‘Nick’ cops flew to Australia to ask ‘victim’: Are you alive?
Trip cost £4,670 when they could simply have phoned for just 85p
‘They wanted a bit of a holiday’
‘Bungled raids on homes’
TWO detectives from Scotland Yard’s shambolic VIP child sex abuse inquiry flew to Australia to take a two-hour statement from a supposed victim to confirm he was still alive.
He told the Daily Mail he was astonished the Metropolitan Police sent the pair to Sydney to spend ‘just a couple of hours’ with him ascertaining he had not been murdered by an Establishment paedophile ring.
Laughing off the £4,000 taxpayerfunded jaunt, Scott Masterton, now 49, declared: ‘I’m very much alive and well!’
The saga started when serial liar ‘Nick’ – real name Carl Beech – told officers on Operation Midland that a boy called ‘Scott’ – thought to be from his school – had been murdered by Establishment paedophiles in a hit-and-run incident in south-west London.
During a series of interviews with Scotland Yard in late 2014, the vicar’s son – subsequently convicted for paedophile offences – insisted he had witnessed the supposed killing in 1979. But detectives could find no record of it. Within months, they had managed to trace seven out of eight boys called Scott who had attended the same primary school as Beech.
Inquiries soon revealed that the eighth boy called Scott had emigrated to Australia. But rather than pick up the phone to ask a local force to take a statement from him, the Met sent two officers to Sydney.
The decision was later condemned in an official report on Operation Midland by retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques, who said the inquiry could have been pursued through ‘more economical means’.
He pointed out that the witness ‘must necessarily have survived his childhood’.
According to a Freedom of Information request, the trip cost around £4,670 (at today’s exchange rate values), including flights, expenses and accommodation. A two-hour phone call from a UK landline to Australia would cost £102 – or 85p per minute – under the standard BT international rate.
The Mail tracked down the ‘Scott’ who was visited by Operation Midland police in 2015. Mr Masterton said it appeared that the officers used him as a reason to fly to Sydney for what was little more than a holiday.
At his £1million home just north of Sydney, he admitted he had been surprised to receive a call from local police telling him that London officers wanted to fly out to speak to him about claims he had been a schoolboy victim of a paedophile ring made up of VIPs. Speaking before Beech was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court of perverting the course of justice and fraud and jailed for 18 years, he said: ‘They were with me for a couple of hours. They explained the purpose of their visit and asked me to provide a statement. I really couldn’t tell them anything. From what I’ve now learned the story is not true, especially if I’m supposed to be the Scott referred to.
‘That’s what the police wanted to check up on, whether I’m alive. Coming all this way for such a short time, you’ve got to think they wanted a bit of a holiday.’
Mr Masterton said he could not recall details of the discussion he had with the officers. ‘I couldn’t tell them anything about Carl Beech – I can’t remember him today. It was some 40 years ago.’
Details of the trip raise further questions about the running of the Operation Midland probe into claims by Beech under the command of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse.
The official cost is about £2.5million. The Met also paid Northumbria Police £951,982 for an independent inquiry into Beech’s fabrications.
On top of this, the Met has paid £100,000 in compensation to Lord Bramall and Lord Brittan’s widow Diana over bungled raids on their homes.
Details of the Australian trip come days after the Mail exposed a damning document showing police should never have raided Lord Bramall’s home.