18 YEARS FOR HIS VILE LIES
Judge brands fantasist ‘repugnant’ Gasps in court at Nick’s jail term Police accused of encouraging him
THE fantasist once known as ‘Nick’ was yesterday jailed for 18 years for his ‘hideous and repugnant’ lies about VIP child sex abuse.
Carl Beech, a 51-year-old vicar’s son, was handed an exemplary sentence for his made-up claims about senior politicians and top military and security service officials.
But, passing sentence, Mr Justice Goss described Beech as ‘intelligent, resourceful, manipulative and devious’ and said he appeared to have been encouraged by the police’s willingness to believe him.
There were gasps as the convicted paedophile was told that he had acted out of ‘financial gain, personal pleasure, malice and attention seeking’.
Father-of-one Beech, who showed no emotion as he was led from the dock, could be released after serving half of his 18-year sentence.
The lengthy jail term, which included an unprecedented 15 years for perverting the course of justice, heaped more shame on the Metropolitan Police.
It spent 16 months and millions of pounds probing Beech’s ‘plainly ridiculous’ allegations with Operation Midland. In 2014 the Met had described Beech’s claims of VIP child sex abuse and murder as ‘credible and true’.
The force was heavily criticised in a series of harrowing victim statements by former Armed Forces chief Field Marshal Lord Bramall, ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor, the godson of Sir Edward Heath and Diana Brittan, the widow of former home secretary Leon.
Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, who met Beech and publicly urged officers to probe his claims, was also lambasted in testimonies read to Newcastle Crown Court.
In a heart-breaking statement Lady Brittan said the ‘false allegations and smears of the very worst kind’ ruined the final weeks of her cancer-stricken husband’s life.
In her first public comments on the case, she said she felt ‘he was caught up in a totally unjustified witch-hunt which took its toll on both him and me’.
Lady Brittan, who praised the Daily Mail for challenging Beech’s claims, described a comment piece by Mr Watson in a Sunday newspaper, a few days after her husband’s death in January 2015, as very distressing. I was so worried I even had to arrange security for his burial, something no widow should have to do,’ she wrote, as she also recalled the trauma of having her two homes raided by police just after her husband’s death.
In a victim statement read to court by his solicitor, Lord Bramall, 95, said: ‘In service of my Queen and country, I have done all that has been required of me. I can honestly say, however, I was never as badly wounded in all my time in the military as I was by the allegations made by ‘Nick’ that formed the basis of Operation Midland.’
The statement was written last year because Lord Bramall was unsure he would still be alive when Beech’s trial finished. He was too unwell to give evidence.
Beech’s barrister, Collingwood Thompson QC, who defended the former paediatric nurse and father of one through a ten-week trial, accepted the core of his allegations – first made to Wiltshire Police – were ‘somewhat incredible’. Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said Beech was responsible for ‘the cynical manipulation of the criminal justice system on an unprecedented scale and perpetrated with unprecedented cruelty and disregard for others’.
Beech enjoyed his ‘celebrity’ status and contact with politicians, journalists and campaigners and ‘derived sexual pleasure by graphically describing the violent sexual abuse of young boys’, he added.
He was jailed for a total of 18 years after being convicted of perverting the course of justice and fraud earlier this week. The sentence included his guilty pleas to possessing and making images of child abuse, voyeurism and jumping bail to Sweden.
Mr Justice Goss said: ‘No doubt you were encouraged by the apparent willingness at that time from the police to accept your account.
‘I have watched the recordings and read the transcripts of your interviews with police in which you tearfully and with fake reticence and professed difficulty made the various allegations.
‘You are a former paediatric nurse, a care quality inspector, chairman of governors at your son’s school. You convinced the counsellor you were using that you were genuine and used her as a buffer between you and the police.’
He said Beech’s accusations besmirched the names of ‘public servants of great integrity and decency’ by accusing them of child rape and murder.
And he spoke of the public cost of the case, saying: ‘The Metropolitan Police had 20 officers a year working full time on this, diverting them from other duties at a time of stretched public resources. It is estimated to have cost £2million and to be added to that are the costs of the Wiltshire Police.’
Beech’s allegations, which included claims he had been taken out of lessons during the 1970s and 1980s to be abused and that he had witnessed three children being murdered at the hands of the invented VIP ring, prompted the Met to launch Operation Midland, which ran from 2014 to 2016 and eventually closed without a single arrest being made.
In a statement that he read to court, Mr Proctor said he had only a ‘feeling of icy contempt’ for Beech, and that his lies had caused ‘ordinary people to revile and despise me’. After sentencing he described Mr Watson as the ‘cheerleader in chief’ for the VIP paedophile ring accuser’s false claims.
The former politician encouraged ex-Met Police commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe to hand back his peerage and to apologise for Operation Midland.
‘Derived sexual pleasure’ ‘You besmirched their names’