Lurid allegations that all too easily turned into ‘fact’
IT seems obvious now. A man – we can only identify him as “Nick” – went to the police some time in 2014 and told them over the course of three interviews, amounting to 70 hours of video-taped testimony, that he had been abused and tortured by a powerful cabal of paedophiles.
They included Sir Edward Heath, the former prime minister, Lord Brittan, the former home secretary, and two generals, one of them Lord Bramall, Britain’s most decorated officer. Two ex-heads of MI5 and MI6 were also implicated.
Nick had witnessed three murders, including the throttling of a boy by Harvey Proctor, a former Tory MP.
Nick himself had a lucky escape, he told police. Mr Proctor, he alleged, had attempted to castrate him with a penknife borrowed from Sir Edward, who had then intervened to save his life.
Nick’s allegation may appear ludicrous, but not to Scotland Yard’s finest detectives. “I believe what Nick is saying is credible and true,” Det Supt Kenny McDonald said on Dec 18, 2014. At the time, he was heading the Metropolitan Police’s inquiry into claims of a VIP paedophile gang operating in Westminster. Overnight, the lurid allegations had become fact.
The police’s belief that Nick was telling the truth would lead detectives to the door of Lord Bramall, a 92-yearold veteran of the Normandy landings and the former head of the Army. Lord Brittan, Sir Edward and Mr Proctor would also have their reputations damaged by claims that began to leak to the media.
Why were police so convinced Nick was telling the truth? The Sunday
Telegraph is not aware of all the evidence, but it is not thought any of the serious allegations of murder and torture were ever corroborated independently.
But in 2014, police were desperate to believe alleged victims of historic child abuse. It is not hard to see why. Three years earlier, Jimmy Savile, the BBC presenter and disc jockey, had gone to his grave never having been convicted of any offence. In fact, it would later transpire he was Britain’s most prolific serial child sex offender, who had raped and abused hundreds of victims. Police had had many opportunities to charge him, but cowed by Savile’s powerful friendships – he was close to the Royal family and to Margaret Thatcher – and his reputation as a charity fundraiser, for which he had received a knighthood, he was never brought to justice.
The failure heralded a new era in which the police’s starting point when investigating historic abuse was to believe all victims of abuse. Then came the bombshell. Tom Watson, now the deputy leader of the Labour Party, having built his reputation as a campaigner on hacking and child abuse, stood up in the Commons in October 2012 and told David Cameron that he had obtained a file containing evidence of the existence of VIP paedophile ring.
He said: “I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.”
Mr Watson had set the hares running. It may not be a coincidence that the prime suspects in this “witch hunt” were largely senior Conservatives and members of the establishment. Lord Bramall yesterday called that development “sinister”.
Exaro, a news website with close links to Mr Watson, took up the cause. It interviewed two key alleged victims – both of whom claimed they had seen children murdered by the paedophile gang. One was called Darren (not his real name), who claimed he had witnessed a young man with Down’s syndrome being torn apart by paedophiles who had tied him to car bumpers and then reversed. He also claimed he had seen a teenage girl tortured to death at a flat in Dolphin Square, central London.
The Sunday Telegraph would later disclose that Darren had been jailed for making hoax bomb calls and had falsely confessed to the murder of a prostitute. Suffolk Police, who investigated the claims in September last year, came to the conclusion there was no evidence to corroborate his lurid allegations. Darren, to their minds, appeared to be a publicityseeking fantasist.
Questions are now being asked of Nick. Police insist they were doing their duty in investigating his claims and it was not their fault that the identities of his alleged attackers were made public. Mr Proctor is not convinced. He told
The Telegraph yesterday that he was convinced police had informed Nick of their plans to raid simultaneously his home and the houses of Lord Brittan and Lord Bramall, and to then conduct interviews under caution.
He is further convinced that Nick told Exaro. Whatever the truth, the reality is a mess.
Post-Savile, the pendulum had swung so far in favour of believing alleged victims that their so-called attackers found themselves in the dock without a shred of evidence against them.
Lord Bramall’s wife died without knowing her husband had been cleared, while Lord Brittan went to his grave unaware that he had been cleared of a historic rape allegation involving a young woman.
Their good names had been tarnished, but now – following the latest developments – it will be the reputation of the Metropolitan Police that takes the biggest hit.