The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[Magda Hassan]

Government IT expert is caught with child porn stash... but why did Downing Street keep it secret for six months?

• Sebastian Crump faces jail after being caught with nearly 400 child porn images
  
• Former Cabinet Office digital expert amassed images while working as digital communications manager advising Government on its own website
  
• Police found images being streamed from his home computer IP address last year
  
• But he received promotion at Cabinet Office while he was being investigated
  

By Rebecca Camber, Crime Reporter
Published: 09:35 AEST, 2 August 2014 | Updated: 10:24 AEST, 2 August 2014

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Facing a jail sentence: Sebastian Crump yesterday

A former Cabinet Office digital expert is facing jail after being caught with a huge stash of nearly 400 child porn images.
Sebastian Crump amassed depraved images of child abuse while working as digital communications manager advising the Government on its own website.
Now questions are being asked about why it took six months to emerge that a government official had been arrested over child pornography allegations.
Police discovered indecent images were being streamed from Mr Crump's home computer IP address in April last year.
But incredibly last November while he was still being investigated he received a promotion at the Cabinet Office, where he had previously worked in internal communications.
When Crump, 39, was arrested in January this year Scotland Yard did not publicise the arrest. He was only named when he was charged last month, but even then the Metropolitan Police did not reveal his role at the Cabinet Office.
Details can only now be revealed after he pleaded guilty to four charges of making and distributing indecent images of children.
Yesterday Crump who has spent a decade working in technology and communications for Government offices, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Central Office of Information insisted: I'm not a paedophile.'
The case has reignited a row over secret arrests by police involving government officials accused of child porn offences.
Lib Dem MP John Hemming said: When they sat on the case for such a long time and then hid the fact that he is a senior civil servant, it causes great concern.

It does raise serious questions and alarm bells are ringing loudly.' The Cabinet Secretary has already been asked to investigate the handling of a separate arrest of one of David Cameron's closest aides.
Patrick Rock, deputy director of the No 10 policy unit, was arrested on suspicion of hoarding images of naked children in February.
The National Crime Agency refused to confirm or deny Mr Rock had been held or the existence of any inquiry, which was finally revealed by this newspaper.
Mr Rock was brought in to Downing Street as deputy head of policy in 2011, and was involved in drawing up Government policy on tackling online child abuse images.
Although Sebastian Crump's work did not involve any child protection issues, the Mail can reveal he landed a government job after working as a children's charity website manager.

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Civil servant: Crump worked as a Whitehall communications manager

The IT expert worked for Action for Children, which helps support vulnerable and neglected children, between 1998 and 1999.
Last year while he was under investigation, he shared a picture on his Facebook page urging 11-year-old children to be safe on the internet.
City of Westminster Magistrates Court heard that Crump hoarded nearly 400 indecent images of children, 82 of which were classed as the most extreme.
At his £800,000 terraced home in Wandsworth, South London, police found 375 images and video files involving child and animal abuse.
The court heard that Crump's marriage had collapsed following his arrest. He pleaded guilty on Thursday to three counts of making an indecent image of a child and one count of distributing an indecent photograph of a child.
But yesterday Crump insisted he was not a paedophile.
Dressed in purple trousers, with dark glasses and a straw cowboy hat covering his frizzy ginger hair, the keen musician, who is part of the British Humanists Association Choir, emerged from his home in Southfields, South London.
He insisted I'm not a paedophile', before sprinting off.
Crump is on bail ahead of sentencing at Southwark Crown Court on August 28. A Cabinet Office spokesman said Crump was suspended in January and quit in March.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...onths.html

[Magda Hassan]

The Kincora scandal: 'MI5 tried to blackmail Belfast homosexual,' says whistleblower

Victim and ex-intelligence agent join call for beefed-up investigation into notorious care home

James Hanning


Sunday 03 August 2014



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In the glut of allegations of sexual abuse, one care home stands out. At Kincora, a boys' home in Belfast, three men routinely abused teenage boys in their care for more than a decade. In this case, the abuse is undoubted, as a court confirmed when, in December 1981, William McGrath, the "house father", Raymond Semple, an assistant warden, and Joseph Mains, warden, were sentenced to four, five and six years respectively for the sexual abuse of children. What makes Kincora remarkable is the lingering suggestion that British security services connived in the continued abuse of children in order to secure intelligence.

More than three decades on, Kincora still stinks. Last week, it was revealed that in the 1980s three former residents had received secret payments with gagging clauses in compensation from the local authority. Two books have been written, one even alleging that a murder was committed to discredit army information officer Colin Wallace, who had sought to expose publicly what was happening. A possibly game-changing testimony emerged on Friday when former intelligence officer Captain Brian Gemmell went public in saying that, in 1975, his boss in MI5 made him cut short attempts to investigate what was going on at the home.
Last night, Capt Gemmell told The Independent on Sunday he had had personal experience of the security services discussing using somebody's homosexuality to apply pressure on them. "Some months before I was told to leave the Kincora case alone, on the grounds that the service didn't involve itself with homosexual matters, I had a meeting at a hotel on Buckingham Palace Road. There were three members of MI5 talking about a known Protestant terrorist, John McKeague of the Red Hand Commandos, being homosexual, and they asked me if I thought he could be blackmailed over his homosexuality, because they had film of him."
William McGrath Last week, Clint Massey, a former resident, gave his first newspaper interview, to The IoS. Born in 1957, he had been in another Northern Ireland care home before, in 1973, he was sent to Kincora, a half-way house for boys in care at the start of their working life. He shared a room with two other boys, who used to leave early in the morning to go to work, leaving him alone in the room. "On my first full day there," he recalled, "McGrath came in and asked me what I wanted for breakfast, but, as he did so, he put his hand inside my pyjamas." Mr Massey says he was abused several times a week, and often raped.
"At the time, nobody talked about sex. You just didn't. It was almost as if people had a shower with their clothes on. Young men didn't share secrets like that, so I knew there was nothing I could do. These people were highly respected members of the community." When he gave evidence (unidentifiably) against McGrath in court, he said he had no idea which other boys would also be doing so. "It was a taboo subject," he said.
Although he speaks matter-of-factly, the abuse he suffered has clearly been a life sentence. As recently as a fortnight ago, he self-harmed, at the age of 57, slashing his wrists in frustration after it appeared that the investigation into historic abuse was to be ditched because of a lack of funds. He goes on occasional day-long drinking binges, has taken drug overdoses and laid down in front of a train, only to find it diverted at the last minute. "I look at couples and people with children and I think that should have been me," he said, but relationships have never worked out. "I don't trust anybody, although slowly I'm learning to trust now. I remember what I used to be like before I went there. I should be a grandfather by now, but I never will be. So instead I try to be one of the world's best uncles."
Former intelligence officer Brian Gemmell has said that MI5 forced him to cut short his investigation into the home (pictured here) in 1975 Mr Massey's specific claims are limited to his own experience. He makes no accusation against anyone but William McGrath, a Protestant (religious and political) fanatic, who he says would be inclined to place a gospel tract in the hand of those he met. (He puts the combination of extreme religiosity and casual sexual abuse down to "massive guilt".) He declines to join in the excitable speculation as to who specifically might have visited, but does recall a lot of "suits" arriving, often in the evening. "In those days, there were loads of people over from London. I have always assumed they were senior figures from Whitehall. I certainly heard English accents."
Whoever they were, the suggestion that Kincora was being closely monitored by the security services, and its habitués leaned upon, is, to him, a potent and credible one. "I strongly believe it was an entrapment operation for them. They hoped to get a handle on the people who visited, to get them to work for them and inform for them that's the way the dirty tricks department works."
But McGrath and the others went to prison. If it were a conspiracy, that was hardly a successful outcome. "I believe they were part of it. They were the facilitators, and were protected to some degree." He believes, as many do, that a deal was done, their plea quickly changed and the resulting sentence a lenient one.
Will the current investigation into Kincora get to the truth? There hasn't been much official gusto about previous efforts. Brian Gemmell, who had sources inside Tara, the apocalyptic anti-Catholic group founded by McGrath in 1966, who told him about the abuse, has never even been interviewed by any of the previous official inquiries.
Sir Anthony Hart, the retired judge leading the current investigation into institutional child abuse in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1995, has expressed concern that he lacks the authority to get to the truth. David Cameron has been asked by Northern Ireland's First Minister, Peter Robinson, to bring Kincora under the broader, UK-wide inquiry, which could call MI5 to account for itself.
"It has to be done from Westminster," said Mr Massey. "If it stays local, a lot of people will be happy. There are too many people in Northern Ireland, predominantly Protestant, who don't want it looked at.
"But I hope there are people shaking in their boots. They may be old men now but I don't care. There's no statute of limitations on this. I think there are lots of people shaking. I hope they're expecting a knock on the door, but an investigation can't dig deep here [in Northern Ireland]. At Westminster, they have the authority, and they can do it if they want to."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cri...44610.html

[Magda Hassan]

Police told not to arrest MP over abuse claims'

Lord Janner is said by friends to be in very poor health
Sean Dempsey/PA

• Lord Janner is said by friends to be in very poor health Sean Dempsey/PA
  

Sean O'Neill Crime Editor
Published at 12:01AM, August 8 2014


Detectives investigating a Labour MP over child abuse allegations more than 20 years ago were stopped from arresting him, The Times has learnt.
Greville Janner, now Lord Janner of Braunstone, was interviewed by appointment in the company of his solicitor as part of a major investigation into the abuse of boys at homes in Leicestershire in 1991.
A number of sources with knowledge of the case have confirmed that officers had wanted to arrest the Leicester West MP, which would have given them the power to search his home and offices. Legal advice was sought on taking the rare step



http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article4170095.ece

[Magda Hassan]

Child abuse scandal raises disturbing questions about UK establishment

Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist.

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Published time: August 15, 2014 14:14
AFP Photo / Carl Court



Tags
Children, Politics, Scandal, UK, Violence

Britain has been known for many things, from being the bullies of the world, to its language, pop music, film and drama.
But as Churchill's "finest hour" in World War II fades to a distant memory and proud post-war industries have been dismantled, one scandal has come to sum up everything that has turned our so-called leaders sour.
The UK's child abuse scandal, rooted in the media, Westminster and the Royal Family and personified by serial abuser and BBC personality Jimmy Savile, has been shocking enough. But far more insulting to the victims, the nation and the world is the Cameron government's attempt, in early July, to institute two separate child abuse inquiries led by establishment figures who, due to family and work connections, immediately faced suspicions of possible conflicts of interest.

File photograph shows disgraced British entertainer Jimmy Savile (Reuters / Paul Hackett)

This is a side to human nature which it suits most of us to think does not even exist. Those that sexually abuse defenseless children hope that few police, journalists or, ultimately, readers and viewers, have the stomach to scrutinize the depths of their depravity. Abusers also know the last thing most victims want to do is to relive their abuse by giving evidence in a courtroom. They appear to be protected by the intelligence services, who keep an eye on anyone who might expose them, and have the resources to engage the most expensive lawyers and spike any rumors.
Much of the hard graft of unearthing recent evidence of historical abuse has been down to a little known "old school" London news agency. Exaro News has shown the rest of the London media up with their simple mission to expose wrongdoing. Their fearless pursuit of these criminals, particularly at the notorious Elm Guest House in southwest London, carries on despite a general lethargy by the police.
However well Exaro can stand these stories up, nervous national newspaper editors seem too often reluctant to print what a self-respecting press should, to launch the odd torpedo at the establishment battleship.
The response of the London press to the latest Westminster abuse revelations has for the most part been to look the other way. As they did the first time round, when another tiny outfit, Simon Regan's Scallywag magazine, was sunk without a trace for daring to dish the dirt in the 1980s and 1990s. Crucial unasked questions now are whether either of these latest enquiries announced by Home Secretary Theresa May into state-sanctioned child abuse are likely to attract the trust and cooperation of even a single victim.

2 child abuse inquiries, both set up to fail

An extraordinary admission was made by the Home Office's top civil servant, Mark Sedwill, on Saturday July 5, that his department had "lost" 114 files relating to Westminster child abuse investigations handed to them in the 1980s by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens. The files allegedly included allegations against more than 10 current and retired politicians.
The next day former Tory party chairman, cabinet minister and survivor of the 1984 IRA Brighton bomb, Sir Norman Tebbit, confessed on TV that there "may well have been" a political cover-up of child sex abuse in the 1980s. He explained: "People thought that the establishment was to be protected." On Monday July 7, Home Secretary Theresa May announced two national inquiries into allegations of child abuse linked to Westminster.
The first inquiry was, conveniently, slated to deliver its report after the May 2015 general election but this one lasted less than a week before it was revealed to the public, though May already knew that the enquiry's head, Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss's late brother Sir Michael Havers was Attorney General when Geoffrey Dickens' allegations were made, and covered up. Even without that, her previous selection as inquest coroner in the death of Princess Diana, a role she also relinquished, should have made her connections with the establishment so tight as to have taken her out of the running.
Tapped by May to head the second inquiry into the police losing the evidence, due to report mid-September, is Sir Peter Wanless. He is the chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), a national charity for which Britain's most prolific pedophile, Jimmy Savile, was one of the most high-profile "fundraisers."
Post-Savile, no organization is beyond reproach. It has become clear that organizations like the NSPCC have actually been the perfect "hiding place" for nests of abusers. NSPCC also runs the national Childline support phone service for the abused which some believe may also have been compromised.

British Home Secretary Theresa May (AFP Photo / Carl Court)

Before his latest role at the NSPCC, Wanless was a "highly respected" civil servant, permanent secretary to cabinet minister Michael Portillo during the 1990s when Portillo was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and crossing departments with him when Portillo became Secretary of State for Employment. Again an establishment civil servant investigating his own. A recipe for a cover-up.
More serious, though, are the persistent rumors about Wanless' close friend and confidant Michael Portillo, now like Savile, a BBC TV personality, being allegedly involved in a Westminster sex scandal himself. Rumors circulated in 1994 that Portillo and another Tory Secretary of State, Peter Lilley, had got sexually involved with Britain's first openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu.
Unfortunately for the two secretaries of state though, a disgruntled Fashanu supposedly decided to "blow the lid," threatening to "bring down the government" by leaking evidence of these affairs to the Daily Express. When MI5 allegedly threatened Fashanu, Tory MP Stephen Milligan, a part-time journalist, is said to have weighed in on the footballer's behalf on a mission to get to the bottom of it all and "clean up the Tory party."
Within days, however, Milligan was found hanged in his London flat, naked, with an orange in his mouth in an apparent suicide, made to look like he was a sexual deviant. Fashanu was swiftly sacked by his football club and got on the first flight to the United States. Several years later Fashanu was also tragically found hanged, this time in a garage in Shoreditch, London.
Whether or not there is any truth to the original allegations, the mysterious deaths surrounding them should have prohibited any senior civil servant associated with Portillo from taking up a job heading the NSPCC, and totally exclude Wanless from heading any inquiry into the Whitehall child abuse scandal. Would anybody who has been abused, or with evidence of abuse, and is capable of doing an internet search, be likely to confide in him?
Journalist Phil Frampton has pointed out these and other flaws in May's fanfare announcement of 7th July, explaining in an open letter signed by 28 child protection professionals to May: "The chair of this inquiry will need fearlessness, to be prepared to challenge the authorities and to ask and get answers to very difficult questions. This is a role that can only be undertaken by someone clearly seen as outside the establishment."
Rather than simply "cursing the darkness" of the Home Secretary's perverse appointments, Frampton has suggested Michael Mansfield QC to replace Butler-Sloss on the leaderless first inquiry. He, along with the "revised Terms of Reference" Frampton suggests, "is the only way to secure justice for survivors and protection of our children." Mansfield, who represented the Al Fayed family at Princess Diana's inquest, is both sufficiently qualified and, crucially, far more likely to be trusted by the abused.

Blackmailing politicians in Brussels and London

Perhaps child abuse is sanctioned at high levels simply because the ease of blackmailing those involved suits the security services, bankers, royalty and others behind the scenes that want weak, pliable politicians? If that's so, it's no surprise then that Brussels, one of modern Europe's other main centers of power, has also been the scene of the most horrendous child abuse.
Back in 1996, the arrest of Marc Dutroux in Belgium eventually led, eight years later, to his 2004 trial for the murder of four young girls he had imprisoned as sex slaves for the rich and powerful. The Dutroux scandal has many of the characteristics of the Westminster scandal: A judicial cover-up, initial reluctance of the press to take it seriously, persistent police inaction and diligent police officers being inexplicably removed from the case.
Only Belgium's biggest-ever anti-paedophile public protest of 300,000 people in October 1996 appeared to concentrate the minds of the Belgian establishment to actually do something. Exactly the same perversions of the course of justice have been seen in several child abuse inquiries in the UK, including the Jersey inquiry where campaigning Senator Stuart Syvret and police chief Lenny Harper were both removed from their posts.

Senator Stuart Syvret (AFP Photo / Leon Neal)

In London, though, the present child abuse lies are just part of the furniture. Scattered in disarray around Downing Street you'll find Afghanistan lies, Iraq lies and Libya lies, not to mention the daily racist lies of Islamaphobia making a bid to rival Hitler's hatred of the Jews.
As the late Nicol Williamson, playing King Arthur's magician Merlin in John Bormann's 1981 feature film "Excalibur" put it, "It must be truth. When a man lies, he murders a part of the world." These constant lies also have the effect of smashing national morale and disengaging most of the population from the entire political process. Lowering voter expectations and making the population much easier to manage in a "soft fascist" kind of way.
May's Britain is recognized up and down the nation and around the world as introducing some of the most brutal policies imaginable, punishing disabled people for the crimes of the bankers, sending innocent British Muslims off to rot in US jails. Coalition Britain is exhibiting all the worst signs of misrule, of a dying empire in denial.
One figure you won't find stalking the Downing Street corridors any more though is Prime Minister David Cameron's deputy head of policy, Patrick Rock. Despite having worked as a top Brussels civil servant for many years and being put in charge of the coalition government's internet child porn filter, he was arrested earlier this year and charged with three offences of making child abuse images and one of possession of 62 child pornography pictures.
Downing Street kept Rock's initial arrest secret, though, for several weeks, while a political counter-story was prepared about the opposition Labour party deputy leader Harriet Harman historically belonging to the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE). This effectively "softened the political blow" of the far more serious Downing Street child porn arrest story.
More recently it transpired that PIE was given offices under the Tories actually within the Home Office itself and that PIE also got substantial funding from the Metropolitan police Special Branch (MI5). This obsession, not with striking the root of the Whitehall abusers, but with spinning the stories as far away from the Tory party as possible, characterizes the entire Westminster abuse scandal since the 1980s.
As West German rock band Propaganda thundered out in the chorus of their 1985 hit, "Duel": "The first cut won't hurt at all. The second only makes you wonder. The third will have you on your knees. You start bleeding, I start screaming." Lead singer Claudia Brücken heightens the slow pulverizing effect of government lies and media collusion made infamous by Hitler's propaganda minister Josef Goebbels.

Enough of the dead, time to jail the living pedophiles

Pedophiles Jimmy Savile and his friend Liberal MP Cyril Smith have both been exposed as such after their deaths, putting them beyond justice. Several other celebrities have been arrested and charged with relatively minor offences, creating the illusion of "something being done," while the living establishment pedophiles still go free.
Britain's libel laws make it difficult for establishment paedophiles to be accused as such, while they're still alive, unless the police act. In Savile's case he worked hand in glove with Leeds police. Left bleeding and screaming on the paedophile scandal's Whitehall marble floors lie the unavenged abused, battered and broken. Offered nothing by May so far this year, but another poison spoonful of saccharine.
The future for the campaign against this evil at the heart of state criminality in Britain is by no means certain. Will the London press be prepared to at last name the living establishment abusers? Will the police be prepared to pursue the evidence wherever it leads? Or will these blackmailed zombies continue oozing slime and further lies, leaving yet more blood and screams in their wake?
The power of truth in time though is relentless. When the police once more lose the files they might pop up, miraculously, on the internet for all the world to see. All the world must act on them, too, because the ultimate test in putting these vile state sanctioned abusers behind bars will be of a few good men and women. The police, politicians and journalists who take the bull by the horns and, despite the threats from unprincipled lawyers, nail and jail these vile creatures. Get them off the streets of London, once and for all.
Then our leaders, free from the foul air of paedophilia and blackmail, can resume the task of serving us, doing credit to the nation. Pick themselves up by their bootstraps and Britain can begin again a more honest and more confident stride into the 21st century.
http://rt.com/op-edge/180616-british-hom...ild-abuse/

[David Guyatt]

1,400 kids! All routinely ignored by the police when they reported what had happened to them. This is police and political corruption on an almost industrial scale ---- and how do the authorities respond? They insist the Police and Crime Commisioner to resign his post? Any discussion of prosecutions, imminent arrest of culpable policemen, politicians or those in social services? Not a chance. One man resigning is all that matters. Let's call it the "media deflection of the century"...

Rotherham child sex scandal: watchdog says police tried to 'disprove' victims

Damning report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary adds to pressure on police and crime commissioner Shaun Wright

Police station in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Shaun Wright's police force was criticised by official police watchdogs for showing a "disregard for victims". Photo: Getty









By David Barrett, Martin Evans and Gordon Rayner

7:25PM BST 28 Aug 2014



Shaun Wright, South Yorkshire's police and crime commissioner, is under intensifying pressure to resign as a new report disclosed his force tried to "disprove" allegations made by sex crime victims.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, called on Mr Wright to resign over the Rotherham child abuse scandal, as the commissioner's own deputy quit her job saying he should go too.

Mr Wright's police force was criticised by official police watchdogs for showing a "disregard for victims".

Experts from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) said the failings may have left some of the most vulnerable people in society, including children, at risk.

Mr Wright has refused to step down from the £85,000-a-year position despite calls from Mr Cameron; Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister; and other senior figures.

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No powers exist to have Mr Wright removed, highlighting an apparent oversight by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, in the legislation which created police and crime commissioners (PCCs) three years ago.
Mr Wright resigned from the Labour party when it threatened to suspend him over the scandal, which exposed how 1,400 young people suffered widescale sexual exploitation including gang rapes, grooming and trafficking.
Mr Wright's deputy, Tracey Cheetham, announced her resignation, saying she believed "it would have been the right thing" for him to go as well.
She said stepping down was clearly the correct option due to the "overwhelming opinion of the public" to whom the the commissioner was "ultimately accountable".
It came as a former Rotherham social worker accused the local authority of deliberately under-reporting the number of children at risk.
"Children at risk were pure statistics and targets. They were not children, they were numbers," the woman, known only as 'Sarah', told the BBC.
"It was all about how to manipulate the figures."
The damning 24-page HMIC report found the force operated what it described as an "investigate to report" policy in rape, sex abuse and other serious crimes, which led to offences not bring recorded immediately.
"This was particularly evidence in the public protection unit, with a great deal of time spent trying to disprove the word of the victim from the outset, rather than record the crime," it said.
"This culture of dealing with reports of crime shows a disregard for victims and is unacceptable.
"It hides the true extent of the picture of crime from the force and is particularly concerning when the offences investigated by this unit are often of the most serious nature and are often the most vulnerable."
It added there was an "inherent risk that a significant number of reported offences of a serious nature have not been recorded" leaving victims "unprotected or at risk of further offending".
One unnamed officer told HMIC inspectors that she had been put under pressure some years earlier not to record rapes immediately, as well as other crimes.
[SUB]Shaun Wright[/SUB]
The HMIC said South Yorkshire should take "unequivocal steps" to end the practice.
It also said the force must launch an independent review of historical records - stretching back at least two years - to ensure "the offence is fully investigated in an effort to bring the offender to justice".
A previous HMIC report into the handling of child sexual exploitation criticised South Yorkshire, claiming that many senior and middle managers prioritised burglary and car crime over sex abuse.
Under the terms of Mrs May's Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 PCCs cannot be sacked, even by the Home Secretary.
They can only be suspended by the local police board if the PCC is charged with an offence that carries a maximum sentence exceeding two years in prison.
There is no power to force an early election, and the next PCC ballot is in November 2016.
Earlier this week an inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay said at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham from 1997-2013, mainly by gangs of men of Pakistani heritage, due to a "collective failure" by the authorities.

[Peter Presland]

1,400 kids! All routinely ignored by the police when they reported what had happened to them. This is police and political corruption on an almost industrial scale ---- and how do the authorities respond? They insist the Police and Crime Commisioner to resign his post? Any discussion of prosecutions, imminent arrest of culpable policemen, politicians or those in social services? Not a chance. One man resigning is all that matters. Let's call it the "media deflection of the century"...

Makes those "British values" that Cameron and his ilk keep harping on about look pretty damn sick doesn't it?

And still he, and the more sanctimonious of our politicos, insist on lecturing other countries about 'human-rights'. Mostly in the same breath as decrying the alleged insidious effects of EU legislation that obliges them not to be applied selectively.

Oh wad some power the giftie giy us eh?

Pure theater if it weren't so desperately tragic.

[David Guyatt]

Uh oh. "Community relations" or political expediency? Rotherham is/was a safe Labour seat and a safe Labour council, that needed protecting, it seems. Protecting 1,400 children didn't enter the equation apparently.

Rotherham child sex abuse scandal: Labour Home Office to be probed over what Tony Blair's government knew - and when



Local MP says former government forced him into 'grovelling' apology for voicing concerns on Muslims

JANE MERRICK , TOM HARPER

Sunday 31 August 2014

The extent to which the former Labour government tried to play down criminality and extremism among British Muslims for fear of undermining community cohesion is revealed today, as the fallout from the Rotherham sex abuse scandal continued.

The publication last week of Professor Alexis Jay's report into grooming by Muslim gangs in Rotherham has triggered widespread criticism over how much the council and the police knew about the abuse more than a decade ago.
The Independent on Sunday can reveal that a House of Commons committee is to investigate what Tony Blair's Home Office knew about the Rotherham scandal as far back as 2001 after more evidence emerged about his government's efforts to pacify Muslim communities.
Meanwhile, a former minister claimed he was threatened with the sack by his then boss, the foreign secretary Jack Straw, for calling on Muslims in the UK to choose between the "British way or the way of the terrorists" after a 24-year-old from South Yorkshire tried to bomb Israelis in a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003. Former Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane said he was forced to agree to a "grovelling climb-down" over his remarks because he was warned it risked upsetting community relations.
In a bizarre twist, it also emerged that Mr MacShane was disciplined for his remarks following protests led by one of the Muslim politicians at the centre of the child-grooming scandal in Rotherham.
Sources revealed that the July 2001 race riots in Bradford, Burnley and Rochdale marked a "turning point" in the way that Mr Blair's government responded to Britain's Muslim communities, and that there were efforts more in "good faith" than in an attempted cover-up to play down examples of disunity.
David Blunkett, who was Home Secretary from 2001 to 2004, seemed to support this claim when he said yesterday that the 2001 riots "and the knock-on [effect] elsewhere had an impact on the way in which people saw these issues in race terms".
At the same time, it is now known that a Home Office researcher was conducting an investigation into trafficking and underage prostitution by mainly Muslim gangs in Rotherham, but it was never published, and the files were seized in 2002 by the Labour-run council when she tried to blow the whistle. The researcher faced intimidation by the police and council officials, the report by Professor Jay revealed last week.
Last night, Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said he would ask the Home Secretary, Theresa May, how much the Home Office knew at the time.
"We would be very keen to get from the Home Office a full and frank response to the research that was commissioned in 2002. This is an essential part of the jigsaw to determine why the council failed to act, and whether the Home Office could have done more to ensure that it did act," he said. "We want to see every piece of information the Home Office holds on this, and I will be writing to the Home Secretary to ask that the databases are searched to see what files it holds on this horrific behaviour in Rotherham."
Local council officials are to be called before the Commons Home Affairs committee about the suppressed 2002 report and the wider issue of the abuse of girls.
While there is no suggestion that Mr Blunkett or his close advisers knew about the 2002 Rotherham report, sources said the Government was obsessed with keeping the Muslim community onside even if it meant sidestepping serious criminality and extremism.
Mr MacShane, who was MP for Rotherham until last year, said he tried to make a speech in his constituency in 2003 when, as Foreign Office minister, he was horrified that a suicide bomber from Derby had travelled to Israel to try to blow up Jews but ended up killing himself. The speech was also days after the terrorist attack on the British consulate in Istanbul which killed dozens, including a UK diplomat.
Mr MacShane planned to say it was "time for the elected and community leaders of British Muslims to make a choice: the British way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists against which the whole democratic world is uniting". However, there was uproar from sections of the Muslim community led by councillor Jahangir Akhtar in Rotherham, who labelled Mr MacShane's comments "absolutely disgraceful".
Last year, Mr Akhtar resigned as deputy leader of the council after The Times reported that he had been involved in a extraordinary "deal" to recover a missing pregnant 14-year-old who had been with a distant relative of his. A subsequent police investigation cleared Mr Akhtar of wrongdoing. Until recently he was Labour's local campaign manager.
In an article for HuffingtonPost.co.uk earlier this month before the publication of the Jay report Mr MacShane wrote that his comments on Islamic extremism caused a "great kerfuffle" in the Foreign Office.
"Jack Straw spent an inordinate amount of time cossetting his Muslim constituents in Blackburn. He had brought in an official from the Muslim Council of Britain to advise the FCO on outreach to Islamist outfits like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt," he said. "To attack their values was heresy. I was told I was close to being fired as a minister unless I signed some grovelling climb-down, which, as a coward, I did."
Yesterday Mr Blunkett told the Today programme: "There are people who need to be held to account, whether it is in Rotherham or Rochdale or elsewhere, for their sheer neglect, managerial neglect. We need to be absolutely clear about the terms we lay down for local people to deal with all of these local issues, because we cannot do it all from the centre. We couldn't, in the aftermath of the riots in 2001... Incidentally, and I am very careful to say this, I think what happened in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham and the knock-on elsewhere had an impact on the way in which people saw these issues in race terms, and I think that is a great shame."
A spokesman for Mr Blunkett said he had "no knowledge of any Home Office official having any hand" in suppressing concerns about in Rotherham. And he pointed out that Mr Blunkett had worked with the then Labour MP Ann Cryer, who had first raised issues of sex trafficking among Muslim gangs a decade ago, to tighten the Sex Offences Act.
The spokesman added: "In 2003, against considerable opposition, Mr Blunkett introduced the Sex Offences Act which substantially strengthened the law, and in particular protection for under-16s. The publicity at the time reflected scepticism by opponents in respect of the emphasis that adults would always be culpable for sex with those under the age of 16. This action reflected a genuine desire to send messages to all those responsible at local level, whether in local government or the police service, health, or youth service provision.
"Junior ministers were assiduous in promoting the importance of protection, including a working group on the prevention of grooming."
Mr Straw would not respond to requests for comment.

[David Guyatt]

The independent inquiry report into the Rotherham child sexual exploration case, written by Prof. Alexis Jay, can be download free from HERE.

In an earlier BBC News report I watched Prof Jay said she had written the report with a requirement for legal niceties but it was evident she was appalled at what she had uncovered. She hinted/indicated that all the names mentioned in the report were there for a purpose - although, again for reasons of legality, culpability couldn't be assigned. That was my take from watching her anyway.

[Magda Hassan]

A children's charity has accused the government of "dragging its heels" over its historical child abuse inquiry, saying the Rotherham scandal is "the tip of the iceberg".
Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan urged the government to announce who would lead the inquiry and its remit.
Baroness Butler-Sloss stood down as chair of the inquiry in July.
The Home Office said it was being "thorough" and would announce a new chair "as soon as possible".
'Silenced children' Mr Khan said Professor Alexis Jay's report on abuse in Rotherham, which this week revealed at least 1,400 children had been sexually exploited over a 16-year period, should act as a "wake-up call" to the government.
He said: "The country has waited for two months since Baroness Butler-Sloss stood down as chair of the inquiry.
"Despite claims of 'not hanging around' to name her successor, the government has still to tell us who will lead the inquiry and what its remit will be.
"The government cannot drag its heels any longer. It needs to get this inquiry off the ground so we can start to hear the voices of silenced children."
Lady Butler-Sloss stepped down as head of the inquiry earlier this year

Retired judge Lady Butler-Sloss said she was "not the right person for the job" when she stepped down amid concerns about her family links to the establishment.
Her late brother Sir Michael Havers had been attorney general in the 1980s.
She said that when she had accepted the role she did not "sufficiently consider" whether this link would "cause difficulties".
'Gravitas and experience' A Home Office spokesman said the process of appointing the new chair of the inquiry had to be "thorough".
He said: "We have to get this appointment right and we need someone at its head with gravitas and experience.
"We are working as quickly as we can on this, and we will announce a new chair as soon as possible."
The inquiry was set up to examine how public bodies handled their duty of care to protect children from paedophiles.
It came after Labour MP Simon Danczuk called on Leon Brittan to say what he knew about paedophile allegations passed to him when he was home secretary in the 1980s.

The files were given to Lord Brittan by the late Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, who was a long-standing campaigner against child abuse.
Mrs May has ordered a separate review into the Home Office's own investigation into historical allegations of child abuse and how police and prosecutors handled information given to them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28970699

[David Guyatt]

Since when is multiple rape of an underage 12 year old girl - a wholly illegal act under the law - regarded by the police as "entirely consensual" and therefore not subject to prosecution. Who is this police officer and what is being done to prosecute him for failing to carry out his duties?

Rotherham: 12 more child sex abuse victims come forward

South Yorkshire chief constable confirms more investigations as he is told to answer MPs' questions on scandal

• Alan Travis and Mark Tran
  
• The Guardian, Tuesday 2 September 2014 19.28 BST
  

David Crompton, chief constable of South Yorkshire police, in front of the home affairs select committee. He described the BBC's coverage as 'disproportionate'. Photograph: Pa

Twelve more victims of child sexual abuse in Rotherham have come forward in the past week since the publication of a damning report disclosing the grooming, exploitation and rape of at least 1,400 young people.
South Yorkshire Ch Con David Crompton told MPs the new victims had emerged as he confirmed his force is handling nine more "multiple victim, multiple offender" investigations covering hundreds of victims, including two in Rotherham.
In a preliminary appearance before the Commons home affairs select committee, Crompton said the specialist team dealing with child sex abuse cases had been expanded from three officers in 2010 to eight in 2012 and 62 now.
They had secured a total of 104 convictions since the start of 2013 and a further 40 suspects are on bail.
The chief constable also confirmed that he has commissioned an independent inquiry by an outside police force into the record of the South Yorkshire force in handling allegations of child sexual exploitation over many years.
The investigation will examine the role of the police and council and address any wrongdoings or failings, which will allow "appropriate action to be taken".
He added: "We must give victims the confidence to come forward in the knowledge that all agencies will listen, will act, provide appropriate support, and relentlessly pursue those who offend against our young people." The move failed to impress MPs who asked Crompton why he had not called in the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
They told him he would be recalled to give detailed evidence next week alongside the beleaguered South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, Shaun Wright, who indicated on Tuesday that he will not stand for re-election in 2016.
Crompton promised to answer questions about specific failures detailed in the report, including why South Yorkshire officers arrested an 11-year-old victim instead of her abusers and why an officer described the rape of a 12-year-old girl by several men as "entirely consensual".
Crompton told the committee's chair he had no intention to resign over the scandal. "The report concludes that things have been much better recently and we can continue to improve on that."
Theresa May making a statement on the Rotherham abuse inquiry. Photograph: /BBC ParliamentThe home secretary, Theresa May, met Prof Alexis Jay, the author of the report detailing the scale of the abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, after telling the Commons that the government was considering an inspection of Rotherham council. May told MPs the probe was needed following concerns of "inadequate scrutiny by councillors, institutionalised political correctness and covering up information and the failure to take action against gross misconduct."
May was responding to an urgent Commons question from the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who pressed her to make it mandatory to report concerns about child sex abuse. Labour suspended four councillors on Tuesday who had been in positions of responsiblity on Rotherham council at the time of the abuse.
May confirmed that mandatory reporting was being looked at but warned that it could lead to a sharp rise in unjustified reports and diminish the ability to deal with those which were well founded.
She told the Commons: "Like the rest of this House, I was appalled to read about these victims and the horrific experiences to which they were subjected.
"Many also suffered the injustice of seeing their cries for help ignored and the perpetrators not yet brought to justice. There can be no excuse for that."
May said Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, was minded to order an investigation into Rotherham, and into whether it is complying with its best practice duty.
She said: "I am clear that cultural concerns both the fear of being seen as racist, and the frankly disdainful attitude to some of our most vulnerable children must never stand in the way of child protection. We know that child sexual exploitation happens in all communities. There is no excuse for it in any of them. And there is never any excuse for failing to bring its perpetrators to justice."
Cooper agreed that race, ethnicity or community relations should not be used as an excuse not to investigate and punish sex offenders. May did not name a new chair to the overarching inquiry into the authorities' handling of child sex abuse over several decades.
The inquiry was announced in July, only for its chair, Lady Butler-Sloss, to step down a few days later over a possible conflict of interest.