British prime minister David Cameron is facing calls to start an inquiry into allegations that well-known politicians abused children in the 1980s, after an official said the government had lost files that may shed light on the matter.
The allegations, which purportedly involve the powerful and famous of the era, including politicians, made headlines after an opposition MP raised them in parliament.
They have resurfaced at a time when the British authorities are investigating and trying to prosecute celebrities and other well-known figures in public life over other unrelated historic allegations of sexual misconduct.
Labour has called for an “overarching review” into the child-abuse allegations, accusing Cameron’s Conservative-led government of not doing enough and of failing to grasp the matter’s gravity.
'Truth and justice' "Given the extent of concern about this, Theresa May [the home secretary] should not simply be leaving it to officials and to the prime minister to resolve," said Labour
spokeswoman for home affairs Yvette Cooper. “She needs to . . . get truth and justice, but also to protect children in future.”
Top civil servant Mark Sedwill wrote to Mr Cameron on Saturday to say he was appointing a “senior independent legal figure” to judge whether the conclusions of an internal review into the matter last year are sound. He also said that the review had concluded the home office had passed nine allegations about abuse to the appropriate authorities at the time.
He said the review had uncovered a further four pieces of information which had not been previously disclosed but had since been passed to the police.
In comments which prompted some politicians to talk of a possible cover-up, he said that 114 “potentially relevant files” had been destroyed, were missing or could not be found.
Minister for education Michael Gove said yesterday that an inquiry was unnecessary.
“It’s also important, I think, to emphasise that many of the allegations . . . are historic and that what we do now . . . in order to keep children safer is immeasurably better . . . than . . . 20 or 30 years ago,” he told the BBC.
“No”, he replied when asked if the government should start a public inquiry.
Former Tory minister Norman Tebbit said he thought there "may well" have been a political cover-up in the 1980s, but said: "But it was almost unconscious. It was the thing people did at that time."