Paedophile Information Exchange: Leon Brittan 'opposed banning pro-child sex campaign group'

New papers show MP Geoffrey Dickens begged the late Home Secretary to outlaw the Paedophile Information Exchange - but his plea was rebuffed

Leon Brittan opposed banning a notorious pro-paedophile group, new papers suggest.
Released after 32 years, the documents show an MP wrote to the late Home Secretary calling for the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) to be outlawed - but his plea was rebuffed.
Tory Geoffrey Dickens insisted he 'shall not rest' until PIE was illegal and he was happy to put 'tremendous pressure' on Margaret Thatcher's government.
But when he met Mr Dickens to discuss the letter, Brittan apparently preferred to see 'how the present law stood'.
According to the BBC, which obtained minutes of the meeting under freedom of information laws, Lord Brittan also objected to a ban on PIE.
The minutes read: "There was however the fundamental objection to banning an organisation that if members of the organisation were doing a mischief, it was the mischief which ought to be banned, not the organisation.

Campaigning MP: Tory Geoffrey Dickens said he was happy to embarrass his own party

"It also has to be borne in mind that the number of people in PIE itself was small, but the number of people engaging in paedophilia was rather larger."
The minutes added authorities said "any evidence of such activities which had substance to them would be investigated".
The meeting was held on 23 November 1983 after a public outcry about PIE, which openly campaigned for children to be able to have sex with adults.
The group eventually disbanded in 1984 after Mr Dickens made further attempts to ban it in the Commons.
Mr Dickens was MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth when he ran a high-profile campaign against PIE.
He is the same MP who handed the Home Secretary a 40-page dossier naming high-profile politicians alleged to be child abusers - which later went missing.

In his letter to Brittan on 17 August 1983, Mr Dickens wrote: "I shall not rest until we outlaw such organisations.
"It will not embarrass me to put our front bench under tremendous pressure on this subject because this time I shall carry the House of Commons and the country with me - be in no doubt."
Brittan went on to become Lord Brittan before his death in January.
He was himself questioned by police in connection with a historical rape allegation last year.
One man said he told police he was abused by the former Home Secretary more than a dozen times.

Rex

Meeting: Leon Brittan before leaving to take up his post as a European Commissioner

The man told the investigative website Exaro: "He told me that it was Leon. And it was only later in my adult life that I then knew who it was."

The Home Office admitted last July that more than 100 files relating to historic organised child abuse over a period of 20 years had gone missing.
The documents obtained by the BBC were among those examined in an independent review of and the subsequent Wanless Inquiry, which failed to find the "Dickens dossier".
A new wide-ranging independent inquiry, headed up by New Zealand Justice Lowell Goddard, has been established to probe the VIP paedophile claims further.
Former colleagues of Lord Brittan have attacked claims he was involved in a cover-up as smears with little evidence.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedophile-information-exchange-leon-brittan-5825108

NWN: As Bernard Manning was prone to say........"There's these two jews !". Was he referring to Brittan and Janner we wonder ?