http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,895056,00.htmlCall to lift veil of secrecy over Dunblane
Gerard Seenan
Friday February 14, 2003
The Guardian
Campaigners yesterday called for a review of the 100-year secrecy rule imposed on some documents seen by the inquiry into the Dunblane killings which were never made public.
The move comes after the Scottish cabinet this week instructed Scotland's most senior law officer to look again at the 100-year ban placed on a police report on Thomas Hamilton, who murdered 16 primary schoolchildren and their teacher.
There have been allegations that the lengthy closure order was placed on the report after it linked Hamilton to figures in the Scottish establishment, including two senior politicians and a lawyer.
But the crown office says the decision to impose the ban - by Lord Cullen, who chaired the inquiry - was made to protect the identity of children who may have been abused by Hamilton, and their families.
Following Wednesday's Scottish cabinet meeting, it was announced that the lord advocate, Colin Boyd QC, would look at the feasibility of publishing the report with the children's names deleted.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20030119/ai_n9627237Child porn arrests 'too slow'
Sunday Herald, The, Jan 19, 2003 by Investigation by By Neil Mackay
OPERATION Ore, the police inquiry which plans to arrest a further 7000 men across the UK, in addition to Who guitarist Pete Townshend, for buying child pornography online is set to end in disaster with many suspects walking free.
Detective Chief Inspector Bob McLachlan, former head of Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, told the Sunday Herald that the lack of urgency in making arrests will lead to suspects destroying evidence of downloading child pornography before they are arrested.
The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.
There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a "rolling" Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur.
Since the September 2002 Operation Ore arrest of Detective Constable Brian Stevens, a key officer in the inquiry into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the public have been aware that wanted suspects had downloaded child pornography from a US website called Landslide.
McLachlan, who was one of the main officers on Operation Ore before his retirement last year, said: "Sufficient warnings have been given that if people haven't got rid of their computers then they are either stupid, don't believe they'll be arrested or are so obsessive about their collections that they can't destroy it. As time goes on, the chances of successful prosecutions will diminish with speed as the information out there must impact on the offenders."
With only 1200 men arrested so far, McLachlan says that claims by police chiefs and the government that they were prioritising paedophile crime were "smoke and mirrors". Paedophilia is still not a priority on the Home Office's National Policing Plan for 2003-06. McLachlan claimed that before he left Scotland Yard his team were under-staffed, over-worked, under-funded and reduced to using free software from computer magazines.
There are around one million images of an estimated 20,000 individual children being abused online. Some police seizures involve hauls of more that 180,000 images. Last year, images of 13,000 new children were uncovered. Only 175 child victims have been identified worldwide.
Police have also revealed that images of Fred West abusing one of his children are among child pornography available for downloading from the internet. It is unclear whether the child was West's murdered daughter Heather.
Peter Robbins, the chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation, which works with the police, government and internet service providers, in tackling paedophilia online, says software is in development which could remove child pornography from the net forever. The software should be ready in two years.
Police say that the list of rich and famous Operation Ore suspects would fill newspaper front pages for an entire year.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002400885,00.htmlMP aide facing porn charge
Porn swoop ... Houses of Parliament
By MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Editor
A TOP aide to MPs at the House of Commons was yesterday charged with having child porn on his computer.
Senior clerk Phillip Lyon, who arranges the weekly Prime Minister’s Question Time for Tony Blair, was arrested after vice cops raided his Commons office.
Lyon, 37, is accused of making indecent images of children.
The dramatic raid followed a probe into an internet kiddie porn ring.
Stunned cops found the trail led straight to the heart of Government.
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Clubs and Vice Obscene Publications and Internet Unit got a warrant to search the Palace of Westminster.
They seized Lyon’s computer. And five days later they raided his home in Basildon, Essex.
Lyon yesterday went to London’s Charing Cross police station on bail.
He was charged with ten specimen counts of making indecent images of children on his computer at work.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment. Lyon was bailed to appear at Bow Street Magistrates Court on September 10.
Police would have had to seek permission from Commons authorities, usually the Sarjeant At Arms, before they entered the House, as they have no formal jurisdiction there.
Lyon’s arrest in April followed a tip-off to the Met’s vice squad from National Crime Squad cops.
A source said: "Officers were shocked when they came across a suspect in the House of Commons.
"A computer, software disks and documents were seized for examination."
Lyon is a highly trusted senior clerk to the Commons select committees.
His main duties are arranging Question Time on Wednesday afternoons. He has daily contact with senior backbench MPs and sits in on private sessions of the select committees as they cross-examine witnesses.
Lyon has a pass to the Commons guaranteeing him full access to the building after being vetted.
A Commons source said: "He was a highly respected member of the civil staff who was implicitly trusted by colleagues and MPs.
"He was in a position of great responsibility. The allegations against him are shocking."
Meanwhile, in a separate operation a Scotland Yard computer analyst was yesterday charged with downloading indecent images of children.
Nigel Morris, 36, of Pinner, Middlesex, worked as an outside contractor on police computers for the firm SEMA.
Morris has been bailed to appear at Bow Street Magistrates on September 9.
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=290762003Gillian Davies, a solicitor with Edinburgh-based Shepherd & Wedderburn, who specialise in intellectual property and information technology law, said: "Documents published and uploaded in one country can be viewed and downloaded all over the world, exposing newspapers and other publishers to the libel laws of potentially any nation which provides internet access to its citizens.
"The lack of a uniform approach at an international level to such issues prevents any kind of legal certainty."
Internet speculation about Lord Robertson grew following the revelation that 106 documents were closed to the public after the inquiry into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School in 1996.
Lord Robertson told Lord Cullen’s public inquiry he became increasingly concerned about Hamilton’s militaristic camps after his own son attended Dunblane Rovers, run by Hamilton in 1983. After speaking of his fears to Michael Forsyth, then a newly elected MP for Stirling, Lord Robertson kept him informed of publicity relating to Hamilton’s clubs.
Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday claimed the letters between the two politicians drew a detailed picture of Hamilton’s perverted behaviour towards young boys in his care as well as his firearms obsession.
The paper states that letters from Mr Forsyth "campaigned on behalf" of Hamilton from 1983 onwards, but that he also passed to police parental concerns about Hamilton’s personality. After receiving letters from Hamilton complaining about a police investigation into his 1988 summer camp, Mr Forsyth raised the issue with Central Scotland Police.
A year later, Hamilton met the force’s deputy chief constable and, the Mail says, shortly afterwards the killer wrote to Mr Forsyth "thanking him for his assistance".
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