Former MP Enoch Powell has been accused of ‘ritualistic satanic abuse’.

A probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment was handed the late Tory MP’s name by the Bishop of Durham, the Mail on Sunday reports.

In a further development Scotland Yard investigators are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith.


The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker.



He first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

The claim is being examined by Operation Fenbridge, one of a number of police probes into ‘Establishment paedophile rings’.

It includes an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into claims that officers dropped their inquiries under pressure from the establishment.

A Church of England spokesman said: ‘The name of Enoch Powell was passed to Operation Fenbridge by one of our safeguarding team on the instruction of Bishop Paul Butler.’

Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations of satanic rituals were widespread.

In 1994, an investigation by the London School of Economics into 84 alleged cases of ‘satanic abuse’ in the UK between 1987 and 1992, found no corroborative evidence.

Enoch Powell’s frontline political career ended abruptly in 1968 after he made his infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech warning about the dangers of uncontrolled immigration.

Tory leader Edward Heath sacked him from the Shadow Cabinet the following day, although Powell remained an MP until 1974.

Although Powell was a Tory, his intellectual and oratorical skills earned him admirers on both sides of the political divide.

A devout member of the Church of England, he had two daughters with his wife Pamela.

Last night, Simon Heffer, Powell’s official biographer and former confidante, branded the allegations ‘absolute nonsense’ and without foundation.