Source:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2693635/Now-revealed-Barbara-Castle-drew-dossier-VIP-paedophiles-File-seized-Special-Branch-heavy-mob.html
Special
Branch officers seized a paedophile dossier naming Establishment figures
drawn up by Labour peer Barbara Castle in the 1980s, it was claimed
yesterday.
Officers
citing ‘national security’ confiscated the file which listed 16 MPs
along with senior policemen, headteachers and clergy, it was said.
The
dossier was collated by the late Baroness Castle of Blackburn who
handed it to Don Hale, the editor of her local newspaper, the Bury
Messenger.
Mr
Hale claimed a ‘heavy mob’ of Special Branch officers raided his office
in 1984 and took away the file, threatening him with prison if he
resisted.
And
he said that the day before the raid, Liberal MP Cyril Smith – since
exposed as a predatory paedophile – had also visited the office,
demanding that he bury the story.
It
would be the second paedophile dossier to have ‘disappeared’. A year
earlier, a file handed to former Home Secretary Leon Brittan by Tory MP
Geoffrey Dickens also went missing.
This has now prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to set up a special inquiry into child abuse.
Lady
Castle put together 30 pages of information about alleged attempts by
the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) to infiltrate government while
seeking funding and trying to persuade MPs to legalise sex with
children.
As
well as key members of both the Commons and Lords, she found that about
30 prominent businessmen, public school teachers, scoutmasters and
police officers had links to PIE.
Yesterday
Mr Hale, 61, said: ‘Barbara was horrified at the rapid extent of PIE’s
involvement with key people and her file included details of about 16
household-name MPs.’
He
said Lady Castle – who at the time was Euro MP Barbara Castle – passed
him the dossier and asked if he would write a story based on it.
‘I
agreed to run something the following week but obviously had to contact
certain MPs named – from the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties –
and the Home Office for their responses,’ said Mr Hale.
‘The
next day, Cyril Smith came to my office. He must have heard about it,
or been sent by, the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe.
‘Cyril
tried to persuade me that it was “all poppycock”. He said Barbara had
her “knickers in a twist” since leaving the House and had become bored
with wine lakes and sugar mountains in Europe.
‘He played down the whole episode and wanted an assurance that I wouldn’t run anything.
‘I
couldn’t give that and he went away very disappointed. The next day the
heavy mob arrived. Two or three police in uniform and half a dozen in
plain clothes.
+2
Bully: Paedophile Cyril Smith is said to have asked an editor to bury the story
‘They
came at 8am, before most people had arrived for work, and showed me
warrant cards and a D-notice and something signed by a judge. They
threatened me with five to ten years in prison and took away my
notebooks and all the papers Barbara had given me.
‘It
was a threat to national security, and not in the public interest, they
told me. If I had said no, I would have been arrested. I had to give
them assurances I had given them everything. They told me not to tell
anyone, and the whole thing was over within half an hour.’
Mr
Hale went on to be a campaigning editor at the Matlock Mercury
newspaper known for his investigation that led to the freeing of Stephen
Downing, wrongly jailed for the ‘Bakewell Tart’ murder.
But he said it was the incident with the Lady Castle dossier that sparked his determination to expose cover-ups.
He
said: ‘Barbara had been a long-serving local MP and used to come and
have a chat with me every couple of weeks. We had talked about a
potential paedophile ring with MPs before, but she said no one would
listen.
Detective Clive Driscoll has told how he was removed from a probe into a council-run children's home in the late 1990s
‘She
asked me if I would take a look and run a story from her point of view.
She objected to any funding of this organisation PIE, and was very
concerned about the speed of their infiltration and the number of
prominent names who were allegedly supporting them.
‘Barbara
was horrified, too, at the prospect of Parliament approving legalised
sex with children, often under the guise of educating them, and
mentioned an influx of rent boys and unsavoury and unfortunate
situations that had been covered up by the authorities.’
He said she had not been surprised when he told her about the visit from Special Branch. ‘She sort of expected it,’ he said.
‘This
was a powerful organisation and she reluctantly admitted she was
fighting a formidable foe. She apologised for the hassle it caused me.’
Lady Castle died in 2002.
Mr
Hale said of the dossier: ‘It was 30 years ago, so I can’t remember the
names and full details, but I was sworn to secrecy by Special Branch at
the risk of jail if I repeated any of the allegations.’
No comments:
Post a Comment