Heath inquiry given £1.1m
chief reporter THE police investigation into Sir Edward Heath is being bankrolled by the Home Office after Amber Rudd signed off on a £1.1million bail-out.
The decision to give Wiltshire Police emergency funds was greeted with dismay by critics, who called the inquiry a “scandalous” waste of public money.
Mike Veale, Wiltshire Police’s chief constable, said yesterday that he would make public a summary report of his force’s two-year investigation into allegations that Heath was a paedophile on Oct 5, the day after the conclusion of the Tory party conference.
The inquiry was launched with a police appeal for “victims” to come forward that was made outside Heath’s Salisbury home, Arundells.
Sources have told The Daily Telegraph that the inquiry, costing between £1.5million and £2million, has fallen far short of establishing that Heath was a paedophile but will insist the investigation was justified. “The report will not make any conclusion on whether Heath was a paedophile,” said
a well-placed source. “It is not going to show serious child abuse. It will not substantiate the claims.”
Ms Rudd signed off on the “special grant funding” after a plea for financial support from Mr Veale, who is likely to come under pressure to resign.
The Home Office insisted the funding was necessary to prevent the Heath inquiry, known as Operation Conifer, from affecting front line services but that it made “no judgment” on the merit of the inquiry.
The Home Office will give Wiltshire £1.1million, meaning Operation Conifer will cost the force at least £400,000.
Lord Lawson, a former Conservative chancellor, said: “The police investigation is scandalous. It is a waste of public money. It is a shame the Home Office is helping Wiltshire police out.”
Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, writing in yesterday’s Telegraph, accused Mr Veale of presiding over a “tragicomedy of incompetence”. He and many others have accused police of sullying the reputation of a man who died more than a decade ago and is not alive to defend himself. A Home Office spokesman said: “Following an application from Wiltshire Police for special grant funding, the Home Office has confirmed it will provide up to £1.1million as a contribution towards the additional costs for Operation Conifer.”
Other child sex abuse inquiries including investigations into scandals in children’s homes in North Wales have received similar funds. However, police operations such as Greater Manchester’s plea for almost £1.7 million to police fracking protests have been rejected.
Mr Veale urged the media and public not to speculate on the contents of the summary report until it was published.
He said in a statement: “This investigation has followed and complied with national guidance from the outset and throughout and this extends to the publication of the report. The report will include detail of the scale and scope of the investigation, and a summary of its findings. It is important to stress that is not the role of the police to judge the guilt or innocence of people in our criminal justice system.”
He added that it was wrong for people “to speculate about the veracity of the allegations against Sir Edward Heath”.