13-04-2014, 11:24 AM
David Guyatt Wrote:Customs officer seized child sex tape that shows a British Conservative cabinet minister watching it, circa 1982. The sex tape was later turned over to MI5 (no need to wonder why, I suppose).
The customs officer claims to have been - and is being - gagged by his bosses under the Official Secrets Act about speaking about this, even till the day he dies.
The full story HERE.
Lib Dems disown 'repugnant' Cyril Smith but stand accused of cover-up
New book claims that senior party members conspired to protect late MP from prosecution for child sex offences
Toby Helm, political editor
The Observer, Saturday 12 April 2014 23.59 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014...x-offences
Quote:The Liberal Democrats have disowned their former icon, Sir Cyril Smith, amid evidence of appalling and repeated sexual abuse of children, as a new controversy raged over allegations that police, spies and politicians connived in an establishment cover-up of his activities.
The party denounced Smith as "repugnant" after a book by the most recent incumbent as MP in Smith's Rochdale seat, Labour's Simon Danczuk, detailed repeated crimes by the late Liberal politician and drew similarities with serial sex offender Jimmy Savile.
In a statement the party said: "Cyril Smith's acts were vile and repugnant and we have nothing but sympathy for those whose lives he ruined. His actions were not known to, or condoned by the Liberal Party or the Liberal Democrats." Party sources said there were no plans to launch further investigations.
On Saturday Danczuk contested the party's assertion that it had been entirely ignorant. He told the Observer: "It is a nonsense for the Liberals to claim they knew nothing. Senior Liberal MPs like [former member] Michael Meadowcroft have already admitted they knew of the rumours and didn't do much to investigate them.
"I expect more evidence of what the Liberals knew about Cyril will emerge soon, but the most important thing is to get rid of this culture of denial and cover-up in politics. Child abuse cannot and will not be brushed under the carpet. We need a zero tolerance of this kind of activity."
The latest claims about Smith, who died aged 82 in 2010, came as a row over the alleged inappropriate behaviour towards women of Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard threatened to erupt again, with his supporters preparing to lodge new arguments that he be cleared and allowed back into the party.
Danczuk's book, Smile for the Camera: the Double Life of Cyril Smith, co-written with his parliamentary aide Matthew Baker, says police forces repeatedly investigated sex abuse allegations against the 28-stone former MP but that attempts to prosecute him were consistently blocked.
It adds that officers were told they would be sacked and were gagged by the Official Secrets Act. The cover-up came from the "very top of the establishment", Danczuk says. One possible motivation for the alleged cover-up is that Smith was considered to be such an electoral asset to the Liberals that senior figures in the party were keen to protect him.
"At first, I respected him for his homespun politics, his spit-and-sawdust grit and his passion," said Danczuk. "But in time, the scales fell from my eyes and I was confronted with absolute horror. Once you looked beyond the jolly clown playing for the camera, there was a sickening, dark heart.
"I saw it in police files that had been hidden for years and I heard it in the desperate voices of grown men Cyril had abused as boys. As soon as the first victim approached me, there was no turning back. Every email, every phone call, every meeting uncovered more about his double life.
"And the more I found out, the more I came to realise that this wasn't just about abuse; it was about power, and a cover-up that reached from Rochdale all the way to the very top of the establishment.
"Smith posed as a tireless worker for children at one point he was governor of 29 local schools and set up a youth charity, Rochdale Childer using it all as a cover to prowl from classroom to classroom and youth club to youth club."
On Saturday John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, said he suspected the establishment was still inclined to protect people in high places, even in this kind of case. "Awful abuses have happened in the past and our concern and sympathy has to be with those who have survived such abuse.
"The historic cover-up of such abuse should not be tolerated, but I am concerned that our system is still prone to such cover-ups."
John Pugh, the Lib Dem MP for Southport, agreed: "I am as shocked as the next person by these revelations. I can confirm that they were not widely known until recently."
Last week the former deputy speaker of the House of Commons, Nigel Evans, was cleared of allegations of rape and sexual assault of young men. Now, in another twist that threatens further turmoil among Lib Dems, the Observer understands that friends of Lord Rennard, the former chief executive who has been suspended by the party following accusations of inappropriate behaviour towards female party members, intend to use the Evans case in their campaign to clear Rennard. They argue that whereas Evans admitted in court to making drunken advances to young men, and has now been welcomed back by the Tories, nothing has been proved against the Lib Dem peer, yet he still faces possible expulsion if he fails to apologise.
"You can be sure that this point will be made in the mediation process now underway," said one source close to Rennard. "It is a clear case of double standards."
Smith was protected by MI5 to enable the Liberals to challenge Labour's dominance of politics in the north-west of England. It was a dominance to be lamented, for sure, but broken by these means?
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Joseph Fouche
Joseph Fouche