Scotland Yard has announced that there will now be a criminal investigation into the sexual abuse of young boys in the care of the London borough of Richmond in the 1980s.
The criminal investigation will concentrate on boys who were living at Grafton Close children’s home and are alleged to have been taken to Elm House guest house in Barnes, south west London where they were sexually abused.
The police decision follows a raid on the home of Mary Moss, the former organiser of the now defunct National Association of Young People in Care in London when the police took away boxes of documents. These included the names of prominent people and MPs and former ministers alleged to have stayed at the guest house.
The police have also obtained documents and records from Richmond Council on the boys in their care at the time.
The rest of Operation Fairbank will be extended to include fresh allegations passed on to the police by Tom Watson, Labour MP. The criminal investigation is named Operation Fernbridge.
There could be the first arrests of people in the next few weeks, though the initial arrests will not include politicians. Full story in http://www.exaronews.com.
The Met Police statement in full:
The Metropolitan Police Service has today launched an investigation, Operation Fernbridge, into historic allegations of child abuse in the early 1980s at the Elm Guest House, Rocks Lane, Barnes, London.
The investigation will be led by the Child Abuse Investigation Command.
Anyone with information is asked to contact officers on 020 7161 0500.
The allegations under Operation Fernbridge were initially assessed under Operation Fairbank which was information passed to police by MP Tom Watson. Operation Fernbridge reached the threshold for a criminal investigation.
We will not be providing a running commentary on this inquiry.
Westminster Confidential 
This looks like one of those stories that gets floated but then rarely turns out to be as promising as it first appeared, like the Tory Fundraiser in Boys Home abuse non-story, or the twenty spitfires buried in Burma, or the Vietnam veterans still hiding out in the jungle. These are fantasy news stories that tell people what they want to believe, rather than what is true.
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Some stories in this area can end up being untrue.But I am not publishing all I already know at this stage ( particularly now it is a criminal investigation) and sadly I fear it may well prove to be true.
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Was the Tory Fundraiser a non-story or was it a non-investigated story? Huge difference. Lets hope same does not turn out to be true of this latest development. Too many years, too many cover-ups.
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Hello again. Over a year later. Well, is this the slowest moving investigation you’ve ever seen, or what?!
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Liz, Yes painfully slow partly because it has spun out a lot of other investigations and the Met Police paedophile unit is remarkably small.
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