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An independent consultant who works as an adviser to the government on its New Deal for Communities projects said he was "gobsmacked" by comments made about him by children and young people's minister Margaret Hodge.

Hodge wrote a private letter to the BBC's chairperson when she learned a reporter for the Today programme was investigating the case of Demetrious Panton, who claims he was abused in a children's home in the 1970s. She claimed Panton was an "extremely disturbed person".


Hodge was leader of Islington Council in 1985 when Panton made allegations of sexual abuse by the head of a children's home, which he says were ignored. Hodge said she was unaware of the claims while she was leader. The police investigated the claims after Panton approached them for the second time in 1996 but they were unable to track down the alleged abuser before he committed suicide three years ago.

Hodge said she was "taken aback" at Today's decision to make her private letter public and acknowledged that Panton's experiences in the 1970s were "dreadful".