New disclosures from my excellent Exaro News colleague Nick Fielding reveal that paedophile MP Sir Cyril Smith backed taking the troubled Knowl View special school in Rochdale out of local authority control.
His story based on hitherto unseen official papers shows that Rochdale Council narrowly missed losing local authority control of the school where children were sexually assaulted and the MP was a governor and a regular visitor.
Martin Digan, a care worker at Knowl View, tried to blow the whistle about the abuse. He had just become acting head of care at the residential school for boys with learning difficulties and behavioural problems.
He told Exaro: “It was Smith who was pushing for the school to be controlled by its governors – outside of the local council’s control.”
“It would have become nothing short of a sweetshop for paedophiles.”
Luckily in 1992 under the Tory government of Sir John Major that would have been extremely unusual and the scheme came to nought.
Fast forward 20 years and such a move is commonplace and nobody would question it. Would a present Tory education secretary now refuse such a proposal for Sir Cyril Smith like Jimmy Savile was an extremely popular and respected figure at the time and nobody publicly knew anything about his appalling private life? I doubt it.
But the reason I have singled out Michael Gove is that he is actively opposing any statutory reporting of child sexual abuse to the police by teachers or other people in authority in the schools system. He has said so in a letter to his former Cabinet colleague Cheryl Gillan.
This to me seems madness when at the same time he is freeing up the education system and allowing anybody to set up a school and wants every school out of local authority control as soon as possible. He is also encouraging unqualified teachers.
Now either Michael Gove takes the view that teachers are so decent that they could not possibly harm any child ever or he doesn’t really care what happens. I doubt he is one of the small minority of Tory libertarians who believe child sex is fine. In my view after studying the very duplicitous and nasty way some paedophiles behave,he has opened the door to make child sexual abuse more prevalent in the education system and put more children at risk. He could soon get a rude awakening, far worse than the present troubles at a badly run Al-Madinah school in Derby.
Category Archives: education
Exclusive on Exaro: New police leads in ex cabinet minister paedophile investigation
The Metropolitan Police’s Operation Fernbridge is following new leads in their investigation into sexual abuse allegations involving a former Tory Cabinet minister.
The investigation is now looking at new allegations involving links to gay brothels in Amsterdam and a now closed residential school with some special needs children in the North of England near Bradford. It is also looking at allegations from a boy in care in London who was taken out of town to a house where he was sexually abused by the same minster.
The full story by me and Mark Conrad is now on the free to view Exaro News website .
The disclosure should quell unfounded rumours that Operation Fernbridge is being run down and closed.
The main reason for this fear is that a line of investigation involving the ex Cabinet minister has hit a problem. A complaint dating from the 1960s by a young woman alleging rape by the ex-minister is not being pursued after the Crown Prosecution Service advised that the guidelines and law at the time could not justify the charge.
This just illustrates how difficult it is for the Met Police to pursue and get convictions in historic child abuse cases despite people thinking the police are not doing their job. However the disclosure that more leads are being followed up suggests the inquiry is very much alive.
Operation Fernbridge has already led to two people facing trial on multiple charges involving indecent images and sexual abuse.
Exaro News: Pay wall scrapped – It’s all free
You can now read all my stories and many other good scoops on the Exaro website free of charge.
Just like my old employer The Guardian and unlike Rupert Murdoch’s Sun and Times there is no longer a pay wall between you and the story.
So go to the site and see and hear the full private Murdoch ” tape”; all the stories about Ed Lester, the former head of the Student Loans Company now at the Land Registry and his tax avoidance; all the stories on the Operation Fernbridge historic paedophile investigation; the government’s flawed plan to abolish the Audit Commission and embarrassing disclosures about the activities of the Serious Fraud Office.
Exaro is now funding its activities with a big expansion in data journalism -aimed at business.
Go on indulge yourself!
Michael Gove: A Paedophile’s Unwitting Friend?
Michael Gove:Dereliction of duty to protect school children from child abusers
Michael Gove is not known for being shy and retiring when it comes to forcing decisions on the nation’s schools. Yet rather curiously he has disclosed that he has no intention of intervening to ensure that when children are sexually abused in the nation’s state funded and private schools that the incident should be reported.
My colleagues Frederika Whitehead and Mark Conrad have written the full story for Exaro News ( see http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4999/michael-gove-blocks-move-to-force-schools-to-report-sex-abuse) .
Put simply he has written to Cheryl Gillan, the ex-minister and Tory MP for nearby Chesham and Amersham, saying that he is against mandatory reporting of allegations to the specific local officer because it could ” swamp ” officialdom ” with every incident reported”. He says : ” schools should be trusted to make their own professional judgement ” to report the matter.
This statement is extraordinary for two reasons. Why does Gove think authorities are going to be swamped? Does he think they are loads of kids in the nation’s schools waiting to accuse their teachers of sexual abuse? Or does he suspect, as the abused tell us, that this much more widespread than we realise and he frankly doesn’t want to know?
Also sadly the idea of relying on schools to use their professional judgement to report sexual abuse cases appears to be rather hollow from my experience. In the investigations I have covered what appears to happen is that schools and social services are prone to cover this up. Both the London borough of Richmond and the Roman Catholic Salesian order have paid off victims and in the case of the Salesians got the person to sign a gagging order not to reveal what happened. This results in the perpetrators often being moved to avoid a scandal and getting new jobs elsewhere where they repeat the pattern, Jimmy Savile style.
I am sure that Michael Gove is not a supporter of paedophilia nor am I accusing or even inferring in the headline that he is remotely sympathetic to child abusers. But unwittingly by not doing so he is giving aid and comfort to those who want this hushed up. My accusation against Gove is more dereliction of duty as secretary of state for education in not providing the protection of the law for children who are sexually abused. I know from other sources that the Metropolitan Police Paedophile Unit take a similar view.
Exclusive: Met Police launch nationwide child abuse investigation into Catholic order
Campaigning hero Graham Wilmer: Picture reproduced courtesy Rory Wilmer Photography
Over the last two weeks the Met Police Child Abuse Investigation Command has been secretly running a new investigation into alleged child abuse involving former schoolboys who went to primary and secondary schools run by the Roman Catholic Salesian Order in England and Scotland.
Some 23 alleged victims have already contacted in one of the biggest operations since Operation Yewtree which involved Jimmy Savile and Operation Fernbridge investigation into sexual abuse at Elm Guest House in Barnes – including tracing people who had left the country for Thailand.
The full story is revealed today in The People (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedo-probe-catholic-schools-20-1911825) and Exaro News( http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4979/met-investigates-catholic-order-s-schools-over-child-sex-abuse ). It is known to involve at least 30 victims and 20 priests and teachers, some of whom are now dead, and stretching back some 50 years. Some of the figures were prominent members of the Order which was set up in London in the late nineteenth century and now stretches world-wide.
The impetus for the new investigation comes from one former pupil of a Salesian school, Graham Wilmer, who was sexually abused himself, and has tirelessly and heroically campaigned for a full-scale police investigation into the order for decades.
He now runs the Lantern Project (http://www.lanternproject.org.uk) in the Wirral which counsels victims of child sexual abuse and has managed to pass to the police 50 names of victims and abusers, some of whom had left the country.
The extraordinary decision to launch the investigation was finally prompted – after three false attempts – by a former pupil of a London Salesian school who was a senior colleague of Commander Peter Spindler, now at HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. He knew of the abuse in the order and directly contacted Spindler. His intervention led to Spindler launching the inquiry and the contacting of victims. (See http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4980/operation-torva-ex-pupil-joined-police-and-triggered-met-probe )
The Scotland Yard codename for the exercise is Operation Torva.
One of the schools where abuse by staff was alleged to have taken place was a Salesian College in Battersea, south London. Famous pupils there include Catherine Tate who attended the sixth form and Lord O’Donnell, the former cabinet Secretary, who was head boy.
The Met Police said: “The Metropolitan Police takes allegations of sexual abuse very seriously regardless of when they took place. All allegations when reported will be recorded and investigated and where possible evidence will be put before the court in order that offenders will have to answer for their actions. Officers from the Metropolitan Police have been engaging with members of the Lantern Project in order to work in partnership to encourage those who have suffered abuse to come forward.
Graham Wilmer said: “It is a matter of great comfort to us that the response we have had, when talking to the police, has always been very positive, and no one should be concerned about how they will be treated if they report abuse to the police. I would urge any one who has been abused in a Salesian school, or elsewhere, to come forward and make contact with the police in the first instant.
“It has always been a matter of real concern to me that, up until the Jimmy Savile case, it has been very difficult to get justice for victims of sexual abuse, as nobody really wanted to know. Now, everything as changed, and the police, the DPP and the CPS are actively encouraging victims to come forward and seek help.
However, there is still no sign from government that they will provide the funding necessary to support survivor groups, such as the Lantern Project, without which the support that victims who come forward desperately need, will simply not be there.”
The police are taking calls from victims on 101 or 999 and victims can also contact the Lantern Project on 0151 630 6956 if they don’t want call the police to report child abuse in the Salesian Order.
Defamation Act 2013: A boost for free speech, Part 2: Public Interest and Privilege – Timothy Pinto
This is a second good piece of news for bloggers who follow political scandals, local councils, the NHS and bad practice in public services. You needn’t worry if you don’t get it 100 per cent right.You are going to have new rights protecting your reporting and comments so long as you can justify it is the public interest and produce fair accounts of public events. The great thing is you can report public protest meetings with full protection. Another invaluable piece of legal advice for all those following public affairs.
In this second part of four posts by Timothy Pinto of Taylor Wessing, he considers the changes to common law and statutory privilege which will result from the Defamation Act 2013. Part 1 on “Serious Harm, Truth and Honest Opinion” can be found here.
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Am I bovvered? The Ministry of Defence on sexual abuse and bullying of forces’ kids
Ministry of Defence: Not safeguarding forces children
A virtually unreported hearing of the Commons defence committee has revealed an extraordinary complacent state of affairs of the Ministry of Defence towards complaints from forces parents of sexual abuse and bullying at private schools.
MPs from all three parties have condemned the attitude of officials responsible for paying out school fees for forces children who evidently admit to refusing to move their children from a school if they are bullied or sexually abused.
A full report is published today on the Exaro website by Frederika Whitehead and myself ( see http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4971/mod-policy-on-claims-of-child-sex-abuse-at-schools-stuns-mps ).
The MPs anger in part stems from a report on The People ( see http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-probe-sexual-assault-claims-1781432 ) which revealed that Stanbridge Earls School in Hampshire where soldier’s children are sent by the MOD was now the subject of a sexual abuse police investigation.
But the real anger came from three MPs. Madeleine Moon, Labour MP for Bridgend, said “The MoD should put the protection of children first, not the protection of the ‘continuity of education allowance’ first.”
Two other MPs on the committee – Sir Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, and Penny Morduant, Conservative MP, for Portsmouth North, also had strong views.
And Tom Watson has also expressed concern. “This has highlighted the inadequacies of the MoD’s rules for military education. In not offering parents greater choice, the system is too rigid. Worse, the ‘don’t cause a fuss’ attitude of the department makes it hard for the families of service personnel to publicly voice their concerns. This has to stop.”
In its defence the MOD said it did not always enforce this rule. However it is a pretty bad state of affairs in the present climate that the MOD do not seem to have a duty of care towards the children of its forces personnel – given many are serving abroad and not on hand to easily intervene when their kids face bullying or sexual abuse. It all suggests that the forces still have some very antiquated attitudes towards these issues. Expect more investigations from Exaro in this area.
Should ministers be able to snoop on your calls and e-mails? Enter a competition to have your say.
computer snoopers? pic courtesy itelegraph.co.uk
Update: Since this was published the deadline has been extended to December 14, so you still have a chance to enter.
Can you out Craig John Craig on Sky News? Are you more outrageous than blogger Guido Fawkes? Can you be more angry than Richard Littlejohn or Peter Hitchens? If you are a budding journo aged 14 to 18 and take an interest in politics, there is rather good competition you can enter. The subject this year is privacy and the internet – and whether the government should be able to access stuff on your mobile phone calls, trace your e-mails and see which websites you have visited. The competition is run by the Parliamentary Press Gallery – the hacks who write for the press, write blogs and broadcast on radio and TV from Parliament. You must have a view on this – so why not write an article or a blog or put together a radio or TV report.
You can get all the details at http://www.writenow.org.uk . But hurry you only have until November 10 to get an entry in. If you win you will get a day in the House of Political Intrigue and be able to meet some of the more colourful characters in the media and MPs.
Exclusive: How Teflon Theresa dismembered “Two Brains” over London Met University
David Willetts: Two dismembered brains? Pic courtesy: The Guardian
Update: Three hours after Exaro News revealed the delay, London Metropolitan University announced it was scrapping the scheme altogether. A statement said it was going to call in fresh consultants and start again. It has abandoned the tendering exercise. David Willetts has truly lost everything over this.
The furore over the threatened deportation of thousands of overseas students studying at London Metropolitan University is well-known. What is not so well-known is the political battle between two prominent ministers, Theresa May, the home secretary, and David Willetts, the universities minister – known as ” two brains” because of his formidable intelligence, over the heart and soul of Tory policy.
The train crash happened at the London Met because two different Tory policies collided with each other. Theresa is a champion of curbing illegal immigration. David Willetts is a champion of university privatisation. Successful and profitable privatisation however depends on attracting more- not less – immigration to the UK in the form of overseas students. The London Met, as we shall see below, was his pet project.
The two ministers were at loggerheads before this started and so far Theresa has outwitted brainy Willetts.
Theresa May: Pic courtesy: The Guardian
The clue is revealed in the court case that London Metropolitan brought to try to overturn the ban on recruiting overseas students. Here it is revealed it was Theresa May not the UK Borders Agency that ordered the ban. It was a political not an operational decision. Here I am indebted to Andrew McGettigan whose critical education site is well worth following. ( See http://andrewmcgettigan.org/2012/09/24/update-on-london-metropolitan/ )
Now why was this decision so damning to Willetts? Well it was taken almost on the day London Met was to decide which private bidder – from BT Global, Capita and Indian firm Wipro – would take over running the university and win a £74m five year contract. Not only was this the biggest contract for a university in the UK but if successful the private company could offer to run other universities, making the contract worth a staggering £500m. Full details are in my articles in Exaro News (http://www.exaronews.com)
Now Willetts and George Osborne had staked a lot on this and it was smashed overnight. Willetts is closely connected to Malcolm Gillies, vice-chancellor of the university. His former special adviser Jonathan Woodhead, is now a £75,000 a year executive reporting directly to the vice-chancellor. Both Willetts and Gillies are strong advocates of what they call ” shared services” which allow a private company to take over the running of everything at a university with the exception of the teaching and the vc’s office.
George Osborne had been helpful by creating a hardly noticed change to VAT legislation this year -exempting private companies bidding for shared ownership schemes from being liable for VAT. At a stroke this cut their bid price by 20 percent.
But the uncertainty surrounding whether London Metropolitan University will get back its special status to recruit overseas students means that no private company is likely to touch the deal as they won’t know the size of the university or whether the university can survive at all without overseas students. And even though the university is appealing there is no date set for the judicial review.
So at a stroke Willetts’ pet privatisation scheme has been put on hold. Indeed altogether not a good year for Willetts. A separate plan to introduce a bill extending the rights of private universities to award degrees has been shelved for a year and he was the person who appointed Ed Lester, head of the student loans company, to his job under a ” tax avoidance” scheme that has now been vetoed,increasing Mr Lester’s tax bill.
Willetts has also in Tory terms been outclassed by the more radical and dangerous Michael Gove. Indeed if Willetts was a state school, his performance to date would mean he would be hived off to the private sector after failing his Ofsted.
How Michael Gove plays fast and loose with taxpayers money on school redundos
One would expect a right-wing Tory like education secretary Michael Gove to be pretty diligent on how he spends taxpayers cash. You wouldn’t expect him to spray public money around without Treasury approval and then tell auditors to get lost if they pick him up on it.
This is exactly what he has done by handing out extra cash to his beloved school academies so they can buy staff redundos with extra payments without bothering to get it cleared by the Treasury.
And when this was rightly picked up by the National Audit Office – the independent Whitehall body that scrutinises taxpayers’ cash – he has had the cheek to demand that the NAO and the Treasury go away and forget it.
The row is revealed by me in a piece for Exaro News (http://www.exaronews.com ) this month after the NAO took the decision to qualify the £6.1 billion accounts of the quango that funds academy schools ( now merged into a wider body ) after it found 14 cases of excess severance payments, totalling just under £230,000 at nine academies.
This may not sound much but it only found out about them after checking accounts of 135 academics – just eight percent of them. The other 92 per cent of academy accounts were never scrutinised by the quango. If this figure were applied pro rata the number of excessive unapproved redundo cash would top nearly £3m.
Now this may be good news for the people involved but it seems to me like a repeat performance of what happened in the Thatcher era where millions of pounds of taxpayers money were paid out in early retirements just when cash was short. The result was worse as many of these people are probably still claiming pensions now.
Don’t get me wrong I am not against people getting a good redundo deal ( I got one myself in the private sector) but I do think that where public money is concerned the deal should be scrutinised by the Treasury first. Otherwise every pound paid out on top of normal redundo is being taken out of paying for kids education.
Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, writes in the report: “YPLA ( the now defunct quango) has not required academies to notify them of severance cases or any other payments that require Treasury approval, and so I have concluded that the assurance framework that YPLA had in place for the financial year was not capable of identifying and managing all cases.”
“I have been unable to confirm that, in all material respects, grants to academies conform with the authorities that govern them, and have been applied for the purposes intended by Parliament.”
Michael Gove’s response was: “We do not believe that we need approval for these payments because maintained schools are not required to submit them. We are working with the NAO and HM Treasury on this.”
This conveniently leaves out the fact that these schools are responsible to the directly elected local authorities, academy schools are responsible to unelected civil servants.
My solution is simple. If Michael Gove wants to spray taxpayers’ money around in this way, he should pay for it himself. After all the excellent new search the money website (http://SearchTheMoney.com/) reveals he has received £462,000 in donations, £304,000 from one private equity firm). So he could raise the money for this excessive payments and leave the taxpayer to fund what it should do-public education.
Westminster Confidential 