Reported today on City AM

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Politicians and police "turned a blind eye" to claims of child sexual abuse and were involved in "actively shielding and protecting" abusers, a damning new report has found.Although the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse said there was no evidence of an organised "Westminster paedophile network" in which children were passed between "persons of prominence", the report published today found political parties, police and prosecutors ignored victims and showed excessive "deference" to MPs and ministers.It said there had been "significant failures by Westminster institutions in their responses to allegations of child sexual abuse"."This included failure to recognise it, turning a blind eye to it, actively shielding and protecting child sexual abusers and covering up allegations," the report said.The report found that Sir Cyril Smith and Conservative MP Sir Peter Morrison were "known to be active in their sexual interest in children, but were protected from prosecution" throughout the 1980s by their respective parties."At that time, nobody seemed to care about the fate of the children involved, with status and political concerns overriding all else," the report said.It added: "Even though we did not find evidence of a Westminster network, the lasting effect on those who suffered as children from being sexually abused by individuals linked to Westminster has been just as profound. It has been compounded by institutional complacency and indifference to the plight of child victims."There was "no evidence that party whips deliberately suppressed any specific information about child sexual abuse", the report concluded. "However, we also gained the distinct impression that the whips' offices were concerned above all to protect the image of their party. There was a consist

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