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A former Tory cabinet minister was pictured in a video allegedly featuring child sex abuse, it has been claimed.

The tape is believed to be among a batch of films seized by customs officials and handed over to MI5, reports the Sunday People.

No details about it have ever been made public.

But the customs officer who seized the haul is said to have identified the ex-minister in the footage.

However, he declined to say whether or not the politician was participating in the alleged child abuse.

A probe by the Sunday People and investigative website Exaro has ­uncovered evidence that the cassette was ­confiscated at Dover in 1982.

A seizure notice shows a customs ­officer took custody of three 8mm films, three video cassettes and an order form.

The notice said the items were “seized as liable to forfeiture upon the grounds that the said goods are indecent or ­obscene articles”.

Friends of the customs officer, now retired, have confirmed he told them this week that he recognised the minister in the film – but would not say anything else after his former bosses reminded him he had signed the Official Secrets Act.

This week the officer was too frightened even to open his front door, and said he was unwilling and unable to comment.

He said: “I am bound by all these regulations until I die.”

The existence of the video is likely to be seized upon by Operation Fernbridge cops investigating claims of a historical VIP sex abuse ring.

They are understood to have already spoken to the ex-minister about another video that places him at a sex party involving teenage boys three decades ago.

Now they are expected to speak to the customs officer.

The video was seized at Dover’s Eastern Car Terminal along with other child pornography.

It was being brought into Britain from Amsterdam by Russell Tricker, a British-born businessman based in the Dutch capital. He was held for two hours and officials confiscated the tape.

The customs officer then passed the case over to senior managers at Customs and Excise – since reorganised as part of HM Revenue and Customs.

They took no further action against Mr Tricker, and are understood to have passed the tape to MI5 .

The seizure notice gave brief details of some of the material, showing one of the videos was titled “GB10”.

A child abuse victim has told Exaro that this video showed boys, some of them “runaways”, who could be ­“ordered” by paedophile clients.

Another video was called “Amsterdam Tramway Museum” and featured images of boys from elsewhere in Europe who could be procured by perverts.

The video started with a few minutes of train footage before turning to ­pornographic images of boys.

Mr Tricker confirmed he was stopped by customs officials when travelling through Dover as a passenger in 1982.

But he claimed he did not know what was inside the sealed packages.

He said: “I have nothing to hide. I was asked to take some brown envelopes to England. They were seized by Customs. I did not know what was inside them.”

Mr Tricker said a business associate had asked him to take the packages into the country and then post them to an address in the UK.

Asked whether he was aware of claims that an ex-minister and child sex abuse featured on one of the videos, Tricker denied any knowledge of the content.

“They were just confiscated, and I was allowed to continue my journey. They detained me for two hours,” he said.

Mr Tricker confirmed he was convicted of a child sex offence in the Netherlands in 1992 and jailed for two-and-a-half years, but said he was cleared on appeal and released after five months.

His lawyers were able to show that the boy concerned had carried a false ­identity card and had pretended to be above age, Mr Tricker said.

The boy was later shot dead in Amsterdam, he said.

“It is a sad story,” he added.

Tricker denies being a paedophile but confirmed he was a personal friend of Peter Glencross, who was commercial manager of Spartacus International.

At the time, Spartacus International was used to attract new members to the Spartacus Club, an underground network for paedophiles.