2022 February 19 FOIA Centre Mark Watts Dolphin Square BOOK - 3 articles Mark Watts 10p

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Detectives on an investigation into organised crime in 1991 stumbled upon an audio tape on which an MP is heard “having sex” with a “teenager”. They had just raided the business premises of a “prime suspect” arrested as part of an organised-crime gang that was allegedly into property fraud and corruption, according to the officer known only as “GB”, who was then based in Rotherhithe in south-east London. The inquiry sponsored by the Home Office into child sexual abuse failed to call as a witness either GB, or the MP caught on tape, to whom it refers as only “WM-F7” or even his associate in organised crime who held the tape in her safe, known only as “WM-F172”. The inquiry’s report on the Westminster investigation completely ignored the former officer’s account. But GB’s bombshell evidence is set to feature in a new book out next week, Scandal at Dolphin Square, by Simon Danczuk, the former MP, and Daniel Smith. The inquiry formally adduced the ex-detective’s witness statements and anonymised him in them to “GB”. GB talked about the MP and the sex tape in interviews with Operation Winter Key, an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service’s professional standards department into allegations of historic child abuse relating to institutions and prominent people. Met notes of Operation Winter Key’s two meetings with GB record (as it appears in the original document, as with all material quoted, complete with punctuation and other typing errors): “Whilst searching her house [GB] states he found an audio recording in a safe of a male having sex with a child. He states that he knew that the male’s voice was [WM-F7] who was an MP at that time and [GB] was aware that [WM-F172] would accompany [WM-F7] to high-profile functions. “GB does not know for certain but he believed that [WM-F7] may have been blackmailed by [WM-F172] due to her having possession of this recording. He remembers that children from GLCH [Green Lane children’s home] and a children’s home in Deptford were staying overnight at [WM-F7] house. “This information was passed over to security services MI5 as it was too big and too political for local police to be dealing with.” The revelation piles further pressure on the CSA inquiry because the Security Service, better known as MI5, was supposed to hand over all material in its possession relating to possible child sexual abuse and MPs. But there was no indication in the MI5 disclosures of the MP’s sex tape with a teenager. An anonymous MI5 witness, understood to be its legal director, told the #CSAinquiry on Day 6 of the Westminster hearings that it had handed over all relevant material from its files on allegations of child sexual abuse against MPs. But GB’s account undermines this claim, and yet the inquiry failed to follow up MI5’s omission. The Met notes of its meetings with GB continue: “After a few weeks he tried to get the recording from property in Rotherhithe but it was missing and never found. He describes the property office as not very secure and most people had access to the keys. “He believes that someone was protecting [WM-F172] or [WM-F7] and also felt that [WM-F172] may have been an informant as she was only ever found guilty of a couple of frauds and received a suspended sentence although he did not know this for certain.” A Met transcript of GB’s interviews recounts more detail of his recollections of that raid: (For those for whom reading about sexual abuse may be a ‘trigger’, you may want to skip the following, graphic section of evidence.) “We came across a safe that she wasn’t going to open and didn’t have the key. We were going to call a locksmith when she opened it and we found the tape recording. We thought it might be more evidence of what we were looking for. We got back and listened to the tape. “[WM-F7] has a distinctive voice realised it was his voice on it and he was engaged in having sex with someone another male. We knew he had an association with WM-F172 as there had been bits in the press attending functions with her on his arm.” “Q- Describe the voice that you believed was WM-F7 “A- I don’t know how to describe his voice, its distinctive and it was him, as far as I was concerned it was him. “He was the local MP for [redacted] I had seen him a few times around, I had spoken to him a few times, on TV, he is regularly on. He has a twang to his voice, if you heard it you would know it was him “Q- What did you hear on the recording
“A- It was obvious he was having sex with someone basically, grunts, groans, his voice encouragement and bits and pieces and it went on for a while. “Q- Did you hear what the other person was saying, what the voice sounded like “A- I can’t really recall it it sounded a youngish male basically or you could gather from it “Q- How young are we talking “A- Impossible to say “Q- Young male as in teenager or above or are we talking child “A- It was teenager, child that sort of age it was a young person. He was in his 40s this was significantly younger probably a child or young adult, grunts and groans and talking during sex it wasn’t exactly a young conversation. It sounded like they didn’t know that they were being recorded. “Q- What was the recording done on what type “A- Can’t remember if it was an ordinary cassette or micro cassette. I think it was just an ordinary cassette “Q- It was just audio “A- Just audio “Q- Anything written on the cassette you can remember “A- I can’t remember “Q- From that recording this teenager or child can you remember what they were saying “A- No “Q- What made you believe it was a young person or child “A- The voice was higher just the whole tenure of it being encourage to participate as though he was talking to someone young, couldn’t say if it was a child could have been a young person, it was definitely someone on the younger side “Q- Were there sounds of distress “A- No it was consensual our main concern was that he was often protecting her when people were complaining to him about [WM- F172], people had gone to his surgery to complain that the villains had got their [sic] but he said no I’m sure not. He was on her arm at places and it wasn’t until about 10 years later that he came out being gay before that the people of [redacted] would not have voted for him.” The Met notes of its meetings with GB record: “He describes the other males [sic] voice as youngish male but impossible to say how young. Cannot remember what the other male was saying on the recording. He describes the voice as ‘teenager, child that sort of age it was a young person.’ “[WM-F7] was in his 40’s and GB describes the other voice as significantly younger and talking during sex but not ‘exactly a young conversation’… No sounds of distress and consensual.” According to the Met transcript, GB says that he thinks that two colleagues listened to the recording with him. He continues: “We were going to keep it quiet. We couldn’t say if it was a child, was an MP being blackmailed, was he being blackmailed by [WM- F172] therefore by most of the villains in South East London. “Q- When you say you were going to keep it quiet was there a conversation around that “A- Yeah the DI [detective inspector] was going to take it to SB [Special Branch] I think we didn’t want to make it worse. It needed appropriate people to deal with it, we couldn’t deal with it as the local CID. It was going to be taken up elsewhere as far as we were aware. “Q- Who was the DI at the time “A- Micky Suett
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2022 February 19 FOIA Centre Mark Watts Dolphin Square BOOK - 3 articles Mark Watts 10p

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