Operation Midland: Met police boss urged to 'consider her position'

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/04/operation-midland-met-police-boss-urged-to-consider-her-position

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The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, has been urged to consider her position after a damning report laid bare a series of failings in the force’s disastrous multimillion-pound investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring.

The scathing report, which piles pressure on Britain’s biggest police force, reveals that senior officers agreed to publicly say they believed accuser Carl Beech – leading a detective to infamously declare at the outset of the inquiry that his claims were “credible and true”.

The disclosure was omitted three years ago when the Met released a heavily redacted version of retired high court judge Sir Richard Henriques’ report on its handling of the £2.5m Operation Midland, which ended without a single arrest.

Beech, known anonymously as “Nick” when he made claims in 2014 that sparked the inquiry, was jailed for 18 years in July after being found guilty of making up that he was a victim of a murderous abuse ring.

The unredacted report also sheds light on the extent of the role of Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who Henriques said pressured officers investigating the allegations. In response, Watson claimed the report contains “multiple inaccuracies” about his role.

Operation Midland was set up by the Metropolitan police in November 2014 to examine allegations of child sexual abuse and homicide. It was based on false claims by Carl Beech, known as "Nick", that he was abused by public figures of authority from 1975 to 1984, and witnessed the abuse of others.

He made widely reported false allegations about being taken to parties at exclusive private members’ clubs, in Dolphin Square in London and other locations – including swimming pools – attended by among others the former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, the former home secretary Leon Brittan, the then chief of defence staff Lord Bramall, the ex-MI5 chief Sir Michael Hanley, as well as the former Tory MP Harvey Proctor.

Operation MIdland was closed in March 2016 with no charges brought. Beech was jailed for 18 years in July 2019 for making the claims. He is appealing against the conviction and the sentence.

A 2016 report into the investigation said it was ‘riddled with errors’, identifying 43 individual errors made by officers, that the team misled a judge to get search warrants, and finding that five officers, including four detectives and a deputy assistant commissioner, would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission for failings.

The 391-page report, which has sparked criticism that Scotland Yard is guilty of “institutional stupidity”, reveals:

Warrants to search the homes of wrongly accused suspects were obtained “unlawfully” and “should not have taken place”. Police “misled” the magistrate who authorised the search by describing Beech’s allegations as “consistent” and “credible”.

The premeditated decision by officers to publicly say they believed Beech was a “serious mistake”. “I cannot conceive that any fully informed officer could reasonably have believed ‘Nick’,” the report says.

Watson’s interest in Operation Midland “created further pressure upon officers”. Reviewing how to engage with the politician was listed among “investigative priorities” by a senior officer.

Beech, a former nurse, alleged he was among the victims of an “establishment group” – including politicians and military figures – who kidnapped, raped and murdered boys in the 1970s and 1980s. He accused the former prime minister Edward Heath, the ex-home secretary Leon Brittan, the former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, and the D-day veteran Field Marshal Edwin Bramall of being abusers. The homes of Lord Brittan, Lord Bramall and Proctor were raided as part of the 16-month inquiry.

The report’s publication has prompted Proctor to call for Cressida Dick, the Met police commissioner, to “consider her position”. At the outset of Operation Midland, Dick oversaw sexual abuse and murder investigations in her role as assistant commissioner of specialist operations. Proctor’s counsel Geoffrey Robertson QC said Operation Midland operated “almost with institutional stupidity”.

Responding to the report, Heath’s godson, Lincoln Seligman, told the Guardian that the police were responsible for “an extraordinary combination of stupidity and recklessness”.

“They continually made the wrong decisions and it caused us to doubt, albeit not for very long, in Heath’s case someone who we never have thought that kind of thing about,” Seligman added.

Meanwhile, the home secretary, Priti Patel, has ordered an investigation into the Met to maintain “public confidence” in Britain’s biggest force. She has asked HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, the police watchdog, to review the force’s actions.

The original version of the Henriques report, published by the Met on the same day as the US presidential election in November 2016 in an apparent bid to bury coverage, found 43 failings by investigators and said detectives fell for Beech’s story.

Met police agreed to say they believed VIP abuse claims – report

Many failures were caused by “poor judgment and a failure to accurately evaluate known facts”, the report found. The longer version of the report also discloses how Det Supt Kenny McDonald, who retired on the eve of Beech’s trial, and deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse, now director of general operations at the National Crime Agency, agreed to publicly back Beech.

On 18 December 2014, prior to a press conference with the media about Operation Midland, Rodhouse wrote: “I anticipate that Kenny or I will be asked if we ‘believe’ ‘Nick’. This is a significant issue and one with the potential to provide either reassurance or concern to other witnesses.

“Any indication that we will doubt the word of victims will undermine our efforts for them to come forward and will damage our relationship with ‘Nick’ ... Decision: If asked we will confirm that we do believe ‘Nick’ but that, as in any case, his evidence will need to be tested before it can be read out in a court.”

McDonald subsequently told the media: “‘Nick’ has been spoken to by experienced officers from the child abuse team and experienced officers from the murder investigation team. They and I believe what ‘Nick’ is saying is credible and true.”

Henriques criticised the move, writing: “I find it an error for two very senior officers who have never met a witness, and, in the DAC’s case, not himself read either ‘Nick’s’ interviews or blogs, to announce to the press and public that they believe the witness.”

In September 2015, the Met conceded that it had been wrong to suggest that it was pre-empting the result of the inquiry by earlier declaring its key witness’s account to be “credible and true”.

Asked about how concerned she was when she heard that Beech’s claims were “credible and true”, Dick told LBC last month: “I think everybody thinks that that was just a mistake, it shouldn’t have been said.”

Beech was found guilty after a 10-week trial at Newcastle crown court of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud over a £22,000 criminal compensation payout. Beech is also a convicted paedophile after pleading guilty to possessing child sexual abuse images in a separate trial earlier this year.

Met deputy commissioner Sir Stephen House issued an apology: “I am deeply, deeply sorry for the mistakes that were made and the ongoing pain these have caused … I promise we will do all we can to prevent them in the future.”

Rodhouse, who was cleared of wrongdoing in March 2017 without being interviewed by the police watchdog, apologised for the distress caused to “innocent people”, and said that he understood criticisms made of his role in the investigation. “I acted with the best of intentions throughout,” he insisted.

McDonald and two other junior officers involved in the investigation were cleared of wrongdoing by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) in July. It said there was no evidence that officers deliberately withheld evidence to obtain search warrants. On Monday, the IOPC will release its report explaining its decision that no officers should face disciplinary or criminal action.

Watson claimed the report had been selectively leaked to minimise criticism of the police and that it contained “multiple inaccuracies” about his involvement.