Daily Mail

Nick: Labour No.2 was part of group that supported me

- By Stephen Wright Associate News Editor

‘I was asked if I recognised them’

LABOUR’S deputy leader Tom Watson was part of a ‘little group’ supporting a vicar’s son before he went to police with ‘ totally unfounded’ allegation­s of VIP child abuse, a court heard yesterday.

Carl Beech, 51, spoke ‘at length’ to the MP and was also shown photos of highprofil­e people before going to police with claims about a Westminste­r sex ring.

Beech, a paedophile who used the pseudonym ‘Nick’, is accused of making false allegation­s against high-profile politician­s in 2014, including ex-PM Edward Heath and ex-home secretary Leon Brittan, as well as former military and intelligen­ce chiefs.

At his trial for 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud, which he denies, Newcastle Crown Court was told Beech met Mr Watson, retired social worker Peter McKelvie and journalist Mark Conrad months before he made his claims.

Beech told Scotland Yard officers that Mr Conrad had shown him pictures of potential paedophile­s which helped him ‘fill in the blanks’ in his memory before he made his accusation­s. They included pictures of the highprofil­e military and political figures he later accused, as well as others he did not.

After he had been shown the photograph­s by Mr Conrad, who was working for an investigat­ions website called Exaro News, he handed detectives the names of 12 men allegedly in the VIP ring. However, this came two years after he told officers in another force, Wiltshire, he could identify only two abusers: his late stepfather, who was a major, and Jimmy Savile, who was also dead.

The six-month inquiry by Wiltshire Police was shelved in May 2013, without any arrests or charges.

In October 2014, Beech contacted Detective Sergeant James Townly of the Met’s Operation Fairbank inquiry into historical child sex abuse claims, explaining he had got the officer’s details from Exaro News. He claimed he could help with the Met’s ongoing investigat­ion into allegation­s that high-ranking paedophile­s had operated out of Dolphin Square in London and ‘other things that might be of interest to you’.

Beech said: ‘Peter McKelvie and Tom Watson also formed part of a little group that was supporting me and put my informatio­n out there to encourage other people to come forward. I went to meet Tom Watson in his office and spoke to him at length.’

In extracts from a Met Police interview, Beech told detectives he had been tortured by Savile and the heads of MI5 and MI6.

The court heard he said he’d had sharp objects jabbed into his feet and they were burned with a lighter, had his head held underwater and was given electric shocks. In a recorded interview with DS Townly, Beech said: ‘They were trying to find new ways to inflict pain, terror, fear. Some of them liked to see me and others in pain.’ Beech, a former nurse, explained how Mr Conrad showed him photograph­s of people ‘to see if there was anyone that I recognised’.

He told DS Townly: ‘I was just asked to mark on them if I recognised them, and if I did recognise them and they took part in the abuse. I picked them out.’

Jurors heard his claims of abuse and murder led to the £2million Operation Midland investigat­ion and raids on elderly suspects’ homes, including that of former Armed Services chief Lord Bramall, whom Beech accused of serious sexual assaults, and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor, whom he accused of rape and murder.

Operation Midland ended without any arrests in March 2016, and later that year Northumbri­a Police was tasked with investigat­ing Beech for perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues.

 ??  ?? On trial: Paedophile Carl Beech
On trial: Paedophile Carl Beech
 ??  ?? ‘Meeting’: Tom Watson
‘Meeting’: Tom Watson

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