Paedophile ring: police investigate three child murders

Officers investigating alleged 1970s 'VIP paedophile ring' appeal for information on Pimlico estate popular with MPs

Scotland Yard - headquarters of the Metropolitan Police
(Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Police have confirmed they are trying to establish whether three boys were murdered by members of an alleged paedophile ring of high-profile men, including MPs, in the 1970s and 80s.

The confirmation emerged when Scotland Yard appealed for victims to come forward, the BBC reports. Officers said they were also keen to hear from anyone who had known the Dolphin Square estate – a collection of Pimlico flats popular with MPs – in the 1970s or 80s.

Lead officer for Operation Midland, Det Supt Kenny McDonald, said he believed an account of alleged abuse decades ago given to police by a victim known as 'Nick' was "credible and true".

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McDonald said: "We are working hard to try to establish the number of boys involved. I would like appeal to those boys to trust me I will support you and do all in my power to bring the abusers to justice."

Speaking about Dolphin Square, he said he believed somebody who lived there during that period "will have seen or heard something that they only understand the significance of now" and appealed for them to come forward.

'Nick' has alleged that he was abused between the ages of seven and 16, taken to 'parties' at locations including Dolphin Square, where he was assaulted by groups of men. He was also abused by lone men, says The Guardian.

Nick said the abusers were "very powerful people" who had created "fear that penetrated every part of me, day in day out. He said some of them were high-profile men who "were quite open about who they were" and "had no fear at all of being caught".

The Guardian recalls that last month a father of an eight-year-old boy who was murdered 33 years ago came forward to say he had been told at the time that the alleged paedophile ring might be involved.

Vishambar Mehrota, 69, took a recording of a tip-off he received from a male prostitute to the Met police at the time. Mehrota said police refused to investigate an allegation which would implicate "judges and politicians".

Two boys named as possible 'VIP paedophile ring' victims

27 November

Detectives are reviewing the cases of two young boys who went missing more than 30 years ago to see if they might be linked to the alleged Westminster paedophile scandal.

Scotland Yard launched Operation Midland earlier this month to examine claims that three murders were linked to allegations of child abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.

Police have since contacted the families of Vishal Mehrotra, who went missing at the age of eight in 1981, and Martin Allen, who vanished at the age of 15 in 1979.

Vishal disappeared as he walked back to his home in Putney on the day of Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding. Parts of his body were found seven months later in a West Sussex wood.

His father Vishambar, a former magistrate, said he was called by a male prostitute at the time who claimed Vishal was taken to the notorious Elm Guest House in Barnes to be abused by "highly placed" paedophiles. Mehrotra said he gave police a tape of the conversation but they had done nothing.

He told The Guardian there was "no doubt" in his mind that there had been a "huge cover-up".

Vishal's family told the Evening Standard that officers had contacted them to say that they are collecting information on the case and that they may consider reopening it. Detectives from Sussex are also understood to be liaising with Scotland Yard.

The family of Martin Allen, who vanished on his way from King's Cross to his Kensington home on Bonfire Night in 1979, said they had also been contacted by police.

His brother Jeffrey claims his family was told by a detective in 1979 that there were "high-up people involved" and that they should "not take it further because someone will get hurt".

The latest claims of homicide came from a man known as Nick, who claims he was abused by MPs and other establishment figures. He said he saw one boy being strangled by a Conservative MP and another boy deliberately run down by one of his abusers. A third boy was murdered during an orgy at which another Tory MP was present, he said.

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