Sir Edward Garnier 'tried to stop Labour MP challenging Lord Brittan over child abuse claims'
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Simon Danczuk says former Conservative Solicitor General tackled him on the evening before he was due to give evidence to Home Affairs select committee
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The Telegraph
Mr Danczuk has made his name tackling historic institutional child abuse in the British establishment, including disclosing the paedophilia of former Liberal MP Cyril Smith.

He described how he had raised concerns that a dossier claiming allegations about child abuse by the political establishment had gone missing after it was handed to Leon Brittan – now Lord Brittan – when he was Home Secretary.

Mr Danczuk told MPs: "Earlier this year I told the Home Affairs Select Committee that a dossier containing allegations about child abuse by politicians had been handed by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan.

"This revelation helped lead to the Wanless/Whittam review and to the establishment of the overarching inquiry.

“The night before my appearance at the committee I had an encounter with the right honourable learned Member for Harborough [Sir Edward Garnier].

“After the 10pm vote he drew me to one side outside the chamber and warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the following day.

“He told me that challenging Lord Brittan on child abuse would not be a wise move and that I might even be responsible for his death as he was unwell.

“I understand that people are cautious about naming parliamentarians but I do think that people who might know about child abuse allegations should answer questions whatever their position. We should not shy away from that.”

Earlier in the debate, Mr Danczuk told how that his “desire to get to the truth about child abuse has not been universally shared”.

He said: “We now know that from at least the 1970s up to the present day there have been people in positions of power who have sexually abused children, not only this there have been powerful people willing to cover up this abuse and obstruct justice.

“People were more concerned about their own careers and protecting the system than they were about the lives that were being shattered.

Lord Brittan denies child abuse allegations (Getty)

Sir Edward was the Coalition's solicitor-general from May 2010 to September 2012.

Sir Edward, who has known Lord Brittan for 40 years, declined to comment when Mr Danczuk’s remarks were put to him by the Telegraph on Thursday afternoon.

It is understood that Sir Edward was intervening after a personal request by Lady Brittan, who was worried about the strain on her husband's health.

He is now considering answering Mr Danczuk’s allegations as a point of order in the House of Commons.

Many of the allegations about child abuse by members of the Establishment centre on the Elm Guest House in south west London which was run in the early 1980s by Haroon and Carole Kasir.

Richmond MP Zac Goldsmith said during the debate that Scotland Yard had since confirmed that Cyril Smith had been a visitor.

He told MPs how a child protection campaigner had been told by Mrs Kasir before she died 30 years ago that “that boys had been brought in from a local children’s home—Grafton Close, also in Richmond—for sex, and that she had photographs of establishment figures at her hotel.

“One of them apparently showed a former Cabinet Minister in a sauna with a naked boy. She had logbooks, names, times, dates, pictures of her customers and so on.”