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Ted Heath would have been questioned over abuse claims, police say Ted Heath would have been questioned over abuse claims, police say
(about 3 hours later)
The police report into claims Sir Edward Heath sexually abused children says that seven allegations of rape and sexual assault would have merited his interview under criminal caution had he still been alive. A police report has said there was reason to suspect that Sir Edward Heath, Britain’s seventh postwar prime minister, carried out a string of sex attacks over a span of decades.
The claims against Heath that would have merited interview under caution span 31 years. The alleged rape is claimed to have occurred in 1961, with the alleged victim being 11 years old. The report concludes that the allegations, including the rape of a male child sex worker aged 11 and sexual assault against four other children and two adults, would have met the legal threshold for police to interview Heath under criminal caution had he still been alive.
Heath was then MP for Bexley and the lord privy seal. The report says the alleged incident happened within the London area covered by the Metropolitan police. The report says: “Sir Edward Heath allegedly raped and indecently assaulted a male, aged 11 years, during a paid sexual encounter in private in a dwelling.” The police said nothing should be inferred from their findings – after a total of 40 allegations – about the guilt or innocence of Heath, who died in 2005.
One offence of sexual abuse is alleged to have occurred in 1967 while Heath was leader of the Conservative party; another when he was trade minister in 1964. None occurred while he was prime minister between 1970 and 1974, while three of the alleged offences occurred after that. A police chief who oversaw the inquiry told the Guardian that a series of 26 alleged crimes, many against children, would be formally recorded in official law enforcement databases with Heath named as the suspect.
The report says the allegations received in seven cases led to Heath’s “suspected involvement in an offence” and thus the former prime minister would need to have been interviewed under criminal caution. Because of the rules under which officers were operating, the conclusion that there was enough reason to suspect Heath to merit interviewing him over at least seven claims was as much as the alleged victims could have got, said assistant chief constable Paul Mills, of Wiltshire police.
The report says: “Further to a proportionate investigation, reasonable grounds exist that, if Sir Edward Heath had been alive today, he would have been interviewed under caution regarding his suspected involvement in an offence.” The police report says: “Further to a proportionate investigation, reasonable grounds exist that, if Sir Edward Heath had been alive today, he would have been interviewed under caution regarding his suspected involvement in an offence.”
The report says that if he had still been alive and interviewed under caution “it is emphasised that his account would be as important as other evidence gathered as part of the wider investigation”. Of the seven alleged offences deemed most credible by police, one was alleged to have happened while he was a cabinet minister in 1964, and another in 1967 after he became leader of the Conservative party. The first claim, the rape of a boy aged 11 in London, is alleged to have happened in 1961. Another two claims are alleged 31 years later, around 1992, years after Heath’s time as prime minister from 1970 to 1974.
“Accordingly it is critical to stress that no inference of guilty should be drawn from the fact that Heath would have been interviewed under caution.” It was also alleged that Heath carried out crimes in 1962, against a boy aged 10 in a public place in Kent after a chance encounter. In 1964, when Heath is alleged to have committed an offence against a boy aged 15, Heath was secretary of state for trade and industry. Police said no evidence was found of a cover-up or failure to investigate Heath while he was still alive.
Heath became leader of the Conservative party in 1965. In 1970 he defied opinion polls to win a surprise general election victory and become prime minister. His four years in office were dogged by industrial strife, with his biggest achievement being Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community. There was some anger among senior politicians over the findings. Michael Heseltine, who knew Heath, said the report was devoid of evidence. “I am afraid that there isn’t any evidence, there is just speculation and allegations,” Lord Heseltine told Sky News.
After defeat at the polls in 1974 he soon lost the Tory leadership to Margaret Thatcher. He never married and his private life was the subject of speculation, some of which was lurid. Heath was a skilled yachtsman and pianist in his spare time. The two-year investigation was carried out by Wiltshire police on behalf of 14 forces that received allegations about Heath, whose Salisbury home is in the area they cover.
The offences that would have merited an interview were allegedly committed against five boys aged between 10 and 15 years, and two men. In one case, police say there was some undermining evidence but that the politician should have been questioned anyway. The Wiltshire chief constable, Mike Veale, facing calls for him to resign over the £1.5m pursuit of a dead man, said the investigation showed police would pursue serious allegations no matter how powerful the suspect. “This watershed moment regarding investigations of people connected to the establishment should not be underestimated,” he said.
Inquiries into the claims were led by the Wiltshire police on behalf of 14 forces who received claims alleging that the former prime minister had carried out acts of sexual abuse. There has been an explosion in reporting of abuse claims to police after the Jimmy Savile scandal, in which the entertainer was found to have got away with hundreds of offences. The government and the police have faced claims first of covering up alleged abuse and then of over-reaction and the pursuit of high-profile figures over baseless allegations – such as Scotland Yard’s Operation Midland, which was found by an inquiry in 2016 to have fallen for lies from an alleged fantasist.
Complainants to police also alleged Heath carried out crimes in 1962 in Kent against a boy aged 10 in a public place following a chance encounter. One offence in 1964 against a boy aged 15 is alleged to have happened while Heath was secretary of state for trade and industry. The Wiltshire investigation into Heath, after decades of rumours about the former prime minister’s activities, was an attempt to establish the facts. Debate will rage about whether it has, and whether the state can investigate the most serious claims about those who have held its highest office.
Three offences, between 1976 and 1992, occurred after Heath had served as the seventh postwar British prime minister. The Guardian understands that there is no corroborative evidence – that is, forensic or DNA evidence – for the seven claims judged most credible by police. The findings are based on an assessment of the accounts from those who say Heath attacked them. It is not unusual for a sexual assault case, let alone one dating back decades, to come down to the word of the complainant. But the key decisions in the investigation were checked and approved by a panel of senior detectives and a panel of non-police experts.
The investigation into Heath over claims of child sexual abuse started in August 2015. It was led by the Wiltshire force as his Salisbury home was in the area it covers. The investigation was codenamed Operation Conifer. The allegations it received came from various places in the country and dated back decades. Veale said: “We can only go where the evidence takes us.”
Wiltshire police said they received a total of 42 allegations relating to 40 separate individuals. The claims made covered 14 different police force areas in the UK and the Channel Islands and covered a period from 1956 to 1992. All were alleged to have happened when Heath was an MP. They related to physical as well as sexual abuse. The report demolishes key defences used by Heath’s supporters which they say mean he could not have been an abuser. It says he was often without police protection and was not asexual. The report says: “Two witnesses, who have not disclosed abuse, provided evidence that he was sexually active with consenting adults during parts of his life.”
The Wiltshire police chief constable, Mike Veale, said of the inquiry: “This watershed moment regarding investigations of people connected to the establishment should not be underestimated.” James Gray, the MP for North Wiltshire and a Heath supporter, said: “My strong instinct is that he was entirely asexual, neither gay nor straight nor a paedophile. He was none of those things.
In a statement, supporters of Heath criticised the police report. Lord Hunt of Wirral, chair of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, and Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, former cabinet secretary and PPS to Heath while he was prime minister, said: “The Wiltshire police report is profoundly unsatisfactory because it neither justifies nor dispels the cloud of suspicion. “Most of the time he was escorted by close protection officers and he was a high-profile individual. I’m plain that these allegations are nonsensical, not true.”
“It contains a summary of the investigation, but draws no conclusion as to Sir Edward’s guilt, although during the investigation the chief constable was heard to express, as he certainly should not have done, his personal view that Sir Edward Heath was probably guilty. The Crown Prosecution Service will not give advice to police on whether the evidence they have gathered against a deceased suspect would be enough to prosecute. Wiltshire said they thus would not give an opinion on Heath’s guilt or innocence because that was not their role.
“As Sir Edward is dead, justice requires that there should be a quasi-judicial process as a substitute for the judicial process. This could be in the form of an independent review by a retired judge, with unrestricted access to all the evidence collected by the Wiltshire police. In the meantime, a fundamental, time-honoured principle should be respected, namely that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty.” A scrutiny panel that examined Wiltshire’s decision-making during the investigation included an ethicist and a human rights lawyer. It said: “The investigation was fair, sensitive and rigorous with regards to both victims and suspects.”
James Gray, the Conservative MP for North Wiltshire, also called for an independent inquiry: “Let’s have absolute clarity. Was Sir Edward Heath a paedophile or was he not? I’m plain in my mind that he was not. I think it’s important for the country, the people to know that was the case. This was a distinguished prime minister. We should not allow that shadow to hang over him for all time.” Veale apologised for an appeal for complainants to come forward being made outside Heath’s house in August 2015, which critics said would encourage false claims.
Heath’s godson Lincoln Seligman said he had know him for half a century. “I don’t believe any of the allegations,” he said. “I knew him as a child. Early on he was just a friend of my parents and I treated him as that. He had just become an MP. He was one of the people who was around in our lives. He used to come on holiday with our family and I and my siblings had every opportunity to observe him at close hand. Veale said the inquiry found no evidence of a cover-up or that a blind eye was turned to Heath’s activities by agents of the state. The inquiry team spoke to Heath’s police protection officers over the years and the security services.
“When I grew up I formed a closer relationship with him. I knew him to be a man of great integrity and not so idiotic to jeopardise his career by indulging in anything so pointless and dangerous.” But Veale said police could not investigate thoroughly enough, because it was beyond their remit, to satisfy or rebut claims of a cover-up.
A former chief prosecutor questioned the report’s conclusions. Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, said the announcement that Operation Conifer had uncovered sufficient evidence to justify questioning Heath under caution “gives entirely bogus credibility” to the inquiry. He also accused the force of attempting to demonstrate its “victim-friendly credentials at the expense of basic fairness”. The report released on Thursday was for public consumption. A fuller version will go to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, where it will most likely be considered as part of an investigation into whether abuse by prominent people was covered up.
“For Wiltshire police to have commenced an inquiry by holding a televised press conference outside Ted Heath’s home inviting ‘victims’ to come forward was a disgrace,” he added. Ken MacDonald, the former director of public prosecutions, said the force should be ashamed. “The bar for interview is low – in most investigations as low as the police want it to be, and in the case of a dead man virtually non-existent. They are covering their backs at the expense of a dead man. Shame on them.”
The report was also criticised by the former solicitor general Sir Edward Garnier, who accused Wiltshire police of turning the inquiry into a “game show”. Garnier said the conclusions relating to seven outstanding matters were an attempt to justify the police inquiry. Two other peers, David Hunt, chair of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, and Robert Armstrong, a former cabinet secretary and parliamentary private secretary to Heath while he was prime minister, said: “The Wiltshire police report is profoundly unsatisfactory because it neither justifies nor dispels the cloud of suspicion. As Sir Edward is dead, justice requires that there should be a quasi-judicial process as a substitute for the judicial process.”
“I think this whole flourish today of [Wiltshire police] saying there are seven outstanding matters is about self-justification. It has turned in to a game show and is there to protect the police’s reputation,” he told the Guardian.
Garnier said that police forces were embarking upon unnecessary inquiries into high-profile abuse as they struggle to recover their reputations following the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
The investigation received intense and sustained criticism while it was being carried out. In December 2016, Veale was stung into a vehement denunciation of the criticism.
Veale denied the investigation into Heath was a “fishing expedition” or “witch hunt” and vowed not to bow to “unacceptable” media pressure.
The report made public on Thursday is not the full version. That will go to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse set up by the government.