Council ‘misled’ police over sex abuse

Sir Cyril Smith was MP for Rochdale from 1972 to 1992 (Getty Images)

A former detective has accused a local authority of withholding a report into suspected paedophiles at the school linked to claims of abuse by the late Liberal Democrat MP Cyril Smith.

Detective Superintendent Bob Huntbach claimed that Rochdale Council misled his investigation into Knowl View School by keeping secret a 1991 report documenting abuse allegations.

He believes the report, written by a health professional who visited the school, contained enough detail about the sexual abuse of children for him to have taken action.

“There would have been a lot more arrests made,” he told the BBC after being shown the report. “As it was, because we had no access to this report, we had very little to speak to people about. There was nothing there.”

During his investigation, he asked the authority for all relevant paperwork on the school but said he was never shown the report, which claimed boys as young as eight had been sexually abused.