Operation Midland: The misery caused by lurid and false allegations

The probe ended in 2016 without a single arrest after Beech made a series of baseless allegations, including of three murders.

The force was heavily criticised for believing Beech too readily despite inconsistencies in his evidence, which included naming witnesses who did not exist.

In February 2016, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Hogan-Howe, asked retired High Court Judge, Sir Richard Henriques, to carry out a review into the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of a series of allegations made by Beech, who was also known as “Nick”. Lord Hogan-Howe also asked that Sir Richard review other separate investigations into allegations of non-recent sexual offences so that the MPS could learn lessons.

Sir Richard’s subsequent report examined eight Metropolitan Police Service investigations. He found serious failings in Operation Midland, the allegations made by Carl Beech and Operation Vincente, which was an investigation into an allegation from a different complainant alleging rape by Lord Brittan.

At the time of the report’s publication, the Metropolitan Police Service apologised for significant mistakes identified by Sir Richard. In commissioning the review, the Met said it sought to open its investigations “to significant scrutiny with the intention of learning any lessons from these types of cases involving historical allegations against persons of public prominence”.

In his report, Sir Richard said he had visited Sir Bernard at New Scotland Yard and was told that, in the immediate aftermath of the exposure of the late TV personality Jimmy Savile by ITV, Operation Yewtree had been started.

He added: “A very large number of sexual allegations had been received within the Operation, some against Savile, some linked to Savile, and others independent of Savile. At the same time a complaint had been received by a person, with the pseudonym of ‘Nick’, in which grave allegations had been made against a number of very high profile individuals. This allegation was hived off and became Operation Midland.”

xhead xyxyx

In his report, Sir Richard recommended that, throughout both the investigative and the judicial process, those who make complaints should be referred to as ‘complainants’ and not as ‘victims’ by the Met.

The report states: “It is not necessary to set out the dictionary definition of ‘victim’ to demonstrate how very inappropriate the word is to describe many of those who complain to the police of sexual abuse. Those who continue to contend for the use of the word are seeking to gain an advantage for complainants at the expense of those accused. The accurate use of language should be fundamental in any criminal justice process.”

He continues: “Any process that imposes an artificial state of mind upon an investigator is, necessarily, a flawed process. An investigator, in any reputable system of justice, must be impartial. The imposed ‘obligation to believe’ removes that impartiality.

“Since a complainant may or may not be telling the truth, the present policy causes those not telling the truth to be artificially believed and, thus, liars and fantasists, and those genuinely mistaken, are given a free run both unquestioned and unchallenged. The obligation to believe at the outset can and does obstruct the asking of relevant and probing questions designed to elicit the truth.”

The report continues: “The policy of ‘believing victims’ strikes at the very core of the criminal justice process. It has and will generate miscarriages of justice on a considerable scale.”

Sir Richard said he had interviewed or corresponded with several innocent people accused of grave criminal offences in connection with Operation Midland.

He added: “Harvey Proctor must stand first in line; having been accused of the murder of three children, in addition to a catalogue of the gravest sexual offences. He is, in my judgement, an innocent man; as indeed are all the twelve men named by ‘Nick’. Several other men whose cases I have reviewed are also innocent of allegations made against them. It is difficult, if not impossible, to articulate the emotional turmoil and distress that those persons and their families have had to endure.

“The allegations have had a profoundly damaging effect upon the characters and reputations of those living and those deceased. In differing ways those reputations have been hard won, over several decades, and yet in Operation Midland they were shattered by the word of a single, uncorroborated complainant whose allegations were riddled with inconsistencies.”

Those accused remained isolated and uninformed of the progress of these investigations until finally being informed that there was an “insufficiency of evidence” against them, said Sir Richard.

He added: “In short, these men are all victims of false allegations and yet they remain treated as men against whom there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them. The presumption of innocence appears to have been set aside.”

His report added: “I am satisfied, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the numerous complaints by ‘Nick’, against five living persons and seven deceased, were false.”

A careful analysis of all the interviews and the blogs would have demonstrated that ‘Nick’ was neither consistent nor credible, Sir Richard said.

“The likelihood of a former Prime Minister, a future Home Secretary, former Heads of MI5 and MI6, a serving Field Marshal, a future Field Marshal, a retired General, a Labour MP, a Conservative MP and a disc jockey conspiring together to commit rape and, in some cases, child murder is again highly implausible.”

The immediate focus of the investigation should have been upon ‘Nick’s’ credibility, according to Sir Richard said. The warrants to search the premises of Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan and Mr Proctor, were, in Sir Richard’s judgement, also obtained unlawfully as part of Operation Midland.

“One matter which has caused me concern is the situation of a suspect who is neither arrested nor interviewed but has his home searched,’’ he added. “If innocent, he will have no idea what is going on unless he has learned something from the internet or some other source.

“In Lord Bramall’s case it was obvious, certainly at the outset, that he had not the slightest idea what had been alleged against him and yet, for many hours, had to observe his home being meticulously searched. Had he been interviewed he would, of course, have received a disclosure document. In Lady Brittan’s case, she could not possibly know what was afoot and the occasion must have been traumatic.”

xhead xyxyx

In August 2015, Harvey Proctor held a press conference at the St Ermin’s Hotel close to New Scotland Yard which Sir Richard described as a “most powerful declaration of his innocence”.

“He went on to point out how unlikely it was that he and Edward Heath would be involved in any joint activity. Each despised the other. Heath despised Proctor for his views on limiting immigration from New Commonwealth and Pakistan and Proctor despised Heath because he sacked Proctor’s political hero Enoch Powell. They were not on speaking terms and ignored one another in the House of Commons.”

“He questioned how such a sex party could conceivably take place in Edward Heath’s home with CCTV, housekeeper, private secretary, chauffeur, police and private detectives assigned to former Prime Ministers in the security conscious days of the IRA’s assault on London. He challenged anyone who could place him at the home of Edward Heath or Leon Brittan to come forward. He pointed out that he was an ex-secondary modern schoolboy from Yorkshire and was not part of the establishment.”

The principal cause of the many failures in this investigation was poor judgement and a failure to accurately evaluate known facts and to react to them, said Sir Richard.

“A major contributing factor was the culture that ‘victims’ must be believed. Whilst the responsible Officers assert that they kept an open mind, several failures can only be explained by an unwarranted and disproportionate belief in ‘Nick’s’ credibility.”

“The most significant error in this investigation was the decision to apply for search warrants coupled with formulating inaccurate statements which were placed before the District Judge. But for that decision, this investigation may well have been completed without the dreadful adverse consequences I have described.”

In February 2016, the Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, met with Lady Brittan and formally apologised to her for not telling her at an earlier stage about the fact that Lord Brittan was not to be prosecuted as there was no chance of a successful prosecution. This must have brought little comfort to Lady Brittan. Her husband had died in early 2015, during the height of the frenzied speculation surrounding Beech’s false claims.

The Yorkshire Post contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment, ten years on.