Cyril Smith

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Sir Cyril Richard Smith (28 June 1928 – 3 September 2010) was a British Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochdale from 1972 to 1992. Smith was first active in local politics as a Liberal in 1945 before switching to Labour in 1950; he served as a Labour councillor in Rochdale, Lancashire, from 1950 and became mayor in 1966. He subsequently switched parties again and entered Parliament as a Liberal in 1972, winning his Rochdale seat on five further occasions. He was appointed the Liberal Chief Whip in June 1975 but later resigned on health grounds. In his later years as an MP, he opposed an alliance with the Social Democratic Party and did not stand for re-election in 1992; however, he remained loyal to the Liberal Democrats upon the parties' merger. Throughout much of his career, he maintained a high profile in the media and became a well-known public figure. In later years, Smith's public esteem was considerably marred by the allegation that he had been involved in a cover-up of a health risk at a local asbestos factory. In 2008, there were calls for him to be stripped of his knighthood after it was revealed that he had asked the asbestos company Turner & Newall to prepare a speech for him in 1981 in which he declared that "the public at large are not at risk from asbestos". It was later revealed that he owned 1,300 shares in the company. As early as 1979, a local underground magazine, the Rochdale Alternative Paper, alleged that in the 1960s Smith had spanked and sexually abused teenage boys in a hostel that he co-founded. The story was repeated by the magazine Private Eye. After his death, despite denials by his family, formal allegations...