Child abuse – Labour and Conservative history of neglect, even sickening collusion – As ‘Scottish’ Labour MPs now attempt to help Starmer by calling for a pointless grooming inquiry here how the SNP’s Named Person Scheme which they u-turned on could have saved thousands in England

Professor John Robertson OBA

From Sky News, 11 years ago:

The former head of a paedophile group said Harriet Harman “didn’t even try” to stop his organisation’s involvement with the civil liberties council she worked for. Tom O’Carroll, who was chairman of the now defunct Paedophile Information Exchange, said neither Ms Harman or her Labour colleagues wanted to “rock the boat” for fear it might damage their careers.1

Many younger readers will wonder what on earth can this be.

The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group, founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984. The group campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent. It was described by the BBC in 2007 as “an international organisation of people who trade obscene material“. Although it had a few women paedophiles as members, the organisation’s membership was mainly young, professionally educated male paedophiles, including youth and care workers. Its membership in 1977 was around 250, mainly in London and the South East;  the same number for membership was also reported in 1981…..A document penned on the organisation’s behalf by Harriet Harman (later deputy leader of the Labour Party), working as a legal officer at the time, placed the onus of proving harm on prosecutors and warned of the dangers of increasing censorship2

Many younger readers will still be wondering what on earth those boomers were thinking.

From the 1980s and well into the 21st Century, several ‘grooming’ gangs (mass child rapists) were operating across, especially the Midlands and North of England. Thousands of young girls, mostly from care homes run by unregistered staff, unlike in other parts of the UK, were raped repeatedly and a relatively small number of men, mostly Asian, were jailed. During that long time, successive Conservative and Labour governments did nothing to protect these children.

Only in 2022, was there an independent inquiry.3 It’s recommendations have not been applied and the same Conservative politicians now calling for a new inquiry, were the same ones responsible for the failure to do so then.

Although there have been no comparable scandals in Scotland and although all child care home staff must be registered here, the SNP Government tried in 2016, to further protect all children, with a Named Person Scheme:

It is a scheme that would assign every single child in Scotland under the age of 18 a state-appointed “named person”, with the aim of creating a single point of contact for parents or children who need advice, information or support relating to the welfare of children and young people.4

Despite widespread professional, expert and research support for the scheme, Scottish Labour and Conservative MSPs called for it to be paused5 and the UK High Court ruled against it.6

I find it difficult not to wonder how many young and vulnerable girls in England might have been saved terrible abuse, if the Labour and Conservative governments had cared more, if long before, they had insisted that care home staff must registered and if a scheme like the SNP’s Named Person Scheme had not been blocked for petty political point-scoring before then being copied across the UK.

Sources:

  1. https://news.sky.com/story/harman-did-not-act-over-paedophile-group-10415858
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophile_Information_Exchange
  3. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/
  4. https://archive.news.stv.tv/politics/1362047-what-is-the-named-person-scheme-and-why-is-it-controversial.html#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20scheme%20that%20would%20assign%20every,to%20the%20welfare%20of%20children%20and%20young%20people.
  5. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36903513#:~:text=Judges%20at%20the%20UK%27s%20highest%20court%20have%20ruled,the%20Court%20of%20Session%20in%20Edinburgh%20last%20year.
  6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36903513#:~:text=Judges%20at%20the%20UK%27s%20highest%20court%20have%20ruled,the%20Court%20of%20Session%20in%20Edinburgh%20last%20year.

5 thoughts on “Child abuse – Labour and Conservative history of neglect, even sickening collusion – As ‘Scottish’ Labour MPs now attempt to help Starmer by calling for a pointless grooming inquiry here how the SNP’s Named Person Scheme which they u-turned on could have saved thousands in England”

  1. As you predicted, the BritEng state couldn’t allow Scotland to be viewed as having more protections for children than England. Honestly sounds like a real case of neglect by the UK politicians in putting adequate protections in place for children, utterly despicable. I remember the named person idea, didn’t know it had been blocked by the English government and their jobsworths in Scotland, disgusting.

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  3. Independent Inquiry Child Sex Abuse

    From the 2012 investigation 

    ‘Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Linked to Westminster’.

    “This investigation concerns institutional responses to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation involving persons of public prominence who were associated with Westminster. Westminster is defined in this report as the centre of the United Kingdom’s government, government ministers and officials, as well as Parliament, its members and the political parties represented there.

    Seven topics were covered in evidence. These were: police misconduct, political parties, whips’ offices, the Paedophile Information Exchange, prosecutorial decisions, the honours system, and current safeguarding policies in government, Parliament and the political parties.

    Several cross-cutting themes recurred throughout the investigation. One is the theme of ‘deference’ by police, prosecutors and political parties towards politicians and others believed to have some importance in public life. Another concerns differences in treatment accorded to wealthy or well-connected people as opposed to those who were poorer, more deprived, and who had no access to networks of influence. A third relates to the failure by almost every institution to put the needs and safety of children first. The police paid little regard to the welfare of sexually exploited children. Political parties showed themselves, even very recently, to be more concerned about political fallout than safeguarding; and in some cases the honours system prioritised reputation and discretion in making awards, with little or no regard for victims of nominated persons.”

    “There is ample evidence that individual perpetrators of child sexual abuse have been linked to Westminster. However, there was no evidence of any kind of organised ‘Westminster paedophile network’ in which persons of prominence conspired to pass children amongst themselves for the purpose of sexual abuse. The source of some of the most lurid claims about a sinister network of abusers in Westminster has now been discredited with the conviction of Carl Beech. Nevertheless, it is clear that there have been significant failures by Westminster institutions in their responses to allegations of child sexual abuse. This included failure to recognise it, turning a blind eye to it, actively shielding and protecting child sexual abusers and covering up allegations.”

    “Several highly placed people in the 1970s and 1980s, including Sir Peter Morrison MP and Sir Cyril Smith MP, were known or rumoured to be active in their sexual interest in children and were protected from prosecution in a number of ways, including by the police, the Director of Public Prosecutions and political parties. At that time, nobody seemed to care about the fate of the children involved, with status and political concerns overriding all else. Even though we did not find evidence of a Westminster network, the lasting effect on those who suffered as children from being sexually abused by individuals linked to Westminster has been just as profound. It has been compounded by institutional complacency and indifference to the plight of child victims.”

    “A vivid picture of corruption in central London in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was portrayed by several witnesses. This included the cruising of expensive cars around Piccadilly Circus, by those viewing boys and young men, who would hang around the railings known as the ‘meat rack’ to be picked up by older men and abused. The boys were described as aged between 11 and 22. Many were from damaged backgrounds or were runaways from the care system, and were known as ‘street rats’ by police officers.

    Lord Taverne, a Home Office minister in 1966, described a meeting with the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, and the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Joe Simpson, at which Sir Joe remarked that there were “several ‘cottages’ in Westminster which we don’t investigate” because “they are frequented by celebrities and MPs”. While not specifically about the sexual abuse of children, it is an example of a policy giving special treatment to persons of prominence and of deference towards those in power at Westminster.”

    For more detail you can read the full investigation here…. Executive Summary | IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

    Shouts of ‘Westminster corruption’, ‘sleaze at the heart of UK Government’, ‘hypocrisy’, ‘moral filth’…………..you get the picture.

    It would seem that Westminster MP’s have a preoccupation with sex as opposed to actually doing the job they are actually paid to do.

    List of sexual misconduct allegations made against MPs | UK news | The Guardian

    Also Keith Vaz Labour MP….the list of sleazy Westminster MP’s is endless, as are each consecutive London Government….Labour/Tory, Labour/Tory etc……

    Yvette Cooper ( The Secretary of State for the Home Department) from a debate on 6 January 2025 titled  “Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”

    “Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes, involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation and deep long-term harm. The information from the crime survey should be chilling to all of us. It estimates that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse: violence and sexual violation in the home; repeated rapes or exploitation by grooming or paedophile gangs; threats and intimidation involving intimate images online; or abuse within institutions that should have protected and cared for young people—cruel and sadistic crimes against those who are most vulnerable.”

    Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse – Hansard – UK Parliament

    Well…..she said it!!!

    JB

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  4. Oh dear – Labour in Scotland are seeking political capital from the Casey report criticising “Ethnicity of grooming gangs ‘shied away from’ ” in England from the England only Inquiry into ‘grooming gangs’ by the Daily Wrecker publishing an article by ‘Andrew Quinn Westminster Reporter’, incorporating last year’s new MP Joani Reid’s thoughts, such as they are https://archive.ph/J78RT

    Yet consider the sole justification from Andrew Quinn, that “Joani Reid’s call comes months after seven members of one of Scotland’s biggest child sex abuse rings, known as “the beastie house”, were handed life-long sentences”, as if there was some perverse connection – The ethnicity of those sent to jail was as irrelevant as the rest of their lives, but only in the political sphere has ethnicity become an issue as the rUK politics lurches ever farther right, as promoted by “honest Bob” Jenrick attempting to remain relevant a la 1930’s style Germany with Heebie Geebie News promotion…

    Perhaps Joani can give us a rendition of the “Gang’s all here” on the piani to the vocals of the mighty Quinn… Yea, thought not………….

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