YARD FACES NEW PROBE OVER VIP SEX ABUSE BLUNDERS
Priti orders inquiry into ‘Nick’ police scandal
POLICE watchdogs are to investigate Scotland Yard over its disastrous VIP paedophile operation.
Priti Patel is to tell Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to review the force and its response to the ‘Nick’ affair. The Home Secretary will tomorrow ask it to examine the Yard’s response to a damning report on the scandal by former High Court judge, Sir richard Henriques. The move will heap pressure on Met chief Cressida Dick, who oversaw operation Midland in its early stages. She has rejected demands for a fresh investigation into the officers involved.
Her force wasted £ 2.5million probing allegations made by Nick fantasist Carl Beech. In July he was
jailed for 18 years for making his false claims about a string of Establishment figures.
Sir Richard wrote a scathing report for Scotland Yard about the case which identified 43 major blunders. And in August he used an article for the Mail to accuse officers of using false evidence to obtain warrants for raids on the homes of leading figures accused by Beech.
So far the Met has released only a limited summary of the judge’s findings but – following months of pressure – it will publish a fuller version tomorrow.
The Mail can reveal that, on the same day, Miss Patel will write to Tom Winsor, who is HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, asking him to conduct an inspection of Scotland Yard.
Details of the exact terms of reference are unclear, but she is expected to tell him to examine the Met’s response to the Henriques report. Sir Tom could also look at a separate, as yet unpublished, report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct into the case and the actions of the officers concerned. Miss Patel is understood to be frustrated by the Met’s handling of the affair as well as its inaction and delay.
She has already called senior officers into the Home Office to question them over the issues raised by Sir Richard.
‘No one can question the Home Secretary’s commitment to backing up the police,’ said a source close to Miss Patel. ‘But we must always maintain public confidence in all our institutions and ensure they are held to account.’
The Nick scandal erupted again in the summer when Beech was found
‘Using false evidence’
guilty of making false allegations of murder and child sexual abuse.
He had accused senior politicians as well as army and security chiefs of sadistic sexual abuse and said he had witnessed boys being murdered in the 1970s and 1980s.
Soon after the trial, in an article for the Mail, Sir Richard accused the Met of using false evidence to obtain search warrants to raid the homes of some of those accused by 51-year-old former nurse Beech.
These included retired Armed Forces chief Lord Bramall, former home secretary Lord Brittan and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor. The judge said the searches had broken the law and officers should now face a criminal investigation.
He also claimed the ‘ course of justice was perverted with shocking consequences’.
Sir Richard accused Scotland Yard of seeking to protect itself from outside scrutiny.
The IOPC, which investigates alleged police wrongdoing, however decided that no officers should face misconduct proceedings.
The HMIC’s forthcoming investigation will highlight the role of Miss Dick. The Mail revealed last month that in late 2014 – when she was an assistant commissioner in charge of specialist crime and operations at the Met – she received briefings on the allegations of an Establishment paedophile ring and murders involving the late Edward Heath and other leading figures.
She was still in the post when a senior officer, Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald, told a press conference that the allegations made by Beech were ‘credible and true’.
Miss Dick has rejected calls for the officers involved in investigating the claims by Nick to face a criminal probe. Speaking in August, the Met commissioner claimed they acted in good faith and rejected as ‘ completely improper’ the suggestion that an external force should investigate. She also claimed the Met had learned lessons.
Sir Richard told the Mail that detectives did not have the right to search the properties because their description of Nick as a ‘consistent’ witness was false, effectively fooling a judge into granting the warrants.
On the day of Beech’s conviction, the Met announced that the police complaints watchdog had cleared all five leading officers involved of any wrongdoing.
It later emerged that four had been allowed to retire on full pensions, while deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse, who oversaw the bungled probe, is now director general (operations) of the National Crime Agency.
THE Mail applauds Home Secretary Priti Patel’s decision to launch a new inquiry into Scotland Yard’s woeful handling of the VIP paedophile investigation.
The appalling hounding of blameless public figures including Tory grandee Lord Brittan and military hero Lord Bramall on the say-so of a malicious fantasist was an unforgivable miscarriage of justice.
This paper has been at the forefront of the campaign to bring the officers responsible to book.
With our free Press under more pressure than ever from those who would restrict its freedoms, this case is a timely reminder of its indispensable role in holding the powerful to account.