Glasgow Herald – 20 March 1981
Marriage breaks up in glare of publicity
Dickens MP reveals the skeleton in his cupboard
By William Russell
Mr Geoffrey Dickens, the Conservative MP who unmasked Sir Peter Hayman, the diplomat involved with the Paedophile Information Exchange, last night revealed the skeleton in his own cupboard. His 25-year-old marriage is at an end and he is living with an attractive 43-year-old divorcee with two children.
He made the disclosure at a news conference at Westminster at which he called for the resignation of Sir Michael Havers, Attorney General, after receiving his reasons for not prosecuting Sir Peter Hayman for sending and receiving pornographic material through the post. Mr Dickens alleged Sir Michael’s reply to his question showed there had been a cover-up.
He then astounded journalists by telling them there was a skeleton in his own cupboard.
This turned out to be Mrs Maureen Knight, the matron of the Santa Maria private nursing home, Tunbridge Wells, who was sitting by his side.
After explaining he had gone to live with Mrs Knight, he was asked when he had left his wife, Norma. “I am afraid to say I left her at this moment,” Mr Dickens replied. “I am going to go straight out and phone her.”
Mr Dickens said his marriage had been in difficulties for some time. He first left home six months ago to live with Mrs Knight. Recently he had gone on holiday with his wife to Spain in an attempt at a reconciliation, but it was too late and he had now decided to join Mrs Knight.
Asked why he was making his disclosure, he said he had come into the public eye as a result of the Hayman affair beyond his expectations. “I felt it was best to be honest,” he added.
He had neglected to tell his wife because he had not wanted to delay the news conference called to comment on the Attorney-General’s reply. Nor did he wish to call a later news conference to make the announcement.
Mrs Knight, whose children are John, 13, and Vanessa, 11, said she endorsed everything Mr Dickens had done in the Hayman case. “I feel very strongly about it.”
On her affair with Mr Dickens, who is 49, she said he had left his wife six months ago but had gone back to her after a coulple of days. Mr Dickens also has two children, Barry, 17, and Clive, 19.
Mr Dickens attacked Sir Michael Havers’s explanation as “a whitewash” and “cover-up.” He believed the eight other persons mentioned in the case should be named, and if he had had their names when he tabled the Commons questions in which he named Sir Peter he would have done so.
In his reply, the Attorney-General said that in 1978 a packet containing obscene literature and written material was found in a London bus.
Subsequent police investigation revealed a correspondence of an obscene nature between Sir Peter and a number of other persons.
Altogether seven men and two women were named by the police as possible defendants in their report to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Sir Michael said the DPP had advised against prosecutions under the 1953 Post Office Act or for any other offence.
Among the considerations taken into account were that the correspondence had been contained in sealed envelopes passing between adult individuals in a non-commercial context and that none of the material was unsolicited.
“It has been suggested that Sir Peter Hayman was considered as a possible defendant following the police investigation into the conduct of the Paedophile Information Exchange, which led to the recent trial at the Central Criminal Court for conspiracy to corrupt public morals,” Sir Michael added.
“That prosecution was against persons alleged to have been involved in the management or organisation of PIE. Although Sir Peter Hayman had subscribed to PIE, that is not an offence and there is no evidence that he was ever involved in the management.”
Sir Michael said he agreed with the advice by the DPP not to prosecute Sir Peter and the others with whom he had carried on an obscene correspondence.
Later Sir David Napley, Sir Peter’s solicitor said his client had never been blackmailed, or subjected to pressure.
In a 500-word statement Sir David said the Attorney-General’s answer made it clear Sir Peter had never been involved in conduct involving the corruption of children.
Mr Dickens, MP for Huddersfield West since 1979, said he was cross and angry at the Attorney-General’s reply.
“I am saying he should resign. I don’t suspect for a moment he will take this advice from a back bencher, particularly from myself, but I will be writing to him asking for his resignation.
[Page 3]
He described the decision not to charge Sir Peter as a big blunder, and revealed that a cousin of the diplomat, a vicar, had telephoned him after he had tabled his questions urging him not to name Sir Peter.
Mr Dickens said he had not been influenced by the arguments put to him, although he had taken them into consideration.
“It is my view they were protecting Sir Peter. I had Cabinet Ministers trying to advise me not to go ahead. This is the most distasteful thing I have ever felt compelled to do in my life.”
The Attorney-General’s answer disclosed that the police inquiries revealed that one of the eight persons with whom Sir Peter was corresponding had been carrying on a correspondence with somebody else.
This correspondence showed that the two involved shared an obsession about the systematic killing by sexual torture of young people and children and, in view of the extreme nature of the material they had sent each other, the DPP decided to prosecute them for sending obscene material through the post under the 1953 act.
…
Two women were initially charged by the police.
Hayman had a vicar cousin begging Dickens not to name him.
Besides Hayman evil torture/death letters, the letters about sexually torturing and killing young children were written by two of the PIE defendants.
Sir Peter Hayman, a pillar of the Establishment, a deputy Church warden, and former deputy chairman of the local Conservative Association, in short the epitome of respectability in rural England, today, at 66 years of age, finds his life in ruins.
For months he has lived in the shadow of exposure, ever since the satirical magazine Private Eye revealed that he was the subject of an investigation by Scotland’s Yard pornography squad, an inquiry which last week led to the jailing of Tom O’Carroll for two years.
Rumours have been rife about the private life of Sir Peter in the village of Checkendon on the outskirts of Oxfordshire for some weeks, but yesterday’s revelation in the House of Commons still came as a great shock.
Sir Peter, said to be travelling on the Continent with his wife, has not been seen in the village since Saturday, when he knew full well that his world was about to collapse through the determination of a fellow Tory to name him in the House of Commons as the mysterious Mr Henderson, whose 45 volumes of diaries, said to be the fantasies of an ageing voyeur, were referred to in the Old Bailey last week.
It was not only the village that was shocked by the news that Sir Peter had been involved with paedophilia. He contributed to the Paedophile Information Exchange, an organisation which believes that sex with children under the age of 16 should not be illegal. It was also an acute embarrassment to the Foreign Office. Sir Peter, having reached the pinnacle after a long and distinguished career in the Diplomatic Service as British High Commissioner in Canada between 1970 and 1974, was at one time regarded as one of the brightest stars in the service.
It was no less embarrassing when it was learned that some of Sir Peter’s diaries were written during his term as High Commissioner in Canada.
There has been no suggestion that these diaries were anything other than fantasies, and that at the most he could have faced a charge of sending obscene material through the Royal Mail.
Nevertheless, it was pointed out by Mr Geoffrey Dickens, the MP who named Sir Peter in the House, that this taste in pornography would leave anyone in such high office wide open to blackmail.
Sir Peter was investigated by officers from Scotland Yard’s pornography squad following the discovery of documents on a London bus. They went to a flat in Notting Hill expecting to interview a Mr Henderson, instead they found it was the London home of the former diplomat.
The matter was reported to the Department of Public Prosecutions who decided that the only offence that Sir Peter could possibly be charged with was under the Post Office Act and using their usual criteria, of whether there was any gain, decided not to proceed.
Similar decisions were reached in the cases of others involved in the periphery of the investigation.
Sir Peter’s overseas connections also led to him being appointed as a member of the overseas committee of the Save the Children fund from 1970 to 1974. He is also a member of the Traveller’s Club in London.
An official at the club in Pall Mall said yesterday: “Unfortunately, I have to tell you he is still a member. We went through all this with the Anthony Blunt case, you know.”
One of Britain’s most distinguished former diplomats has been named by a Conservative MP as the mysterious “Mr Henderson” who featured in police investigations into child sex.
These inquiries culminated last week in the chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange being sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for corrupting public morals.
Mr Geoffrey Dickens, MP for Huddersfield West, has tabled two Parliamentary questions naming the former diplomat and these have been accepted by the House of Commons authorities for written replies.
“I know I am destroying the character of a man who has served this country over a long number of years,” Mr Dickens said yesterday. “Of course I understand this, and it has weighed on my mind very seriously.”
The former diplomat, a Knight of the Realm, has not been available for comment.
Mr Dicken’s questions will be published today when they will be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
The MP came under strong pressure from the Government at a high level, including two meetings with the Attorney-General, not to name the man. It was argued that the offences this person could be charged with would be trivial.
However, Mr Dickens said 45 volumes of pornographic material were found in the home of the former diplomat. Those who had brought pressure on him to keep the name secret had declared that it was harmless and that it was acting out a fantasy.
The discovery followed a police raid after documents had been found on a London bus. They had been seeking a “Mr Henderson” in the raid.
:On the other hand, while I have come under very heavy pressure not to name this person,” said Mr Dickens, “a large number of senior Members of Parliament have come to me and told me to go ahead.”
Mr Dickens has tabled questions to Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, and to Mr Francis Pym, Leader of the House and the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster.
He is asking the Attorney-General if he will prosecute this person under the Post Office Act for sending and receiving pornographic material through the Royal Mail.
In addition he has asked Mr Pym if he will set up a select committee to investigate the security implications of the entries contained within the volumes of diaries referred to in the Old Bailey trial of Tom O’Carroll, chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange. This group believes sexual relations with consenting children under the age of 16 should not be illegal.
Mr Dickens said this could have been a danger of blackmail.
It has been alleged by the MP that the former diplomat has been protected by an Establishment cover-up during the trial of O’Carroll.
An official at the Department of Public Prosecutions confirmed that they received papers from the police concerning a senior diplomat and another person in 1978.
The Department applied normal policy concerning prosecution under the Post Office Act. This involves consideration of whether there was any commercial gain by persons involved or whether the material was unsolicited.
In this case it was decided not to prosecute.
James McKillop
…
“[The DPP] received papers from the police concerning a senior diplomat and another person in 1978.”
Were the papers concerning “another person,” the DPP received from the police in 1978, from Anthony Blunt, who was a member with Hayman at the Pall Mall Club as mentioned in previous article, and was exposed 14 November 1979 as a spy for the Russians? Is that the reason the Establishment was forced to out Blunt’s spying activities?
…
TORONTO (UPC) – A jewelry clerk who worked as a secretary for self-confessed spy Anthony Blunt says she shipped many parcels for him to addresses in Russia from his office at the Courtauld Institute in London.
Sylvia Trevana-Taverner says she began working in 1956 at the age of 16 as a tour guide and receptionist at the division of the University of London where Blunt was director.
She mailed parcels – which she was told contained glass slides of famous paintings – to Leningrad and delivered others by taxis to a friend of Blunt’s in a London office building.
She said staff at the Institute joked that their boss was a spy because his manner was secretive.
“Sir Anthony was always very firm in pointing out that no one was to open the package except the man I handed it to. I had no idea who he was,” said Trevana-Taverner.
“The reason we used to joke about him being a spy, was that it was so unusual to see anybody sending anything to Russia at that time, because we were in the middle of the Cold War. But then again, he also sent packages to Germany and China.”
Trevana-Taverner, an immigrant to Canada in the 1960s who remembered her former boss as “such a gentleman, such a dear” and “very close to his elderly mother”, said the staff suspected Blunt of homosexuality because he lived with another man, John Gaskin, in an attic apartment at the institute.
No one was allowed to visit it, she said. However, on one occasion when she helped Blunt’s elderly mother up the stairs, she saw the apartment which contained priceless art works and antique clocks and tables.
The roommate, whom she described as a “well-groomed masculine man,” told people he was an airline pilot, “but in the three years I know he lived with Sir Anthony, I never once saw him wearing a pilot’s uniform,” she said.
The Royal Family’s art collection was stored in a basement vault at the institute – off limits to employees – but when the Queen would visit the institute to take tea with Blunt, she said, it was “an exciting time” for the staff.
“Every year at Christmas he would send the women an orchid and a beautiful scarf,” she said. “I will always be very fond of Sir Anthony.”
…
No prosecutions were brought in the Kincora boys’ home scandal because former Soviet agent Anthony Blunt was linked with the case, Labour MP Ken Livingstone claimed in the Commons yesterday.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, he challenged Mrs Thatcher to look at the confidential files of the Sussex police who investigated the allegations that a homosexual rent-boy ring operated at the Northern Ireland boys’ home.
Mr Livingstone said the police, headed by Sussex chief constable Sir George Terry, investigated “allegations linking Anthony Blunt with several prominent figures in Northern Ireland who escaped prosecution for their crimes because had a prosecution been brought it would have disclosed the immunity granted to Anthony Blunt.”
He continued: “Were your Ministers aware, when they appointed Sir George Terry, that his officers had been involved in this cover-up?”
Mrs Thatcher replied only: “Prosecution is not a matter for me. It is a matter for the prosecuting authorities. If you have any new evidence, you should present it to them.”
Sir George, in his report in late 1983, rejected allegations that senior military and Government figures had been involved in the Kincora scandal and denied there had been a police cover-up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Sir Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, who was later stripped of his knighthood, was unmasked as a Soviet agent and granted immunity in 1964. However, it was not until 1980 [sic 1979] that details were disclosed by Mrs Thatcher in the Commons.
…
Anthony Blunt betrayed the only spy Britain ever had inside the Kremlin, journalist and spy-watcher Mr Chapman Pincher said yesterday. Mr Pincher speaking on TV-am, said the man was never heard of again after he had been betrayed by Blunt to Soviets in London.
The spy was a Russian put in position by a British intelligence officer called Gibson, a colleague of Blunt’s during the traitor’s years with MI5 between 1940 and 1946.
Blunt, who died from a heart attack, aged 75, at his flat in Portsea Hall, Portsea Place, Paddington, on Saturday, had done some work on an autobiography “to put the record straight”, said a friend and former student Mr Brian Sewell.
“But there was insuperable difficulties and he gave up the idea, having better things to do with his time,” Mr Sewell said.
It was not known, however, whether any of the notes made by Blunt in preparation for writing his account of his years of betrayal remain.
It is certain that security services will want to examine Blunt’s archives closely to see if any of the documents all further information to their already extensive files on the traitor.
Opinions differ with the security services on the effects of Blunt’s betrayals.
Some officers feel his work in counter-intelligence, MI5, would have made it difficult to gain information about agents in place, while others believe his contacts in the intelligence community during the war meant he had access to such information.
There is no doubt, however, that as a key member of the counter-intelligence services, Blunt’s revelations to his Soviet masters were enormously damaging to Britain.
He was even a member of the team which planned the D-Day landings but at the end of the war returned to an academic career as an art historian.
He took with him many secrets, including the names of other Soviet agents within the security services, some of whom were uncovered in subsequent years.
But it is not yet known whether those secrets will be revealed in his personal archives, or, if they are there, whether they will ever be revealed publicly.
Blunt died at his 100,000 London flat when he got up from the breakfast table to look at a telephone number, according to his brother Wilfred.
With him at the times was his long-time companion, retired businessman Mr John Gaskin, who left the flat later in the day apparently too upset to speak about Blunt.
Since his public unmasking in 1979, Blunt has lived a lonely life. He had been stripped of knighthood and of his title Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, although he kept his university professorship.
He had been granted immunity from prosecution in 1964 in return for his confession, which came after information from a Soviet defector and from an American, Mr Michael Straight, who confessed that he had been recruited as a Soviet agent by Blunt at Cambridge University in the 1930s.
Blunt will probably be cremated after a private service in Kingston on Wednesday, his brother said yesterday.
…
spotlight 
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PsBAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0aUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4674%2C4130105
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PsBAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0aUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4911%2C4156494
Glasgow Herald – 20 March 1981
Marriage breaks up in glare of publicity
Dickens MP reveals the skeleton in his cupboard
By William Russell
Mr Geoffrey Dickens, the Conservative MP who unmasked Sir Peter Hayman, the diplomat involved with the Paedophile Information Exchange, last night revealed the skeleton in his own cupboard. His 25-year-old marriage is at an end and he is living with an attractive 43-year-old divorcee with two children.
He made the disclosure at a news conference at Westminster at which he called for the resignation of Sir Michael Havers, Attorney General, after receiving his reasons for not prosecuting Sir Peter Hayman for sending and receiving pornographic material through the post. Mr Dickens alleged Sir Michael’s reply to his question showed there had been a cover-up.
He then astounded journalists by telling them there was a skeleton in his own cupboard.
This turned out to be Mrs Maureen Knight, the matron of the Santa Maria private nursing home, Tunbridge Wells, who was sitting by his side.
After explaining he had gone to live with Mrs Knight, he was asked when he had left his wife, Norma. “I am afraid to say I left her at this moment,” Mr Dickens replied. “I am going to go straight out and phone her.”
Mr Dickens said his marriage had been in difficulties for some time. He first left home six months ago to live with Mrs Knight. Recently he had gone on holiday with his wife to Spain in an attempt at a reconciliation, but it was too late and he had now decided to join Mrs Knight.
Asked why he was making his disclosure, he said he had come into the public eye as a result of the Hayman affair beyond his expectations. “I felt it was best to be honest,” he added.
He had neglected to tell his wife because he had not wanted to delay the news conference called to comment on the Attorney-General’s reply. Nor did he wish to call a later news conference to make the announcement.
Mrs Knight, whose children are John, 13, and Vanessa, 11, said she endorsed everything Mr Dickens had done in the Hayman case. “I feel very strongly about it.”
On her affair with Mr Dickens, who is 49, she said he had left his wife six months ago but had gone back to her after a coulple of days. Mr Dickens also has two children, Barry, 17, and Clive, 19.
Mr Dickens attacked Sir Michael Havers’s explanation as “a whitewash” and “cover-up.” He believed the eight other persons mentioned in the case should be named, and if he had had their names when he tabled the Commons questions in which he named Sir Peter he would have done so.
In his reply, the Attorney-General said that in 1978 a packet containing obscene literature and written material was found in a London bus.
Subsequent police investigation revealed a correspondence of an obscene nature between Sir Peter and a number of other persons.
Altogether seven men and two women were named by the police as possible defendants in their report to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Sir Michael said the DPP had advised against prosecutions under the 1953 Post Office Act or for any other offence.
Among the considerations taken into account were that the correspondence had been contained in sealed envelopes passing between adult individuals in a non-commercial context and that none of the material was unsolicited.
“It has been suggested that Sir Peter Hayman was considered as a possible defendant following the police investigation into the conduct of the Paedophile Information Exchange, which led to the recent trial at the Central Criminal Court for conspiracy to corrupt public morals,” Sir Michael added.
“That prosecution was against persons alleged to have been involved in the management or organisation of PIE. Although Sir Peter Hayman had subscribed to PIE, that is not an offence and there is no evidence that he was ever involved in the management.”
Sir Michael said he agreed with the advice by the DPP not to prosecute Sir Peter and the others with whom he had carried on an obscene correspondence.
Later Sir David Napley, Sir Peter’s solicitor said his client had never been blackmailed, or subjected to pressure.
In a 500-word statement Sir David said the Attorney-General’s answer made it clear Sir Peter had never been involved in conduct involving the corruption of children.
Mr Dickens, MP for Huddersfield West since 1979, said he was cross and angry at the Attorney-General’s reply.
“I am saying he should resign. I don’t suspect for a moment he will take this advice from a back bencher, particularly from myself, but I will be writing to him asking for his resignation.
[Page 3]
He described the decision not to charge Sir Peter as a big blunder, and revealed that a cousin of the diplomat, a vicar, had telephoned him after he had tabled his questions urging him not to name Sir Peter.
Mr Dickens said he had not been influenced by the arguments put to him, although he had taken them into consideration.
“It is my view they were protecting Sir Peter. I had Cabinet Ministers trying to advise me not to go ahead. This is the most distasteful thing I have ever felt compelled to do in my life.”
The Attorney-General’s answer disclosed that the police inquiries revealed that one of the eight persons with whom Sir Peter was corresponding had been carrying on a correspondence with somebody else.
This correspondence showed that the two involved shared an obsession about the systematic killing by sexual torture of young people and children and, in view of the extreme nature of the material they had sent each other, the DPP decided to prosecute them for sending obscene material through the post under the 1953 act.
…
Two women were initially charged by the police.
Hayman had a vicar cousin begging Dickens not to name him.
Besides Hayman evil torture/death letters, the letters about sexually torturing and killing young children were written by two of the PIE defendants.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PcBAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0aUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3681%2C3989236
Glasgow Herald – 19 March 1981
A pillar of the establishment falls in shame
Sir Peter Hayman, a pillar of the Establishment, a deputy Church warden, and former deputy chairman of the local Conservative Association, in short the epitome of respectability in rural England, today, at 66 years of age, finds his life in ruins.
For months he has lived in the shadow of exposure, ever since the satirical magazine Private Eye revealed that he was the subject of an investigation by Scotland’s Yard pornography squad, an inquiry which last week led to the jailing of Tom O’Carroll for two years.
Rumours have been rife about the private life of Sir Peter in the village of Checkendon on the outskirts of Oxfordshire for some weeks, but yesterday’s revelation in the House of Commons still came as a great shock.
Sir Peter, said to be travelling on the Continent with his wife, has not been seen in the village since Saturday, when he knew full well that his world was about to collapse through the determination of a fellow Tory to name him in the House of Commons as the mysterious Mr Henderson, whose 45 volumes of diaries, said to be the fantasies of an ageing voyeur, were referred to in the Old Bailey last week.
It was not only the village that was shocked by the news that Sir Peter had been involved with paedophilia. He contributed to the Paedophile Information Exchange, an organisation which believes that sex with children under the age of 16 should not be illegal. It was also an acute embarrassment to the Foreign Office. Sir Peter, having reached the pinnacle after a long and distinguished career in the Diplomatic Service as British High Commissioner in Canada between 1970 and 1974, was at one time regarded as one of the brightest stars in the service.
It was no less embarrassing when it was learned that some of Sir Peter’s diaries were written during his term as High Commissioner in Canada.
There has been no suggestion that these diaries were anything other than fantasies, and that at the most he could have faced a charge of sending obscene material through the Royal Mail.
Nevertheless, it was pointed out by Mr Geoffrey Dickens, the MP who named Sir Peter in the House, that this taste in pornography would leave anyone in such high office wide open to blackmail.
Sir Peter was investigated by officers from Scotland Yard’s pornography squad following the discovery of documents on a London bus. They went to a flat in Notting Hill expecting to interview a Mr Henderson, instead they found it was the London home of the former diplomat.
The matter was reported to the Department of Public Prosecutions who decided that the only offence that Sir Peter could possibly be charged with was under the Post Office Act and using their usual criteria, of whether there was any gain, decided not to proceed.
Similar decisions were reached in the cases of others involved in the periphery of the investigation.
Sir Peter’s overseas connections also led to him being appointed as a member of the overseas committee of the Save the Children fund from 1970 to 1974. He is also a member of the Traveller’s Club in London.
An official at the club in Pall Mall said yesterday: “Unfortunately, I have to tell you he is still a member. We went through all this with the Anthony Blunt case, you know.”
James McKillop
…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PMBAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0aUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5487%2C3634998
Glasgow Herald – 18 March 1981
MP tells why he must name ex-diplomat
One of Britain’s most distinguished former diplomats has been named by a Conservative MP as the mysterious “Mr Henderson” who featured in police investigations into child sex.
These inquiries culminated last week in the chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange being sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for corrupting public morals.
Mr Geoffrey Dickens, MP for Huddersfield West, has tabled two Parliamentary questions naming the former diplomat and these have been accepted by the House of Commons authorities for written replies.
“I know I am destroying the character of a man who has served this country over a long number of years,” Mr Dickens said yesterday. “Of course I understand this, and it has weighed on my mind very seriously.”
The former diplomat, a Knight of the Realm, has not been available for comment.
Mr Dicken’s questions will be published today when they will be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
The MP came under strong pressure from the Government at a high level, including two meetings with the Attorney-General, not to name the man. It was argued that the offences this person could be charged with would be trivial.
However, Mr Dickens said 45 volumes of pornographic material were found in the home of the former diplomat. Those who had brought pressure on him to keep the name secret had declared that it was harmless and that it was acting out a fantasy.
The discovery followed a police raid after documents had been found on a London bus. They had been seeking a “Mr Henderson” in the raid.
:On the other hand, while I have come under very heavy pressure not to name this person,” said Mr Dickens, “a large number of senior Members of Parliament have come to me and told me to go ahead.”
Mr Dickens has tabled questions to Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, and to Mr Francis Pym, Leader of the House and the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster.
He is asking the Attorney-General if he will prosecute this person under the Post Office Act for sending and receiving pornographic material through the Royal Mail.
In addition he has asked Mr Pym if he will set up a select committee to investigate the security implications of the entries contained within the volumes of diaries referred to in the Old Bailey trial of Tom O’Carroll, chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange. This group believes sexual relations with consenting children under the age of 16 should not be illegal.
Mr Dickens said this could have been a danger of blackmail.
It has been alleged by the MP that the former diplomat has been protected by an Establishment cover-up during the trial of O’Carroll.
An official at the Department of Public Prosecutions confirmed that they received papers from the police concerning a senior diplomat and another person in 1978.
The Department applied normal policy concerning prosecution under the Post Office Act. This involves consideration of whether there was any commercial gain by persons involved or whether the material was unsolicited.
In this case it was decided not to prosecute.
James McKillop
…
“[The DPP] received papers from the police concerning a senior diplomat and another person in 1978.”
Were the papers concerning “another person,” the DPP received from the police in 1978, from Anthony Blunt, who was a member with Hayman at the Pall Mall Club as mentioned in previous article, and was exposed 14 November 1979 as a spy for the Russians? Is that the reason the Establishment was forced to out Blunt’s spying activities?
…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19791121&id=LYkxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oaQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3921,73136
Montreal Gazette – 21 November 1979
Blunt secretary shipped parcels to Soviet Union
TORONTO (UPC) – A jewelry clerk who worked as a secretary for self-confessed spy Anthony Blunt says she shipped many parcels for him to addresses in Russia from his office at the Courtauld Institute in London.
Sylvia Trevana-Taverner says she began working in 1956 at the age of 16 as a tour guide and receptionist at the division of the University of London where Blunt was director.
She mailed parcels – which she was told contained glass slides of famous paintings – to Leningrad and delivered others by taxis to a friend of Blunt’s in a London office building.
She said staff at the Institute joked that their boss was a spy because his manner was secretive.
“Sir Anthony was always very firm in pointing out that no one was to open the package except the man I handed it to. I had no idea who he was,” said Trevana-Taverner.
“The reason we used to joke about him being a spy, was that it was so unusual to see anybody sending anything to Russia at that time, because we were in the middle of the Cold War. But then again, he also sent packages to Germany and China.”
Trevana-Taverner, an immigrant to Canada in the 1960s who remembered her former boss as “such a gentleman, such a dear” and “very close to his elderly mother”, said the staff suspected Blunt of homosexuality because he lived with another man, John Gaskin, in an attic apartment at the institute.
No one was allowed to visit it, she said. However, on one occasion when she helped Blunt’s elderly mother up the stairs, she saw the apartment which contained priceless art works and antique clocks and tables.
The roommate, whom she described as a “well-groomed masculine man,” told people he was an airline pilot, “but in the three years I know he lived with Sir Anthony, I never once saw him wearing a pilot’s uniform,” she said.
The Royal Family’s art collection was stored in a basement vault at the institute – off limits to employees – but when the Queen would visit the institute to take tea with Blunt, she said, it was “an exciting time” for the staff.
“Every year at Christmas he would send the women an orchid and a beautiful scarf,” she said. “I will always be very fond of Sir Anthony.”
…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19880113&id=nQ01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=naULAAAAIBAJ&pg=5229,2136064
Glasgow Herald – 13 January 1988
Blunt ‘linked to Ulster scandal’
No prosecutions were brought in the Kincora boys’ home scandal because former Soviet agent Anthony Blunt was linked with the case, Labour MP Ken Livingstone claimed in the Commons yesterday.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, he challenged Mrs Thatcher to look at the confidential files of the Sussex police who investigated the allegations that a homosexual rent-boy ring operated at the Northern Ireland boys’ home.
Mr Livingstone said the police, headed by Sussex chief constable Sir George Terry, investigated “allegations linking Anthony Blunt with several prominent figures in Northern Ireland who escaped prosecution for their crimes because had a prosecution been brought it would have disclosed the immunity granted to Anthony Blunt.”
He continued: “Were your Ministers aware, when they appointed Sir George Terry, that his officers had been involved in this cover-up?”
Mrs Thatcher replied only: “Prosecution is not a matter for me. It is a matter for the prosecuting authorities. If you have any new evidence, you should present it to them.”
Sir George, in his report in late 1983, rejected allegations that senior military and Government figures had been involved in the Kincora scandal and denied there had been a police cover-up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Sir Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, who was later stripped of his knighthood, was unmasked as a Soviet agent and granted immunity in 1964. However, it was not until 1980 [sic 1979] that details were disclosed by Mrs Thatcher in the Commons.
…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19830328&id=rcFAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3268,5455388
Glasgow Herald – 28 March 1983
Blunt ‘betrayed our spy in Kremlin’
Anthony Blunt betrayed the only spy Britain ever had inside the Kremlin, journalist and spy-watcher Mr Chapman Pincher said yesterday. Mr Pincher speaking on TV-am, said the man was never heard of again after he had been betrayed by Blunt to Soviets in London.
The spy was a Russian put in position by a British intelligence officer called Gibson, a colleague of Blunt’s during the traitor’s years with MI5 between 1940 and 1946.
Blunt, who died from a heart attack, aged 75, at his flat in Portsea Hall, Portsea Place, Paddington, on Saturday, had done some work on an autobiography “to put the record straight”, said a friend and former student Mr Brian Sewell.
“But there was insuperable difficulties and he gave up the idea, having better things to do with his time,” Mr Sewell said.
It was not known, however, whether any of the notes made by Blunt in preparation for writing his account of his years of betrayal remain.
It is certain that security services will want to examine Blunt’s archives closely to see if any of the documents all further information to their already extensive files on the traitor.
Opinions differ with the security services on the effects of Blunt’s betrayals.
Some officers feel his work in counter-intelligence, MI5, would have made it difficult to gain information about agents in place, while others believe his contacts in the intelligence community during the war meant he had access to such information.
There is no doubt, however, that as a key member of the counter-intelligence services, Blunt’s revelations to his Soviet masters were enormously damaging to Britain.
He was even a member of the team which planned the D-Day landings but at the end of the war returned to an academic career as an art historian.
He took with him many secrets, including the names of other Soviet agents within the security services, some of whom were uncovered in subsequent years.
But it is not yet known whether those secrets will be revealed in his personal archives, or, if they are there, whether they will ever be revealed publicly.
Blunt died at his 100,000 London flat when he got up from the breakfast table to look at a telephone number, according to his brother Wilfred.
With him at the times was his long-time companion, retired businessman Mr John Gaskin, who left the flat later in the day apparently too upset to speak about Blunt.
Since his public unmasking in 1979, Blunt has lived a lonely life. He had been stripped of knighthood and of his title Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, although he kept his university professorship.
He had been granted immunity from prosecution in 1964 in return for his confession, which came after information from a Soviet defector and from an American, Mr Michael Straight, who confessed that he had been recruited as a Soviet agent by Blunt at Cambridge University in the 1930s.
Blunt will probably be cremated after a private service in Kingston on Wednesday, his brother said yesterday.
…
Reblogged this on Desiring Progress.
Pingback: The Paedophile Information Exchange: Timeline of press cuttings 1975-2014 | spotlight