Heath police chief makes cover-up claim
Wiltshire Police accused of ‘shameful’ pursuit of former prime minister with paedophile inquiry
The police chief who led the paedophile investigation into Sir Edward Heath raised the prospect of there being a state-backed cover-up regarding VIP child abuse. Chief Constable Mike Veale of Wiltshire Police suggested forces did not have the power to investigate high level cover-ups as he published a report stating that the former prime minister would have been questioned under caution over a string of paedophile allegations if he were still alive.
THE under-fire police chief who led the controversial paedophile investigation into Sir Edward Heath last night raised the prospect of there being a state-backed cover-up regarding VIP child abuse.
Five years after Tom Watson, the Labour MP, claimed there had been a paedophile ring operating at the heart of Westminster, Chief Constable Mike Veale suggested police did not have the power to investigate cover-ups at the highest level.
Yesterday he published a report stating that the former prime minister would have been questioned under caution, if he were still alive, over a string of paedophile allegations.
And while he stressed his officers had found no evidence of collusion or cover-ups, he warned of a “significant gap” between what had been alleged in the past and the ability of the police to investigate such claims.
He said: “There is a significant amount of people who have either implied or inferred that there are senior politicians, senior civil servants, members of Parliament, also senior police officers, who may have covered up allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation in the past.
“That is not the remit of the police service or this investigation as it stands at the moment, specifically in relation to Sir Edward Heath.
“So there is a gap in relation to the questions that come out of this investigation and the terms of reference that are described on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) website, which is all about cover-up, conspiracy, child sex abuse and exploitation, potentially by senior politicians, civil servants etc.”
Mr Veale, who launched Operation Conifer in 2015, has come under intense criticism, not least because Heath has been dead for more than a decade and therefore cannot defend himself.
Last night the late prime minister’s supporters dismissed the report as a “whitewash”.
But in a 40-minute defence of the investigation yesterday, Mr Veale said there had been “compelling and obvious” reasons to investigate Heath.
He said: “I believe this was the right moral, ethical and professional thing to do. The allegations against him were of the utmost seriousness and from a significant number of people... Given these circumstances, it would be an indefensible dereliction of my public duty as a chief constable not to have investigated such serious allegations ... even though he is deceased.”
After a two-year probe, costing £1.4million, Wiltshire Police said they had identified six allegations which had reached the threshold to warrant the questioning of Heath.
The most serious claim related to the alleged rape of an 11-year-old boy in 1961. In addition there were five further allegations of sexual assault, the most recent in 1992.
But with police revealing few details about the allegations, Heath’s supporters said it would leave a cloud hanging over his reputation and legacy.
Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, said that announcing that they had enough evidence to question Heath was a cynical move. He said: “The bar for interview is low, in most investigations as low as the police want it to be and in the case of a dead man, virtually non-existent. They are covering their backs at the expense of a dead man. Shame on them.”
In a joint statement two of his friends, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Armstrong of Ilminster said: “Sir Edward Heath’s reputation should not be left in limbo. [The report] should be independently reviewed and an independent conclusion arrived at. That is the only way in which justice can be done.”
In total Operation Conifer received 42 allegations against Heath involving 40 separate complainants, dating from 1956 to 1992.
The allegations span child sexual abuse, physical abuse and also sexual abuse against an adult.
The most serious claim relates to the alleged rape of an 11-year-old boy, when Sir Edward was the MP for Bexley in 1961. The alleged victim came forward in April 2015 before police made a public appeal but the details bear striking similarities to claims made by a man in a tabloid newspaper in 2015. In that case the complainant said he had been picked up while hitchhiking on the A2 and taken to a Mayfair flat where he had been raped.
He claimed there had been pictures of yachts on the walls, but despite being a keen sailor, supporters of Heath pointed out that he did not take up the pursuit until the mid-sixties.
While police said they had identified seven allegations that had reached the threshold to warrant questioning, in one they had subsequently found evidence that “undermined” the claim.
Nineteen other allegations did not reach the threshold; there were three cases of mistaken identity; 10 allegations from a third party and three anonymous claims. Two people have applied for compensation in relation to the alleged abuse and two others were investigated for making up claims against Heath.
Heath’s godson, Lincoln Seligman, last night called for a judge-led inquiry into the seven allegations that police say Heath would have been questioned over.
James Gray, North Wiltshire MP, described Heath as a “great man” and said it was wrong that a cloud would hang over his name forever if an independent inquiry did not take place.
He said: “In all the years I have been involved with parliament and with Sir Edward Heath, I’ve heard not one whisper of any kind that he was a paedophile.”
‘I believe this was the right moral, ethical and professional thing to do’
‘The report is profoundly unsatisfactory because it neither justifies nor dispels the cloud of suspicion’