Saturday 8 November 2014

What did Geoffrey Dickens believe when he met with Leon Brittan?

In this post I want to ask a simple question -

What did Geoffrey Dickens know or believe when he met with then Home Secretary Leon Brittan to hand over the so-called Dickens Dossier about paedophilia in high places?
I'm not aware of anyone asking that question, at least not in relation to the aspect I'm thinking of.

If you were Geoffrey Dickens and you thought that Leon Brittan was a paedophile would you choose him to be the recipient of a dossier on highly placed paedophiles?

It doesn't seem likely.

It seems to me that Geoffrey Dickens was either unaware of the allegations of "improper conduct with children" made against Leon Brittan (to borrow the phrase used recently by Jim Hood MP, Jim Hood MP mentions allegations of "improper conduct" with children against Leon Brittan) ) or he knew about the allegations relating to Leon Brittan but had discounted them.

So, it seems to me highly likely that at the time he met with Leon Brittan that Geoffrey Dickens believed that Leon Brittan wasn't a paedophile.

As I say, it seems to me that there are two plausible interpretations:

  • That Dickens was unaware of the allegations about Leon Brittan
  • That Dickens knew of the Leon Brittan allegations and had discounted them.
Unless one postulates some warped piece of mischief on Dickens' part (that he was deliberately presenting evidence of paedophilia to a suspected paedophile) then I think we have to conclude that Dickens assumed Leon Brittan to be an honest Home Secretary.

And that is something that merits careful thought in my view.





1 comment:

  1. Dickens knew very well that Brittan was a child abuser and the dossier contained information to this effect. However, it was circulated more widely within Whitehall than has been admitted. It was also sent to the police. Was hard to bypass Brittan then as he was Home Secretary!!

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