Convicted paedophile, police superintendent and freemason Gordon Anglesea is dead.

in 1994, Anglesea was famously awarded £375,000 in libel damages against four media organisations who presciently linked Anglesea to allegations of child abuse by suggesting he had been a regular visitor to the infamous Bryn Estyn children’s home in North Wales.

But the libel judge – Sir Maurice Drake – gave a monstrously biased summing up in favour of Anglesea, in which he said:

“Experience in the courts shows that where men and women, boys and girls make complaints of sexual assault they do sometimes make up stories, either completely or exaggerate some incident out of all proportion so that it no longer bears any relationship to the truth.

“And of course a complaint that someone has sexually assaulted you is comparatively easy to make up and difficult to rebut. It is the nature of a sexual complaint that no one else is likely to have seen it.”

It turned out – unsurprisingly – that Justice Drake was, like Anglesea, a freemason.

Which is probably why the Provincial Grand Chapter of Hertfordshire has deleted all references to him being a member:

Until recently, the Chapter even had a page eulogising Drake as one of their leading members:

The page has been deleted – although an archived version can still be seen, at least for the time being.

Perhaps there should be an investigation made into connections between VIP child abuse and the freemasons.

If investigators could be found who were guaranteed to be free of connections to the Freemasons themselves that is.

A tall order in the UK.