This week the Mail published a major exposé revealing how three senior Labour Party figures gave their support in the 1970s to a vile organisation that tried to legalise sex with children.

At the time, the trio — Harriet Harman (now deputy Labour leader), Patricia Hewitt (who was Health Secretary in the Blair government) and Jack Dromey (now a member of Ed Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet) — held key roles in the human rights campaign group the National Council For Civil Liberties (NCCL).

Harman was legal officer, Hewitt its general secretary and Dromey was on the executive committee.

Now the police have launched an investigation into the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), the group to which the NCCL offered its backing, after allegations that its members sexually abused under-age children ‘on an industrial scale’.

Before the Mail published our exposé, we again submitted detailed questions to the Labour grandees and asked them to respond. None replied — although a spokesman for Harman said: ‘This story is untrue and ridiculous.’

Now the police have launched an investigation into the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), the group to which the NCCL offered its backing, after allegations that its members sexually abused under-age children ‘on an industrial scale’.

Before the Mail published our exposé, we again submitted detailed questions to the Labour grandees and asked them to respond. None replied — although a spokesman for Harman said: ‘This story is untrue and ridiculous.’

Here we pose vital questions which Harman, Hewitt and Dromey need to answer . . .

To Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and Jack Dromey

During your time with the NCCL, it gave significant support to PIE’s campaigns and causes. Do you now, in any way, regret this support or feel inclined to apologise to the many victims who suffered appalling abuse at the hands of the organisation you helped legitimise?

SINCE launching our investigation into the way you gave succour to a vile group that tried to legalise sex with children, none of you has apologised. Why?

To Patricia Hewitt  and Jack Dromey

Under your leadership, the NCCL granted formal ‘affiliate’ status in 1975 to the PIE. Why did you allow your organisation to be associated with an outfit that advocated the legalisation of paedophilia?

Shortly afterwards, the PIE submitted a report to MPs claiming that ‘girls as young as four months can achieve orgasm’, and that four-year-old children can ‘communicate verbally their consent to sex’.

Given this utterly repellent line of argument, why did you let the organisation remain affiliated to your NCCL?

Under your leadership, the NCCL issued a written submission in 1976 to Parliament’s Criminal Law Commission.

It claimed: ‘Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage.’ On what basis, scientific or otherwise, did you make this extraordinary claim?

The same document argued that it was ‘logical’ but ‘not politically possible’ that the age of consent should be abolished. What, in your view, is so ‘logical’ about abolishing the age of consent?

Your submission also advocated the lowering of the age of consent to 14, or ten ‘provided it is demonstrated that consent was clearly given by the child’.

Do you still believe this should be the case? And how on earth do you suppose a ten-year-old can ‘clearly give’ consent?

In addition , the submission proposed that ‘the crime of incest be abolished’, arguing that the suggestion that genetic damage may result from children born of incestuous unions ‘is in direct contradiction to the practices of successful animal breeders’. Do you still take this extraordinary view?

The section of your 1976 report to MPs advocating legalisation of incest argued that ‘bringing in the law’ when a minor has been abused by an adult ‘could do immense harm to the child’ and that ‘publicity in the local press and the reaction of neighbours’ during a trial is often more damaging to the victim than the actual crime. What evidence did you have to support this highly controversial claim?

To Harriet Harman

The NCCL’s controversial affiliation with the PIE, its support for lowering (or even abolishing) the age of consent, and its demand for the legalisation of incest were all widely reported throughout the 1970s.

Why, given these morally offensive views, did you take a job with the NCCL in 1978?

As the NCCL’s legal officer, you wrote and signed a four-page submission to MPs seeking to water down a proposed ban on child pornography.

Your briefing paper argued that ‘images of naked children should only be considered pornographic if it could be proven that the subject had suffered’. Do you still hold these views?

To Patricia Hewitt and Jack Dromey

Given your positions of influence in the NCCL, were you aware that Harriet Harman sought to water down the 1978 child pornography law, and if you were, why did you not try to prevent it?

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The full extent of the shocking links between three senior Labour figures and a vile group that tried to legalise sex with children can be exposed today.

The trio held key roles in a human rights organisation that supported the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange.

Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman, her husband, home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, and former health secretary Patricia Hewitt were all leading officials in the National Council for Civil Liberties.

Astonishingly this Left-wing group granted ‘affiliate’ status to PIE and built close links with it.

The group of predatory paedophiles was calling for the age of consent to be cut to just four.

Police are now investigating PIE as part of Operation Fernbridge, launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

A senior source on the investigation says there is evidence PIE members were abusing children ‘on an industrial scale’.

The Home Office is also probing shocking claims that the Labour government of the 1970s may have helped finance the paedophile group.

Civil servants are trawling through decades of files after an ‘insider’ claimed tens of thousands of pounds were funnelled to PIE in the form of annual grants to the network of child abusers while James Callaghan was in Downing Street.

A Daily Mail investigation has discovered that during the 1970s and 1980s:

* Miss Hewitt described PIE in glowing terms as ‘a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children’;

* The NCCL lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be cut to ten – if the child consented and ‘understood the nature of the act’.

* It called for incest to be legalised in what one MP dubbed a ‘Lolita’s charter’;

* The NCCL claimed research shows young paedophile victims are often ‘consenting or even the initiators of the sexual acts involved’;

* It filed a submission to Parliament claiming that ‘childhood sexual experiences,   willingly engaged in, with an adult, result in no identifiable damage’.

*  Miss Harman, as NCCL legal officer, tried to water down child pornography laws.

*  NCCL lawyers acted for a PIE member who was quizzed by police over appalling behaviour.

The Mail has repeatedly sent detailed questions to Miss Harman, Miss Hewitt and Mr Dromey about their links to PIE and whether they now regret supporting such a vile group. Neither Miss Hewitt nor Mr Dromey replied.

A spokesman for Miss Harman said: ‘This story is untrue and ridiculous.’

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