margaret thatcher
Mr Strevens was on hand to intervene in 1992 when an angry women tried to hit Mrs Thatcher with a bunch of daffodils
Margaret Thatcher and her ministers were warned of child abuse claims against senior Tory figures in the 1980s, it was claimed today.

A former bodyguard to the Iron Lady revealed he told her to her face about rumours about one of her closest aides holding parties with underage boys.

And it was claimed a dossier on Establishment abuse handed to then-Home Secretary Leon Brittan named senior ministers Sir Keith Joseph and Sir Rhodes Boyson.

Westminster has been rocked by claims of senior politicians involved in sex abuse, and allegations of a cover-up.

Home Secretary Theresa May ordered a wide-ranging inquiry into how successive governments, charities, political parties, the NHS, the BBC and the Church failed to protect children from paedophiles.

But its chairman Baroness Butler-Sloss was forced to quit over criticism that her brother, Sir Michael Havers, had been attorney general in the Cabinet in the 1980s, and was accused of a 'cover-up' over a refusal to prosecute Foreign Office diplomat Sir Peter Hayman, who was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

Two weeks on, there is still no sign of a new chairman being appointed, but the tide of allegations about child abuse at the highest levels of the Establishment continue to emerge.

President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
Mr Strevens (right) spent years by Mrs Thatcher's side, including during this meeting with US President Ronald Reagan (left)
Barry Strevens, who worked as Mrs Thatcher's personal bodyguard, said that he passed on allegations about her confidant Sir Peter Morrison.

He said that Lady Thatcher appointed Sir Peter deputy party chairman of the Conservatives despite learning of the rumours.

Mr Strevens said that he 'immediately' passed on the information to Lady Thatcher and her private secretary Archie Hamilton at a meeting in Downing Street.

john stevens
Former bodyguard John Strevens claims he told Margaret Thatcher about rumours surrounding her close aide Peter Morrison before he was promoted to be deputy chairman of the Tory party
Peter Morrison
Peter Morrison
'A senior officer in Chester had told me there were rumours going around about under-age boys - one aged 15 - attending sex parties at a house there belonging to Peter Morrison,' he told the Sun on Sunday.

'After we returned to No10 I asked to go and see her immediately. It was unusual for me to do that, so they would have know it was something serious.

'When I went in Archie Hamilton was there. I told them exactly what had been said about Peter. Archie took notes and they thanked me for coming.

'There was no proof but the officer I spoke to was certain and said local press knew a lot more.'

Responding to the claims, Mr Hamilton said that he remembered that the officer had been at No10 but could not recall any mention of under-age boys.

'I don't remember him saying they were under-age,' he said. 'There may have been but the point he was making to her was that there were only men involved.

'She listened to what he said and that was it. It was merely a party and men were there.'
Rhodes boyson
It has been claimed a dossier of sex abuse claims against senior politicians named former Tory minister Rhodes Boyson
Sir Peter, an Old Etonian who died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 51, has since been linked to claims of sex abuse at children's homes in North Wales.

Mr Strevens, an ex-detective chief inspector, said: 'I wouldn't say she (Lady Thatcher) was naive but I would say she would not have thought people around her would be like that.

'I am sure he would have given her assurances about the rumours as otherwise she wouldn't have given him the job.'

Tory grandee Lord Tebbit has previously stated that he confronted Sir Peter over the allegations and received a flat denial.

Former Conservative MP Edwina Currie also described him as a 'noted pederast' with a liking for young boys.

Educated at Oxford and elected as MP for Chester in 1974, Sir Peter came from a wealthy political dynasty who own the whisky-producing island of Islay in the Hebrides.

His father was close friends with Lady Thatcher while his sister Mary is one of the Queen's most senior ladies-in-waiting.

Knighted in 1988, he later became the prime minister's parliamentary secretary before running her 1990 re-election campaign, which saw her lose office.

Meanwhile, fresh claims have emerged about the controversial dossier handed to Leon Brittan by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens.

The Home Office says it cannot find the file, along with more than 100 relevant files dating from 1979 to 1999 which have been destroyed or lost.

However parts of the file were referred to in papers compiled by Labour's Barbara Castle who investigated allegations linking MPs, peers, the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Paedophile Information Exchange.

It is claimed Sir Keith Joseph and Sir Rhodes Boyson were both named.
Thatcher cabinet
Thatcher's Cabinet: It has been claimed that a dossier handed to Home Secretary Leon Brittan (circled left) in 1983 named Education Secretary Keith Joseph (circled right) in connection with allegations of child sex abuse
A source told the Sunday Mirror: 'A lot of Baroness Castle's file was made up of Geoffrey Dickens' dossier.

'She'd been leaked files because the feeling was it was all being hushed up and Dickens was getting nowhere with his campaign to expose this.'

Two weeks ago former Tory activist Anthony Gilberthorpe says he was handed cash and told to 'fetch entertainment' - code for young boys - by members of Mrs Thatcher's government.

He named former former-Education Secretary Keith Joseph and ex-local government minister Rhodes Boyson. Both are now dead.

Lord Brittan, who was Home Secretary from 1983 to 1985, said earlier this month: 'It has been alleged that when I was Home Secretary I failed to deal adequately with the papers containing allegations of serious sexual impropriety that I received from Geoff Dickens. This is completely without foundation, as evidence from the Home Office's own report supports.

'I passed this bundle of papers to the relevant Home Office officials for examination, as was the normal and correct practice. I wrote to Mr Dickens on 20 March 1984 informing him of the conclusions of the Director of Public Prosecutions about these matters.'

HOW THE STORY UNFOLDED: CHILLING CLAIMS THAT SEX ABUSE RING MAY HAVE OPERATED IN BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT DATE BACK TO 1983

The chilling claims that a paedophile ring may have been operating within the British establishment first emerged in an investigation by campaigning Conservative politician Geoffrey Dickens.

In November 1983, the MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth in Greater Manchester sent a 40-page document to then Home Secretary Leon Brittan detailing alleged VIP child abusers, apparently including former Liberal party chief whip Cyril Smith and other senior politicians.

In a newspaper interview at the time, Mr Dickens claimed his dossier contained the names of eight 'really important public figures' that he planned to expose, and whose crimes are believed to have stretched back to the 1960s.

November 1983:

Geoffrey Dickens produces a huge dossier detailing allegations of sexual abuse against prominent figures in the British establishment. He tells his family the claims will 'blow apart' the VIP paedophile ring.

March 1984:

Home Secretary Leon Brittan tells Mr Dickens that his dossier has been assessed by prosecutors and passed on to the police, but no further action is taken. The dossier is now either lost or missing.

May 1995

Geoffrey Dickens dies. A short time later his wife destroys his copy of the paedophile dossier. The only other copies - one received by Mr Brittan and another allegedly sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions - are believed to have been lost or destroyed.

September 2010

The 29-stone Rochdale MP Sir Cyril Smith dies aged 82 without ever being charged with sex offences.

2011/2012:

Following the death of Sir Jimmy Savile, dozens of claims of historic child abuse emerge - including a number of alleged victims of Smith, who is said to have spanked and sexually abused teenage boys at a hostel he co-founded in the early 1960s.

October 2012

During Prime Minister's Questions, Labour MP Tom Watson claims there is 'clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No10'.

November 2012

Lancashire Police announced they will be investigating claims of sexual abuse by Smith relating to incidents before 1974, while Greater Manchester Police will investigate claims after 1974.

November 2012

The Crown Prosecution Service admits Smith should have been charged with crimes of abuse more than 40 years earlier. The CPS also admitted Smith had been investigated in 1970, 1974, 1998, and 1999 but rejected every opportunity to prosecute him.

November 2012

A former special branch officer, Tony Robinson, says a historic dossier 'packed' with information about Smith's sex crimes was actually in the hands of Mi5 - despite officially having been 'lost' decades earlier.

December 2012

Scotland Yard sets up Operation Fairbank to investigate claims a paedophile ring operated at the Elm Guest House in Barnes, southwest London, in the 1970s and 80s. Among those abusing children are said to have been a number of prominent politicians.

February 2013

Operation Fernbridge is established to investigate the Elm Guest House alleged paedophile ring.

February 2013

It is claimed a 'paedophile ring of VIPs' also operated at the Grafton Close Children's Home in Richmond, Surrey.

February 2013

Two men, a Catholic priest from Norwich, and a man understood to be connected to Grafton Close, arrested on suspicion of sexual offences and questioned by Operation Fernbridge officers.

June 2013

Scotland Yard claims that seven police officers are working full time on Operation Fernbridge and are following more than 300 leads.

June 2013

Charles Napier, the half-brother of senior Conservative politician John Whittingdale, is arrested by Operation Fairbank officers.

December 2013

Some senior Labour party politicians linked to pro-paedophile campaign group the Paedophile Information Exchange, which was affiliated with the National Council for Civil Liberties pressure group, now known as Liberty, in the 1970s and early 1980s.

December 2013

Police search the home of Lord Janner as part of a historical sex abuse investigation. He is not arrested.

February 2014

Current deputy leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman, who was NCCL's in-house lawyer at the time of its affiliation with PIE and even met her husband Jack Dromey while working there, is forced to deny she supported the activities of the pro-paedophile collective.

February 2014

Patricia Hewitt, Labour's former Secretary of State for Health who was NCCL's general secretary for nine years, later apologised and said she had been 'naive and wrong' to consider PIE a legitimate campaign group.

June 2014

Lord Janner's Westminster office is searched by police. Again the peer is not arrested.

July 3, 2014

Labour MP Simon Danczuk called on Leon Brittan to say what he knew about the Dickens dossier. It emerges the dossier has now been either lost or destroyed and the Home Office admits it can find no evidence of any criminal inquiry relating to it.

July 5, 2014

More than 10 current and former politicians are said to be on a list of alleged child abusers held by police investigating claims of an alleged paedophile ring.

July 6, 2014

Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill reveals that 114 files relating to historic allegations of child sex abuse, from between 1979 and 1999, have disappeared from the Home Office.

It is also revealed that former Home Secretary Lord Brittan was accused of raping a student in 1967. The 2012 allegation was not investigated until Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders ordered the Met Police to re-open the case in June this year.