Following reports in the national press, Enfield-Southgate MP, Stephen Twigg has been drawn in to the furore over the care homes sex abuse scandal currently dogging Children's Minister, Margaret Hodge. Local Conservatives say that Enfield-Southgate MP, Stephen Twigg should explain his own role in the case of Demetrious Panton, (serially sexually abused whilst in Islington's care) after it was revealed that it was to Mr Twigg that Panton first brought his abuse claims.

Twigg, a Labour councillor in Islington under Hodge's controversial and discredited leadership, was deputising for Hodge at a councillor's surgery in 1992, when sex abuse victim Demetrious Panton reported to him the extensive problems of abuse in Islington's care homes - and his own personal experience of this. According to Mr Twigg this week, he did not "bring the matter to Mrs Hodge's attention.... With hindsight, he regrets that he did not".

Conservative London Assembly candidate for Enfield-Haringey, Peter Forrest, himself a former councillor (in neighbouring Haringey), has now called on Mr Twigg to make a full statement. Said Peter Forrest:

"As a Councillor of 8 years standing I can confirm that most issues brought to councillors' surgeries are run of the mill. But such serious allegations would have been exceptional and had Mr Panton brought such grave charges to my attention I should certainly have approached the Leader of the Council, or the Director of Social Services, or the Council's Chief Executive. Probably all three! It would have been a gross failure of judgement and duty not to have pursued the matter. It beggars belief that a serving councillor could find this matter so trivial as not to bother even mentioning it to the councillor on whose behalf he was acting when he received these reports.

It is obviously politically-convenient for Mrs. Hodge that Mr Twigg has confirmed that he did not tell her of this particular case, but we certainly have a right to know what exactly Mr Twigg did do following Mr Panton's visit. Did he really brush the matter aside? Or did he take it seriously?

Most voters rightly think that seeing their Ward Councillor will mean their concerns are fully and properly addressed. According to the victim, Mr Panton, he subsequently heard nothing from Margaret Hodge or Stephen Twigg and it was 2 more years before the police finally took action.

Stephen Twigg now needs to make a full & complete disclosure of his role in this horrendous case".

ENDS.