Jimmy Savile & Cyril Smith: Single Inquiries?

TODAY on the Radio Four news, the solicitor Alan Collins, from the legal firm Panone, who is representing 60 of Savile's victims in compensation claims, said the majority of his clients fear that there will be an unsatisfactory outcome from the many separate investigations.

He told the BBC:

'It should be one inquiry, chaired by a high court judge. I fear if this does not happen, an opportunity will have been lost, not only for the victims but for the country as a whole.   The risk (of not having one inquiry) is justice may be incomplete.'

 The extent of Jimmy Savile's predatory behaviour came to light in October 2012.  But if there is to be a separate investigation into the Savile crimes ought there not to be a separate inquiry into the activities of Cyril Smith, the Rochdale politician who used his influence to engage in sexual and sadistic power games with young lads in the later half of the last century?

Our publication, Northern Voices, helped to expose Cyril Smith in November 2012, and there is rumoured to be a biography of Cyril written by the current M.P. for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, out later this year. Certainly one would have thought that the uniqueness of the Cyril Smith case with its implications of political cover-ups,its historical element with links to security services, and looking the other way in high places, would have been deserving of a separate investigation.