A major inquiry is to be launched into child sex abuse carried out at every level of society, Home Secretary Theresa May announced today.

A panel of experts will examine evidence that successive governments, charities, political parties, the NHS, the BBC and the Church failed to protect children from paedophiles.

However, critics warned it risked creating a 'whitewash' and will not address public concern about an Establishment cover-up of abuse at the heart of Westminster for decades.

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Home Secretary Theresa May said there would be a wide-ranging report into allegations of abuse at all levels of society

A separate review by the head of the NSPCC, Peter Wanless, will examine the way the Home Office handled allegations over three decades, after it was found to have lost 114 files relating to claims of abuse.

But the centrepiece of Mrs May's statement was a wide-ranging inquiry headed by a panel of experts.

Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the right-wing Bow Group think tank, said on Twitter: 'Very weak statement by Theresa May - likely to be another white-wash that won't satisfy the public and attempts to kick issue into long grass.'

Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper warned the government still had questions to answer about the Home Office's handing of allegations of abuse.



'We need to know what happened when these allegations were first raised even decades ago, when you will know that former cabinet ministers have said there may have been a cover up,' she said.



Tracey Storey, a specialist abuse lawyer at law firm Irwin Mitchell who represents many victims of child abuse, said: 'It is vital that this investigation is carried out as quickly as possible to determine the extent of any problems, as well as what can be done to ensure lessons are learned from the past so that any failings are not repeated.

'If any evidence of a cover-up is found, then people, no matter who they are or what position they served, need to be held accountable to send out the message that abuse simply will not be tolerated.'



In an emergency statement to MPs, Mrs May said nothing would stand in the way of prosecuting anyone behind 'these disgusting crimes'.

The government would commit to 'maximum transparency' to release all reports, reviews and files are made available to the panel.

It could include reports from Special Branch, intelligence services and submissions sent to Prime Ministers.

Mrs May said it would ensure that where there has been a failure to protect children from abuse 'we will expose it and we will learn from it'.

Earlier David Cameron vowed there would be 'no stone unturned' in the search for truth about claims of an Establishment cover-up of child sex abuse over decades.

Our priority must be the prosecution of the people behind these disgusting crimes

Home Secretary Theresa May



The Prime Minister promised to learn 'proper lessons' make sure mistakes of the past do not happen again.

Details of the scope of the inquiry will be agreed when the panel has been appointed.

But Mrs May said she expected it to be wide-ranging. Asked by Tory MP Rob Wilson if it would stretch to abuse carried out at the BBC or the Church, she said it should not be restricted solely to state institutions.



Addressing the Commons in silence, Mrs May said the public was rightly concerned about the catalogue of allegations against organisations for failing to protect children.

'In recent years, we have seen appalling cases of organised and persistent child sex abuse,' she said.

It includes years of attacks carried out by celebrities including Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris, as well as the 'systematic abuse of vulnerable girls' in areas including Derby, Rochdale and Oxford.

Mrs May added: 'Our priority must be the prosecution of the people behind these disgusting crimes.

'Wherever possible – and consistent with the need to prosecute – we will adopt a presumption of maximum transparency.

'Where there has been a failure to protect children from abuse, we will expose it and we will learn from it. I believe that the measures announced today do reflect those important principles.'

Mrs May said the country had been appalled by abuse by celebrities like Jimmy Savile (left) and Rolf Harris (right), as well as the 'systematic abuse of vulnerable girls' in Derby, Rochdale and Oxford



HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER POINTED WAY FOR NEW TYPE OF INQUIRY Theresa May has ordered a ‘Hillsborough-style’ inquiry into historic allegations of child sex abuse. It will involve an independent board of experts, similar to the panel that investigated the 1989 football disaster.

The Home Secretary said it would be able to begin its work sooner and review existing files, instead of trying to take evidence from people or organisations who may be subject to police inquiries. The terms of reference will be agreed with the panel once it has been appointed. But Mrs May said she expected it to be wide-ranging, and could cover the BBC and the Church. If the inquiry panel chairman deems it necessary, the government is 'prepared' to convert it into a full public inquiry.

Public inquiries have traditionally been led by one or more senior judges, as with the Saville Inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings of 1972 and the Leveson Inquiry into press standards. More rarely they have been conducted by a panel of veteran Whitehall mandarins – for example the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. But the Hillsborough Independent Panel, set up in 2010 to ensure the release of all documents related to the tragedy in which 96 Liverpool fans died, was praised for being different. It was chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend James Jones, and the nine members included former BBC journalist Peter Sissons, a retired deputy chief constable, an ex-deputy chief medical officer and archive experts. Advertisement

For months MPs from all parties had called for an independent inquiry to be set up.

Mrs May said she was now willing to establish an inquiry panel, based on the Hillsborough Inquiry, which could start more quickly than a full-scale public inquiry.

If the panel members - who are yet to be appointed - demands it, ministers could convert it to a public inquiry at a later date.

However, the scale of the task means it is 'not likely' to report in full before the general election in May 2015.

Ms Cooper, Labour's shadow home secretary, welcomed the government's u-turn on ordering a wide0raning inquiry.

She told MPs: 'Child abuse is a terrible and devastating crime which traumatises children when they are at their most vulnerable, and it ruins lives.

'Perpetrators need to be stopped and brought to justice. Too often the system has failed young victims, not hearing them or believing them when they cried out for help and failing to protect them from those who sought to harm them.

'There have been particularly troubling cases of abuse involving powerful people and celebrities and the failures of institutions to act.

'When those allegations go to the heart of Whitehall or Westminster, as members from all sides of this House and all parties have made clear, it is even more important to demonstrate strong action will be taken to find out the truth and get justice for the victims involved.'

Mr Wanless is to examine how the Home Office lost more than 100 files alleging organised abuse.

It emerged a dossier detailing allegations of abuse was passed to the then home secretary, Leon Brittan, by the Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983.

But the Home Office says it cannot find the file, along with more than 100 relevant files dating from 1979 to 1999 which have been destroyed or lost.

To add to the sense of chaos, The Independent reported that the Dickens file was also given to the Director for Public Prosecutions.

Mr Wanless said: 'It's important to discover everything we can about what happened to these files, not only to help those who may have been victims of abuse many years ago but also to protect those children at risk now.

'The NSPCC is known for its independence and I will approach this review with the due diligence and dedication it warrants - which is what all children have every right to expect.'

Simon Danczuk, who has carried out his own investigation into child abuse by the former Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith, said: 'The Home Secretary was left with no choice today. She had to bend to the will of people power or face the Government being engulfed in a tide of public anger.



'I am pleased the Government has shifted its position significantly in the last few days and announced a Hillsborough-style inquiry. This is the right thing to do and I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary has recognised the public mood and acted accordingly.'



Former Tory Home Secretary Lord Brittan leaving his home in North Yorkshire today, ahead of a Commons statement on a review into his handling of child abuse allegations A dossier of allegations of abuse was first passed to then-Home Secretary Leon Brittan (left, arriving at home in London today) by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983, but it has been lost or destroyed

NSPCC CHIEF REVIEWS HOW HOME OFFICE HANDLED ABUSE CLAIMS

The chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) will lead a review into the Home Office handling of historic allegations of child abuse.

Peter Wanless will look at the Home Office's investigation as well as how the police and prosecutors handled information handled to them.

He will be backed by a senior legal figure, and is expected to report within eight to 10 weeks.

It follows revelatons that in 1983 Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens handed a series of allegations of abuse was passed to the then-home secretary, Leon Brittan.

The Home Office says it cannot now find the papers, along with more than 100 relevant files dating from 1979 to 1999 which have been destroyed or lost.

It also emerged that the Dickens file was given to the Director for Public Prosecutions.

Mr Wanless will also examine an internal review into claims the Home Office funded the Paedophile Information Exchange, a paedophile campaign group that was disbanded in 1984.



Speaking during a visit to Halesowen College in the West Midlands, Mr Cameron said: 'I am absolutely determined that we are going to get to the bottom of these allegations and we're going to leave no stone unturned to find out the truth about what happened - that is vital.

'It is also vital we learn the lessons right across the board from these things that have gone wrong.

'And it's also important that the police feel that they can go wherever the evidence leads and they can make all the appropriate arrangements to investigate these things properly.

'Those three things need to happen - robust inquiries that get to the truth, police investigations that pursue the guilty and find out what has happened and proper lessons learned so we make sure these things will not happen again. That is what will happen under my Government.'



Amazingly, four allegations made to the Home Office were not passed to the police for more than three decades.

Mrs May will also address ‘whether public bodies and other institutions have taken seriously their duty of care towards children’, the Home Office said.

The missing dossier is believed to be linked to the alleged abuse of children at the Elm Guest House in south-west London.

In a statement today, Lord Brittan welcomed the independent review into 'missing files' at the Home Office. 'It has been alleged that when I was Home Secretary I failed to deal adequately with the bundle of papers containing allegations of serious sexual impropriety that I received from the late Geoff Dickens MP. 'This... is completely without foundation - as evidence from the Home Office's own report supports.' He said he passed this bundle of papers to the relevant Home Office officials for examination, 'as was the normal and correct practice'.

Prime Minister David Cameron, at Halesowen College in the West Midlands today, vowed to get to the truth about allegations of child abuse dating back several decades

In an extraordinary admission, former Tory party chairman Lord Tebbit yesterday claimed ‘there may well have been’ an Establishment cover-up in the 1980s and 1990s.

'At that time I think most people would have thought that the establishment, the system, was to be protected and if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into it,’ he told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show.

'That view, I think, was wrong then and it is spectacularly shown to be wrong because the abuses have grown.'

These are very, very serious matters... we want to get to the truth and nothing but the truth, and we will do it in an independent and authoritative way Chancellor George Osborne The incendiary claim from such a senior figure in the Thatcher government fuelled demands for an over-arching public inquiry into disparate allegations of child abuse from that era. It includes claims of abuse by the late Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith and allegations of paedophile activity at parties attended by politicians and other prominent figures at the Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London. The Home Office is also facing claims its offices were used by the former head of a pro-paedophile activist group to store campaign material. Steven Adrian Smith was working as an electrical contractor at the Westminster building between 1979 and 1982 - and allegedly used locked cabinets in his office to hide details of child abusers known to the Paedophile Information Exchange. Meanwhile at least 12 men have come forward to accuse a Labour peer of abusing them when they were children.

Mrs May rejected appointing a judge to lead a review, in favour of a Hillsborough-style inquiry. This will involve an independent board of experts similar to the panel that investigated the 1989 football disaster.

Former Tory party chairman Lord Tebbit used an appearance on BBC One's Andrew Marr show to suggest there 'may well have been' an establishment cover-up in the 1980s

Lib Dem MP Duncan Hames, a former aide to Nick Clegg, backed Mrs May, arguing that asking a single high-level judge to lead an inquiry risked looking like another Establishment stitch-up.

He told MailOnline: ‘A panel review or inquiry has the opportunity to be run in an open and co-operative way.

‘Given the degree of concern there about individuals within the Home Office, in the Establishment, in the past sweeping these things under the carpet, an inquiry led by one judge would be much more at risk of not having public confidence.’



Chancellor George Osborne said the investigation would go 'as far as it needs to go'.

'The best approach to this is to find an independent and authoritative way to investigate it,' he said.

'The Home Secretary is going to be setting out to the House of Commons in just a few hours' time the approach we are going to take.

'But people can be absolutely clear, these are very, very serious matters, we take them very seriously, we want to get to the truth and nothing but the truth, and we will do it in an independent and authoritative way.'

Chancellor George Osborne, pictured at the British F1 Grand Prix at the weekend, said the investigation would go 'as far as it needs to go'

At the weekend Mark Sedwill, the Home Office’s permanent secretary, said a senior legal figure would conduct a fresh review into what happened to the Dickens file.

A previous review - carried out only last year - had identified 114 potentially relevant files from the period 1979 to 1999, which could not be located and were 'presumed destroyed, missing or not found'.

He said the investigation had also identified 13 'items of information' about alleged child abuse, nine of which were known or reported to the police at the time - including four involving Home Office staff. Police had since been informed of the other four cases.

The earlier review - conducted by an HM Revenue and Customs investigator - concluded the relevant information in the Dickens file had been passed to the police and the rest of the material destroyed in line with departmental policy at the time.

Alison Millar of the law firm Leigh Day, which is representing some of the alleged victims, insisted another internal Home Office review would not quell the growing public disquiet and that an independent inquiry is now an 'absolute necessity'.

'This cannot be another internal review held by those who may well be at fault, it will only fuel a growing suspicion amongst the electorate that there is a conspiracy over the abuse of children by those with great power,' she said.