In a debate which took place in the House of Lords yesterday on the Modern Slavery Bill, Lord Blackheath makes a startling revelation. He tells his fellow peers that whilst working for the Australian Civil Service in London, he was tasked with herding, as he puts it, small children on to boats at Tilbury, for transportation to Australia. Blackheath says:

“They did not have names; they did not know who their parents were, or where they came from, and they were completely terrified.” 

He recalls that at the time, he was “deeply suspicious” of this practice, and had a strong feeling that the children did not have the proper permissions to travel. Since then, he has been likened to Jimmy Savile, although to his credit, he does say his rap sheet is worse. Savile was responsible for abusing 300 children – Blackheath facilitated the abuse of 2,500 vulnerable minors, none of whom knew where their parents were, or what was happening to them. They were completely alone in the world. And yet Blackheath, with his strong suspicions, which included the belief that what he was being asked to do to those children was in fact illegal, chose to keep quiet.

You would think that after an admission like that, Blackheath would be a little more introspective. But no. No longer speaking in the first person he tells us:

“It involved many tens of thousands of children over 15 years; we should be deeply ashamed of it.”

The rest of Blackheath’s statement is equally interesting. He details how these children were shipped off to Australia (careful to mention this happens during a Labour government – Blackheath is a Tory boy); how the courts there refused to sanction any adoptions involving these children; and how subsequently, they all ended up on the streets. 2,500 children. On the streets. All on their own.

And then, he goes on to share his knowledge, common knowledge as it turns out, that many of these children over time were picked up by so called religious organisations who were in fact abusing children emotionally and physically. Two of these organisations appear to be infamous – The Sisters of Mercy, who were Catholic nuns, and the Christian Brothers, who were already known in government service as the “Christian buggers”. “Already known in government service”. How about that.

Blackheath also tells us:

“The rules of a Christian Brothers home were that if you were abused by one of the holy fathers, that was an act of god, and if you complained about the holy father, that was a sin against god and you would be flogged for it. By the way, the flogging was with a metal hacksaw replacement blade. It did not leave much of a kid… Any ship that was allowed to sail from that date on was allowed to sail in the knowledge that the inmates were going to be raped and abused.”

And yet Mr Blackheath did nothing. He did not utter a word.

A group of social workers at the time, though, did. And of course, they were ignored.

Blackheath goes on to detail separate accounts from this period of time, but his statement, which clearly goes off at a long and winding tangent – the Lords are supposed to be discussing amendments to the Bill – is cut short by time watching peers.

So why does Blackheath make this startling admission and swerve the debate completely off course? The amendment he was discussing was Amendment 6. This is what it says: