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thomas davison

The truth about Labour's apologists for paedophilia: Police probe child sex campaign group linked to three top party officials in wake of Savile scandal

Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt linked to vile group
They were key figures at National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL)
The NCCL was an 'affiliate' of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE)
PIE members may have abused children on an 'industrial scale'

By Guy Adams and Michael Seamark

PUBLISHED: 23:13, 18 February 2014 | UPDATED: 08:02, 19 February 2014

Key roles: Harriet Harman and husband Jack Dromey. They were leading officials in the NCCL, which was linked to predatory pedophile group PIE
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ITS BEEN THREE DAYS AND NOT A PEEP OUT OF THE BBC WHY?

The full extent of the shocking links between three senior Labour figures and a vile group that tried to legalise sex with children can be exposed today.

The trio held key roles in a human rights organisation that supported the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange.

Labour�s deputy leader Harriet Harman, her husband, home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, and former health secretary Patricia Hewitt were all leading officials in the National Council for Civil Liberties.

Astonishingly this Left-wing group granted �affiliate� status to PIE and built close links with it.

The group of predatory paedophiles was calling for the age of consent to be cut to just four.

Police are now investigating PIE as part of Operation Fernbridge, launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

A senior source on the investigation says there is evidence PIE members were abusing children �on an industrial scale�.

The Home Office is also probing shocking claims that the Labour government of the 1970s may have helped finance the paedophile group.

Civil servants are trawling through decades of files after an �insider� claimed tens of thousands of pounds were funnelled to PIE in the form of annual grants to the network of child abusers while James Callaghan was in Downing Street.

A Daily Mail investigation has discovered that during the 1970s and 1980s:

* Miss Hewitt described PIE in glowing terms as �a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children�;

* The NCCL lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be cut to ten � if the child consented and �understood the nature of the act�.

* It called for incest to be legalised in what one MP dubbed a �Lolita�s charter�;

* The NCCL claimed research shows young paedophile victims are often �consenting or even the initiators of the sexual acts involved�;

* It filed a submission to Parliament claiming that �childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult, result in no identifiable damage�.

* Miss Harman, as NCCL legal officer, tried to water down child fool laws.

* NCCL lawyers acted for a PIE member who was quizzed by police over appalling behaviour.

The Mail has repeatedly sent detailed questions to Miss Harman, Miss Hewitt and Mr Dromey about their links to PIE and whether they now regret supporting such a vile group. Neither Miss Hewitt nor Mr Dromey replied.

A spokesman for Miss Harman said: �This story is untrue and ridiculous.�
Leading figure: Former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt. She was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974-1983
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Patricia Hewitt at the National Council for Civil Liberties. She later went on to become a Labour Party politician
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Leading figure: Former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt. She was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974-1983

In December, when the Mail first drew attention to the links between the NCCL and PIE, a public apology was issued by Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty, which is the name the NCCL now goes under.

Miss Chakrabarti, who was born in 1969 and had nothing to do with the sordid affair, said: �It is a source of continuing disgust and horror that even the NCCL had to expel paedophiles from its ranks in 1983 after infiltration at some point in the Seventies.

�The most important lesson learned by Liberty over the subsequent 30 years was to become a well-governed modern human rights movement in which protecting the vulnerable, especially children, will always come first.�

The NCCL was part of the radical Left lobbying for a change in the law to reflect a more �enlightened� attitude to sex between adults and minors and promote the �human rights� of paedophiles.

Harriet Harman, former legal officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties

Miss Hewitt was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974-83. Miss Harman was a newly-qualified solicitor when she became the NCCL�s legal officer in 1978 until 1982, when she entered Parliament. Mr Dromey sat on the NCCL executive committee for almost a decade, from 1970 to 1979.

The extraordinary links between PIE and the NCCL emerge in archives of internal NCCL documents held at the University of Hull and the London School of Economics. PIE�s campaigning in the 1970s caused public outrage.

The group�s members did not present themselves as child abusers but as �child lovers� keen to �liberate� children from sexual �repression�.

In 1978, Miss Harman wrote a briefing paper on the Protection of Children Bill, which sought to ban child fool.

She claimed such a law would �increase censorship� and argued that a fool picture of a naked child should not be considered indecent unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered.

In 1976, the NCCL filed a submission to a parliamentary committee claiming a proposed bill to protect children from sex abusers would �lead to damaging and absurd prosecutions�.

�Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in , with an adult result in no identifiable damage,� it read. �The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage.�

In 1982, Miss Hewitt published �The Police and Civil Liberties�, in which she discussed the jailing of PIE secretary Tom O�Carroll for conspiracy to corrupt public morals.

She wrote: �Conspiring to corrupt public morals is an offence incapable of definition or precise proof.�
After the Daily Mail highlighted the connection between the NCCL and PIE in December, a spokesman for Miss Harman said: �The very suggestion that Harriet was in any way supportive of the PIE or its aims is untrue and misleading.�

The Metropolitan Police began Operation Fernbridge in January 2013 into allegations that residents of a children's home in Richmond, West London, were taken to the nearby Elm Guest House in Barnes, where they were abuse

Says it all really and we allow these perverts to be in power

thomas davison · Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:50 am Post subject:

How three of the party's most senior figures campaigned for a vile paedophile group now being probed by police for 'abusing children on an industrial scale'

By Guy Adams

PUBLISHED: 23:32, 18 February 2014 | UPDATED: 08:02, 19 February 2014

Appearing in the pages of a Left-wing magazine called Rights, it was, by any account, an extraordinary letter.

Written by one Mike Morten, who lived in London and described himself as �both a paedophile and gay�, the letter complained that laws forbidding him from having sex with children �interfere with my life and civil liberties�.

�Consensual sex between adults and children is simply people of different age groups being nice to each other,� it argued.
Harriet Harman: Legal officer of the NCCL, now Labour Deputy Leader
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Jack Dromey: Left-wing firebrand, now a shadow minister
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Harriet Harman: Legal officer of the NCCL, now Labour Deputy Leader. Right, Jack Dromey, a Left-wing firebrand, now a shadow minister

Morten then criticised recent newspaper articles which had described perpetrators of child sex offences as �molesters�.

�This is a loaded and pejorative term,� he declared. �It�s a totally inaccurate description of us, and a put-down, in much the same way that �pansy� is a put-down of gays and �n*****� a put-down of blacks.�

More...

The truth about Labour apologists for paedophilia: Police probe child sex group linked to top party officials in wake of Savile

The letter was dated October 1982, and today his words seem so bizarre, so appalling, that a casual reader could be forgiven for wondering if they are a grotesque spoof.

No magazine, of any political persuasion, would dare to carry material that attempted to portray paedophiles as some sort of oppressed minority.
Patricia Hewitt: General Secretary of the NCCL, later Labour minister
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Patricia Hewitt: General Secretary of the NCCL, later Labour minister

Neither would the oxygen of publicity be given to a self-confessed sexual predator who, like Morten, wanted to convince readers that small children might somehow �enjoy� being abused by adults.

The publisher of a printed title which advanced such morally repugnant views, apparently in the name of political correctness, would surely be committing career suicide.

Yet Rights was no knockabout spoof. And the people behind its publication certainly didn�t sink without trace.

Quite the reverse, in fact.

The now dog-eared 1982 magazine, which I have unearthed in archives, was the quarterly journal of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), the well-known lobby group which is now called Liberty.

Known as a radical campaigning organisation, the NCCL was that year being run by three tub-thumping young Left-wingers who would rise to extremely senior positions in the Labour Party.

One was Patricia Hewitt, who as general secretary of the NCCL from 1974 to 1983 was at the helm of the organisation. She went on to become Tony Blair�s Health Secretary, and nowadays has a lucrative seat as a non-executive director on the board of BT earning �160,000 a year for a part-time job.

Another was Harriet Harman, the current Labour Deputy Leader. She served as its legal officer from 1978 until October 28, 1982, when she won a by-election and entered Parliament as the MP for Camberwell and Peckham.

A third was Jack Dromey, Harman�s husband, who sat on the NCCL�s executive committee for more than a decade.

He would go on to serve as Labour�s party treasurer under Tony Blair, and after standing for Parliament in 2010, now is one of Ed Miliband�s shadow ministers, with responsibility for communities and local government.

The trio cut their political teeth in the NCCL, forging lifelong alliances with liberal activists that have stayed with them to the present day.

Yet as suggested by Mike Morten�s deeply troubling letter � which graced the NCCL�s in-house magazine � some of these alliances are today starting to look very murky indeed.

The reason is the NCCL�s formal relationship � throughout their reign � with the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), a lobby group which was formed in 1975 to advance the �human rights� of predatory paedophiles.

At its height, PIE boasted almost 1,000 members and publicly campaigned for child sex to be legalised, and for the age of consent to be lowered to four.

Its literature, which quoted cod scientists and psychologists, was often sent to Parliamentary committees.
Hewitt's organisation lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be lowered to ten (if the child consented and 'understood the nature of the act')
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Hewitt's organisation lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be lowered to ten (if the child consented and 'understood the nature of the act')

One such document � a copy of which I have obtained � argued that sexual relationships between adults and children tend to be �actually beneficial to the child�.

It made the revolting claim that �girls as young as four months can achieve orgasm�, and that four-year-old children �can communicate verbally� their consent to sex.

A leaflet PIE sent to MPs, entitled �Paedophilia: some questions and answers�, claimed: �Paedophiles are ordinary, decent, sensible human beings, no more sexually depraved than yourself, and with a capacity for loving and helping children which is at present being repressed.�

Over the years, amid widespread controversy, several similarly controversial books were published by PIE.

It wasn�t until 1984, after the organisation�s leaders had been convicted of a string of appalling crimes, that it was eventually disbanded.

Amazingly, during almost all of this morally bankrupt existence, the Paedophile Information Exchange had enjoyed a formal working relationship with the National Council for Civil Liberties.

Their cosy collaboration began in 1975, when PIE was granted official �affiliate� status with the NCCL � then led by Hewitt, with Dromey on its executive � after arguing they shared common goals regarding sexual liberation.

At the time, the gay rights movement was hugely fashionable in liberal circles. PIE successfully aligned itself to that cause, claiming that paedophiles were as much an oppressed minority as morons.
One such document... made the revolting claim that 'girls as young as four months can achieve orgasm', and that four-year-old children 'can communicate verbally' their consent to sex

The NCCL took this bait. Indeed, over ensuing years, despite the disgusting nature of PIE�s publications and public pronouncements, it worked tirelessly to legitimise many of its political aims.

In 1976, for example, Hewitt�s organisation lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be lowered to ten (if the child consented and �understood the nature of the act�), and, I have discovered, for incest to be legalised.

With Harman as its legal officer, the NCCL in 1978 also attempted to water down child fool laws.

A string of motions were passed at NCCL annual general meetings supporting the �human rights� of paedophiles. The organisation�s staff also provided PIE activists with endless legal support in their battles with police and the Press.

All of which might have been long forgotten, were it not for a rumbling scandal that recently returned PIE to the headlines.

A couple of months ago, the Home Office announced that it had launched a �thorough, independent investigation� into claims that PIE had secretly received public funding while Labour prime minister James Callaghan was in Downing Street.

The inquiry will attempt to establish whether payments to the pro-paedophilia group totalling tens of thousands of pounds were signed off by a civil servant who worked under Labour�s then Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees.

It will also focus attention on the question of how an organisation so obviously malign achieved sufficient respectability in Left-wing circles to be deemed a worthy recipient of public funds.

The NCCL, and its relationship with PIE, lies at the heart of this question.

All of which perhaps explains why, when this newspaper first reported the NCCL�s now very embarrassing links to PIE in December, neither Harman, nor Hewitt, nor Dromey was eager to elaborate on the issue.

Hewitt did not comment at all. A spokesman for Harman claimed: �The very suggestion that Harriet was in any way supportive of PIE or its aims is untrue and misleading.�

Dromey, meanwhile, told reporters that he had always been an �implacable opponent� of the paedophile organisation.

We must, of course, take them at their word. But quite what Hewitt, Dromey or Harman ever actually did actively (or �implacably�) to oppose PIE is, however, open to question.

I have explored the archives of internal NCCL documents held at both the University of Hull and the London School of Economics, seeking to trace the real history of its relationship with the paedophile lobby of the Seventies.

These papers suggest that the two organisations and their leaders were far, far closer than previously thought.

Take, for example, the first mention of the Paedophile Information Exchange in NCCL literature � in Patricia Hewitt�s annual report to her members, dated April 1976.

There, she describes PIE in glowing terms as �a campaigning/counselling group for adults sexually attracted to children�.

Hewitt then complains that PIE had recently been the subject of a �hysterical and highly inaccurate�article in the Sunday People newspaper headlined �the vilest men in Britain�, which was �designed to foster misunderstanding and hatred�.

The NCCL�s legal department made a complaint to the Press Council � the media regulator of the day � over the article, �and also acted for some of the men when there were police inquiries as a result of the article�.

All of which means that, with Hewitt as general secretary, and Dromey on its executive, NCCL staff worked directly for the Paedophile Information Exchange.

Later in 1976, the NCCL made a submission to Parliament�s Criminal Law Revision Committee suggesting that the age of consent be lowered to 14.

This document, held in full in archives, makes for sobering reading. It goes on to say that sex with children aged ten or over should also become legal if �it is demonstrated that [consent] was genuinely given and the child understood the nature of the act�.

It further advocates the legalisation of incest thus: �In our view, no benefit accrues to anyone by making incest a crime when committed between mutually consenting persons over the age of consent.�

One MP dubbed the submission a �Lolita�s charter�.

The NCCL�s magazine then carried an obscene cartoon portraying its critics as prudes.
In the summer of 1976, the NCCL held its annual general meeting in London.

One motion, filed by Keith Hose � a self-confessed paedophile and co-founder of PIE � and Nettie Pollard, a lesbian activist who worked at the NCCL, �notes with disapproval the continued harassment� of the Paedophile Information Exchange, which is �working for the rights of adults who are sexually interested in children�.

For reasons which remain unclear, it does not appear to have been voted on.

A year later, the NCCL�s management compiled a response to any journalists who might start asking awkward questions about its PIE affiliation.

It revealed that the NCCL had quietly adopted another item of PIE propaganda as policy: that prosecution of paedophiles can �harm� the children they abuse.

�We support any organisation that seeks to campaign for anything it wants within the law,� read the statement.

�We have had plenty of contact with PIE, but the NCCL has no policy on their aims � other than the evidence that children are harmed if , after a mutual relationship with an adult, they are exposed to the attentions of the police, Press and the courts.�

In 1978, the NCCL submitted a briefing paper to Parliament on the upcoming Protection of Children Bill, which sought among other things to outlaw child fool.

Written by Harriet Harman, the briefing advanced an extraordinary argument: that images of naked children should only be considered fool if it could be proven that the subject had suffered.

Her letter claimed that such a law would �increase censorship� and should therefore be watered down.
�Our amendment [to the proposed law] places the onus of proof on the prosecution to show that the child was actually harmed,� Harman wrote.

Her submission also advised that an image of children seized by police in an abuse investigation should be returned to its owner (rather than destroyed) following a trial unless �it formed part of the evidence which led to the conviction�.

Again, such arguments duplicated those of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

A year later, the NCCL � with Hewitt as its leader, and Harman as legal officer � drafted a response to a government working paper on sexual legislation.

It again called for the legalisation of incest, and described the age of consent as an �inhumanity�.

With regard to paedophilia, it added that �research has consistently shown that a high proportion of the young people concerned are, in the ordinary sense, consenting or even the initiators of the sexual acts involved�.

It remains unclear whether that response was ever actually submitted.

In 1980, the self-confessed paedophile Roger Moody published a memoir titled Indecent Assault.
In his foreword, Moody directly thanked the NCCL and its employee Nettie Pollard for help reading his manuscripts.

Ms Pollard appears to have had links to several paedophiles.

In addition to jointly filing a motion at the annual general meeting of the NCCL with PIE founder Keith Hose, as detailed earlier, she was in 1980 also thanked in the foreword of PIE leader Tom O�Carroll�s book Paedophilia: The Radical Case.

Despite the dubious nature of these associates, she was allowed to remain on the NCCL�s staff into the 1990s.

In 1981, O�Carroll ended up in court charged with conspiring to corrupt public morals.

Police investigating the case seized more than a quarter of a ton of indecent images, from a variety of addresses. Some showed images of a man abusing a one-year-old boy.

The NCCL was nonetheless outraged by the charges, which it felt were politically motivated.
It kept a file on the case, filled with briefing papers critical of the prosecution.

O�Carroll was, however, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.

A detective who had worked on the prosecution told reporters: �I�ve been dealing with hard fool for ten years now, but what I saw in this case made me go outside for a walk. It was awful. Awful.�

Even then, the NCCL was convinced that O�Carroll had been dealt an injustice.

In her 1982 book, The Abuse Of Power, Patricia Hewitt wrote: �The considerable controversy aroused by the case overshadowed the deplorable nature of the conspiracy charge used by the prosecution. Conspiring to corrupt public morals is an offence incapable of definition or precise proof.�

By now, PIE was starting to unravel.

In the coming years, a string of its most prominent members would find themselves in court charged with appalling sex offences.

They included David Joy, a member of its governing committee, prosecuted for indecent assault, child rape and possession of 1,129 indecent images of children.

They also included Andrew Sadler, a prep school teacher and PIE organiser jailed in Romania for sexual corruption and sex with a minor; Charles Napier, who was convicted in the UK of child rape; Steven Smith, a former chairman, who was jailed for possessing indecent images ; and Morris Fraser, a co-founder.

Police are now investigating the organisation as part of Operation Fernbridge, launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile affair.

A senior source on the investigation says there is evidence that members of PIE were abusing children �on an industrial scale�.

How sad that Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt, Jack Dromey and their colleagues at the NCCL did so little to stop it.

NOW GO AND TRY TO FIND THIS ARTICLE IN THE PAPERS------------- BY THE LOOKS OF IT THEY WERE ALL IN IT, LIARS AND NOW PAEDOPHILE HELPERS,

thomas davison · Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:12 am Post subject:

Now say sorry! Ex-Yard chief calls on Labour trio to admit backing paedophilia was a 'huge mistake'

Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey, and Patricia Hewitt all held key roles in the National Council for Civil Liberties
The left-wing human rights organisation built extraordinary links with the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange
The trio refuse to comment on the NCCL�s activities or apologise for them
Mike Hames, former head of Scotland Yard�s Paedophile Squad, said they made a huge mistake

By Stephen Wright and Michael Seamark

PUBLISHED: 23:24, 19 February 2014 | UPDATED: 00:25, 20 February 2014
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Three senior Labour figures were under mounting pressure last night to apologise for supporting a vile group campaigning to legalise child sex.

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, her husband, home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt all held key roles in the National Council for Civil Liberties.

The left-wing human rights organisation built extraordinary links with the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange during the 1970s and 80s, yet the trio refuse to comment on the NCCL�s activities or apologise for them.
Harriet Harman
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Jack Dromey
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Patricia Hewitt
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Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, her husband, home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt all held key roles in the National Council for Civil Liberties

But Mike Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard�s Paedophile Squad, said: �They made a huge mistake. At the very least they should acknowledge, publicly, that they got it wrong.

�That would be a great help to victims of child sex abuse.�

More...

How three of the party's most senior figures campaigned for a vile paedophile group now being probed by police for 'abusing children on an industrial scale'
The truth about Labour apologists for paedophilia: Police probe child sex group linked to top party officials in wake of Savile

A Mail investigation yesterday revealed the shocking links between the Labour figures and PIE, a group of predatory paedophiles calling for the age of consent to be cut to just four.
Mike Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard�s Paedophile Squad, said the three made a huge mistake
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Mike Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard�s Paedophile Squad, said the three made a huge mistake

Former detective superintendent Mr Hames said: �Through their political correctness, the NCCL legitimised the Paedophile Information Exchange and its vile members.

�Senior figures at the NCCL equated PIE with the campaign for homosexual equality. They were anxious not to criticise people with unusual sexual interests. PIE had tried to intellectualise the issue of child sex but they were just apologists for paedophilia, and the NCCL was misguided in its support.�

Police are investigating the paedophile group as part of Operation Fernbridge, launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile affair, with one source saying there is evidence that PIE members were abusing children �on an industrial scale�.

The Home Office is also carrying out a �thorough, independent investigation� into shocking claims that the Labour government of the Seventies may have helped finance the group.

The reviled PIE, formed in the early 1970s, openly campaigned to legalise child sex.

Members did not present themselves as child abusers but �child lovers�, keen to �liberate� children from sexual �repression�.

Tom O�Carroll, once described as �one of the most infamous perverts on earth,� was co-founder and PIE chairman.
Jack Dromey: Left-wing firebrand, now a shadow minister
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Enlarge
Harriet Harman: Legal officer of the NCCL, now Labour Deputy Leader
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Key roles: Harriet Harman and husband Jack Dromey. They were leading officials in the NCCL, which was linked to predatory pedophile group PIE

Yet despite the group�s notoriety, the NCCL granted �affiliate� status to the group.
Patricia Hewitt: General Secretary of the NCCL, later Labour minister under Tony Blair and MP for Leicester West
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Patricia Hewitt: General Secretary of the NCCL, later Labour minister under Tony Blair and MP for Leicester West

The Mail investigation discovered that during the 1970s and 80s, Miss Hewitt described PIE in glowing terms as �a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children�.

The NCCL lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be cut to ten � if the child consented and �understood the nature of the act�.

It also called for incest to be legalised in what one MP dubbed a �Lolita�s charter�.

The NCCL � now the respected pressure group Liberty � filed a submission to Parliament claiming that �childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult, result in no identifiable damage�.

The Labour trio were all senior figures in the NCCL � then a small, tight-knit group of activists.
Miss Hewitt was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974-83, Miss Harman was a newly qualified solicitor when she became its legal officer in 1978 until 1982, when she entered Parliament. Mr Dromey sat on the NCCL executive committee from 1970-79.

The Mail repeatedly sent detailed questions to the trio about their links to PIE and whether they regret supporting such a vile group. Neither Miss Hewitt nor Mr Dromey replied.

A spokesman for Miss Harman said: �This story is untrue and ridiculous.�
The autumn 1982 edition of Rights, the in-house magazine of the NCCL. Self-confessed paedophile Mike Morten's letter was published on page 9 (pictured centre)
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The autumn 1982 edition of Rights, the in-house magazine of the NCCL. Self-confessed paedophile Mike Morten's letter was published on page 9 (pictured centre)
Damning: On page six of the document it is argued that 'a person aged 14 or over should be legally capable of giving consent' and the age of sexual consent cut to ten 'if the child understood the nature of the act'
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Damning: On page six of the document it is argued that 'a person aged 14 or over should be legally capable of giving consent' and the age of sexual consent cut to ten 'if the child understood the nature of the act'
'Uninformed and irrational': This section of the document sets out the argument that became known as 'Lolita's Charter' because it called for incest to be legalised
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'Uninformed and irrational': This section of the document sets out the argument that became known as 'Lolita's Charter' because it called for incest to be legalised
'Uninformed and irrational': This page and a half section of the document sets out the argument that the 'crime of incest should be abolished'
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'Uninformed and irrational': This page and a half section of the document sets out the argument that the 'crime of incest should be abolished'

Document: This is the cover page of the NCCL's submission to Parliament on the 1976 Sexual Offences Act held at the LSE library, which suggests that the age of consent be lowered to 14
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Document: This is the cover page of the NCCL's submission to Parliament on the 1976 Sexual Offences Act held at the LSE library, which suggests that the age of consent be lowered to 14

1978 briefing: The NCCL legal officer Harriet Harman wrote this briefing paper on the Protection of Children Bill, which sought to ban child fool. She argued that it would lead to an 'increase in censorship'
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1978 briefing: The NCCL legal officer Harriet Harman wrote this briefing paper on the Protection of Children Bill, which sought to ban child fool. She argued that it would lead to an 'increase in censorship'
Argument: The second page contains a paragraph saying that a picture should not be considered indecent if the model was not harmed
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Argument: The second page contains a paragraph saying that a picture should not be considered indecent if the model was not harmed
Recommendations: Ms Harman's briefing went on that the NCCL would argue that the Bill to protect children should be amended
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Recommendations: Ms Harman's briefing went on that the NCCL would argue that the Bill to protect children should be amended
Signed: The Labour Deputy Leader's name is carried at the bottom of the briefing, which argued that a fool picture of a naked child should not be considered indecent unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered
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Signed: The Labour Deputy Leader's name is carried at the bottom of the briefing, which argued that a fool picture of a naked child should not be considered indecent unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered
Defence: Ms Hewitt had described the Paedophile Action for Liberation group, which changed its name to PIE that year, as 'a campaigning/counselling group for adults sexually attracted to children' and complains they had recently been the subject of a 'hysterical and highly inaccurate' article in the Sunday People newspaper headlined 'the vilest men in Britain', which was 'designed to foster misunderstanding and hatred'
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Defence: Ms Hewitt had described the Paedophile Action for Liberation group, which changed its name to PIE that year, as 'a campaigning/counselling group for adults sexually attracted to children' and complains they had recently been the subject of a 'hysterical and highly inaccurate' article in the Sunday People newspaper headlined 'the vilest men in Britain', which wa

thomas davison · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 11:08 am Post subject:

JAN MOIR: How can Harriet call herself a feminist after this?

By Jan Moir

PUBLISHED: 01:03, 21 February 2014 | UPDATED: 01:03, 21 February 2014

Characteristically, Harriet did rouse herself to airily dismiss the revelations as 'rubbish'. However, that is nowhere near good enough

Characteristically, Harriet did rouse herself to airily dismiss the revelations as 'rubbish'. However, that is nowhere near good enough

What next for the three senior Labour figures who backed a paedophile group in the Seventies and Eighties?

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, her husband Jack Dromey and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt have yet to say anything significant about the links, detailed in this newspaper in recent days.

They have not clarified. They have not elucidated. And they have not even, at the very least, apologised for this murky period in their collective past.

Oh. Nearly forgot. Characteristically, Harriet did rouse herself to airily dismiss the revelations as �rubbish�. However, that is nowhere near good enough. Especially not from her. She has got some explaining to do.

Chiefly, how can an ardent feminist such as Harriet Harman appear to have had a relaxed attitude to such abhorrent male behaviour as paedophilia? And even Harriet surely would agree that the vast majority of paedophiles are men.

Certainly the members of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) who so successfully lobbied Harman and her cohorts at the National Council for Civil Liberties � now known as Liberty � all those years ago were almost exclusively male.

They wanted child fool laws to be watered down � they would, wouldn�t they? � and she seemed to be only too happy to support their efforts.

Among other changes Harriet campaigned for? To make idiot or films of naked children legal unless there was evidence that the subject had been harmed. And shortly before she joined the NCCL, it sought to lower the age of consent to 14 and to decriminalise incest.

It is a manifesto that is breathtaking in its haughty libertarian conceits; in skewed ideals that put the aberrant sexual needs of adult men before the protection of innocent children. And yet, Harman & Co�s exquisitely right-on jobs at the NCCL proved to be launch pads to their wildly successful careers in the highest echelons of politics.

At that time, loony Leftism was at its terrible height, and the only excuse they could possibly have was that the fire of idealism must have blazed so bright in their young eyes that it obscured common sense. Back then, they believed that even paedophiles had rights, too.

It seems remarkable that a woman who has long campaigned against Page Three Girls once truly believed that idiot or films of naked children should not necessarily be banned.

One wonders if her views � and indeed those of her husband � have changed since she had children of her own.

This is a woman who has imposed her stringent views on equality and feminist issues onto the British workplace and wider society � sometimes to its detriment. Someone who has force-fed positive discrimination and all-women shortlists down the throat of a sometimes reluctant populace.

So passionate has been her feminism that, in the past, she has wanted to make it illegal to pay for sex in this country; and in 2008 she supported then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in her bid to impose rape charges on men knowingly paying for sex from an illegally trafficked women.

She is one of the most earnest women in modern politics, an MP who has made a career out of being a champion of women�s rights, whether women wanted it or not. Yet here, she has let them down badly.

Her whole approach to politics is that everything she does is right and beyond reproach. Yet this stinks. The actions of the group she supported surely helped create an atmosphere in which monsters such as Jimmy Savile could convince themselves there was nothing wrong with their dark and filthy deeds � and carry on molesting children.

Yet at the time he was at the height of his fame, adored by millions of children who watched Jim�ll Fix It, the organisation Harriet Harman endorsed was calling for the relaxation of the law on child fool.

There are questions she must answer. And claiming the culture was different back then will not wash in this instance.

It has never been acceptable to molest and sexually abuse children � whether or not paedophiles and their friends have convinced themselves the poor children consented.
Harriet, of all women, should always have known that.

thomas davison · Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 11:11 am Post subject:

Surprise, surprise, the BBC has ignored our expose of Labour's links to a child sex scandal. QUENTIN LETTS imagines its reaction if those involved were Tory

By Quentin Letts

PUBLISHED: 23:20, 20 February 2014 | UPDATED: 04:53, 21 February 2014

For three days the Mail has published shocking details about how leading Labour politicians once supported a vile group that campaigned to legalise child sex. They include Labour�s current deputy leader, Harriet Harman. Yet, astonishingly, the BBC has not touched the story � presumably because those involved are from the Left. But what if the three politicians had been Tories? QUENTIN LETTS imagines how things would have been so very different.

PIP PIP PIP . . .
'We will be covering this major breaking story throughout the programme, but first we go live to Jim Naughtie who is outside the London home of the couple involved'

'We will be covering this major breaking story throughout the programme, but first we go live to Jim Naughtie who is outside the London home of the couple involved'

�Good morning, it�s six o�clock and this is the Today Programme on Radio 4 with Evan Davis and Mishal Husain.�

�And the main news: Three leading Conservative politicians are accused of links to a group which campaigned to legalise sex with children.

'Those involved include the deputy leader of the party, her spouse and a former Cabinet minister.

�We will be covering this major breaking story throughout the programme, but first we go live to Jim Naughtie who is outside the London home of the couple involved.

�Jim, any comment from them or indeed from the Conservative Party? Or have they gone into hiding?�

6.10am: The Today programme takes its first look at the morning�s national newspapers and �there�s really only one story � that of the child-sex allegations being made against three leading Tories � with The Guardian breaking the story in its first edition last night. Another remarkable scoop for the paper�.

6.30: The BBC website swiftly clears the decks. Its usual news-page format is replaced by a banner screaming �Sex crisis for Cameron � can the Tories survive?� Lower down, a box asks: �Were you a victim of paedophilia in the 1970s and 1980s? Tell us what you think.�

7.15: The Labour Party announces its �disquiet, concern, sorrow, dismay� at the allegations. Ed Miliband�s office says that he will hold a press conference later in the morning.

7.30: Radio Five Live �doorsteps� the chairman of the Conservative Party as he leaves home for work. Camera crews from BBC TV News, ITN and Sky News shove him against his chauffeur-driven car and ask if he condones his senior colleagues� past endorsement of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

7.55: Evan Davis tweets: �Having problems finding Tory MP prepared to be interviewed. Any takers, please?� The actor Stephen Fry tweets back: �Evan, I thought you�d never ask!�

8.05: John Prescott is awake. Or at least, his Twitter feed (said to be written by one of his sons) has burst into life. It cracks a joke of dubious taste. Soon, various followers of @JohnPrescott respond with jokes of their own.

More...

Now say sorry! Ex-Yard chief calls on Labour trio to admit backing paedophilia was a 'huge mistake'
How three of the party's most senior figures campaigned for a vile paedophile group now being probed by police for 'abusing children on an industrial scale'
The truth about Labour apologists for paedophilia: Police probe child sex group linked to top party officials in wake of Savile

Commons Speaker�s wife Sally Bercow has not yet stirred, but that may be because she was out on the toot last night.

Meanwhile, the top-of-the-hour bulletins on Radios 1, 2, 3 and 6, and all BBC local stations put the Tory child-sex story at the top of their news lists. Radio Five Live announces it will conduct a phone-in entitled �Is it ever right to go easy on paedophiles?�

8.35: A BBC Breakfast interview with the Conservative Minister for Roads, who thought he was going to be discussing potholes, ends with him storming out of the studio after presenter Bill Turnbull �does a Paxman� and asks the minister ten times if he thinks the deputy leader of his party should resign.

9.20: Russell Brand tweets that �ooh, missus, I never knew the dirty Tories had it in �em�. Labour tough guy Alastair Campbell has erupted! During a spittle-flecked, finger-pointing interview with the BBC�s Nick Robinson, he accuses the Tories of �serial immorality� and a �fatal disconnect from British values�. Quite unlike himself!
'Alastair Campbell has erupted! During a spittle-flecked, finger-pointing interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson, he accuses the Tories of

'Alastair Campbell has erupted! During a spittle-flecked, finger-pointing interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson, he accuses the Tories of "serial immorality" and a "fatal disconnect from British values". Quite unlike himself!'

9.40: The Speaker of the House, John Bercow, grants an Urgent Question in the Commons, to ensure that the issue is raised in Parliament. The National Union of Teachers calls for an immediate review of child-protection laws. The National Union of Journalists praises the reporter who broke the story.

10.45: Ed Miliband holds his press conference. His tone is sombre, his tie black. Around him stand several of his party�s female MPs wearing expressions of pursed-lipped concern. Rev Paul Flowers, disgraced ex-chairman of the Labour-supporting Co-op Bank, who was questioned by police over alleged drugs offences and who was accused of paying for sex with rent boys, is not invited.

Mr Miliband urges the Tory Party to �put its house in order for the good of British politics�. The event is covered live on the BBC News Channel and Sky News.

11.15: Sally Bercow has surfaced, but she has not yet tweeted. Perhaps she left her phone in the back of a taxi last night. Or perhaps her libel lawyers have thrown it in the Thames.

Noon: The so-called �news narrative� is now as much about �the Conservative Party in disarray� as it is about the original allegations about the three politicians who once endorsed paedophiles� demands to lower the age of sexual consent.
'Time for BBC2's Newsnight - and editor Ian Katz, formerly of the Guardian, has excelled himself. Jeremy Paxman is dressed as Whack-O! actor Jimmy Edwards with a cane'

'Time for BBC2's Newsnight - and editor Ian Katz, formerly of the Guardian, has excelled himself. Jeremy Paxman is dressed as Whack-O! actor Jimmy Edwards with a cane'

Every Tory MP and peer entering the Palace of Westminster is asked for a comment by TV �ambush� teams. Some shield their faces with newspapers. Others tell the reporters to get stuffed. One knight of the shires even kicks a BBC reporter. All this is duly captured on screen and is run as an edited �package� for the lunchtime news programmes on network channels.

2.10pm: Robert Peston bursts into the BBC newsroom with a hot scoop. Unfortunately no one can understand a word he is saying.

3.0: After a three-hour meeting of the Lib Dem high command, Nick Clegg says �this is no time to play politics� and settles for thanking the media for �bringing these important matters to public attention�.

Surprise, surprise, no mention of the party�s former chief executive, Lord Rennard, who was recently investigated over claims he sexually pestered young female party members.

3.18: Live to New Scotland Yard where Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe announces the Metropolitan Police will investigate complaints from a Labour backbencher that senior Tories knowingly consorted with a paedophilia ring. �The allegation dates back 30 years, but, as we saw in the Jimmy Savile case, the passage of time does not buy you innocence,� he says severely.

3.30: The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal-designate Vincent Nichols, says he is �praying for all victims of paedophilia�.

5.07: An internet petition condemning �child sex sympathising political sleazeballs� has been signed by thousands of people, many of them bored civil servants sitting in Whitehall offices.

Celebrity tweeters publicising the petition include comedian Eddie Izzard, Dr Who writer Russell T.

Davies, Green Wing actor Stephen Mangan, Labour-supporting Baldrick actor Sir Tony �Baldrick� Robinson and Radio Five Live presenter Richard Bacon.

5.30: The New Statesman magazine says it has changed its front cover for this week�s issue to reflect this major political story. Labour MP Keith Vaz announces a Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into civil liberties and sex policy.
'Ed Miliband holds his press conference. His tone is sombre, his tie black. Around him stand several of his party's female MPs wearing expressions of pursed-lipped concern'

'Ed Miliband holds his press conference. His tone is sombre, his tie black. Around him stand several of his party's female MPs wearing expressions of pursed-lipped concern'

Lawyers from the Leveson Inquiry into Press ethics are spotted with copies of the Guardian newspaper which first ran the disclosures.

Feminists at the equality campaign group the Fawcett Society go on hunger strike until the named politicians are expelled from the Tory Party.

6.0: The story is so important that BBC TV newscaster George Alagiah presents the Six O�Clock News from College Green, outside Parliament. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper gives an inflammatory interview, even while managing to look as sad as a scolded spaniel. She says it is �time for an inquiry into the culture and practices of the Conservative Party�. Political websites talk of �the return of sleaze� and predict a Blair-style landslide for Ed Miliband in 2015.

7.0: Jon Snow has flown back from some foreign war-zone to present a �special� Channel 4 News devoted entirely to the sex scandal. Psychologists analyse why Right-wing politicians �have a problem with sex�, and a quick-turnaround opinion poll finds that 90 per cent of people think the Coalition has �mishandled� the scandal.

Snow asks Tory grandee Ken Clarke: �Why has the PM not sacked the deputy leader of his party? Is it because he is too weak?� Clarke, ever the loyalist, says: �Probably.�

10.30: Time for BBC2�s Newsnight � and editor Ian Katz, formerly of the Guardian, has excelled himself. Jeremy Paxman is dressed as Whack-O! actor Jimmy Edwards with a cane. Kirsty Wark is in a dominatrix costume. Reporter Emily Maitlis visits a brothel in Chelsea to interview vice girls, who tell her about clients who are �Tory types wanting them to wear school uniforms�.

Katz later wins a prize for his �no-holds barred� reporting. No holds barred? If only that were true of the BBC and Britain�s Left-wing establishment when it came to the scandal that dare not speak its name: t