New children's home sex abuse probe

New children's home sex abuse probe
Nov 6 2012

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is to mount an investigation into fresh allegations of abuse in children's homes in North Wales amid claims that a senior Tory was among the perpetrators.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the director general of the NCA Keith Bristow would review the original police handling of the case - which dates back to the 1970s and 1980s - as well as looking at the latest allegations by one of the victims.

"The Government is treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness," she told MPs in a Commons statement. "Child abuse is a hateful, abhorrent and disgusting crime and we must not allow these allegations to go unanswered."

Mrs May said she would also consider Labour calls for a wider, over-arching inquiry into child abuse - including the allegations involving the late DJ and BBC presenter Jimmy Savile - if the evidence was shown to justify it.

Labour backbencher Tom Watson, who has raised claims of a past paedophile ring linked to No 10 and of a former Cabinet minister allegedly involved in child abuse, dismissed the latest moves as simply "the next stage of a cover-up".

The announcement comes after David Cameron said he would be appointing a senior figure to review the original public inquiry into abuse at the Bryn Estyn children's home led by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, a retired high court judge.

The investigations followed renewed allegations last week by one of the victims, Steve Messham, who said the inquiry examined only a fraction of the claims of abuse. He told BBC2's Newsnight that he was taken out of the home and "sold" to men for sexual abuse at a nearby hotel and that a senior Tory from the time was among the perpetrators....

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/chester-news/uk-world-news/2012/11/06/new-children-s-home-sex-abuse-probe-59067-32177960/