Cyril Smith child abuse probe scrapped after his arrest, UK Police Watchdog to Investigate Westminster Child Abuse Cover-Up, “Bill Cosby sexually assaulted me. I didn’t tell because I didn’t want to let black America down. I let race trump rape.”

Cyril Smith child abuse probe ‘scrapped after his arrest’
By Nick Hopkins and Jake Morris BBC Newsnight  16 March 2015
An undercover police operation that gathered evidence of child abuse by Cyril Smith and other public figures was scrapped shortly after the MP was arrested, BBC Newsnight has been told.

The Liberal MP, who died in 2010, was held during a 1980s probe into alleged sex parties with teenage boys in south London, a source told the programme.

He was allegedly released within hours of being taken to a police station.

The Met is looking into the handling of historical child sex abuse cases.

The force would not comment on the details of the allegations about Smith put to them by Newsnight.

A spokesman said it was “investigating allegations that police officers acted inappropriately in relation to non-recent child abuse investigations” however, and asked for anyone with information to come forward.

‘Secrets act’ warning

Information has been passed to Newsnight by a former officer, who is familiar with the original investigation and its closure.

The order to scrap the probe, made after Smith and others had been arrested, came from a senior officer whom the undercover team had never met before, according to the source.

Officers were then ordered to hand over all their evidence – including notebooks and video footage – and were warned to keep quiet about the investigation or face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, it is claimed.

Newsnight has been told the intelligence-led operation is believed to have started in 1981.

It involved a team of undercover regional crime squad officers, including some from Yorkshire who were based in London for the secret inquiry…. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31908431

Undercover elite child sex abuse investigation ‘scrapped by police commanders’
BBC Newsnight has claimed that an undercover police operation in possession of evidence that a member of the security services and a prominent MP were involved in child abuse was scrapped by commanders shortly after investigating officers sought to make arrests
By Gregory Walton 16 Mar 2015

An undercover police operation that had evidence that a member of the security services and a prominent MP were involved in child abuse was scrapped by commanders shortly after investigating officers sought to make arrests, it has been claimed.

The BBC’s Newsnight programme claims to have received information that Liberal MP Cyril Smith was detained in connection with an inquiry into sex parties involving teenage boys but was quickly released.

A former officer familiar with the investigation claimed that detectives were ordered to hand over all of their evidence and subsequently threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if they disclosed details of the episode, according to Newsnight.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police declined to discuss the new claims but called on “anyone with information which they believe can assist such inquiries to pass it onto police for consideration”.

Newsnight says it was informed of operation, believed to have begun in 1981, involving a team of undercover regional crime squad officers.

The squad believed that boys from care homes were being provided for sex parties.

Newsnight has been told that during a three month secret inquiry, officers gathered a substantial amount of evidence of men abusing boys aged around 14 years.

Evidence included photographs and video taken from inside a flat with a hidden camera that had been installed with the help of a caretaker.

Smith was then seized at a property in Streatham where he had been taking part in a sex party

with teenage boys, according to an account given to the BBC.

It is understood he was taken to the former Canon Row police station, opposite the House of Commons, but was released that night.

A desk sergeant was allegedly reprimanded for seeking to keep Smith in custody…. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11476231/Undercover-elite-child-sex-abuse-investigation-scrapped-by-police-commanders.html

UK Police Watchdog to Investigate Westminster Child Abuse Cover-Up
By Lucy Draper 3/16/15

The UK police watchdog has announced that it is investigating the Metropolitan Police following allegations that the force was involved in a cover-up over child abuse offenses alleged to have been carried out by members of the British establishment between 1970 and 2005.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched the investigation after the Met referred themselves over 16 separate allegations – 14 of which are to be investigated, while two referrals of a similar nature are still being assessed. The IPCC will look into claims of corruption within the force and whether they purposefully ignored evidence and halted investigations due to the involvement of MPs and other members of the establishment.

This most recent development comes as a result of Operation Fairbank, first launched by Scotland Yard in 2012, to probe suggestions that high profile figures were involved in historic Westminster paedophile rings. Since then detectives have also opened up inquiries into the murder of three boys who it’s alleged were killed by those involved in such rings, claims which the superintendent overseeing the inquiry called “credible and true”, and have resulted in the police calling for witnesses as they have been unable to identify the victims and no bodies have been found.

Investigations have focused both on the Dolphin Square estate in Pimlico where one victim claims he, along with other young boys, were abused by several high-profile individuals after attending ‘parties’ there, and also on Elm Guest House in Barnes which was reportedly used as a brothel where children were abused. It’s alleged that Liberal Democrat MP Cyril Smith visited frequently in the 1970s and 80s.

One of the 14 referrals for the IPCC says that “a proactive operation targeting young men in Dolphin Square was stopped because officers were too near prominent people”, while another is about “allegations that a politician had spoken with a senior Met Police officer and demanded no action was taken regarding a paedophile ring and boys being procured and supplied to prominent persons in Westminster in the 1970s”…. http://www.newsweek.com/uk-police-watchdog-investigate-westminster-child-abuse-cover-314002   

Bill Cosby sexually assaulted me. I didn’t tell because I didn’t want to let black America down.
I let race trump rape.
By Jewel Allison March 6
Jewel Allison is a poet and author of “Stealing Peace: Let’s Talk About Racism.” She is a graduate of New York University, a public speaker and a music educator.

Like many of the women who say they were assaulted by Bill Cosby, it took me two decades to gain the courage to reveal it publicly. His accusers – mostly white, so far – have faced retaliation, humiliation and skepticism by coming forward. As an African American woman, I felt the stakes for me were even higher. Historic images of black men being vilified en masse as sexually violent sent chills through my body. Telling my story wouldn’t only help bring down Cosby; I feared it would undermine the entire African American community.

When I first heard Andrea Constand and Tamara Green publicly tell their stories about being drugged and assaulted by Cosby, I wasn’t relieved; I was terrified. I knew these women weren’t fabricating stories and conspiring to destroy America’s favorite dad, but I did not want to see yet another African American man vilified in the media. As I debated whether to come forward, I struggled with where my allegiances should lie – with the women who were sexually victimized or with black America, which had been systemically victimized…. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/06/bill-cosby-sexually-assaulted-me-i-didnt-tell-because-i-didnt-want-to-let-black-america-down/