VIP ABUSE FANTASIST CHARGED WITH CHILD SEX CRIMES
He ruined the lives of Leon Brittan and a great war hero, but now ...
THE suspected fantasist in the disastrous VIP child abuse inquiry is to stand trial on charges of paedophilia.
The man known only as ‘Nick’ is accused of committing child sex offences while Scotland Yard’s Operation Midland was treating him as a victim.
The force’s inquiry into an alleged establishment paedophile ring closed without a single arrest.
The charges against Nick can be disclosed after a court challenge, backed by the Mail, overturned a ban on reporting the case. Nick’s real identity is still protected for legal reasons.
He was charged several months ago – raising questions about the level of secrecy around the case.
Harvey Proctor, who was falsely accused by Nick of being a child
killer, said he was outraged by the latest twist. ‘I am shocked that Nick is an alleged paedophile,’ said the former Tory MP. ‘I am also disgusted that the authorities have covered this up for several months.’
Nick’s baseless claims about sex abuse and serial murder involving an Establishment paedophile ring led to the Metropolitan Police setting up Operation Midland.
The £3million inquiry resulted in raids on the homes of D-Day veteran Lord Bramall, the late former home secretary Leon Brittan and Mr Proctor.
Nick also made unsubstantiated allegations of child sex abuse against former prime minister Edward Heath, the late Labour grandee Lord Janner and a number of distinguished former security chiefs.
The decision to charge him with child sex offences will be hugely embarrassing to senior officers in the Metropolitan Police, who once described him as a ‘credible and true’ witness. They are likely to come under renewed scrutiny over their handling of the investigation, branded a ‘witch-hunt’ and a ‘disgrace’ by Mr Proctor.
There will also be unease at BBC News, which gave Nick a platform to make his farfetched claims on primetime bulletins, and among former journalists at a now defunct ‘investigations’ website called Exaro. It published a string of stories about alleged VIP paedophiles.
Nick allegedly committed a number of child sex offences during Operation Midland – which closed in 2016. The allegations do not relate to any physical abuse.
He was charged several months ago with a court order put in place to prohibit reporting. If convicted of the offences, which cannot be revealed in detail for legal reasons, he faces being jailed for several years.
Prosecutors are also considering charging him with perverting the course of justice and fraud in relation to his lurid claims and a compensation payout.
Mr Proctor said: ‘Nick was charged with these offences several months ago, yet I had no idea about this until in the last 24 hours. I am very, very angry that the Metropolitan Police, which I am suing for compensation, did not inform me about this.’
In March last year, the Mail revealed that
‘It was covered up for several months’
Nick faced financial ruin after Mr Proctor launched a six-figure compensation claim against him over his alleged lies. The expolitician’s claim is part of a £1million-plus action against Nick and the police, who took his far-fetched accusations seriously.
In November 2016, a report by a retired High Court judge savaged Scotland Yard over Operation Midland and for giving credence to Nick’s allegations.
The alleged fantasist had claimed that a string of politicians and military figures murdered three children and abused others at depraved sex parties.
Sir Richard Henriques identified no fewer than 43 separate blunders and said it was time for police to stop automatically believing the accounts of alleged victims.
Responding to news of the charges, Lord Bramall said: ‘I’m not surprised at all. If the police had bothered to have investigated him at all they wouldn’t have accepted what he said at face value.
‘I don’t know what the police thought they were up to. It’s absolutely outrageous.
‘I should never have been investigated and made a suspect because they should have realised that he was talking nonsense right at the beginning. They did a lot of damage to quite a lot of people. The major part of the blame for that unfortunate business was not on him [Nick], it was on the police and how they dealt with it.’
Asked to comment on the inquiry into perverting the course of justice and fraud, a Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: ‘The CPS received a file of evidence from Northumbria Police in September 2017. This was a large file and enquiries have been ongoing since that time, with further evidence being received.
‘We anticipate that additional material will continue to be received and this will need to be considered prior to any charging decision being made.
‘In considering cases that are referred by the police, CPS prosecutors are mindful of the need to provide decisions in as timely a manner as possible. In complex cases, such as this, where further investigation and evidence are required, this is a necessarily time-consuming process so that all parties can be satisfied that charging decisions have been based on all available material.’