Both Plummer and Pollard are warmly thanked in O’Carroll’s book, Paedophilia: The Radical Case (1980). In 2012, on his personal blog, Plummer wrote: “As homosexuality has become slightly less open to sustained moral panic, the new pariah of ‘child molester’ has become the latest folk devil.”

Last May, the Times journalist David Aaronovitch narrated a two-part investigation for BBC Radio 4’s Analysis. It sought to question how what were described as the “bizarre ideas” of Satanic abuse gained traction among police and social care professionals in the 1980s and early 1990s. Two of the contributors made formal complaints to the BBC for inaccuracy and bias following its broadcast.

I asked Aaronovitch whether he is concerned that his radio programmes could potentially contribute to a post-Savile backlash. However, his primary concern is not with the potential backlash against believing victims, but rather with a witch-hunt against potentially innocent victims of false allegations.

“The post-Savile hysteria is happening now,” he said, citing the number of accusations against VIPs that have yet to be proven. But will the doubt that he and others are casting — on whether organised abuse exists beyond rare exceptional cases — serve to cast doubt on those victims of abuse who are telling the truth? “No, we need to ensure that we identify false allegations.”

Judith Jones, a former senior social worker and expert in the effects of child sexual abuse on the victims, who was featured in the programme, disagrees: “We forget abuse memories because we can’t bear the truth. What David Aaronovitch is doing is suggesting that because wild claims of ritual abuse can be easily discredited then the hysteria about ‘ordinary abuse’ has gone too far. And yet he claims the opposite.”

Meanwhile, countless victims of horrendous sexual abuse in childhood are choosing not to disclose it to the police because of a fear that they will be told it was all their fault.