Pedophile gets 18 years in jail after fake charges
The story was fantastical but horrifying, told by a man known only as “Nick.”
When he was a boy, Nick told police and the press, he was “handed over” by his abusive stepfather to a powerful group of men who repeatedly raped and tortured him, traumatizing him and countless other boys for life. Some of the most powerful men in British Parliament and the military — including the former prime minister and chief of the armed forces — were part of the ominous gang, operating from 1975 to 1984, Nick said.
The lurid tale shocked the nation, launching an enormous investigation by the United Kingdom’s largest police agency. In December 2014, a homicide detective for the Metropolitan Police Service described Nick’s allegations as “credible and true” and begged any other victims to come forward.
But month after month — as the sensational allegations remained under investigation by police, as the accused high-ranking former government officials watched their reputations disintegrate into scandalous tabloid fare — no other boys came forward. In fact, nobody did.
For years, the public would have no idea who “Nick” was — until finally, after a 12-week trial that ended this week, the full picture has emerged. Nick was Carl Beech, a fabulist who invented the entire story, a jury concluded on Monday — and a pedophile masquerading as a child sex-abuse advocate and charity volunteer, managing to fool police and captivate Britain.
Beech, 51, a former pediatric nurse, was convicted Monday of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud, for collecting more than 22,000 pounds after he also falsely claimed to be a victim of one of Britain’s most notorious sex abusers, an entertainer named Jimmy Savile, the BBC reported.
On Friday he was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
Justice James Goss said Beech “repeatedly and maliciously told lies to the police” and showed “no remorse,” the BBC reported. Beech was a “manipulative and devious person” who “accused living persons of the highest integrity and decency of vile acts,” Goss said.
Beech’s wild allegations cost the police 2 million pounds for the 16-month investigation. In the end, all police found was hoards of child porn on Beech’s own electronic devices, the Guardian reported.