N.V. Review of 'Smile for the Camera'

by Les May

Editors Note:  Les May wrote this review exclusively for our current edition of Northern Voices No.15, which was published in April of this year.   He had in 2014 also written a review on Amazon.  The interesting thing about these reviews is that, with the exception of a review by Nicholas Blincoe* in the Daily Telegraph also in 2014, they are so far as we know the only critical reviews of the book 'Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith' by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker. 

Since the book by the Rochdale M.P. Simon Danczuk was publish there has been much acclaim for what Mr. Danvczuk has had to say from pundits in the media and politicians of all complexions.  The effect of Mr. Danczuk's book when it was first published by Biteback publishers was massive and almost unbelievable given its patently poor quality in research terms.  John Walker who was the former co-editor of the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP), which in May 1979 first exposed the ultra vires conduct of Cyril Smith at Cambridge House, described the prose of Danczuk and Baker as 'flowery flannel'.    

I must declare an interest here because the idea to produce a biography of Cyril Smith was mine which I disclosed to my friend John Walker and he then suggested we get Simon Danczuk to write an introduction and to help us find a publisher.  I am an anarchist and ought to have logically exercise prudence whe deal with any party politician, but John has been a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party and has already published one book, I therefore left it to him to negotiate with Mr.Danczuk.  Neither of us had had any previous dealings with Simon Danczuk, but it quickly became apparent that Simon Danczuk was interested in making money out of the Cyril Smith book and this appalled John Walker, when he later at my house in Castleton, Rochdale, told me of it how Simon would mimic Cyril's gate rolling across the screen for a docu-drama.  In January 2013, as we ate our paella a la valenciana at my house following John's meeting with Simon and Matthew Baker, we struggled to come to terms Simon Danczuk's idea of turning the whole child abuse scandal into a melodrama for television.  Up to that time John had met with Danczuk about six times in London, on at least one time in the House of Commons Bar.  John told me that during their meeting, that Matthew Baker had seemed to be mainly interested in trying to squeeze information out of him, and that judging by Karen’s body language there seemed to be some animosity between Karen Burke (Danczuk’s wife) and Matthew Baker.

The visit to Danczuk’s office had not been successful, and sometime later in London, John Walker was approached by Mr. Baker and asked if he still intended to produce a book on Cyril Smith, to which he said that he wasn’t.  Then we waited to see how they would handle the material, especially with regard to the fact that when he was at Cambridge House he was a prominent member of the Labour Party in Rochdale, and that when in the later 1960s Cyril had been investigated by the police Jack McCann the then M.P. for Rochdale had intervened on his behalf with the DPP.  There is also even speculation that perhaps the then Labour Home Secretary, James Callaghan, got involved, as Mr. McCann was close to him.

Brian Bamford (October 2015)

*  Nicholas Blincoe is an English author, critic and screenwriter.  He is the author of six novels, Acid Casuals (1995), Jello Salad (1997), Manchester Slingback (1998), The Dope Priest (1999), White Mice (2002), Burning Paris (2004).  Blincoe was born in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1965. After briefly studying art at Middlesex Polytechnic he attended the University of Warwick where he studied Philosophy, gaining a PhD in 1993. The thesis was entitled Depression and Economics. The thesis explored the relationship between political sciences and economic theories, with particular reference to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida.

___________________________________________________

'Reviewing Cyril Smith's Lucrative Smile' by Les May (First published in print in Northern Voices No.15):

A half a century ago an overweight Labour councillor in his mid thirties took it upon himself to act as disciplinarian and medical inspector at a hostel for young men.  The man's name was Cyril Smith and the hostel was Cambridge House in Rochdale.  The consequences of this decision took some sixteen years to emerge in the form of a detailed and well researched article in Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP), one of those non-mainstream newspapers which emerged in the 1970s.

In the 1979 pre-election issue of RAP the story of Cyril's penchant for looking at young men's genitals and spanking their bare backsides was revealed to anyone in Rochdale who could afford a few new pence for the paper. Cyril threatened to sue, then quietly backed down, Private Eye and New Statesman ran pieces, and the rest of the press ignored it.  At the election, Cyril, who by now had defected to the Liberal party, was returned to Parliament.

I bought 'Smile for the Camera' by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker having been taken in by the hype surrounding it.  So confidently did Mr Danczuk present his story of 'Cyril Smith the paedophile' at book readings, at press conferences and to any media outlet that would listen, that I assumed it was filled with solid evidence that Cyril continued and extended his sordid activities after the closure of Cambridge House in the mid 1960s. It isn't.

Instead what we have are a series of assertions and opinions by the authors, gossip, second and third hand stories which originated in pub bars, supposedly verbatim accounts of conversations which took place thirty odd years ago, accounts which we are led to believe are the authentic voices of men who had unpleasant encounters with Cyril yet which have a strange sameness about them, few definite dates and a garbled chronology, the same story apparently told more than once, misquotation of documents, a seeming absence of proper methodology and no indication of how many men they interviewed who claimed to have been abused by Cyril.

Feeling somewhat peeved at having wasted my money on such dross, I twice challenged the authors in a local newspaper about the apparent lack of methodology and how many men had been interviewed before this book was written, who claimed to have been abused by Cyril after the closure of Cambridge House.  Having received no answer on either occasion I wrote to Mr Danczuk on 9 October 2014 asking him the same question.  Again he declined to answer.  On 24 October at one of his book readings he was asked the same question.  Still Mr Danczuk  refused to answer.  Why the coyness?   Perhaps the answer would be embarrassingly small.

The question of 'how many' comes to mind repeatedly, because some of the stories about Cyril's activities appear to be recycled.  For example the same story about one resident fleeing the hostel after being beaten by Cyril appears on pages 51 and 93, leaving the impression that they are separate incidents.  Another example, complete with garbled chronology, appears on pages 50 and 109.

We now know Lancashire Police investigated Smith's activities at Cambridge House in 1969 and that in March 1970 a file was submitted to the DPP containing complaints from eight young people about indecent assaults by him.  The GMP update containing this information does not detail any other group of complainants. But similar stories about 'police files' appear in the book on pages 45, 47 and 51, again leaving the impression that they refer to separate complaints.  But do they?

Some of the strangest passages in the book appear in the three chapters headed 'Silent Voices'. Ostensibly these are accounts in their own words of the experiences of three men at the hands of Cyril Smith.

Here are a few samples ostensibly from two men assaulted in the 1960s;

It was said that Leonardo da Vinci would gaze at the stains on walls and imagine vivid battles and landscapes.  That day cheap exuberant motifs gave way to a swarm of angry locusts bringing a load of plague and pestilence. p87

The all-nighters at the Twisted Wheel club in Manchester were legendary.  Hard rhythm and blues, rare soul and American imports:  it was the best music you'd hear anywhere in the north of England. p119

You may wonder whether, if you were reporting having your backside wacked by a bully when you were a teenager half a century ago, you would include passages like these in your account.   

It doesn't stop there.  Contrast this description by the first of these men describing the assault by Smith;

Above his heavy breathing I could smell his rancid body odour.  It was like cabbage boiled in vinegar. As his heavy breathing slowed, a continuous low sound rose in his chest like a purr of contentment. p92 and a few lines later

His humming was louder now, broken every now and then by strange squeals of pleasure. p92

with an account which does not appear in the book but was sent to me in June 2014 by a man who was also assaulted at Cambridge House;

During the time I was a resident, (from late ‘61/early ‘62 to late ‘63/possibly early ‘64), on two occasions I was subjected to Smith’s bogus ‘medicals’.  During one of these I was asked to take down my trousers and underpants, turn round with my back to him, bend over, then hold my buttocks apart, while he ‘inspected’ me.  On another I had to, again, lower my trousers and underpants and Smith started poking and prodding and I was then told to cough while Smith held my genitals.

These two men may even have met each other at Cambridge House and are describing similar events. But whilst the account in the book is dramatic, 'white knuckle' or even vaguely pornographic, the second is hesitant and matter of fact.  

Now I do not doubt the two men at the centre of the accounts given in the book were spanked by Smith just as they say they were.  But I don't think that we are reading their own unvarnished words on the subject. One of them says;

Cyril couldn't have abused all these boys on his own.  He had a team of people behind him.  They were all in on it. p131

How convenient for the authors that he volunteered his opinion in this way!  How nicely
it 'corroborates' the opinion of another of their informants;

Digan, like others, is of the view they (paedophile gangs that is) were encouraged and protected by Cyril Smith.  p115.

We'll meet Mr Digan later.  But for the moment we'll note that these are opinions not facts.

The third 'Silent Voice' is perhaps the strangest.  Essentially it is a 'kiss and tell story', though it is not presented that way. 

In 1979 a young man of 16 meets Cyril and becomes involved in Liberal politics.  The RAP article spilling the beans on Cyril's antics at Cambridge House appears just before the election, but he is happy to join Cyril's election campaign and soon becomes 'a close member of his team'.  Payback time comes when Cyril starts to grope him.  So what does he do, walk away immediately?   No!   He continues to work with Cyril until 1982.  Now he feels a sense of shame for letting it happen, but to his great credit refuses to let his life be taken over by hate.  

This is a sad story.  Cyril does not emerge as a very nice man, even in the dirty world of party politics.  But not being very nice isn't a crime.  At a personal level he is exploitative and clearly takes advantage of this young man.  Yet, like the two earlier stories, it's not paedophilia.

So why do the authors use it to treat us to passages like this? 

In the years that followed, Cyril repeatedly used me to satisfy his perverse cravings.  He treated me like a sex object. p153

As we read this would our feelings be the same if it was about a fifty plus Celia Smith with her 'toy boy'? Are we being subtly invited to a bit of 'queer bashing'?

If you find such an idea offensive how about this?

Cyril, he said, liked them young with tight sphincter muscles. When their sphincter became looser as they got older, he would ditch them. p210

'I can't forget the graphic detail,' Foulston tells me, 'I was disgusted.' p210

Was the intention to leave the reader 'disgusted'?

Knowl View was a residential school which opened in 1969 and had a troubled history.  In the years following its closure in 1994 it was the subject of claims of a 'cover up' going back to an Independent on Sunday (IoS) article in 1995.  Strenuous attempts are made in 'Smile for the Camera' to associate Smith with sexual abuse of boys at the school.  But they largely rely upon the suppositions and opinions of a single individual, social worker Martin Digan, and it is difficult to find any independent evidence for them.  Again there is no chronology.

According to the authors Mr Digan started work at the school in the late 1970s p109.  In what must surely be one of the most remarkable statements in the book they tell us, 'For many years he was oblivious to what was happening in the school – until he was promoted to head of care and began to realise that things weren't quite right.' p109

The authors don't think it necessary to tell us when this was. But a Manchester Evening News (MEN) article from 2 December 2012 indicates Mr Digan became head of care in 1994.

So what had been happening in the school?  What no one disputes is that in 1991 an Aids worker, Philip Shepherd, spent a day in the school talking to staff and then wrote a report, (of which more later) which was sent to the Director of Education, Diana Cavanagh.  In response to what he wrote a clinical psychologist, Valerie Mellor, was commissioned in late 1991 to investigate the reported sexual activity involving the boys at the school.  Mellor's report presented in February 1992 confirmed and expanded upon the Shepherd report.  It included the comment, 'It is very difficult to believe that this behaviour had not come to the attention of at least some members of staff.'   Also in 1991, Rodney Hilton, who lived nearby was convicted of sexually abusing boys at the school.

Responding to a letter sent to her by the Knowl View staff in April 1992 Diana Cavanagh was strongly critical of care staff.  With reference to boys aged 11 to 13 at one unit of the school being involved in homosexual activities at the Smith Street toilets in the centre of Rochdale, she is reported to have said, 'Those supervising the boys in the evenings appeared either not to notice that they were missing, or not to communicate their observations.' and, 'There is insufficient evidence to prove culpable neglect, fraud or incompetence by any single member of staff.' 

If, as the authors tell us, Mr Digan had been at the school since the late 1970s, this seems to be a lot for anyone to be oblivious of.  As for how Mr Digan had the scales lifted from his eyes you can choose between the prosaic versions from the MEN of 2 December 2012 and 30 November 2013, that he was given access to the reports when he became head of care or the melodramatic version from 'Smile for the Camera' in which he slipped into the headteacher's office at night, 'Then, just as he was leaving, he caught sight of a file of papers spread out on the desk under an adjustable lamp.' p112

This is what Mr Shepherd had actually written in 1991:

'One boy who is homosexual has contact with an adult outside the school. Several of the senior boys indulge in oral sex with one another.

Reputedly five of the junior boys have been or are involved in 'cottaging' in and around public toilets. Men as far away as Sheffield are believed to be aware of this activity and travel to Rochdale to take part.
'One eight-year-old is thought to have been involved. The police are aware of the problem. What action has been taken is not known.
'One rent boy has been removed from the school. The suggestion that he may return soon has angered the staff.
'Some boys have been "forced" to have sex with others.'
and this is what Danczuk and Baker claim it says:
'In matter of fact language, the report described the extreme sexual abuse that young boys had been subjected to. Boys were beaten and raped continually by men as far away as Sheffield who had travelled to Rochdale to take part.' p112
A few lines later they quote Mr Digan as saying, 'These boys were sold to paedophile gangs.'  Of course neither they nor Mr Digan provide any evidence for this. 
A page further on they imply that Cyril Smith's and Harry Wild's names appeared; when in the Shepherd report when they did not; 'This file was eventually made public by Digan but Cyril Smith and Harry Wild's names were not mentioned.'  
This was the IoS article in 1995.
When the authors resort to misquoting documents in this way, presenting opinions as facts and implying that something is true when it isn't, then it casts doubt on much of their book.  Being named as Sunday Times politics book of the year and being listed as one of The Telegraph's best politics books to read in 2014, does not make it a reliable document if you want to know about Cyril Smith. My dad used to say, 'You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.'
I hope he was right!

A long-running Critque of 'Smile for the Camera'

by Les May 

I have been critical of the book 'Smile for the Camera' by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker since it was published in April 2014 which is why two weeks Iater, on 28 April 2014, I posted a critical review on Amazon under the pseudonym Rufus with the title 'A lightweight potboiler'.  


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R3A7XZP51EW0A6/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1849548757  

But I have never doubted that Cyril Smith did indecently assault a number of young men at Cambridge House hostel in the early to mid 1960s.  An account of this was placed in the public domain in a detailed article written by the co-editors David Bartlett and John Walker in the May 1979 issue of Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP).  I read this at the time and since I began to research the book John Walker has sent me copies of the affidavits by some of these young men and I have been sent a statement by a man who was subjected to a fake medical by Smith, but not interviewed by RAP or by the police when Smith was investigated in 1969/70.  


Although the book purports to give a verbatim account of what Smith did to one young man who had taken a day off work in a chapter headed 'Silent Voices #1' there are some strange passages in this section.  For example on page 87 we read: 
'It was said that Leonardo da Vinci would gaze at the stains on walls and imagine vivid battles and landscapes. That day cheap exuberant motifs gave way to a swarm of angry locusts bringing a load of plague and pestilence.'   


Now this is supposed to be the recollections of a man who had his backside whacked by Smith for taking a day off work fifty years earlier. But it gets even stranger.   


At one point we read: 
'Above his heavy breathing I could smell his rancid body odour. It was like cabbage boiled in vinegar. As his heavy breathing slowed, a continuous low sound rose in his chest like a purr of contentment. He was humming quietly to himself. Then he reached for a wet sponge by the sink and began to stroke my bottom, rough hands sliding over a minefield of welts. I gritted my teeth as the burning, stinging sensation intensified. Ever once in a while he'd apply the sponge generously, letting cold water trickle down the back of my legs.'   


As can be seen from the accounts in the appendix (which were taken in their entirety from RAP's 1979 article) Smith's punishment of a resident for taking a day off work and Smith's use of a sponge after punishing a resident for stealing money refer to two different individuals.  I may be drawing the wrong conclusion here, but to my mind this throws considerable doubt upon what is in the book being an entirely accurate record of any interview conducted by the authors.  It may just be coincidence that the account in the book and the two accounts which appeared in RAP are so similar.  But it would be quite remarkable if other similarities turn up.   


I have repeatedly asked Mr Danczuk to tell me how many men he interviewed who claim to have been assaulted by Smith after the closure of Cambridge House.  Re-reading what I have written above I'm beginning to wonder if I should not also have pressed him to tell me how many men he interviewed who claim to have been assaulted at Cambridge House.   


So if the evidence that Smith did indecently assault young men at Cambridge House is so strong, why was he never prosecuted?


We now know Lancashire Police investigated Smith's activities at Cambridge House in 1969 and that in March 1970 an 80 page file of evidence was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) containing complaints from eight young men about indecent assaults by him. The Greater Manchester Police update of this information does not detail any other group of complainants. But similar stories about 'police files' appear in the book on pages 45, 47 and 51, leaving the impression that they refer to separate complaints, which they don't.   


The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was established following the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, and started operating from 1 October 1986.  Prior to this prosecutions were handled by the police.  Difficult decisions/ cases were referred to DPP’s Office. 


The fact that the police did not immediately prosecute Smith suggests that they thought it a 'difficult' case which needed to be submitted to the DPP.  This was done on 8 March and returned on 19 March 1970.  According to the 1979 RAP article it was 'marked for no further action on the basis of insufficient evidence'.  However, a statement from the CPS dated 27 November 2012 says that a one page letter was sent to the Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary.   


The full letter read:   
'I have considered your file and I observe that eight young men, whose ages range from nineteen to twenty-four years, allege that between 1961 and 1966 Smith subjected them to various forms of indecency and I also observe that Smith denies their allegations. Any charges of indecent assault founded on these allegations, as well as being somewhat stale, would be, in my view, completely without corroboration. Further, the characters of some of these young men would be likely to render their evidence suspect.  
'In the circumstances, I do not consider that if proceedings for indecent assault were to be taken against Smith, there would be a reasonable prospect of a conviction. I do not, therefore, advise his prosecution.'   


If one is so minded it is possible to construct any number of 'conspiracy theories' around the fact that Smith was not prosecuted, including the idea that he was being protected by a gang of powerful paedophiles.  But the 'Law and Lawyers' website published a clarification on 30 November 2012, i.e. about two weeks after Simon Danczuk had 'rediscovered' the 1970 allegations against Smith and some eighteen months before 'Smile for the Camera' was published. 


This reads as follows:  
'The reasons given by Skelhorn for advising against prosecution are of some legal interest.  The reasons were in a letter from Skelhorn to the Chief Constable of Lancashire (19th March 1970).  Skelhorn stated that the allegations were “without corroboration".'  “Corroboration" was, at the time, a very significant element in the law of evidence applicable to criminal cases.  A trial judge was required to warn juries of convicting on the uncorroborated evidence of a complainant in sexual cases.   The only exception to this was a sexual case where the identity of the alleged assailant was in issue but not the commission of the offence itself - R v Chance [1988] 3 All ER 225, CA. 
What was referred to as a FULL warning had to be given and failure to do so could render a conviction unsafe.  The jury had to be told:
1. That it was dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of the witness but that if they (the jury) were satisfied of the truth of such evidence they might nevertheless convict;
2. The technical meaning of corroboration had to be explained;
3.  The jury had to be told which evidence was (and which was not) capable of amounting in law to corroboration;
4.  It also had to be explained to the jury that, as the tribunal of fact, they had to decide whether the available evidence did in fact constitute corroboration.   
'Sir Norman Skelhorn's opinion would, of course, have been based on the law as it stood in 1970 and the need for formal corroboration of the complainant's evidence amounted to a formidable hurdle in many cases of this type.'   


My understanding is that the fact that there were multiple complainants did not in itself amount to 'corroboration'.  From a lay perspective I find this contrary to common sense.  
Had Smith been taken before the courts in the 1990s when the complaints were looked at on two further occasions he would have had to be tried under the law which existed at the time the offences were committed and the need for 'corroboration' would still have amounted to what 'Law and Lawyers website' calls 'a formidable hurdle'.  The 1979 RAP article might also have been considered to be prejudicial to a fair trial. 
 
The requirement for an obligatory warning to be given was removed in 1994 by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.  Hence if Smith had committed the offences after that date, not fifty years ago, he would certainly have been prosecuted.  


Danczuk and Baker have eight entries in the index under the title 'Smith helped by establishment cover up' spread over some twenty pages of the book.  Careful reading of the book shows that this narrative is just something conjured up out of the authors' imagination, and sustained by seeking and then interpreting evidence to support this claim.  The account on pages 221-222 (of Smile for the Camera) of the police failing to detain him in Northamptonshire has already been discredited by the police themselves, and the claims about Elm Street Guest House are beginning to look very doubtful.   


Just as with the repetition of the 'police files' on Smith there is repetition of how these were taken by the security services.  On page 84 (Smile for the Camera) we read:  
'Police files documenting the many accusations of child abuse committed by Cyril were suddenly disappearing.  Tony Robinson, a Special Branch officer with Lancashire Police in the 1970s, confirmed that all files on Cyril were removed by MI5 officers from the safe at their police headquarters in Preston and taken to London.  It wasn't just the lid of the box which had been slammed shut on Cyril's dark secrets.  The box itself had no been shipped away to permanent obscurity.'  


Note here how Danczuk and Baker refer to 'files documenting the many accusations', when the Greater Manchester Police update does not mention any other group of complainants.  Clearly there was a single substantial file containing the allegations previously sent to the DPP.  
This story is repeated on page 143 as:   
'When Tony Robinson, a Special Branch officer with Lancashire Police in the 1970s, revealed in 2012 how police files on Cyril had been requested by MI5, he explained that he had known immediately why they'd wanted them.  MI5 had a unit that monitored MPs and reported to the Cabinet Office.  At the time of the Lib-Lab Pact Liberal MPs would have been checked out to determine whether they were suitable for high office.  “The fact that the security service wanted the file brought to my notice obviously indicated that he was about to be vetted,” said Robinson.'
Precisely!   So what's the mystery?  Why is this evidence of an 'establishment cover up'?  Removing the files to London and out of reach of seemingly garrulous policemen is a reasonable way of protecting the security of the state by ensuring that Smith could not be blackmailed by agents of a foreign power. 
 
My reference to 'blackmail by a foreign power' may seem a bit far fetched, but the 'Independent on Sunday' (IoS) of 22 March 2015 carried a story of an attempt by Boss, the apartheid era South African security service, to blackmail Smith about sexual abuse in the 1970s.  A contemporaneous article in the Sunday Telegraph of 14 March 1976 refers to a 'dossier' prepared by MI5 claiming that South African business interests had mounted an operation to discredit the Liberal Party of which Smith was then the party Whip.  This included information about false allegations against Smith being circulated anonymously in Rochdale and London. 


More recent claims that there is 'independent evidence' that MI5 were 'suppressing' information about Smith at that time turn out to be just a recycling of the claims by Danczuk and Baker.  The Lib-Lab pact did not come into being until March 1977, a year after the Sunday Telegraph article.  If Robinson's inference is correct MI5 did not hold the Lancashire Police file on Smith in 1976. 
For those who want to believe in 'establishment cover ups' no amount of contrary explanation will ever suffice. But we are entitled to ask about the evidence they present in support of their case.   The 'evidence' presented in 'Smile for the Camera' is of the flimsiest kind, being largely assertions by the authors, or second and third hand gossip, resulting in a book which is little more robust than a wall of tissue paper, the only solid foundation being the work of David Bartlett and John Walker in 1979 with respect to Smith's activities at Cambridge House.  


Truly 'a lightweight potboiler'! 


Appendix (from RAP, May 1979) : 
'RAP has traced 10 ex-residents and one who, though never having been at Cambridge House, made a statement to the police. 
Of the 10, three have nothing but praise for Cyril Smith.  The other 7 have all made allegations which fall into one or both categories:  
'BEATINGS They have described to us Smith’s role in providing discipline.  Two extracts from sworn statements given to us illustrate the procedure:   
'From a man now married with 4 children and living in Rochdale, describes how, while at the hostel and aged about 16 he took a day off work from the job Smith had arranged for him. His absence from the job was reported to the hostel and he was interviewed by Smith:  
'He gave me the choice between accepting his punishment and leaving the hostel. I said I would accept his punishment...He took me into the Quiet Room. He told me to take my trousers and pants down and bend over his knee. When I had done that he hit me four or five times with his bare hands on my bare buttocks.' 
(2) From a man, single, living and working in Rochdale, then aged about 15, describes how after he had been reported for a minor offence: 
'Cyril Smith found out that I had taken some money. He asked me if I would accept his punishment or be dealt with by the authorities. I said I would accept his punishment. He told me to take my trousers and pants down and bend over his knee. He trapped my hands between his legs. He hit me many times with his bare hand and I pleaded with him to stop because he was hurting me. This took place at the hostel. Afterwards he came to my bedroom and wiped my buttocks with a wet sponge.' 
http://blog.cps.gov.uk/2012/11/cps-statement-in-relation-to-cyril-smith.html

http://obiterj.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/sir-cyril-smith-corroboration-of.html#more

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-humbug-of-simon-danczuk.html

http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/simon-danczuk-wasting-police-time.html

http://www.tomgriffin.org/SunTel14Mar76FP.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib%E2%80%93Lab_pact#1977