Police Arrest Righton (

Peter McKelvie’s comments on Charles Napier and Peter Righton

Napier is an evil,calculating, manipulative paedophile
The charges he was found guilty on today were the tip of the iceberg for the scale of abuse he carried out over 40 years

After been found guilty of abuse as early as 1972, Napier was placed on List 99 with the Department of Education and so should not have been allowed to teach again
However Peter Righton, an equally devious and prolific abuser, intervened
As Director of Education at the National Institute for Social Work, Righton had become a prestigious and respected social work professional.
( The National Institute for Social Work – NISW – was a provider of services aimed at achieving excellence in practice and management in social work and social care in the UK and past employees include Sir Peter Barclay – Author with Righton of the Barclay Report – Sir Williiam Utting – Author of the Utting Report – Daphne Statham – Director – Dame Denise Platt – Chair of the Commission for Social Care Inspection – Barbara Hearn OBE Panel member on Independent Inquiry 2014 )

Righton on headed NISW paper wrote to the Department of Education claiming he was a counsellor of convicted paedophiles ( in reality they were his close knit PIE friends ) and that he had counselled Napier to the point he was no longer a risk to children and could return to teaching.
He added in his letter to the D of Ed that to be doubly certain he ( Righton ) had sought a second opinion from a well known child psychiatrist who concurred with his expert opinion
The psychiatrist in question was Dr.Morris Fraser, another convicted paedophile and PIE member who wrote a supporting report on Great Ormond St headed note paper

This allowed Napier to embark on a new teaching career abroad employed by the British Council, founded by the UK Government in 1934
He was able ( by his own admission in a number of letters to Righton over many years ) to abuse countless number of boys in Sweden and Egypt over many years in the late 70’s through the 80’s until 1992 when the arrest of Righton and the discovery of these letters led to his ( Napier’s) immediate dismissal

Napier and Righton ” shared ” a large number of victims, and offences,including rape, during the 80’s but never faced charges on any of the most serious cases of abuse

Many questions remain unanswered including who were Napier’s referees for his employment with the British Council

Why was Righton allowed to reach the very top of the social work profession ( with posts at NISW and the National Children’s Bureau as stepping stones to positions as a Home Office/ Government “expert” on major reports ) despite being caught red handed abusing boys on a large scale in the 1950’s and writing quite openly in NISW and NCB journals, articles etc from 1971 onwards about his views that adult and child sexual relationships were not necessarily harmful

In 1993 I spoke to 3 victims who refused to give evidence
One told me very convincingly that Napier took him to parties ” where he was introduced to the rich and famous ” and that Righton was involved in all these activities as well

In court today Napier’ s Counsel stated that Napier was now full of remorse
I don’t believe he has shown one iota of remorse in an adulthood dedicated to the ruthless pursuit of vulnerable children purely to abuse sexually

As a true test of his new found “remorse ” he can now share with the Police all the names of the ” rich and famous ” who attended the parties his victims referred to

As Treasurer of the Paedophile Information Exchange in its peak period of membership in the mid 70’s Napier holds the key to the identity of hundreds of dangerous abusers who continued to abuse thousands of children over many decades
He can now pass all this information to the Police as testament to his newly found regret and remorse

Charles Napier: Court of Appeal transcript, December 1995

[1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
No: 95/5861/Z4

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2

Friday 8th December 1995
Before: Lord Justice Russell Mr Justice Rougier and His Honour Judge Rhys Davies QC (Sitting as a Judge of the Court of Appeal)
Regina
v.
Charles Scott Napier
MISS Z SMITH appeared on behalf of the Appellant
MR B KELLY appeared on behalf of the Crown

(Computer Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of John Larking, Chancery House, Chancery Lane, London WC2 Telephone No: 071 404 7464 Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

JUDGMENT
(As Approved by the Court)

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 2

Friday 8th December 1995
JUDGMENT
MR JUSTICE ROUGIER: On 14th August 1995 at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court, the applicant was convicted on two counts of indecent assault upon a male person, and was sentenced to 9 months’ imprisonment concurrent on each.
His application for leave to appeal against that conviction has been referred to the Full Court by the learned Single Judge.
The principal ground of proposed appeal centres around a television programme which was made on the subject of paedophiles in general, and a man called Righton in particular, sometime before the trial of the applicant. It is necessary to set out the dates in some detail. At some stage, we are not told exactly when, but it is in all probability in 1994, the police raided the house of Righton, and they discovered a whole lot of photographs of naked boys, together with letters written by the applicant, which indicated that he too shared Righton’s proclivities and therefore he came under suspicion. At about the same time a documentary was being made by the BBC on the subject of Righton and child abuse, called “Children at Risk”.
The complainant in the applicant’s case, whom we shall refer to as D, made a statement under the Criminal Justice Act implicating the applicant in March 1994. The film was shown on relatively prime time at 8.00 p.m. on 1st June 1994, but it was not until 10th January 1995 that the applicant was arrested and, as already stated, his trial took place in August.

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 3

By the first two grounds of proposed appeal the complaint is made, baldly, that in the light of that television film a fair trial was not possible, it had been gravely prejudiced, and that the learned judge was wrong in failing to stay the proceedings on the grounds that publicity had rendered a fair trial impossible, all the more so because the prosecution, in the form of the police, had assisted in the adverse publicity. That reference was to the fact that while the film was being made and researches were being done, the Hereford, Worcester and West Midlands police co-operated by passing relevant information to the maker of the film.
In relation to that the learned judge was faced with a problem of some difficulty. There undoubtedly had been a film which had identified the applicant on three occasions. This Court has had the benefit of seeing the relevant extracts. They occupy approximately 9 minutes in all, in a transmission totalling some 55 minutes and undoubtedly the applicant is portrayed as a paedophile. He is indeed referred to as somebody who had been convicted of a paedophilic offence, if there is such a word, which was quite true. There also were photographs of him in the company of young boys in Sweden and there are some extracts from letters which he had written to Righton, describing with almost gloating pederasty the physical appearance and availability of young boys either under his charge or within his influence.

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 4

The learned judge, in a very careful ruling, marshalled the pros and cons, and having referred to the relevant authorities he noted that the prosecution were not seeking, as part of their case, to adduce evidence concerning the applicant’s involvement in paedophile organisations, it having been alleged in the transmission that at some time he was the treasurer of something called the Paedophile Information Exchange. He noted, as we too have been able to note, that D did not appear on the television programme, he was not named and he made no specific allegation of indecent assault against the applicant. The learned judge correctly squared up to the problem in these words:
“The question I have to resolve is whether there is a real prospect that one or more jurors may have seen and remembered the television programme so far as it relates to the defendant and if so whether, in those circumstances, the defendant could possibly receive a fair trial.”
He noted that it was unsatisfactory that publicity adverse to the defendant was made at a time when there were reasonable grounds to believe that a prosecution was pending or contemplated but that, as my Lord has pointed out, is a disciplinary matter and had nothing to do with the problem which the learned judge had to resolve. He went on to say this:

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 5

“I have to bear in mind also that the television programme and reports took place some fourteen months ago. I have to consider the likelihood of whether they were seen or remembered by members of the jury and I also have to consider what safeguards or precautions might usefully be taken in respect of the jury.
At the end of the day I have come to the conclusion that, provided jurors confirm that they neither have any knowledge of this defendant nor any other prosecution witness and provided they are given an appropriate warning in the summing-up in accordance with the state of the evidence as it develops to the effect that they must consider only the evidence heard in Court and nothing extraneous should be taken into consideration, then in my view a fair trial of this defendant is possible and it follows that I am therefore not persuaded, as matters stand, that he cannot have a fair trial…”
He thereupon rejected the submission.
As a matter of later history, it should be said that no possible criticism could be or has been made as to the way in which the learned judge dealt with the matter in his summing-up.
It is a strongly held, which has been the subject of a good deal of research notably from the Legal Faculty of Sheffield University, that the capacity for retaining material either heard on the wireless or seen on the television, on the part of the avid viewer, is remarkably short. The jury were asked the appropriate questions and all denied any recollection or knowledge of the matters which had so worried Miss Smith, acting for the applicant. They were duly empannelled.

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 6

We think that it is very difficult to see that the learned judge could have done other than he did, and we cannot see that any possible criticism can be levelled at the decision to which he came.
There is no conceivable suspicion that he failed to take into account all the relevant matters and, in particular, possibly the most telling feature supporting his decision was the fact that the transmission had taken place no fewer than 14 months before the trial. If it is to be said that whenever, during a subject of great public concern, an investigative team of journalists of one sort or another do make public matters which certainly indicate that serious crimes have been committed, that they are thereby insulating the perpetrators of those crimes from prosecution, that is not something with which this Court can possibly agree. Accordingly we find there is no substance in those first two grounds.
The third ground is really an adjunct of the first two, because after the complainant had completed his evidence, it was noted that there had been a number of occasions when he had been referred to as being interviewed by a television producer and it is feared that that might have reminded any member of the jury who had seen the programme and had forgotten about it about the adverse publicity. By the same token, we are of the view that it is extremely unlikely that this would have had any effect, and the learned judge cannot be criticised at that stage for thinking that the trial could still be conducted fairly and that any possible prejudice could be cured by an accurate summing-up.

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 7

Finally, Miss Smith relies on part of a letter which was written by the defendant to a friend of his called Bloomfield when these matters were being investigated. There is a reference to ‘witch hunting’ in the letter and an Evening Standard article. It is complained that by reason of the fact that the learned judge allowed that letter to be exhibited, the defendant had been effectively precluded from giving evidence in his own defence because he would have to explain what the witch hunt was all about and thereby again remind the jury of the previous highly adverse television programme.
The prosecution in seeking to adduce that part of the letter submitted to the learned judge that it was capable of being an admission relating to the very crimes which were alleged in the case, and the learned judge took the view that it was entirely a matter for the jury to consider whether it did amount to some sort of admission or whether, on the other hand, they took the view that it did not, in which case they would disregard it. In our judgment, he was perfectly correct in that ruling, and since the prosecution had already announced that they did not intend to rely on any of this applicant’s paedophile associations as part of their case, the fear that he would have to explain what was meant by “witch hunt” seems to us more imaginary than real.

Transcript [1995] EWCA Crim J1208-8 8

In those circumstances we think that the learned judge’s ruling was perfectly correct. There is no merit in this application and it must be refused.

Peter Righton was questioned about child sex offences in November 1994

A recently discovered press cutting shows that Peter Righton was questioned about indecent assaults on children by the Obscene Publications Squad in November 1994 – several months after the Hereford & Worcester investigation had been shut down, and after the BBC documentary Secret Life of a Paedophile had been broadcast. It can be assumed by the absence of any further news reports that he was never charged with an offence, despite clear evidence from his diaries including names and ages of victims, along with the name of the institution where he abused them. The November 1994 arrest took place in Eye, Suffolk – presumably at Lord Henniker’s estate, where he had been living since his 1992 arrest.

The Independent, 10th November 1994

A former lecturer on child social work is being questioned about indecent assaults on children. Scotland Yard’s Obsene Publications Squad arrested Peter Righton, 68, in Eye, Suffolk.

 

Peter McKelvie ( former Hereford & Worcester team manager) gives some background to the case:

“One of the many reasons I contacted Tom Watson MP in October 2012 was my anger and frustration that Peter Righton had been allowed to die with just one minor conviction for possession of indecent images of children when I knew how evil a web he had spun in full sight of leading social work agencies such as the National Children’s Bureau and the National Institute of Social Work not to mention the high regard he was obviously held in at the Department of Health

Much has been made of Savile being given the keys to Broadmoor

Righton didn’t need the keys, he could walk in to any children’s home or local authority boarding school in the UK on ” official business ”

I was given full access by West Mercia police to Righton’s diaries and letters which gave the clues to a large network of Paedophiles with “official ” access to children.

Unfortunately my team weren’t allowed to pursue these leads ourselves as the alleged offences occurred outside our statutory geographical boundaries

We had to pass all our relevant information on to other local authorities.

 With the full support of my then Director of Social  Services, David Tombs, I wrote a report for the Department of Health pleading for them to agree to fund and set up a “National Joint Social Worker/Police investigation team” so that we could pursue all the leads we had and go anywhere the evidence took us

Righton in his diaries had made the task of investigation relatively straightforward.

He had listed the names and ages of each boy he had abused from 1957 onwards in categories of which institution the victims had been resident at the time,and most sickeningly of all, had scored each child’s level of abuse from 1 ( touching) to 10 ( buggery )

My Director was prepared to release me and 2 of my social workers to be part of such a team if we were seen as suitable applicants

Nothing came of this request and this huge body of evidence against Righton fell in to a black hole

A small group of us, a very senior Police  Officer, two very experienced investigative journalists and myself met with a senior Opposition Party MP in 1994 to lodge a complaint and demand action.

We named MP’s that we believed might be involved in this organised network

Nothing came of that either

My Director David Tombs retired in 1994 and my team was closed down and disbanded virtually immediately afterwards.”

Peter Righton – his activities up until the early 1980s

Desiring Progress

[Updated: I am immensely grateful to Peter McKelvie, Liz Davies, Martin Walkerdine and @Snowfaked (on Twitter) for providing extra information which has helped to fill in gaps in my earlier account]

I do intend at some point to publish a comprehensive account of all that can be ascertained about the life and activities of the sinister figure of Peter Righton, perhaps the most important of all figures in terms of the abuse scandals soon to be investigated by the national inquiry, and believed to have been a serial abuser himself with a great many victims. Both demands of time and also legal constraints do not permit this at present, but for now I wanted to publish some information and sources on Righton’s activities up until the early 1980s. 

Righton was born in June 1926 as Paul Pelham Righton, in Kensington . He grew up in Kent , and attended Ardingly College…

View original post 3,710 more words

Drive to reveal the truth about Peter Righton’s time in Suffolk (06.08.14)

East Anglia Daily Times, 6th August 2014

By Colin Adwent

BBC Radio, 15th July 2014 :Dr Liz Davies and David Tombs.

theneedleblog

A very interesting interview with David Tombs is followed by an extraordinary interview with Dr Liz Davies in which she reveals a great deal more than you might of been aware of before.

This is a ‘must listen’ interview.

View original post

A letter to Des Wilson regarding Peter Righton, Cyril Smith and the “MP north of Watford”

Dear Mr. Wilson,

I wonder if you would be prepared to help me.

I am a retired Child Protection Team Manager and the source of Tom Watson, MP’s PMQ to David Cameron on 24th October 2012, regarding the high profile paedophile ring that was partially exposed as a result of a police raid on Peter Righton’s home in 1992. The allegations that I took to Tom Watson resulted in the setting up of the ongoing Metropolitan Police investigation, Operation Fernbridge.

Today I have become aware, after the intense speculation surrounding the article in the Mail On Sunday regarding the MP “north of Watford” , of your previous role with Social Work Today and by implication BASW.

I was heavily involved with the making of the BBC’s Inside Story Documentary in 1994 – The Secret Life of a Paedophile – which was about Righton. It remains very much unfinished business for me as to how much of a major player Righton was in an international not just national network of abusers, and I admit to almost obsessional behaviour in trying to get the whole truth out on how evil a man he was and how many vulnerable children were abused directly by him or through the access he provided for fellow paedophiles.

Righton made little secret to close colleagues of his inclinations, as described by Barbara Kahan and Daphne Statham in the Secret Life documentary. Did your paths cross when you edited Social Work Today from 1976 – 79?

I have recently been told that Righton and Cyril Smith not only knew each other but may have operated together as paedophiles. Nothing in the 3 days I spent at Evesham Police Station in 1992 going through the tons of paperwork, letters, diaries etc removed on arrest from Righton’s home gave a clue to any such relationship.

However I am aware that Cyril Smith was the Liberals spokesperson on Social Services during your time at SWT and so it was highly possible that they knew each other through that link.

If you wish to check on my authenticity you can google the Spotlightonabuse site and look at my various contributions such as “An Open Letter to David Cameron”.

I will also now send you communication seperately between myself and Norman Baker who has agreed to meet me on 13th May as Minister of Justice to discuss my concerns raised in the Open Letter to Cameron.

I know that you have a reputation of being a very successful campaigner (“We can only try to edge the world in the right direction” is a quote of yours I understand) and so I hope you will appreciate what I am trying to achieve.

Incidentally and I hope you don’t mind me raising this, can I assume that today in the Mail isn’t the first time you have made such serious allegations about what you knew to be happening with the “MP north of Watford”. I would like to believe that you passed this information to the Police at the time or certainly not long afterwards.
If you are able to share what happened to it after that I would be grateful to know. I am not asking for the name of the MP!!

Yours sincerely,

Peter McKelvie

 

Please Note – as of 7th June, no reply has been received to this letter

Red Hill and Muntham House

Red Hill School was a special boarding school in Maidstone, Kent. It was where Peter Righton started his career in 1957 and where he went on to sexually abuse a number of vulnerable young boys. This was reported in the BBC Inside Story documentary, The Secret Life of a Paedophile. Peter Howarth also worked there, and was later jailed for child sex offences that took place at the Bryn Estyn home in Wrexham.

A recently discovered news report shows that a convicted child sex offender worked as a helper at Red Hill School in 1978/79. James Russell applied for the job using the false name of James Stewart, and lied about his background to disguise his criminal record. He had “three convictions for offences against young boys, and had spent most of the last eight years in jail”.

Two friends gave him references, and were both fined £200 after admitting “helping Russell by not disclosing his name and mis-stating his character”. One of the friends was Nicholas Douglass of Muntham House School.

Muntham House was a special boarding school 50 miles away from Maidstone in Horsham, West Sussex. In 1998, Nicholas Douglass was jailed for 16 years for his part in a paedophile ring that abused young boys at Muntham House in the late 1970s. (The Argus 25.08.98)

News of the World, 1st July 1979

A Kind of Hush

The morning after the broadcast of ‘Secret Life of a Paedophile’ in 1994, Richard Johnson, the author of the book A Kind of Hush, rang in to the Inside Story team to say that at 1.30 am he had received a phone call from ‘Mick’ (who the central character in A Kind of Hush is based on) to say that the documentary had vindicated him and everything he had told Richard about many years before. According to Richard Johnson the book was loosely based on a paedophile network that included Peter Righton, a Labour MP, a well known Labour politician, and a central figure allegedly named as a major paedophile in Islington children’s homes.

This information is based on written evidence seen at first hand by Peter McKelvie.