Met must face music

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 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 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 that detectives may have acted illegally.

Disturbingly, he says police turned a blind eye to glaring inconsistencies in the fantasist’s assertions (including that three close friends were killed by the child-sex gang). 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.

Truly, this has been one of the blackest episodes in Scotland Yard’s history.

Today, the Mail demands action. Sir Richard’s 2016 report should be published immediately – unredacted. MPs should launch an urgent inquiry into why the Met was so pathetically gullible.

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.