Elm Guest House hoax

Common card · No. 217529

The Elm Guest House was a hotel in Rocks Lane, near Barnes Common in southwest London. In a list produced by convicted fraudster Chris Fay, several prominent British men were alleged to have engaged in sexual abuse and child grooming at the Guest House in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Labour MP Tom Watson, having heard testimony from Carl Beech, suggested, in an October 2012 statement to the House of Commons, that a paedophile network which had existed at this time may have brought children to parties at the private residence. During 2014 and 2015, allegations against several leading politicians of the period, mostly now deceased, were made public in the British press. Many of these claims were examined and discredited in an October 2015 episode of the BBC current affairs television programme, Panorama. The role of the guest house became the subject of a Metropolitan Police Service investigation known as Operation Fairbank in late 2012. The purpose of this "scoping exercise" was to assess...

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