Ahhh!! It Was Jimmy McAlpine

Jimmie McAlpine

On Thursday 8th November 2012, after considerable speculation, Lord McAlpine went public to deny that he was implicated in the North Wales child abuse scandal.

On that same day both The Guardian and The Telegraph carried stories which named Lord McAlpine’s cousin ‘Jimmy’ McAlpine as the likely child abuser as they declared that it must have been a case of ‘mistaken identity’.

But did The Guardian and The Telegraph know before hand about ‘Jimmy’ McAlpine’s child abusing ?

It seems unlikely as I’m sure that they would have considered it a big story in it’s own right.

I couldn’t possibly comment but I would like to note that the rest of the ‘exclusive’ that these two papers ran that day, including Lord McAlpine’s press statement looked to be fed directly from Lord McAlpine.

Did the revelation about ‘Jimmy’ McAlpine being a child abuser of North Wales care home children also come from Lord McAlpine ?

And if so had he talked to the police about this when they were investigating this in the early 1990s ? Has he talked to the Operation Pallial police about what he knows ?

Gerwyn Hall, a grand Georgian house hidden by woodland from the public road, was occupied by Jimmie McAlpine, who died in 1991, six years before the Waterhouse inquiry began. Jimmie’s wife, Cynthia, still living at the hall, declined to talk when approached by the Guardian.

Jimmie McAlpine chaired the north of England builders Alfred McAlpine Ltd. His Times obituary recorded: “His other main interest was vintage cars, and he amassed what was at one time the biggest private collection in Britain.”

The Waterhouse inquiry, when it attempted to investigate the McAlpine allegations, recorded: “According to [Messham’s] statement to the police, X [the letter assigned to conceal the identity of the McAlpine family member] had several different motor cars and would wait for him at the bottom of Bryn Estyn Lane.”

The Guardian