Abuse case ‘Nick’ confronted by wife over TV appearance
THE ex-wife of the man accused of lying about a VIP paedophile ring told a court yesterday that she challenged him after spotting him on the BBC.
She said Carl Beech, 51, denied being interviewed in silhouette and under the name ‘ Nick’ in a Panorama programme about his child sex and murder allegations.
Dawn Beech, 49, told jurors she had not heard him make any such claims during their 20-year marriage, which had ended in divorce three years earlier in 2012.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, she also revealed that her former husband – convicted of paedophile offences earlier this year in separate proceedings – worked on a children’s ward after qualifying as a nurse in the early 1990s.
She also told Newcastle Crown Court that there were ‘intimacy’ problems in their marriage and Beech had ‘personal hygiene issues’.
He told police in 2014 that he saw three boys being murdered by a VIP paedophile ring that included Edward Heath, Leon Brittan and former heads of MI5 and MI6.
But Mrs Beech said the only person he told her had sexually abused him as a child was his late stepfather, Major Ray Beech.
She said she asked Beech about the 2015 Panorama programme when she went to his home to pick up their son. She told the jury: ‘We were talking on the doorstep, making polite conversation and I said “Can I ask you a bit of an obscure question?”
‘He said “Yes” and I said “It’s a bit weird but were you on Panorama the other week?”
‘He looked at me and laughed and said “Me on Panorama? What would I be doing on that?” I laughed it off and said “You must have a double, we all do” and we carried on talking about something else.’
Tony Badenoch, prosecuting, asked Mrs Beech: ‘Has he ever said anything about witnessing children being murdered?’ She replied: ‘No.’ ‘Has he ever said anything to you about groups of people taking him away to abuse him?’ Again she replied in the negative. Mrs Beech also said ‘No’ when the QC asked her if Beech had claimed anyone else had abused him.
She said they met while training to be nurses at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading in 1988.
Before they got together he showed her a letter to his mother saying his stepfather had abused him. Mrs Beech said: ‘He told me the abuse would take place when his mother would be downstairs watching the telly and his stepfather would come up to his bedroom and abuse him and his mother was aware of what was going on and so thought it was OK.’
They married in Hertfordshire in 1992 and Beech worked as a paediatric nurse in Slough before going into hospital management.
Mrs Beech said the couple had owed almost £70,000 in loans, on store cards, for vehicle finance and on credit cards. She also revealed that her ex- had written a book about his experiences as a nurse under the name Lucy Samuels.
She said he picked a female name because he was reluctant to use his own and ‘people thought nurses were predominantly women’.
Beech, from Gloucester, denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud relating to a criminal injuries compensation claim. The trial continues.