Dear Home Secretary,
I write further to my appointment as Chair of the Inquiry into the institutional response to child sex abuse. I am honoured to be the chairman of the independent panel inquiry into how institutions – both private and state - have failed victims of child abuse in the United Kingdom over many years. This is a major inquiry and I am determined that no organisation will be out of bounds and that no questions will go unasked.
There has been media speculation that my contacts with Lord and Lady Brittan might affect my impartiality. I do not accept this but I set out below, to the best of my recollection the nature of my contact and relationship with Lord and Lady Brittan so that you may be satisfied that neither my impartiality towards them, nor that of the Inquiry Panel as a whole is compromised.
I have had a house in London on the same street as the Brittan family since 2004 but, as the houses round our way are all fairly substantial, it’s still a fair walk, which is why I am, in any case, usually driven there by one of my staff. Factoring in the time it takes to reverse the limousine into the Brittan’s secure underground parking unit, you could quite feasibly have got the tube to Pimlico, Elephant & Castle or somewhere equally ghastly just as quickly, so I think that our proximity as neighbours is being somewhat overstated by my critics.
I was first introduced to Lady Brittan through a third party. I subsequently met Lord Brittan in a personal capacity when I invited Lord and Lady Brittan to a dinner party at my residence on 9 January 2008. From recollection there were six people present and, if memory serves, I’m pretty sure that it was him because the leather mask is fairly distinctive. Leon assures me that it has often come in useful whenever he’s needed – for reasons of national security, presumably – to disguise his true identity from the constabulary.
The Brittans hosted two dinner parties at their residence, which I was invited to and attended on 10 November 2009 and 15 February 2012. From my recollection there were no other guests who attended. But for the blindfold I was wearing for most of the evening, I would be able to give you a more definitive account of those present. I have met Lady Brittan on a small number of occasions for coffee from memory. The last occasion recorded was on 23 April 2013 at Lady Brittan’s residence. We met because Lady Brittan was interested in knowing what was going on in the City of London. Obviously, I was of little help to her on that score, but we had a lovely natter all the same.
In my former capacity as the Senior Alderman below the Chair in the City of London Corporation and also as Lord Mayor, I have sat (sometimes beneath and sometimes actually on the chair) since the autumn of 2012 on an advisory panel called TheCityUK. Lord Brittan is a member of that advisory panel (what *isn’t* he a member of!!), representing UBS as I understand. TheCityUK represents the UK-based financial and related professional services industry. They make representations on its behalf, producing evidence of its importance to the wider national economy, and they seek to, and indeed usually do, influence policy in order to drive competitiveness and to create jobs, lasting economic disparity and social exclusion throughout the UK.
Lady Brittan and I were both judges for the Drag Awards in July 2014 which celebrates Community Transgender programmes. It recognises businesses and public offices that go above and beyond their core work to make a significant and positive impact on the regeneration of their local communities’ wardrobe, hosiery and make up options. The 2014 awards took place on 1 October 2014. Lady Brittan was one of the panel, which I chaired, for judging the awards; the panel met once on 14th July 2014.Lady Brittan did not attend the awards ceremony as she had lent Leon her favourite stole for the occasion – a shame as she had helped to vote herself runner up in the over 50s Diva section and was also highly commended in the dressage.
The Lord Mayor of the day and the City of London Corporation host a number of annual and other banquets and dinners. A significant number of guests from a wide cross-section of paedophile life, often in the hundreds, are invited to these events. Lord and Lady Brittan would have attended some of these dinners. As an Alderman I too have attended some of them but I do not recall engaging with Lord or Lady Brittan at all, or certainly in any substantial way, at these dinners when they have attended – as would be perfectly normal for people who lived in the same street as one another and therefore could (and do) see each other socially all the time.
In October 2005, Lord Brittan spoke at a conference hosted at the Law Society in London at which I was present in my role as vice – (yes, I know - how apt!) president of the Society. Given the passage of time I cannot recollect whether or not I spoke to Lord Brittan at that event. Probably not, as it’s harder than you’d imagine communicating through the carrier bag when you also have an orange in your mouth. I have had no further social contact with Lord and Lady Brittan since 19 May 2013 and have not spoken to or communicated through sign language with either of them in person or by telephone since, apart from the odd ribald exchange of texts, obviously!
Other matters:
I should mention one other issue flowing from my role as an Alderman since 2007 in the City of London Corporation. In my capacity as Lord Mayor my steward has been Colin Tucker, a former solicitor from Edinburgh. In 1989 Mr. Tucker was prosecuted for fraud and acquitted. He was later struck off as a solicitor. In 1983 he was involved in an inquiry into an allegation of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in Scotland, conducted by WA Nimmo Smith QC and JD Friel, Regional Procurator Fiscal of North Strathclyde. The inquiry, which concerned allegations that senior figures in the Edinburgh legal fraternity, including judges, were engaged in sexual relations with under age boys, found no evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever. (The jammy bugger probably got one of his neighbours to conduct the inquiry!!) I can confirm that I have never discussed this issue with Mr. Tucker – who, his fraudulence and propensity to perverting the course of justice notwithstanding, is a thoroughly good egg - and was unaware of his prior history until this matter was brought to my attention at the interview shortlisting stage.
As you will appreciate, in the course of a long professional career and during my time in various public offices I have inevitably encountered a very wide range of paedophiles, some well-known, who have held senior positions in business, commerce, the arts, the charitable sector, some even attaining the giddy heights of being asked to perform Britain’s entry to the European Song Contest as well as politics. I am clear that to know someone and to meet them occasionally, even on an informal basis, is not the same as being a close friend or sharing their views – even less, their sexual preferences, of which, after all, who am I to be the judge?
As such my limited encounters with Lord and Lady Brittan will not in any way influence the manner in which I approach the work of the panel. I am acutely aware of the scrutiny this inquiry will rightly face and the need for the panel members and me to be utterly beyond reproach. If I had the slightest doubt in my ability to remain fair and even-handed towards Leon at all times I would have said so at the outset and would not have accepted this appointment. This is a deeply serious response to the horrific series of events he is responsible for covering up and the many victims deserve to feel their interests are being served, even whilst we are busy whitewashing his various wrongdoings.
Yours sincerely,
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