Rochdale's Reputation for Cover-ups

ON Wed 18 Mar 2015 a former editor of Rochdale's Alternative Paper (RAP), John Walker, wrote a piece in The Guardian entitled 'Our Cyril Smith story came out in 1979. What followed was a 36-year cover-up':

'Finally the hunt is on to nail those responsible for aborting police inquiries into the child sex abuse allegations against the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith and other – as yet unnamed – establishment figures from the 1970s and 1980s. But his abuses have been covered up and ignored for over 35 years. Why should the victims feel that anything much has changed in recent days'...

'I write as co-editor of the Rochdale Alternative Paper, which in May 1979 published a 2,000 word article, quoting in graphic detail from the testimonies of boys Smith had sexually abused a decade and a half earlier. The article was cleared legally by three prominent lawyers, on a pro-bono basis. They went through every word with a view to potential libel pitfalls. On legal advice we sought Smith’s comments prior to publication. We received none directly: only a bungled “gagging” writ, which failed to prevent publication...

'Rochdale council made Smith a freeman of the borough, named a room in the town hall after him and, in a ceremony attended by the current MP Simon Danczuk, put up a blue plaque in his honour – now taken down, apparently to prevent vandalism. More rubbing the noses of many victims in their misery, on their home patch.'

The conclusion John Walker came to in 2015 was:

'Smith had got away with it. He increased his parliamentary majority and, emboldened by his escape from justice, possibly continued his abuse of pubescent boys for two decades. Action in 1979 could have stopped him in his tracks, and prevented abuse and misery for future victims. Files on Smith’s child abuse were passed around police forces and the security services in the 1970s and 1980s – with no prosecutions. More covering up and inaction, instead of an end to his abuse.'

On that occasion following the emergence of the first Jimmy Savile revelations in 2012, Northern Voices and Paul Waugn then of the Politics Home site (now of the Huff Post) interviewed several of Smith's victims ultimately resulting in Channel 4’s Dispatches programme running an episode on Smith. Which Walker says 'did justice to the subject, but was allotted a ludicrous graveyard airing slot'.

Editorial Observation:

In recent times the case of the self-confessed electoral fraud Cllr. Faisal Rana and his surprising rise to power on Rochdale Council, has followed a pattern parelling the cover-ups involving Cyril Smith. A former CID officer told me that a report on Smith had been sent to the then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) but had come back as 'Not in the Public Interest'. Similarly complaints have been ongoing about Cllr. Faisal Rana and it seems that the Rochdale police may have toned-down their report to the CPP and have failed to emphasis that it may have involved postal vote fraud which would require a prison sentence.

*********************************************************

A PARCEL of ROGUES! by Christopher Draper

YOU CAN tell what God thinks of money when you look at the sort of people he gives it to - he has a similar opinion of Britain’s Honours System and its recipients…

1) Jimmy Savile – Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE) 1972, Knighthood 1990 – from the 1950’s many people complained of Savile’s vile sexual abuse of victims aged from 5 to 75 (including corpses) but his money and social connections protected him until his death in 2011. Feeling increasingly threatened by gossip, in 1990 Savile confided to journalist Lynn Banks, “It was a gi-normous relief when I got the knighthood because it got me off the hook.”

2) Benito Mussolini – Knighthood 1923 – Funded from 1917 by Britain’s MI5, in 1919 Mussolini founded the Italian Fascist Party. Backed by blackshirted thugs, from 1922 Mussolini headed Italy’s terror regime. His dictatorship received the British seal of approval in 1923 with an Official Visit from King George Fifth who rewarded Il Duce with a Knighthood.

3) Harvey Weinstein – Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 2004 – currently serving 23 years imprisonment for numerous sexual assaults including rape.

4) Robert Mugabe – Knighthood 1994 – anti-colonial guerrilla leader turned murderous, homophobic dictator, responsible for genocide of 20,000 residents of Matabele land in the early 1980’s.

5) Jean Else – Dame 2001 – “Labour Luvvie” honoured as “Super Head” of Manchester’s “Whalley Range High School”. In 2004 Dame Jean Else was suspended and subsequently found guilty of making unauthorised payments and nepotism, which included promoting her twin sister from part-time clerical assistant to deputy head! Sacked and banned by the General Teaching Council.

6) Anthony Blunt – Knighthood – spied for Stalin from 1935-51. Although the authorities were tipped off as early as 1950 and Blunt confessed in 1964, as a pillar of the establishment – distantly related to the Queen, educated at Marlborough Public School and Trinity College, Cambridge, member of the British Secret Service and “Surveyor of the King/Queen’s Pictures” Blunt was honoured and the truth concealed.

7) Vidkun Quisling – CBE 1929 – founder of the Norwegian Fascist Party and Nazi collaborator honoured by George V for his murky role in “representing British interests” in the 1920’s as a rabid anti-communist member of the Norwegian Legation in Moscow.

8) Fred Goodwin – Knighthood 2004 – as CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland, Goodwin was honoured “for services to the banking industry”. He had no banking qualifications, gambled on a reckless policy of acquisitions and expansion and four years later RBS spectacularly collapsed forcing an unprecedented government bailout. While ordinary citizens continue to bear the costs Goodwin ensured that he walked away with an RBS lifetime pension of £703,000 a year.

9) Nicolae Caeusescu – Knighthood 1978 – Following the 1978 honours ceremony at Buckingham Palace the Queen gave the Romanian dictator “a rifle with a telescopic sight, his wife, Elena, received a gold and diamond brooch”. After the pair were executed in 1989 by firing squad during a popular uprising the Queen sent back the “Star of the Socialist Republic of Romania – First Class” awarded to her by Caeusescu but pleaded in vain for return of the Knight’s regalia she’d given him, “a purple mantle with a silver star and collar with gold roses and sapphires. The collar is estimated to be worth £15,000.”

10) Rolf Harris – Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) 1968, OBE 1977, CBE 2009 – Broadcaster initially famous for singing about “Two Little Boys” and tying down kangaroos, later infamous for sexually assaulting little girls including his daughter’s thirteen year old friend. In 2005 the Queen sat for Harris at Buckingham Palace whilst he painted her official 80th birthday portrait and in 2012 he performed outside the Palace for her Jubilee Concert. Two year later he was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault and sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison.

Britain’s Honours System is a tawdry confection, impressing naught but fools and narcissists. The above list of crooks, conmen, killers and paedophiles is merely the tip of the dung heap. Next on Northern Voices I’ll identify ten “Honourable Hypocrites” who broadcast their anti-establishment credentials whilst brown-nosing their way onto the Honours List.

CD 2020

An Unwieldy Public Inquiry

Theresa May Bounced Into Folly of Overarching Probe

by Brian Bamford

IN April 2014, I received a message on my mobile phone from the journalist Peter Hinchcliffe from ROCHDALE ONLINE tipping me of about a press conference at Rochdale Town Hall called by Colin Lambert the then Labour leader of Rochdale Council.  At that conference Councillor Lambert changed the terms of reference of an inquiry he had previously set-up to investigate historic child abuse in Rochdale at Knowl View residential school up in Bamford village.  Following the publication in March that year, of a book by the local Labour MP Simon Danczuk, entitled 'Smile For The Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith', claiming to expose child abuse in Rochdale and beyond, Councillor Lambert then felt he had to respond and at that press conference he was supported by the then Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy.

But if Colin Lambert felt under pressure at that time to act on child abuse in Rochdale, the then Home Secretary Theresa May similarly responded by setting-up a national public inquiry on historic child abuse which ultimately swallowed-up the new Rochdale investigation led by Neil Garnham QC .  So began the creation of a monstrous over-arching national inquiry with 'eyes bigger than its belly' fanned to fever-pitch by ambitious politicians like the MP, Simon Danczuk, and  an assortment of hungry journalists.

The ultimate result of this all consuming national investigation has been institutional indigestion and administrative flatulence. This is obvious to most observers, though writers on this Northern Voices' Blog have been giving warnings about this for months on end.

Last Saturday, an editorial in the Financial Times (FT) announced:

'Confidence in the inquiry is so low that some alleged victims claim it it was set up to fail.'

We on Northern Voices, together with John Walker the former editor of the 'Rochdale Alternative Paper' (which had outed Cyril Smith in May 1979), in the Autumn of 2011 supplied much of the evidence of child abuse at Cambridge House that triggered this whole issue, and was used by Simon Danczuk and his aide Matthew Baker in the production of their book*. 

The FT editor last Saturday wrote:

'For a public inquiry to merit the time and money required, it must have something concrete about which to inquire.  It must be able to obtain evidence on which it can reasonably get at the facts.  And it must have a remit that it can plausibly complete within a reasonable period of time.'

The 'Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse', set up by Theresa May, did not meet these requirements.  It is too unwieldy and extensive,  It will have to depend on remembered testimony from people with ageing memories. 

The now Prime Minister, Theresa May as Home Secretary, probably acted with the best of intentions when under pressure of the Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith revelations, she set up the inquiry two years ago.  In the end the inquiry now involves probes into 13 public bodies, and is expected to accomplish in a few years what the police couldn't do over decades.  It also aims to do a forensic study into how children can best be protected in future.

Perhaps, in the light of all this, we should not be surprised given all this that its development has been painfully slow or that the casualties and fall-out of chairs and other legal representatives have left the child abuse inquiry looking like a farce.

The first chair of the child abuse inquiry, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, resigned amid questions about the role of her brother who had served as attorney-general during the 1980s.  The second chair was driven out following a barrage of criticism about her “establishment links”.  The third resigned, and the forth, an experienced social worker, is already under attack.

Last weekend the editor of the FT points to what might be the root of the problem:

'This shows the folly of allowing those who are party to an inquiry to drive the process.  There is a difference between heeding their views and surrendering to the loudest voices...'

It seems that it is vital to get the right terms of reference for these kind of inquiries.  While the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland took 12 years it only had to cover the events of one day, and it took 12 years to complete.  This current Historic Child Abuse Inquiry is so open-ended it is likely to surpass that, and in two-years it has already cost £20 million and it hasn't heard one hour of testimony yet. 
* Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith Hardcover – 16 Apr 2014 by Simon Danczuk  (Author) and Matthew Baker (author)› 
Neil Garnham QC