The Overactive Imagination of Simon Danczuk

by Les May

IF you want to know what 'The Establishment' really is and how it works, look no further than what has happened since allegations of sexual abuse of a twelve year old boy were made against the late Sir Edward Heath at the beginning of August.

On 3 August the Daily Mirror was running the story with the headline 'Sir Edward Heath child abuse claims: Alleged victim was raped by ex PM when he was just 12', complete with the obligatory photographs of Heath with Cyril Smith and Heath with Jimmy Savile.
Simon Danczuk was quoted as saying:
'These are very serious allegations and they need to be investigated as a matter of urgency.'

In another Mirror article, he is quoted as saying:
'There have been rumours and allegations out there for some time, and I don’t say that lightly.'
Now this is a bit of a porky because in his book he is happy to make statements about child abuse by Cyril Smith being part of a paedophile ring in the absence of evidence of any kind.  Two days after the book was published in April 2014, he told the Today program:
'Had he been prosecuted, then the house of cards would have fallen, in terms of that paedophile network, and it could have brought the government down.'
Again no evidence is produced.

In July of last year, he said with reference to Geoffrey Dickens:
'I have no doubt whatsoever that Dickens was on the right trail and he caused a lot of problems for the establishment. In the early 1980s he famously gave a dossier to the then Conservative Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, giving names of paedophiles operating at the top of the British establishment. Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith were said to be named in the 40-page dossier.'
As Danczuk never saw the so called 'dossier' he cannot know what it contained or how many pages it had, and all this is just another figment of his over active imagination, with a bit of hearsay thrown in. (Incidentally on 5 July 2014 the Mirror said it was 50 pages!)

By 5th, August, The Telegraph was running a story which cast doubt on some aspects of the story and The Guardian's Simon Jenkins was writing:
'The case against Edward Heath looks flimsy, but already the gutter is being dredged for lurid, unsubstantiated claims'.  He also wrote that the past weeks assault on Heath's reputation 'has been driven by political antipathy to Heath, by latent homophobia and by a general suspicion of people who seem to lead abnormal lives.'

In late August, Harvey Proctor 'outed' himself as a suspect and made a detailed statement about the nature of the accusations which had been made against him. This may have had some influence in shifting perceptions as what had seemed 'lurid' allegations began to look like 'ludicrous' allegations.

Five weeks after the initial claims about Heath the Daily Mail, which had been eager to serialise Danczuk's book about Cyril Smith, was writing; 'Nick: Victim or fantasist?  Rape.  Torture.  Murders'.  These were the extraordinary claims made by one man against leading Establishment figures.  Police called his story 'credible and true' but there's not a shred of evidence to back his allegations'

Then last Tuesday, a BBC Panorama programme cast serious doubt on the claims of a paedophile ring using the facilities of the Elm Street guest house, which seems to have been operated as a homosexual brothel, and on the accusations against the late Sir Leon Brittan and others.

In recent days we have had demands for an apology from Tom Watson with regard to statements he made about Brittan.  As these demands have been prominently reported in the Daily Mail there is no doubt a bit of added spice in being able to attack the Deputy Leader of the Labour party.

So in just nine weeks our print and broadcast media have at last woken up to the fact that it might be a good idea to adopt a slightly more sceptical approach to reporting allegations of child abuse.  Or
at least they have when the accusations are levelled at Establishment figures.

When Danczuk was interviewed by LBC on 10 October the accusations against Establishment figures were described as 'ludicrous', but the claims in his book about Smith being a paedophile were taken for granted as being true by the interviewers, though I doubt that either of them have actually gone to the trouble of reading it. Remember also that on 3rd, August Danczuk was quoted as saying:
'These are very serious allegations and they need to be investigated as a matter of urgency'.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist so I don't think this reflects an attempt at an Establishment 'cover up' to protect people in high places because I too think they are 'ludicrous'.  But if we are going to be asked to re-evaluate the allegations against Heath, Brittan and sundry others of the 'great and the good', should we not also re-evaluate the allegations of paedophilia against Cyril Smith and especially the claims in the Danczuk book?

Whilst no one can possibly defend what Tom Watson repeated about Leon Brittan after his death nor his attempt to pressure the Director of Public Prosecution, at least he has had the good grace to apologise for what he did say and to make an effort to explain some of his actions saying, 'I had been told of multiple allegations about Leon Brittan and I had met some of the people making those allegations at their request. I did not and could not know if they were true but I did believe their claims should be fully investigated'.

In contrast to Danczuk, Watson recognises in that last sentence that just because he was told something, he should not just assume it was true. Yet Watson is being vilified by Richard Littlejohn who calls him the 'Nonce Finder General' in the Daily Mail, whilst Danczuk, who never misses the opportunity to repeat his claims about Cyril Smith as if they had been proven to be true, seems to be immune from criticism. Perhaps the reason is that the Daily Mail paid him to serialise the book. Or is it that they consider him their 'tame' Labour MP always ready to criticise his party?

As a BBC report from November 2012 makes clear Danczuk's original intervention was with regard to 'indecent assault' by Smith who had carried out fake medical examinations and spankings of young men (not 'young boys' as Danczuk claimed) at Cambridge House hostel in the 1960s.

Although Danczuk has been happy to be seen as the person who unearthed this sordid story, in fact it was revealed in the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) in May 1979 by the co-editors David Bartlett and John Walker.  Whilst these two could support their story with affidavits from six of the men indecently assaulted by Smith, Danczuk can offer nothing but assertions, and second and third hand gossip about Smith's activities after the closure of Cambridge House in the 1960s.  At least one of his claims involving a car boot load of child pornography, and Northamptonshire police looking the other way has been shown to be without foundation.

Is it not strange that the BBC can so quickly research and produce a Panorama programme casting doubt on the truth of some of the claims made against some very prominent figures, yet the organisation has been happy to offer Danczuk an option on his book about Cyril Smith being turned into a television programme?

Is it not doubly strange that even though we now know that Danczuk's former aide Matthew Baker has been accused of attempting to smear a former Labour Leader of Rochdale council with having knowledge in the 1990s of abuse in a Rochdale School, no-one has thought to question the veracity of some of the claims about abuse by Cyril Smith made in the book he co-authored with Danczuk?

What Simon Jenkins had to say about Heath can equally well be applied to Smith. Danczuk has repeatedly used Smith's actions at Cambridge House and his claims based on gossip and hearsay
against Rochdale LibDems and Nick Clegg, Smith was a homosexual, and his size and devotion to his mother no doubt made his life seem 'abnormal' to some people.


http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/88102/letter-from-parliament-simon-danczuk-mp
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sir-edward-heath-child-abuse-6188388
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sir-edward-heath-child-abuse-6188663

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11786520/Sir-Edward-Heath-Sex-trial-was-not-dropped-to-cover-up-ex-PM-allegations-says-lawyer.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/05/convict-dead-defenceless-case-edward-heath
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/full-statement-of-harvey-proctor/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240661/Nick-Victim-fantasist-Rape-Torture-Murders-extraordinary-claims-one-man-against-leading-Establishment-figures-Police-called-story-credible-true-s-not-shred-evidence-allegations.html
http://www.lbc.co.uk/danczuk-we-ruled-out-action-on-abuse-allegations--117706
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34484611
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/09/i-had-a-duty-to-pass-leon-brittain-allegations-to-authorities-says-tom-watson_n_8268722.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3265531/Lord-Brittan-treated-outrageously-police-gossiped-journalists-unfounded-rape-claims-against-brother-says.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3265772/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-not-say-sorry-Mr-Watson.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3265730/Why-Nonce-Finder-General-Tom-Watson-won-t-say-sorry-unfit-high-political-office-bearded-Trot-Corbyn-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20303606
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-33716982
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-34400387
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27047442

Home Affairs Select Committee & Mr. Danczuk

SIMON Danczuk MP for Rochdale, who had been called before a Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, used the opportunity to demanded a 'overarching inquiry' into child sexual abuse.  During the Select Committee hearing he stopped short of naming a prominent paedophile member of parliament as he had threatened to do only last week.  This was perhaps because he had recieved criticism that had he done so it may have distracted from the possibility of an early inquiry.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, had responded to Mr Danczuk's call for an inquiry by saying that while he had not ruled out holding a full public inquiry into Jimmy Savile tha may reveal his links to others such as Cyril Smith he announced last week in parliament: 
'We have not ruled out anything, but we want first to draw together the lessons for the NHS and across government as quikly as possible.  One of the important benefits of the way in which we have proceeded so far is that, because it is an investigation and not a public inquiry, we can get to the truth relatively quickly.'

During this Tuesday's select committee hearing Mr Danczuk had claimed that the former Rochdale MP Cyril Smith was a serial child abuser who was sheltered from justice with the help of a paedophile network at th heart of government or 'part of a network of people protecting each other'.  Danczuk insisted:
'An overarching inquiry into child sexual abuse would help us to understand the political networks to which [Jimmy] Savile belonged.  By way of example, he [Savile] was friends with Cyril Smith and appeared in a Liberal party political broadcast in the 1970s and had friends in high places.'

Earlier in the hearing Mr Danczuk said that Cyril Smith escaped prosecution because he was 'part of a network of people protecting each other'.  He then tried to link the recent abuse of white working-class girls in Rochdale to the earlier abuse by Cyril Smith by saying that Smith's victims were 'poor, white, working class boys' in the same way that forty years later the victims of grooming in Rochdale were 'poor, white, working class girls.'

It is believed that the police have confirmed that Cyril Smith had been a visitor to Elm Guest House.  And Mr Danczuk has said he has spoken to a victim Smith had abused there and that  'other high profile figures are alleged to have attended there.'

Danczuk also said a dossier of allegations, compiled at the time by the former Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, had been presented to Mr Leon Brittan.

The former Conservative Home Secretary Lord [Leon] Brittan issued a statement this morning after being challenged to reveal what he knew about a dossier of allegations of a paedophile ring 'operating in an around Westminster' in the 1980s.  Lord Brittan said this morning: 
'As I recall, he [Dickens] came to my room at the Home Office with a substantial bundle of papers. As is normal practice, my private secretary would have been present at the meeting. I told Mr Dickens that I would ensure that the papers were looked at carefully by the Home Office and acted on as necessary. Following the meeting, I asked my officials to look carefully at the material contained in the papers provided and report back to me if they considered that any action needed to be taken by the Home Office. In addition I asked my officials to consider a referral to another government department, such as the attorney general's department, if that was appropriate. This was the normal procedure for handing material presented to the Home Secretary. I do not recall being contacted further about these matters by Home Office officials or by Mr Dickens or by anyone else.'

This statement has been described as 'disappointing' by Simon Danczuk who asked Brittan to tell the public what he knew of the dossier prepared by the Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens.  

Savile Abused Boy at Manchester Council's Broome House

YESTERDAY, John Scheerout in the Manchester Evening News (MEN), reported on the case of a now 56-year-old man who says he was assaulted at Manchester's notorious Broom House in children's home in Didsbury by Jimmy Savile.  The man said the then boss of Broom House, who was later jailed for targeting young lads in his care, introduced the DJ to him when he was 13.   

The man says Savile fed him alcohol and took him to his Salford flat to abuse him.  Now 56, this victim has told the MEN of the 'ordeal... he suffered while living at the Didsbury children's home, in the 1970s.'  

 

He tells John Scherout how 'one of the wardens, Ronald Hall, drove him to meet Savile at Piccadilly train station (in Manchester).'   

In 2001, Ronald Hall, who became assistant director of social services at Manchester town hall, was jailed for 11 years for sexual and physical abuse of children at Broome House.  He was released in 2010.  

In March, the education secretary Michael Gove ordered an investigation into how Savile was able to abuse children in care homes throughout the country, Broome House is one of two others in Greater Manchester.   

Knowl View another residential home for children under investigation for child abuse in Rochdale, where Cyril Smith was chairman, is in the Greater Manchester area.

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.

Does Grooming have an Ethnic Bias?

THIS week, a row has broken out between Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale and Imam Chishti, a spokesman for the Rochdale Community Forum (RCF).  Mr. Danczuk told BBC Radio 4 that 'ethnicity is a factor' in the recent street grooming of young lassies in the town, and that there are some who are 'in denial' about this.  What he seems to be saying is that some ethnic groups have an attitude towards women that leaves something to be desired, and that the recognition of this would be helpful in combating the abuse that has been taking place.

Last May, nine men, all of Asian heritage, were sentenced to 77 years in prison after they were convicted for grooming and abusing five vulnerable young girls in Rochdale.  Five other men from Rochdale, three of Asian ethnicity, and two Congolese, are due to be sentenced for sexual exploitation of a teenage girl next week.

Mr. Imam Chishti (RCF) argues:  'To say we, the Asian community, are in denial ... is really unhelpful', and that 'when people like Cyril Smith or Jimmy Savile were exposed as paedophiles people didn't start pointing fingers at that community...'  The two cases are different in so far as the Smith and Savile cases were individual examples of the abuse of power by celebrities, while the sexual grooming cases are collectively organised by gangs of mostly Asians.  In the Smith and Savile cases there were people in positions of influence who appeared to know that something was amiss, and even tried to cover-up for these two men.  How far this cover up went we have yet to discover.

I am not saying that Mr. Chishti is covering up for the gangs who appear to have systematically abused young and vulnerable girls, indeed he suggests that he himself is aware that it applies to a particular community, when he says:
'why would the Council of Mosques have supported the launch of the RCF, openly condemned child sex exploitation and gone to the council... to say if we can help tackle this in anyway then come and talk to us?'

This week the father of one of the Rochdale victims told Radio Four's World at One program that his daughter was only 14 when she was plied with gifts, booze and systematically raped by a gang.  Meanwhile, Social Services he said were part of the problem, and he was told by them that his daughter was 'a child prostitute'. 

In the light of all this I believe we should at least be prepared to listen to Mr. Danczuk.

Savile: West Yorkshire Police Clear Themselves

IN a report into themselves the West Yorkshire Police said that they found 'no evidence' that Jimmy Savile was protected from arrest or prosecution by his pally relations with the force.  However, it admitted that there had been an 'over-reliance on personal friendships' between Savile and some officers, and that 'mistakes were made' in the handling of intelligence.  Tons of allegations of abuse had come to light after his death in October 2011.

Speaking after publication of the report, Assistant Chief Constable Ingrid Lee said:
'They didn't know, the people engaged with Jimmy Savile, that actually there were these allegations against him...  There clearly was information available that we should have tied together and we did fail victims in relation to tying that evidence together and we should have done.  If he were alive today, there's absolutely no doubt that he would have had a number of questions to answer.'

The West Yorkshire Police report reveals Savile was used to front a number of the force's campaigns, including one called Talking Signs, where a recording of his voice was broadcast from lamp posts offering crime prevention advice.  The report claimed that at the time he was 'seen by most of the public as a man who did good work' and it concluded there were concerns about what it described as 'the over-reliance on personal friendships that developed between Savile and some officers over a number of years':  furthermore it stated - 'He (Savile) was able to manage his public persona in such a way that he deceived most people he met' and that 'he was a manipulative man who exploited to the worst possible degree the trust people placed in him.'

A lawyer,  Alan Collins, who is a specialist in child abuse, and who is representing 40 of Savile's victims together with a number who claim to have been violated by the former Rochdale Liberal - Democrat MP, Sir Cyril Smith who died in 2010, said today:
'It's protection by inadvertence. It's all about failing to join up the dots. There was intelligence, but that intelligence wasn't shared or used, so Savile was able to run rings around police forces.  I think if that relationship [with Savile] wasn't there, and the police officers were not blinkered in who they were dealing with because of his celebrity, then maybe the evidence that was available would have been looked at with a sharper eye.'

This report does not inspire much confidence in the ability of the West Yorkshire Police to manage their records.  In the recent past Northern Voices has had experience in a minor case of assault of certain slip-ups with regard to the storage and exchange of evidence between the police and the CPS.  The solicitor Alan Collins says 'maybe the evidence that was available would have been looked at with a sharper eye' if some of the West Yorkshire police had not been so cosy in their local relationship with Savile; this may have been so but the documentary sloppiness that has been demonstrated in the Savile case also prevailed in some of the other cases including that of Sir Cyril Smith which now seems to have slipped off the radar. 

How the NCCL lobbied for Paedophiles!

Athough many of the early novels of the English writer Evelyn Waugh, are  exquisitely funny, many people have also found them rude and in bad taste. Had he been writing today, it is doubtful whether a modern-day publisher would  have printed some of his works because of their overtly racist nature. Even in his own day, Waugh was considered a risk in certain quarters. When he offered his first novel 'Decline and Fall' to the publishers 'Duckworth', they rejected it on the grounds of 'indelicacy'. The book was eventually published in 1928, by 'Chapman and Hall' whose Managing Director,  Arthur Waugh, was the author's father.

Although in the first edition of the novel, Waugh wrote: "Please bear in mind throughout that IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY", anyone who has read 'Decline and Fall', would have no difficulty in recognising why some people considered this book 'indelicate' at the time of its publication. The novel is replete with such terms as 'nigger', 'chink', and makes rather unflattering remarks and observations about the Welsh. Take this, as an example:

"I think it's an insult bringing niggers here" said Mrs Clutterbuck, "It's an insult to our own women."

"Niggers are all right" said Philbrick, "where I draw the line is a Chink, nasty inhuman things. I had a pal bumped off by a Chink once. Throat cut horrible, it was, from ear to ear."

"Good gracious!" said Mrs Clutterbuck the governess. "Was that in the Boxer rising"?

"No", said Philbrick cheerfully. "Saturday night in the Edgware Road. Might have happened to any of us."

In the early novels, this sort of racism coupled with anti-Semitism, is fairly typical stuff from the pen of the author of Brideshead Revisited. But what some people find particularly objectionable about 'Decline and Fall', are the themes of 'pederasty' and 'prostitution' and the way in which, Waugh deals with these issues, throughout the novel. Although the writer, Christopher Hitchens, consider the novel " a miniature masterpiece", in an essay that he wrote on Waugh,  he said of the novel:

"I remember being quite astounded when I was first introduced to the novel at the age of twelve, by a boarding-school master who later had to be hastily taken away."

The novel tells the story of Paul Pennyfeather, a theological student and 'innocent abroad', who is sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, when he's found without his trousers in the quad of Scone College after being debagged by members of the 'Bollinger Club'. Disinherited by his guardian, Pennyfeather is forced to look for work as a school teacher. He's interviewed by Mr. Levy, of the Church and Gargoyle scholastic agents, who says to him:

"Sent down for indecent behaviour eh? Well, I don't think we'll say anything about that. In fact officially, mind, you haven't told me. We call that sort of thing 'Education discontinued for personal reasons'."

At Llanabba Castle school in Wales, Paul is interviewed by Dr. Fagin, who says to him: "I understand, too, that you left university rather suddenly. Now, why was that?" Paul replies: "I was sent down, Sir, for indecent behaviour." "Indeed, indeed?" replies Dr. Fagin. "Well, I shall not ask for details. I have been in the scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some good reason which he is anxious to conceal. But again to be practical Mr. Pennyfeather, I can hardly pay £120 to anyone who has been sent down for indecent behaviour. Suppose we fix your salary at £90 a year to begin with."

A character in the novel, Captain Grimes, is a one legged tutor at the school, who is also a pederast and a drunk. In his diaries, Waugh says that Grime's 'monotonously pederastic' prototype, was one William R.B. Young - 'Dick Young', a tutor who worked with Waugh. In the diaries, Waugh explains that Young had been "expelled from Wellington, sent down from Oxford and forced to resign his commission in the army. He had left four schools precipitately, three in the middle of the term through being taken in sodomy and one through his being drunk six nights in succession. And yet he goes on getting better and better jobs without difficulty."

Nowadays, people might find it quite astonishing that the subject of child sex abuse could be treated so lightly and humorously by an English novelist writing in the late 1920s or that a pederastic teacher, could move from one job after another, after being dismissed for sexual abuse. Yet social attitudes and perceptions do change over time and many people reading the novel for the first time, may not have batted an eyelid about the racism or the awful underlying themes of pederasty and prostitution. Certainly, racism was commonplace at the time and both the novelist Graham Greene and John Buchan, have been accused of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, the physical or sexual abuse of children can never be justified no matter how long ago it took place, on the grounds of historical relativism, or that it furthers some discourse on sexual liberation.

Yet at a time when the police are conducting the Jimmy Savile inquiry and there are investigations taking place into child sex abuse in children's homes throughout the country, it may seem shocking that as recently as 1976, the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), now known as Liberty, petitioned Parliament's criminal law revision committee and argued for incest to be decriminalised and that sexually explicit photographs of children, should be legal unless it could be shown that the subject had suffered harm. Harriet Harman (pictured), the then legal officer of the NCCL (and now Deputy Leader of the Labour Party), argued that it would "increase censorship".  In their petition the NCCL stated that the 'Protection of Children Bill', would lead to "damaging and absurd prosecutions" and stated:

"Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in with an adult, result in no identifiable damage...The real need is a change in attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage."

At the time the NCCL made its petition to Parliament that "caused barely a ripple", both the 'Paedophile Information Exchange'(PIE), and the 'Paedophile Action for Liberation' (PAL), were active members of the NCCL. In the 1970s, when there were campaigns around the theme of 'sexual liberation', both organisations campaigned to have 'paedophilia' (defined as a person who has a primary or exclusive sexual interest in pre-pubescent children) classified as a sexual orientation in much the same way as homosexuality is accepted today. Yet, many professionals working within the field of child protection, regard paedophilia as acquired behaviour rather than innate behaviour - something which is learned and can be unlearned. Chris Wilson, of 'Circles UK', who works with released offenders, is dismissive of the idea that paedophilia is a sexual orientation: In a Guardian article about paedophilia, which was published earlier this year, he told the newspaper:

"The roots of desire for sex with a child lie in dysfunctional psychological issues to do with power, control, anger, emotional loneliness, isolation."

Although there are considerable differences of opinion regarding clinical definitions of paedophilia or what causes it,  The 'American Psychological Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders', classifies it as "a sexual deviation, a sociopathic condition and a non-psychotic mental disorder." However, sociological studies that have looked at paedophilia, do suggest that not all paedophiles are child molesters and vice versa and that not all paedophiles, act on their impulses. Likewise, many people who do sexually abuse children are not exclusively or primarily sexually attracted to them. It is also known that the vast majority of sexual violence, is committed by people known to the victim.

Sarah Goode, who has written two major sociological studies on paedophilia, says that "1-in-5 adult men are, to some degree, capable of being sexually aroused by children." She also adds: "Even less is known about female paedophiles, thought to be responsible for maybe 5% of abuse against pre-pubescent children in the UK."