NICK: VICTIM OR FANTASIST?
Rape. Torture. Murders. These were the extraordinary claims made by one man against leading Establishment figures. Police called his story ‘credible and true’. One problem: there’s not a shred of evidence to back his allegations
SOMETIME last year, a well-spoken, middleaged man, identified only as ‘Nick’, was interviewed by detectives from Scotland Yard. He was questioned on three separate occasions to begin with. His video-taped testimony would eventually run to 70 hours. What Nick alleged almost defied belief. at the age of about seven, he said, his father farmed him out to a cabal of VIP paedophiles and, for the next decade, he became their sexual plaything.
One of the perpetrators he named was former Prime Minister edward Heath. another was ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan. a third was Harvey Proctor, once a Tory MP.
Two senior army Generals were also implicated along with the former heads of MI5 and MI6 — almost the entire top tier of the British security establishment back in the Seventies and eighties, in other words, was involved in the depravity.
a particularly lurid episode recounted by Nick is worth highlighting here.
Proctor, he said, had strangled a fellow victim to death in front of his very eyes, having first stabbed him with a penknife ‘over a period of 40 minutes’. He was only prevented from taking the penknife to Nick’s genitals by the intervention of the ‘other [adult] male present’. That person, according to Nick’s police statement, was none other than Ted Heath.
The ordeal, following a sadistic sex party in Dolphin Square, a luxury apartment block in the shadow of Westminster, ended, apparently, with Proctor giving Nick the penknife as a sick memento.
Nick kept the penknife used in the ‘killing’, one of three murders he says he witnessed, and has now handed it over to detectives.
Someone who turned up at a newspaper office with such a startling story would struggle to be taken seriously.
Nick’s account, on the face of it, at least, was reminiscent of those ‘green-ink letters’ (usually written in capital letters) editors and politicians receive, from time to time, in which the author expresses eccentric or far-fetched opinions.
But in December, a few months after he was interviewed, the Metropolitan Police launched a murder investigation (Operation Midland) on the back of his claims.
‘ Nick has been spoken to by experienced officers from child abuse teams and experienced officers from murder investigations,’ Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald said.
‘They and I believe what Nick is saying is credible and true.’ Credible — and true? It was possibly the first time anyone could recall a murder investigation being opened without any bodies and without anyone knowing who it was that had actually been murdered.
The ramifications have been well documented: reputations have been posthumously traduced, homes have been raided, lives ruined, and taxpayers left to pick up a £1 million bill — and counting — for Operation Midland without a shred of independent reliable evidence, it seems, to corroborate Nick’s version of events.
The inquiry could be close to being scaled down or even shelved, the Mail revealed this week.
In the circumstances, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that, in the febrile post- Savile era, the Metropolitan Police — cheered on by Labour’s newly installed deputy leader Tom Watson who has led the charge ‘ exposing VIP paedophilia’ — is being influenced by political correctness and political expediency.
Or, as Det Supt McDonald put it, ‘the mantra when someone comes forward and makes an allegation is that we believe what they say and we do believe what Nick is saying.’
Which perhaps explains why 20 officers in white overalls turned up mob-handed at 9am one day back in March to search the Hampshire home of 91-year-old Field Marshall Lord Bramall, D-Day hero and, by common consent, Britain’s greatest living soldier, who had similarly been accused of being a member of the murderous Westminster paedophile ring.
The search team finally left at 7pm with, among other things, a copy of a speech Lord Bramall had made to Sandhurst cadets. The ‘existence’ of a Westminster paedophile ring was not the only startling allegation Nick made.
HE ALSO told detectives, it can be revealed, that he was flown to Paris in a private plane and then sexually abused in France by members of the Saudi Royal family. His police handlers have taken him around a number of airfields in the hope he might identify from where he was allegedly smuggled out of the country.
One can only speculate how, in the event of a breakthrough, the Saudi authorities would have responded to a request from Scotland Yard to, say, interview a Saudi prince about allegations of abuse in a foreign country more than 30 years ago.
There is something else you should know.
In 2012, Nick made an allegation of historic child sexual abuse against his stepfather to police. Because the former military man had died in 1995, his claims were not investigated.
The Mail, however, has been told that Nick’s accusations did not refer to VIP paedophiles or murders. It was his late stepfather, he now says, who introduced him to the Westminster ring.
Today, few people know who Nick really is. The law grants anonymity to those who make charges of sexual abuse. When he was interviewed by the BBC a few months ago, his face was blacked out and his voice was dubbed by an actor.
So here is what we can tell you about the man whose claims have affected so many lives.
THE REAL ‘NICK’
NICK is 47. a former nurse, he is now a manager in the NHS. Previously in a long-term relationship, he has a teenage child.
His mother is a pillar of the local community His late stepfather — who was allegedly part of the paedophile ring — retired from the army around the time Nick says he was first abused at Dolphin Square.
On the internet, he has written extensively about being abused but says therapy has helped him come to terms with his past.
One account of his experiences was published on a website.
For legal reasons, we cannot quote verbatim from the material. But Nick blamed his school, people in the medical profession and his own mother for turning a blind eye to his suffering and his injuries (which he claims were clearly visible).
‘I will never talk to the press,’ his mother said when we contacted her this week.
There is no mention of former Prime Ministers, or even politicians, spy chiefs or murders on the website. Nick has also addressed child abuse conferences.
He was introduced at one such event — held before his explosive murders allegations emerged — as someone who had worked in the NHS since his 20s and was also a volunteer on a child abuse hotline.
He himself was abused by paedophiles, the audience was informed. again, though, no mention of politicians, spy chiefs or murder.
It is quite possible, of course, that Nick has referred to the allegations which are now the subject of Operation Midland when speaking and writing about his past. But not in any of the outpourings from him we have studied.
TOM WATSON CONNECTION
IN OCTOBER 2012, Tom Watson made an extraordinary speech in the Commons asking David Cameron about claims of a ‘powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10’.
It was the beginning of another, high- profile personal crusade for Watson.
Like his campaign against phone hacking in the Murdoch press, his war on paedophiles not only propelled him back into the limelight, it also helped his party.
One of the people who supplied Watson with intelligence and information was a former child protec- tion officer called Peter McKelvie. In the aftermath of Mr Watson’s barnstorming performance in the House, Mr McKelvie spotted a tweet from a possible victim which read: ‘I was abused by the gang.’
The tweet, we have learned, was from ‘Nick.’ Nick and Watson eventually met.
In an interview with the Guardian, Watson spoke about the meeting. ‘It was a very traumatic and difficult conversation, as you would imagine,’ he said. ‘He only told me about one murder. He spoke very slowly, very intermittently, and I didn’t need to hear any more.
‘What I am certain is, that he is not delusional. He is either telling the truth, or he’s made up a meticulous and elaborate story. It’s not for me to judge.
‘What I was hoping to do was build a relationship with him and get him back into the system, so he could make his allegations to the police. and to make sure he had a degree of protection.’
In the event, Nick did not go to the police — not initially, anyway.
‘INVESTIGATIVE’ WEBSITE
AT THE time of Tom Watson’s interview with the Guardian, Nick was already in contact with exaro, an investigative website with close links to Labour (exaro’s senior
reporter is award-winning former Guardian journalist David Hencke, who knows Watson).
‘Holding power to account’ is its slogan.
Remember, before he went to Exaro, we could not find anything in Nick’s online accounts of his alleged ordeal which suggested that some of his abusers were MPs or men who occupied the top echelons of the British secret service or that ritual murders were carried out in his presence.
The first Exaro scoop was published in July of last year in the (Labour supporting) Sunday People under the headline ‘ We Were Raped By MPs In Flats Near Commons’.
Shortly afterwards, Exaro was contacted by Scotland Yard, who asked to speak to Nick themselves.
Why did the police have to go through Exaro? The explanation given on the Exaro website was that, until now, Nick hadn’t trusted the police enough to confide in them.
An Exaro reporter even accompanied Nick to his first preliminary meeting with police. Nick later gave officers a list of 12 prominent individuals he said had abused him. How did Nick produce such a list? Once again, an explanation, at least in relation to one of the names — Peter Hayman — can be found on the Exaro website.
Former diplomat Hayman was a member of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange, a group which campaigned for sex between adults and children to be made legal.
Nick picked him out from a collection of pictures that Exaro showed him.
It produced a second ‘ exclusive’ for Exaro in the Sunday People in November: ‘Police Probe ‘Abuse At MPs’ Luxury Block.’
It was Exaro, not Nick, which identified to detectives a London flat that could, it claimed, ‘unlock the dark secrets of a group of VIP paedophiles’.
An Exaro reporter would later give a statement to police explaining how he had found the property.
The question that should be asked here is, why is Exaro playing such a prominent role in the investigation into the so-called VIP paedophile ring?
Exaro rejects ‘criticisms’ of its reporting, saying they have been made on a ‘false basis’.
THE HORROR STORY
ExARO (founded by a PR executive Tim Pendry) has refused to let Nick talk to the Mail. He did speak to the BBC, when his version of events went unchallenged, a few days after the second Exaro ‘expose’ in the People.
This is what he said: ‘It started with my father. It started with quite severe physical abuse, quickly turning to sexual as well. Within a very short space of time he handed me over — or whatever you want to call it — to a group, a group of men, very powerful men and they controlled my life for the next nine years.
‘They were military, other figures from law enforcement, other people from the political Establishment. They were sexually abusing me, threatening me if I caused any trouble and powerful enough to keep this hidden. A lot of the time I was punished for stepping out of line. I’ve never experienced pain like it. I hope I never do again.
‘Some of it was deliberate because they set rules that were impossible to follow, so you couldn’t help but break the rules and you were pun- ished for that. Some of them enjoyed that. The more pain the better from their point of view.
‘Even then you could see it was well organised. You were told to be at specific places. We were picked up at specific places and taken to wherever we needed to be. We were picked up by drivers or minders or whatever you want to call them. They had no fear of being caught. It didn’t even cross their mind. They could do what they liked without question.
‘We were not smuggled in under a blanket through the back door. It was done openly. Children, young teenagers were brought into hotels and apartment buildings and nobody batted an eyelid.’
Other ‘revelations’ from his testimony have been pieced together from other sources including his lurid accounts on the internet and leaked police documents.
On one occasion he says ‘I was raped over a bathtub, while my head was submerged beneath the water. One [MP] attempted to get me to beat another boy with a baton. I refused and I was physically and sexually punished for it.’
He explains, in graphic detail, why he now has ‘such mixed emotions’ on Remembrance Day.
‘I know poppies are a symbol of respect for those that have lost their lives during wars, however for me, they lost their meaning once the soldiers that hurt me physically pinned them to my bare skin.
‘I see poppies as a symbol of their hatred towards me. As a sign of respect (they said) I had to wear a poppy. So they would pin one directly to my chest and hurt me badly.
‘Once one was done, the next would unpin the poppy and move it to another part of my chest and do the same. They would all take turns until they had all had enough. The pain from the pin was nothing compared to the other pain, but it added to the humiliation.’
One boy, as we have already said, was alleged to have been strangled by then Tory MP Harvey Proctor, another, he says, was killed in the presence of a Conservative minister, and a third deliberately run over by a car in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.
Some of the abuse and torture, it is alleged, took place at the Carlton Club in St James’s Street (‘the oldest and most important of all Conservative clubs’).
SUSPICIONS ABOUT HIS TALE
EDWARD Heath, the most famous ‘name’ of all on Nick’s list would have been at the top of the IRA’s hit list at the time of the alleged offences.
His police drivers and Special Branch protection officers would have had to be present in Dolphin Square when, rapes and murders aside, he is said to have persuaded Harvey Proctor not to castrate Nick with a penknife.
The veracity of the penknife episode was dealt with by Proctor himself when he held a press conference last month to make public — and vehemently deny — the accusations that he was involved in the murder of boys.
‘It was suggested it was Edward Heath who persuaded me not to castrate “Nick” with it,’ he said.
‘I was obviously so persuaded by Mr Heath’s intervention that I placed the penknife in Nick’s pocket ready for him to present it to the Metropolitan Police as “evidence”. I could not identify the penknife [when the police showed it to him]. I have never had a penknife.’ Proctor, who left Parliament in 1987, has pleaded guilty to sexual acts with male prostitutes below the age of 21. He and Heath were mortal enemies.
‘Edward Heath despised me .... I despised him too,’ he added. ‘Now I am accused of doing some dreadful things in his London house as well, a house to which Heath would never have invited me.’
Allegedly, Jimmy Savile, predominantly a lone predator with a preference for girls, not boys, also attended the sex parties.
The boy mowed down by a member of the gang in Coombe Hill, Kingston upon Thames? We could find no contemporary newspaper article about it. Nor, evidently, can police.
And what of the deaths of the boys at the hands of Proctor and others? Nick has written about the grief he still feels for at least one of them because he says he was a close friend, yet it appears he has been unable to tell police who he is.
And why was Nick silent so long? After all, he had the perfect opportunity to come forward in 1987 when Proctor’s face was all over the front pages and TV after he was found guilty of gross indecency.
THE FALLOUT
THE real tragedy here is that terrible ambiguities surrounding Nick’s case could now deter victims from coming forward and damage trust in the forthcoming judge-led inquiry into historic allegations of child abuse.
Peter McKelvie, the former child protection officer who helped Tom Watson, now deputy leader of the Labour party, with his paedophile campaign, is on the panel.
Mr McKelvie also had dealings with Exaro but is not at liberty to speak to the press because of his role on the panel.
But a source close to Mr McKelvie told us he had severed all ties with Mr Watson because ‘everything he does is about Tom Watson’ and nor would he have anything more to do with Exaro ‘because they are a disgrace to journalism’.
Senior officers at Scotland Yard are expected to face a grilling over the fiasco.
It can now be disclosed that the senior Met officer in charge of Operation Midland, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse, was in charge of a bungled inquiry into Jimmy Savile at his former force, Surrey Police.
After the Savile scandal broke, Surrey Police faced accusations that its detectives were in awe of the disgraced former BBC presenter when it investigated him over child sex allegations two years before his death.
Surrey officers were accused of being ‘too soft’ with the paedophile and failing to probe the claims properly — thus depriving his victims of justice.
Has DAC Rodhouse gone from one extreme to another?
As a result of Operation Midland, a string of hard-fought reputations lie in utter ruin — most notably Lord Bramall’s, whose wife of 66 years died in July this year, four months after police raided his home at breakfast-time.
Lady Bramall, 93, had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Due to the uncorroborated allegations of a clearly troubled man, D- Day hero Lord Bramall is fighting to clear his name at the same time he is grieving the loss of his adored wife.