Former MP Harvey Proctor arrives at Newcastle Crown Court this morning
Former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor today slammed the claims of ‘Nick’ – the alleged fantasist who accused him of child rape and murder – as ‘wrong, malicious, false, horrendous’.
Breaking down and weeping in the dock he shared his horror at the thought anyone could possibly believe him capable of the ‘heinous’ crimes of which he was accused.
And he said he had called his extraordinary 2015 press conference, in which he laid out the vile allegations, to ‘declare his innocence from the rooftops’.
Beech claimed that when he was a child of around 12 in 1980, Proctor demanded oral sex, abused him with a pen knife, and murdered two children, one after tying him to a table, raping, and stabbing him.
Proctor was one of a dozen prominent men Beech accused of heinous child abuse, including former PM Ted Heath and former army head Lord Brammal.
At Newcastle Crown Court today prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC began by asking Mr Proctor, who was MP for Basildon and for Billericay between 1979 and 1987: ‘You have been accused of the murder of children and of sadistic sexual offending what do you say to that?’
Standing up tall, wearing a grey suit and gold tie, he answered: ‘The allegations are wrong, malicious, false, horrendous.’
Mr Proctor wept in the dock as he told how Operation Midland detectives descended on his home at Belvoir Castle estate in Rutland, where he worked for the 11th Duke of Rutland.
And he described the Metropolitan Police’s statement that Carl Beech’s evidence was ‘credible and true’ as ‘utterly balderdash.’
Mr Proctor said today the accusations were ‘wrong, malicious, false, horrendous’
Mr Proctor said that he received a knock on the door on March 4 2015 to find a detective from the Metropolitan Police murder squad.
He said he was told that a search of his property was being done in connection with ‘historic child sexual abuse’, explaining how the search ran from 8am for around 15 hours.
Of the detectives, he said: ‘I asked more questions of them than I got answers. They weren’t very forthcoming with what it was that I was supposed to have done.’
He said he was fearful that the media may be informed after his experience in 1987 when he admitted gross indecency charges following a homosexual relationship.
He said: ‘I was fearful knowing what happened in 1986 and 1987 whether I would be identified. He said I would not. I said I would therefore issue no statement if I was not identified.
‘I didn’t know it at the time but subsequently learnt that a member of a rather odd internet news agency called Exaro had telephoned my office and sent an email asking to confirm whether or not my home was being searched. This is two and a half hours before the police left my home.
‘I am told Scotland Yard issued a statement. They said something along the line of a 60-year-old’s house near Grantham, had been searched in connection with Operation Midland etc.
‘I was trying to be as helpful as I could to the police in trying and difficult circumstances not knowing what it was all about.
‘Certainly knowing I had nothing to do with anything that could be of interest to the murder squad. I was tired, fearful and nervous of what had transpired that day I didn’t go to sleep until 1am on the Thursday morning.
‘I was not arrested. At the very earliest opportunity I said I wanted to be interviewed to discover what it was I was alleged to have done, not the generality but the detail and to make it clear I had nothing to do with historic child sexual abuse.’
He broke down in tears as he recounted seeing his face ‘looking back at me’ on the television the following morning.
‘There was a story running at the head of the BBC news on TV that my house had been searched in connection with historic child sexual abuse including child murders.’
He then called Radio 4, which was covering the raid, and denied any involvement in the offences alleged live on air.
Mr Proctor had sharp criticism of the Metropolitan Police, who in December the previous year had described the account from Beech – then known as ‘Nick’ – as ‘credible and true.’
As a result of those words Mr Proctor was dismissed from his job organising weddings and events on the Duke and Duchess of Rutland’s estate.
He said: ‘There was intense media interest and pressure placed upon my employers to get me to retire and, if I would not retire, to sack me.
‘They were working on the principle based on the words of the Metropolitan Police – ‘credible and true.’
‘Detective Superintendent Kenny Mcdonald of the murder squad held a press conference in December 2014 before the start of any Metropolitan Police investigations and declared that he thought the person making these allegations was credible and true.
‘I thought it was an extraordinary statement to be made by a senior police officer at the start of any investigation.
‘At that time I did not know they referred to me. When I realised it did refer to me I knew It was utterly balderdash and the most extraordinary thing.’
Carl Beech, 51, on trial at Newcastle Crown Court accused of perverting the course of justice
Shortly after his home was raided as part of Operation Midland, Mr Proctor (pictured) gave an extraordinary press conference at which he outlined and denied the accusations
When he became aware of the details of the allegations Mr Proctor was horrified.
He said: ‘They were horrendous, horrible, heinous allegations, the worst thing one human being can say about another, it was all untrue.
‘How did I feel? On the one hand I was horrified anyone would feel I was capable of doing any of that, on the other I would feel relieved. I knew what I was being accused of and could fight back against these false allegations.’
Several months later he was finally given the witness statement ‘Nick’ had given to read.
In mid June 2015 he discovered he had been accused of strangling one boy to death and with others beating to death another. And he was also being accused of a part in the hit and run murder of a third. Beech claimed Mr Proctor had been involved in multiple rapes and beatings.
He told the court: ‘I considered the document with my solicitors and took it home and read it and re-read it several times, thinking ‘I have done none of this.’
‘I thought the best thing to do was explain the situation, to deny all of the allegations made in this document against me, but in the spirit of trying to help the police understand why they had got it wrong.
‘It was a relief I now knew what I faced, which I had not known for three and a half months, finally I knew what I was up against.
‘The difficulty was defending myself against these monstrous allegations. How do you defend yourself from things that didn’t happen?
‘I thought it was going to be very difficult to prove where I was at any one particular time. The range of dates was so great that it would be impossible prove where I was over a period of 18 months.
‘But I knew I could go into the interview and tell the Metropolitan Police detectives that they had got it absolutely wrong.’
The jury have been shown pictures of Carl Beech aged around 10 in his final year of primary school when he claimed the abuse began
Mr Proctor described being ‘very direct and forceful with police in a six-hour interview on June 18 2015.
He said: ‘I’d wanted the opportunity to put my side of the case and question the police officers about what they said I had done. It was tiring answering questions for such a period of time on a subject that was unpleasant and distasteful. I had a duty to myself to persuade the police they were being taken for a ride.’
He said afterwards he told the media what he had said to the police: ‘That I was not responsible for any of the horrendous things placed in that disclosure document.’
In August 2015 he underwent a second interview for a further two hours.
He said: ‘I was shown an image of a pen-knife, two or possibly three A4 sheets with a badly photographed image of a pen-knife. None of us in the room could read what was supposed to be written on the handle.
‘My understanding, in this fantasy world, was that I was supposed to have taken my pen knife – I have never owned a pen knife – and threatened to cut the genitals of the person I then knew as Nick and further that I was only persuaded not to do so by the intervention of another male person present who i believed was Edward Heath.’
Mr Badenoch asked: ‘Was there any truth in that?’
He replied: ‘There was no truth that I ever owned a pen knife in my life, it was not true that I threatened to cut the genitals of any person and it was entirely untrue that I was in or could conceivably be in the presence of Mr Edward Heath alone, the two of us, utter nonsense.’
On 25th August 2015 he called a press conference.
He said: ‘I couldn’t wait for the Metropolitan Police to take this snail’s pace investigation, which appeared to be going nowhere as far as I was concerned. I wanted to declare my innocence from the rooftops.’
Mr Proctor said: ‘I wanted to declare my innocence. Secondly to try to persuade others to investigate these matters to also establish my innocence.’
One of Beech’s allegations is that Mr Proctor was at one time restrained from murdering a child by the only other adult in the room: Prime Minister Ted Heath.
Today he explained that he and Heath loathed each other.
He explained: ‘The antithesis of friends. If I met Mr Heath walking down the House of Commons corridor, if he couldn’t avoid me he would walk past with his nose in the air, disgusted to cross my path. The feeling was entirely mutual.’
He went on: If he had invited me to his house I would have declined the invitation, he was certainly not welcome to my house. Ever. I have never been to his house and I’m pretty sure I would not have known where it was.’
Carl Beech wrote that he hoped Mr Proctor ‘looked scared’ when his house was raided in 2015 and that he hoped he would see him in court. Today he got his wish – but it is Beech rather than Mr Proctor who is in the dock, accused of perverting the court of justice by giving police and invented account that sparked the £2m Operation Midland investigation which found no evidence and made no arrests.
Beech gave a sobbing account to Metropolitan Police detective James Townly in November 2014 of how he watched a boy stabbed, raped and eventually strangled to death by Mr Proctor.
Several times in his recorded police interview Beech appeared to be overcome by the horrifying memories he was recalling. But the harrowing testimony was a lie from beginning to end, prosecutors have told the jury.
Beech claimed: ‘It happened somewhere in London when I was about 12 in 1980.
‘Harvey opened the door, we were taken to a back room and there was another man there, I don’t know who he was.
‘Harvey hit him (the other boy) just a couple of times, he didn’t resist him really.
‘He took his clothes off, they tied him to the table, Harvey had a knife to his throat but I didn’t hear what he was saying.
‘He stabbed the knife into his arm and his whole body lifted up off the table with the pain.
‘All I could hear was his muffled screams. He kept hitting him, kept hitting him.
‘They left the room, they just left us and we tried to untie him but we couldn’t.’
At this point in the police interview Beech began sobbing.
The charges relate to claims Beech made that former PM Edward Heath (left), ex-home secretary Leon Brittan (right) and others including Proctor were part of a child abuse ring
He went on: ‘I couldn’t untie him. He just kept saying that he was sorry, that’s all he said: ‘I’m sorry’. There was so much blood, so much blood.
‘They wanted to hurt him some more. Harvey untied him and raped him. I pleaded with them to stop but they didn’t listen.
‘They said it would be me next, Harvey grabbed me, he put me onto the table and raped me.
‘Harvey put his hands around his neck, he (the boy) reached for my hand. He gave up, he gave up he didn’t struggle.
‘I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t do anything. He died. I could still feel his hand in my hand.
‘When they came back in they laughed, they just laughed and he was just laid there.’
He claims he was later present when Mr Proctor and another man beat another boy to death with their bare hands while former Home Secretary Leon Brittan watched.
Mr Proctor’s home was searched in 2015 in the wake of the allegations and he later held an incendiary press conference to deny Beech’s accusations.
Harvey Proctor resigned his seat in Parliament in 1987 after becoming embroiled in a scandal over the use of male prostitutes, including some allegedly between the ages of 17 and 20 when the legal age of consent for homosexual activity was 21.
He was outed by the Sunday People and tried and convicted of gross indecency.
The age of consent has since been lowered to 16 and the conviction is eligible to be expunged on application.
The Met Police spent 18 months and £2m on Beech’s claims of a Westminster paedophile ring
Beech is on trial for claiming £22,000 criminal injuries compensation under false pretences and perverting the course of justice through lies which implicated Mr Proctor alongside Sir Edward Heath, Leon Brittan, army Commander-in-Chief Lord Bramall and the heads of MI5 and MI6.
When prosecutors laid out their claims against Beech at the opening of the trial opened, the court heard:
- Beech is a convicted paedophile who pleaded guilty after police found indecent images of young boys, including some recorded by Beech, on devices in his home
- He fled to Sweden once police closed in and lived in a remote cabin in the woods under a series of assumed identities and false names
- He claimed to have sketched the locations at which abuse took place from memory – but his laptop showed he had googled them before speaking to police
- He claimed not to have researched the men he accused – but had googled them
- He claimed his abusers mowed down and killed a boy, ‘Scott’, whom he tried to befriend – but the boy did not exist. He was shown in police footage telling officers about this fictitious incident
- He claimed a fellow victim, ‘Fred’ could corroborate his story – but in fact he made up the friend and posed as ‘Fred’, fabricating emails to police
- He claimed he had been regularly taken out of school to be abused by multiple men at ‘parties’ – but his attendance at his schools was exemplary
- He claimed he had a lifelong fear of water, abused by the men, who dunked him and threw him off boats – but photos show him snorkelling on honeymoon
- He produced an ‘abuse map’ of the places and ways his body was tortured – but his medical records show no evidence of abuse
- He claimed he was abused on beds in cabins on Ted Heath’s yacht – but the vessel was a racing yacht and only had hammocks
- He claimed MP Harvey Proctor had threatened to cut his genitals off with a pen-knife Proctor later gifted to Beech. He gave the knife to police asking for forensic tests – but his estranged wife told police he’d kept it in a ‘happy memories’ box
- He had googled how victims of Jimmy Savile received compensation
- He bought a £34,000 convertible Mustang with the compensation payout he received for the alleged abuse
- He was in debt and living grossly beyond his means, intending to make money on the international speaking circuit, speaking about his ‘abuse’
The charges relate to claims Beech made that former prime minister Edward Heath (left), ex-home secretary Leon Brittan (right) and others were part of a child abuse ring
Beech’s claims led to raids on the homes of prominent and elderly people including Harvey Proctor.
Beech’s extraordinary unfounded accusations were levelled against a list of prominent men including:
- Former PM Sir Edward Heath: he said he was sexually abused at Heath’s home in London and on his yacht
- Former head of the army Lord Brammall: he said Brammall repeatedly raped him and was present at the first meeting of ‘the group’
- Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor: he said Proctor demanded oral sex, abused him with a pen knife, and murdered two children, one after tying him to a table, raping, and stabbing him
- Former head of MI5 Michael Hanley, and former head of MI6 Maurice Oldfield: said to be responsible for abuse and torture including spiders being tipped over him, electric shocks, and having darts thrown at him, culminating in threats ‘to make him disappear’
- His step-father, Major Ray Beech: he said his step-father frequently and repeatedly abused, raped, and beat him, the first time in a public toilet at a wildlife park
- Former Home Secretary Leon Brittan: He said Brittan murdered a child, describing him as a ‘mini-Harvey’ who was sadistic and enjoyed putting his head under water
In all, Beech accused 12 men: Major Ray Beech, his step-father; Lt General Beach; General Gibbs; Lord Brammall; Jimmy Savile; Peter Hayman; Harvey Proctor; Leon Brittan; Greville Janner; Edward Heath; Michael Hanley; Maurice Oldfield.
Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC said the 12-week trial would show Beech’s accusations against the men were ‘demonstrably untrue.’
The Metropolitan Police’s disastrous £2 million Operation Midland investigation into Beech’s unsubstantiated and unsupported claims collapsed in 2016 with no arrests, despite a senior detective saying Nick’s stories were ‘credible and true’.
The Met has since paid six-figure sums in compensation to distinguished former Field Marshall Lord Brammall and to Lady Brittan whose late husband Leon was also accused by Beech
The trial continues.
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