MI5 files on child sex abuse allegations against Liberal MP Cyril Smith ‘suggest official cover-up’
The files include details of a cover-up of a police probe, his links to a South African sex scandal and a Met Police inquiry in the 1970s
MI5 files on allegations of child sex abuse by Cyril Smith suggest an official cover-up helped him escape justice, an inquiry heard.
The existence of the intelligence reports on the late Liberal MP raised “a spectre of collusion”, it was claimed.
The files include details of a cover-up of a 1970 police probe, his links to a South African sex scandal and a Met Police inquiry in the mid-1970s.
Laura Hoyano, representing seven of Smith’s alleged victims at an independent inquiry, questioned why the security services held the information.
She said: “Why was MI5 involved at all?
“We say this dossier from MI5 raises a spectre of collusion.”
The claims surfaced at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
It is investigating Smith’s role in child sex abuse in Rochdale, where he was MP for 20 years.