Tag Archives: Met Police

The Ben Fellows acquittal: A statement from me

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Ben Fellows Pc Credit: BBC

Ben Fellows
Pic Credit: BBC

A few people on the internet have either contacted me or challenged my journalism  since Ben Fellows was acquitted by a jury at the Old Bailey.He was accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice over his allegations against Ken Clarke, the former Tory Cabinet minister.and I was one of a number of witnesses.

The only reason I was called as a prosecution witness by the Met Police was two years ago Scotland Yard’s paedophile unit rightly decided to investigate his allegations that he had been sexually abused by Kenneth Clarke at lobbyist Ian Greer’s office while working undercover for The Cook Report on a sting. I was at the time working as a consultant to the programme while employed full time on the Guardian. To make it absolutely clear the TV investigation was not into any Westminster paedophile ring but into the  “cash for questions” affair which involved allegations that MPs have been paid by Mohamed al Fayed, the then owner of Harrods, for asking Parliamentary questions on his behalf.

The police interviewed me and other members of The Cook report about this and quite independently none of us could recall this happening.

At the Old Bailey trial I gave evidence under oath to tell the truth. the whole truth  and nothing but the truth. I stand by everything I said at the Old Bailey. To do otherwise would be committing perjury, which is a criminal offence.

I also stand by my stories on Exaro News  which are correct to the best of my ability. I investigated Ian Greer for over a year and Ken Clarke’s name was never in the frame. I also saw Ian Greer’s entire accounts for the years in question and again there was never a mention of Ken Clarke.

To those on the internet who have suggested that somehow since the 1970s I have been a secret member of the Establishment covertly working with Peter Mandelson, this has been greeted with absolute mirth by anybody who knows me.

Revealed: How The Metropolitan Police Covered-Up For Rupert Murdoch’s News International – Joe Public

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This is an extremely important revelation by Bellingcat and Byline given that the Met Police have had at last to hand over huge numbers of documents to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel which is investigating his death. It suggests a wider conspiracy by the Met Police involving more people.
It is also good news that this is one of the first projects that has been ” crowd funded” by Byline showing the need for journalists to be given time and resources to investigate very serious scandals that are in the public interest.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Mazher-Mahmood-010A Bellingcat and Byline investigation can for the first time reveal Scotland Yard had intelligence Mazher Mahmood was corrupting police officers as far back as the summer of 2000.

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Esther Baker child sex abuse allegations: A challenging case for Staffordshire Police

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Esther Baker

Esther Baker

The allegations of historical child sex abuse made by Esther Baker are going to be a big challenge for Staffordshire Police to investigate.

Her testimony  reported first on Sky News and developed in stories published at the weekend on Exaro News and in the Sunday Mirror make grim reading. I won’t repeat it all here.

What it suggests is that some 25 years ago a group of young girls – in Esther’s case as young as six – were taken into the deep woods of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire and  raped on numerous occasions  while a couple of police officers watched to make sure no member of the public stumbled upon such a scene.

She has been unable to identify any of the other girls – though she says they may have been six or seven of them and not all the same ones – and has until recently not been certain who all the assailants were. Some were alleged to VIPs, others were not.

But she has now told police that a former MP of repeatedly raping her not only there but at other places. He  is adamant that this is untrue and  insists that she has either fabricated this  or been manipulated by others to accuse him of criminal sexual acts he did not commit.

She points out to me that the first time she made the allegation it was to another survivor and was before she was being counselled by any organisation.

Staffordshire Police are at the moment nearing the end of a scoping exercise which has involved interviewing Esther seven times for hours before they proceed to a full investigation which  they have promised to undertake.

What has also emerged that quite independently two other women have come forward and made similar allegations against the same former MP. Unlike Esther these two women have not made their complaints public and still have to talk to Staffordshire Police in any detail about their allegations. Neither are known to Esther.

And to add to the complications a third survivor,  a man already talking to the Met Police, about allegations in Dolphin Square, London has identified from a picture of Esther as a child, her being there. She remembers being taken to London but had no idea where she had been taken.

All this is going to require a painstaking detailed investigation by Staffordshire Police which is going to take a lot of time and energy. It is a very good exemplar of how these allegations – which would have been dismissed years ago – are now being taken seriously by the police in the present climate. No doubt the naysayers would argue that these allegations  still should not be taken up because they sound so extreme.

But to clear up what looks like a hidden epidemic of child sex abuse that is being uncovered in this country Esther is entitled to a full and thorough investigation into exactly what happened in Staffordshire 25 years ago. And the police need to  track down  who is alleged to have carried out  such vile acts and bring them to trial.

Child sex abuse: Investigators announce a game change decision

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The announcement by the Independent Police Complaints Commission that it is to investigate  cover ups  inside the Metropolitan Police on historical child sexual abuse inquiries is  game changing. It means not only are the Met Police convinced that evidence from survivors of a powerful paedophile ring that may have operated in Westminster and Whitehall needs investigating and people prosecuted but the Met Police conduct at the time needs to be held to account

The full statement on the IPCC  site lists no fewer than 14 allegations to be investigated going back to the 1970s. and 1980s to the early 2000s. You can read them in the release.

As the IPCC Deputy Chair Sarah Green said:

“These allegations are of historic, high level corruption of the most serious nature.

“We will oversee the investigations and ensure that they meet the terms of reference that we will set. Allegations of this nature are of grave concern and I would like to reassure people of our absolute commitment to ensuring that the investigations are thorough and robust.”

The press release names Dolphin Square as one of the venues of the ring  and also South London – linking possible venues like Elm Guest House in Barnes  and Lambeth. It covers a number of investigations by exaro and disclosures on a closed website that  former Met  police officers working on these cases believed they had been stopped from pursuing important people.

Survivors and victims should at last be pleased that they are being taken seriously and must hope that this will really be a thorough detailed investigation that will not shy away from finding out who in the Met agreed or was told to close down such investigations .

However a word of warning it is to be – as the Danny Shaw, the BBC’s home affairs correspondent points out –  a ” managed ” inquiry – meaning that the Met police’s own Professional Standards Body will carry out the investigation into the Met police. They will be overseen by the IPCC which is hit by not having enough resources due to the austerity measures.

In some ways this investigation parallels the equally appalling murder of Daniel Morgan – current the subject of an independent panel inquiry into  the murder of the private investigator. The evidence from the Met Police finally handed over late last year should also open up inquiries into why leading figures in the Met never got a successful prosecution.

What can be said now is that these lurid allegations against MPs, senior Cabinet ministers, spies and the various churches- which some commentators believe must be false – have to be taken seriously and cannot just be ignored.

The investigation I hope will go some way to restore trust in the police to conduct such inquiries in the future and also show those who thought they could cover up matters in the 1970s and 1980s will not get away with it.

The inquiry has to be seen to be robust, transparent and thorough and getting to the root of the many scandals in the capital. If it doesn’t suspicions will remain. it will require nerves of steel  to tackle the prominent people who stand accused.

Tony McSweeney abuse trial: The shame of Richmond Council

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Tony McSweeney: A paedophile priest. Pic Credit:rapevictimsofthecatholicchurch.files.wordpress.com

Update: Father Tony McSweeney was sentenced to three years in prison  for his crimes on March 27.

While the latest horrors over Jimmy Savile dominated the headlines,a Roman Catholic priest became the first person to be convicted as a paedophile under the Met Police’s Operation Fernbridge.

The investigation into both the notorious Elm Guest House and a Richmond Council children’s home, Grafton Close, saw Father Tony McSweeney convicted on a specimen charge of indecent assault and three charges of making indecent images of children on his computer. He was cleared of three other charges of indecent assault.

The trial would have been much bigger if not for the death of his co-accused John Stingemore had not died just before facing prosecution. Stingemore,as my colleague Tim Wood who reported the trial for Exaro shows, was portrayed by McSweeney as a paedophile. and it emerged in court that Stingemore had already been convicted as paedophile for the sexual assault of Peter Bornshin, a resident of Grafton Close home.

The trial reveals two shocking facts. First it shows that yet another paedophile Roman Catholic priest  has escaped justice for some 35 years and been able to work as a pillar of the community across the East of England. He has even gathered a  bit of celebrity stardust- marrying the boxer Frank Bruno – and when caught with child  sex abuse images he made on his computer he was a member of the scouting movement and worked with the Norwich City youth football team.

Second is the shame it has heaped on Richmond Council which failed to act at the time to halt these crimes and has been in denial ever since this investigation began. It is quite clear from the court proceedings that Stingemore when in charge of Grafton Close was able unchecked to take boys out of the children’s home to his Bexhill flat where they were abused and employ his paedophile friend McSweeney – who also accompanied boys to his flat – without anyone taking much notice. One might be tempted not to heap blame on the authority if it was not for the attitudes of leading political figures and officials to recent  events. Sir David Williams, the former Liberal Dem leader in the wake of this scandal told me he did not believe there was any child sexual abuse in Richmond and it had all been got up by the press. Tell that to the jury at Southwark Crown Court.

Two other prominent Liberal Democrats  councillors at the time now peers Tim Razzall and Jenny Tonge appeared to be in denial or did not want to talk about it. And  Louis Minister, then Richmond’s  director of social services, now retired in Malta, denied he had ever heard of Elm Guest House and said he knew nothing of what happened at Grafton Close. Only with a trial imminent did he recover his memory loss. A

nd there are leading Richmond Tories who knew at the time- an issue I am still investigating. Contrast the last 35 years. These ambitious councillors, a number of whom I have met as a lobby journalist in Parliament, have led comfortable, prosperous lives heaped with honours and public recognition. While the survivors – the people unfortunate to be sent to be protected at Grafton Close – whom I have met  as an investigative reporter at Exaro, have in the main led fractured, impoverished lives. Many have difficulty coping, relying often on benefits only to be hounded by the DWP. One,Peter Borshin, the worst case scenario,  sadly committed suicide after his experiences which went on to him being committed to Broadmoor. No peerages or honours for them.

I would hope after this tragic saga Richmond will have the grace to review its procedures to ensure that there is not a current repetition of those events 35 years ago. Perhaps the judge who  in this case has indicated that ,McSweeney will get a  custodial sentence will instruct them to do so.

There is a full report in the Daily Mail into the background of McSweeney’s career and the questions it raised about the Roman Catholic Church. The link is here.

Richmond Council issued this statement after the trial:

Gillian Norton, Chief Executive of Richmond Council, said:

“The Council is sorry that a child in its care was indecently assaulted. The assault happened 35 years ago and clearly the service leadership and management laid bare in court were totally unacceptable.

“The situation today is completely different. Most looked after children are in foster homes. Only those children needing very specialist services are placed in children’s homes. All placements are subject to rigorous checks and controls within a statutory regulatory framework and this includes senior social workers who are independent of the child’s worker.

“The system today puts much greater emphasis on the views of children and staff are employed specifically to help children to give their views.

“Sadly experience has shown us of the horrors adults continue to inflict on children and it is difficult to say it can never happen here. But I am confident that services now are well led and managed, that officers are held to account by elected Members and the Local Children’s Safeguarding Board so that children in Richmond are as safe and well looked after as possible.”

The release is here.

Leon Brittan: Why Lawson is wrong and there is a real case to answer

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Leon Brittan

Leon Brittan

There has been anger  and disbelief among many of the late Leon Brittan’s friends that his name has become public in connection with the current Met police investigation into  historical child sex abuse dating back to the 1980s. In one sense it is understandable. Who would want to believe that the person they invite to dinner, meet in the House of Lords, have known for years, could be remotely considered a serial paedophile. So the reaction from Lord Deben ( better known as John Selwyn Gummer), Edward Garnier MP and David Cameron after his recent death is not unusual.

But the attack in the Sunday Times by Dominic Lawson, a former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, is a different matter. By taking the argument that those who say that he could be a paedophile – such as Tom Watson and Simon Danczuk  are part of a  frenzied Labour left-wing plot to get back at Tories close to Margaret Thatcher,he is way off the mark.

As an investigative  reporter  not only does this line of argument not stand up – but the facts of the case are against him.

For a start  he questioned whether “Nick’s ” account  about  Leon Brittan and others sexually abusing him was accurate. Yet ” Nick” has already been described by the  Met Police as ” a credible witness”. They do not do such a thing lightly. and they certainly don’t do it just because Tom Watson or Exaro News say so. They make up their own mind.

Second if he started to examine the known facts about  the allegations against Leon Brittan he might have pause for thought. ” Nick” is not the only person to make these allegations. Separate allegations have been made by more than a handful of other survivors and a number are still being followed up by the police because they involve other people.

As a journo if you want to establish the probability of a fact – one of the most compelling arguments is when two or more people who did not know each other give a similar story. So unless Dominic Lawson is going to argue that there is a wicked conspiracy among survivors across England to name and frame Leon Brittan for some unknown reason this does not stand up.

People also forget that the case against Leon Brittan is not only made by survivors – who as kids as young as nine or eleven would not easily recognise Cabinet ministers – but by members of the public.

The original reason why Elm Guest House was raided in 1982 was not initially because children complained about sexual abuse but because the residents in Barnes got thoroughly fed up with an unruly B & B in a  quiet street, with cars turning up at all times of night. It was a resident who allegedly said she saw Leon Brittan going there. Certainly the police from separate sources have established that Sir Cyril Smith went there.

And other people, not just survivors, are now coming forward saying at least there was one flat in Dolphin Square where young people were invited to gay sex parties.

Of course they may now be a clamour for the Met to stop investigating him – but the investigation is on going because they are people who were allegedly there with Leon Brittan who are still alive.

Finally if  some one is likely to be charged – the most likely person which both Leicestershire and Met Police say they are currently investigating – it is Lord Janner. Now unless Dominic Lawson knows something I don’t ,I can’t recall Lord Janner ever being in Thatcher’s Cabinet. He is a  former Labour MP and if his argument is that the sex abuse scandal is based on Leftie political revenge on the Tories – I have not seen Tom Watson or Simon Danczuk rushing to protect him for the sake of Ed Miliband.

Frankly the thesis of Dominic Lawson is a bit of old tosh – pressure for an overarching child sex abuse inquiry had all party support – Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green. It was precisely the idea of Conservative Mp, Zac Goldsmith, to do it this way – to prevent it becoming a party political matter.

In his frankly partisan piece Lawson – I suspect in grief for a friend he sees unjustly accused- has broken that. And shame on him for suggesting it.

I now see following the Times revelations today(July 23) that indeed the Cabinet Office did have documents which named Leon Brittan in connection with child sex abuse allegations but they were suppressed. I hope Dominic Lawson will reflect on the findings.

Revealed: How the Daniel Morgan Inquiry got nowhere for a year

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Daniel Morgan: A lesson for other inquiries

Daniel Morgan: A lesson for other inquiries

While the future of the child sex abuse inquiry dominates the news agenda the media has missed an extraordinary dispute that plagued another independent inquiry – the investigation into the brutal murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.

The independent panel also set up by home secretary, Theresa May, has until recently been deadlocked for almost a year because of a fractious argument between the retired judge appointed to run it and the panel member responsible for examining the police.

As I report on exaro news  the saga ended with both the chairman and the panel member resigning from the inquiry but nobody in the media noticed even though the murder of Daniel Morgan has been one of the most high-profile scandals for years.It involved allegations of corruption by the Met Police, dodgy involvement of the media, and a bloody killing.

Despite five police investigations into the case, nobody has been convicted for Daniel Morgan’s murder. The co-founder of a private-detective agency, Southern Investigations, he was found with an axe in his head in 1987 in the car park of a pub in south London..

The dispute is significant because it is relevant to the problems facing the child sex abuse inquiry – and crosses a fault line, that if not corrected by the Home Office, will make the work of future independent panels very difficult.

Surprisingly when I contacted both the retired judge who resigned, Sir Stanley Burnton, and the panel member, Graham Smith,from Manchester University, both were willing to talk.

Graham Smith couldn’t believe that no one wanted to know his views which were blunt to say the least. He said “The panel was behaving like a lot of Sherlock Holmes’s, and wanted to re-investigate the murder rather than research the documents”…. it was “like working for a judicial inquiry without the safeguards of being held in public”.

The judge, while not wanting to go into detail about his resignation, made it clear that he  didn’t want to negotiate by himself with Scotland Yard about handing over all the files, he nevertheless wanted to establish some rules just like judicial proceedings.

He wrote in an email:“A possibility was to emulate the manner in which claims for public-interest privilege are dealt with in litigation, when disputes as to relevance and disclosure are determined by the judge.”

“I would not regard the refusal of the other members of the panel to agree to such a machinery as a resignation issue.”

It turns out both of them have complained about their experience. Graham Smith has written a strongly worded memo to Theresa May and the retired judge has written to the  lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, about running independent inquiries.

So here’s the nub of it. Appoint a judge and it is likely he or she will want to run an inquiry rather like a court – taking advice from expert witnesses, sifting through information and writing his or her own report.

Appoint someone else to chair a panel and the atmosphere will be more collegiate and the panel will discuss issues and have an input into the final report which is what the child sex abuse inquiry was supposed to do.

Melding the two views of an inquiry together is very difficult  and requires great skill – and in some cases like the Daniel Morgan inquiry it won’t work and it falls apart. I am sure  Sir Stanley and Graham Smith are decent people – but the way the Home Office constructed the inquiry did not work.

Fortunately a new head and new people have now been appointed and the hope must be that the Daniel Morgan inquiry – which has a huge duty to the distraught Morgan family to find out what really happened – can now get on with the job.

But a valuable year has been lost and lessons need to be learned before a new person heads the child sex abuse inquiry.It points to not having a judge to chair it.

Why police whistleblowers will be crucial to getting to the truth of historical child sex abuse

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While controversy rages about the future of the independent panel into child sex abuse,a key development almost passed unnoticed at the end of last year.

It was the decision of former police officers in previously closed down child sex abuse inquiries to present a dossier to Sir Bernard Hogan Howe, the Met police Commissioner, and to the overarching inquiry into child sex abuse when it finally starts taking evidence.

My colleague Alex Varley-Winter on Exaro produced two powerful pieces revealing both this move and the extraordinary revelations on a closed website by former police officers  who investigated child sex abuse allegations during those dark days of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.. You can read her pieces on Exaro here and here. They reveal that  their own investigations were ” canned” when they started to involve prominent people or politicians.

As she reports:”The participants in the two discussions are mostly former Met officers. One exceptionally identifies himself as having worked for “UK gov”, and said that he signed the Official Secrets Act. And another was a firearms instructor in the Met.

…”Across all the discussion threads published by Exaro, seven participants claim to have direct knowledge of a cover-up of VIP paedophiles. Many others say that they were told by colleagues or do not specify the basis of their claims about closed operations.”

The significance of this cannot be underestimated. At the moment the police have  detailed allegations from survivors of very serious abuse and possible murders of three survivors. As Scotland Yard has already said the allegations by ” Nick” as revealed by Exaro are credible. But the police need more evidence to corroborate this to bring charges. These could come from other survivors.

But  what better evidence  could there be than from former police officers who could h\ave been investigating the very same allegations if they can come forward.  This would provide the Crown Prosecution Service with quite separate evidence in addition to the survivors themselves.

I have a feeling that this could be a game changer in the investigations that are currently taking place across the country if these police officers are able to testify. This will make this year a very important one for all survivors of historic child sex abuse who have been denied justice for such a very long time.

No Justice yet for Daniel Morgan

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Scotland Yard: Dragging its feet Pic Credit: Wikipedia

Scotland Yard: Dragging its feet
Pic Credit: Wikipedia

This Christmas the long-suffering campaigner Alastair Morgan should  be seeing the proposed report into the alleged corrupt links between the Met Police, journalists on the News of the World and the undercover world of private investigators following the brutal murder of his brother, Daniel, some 27 years ago.

Theresa May, the home secretary, when she set up the inquiry in May 2013 promised it would aim to report by this Christmas.

But instead – partly thanks to enormous foot-dragging by the Met Police – the inquiry has barely begun.

As I reported last week on the Exaro website – it is only in the last few weeks – that the Met Police – has finally handed 50 crates of documents connected to this case. And we still do not know whether this  is everything or whether the documents are in good order.

It seems quite clear that the Met Police – which could face itself having to answer some very difficult questions when this report is published – has done everything to frustrate this inquiry going about its business.

This has wider significance since the inquiry is one of the innovative independent panels set up after the successful inquiry headed by Bishop James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, into the Hillsborough scandal.

This foot-dragging  by the Met raises questions about the powers such inquiries have – since it has no power to compel the Met Police to hand over anything and it looks like Cressida Dick, assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, took every opportunity to delay handing everything over.

It also  re-opens the issue whether the new overarching child sex abuse inquiry – which I return to in another blog later – will be able to do its job when demanding information from public bodies.

The murder of Morgan, co-founder of a private-detective agency, Southern Investigations, who was found with an axe in his head in 1987 in the car park of a pub in south London, was a scandal in itself. Despite five police investigations into the case, nobody has been convicted for the murder.

No wonder Alastair Morgan told Exaro: “It appears that the Met has been allowed to use every opportunity to obstruct and delay the process at every turn. I am sickened by such behaviour from a service funded by the public. It can only be described as disgraceful.

“I have little doubt that the Met will continue to try to obstruct and delay the work of the panel, without taking any account of the decades of pain and frustration that my family has suffered as a result of their failure to confront the corruption and criminality that seems endemic within their ranks.”

The Met themselves say it took so long because they had negotiate such  a detailed protocol to hand over the information. But I am not impressed.The whole idea of an independent panel is that it has its first duty is to families of people who have suffered gross injustices that the existing system has failed to bring to a proper resolution.

Plainly in the Daniel Morgan case this has not happened.

I can only hope that Nuala O’Loan, the replacement chair of the Daniel Morgan inquiry, who I am told is a formidable figure with a  tough reputation as the first Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland, gets a proper grip on this now the Met have handed over the files. She needs to get on with the job pronto.

Otherwise it will be a gross insult on top of a gross injury to Alastair Morgan and his family who have suffered far too much already.

Failure will also bring the whole system of independent panels into disrepute – so let’s see some action now.

Police re-open child sex abuse investigation into Labour peer Greville Janner

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Lord Janner Pic Credit: Wikipedia

Lord Janner
Pic Credit: Wikipedia

Leicestershire and the Met Police have re-opened their investigation into historic child sex abuse allegations against Greville Janner,the  Labour peer  and former Labour MP for Leicester North West and Leicester West until 1997. I report the  full story in Exaro News.

Until now it had been assumed that the police had dropped their inquiries after it was reported that the 86 year old peer was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and would be unfit to stand trial should the Crown Prosecution Service consider he should face charges.

The CPS has advised the police to continue their investigation so that it can decide whether charges are warranted. If Janner’s lawyers claim that he is too ill to face trial, prosecutors would insist on an independent medical assessment, and would potentially leave it for a court to decide whether he is fit enough. The investigation is called ” Operation Enamel.”

A spokeswoman for Leicestershire Police said “Operation Enamel is still an active investigation, and enquiries are still very much ongoing.”

The decision by both police forces to continue the investigation comes as police all over the country are stepping up inquiries into child sex abuse – both in the past and current cases – since Theresa May, the home secretary, announced the setting up of an independent panel into child sexual abuse covering a wide number of institutions. The police know they will be one of the bodies under scrutiny when the panel starts collecting evidence.

The investigation into Greville Janner is bound to be controversial since he was heavily defended by Labour colleagues when  during the 1991 trial  of Frank Beck,a warden for children’s homes in Leicestershire, and now a convicted paedophile  Janner  was named as having engaged in a sexual relationship with a teenage boy. Janner ferociously denied the allegations. A friend of his, who worked closely with him at the time, told me only last week that he did not believe the allegations could be true and had no knowledge about them.

Among Janner’s biggest supporters included former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock,Derek Foster, then Labour chief whip, passed on “tremendous support” from the party’s leader, Neil Kinnock to Mr Janner.

Keith Vaz, a Leicester MP and now chair of the Commons home affairs committee, was also one of Janner’s greatest supporters saying he was ” a brave man ” in handling the situation.

Vaz is now playing a big role in scrutinising the setting up of child sex abuse inquiry, by quizzing supporters and opponents of the present inquiry and intending to hold Theresa May to account over the present blunders in appointing a chair to the inquiry.

I did email Keith Vaz about his support for Janner and his role  as a solicitor in two other London boroughs, Richmond and Islington now the subject of child sex abuse allegations, but he never replied.