Two held in paedophile probe tied to politicians

London Evening Standard/London

Police investigating allegations of an establishment paedophile ring centred on a former children’s home in south-west London made their first arrests yesterday.

Detectives swooped on addresses in East Sussex and Norfolk and arrested two men in connection with claims involving the widespread abuse of boys at the Elm Guest House in Barnes.

Scotland Yard is investigating allegations that former ministers, senior MPs, top police officers, pop stars and people with links to the royal household were involved in parties involving abuse at the guest house.

At the weekend one alleged victim said he was 13 when he and his 12-year-old brother, both orphans, were sent there for parties when they were residents at the nearby Grafton Close children’s home. He said boys were plied with alcohol before being told to pose for pictures wearing girls’ clothing. The men at the former guesthouse would then abuse them.

Police launched the investigation, Operation Fernbridge, after concerns were raised in Parliament by MP Tom Watson.

Speaking in October, he said that a file of evidence used to convict Peter Righton of importing child pornography in 1992 contained “clear intelligence” of a sex abuse gang.

Watson alleged that a member of the group had bragged about links with a senior aide to a former prime minister.

Detectives are said to have obtained a list of “prominent people” who allegedly stayed at the former guest house in Rocks Lane in the Eighties. There are claims of a child abuse ring in the late Seventies and early Eighties.

Scotland Yard said officers yesterday arrested two men, aged 66 and 70, on suspicion of sexual offences. One arrest was at a flat in St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex at 7.15am.

Police spent two hours in the top-floor flat in a tower block before emerging with a frail-looking man wearing blue carpet slippers and using a walking stick.

Commander Peter Spindler, the head of the MPS specialist crime investigations, said yesterday: “This is a complex multi-agency investigation supported by the NSPCC, CEOP and Richmond Social Services involving non recent allegations of sexual assault against children.”