A dossier on paedophiles allegedly associated with the British government was assembled by British Member of Parliament Geoffrey Dickens, who handed it to the then-Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, in 1984. The whereabouts of the dossier are unknown, along with other files on organised child abuse that had been held by the Home Office.
In 2013, the Home Office stated that all relevant information had been passed to the police, and that Dickens' dossier had not been retained. It was later disclosed that 114 documents concerning child abuse allegations were missing. In July 2014, the Labour Party called for a new inquiry into the way that the allegations had been handled, and the Prime Minister, David Cameron, ordered the permanent secretary of the Home Office, Mark Sedwill, to investigate the circumstances of the lost dossier.
On 7 July 2014, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced a review into the handling of historic child abuse allegations, to be led by Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, and the establishment of a public panel inquiry into the duty of care taken in the protection of children from paedophiles by British public institutions, led by an independent panel of experts and chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss. Butler-Sloss later stood down as chair of the inquiry. On 5 September 2014, it was announced that it would instead be chaired by Fiona Woolf but on 31 October 2014 she, too, resigned from the role. On 4 February 2015 it was announced that the inquiry would be chaired by Justice Lowell Goddard, a New Zealand High Court judge. The existing panel would be disbanded, and the inquiry would be given new powers, becoming the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. On 4 August 2016, she also resigned from the role.
Background Between 1981 and 1985 Dickens campaigned against a suspected paedophile ring he claimed to have uncovered that was connected to trading child pornography. In 1981, Dickens in the House of Commons accused Sir Peter Hayman, the former senior diplomat, civil servant and MI6 operative, of being a paedophile, using parliamentary privilege. Dickens further questioned why Hayman had not been jailed after it was discovered he had left a package containing child pornography on a bus.
In 1983, Dickens claimed there was a paedophile network involving "big, big names – people in positions of power, influence and responsibility" and threatened to name them in the Commons. The next year, he campaigned for the banning of the pro-paedophile activism group of which Hayman was a member, the Paedophile Information Exchange.
On 29 November 1985, Dickens said in a speech to the Commons that paedophiles were "evil and dangerous" and that child pornography generated "vast sums". He further claimed that: "The noose around my neck grew tighter after I named a former high-flying British diplomat [Hayman] on the Floor of the House. Honourable Members will understand that where big money is involved and as important names came into my possession so the threats began. First, I received threatening telephone calls followed by two burglaries at my London home. Then, more seriously, my name appeared on a multi-killer's hit list".
Dossier Dickens gave his 40-page dossier to the Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, in a 30-minute meeting in 1984. A second copy of the dossier was reported to have been given to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Thomas Hetherington.
Dickens described the dossier as having the potential to "blow the lid off" the lives of notable child abusers. It included details on eight prominent figures, and was reported to have contained the name of a former Conservative MP who had been found with child pornography videos, against whom no arrests or charges were brought. Dickens told his son, Barry, that the dossier was "explosive".
Dickens had asked Brittan in 1983 to investigate the diplomatic and civil services and the royal court at Buckingham Palace over claims of child sexual abuse. Dickens said that he was "going to give him [Brittan] a glimpse inside my private files, where people have written to me with information."
Aftermath It was subsequently suggested by Brittan in a letter to Dickens that his file would be given to police; however, the police later stated they had no record of any investigation into the allegations. The Home Office confirmed that no correspondence from Dickens had been retained and that they had found "no record of specific allegations by Mr Dickens of child sex abuse by prominent public figures". Brittan has said that the dossier was passed to officials at the Home Office, and that he had raised concerns about the allegations with the director of public prosecutions.
In a detailed statement issued in July 2014, Brittan said allegations that he "failed to deal adequately with the bundle of papers containing allegations of serious sexual impropriety" from Dickens were "completely without foundation". Brittan said that he had passed the dossier to "the relevant Home Office officials for examination, as was the normal and correct practice" adding that "I wrote to Mr Dickens on 20 March 1984 informing him of the conclusions of the Director of Public Prosecutions about these matters (as set out in the Interim Report of the Independent Review set up by the Home Office)." However in an article in The Times, journalist James Gillespie quoted a letter from Dickens to Brittan in which he thanked him for his "splendid support" in the matter. He also quoted examples of the contents of the dossier including a woman complaining her 16-year-old son had become homosexual after working in Buckingham Palace Kitchens and a civil servant advocating that those caught by Customs and Excise importing child pornography should be referred to the police.
Barry Dickens has said of the dossier that he would like Brittan to "name the very next person he handed it on to", adding "And where did it end up? There must have been a person who was the last to handle it ... My father thought that the dossier at the time was the most powerful thing that had ever been produced, with the names that were involved and the power that they had." Barry Dickens also said that his father's flat in London and his constituency home were subsequently broken into and ransacked the same week that the dossier was handed over, but nothing was taken. Dickens said that "They weren't burglaries. ... They were break-ins for a reason. We can only presume they were after something that dad had that they wanted."
Simon Danczuk MP, who has investigated claims of abuse by the former MP Cyril Smith, has said that there is "no reason" why the dossiers would have been destroyed by the Home Office. Danczuk has alleged that before his appearance at the Home Affairs Select Committee where he was to answer questions on child abuse, he was urged by a Conservative minister not to challenge Brittan over his knowledge of an alleged paedophile ring at Westminster. Danczuk said of the encounter that "I'd never spoken to him before in my life but he blocked my way and ushered me to one side ... He warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the next day." The minister told Danczuk, "I hear you're about to challenge Lord Brittan about when he knew about child sex abuse ... It wouldn't be a wise move ... It was all put to bed a long time ago." The minister also warned Danczuk that he could be responsible for Brittan's death.
The Labour MP Tom Watson asked the Home Office in February 2013 for Dickens' dossier. A Home Office review in 2013 concluded that any information requiring investigation was referred to the police but revealed that Mr Dickens' dossier was "not retained".
The missing dossier has been linked with ongoing investigations into the Elm Guest House child abuse scandal. Hayman was among visitors to the Elm Guest House. Other prominent people who allegedly visited the house included the Liberal MP Cyril Smith, the art historian and Soviet spy Anthony Blunt, a Sinn Féin politician, several Conservative politicians, and a Labour MP.
In January 2015, an academic researcher found in The National Archives a reference to a file entitled "Allegations against former public [missing word] of unnatural sexual proclivities; security aspects 1980 Oct 27 – 1981 Mar 20". which had gone to the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s. The file had been classified, since it contained information from the security services and Law Officers. The Cabinet Office initially stated that any pertinent files would be made available to the forthcoming Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. However, on 30 January the file was made public, revealing that it related to the former British diplomat Sir Peter Hayman. In February 2015 The Guardian reported that Thatcher had added handwritten annotations to the documents in the file which showed that despite its contents she had been insistent that officials should not name Hayman. The released papers also contained a note titled "Line to take" sent to Thatcher on the day after Geoffrey Dickens had used parliamentary privilege to name Hayman in 1981; on it she had written: "Say authorities have carried out an investigation. Nothing to suggest that security prejudiced".
Response In a 2013 review on its handling of the dossier, the Home Office discovered that parts of the dossier described as "credible" and which contained "realistic potential" for further investigation were passed to prosecutors and the police. Other elements of the dossier were not retained or were destroyed. A letter was found from Brittan to Dickens which stated that the allegations contained in the dossier had been acted on.
It was discovered in 2013 that 114 documents that also concerned child abuse allegations were missing from the Home Office's records. The 114 missing documents were identified after an independent review was conducted into information received by the department about organised child sex abuse. The government has declined to publish the 2013 review, with a spokesperson saying that "My understanding is that the executive summary reflects very fully the report ... If there are allegations, evidence of wrongdoing that people have they should bring that to the attention of the relevant authorities including the police." The former Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, said the circumstances in which the dossier had gone missing was alarming and recommended an inquiry into the fate of the dossier. The Labour Party has called for a new inquiry into the way that the dossier's allegations were handled, claiming that the previous investigation was conducted in four weeks, with just two officials.
The permanent secretary of the Home Office, Mark Sedwill, was ordered to investigate the circumstances of the lost dossier by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, in July 2014. Sedwill had told the Prime Minister that an independent legal figure would assess whether the conclusions of the Home Office's 2013 review "remain sound". Sedwill had already informed Keith Vaz, the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, that the Home Office had found "no evidence of the inappropriate removal or destruction of material". Vaz had also written to the Home Office's most senior civil servant to ask questions about its 2013 review. Danczuk described Cameron's ordering of the new inquiry as representing "little more than a damage limitation exercise. It doesn't go far enough. The public has lost confidence in these kind of official reviews, which usually result in a whitewash. The only way to get to the bottom of this is a thorough public inquiry."