Heath ‘victim’ is abuser who faked murder confession
Sir Edward Heath’s main accuser is a jailed paedophile with mental health problems who has falsely confessed to murder.
His bombshell claim that as an 11year-old boy he was raped by Sir Edward led to a £1.5million inquiry into paedophile allegations against the former prime minister.
Yesterday, after it emerged that the accuser was a habitual liar and ‘predatory sex offender’, Mike Veale, the police chief in charge of the two-year inquiry, was accused of misleading the public.
Wiltshire Police last week revealed that the rape claim was the most serious of seven sexual abuse allegations considered so credible that police would have interviewed the former Conservative leader had he still been alive.
The force’s Operation Conifer report, which the Wiltshire Police chief constable defended last Thursday, concluded that there was ‘no undermining evidence’ in relation to the rape claim, unlike many of the other allegations against Sir Edward which police investigated.
But now it has emerged that the man is a convicted sex offender who has previously falsely confessed to a murder. The criminal, who is in jail for sexually assaulting a teenage boy, was on remand when he told Wiltshire Police in 2015 that Sir Edward picked him up while he was hitchhiking on the A2 and raped him in a flat in Mayfair in 1961.
Despite the seriousness of his allegations to Wiltshire Police, the complainant, who has anonymity under the law, declared earlier this year: ‘i do not believe for one minute that Ted Heath was a paedophile.’
When he first made his allegations to the Metropolitan Police in 2015, child abuse detectives dropped their investigation within three months after concluding that ‘there were no lines of inquiry that could proportionately be pursued’.
But he then went to Wiltshire Police. The Daily Mail has learnt that he is writing a book behind bars detailing his allegations about Sir Edward, who died in 2005 aged 89, and has spent two years doing ‘research’.
The complainant, who once worked at a children’s home, has been banned from having contact with children for the rest of his life because of his appalling history of sex attacks on youngsters. Described by a judge as ‘predatory sex offender’, he has multiple convictions for grooming and indecently assaulting boys, child pornography and gross indecency dating back four decades.
More than a decade ago he falsely confessed to a murder. On several occasions, he has gone on the run and once led police on a 100mph motorway chase. He is known to have mental health problems and has received psychiatric help. Yet last week Wiltshire Police presented his evidence as credible.
The claim was one of nine allegations about the Tory MP – eight of which proved to be groundless – that the force received before it controversially launched an appeal for victims outside Sir Edward’s home in August 2015.
Last week during a packed press conference Mr Veale said he did not know if any of those seven complainants were criminals, but added: ‘Some of the victims are challenged.’
Sir Edward’s friends and former colleagues have called for a judge-led inquiry to evaluate his guilt or innocence and have dismissed the investigation as a whitewash with no corroborating evidence.
Yesterday Sir Edward’s godson Lincoln Seligman said: ‘This
‘Led police on 100mph chase’
accuser was known to be a liar, a paedophile and had falsely confessed to a murder. Yet his accusation is the main plank of the chief constable’s list of allegations.
‘i understand that the rape allegation had, after investigation, been dismissed by the Met. How can Mr Veale say that this evidence is not grossly undermined. it beggars belief.’
Last night Wiltshire Police said: ‘We will not be drawn on any further operational detail, as to do so would potentially place victim anonymity at risk.’
The spokesman added that since August 2015 the force had been in charge of investigating all allegations against Sir Edward, and had ‘reviewed any activity that has been undertaken by any other force’ relating to Sir Edward before this.