Four more files relating to historical child sex abuse have been unearthed in the Whitehall archives, the Cabinet Office has disclosed. The documents were discovered in a special archive - known colloquially in Whitehall as the "cabinet secretaries' files" - containing "sensitive, historic papers".
Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said the files would now be made available to the newly reconstituted inquiry in to historical child sex abuse as well as to the Metropolitan Police and other relevant government departments. The disclosure comes after it emerged last month that the Cabinet Office was holding a secret dossier from the 1980s relating to the paedophile activities of the late diplomat Sir Peter Hayman.
That file has now been transferred to the National Archives in Kew, west London, where it is open for public inspection. In a Commons written statement, Maude said that the latest cache of papers included one file which had been earmarked for destruction pending final checks by the Cabinet Office and the National Archives.
"The files were found in a separate Cabinet Office archive of sensitive, historic papers. This archive, colloquially known as the cabinet secretaries' file, was closed in 2007," he said. "It is largely uncatalogued and unregistered; a programme to review it has been under way since last year but remains in progress. Officials assure me that the available titles have now been searched and more detailed searches are ongoing."