PM intervenes to line up ‘Met lapdog’ as head of crime agency

LORD HOGAN-HOWE, the former Met commissioner who oversaw the disastrous VIP child abuse investigation, is being lined up to run Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.

The peer has emerged as No10’s preferred candidate to become the next director-general of the National Crime Agency (NCA), despite previously not making it on to the shortlist.

The 64-year-old, who held the top job at the Met from 2011 to 2017, is an ally of Boris Johnson and backed him to become Prime Minister.

It is understood his application to become the £223,000-a-year head of the NCA was initially unsuccessful, but is once again under consideration following an intervention by Mr Johnson.

However, suggestions he could be about to make a return to a senior policing role have sparked fury among the victims of Operation Midland.

Harvey Proctor, the former Tory MP, who lost his home and job after being falsely accused of child abuse, described Lord Hogan-howe as “the Prime Minister’s lapdog”.

The 75-year-old, who was awarded £900,000 in costs and damages from Scotland Yard over his ordeal, said: “Operation Midland was one of the most scandalous episodes in the Met’s history and it happened on Hogan-howe’s watch. When he apologised to me he claimed he had not known the details of the investigation. I did not believe that then and I don’t believe it now.”

Police spent 18 months and almost £2million investigating claims by fantasist Carl Beech that a VIP paedophile ring had abused and even murdered children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among those falsely accused were Edward Heath, the former prime minister, Leon Brittan, the former home secretary, and Edwin Bramall, the former head of the Army.

Beech was jailed for 18 years in 2019 for perverting the course of justice, but not before some of those accused had their reputations ruined.

Steve Rodhouse, who headed up Operation Midland when he was at the Met, is currently a director-general of operations at the NCA. Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terror policing, has been widely tipped for the job but he is unpopular with Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Mr Johnson.

A Home Office spokesman said a fair recruitment campaign was under way.