Files which may be associated to historical child abuse claims seem to have been lost “on an industrial scale” at the Home Office, said Keith Vaz, the chairman of Home Affairs committee.
- Senior MP, Keith Vyaz
The Home Office has said its own review last found that 114 potentially relevant files could not be located, reported BBC.
The senior MP expressed his surprise on the missing of potential evidence.
According to Lord Tebbit, people at the time may have tried to protect the establishment rather than “delve” into abuse claims.
Number 10 has rejected calls for an over-arching public inquiry into historical child abuse claims.
However, a new review, to be carried out by a senior legal figure from outside Whitehall, will look into a Home Office review last year of claims made to it in the 1980s and 1990s of organised child sex abuse.
The Home Office’s 2013 review found 527 potentially relevant files which it had kept, but a further 114 were missing, destroyed or “not found”, according to the Home Office’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill, reported BBC.