Police chief admits to lack of Heath evidence
The Chief Constable who oversaw the inquiry into Sir Edward Heath over child abuse allegations has been forced to admit there was no evidence that the former prime minister was part of a Westminster paedophile ring. Mike Veale, head of Wiltshire Police, also assured Harvey Proctor that neither he nor his colleagues had ever made such allegations, after the former Tory MP, who was cleared after Scotland Yard’s disastrous VIP sex ring investigation, accused him of trashing his reputation.
THE Chief Constable who oversaw an inquiry into child sex abuse allegations against Sir Edward Heath has admitted that there was no evidence the former prime minister or Harvey Proctor, the former MP, were part of a Westminster paedophile ring.
Mike Veale, head of Wiltshire Police, assured Mr Proctor that neither he nor his colleagues had ever made such allegations, after the former Tory MP accused him of trashing his reputation.
Mr Proctor, who was cleared after Scotland Yard’s disastrous VIP sex ring investigation, last month criticised Mr Veale’s suggestion in a Sunday newspaper of a fresh inquiry into claims of Westminster cover-up and conspiracy.
Mr Proctor has already said he will sue the Met over their handling of the investigation into historical child sex abuse allegations against him.
In correspondence released yesterday by Mr Proctor, he told Mr Veale it was “pure fantasy” to suggest he had been involved in a Westminister child sex ring with the former prime minister in the Seventies and Eighties. Mr Veale replied: “No evidence was found during the investigation to substantiate any suspicions nor did either I or my colleagues express such views during press briefings and interviews. There was certainly no intention that any such impression should be created”
In the correspondence Mr Veale also confirmed Mr Proctor had not been investigated by his officers as part of the £1.5 million Operation Conifer.
Mr Proctor said last night: “Contrary to the witch-hunting instincts and fantasy-inducing aberrations of certain current MPS, Conservative and Labour, certain journalists and internet fantasists, when police force after police force investigate these matters they find no evidence of a Westminster child sexual abuse ring. The reason being, as I made clear on Aug 25 2015, there wasn’t one.”
The investigation into allegations against the former prime minister last month concluded he would be questioned under caution if he were still alive over seven alleged offences.
But it stressed “no inference of guilt can be drawn from the decision to interview under caution” and also accepts that other than the allegations themselves, there is no other evidence
‘No evidence was found ... to substantiate any suspicions nor did I or my colleagues express such views’
available to corroborate the claims.
Heath’s supporters said the report left an unjustifiable stain on his reputation and called for a judge-led inquiry.
Meanwhile, Wiltshire Police’s own crime commissioner admitted the outcome of the investigation was “unsatisfactory”. Angus Macpherson acknowledged that Operation Conifer must now be subjected to an independent judicial review.
In a letter to Heath’s supporters, Mr Macpherson said that he shared their “concern” that the two-year investigation had sullied Heath’s reputation even though police could not establish the guilt of a dead man unable to defend himself.