Alleged U.K. Parliamentary Pedophile Ring Hushed Up for Decades

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/08/alleged-u-k-parliamentary-pedophile-ring-hushed-up-for-decades.html
Alleged U.K. Parliamentary Pedophile Ring Hushed Up for Decades
After years of child sex-abuse accusations against 10 current and former MPs and little or no investigation, the government has finally announced an unprecedented public inquiry.
July 8, 2014

LONDON — An alleged pedophile ring at the heart of British politics is to be investigated after claims of a decades-long cover-up that continued until this week.

The government finally succumbed to pressure Monday and announced that a public inquiry would examine allegations that at least 10 current and former MPs were accused of abusing children but escaped with little or no investigation into their alleged crimes. A second, even broader inquiry will look into the suppression of child-abuse allegations against public officials spanning a generation. The unprecedented scrutiny of British public life will include an examination of practices at churches, schools, the NHS, the BBC, and inside the police and security services.

At the center of allegations about a political cover-up is a nondescript Edwardian terraced house in West London. What looked like a small suburban hotel, called the Elm Guest House, was closed down after a police raid in the 1980s amid allegations that it operated as a brothel specializing in underage boys. Scotland Yard officers are now in possession of a list of alleged visitors that includes MPs, a senior police officer, a Buckingham House attendant, two musicians, and an MI5 officer.

Sir Anthony Blunt, the infamous Cold War double agent, and Cyril Smith, a 400-pound Liberal MP, were among those alleged to have frequented the establishment before its closure. Smith, who died in 2010, has been the subject of numerous posthumous sex-abuse allegations.

Norman Tebbit, a Cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher, told the BBC on Sunday that there “may well have been” a cover-up. “It was almost unconscious. It was the thing that people did,” he said. “At that time I think 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.”
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