There may be a far darker secret lurking at the heart of Westminster than previously suspected, Simon Danczuk has warned. The Labour MP, who first blew the lid on the Cyril Smith scandal, alleges that a paedophile ring involving senior politicians and policemen has yet to be fully uncovered.
Danczuk, writing in the Daily Mail, has admitted that some will probably brush him off as a conspiracy theorist. But he faced similar accusations when highlighting the abuse perpetrated by Cyril Smith, and believes that many in Westminster have been blinded to the true scale of the scandal.
“When, in April last year, I first started to speak about the police’s certain knowledge of Smith’s serial offending after publishing my book on his double life as a child abuser, I was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist.
“I had researched Smith and his revolting proclivities for more than two years, so I knew what I was talking about. Yet when I mentioned the word ‘cover-up’ it provoked cynical laughter among some of the old guard in Parliament.
“Slowly but surely, though, a sober realisation has dawned upon the political classes that we’re looking at a truly monumental cover up.”
Members of Parliament have in the past been convicted of child sexual abuse: in 1962 Sir Ian Horobin, the Conservative MP for Oldham, which adjoins Cyril Smith’s Rochdale constituency, was jailed for four years for indecently assaulting boys. But by the time police moved to prosecute Cyril Smith for similar crimes only a few years later, something had changed.
“The Director of Public Prosecutions was prepared to listen to representations from politicians, and stamped ‘Not in the public interest’ on Smith’s case files. I now believe that this is because a paedophile network – perhaps involving prominent politicians and policemen – had been established, and, if charged, Cyril could have blown it wide open,” Danczuk says.
Smith drew attention from the police over a period lasting decades. From the late 1950s right up until 1999 he was called into police stations for questioning, only to walk away free. Each time the same pattern emerges: police were instructed to hand over all evidence, files were destroyed and officers were warned, under threat of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, never to talk about the matter.
Additional accusations have been made that the police failed to act on evidence that Elm Guest House in Barnes, south west London, was being used by a paedophile ring as a place to bring young boys to be raped, and that police also failed to act on allegations that luxury apartments in Dolphin Square were being used for similar purposes.
The Police Complaints Commission is currently investigating 14 such alleged incidences of Scotland Yard covering up paedophilia carried out by VIPs. But Danczuk warns “I fear these cases may just be the tip of the iceberg.
“Time after time, I’ve witnessed cold, sustained fury from police officers explaining how investigations into serious criminal behaviour ground to a halt once they found out MPs were involved. ‘It was disgusting,’ one told me. ‘We had huge rows about it. Officers were not happy.’
“I have also spoken to victims who allege MPs abused them at a young age. And we’re not talking sexual peccadilloes here: we’re talking violent, sadistic rape. One man told me how his legs had been broken as a young boy. ‘They took great pleasure in causing us to scream in pain,’ he said. It was sickening stuff.”
Danczuk, whose constituency of Rochdale has been hit hard by revelations that Asian gangs groomed young girls for sex for decades whilst the authorities turned a blind eye, admits that no one should be “under any illusion that these terrible crimes belong to a bygone age.” But he warns that what is yet to be uncovered in London may be of a greater magnitude still.
“It suits us fine that the focus is on provincial places like Rochdale and Rotherham,” a serving Met officer told Danczuk. “What’s going on there doesn’t even begin to tell the story in London. It’s a lot worse here because there’s big money involved. The Met has ignored organised child abuse for years.”
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