A supposedly independent review of the Home Office’s handling of allegations about decades of systemic child abuse that infiltrated Westminster has ruled that it’s impossible to discern if there was an establishment cover-up.
Home Secretary Theresa May faces strident criticism following the release of the review’s findings.
Conducted by the chief executive of the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), the inquiry examined whether or not the Home Office carried out an adequate and effective review last year into its handling of damning information relating to alleged historic child sex abuse.
In 1983, the late Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens wrote to then-Home Secretary Leon Brittan warning he would expose the identities of eight public figures he suspected of engaging in child abuse unless concrete action was pursued.
The information Dickens submitted allegedly contained the names of police officers and MPs suspected of being child abusers.
In 2013, senior civil servant Mark Sedwill launched a review into the Home Office’s handling of abuse allegations between 1979 and 1999 — including the information submitted to Brittan by Dickens.
However, no official record of child sex abuse allegations made by Dickens surfaced. Rather, Sedwill’s review revealed the Home Office had “lost or destroyed” 114 files — consisting of an array of child sex abuse allegations.
In July of this year, May requested Wanless examine the review carried out in 2013, amid heightened concerns regarding its efficacy and integrity.
Wanless will face heated questioning from Parliament when he offers evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, but May has avoided direct questioning by addressing the findings of the review in a written statement.
NSPCC chief Peter Wanless’ report revealed files were routinely destroyed by the Home Office. But it failed to cast further light on allegations of systemic child sex abuse carried out by elite members of Britain’s law enforcement and political establishment in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
The NSPCC chief’s inquiry mirrored findings of Sedwill’s review into the missing Dickens files, which concluded there was no hard evidence to suggest they had been destroyed or removed inappropriately.
Sedwill’s review, which proved highly unsatisfactory to MPs and campaigners throughout Britain, found no concrete records of child abuse allegations supposedly waged by Dickens.
Wanless’ review, the findings of which were published on Tuesday, also failed to uncover the fate of the missing Dickens dossier.
The relative failure of Wanless’ inquiry to cast any new light on the allegations, formerly made by Dickens, will fuel the ongoing debate over the need for an official and comprehensive national inquiry into claims of historic child abuse carried out by senior establishment figures.
Following the release of her written ministerial statement on Tuesday, May is due to meet a number of groups that have campaigned vociferously on the issue later this week.
Central to this most recent review was the question of whether Sedwill’s earlier inquiry into the Home Office’s handling of historic child abuse allegations was accurate in concluding there was no evidence the government body directly or covertly financed a powerful pedophile ring known as the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Labour sharply criticized the Home Secretary’s decision to avoid direct scrutiny and questioning by MPs with respect to Wanless’ findings, warning her actions were shameful.
May’s failure to face the house and answer questions “on a matter of this level of public concern” is utterly unacceptable, an anonymous Labour source told the Guardian.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called upon May to clarify whether Wanless’ inquiry was merely a formulaic review of old information or whether the NSPCC chief had been granted access to original files, had been allowed to pursue new lines of inquiry, and had been able to genuinely look for the missing Dickens files.
Cooper said absolute transparency is essential in this regard, particularly in light of allegations against the Home Office that claims of historic child sex abuse had been mishandled.
Wanless’ conclusions, published on Tuesday, foreground a broader inquiry into historical child sex abuse due to begin later this week.
This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.