Inquiry team says Heath would have been quizzed on child sex claims had he been alive today
POLICE would have had sufficient grounds to question Sir Edward Heath over allegations he raped and indecently assaulted boys were he alive today, an investigation has found.
Wiltshire Police said seven historic claims would have been sufficiently credible to justify interviewing the former Conservative Prime Minister under caution.
The £1.5m operation, codenamed Conifer, only aimed to assess whether there would have been enough evidence to interview the late MP for Bexley, who died in 2005.
The force said none of the allegations, claiming Sir Edward assaulted victims as young as 10, took place while he was Prime Minister.
They include the alleged rape of an 11-year-rold boy, indecent assault of a 10-year-old boy and the indecent assault of a 15-yearold boy during three “paid sexual encounters”, and are said to have occurred between 1961 and 1992 in London, Kent, Sussex, the Channel Islands and Wiltshire.
Lord Hunt of Wirral, chairman of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, said: “The Wiltshire Police report is profoundly unsatisfactory because it neither justifies nor dispels the cloud of suspicion.”
It marks the official end of Operation Conifer, which was launched in 2015 after Sir Edward was named as a suspect in an investigation into historical child sex abuse.
The findings will be passed to the wide-ranging Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is being chaired by Professor Alexis Jay.
Wiltshire Police’s probe has proven controversial since a senior police officer made a television appeal outside Sir Edward’s former home in Salisbury in August 2015 urging victims to come forward.
Friends and relatives of the former Prime Minister had maintained the “completely asexual” politician’s innocence and heavily criticised the police handling of the investigation.
Lincoln Seligman, Sir Edward’s godson, called for an official inquiry into what he said were serious flaws in Operation Conifer.
“My suspicion is that we will learn nothing from the report except innuendo and that really takes nobody any further forward, except it leaves a dark stain over a man who can’t defend himself,” he said earlier this week.
“What we are looking for is a judge-led review of how the police have conducted Operation Conifer, and of all the evidence it has produced.
“We want a judge to look at that who will be independent and impartial, and to me that is the opposite of cover-up, because we want the truth and we believe the truth will exonerate him.”
Operation Conifer began as a corruption probe over claims the prosecution of a brothel owner was dropped after threats were made to expose Sir Edward, with Wiltshire Police leading at least seven forces carrying out inquiries into the former Prime Minister.
But in May last year the probe found no evidence to support the corruption claims involving madam Myra Ling-Ling Forde, who herself said she had no knowledge of misconduct.
Dr Rachel Hoskins, a leading criminologist enlisted by detectives to examine evidence, said she had “exposed a catalogue of fabrication” at the heart of the investigation and warned the force it should immediately end its consideration of key accuser’s “pernicious” claims of Satanic ritual abuse.
Dr Hoskins branded the inquiry “a disgrace” and said that, while the force had accepted her report, she had “little confidence” police would pass the findings on to MPs.
The Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police, Mike Veale, later wrote a public letter to “set the record straight” on the £1.5m investigation, saying it was “complex and multi-stranded” and was “not a fishing trip or witchhunt”.