Source claims UK establishment figures are connected to child abuse

IAN DRURY and JAMES SLACK

dailymail.co.uk

Explosive dossiers allegedly revealing the identities of a paedophile ring operating at Westminster have ‘probably been destroyed’, it was revealed last night.

The Home Office’s top mandarin Mark Sedwill has admitted that crucial files which could expose historical child sex abuse are likely to have been shredded.

On a day when the scandal at Westminster deepened, it also emerged that:

• MI5 could be holding incendiary information which unmasked prominent figures as child sex predators in the 1980s;

• An ex-child protection worker said ministers and MPs were involved in an Establishment paedophile ring three decades ago;

• Baroness Butler-Sloss, who led the Cleveland child abuse inquiry, was named chairman of a review into historical child sex abuse;

• A prominent QC will join a fresh inquiry into information the Home Office received during the period – including a 1983 dossier from now dead Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens;

• An MP insisted that despite claims that the Dickens dossier had been destroyed, it was widely circulated among civil servants – and copies may still survive.

The late Mr Dickens planned to expose eight Establishment figures connected to child abuse. But it is now understood that there are likely to be more than eight names listed in the dossier – some of which are said to be ‘breathtaking’.