Summon Black Rod son to child abuse probe, MP demands
THE head of the investigation into historic child sexual abuse is under pressure to summon the son of a former Black Rod as part of its inquiry into a suspected Westminster paedophile ring.
A Tory MP has called for Roddam Twiss to appear before Alexis Jay’s inquiry following The Mail on Sunday’s disclosures last week about his links to VIPs and rent boys. The call came after two retired police men told this newspaper that they had been banned from investigating Mr Twiss in the 1970s, at a time when his father, Sir Frank Twiss, was Black Rod, the Queen’s envoy in the Lords.
The police were acting on reports that Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith, a prolific child-sex abuser, had been seen taking a rent boy to Mr Twiss’s London home. Their inquiries were halted when they told superiors that Mr Twiss could be involved in a wider racket supplying rent boys to VIPs.
In an interview with the MoS last week, Mr Twiss, who was jailed in 1967 for assaulting boys, bragged of his access at the time to Parliament. He was also a frequent visitor to Dolphin Square, a nearby residential estate used by politicians, which he called ‘a den of iniquity’.
Now North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen has written to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is investigating organisations that failed to protect children from sexual abuse, to ask for Mr Twiss to be compelled to give evidence to its ‘Westminster strand’.
Mr Bridgen writes: ‘ One officer allegedly saw Cyril Smith pick up a young boy in Central London in a place known as the ‘meat rack’ and followed him to a house in Cricklewood, North London. The second officer said the house belonged to a Mr Roddam Twiss, a convicted paedophile who is the son of a former admiral who later went on to hold the position of Black Rod.
‘Both officers said they had intelligence that prominent people were attending the flat for liaisons with boys, but that their investigation was halted once high-profile names were known and before they could establish any further evidence.’ He adds: ‘Can you please confirm if you intend to call the officers and Mr Twiss to give evidence to the inquiry?’
Ms Jay, the head of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, has said she is determined to find out if claims of a Westminster paedophile ring were covered up.
A spokesman for the inquiry said: ‘We cannot say at this stage who will be called as witnesses.’