Heath accuser lied, say his family
Simply contacting family of ‘victim’ could have exposed him and avoided the ruining of a reputation
A SERIAL paedophile who accused Sir Edward Heath of raping him fabricated the allegation, his siblings said last night – but police made no attempt to contact the family members. An investigation by The Daily Telegraph plunges into serious doubt the £1.5 million Wiltshire Police inquiry into the former prime minister and will ignite calls for Mike Veale, the force’s chief constable, to quit. The claim of rape is the most serious allegation made against Heath and was used to justify the two-year Operation Conifer inquiry. The 68-year-old accuser, currently in jail for child sex abuse offences – and described as a “born liar” by his own sister – alleged he had been raped, aged 11, by Heath in 1961.
In a letter written from jail, the man admits he made the claim against Heath in 2015 only as he faced paedophile charges of his own. The man’s brother said: “He never said anything about being abused by a famous person. You couldn’t hide something like that.”
THE SISTER of a serial paedophile who emerged as Sir Edward Heath’s accuser in chief cannot believe that police pinned a two-year £1.5 million inquiry on his claims.
Detectives on Operation Conifer did not bother to ask her or her brother about allegations their sibling made when he was 11 that Heath raped him. If they had, they would have received short shrift.
She might even have told them that her brother more recently took a young schoolboy to the funeral of their mother; she was so alarmed she actually contacted the police herself.
“My brother should have been hung, drawn and quartered,” said the sister.
“At my mother’s funeral, he brought along a 10-year-old boy. I left the funeral and phoned the police.”
She was staggered that officers had taken his claims seriously. “I am not being funny, but he is a fraudster. He is a born liar. He is trying to manipulate the system,” said the sister.
“He has dreamed up Ted Heath to find a way out. I can’t believe the police have been so stupid. I am absolutely shocked the police have taken any notice of him. I am appalled at the police wasting public money investigating. His claims are a crock of s---.”
To the untrained eye, the claims made by her 68-year-old brother – and contained in a letter he sent during his current stint in prison for child sex abuse offences – appear barmy.
But to the police, the allegations were dynamite: evidence that Sir Edward Heath, former prime minister and veteran of the Normandy Landings, was a child-sex offender.
The allegations laid out over five handwritten pages detail how Heath, 45 at the time, had allegedly raped an 11-year-old schoolboy in 1961.
But the claims were made for the first time 54 years later, in April 2015, when the complainant found himself in prison awaiting trial, not for the first time, for sexually abusing children. In the letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, he admitted the allegations against Heath were made “as part of my defence against false allegations that were made against me”.
He claimed he had been hitchhiking on the A2 in Kent in 1961 when Heath, a cabinet minister in charge of negotiating Britain’s entry into Europe, happened to drive by.
From the age of seven, so his story goes, his father rented him out to be sexually abused by strangers, including a local police chief. This time, he happened to be walking along the road when he caught Heath’s eye.
“I met Ted Heath when hiking to London and he stopped and offered me a lift, which I accepted,” says the paedophile in his letter written in March this year. “It transpired from our conversations that I was in the ‘sex trade’ as an underage rent boy. I believe the meeting was a shock to Ted with my revelations and that he had homosexual tendencies that he could experiment with on me with virtual immunity.
“He took me back to a nice flat and I spent the night with him. We participated in homosexual sex. I found him very naive and not very experienced.”
In fact, Heath’s “victim” did not think the older man had done anything wrong. “I do not believe for one minute that Ted Heath was a paedophile. He was a lovely man.”
The claims that first surfaced in April 2015 form the basis for Wiltshire Police’s insistence that were Heath alive today, he would have been interviewed under caution on suspicion of rape.
A summary report published a little over a week ago coupled with the twoyear inquiry that preceded it pretty much trashed Heath’s reputation.
The Wiltshire force had begun a child sex abuse inquiry into Heath in August 2015 with a call for his “victims” to come forward that was made outside Arundells, his former Salisbury home. They had a flurry of complaints, most of them so outlandish they were immeforce, diately ruled out. But the claim made by the 68-year-old prisoner was taken altogether more seriously.
The offender, a serial child abuser with a string of convictions, had already lodged a complaint three months earlier with the Metropolitan Police. Scotland Yard’s specialists, however, having interviewed the complainant, dropped the case in April 2015.
But Wiltshire Police, having effectively already denounced Heath as a paedophile in its public appeal for “victims”, readily took it up.
It now appears the force did not bother to scrutinise the allegations. They failed to interview his brother, who is just 18 months younger and was 10 years old at the time; nor his sister, who was five. Neither sibling recalls any event in 1961 that would suggest their brother had been abducted and raped. It was never raised in the family.
It took the Telegraph just three days to find witnesses who all disputed the version of events that police said were credible enough to justify interviewing Heath under caution as a rape suspect. Wiltshire Police spent two years.
Lord Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, said the disclosure undermined the Wiltshire case against Heath. Lord Macdonald said: “The failure to talk to family members is beyond comprehension. It is unforgivable. It is appalling and shocking.”
A senior detective with another who specialises in child abuse cases, said he was amazed that Operation Conifer had seemingly made no attempt to check the veracity of the claims.
“It’s just ridiculous,” said the policeman, who is still serving and cannot be named. “They should have gone to see the family and work out if the claims are true. I cannot believe they have not done that. It really is very, very poor. For this allegation of rape to appear in a national report is frightening. That sets a shockingly bad standard.”
Lincoln Seligman, Heath’s godson, said the revelations raised serious issues over Mike Veale, Wiltshire’s chief constable, who presided over the investigation. “I’m afraid Mike Veale has
‘I can’t believe the police have been so stupid. I am absolutely shocked the police have taken any notice of him’
‘They should have gone to see the family and work out if the claims are true… It really is very, very poor’
to go,” said Mr Seligman. “His departure is now an essential part of the rehabilitation of Sir Edward’s reputation.
“There is a pattern throughout this whole investigation where the police have chosen to believe those whose stories appear to suit their agenda. It is clear they have not pursued every lead.”
The complainant, who has a string of child abuse convictions going back 45 years, cannot be identified because his rape claim has given him lifelong anonymity.
He has previously claimed his abusive father had rented him out for sex from the age of seven and told his family he had been raped by a police chief. But he never mentioned Heath to any friends or family that the Telegraph has contacted.
None had been spoken to by Wiltshire Police.
The complainant also blamed his offending on witnessing killings while serving in the Armed Forces, although the Ministry of Defence has also cast doubt on that telling the Telegraph it has no record of him serving in the military at all.
The criticism will put huge pressure on Wiltshire Police to bow to calls for an independent judicial inquiry.
Other claims against Heath have largely been dismissed. Of the five remaining claims that police say would have justified an interview for other sexual offences, two were alleged to have been committed against adults, hardly making Heath a paedophile even if true. Claims have also been made by two rent boys.
But the allegations as disclosed by Wiltshire Police are so vague as to be almost impossible to check. None has been corroborated and officers have been unable to find any independent evidence outside of the claims.
Wiltshire Police did not deny that it had failed to interview family members alive at the time of the 1961 allegation.
A Wiltshire Police spokesman said: “A victim’s right to anonymity is of utmost importance and we will not be commenting on individual victims or allegations.”
Heath died on July 17, 2005, forever denied the opportunity to defend his reputation.
Wiltshire Police, however, will now find itself having to defend its own.