her.

So was the story of Rocks Lane (now mercifully restored to blameless respectability) just another one of consenting adults "romping" behind lace curtains? Or was it qualitatively different, involving something much nastier and more exploitative? Since 1990, ineffectual efforts have been made to overturn this vast stone. A reported 2003 "inquiry", which ended up being examined by the IPCC, foundered, frustratingly, on unsupported evidence based on the wrong time frame. But now, with child abuse no longer regarded as unthinkable, the climate seems to be changing.

Tom Watson's Commons statement brought forward a flood of emails from the public. Police have been hindered by the loss of many documents and impassioned but unverifiable testimony, much of which has surfaced on the internet. The allegations deserving of most scrutiny, though, have seemingly eluded the web. The two surviving Naypic employees are reluctant to discuss the case, but it is believed the police are interviewing what, tellingly, they now refer to as "victims", and are encouraging others to come forward.

The alleged presence of household names adds to the intrigue, but in a celeb-obsessed age, there is a danger that, should such names not materialise, Rocks Lane will be seen as "just another" child abuse case. Yet police sources fear that dozens of boys were either taken or on the run from care homes to be abused. By any standards, that should be a big story.

The net widens

The scandal of abuse at care homes in North Wales, including Bryn Estyn, was reawakened following the Jimmy Savile allegations.

Reports of abuse involving in the region of 300 children, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s first led Clwyd Council to commission a report into failings. But the Jillings report was never published, and, amid rumours of a botched police investigation, the Waterhouse report was commissioned. It named 200 abusers, or those who failed to protect children, but was seen as a whitewash after no prosecutions resulted.

Victims of child abuse in Northern Ireland are still waiting for an inquiry into abuse at Catholic church and state-run institutions between 1973 and 1989. It followed the Ryan report in the Republic of Ireland, which found that sexual and psychological abuse was "endemic" in Catholic-run schools and orphanages for most of the 20th century.

In 2010, a three-year investigation into child abuse in Jersey led to seven people being convicted for a series of assaults they inflicted on children, mainly at the Haut de la Garenne home, from the 1970s onwards. Police took 1,776 statements from 192 alleged victims during the course of their inquiry.

Many victims there believe more abuse remains uncovered. An investigation into claims that Savile had abused girls in Jersey was launched last month.

Quote:Police errors left Jimmy Savile free to 'groom the nation'

Public prosecutor promises to reinvestigate thousands of sexual assault cases after extent of Savile's crimes revealed

Sandra Laville, Esther Addley, Josh Halliday
The Guardian, Friday 11 January 2013 20.18 GMT

Jimmy Savile
When Jimmy Savile was interviewed by detectives in 2009 the encounter was "perfunctory", a police review found. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

A litany of failings by police and prosecutors meant the one chance to bring Jimmy Savile to justice while he was alive was lost, the director of public prosecution has admitted as he promised to reinvestigate thousands of sexual assault cases where victims felt they were not believed.
Savile case explained

1 Key findings
2 Full Met and NSPCC report (pdf)
3 Full CPS report (pdf)
4 The report timeline

Three official reports on Friday revealed for the first time the damning details of how the authorities just three years ago failed to build a case against the BBC celebrity, who sexually assaulted children and young people across six decades and used the power of his fame to "groom the nation".

The BBC, hospitals, schools, the police and prosecutors all let down the hundreds of victims, aged as young as eight, allowing the predatory paedophile to continue abusing "in plain sight" throughout his lifetime. Police across the country including the Metropolitan police, Surrey, Sussex and Savile's home force, West Yorkshire, failed to share information, in some cases failed to record allegations against him and in other cases even warned victims off.

When Savile was finally interviewed by detectives in 2009, the encounter was "perfunctory" and he was allowed to control the proceedings, a review by Surrey police found.

Apologising to the victims, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said victims of any sexual abuse, no matter how historic, who felt their complaints were mishandled, should come forward, and promised a review of such cases. Panels will be set up across the country by police and prosecutors to re-examine cases. This had to be a "watershed moment" in the way complaints from victims of sexual assault were handled, he said, adding that victims had to be believed.

"The approach of the police and prosecutors to credibility in sexual assault cases has to change," he said. "Testing the complainant's account is only one part of the exercise; equally important is testing the suspect's account and building stronger cases by linking evidence and allegations."

Asked if heads should roll at the CPS because of the failings, David Cameron's spokesman said: "That is a matter for the relevant authorities. The prime minister's view on all of this is that it is absolutely right that every institution involved gets to the bottom of exactly what has gone on."

Starmer spoke as reports by the Met and the NSPCC, the Crown Prosecution Service and Surrey police revealed extraordinary missed opportunities and mistakes which allowed Savile to escape the best chance of being brought to justice three years ago after four women had come forward to Surrey and Sussex police.

The failings included:

Police forces not recording allegations or sharing information and the women not being informed other victims were making similar allegations.

The reviewing lawyer for the CPS, a "rape specialist", dismissing the allegations early on as "relatively minor".

West Yorkshire failing to pursue several allegations against Savile, and Sussex police even scaring a victim off by saying the star's lawyers "would make mincemeat" of her.

The police treating the women's accounts with too much caution.

Alison Levitt, QC, principle legal adviser for the CPS, who reviewed the failings by police and prosecutors, said: "The case against Jimmy Savile was a strong one, consisting as it did of four apparently independent allegations of sexual behaviour towards young women and girls with whom he came into contact as a result of his fame and his charitable work.

"There was, on the evidence I have seen, a realistic prospect of conviction in relation to each of the three allegations which amounted to offences and thus were capable of being charged."

Carole Wells, a former boarding school pupil who was assaulted by Savile when she was 14, said: "I am pleased police have finally acknowledged that Jimmy Savile was a sexual predator. For so long, there's always doubt when you're not believed. Something good has now got to come out of this watershed day. It's sad that it has got to this but hopefully it means that kids [will] be believed [by police]."

The joint report by the Met and NSPCC, called Giving Victims a Voice, revealed the terrible scale of Savile's offending. Peter Watt of the NSPCC said he was an "evil and manipulative" paedophile and Commander Peter Spindler said he had "groomed the nation".

More than 450 victims have come forward to police and the charity since October, most of whom 73% were abused as children.

Thirty four people, including 28 children, were raped by Savile, whose abuse spanned 1955 to 2009 and took place in schools, 13 hospitals and a hospice, and BBC television and radio studios between 1959 and 2006.

Spindler said: "Savile's offending footprint was vast, predatory and opportunistic. He cannot face justice today but we hope this report gives some comfort to his hundreds of victims ... We must learn from these shocking events."

The peak period of his offending coincided with his peak fame when he was in his 40s and 50s. The police have recorded 214 sexual crimes against him, but that figure is likely to rise. Twenty eight of his victims were under 10.

But Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said no one should think that Savile was a one-off: "There are people who spend their lifetimes abusing children and we have got to do something about it."

[URL="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bild-876612-445244.html"]
[/URL]

dapd

"The relationship of mutual trust between the bishops and the head of the institute has been destroyed," said the Bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann.



It was a major promise after a major disaster: In summer 2011, the Catholic Church in Germany pledged full transparency. One year earlier, an abuse scandal had shaken the country's faithful, as an increasing number of cases surfaced in which priests had sexually abused children and then hidden behind a wall of silence.

ANZEIGE

The Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute (KFN) was given the job of investigating the cases in 2011. The personnel files from churches in all 27 dioceses were to be examined for cases of abuse in an attempt to win back some of the Church's depleted credibility.But now the Church has called off the study, citing a breakdown in trust. "The relationship of mutual trust between the bishops and the head of the institute has been destroyed," said the Bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann, on Wednesday morning.
The director of the KFN, Christian Pfeiffer, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the Church had refused to cooperate. At the end of last year, he contacted the dioceses twice in writing. He reminded them of their promised transparency and cooperation. He also asked them whether there was any indication that in some dioceses files had been actively destroyed.
The Bishops' Conference, the country's official body of the Church, was apparently unable to agree on any form of cooperation with the KFN.
The controversy in recent months centered on privacy and data protection: various dioceses have refused to issue documents, allegedly fearing that the anonymity of those affected would not be maintained and that sensitive information could potentially be made public. In response, Pfeiffer asserted in April 2012 that the perpetrator files "never left the church space made available by the Vicar General." A meeting with the indignant clergy around that time was unsuccessful.
Criticism for the Church
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has defended the KFN's professional credibility and demanded that the issue be cleared up. "The accusation that censorship and the desire to maintain control hindered an independent examination must quickly be resolved by the Bishops' Conference," she told the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday, urging the Church to conduct a thorough investigation of the abuse scandal.
"It is a necessary and overdue step for the Catholic Church to open up its archives to specialists outside the Church for the first time," she said. "The dramatic shock of 2010 must not be allowed to trickle off into a half-hearted inquiry."
Before the inquiry was called off, the spokesman for the German Bishops' Conference, Matthias Kopp, had insisted that the project should continue regardless of the outcome of the conflict: "Should cooperation with the KFN fall through, there would be a continuation of the project with another partner," he said.
Pfeiffer insists that the church did not uphold their end of the agreement, which was signed by the research institute and the Association of German Dioceses (VDD). Debate broke out about whether individual dioceses were contractually bound by the agreement.
The structure of the study was unique in Europe: All 27 dioceses had wanted to grant the KFN access to their complete personnel files from the past ten years. In nine dioceses, the investigation was to have gone back as far as 1945.
Unanswered Questions
The German Bishops' Conference reached the agreement with the KFN on June 20, 2011. Under the supervision of a team of KFN researchers, church officials were to examine the files for indications of sexual assault. Retired prosecutors and judges would carry out much of the work to evaluate files that were found to be suspicious.
The German Bishops' Conference hoped the examination would answer three questions: Under what circumstances was the abuse allowed to happen? How has the Church dealt with these actions? And what can be done to prevent future acts? The research project was scheduled to last three years and was also meant to examine how offender profiles have changed in recent years.

The project was of incalculable importance to the Catholic Church, because the loss of confidence after the abuse scandal was enormous. The cancellation of the inquiry throws into high relief Bishop Ackermann's statement from 2011: "We also want the truth, which may still lie hidden in decades-old files, to be uncovered."Early on there was criticism of the project, though. The conservative Network of Catholic Priests pointed out that "even according to normal labor law, third parties are not entitled to claim personnel files."
The model for the study was a survey in Munich, where an attorney went through personnel files -- and identified nine more cases of abuse than had previously been discovered by the dioceses.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-catholic-church-cancels-sex-abuse-scandal-inquiry-a-876612.html

Quote:

Child abuse cops seize VIP list: Politicians, MI5 agent, Royal aide and pop stars all named

19 Jan 2013 22:00 First arrests expected soon following dawn raid in connection with suburban guest house that operated as gay brothel


A list of names seized by police probing allegations of child abuse includes ministers, members of the royal household and a world-famous pop star, the Sunday People can reveal.


All were recorded as visitors to a suburban guest house that operated as a gay brothel.


Now some could be suspects in an investigation into a network of powerful people who were secret paedophiles for years.


Late last week police ramped up the inquiry and arrests are believed to be imminent.


Nine officers raided the North London home of former child protection worker Mary Moss after she initially declined to co-operate with the investigation.


Documents and a laptop were seized. Ms Moss later handed over a further 19 files she had hidden in a neighbour's shed.


The papers include a list of men who went to sex parties in the 80s at the Elm Guest House, Barnes, South West London.


Among the names are two former Conservative Cabinet ministers and four other senior Tories.


There is also a Labour MP, a prominent Irish republican and a leading National Front member.


Others on the handwritten note are two members of the royal household one a former Buckingham Palace employee plus the owner of a multinational company and two pop stars.


One of those is a best-selling musician, but like some others on the list he is not suspected of being involved in the child abuse.


The list was taken at meetings in 1988 between the guest house's manager Carole Kasir and child protection officials.


Other documents seized are believed to identify 16 boys who were allegedly trafficked to the guest house from local care homes. Police have asked Richmond Council for a full list of children in care at the time.


Officers will also be examining copies of cash receipts and *the guest house's visitor records.


Operation Fernbridge is investigating claims that boys who were in council care were brought to the Elm to be sexually abused by bigwigs and VIPs.


It was launched after Labour MP Tom Watson claimed a paedophile ring used top-level connections to dodge justice.


As well as Richmond, social services records from nearby Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Hounslow will be checked by detectives.


The first people to be arrested are not expected to be famous.


But sources close to the investigation are increasingly confident some big names will be caught in the police net.


Renowned figures linked to the scandal so far include the former Liberal MP Cyril Smith and the one-time Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt, who was disgraced as a traitor and spy.


The Sunday People was the first to expose the "paedo palace" last month. Its owner Kasir was 47 when she died of a suspected overdose in 1990.


At her inquest, child protection workers told the coroner of her meetings with them two years earlier.


She reported that boys from nearby Grafton Close council home were *brought to her premises and abused.


The claim was never fully investigated by police. Kasir was at the Elm when cops raided a party there in 1982.


Twelve boys then told police they had been abused by men in the house but complaints were not pursued.


The only prosecution in the wake of the raid resulted in Kasir being convicted of keeping a brothel.


Campaigners believe she did not know of the child abuse until shortly before she reported it in 1988.


It appears a 2003 probe into activities at the Elm also fizzled out. Now Operation Fernbridge may be on the verge of bringing offenders to justice.
It was triggered by a speech Tom Watson made in the House of Commons.


He told MPs there was "clear intelligence" of an abuse network of powerful men with influence at the highest level in Parliament and even in Downing Street.

A lot of it was gathered in the 1992 investigation into paedophile Peter Righton.


The Met launched Operation Fairbank with a staff of five collecting intelligence on long-standing allegations.


After interviewing adult witnesses they started Operation Fernbridge to look solely at the Elm.


Ms Moss said of last week's police raid: "They were friendly enough but I thought it was heavy handed and a complete violation of my *privacy."


The Met said on Friday: "The investigation will be led by the Child Abuse Investigation Command.


"The allegations under Operation Fernbridge were initially assessed under Operation Fairbank, which was from information passed to police by Mr Tom Watson."
The MP said: "I believe a great injustice was done in the 1980s.


"To stop something like this happening again I am asking victims to summon the courage to come forward now.


"Whatever has happened in the past your voices will be heard now.


"You can contact the police. Or if you feel more comfortable you can contact me directly."