Whistleblower: 'I supplied underage rent boys for Margaret Thatcher's cabinet ministers'
By Matthew Drake
Whistleblower and former Conservative party activist
Anthony Gilberthorpe says he provided child prostitutes for a sex and
drugs party with top politicians
Sunday Mirror
Anthony Gilberthorpe pictured in London
Senior Tory cabinet ministers were supplied with underage boys for sex parties, it is sensationally claimed.
Former
Conservative activist Anthony Gilberthorpe said he told Margaret
Thatcher 25 years ago about what he had witnessed and gave her names of
those involved.
His allegations that he saw top Tories having sex
with boys comes after David Cameron launched a Government inquiry into
claims of a cover-up.
Anthony, 52, said: “I am prepared to speak to the inquiry. I believe I am a key witness.”
Trawling
seedy streets during a Tory conference, Gilberthorpe says he was asked
to find underage rent boys for a private sex party at a top hotel.
Anthony
says he was a full-time political activist when he helped procure the
“youngest and prettiest” boys for several cabinet ministers after being
told to find “entertainment”.
In a series of explosive claims
about conferences at Blackpool and Brighton in the 1980s, he alleges
boys as young as 15 indulged in alcohol and cocaine before they had sex
with the powerful politicians.
He says one person who attended a party is a current serving minister.
Others said to be present at the parties included Keith Joseph, Rhodes Boyson, Dr Alistair Smith and Michael Havers
As
a young aspiring politician, Mr Gilberthorpe admits being in awe of the
men, but now insists: “They manipulated and groomed me to do their
bidding.”
He said: “I was just 17 when I first went to a
conference in Brighton in 1978. I couldn’t believe I was rubbing
shoulders with all these important people and I couldn’t believe that
they were taking such a keen interest in me. I would have done anything
for them because I was so desperate to make it in politics.
“During
the years I was attending conferences between 1978 and 1985, I was a
full-time political activist. At the same time I was running for office
in district and county council elections.”
Chris Davies / ArenaPAL
Cabinet Minister: Former Education Secretary Keith Joseph
Mr Gilberthorpe claims that at the 1983 Blackpool conference
he was asked by Dr Alistair Smith – the Tory Party Chairman in Scotland –
to arrange for young rent boys to have sex with two high-profile
cabinet ministers, who we are not naming today.
Other MPs at that party were said to include Rhodes Boyson and Keith Joseph.
In
that week he presented the then-Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher with a
cake to mark her 58th birthday. But he says he also had a more sordid
role – using his young looks to find these underage boys for her
ministers.
At the time, the age of consent made it illegal to have gay sex with anyone under 21-years-old.
He
said: “Dr Smith, who I looked up to at the time and was the most
important Tory in Scotland, told me to go and fetch some
‘entertainment’, which was code for young boys and handed me a handful
of bank notes. There was about £120.”
Mr Gilber-thorpe claims he was not shocked by the request.
He said: “It was a norm and an open secret that these older members of the Tory party, like Dr Alistair Smith, paid for young men to join them at sex parties.
“It
was the first time I was asked to fetch them but it was hardly
surprising as I was becoming one of their trusted people. There was a
well known and used cruising area close to the Imperial Hotel, which was
a conference hotel. The hotel was not open to the public.
“I was expected to find the youngest and prettiest boys. It was what those men wanted.
“In fact it was all they wanted.
“So
myself and another Tory candidate walked down there and sat on some
benches underneath an archway in the Pavilion area of Blackpool and
waited.”
Rex
Attorney General: Lord Michael Havers
He said they were approached within minutes by a “guy aged
about 20” called James. He went on: “I asked him if he wanted to come
back to the hotel and he said ‘yes’. We asked if he had any mates and he went away and came back with two boys who were aged about 15 and no older.
"It was a surreal situation as we were dressed in suits and ties and they were wearing jeans.
“We
said we would make it worth their while and the older one held out his
hand and I passed him the money to share out. I promised him there would
be plentiful amounts of free booze.”
Mr Gilberthorpe claims he
then asked hotel security to contact a man inside who worked at the
Conservative Party Central Office to arrange for the three rent boys to
be given security clearance and special badges that would allow them to
enter the Imperial.
He said: “All MPs, members of the National
Executive and chosen delegates were given name badges that allowed you
access to the conference hotel.
“Some of them had a small Oscar
sign in the corner which was a code to allow others to know you were
allowed into these secret parties.” He claimed the Hollywood-style Oscar
symbol was actually in honour of gay writer and poet Oscar Wilde.
Once
inside the Imperial, he says the group walked up several flights of
stairs to a room where politicians were waiting for them, along with a
table of cocaine.
Rex
In attendance: Rhodes Boyson at the Conservative party conference in Blackpool, 1987
He said: “We took them straight upstairs and into a room
where Dr Smith and other MPs were waiting for them at the party. They
were given drinks and cocaine to snort and then they were all moved into
the centre of the room.”
Mr Gilberthorpe said he witnessed two
senior Tories having sex with the boys. He said: “A couple of other MPs
were in the room. I can clearly remember seeing one politician, who is
now a serving Tory MP, standing there and watching.”
Mr
Gilberthorpe also claims that two years earlier in 1981 he saw Sir
Michael Havers – then Attorney General – at a swimming pool party at the
Tory conference in Blackpool, where underage boys were encouraged to
perform sex acts on several politicians, who we are also not naming
today.
He recalled: “In 1981 I was invited back to the Imperial Hotel by a Conservative councillor.
“He was a big player in the notorious right-wing group the Monday Club.
“We arrived at around midnight and I was led down some stairs to a door where two men were stood as security.
“We
were allowed to enter and I was led through a tiled changing room where
there were piles of clothes strewn across the floor. We then walked
into an area where there was a large pool and lots of men either stood
around naked or simply wrapped in towels.
“Among the MPs I
recognised in there were Keith Joseph and Rhodes Boyson. I saw the
Attorney General Michael Havers down there as well.
“There were a
couple of glass tables set up as a mini bar with bottles of spirits on
them and there was cocaine on several tables. I saw several boys who
were clearly aged between 15 and 16 down there and I saw that a few were
performing sex acts on MPs.
“Other young men were acting as
waiters walking around with little black bow ties on. I was completely
shocked by it because I was still only 20 and I had never seen anything
like it.”
He added: “I stayed for a couple of hours but was tired
because a conference was always a boozy affair where mainly spirits were
drunk in large quantities from about 5pm onwards.” Request: Smith ‘asked for young boys’
Mr Gilberthorpe, now 52, says he also attended a sex party at
the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservatives’ 1984 conference.
On
the night before the seafront hotel was hit by an IRA bomb attack, he
claims he saw senior MPs engaging in sex acts with boys below the age of
consent at a “corridor party” held in a row of rooms on the fourth
floor.
He said: “There were two guys on the door at the end of the
corridor and because we were in the group I was allowed to enter.
Several doors were left open and others were closed.
“There were
several men walking from one room to another and enjoying sex acts with
other naked men, including boys who were clearly only about 15 or 16
years old. I saw Keith Joseph there and a politician who is now still a
serving MP.
“It was held on the night before the bomb went off and
afterwards one MP crudely joked that it was a good job it was, or there
would have been rent boys falling through the floor.”
Mr
Gilberthorpe, who decided to finally break his silence because he fears
an Establishment cover-up, also claims that in the aftermath of the
bombing, in which five people were killed, he was asked to look after
two rent boys.
He said: “I rushed over there from my hotel after I heard the blast and saw Keith Joseph stood outside in a blanket.”
Yesterday he said: “I was a teenager when I first met these men and they manipulated me and groomed me to do their bidding.
“Because
they were the most powerful men in the land, I was led to believe it
was all OK. In truth they were abusers and once they had tired of me
they simply discarded me. It is time this came to light before anyone
else is abused.
“They didn’t think they were doing anything wrong and it was the norm then. They felt untouchable.”
