‘Darren’ relives horrifying attack by key figure who supplied boys for sex abuse by MPs
By Tim Wood | 26 February 2015
Police are assessing allegations that paedophile Peter Righton carried out a sadistic murder while living in hiding in a country estate in Suffolk.
A survivor of child sex abuse, known as “Darren” to protect his identity, told Exaro and police how he witnessed a harrowing assault by a man named in Parliament as being a linchpin in a paedophile ring that links to the top of British politics. Darren believes that the horrific attack on a man with Down’s syndrome who had irritated Righton left the victim dead.
Righton was using Thornham Magna estate in Suffolk as a bolthole after fleeing his home in Evesham, Worcestershire. He fled his home because he had been charged with possessing obscene images of children, for which he was convicted in September 1992.
Darren also believes that the murder victim was buried in a make-shift grave on the estate. He said: “Peter had the run of the place, and could order people about. I was frightened of him, and he had an air of menace about him.
“He repeatedly raped me in his cottage on the estate. Peter could be very kind and charming, but could quickly switch to violence if you disobeyed him. I was 15, scared, and did as I was told. I was in care, and had no one to turn to for help.”
Righton rented a cottage on the estate, where he lived until his death in 2007. Tom Watson, Labour MP, suggested in Parliament in October 2012 that Righton was a key figure behind a powerful network of paedophiles that linked to Downing Street, but that police had failed to investigate this.
He was sent to Thornham Magna estate in 1992 at the age of 15 for work experience.
On a daily basis, he was driven to the secluded estate on a special bus that also took Down’s syndrome sufferers from a residential home to work on the estate.
Lord Henniker, a former UK ambassador who died in 2004, owned the 2,500-acre estate at the time.
Darren knew the victim of Righton’s brutal attack only as Andrew, a Down’s syndrome sufferer who worked on the estate. Darren said that Andrew was in his mid-30’s, and described him as being chubby, with dark hair and about five foot, seven inches tall.
“Andrew and I used to work together a lot. We had to deliver wood to Peter’s cottage and, at first, Andrew would not let me go near him. I think that he was trying to protect me.
“I believe that he was killed because he had been going up to girls on the estate, and touching their faces, and waving at them. It was a lesson for him and the rest of us.”
Two days before the attack, Righton ordered Darren, Andrew, and another man to dig six grave-sized trenches.
Darren said: “Peter did not use the word, ‘graves’, when he told us to start digging. He may have used the word, ‘trench’, but they exactly matched the size of a grave.
“He just gave us the measurements, and said that he wanted them four-foot deep. We were told to dig four in a field, and another two in some woods on the estate.
“It took us the whole day, and I remember one was particularly difficult to dig because it was very stony, hard ground.”
Two days later, Darren said that he was ordered, on behalf of Righton, to go to a parking area on the estate.
“I got there as fast as I could because I was terrified of Peter.”
When Darren arrived at the parking area, he saw Andrew lying on the ground between a pick-up truck and a car. The vehicles were facing each other.
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