Former mandarin has “no recollection” of paedophile dossier
Paraic O'Brien
Foreign Affairs Correspondent
The Home Office’s most senior civil servant when Leon Brittan was home secretary tells Channel 4 News he has “no recollection at all” of a paedophile dossier handed to the Home Office in 1983.
Speaking by telephone, Sir Brian Cubbon said that “it was all a long time ago and there was a lot going on at the time”.
He said that he thought that the version of events contained in a clarification issued yesterday by Leon Brittan seemed “credible”.
Sir Brian was Permanent Secretary at the Home Office from 1979 to 1988. He was in post when Mr Dickens, a crusading Tory MP, met Mr Brittan in November 1983 and handed over a dossier containing allegations about the Paedophile Information Exchange. That dossier has since been lost.
In February last year, Lord Brittan told Channel 4 News he couldn’t remember being handed 50 pages of allegations about a paedophile ring, compiled by the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens.
Yesterday, under pressure following a public call from Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk for him to reveal what he knew about the dossier, Mr Brittan put out a statement saying he died remember the dossier.
Documents from a Home Office review – released to the public – also show that the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1984 decided the claims “could form the basis for police inquiries”.
Those documents forced Mr Brittan to issue a clarification to his initial statement, saying he had written to Mr Dickens on March 20, 1984 “explaining what had been done in relation to the files”.
He added: “The Home Office independent review is entirely consistent with the action I set out in my earlier statement.
“Whilst I could not recall what further action was taken 30 years ago, the information contained in this report shows that appropriate action and follow-up happened.”