42 Facts About Cyril Smith

Cyril Smith subsequently switched parties again and entered Parliament as a Liberal in 1972, winning his Rochdale seat on five further occasions.

Cyril Smith was appointed the Liberal Chief Whip in June 1975 but later resigned on health grounds.

In 2008, Cyril Smith said that 4,000 asbestos-related deaths a year in the UK was "relatively low".

In 2015, it emerged that Cyril Smith had been arrested in the early 1980s in relation to some of these offences; however, a high-level cover-up reportedly led to destruction of evidence, Cyril Smith's rapid release within hours, and the invocation of the Official Secrets Act to prevent the investigating officers from discussing the matter.

Cyril Smith was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, a mill town near Manchester that is known as the birthplace of the co-operative movement.

Cyril Smith said he was given an ultimatum by his manager in the tax office to either choose the civil service or politics.

The mill was owned by the Harveys, a notable Liberal family, but Cyril Smith claimed the director Charles Harvey knew nothing of his job application.

Cyril Smith was a lifelong member of the Rochdale Unitarian Church.

Cyril Smith served in many roles, including as Sunday School superintendent, trustee, and chair of the trustees.

Cyril Smith credited the church with "helping develop his fiercely independent and anti-establishment streak".

Cyril Smith joined the Liberal Party in 1945 and was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Young Liberals in 1948 and 1949.

In 1952, Cyril Smith was elected a Labour councillor for the Falinge ward of Rochdale.

In 1963 Cyril Smith switched committee roles to be responsible for Estates which included overseeing residential and town centre development.

Cyril Smith was appointed the Labour Mayor of Rochdale in 1966, with his mother, Eva, acting as mayoress.

In 1966, Cyril Smith resigned the Labour whip when the party refused to vote for an increase in council house rents and sat with four other councillors as independents until 1970.

Cyril Smith was appointed as the party Chief Whip in June 1975, and faced pressure from the press in the wake of a scandal involving party leader Jeremy Thorpe.

Cyril Smith was in hospital when Thorpe sacked him, just before he himself was forced to resign.

The man's mother repeatedly approached Cyril Smith for help, but he declined to take the case on.

In 1978, Cyril Smith approached former Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath to discuss forming a new centrist party.

Cyril Smith was quoted as being "opposed to an alliance at any price".

Cyril Smith said "the public at large are not at risk from asbestos" in his speech about a substance then long-known to be lethal if inhaled.

The controversy led, in November 2008, to a parliamentary early day motion that Cyril Smith be stripped of the knighthood he had been granted in 1988.

Cyril Smith liked to spend his holidays at Lytham St Annes, a seaside resort near Blackpool.

In February 2006, Cyril Smith was taken to hospital after collapsing at his Rochdale home.

Cyril Smith had been weakened by dehydration and low potassium levels.

Cyril Smith died of cancer in a Rochdale nursing home on 3 September 2010.

Cyril Smith had made detailed plans for his own funeral, which was held in the Great Hall of Rochdale Town Hall and included David Alton, the MEP Chris Davies, and former MP Paul Rowen as speakers.

Cyril Smith was a friend of the mother of broadcasters Andy and Liz Kershaw; she described him as dependent on Valium, but he denied these allegations.

The matter was investigated by the police, but Cyril Smith was not prosecuted.

Cyril Smith added that he told police about the incident in 1968 when he left the school, but that when he did so, "everyone made the same comment that the person in question was a very important, powerful man".

Neal said that he lost two front teeth and needed stitches to a head wound after Cyril Smith assaulted him for refusing to eat a potted meat sandwich.

On 27 November 2012, the Crown Prosecution Service said that Cyril Smith should have been charged with crimes of abuse more than 40 years earlier.

Cyril Smith was never charged, although investigations were undertaken in 1970,1998, and 1999.

The method of assessing the probability of a conviction has changed since 1970, and the decision not to charge Cyril Smith then necessitated the outcome of the 1998 investigation.

Cyril Smith was a governor at the school and allegedly had his own set of keys.

In September 2013, a Channel 4 Dispatches programme "The Paedophile MP: How Cyril Smith Got Away With It" quoted CPS as claiming that they had not prosecuted Smith for crimes of abuse because he had been given an assurance in 1970 that he would not be prosecuted, and that prevented them from subsequently reopening the investigation under the law at the time.

Danczuk, with researcher and campaigner Matthew Baker, published Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith, an expose of the child abuse committed by Smith.

Danczuk alleged that Cyril Smith was part of a high-level paedophile ring and that Cyril Smith had used his influence to escape prosecution.

In May 2014, it was alleged that Cyril Smith had molested an 11-year-old boy at the National Liberal Club in London in 1978.

Cyril Smith allegedly insisted that the boy remove his underpants before attempting to fondle him.

In July 2014, it was reported that Cyril Smith had put pressure on the BBC in 1976 by asking the corporation not to investigate the "private lives of certain MPs".

Shortly after, a BBC investigation on Newsnight revealed that Cyril Smith had been arrested in the early 1980s in relation to his participation in a paedophile ring, but a high-level cover-up reportedly led to him being released within hours, the evidence destroyed and the investigating officers prevented from discussing the matter under the Official Secrets Act.