Fury of Lord Brittan's widow at police watchdog 'whitewash' over Operation Midland failures

Lady Brittan of Spennithorne gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee as part of its inquiry into the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Lord Brittan died in January 2015, after being falsely accused of sexual abuse, and Lady Brittan’s homes in Yorkshire and London were searched while she was still grieving.

From 2014, her husband was caught up in a Metropolitan Police investigation – Operation Midland – into false claims of sexual abuse in Westminster.

It later emerged that the claims were based on lies by fantasist Carl Beech, who has since been jailed for perverting the course of justice.

An independent review by former High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques criticised the Met, but the IOPC found no evidence of misconduct or criminality by officers.

In written evidence to MPs, Lady Brittan said that the IOPC had “failed to conduct a thorough investigation and ignored the Henriques Report 2016 findings”, despite the Sir Richard finding “very serious misconduct” had occurred.

She called for the introduction of a new protocol for assessing the impact of police action on vulnerable people after outlining her own experiences of police raids.

Lady Brittan said: “Due to the increasingly elderly population living alone, searches and arrests should take place with officers conducting themselves appropriately with regard to the health and welfare of those affected.

“In relation to the search of my London home shortly after Lord Brittan’s death, I was grieving and in shock when the search began. I was not told the reason for the search and was alone in the house. The DI in charge did not ask me whether I wanted to call someone to come support me, but after an hour I was able to call a friend, who stayed a short time.

“The search went on all day, until 8.30pm; I was not allowed to leave the house and was unable to keep an engagement that evening.”

She said: “In relation to the search of our old constituency home in Leyburn, Yorkshire, the elderly housekeeper was deeply upset when officers, without explanation, engaged in hostile questioning, spent two days searching the house and garden. The police had no warrant for the second day, and the housekeeper was locked out of the house overnight.”

She said: “The IOPC has an obligation to conduct thorough and rigorous investigations, but the catalogue of deliberate and accidental search warrant errors identified by Judge Henriques went largely unpunished and unpublicised.

“The public are entitled to know that the Henriques Report, which is available only in redacted form, found that police failed to do minimal checks of times and places disclosed by Carl Beech; misled the district judge; searched my property in Leyburn for a second day in Leyburn; and seized property not covered by a warrant.”

She added that the eventual report produced by the IOPC, which found five officers had no case to answer but made 16 recommendations, “could fairly be described as a whitewash”.

The Home Affairs Committee noted Sir Richard Henriques had been “highly critical” of the IOPC’s decision, arguing in a letter to the Home Secretary that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that criminal acts have been committed” and calling for an investigation into the conduct both of the officers involved in the original investigation and of the IOPC investigators.

Lady Brittan said the IOPC investigator had misunderstood policing obligations required for search warrant applications in spite of officers firstly, failing to take “reasonable steps to verify that the allegations were accurate and reliable” and secondly, failing to “disclose facts that undermined their application”.

She emphasised that the Henriques Report had noted that the police had no corroboration for Carl Beech’s account when the application for the search warrants was made.

The IOPC said in response that it acknowledged the “significant trauma and distress caused to Lady Brittan and the other individuals affected as a result of false allegations made by Carl Beech and the subsequent investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service”.

But it added that its investigation “found no evidence that police officers had deliberately misled a district court judge but instead found areas of organisational learning”.

The Home Affairs Committee concluded: “The example of Lady Brittan’s case demonstrates is how an investigation feels from the perspective of one caught up in it.

“She found the IOPC’s information on complaints confusing and difficult to find and understand.

“She felt that its investigators did not always fully understand the law. The investigation into her case lasted three years, a length of time partly dictated by the need to avoid conflict with concurrent legal proceedings.

“She was also dissatisfied that none of five officers identified by Sir Richard Henriques as having potentially acted unlawfully ultimately faced any sanction.

“The IOPC stands by its investigation and its findings in relation to those five officers, but it accepts that long delays in investigations are damaging. Steps have been taken, with significant success, since the 2019 Kentia report was produced to reduce the average length of investigations, and work has been undertaken on improving training for investigators and on clarifying information on how to make a complaint and what happens during an investigation, although further clarity of process is required."

The committee added: “The sorry story of Operation Midland and subsequent inquiries into how it was conducted demonstrates why a robust complaints and conduct system is necessary if the public is to be confident that police officers behave properly and will be held to account and suitably sanctioned if they do not.

“Lady Brittan’s account of how she - the wife of a wrongly suspected man not herself suspected of any crime - was treated is salutary.

“Those investigating potential police misconduct should be ashamed of leaving any vulnerable person feeling as if they are, themselves, a suspect.”

The report added that Lady Brittan, as well as former MP Harvey Proctor and the family of the deceased Lord Bramall who were also falsely accused, “have been left feeling that no one has been sanctioned for the mistakes identified by Sir Richard Henriques in the Operation Midland inquiry and its aftermath”.

It added: “That is a result that satisfies no-one and does nothing to improve confidence that officers will be held to account when an investigation goes quite so badly wrong.”

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and Hull North MP Dame Diana Johnson said: “Policing in the UK is based on consent and must do all it can to show it uses the powers invested in it to serve the communities it is there to protect. A key part of this is a robust, transparent complaints and misconduct system that holds police officers and forces to account when they fall below the standards we expect of them.

“The IOPC does deserve credit for the progress it has made in the four years since it was created. The vast majority of investigations are completed within a year. There are also clear strands of work to build relationships and improve public perception.

“However, the fact remains that more work remains to be done. Over the course of the inquiry we heard from individuals and communities who feel badly let down. We heard from Lady Brittan about the awful experience she went through, but we also received evidence from many others who felt that justice had eluded them.

“The succession of scandals in recent years has left public confidence in policing at a perilous point. The IOPC will need to ensure that it drives change to create a complaints system people can have full confidence in. There must be no repeat of past mistakes.”

IOPC 'will carefully consider recommendations'

IOPC Director General, Michael Lockwood said: “We welcome the publication of this report and will carefully consider its recommendations. We are grateful the Committee has recognised the significant improvements the IOPC has made since it was established in 2018 - not only in terms of timeliness of investigations but our efforts to increase transparency and build public trust in our work.

“We agree with the Committee that there is more work needed to ensure there is a fair, open and fully trusted approach to dealing with police complaints and misconduct. We will continue working to achieve that aim and we call on other stakeholders in the police complaints system to work with us to ensure progress is made – especially in areas such as accessibility, support for complainants, and timeliness of those proceedings which follow our investigations.

“We welcome the Committee’s call for cultural change in policing so there is a less defensive response to complaints, greater co-operation with investigations and evidence that our learning recommendations are implemented – we agree these are vital to improving public confidence in the police complaints system.”

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