The court was given false and misleading evidence... a criminal inquiry must now follow
Shattering verdict of top judge who ran VIP abuse case review
On MonDAY, July 22, the Independent office for Police Conduct (IoPC) published its findings into how the Metropolitan Police handled the investigation into allegations made by Carl Beech, namely that the operation Midland officers involved in applying for search warrants acted ‘with due diligence and in good faith at the time’.
That finding is in conflict with my own finding set out in my review handed to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, as he was then, on october 31, 2016.
That section of my review has not as yet been disclosed to the public or to those named and falsely accused by Beech, previously known by the pseudonym ‘nick’.
I concluded in my review – and maintain the opinion – that the three search warrants authorising the searches of the homes of Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan and Harvey Proctor were obtained unlawfully.
All three applications stated that Beech had remained consistent with his allegations.
Beech had not been consistent. His allegations made to the Wiltshire Police in 2012 were fundamentally inconsistent with those he made to the Metropolitan Police in 2014 and with blogs published by Beech in 2014.
Beech told Wiltshire Police that he was first raped by an unnamed lieutenant colonel. He told the Metropolitan Police that he was first raped by his stepfather.
The identities of subsequent named alleged rapists were inconsistent. The alleged locations were inconsistent, persons allegedly present were inconsistent, the alleged accompanying acts of violence were inconsistent and Wiltshire Police were never informed of three alleged child murders.
These numerous inconsistencies were within the knowledge of those officers leading the investigation. A document highlighting Beech’s ‘inconsistencies’ was in existence prior to the application for search warrants. The Wiltshire interviews had been handed to the Metropolitan Police in May 2013.
The description of Beech as having been consistent was false and misleading and persuaded the district judge to grant the applications, as did the fact ‘that this has been considered at deputy assistant commissioner level’.
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.
They are set out in my review at some length and should have been brought to the attention of the district judge in the event of any application being made.
In particular there was compelling evidence that Beech had never been injured in the manner he had asserted, that he had never been absent from home as alleged, nor removed from school as alleged, there was no evidence that any one of the three children allegedly murdered had in fact been murdered, and no corroboration of any single allegation not withstanding a public request for information made on December 18, 2014.
None
of these matters were disclosed to the district judge as they should have been. every search warrant application contains the words ‘this application discloses all the information that is material to what the court must decide including anything that might reasonably be considered capable of undermining any of the grounds of the application’.
In order to obtain a search warrant, an applicant must establish that he or she has reasonable grounds to believe that an indictable offence has been committed.
I concluded in 2016 – and I remain of the view – that the officers responsible for the three applications did not in fact fully believe that there were reasonable grounds to believe Beech’s allegations.
If such reasonable grounds had existed, and had officers believed in their existence, I have no doubt Harvey Proctor would have been arrested on suspicion of having committed three child murders.
When I was asked by Sir Bernard to conduct my review, I was assured that I would receive all relevant documentation. I was not in fact supplied with the three applications for search warrants.
nor were the applications listed on a list of relevant documents supplied to me. It was necessary to approach Westminster Magistrates’ Court direct in order to obtain the written applications.
It is significant a comparatively junior officer – a detective sergeant with limited knowledge of the investigation and with no knowledge of the content of the Wiltshire interviews (having chosen not to read a summary provided to him) – was detailed or required to sign the three applications and to apply in person to the district judge.
Indeed, the detective sergeant told the IoPC that he was unaware of the inconsistencies in Beech’s accounts and had not read the Wiltshire interviews.
The senior investigating officer, however, attended before the district judge and had herself reviewed the written applications.
She had access to the Wiltshire interviews and to the document highlighting Beech’s several inconsistencies.
She was present at the application when the more junior and less well informed officer gave evidence on oath in support of the applications. The senior investigating officer was aware of the several matters referred to earlier which undermined Beech’s credibility and knew full well that they had not been brought to the attention of the district judge.
The consequence of obtaining and executing these three search warrants and then informing Beech thereof must not be underestimated. Beech immediately informed exaro, the online news agency, which resulted in the avalanche of dreadful publicity which has blighted the lives of Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan, Harvey Proctor, nine other named individuals and their families and friends.
If any police officer drafted, reviewed, promoted or signed an application for a search warrant stating that Beech had remained consistent whilst knowing he had not been consistent, such an officer would be guilty not only of misconduct, but also of intending to pervert the course of justice.
I was surprised to learn that the criticism made by me in my review had been assessed to amount to misconduct only by the IoPC. Knowingly misleading a district judge is far more serious than mere misconduct.
The IoPC should in my judgement have investigated whether a criminal act had been committed, and if so by whom.
I was also surprised by the length of time taken to complete the IoPC investigation.
I was informed by Sir Bernard that the matter would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (as the IoPC was previously known) in november 2016 and the investigation was not completed until July 2019. Whilst the IoPC apologised for the time taken to conclude the matter, such delay undoubtedly resulted in ‘officers being unable to specify which documents each had sight of and knowledge of at what time’.
Finally, there was no explanation from the IoPC as to why the two most senior officers were exonerated without interview, not least since the district judge relied on the fact the search warrant applications had been considered at deputy assistant commissioner level.
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.
The fact remains, however, that Beech had not remained consistent, the Metropolitan Police informed the district judge that Beech had remained consistent and ‘he is felt to be a credible witness who is telling the truth’.
Thus the course of justice was perverted with shocking consequences. A criminal investigation should surely follow. nSir Richard did not request or receive a fee for this article.
THE devastating toll of the Operation Midland investigation was starkly laid bare by those who had their homes raided over false allegations of murder, child rape and torture.
The trial of fantasist Carl Beech heard how officers searched the home of Britain’s most distinguished living war hero while his wife suffered with dementia.
One detective allegedly leaked news of the search of an ex-MP’s home to his accuser, who handed the information to discredited news website Exaro. And the grieving widow of a former home secretary was ‘traumatised’ as their two properties were searched only six weeks after his death.
As retired judge Sir Richard Henriques calls for a criminal investigation into how the search warrants were obtained, the Mail outlines the impact of the raids in March 2015.
PROCTOR: IT WAS KAFKAESQUE
ON March 4, 2015 officers from the Metropolitan Police’s murder squad raided former Tory MP Harvy Proctor’s home on the Duke of Rutland’s private estate.
They spent 15 hours searching his grace-and-favour home in the grounds of Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire.
Mr Proctor told Newcastle Crown Court during Beech’s trial that police would initially not give him details of what he was accused of other than saying it was to do with allegations of historic child abuse.
In fact, police were probing at least two murders said to have been committed by Mr Proctor.
The details they had been fed – described at one stage as ‘credible and true’ – included an allegation that Mr Proctor had attempted to castrate Beech with a pen knife and was only stopped from doing so when 1970s prime minister Sir Edward Heath intervened.
Mr Proctor was assured during the search his name would not find its way into the media. He had to be talked out of taking his own life in the late 1980s when he admitted gross indecency for having sex with underage men after being exposed by newspapers.
The following morning after the raid he awoke to coverage on TV news. He told Beech’s trial: ‘When I awoke at 7am on the dot I looked up at the TV screen to see my face looking back at me and a story running at the head of the BBC news that my house had been searched in connection with historic child sexual abuse including child murders.
‘It was a Kafkaesque situation – a horrendous, irrational nightmare.’ A detective taking part in the raid on Mr Proctor’s home is then said to have phoned Beech to update him. Beech passed details of the raid to reporters at Exaro, who ran the piece and caused Mr Proctor’s name to become public knowledge.
As a result of the raid and the following publicity, Mr Proctor lost his job and the home that went with it. After receiving death threats, he moved with his partner to Spain ‘away from the country I love’ before quietly returning to Britain to live in a converted shed provided by a friend which had no running water.
He is now back living in a property owned by the Rutland estate.
He added: ‘I suffer severe depression and sometimes weep when reminded of what I have lost as a result of the police action.’
Mr Proctor is pursuing a civil claim against the Metropolitan Police and Beech. In an interview with the Mail in 2016, Mr Proctor said: ‘When the police raided my home in March they arrived at 8am. I was given no prior warning. There were at least 15 of them. They searched my home for 15 hours.
‘They assured me my identity would not come out. But even before they left, the Press were telephoning my office.’
BRAMALL: CHILD SLUR SO INSULTING
AS Field Marshal Lord Bramall sat down to have breakfast with his wife of 66 years, 20 police descended on their home in a village on the Hampshire-Surrey border.
The former head of the Armed Forces and war hero, 95 and wheelchair-bound, said the visit was so unexpected that he immediately invited the police inside when they knocked on the door.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, he described how he was told ‘accusations had been made’.
When Lord Bramall replied ‘Against who?’ he was informed ‘Against you.’ His wife Avril was in the advanced stages of dementia and did not understand what was taking place. She died before he could be exonerated.
Lord Bramall described how the officers arrived in overalls and spent ten hours searching ‘absolutely everything’ in the house.
His daughter Sara arrived and she was asked whether he had any grandchildren before one officer added: ‘Are you afraid of leaving them alone with him?’
He told the newspaper: ‘Can you think of anything more insulting?’
The officers left with an old visitors’ book and copies of two speeches Lord Bramall had made.
In an interview with the Mail last week, his son Nicholas said: ‘They went behind every picture in the house. They ripped the place apart. There was a bus-load of police in white suits. My parents live right in the middle of the village. They weren’t being subtle.
‘Most of the officers went down the pub for lunch and it wasn’t long before the local paper got onto Dad. The trouble with all allegations, particularly paedophilia, is it sticks, doesn’t it? It’s just such an overwhelmingly awful thing.’
Lord Bramall received £100,000 compensation from the police for their handling of the raid.
Nicholas said: ‘They over-reacted and got it spectacularly wrong and Dad and other people had to pay the price.’ His wife Pip added: ‘He [Lord Bramall] said the police had raided his house and were there now. They were going through everything and he wasn’t allowed to move. He said he’d been accused of something involving a minor 40 years ago but they wouldn’t say what it was.
‘Mum was very confused. It was so unpleasant for her. She was sort of shunted from one room to another. She knew something was wrong, but wasn’t quite sure what it was. It affected her quite badly. She used to say, “What have I done, what have I done?’
LADY BRITTAN: MY SEARCH TRAUMA
HOMES in Yorkshire and London belonging to the former home secretary were raided by police six weeks after his death from cancer.
The key figure in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet was alone in hospital, terminally ill, when the allegations concocted by ‘Nick’ became global news. The politician died in January 2015 and his grieving widow Diana had to contend with huge media interest in the allegations made by Beech.
A short time later, police raided Lord Brittan’s homes in Pimlico, central London and Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
In a victim impact statement read at the sentencing of Beech last week, Lady Brittan said their London home was searched for 12 hours and the Yorkshire residence, which was being let, for two days.
She said: ‘The experience of having my house in London searched by a dozen police officers for 12 hours was traumatising.’ Describing the Yorkshire raid, she added: ‘The whole house was turned upside down, and questions were asked about “newly-turned earth”.
‘Van-loads of personal effects were removed. The elderly couple resident in the house were shellshocked by the nature and extent of the search. They were also subjected to very intrusive questioning about my husband and my family. I feared the two searches would be made public. And a few days later they were. The impact of these allegations and their consequences on my wider family were significant. My younger daughter, who lives in Australia, advised me shortly after my husband’s death not to go on the internet and in particular the website Exaro because she said, ‘You will find it very upsetting.’
She added: ‘My husband’s name has now been cleared, but he will never know this.’
Lady Brittan was paid £100,000 compensation by police.