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I was asked to find underage boys for sex ...
By Matt Chorley
Sunday Mail
July 13, 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2690373/I-asked-underage-boys-sex-drink-drug-fuelled-Tory-party-conferences-claims-former-activist.html
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| Former activist Anthony Gilberthorpe, left, claims he was asked to find underage boys for sex during Tory party conferences when Margaret Thatcher was leader in the early 1980s |
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| Former Tory minister David Mellor, pictured today, dismissed Mr Gilberthorpe's claims as a 'lot of tittle-tattle' about people who were dead and cannot defend themselves |
I was asked to find underage boys for sex at drink and drug-fuelled Tory party conferences, claims former activist
Senior Tory politicians took part in drink and drug-fuelled sex parties with underage boys during seaside conferences, it was claimed today.
Former activist Anthony Gilberthorpe says he was handed cash and told to ‘fetch entertainment’ - code for young boys – by members of Margaret Thatcher’s government.
But the claims were today rejected as ‘tittle-tattle’ by former Conservative minister David Mellor, who insisted those named were dead and unable to defend themselves.
Westminster has been gripped by claims of an Establishment cover-up of allegations of child sex abuse over several decades.
The government has appointed former High Court judge Baroness Butler-Sloss to lead a wide-ranging panel inquiry into abuse at every level of society.
Mr Gilberthorpe says he will give the inquiry the names of former Tory ministers, some of whom are still alive, who he claims he saw with young men at party conferences.
He claims he sent a 40-page dossier to Mrs Thatcher in 1989 detailing Cabinet ministers who took part in the sex parties, bur says he was warned off by a senior civil servant.
He told the Sunday Mirror how boys as young as 15 were plied with alcohol and cocaine at Conservative gatherings in Blackpool and Brighton in the 1980s.
He named former former-Education Secretary Keith Joseph, ex-local government minister Rhodes Boyson, and Michael Havers, the former attorney general who is the brother of Baroness Butler-Sloss. All of those Mr Gilberthorpe names are now dead.
Mr Gilberthorpe alleges that during the 1983 party conference in Blackpool he was asked by Dr Alistair Smith, the Conservative party chairman in Scotland, to find young boys for two Cabinet ministers to have sex with.
The ministers are not named, but he does claim that Mr Boyson and Mr Joseph were there.
Mr Gilberthorpe told the Sunday Mirror: 'Dr Smith, who I looked up to at the time and was the most important Tory in Scotland, told me to go and fetch some 'entertainment', which was code for young boys and handed me a handful of bank notes. There was about £120.
I was expected to find the youngest and prettiest boys. It was what those men wanted. In fact, it was all they wanted
Anthony Gilberthorpe
He added: 'It was a norm and an open secret that these older members of the Tory party, like Dr Smith, paid for young men to join them at sex parties.
'I was expected to find the youngest and prettiest boys. It was what those men wanted. In fact, it was all they wanted.’
He also claimed that selected people had an Oscar award symbol on their conference pass to give them access to secret sex parties.
Mr Gilberthorpe alleges that in 1981 he went to a party in Blackpool where ‘several boys who were clearly aged between 15 and 16’ were performing sex acts on MPs.
He claims he saw Sir Michael Havers there. Baroness Butler-Sloss has faced calls to stand down from her role leading the panel inquiry because her brother was in the Cabinet at the time many of these allegations date from.
He also claims that during the 1984 party conference in Brighton there was a sex party at the Grand Hotel on the night before an IRA bomb killed five people.
Mr Gilberthorpe says he was ‘manipulated and groomed’ by the senior politicians. ‘It is time this came to light before anyone else is abused,’ he added.
But the allegations were dismissed by Mr Mellor, a former Tory Cabinet minister who served in the Thatcher and Major governments.
He told BBC One’s Andrew Marr show: ‘The only people who are named are dead. There is an opportunity to name live people.
‘What we are dealing with is a lot of tittle-tattle. Here is a chap who was annoyed that he wasn’t chosen as a Tory candidate.’
He added: ‘It names a lot of dead people. Where is the bravery in that?’
Mr Mellor said Mr Gilberthorpe had made public ‘implausible names’ in connection with the sex parties.
‘This is now open season because of a pretty shoddy dossier presented to Leon Brittan by a Tory backbencher.’
Geoffrey Dickens handed the file to the then-Home Secretary in 1983, but the Home Office says it can now not be found.
Mr Mellor, a Home Office minister from 1983-87, added: ‘The interesting thing about that dossier is nobody who has commented on it has ever seen it.’
HOW THE STORY UNFOLDED: CHILLING CLAIMS THAT SEX ABUSE RING MAY HAVE OPERATED IN BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT DATE BACK TO 1983
The chilling claims that a paedophile ring may have been operating within the British establishment first emerged in an investigation by campaigning Conservative politician Geoffrey Dickens.
In November 1983, the MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth in Greater Manchester sent a 40-page document to then Home Secretary Leon Brittan detailing alleged VIP child abusers, apparently including former Liberal party chief whip Cyril Smith and other senior politicians.
In a newspaper interview at the time, Mr Dickens claimed his dossier contained the names of eight 'really important public figures' that he planned to expose, and whose crimes are believed to have stretched back to the 1960s.
November 1983:
Geoffrey Dickens produces a huge dossier detailing allegations of sexual abuse against prominent figures in the British establishment. He tells his family the claims will 'blow apart' the VIP paedophile ring.
March 1984:
Home Secretary Leon Brittan tells Mr Dickens that his dossier has been assessed by prosecutors and passed on to the police, but no further action is taken. The dossier is now either lost or missing.
May 1995
Geoffrey Dickens dies. A short time later his wife destroys his copy of the paedophile dossier. The only other copies - one received by Mr Brittan and another allegedly sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions - are believed to have been lost or destroyed.
September 2010
The 29-stone Rochdale MP Sir Cyril Smith dies aged 82 without ever being charged with sex offences.
2011/2012:
Following the death of Sir Jimmy Savile, dozens of claims of historic child abuse emerge - including a number of alleged victims of Smith, who is said to have spanked and sexually abused teenage boys at a hostel he co-founded in the early 1960s.
October 2012
During Prime Minister's Questions, Labour MP Tom Watson claims there is 'clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No10'.
November 2012
Lancashire Police announced they will be investigating claims of sexual abuse by Smith relating to incidents before 1974, while Greater Manchester Police will investigate claims after 1974.
November 2012
The Crown Prosecution Service admits Smith should have been charged with crimes of abuse more than 40 years earlier. The CPS also admitted Smith had been investigated in 1970, 1974, 1998, and 1999 but rejected every opportunity to prosecute him.
November 2012
A former special branch officer, Tony Robinson, says a historic dossier 'packed' with information about Smith's sex crimes was actually in the hands of Mi5 - despite officially having been 'lost' decades earlier.
December 2012
Scotland Yard sets up Operation Fairbank to investigate claims a paedophile ring operated at the Elm Guest House in Barnes, southwest London, in the 1970s and 80s. Among those abusing children are said to have been a number of prominent politicians.
February 2013
Operation Fernbridge is established to investigate the Elm Guest House alleged paedophile ring.
February 2013
It is claimed a 'paedophile ring of VIPs' also operated at the Grafton Close Children's Home in Richmond, Surrey.
February 2013
Two men, a Catholic priest from Norwich, and a man understood to be connected to Grafton Close, arrested on suspicion of sexual offences and questioned by Operation Fernbridge officers.
June 2013
Scotland Yard claims that seven police officers are working full time on Operation Fernbridge and are following more than 300 leads.
June 2013
Charles Napier, the half-brother of senior Conservative politician John Whittingdale, is arrested by Operation Fairbank officers.
December 2013
Some senior Labour party politicians linked to pro-paedophile campaign group the Paedophile Information Exchange, which was affiliated with the National Council for Civil Liberties pressure group, now known as Liberty, in the 1970s and early 1980s.
December 2013
Police search the home of Lord Janner as part of a historical sex abuse investigation. He is not arrested.
February 2014
Current deputy leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman, who was NCCL's in-house lawyer at the time of its affiliation with PIE and even met her husband Jack Dromey while working there, is forced to deny she supported the activities of the pro-paedophile collective.
February 2014
Patricia Hewitt, Labour's former Secretary of State for Health who was NCCL's general secretary for nine years, later apologised and said she had been 'naive and wrong' to consider PIE a legitimate campaign group.
June 2014
Lord Janner's Westminster office is searched by police. Again the peer is not arrested.
July 3, 2014
Labour MP Simon Danczuk called on Leon Brittan to say what he knew about the Dickens dossier. It emerges the dossier has now been either lost or destroyed and the Home Office admits it can find no evidence of any criminal inquiry relating to it.
July 5, 2014
More than 10 current and former politicians are said to be on a list of alleged child abusers held by police investigating claims of an alleged paedophile ring.
July 6, 2014
Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill reveals that 114 files relating to historic allegations of child sex abuse, from between 1979 and 1999, have disappeared from the Home Office.
It is also revealed that former Home Secretary Lord Brittan was accused of raping a student in 1967. The 2012 allegation was not investigated until Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders ordered the Met Police to re-open the case in June this year.
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