Elm Guest House 161


There is a huge amount of dancing on eggshells going on today in the media about the dossier on paedophile activity with which Leon Brittan came in contact in the 1980s. It is pretty plain there is a subtext here.

A number of people have contacted me for some years over the Elm Guest House paedophile ring. Frankly I did not particularly believe it, or thought it was exaggerated. But I confess my eyes have been opened by the Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and Rolf Harris affairs and the extent of complicity and even protection which they received from the establishment.

I have blogged before that, in the Savile case, as his behaviour was apparently compulsive and constant, I found it hard to believe it was not known in the very senior societal circles in which he spent so much of his time. I am convinced that perception was right.

Savile is not linked in to the Elm House paedophile ring, as far as I know, but Cyril Smith is. So were the then head of the Royal Protection Unit and of Special Branch. That to me raises all sorts of queries about whether they were not just participating themselves but protecting someone very senior indeed. I have been convinced that it is true that social workers interviewing child victims were indeed threatened with guns by Special Branch to drop it, and that paperwork has been confiscated and destroyed.

On Cyril Smith, Channel 4 Dispatches on 12 September 2013 reported that:

‘Speaking for the first time, former CID officer Jack Tasker tells the programme that Special Branch officers arrived at his office, told him to halt his investigations and demanded that the file be handed over to them,.“They made it quite clear that anything that was kept by us would bring repercussions if we didn’t hand it over; that as far as we are concerned, the inquiry is finished … you will take no more inquiries into Cyril Smith

Compare that to what happened to child protection officer Chris Fay in his Elm House investigation, as reported in the Express:

Mr Fay, 67, of south London, said: “It became very dangerous. People seem to forget that Special Branch could do what they liked, they were a law unto themselves.

“At one point they had me up against a wall by my throat with a gun at my head telling me in no uncertain terms that I was to back away if I knew what was good for me.

“A colleague of mine had the same treatment, as did a number of the volunteers. Victims who were actually abused at Elm House were also physically stopped from coming to speak to us at the NAYPIC office in north London.

“I witnessed Special Branch officers manhandling them and turning them away with a warning to keep their mouths shut. It was blatant, it was open, they were acting like gangsters.

In both Rochdale and in North London, Special Branch intervened to block the appropriate authorities on the ground from investigating what was a genuine paedophile scandal. I can see no other possible explanation than that the scandal involved figures a great deal more senior than Cyril Smith. From the Elm Guest House we have a pointer who some of those people were.

I really don’t want to blog any more about this, and I recommend you to have a search online. That involves trawling around some of the less pleasant parts of the internet, and I have seen material that is horribly anti-Semitic and anti-gay. But after years of dismissing the stories, on the grounds that they are promulgated by unpleasant people, in unpleasant newspapers, or cannot be true, I realise I was wrong.


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161 thoughts on “Elm Guest House

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  • Tosser

    There is a suggestion that Leon left Britain to join the EU gravy train as he was a pedo. That is just a rumour.

  • Mary

    Not a peep on the BBC 10pm news main headlines. Fifth item in. It was headed by an item on female genital mutilation by June Kelly with a word or two from that nice Mr Vaz, always ready to help out when the pressure is on.

    Almost – Elm Houae did not exist, it never existed, what was said to have happened there never happened.

    ~~~~

    Just for further diversion, there is a aircraft terrrrrr alert in conjunction with the US. All very airy fairy and lacking in substance.

  • Reginald's tender ruby orb

    The dossier never surfaced? Guess nobody ever asked Blunt’s handlers for their annotated copy.

    At this rate the independence referendum is going to need three choices, Yes, No, and Ick.

  • craig Post author

    Vaz appears on the fringes of the Elm House scandal. He was the lawyer for Richmond Council whose children’s home was bringing in the children, allegedly.

  • Mary

    How MI5 vetted Savile. And decided paedophilia was nothing to worry about.

    26Jun 2014
    (not satire – unfortunately)

    According to that hotbed of left-wing, anti-establishment conspiracy theories, the Daily Telegraph reckons Jimmy Savile would have been vetted by MI5 as far back as the 1960s – and Bond, Moneypenny, M etc would have continued vetting him until at least the 1980s.

    Well, obviously the Telegraph doesn’t now say as much – because that might prove to be a tad too uncomfortable for its pro-establishment readership – but it did reveal in an article it printed way back in 2006 that staff at the BBC, including reporters, newsreaders and presenters, were all vetted by MI5. (link)

    That clearly would have included the BBC’s star presenter Jimmy Savile.

    Which rather begs this question:

    Were the nation’s finest spies so incompetent they didn’t discover what apparently everyone else knew about Savile’s fondness for abusing children, or did they consider abusing children not a good enough reason to bar someone from employment?

    I think we should be told. Don’t you?

    http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/how-mi5-vetted-savile-and-decided-paedophilia-was-nothing-to-worry-about/

  • craig Post author

    I think I may have noted in Murder of Samarkand that when I had my last positive vetting at the FCO in 2003, the vetting officer, a very experienced gentleman, had been asked to look at my relationships with various ladies. He told me it made a change because it was usually young boys. I just thought it was a joke at the time…

  • bob white

    There is rumor {and another, and another ,et cetera} that judges, {inter alia, as imagination might suggest}, are selected based on hard blackmail being readily available {i.e. on-hand}that guarantees future control {as the need arises}.

    Gaming the system of governance can be that easy.

    E.g., recall the ancient Persia was associated with using assassination to terminatedly handle pesky foreign leaders. Even beloved family members were fair fame.

  • bert

    A great deal of referenced research regarding the Elm Guest House nasty business is here: http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/

    Latest post:
    Elm Guest House: The History of a Cover-up (updated)

    The Elm Guest House story broke on 7th August 1982, when the Daily Express reported that “at least three MPs, a member of staff at Buckingham Palace, and leading lawyers, doctors and City businessmen” were questioned as part of inquires relating to “a vice ring” in “a brothel in a smart London suburb”.

    Over the next 10 days more lurid allegations emerged in almost every national newspaper.

    [links to all the national news reports found for those ten days about the Elm Guest House paedophile ring]:

    Daily Express (7.8.82)
    News of the World (8.8.82)
    Sunday Times (8.8.82)
    Daily Express (9.8.82)
    Daily Mail (9.8.82)
    Daily Star (a) (9.8.82)
    Daily Star (b) (9.8.82)
    The Guardian (9.8.82)
    The Sun (9.8.82)
    The Times (9.8.82)
    Daily Express (10.8.82)
    Daily Star (10.8.82)
    News of the World (15.8.82)
    Daily Express (16.8.82)

    After those initial 10 days of reporting there was nothing more in the papers. The reason for this silence is revealed in an article which appeared in Capital Gay magazine from August 1982.

    Libel threats were used to silence the newspapers from reporting on the VIP paedophile ring. The Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, personally investigated complaints from lawyers representing Elm Guest House.

    Sir Michael Havers played a leading role in the Sir Peter Hayman cover-up, and told Geoffrey Dickens not to name the paedophile diplomat in Parliament. Havers argued that Hayman should have retained his anonymity, and didn’t think the British public needed to know that powerful Establishment figures abused children.

    Scotland Yard denied the allegations made by the Daily Express that the guest house’s visitor list included three MPs and a member of Buckingham Palace staff. A spokesman for Elm Guest House told Capital Gay “these were professional business people. We are talking about barristers, doctors, a couple of priests and a vicar”.

    It’s clear that Scotland Yard, Sir Michael Havers, and the Elm Guest House lawyers were all following the same script. It’s easy to blame the press for their part in the cover-up, but they were up against the most senior police and law officers in the country.

    (more at the Spotlight site)

    Well done Graig, for highlighting the Elm Guest House subject.

  • CanSpeccy

    Yes, I misread that. Sorry.

    Or maybe I didn’t? At least what you say is highly ambiguous.

    Specifically, you said:

    But after years of dismissing the stories, on the grounds that they are promulgated by unpleasant people, in unpleasant newspapers, or cannot be true, I realise I was wrong.

    So what are you admitting to being wrong about? Dismissing the stories or claiming that the stories are promulgated by unpleasant people?

    Without clarification, I stick to my conclusion, namely, that you have made “an unwarranted generalization that smears those more diligent than yourself in seeking to expose a vile abuse of children and the apparent role of the Security Service in covering up such crimes.”

    As for your classification of newspapers, you seem to be saying that those that fail to report unpleasant truths about the ruling elite are more pleasant, or less unpleasant, than those that do. An odd attitude for a serious commentator.

  • Ruth

    I think the scandal is far greater than just top people involved. To me it’s most probable the abuse of children in homes was run by people high up and the intelligence services as a money making and blackmailing venture on a vast scale. And this is why the Establishment is so desperate to cover it up. At present to divert people’s attention from the real scandal they’re prosecuting celebrities.

  • Kempe

    “As for your classification of newspapers, you seem to be saying that those that fail to report unpleasant truths about the ruling elite are more pleasant, or less unpleasant, than those that do. ”

    You are making an assumption of guilt, a sweeping generalization or your own. Many unpleasant sources, not just newpapers, have made accusations that are untrue let alone unpleasant.

    It’s unfortunate that Geoffery Dickens was regarded as a buffoon during his time as an MP so there’s no way of knowing how seriously his dossier was treated or indeed if it was 100% reliable to begin with.

  • A Node

    “It’s unfortunate that Geoffery Dickens was regarded as a buffoon during his time as an MP so there’s no way of knowing how seriously his dossier was treated or indeed if it was 100% reliable to begin with.”

    or

    It’s unfortunate that Geoffery Dickens was portrayed as a buffoon during his time as an MP, undermining the seriousness of his dossier and casting doubt upon its reliability.

  • tdf

    His son has said that after he named paedo diplomat Peter Hayman in the House of Commons, certain other MP’s treated his contributions with contempt. It would be useful to have the names of those MP’s.

  • Lone dissenting voice

    Personally I don’t believe a word of it. It’s surely the ravings of deranged fantasists abetted by idiots and crooks on the make, like that weird “satanic abuse” furore a few years back, and like much of the recent Savile hysteria. Jimmy Savile couldn’t physically have done a tenth of the things we’re now supposed to believe he did. It’s plainly nonsense. We’ll look back at all this crap in a few years time with incredulity and shame.

  • Jives

    Craig @ 11.19pm,

    So you seem to be suggesting that our so called overlords and watchers have known about the Establishment’s young male flesh taste for along time then?

    I aint surprised.

    This is only the start of this horrific story.

    I only hope that the guilty and complicit get theirs.

    Bastards,evil evil bastards.

  • Jives

    ^
    Freemasonry?

    Nice ideals but sadly corrupted by its inherent flaw of corruptability-particularly in local,ahem,levels.

    If only the young enticed apprentices knew the real future implications of their foot soldierdom to the few at the top who might twist the dial askew for their own less than fraternal impulses…

  • Clark

    Canspeccy, Nevermind, and Phil, I agree; the child abuse is just the means. The end is control via blackmail. For MI5 and Special Branch to merely protect powerful and/or famous abusers would not be worth the risk of exposure. The rewards have to be at a greater scale than the merely personal.

    Any links to the Dutroux case?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux#Allegations_of_cover-up

    There was widespread anger and frustration among Belgians due to police errors, the general slowness of the investigation and Dutroux’s claims that he was part of a sex ring that included high-ranking members of the police force and government. This suspicion that Dutroux had been, or was being, protected, and anger over the outcome, culminated when the popular judge in charge of investigating the claims was dismissed on the grounds of having participated in a fund-raising dinner for the girls’ parents. The investigation itself was wrapped up. His dismissal and end of the investigation resulted in a massive protest march (the “White March”) of 300,000 people on the capital, Brussels, in October 1996, two months after Dutroux’s arrest, in which demands were made for reforms of Belgium’s police and justice system.

    On the witness stand, Jean-Marc Connerotte (fr), the original judge of the case, broke down in tears when he described “the bullet-proof vehicles and armed guards needed to protect him against the shadowy figures determined to stop the full truth coming out. Never before in Belgium has an investigating judge at the service of the king been subjected to such pressure. We were told by police that [murder] contracts had been taken out against the magistrates.” Connerotte testified that the investigation was seriously hampered by protection of suspects by people in the government. “Rarely has so much energy been spent opposing an inquiry,” he said. He believed that the Mafia had taken control of the case.[9]

  • Kempe

    “It’s unfortunate that Geoffery Dickens was portrayed as a buffoon during his time as an MP, undermining the seriousness of his dossier and casting doubt upon its reliability ”

    Slightest bit of research would prove that his reputation was well established before he produced his dossier and that it and his position on other isues such as corporal and capital punishment mad it difficult for him to garner support.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaries–geoffrey-dickens-1619966.html

  • Salford Lad

    The favourite forms of control ,used by the power elite in many countries for many centuries are bribes, privilege, and of course blackmail.
    There is no stronger form of blackmail in Western civilisation than to be accused of paedophilia.It is abhorrent to all normal citizens. Very few politicians rise to the top of the tree unless they can be controlled.
    The Secret service are but the foot soldiers of the power elite and are the ones who collect the evidence of the peccadiloes of their targets. In some cases the targets are set up in ‘sting ‘operations’.
    The evidence is not allowed to become public knowledge, as it would of course remove its effectiveness as a threat.
    The recent exposure of the proclivities of celebrities in the swinging ’60’s. is but a distraction and a deception for the sheeple.
    The real targets of blackmail have always been politicians who can be pressured to use their vote and influence to affect changes in laws and decisions to suit the Real Powers that be.
    It has always been thus.

  • nobody

    What’s that Craig? You shan’t be blogging on any of this again? In that case I’ll doubt you’ll have much to say that’s going to be of any use. Whilst I’ll concede that it’s possible that there are people in positions of power who aren’t corrupt and thus blackmail-able, we may as well view such people as being the equivalent of hen’s teeth. In much the same way that one can’t join a criminal gang without having killed someone so it is in the halls of power – without your fellow gang members being able to bring you down you may not join.

    That is who rules us and it’s why we see impossible anti-democratic decisions one after another. None of them have any say in the matter. And here you are imagining we can discuss them as if they were rational actors. They’re not and we can’t.

    If this sounds too unlikely, it’s only because you haven’t thought it through: the reason these stories are disappeared with extreme prejudice isn’t because it may lead to ‘someone very senior indeed’. Someone? One person? Pah! Ditch ’em! Who cares? It’s dog eat dog with nary a tear to be shed unless there’s a camera nearby and the situation calls.

    And then there’s the cops. Special Branch wasn’t threatening people because they’d magically connected truth-telling person ‘alpha’ with wicked person ‘omega’ via an I-say-Holmes-you-are-brilliant six degrees of separation. Who has the time, or the smarts, for that? Not the cops. They only know one thing: that each truth-telling alpha is only ever one degree of separation from a structure comprised almost entirely of wicked ‘betas’, with the police themselves not least amongst ’em.

    Whilst it’s true that the police and special branch were protecting Jimmy Savile, he wasn’t really the point of the exercise. The cops don’t know what he’s done nor whom he leads to. They didn’t know about: his eleven Xmases with Margaret Thatcher; his extreme chumminess with Prince Charles; and of course the absurdity of Edwina Curry declaring Savile as just the chap to have the run of sundry public hospitals and psychiatric facilities. But they didn’t need to, they just took it as read. They understood that this was the THING, the unspeakable thing, the thing you cannot leave, the thing that will be your death.

    As for Elm Guest House, head in any direction you like and every trip will be one degree of separation. First cab off the rank? Margaret Hodge, who post-Elm was instantly appointed Minister for Children by her very good friend Tony Blair. It’s so fucking obvious that the word irony is banned on account of ‘not good enough’.

    But never mind, let’s talk about the world as if it wasn’t thus. Lovely Lovely. But for those who like their truth black and bitter, no milk and sugar, I recommend two tireless campaigners, the marvellous Aangirfan and the redoubtable Coleman. For these two Elm is but a single step on a road that heads in every direction.

    Off we go now!

  • lwtc247

    How many paedophiles?
    A few years back I read a report that estimated 10% of the population are involved with paedophile. I wish I could remember/find the report. It seemed very credible and included some case studies.

  • Fool

    It is understandable that Craig says he doesn’t want to blog about this anymore. Who would even want to read or think about any of this, but he said he doesn’t want to not that he wouldn’t.

    Brave post – although in odd company as even the Express has appeared brave on this.

  • Mary

    Not The Silence of the Lambs but The Silence of the Trolls on this thread.

    Why is that one asks?

  • Fool

    To anyone reading this who is thinking about what is evil / bad I recommend: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Philosopher-Wolf-Lessons-Happiness/dp/1847081029

    The author Mark Rowlands lives with a wolf and considers what is evil. He concludes that it is when we take advantage of the weaker without justification. To kill to survive, to eat, for self defence is one thing, but to harm the weak for pleasure or experimentation or some unnecessary advantage is fundamentally wrong.

    What happens, when a secret actor concludes that he can serve the public good by harming an innocent child, for eg by setting up a victim so that he can blackmail. Can it ever serve the public good to blackmail? Surely in real politics and between states it must have happened for thousands of years. What if such an unconscionable act averted a war? Would that be justified?

    I conclude that if you take such a step it is a slippery step. One act of evil to avert a war will become acts of evil for far pettier benefits and eventually will just be there to perpetuate the evil status quo.

    So what can any one do?

    Remember yourself always. Every exploitation every evil step no mater what its apparent justification will set you on the wrong path. the right path is usually the more difficult one in every situation.

    Good luck to everyone.

    Be sincere with yourself if not with others.

  • Mary

    This legislation was not really designed to assist Joe and Josephine Bloggs was it?

    ‘Right to be forgotten’ and online search engines ruling

    Date: 03/06/2014

    As Google announced it would take the necessary measures to comply with the European Court of Justice’s landmark ruling from 13 May on the right to be forgotten, Vice-President Reding said the following: “It is a good development that Google has announced that it will finally take the necessary measures to respect European law. It was about time since European data protection laws exist since 1995. It took the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to say so. The right to be forgotten and the right to free information are not foes but friends.”

    To those who claim the ruling and the right to be forgotten endangered media freedom she firmly replied: “It’s not about protecting one at the expense of the other but striking the right balance in order to protect both. The European Court made it clear that two rights do not make a wrong and has given clear directions on how this balance can be found and where the limits of the right to be forgotten lie. The Court also made clear that journalistic work must not be touched; it is to be protected.

    Consult a factsheet on ECJ’s ruling pdf(3 MB) Choose translations of the previous link on the ‘right to be forgotten’ for more details, the facts of the case, and how it affects you.

    http://ec.europa.eu/justice/newsroom/data-protection/news/140602_en.htm

  • Mary

    Conservatives refuse to reveal guestlist for summer fundraising party

    Prime minister’s office claims there is no need to publish a list of invitees as David Cameron was not on ‘official business’
    Rowena Mason and Robert Booth
    The Guardian, Thursday 3 July 2014
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/03/conservatives-refuse-summer-fundraising-secret-guestlist

    No. Sliming round rich donors is not official business.

    Meanwhile, the NHS goes down the pan, the roads become more dilapidated, homes are closed,
    disabled benefits are cut, and there is even talk of disposing of parks and open spaces……the list goes on.

    Private splendour, public squalor.

    This is the meet. Some photos.
    http://socialexperiencesclub.co.uk/ideas/the-hurlingham-club-2/

  • Mary

    s/be care homes are closed.

    eg
    20 care homes and 17 day centres to be closed down by Devon County Council
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27874195

    Find out what is going on in your own county and fight. You might need care yourselves one day and not be able to afford the cost which is about £1,000 a week in the private sector.

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