Cyril Smith

At 82 years old, Cyril Smith has this physical status:

Sir Cyril Smith (28 June 1928 – September 30, 2010) for Rochdale was a British Liberal Member of Parliament (MP).

Hundreds of allegations of child sexual assault by Smith emerged after his death (including some that occurred during his lifetime), leading to the police to suspect that Smith was a serial sex criminal; he served as a Labour councillor in Rochdale from 1950 to 1966.

He later shifted parties and joined Parliament in 1972 as a Liberal, winning his Rochdale seat on five other occasions.

Smith was elected Liberal Chief Whip in June 1975, but later resigned due to health problems.

Smith opposed the Social Democratic Party in his later years as an MP, but remained steadfast in the Liberal Party even after the party's merger.

He remained a prominent public figure for a large portion of his career and rose to a high profile in the media and became a well-known celebrity. His fame in later years was seriously harmed by allegations that he was complicit in the concealment of a health hazard at a local asbestos plant.

Following the revelation that Smith had ordered Turner & Newall to schedule a speech for him in 1981, there had been calls for him to be stripped of his knighthood in 2008.

Smith owned 1,300 shares in the company when it was revealed later.

Smith estimated that there were 4,000 asbestos-related deaths per year in the UK in 2008, which was "relatively low." Following allegations of child violence, the Crown Prosecution Service formally confirmed that Smith should have been charged with the sexual assault of boys throughout his lifetime.

The boys were "affected by physical and sexual violence," according to Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

There was "overwhelming evidence" that young boys were sexually and physically assaulted by Smith in November 2012.

There had been 144 complaints against Smith from victims as young as eight, but attempts to sue him had always been blocked.

Smith's offences have been covered up by public agencies, including Rochdale Council, the police and intelligence services.

Smith had been arrested in the early 1980s in connection with these offences, but according to reports, a high level cover-up led to his freedom within hours, the evidence was lost, and investigators were forbidden from discussing the matter under the Official Secrets Act.

Early years

Cyril Smith was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, a mill town near Manchester that is regarded as the co-operative movement's birthplace. Smith referred to himself as "illegitimate, impoverished, and poor." "I suspect I know who he was," he said, despite the fact that he never knew the name of his father. In a one-down one-down cottage (demolished in 1945) on Falinge Road, Smith lived with his mother Eva, grandmother, and two half-siblings, Eunice and Norman. Eva Smith, a domestic servant for a local cotton mill owned by a family.

Smith was educated at Rochdale Grammar School for Boys. Since leaving school, he began working at the Rochdale Inland Revenue Tax Office. In the 1945 general election, aged 16, he gave a public address in favor of Liberal candidate Charles Harvey. Smith said he was given an ultimatum by his tax office's boss to choose either the civil service or politics. He left his tax office and became an office boy at Fothergill & Harvey's Mill in Littleborough. The Harveys, a prominent Liberal family, owned the mill, but Smith said Charles Harvey was unaware of his work application.

Smith was a life member of the Rochdale Unitarian Church. Contemporaries recalled him as a youth, aspiring to be both mayor and Member of Parliament (MP). Smith served in many capacities, including as Sunday School superintendent, trustee, and chair of the trustees. His Unitarian faith and Liberal politics were interwoven with his Liberal politics. Smith credited the church with "assisting in the growth of his fiercely independent and anti-establishment streak."

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Political career

Smith joined the Liberal Party in 1945 and was a member of the Young Liberal National Executive Committee in 1948 and 1949. He served in Stockport from 1948 to 1950, but after the party's poor election results in 1950 and 1951, Reg Hewitt, the losing Liberal candidate, was advised to join the Labour Party.

Smith was elected a Labour councillor for Rochdale's Falinge ward in 1952. He was chairman of Rochdale Council's Establishment Committee by 1954. In 1963, Smith transitioned to Estates, which included responsibility for residential and town center construction. He was elected Labour Mayor of Rochdale in 1966, with his mother, Eva, acting as mayoress (although not in the post). Smith's mother was refused admission to the police station, although she was also based in the building, because she would search through its bins for details to assist her son.

In an episode called "Santa Claus for a Year" on the BBC, Smith's mayoral duties were filmed for the BBC's Man Alive documentary film series. He was named chairman of the Education Committee in 1966, which was in charge of the introduction of comprehensive education in the district. In the Queen's Birthday Honours, he was named Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Smith was found guilty of an offence relating to public lotteries and bound to keep the peace for a year, according to his autobiography.

Smith resigned from the Labour whip in 1966 after the party refused to vote for a rise in council house rents and sat with four other councillors as independents until 1970. After being elected as a Liberal candidate in 1958 Rochdale, his return to the Liberal Party and his election as a Liberal MP surprised some. When Rochdale Liberals' parliamentary candidate, Garth Pratt, was disapproved to allow Smith's return to the party, scandal was ignited.

Smith served on several Rochdale Council commissions regarding youth issues during the 1960s. They included: Rochdale Youth Orchestra, Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, governorship of 29 Rochdale schools, and Education Committee chairmanship.

Smith, who was a Liberal candidate in Rochdale at the 1970 general election as he led the party to second place, was re-elected in 1972 by a large vote of Labour to the Liberals with a majority of 5,171.

Smith was elected as the party's Chief Whip in June 1975, and the media brought him under fire in the aftermath of a controversy involving party leader Jeremy Thorpe. Smith was in hospital when Thorpe fired him, right before he was compelled to resign. David Steel reflected on events in the 1970s with the words: "Cyril was not an ideal Chief Whip because he did not know a crisis well and had a tendency to say nothing to a news camera." Smith was the only Liberal MP during his parliamentary career to condemn abortion and call for the reinstatement of the death penalty. In what turned out to be a miscarriage of justice, one of his constituents was sentenced to sixteen years in prison for the sexual murder of a child. The man's mother had repeatedly asked Smith for assistance, but the prosecutor refused to investigate the situation.

Smith met with former Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath in 1978 to discuss the formation of a new centrist party. Smith called UK unemployment figures of two million jobless people "a disgrace," adding, "They represent a sick society and are not acceptable to live with." In 1981, he was involved in attempts to create "a new image" but the Rochdale Observer warned Liberal colleagues to proceed with caution. Smith was referred to as being "opposed to an alliance at any cost." He'd later comment that the Liberal Party would have been "better off" without being "shackled to the SDP." After David Alton's 1988 bill to reduce the time limit for abortions was discussed by MPs, he referred to other members as "murderers in the womb." Smith was compelled to apologise for the remark by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In 2008, a New Statesman accused Smith of misconduct in his relationship with Turner & Newall (T&N), which was based in his constituency, and was once the world's largest manufacturer of asbestos-based materials. Smith wrote to Sydney Marks, T&N's chief of staff, in 1981, noting that EEC laws would be discussed in the upcoming parliamentary session. Smith's House of Commons speech was almost identical to one prepared for him by the corporation. In his address of a drug long thought to be lethal if inhaled, he said "the people at large are not at risk from asbestos." He revealed 1,300 shares in T&N a year later. Smith replied to allegations that he was involved in the hiding of asbestos as "complete garbage" when being interviewed in September 2008 by a local BBC news show. He was dubbed "a corrupt, male mountain of flesh" by journalist Oliver Kamm in his blog in The Times.

The uproar in November 2008 culminated in a parliamentary early day motion demanding that Smith be stripped of the knighthood he had been granted in 1988. The Daily Mirror's Kevin Maguire supported the cause.

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