Islington victim to challenge Hodge

Children's Minister Margaret Hodge faces an election battle against a victim of the Islington child abuse scandal.

Demetrious Panton will run as an independent candidate against the MP, who led Islington council for 10 years while abuse went undetected in its care homes.

His campaign will embarrass Ms Hodge and set up a high-profile contest in her east London seat of Barking, reopening a row which nearly forced her to quit the Government in 2003.

Ms Hodge had to apologise in court, give £10,000 to charity and pay £10,000 costs after she branded Mr Panton an "extremely disturbedperson". The libel came in a letter sent by the minister to BBC chiefs as she put pressure on the Today programme to drop a report on child abuse.

Despite their legal skirmish, Ms Hodge and Mr Panton have never met. Their first face-to-face encounter could come on the campaign trail.

Mr Panton, 37, spent his childhood in Islington children's homes where he was abused in the Seventies by serial paedophile Bernie Bain and another staff member.

Both are now dead. Ms Hodge led the council from 1982 to 1992 before she became an MP in 1994. She maintains that Islington officials never passed on warnings about child abuse. Mr Panton claims she was told about the abuse problem but ignored it.

Although Barking is a safe Labour seat, the far-right British National Party is gaining ground and Mr Panton's intervention will make it one of the most closely-watched contests in London.

A former member of Labour, Mr Panton plans to raise £10,000 to fight the campaign and has taken advice on tactics from former independent MP Martin Bell.