Galloway writes of abuse as child

The Bow and Bethnal Green MP said the checks were worth it

George Galloway has said he was abused as a child, in a column lending support to the government's vetting system for people who work with children.

The Respect MP said, in his column for the Daily Record, he had been abused by a school caretaker when he was 11.

He said he had not even told his wife about what happened at the hands of an "aggressive predator".

Several authors oppose new rules that they must pay to be vetted to work with children for school visits.

But in his regular column for the newspaper, Mr Galloway said if the rules saved even one child from the "horrors" of sexual abuse, they would be worth it.

The Bethnal Green and Bow MP wrote: "I'm not saying the abuse has ruined my life or anything. I've had a happy life. But it did affect my life and not in a good way and neither in ways I care to rehearse before you.

"Every time a Soham murderer or a Dunblane Thomas Hamilton emerges, I die a little inside as I remember that dirty old man driven by the same perverted interest in sexually attacking kids."

The twice-married MP added: "I told no one, not even my wives, of what happened to me. All I feel is ashamed, though I was the child victim and he the aggressive predator."

The new rules are being brought in following the murders of schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by school caretaker Ian Huntley, in Soham, in 2002.