MPs to quiz Met chief about child abuse inquiry
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain’s most senior police officer, will explain his conduct over Operation Midland, the child sex abuse inquiry, for the first time, at the home affairs select committee on Feb 23. It follows criticism of the investigation into Field Marshal Lord Bramall.
SIR Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain’s most senior police officer, will explain his conduct over Operation Midland, the child sex abuse inquiry, for the first time later this month after being called to give evidence to MPs.
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police will appear in front of the influential home affairs select committee in just over a fortnight, following intense criticism of the investigation into Field Marshal Lord Bramall, the former head of the Army.
The last time the committee examined the issue, Sir Bernard was ridiculed for sending a deputy to face MPs while he chose instead to make an 8,000 mile return trip to deliver a short speech at a five-star hotel in Oman.
Now it can be disclosed that Sir Bernard has complied with the committee’s request for an appearance – scheduled for February 23.
Lord Bramall last night confirmed he has yet to be told whether he is to receive a formal apology over the aborted investigation which found no evidence to support claims he abused youngsters 40 years ago. The D-Day veteran told The Daily
Telegraph that he has had no communication from Scotland Yard since it “grudgingly” notified him he was no longer under investigation.
However, Lord Bramall expressed sympathy for the “poor chap” who is fighting to save his job as Britain’s most senior policeman.
“I have always said that it is not me who’s crying out to have an apology, it is everyone on my behalf,” the peer said. “If he does, I would be delighted to accept an apology but I’m not push- ing for it. Everybody is at him, poor chap. I feel a bit sorry for him.”
In October Sir Bernard flew to the InterContinental Hotel in Muscat, Oman, to attend a conference instead of answering MPs’ questions on anoth- er strand of Operation Midland into the late Conservative Cabinet minister Leon Brittan.
Scotland Yard insisted he agreed to attend the event before receiving a written invitation from Keith Vaz, the committee chairman.
Last night, Mr Vaz said: “I am pleased that the commissioner has agreed to appear before the home affairs select committee.”
Lord Bramall, 92, was wrongly accused of child abuse amid a litany of delays and failures by the Met.
Detectives investigating allegations that he raped and tortured young boys in the Seventies did not interview key witnesses for 11 months and also took more than five months to check some of the most basic facts in the case.
The war veteran found his reputation traduced when a single witness, known as “Nick”, came forward at the end of 2014, claiming to have been abused as a boy by a powerful VIP paedophile ring, which allegedly included Lord Bramall, Sir Edward Heath, the late former prime minister, and Harvey Proctor, a former Tory MP. Despite the gravity of the allegations, detectives took 10 months to question Sir Peter Duffell, the Field Marshal’s former military assistant, and 11 months to speak to his aide de camp.
Both stated they had never seen a young boy near Lord Bramall’s office.
The news of Sir Bernard’s attendance at the home affairs select committee in February came as an internal Metropolitan Police inquiry into how it investigated an allegation of rape against Lord Brittan concluded it was “necessary, proportionate and fully justified”.
The peer was separately accused of raping a 19-year-old female student in his central London flat in 1967 before he became an MP.
The inquiry said detectives pursued “appropriate lines of enquiry from the complainant’s account and obtained credible evidence,” but adds the case was more “likely to lead to acquittal than conviction”.