Westminster Paedophiles: Burying Dead Peter Morrison With The Bryn Estyn Pederasts
Westminster peadophiles: A look at the story of politicians abusing children in the 1970s and 1980s. The Morning Star: “Covering Up Murder By A Paedophile Politician” Intoxicating stuff. What news?
As the former head of a children’s home at the centre of the MPs’ child abuse scandal is jailed, evidence emerges that children may have been murdered by paedophile politicians. Steven Walker reports
Evidence…may. What facts?
This article is brought to you by Steven Walker, who is “a Unicef Children’s Champion”. Sounds important. Is it? Unicef tells us it’s a voluntary role open to anyone who applies.
So much for the title. What about the story?
On Wednesday the first conviction under the Operation Pallial investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at the Bryn Alyn Community in Wrexham saw John Allen, the former head of the children’s homes, jailed for 26 offences committed over several decades against children placed in his care. Wrexham is the area where local MP and paedophile Peter Morrison, a former top aide to Margaret Thatcher, preyed on vulnerable children. It seems that the testimony of historic victims of child sexual abuse, the various campaigns to obtain evidence and other efforts to force the government to act, have begun to take effect.
Trouble is that Sir Peter Hugh Morrison remains dead. And he never was arrested, charged or tried for any crimes against children. The story nails the dead man. The dead cannot be libelled. But is that fair? It can’t be.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with her private secretary Peter Morrison arriving for the Ian Gow memorial service at St. Margaret’s, Westminister, London. Date: 22/10/1990
So. Was the man who was MP for Chester for 18 years a predatory peadophile?
He was gay, as Simon Heffer wrote in 2002:
At least one member of Mrs Thatcher’s first cabinet was homosexual. Her last parliamentary private secretary, Sir Peter Morrison, was a constant trial to the whips, who were afraid that his late-night cruises around and skirmishes in Sussex Gardens would come to the attention of the press.
But children?
EDWINA CURRIE, the former Conservative minister, has claimed that a leading Tory MP during Margaret Thatcher’s era had sex with underage boys — and senior party members had covered up for him. Currie, 66, said this weekend she had heard that Sir Peter Morrison, Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary and deputy chairman of the party, had sex with 16-year-old boys when the age of consent was 21. “Was he doing anything illegal? Almost certainly. Would it be illegal today? Hard to tell now the age of consent is down to 16,” she said…
She had first aired the claims in an autobiography published in 2002, writing: “One appointment in the recent reshuffle has attracted a lot of gossip and could be very dangerous: Peter Morrison has become the PM’s PPS.
“Now he’s what they call ‘a noted pederast’, with a liking for young boys; he admitted as much … when he became deputy chairman of the party but added, ‘However, I’m very discreet’ — and he must be!
“She [Thatcher] either knows and is taking a chance, or doesn’t; either way, it’s a really dumb move.
“It scares me, as all the press know, and as we get closer to the election someone is going to make trouble very close to her indeed.”
Paedophile Howard Hughes who was found guilty of the double rape and murder of 7 year old Sophie Hook in Llandudno, North Wales. 06/03/00: Hughes launched a 50,000 compensation bid, claiming he was a victim of abuse at Bryn Estyn children’s home, North Wales, where he spent some time as a child. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 after he was convicted of snatching the Cheshire schoolgirl from a tent where she had been sleeping in her uncle’s garden. The naked body of the Cheshire schoolgirl was found washed up on a nearby beach in Craig-y-Don, near Llandudno, the morning she disappeared in 1995. She had been raped and strangled.
And this:
Rod Richards, a former Conservative MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Tories, made the shocking allegation that he had seen evidence linking Sir Peter Morrison to the North Wales children’s homes case, in which up to 650 children in 40 homes were sexually, physically and emotionally abused over 20 years.
Mr Richards also linked a second leading Tory grandee – now dead – to the scandals at homes including Bryn Estyn and Bryn Alyn Hall, both near Wrexham.
He said official documents had identified the pair as frequent, unexplained visitors to the care homes.
In 2012, ITV reported:
There are claims that one of the region’s best known politicians from the 1980s was seen at the children’s home in North Wales where abuse of children took place. The allegation came from a former resident of the Bryn Estyn home. He says he saw Sir Peter Morrison – who was Conservative MP for Chester for 18 years – drive away with another boy who lived there…
And:
One former resident, Alan Leyshon, told ITV News he had been taken from the home by “people in power” for abuse, while another man – who was not identified – told Channel 4 News that he recognised former Tory MP Sir Peter Morrison, who died in 1995, as having visited the home on a number of occasions…
The new investigations follow allegations last week by one of the victims, Steve Messham, who said Waterhouse examined only a fraction of the claims of abuse.
He told BBC2’s Newsnight that he was taken out of the Bryn Estyn children’s home and “sold” to men for sexual abuse at a nearby hotel and that a senior Tory from the time was among the perpetrators.
Mr Messham yesterday met Wales Secretary David Jones to discuss his allegations, with the politician afterwards saying he hoped he had been reassured by the Government’s response.
But Mr Messham said that, while he believed the victims were now being taken seriously, he had concerns about the way the new inquiry would be conducted.
“I haven’t got confidence that it’s going to be done properly yet, I’ve got to be convinced of that,” he said. “If I feel nothing’s being done, then names will come out.”.
He later told Channel 4 News he broke into the flat of one of his abusers in Wrexham when he was 16, stealing photographs of boys being abused in which the faces of the attackers were clearly visible.
Steven Messham in Mold, North Wales, a victim of abuse whilst in care rips up a protest banner which was part of a small demonstration against the damning report into two decades of sexual and physical abuse of youngsters in North Wales children’s homes. * Social workers, care home staff, local authorities, police and the Welsh Office were severely criticised by the report, entitled ‘Lost in Care’, into the UK s biggest child sex scandal. Date: 15/02/2000
In 1998, Nick Davies wrote in the Guardian:
The sheer scale of child sexual abuse in Britain
….
Child sex abuse is not only easy to commit, it is also easy to get away with. It is the least reported crime on the planet. Numerous victims say that they were silenced by their own emotions – the same emotions which gag the adult victims of rape, but which are magnified in a child’s mind. Some children simply cannot report it: social workers in East Sussex four years ago found paedophiles deliberately targetting children who were too disabled to give evidence. Others had picked children who were terminally ill and who died before the system could catch up with them.
…
North Wales is only the beginning. It is now clear that during the last 30 years, children’s homes in Britain suffered an epidemic of rape and violent assault. It was an epidemic that went unnoticed, like a plague that struck dumb its victims or else blinded those around it.
There are now literally thousands of men and women, in North Wales, South Wales, Manchester, Liverpool, Sunderland, Northumbria, Edinburgh – in seventeen different police areas in all – who have come forward to make detailed, credible allegations about their childhoods of abuse in care. The combined force of these different inquiries amounts to the biggest contemporary police operation in the country. And yet, at the time that these people were children, at the time that they were being used as human aids to masturbation, just about all of them were overlooked by just about every agency that was supposed to protect them – the police, social workers, the Social Services Inspectorate, health visitors, doctors..
…
Fleet Street routinely nurtures a crop of untold stories about powerful abusers who have evaded justice. One such is Peter Morrison, formerly the MP for Chester and the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. Ten years ago, Chris House, the veteran crime reporter for the Sunday Mirror, twice received tip-offs from police officers who said that Morrison had been caught cottaging in public toilets with underaged boys and had been released with a caution. A less powerful man, the officers complained, would have been charged with gross indecency or an offence against children.
At the time, Chris House confronted Morrison, who used libel laws to block publication of the story. Now, Morrison is dead and cannot sue. Police last week confirmed that he had been picked up twice and never brought to trial. They added that there appeared to be no trace of either incident in any of the official records.
Back to Mr Walker:
The vast majority of the public now believe MPs and ministers covered up child sex abuse by other politicians, according to a recent Sunday Mirror opinion poll. The ComRes survey found that an overwhelming 77 per cent of those quizzed think politicians “probably” stopped details of scandals involving their colleagues from emerging. Only 5 per cent disagreed. Of those polled, 73 per cent felt it was right that allegations of child sex abuse from the 1960s and 1970s should be probed by police. But only 30 per cent said they had faith the inquiries announced by the government will uncover the truth.
The talk is of a paedophile ring, But the truth is often more mundane – and closer to home. As Davies writes:
A lot of paedophiles are loners. The NSPCC found that 70% of them were closely related to their victim – and, contrary to popular belief, they were not always men. Dr Michelle Elliott from Kidscape says she has dealt with more than 700 cases of women sexually abusing children and that she takes on one or two new such cases each week. Academics who have analysed the history of sexually abused children on the At Risk register have found that one in three were assaulted by adolescent or pre-adolescent children. The Young Abusers Project in London, has dealt with one abuser who was only seven years old.
The final word in thia round-up is in the Leicester Mercury:
Sir Edward Garnier has described the comments of a Labour MP about an encounter they had before a parliamentary hearing on historical child sex abuse as “beneath contempt.”
Simon Danczuk accused the Harborough MP of discouraging him from challenging former Home Secretary Lord Brittan the night before he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Rochdale MP Mr Danzcuk said Sir Edward warned him to think carefully about what he would say in to the committee which is chaired by Leicester East MP Keith Vaz.
Mr Danczuk made the claim about Sir Edward in a House of Commons debate yesterday using Parliamentary privilege.
That means he cannot be sued or face other legal action over his remarks.
Mr Danczuk, who has campaigned to uncover child abuse by his Rochdale predecessor Liberal MP Cyril Smith, described “an encounter” he had with Sir Edward in June at 10pm the day before he was due to give evidence to the committee.
Mr Danczuk told the House: “Earlier this year, I told the Home Affairs Committee that a dossier containing allegations about child abuse by politicians had been handed by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan.
“That revelation helped lead to the Wanless and Whittam review and to the establishment of the overarching inquiry, but not everybody was pleased with the idea that I might challenge Lord Brittan. “The night before my appearance before the Committee, I had an encounter with the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. After the 10pm vote, he drew me to one side outside the Chamber and warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the following day. He told me that challenging Lord Brittan on child abuse would not be a wise move and that I might even be responsible for his death, as he was unwell. I understand that people are cautious about naming parliamentarians, but I think that people who might know about child abuse allegations should answer questions, whatever their position. We should not shy away from that.”
Sir Edward, one of the country’s leading defamation lawyers, and former solicitor general, told the Mercury: “Simon Danczuk’s remarks are beneath contempt as he ought to know. He describes an encounter. It was a conversation. I spoke to him and he knows why. Anyone who thinks my attitude on paedophilia is lukewarm is very much mistaken. Simon Danczuk’s values are all wrong. Taking lumps out of me doesn’t advance the interests of the victims.”
And the allegation:
Mr Danczuk has claimed that when Lord Brittan was home secretary from 1983 to 1985, he was sent a dossier of allegations, compiled by Geoffrey Dickens, of sexual abuse by Westminster figures.
That dossier has never been recovered.
Such are the facts…
Posted: 29th, November 2014 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
