An indelible stain on Sir Ted’s good name

IT began with a shameless piece of grandstanding outside the gates of Sir Edward Heath’s Salisbury home. Surrounded by microphones and TV cameras, a Wiltshire police superintendent announced the late Tory prime minister was being investigated over claims of child sexual abuse and called for ‘victims’ and anyone with information to come forward.

And come forward they did – in their droves; 118 in total, making lurid claims dating back as far as 1956 and prompting a staggering 1,580 lines of inquiry.

So two years and £1.5million later, what’s the upshot of this massive operation? Of 42 separate criminal allegations, 19 were undermined by contradictory evidence, three were mistaken identity and 13 were third party or anonymous disclosures.

That leaves just seven that police say would have resulted in Sir Edward being interviewed under caution. Even with these, police admit there’s no corroboration and say ‘no inference of guilt can be drawn’. Former DPP Lord Macdonald was scathing yesterday, saying the quality of evidence was so low it was ‘virtually non-existent’.

After the industrial scale sexual abuse by monsters such as Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith, the Mail accepts that the police are damned if they do and damned if they don’t fully investigate abuse claims.

But in this case, the pendulum has swung too far. Sir Edward’s reputation has been dragged through the mire by over-zealous police acting on the flimsiest of evidence.

The bitter fact is that we will never know the truth about these allegations. Despite this, the good name of a man who served his country with distinction in war and peace has been smeared forever. This simply cannot be right.

After the appalling way Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Leon Brittan were treated after being accused by a fantasist of sexual abuse, Parliament must act to prevent such scandals happening again.