UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Peter Walker
Monday 2 February 2015
Margaret Thatcher was adamant officials should not publicly name Sir Peter Hayman, a senior diplomat connected to a paedophile scandal, even after she had been fully briefed on his activities, examination of formerly secret papers released to the National Archives shows.
The 37-page file includes numerous handwritten notes and annotations by the late Conservative prime minister. It also reveals that security services were not initially informed about Hayman’s proclivities, as a secretary forgot to pass on a message to the relevant official and police neglected to follow up the matter.
The densely typed documents, which are available for view to the public for the first time on Tuesday, also describe how Hayman, who died in 1992, apparently arranged for “obscene correspondence” to be sent to the British high commission in Ottawa when he was the most senior diplomat there. A member of domestic staff at the mission was wrongly blamed at the time for the letters, which were sent to a false female name.
The file, compiled between October 1980 and March 1981, is made up of memos and background notes put together for Thatcher, then prime minister, and is littered with her handwritten notes, underlinings and crossings out.
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