BARRISTER and three other men are to be sentenced at the Old Bailey today for involvement in a sex ring which lured boys as young as 10 into prostitution.
Police believe the convicted men may only represent a small section of a network of men luring boys into homosexuality and male prostitution. The conspiracy, said to resemble the Mafia in its organisation and strength, includes well-placed and influential professional people and its tentacles reach into Westminster and Whitehall, police suspect.
The men were found guilty after a 13-week trial at the Old Bailey during which the court heard that the youngsters were treated as ''objects'' for sexual gratification.
The four men used a cleaning firm, a football team, and CB radio as vehicles to recruit boys.
Prosecuting counsel Mr Michael Hill QC said the boys were so thoroughly corrupted they came to believe the abuse to which they were subjected was normal and natural behaviour.
Company director Alan Delaney, 48, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit buggery, indecent assault, taking indecent photographs, indecency with a child and attempted buggery.
He was cleared of a charge of buggery, and of committing an act intended to pervert the course of justice. Delaney, of Hounslow, Middlesex, was said to have used his Twickenham firm as a vehicle to recruit boys.
He placed advertisements for teenage cleaning staff and then lured them into sex, the jury was told. He used a football team which he ran in north London for the same purpose.
Victor Burnett, 43, of Acton, was convicted of conspiracy to commit buggery. He was cleared of two charges of indecency with a child and one of buggery.
The court heard Burnett, unemployed, used CB radio to attract youngsters.
Barrister Colin Peters, 43, a former Foreign Office official from Bayswater, West London, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to procure buggery and a charge of buggery.
The fourth man to be sentenced is Ernest Whittingon, 64, a council estate orderly at Harlesden, North West London. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit indecent assault and to three charges of buggery.
Eighteen young witnesses gave evidence from behind a screen during the trial.
The prosecution said children as young as 10 were among those subjected to abuse over a five-year period, and that the charges were only specimens.
Mr Hill said the men collectively set out to acquire boys for sex.
Some became male prostitutes, selling their bodies to other men, while others turned from being victims into corrupters themselves.
One 15-year-old was picked up within 10 minutes of arriving in London's Piccadilly Circus after hitch-hiking south, the court heard. The boy was taken to Peters' home and soon became a prostitute.
Scotland Yard believes the case may be only the tip of a massive conspiracy. Police say teenagers, some vulnerable runaways procured off the streets and often with disturbed backgrounds, are passed around the circle and quickly corrupted into 'rent boys'.
Detectives are convinced that only the establishment of a centralised ''paedophile squad'' at Scotland Yard could eradicate the evil.
Colin Peters
Ernest Whittington
Alan Delaney
Victor Burnett
