Ted Heath abuse probe expert was paid to work on police case

THE farce over the Sir Edward Heath child abuse inquiry grew yesterday as it emerged that a member of an independent panel scrutinising the probe has been paid to help on the case.

Dr Elly Hanson, a clinical psychologist who specialises in abuse and trauma, received £2,025 for advising Wiltshire Police about two individuals who have made allegations against the late Tory prime minister.

The force subsequently asked her to join a panel of four looking at all aspects of the Operation Conifer probe to help police chiefs ‘consider the ongoing proportionality and justification for the investigation’.

Critics questioned whether the panel, which has been used by Chief Constable Mike Veale to justify continuing with the probe, can be called independent when one of its members is being paid to work for the same inquiry.

Sir Edward’s godson, Lincoln Seligman, said: ‘If you’re paid to work within the

‘Her two roles are quite distinct’

inquiry, you can’t really have an independent view of the workings of the inquiry.’

But yesterday Dr Hanson said: ‘There has categorically been no conflict of interest in the roles I have been approached to undertake, and the manner in which I have undertaken them.’ Wiltshire Police said: ‘Her two roles are quite distinct and at no time has there been a conflict.’

The row comes a week after the force announced that the only two people arrested during Operation Conifer – which has lasted nearly two years – have been released with no further action.

It means that no one is likely to face any charges in the investigation dubbed a witch-hunt by critics. The Mail understands that the two people arrested did not know Sir Edward. They had never met him, or worked with him or in politics.

The investigation began in August 2015 when police made an extraordinary statement outside Sir Edward’s former home in Salisbury appealing for victims to come forward. Mr Veale says detectives were ‘duty bound’ to investigate him because as PM from 1970 to 1974 he was ‘one of the most powerful people in the world’. He has been quoted as saying he is convinced that Sir Edward was a paedophile.