Wanless review 'fails to find Dickens dossier'

An inquiry into the Home Office's handling of child sex abuse claims in the 80s has failed to uncover any of the missing documents that prompted the probe, BBC Newsnight has been told.

The inquiry centres on concerns the Home Office did not act on information passed on by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens.

The inquiry's report is expected to criticise the department's archiving in the 80s and 90s, and dash hopes the so-called "Dickens' dossier" still exists.

The Home Office has refused to comment.
'Every cupboard'
The review, led by NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless, was commissioned by the home secretary in July following criticism of an internal Home Office report into how the claims were dealt with.

That review revealed the Home Office had "lost or destroyed" 114 files and could find no evidence of the information compiled by Mr Dickens - and passed to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan in 1983.

That information was said to contain the names of MPs and police officers who we
Now, a source familiar with the Wanless report has told BBC Newsnight: "They have looked inside and behind every single cupboard in the department, and they have been round them twice, and they have not been able to find any of them [the documents]."

MP Simon Danczuk, who, in July, called on Lord Brittan to say what he knew about paedophile allegations passed to him in the 1980s, told the programme: "I am worried Peter Wanless has been set up to fail in many respects.

"I don't think he was given enough time to carry out this investigation. I don't think he was provided with enough support within the Home Office and I am worried he didn't get the technological support.

"I think there are some fairly sophisticated forensic techniques that could have been used to establish what documents were available over a 20-year period and I don't think he has been given the opportunity to get to the documents."
Published next week
The review is being published as a wider inquiry into historical child sex abuse gets under way despite its chairwoman, Fiona Woolf, resigning on Friday following disclosures about her links to Lord Brittan.

Mrs May apologised in the Commons after Mrs Woolf stood down.

The City lawyer's predecessor, Baroness Butler-Sloss, also resigned, similarly over her links with establishment figures.

Making a statement on the wider child abuse inquiry, Mrs May told MPs: "I know that some members of the House have suggested that the government should publish today the Wanless report about the Home Office permanent secretary's investigation into the so-called Dickens dossier.

"I can tell the House that the Wanless report will be published next week.

"This is because it is about a separate but related matter to the work of the panel inquiry and I want members of the public and the media to have time to scrutinise both this statement and the Wanless review properly."
re suspected of being child abusers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29945956

At the end of the day, if governments want something covered up or removed from the record - then that is precisely what will happen.  Such is power - and such will be its abuse.  Documents can be lost / destroyed;  people can be intimidated / killed.  

The newly-arrived internet is a problem though - hence the recent and significant efforts to control it and prosecute criticism.  The Maddie case has shown them the power of making (the PJ) information public. The subsequent internet analysis and detailed discussion has meant that an old-style whitewash could not happen.  Instead they have had to spend millions on Operation Grange, coordinate the media, work with the McCann's PR team, appear on TV, get interviewed on Radio.  They must hate it.  

A similar thing is happening with the Abuse Enquiry - their two chairwomen have now had to stand down purely on the basis of the internet - despite Cameron and May resisting throughout.  Everything that the government or police do is now under immense public scrutiny - and far from welcoming the accountability, they will try to end it.

Dickens certainly didn’t create a ‘114 files’ report on his own, so they’ll just have to re-create it.
 
1983 it was passed to Leon Brittan.
 
The Elm Guest House/Spartacus Club connection was revealed in the Sunday People in Feb 1983, just eight months after the Elm Guest House raid.
 
http://cigpapers.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/the-elm-guest-house-vip-paedophile-party-list/
 
This timing is no doubt purely coincidental of course!
 
There is also plenty of information relating to other childrens homes etc available.
 
From the above BBC report:
 
‘Peter McKelvie, a former child protection manager, whose allegations about child abuse led to a 2012 police investigation, said it should not be an excuse to say the files are lost.

He told Newsnight: "If the file can't be found, I actually personally think that's a little bit of a red herring because there are enough politicians and officials within the Home Office and even within the hierarchies of the three main parties that would be aware of what its content were.

"The information is out there and anyone who tries to deny that is misleading people."
 
I can just hear a full House of MP’s begrudgingly muttering ‘Hear, hear’ to this suggestion.

Theresa May avoids questions over Wanless review on missing files
Review published via written ministerial statement expected to confirm that files relating to abuse allegations still missing

The home secretary, Theresa May, is expected to face criticism on Tuesday over the publication of an independent review of the handling of the 1980s Dickens dossier of allegations of child abuse.
The review by Peter Wanless, chief executive of the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, is expected to confirm that crucial Home Office files relating to a dossier submitted by the former Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens are still missing.
Wanless will face questions from MPs when he gives evidence to the Commons home affairs select committee on Tuesday but the home secretary has avoided facing direct questions by publishing the report via a written ministerial statement.
The dossier – a series of letters to several home secretaries over several years containing allegations of child sex abuse – are among 114 Home Office files that have gone missing since the 1980s.
The Wanless inquiry is expected to confirm the findings of an earlier Home Office investigation which concluded that there was no evidence to suggest the missing files had been removed or destroyed inappropriately. The earlier investigation found no records of any specific child sex abuse allegations having been made by Dickens against prominent public figures.
A Cabinet Office review of archives published last week appear to confirm that Wanless found no trace of the files. It said: “The difficulty in accounting for these files highlights the need for keeping good records of files that have been destroyed or otherwise disposed of.”
The failure by Wanless to throw any new light on the fate of the allegations by Dickens is likely to fuel the continuing row over the establishment of a national overarching inquiry into historical allegations of child sex abuse. May is due to meet campaign groups on Thursday to discuss their concerns about the membership and leadership of the inquiry panel.
The Wanless inquiry is expected to confirm that the Home Office did consider the allegations contained in the Dickens dossier at the time and passed on 13 “items of information” to the police and prosecutors. He is to report on their handling of these allegations.
The Wanless report will review whether the earlier investigation was right to conclude that there was no evidence of the Home Office directly or indirectly financing the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Labour was critical on Monday of the home secretary’s decision to publish the Wanless report on a written ministerial statement and so avoid being questioned directly by MPs. A Labour source said: “For the home secretary to not come to the house to answer questions on a matter of this level of public concern but instead to sneak this report out quietly just ahead of a parliamentary recess is shameful.”
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said May needed to explain whether the Wanless investigation was just a review of a review, or whether he had been able to look at and look for the original files and pursue further lines of inquiry.
“After all the problems with the Home Office handling of the child abuse inquiry, it is vital that there is complete transparency over this review to rebuild confidence in the process,” she said.


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/11/theresa-may-wanless-review-dickens-dossier

He found nothing.   What a surprise.

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes
"How do you know that?"
Sherlock Holmes: "I followed you."
"I saw no one."
Sherlock Holmes: "That is what you may expect to see when I follow you."


"I found nothing"
Sherlock Holmes: "That is what you may expect to find when I hide something"


Incidentally, what investigative skills did we expect from the CEO of the NSPCC ?  

WIKI
Wanless was born in September 1964. He was educated at Sheldon School, then a comprehensive school in Chippenham, Wiltshire. He then studied International History and Politics at the University of Leeds, graduating Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1986. He has since studied on the Advanced Management Programme at Insead.
Career
After joining the Civil Service, he held a variety of posts at the HM Treasury, including Head of Private Finance Policy, and Principal Private Secretary to three Cabinet Ministers. including Michael Portillo, both when Portillo was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and later as Secretary of State for Employment. Wanless later held senior positions within the Department for Education and Skills and its successor the Department for Children, Schools and Families, including Director of School Performance and Reform and Director of Strategy and Communications.

Wanless was CEO of the Big Lottery Fund between February 2008 and May 2013, when he was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). He is a non-executive director of The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT), which operates academy schools in South East England.

Teresa May in parliament very clearly saying that this report does not say
'Case - Not Guilty
but does say Case- Not proved."
exonerated Home Office recently, but does NOT exonerate Home Office from 80s and 90s.

I think she is scenting blood,
Boudicca May for PM ! !

PeterMac wrote:Teresa May in parliament very clearly saying that this report does not say
'Case - Not Guilty
but does say Case- Not proved."
exonerated Home Office recently, but does NOT exonerate Home Office from 80s and 90s.

I think she is scenting blood,
Boudicca May for PM ! !

Petermac, I am of the opinion that T May is, in general, a decent, honest person, ( never thought I would describe a poltician in such terms) but she's swimming in a sea of filth, that is making it very difficult to clean up that filth.

I agree sallypelt. I also got the impression that T May was a decent and honest person. The job of Home Secretary is probably the hardest job of all and with all the caviats and working against the Old Boy Network, it's an impossibility. I'm surprised she has lasted so long. I really wish the rotten apples could be thrown out. How refreshing would that be!