Ted Heath police chief: Now probe ‘cover-up’ in Westminster
MIKE VEALE has spent two years being assailed by the Establishment over his investigation into paedophile allegations against Sir Edward Heath.
The Wiltshire Chief Constable has had to bite his lip as mandarins, exCabinet Ministers, Tory MPs, peers, members of the judiciary and media moguls lambasted his controversial Operation Conifer.
He was accused of being ‘stupid’, leading a ‘witch-hunt’, and told he would be forced to resign the moment it saw the light of day.
Well, it did on Thursday – and 24 hours later he was back at his desk a t Wiltshire Polic e HQ in Devizes.
In his first major interview since the release of a report which said seven child abuse allegations against Sir Edward – including the rape of an 11-year-old boy – would warrant questioning the former Prime Minister under caution were he still alive, Mr Veale:
Called for a new inquiry to ‘lance the boil’ of ‘sinister’ claims that a Westminster child- sex ring was covered up by the Establishment;
Said he could have spent ‘two or three’ more years investigating Sir Edward if his officers had been allowed to dig deeper;
Attacked ‘sickening’ suggestions that the sexual abuse of ‘rent boys’ and those ravaged by drugs or alcohol was less serious than cases involving ‘ wealthy people from Middle England’.
Married Mr Veale, tall and with a rugby wing-forward’s build, is not an obvious candidate for membership of the Establishment.
The 51-year-old’s accent retains the soft burr of his Somerset childhood; he left Midsomer Norton secondary school aged 16 and spent ten years on the beat.
‘ I’m a down- to- earth guy, my social circle is not wine bars and gin and tonics,’ he says, smiling, before adding: ‘But I’m a bit more astute than a dogged old cop.’ Just in case you think he is a yokel in a uniform, which he isn’t.
He says a ‘relentless campaign by the Establishment’ to undermine him over the Heath inquiry caused him ‘ the most stress and soulsearching I’ve had in 30 years. There were some dark days’.
His features, as fair and fresh as a cider apple, strain as he grapples with his tormentor – that ‘inani mate object’, as he calls t he Establishment.
‘ It can be quite sinister. I was told early on in Conifer, “You’ll lose your job, the Establishment will get you”. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe in Martians. I used to think, “What are these people on about?” ’
Asked if the Heath inquiry had changed his mind, Mr Veale replies in a flash: ‘Yes.’
Is he really suggesting allegations of a wider Westminster paedophile ring – dismissed as fantasy after a separate inquiry into ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan and others collapsed – could be true? Each word of his reply is delivered as carefully and as slowly as a PC stalking a burglar.
‘If any, if even one bit of this [Conifer] is true, what did the Government know, the Civil Service, the security services? Those questions need to be answered.’ Surely, though, it’s all hearsay? He won’t have it and points to the recent decision by the Independent Inquiry i nto Child Sex Abuse ( IICSA) to extend its scope to include claims of an Establishment cover-up – significantly, after they learned of the Conifer findings.
Highly laudable, says Mr Veale, but so far IICSA has done zilch about actually investigating it.
‘ It needs someone to look into the potential for cover- up or a conspiracy.
‘In the last two years I’ve spoken to people who genuinely believe… there are too many people making too many assertions… around the Establishment.
‘ Compelling, intelligent people who have moved me.
‘The boil needs to be lanced one way or another. If there is nothing to hide, open the doors.’
Frustratingly, he won’t say more,
‘If there is nothing to hide, open the doors’
citing the confidentiality of his inquiry. But it has the ring of a job application, not to join the Establishment, rather to expose it.
Far from going on a ‘fishing operation’ against Sir Edward, as some have said, Mr Veale suggests he barely touched the surface.
‘The reason it is not a witch-hunt
is because it could have gone on two or three years longer.’
Police investigated only victims who came forward, instead of seeking t hem out as t hey normally would.
Mr Veale’s inability to give details of each case or any corroboration to protect anonymity played into the hands of those who said the accusations against Sir Edward were flimsy.
But claims that Mr Veale was not thorough are unfair. He ordered regular i ndependent scrutiny checks. He even copied the BBC TV series New Tricks, starring Dennis Waterman and Amanda Redman, about retired cops who investigate unsolved crimes. His team of 24 officers included eight hard-nosed retired detectives.
The old-fashioned country boy air about Mr Veale, whose black shoes gleam l i ke a guardsman’s, is matched by a progressive policing more akin to Notting Hill than Midsomer Norton. ‘The old CID attitude to rape was sometimes “blame the woman”. That changed.
‘ It’s the same with child sex abuse. Victims must be able to trust police.’
Nothing riles him more than the insinuation that allegations made by former rent boys should be treated with scepticism because of their background.
‘It rolls off people’s tongues that it’s somehow all right because it’s a rent boy,’ he fires back.
‘The rent boy is just a kid. My son is 14. I’d be mortified if he was trivialised like that.’
He rages at the notion that allegations from ‘ people ravaged by drugs or alcohol have little credibility but if it’s from a Middle England or wealthy background it must be true’.
He says that he ‘ nearly went through the TV’ in fury when a bulletin suggested ‘police should spend more time investigating allegations by genuine victims’.
He says: ‘ The inference that unless they’re from Middle England then they’re not genuine sickened me.
‘ I don’t give a monkey’s what background victims are from or what position in society they hold.
‘We treated them all with respect and dignity.’