Claims that former Conservative Home Secretary William Whitelaw ordered police to drop an investigation into a VIP paedophile ring are being investigated.
The claim came following revelation CPS prosecutor was considering 350 offences and now provides a new line of inquiry for investigation into the VIP gang
The Mail Online report: Whitelaw allegedly told a senior Metropolitan Police boss to quash a year-long investigation into a gang accused of abusing 40 children, the youngest of whom was six.
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The alleged intervention came in 1980 after a newspaper revealed the country’s chief prosecutor was considering 350 offences against the gang, including allegations it ‘obtained young boys for politicians, prominent lawyers and film stars’.
The report, published on July 7 that year in the Evening News – a daily London newspaper – revealed police had passed evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and that up to 12 men could face trial for procuring boys and sexual assault.
Jeff Edwards, the journalist who wrote the story, claims that just days after it was published he was summoned by police to an interview and threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.
Mr Edwards also claims his source, a serving police officer, was disciplined and fined six months’ wages for leaking the story.
He also says he was told by his police source that Whitelaw called a senior police boss and told him to halt the inquiry.
Mr Edwards said: ‘My source told me the Home Secretary had spoken to a senior Met Police boss and demanded action was taken to make sure nothing more was printed about the affair and that the investigation be dropped.’
The Mail on Sunday can reveal Mr Edwards has spoken to senior detectives working on the Met’s Operation Midland about the incident, but the Met would not confirm this. Midland was set up last month to investigate sensational claims that boys were murdered and abused by Conservative politicians at parties held in Dolphin Square, an upmarket block of flats close to Westminster popular with MPs, in the 1980s.
Niamh Harris
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