VIP ABUSE INQUIRY IS STARTING TO UNRAVEL
‘Grave doubts’ over key witness’s claims
SCOTLAND Yard is under pressure to shelve its VIP paedophile murder inquiry because detectives have ‘grave doubts’ about the testimony of the key witness.
Officers have not found a ‘shred of credible evidence’ to back up claims that a string of senior Establishment figures were responsible for murdering three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.
Many detectives believe the inquiry – which has already cost the taxpayer more than £1million – is doomed and should be wound up. Senior figures in the separate judge-led public inquiry into historic child sex abuse and in the Crown Prosecution Service have been told informally that there appears to be no substance to the allegations made by a witness known only as ‘Nick’.
Nick is an alleged abuse victim who was described by a senior Met Police detective, Kenny McDonald, last year as being ‘credible and true’. Amid
claims that Yard chiefs are ‘too scared’ to pull the plug on the inquiry, 30 officers in the cash- strapped force are probing the astonishing triple-murder allegation, linked to Dolphin Square in Central London. It can also be revealed that: Police initially took Nick’s account seriously because he has a respectable managerial job and does ‘not fit the stereotype of a child abuse fantasist’;
But there are now fears he is a ‘Walter Mitty’ who has made up the murder allegations;
Police have not been able to identify any of the alleged victims, discover any bodies or find any credible independent witnesses.
Sources say a number of officers have ‘grave doubts’ about Nick’s account but fear that saying this in public could put child-sex victims off contacting police. Details of the Met’s fears over the allegations have emerged after former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor accused police of a ‘gay witch-hunt’ when he disclosed that he had been questioned over the alleged murders.
Nick says he was abused at depraved ‘sex parties’ from the age of seven, and claims to have witnessed horrific acts at the luxury Dolphin Square estate between 1975 and 1984.
‘Not one shred
of evidence’
Quote the Met may regret
Nick has been spoken to by experienced officers ... they and I believe what he is saying is credible and true Detective Superintendent Kenny
McDonald in December ‘Paedophile
madness’
He has described being driven by a chauffeur, along with a terrified 12-year-old boy, to a luxury townhouse where he watched as a Tory MP strangled the other child. Nick said he saw a second boy being murdered in front of a Tory Cabinet minister in 1981. A third boy died in 1979 after being run over by a member of the gang, he alleges.
In November last year, Nick told the BBC that his abusers ‘created fear that penetrated every part of me, day in day out’. But the Mail has been told that when Nick is challenged on his version of events, he ‘becomes emotional and the interview is stopped’.
A source said: ‘When he contacted police, he had a wellrehearsed script and initially appeared believable. But when you scratch under the surface of his claims, there is nothing there. The notion of an organised paedophile gang of a former prime minister, MPs and Establishment figures is just nonsense. Police have not been able to identify any victims. There is not one shred of credible evidence to support his allegations. The police investigation has been exhaustive but they have drawn a blank.’
Last week Mr Proctor said he had been accused of being part of a child sexual abuse ring along with the late former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, ex-home secretary Lord Brittan and former heads of MI5 and MI6.
He was accused of being part of a ‘gang’ which murdered three boys and abused many others at Westminster sex parties in the 1970s and 1980s. There is also mounting concern among officers about the role of an ‘investigative’ news website called Exaro, which has close links to campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson. An Exaro journalist accompanied Nick to his first police interview and one was involved in a heated exchange with Mr Proctor at his press conference last week. The former detective who helped expose the Jimmy Savile scandal has warned that many of the allegations against high-profile political figures are unsubstantiated and amount to ‘paedophile madness’. Mark Williams-Thomas said the behaviour by some in the police, media and on the inter- net posed ‘a very real danger of undoing all the good that has been done’ since he revealed Savile’s serial offending.
Last night, in a statement issued through Exaro, Nick declined to comment ‘given that there is an ongoing police investigation’.
Mark Watts, editor-in-chief of Exaro, said: ‘A small number of ill- informed commentators have criticised Exaro over its reporting of the allegations by Nick. The criticisms have, however, each been made on a false basis. Far from reporting “rumours”, as alleged, we in fact reported testimony from a witness that we at Exaro – and experienced detectives who specialise in child abuse and in homicide – regard as credible.’
Tory MP Nigel Evans said: ‘If it transpires this exercise is either politically motivated or a politically correct procedure costing valuable time and resources, then clearly it’s time for the police to put up or shut up.’
There is no suggestion that the behind-the-scene problems with the Yard murder probe will affect the inquiry into abuse which is being overseen by Justice Lowell Goddard.
Scotland Yard would not confirm that officers had found no evidence to support Nick’s claims. Nor did it comment on whether Detective Superintendent McDonald stands by his claim that Nick is a ‘credible and true’ witness.