Editorial Comment:
It is hard to imagine allegations more serious. A group of men conspired over a period of years to sexually abuse young boys and murder three of them in a flat just a stone’s throw from the Palace of Westminster. More than that, these men were all prominent public figures whose very seniority appeared to place them beyond the reach of the law. They included a former prime minister, a former home secretary, a former head of the Army and an exchief of MI6.
This is the stuff of paperback thrillers; the sheer unlikelihood that it could have happened should have put the police on their guard from the outset. But largely because of their past failure to investigate sex abuse claims against other public figures, notably Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith, whose culpability has since been demonstrated, they sought to make amends by over-compensating in the critical inquiry.
The information came from an individual known as “Nick” via a news website called Exaro and was deemed to be both “credible and true”. The Metropolitan Police established Operation Midland to investigate, assigning two dozen detectives to the case. It must be remembered that this was not a sex abuse investigation but a murder inquiry, albeit one that had neither bodies nor any named missing people. “The focus of this investigation is on allegations of the homicide of three young boys,” the police said at the time.
So it is extraordinary to learn that where one of the supposed suspects, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, is concerned, witnesses able to corroborate or contradict the allegations were not contacted or interviewed for almost a year. Officers also took five months to check some of the most basic facts.
As a consequence, Lord Bramall, aged 92 and a D-Day veteran, was left in limbo, unaware of the identity of his accuser and unsure of the nature of the evidence. His wife died while these sordid claims hung over his head. Last week, he was informed that the case had been dropped. No apology was offered. Allegations against Lord Brittan, the former Home Secretary, were also withdrawn, though only after his death last year.
While we accept the police are obliged to investigate such serious allegations, the way Operation Midland has been handled is scandalous. If this was a murder inquiry, why were the procedures so lax? The suspicion is strong that key witnesses were not interviewed in case they undermined the operation from the outset. The Met may also have hoped that procrastination would allow time for other similar allegations to emerge, though this seems highly unlikely in a murder inquiry.
In a statement when operation Midland was launched, the Met said the historic nature of the allegations added to the investigation’s complexity because normal avenues of evidence-gathering from CCTV, DNA and telephone data were not available. But old-fashioned police work such as questioning witnesses was open to them and someone should be held responsible for the failure to carry out basic procedures.
As in any organisation, the culture is set by the person at the top, in this case Sir Bernard HoganHowe, the Met Commissioner, whose leadership and judgment has been wanting. He has, so far, refused to apologise to Lord Bramall on the specious grounds that it would be impossible to conduct any investigation if the police had to say sorry whenever charges were not brought. “This would have a harmful impact on the judgments made by officers and on the confidence of the public,” the Met said in a statement.
But the apology is due for the manner of the investigation and its evident flaws. Lord Bramall was left unsure of his fate for far too long because the police failed to carry out the simplest of checks to establish the credibility of the most outlandish of accusations. As Lord Bramall said this week, a review of police procedures is necessary to ensure there is no repeat of such an injustice. It would be better conducted under a new Commissioner.