‘NICK’ POLICE SEARCHES BROKE LAW
Bombshell as judge behind inquiry reveals ‘perversion of justice’ He tells Mail: Officers got search warrants using false evidence... ... but says his damning findings were ignored by police watchdog
POLICE broke the law in the bungled probe into VIP child abuse fantasist Nick, a former High Court judge says today. Sir Richard Henriques said officers used false evidence to obtain search warrants to raid the homes of retired Armed Forces chief Lord Bramall, the widow of ex-Home Secretary Lord Brittan and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor and should now face a criminal investigation. In an astonishing intervention, he tells the Daily Mail that Scotland Yard detectives did not have the right to search the properties because their description of Nick – real name Carl Beech – as a ‘consistent’ witness was false, effectively fooling a judge into granting the warrants.
He also alleges the ‘course of justice
was perverted with shocking consequences’ and says he finds it astonishing that no officer has been brought to book over the fiasco. He says a ‘criminal investigation should surely follow’.
Last week it was confirmed that not one officer would face misconduct proceedings over the case, following a watchdog investigation branded a ‘whitewash’ by critics.
In 2016 Sir Richard wrote a scathing report for Scotland Yard about its £2.5million investigation into Beech’s allegations. His report, which identified 43 blunders, was heavily redacted and has never been fully made public.
But his 1,200-word statement in today’s Mail will pile pressure on ex-Metropolitan Police chief Sir Bernard, now Lord Hogan-Howe, and the officer who led Operation Midland, ex-deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse, who has been promoted to one of the top jobs in British policing. In other bombshell claims, Sir Richard: n Says the Metropolitan Police has ‘sought to protect itself from effective outside scrutiny’ over Operation Midland;
n Alleges that during his hard- hitting 2016 investigation, the Met did not give him ‘ all relevant documentation’; and
n Attacks police watchdogs for clearing two senior officers of misconduct without interviewing them.
Sir Richard’s broadside at the Met and police watchdogs comes days after vicar’s son Beech, 51, was jailed for 18 years for telling a string of lies about alleged VIP child sex abuse and serial murder.
At his ten-week trial, jurors heard the fantasist told officers that he was used as a human dartboard by the former heads of MI5 and MI6, that his dog was kidnapped by a spy chief, and that the paedophile ring shot dead his horse.
The court also heard Beech is now a convicted paedophile after child porn offences came to light when an independent police force, at Sir Richard’s behest, started investigating him on suspicion of making false claims about a murderous Establishment paedophile ring.
In the wake of his convictions last week, Scotland Yard chiefs faced intense criticism over its staggering incompetence and 16-month investigation launched on the word of a pathological liar.
But shortly after he was found guilty last Monday, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) announced three officers accused of misconduct over search warrant applications had been cleared.
The IOPC said the officers, led by senior investigating officer detective chief inspector Diane Tudway, acted ‘ with due diligence and in good faith at the time’.
But Sir Richard tells the Mail the finding is ‘in conflict’ with his review of Operation Midland in 2016 and he maintains ‘the opinion that the three search warrants authorising the searches of the homes of Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan and Harvey Proctor were obtained unlawfully’ from a district judge. This is because, he says, Beech’s allegations had changed since he first contacted police in 2012 and were not ‘consistent’.
He continued: ‘I remain unable to conclude that every officer acted with due diligence and in good faith. When the applications were made officers leading the investigation were fully aware of six matters in particular which undermined Beech’s credibility.’
In another damning revelation, Sir Richard said that during his
‘Met sought to protect itself’
review for the Met, he was not – as promised at the outset – given ‘all relevant documentation’.
He said Mrs Tudway – who was promoted to superintendent while under investigation for alleged misconduct and retired just before Beech’s trial – was aware of several matters which undermined Beech’s credibility and ‘knew full well that they had not been brought to the attention of the district judge’. He added: ‘Knowingly misleading a district judge is far more serious than mere misconduct. The IOPC should in my judgment have investigated whether a criminal act had been committed.’
He also lambasted the watchdog for offering no explanation as to why two senior Operation Midland officers – Rodhouse and ex-detective superintendent Kenny McDonald, who called Beech ‘credible and true’ at the start of the inquiry in 2014 – were exonerated without being interviewed by watchdogs.
‘Through the device of deploying an officer with an incomplete knowledge of the investigation to sign the applications and to make the applications, the Metropolitan Police has sought to protect itself from effective outside scrutiny,’ he concluded.
Last week Met Deputy Commissioner Sir Stephen House said he believed all five officers probed by police watchdogs over Operation Midland ‘worked in good faith’.
They cooperated fully with both the Henriques’ Review and the Independent Office for Police Conduct investigations, he added.
DISHONEST police officers conspiring to lie deliberately to a court in order to obtain authorisation for raids on the homes of innocent citizens using the full, blunt force of the State?
One might be forgiven for thinking this chilling scenario could only occur in some failed banana republic or Third World dictatorship.
In fact, eminent retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques tells the Daily Mail today it may, shamefully, have happened in 21st Century Britain.
In an unprecedented intervention, he accuses Scotland Yard of unlawfully securing search warrants while investigating malign claims of a VIP paedophile ring which raped and murdered children in the 1970s and 1980s. Desperate to believe deranged allegations by a man known as ‘Nick’, he fears detectives may have acted illegally.
Disturbingly, he says police ignored glaring inconsistencies in the fantasist’s assertions (including that three close friends were killed by the child-sex gang).
Then by submitting ‘false and misleading’ statements to court, he says, they persuaded a judge to grant warrants against three prominent figures.
This empowered the Metropolitan Police to ransack the homes of former Home Secretary Lord Brittan, war hero Field Marshal Lord Bramall and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor. Their lives were ruined, their reputations trashed.
Sir Richard doesn’t mince his words: These officers ‘perverted the course of justice with shocking consequences’.
He is similarly unequivocal about the next step: A rigorous criminal investigation.
Why are Sir Richard’s words so explosive? First, he is an Establishment mainstay. He has put his neck on the line to lift the lid on wrong-doing at the heart of the police.
Next, he wrote the (heavily- censored) 2016 report which laid bare Operation Midland’s appalling failings, and how police dragged the blameless through the mud.
Even a cursory investigation would have discovered the smears were the inventions of a twisted imagination.
Last, Sir Richard is livid officers have got off scot-free. Mere hours after ‘Nick’ – real name Carl Beech – was convicted of lying to police, a watchdog sneaked out that three officers had been cleared of misconduct.
Not a soul has been punished for the outrage. Met police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe, ultimately in charge of the massive botch-up, was rewarded with a place in the House of Lords. Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald, who declared on TV the grotesque claims were ‘credible and true’, retired on a gold-plated pension.
And what of the real victims? D-Day veteran Lord Bramall, 95, saw his wife die with the sickening allegations still hanging over his head. Lord Brittan went to his grave without his name being cleared. And Harvey Proctor lost his home and job.
Truly, this has been one of the blackest episodes in Scotland Yard’s history. Serious questions need answering about how the shamed force got it so profoundly wrong.
Today, the Mail demands action. Sir Richard’s report must be published immediately – unredacted. MPs should launch an urgent inquiry into why the Met was so pathetically gullible – and gung-ho.
And it is vital an independent police force investigates if the Yard perverted the course of justice during the costly witch-hunt.
It is instructive that the distinguished judge has spoken out in the Mail as a means to expose the horrendous injustice – highlighting the importance of a free Press in holding the powerful to account.
For it is crucial to maintaining public trust that we get to the bottom of this scandal.
If people of the monumental standing of Lord Bramall can be fitted up by a rogue police force acting as the arm of the State, surely it could happen to any one of us.