The Guardian view on the police and Carl Beech: questions remain
The publication of a report into the police’s botched handling of child sex abuse allegations from the convicted fantasist Carl Beech ought to be an occasion for the judicious apportioning of blame, followed by public apologies and promises to learn from what happened. Instead, the findings of the Independent Office for Police Conduct have given rise to a frenzy of attack and counter-attack between parties including the Metropolitan police; the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson; the retired judge Sir Richard Henriques, who was asked by the then Met commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to investigate what went wrong; and the IOPC itself. To call this disappointing is putting it mildly. Cressida Dick, the current Met commissioner, should make a statement promptly, both on her own behalf – she was briefly in charge of Operation Midland, which ran from 2014 to 2016 – and on that of the force she runs.
Beech, who was formerly known as “Nick”, is serving an 18-year jail term for perverting the course of justice. None of the other actors in this damaging episode has been adequately held to account. This need not mean penalties for individual officers, although it is hard to see how misleading a judge into providing a search warrant did not constitute a disciplinary offence – or worse – even if it was not deliberate. Former deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse has said sorry for mistakes, including the decision to state publicly that police believed Beech’s claim to have been abused by a highlevel paedophile ring to be “credible and true”. But he was never questioned by the IOPC, faced no official sanctions and has since been promoted. Two other officers retired before they could be investigated, in a pattern that is no less disturbing for being so familiar.
Restoring public confidence in the police must be the priority. There is no reason to doubt the service’s good intentions. The context of Beech’s allegations – in the febrile aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal, when the idea that such crimes could be committed with impunity had gained fresh credence – must be remembered. But serious questions remain to be answered by the Met about what went wrong, both in terms of culture and process, that led officers to get so carried away that they spent £2.5m looking into Beech’s lies.
Those falsely accused, and their families, suffered great distress. When Leon Brittan died in 2015 he had yet to be exonerated. His widow, Lady Brittan, remains furious. But the harm caused by this episode goes wider. Beech’s notoriety could make it harder for other victims to come forward. The public’s perception of police incompetence is also damaging, as is the impression that they, and other public figures, are not held accountable for mistakes.
With this in mind, Mr Watson should accept more responsibility for his role in what happened. A senior Labour politician should never have played so active a role in promoting an investigation of senior Conservatives. Politicians of all parties must reconsider the powers of the police watchdog, which appears toothless. The home secretary, Priti Patel, must swiftly adjust the posture of unswerving loyalty to the police adopted at her party’s recent conference. After a failure such as Operation Midland, what the Met needs most is constructive critics.