Thread by @MarkWatts_1

1. Day 12 of Westminster hearings at #CSAinquiry – my round-up in 26 tweets.

Just over half-an-hour to hear from the sole abuse survivor allowed to testify.

And another important admission today from CPS re two more #VIPaedophile suspects who escaped prosecution in the day...

2. Robert Montagu told #CSAinquiry – in what he described as “graphic terms” – how his father, Victor Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, one-time Conservative MP, sexually abused him between approximate ages of 6 and 11.

Then the family found out what his father was doing to him….

3. Robert Montagu to #CSAinquiry: “This was the most painful part of it, because, and I’m sure this part is shared with so many, because, having been abused, I was then re-abused by the failure of the investigation.”

There was no investigation, he said...

4. Robert Montagu told #CSAinquiry that his mother “interviewed” him about what his father, from whom she had separated when he was around 6, did to him.

“My mother was disgusted by the news. She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to know about it...”

5. Robert Montagu told #CSAinquiry that his mother did not want police to investigate, “partly… to protect me.”

“But, of course, I wanted an examination and the truth to come out.”

“If it had, my father would have been stopped, and there would have been no further victims.”

6. Robert Montagu found out that his father, Victor Montagu, sexually abused “at least” 10 other boys, and probably “nearer 20”, he told #CSAinquiry.

But “not one” of these wanted to report what his father did to them...

7. It came as a “great shock” to Robert Montagu, he told #CSAinquiry, that Victor Montagu escaped prosecution in 1972 in relation to one boy. “It’s very indicative of the attitude at the time towards people in public positions,” and towards child sexual abuse in general, he said.

8. Robert Montagu urged #CSAinquiry: “It’s essential to bring into effect new law which imposes mandatory reporting, certainly within institutions such as schools.

“That should have been in place long, long since. But also I’d like to see mandatory law in the domestic setting.”

9. Bryan Collins, formerly of the Met’s obscene publications squad, gave some fascinating testimony today to #CSAinquiry.

I revealed the key points previously @FOIACentre: foiacentre.com/news-CSA-inqui…

10. Bryan Collins, ex-Met, told #CSAinquiry, that he first interviewed “Peter Henderson” as part of a probe into PIE. Detectives interviewed several PIE members.

Henderson never mentioned that he was Sir Peter Hayman, or that he was a diplomat, let alone that he was MI6...

11. Detectives found “Peter Henderson”, PIE member, at a flat in Linden Gardens, Notting Hill, London.

They also found 45 diaries, “each of a couple of hundred pages”, containing his description of, as counsel to #CSAinquiry put it, “sexual deviancy”.

12. Bryan Collins told #CSAinquiry that he then obtained in 1978 one package of obscene material on a bus in Westminster and another in St James’s Park. They linked “Peter Henderson” to Sir Peter Hayman, former high commissioner to Canada...

13. Police file on Peter Hayman to DPP, #CSAinquiry heard, said: “The sheer filth spread far and wide by him… its content with regard to the sexual and physical abuse of children” made him “one of the worst offenders” for sending such material through the post...

14. Peter Hayman paid a visit to Bryan Collins and his partner at Scotland Yard, #CSAinquiry heard. “He wanted to know if £25,000 each would have made any difference to what we were doing,” said Collins.

“My reply to him was, ‘You’re in enough trouble already. Don’t be stupid.”

15. Next, Bryan Collins told #CSAinquiry, he had a telephone call from Sir David Napley, who wanted to know who at the DPP’s office was dealing with the case of his client, Peter Hayman.

Collins stalled, and Napley said not to worry, he would talk to the DPP himself...

16. The day after Sir David Napley’s telephone call re “Sir” Peter Hayman, Bryan Collins told #CSAinquiry, his chief inspector called him in.

He said: “I think you’d better sit down…

“Hayman’s finished. He’s to be cautioned. That’s it.”

17. Asked by counsel to #CSAinquiry whether guidelines meant that offences such as Sir Peter Hayman’s would not be prosecuted unless there was financial gain, Bryan Collins said that Hayman had exchanged obscene material through post with Robert Wardell, who was prosecuted…

18. Bryan Collins told #CSAinquiry why Robert Wardell was prosecuted, but not Sir Peter Hayman: “Mr Wardell was a bus inspector. He didn’t have Sir David Napley, did he? He was prosecuted for exactly the self-same material that Hayman had.”

19. Bryan Collins dismissed what he saw as excuses for not prosecuting “Sir” Peter Hayman.

He told #CSAinqjuiry: “They squared it up. There’s no other explanation for it at all. It was squared up.”

20. Counsel to #CSAinquiry: Did Sir Thomas Hetherington, the then DPP, do a deal with Sir David Napley re “Sir” Peter Hayman?

Bryan Collins: “Best club in the world, isn’t it: three knights of the realm? You know, not bad, is it?”

21. On the contrasting treatment of Sir Peter Hayman and Robert Wardell, Bryan Collins told #CSAinquiry: “Mr Wardell didn’t get out of that. He didn’t get three bus conductors down there to try and help him, did he?”

22. After lunch, #CSAinquiry adduced two further statements from Don Hale @perryscope21 and two from Northamptonshire Police.

Latter admit that they were wrong to claim to inquiry that they had not interviewed Don Hale about “Sir” Cyril Smith.

Don Hale, they admit, was right.

23. Jeremy Naunton, formerly a solicitor in DPP’s office, gave some insight to #CSAinquiry into why “Sir” Peter Hayman was not prosecuted.

I revealed the key points previously @FOIACentre: foiacentre.com/news-CSA-inqui…

24. Counsel to #CSAinquiry, re “Sir” Peter Hayman, asked Jeremy Naunton: “Do you agree, looking at all the material, that not to prosecute was a highly charitable decision?”

A: “I don’t know.”

25. On why Robert Wardell – but not Sir” Peter Hayman – was prosecuted, Jeremy Naunton told #CSAinquiry: “I don't know.”

“The taller they are, the harder they fall, and Hayman was fairly tall in respect of the diplomatic side of it. Therefore, you know, he had a lot to lose.”

26. CPS has officially admitted that two #VIPaedophile suspects who escaped charges would be prosecuted on same evidence today: Cyril Smith and Greville Janner.

Gregor McGill, CPS director of legal services, added two more at #CSAinquiry today: Victor Montagu and Peter Hayman.

27. NB That was the round-up for Day 13, and not Day 12 (as I said in tweet 1), of Westminster hearings at #CSAinquiry.

No hearing on Thursday.

Back on Friday for closing statements. Pip, pip.