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How much evidence is there of long term high level UK paedophile ring?

CPS statement on the Smith file:

1.
In March 1970, some 16 years before the Crown Prosecution Service was formed and when Sir Norman Skelhorn was the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), a file of evidence was submitted to the then DPP’s Office.

The file, from Lancashire Constabulary, contained allegations made by eight men that they had been subjected to indecent assaults by Cyril Smith as teenagers. The allegations were very similar in nature, and were allegedly conducted on the pretexts of either a medical examination or punishment for misbehaviour. All the boys were either living at Cambridge House Children’s Home in Rochdale (six of them), or were dependent on Cyril Smith for either employment, financial support or some sort of guardianship. It is noted that 80 pages of evidence was supplied to the then DPP’s office with a covering note dated 11 March 1970.

The only documentation of the decision making is a one page letter to the Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary.
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2.
In April 1997 South Wales police began an investigation into sexual and physical abuse within care establishments in Wales, during which helplines were publicised by the media inviting potential victims to come forward. One man who rang the helpline alleged he was abused by Cyril Smith at Cambridge House Children’s Home in Rochdale between 1965 and 1968. This allegation was passed to Greater Manchester Police, who submitted a file of evidence, which also included the 1970 documentation, to the CPS in May 1998.

The request was to review the 1970 decision making and this was provided in a written advice from the CPS lawyer on 17 June 1998.

In light of the greater understanding of sexual abuse, the reviewing lawyer concluded that there was sufficient evidence to charge, but that a prosecution should not proceed because:

Cyril Smith had been told that he would not be charged for these alleged offences 28 years previously. The law and procedures followed by prosecutors in 1998 made clear that long-standing charging decisions could only be reversed in very limited circumstances, namely new evidence coming to light. This rule applied to all cases and the evidence submitted by police against Smith in 1998 was the same as in 1970.
If Smith had been charged, a court would have likely stopped the prosecution for the same reason.
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3.
The man who had rung the helpline was spoken to by Greater Manchester Police in October 1998, and confirmed he was one of the original complainants from 1970. During further police enquiries, two further complainants were identified through a local journalist who made allegations of indecent assault against Cyril Smith.

The reviewing lawyer (the same as provided advice in 1998) provided advice on 21 May 1999. It concluded:

The conduct alleged by one complainant was not a criminal offence so no action could be taken.

The other complainant had not reported the abuse to the police earlier, despite being aware of the 1969/70 investigation, but had spoken to the media about it in 1979, while still making no complaint to the police. Furthermore, this complainant approached Smith after the alleged abuse to seek a favour and it was only when police made contact with this complainant that the allegations came to the attention of the authorities. Taken together, these factors seriously weakened a case that would have relied entirely upon the complainant’s evidence from some 30 years previously. In these circumstances, it was concluded that there was insufficient evidence to authorise charges.
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The decision made in 1970 would not be made by the CPS today.
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I dont normally duplicate exactly what I've said on another thread but I think I'll make an exception in this case.

Well at least that confirms what we suspected rather than let this bit drag on without any answers, but still hard not to get very angry about this. Its the headline story on the Guardian website at the moment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/27/cyril-smith-claims-decision-prosecute

Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale who first raised allegations against Smith on the floor of the House of Commons, said the CPS has serious questions to answer over its failure to act in the past.
"What has become clear today is that Cyril Smith should have been prosecuted for sexual abuse," Danczuk said. "We now know that the CPS failed to act on police officers' recommendations on three occasions.
"In the last week I have met with senior police officers from both Lancashire and Greater Manchester police, who told me they had seen the files I had requested at [prime minister's questions].
"They were in no doubt that Smith should have been put in the dock and they wanted the victims to know this."

Sources close to the current Greater Manchester police (GMP) inquiry into the Smith investigations said the CPS's statement had been released as a face-saving exercise because of intense pressure from former detectives who worked on the cases.
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Some pressure on MPs again:
One alleged victim of Smith, who says he was 17 and had fallen out with his adoptive parents when he was first abused by the former Liberal MP in the late 70s, said the announcement was a relief, but asked MPs to now also say if they knew of the allegations but failed to disclose them.

"For years I have harboured a lot of pain and suffering but lacked the confidence to come forward. But the reason that I did not report this was because there was such an inequality of power. I would have been fighting a man who was a member of parliament. I am pleased to hear that the CPS has looked at the files but parliament now has to look at itself too. I think it has failed to protect me or any of his other victims," he said.
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The Director of Public Prosecutions at the time had a few other controversies under his belt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Skelhorn


Skelhorn became entangled in the row that erupted around the use of torture in Northern Ireland. Prime Minister Edward Heath had banned sensory deprivation in light of the report by Sir Edmund Compton into internment and interrogation techniques used by the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.[8] In October 1973, being questioned at a meeting of the Harvard Law School Forum, Sir Norman did not deny that torture had taken place, claiming that: "when dealing with "Irish terrorists" any methods were justified."[9]

On 9 April 1976, the leader of the Young Liberals Peter Hain was cleared of robbery at a branch of Barclays Bank. In the House of Commons that afternoon, six MPs led by Liberal David Steel, called for the resignation of Sir Norman Skelhorn, over the Hain case.
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Has Steel completely retired from public life? He doesnt seem to have anything in Hansard since 2005?

Although to be generous I should mention that Cyril Smith was a Labour councillor at the time of the offences.
 
Sex offenders including paedophiles should be allowed to adopt, Theresa May told

Rules which bar sex offenders from working with children are ‘unfair’ and even convicted paedophiles should have the right to adopt, a leading legal academic has said.

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent
6:00AM GMT 15 Dec 2010
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ld-be-allowed-to-adopt-Theresa-May-told.html#

Sex offenders should not be banned from looking after children


Sex offenders should not automatically be banned from adopting, fostering or working with children, according to new research which also backs government plans to relax strict vetting procedures introduced after the Soham murders.
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http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2010/11/sexOffenders.aspx

Never seen either of these before :hmm:
 
Channel 4 news have followed up on the north wales stuff:

http://www.channel4.com/news/north-wales-child-abuse-unanswered-questions

As critics lined up to call for George Entwistle’s head, a handful of commentators pointed out that the real and serious issue of child abuse was in danger of being overshadowed by the media’s hysteria over the future of the BBC.
And so it proved as we have heard little or nothing of this unsettling story since, writes Ciaran Jenkins. There are, however, many questions which remain unanswered:
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Clwyd County Council no longer exists but copies of the Jillings report are held by a number of its successor authorities.
Legal advice has been sought by Flintshire, Wrexham and Denbighshire councils to establish whether they can release it under Freedom of Information legislation.
However, Flintshire Council has informed Channel 4 News it is considering whether to exercise a number of exemptions which would prevent publication because disclosure could inhibit law enforcement, and because the report contains personal information and information provided in confidence.
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In her statement to the House of Commons, Theresea May announced a major new inquiry led by the National Crime Agency which would re-examine the allegations of historic abuse in north Wales and the original police investigations. It is codenamed ‘Operation Pallial’ and is still in the evidence-gathering phase.
However, Channel 4 News has learned that the investigation is limited to the North Wales area and related allegations located in Cheshire are considered outside its terms of reference.
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Operation Pallial must ask difficult questions of the police if it is to be credible.
It might begin by asking what happened to photographs depicting child abuse discovered in a flat in Wrexham in 1979? Much of the suspicion about outside involvement in the abuse of young boys stemmed from these images.
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The Children's Commissioner for Wales has now received information relating to 99 separate cases, 48 of which concern the original inquiry. Crucially, Channel 4 News has learned that Operation Pallial is actively investigating allegations from victims not previously known to the police. New evidence may yet emerge which could help clear up some of these mysteries once and for all.
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There are some other bits of interest in the story but I didnt want to cut & paste the entire thing.
 
I know it's been said before that it's legal that the report had been supressed at the time. But am I being dense here? How can the state be the fiduciary of the public funds and the protector of those in its care? Why is it ok to fail the kids in its care as long as it protects the public money? I've been reading yesterday that following the insurer's recommendations not to publish the report, Clwyd Council was also advised by QC Michael Beloff not to publish the report in case the council received some nasty libel writs. Does this mean that it was presumed that some of those who gave evidence were unreliable witnesses?
 
little_legs said:
Does this mean that it was presumed that some of those who gave evidence were unreliable witnesses?
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Probably. I'm not sure of the exact legal standing of the process by which witnesses were questioned for that report, but there are particular situations where witnesses can make claims without fear of libel, such as in a court.

Meanwhile I found a bit more about operation Fairbank:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...d-connections-to-escape-justice-16250028.html

Scotland Yard detectives are looking into allegations that senior politicians abused children in the 1980s and escaped justice because they were protected by their powerful connections.​
During past weeks officers from the Metropolitan Police’s child abuse investigation team have interviewed several adults who claim that they were sexually assaulted as children by MPs in a paedophile ring.​
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​
Until today when the Metropolitan Police confirmed its existence, the inquiry, Operation Fairbank, had been operating in secret at the headquarters of the Child Abuse Investigation Team at Empress State Building in Earl’s Court, London.​
​
Officers with the team, part of the Specialist Crimes and Operations Directorate, have spoken regularly to Mr Watson.​
​
The Metropolitan Police stressed that Operation Fairbank was a “scoping exercise” aimed at a preliminary assessment of the evidence rather than a formal inquiry.​
​
However, officers are understood to be taking the witnesses’s claims very seriously and are expected to make arrests in coming weeks.​
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​
​
 
That investigation may well be centred on the Elm Guest House that is mentioned in the story Rutita1 linked to in post 1705 of this thread.
 
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