Inquiry by Peter Wanless examines whether the Home Office conducted an adequate review into how it dealt with a dossier compiled by the late Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens.

Geoffrey Dickens believed Parliament treated accusations of sex abuse lightly because influential people were involved Photo: R

 By David Barrett,

Daily Telegraph

11 Nov 2014

A review of the Home Office’s handling of paedophile ring allegations in the 1970s, 80s and 90s has ruled it is impossible to say whether there was a cover-up.
The probe by Peter Wanless – chief executive of the NSPCC children’s charity – looked at how the Home Office dealt with information handed over by the late Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, as well as other allegations in 114 missing, lost or destroyed files.

The report said: “It is … not possible to say whether files were ever removed or destroyed to cover up or hide allegations of organised or systematic child abuse by particular individuals because of the systems then in place.

“It follows that we cannot say that no file was removed or destroyed for that reason.”
Mr Dickens wrote to Leon Brittan, the then home secretary, now Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, in 1983 to say he would expose eight public figures who he suspected of child abuse unless action was taken.
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The long-awaited review by Mr Wanless and Richard Whittam QC said a new Home Office file had come to light as a result of “heightened awareness” of the subject in the department.
The file detailed the Home Office’s concern about a number of sex attacks – known as “The Brighton Assaults” – which took place in 1983.

“The file also contains briefing for a subsequent meeting between the Home Secretary and Mr Dickens and a note of that encounter on November 24, 1983.
“Mr Dickens is recorded as having handed over two letters containing specific allegations,” it said.
“The file later contains [without attachments] a second letter dated January 17, 1984, from Mr Dickens with further enclosed cases for investigation.

“There is no mention of prominent politicians or celebrities in the cases under discussion.”
MI5 told Mr Wanless it had been unable to find any copies of the files in its archives – appearing to quash speculation that the intelligence agency may have held the key to the mystery if it could have unearthed the missing documents.

The report said: “The Security Service responded to the request to search their records.
“Intheir reply they set out the methodology they had used and provided a schedule of the results of that search.
“That schedule indicates that the Security Service does not hold any file that is relevant to our review.”
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said the review broadly endorsed the Home Office’s earlier findings.
“They have concluded that, in respect of the first review commissioned by the permanent secretary, ‘the conclusions were reasonably available to the reviewer on the information then available’ and that they ‘agree with recommendations made’,” she said.

The report made a number of recommendations about how the Home Office should deal with allegation of child abuse.
In a statement to MPs, Mrs May said: “Where an allegation of child abuse is made it must be recorded and the file marked as significant.

“That significance should then inform the department as to how to handle that file, its retention and the need to record when [if at all] it is destroyed. This approach is relevant, not only to the Home Office, but could usefully be adopted across Government as well.

“There should be a system within the Home Office of recording what information is sent to the police and then a formal procedure of confirming what the result of that reference is.”
The Wanless review said it had not found evidence of a “pattern of destruction” of 114 files containing child sex abuse allegations which the previous review found were lost or missing.

“On the rare occasions we found of specific allegations being made in correspondence that survives, papers are shown to have been passed to the relevant police force for investigation,” the report said.
“However, it is not possible at this remove of time on the information that has been made available to us to say precisely what was given to the Home Office throughout this period, or what action the Home Office took in relation to each allegation that was referred to it.
“No system of routinely recording such referrals existed then, or now.

“In those circumstances, on the material at the Home Office it is not possible to consider or comment with any confidence on how the police and prosecution authorities handled any material that was handed to them at the time. This problem is compounded by the records management convention in place across police forces at the time that all papers relating to allegations not leading to a charge were destroyed after two years.”

The review also looked at whether the Home Office had funded the controversial group Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which campaigned for the age of consent to be lowered.
It has been claimed that police officers from Special Branch channelled money to PIE through Home Office grants in a bid to keep tabs on their activities.

Mr Wanless, giving evidence to the Commons’ home affairs select committee following the publication of his report, said: “Based on the papers that remain we found it impossible to prove or disprove that.”