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Theresa May was accused of a child sex abuse cover-up today after she snubbed calls for a super-inquiry which could look at claims against top Tories.

The Home Secretary gave details of three new probes including a police watchdog review of the botched investigations into pervert DJ Jimmy Savile.

But she rejected pleas to merge the eight different inquiries launched in the wake of the Savile scandal into a single one capable of examining all links.

She claimed it would get in the way of police re-investigating care home abuse in North Wales.

Furious 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”.

He warned: “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.”

Mr Watson said that there should be no historic sexual abuse of children which is off limits to the probe.

He added: “Whether you were raped and tortured as a child in Wales or in Whitehall you’re entitled to be heard.”

And to jeers from Tories, he blasted: “Can she live with being what she has just announced – the next stage of a cover-up?”

Mrs May today said National Crime Agency boss Keith Bristow will head a new inquiry into how North Wales police handled the care homes scandal and whether children were “sold” to paedophiles including a senior Tory aide.

She announced High Court Judge Mrs Justice Julia Wendy Macur will review the “scope and conduct” of the Waterhouse Inquiry, set up into the scandal by former Wales Secretary William Hague, which failed to look at abuse outside the homes.

She also ordered police watchdog HM Inspectorate of Constabulary to review investigations mounted by forces across the country into Savile to ensure the allegations were treated properly.

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Speaking in the Commons, Mrs May admitted the scale of the abuse coming to light is “absolutely horrific”.

She insisted: “The Government is treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness.

"Child abuse is a hateful, abhorrent and disgusting crime, and we must not allow these allegations to go unanswered.”

There are five other inquiries launched since Savile’s predatory sex abuse was uncovered.

Operation Yewtree is probing hundreds of claims against the DJ and others linked to him. Police have arrested Freddie Starr and Gary Glitter.

There are two BBC inquiries – one into the practices at the Corporation and how Savile got away with his crimes, and the second into why Newsnight dropped a programme exposing him.

Health chiefs are probing Savile’s reign of abuse at three NHS hospitals and director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer is reviewing why the CPS decided not to put Savile in the dock after a claim of child abuse in 2009.

Today Tory ex-Children’s Minister Tim Loughton joined Mr Watson’s calls for a single super-inquiry capable of getting to the truth.

He said: “Rather than waking up to find a new institution involved in this mire every week, is it not now time to have an over-arching and robust public inquiry into all failings in child protection in various institutions during the latter part of the 20th century?”

Elfyn Llwyd, leader of the Welsh Nationalists, added: “We need a further, overarching public inquiry.”

The row came as Steve Messham, who claims he was tied up and raped by a Tory aide in the North Wales care home scandal, said he didn’t trust the Conservatives to get to the truth.

Mr Messham forced Government action when he said police dismissed his complaints and the Waterhouse inquiry failed to look at abuse by perverts from outside the homes in the 70s and 80s.

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

He said: “When the inquiry was announced that was a Tory government, we’re back to a Tory government, let’s just see how it goes.”

Sir Peter Morrison, Thatcher’s Parliamentary Private Secretary who died in 1995, has already been implicated in the North Wales scandal.

A second aide said to have been involved has been named on the internet, where many former Tory Cabinet ministers are also being accused of child sex offences.

More victims of the North Wales care homes scandal came forward last night.

One, Alan Leyshon, said a powerful network of men was involved as boys were “willy-nilly passed around to other schools”.

He added: “I can’t say Masonic but people in power. Ex-military, ex-judges or ex-police or even active judges or police is what we were told then.”

Seven care workers were convicted over the care homes scandal.

Welsh MP Paul Flynn said a TV programme exposing how the youngsters were passed to paedophiles from outside the homes had been “suppressed by powerful people”.