‘Nick’ officer promoted ... while facing probe for misleading judge
‘A slap in the face to the real victims’
a SENIOR detective who led Scotland Yard’s shambolic VIP child sex abuse inquiry has been promoted while under investigation for alleged misconduct in the case, the Mail can reveal.
Diane Tudway, who was in day-to-day charge of Operation Midland, has been elevated from the rank of chief inspector to superintendent working in the Met’s ‘Intelligence’ branch.
Details of her new post, on a salary of £64,000 (plus London weighting of £2,500), emerged a day after it was revealed the suspected fantasist who triggered the investigation is facing paedophilia charges. The man, known only as Nick, is to stand trial accused of committing child sex offences while officers on Operation Midland were treating him as a victim of abuse.
The revelation prompted victims of Nick’s alleged lies to attack police for being taken in by his tales of murder and abuse involving ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan, former MP Harvey Proctor and D-Day hero Lord Bramall.
Now, in the latest twist in the scandal, it can be revealed that Mrs Tudway has been promoted while under investigation for allegedly misleading a judge into granting search warrants to raid the homes of suspects named by Nick. She is the only serving officer under investigation in relation to the Operation Midland shambles. She denies the claim.
Last night Mr Proctor said: ‘The insensitivity of the Met knows no bounds. Promoting Diane Tudway is a slap in the face to the real victims of the Met Police — namely Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan (Lord Brittan’s widow) and myself.’
In other developments yesterday:
It emerged that prosecutors will take a total of ten months to decide whether Nick will be charged with perverting the course of justice and fraud over his VIP child abuse claims
Details emerged of his past social media contact with another suspected fantasist, who made unsubstantiated paedophile allegations against a former Lib Dem MP
The daughter of Labour grandee Lord Janner, falsely accused of abuse by Nick, attacked how he still has anonymity — but victims of his false claims have lost theirs
Prosecutors are unlikely to make a decision on whether Nick should be charged with perverting the course of justice and fraud until July of this year — ten months after detectives supplied them with a file on the case. Mr Proctor said: ‘I believe such a delay is preposterous.
‘It smacks of a PR decision not a finely balanced judicial consideration.’
Details also emerged yesterday of Nick’s social media contact with an alleged child abuse fantasist called Esther Baker, who has been given special status at the national child sex abuse inquiry despite making unsubstantiated paedophile claims against former Lib Dem MP John Hemming.
Nick and Ms Baker, who denies being a fantasist, supported each other in publicly available messages. In one posting on Twitter last year, she said: ‘It was Nick who gave me the courage to go to police’.
Meanwhile, Lord Janner’s daughter Laura JannerKlausner told Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday: ‘He has had the right to stay as Nick. If high-profile, falsely accused people had had the right to anonymity, this whole farce would not have happened.’