the grotesque former MP Cyril Smith - at the pedophile safe haven of Westminster!
, a former senior police officer said today.
Lancashire detective Jack Tasker
spent years compiling evidence on the 29-stone Liberal MP's child abuse
only to have his investigation shut down and threatened with the sack himself.
Mr Tasker believes there was a
network of spies and obstructive forces at a local and national level to protect Smith from facing justice.
It came as it emerged today that Smith was arrested at a sex party with teenage boys but
police were told to cover it up and the
evidence was destroyed, according to an investigation.
Mr Tasker told Sky News: 'Other people were rather worried that if Cyril Smith went before a court, he would open his mouth.'
EDITOR CLAIMS POLICE SNATCHED SMITH EVIDENCE IN OFFICE RAID
A former newspaper editor has described how police raided his office in the 1980s and took documents relating to alleged child abuse by senior political figures including the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith.
Don Hale told BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast he was working for the Bury Messenger when the former cabinet minister Barbara Castle passed the documents to him.
He said he is 'certain' that the police raid happened a day after Cyril Smith came and threatened him about the investigation.
Don Hale told BBC Radio 5 live's Nicky Campbell: 'In 1984, I started making enquiries to get a response from various MPs I'd spoken to a number of Liberal MPs named in the document. Cyril Smith came into to see me.
'He came storming in, said it was all rubbish, demanded that I hand everything over to him straight away and he was really aggressive. I mean he was quite a big guy anyway. He was about six foot tall and quite heavy and he was really poking his fingers at me, threatening, spitting at me, all sorts of things. He was a real horror.
'In the end I refused to give it. He walked out of the office, stormed out the office. And the very next day Special Branch arrived with three plain clothes officers and about a dozen police, you know, raided the place, pushed me against the wall, were very, very aggressive again, threatened to arrest me on the spot for perverting the course of justice if I didn't hand over the documents to them. I agreed obviously to do that, showed them what the documents were and they took them and then disappeared.'
Lancashire detective Jack Tasker, right, said he was approached by other police officers who took 'every scrap' of evidence he had compiled
He described how his investigation into the child abuser was
closed abruptly despite having evidence from at least eight of the MP's young victims.
Mr Tasker said other police officers told him: '
We're taking over the inquiry. We want every scrap of paper, every statement, every recording, every lead.'.
Tasker said he knew he had no choice but to comply. 'After they'd bagged it up, they asked: 'Is that everything? If it isn't, and
we find out you've held something back, there will be trouble.' Then they left.'
Last night Newsnight revealed that the 29-stone Liberal MP was snared by an undercover police operation gathering evidence of child abuse
only to be released without charge.
Sources say officers had targeted several properties in south London suspected of hosting sex parties and the paedophile was secretly filmed and photographed abusing boys.
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