"He would come and show us magic tricks and tell us to make sure our parents voted for him"

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As the Leicester Mercury reported on Friday, Peter Farrands, a former teacher and scout master who sexually abused two schoolboys, has been jailed for seven years.

One of the victims, Robert Gibb, has waived his anonymity:

The court heard Gibb eventually told the defendant to stop the abuse when he was 13, and told his parents who complained to the headmaster – but he dismissed the boy as a liar. 

The defendant, headmaster and scout commissioner then visited Mr Gibb's family. 

The defendant begged them to take the matter no further, saying his wife would leave him.

This is a sickening demonstration of how the authorities used to collude to cover up abuse.

Farrands' case has attracted interest because of speculation that he is somehow connected with Greville Janner, the former Leicester MP against whom allegations of abuse have been made. (He and his family have always denied them.)

According to the Daily Mirror:

A spokeswoman for Leicestershire police refused to be drawn on whether the case is linked to Operation Enamel, the investigation into the Labour peer. 

She said: "As Operation Enamel is an ongoing investigation we would not identify any parties involved – victims, witnesses or suspects."

Robert Gibb remembers Janner:

"He would come and show us magic tricks and tell us to make sure our parents voted for him. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but looking back now it doesn’t look good."