PM ‘covered up’ spy chief ’s link to paedophile priest
THERESA May has been accused of a cover-up after allowing a former spy chief to step down over his links to a paedophile Catholic priest.
Robert Hannigan quit his role as GCHQ director after the Prime Minister was allegedly told about his decadeslong relationship with the sex offender.
The reason for his departure was never revealed, with Mr Hannigan citing ‘personal reasons’ for his early resignation in 2017. Now the full details behind the spy chief’s exit can be disclosed.
Concerns about the senior civil servant were raised during an investigation into Father Edmund Higgins, a depraved priest who Mr Hannigan had helped to avoid jail over child pornography offences.
In 2013, only months before taking over at the spy agency, Mr Hannigan provided a character reference for Higgins in court when he pleaded guilty to possession of 174 indecent images of children.
Higgins, then serving as a priest in Richmond, south-west London, where he also acted as a school chaplain, was given an eight-month suspended jail sentence. After changing his name to Eddie Black, he began offending again, having become a priest in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
His sordid online activity was flagged by the National Crime Agency during a child abuse probe. Investigators passed details of the priest’s links with Mr Hannigan to the Prime Minister and other senior government figures, the Mail on Sunday reported.
The spy chief offered to resign so as not to engulf the Cheltenham-based intelligence agency in scandal, with the decision to stand down given the seal of approval by Mrs May, the newspaper claimed.
At the time GCHQ denied that Mr Hannigan, whose wife was understood to be ill, had quit due to family health issues or was subject to disciplinary proceedings.
Scottish National Party MP Pete Wishart said the episode reeked of a cover-up. ‘The
‘Gave her seal of approval’
Prime Minister is immersed in this up to her eyes,’ he said.
‘ No 10 must give a full account of what they knew, when they knew and why they have failed to do so before.’
Mr Hannigan, 54, admitted he had made a serious error but claimed his decision to become involved in Higgins’s 2013 trial was made in ‘ good faith’. In a statement, he added: ‘His subsequent criminal actions appalled us and have shown that our judgment was completely wrong.’
Higgins, 44, was jailed for 31 months last June after admitting three child pornography offences.
The Cabinet Office said: ‘Robert Hannigan followed all due protocol.’