Police chief smashed his phone with a golf club in rage over Heath probe
‘Hit my bag in frustration’ ‘Spurious and vexatious’
THE chief constable who led the Sir Edward Heath child abuse investigation smashed his phone with a golf club in a rage over criticism of the probe and then lied about it, a police watchdog will conclude today.
Mike Veale, who headed Wiltshire Police’s controversial inquiry into claims the former prime minister sexually abused scores of children, has been found to have misled colleagues after claiming his mobile was run over in the car park.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launched an inquiry last November over anonymous allegations the police chief deliberately damaged his work mobile to conceal the fact he had been leaking confidential information about the probe to journalists. The inquiry led to Mr Veale’s contract not being extended and he later moved to become the chief constable of Cleveland Police.
Today the IOPC is expected to announce that Mr Veale did not deliberately damage his phone or leak information to the media.
But investigators will say he has a misconduct case to answer for lying to former colleagues about the real reason his mobile was accidentally broken when he swung his club at his golf bag in a fit of pique, prompted by a forthcoming newspaper article criticising him.
Hours later, he emailed colleagues telling them the handset had been run over in a car park.
Last night, on the eve of the publication of the IOPC report, an extraordinary letter emerged revealing Mr Veale’s anger at the way he has been treated. Mr Veale has written to MPs and other interested parties claiming he has been the victim of a ‘hate mail’ campaign by the ‘Establishment’ to shred his reputation because he pursued a child abuse inquiry against the late Sir Edward – known as Operation Conifer.
Describing his ‘mistake’, the top officer said he had been playing a weekend round of golf with friends when ‘I was contacted by a colleague who told me that a prominent mainstream newspaper would be running yet another story about Operation Conifer’.
He added: ‘The information circulating in the media had been woefully inaccurate and the attacks on me were not just personally debilitating but were creating an undercurrent designed to destabilise the leadership of the force and, in my opinion, part of the campaign against me.
‘After one particularly poor shot, I hit my golf bag once with my club in frustration.’
Mr Veale said at the next tee he was ‘horrified’ to find his phone ‘completely smashed’ inside the bag and that he will ‘always regret’ not revealing how it happened. He added that he ‘intentionally gave a different account’ because he was worried the story could make its way into the Press and create more ‘misleading headlines’.
Mr Veale hit out at the IOPC for pursuing the complaint, for which he has now received a ticking off in the form of ‘ management advice’ from the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner.
The chief constable said he was warned by Tory MP Andrew Bridgen in 2016 that the £1.2million probe would ruin his career and ‘sinister forces’ were out to get him. Yesterday Mr Bridgen, who has always backed Mr Veale, said: ‘This investigation, based on spurious and vexatious allegations carried out at huge cost to the taxpayer, has been nothing more than an attempt to smear the reputation of an honest policeman.’
Last October, Operation Conifer concluded Sir Edward, who died in 2005, would be interviewed under caution were he still alive.