Concern over missing files tied to abuse allegations

THE TOP mandarin at the Home Office has admitted he is “concerned” that more than a hundred files linked to allegations of paedophile activity in Westminster have gone missing.

Giving evidence to MPs, Mark Sedwill said there were no surviving records of what had been destroyed or lost from the 1980s and 1990s.

He also announced that Richard Whittam QC will be leading a fresh inquiry into the Home Office’s handling of information it received during the period, including a 1983 dossier from ex- MP Geoffrey Dickens.

Mr Sedwill told the Home Affairs Select Committee: “I am concerned about all the material that we cannot find.”

The permanent secretary’s comments came after Home Secretary Theresa May revealed that former High Court judge Baroness Butler-Sloss is to lead a wider independent inquiry into how claims of child abuse were dealt with by public institutions, political parties, the church and the BBC.

Rumours of decades of organised paedophile activity among the ruling class have moved centre stage over the past week, amid questions over whether the Home Office failed to act on detailed allegations provided by Mr Dickens in 1983.

Then-home secretary Lord Brittan has flatly denied failing to deal with the material properly, while a review carried out by a HMRC official last year found no evidence that anything relevant was not passed to other authorities. But it also disclosed that the Dickens dossier appeared to have been destroyed.