Monday, August 18, 2014

New light on Peter Righton

Tom Bateman's story on the BBC News site: Paedophile Peter Righton advised Home Office on policy gives me a reason for writing about a figure who is more sinister than anyone likely to be charged under Operation Yewtree - even Jimmy Savile.

Like Savile, he seems to have enjoyed licence to visit every institution and speak to every child in the country.

There was also an item about Righton on this morning's Today programme - it starts at around 1:35:00. It featured Ian Pace, whose blog is required reading for anyone interested in the revived concern over historic child abuse.

I don't know how much new information Tom Bateman has come across, but the frustrating thing about this affair is that Righton's crimes and influence were known about 20 years ago. If you have a strong stomach you can watch a documentary about him from June 1994.

And Spotlight on Abuse - another valuable site - has the text of a report on Righton that was written the year before that.

As it says:
This document below was written by the retired child protection expert who was the source of Tom Watson’s October 2012 PMQ about “a powerful political paedophile ring”. 
It was written during the 1993 investigation into Peter Righton, a child care expert who was part of a network of paedophiles that had infiltrated children’s homes and schools across the UK. Sir William Utting, acting on behalf of the Department of Health, requested a report on the Righton case from the Director of Hereford & Worcester Social Services Department. 
The report should have found its way to the Secretary of State for Health, Virginia Bottomley. 
The document reproduced here: ‘A Personal Viewpoint’, gives recommendations for what should have happened to expose the national paedophile network that Righton was part of. 
Instead, the investigation was shut down, Righton died a free man, and most of his fellow abusers were never exposed and brought to justice.
No one seems quite sure what the new inquiry on child abuse is for, but one thing it could usefully investigate is who saw this report on Righton and why they did not act on it.

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