The Independent Police Complaints Commission has announced that it is to manage an investigation into an allegation that Greater Manchester Police failed to adequately investigate an incident involving former MP Cyril Smith in Stockport in 1988.
The investigation follows an article in the Manchester Evening News reporting an allegation by a former police officer that he found Smith and a police officer in plain clothes in the home of a known sex offender with two teenage boys. The former officer claims shortly after the incident he was threatened with the Official Secrets Act by a senior officer if he said anything.
The allegation will now form part of Greater Manchester Police’s ongoing Operation Clifton, a criminal investigation launched in July 2014, into how previous reports of child sexual abuse were handled or allegedly covered up. The IPCC will manage how this specific allegation is investigated.
The IPCC’s involvement will ensure independent oversight of the investigation while ensuring Greater Manchester Police’s wider ongoing criminal investigation is not affected.
Twenty-three people have claimed they were abused by the Liberal MP, who died aged 82 in 2010.
Police said allegations against Smith related to teenage boys in Rochdale between 1960 to 1987.
