Vaz criticises sex abuse file loss

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 06 Juli 2014 | 16.50

6 July 2014 Last updated at 10:21
Keith Vaz

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Labour MP Keith Vaz: "Losing 114 files for example is the loss of files on an industrial scale"

Files which may be linked to child abuse claims seem to have been lost "on an industrial scale" at the Home Office, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee has said.

The Home Office has said its own review last year found that 114 potentially relevant files could not be located.

Keith Vaz MP said it was "a huge surprise" that so much potential evidence had gone missing.

Lord Tebbit said he hoped any inquiry would be conducted quickly.

The former Tory minister and party chairman also said there may have been a political cover-up of abuse in the 1980s.

He told the Andrew Marr programme: "At that time most people would have thought that the establishment, the system, was to be protected.

"And if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into them.

"That view was wrong then and it has spectacularly shown to have been wrong because the abuses have grown."

Lord Tebbit added that "it was the thing that people did at that time, you didn't talk about those sort of things".

Inquiry rejected

Number 10 has rejected calls for a public inquiry into abuse claims, but a new review, to be carried out by a senior legal figure from outside Whitehall, will look into the Home Office's handling of historical claims of child sex abuse claims involving politicians and other senior figures.

Mr Vaz said the review was "the right thing to do" and that he was "a little disappointed" that he had not been made aware of last year's review at the time.

He said the new review should be carried out quickly and thoroughly.

Education Secretary Michael Gove also told Andrew Marr that there should not be a public inquiry into the child sex abuse allegations.

"What will put people's minds at rest is to investigate properly what happened in the past."

Mr Gove also said anyone with specific concerns "about individuals or about practices" should contact the police.

One of the aims of the review will be to assess whether the 2013 Home Office report on what happened to historical papers containing the claims was sound.

That report found no record of specific claims of abuse by prominent public figures. But it said that although 527 potentially relevant files were kept by the Home Office, a further 114 were identified as missing, destroyed or simply "not found".

'Disappointed'

The missing files relate to a dossier of paedophile allegations handed to Lord Brittan by the late MP Geoffrey Dickens.

His son has said that his father claimed the information he was passing on would "blow the lid off" the lives of powerful and famous child abusers.

It has also emerged that four cases of historical sex abuse were referred to the police following last year's report.

Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill has written to the prime minister to inform him of plans to appoint a senior independent legal figure.

David Cameron had asked him to "find answers" about what happened to the material supplied by Mr Dickens.

Mr Dickens passed the abuse claims to the then home secretary Leon Brittan in the 1980s.

Lord Brittan says he in turn handed them to officials.


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