Ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan dies

The guy at the centre of the Westminster Child Abuse allegations has died aged 75.

Apparently he has been fighting cancer for some time, but I guess only close family and friends were aware of this.

Former Home Secretary Leon Brittan has died aged 75 after a long battle with cancer, his family have said. The former Conservative MP was home secretary in Margaret Thatcher's government from 1983 to 1985. First elected in 1974, he later became trade and industry secretary and stood down from the Commons when he became a European commissioner in 1989.

He was Home Secretary when a dossier containing names of accused paedophiles within Westminster was passed to him by a Conservative M.P, Geoffry Dickens. He subsequently claimed that he passed the dossier over to Home Office officials for further investigation, but the dossier has been lost and no action was taken.

This has resulted in an inquiry being set up, but again this has been a shambolic example of Whitehall cover up.

It had been claimed that Lord Brittan was a regular visitor to the Elm Guest House and a flat in Dolphin Square, which it is claimed were used as venues for abusing young children in the care system.

As I feared we will never get to hear his reasons for not dealing with the dossier directly and with the delays in the inquiry, how many more at the centre of these allegations will never be brought to justice?

Lord Brittan had come under the spotlight last year as part of the investigation into historical sexual abuse because he was home secretary in 1984 when ministers were handed a dossier on alleged high-profile paedophiles. He insisted that the proper procedures were followed. A review found no reference of the dossier, which had been compiled by former Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, and the government's inquiry into historic child abuse will consider whether the Home Office handled the allegations properly.

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