Questions for the Home Office regarding Establishment child abuse cover-ups

Dear Mr . Mrs or Ms. L. Smart,

Thank you for your letter undated and addressed wrongly to ____ _______ which arrived in yesterday’s post ie Saturday 30th November.

I think I would have had more confidence that the Home Office was going to address the issues I raised with the Prime Minister and take my letter seriously if you had taken the trouble to at least get my name right.

I quickly realised in reading the first few lines that your reply was going to be a mirror copy of the almost identical replies that Conservative Party MP’s have been sending to their constituents in response to the latter forwarding my “Open Letter” to them.

You have not addressed a single issue that I specifically raised with the Prime Minister, The Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and your reply is dismissive and rather condescending.

I am well aware that Operations Fernbridge and Operation Fairbank are “live investigations” – I have in writing from the Operation Fernbridge team that they were only set up to address the allegations I made which resulted in Tom Watson’s PMQ on 24th October 2012.

You go in to detail of what the Government intends to do to “urgently address the missed opportunities to protect children and vulnerable people”. I was well aware of all these initiatives before I wrote my letter to David Cameron. These are addressed to abuse in the community, in schools, in children’s institutions, in hospitals etc and you well know as do the politicians that I have written to that that is not what my letter is about. Please afford me a certain level of credibility.

Unfortunately I am old enough to remember the similar initiatives made in the immediate aftermath of the death of Maria Colwell in 1973 when I had already started out on my long career in child protection, and am aware of all the similar soundbites that come from whichever political party is in power at the time through the deaths of Victoria Climbie and Peter Connelly.

My letter is very specific as you well know and you have made not a single reference to the issues I raise.

I will repeat them.

1. The allegations regarding the role of senior politicians, the security services and the Crown Prosecution Service in covering up the horrendous abuse carried out by Sir Cyril Smith over 5 decades.

2. The rise of Sir. Peter Morrison to become Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and more crucially PPS to Prime Minister, Mrs.Thatcher, in 1990 and her general election campaign manager that same year despite it being known for many years that, in the words of a Government Minister, he was well known ” in Westminster circles ” to be ” a pederast “.

3. The statement by the late Tim Fortescue, Edward Heath’s Chief Whip from 1970 – 1973, on prime time national TV that if an MP got in to trouble over the abuse of ” small boys ” it would be blatantly covered up, not referred to the Police or Social Services but merely recorded in the Whips Dirt Books to use at a later date for leverage on voting intentions.

4. Why was a British Prime Minister so close to a life time paedophile (a fact the Security Services should have and probably did pick up long before her term as Prime Minister) that she invited him to allegedly 11 – 13 Chequers New Year’s Eve parties.

5. Why did the same Prime Minister allegedly persevere, in spite of advice to the contrary from her closest advisers, in knighting a man many years after it was known in some circles that he had a deviant sexual history even if the full extent of it didn’t emerge until many years later.

6. Why was the same man so welcome in Prince Charles’s properties despite the security services and similar vetting institutions having enough opportunity to tap in to the ” gossip ” about him that was around for decades.

You state “child abuse is an abhorrent crime, no matter when, or WHERE it takes place. We are committed to tackling it, whatever form it takes”

Really – why do I and probably millions of people doubt your sincerity.

You attempt to divert the issue by stating that Operations Fernbridge and Fairbank are “live investigations”. You and I well know that the issues I raise in my “open letter” will not result in live investigations or trials as all the individuals I refer to are dead.

It did not stop the Government setting up Inquiries in to the BBC’s and the NHS’s role when Operation Yewtree were only setting out on their ” live investigation”.
Mr. Cameron promised that ALL institutions would look at the role they played in the failure to detect what Savile was doing.

My request was that Parliament address the issues raised and that an Independent Inquiry be set up and party politics be totally removed from the equation ie give the power back to the victims and expose the most powerful abusers and those individuals or organisations that protected them throughout.

The last agency that my letter should have been passed on to to provide a reply was the Home Office.

With respect, and this is actually subject to a live investigation, the Home Office will have to deal with allegations that it played a key role in the funding of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

In an Old Bailey trial on the 6th November 1984 evidence was given to the court under oath and not contested by the Defence Counsel that ” a telephone number at the Home Office was a contact point for members of the Paedophile Information Exchange ” and that a one time Chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange ran the organisation while he was an employee of the Home Office, not only giving his work number as the contact point but also sending out information on meetings etc on Home Office headed notepaper.

One has to ask was this an officially condoned situation or an inexplicable lapse in the security services activities.

Even as recently as 2006 a serving Home Secretary declared that a significant section of the Home Office was ” not fit for purpose “.
What conclusions are the public reasonably expected to draw from the above “evidence ” of the “support” given by the Home Office to an organisation advocating that sexual relations with children aged 4 and upwards be legalised.

The Home Secretary and the Home Office have failed to find any record of a one million signatures petition accompanied by several dossiers prepared seperately by a Conservative MP and Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Squad (the fore-runner to the Paedophile Unit). These dossiers received coverage from every national newspaper for an 18 month period in 1982 – 83.

You mention the Minister for Crime Prevention. I wonder if you would do me the courtesy of asking him to personally respond to a letter which raises such important issues about the most vulnerable children in our society, bearing in mind Mr.Cameron’s soundbites on the breaking news re. Savile last year – ” Collusion should NEVER happen again ” and ” The measure of how our society is, is how we treat its most vulnerable members “.

Mr. Baker should be the ideal person for me to address my concerns to.

His Wikipedia entry states :-
“Baker is known for uncovering scandals and conflicts of interest among MP’s and the government”.

Manna from heaven for me one might think but of course there is such a thing as “Cabinet Responsibility” which will take priority over any other consideration such as the rights of children when the abuse might be carried out from within the Westminster safe house.

May I formally request in the presence of an MP of my choice a meeting with Mr. Baker. That is what we expect of our elected representatives, to put transparency/ honesty and the opinions and hopes of the electorate before self – interest and self- preservation in the face of alleged criminality.

For me the response by Mr.Cameron and Mr.Clegg to my “Open Letter ” is the equivalent of putting it straight in to the shredder.

I anticipate that this is what will happen to this letter.

Yours sincerely

________________ (The source of Tom Watson’s PMQ)