Late Rochdale Sir Cyril Smith was a member of a paedophile ring INSIDE Westminster, a new book by the town’s current MP has claimed.
The explosive expose, titled Smile for the Camera, The Double Life of Cyril Smith is written by Labour MP Simon Danczuk and his researcher Matt Baker, who have long claimed that Smith’s political status saved him from prosecution.
The authors insist that Smith’s sexual abuse of vulnerable boys – some as young as eight – was covered up for over four decades and that officers were encouraged to drop investigations.
Speaking at the book’s official launch, Mr Danczuk said: “He was quite evidently a member of a network of paedophiles that operated in and around London and in and around Westminster.
“There needs to be a public enquiry where people are called to give evidence under oath, not just around Smith but around the whole cover up and around the other senior figures in government that clearly worked together.
“I think this book is an important piece of the jigsaw that will piece together to finally nail many of those abusers.”
The allegations involving Smith relate to Knowl View School in Rochdale, a council-run institution for vulnerable boys that closed in the 1990s.
EXPLOSIVE NEW BOOK: Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk at the launch of Smile for the Camera, The Double Life of Cyril Smith
Greater Manchester Police said that Smith also potentially abused children as young as eight at the Rochdale Hostel for Boys and Cambridge Hostel in the town.
The authorities received 144 complaints concerning Smith, but prosecutions were allegedly blocked because of his political status.
Paul Ormerod, the book’s sponsor, said: “Smith absolutely dominated the town in a way in which it is impossible for people from big cities to appreciate, nobody dared touch Smith.”
Even now, the attempts to cover up Smith’s activities have been ‘very worrying’, according to co-author Mr Baker.
“It’s been staggering seeing Nick Clegg wriggle this week and try and pretend they knew nothing,” he said.
“But we actually spoke to numerous Liberals who were saying they’d known about this for years.”
Mr Baker went on to explain that Smith’s sexual abuse and the resulting cover-up have taught hard lessons about the way in which power can influence opinion.
“I think Freud called it ‘negative hallucination’. There’s a breach of perception where people are so powerful that it blinds you to rather dark character traits and I think that was the case with Cyril,” he said.
“There’s a growing appetite for ‘personality politics’ and there’s a danger with that because with charismatic, big personalities, there’s often less scrutiny and in some respects it can mean that dangerous flaws are not exposed.”
The book also explores the paramount importance of listening to ‘vulnerable voices’ particularly where powerful people are concerned.
“The victims that Cyril abused in the 60s, 70s, 80s and even early 90s were not believed because they were seen as poor working class people who were not regarded as credible,” Mr Baker explained.
Investigations into Smith’s activities were carried out in 1970, 1998 and 1999, and Mr Danczuk called for further inquiries into the alleged abuse in November 2012.
Mr Danczuk told MM that he could not ‘stand by and do nothing’, particularly after meeting some of the victims of Smith’s abuse.
“Hearing their stories and how Smith’s abuse, for a few minutes of his own sexual gratification, affected them for the rest of their lives, was almost insistent upon me and Matt wanting to tell this story,” he said.
Shortly after the 2012 investigations, a former Lancashire Police special branch officer said that a file of ‘lost’ sexual abuse allegations was actually seized by MI5.
The Crown Prosecution Service later admitted that the MP should have been charged more than 40 years ago.
By December 2012, 12 men had come forward to report sexual abuse by Smith but he was never charged.
When asked if the rumours of Smith’s double life had left a stain on Rochdale’s reputation, Mr Danczuk said: “I think this book is actually a real positive for Rochdale because it finally puts the story of Cyril Smith and the abuse behind the town.”
“It can now move on positively and successfully.”
Cyril Smith, who was Rochdale MP for 20 years, died in 2010.
Image courtesy of Channel Four News via YouTube, with thanks.
