Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry accused of ignoring Operation Planet and evidence of establishment paedophile ring

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Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry accused of ignoring Operation Planet and evidence of establishment paedophile ring - Scottish Daily Express

https://archive.vn/2022.12.29-231040/ht ... d-28684548

EXCLUSIVE: Lawyer John Halley says there was "no excuse" for the inquiry to not include an investigation into the infamous Operation Planet scandal from the 1990s claiming the 'rent boys' involved were victims of child trafficking NEWS ByJohn GloverTrainee reporter 16:54, 28 DEC 2022 The legal Note claimed the failure to identify and report child trafficking was 'endemic' The legal Note claimed the failure to identify and report child trafficking was 'endemic' (Image: Getty) The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has been accused of ignoring evidence of an establishment paedophile ring operating in the 1990s. Advocate and part-time sheriff John Halley was appointed as a lead junior counsel to the public inquiry in 2015 by Scottish Government minister Angela Constance. He says his remit included the investigation of "child trafficking through prostitution of children in care in Scotland". Mr Halley then battled cancer for several years before handing a detailed legal "Note" to chair Lady Smith on April 1, 2019. He says he was then told that he had strayed beyond his remit and had included material he "ought not to have been working on". The Scottish Daily Express has seen his bombshell Note and it threatens to blow the lid off multiple child abuse scandals that could reach the very top of British society. In it, Mr Halley calls on the inquiry to look at information that is already in the public domain about a police investigation from the 1990s called Operation Planet, claiming there is "no excuse" for choosing not too. John Halley has called on the SCAI to investigate the Operation Planet probe, claiming it was being ignored. John Halley has called on the SCAI to investigate the Operation Planet probe, claiming it was being ignored Operation Planet was launched after officers discovered a 16-year-old boy in a flat in central Edinburgh who had been held over a period of 10 days and drugged and repeatedly raped by a number of men, said to include some influential public figures. The investigation initially resulted in 57 charges against 10 men, later reduced to 10 charges against five men whose not guilty pleas were accepted by a court in February 1991. It led to claims of an establishment paedophile ring that is said to have operated over several decades and to have included, at one time or another, well-known TV personalities, judges, lawyers and senior police officers. Mr Halley analysed a 1993 report written by Lord Nimmo Smith that looked into the Planet investigation and the events that followed called 'Allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice'. Controversially, by modern standards at least, it dismissed the young people involved – many of whom were children in care – as 'rent boys' and said they were not being abused because they were receiving payment. Mr Halley said the young people were in fact part of a child trafficking network and called on the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry to re-investigate the Operation Planet probe. He noted that the criminal cases were dropped after the Crown accepted that sex had been consensual between the complainers and the accused. "However, that view may be open to question," Mr Halley states. "The extent of the real consent is likely to have been consent to payment. The circumstances appear to point to exploitation through prostitution. This may be trafficking of children in care. "Thorough investigations should be carried out with or without applications to the SCAI, standing the insidious nature of the problem, and the systematic criminalisation of the victims." 'Crystal clear example of child trafficking in Scotland' He goes on to discuss the 16-year-old boy – known as M – who was "taken from a care home by a group of men" and states: "M was drugged and raped. He was kidnapped for 10 days. This is a crystal clear, proved beyond reasonable doubt, example of child trafficking in Scotland." M was held at a property Palmerston Place in Edinburgh's West End owned by Tam Paton, manager of the Bay City Rollers. Although Paton was already a convicted paedophile by the time the report was complied in 1993, the report does not mention his ownership of the property. Mr Halley adds: "However, there is a striking and very concerning aspect of the material in the report, for present purposes. The concern is that there appears to be little or no active consideration given to the need to protect children in the care system who are at risk of exploitation through prostitution. The scandal centred on a flat owned by Bay City Rollers manager Tam Paton (Image: Daily Record) "In fact, the accepted views and policies highlighted in the report point to a contrary prevalent attitude which appears to have clearly fostered and encouraged exploitation of young people in care through prostitution. On a critical reading of the report, it appears to intentionally ignore blatant child trafficking." He describes the original incident as the "clearest record of trafficking of a child in care" and argues that the "abuse of M, and the perpetrators of that abuse, whether or not they were convicted of offences at the time (i.e. even if they were acquitted), require to be investigated by the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry". Adding: "It is certain fact for the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry which has been investigated, prosecuted (to some extent) and reconsidered (albeit for different purposes) in a publicly available report commissioned by the Lord Advocate. There is no reason, and no excuse available, for the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry to decline to consider this. "This publicly known and investigated case of child trafficking has apparently been ignored from the perspective of child welfare concerns. Prima facie, that may point to failures in various systems, including the legal system at the very highest level. "But it is not just the procedures in the care system that require to be considered here. Crown Office procedures, the practice of lawyers and the operation of judges and the courts all feature. The failure to identify the problem and call it what it is – child trafficking - and to investigate and report from a welfare perspective appears as endemic as it is damning." 'I was instructed and I did investigate' Mr Halley continues: "It must be viewed as obviously wrong for the SCAI to ignore the sexual exploitation of rent boys who were in care because money had changed hands (i.e. because their consent was being paid for). The same attitude was and is unacceptable in respect of young women in care. Such situations must be investigated, identified and properly labelled as child trafficking through prostitution. "It is right and proper, for the sake of public confidence in the interests of justice, that SCAI should fully and properly investigate matters in which the same Crown Office policy operated where there are factual allegations (not necessarily made by the complainers) and they fall within the [Terms of Reference]." A spokesman for the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said: "The Inquiry is engaged in extensive investigations which are ongoing. All information we become aware of, related to the abuse of children in care, is considered as part of the work of the Inquiry."