Police were last night accused of opening the ‘compensation floodgates’ to Sir Edward Heath’s accusers as it emerged that 26 abuse claims will be recorded as ‘crimes’ – despite there being no proof he was guilty
Police were last night accused of opening the ‘compensation floodgates’ to Sir Edward Heath’s accusers as it emerged that 26 abuse claims will be recorded as ‘crimes’ – despite there being no proof he was guilty.
Two compensation claims had been submitted to a government agency even before police concluded yesterday there is no irrefutable evidence to say the former prime minister was either guilty or innocent of child abuse.
As many as 26 allegations of sexual abuse and physical assault made against Sir Edward, who died in 2005 aged 89 – including the alleged rape of an 11-year-old boy – are set to be recorded by Wiltshire Police as ‘crimes’.
This is despite a £1.5million, two-year police probe finding only seven claims were credible enough even to warrant interviewing Sir Edward if he was alive today. Officers said that even in these cases there could be no inference of guilt.
Last night the embattled chief constable of Wiltshire Police, Mike Veale, was facing a growing backlash from friends, supporters and MPs, who said the reputation of the late Conservative leader had been tarnished by the ‘profoundly unsatisfactory’ inquiry.
A 100-page summary report into the investigation, known as Operation Conifer, revealed 40 men and women accused Sir Edward of abuse spanning nearly four decades on children as young as ten between 1956 and 1992.
In a further 19 claims there was ‘undermining evidence’ diminishing the accuser’s credibility.
Yet all 26 reports are to be recorded as crimes in official statistics, which supporters fear will pave the way for a Jimmy Savile-style flood of claims to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority and the MP’s estate, which is now a charitable trust.
A further £556 was spent on books about the former Conservative MP, although officers failed to interview many of those who worked with Sir Edward and knew him best
James Gray, Tory MP for North Wiltshire, said: ‘There is not one shred of evidence of any kind whatsoever in the report. There are some pretty mad accusers out there and this will only incentivise people to make bogus claims.’
Criminologist Dr Richard Hoskins, who worked on the case, added: ‘This report has opened the compensation floodgates on the basis of claims that are so flimsy it’s unbelievable.’
Sir Edward’s godson Lincoln Seligman called for a judicial inquiry to test police claims that the former prime minister would have been interviewed under caution over the abuse allegations. He was supported by Lord Macdonald QC, a former director of public prosecutions, who said it was ‘no surprise at all’ that Wiltshire Police said they would have interviewed Sir Edward had he been alive.
Lord Macdonald said: ‘This gives entirely bogus credibility to their investigation without meaning anything in forensic terms.
‘The bar for interview is low, and in the case of a dead man, virtually non-existent. They are covering their backs at the expense of a dead man. Shame on them.’
Allegation: Ted Heath was accused of raping a 12-year-old boy who said he worked out his identity after seeing a picture of him with Margaret Thatcher (right) and Dame Pat Hornsby Smith (left). This may be the picture he described
Chief Constable Veale launched the report with a staunch 39-minute defence of his own actions, reviving the notion of a Westminster child abuse cover-up.
The most serious allegation levelled was that Sir Edward raped and indecently assaulted an 11-year-old boy after paying for sex at a private address in London in 1961, when he was Lord Privy Seal.
It was claimed a year later he assaulted a ten-year-old boy during a chance meeting in a public place in Kent. The most recent alleged offence is said to have taken place around 1990 and 1992.
Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale said officers have ‘gone where the evidence has taken us’ while Assistant Chief Constable Paul Mills said it would be ‘inappropriate to speculate’ Sir Edward Heath’s responses to allegations against him (both picture today)
None of the seven claims relate to when he was prime minister. All but one of them were made after police made an extraordinary appeal for ‘victims’ outside Sir Edward’s former Salisbury home, Arundells, in August 2015, which led to 118 people coming forward.
Among 42 claims were a number of malicious reports. One man used three different names to make allegations, which led to a caution for wasting police time.
A fantasist known as ‘Nick’ said he was abused on Sir Edward’s yacht Morning Cloud. He faces possible prosecution for falsely accusing politicians and VIP figures of child rape and murder leading to Scotland Yard’s separate botched inquiry, Operation Midland.
Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong of Ilminster and Lord Hunt of Wirral called for a judge-led inquiry into Operation Conifer.
But Mr Veale said: ‘It would be an indefensible dereliction of my public duty not to have investigated such serious allegations against a former prime minister, even though he is deceased.’
Fantasists and hoaxers behind the fake Sir Edward Heath claims
Therapists to victims of satanists
One of the fake accusers is a woman therapist who charged more than £200 a day to train counsellors to support victims of satanic abuse.
She has previously spoken about her ‘experience’ of satanic abuse at conferences, using the publicity to drum up funds for a charity she was involved in.
More than 25 years before Operation Conifer started, the therapist and several members of her family went to police claiming that their parents ran a satanic sex cult who killed as many as 16 children.
At the time, Sir Edward’s name was never mentioned and their claims were dismissed in 1989.
The woman, who cannot be named, only mentioned Sir Edward after Wiltshire Police launched Operation Conifer in 2015.
She and other family members named the late Tory MP as being part of a paedophile ring run by their parents.
Their stories were recounted in gory detail as it was said the paedophile ring stabbed, raped, tortured and maimed youngsters in churches and burnt babies in satanic orgies before men, women and children gorged themselves on blood, animal and body parts.
Dr Richard Hoskins, working for the police, concluded that force had been fed ‘a catalogue of fabrication’.
‘Nick’ the fantasist
A fantasist known as ‘Nick’ is facing possible prosecution after he falsely accused a string of VIPs, including Sir Edward, of being child rapists and murderers.
He claimed Sir Edward sexually assaulted him aboard his boat Morning Cloud, when it was moored off the south coast in the 1970s or 1980s. Nick allegedly told police he recalled being taken to the south coast when he was a youngster and spirited aboard a sailing boat moored at a marina in Southampton.
He claimed he was then sexually assaulted by a man he later identified as Sir Edward.
But the allegation was discounted after police interviewed members of the former PM’s yacht crew.
His accusations were dismissed by the Metropolitan Police.
Dr Hoskins has linked Nick to the women who made satanic abuse claims. Nick’s father worked at the same place at the same time as the women’s father, which may account for their similar allegations.
Sir Edward Heath has been accused of raping a 11-year-old boy and touching children as young as ten even when he was Tory leader, an incendiary police report said today
The hoaxers
Other fantasists who came forward included a Twitter fantasist, a sex offender and a convicted hoaxer.
Michael Shrimpton, a suspended barrister who was jailed for 12 months in February 2015 for ‘communicating false information’ over a hoax claim that a nuclear device had been planted in London to detonate during the Olympic Games, claimed that Sir Edward killed boys on his yacht. Another prolific Twitter conspiracy theorist who claimed to have been interviewed for seven hours by Operation Conifer has made allegations against dozens of politicians, celebrities and public figures.
Wiltshire detectives also spoke to a convicted child sex abuser who said he was raped at the age of 12 by Sir Edward, who picked him up while he was hitchhiking in 1961. It also emerged that Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Mike Veale had been in personal email contact with another campaigner Robert Green who was jailed for harassing people he falsely accused of paedophilia.
One fantasist reported different abuse under three separate names which led to them being cautioned for wasting police time.
Rejected claims
Police revealed that they would have been unable to pursue many of the allegations against the former PM because they did not stand up to scrutiny.
There were 19 cases where Sir Edward would not have been interviewed under caution because of the extent of undermining evidence, three cases of mistaken identity and three complaints made anonymously.
In ten cases the allegations were made to police by a third party rather than the alleged victim.
The police boss who STILL defends flawed inquiry
Chief Constable Mike Veale insists it would have been a ‘dereliction of duty’ not to have investigated the case
By Neil Tweedle, Ian Drury and Rosie Waterhouse for the Daily Mail
Given his prominence as a leading public figure in Britain, no-one would have been subject to greater scrutiny in terms of their private conduct than Edward Heath.
Yet, despite his death in 2005, two years have been spent investigating the idea that the former Prime Minister was a predatory paedophile – a rapist of children – who evaded suspicion for decades.
This fantastical hypothesis is the basis of Operation Conifer, an investigation by Wiltshire Police into allegations of historical abuse by the late leader of the Conservative Party.
Leading the charge was Chief Constable Mike Veale, who insists it would have been a ‘dereliction of duty’ not to have investigated the case. Yet with Heath unable to give evidence, there was never any prospect of a definitive outcome to the inquiry.
The reason for pushing ahead lies in 2014 guidelines in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal that effectively created an open season on VIPs. Mr Veale was reported in February as believing that paedophile allegations against the former PM were ‘120 per cent’ genuine.
But after admitting yesterday that there was no evidence of the former peer’s guilt that would stand up in court, he was left desperately trying to defend the probe.
Mr Veale, who began his career as a police cadet aged 16 before joining Avon and Somerset Police as a constable in 1984, said: ‘I believe this was the right moral, ethical and professional thing to do. The allegations … were of the utmost seriousness and from a significant number of people.
‘I hope people will understand that, given these circumstances, it would be an indefensible dereliction of my public duty as a chief constable not to have investigated such serious allegations against a former prime minister, even though he is deceased.’
Wiltshire Police had already been under fire in 2015 after a bizarre televised appeal for victims to come forward held outside Sir Edward’s old house in Salisbury.
Wiltshire Police held a bizarre televised appeal by Superintendent Sean Memory for victims to come forward held outside Sir Edward’s old house in Salisbury
Superintendent Sean Memory urged potential victims not ‘to suffer in silence’. Mr Veale, appointed Chief Constable in June 2015, may have been anxious not to repeat an IPCC investigation into the force, which followed an allegation that it had failed to handle properly a complaint of abuse.
A year later Mr Veale said his operation would continue despite the Metropolitan Police’s decision to close down its VIP sex abuse inquiry, in which Sir Edward was named as a suspect by a discredited witness known as ‘Nick’.
The result of his dogged determination to see the inquiry to its end is a ‘summary report’ that contains no smoking-gun evidence, but casts a lasting shadow over the reputation of a distinguished public figure. Up to 36 alleged disclosures were discounted by Wiltshire detectives for various reasons, including mistaken identity. One ‘victim’ even pretended to be three separate complainants.
Against this must be placed the evidence of numerous civil servants, bodyguards, drivers and nurses who attended Sir Edward from 1968 until his death.
Not one of the 104 close-protection officers disclosed any evidence suggesting he was involved in abuse. Most importantly, there was no evidence from MI5.
Police made an appeal for ‘victims’ outside his Salisbury mansion in 2015 (pictured) – but his loved-ones claim this proved police assumed he was guilty and the chief constable admitted today this was a mistake
Lurid claims of Satanic abuse are among the nuttier allegations addressed by the Conifer team.
Mr Veale must have been dreading opening his inbox in recent weeks, having been subjected to an extraordinary lobbying campaign by internet conspiracists.
Supporters were urged to bombard the Chief Constable with emails begging him to include in his report the allegation that Heath was a Satanist.
On a Facebook page last month, campaigner William Wong pleaded to his followers to email Mr Veale ‘as a matter of urgency’.
James Gray, Tory MP for North Wiltshire, describes Conifer as a waste of money. ‘They’ll be looking into Jack the Ripper or Henry VIII next,’ he said. Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong expects Mr Veale to come under pressure to resign. That will not rescue the reputation of Sir Edward.
But in the age of the internet mob, it seems that one is guilty until proven innocent.