Steven Messham lived at the Bryn Estyn home near Wrexham
Sunday November 4,2012
By James Fielding
THE sex abuse victim filmed by the BBC as part of an investigation into a paedophile at the heart of government will name the senior Conservative to police.
Steven Messham will tell Scotland Yard this week that one of his abusers was a key member of the Tory Party. He was contacted by detectives yesterday following a Newsnight report into allegations of an elite child sex ring that preyed on youngsters at a North Wales care home.
The highly respected politician, who enjoyed close ties to Margaret Thatcher’s government, was not named in the programme because of legal constraints.
However, Mr Messham told the Sunday Express the identity of his alleged abuser. He said the sexual assaults spanned 18 months from 1977 when he was 13.
He said he was:
• Sexually abused in a hotel room by the political figure and the son of a lord as well as seven other paedophiles.
• Tied up and raped by the top Tory.
We’d be taken up to a room where a number of men would be waiting
Child abuse victim Steven Messham
• Warned afterwards that he would be killed if he ever breathed a word to anyone.
Mr Messham, who lived at the Bryn Estyn home near Wrexham, said: “It happened time and time again, it was terrifying. There were a group of paedophiles who would regularly abuse boys at the home.
“One of them was a very senior member of the Conservative Party and someone very close to the establishment. Most of the abuse took place on a Sunday evening for some reason, I don’t know why.
“Myself, sometimes a few other boys, would be picked up by a car parked by the gate and we would be driven to the Crest Hotel in the centre of Wrexham. We’d be taken up to a room where a number of men would be waiting.
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“On one occasion, this political figure was in a room with eight other men, including the son of a lord. I was then tied up and they each took turns to rape me. This probably went on for about two hours and I was plied with alcohol, presumably as a way of anaesthetising me from the pain of what was happening. They obviously knew as well that it would affect my memory the following morning. After I was assaulted, this politician made it quite clear what would happen to me if I dared tell anyone. He warned me that if I mentioned anything about the abuse, he would have me killed.
“This man would never say he would do it personally, but he was someone with immense power and I took his threat very, very seriously.”
Mr Messham, now 49, arrived at Bryn Estyn in 1977 following the break-up of his parents’ marriage. During his three years there he became one of hundreds of children abused over two decades.
Dozens of staff members from the home, now closed, have since been convicted of offences, including former housemaster Peter Howarth, who was jailed for 10 years in 1994 for violating boys as young as 12. He died behind bars.
Other victims of Bryn Estyn have reported how they were sexually abused by carers and beaten up by older boys, who acted like henchmen.
One former resident said he was punished for running away by being crammed into a whicker laundry basket, which had the lid tied shut, and thrown into a swimming pool. He was saved when other boys dived in to free him.
Mr Messham, who still lives in North Wales, said he first told police about abuse at the home in the late Seventies, but was branded a liar. He later gave a statement during a three-year inquiry into abuse scandals at North Wales care homes in the late Nineties.
The £13million investigation, carried out by Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, made a number of recommendations in 2000 after finding systematic abuse, a climate of violence and a culture of secrecy existed in dozens of children’s homes.
Mr Messham has now appealed to David Cameron to arrange a meeting with him to discuss the possibility of the allegations being re-investigated.
“I’ve not heard anything back from Downing Street yet but, to be honest, I’m not surprised,” he said. “Only the Metropolitan Police have been in contact so far, asking me if I can speak to them as part of the Operation Yew Tree investigation. I’ll contact them next week, but I want assurances this time that these claims will not just be swept under the carpet.”
The political figure at the centre of the allegations was unavailable for comment yesterday although he is understood to vehemently deny the claims.
Labour MP Tom Watson announced in the Commons last month that a “powerful paedophile network” may have had links to a former prime minister and parliament!!
Obviously the police knew this stuff would come out,lets hope they're not just using saville glitter etc to get these sicko's off the hook by distraction!:blink: