Home Secretary Theresa May was condemned by MPs for rejecting calls for a super inquiry

The Home Secretary yesterday announced a new police inquiry into allegations of child abuse in north Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

Despite giving details of three new probes – including a police watchdog review of the botched investigations into pervert DJ Jimmy Savile – Mrs May rejected pleas to merge the eight different inquiries launched in the wake of the scandal.

The Home Secretary claimed a single inquiry would get in the way of police re-investigating care home abuse in North Wales.

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has raised allegations against three top Tories and a paedophile ring with links to Downing Street, told Mrs May “a narrowed-down investigation is the basic building block of a cover-up”.

The angry MP argued that there should be no limitations to the probe, saying: “Many sickening crimes will remain uninvestigated, and some of the most despicable paedophiles will remain protected by the Establishment that has shielded them for 30 years.”