Tories accused over Kincora abuses, sectarian pact

The continuing cover-up over sexual abuse at the Kincora Boys’ Home in the north of Ireland has become a prominent issue in the British general election campaign after a former British Army intelligence officer revealed this week that he was told to drop an investigation into the scandal.

Brian Gemill, a former captain in the Intelligence Corps, has said he was told to stop investigating sexual abuse at the East Belfast boys’ home in the 1970s by a senior MI5 officer. He made the revelations in a Channel 4 documentary which highlighted how victims from the home in east Belfast were trafficked to a pedophiles operating in the heart of political circles in London.

The British Labour party has now vowed to include the notorious nome in a wider child sex abuse inquiry if it wins the general election next month.

In 1981 three senior care staff at the east Belfast home were jailed for abusing 11 boys and it has understood that people of the “highest profile” were involved.

Former Kincora resident Richard Kerr has claimed that he was abused by “very powerful people” both at the Belfast care home and at a number of locations in London during the 1970s. He has said that two other men also taken to London as boys had taken their own lives.

Last July, the Tory government in London announced a major public investigation into whether paedophiles were sheltered in government, the Crown forces, the courts and the BBC -- but Kincora was suspiciously excluded.

Among those accused of involvement were senior politicians Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith, and BBC presenter Jimmy Savile (pictured, left). Commentators have argued that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher must have been aware of the network and remained silent.

SECTARIAN TORIES

As polls show him clinging to an outside chance of being re-elected, Conservative party leader David Cameron visited Belfast this week but declined to comment on the scandal.

He was campaigning on behalf of the Conservative Party’s candidates in the North. Controversially, all of the candidates are based in England and none have a connection with the north of Ireland, and most have ever even visited the place.

Cameron also refused to comment on a sectarian election pact between the two main unionist parties which also appears to be supported by his party. The Conservatives have declined to name a candidate in North Belfast and Fermanagh/South Tyrone, two closely contested constituencies which have an agreed unionist candidate.

Political commentator Brian Feeney accused the Tories of joining what is effectively an anti-Catholic alliance.

“It’s unbelievable for the Conservatives to get themselves involved in a sectarian pact. They won’t stand in those two constituencies because they don’t want Sinn Fein to be elected, they don’t want to split the unionist vote.

“It’s completely scandalous for a national party like the Conservatives to be involved in this kind of underhand activity in Northern Ireland, to be sucked into this sectarian dogfight,” he told the BBC. “It’s extraordinary that you can parachute people in from all over Britain to other constituencies but you can’t do it for the two that are crucial.”

Urgent Appeal