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Nick Clegg: Police 'best placed' to look into Westminster abuse claims Geoffrey Dickens 'said paedophile dossier was explosive'
(about 3 hours later)
Nick Clegg has said the police are "best placed" to investigate allegations of a paedophile ring at Westminster in the 1970s and 1980s amid calls for a public inquiry. The MP who passed a dossier of paedophile allegations to the Home Office in the 1980s told his family the details were "explosive".
The deputy prime minster said he did want anything to "cut across" investigations already under way. Geoffrey Dickens, who died in 1995, said it would "blow the lid off" the lives of powerful and famous child abusers, his son has told the BBC.
Mr Clegg said he wanted the truth to come out and "justice to be done". Barry Dickens said he would have been "hugely angered" that the allegations had not been properly investigated.
Former Home Secretary Lord Brittan has been under fire over his handling of two dossiers of evidence handed to him. Labour is demanding a fresh inquiry into the missing dossier.
The peer initially said he had asked officials to look into allegations contained in a bundle of documents given to him by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in the mid-1980s, but could not recall any further action being taken. Geoffrey Dickens, a long-standing campaigner against child abuse, passed the dossier of allegations to the then home secretary Leon Brittan, who said he passed it on to his officials and raised concerns about some of the allegations with the director of public prosecutions.
'No surrogate' 'Disappointed and frustrated'
The Home Office later revealed that it carried out an independent review into the case last year, which found Lord Brittan had passed some of the concerns to the public prosecutor and that he had dealt with the allegations appropriately. Barry Dickens told the BBC's Matt Prodger: "I would like Lord Brittan to name the very next person he handed it on to.
But the review also found that the dossiers of evidence appear to have been destroyed by officials, prompting allegations of a cover-up. "And where did it end up? There must have been a person who was the last to handle it.
Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who has investigated claims of abuse by ex-MP Sir Cyril Smith, is calling for a "Hillsborough-style" inquiry to prevent allegations involving politicians being "swept under the carpet". "My father thought that the dossier at the time was the most powerful thing that had ever been produced, with the names that were involved and the power that they had."
He insisted there was "no reason" why the dossiers, which he says could include evidence indentifying child sex abusers, should have been destroyed by the Home Office. He said the MP would have would have been "hugely angered, disappointed and frustrated" that the allegations had not been properly investigated.
Mr Clegg faced claims on his weekly LBC radio phone-in that the government was not taking the missing dossiers seriously enough. The Home Office said that a search for the dossier in 2013 had found a letter from Lord Brittan to Geoffrey Dickens which said that the allegations had been acted on.
"I wasn't in the Home Office in the mid-1980s so I can't tell you exactly what happened then," he said, but stressed that the Home Office had carried out a full independent review of the paperwork. The review concluded that the "credible" elements of the dossier which had "realistic potential" for further investigation were passed to prosecutors and the police while other elements were either "not retained or destroyed".
Mr Clegg, who worked for Leon Brittan in his private office in Brussels in the 1990s, when the Tory politician was a trade commissioner, told ITV's Good Morning Britain a public inquiry into claims of a paedophile ring was "no surrogate" for the police investigations currently under way. "It just seems so suspicious that something so important could just go missing," said Barry Dickens.
Explaining his stance on his LBC show, he said: "The police have got to look into these very, very serious allegations of stomach-churning offences, if they turn out to be true, of people, particularly people in power, in organised fashion, this is what the allegation is, abusing some of the most vulnerable people in society's care." 'Break-ins'
He has called on anyone with information to speak to the police, saying they are in the "best position" to investigate the allegations and he did not want "anything to cut across that or disrupt that". Mr Dickens said he did not know the details of what was in the dossier but "it was talked about in the family, discussions now and then, sort of 'Wait and see what happens this is going to blow everything apart. These people won't know what hit them'."
Downing Street rejected calls to publish in full the 2013 report into the trawl through old Home Office files and paperwork that failed to turn up the Dickens dossiers. Around the time that the dossier was handed in, Mr Dickens said the MP's London flat and his constituency home were both broken into within the same week and ransacked, but nothing was taken.
A summary of the review's conclusions has been published and the spokesman said: "My understanding is that the executive summary reflects very fully the report." "They weren't burglaries because nothing was taken. They were break-ins for a reason. We can only presume they were after something that dad had that they wanted."
Labour has demanded a "proper investigation" into the way the Home Office handled the evidence contained in Mr Dickens' dossier, dubbing the Home Office review "lamentable".
'Best position'
The opposition said the work was carried out by just two officials and took just four weeks.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "This is not good enough. The lack of proper answers from the Home Office are just increasing the confusion and concern rather than getting to the bottom of this."
The Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, has written to the most senior civil servant in the Home Office asking questions about its review.
Separately, Labour has repeated its long-standing demand for a review into the findings of existing abuse enquiries to make sure child protection is adequate in future.
A Downing Street spokesman earlier rejected calls to publish in full the 2013 review of paperwork, saying: "My understanding is that the executive summary reflects very fully the report."
He added: "If there are allegations, evidence of wrongdoing that people have they should bring that to the attention of the relevant authorities including the police."He added: "If there are allegations, evidence of wrongdoing that people have they should bring that to the attention of the relevant authorities including the police."
'Over-arching inquiry' Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who worked for Leon Brittan in Brussels in the 1990s, also said the police were in the "best position" to investigate the allegations and he did not want anything - such as a public inquiry - to "cut across that or disrupt that".
The chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, Keith Vaz, told the BBC he had no plans to call Lord Brittan before his committee. Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who has investigated claims of abuse by ex-MP Sir Cyril Smith, is calling for a "Hillsborough-style" inquiry to prevent allegations involving politicians being "swept under the carpet".
"No, I don't think there's a reason to call anyone to the committee at this stage," he said, adding that he had instead written to the top civil servant at the Home Office, Mark Sedwill: "Let's see what he has to say." He insisted there was "no reason" why the dossiers, which he said could include evidence indentifying child sex abusers, should have been destroyed by the Home Office.
The Metropolitan Police's Operation Fernbridge is investigating allegations of child sexual abuse in the late 1970s and 1980s at the former Elm Guest House in Barnes, the scene of alleged parties involving MPs and other members of the establishment.The Metropolitan Police's Operation Fernbridge is investigating allegations of child sexual abuse in the late 1970s and 1980s at the former Elm Guest House in Barnes, the scene of alleged parties involving MPs and other members of the establishment.
Greater Manchester Police are investigating allegations of abuse by Sir Cyril Smith at Knowl View, a Rochdale children's home which closed in 1994. Officers are also looking at claims the authorities covered it up.Greater Manchester Police are investigating allegations of abuse by Sir Cyril Smith at Knowl View, a Rochdale children's home which closed in 1994. Officers are also looking at claims the authorities covered it up.
But calls are growing for an over-arching national inquiry, with hearings held in public, to get to the truth of what happened and deliver justice to the alleged victims. More than 120 MPs have signed a letter to the home secretary calling for an inquiry.But calls are growing for an over-arching national inquiry, with hearings held in public, to get to the truth of what happened and deliver justice to the alleged victims. More than 120 MPs have signed a letter to the home secretary calling for an inquiry.
Labour MP John Mann told BBC Radio 4's PM programme an over-arching inquiry was "essential".
The Bassetlaw MP said: "There's more and more of this coming up. It goes to the heart of the establishment, and the key institutions of the country have been involved in doing nothing about it. That's why there needs to be a full public inquiry."
The Home Office is also under pressure to renew its search for the Dickens dossiers.
Former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald told PM: "It sounds to me as though there needs to be further investigation into this. Some of the detail is more than troubling. It's always alarming when material goes missing.
"This may just be the passage of time, it may not be anything sinister, but I don't think people are going to be satisfied for this to be left as it is."