There, looking at the camera, was the innocent face of a 14-year-old boy. There too, looming large in the lens, was a beaming Cyril Smith, the rotund — and now notorious — Liberal MP.
Julie was once a Liberal Party activist and the snaps were taken at a meeting in her living room to stuff envelopes during a by-election campaign in 1979. But there was a sordid and shocking secret the pictures did not show — one that was only now being revealed to me.
Soon after those photographs were taken, the appalling Smith was caught groping the teenager’s genital area. He was stopped as soon as the boy cried out in horror; but what followed was every bit as bad.
For as we shall see, when Julie and her husband complained to Liberal officials, they were offered a bribe to keep quiet.
Any self-respecting party would have instantly put a stop to Smith’s predatory paedophile practices. But yet again in this still-unravelling horror story, a blind eye was turned.
Once more, the 28 stone monster with the 78 in girth and giant ego to match was off the hook, to carry on with many more years of sexual abuse of boys unhindered.
He would continue as the MP for Rochdale — the town I now represent in Parliament — and be a leading light in the Liberal Party for a dozen more years. Along the way he would even be honoured with a knighthood. But he would never be brought to justice. (more...)
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