Britain's ‘permissive' approach to crime costs 10pc of GDP every year, analysis suggests
Britain's 'permissive' approach to crime is costing the UK as much as £250 billion a year – or the equivalent of 10 per cent of GDP – according to a report backed by former home secretary Sir Sajid Javid.
Knife attacks, robberies and shoplifting have risen by between 50 to 90 per cent since 2015, costing individuals some £63 billion alone each year. The impact on business and the public sector adds £69 billion to the bill, according to the analysis by the think tank Policy Exchange.
It calculated that about half the total bill stemmed from people and businesses changing their behaviour: from the cost of a taxi home at night because of a perceived fear of being attacked to businesses that are leaving the UK because of high crime rates.
And 'police permissiveness' – with as few as one in 20 crimes being solved – was also amongst the reasons cited for the massive bill, according to the report. Also blamed for incentivising criminals were: the fall in police numbers in the 2010s; a reduced trust in justice; and rising court backlogs.
In a foreword to the report, Sir Sajid, who was also chancellor under Boris Johnson, said: 'Criminals' actions destroy trust in other people, trust in institutions and trust in government. And without trust, our police forces and the free market cannot function.
'A situation in which people believe that when they report a crime the police will not follow up and the perpetrator will not be brought to justice is not sustainable.
'Restoring that trust, and the rule of law on which prosperity relies, must be a priority for the Government. Without it, our society will suffer. Our prospects for economic growth will suffer. And the costs of that will fall squarely on the British people. We can, and must, do better.'
The report recommended that the Government should spend an extra £5 billion on the criminal justice system, including £2.4 billion to invest in an extra 53,000 more prison places, £1.9 billion on extra police officers and staff, £500 million on the courts and £200 million on new technology to fight crime.
It said defence spending should be ring-fenced but other areas of government should be cut to pay for the increased funding including Civil Service staffing levels, the benefits bill and overseas aid.
It said the regime for uprating pensions should be reviewed.
The report also recommended that the Government should introduce new legislation to jail hyper-prolific offenders – anyone who has 45 or more convictions – for a minimum of two years.
It proposed scrapping concurrent sentences, where criminals serve a single bloc of time for different offences, and instead face longer terms through serving their sentences consecutively. It follows research by Policy Exchange that nine per cent of offenders accounted for more than half (52 per cent) of crimes.
Immediate deportation
The report called for amendments to immigration legislation that would ensure any foreign national convicted of a criminal offence should be subject to immediate deportation at the end of their sentence.
It also recommended that the Special Constabulary should be remodelled entirely as the 'Reserves Constabulary' – based upon the contribution made by the Armed Forces reservists.
This should entail a substantial increase in the size of the reserve constabulary which would ensure a minimum annual commitment and long-term deployments into emergency response and specialist capabilities.
The most extreme 'hotspots' for the most serious offending, such as knife crime, should be identified and police chiefs held to account for delivering a relentless policing presence in those areas.
'Where reasonable grounds exist, every opportunity to lawfully stop and search individuals should be taken alongside the widespread implementation of live facial recognition to better fight crime,' said the report.
'There should also be greater legal protections for police officers undertaking actions on behalf of the state to reduce the incidence of vexatious allegations of misconduct and the risk of prosecution alongside a substantial scaling back of the powers and scope of the Independent Office for Police Conduct.'
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Powys County Times
43 minutes ago
- Powys County Times
Windrush campaigners urge the Government to save Notting Hill Carnival
Campaigners have urged the Government to step in to protect the future of Notting Hill Carnival as they mark Windrush Day. The west London carnival is in jeopardy, its chairman Ian Comfort said in a letter on Wednesday, when he asked Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to provide urgent funding to save the event. Jacqueline McKenzie, a campaigner and human rights lawyer who helped victims of the Windrush scandal, said the carnival holds 'huge national and international significance'. 'The Government needs to recognise this and act urgently to protect it,' Ms McKenzie said. In the late 1950s, Notting Hill became home to many people from the Caribbean who arrived in Britain on Windrush and accompanying ships, and the carnival was founded by pioneers of that generation. Ms McKenzie said the carnival being at risk 'adds insult to injury' for victims of the Windrush scandal. 'It should not be lost on us that these funding concerns coincide with Windrush Day on Sunday,' she said. 'To see this celebration in jeopardy whilst so many of the Windrush generation continue to fight for justice following the Home Office scandal only adds insult to injury. 'Carnival embodies the fundamental role of Black and Caribbean communities in Britain, and the Government should be upholding the Windrush legacy instead of undermining it.' The carnival attracts around two million people over the August bank holiday, and Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives on the London Assembly, previously said the event was a 'victim of its own success' and a 'disaster waiting to happen' because of the large number of attendees. City Hall said it has been working with partners to ensure the safety of carnival-goers, which it described as 'paramount'. Professor Patrick Vernon, a cultural historian and Windrush campaigner, said: 'Notting Hill Carnival is far more than a street event — it is a vital cultural institution with both national and international significance. 'As the second-largest carnival in the world, second only to Rio de Janeiro, it underscores London's position as a leading global capital of diversity, creativity and cultural exchange.' Professor Vernon campaigned for a national Windrush Day following the 2018 scandal when it was revealed thousands of British people, mainly of Caribbean origin, were wrongly classed as illegal immigrants – with many deported while others faced difficulty securing work, accessing healthcare or housing. 'The injustice faced by the Windrush Generation in recent years makes the threat to Notting Hill Carnival all the more painful,' Professor Vernon said. 'It is a celebration born of resistance, resilience, and unity – a legacy that should be upheld, not undermined. To allow this cornerstone of Black British identity to fall into jeopardy is to further betray the communities who have already given so much. 'As we approach the 70th anniversary of this extraordinary event, we are reminded that Notting Hill Carnival represents the very best of Britain: unity in diversity, creativity in adversity, and joy in community. Now more than ever, these are values worth defending.' Glenda Caesar, director of the Windrush National Organisation, also urged the Government to step in to save the event, adding: 'In the face of historical and ongoing injustices experienced by people of colour, the carnival stands not only as a celebration of resilience, heritage and identity but also as a powerful symbol of unity and inclusion. 'Supporting this event affirms the UK's commitment to embracing diversity, acknowledging its multicultural roots, and fostering a society where all communities feel seen, valued and empowered.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Why ‘naive' Labour can't fix broken Britain
Heidi Alexander became the latest Transport Secretary to deliver unwanted news regarding HS2 last week, as she unveiled yet more delays to the crisis-hit high-speed rail project. She said it brought her no joy to tell households that not only will the scheme miss its target date of 2033, but it will also cost at least £37bn more than expected. In her words, the saga was an 'appalling mess' and a 'litany of failure'. Strikingly, her comments were almost identical to those made during a public inquiry into the Edinburgh Trams system in 2023, which was completed £400m over budget and five years late. To add insult to injury, producing this report cost the taxpayer £13m. Such damning examples of troubled infrastructure projects have given rise to a simple question in recent years: why is it so hard to get anything done in this country? Until recently, Sir Keir Starmer's diagnosis was simple: 'the party opposite'. But after nearly a year of governing with the biggest majority in 25 years, the Prime Minister, who insists he is a 'builder, not a blocker', has set his sights on a new enemy. 'When Labour came in, there was an expectation that relationships with the Civil Service would be put on to a much more stable, harmonious footing after what had been a decade of quite fractious relationships,' says Patrick Diamond, a public policy expert and former special adviser to Lord Mandelson. 'Suffice to say, it really has not worked out like that.' Like his predecessors, Sir Keir is waging war on Whitehall after concluding that Britain's state machinery is broken, even despite boasting more employees than ever before. He is hardly the first to say so. Michael Gove called it the 'blob'; Liz Truss described it as the 'deep state'; and Dominic Cummings said it was 'an idea for the history books'. Sir Keir issued his own critique in December when he said that too many civil servants were comfortable in 'the tepid bath of managed decline'. According to polling from YouGov earlier this year, 52pc of all MPs believe the Civil Service works badly, compared to 40pc who think it works well. 'There is a lot of frustration in Labour circles about the way the Civil Service works and the feeling that it's making it much harder for Labour to get things done,' says Diamond. '[People worry] this is going to undermine Labour's political position because in three or four years' time, it's going to be more difficult to turn around and say, 'We've changed the country in the way that we promised in our last manifesto.'' The Prime Minister's latest effort to solve this problem appears to borrow from the playbook of Boris Johnson's former adviser, Cummings, by bringing more radical thinkers into Whitehall. He has launched a new drive to attract 'elite' talent into government to help 'rewire the state', aiming to attract people who typically would not consider a role in the Civil Service. Concern over the performance of the central government is growing despite it employing a record 4m people. That includes 550,000 civil servants, the highest number since 2006. Chaos reigns across many of the state's most crucial functions, whether that be waiting too long to see a GP or spiralling hotel bills for asylum seekers. Productivity across the public sector is still 4.6pc lower than in 2019, while the health service is 10pc less efficient than before Covid. This means that the Government is pouring ever more money into the public sector without results. This is key because voters will simply lose faith in politics if no party can achieve real change in government, according to former head of the Civil Service, Simon Case. 'If we don't fix this, we'll just end up with politicians, but even more importantly, voters getting more and more frustrated that it doesn't matter who you vote for, nothing changes,' he says. 'That is a really big problem if people increasingly turn away from voting, engaging and caring about our democracy because they think it doesn't matter any more.' Yet Sir Keir faces a mammoth challenge to turn things around. Money is tight, discontent is rife and productivity growth is lacklustre. If he cannot find a way to overhaul Whitehall, his hopes of transforming the country will evaporate as quickly as his public approval ratings have already. The HS2 fiasco – which includes £100m spent on a bat tunnel – is just one of many examples of official failure. NHS gets a health check Experts believe Labour can make most headway with voters by making good on pledges to fix the NHS. 'Labour have made improving the NHS a central part of their pitch,' says Max Warner, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. 'The key target for this Parliament is that 92pc of those waiting for pre-planned hospital care in England should be waiting less than 18 weeks.' To this end, Rachel Reeves recently unveiled plans to give the health service a yearly £29bn boost as part of her spending review. Still, it may not be enough. 'That 18-week target has not been met now in essentially a decade,' says Warner. 'It will be really challenging to hit it by the end of this Parliament. It's more likely than not that they're not going to.' Currently, the health service is on track for a lost decade of productivity despite employing a record number of people and receiving tens of billions of pounds more in funding. 'The Government has continued to set targets for NHS productivity, but even if they hit those, hospital productivity will have only really just returned to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the Parliament or by 2028-29,' he adds. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has shown he is not afraid of big decisions like scrapping NHS England, allegedly after no one there could tell him or Sir Keir's key adviser, Morgan McSweeney, how much it would cost to slash waiting lists. However, Alex Thomas, at the Institute for Government, warns that unwinding such a vastly complex organisation could prove to be a distraction. 'I do think [scrapping NHS England] will take up quite a lot of time and capital,' he says. 'They need to be careful that the activity they're pursuing isn't going to distract from the core objectives.' In recognition of problems within the public sector, the Government has already vowed to overhaul the Civil Service so it can push through change faster. Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a Cabinet minister who has for most of his life worked in the public sector, wants to run the state more like a start-up. 'If we keep governing as usual, we are not going to achieve what we want to achieve,' he said after launching secondments for private sector tech workers in government. This has been followed by pledges of holding civil servants personally responsible for achieving savings in their departments and getting rid of underperformers. Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has also said he wants to see government spending monitored in real time on a digital dashboard, an idea first floated by Cummings. This formed part of the Vote Leave architect's plans to create a new unit at No10 that would track departments' underperformance and waste in real time. 'Nobody's in charge' But Labour ministers cannot blame Whitehall for everything, observers warn. Many believe that despite having years to lay the groundwork in opposition, the new administration was not ready to rule. 'For a whole set of reasons, it just wasn't as well prepared as it could have been for power,' says Diamond. 'They came in with not that many policy commitments. There's a feeling in quite a lot of Whitehall departments that they're dealing with ministers who still have a lot to do in working out what their policy approach should be.' Some of this is down to naivety, says a former top civil servant speaking on the condition of anonymity. 'On the political side, there's a lot of frustration,' the source said. 'They thought – in the way that quite often politicians on the Left think – that they turn up, and just by the virtue of being different people, they would somehow be able to make it better, which is kind of quite naive. They're discovering that actually governing is hard. People don't often appreciate that making change happen is boring and hard.' Ministers are frustrated with the Civil Service and how Whitehall operates, complaining of an aversion to risk-taking, slow processes and uninspiring advice. It begs the question whether the British state's problem is the people who lead it, those who execute their vision or the system itself. Case, who was the most senior civil servant from 2020 to 2024, believes it is the system itself that has become far too complex and slow. 'The way we have organised our state means that it is extremely difficult to alter the status quo,' he says. 'The thing that isn't fair is that people say this is all down to the Civil Service. The Civil Service is actually only one very small part of the machinery of the state. 'At the heart of this lies the problem of power in the UK being far more diffuse than it used to be. The problem with the diffusion is that it feels like so many bodies are now responsible. What it can feel like to prime ministers is almost everybody's in charge, so nobody's in charge.' Case is not alone in this assessment. It is an opinion shared by Diamond, who is now a public policy lecturer at Queen Mary University of London after working in Tony Blair's government earlier in his career. 'What people underappreciate is that there isn't this thing called government that is a single bureaucracy where everybody works together and is coordinated,' he says. 'Most of these public services are vastly complex sets of organisations, some of which are not directly linked to each other, not accountable to each other or not directly controlled by ministers. 'The idea that there is just this lever you can pull ... Those levers are actually very hard to find, and even when you pull them, it doesn't necessarily mean that something's going to happen.' This is a common criticism from those who have experienced the Civil Service from the inside. Layers and layers of bureaucracy have, over time, created a system where no single employee has much agency or responsibility. As a result, when you are in the belly of the beast, getting anything done is difficult. 'People commonly talk about the great problems we have with getting things built in this country, whether that's houses or infrastructure,' says Case. 'They start to list off all of the different bodies that are statutory consultees, who get a say over how you're building your road or how you're building a nuclear power station. 'Each one of these may have been a sensible decision, but the problem is nobody over the decades has stopped to think about the accumulation of each of these. It should not take 10 years to build a nuclear power station.' Bloated bureaucracy This view is echoed by another former, anonymous civil servant. 'A change of government doesn't change lots of the ways that our state is just totally bent out of shape, and lots of things don't work,' they said. 'You can't fix those things overnight. 'You've got far too many people. Big organisations with lots of bureaucrats are just a nightmare. It means every individual job is less interesting. You've got much less space to operate in, and many more people to have to check with about whether what you're doing is going to interfere with what they're doing. It just begets a kind of endless meetings culture.' The Civil Service has swelled by 134,000 staff from a low point of 416,000 in late 2016, meaning that the bulk of austerity headcount cuts have now been reversed. While some of this rise reflects that the UK needs more administrators post-Brexit, ministers are keen to stem the rise. The Government is poised to cull as many as 50,000 civil servant jobs in the coming years in a push to find savings. It comes after Covid created a politically contentious culture of working from home that has become hard to undo. Departments such as the Treasury still only have an office attendance of 63pc, the latest available figures for March show. Figures released by the Cabinet Office also showed long-term sickness among civil servants hit a post-Covid high in the year to March 2023, the latest data available. 'Not being in the office has made people feel a lot less part of a collective,' says the former civil servant. 'There's just a kind of passivity and a sense of helplessness on both sides. I don't think either the ministers or the civil servants in government feel very powerful.' There are also questions over Whitehall's ability to attract and retain the best talent. Despite fast-growing wages in recent years and gold-plated pensions, many jobs attract far worse pay than in the private sector. As a result, the Civil Service cannot expect the best candidates, insiders say. 'If you're really good, you will literally be able to double your salary by going and working in the private sector, doing what counts as pretty much the same job,' the former civil servant says. 'The Civil Service should be about half the size at least, and the people should be paid more. It doesn't make financial sense for a very clever person in their early 30s to choose to be a civil servant.' Pay will only become a more salient factor as the Government seeks to adopt artificial intelligence to make efficiencies, experts warn. Diamond is adamant that the Government must pay to hire the best, particularly as the likes of Meta offer £74m signing-on bonuses to poach leading AI researchers. 'The tension has always been the question of whether civil servants should be paid more than the Prime Minister,' says Diamond. 'If you think about trying to recruit people out of the technology sector who can do all sorts of AI processes the Government's going to need, the idea that it is unacceptable to pay them more than the Prime Minister is a bit naive given what it would take to attract such people. Thomas, at the Institute for Government, adds: 'There is legitimate concern about the extent of specialist skills in the Civil Service, the speed of staff churn and people moving around. There needs to be a really clear focus on skills and capability, and building that in order so that ministers can get things done.' Cutting the fat The Civil Service needs to be scaled back to improve performance, he believes. 'There should be more rounds of compulsory redundancy and compulsory exit in the Civil Service based on performance,' says Thomas. 'You talk to most civil servants, and they are frustrated with how performance isn't well managed. 'Some of these mutually agreed exits and cuts that are going to have to come following the spending review's reduction in administrative budgets are an opportunity for the Civil Service to get more match fit.' Like other experts, he believes the central Whitehall machinery, such as the Cabinet Office, needs to be overhauled. The Government is in the process of slimming it down, but Thomas says: 'There's definitely further to go to get a No 10 Cabinet Office machine that's really humming.' A quagmire of quangos, a big and unwieldy Civil Service and ministers still finding their feet give a flavour of Labour's teething issues. Even a tentative proposal to scrap the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and hand its responsibilities to bigger, better-resourced departments appears to have been judged too ambitious and quietly shelved. These challenges explain why Sir Keir, after less than a year in power, is voicing opinions similar to those of Cummings. 'It's not that the civil servants are anti-Labour or anti any other particular party. I think the challenge is that change is always more challenging,' says Clive Betts, the Labour MP for Sheffield South East. 'The other problem is, in this social media age... you go on your computer and immediately say, 'This needs to be done', and you assume that it can be done. I had emails within two weeks of the last election saying, 'Why haven't you done taxi licencing, why haven't you changed it?' 'We know what needs to be done. But the process of getting it changed, and the actual details of the change and how you write the new legislation will take some time. The public, I think, is less understanding of those challenges,' Betts says. With Britain facing an acute housing crisis, more than 6m people waiting for hospital treatment and Europe's highest industrial energy prices, there is much to do and little time. After only 11 months in charge, Labour is trailing Reform in the polls and Sir Keir's personal rating is in the doldrums. Mandelson's former adviser, Diamond, points out that Blair confessed to only finding his stride with the Whitehall machinery in his second term. Sir Keir may not have that luxury.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Kincora horror: MI5, Mountbatten and sex abuse of boys during Troubles
The Belfast care home for boys was the site of a notorious paedophile ring. The central figure was a loyalist paramilitary called William McGrath. He was a house master at Kincora as well as an agent for the British intelligence service MI5. Moore, an award-winning BBC investigative journalist, has just published a new book alleging that MI5 colluded in the rape of children from the Kincora home as part of a long-running intelligence operation. He has also interviewed former Kincora residents who say they were sexually abused by Lord Mountbatten, the close relative of the royal family. Moore met with The Herald on Sunday to discuss his new book 'Kincora Britain's Shame: Mountbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys Home Sex Abuse Scandal and the British Cover-Up'. (Image: Chris Moore, an award-winning BBC investigative journalist) One hour before the meeting, news emerged that a victim of abuse at Kincora, Garry Hoy, now aged 63, had received an undisclosed settlement after claims that paedophile house master William McGrath was protected from prosecution due to being an MI5 agent. Moore says the finding has huge significance as it is an effective admission by the government for the first time that McGrath was an agent of the British state while carrying out his crimes. At least 29 boys were abused at Kincora from the day it opened in 1958 to 1980, when McGrath and two other staff 'wardens', Raymond Semple and Joseph Mains, were jailed. McGrath received just four years. McGrath – a prominent member of the Orange Order and an evangelical preacher – was a leading far-right loyalist who had set up his own paramilitary organisation called Tara. He was also linked to powerful unionist politicians like Reverend Ian Paisley. Moore says British security sources told him that 'at the time intelligence on the Protestant community stretched to a number of cards in a shoebox'. He explains that at the start of the conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, 'the British had no real intelligence on Protestant paramilitaries. They wanted to get on top of that. They also wanted to know which unionist politicians were allied to the men with guns'. Evidence of McGrath's involvement with MI5 first emerged, according to Moore, in 1975, when a British military intelligence officer called Captain Brian Gemmell came across reference to McGrath in army files. Perversion Gemmell, who Moore interviewed, spoke to a source in Tara who suggested McGrath was working for MI5. Gemmell also uncovered claims of McGrath's 'sexual perversions'. Moore says that Gemmell became 'worried about the safety of the children at Kincora and wanted his intelligence report about the potential sexual abuse danger McGrath posed to underage boys to be given to the police'. However, MI5's chief in Northern Ireland is said to have summoned Gemmell. Moore quotes Gemmell claiming: 'He was rude to me. He told me that the kind of information that I submitted was not proper intelligence, that we had nothing.' Gemmell was told to 'drop the investigation into Tara'. (Image: Chris Moore's revelatory new book on the scandal) Although married, McGrath was homosexual. Moore says of MI5: 'If they could find a means of putting pressure on individuals who were from the unionist community, if they were homosexual, that would be a nice bit of leverage that they could use to make sure that person would comply with what MI5 wanted.' Moore says the notion that MI5 did not know that McGrath was committing sexual offences against children is 'difficult to believe'. He cites a report from the Irish desk of MI5 dated April 14, 1972, under the heading 'Extreme Protestants', in which it is stated that McGrath 'had been accused of assaulting small boys'. Tara was involved in smuggling arms from apartheid South Africa into Northern Ireland via The Netherlands. One of the Kincora victims who Moore interviewed, Richard Kerr, explained how he was raped from the age of eight. He told of being taken to bars in Belfast where he was abused by men. 'It's grim beyond belief,' Moore adds. McGrath was a sexual sadist who inflicted extreme violence on the children he abused. One victim told Moore how he was left bleeding and crying after being 'brutally raped' by McGrath. The victim has since been awarded compensation from the authorities. Kincora, Moore believes, was 'part of a much larger operation to secure information about what was going on in the loyalist community, what the connections were between unionist parties and loyalist gunmen'. In 1975, Moore explains, 'allegations by a young teenager that he was being sexually abused' eventually led detectives to start looking into Kincora. A police officer was tasked with surveillance. 'He took pictures of men going in and out. He was able to establish through car registration numbers the identity of some of the men – for example, two Justices of the Peace. 'He saw two police constables going in. These men were going in and out of Kincora at a time when they had no reason to be there. He saw businessmen going in and, most important of all, he saw two officials from the Northern Ireland Office.' It would later emerge that 'they were also MI5'. Postings at the Northern Ireland Office were used as cover for MI5 officers stationed in Northern Ireland, Moore explains. Surveillance MOORE has interviewed the police officer who carried out the surveillance. The officer was later told by his superiors to 'forget Kincora. That's what he did because he followed orders. At the same time across the city, the army intelligence officer Brian Gemmell was asking MI5 'should we not get the police to go in and investigate'. He too was told, forget about Kincora'. Had the police been instructed to do their job properly in 1975, Moore believes, 'five years of sexual horror and torture would have been removed for the boys in Kincora'. It's important to note that action on Kincora was only taken after reporters in Ireland brought the issue to public attention in 1980. (Image: Kincora abuse survivor Gary Hoy outside the former boys' home) Once the allegations emerged, McGrath and the two other 'house wardens' were charged and eventually prosecuted and jailed. Joseph Mains received six years, and Raymond Semple five – both longer terms than McGrath, who died in 1991. After the three were jailed, the then secretary of state for Northern Ireland Jim Prior began moves for a public inquiry. However, says Moore, 'MI5 was fiercely opposed to the plan'. Moore says that documentation shows that MI5's legal adviser 'was fighting a battle on two fronts… one attempting to press the government to drop its plans for a powerful judicial inquiry into Kincora, and the other justifying why MI5 officers should not be interviewed by police even if they are aware of criminality'. A note by MI5's legal adviser, dated May 9, 1983, detailing a meeting with the Home Office legal department, read: 'I explained that as a result of stupid investigations by the RUC [Northern Ireland's then police force], we now had an interest in the Kincora inquiry… An inquiry with the power to call witnesses could cause problems.' An internal MI5 memo by its legal adviser read: 'If terms of reference were too wide one might well find the Tribunal having to examine the conduct of intelligence operations in Northern Ireland… The consequences of this would not be confined to the operation of the intelligence services but might well expose operations whose purpose was to obtain intelligence about the activities of prominent Protestant politicians.' Moore adds: 'This is how MI5 went about convincing Margaret Thatcher's government to ignore Prior's plans to have a proper judicial inquiry. And it appeared to work. 'The consequence was a watered-down public inquiry in which [a retired English judge] was given very narrow terms of reference restricting him to social care matters and systemic failures in the social services. MI5 won the day and… the inquiry was kept safely away from other state issues linked to Kincora that needed to be exposed and investigated.' He adds: 'MI5 and the British government worked together to make sure the people of Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales had no idea what was going on. The British government protected MI5. But the problem with protecting MI5 is that there are enough people who know the truth and are prepared to take a risk to tell it.' Moore says that a telex sent in June 1982 by a very senior MI5 officer referred to the possibility of creating 'false files' in anticipation of lines of inquiry which police might seek to follow in subsequent investigations. Read more Neil Mackay: Gangsters are terrorising Scotland, but do our politicians care? Neil Mackay: Nazi salutes and why you should believe the evidence of your own eyes Neil Mackay: English nationalism will be the death of the union Neil Mackay: We're not an island of strangers. But I'm now a stranger in my own land Sacrificed MOORE says the revelation meant 'it's difficult to believe a single word MI5 says. This shows they were embarrassed. One has to suspect the embarrassment of the intelligence service could indicate that they knew boys were being raped and sexually abused, but chose to put national security and the integrity of the state above the integrity of young men from broken homes or who had lost parents'. He adds: 'They could be the sacrificial lambs so that we as a nation could keep up with what was going on in the loyalist community. It beggars belief.' Moore says the Northern Ireland Office destroyed files linked to Kincora. 'They said these files were related to newspaper coverage of Kincora. I don't believe that. I think there were other motives.' He notes that existing Kincora files have been 'locked away' until 2065, or even in some cases to 2085. 'I can't get over this,' says Moore. 'It's crazy. Maybe I'm being cynical but by the year 2085, nobody is going to be alive to remember. So another secret goes away.' Perhaps the most shocking claims made in connection to Kincora focus on Lord Mountbatten, a close member of the royal family circle, great-uncle to King Charles, former admiral of the fleet, and the last Viceroy of India. (Image: Lord Louis Mountbatten) In total, says Moore, allegations have been made by five men that they were sexually abused by Mountbatten as boys – three were Kincora residents. Moore has interviewed three of the alleged victims. The testimony of two appear in the book. He was contacted by a third after the book had been written, so could not include his claims in time for publication. Moore says he 'struggled to believe' the claims against Mountbatten until he met a man called Arthur Smyth, who he interviewed in Australia. As a child, Smyth's family lived in 'abject poverty', before finally collapsing in 1977. A judge told Smyth: 'I'm going to put you in care somewhere that you're going to be safe.' He was sent to Kincora, aged 11. At first, Moore says, Arthur loved the home, where he got 'three meals a day and could play in the garden. His joy came to an end the day he was brutally raped by McGrath'. Smyth had been separated from his sister and desperately wanted to see her again. McGrath told him to comply with his orders or he would never be reunited with her. 'It was particularly cruel,' says Moore. 'I hate any form of cruelty.' As the abuse continued, Smyth was later introduced to a man who McGrath called 'Dickie'. McGrath told Smyth 'to do the same for the man as you do for me'. He was ordered to undress and 'was then raped by this man Dickie, he says', Moore explains. 'This happened a second time in a week.' Smyth told Moore that he'd bottled up the truth for decades but could no longer hide what happened after his grandchildren were born. 'I tell my kids and grandkids to be honest. If something is bothering you, stand up for your rights – I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't stand up for my rights,' Smyth said. Assassination It was only when Smyth saw TV news reporting the assassination of Mountbatten by the IRA that he realised it was the same man who had raped him. Mountbatten was killed when Republican terrorists planted a bomb on his boat at his Irish estate. Moore also interviewed Richard Kerr, another survivor, who now lives in America. Kerr agreed to be 'interviewed openly on camera' for a BBC investigation. 'What he revealed was extremely significant. For the first time in public, a former Kincora resident let it be known that some boys were taken out of the hostel to provide sexual services to men.' Kerr told Moore that he was taken to a house in Belfast where he was abused by a soldier. Kerr was also abused at hotels, including at the seaside resort Portrush and at the famous Europa Hotel in Belfast, where he said he was 'plied with drinks'. (Image: Richard Kerr, who was just eight when he was first sexually assaulted) Kerr arrived at Kincora, aged 14, in 1975. He told Moore that he and another Kincora boy, Stephen Waring – who would later kill himself – were driven to Mountbatten's home called Classiebawn Castle near Mullaghmore in County Sligo in the Irish Republic. The man in charge of Kincora, warden Joe Mains, drove the boys as far as Fermanagh on the Northern Ireland side of the border. Mains was instrumental in the paedophile ring being run out of Kincora, Kerr explained to Moore. 'Joe took our pictures to show to his clients so that they could see his boys at a glance and pick out the boy they wanted. These pictures were taken when we were naked.' Richard Kerr, Moore says, claims that he and Stephen Waring 'were requested' by Mountbatten 'to attend him at his home'. Mains drove to a hotel car park in Fermanagh where two men arrived and drove them to Classiebawn. 'They were taken individually from a guest reception room to the boathouse where they were sexually assaulted and then returned,' Moore claims. Back in Belfast, it emerged that Stephen Waring knew who the assailant was while Kerr 'had no idea until he told me… I just knew he was just another high-profile 'client' like the businessmen, politicians, doctors and lawyers'. On August 9, 1977, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh travelled to Northern Ireland for a two-day visit for the Jubilee celebrations. Moore says: 'The diaries of Lord Mountbatten reveal that he and others in his party travelled north from Classiebawn on August 7 to stay for three nights.' Moore also met with the author and historian Andrew Lownie who wrote a book on Mountbatten. In 2019, the Garda [Ireland's police service] refused Lownie's request to view security logs of Northern Ireland-registered cars which travelled between Belfast and Classiebawn. Trafficking LOWNIE wanted to access the files to pursue inquiries into the trafficking of boys from Kincora to Mountbatten. Lownie revealed recently released FBI files which alleged American intelligence had information that Mountbatten was a paedophile. Lownie says he spoke to boys who had been trafficked to Mountbatten including a boy known as Sean from Kincora, and a boy called Amal who was allegedly trafficked from London to Sligo. Richard Kerr's friend Stephen Waring committed suicide shortly after he was allegedly abused by Mountbatten. He absconded from Northern Ireland, but was picked up by police and put back on a ferry to Belfast. 'Waring was reported as having jumped overboard midway. His body was never recovered,' Moore says. Richard Kerr, however, 'did not believe his friend Stephen would end his life like that, and Stephen's death and the manner of it spooked him'. In addition to Richard Kerr and Arthur Smyth, Moore interviewed a 'third man living in the Republic of Ireland' after he finished writing the book. He told Moore that he had also allegedly been 'a survivor of abuse' by Mountbatten. This man had not been in Kincora as a boy. 'His abuse took place in London by Mountbatten,' Moore adds. 'There are at least five people who claim they were sexually abused by Mountbatten,' Moore says. 'Mountbatten is dead. I cannot stand over whether he was an abuser or not, but I have to say, I've spoken to three people who claim they were sexually assaulted by Mountbatten. I think that's good enough to raise questions about his conduct.' Another victim Moore interviewed, Clint Massey, said 'he heard English voices at Kincora'. Massey is now dead. But like Massey, Arthur Smyth also claimed he heard English voices downstairs on a night he says he was drugged, tied up and abused. Moore says that Britain's secret service was established in part to 'protect the monarchy'. He asks: 'Is that still going on today? Is that what happened with Mountbatten?' (Image: Joe Mains ran Kincora from 1958 to 1980) Moore has chosen not to name many of the high-profile public figures who were identified to him as paedophiles who abused boys at Kincora as he has not yet got enough evidence on them through multiple sourcing as he has with Mountbatten. Some are dead, some are still alive. Many are known to the public. 'They were other important people in the establishment,' he says. 'However, I cannot stand over any of the claims yet. I would hate to allow someone who is a child abuser to sue me, so I've been very careful.' The key question for Moore is whether MI5 'turned a blind eye in order to maintain a flow of intelligence deemed too important to lose, despite the heinous actions of its agents'. Moore says that he had a discussion over lunch once with the former chief constable of the RUC Sir John Hermon. 'I put it to him that McGrath was an agent of MI5. He said, 'oh no, that can't be because I would have known about it.' However, a year later, Hermon met with Moore and said: 'I owe you an apology because I've checked. McGrath was working with MI5.' Paisley ANOTHEr high-ranking police officer who investigated Kincora once told Moore to 'keep going' with his investigations as he was 'annoying the right people – in London. He was talking about MI5. He told me that MI5 had obstructed his investigations'. A source for Moore in the Northern Ireland Office unexpectedly cut contact with him at one point after he started asking questions about MI5. When Moore was finally able to ask his source why he'd cut contact, the senior civil servant told him that an 'MI5 officer took him into a room and suggested that he break all contact with me and stop asking dumb questions if he wanted to keep his job and pension'. Another source in the RUC cut contact with Moore as well. The policeman's boss had told the officer he was aware he was speaking to Moore. A BBC executive, Moore claims, had given information on the contact between Moore and the policeman to a high-ranking officer. 'That horrified me,' says Moore. On another occasion, Moore learned that a BBC executive had also leaked that he was in possession of the identities of 'four under-secretaries' from the British government who were suspected of involvement in Kincora. 'Someone in the BBC was leaking to the security service,' Moore claims. Moore later discovered that an MI5 officer who had been photographed going into Kincora in the 1970s had been fined for exposing himself at a railway station in London. McGrath had links to one of the highest-profile politicians in Northern Ireland's history, Ian Paisley. McGrath, says Moore, had a 'close association' with Paisley. He also had links to James Molyneaux, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and senior figures in the Orange Order. In 1982, as journalists began asking questions about Paisley's links to McGrath, Paisley staged a pre-emptive press conference, Moore explains. 'It was a tactic he had used successfully in the past: identify an issue with potential for causing embarrassment and stage a loud media event with theatrical bluster in order to intimidate the press.' Two Irish journalists, Moore explains, had spoken to a woman who was a missionary in Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church. She had claimed that, prior to 1980, she had alerted Paisley to 'McGrath's corrupting sexual influence on young men attending evangelical meetings'. Before the story could be published, Paisley staged a press conference at his church. 'When asked at this conference how well he knew McGrath, Paisley tried to distance himself by saying he 'knew of him when he ran a place called Faith House'… That suggested his knowledge of McGrath began and ended in the 1950s. This was simply untrue.' (Image: Reverend Ian Paisley)Lies MOORE says that McGrath's family were 'members of Paisley's Martyrs Memorial Church. Moreover, I would later discover that he had officiated at the marriages of two of McGrath's children some years earlier, something he conveniently appeared to have forgotten. Nor did he seem to recall how McGrath had once accompanied him to a meeting with Northern Ireland prime minister James Chichester-Clark'. Moore adds: 'Paisley sat in that news conference and told us lies – f*****g porkies.' Today, Kincora no longer exists. It was knocked down shortly before Moore started writing his book. Anyone who lived through the Troubles, though, knows its name. The scandal haunts memories. However, Moore worries that as time passes and the conflict becomes history, what happened at Kincora may be forgotten. 'There are young people nowadays who don't know about Kincora,' he says, 'or the significance of Kincora, the lies and obfuscation of MI5 and the British government. 'Kincora tells you that MI5 is above democracy, it is above democratic rule. They do what they want, that's clear from the secret state documents which show how they influenced the Conservative government away from allowing any investigation of MI5 and their relationship with Kincora. 'Such an inquiry would have proved that the residents of Kincora were let down time after time. It shows you the lengths to which the mother of all parliaments will go to keep itself clean from the sexual assault of children which lies at the heart of this all. 'Society failed Kincora's boys. They were poor and they were vulnerable. It's deplorable that the state, and those responsible for protecting the state, should lose all integrity and allow young boys to be raped and go through mental torture, life-changing events that will never leave them. 'In return for their squalid little intelligence operation, MI5 got to listen in to what politicians on the unionist side were doing with loyalist paramilitaries. It's disgusting.' MI5, Moore says, 'has questions to answer', not just about running McGrath as an agent, and allegations of covering up what was going on at Kincora, but also whether any of its officers offended against children. There's another strand of this story which has yet to be properly aired and which Moore is investigating: the so-called Lost Boys of Belfast. Four boys vanished in Belfast in the late 1960s and early 1970s and were 'never seen again'. The dismembered body of a fifth boy was found in the River Lagan. One man who Moore interviewed said that, in 1973, he was a child playing in the street in Belfast when McGrath tried to snatch him. 'He managed to get away,' says Moore, 'but McGrath may well have been the man who abducted some of these boys.' Moore says all he ever wanted to do over the 45 years he's spent investigating this horrific case was 'highlight the suffering of children' and attempt to get justice for them. Reporting on such terrible events took its toll on him, though. Thirty years ago, as Moore was covering another story of sexual abuse, this time an investigation into a notorious paedophile priest, he realised he needed therapy. 'I stopped covering the Kincora story for a time,' he says, 'but the need to tell the truth for the survivors just kept dragging me back.'
