UK vows to probe allegations of child sex abuse

PM under pressure to launch inquiry; 114 'potentially relevant files' missing

Britain pledged on Monday to investigate allegations that politicians may have sexually abused children in the 1980s and then used their position to scuttle attempts to uncover their crimes.

Claims of a high-level conspiracy to abuse children in the care of the state have roiled the political establishment after the unmasking of once-feted celebrities, such as late television presenter Jimmy Savile, as prolific child abusers.

"We need to get to the truth," finance minister George Osborne told BBC radio from India. "We want to get to the truth and nothing but the truth, and we will do it in an independent and authoritative way."

"We need to get to the bottom of what happened in many of our institutions, including potentially at Westminster. And I think the best approach to this is to find an independent and authoritative way to investigate it."

Local media have claimed that a group of politicians and others in authority may have used their position to abuse children in their care during the 1980s.

No evidence has yet been published to support the allegations, but fears that claims about the abuse were not properly investigated at the time were stoked when Britain's Home Office admitted that 114 "potentially relevant files" had been destroyed, or were missing.

The allegations, which are said to involve powerful and famous figures of that era including politicians, made headlines after an opposition lawmaker raised them in Parliament.

They have resurfaced at a time when the British authorities are investigating and trying to prosecute celebrities and other well-known figures in public life over other unrelated historic allegations of sexual misconduct.

The opposition Labour Party has called for an "overarching review" into the child abuse allegations, accusing British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative-led government of not doing enough and of failing to grasp the matter's gravity.

"Given the extent of concern about this, Theresa May (the home secretary) should not simply be leaving it to officials and to the prime minister to resolve," Yvette Cooper, Labour's spokeswoman for home affairs, said in a statement.

"She needs to make sure there is a process people can feel confident in - to get truth and justice, but also to protect children in future."

The way the public perceives Cameron's government's handling of the allegations is important for the British leader, who is up for re-election next year.

Norman Tebbit, a former Conservative minister, said he thought there "may well" have been a political cover-up in the 1980s, but said, "it was almost unconscious. It was the thing people did at that time."

However, David Mellor, another former Conservative minister, said he thought the matter had been exaggerated and that a "witch hunt" was underway.

In 2012, police said Savile, one of Britain's best-known TV presenters in the 1970s and 1980s, had sexually abused hundreds of victims, mainly youngsters, at hospitals and BBC premises over six decades until his death at age 84 in 2011.

On Friday, entertainer Rolf Harris, a household name in his native Australia and his adopted home Britain, was jailed for almost six years for repeatedly abusing young girls over decades while a host of children's television.

(China Daily 07/08/2014 page11)