Got a response today from HCs "We've got this on our bug list to investigate and fix in the next game update. Thanks for reporting this"
The char is up to lvl44 now and several other quests are not accessable so I did a bit more searching. After alot of running about and looking for quests, it turns out I needed to join the army and council (which I hadn't done as I was just wanting to lvl ste73 up).
Once I had joined both, the perils quest plus all the others I wasn't able to access could then be started.
Those having the same problem, check to make sure you have joined both arcane council and army then have another go at accessing the quest.