Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is at the centre of a new row after claims he ignored allegations of a paedophile scandal involving Nottinghamshire City and County Councils.
A former employee of the Labour-led councils has told Heat Street she informed McDonnell about what she believes was the high-level cover-up of sex abuse in Nottinghamshire.
She said McDonnell failed to act despite being able to use his position as a senior Labour MP to look into the allegations.
Embarrassingly for McDonnell, the national child sex abuse inquiry, chaired by Lowell Goddard, has subsequently begun investigating both Nottinghamshire councils, raising questions about the frontbencher’s judgment.
Joni Cameron-Blair has provided an audio recording of the occasion when she told McDonnell her concerns – but a spokesman has denied that McDonnell ignored them.
Ms Cameron-Blair said this happened when she attended a meeting for public sector whistleblowers in March 2015.
The meeting, organised by the charity Compassion In Care (CIC), took place in a committee room in the Palace of Westminster.
According to a CIC spokesman it was arranged through McDonnell’s office. He is understood to be the only MP who attended. He also addressed the meeting, at which about 20 people were present.
Sebastian Corbyn, son of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and McDonnell’s chief of staff, was among them.
The meeting was captured on video but parliamentary authorities said they have no record of anyone from McDonnell’s office requesting permission to film, potentially putting McDonnell in breach of parliamentary rules which for security reasons forbid filming without special permission.
Audio taken from the meeting confirms that Ms Cameron-Blair told McDonnell: “I worked for Nottingham social services from 1994 to 2000. I was dismissed after exposing a paedophile ring within Nottinghamshire Council…I went to the chief executive and the director of social services…they knew about that paedophile group…”
According to the tape Ms Cameron-Blair then said: “What do we do? It’s infested. It’s in the police, it’s in CQC [Care Quality Commission], it’s in Ofsted, it’s in children’s services, it’s everywhere. What are we going to do?”
However, Ms Cameron-Blair said that to the best of her knowledge McDonnell did not subsequently react.
In November 2015, eight months after voicing her suspicions, the newly formed national child sex abuse inquiry announced that Nottinghamshire Councils were among 12 areas it is investigating.
Ms Cameron-Blair, 50, said she was dismissed from her post in Nottinghamshire social services after reporting her concerns about paedophilia in Nottinghamshire to bosses at the council.
She now works as a healthcare professional.
Ms Cameron-Blair, a victim of sexual abuse during her own childhood, said: “Keeping in mind my continued battle against child abuse, I am outraged at Mr McDonnell’s lack of response and action.
“I met with him with the hope he would force the issue, but unfortunately this hasn’t been forthcoming. No follow-up conversation took place with me at any point. No phone call. No letters. No changes. I have had to continually drive the issue which is hugely disappointing but hardly surprising as this is what I have become to expect of Labour.”
Nottinghamshire Police launched Operation Daybreak, an investigation into allegations of abuse at children’s homes in the county, in 2010.
Officers have made a series of arrests and investigated more than 100 complaints.
There has been one conviction to date.
Actress Samantha Morton is understood to have given evidence to police having spent much of her childhood at care homes in the county where, she has claimed, she was abused by residential care workers as a teenager.
Last year Jeremy Corbyn was accused of turning a blind eye to allegations of child abuse in his Islington constituency which were put to him in the 1990s. As with Ms Cameron-Blair’s case, Corbyn was informed by social workers who worked for a Labour-led council.
Ms Cameron-Blair added: “I told John McDonnell about this because I genuinely believed he wanted to do something. I feel Labour is a part of the problem instead of being a part of the solution.”
McDonnell is an advocate of so-called “Edna’s Law” to protect whistleblowers.
A spokesman for McDonnell denied any wrongdoing.
He said: “John has never been directly contacted by Ms Cameron-Blair on this matter, and even in this audio it is clear she doesn’t ask him to directly take up her case.
“The meeting was on how to change the law to help and protect whistleblowers so that such things could be better brought to light in future.
“The meeting involved contributions from numerous participants but the specific subject was solely about how to change the law in regards to the issue of whistleblowing for employees.
“Afterwards John, who was a backbench MP at the time, took a petition signed by those who attended the event to Downing Street.
“This is an absurd allegation from a website run by a former Tory MP, who should think long and hard about cheap political point scoring on such serious matters.”
