Child abuse continues to be deservedly high priority in the public awareness.

The exposure of Sir Jimmy Savile and the jailing of Max Cliifford and Rolf Harris has been followed by concerns of a Whitehall cover-up of political paedophiles, with the late Liberal MP for Rochdale Sir Cyril Smith named, amid allegations that he had put pressure on the BBC not to “muck-rake” the private lives of politicians, at the risk of losing parliamentary support for its enforced licence fee.

Also raising concerns is the unexplained disappearance from government agencies of documents relating to child abuse by politicians in the 1980’s, said to comprise 114 files.

And a recent decision by David Cameron and his Home Secretary Theresa May to appoint Baroness Butler-Sloss to head an independent inquiry into governmental cover-up of child abuse went distinctly pear-shaped when it emerged that Butler-Sloss was the sister of ex-Attorney-General the late Sir Michael Havers. Havers refused to prosecute senior Foreign Office figure Sir Peter Hayman in the early 80’s even though he was aware that Hayman was a subscriber to the vile Paedophile Information Exchange, a lobby group promoting sex with children.

Butler-Sloss first accepted the job, but then, perhaps finally showing better judgement than Cameron or May, resigned six days later after it was pointed out that, through no fault of her own, her family connections made her an unsuitable choice to head up an independent inquiry into child abuse by politicians.