Westminster paedophile dossier

Between 1981 and 1985 Dickens campaigned against a suspected paedophile ring he claimed to have uncovered that was connected to trading child pornography. In 1981, Dickens in the House of Commons accused Sir Peter Hayman, the former senior diplomat, civil servant and MI6 operative, of being a paedophile, using parliamentary privilege. Dickens further questioned why Hayman had not been jailed after it was discovered he had left a package containing child pornography on a bus. ==Dossier==

Dickens gave his 40-page dossier to the Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, in a 30-minute meeting in 1984. Dickens described the dossier as having the potential to "blow the lid off" the lives of notable child abusers. It included details on eight prominent figures, and was reported to have contained the name of a former Conservative MP who had been found with child pornography videos, against whom no arrests or charges were brought. Dickens told his son, Barry, that the dossier was "explosive". Dickens said that he was "going to give him [Brittan] a glimpse inside my private files, where people have written to me with information." ==Aftermath==

It was subsequently suggested by Brittan in a letter to Dickens that his file would be given to police; however, the police later stated they had no record of any investigation into the allegations. Brittan said that he had passed the dossier to "the relevant Home Office officials for examination, as was the normal and correct practice" adding that "I wrote to Mr Dickens on 20 March 1984 informing him of the conclusions of the Director of Public Prosecutions about these matters (as set out in the Interim Report of the Independent Review set up by the Home Office)." Barry Dickens has said of the dossier that he would like Brittan to "name the very next person he handed it on to", adding "And where did it end up? There must have been a person who was the last to handle it ... My father thought that the dossier at the time was the most powerful thing that had ever been produced, with the names that were involved and the power that they had." Danczuk said of the encounter that "I'd never spoken to him before in my life but he blocked my way and ushered me to one side ... He warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the next day." The minister told Danczuk, "I hear you're about to challenge Lord Brittan about when he knew about child sex abuse ... It wouldn't be a wise move ... It was all put to bed a long time ago." The missing dossier has been linked with ongoing investigations into the Elm Guest House child abuse scandal. Hayman was among visitors to the Elm Guest House. Other prominent people who allegedly visited the house included the Liberal MP Cyril Smith, the art historian and Soviet spy Anthony Blunt, a Sinn Féin politician, several Conservative politicians, and a Labour MP. However, on 30 January the file was made public, revealing that it related to the former British diplomat Sir Peter Hayman. In February 2015 The Guardian reported that Thatcher had added handwritten annotations to the documents in the file which showed that despite its contents she had been insistent that officials should not name Hayman. The released papers also contained a note titled "Line to take" sent to Thatcher on the day after Geoffrey Dickens had used parliamentary privilege to name Hayman in 1981; on it she had written: "Say authorities have carried out an investigation. Nothing to suggest that security prejudiced". ==Response==

In a 2013 review on its handling of the dossier, the Home Office discovered that parts of the dossier described as "credible" and which contained "realistic potential" for further investigation were passed to prosecutors and the police. On 8 July it was announced that the wide-ranging review would be chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss, but she stood down on 14 July after mounting pressure from victims' groups and MPs over her suitability regarding the fact that her brother was the Attorney General at the time of some of the abuses in question. In October 2014, her replacement, Fiona Woolf, also stood down after concerns were raised over her connections with involved parties, including Lord Brittan. Wanless Inquiry report On 11 November 2014, Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam QC published their findings into the disappearance of the Home Office files, saying that they had "found nothing to support a concern that files had been deliberately or systematically removed or destroyed to cover up organised child abuse". They also reported that they had found no evidence to support allegations that the Paedophile Information Exchange had been funded by the Home Office. However, their report acknowledged that Home Office filing procedures had created "significant limitations ... It is, therefore, not possible to say whether files were ever removed or destroyed to cover up or hide allegations of organised or systematic child abuse by particular individuals because of the systems then in place". Responding to the report, Home Secretary Theresa May told Parliament that it had returned a verdict of "not proven", saying: "There might have been a cover-up. I cannot stand here and say the Home Office was not involved in a cover-up in the 1980s and that is why I am determined to get to the truth of this". She therefore asked Wanless to further investigate whether any material relevant to his review had been passed to the security services, and if so what action had subsequently been taken by them. She also requested that he look into how police and prosecutors had handled any allegations of child abuse passed onto them by the Home Office at the time of Geoffrey Dickens' dossier. In addition, May informed Parliament that the Metropolitan Police would investigate claims made by journalist Don Hale that Special Branch officers had seized a file containing allegations about MPs and other prominent figures which former Labour Party minister Barbara Castle had given to him. IPCC investigation In March 2015, it was announced that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) would "manage" an investigation that was already being conducted by the London Metropolitan Police's Directorate of Professional Standards into claims of "high-level corruption of the most serious nature" over four decades, including 16 allegations that the Met had covered up historical child sex offences because of the involvement of MPs and police officers. Scotland Yard said it had voluntarily referred the allegations, which arose from investigation 'Operation Fairbank' launched in 2012, to the IPCC. The allegations being considered by the IPCC relate to the period between 1970 and 2005 and include failures to properly investigate child sex abuse offences; the halting of an investigation relating to the abuse of young men in Dolphin Square, near Westminster because "officers were too near prominent people"; and that a Houses of Parliament document was found at a paedophile's address which linked "highly-prominent individuals" – including MPs and senior police officers – to a paedophile ring, but that no further action was taken. The IPCC would also consider claims that a child sex abuse victim's account was altered to remove the name of a senior politician, and that surveillance of a child abuse ring was curtailed because of "high-profile people being involved". ==See also==