Police refuse to call off the dogs after VIP child sex ring fiasco
LAUNCHED in 2015 to investigate allegations against Sir Edward Heath, Operation Conifer has been dogged by claims that it traduces the reputation of a Prime Minister who died more than a decade ago and could not be put on trial.
The operation, which has a staff of 17 and has run up a bill approaching £1million, did not get off to a good start when Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale had to apologise for launching it in front of cameras outside Sir Edward’s former house, Arundells, in Salisbury.
Demands to call it off grew last November when Scotland Yard was forced to abandon its Operation Midland investigation into similar claims of a VIP paedophile ring in Westminster. After a flurry of false accusations, Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised to former Defence chief Lord Bramall, ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor, DJ Paul Gambaccini and Lady Brittan, widow of the late Lord Brittan.
Pressure on Operation Conifer mounted after this newspaper revealed how an expert, brought in by police to assess claims that Heath was linked to paedophiles who held satanic orgies, dismissed them as fantasy.
Days after The Mail on Sunday report, Mr Veale came out fighting and insisted Operation Conifer was not a ‘witch-hunt’. In a surprise statement released on December 2, he said he refused to ‘buckle’ to demands to abandon the inquiry, and stressed his officers had not spoken to ‘Nick’, the man at the root of Operation Midland.
The Heath investigation was not a ‘fishing trip’, he said, adding that he was ‘duty-bound’ to go ahead with it ‘without fear or favour and go where the evidence takes us’. He accused his critics of ignorance, and rebuked them for using ‘inappropriate and unacceptable pressure’ in an attempt to halt the inquiry.
Mr Veale said a ‘significant number of individuals’ had alleged abuse, but refused to say how many or give details of the only two people to be arrested.
He even said the findings of the investigation may never be made public, stating: ‘A confidential closing report will be written… and at that time I will take advice as to what I can legally put in the public domain.’ Police were ‘testing, checking and challenging the evidence and ensuring our approach is proportionate and justified’, he said.
Mr Veale argues that although Sir Edward died in 2005, other offenders may still be alive and victims could require support. ‘If the force had received allegations of non-recent child abuse against a former Prime Minister and done nothing, what would the reaction have been?’
Lincoln Seligman, Sir Edward’s godson, responded to Mr Veale’s December statement by saying: ‘If they have uncovered no evidence after 18 months they should say so. And if Conifer is wound up, [Sir Edward] deserves to be exonerated as publicly as he was initially smeared. Shuffling the inquiry’s findings off into the night is not acceptable.’
Other aspects of Operation Conifer have also come under fire. Wiltshire Police interviewed key figures at Private Eye because the satirical magazine joked about unmarried Sir Edward’s sexuality 40 years ago.
They wanted to know if its nickname for him, ‘Sailor Ted’, in his days as PM from 1970 to 1974, was a reference to rumours that he was gay.
Police even asked current editor Ian Hislop what he knew about Heath, despite Hislop being a teenager during the period under investigation.
Officers have also tracked down former Downing Street staff to ask them if young men were ever sneaked into No10.
Times writer and ex-Tory MP Matthew Parris dismissed the allegations, saying: ‘If Heath was a child abuser, I’m an aardvark.’
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