Now madam in Heath sex case claims: I was sent hush money while in jail
THE brothel keeper at the centre of the Sir Edward Heath paedophile scandal yesterday claimed that politicians and police had tried to buy her silence.
But she vowed: ‘I will write a book and I will name them all.’
Madam Ling-Ling said parcels of money had been sent to her in prison ‘telling me not to talk’.
She said she was sent cash after being jailed for brothel-running in Salisbury, Wiltshire – a mile from the ex-prime minister’s home.
The Filipina grandmother, real name Myra Ling-Ling Forde, said she did not know who sent the money but was sure it was to keep her quiet.
Forde, 67, has been accused of threatening to expose Sir Edward as a paedophile. The police watchdog is investigating whether her threat led to the withdrawal of prostitution charges against her in 1992. She was later jailed twice, in 1995 and 2009.
Forde said she knew politicians and celebrities in the 1990s when she ran
‘I’ll write a book and name them all’
brothels in Salisbury and London. She told the Mail: ‘I ran a brothel and I’ve been convicted. When I was in prison, there was a lot of money that was sent. I don’t know where it was coming from. There was no name.’
Asked if she believed it was from her former clients, she said: ‘Oh yes. Telling me not to talk about them.
‘It came in the post. Sometimes I got £ 50 here, £ 50 there, £ 100 there … but you know, it was no name. The prison don’t like to give it to me because it’s got no name. So it wasn’t given to me.’
Speaking outside her north-west London flat, she said she believed the money was sent by ‘a couple of politicians, a couple of policemen’, insisting: ‘I don’t have to name them.’
Forde refused five times to confirm whether she had met Sir Edward, but said: ‘He was a very nice man. But he’s dead now. I can’t say anything.
‘One day I will write a story. One day I will tell you. One day I will tell the truth.’ Forde lives in a housing association flat with a friend. She walks friends’ dogs and acts as a ‘counsellor’, neighbours said.
Her solicitor has denied she had any ‘involvement with Ted Heath’ or ‘knowledge of any misconduct on his part’.
At least seven police forces are now carrying out Heath investigations after Gloucestershire Police yesterday said it had received an allegation and Thames Valley Police said it had ‘ received i nformation’. Detectives in Wiltshire, Kent, Jersey, Hampshire and London are also looking at abuse claims linked to Sir Edward.
Forde, who has two sons and two grandsons, was born in the Philippines and married first husband John Forde in Salis- bury in 1971. She wed second husband Albert Cooper in 1984. A source close to him said Forde was ‘a compulsive liar’ who boasted about knowing rich men, adding: ‘She used to tell me they were “high-up” people.’ Forde had forced children as young as 13 to work in her brothels and was jailed in 1995 and 2009.