Met police must investigate historic claims of paedophile ring’s link to Downing Street, demands MP Tom Watson

 

Tom Watson claimed in the Commons that there was 'clear intelligence' linking a former Number 10 aide with a notorious group of sex offenders

A major paedophile network may have had links to Downing Street and a former Prime Minister, it was claimed in Parliament today.

 

 MP Tom Watson alleged there was ‘clear intelligence’ linking a former Number 10 aide with a notorious group of sex offenders.

 

He said the police file used to convict Peter Righton in 1992 needed to be looked at again.

David Cameron said it was a ‘difficult and complex case’ but would look at the allegations.

 

Speaking at Prime Minister’s questions in the Commons, Mr Watson said: ‘The evidence file used to convict paedophile Peter Righton, if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring.

 

‘One of its members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad.

‘The leads were not followed up, but if the file still exists I want to ensure that the Metropolitan police secure the evidence, re-examine it and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No. 10.’

 

Mr Cameron said he would examine the claims.

David Cameron said he would examine the claims

 

The Prime Minister said Mr Watson ‘raises a very difficult and complex case’ but he was ‘not entirely sure which former Prime Minister he is referring to’.

Mr Cameron added: ‘What I would like to do is look carefully in Hansard at the allegations he has made and the case he has raised, and look carefully at what the Government can do to help give him the assurances he seeks.’

 

On Sunday former Conservative minister Edwina Currie claimed that a leading Tory MP during Margaret Thatcher’s era had sex with underage boys.

She claimed in the Sunday Times that she had heard Sir Peter Morrison, Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary and deputy chairman of the party, had sex with 16-year-old boys when the age of consent was 21.

 

Sir Peter died aged 51 in 1995.

 

Mr Watson later wrote on his blog: 'I am not naming the person for obvious reasons but for clarity it is not former MP, Peter Morrison.

 

'This afternoon my office has been bombarded with calls regarding Morrison, I think because he was named by Edwina Currie at the weekend as having inappropriate sexual relations with teenage boys.

'I’ll say more when I can but this may not be for some time.'