20 VIPs in child sex ring, claims
campaigner: Whistleblower says senior politicians, military figures and people
with links to the Royals were members
·
Peter McKelvie, 65, first raised alarm about
the child abuse two years ago
·
He says the conspiracy may have been going on
for 65 years
·
McKelvie helped to convict notorious child
abuser Peter Righton
·
Righton also a founding member of the
Paedophile Information Exchange
·
McKelvie said abusers made up a ‘small
percentage’ of British Establishment
At least 20 high-profile members of the British Establishment
formed a VIP paedophile ring that abused children for decades, a whistleblower
claimed last night.
Peter McKelvie, 65, said senior
politicians, military figures and even people linked to the Royal Family were
among the alleged abusers.
The campaigner, who first raised
the alarm about prominent individuals engaged in child sex abuse two years ago,
said the conspiracy may have been going on for 65 years.
Speaking in public for the first
time in 20 years, the former local authority child protection chief said there
were still people in power who had been involved in child abuse two decades
ago.
While working in Hereford and
Worcester, he helped to convict notorious child abuser Peter Righton – once one
of the country’s most respected authorities on child care.
Righton, who is now dead, was
also a founding member of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) – which
tried to decriminalise sex between children and adults, before he was convicted
of importing child abuse images.
Mr McKelvie told police in 2012
that seven boxes of potential evidence about Righton were being stored by West
Mercia Police, and that these might contain evidence of further abuse by senior
members of the establishment.
He told the BBC: ‘For the last 30
years – and longer than that – there have been a number of allegations made by
survivors that people at the top of very powerful institutions in this country,
which include politicians, judges, senior military figures and even people that
have links with the Royal Family, have been involved in the abuse of children.
‘At the most serious level, we’re
talking about the brutal rape of young boys.’
Mr McKelvie said the child
abusers made up a ‘small percentage’ of the British Establishment, but ‘a
slightly larger percentage’ knew about it but did not report it to the police.
He said these people ‘felt that’
in terms of their own self-interest and self-preservation and for political
party reasons, it has been safer for them to cover it up than deal with it.’
+3
Child abuser Peter Righton was
once one of the country¿s most respected authorities on child care
The retired civil servant said he
had once tried to blow the whistle with a ‘very prominent figure’ in the Labour
Party when the party was in opposition, but ‘nothing came of it’.
Mr McKelvie also took his
concerns to Labour MP Tom Watson, who then raised the matter in Parliament two
years ago.
His comments prompted the
Scotland Yard inquiry known as Operation Fairbank, into claims of a paedophile
network linked to Downing Street.
Speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight,
Mr McKelvie added: ‘Over many years I’ve spoken to a considerable number of
victims and most recently victims of perhaps the most powerful elite group of
paedophiles.
‘Because the worst part of sexual
abuse is the power that powerful people have over them. And they don’t believe
that power can ever be broken.’
The evidence from West Mercia
Police includes letters between Righton, who was a consultant to the National
Children’s Bureau before he was unmasked, and other suspected
paedophiles.
He welcomed the two inquiries
ordered on Monday by Home Secretary Theresa May but said the allegations should
have been taken up ‘a very long time ago’.
He said: ‘At last there is the
very real prospect of survivors and victims having justice. I believe that
there is strong evidence and an awful lot of information that can be converted
into evidence if it is investigated properly.
'There has been an extremely
powerful elite, among the highest levels of the political classes, for as long
as I have been alive – and I am 65 now.
‘There has been sufficient reason
to investigate it over and over again – certainly for the last 30 years – and
there has always been the block, the cover-up and the collusion to prevent
that.’
Parties
must reveal what whips knew
+3
Mark Sedwill, permanent secretary
at the Home Office
The Lib
Dems, Tories and Labour were last night forced to agree to trawl through their
records for evidence that party whips covered up historic allegations of child
abuse against MPs.
A senior
civil servant last night insisted all public bodies – including political
parties – should carry out a sweep of their documents for any evidence of a
conspiracy of silence.
Mark
Sedwill, permanent secretary at the Home Office, said ‘all bodies’ should carry
out investigations to see whether they hold files or evidence relevant to a
new, wide-ranging inquiry into historic paedophile allegations.
He told
MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee this included the offices of party
whips – the senior MPs in charge of discipline in political parties. His
intervention raises the prospect of current and former MPs who served as whips
being questioned about what they knew of rumours or allegations against
colleagues.
They have
long been said to hold ‘little black books’ containing damaging information
against colleagues they want to control.
Labour,
the Tories and Lib Dems indicated last night that they would co-operate in
full.
This week
Labour MP Lisa Nandy raised in the Commons remarks by the late Conservative MP
Tim Fortescue, who was a whip in Edward Heath’s government between 1970 and
1973.
He said in
a 1995 documentary that MPs ‘in trouble’ would ask the whips’ office for help
when in difficulty.
Mr
Fortescue, who died aged 92 in 2008, claimed he could assist MPs with scandals,
including those ‘involving small boys’, to exert control over them later and
make sure they followed the party line.
He said:
‘For anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and
tell them the truth, and say now, “I’m in a jam, can you help?”.
‘We would
do everything we can because we would store up Brownie points. That sounds a
pretty, pretty nasty reason, but if we could get a chap out of trouble then he
will do as we ask forever more.’
Former
Conservative chief whip Mr Heath pioneered the keeping of a ‘dirt book’ about
MPs’ private lives for his political advantage.
Conservative
MP Mark Reckless suggested there should be checks to ensure that whips’ offices
co-operated with any police inquiries into historic abuse allegations. He said
a debate in the Nineties about whether whips’ notes were personal or government
property had led to a new shredding procedure.
A Tory
spokesman said: ‘Conservative whips will review their records and co-operate
fully.’
Labour
said: ‘We will do everything in our power to help the inquiry.’
The Lib
Dems said: ‘We will cooperate with the inquiries in whatever way we can.’
