Back in November I wrote about a phone-in we did on the Vishal Mehrotra case. Vishal’s dismembered body was found in 1981 and he had been a victim of terrible sexual abuse. Towards the end of the hour our collective mouths were left gaping open when we had two calls from ex-policemen, who proceeded to tell us that they were part of investigations into child sex abuse in the 1970s and 1980s and both were inexplicably shut down.
On Wednesday we followed up those calls and talked to one of the police officers again. This sort of interview doesn’t just happen. It involved a lot of preparatory work by my producer Matt Harris and our senior reporter Tom Swarbrick. We decided to change his voice as both he and we knew that by doing the interview, and saying what he was about to say, he would be breaking the Official Secrets Act. In the interview John told us how an investigation he was involved in, which involved Cyril Smith, was shut down after orders came down from on high. He also said that it was well known in police circles that there were illegal activities going on in Dolphin Square. Fairly explosive stuff, although the media takeup on this was fairly minimal as the day was dominated by the news about Greville Janner.
We then interviewed Simon Danczuk and then took a series of calls. Please do have a listen to this forty minutes of explosive radio. Towards the end I took a call from Sarah in Twickenham (we changed her name) who told us how she had been gang raped by 18 men in the early 1970s. It became clear that the likely venue for this terrible event was the Elm Guest House in Barnes, although I didn’t say this on air. My producer talked to Sarah for some time after the interview and needless to say we will be following this up. It’s hours like this that remind me why I am so privileged to do the job I do.
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