Private Eye's 1979 item on Cyril Smith

When the story about Cyril Smith abusing boys reappeared in the media last year I wrote:

I first heard of the allegations against Cyril Smith when I read them in Private Eye in 1979. The Eye had picked them up from the Rochdale Alternative Press (RAP - those were the days when any self-respecting town had an 'alternative' newspaper). Northern Voices reprinted the original RAP story in 2010. 

My instinct has always been to assume that they were true, if only because I could not see why anyone would trouble to invent anything so tawdry - he "'told me to take my trousers down and hit me four or five times on my bare buttocks" - about someone who was then only a local politician.

Thanks to Channel 4's excellent documentary last week, we now know that Smith's behaviour went much further than that.

Anyway, here is the item that appeared in Private Eye in 1979 - you will have to enlarge it to read it.

Thanks to The Needle.