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Files reveal who turned Elm Guest House into paedo brothel

Coded newspaper ads hinted: guest house was for men who wanted sex with boys

By David Pallister and David Hencke | 2 February 2013

Files reveal who turned Elm Guest House into paedo brothelPapers seized by police name the man who helped turn a guest house into a paedophile brothel allegedly used by MPs and other VIPs.

Exaro can reveal that the key figure who persuaded Carole Kasir, co-manager of the guest house, to create a haven for homosexual men to have sex with boys is Peter Glencross, who was part of an underground paedophile network called ‘Spartacus’.

The evidence, seen by Exaro, raises serious questions for the many MPs of all main political parties and other VIPs who, according to the papers, visited Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London.

It comes as detectives interview victims, and prepare to make initial arrests and lay charges as part of ‘Operation Fernbridge’ – within weeks.

The Metropolitan Police Service is planning to hold a press conference soon afterwards to encourage more victims to come forward.

Peter Spindler, the Met commander, is expected to be at the press conference, accompanied by Tom Watson, the campaigning MP, plus a representative of the NSPCC, the charity aimed at preventing cruelty to children.

The Met last month launched a full criminal investigation into allegations that many prominent people, including politicians, abused boys in the early 1980’s at the guest house.

That move came after Exaro made a series of revelations about the case. In a joint investigation last weekend, Exaro and the Sunday People disclosed how a Conservative party campaign group “strongly recommended” the guest house to members in a newsletter.

Papers relating to the guest house name its alleged VIP visitors.

Detectives seized the papers in a raid last month. The papers suggest that two men persuaded Carole Kasir to change the guest house into a place for homosexual men in 1982.

According to the files, they introduced her to Glencross, a South African based in Holland, one of whose roles was to create a network of venues for Spartacus members.

Spartacus International, a gay guide, identified Glencross as its commercial manager. The Spartacus Club used it to attract members.

A German company has since taken over Spartacus International, and transformed it into a respectable publisher of gay guides.

Carole Kasir, who died at the age of 47 in 1990, may have been unaware of Glencross’s connection with Spartacus. But the guest house placed advertisements in the gay Press that signalled it as a place for homosexuals who want to have sex with boys.

The advertisements included the line: “10% Discount to Spartacus Club Members.” Any Spartacus member, and many other paedophiles, would have understood the coded reference.

Exaro revealed an example of these advertisements, from London’s Capital Gay newspaper a fortnight ago, at the same time as tracking down the surviving co-manager of Elm Guest House, Haroon, or “Harry”, Kasir, whose home has also been raided by police. He is refusing to comment.

Spartacus Club and Spartacus International were then run from Amsterdam by John Stamford, a former Roman Catholic priest from Lancashire, who moved to Holland after being convicted in England of sending pornographic material through the post. The club was reported to have 25,000 British members.

The group was named after the leader of the Roman slave revolt, who has long been a gay icon, especially after the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film in which the character of Crassus, a senator, is helped to bathe by his young slave, Antoninus.

Stamford masqueraded as a libertarian gay, but championed the Paedophile Information Exchange, a network promoting sex with children. There is no trace of Glencross after 1989.

Between 1979 and 1985, Stamford also published PAN, or Paedo Alert News, which described itself as a “magazine about boy-love.”

Spartacus was exposed by The Sunday Times in 1986. Undercover reporters were offered two boys in Manila, aged 8 and 14. Stamford was quoted as saying: “If you are discreet, I can guarantee you will get as many boys as you want in the Philippines.

“Our chaps there will fix it up, and all it will cost you is a meal for the guides, and just the equivalent of a pound or so for the kid per night.”

Stamford died, aged 56, in prison of a heart attack in Belgium in 1995 just before he was due to stand trial on child sex charges.

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By Exaro News

Exaro News investigates matters of public interest and seeks to uncover the truth.