Survivors of abuse being taken seriously, says Black Country MP as watchdog promises child abuse investigation

Labour's Tom Watson said survivors of abuse were being taken seriously after the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it was investigating 14 referrals with details of alleged corruption in the Metropolitan Police relating to child sex offences from the 1970s to the 2000s.

The claims - which were referred to the IPCC by the Met Police - include that the force suppressed evidence, hindered or halted investigations and covered up offences because MPs and police officers were involved.

Among the 14 referrals is a claim that a Houses of Parliament document found at a child sex offender's address linked a number of "highly prominent individuals" including MPs and senior police officers to a paedophile ring but no further action was taken.

Another allegation is that an abuse victim's account was altered to omit a senior politician's name, while it is also alleged that no further action was taken into claims of child sex abuse involving a former senior Met Police officer and "further members of the establishment including judges".

An investigation into young men being targeted in Dolphin Square, the apartment complex popular with MPs, was also allegedly stopped because officers were "too near prominent people", the IPCC said.

Other allegations include that a surveillance operation of a child abuse ring was shut down because "high profile people" were involved, that police officers sexually abused a boy and carried out surveillance on him, and that an investigation into a paedophile ring - in which a number of people were convicted - did not take action into other "more prominent individuals".

It is also claimed a politician spoke with a senior Met police officer and demanded that no action was taken into paedophile ring and boys being procured and supplied to prominent people in Westminster in the 1970s.

Mr Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, first revealed in the Commons claims that there had been a Westminster paedophile ring.

He said: "This is potentially a major breakthrough. At last survivors are being taken seriously.

"We're getting nearer to perhaps one of the biggest scandals the political world has seen in our lifetimes.

"This is an opportunity for people to come forward - whether they are former police or intelligence officers, journalists, survivors, friends of survivors or others who might know something - and help with this inquiry.

"The investigation must be urgent as some of the potential perpetrators are of an age where they could die before justice can be achieved."