Lord Brittan's widow says closure of police misconduct probe ‘undermines trust'
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said last week it had stopped the investigation into former Met deputy assistant commissioner Steve Rodhouse after a 'large volume of relevant material was recently disclosed to the IOPC by the Metropolitan Police'.
Mr Rodhouse was due to face a disciplinary hearing for potentially breaching police professional standards of behaviour for honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct.
The allegations centred around comments made to the media in March 2016 concerning his beliefs about the honesty of two witnesses to Operation Midland – a Met investigation into allegations of non-recent sexual abuse.
They also involved remarks he is alleged to have subsequently made to former High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques, who had been commissioned to carry out an independent review of the handling of Operation Midland in August 2016.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Lady Diana Brittan said she had hoped the investigation would bring a sense of 'closure'.
She said: 'My husband was a high-profile individual, but at every level of society there are people who are falsely accused, and for them (also) it's the ruining of reputation, it's the anxiety that goes with it.
'I feel that it would have at least put a closure, to use that odd word, on the whole episode if somebody had been held to account, either for misconduct, or even for incompetence.'
Operation Midland was launched off the back of lurid and false allegations made by fantasist Carl Beech – later jailed for 18 years for what a judge called 'cruel and callous' lies.
The Metropolitan Police's 16-month investigation into fake claims of a VIP paedophile ring saw raids on the homes of Lord Brittan, as well as D-Day veteran Lord Bramall and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor.
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, including naming witnesses who did not exist.
The IOPC said there was 'no evidence' within the material provided from the Met that there was 'any inappropriate motivation in Mr Rodhouse's comments to the media' or which 'supports that he made those remarks during Sir Richard's review'.
Mr Rodhouse said the allegations made against him were 'ill-founded and incorrect'.
Mr Proctor said he was 'appalled' by the 'disgraceful decision' not to proceed, adding he would be writing to Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to 'demand a meeting and an explanation'.
Lady Brittan said she felt her husband's legacy had been permanently tarnished by the episode, telling the BBC: 'What I really feel very sorry about is the fact that my husband was a great public servant.
'When he died, his obituaries referred to all of this.'
In response to Lady Brittan's comments, an IOPC spokesperson said: 'Our recent decision does not change our finding that – by failing to follow Sir Richard Henrique's recommendation to investigate the witnesses in his independent review of the Met's handling of Op Midland – the Met's service was unacceptable and its subsequent reviews concluding no investigation was needed were flawed.
'During our investigation we reported a potential crime to the Met, which is being actively investigated by another force.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Fantasist who invented claims of a VIP paedophile ring at Westminster set to have jail term cut by three years in Labour's sentencing review
Carl Beech, the fantasist who invented claims of a VIP paedophile ring at Westminster, could soon be freed from prison thanks to Labour's sentencing review. The serial liar triggered a high-level investigation in 2014 into lurid allegations of child sexual abuse and murder involving politicians, generals and senior figures in the intelligence services. Those falsely accused, including former home secretary Leon Brittan and retired field marshal Lord Bramall, had their properties raided, and one of them - ex-MP Harvey Proctor - lost both his home and his job. Police only referred to Beech, a former NHS paediatric nurse, using the pseudonym 'Nick' to protect his identity. His claims that he and others had been sexually abused by a 'VIP ring' in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that he had witnessed three child murders by members of the same group, featured prominently on BBC News and other outlets. The investigation - known as Operation Midland - cost £2.5m but by the time it was wound up, not one arrest had been made. The Met police force later had to apologise and pay compensation over its handling of the allegations. After his arrest and trial, Beech was sentenced in July 2019 to eighteen years in prison. The sentence was made up of 16.5 years for fraud and perverting the course of justice and 18 months for possession of child pornography. While his sentence for child abuse images is unaffected by the recent changes, the bulk of his sentence will be cut by as much as three years. Under the sentencing policy of the Conservative Government he was due for release on 1 Oct 2027. Under changes announced last year by Labour that date was brought forward to 8 Feb 2026. But under the latest proposals Beech, now 57, became eligible for early release on good behaviour on 11 Dec 2024. Commenting on the prospect, former Tory MP Mr Proctor, the only direct living victim of the fraudster's lies, said: 'I'd very much regret Carl Beech being released early from his sentence. I think there must be some discretion, it shouldn't be automatic. 'Those who take this decision should take into account the extraordinary damage he did to a lot of people. The punishment needs to fit the crime. 'If he's released I hope he leads a productive life and rejects any attempt by publishers to write a book – that would be very aggravating to the families of those he falsely accused and to me.'
Times
5 hours ago
- Times
Wrongly accused of child murder, he's still seeking justice 10 years on
While Harvey Proctor is trying not to cry, I'm trying not to be sick. The 78-year-old former Conservative MP is driving us, very jerkily, down winding country lanes to his home on the Belvoir Castle estate in Leicestershire and recalling how he was falsely accused of child murder and sex abuse ten years ago. 'Please ignore me if I get emotional,' he says, welcoming me into the cottage he shares with his partner, Terry. The house comes with the job: Proctor is private secretary to the Duke of Rutland, who lives alongside his ex-wife, the Duchess of Rutland, in the 356-room castle down the road. Hardly cheek by jowl. It is 11.15am, so I decline my host's offer of an alcoholic drink. Proctor, who was once described by Private Eye as 'so far-right as to be somewhere in the North Sea', is dressed head to toe in shades of Tory blue. We have tea in his book-lined sitting room. Through the windows are bucolic views of the Vale of Belvoir. It was in this tranquil setting that Proctor's life was ripped apart. Early on March 4, 2015, about 20 Metropolitan Police officers, mostly in blue forensic uniforms, stormed the modest farmhouse. 'I assumed it was something to do with the castle,' Proctor recalls. He quickly learnt that the raid, which lasted late into the night, was part of Operation Midland. Carl Beech, a former NHS paediatric nurse known at that point only by the pseudonym 'Nick', had accused Proctor and others — including the former home secretary Leon Brittan, the former armed forces chief Lord Bramall and the former prime minister Edward Heath — of operating a murderous VIP paedophile sex ring in Westminster in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Carl Beech, the fantasist who was known by the pseudonym 'Nick' PA Unfolding in the dark shadow of the Jimmy Savile scandal, the sensational tale was swallowed whole by the authorities and a classic moral panic ensued. Beech, from Gloucestershire, a divorced father of one, accused Proctor of rape, the murder of two children and being involved in the murder of a third child. He also alleged that Proctor had threatened to cut his genitals off with a penknife. It turned out that Beech, 57, was a complete fantasist. He is now in prison serving an 18-year sentence for perverting the course of justice and fraud. He was also found to have more than 300 indecent images of children on his computers. Operation Midland, which cost £2.5 million, lasted for 16 months and ended in 2016 with lives left in ruins and without a single arrest. To Proctor's understandable fury, not a single officer involved has faced any consequences. 'Bernard Hogan-Howe [the head of the Met at the time of Operation Midland] was ennobled,' he says. 'Cressida Dick [who was referred to the police watchdog, the IOPC — Independent Office of Police Conduct — over her role but found to have no case to answer] was made a dame. Steve Rodhouse [who led the inquiry] was made No 2 at the National Crime Agency. Lower ranks were promoted.' Proctor had hoped this month he might finally see some accountability. Rodhouse faced a misconduct hearing to answer claims that he used 'inaccurate and dishonest words' at the conclusion of Operation Midland. On June 5, however, the IOPC unexpectedly dropped the misconduct hearing at the 11th hour. It said the decision came after a 'large volume of relevant material was recently disclosed to it' by the Met. 'It is cowardice. It is complicity. It is a cover-up,' Proctor says of the U-turn. Brittan's widow, Lady Brittan, was similarly appalled when the hearing turned to dust, telling the BBC: 'I feel that it would have at least put a closure … on the whole episode if somebody had been held to account, either for misconduct, or even for incompetence.' Brittan died before his name was cleared. The apparent lack of consequences for his tormentors clearly weighs heavily on Proctor. 'It is an open wound because it's not scarred over. It's still open, it still hurts,' he says, sinking further into a brown leather armchair. 'Never a day goes by without thinking about what happened. Not a day.' A decade ago, at his solicitor's office, Proctor learnt the gruesome details of the accusations levelled against him. 'What's so horrible is the thought that anyone, let alone the police, thought I could conceivably have done anything that this chap was suggesting,' he says. The morning after his home was raided, he woke to see his face leading the morning news bulletins on television. He said it was a horrifying 'flashback' to 1987 and the first time his life had been cruelly upended. In 1986, when Proctor was the Tory MP for Billericay, the Sunday People newspaper carried out a sting, paying a 19-year-old male prostitute to visit his flat. At the time the legal age of consent for gay people was 21. Proctor was charged with gross indecency in 1987 and forced to abandon his political career. 'It takes quite a while to recover from something like that,' he says quietly. After a stint selling shirts in Richmond upon Thames, he left London and built a new life working for the 11th Duke of Rutland, David Manners. During the second unravelling, in 2015, he was accused of heinous crimes and had to leave both his job at Belvoir Castle and his grace-and-favour home. 'You have school groups going around, you couldn't have somebody working there who — not only the allegation had been made by somebody that I'd sexually abused children and murdered children, but the Metropolitan Police had gone on TV and radio and confirmed that [detectives considered Beech's account to be] 'credible and true',' he says. Throughout our day together, Proctor's pale blue eyes fill with tears and his voice keeps catching. 'The way that juries believe police, I genuinely thought that I could be charged, face trial and be found guilty and spend the rest of my life in prison,' he says. Inevitably, he received death threats — and still receives the occasional one today. 'I know some of the people who made the death threats,' he says. Fearing for his safety, in mid-2015 he moved to live in Spain at a friend's villa with Terry, a retired art dealer, whom he has known for more than 50 years. During that year, late into the Spanish nights, Proctor wrote his book, Credible and True, in a frantic attempt to document his innocence. He voluntarily flew back for police interviews and, in August 2015, against the advice of his lawyers, he held an extraordinary press conference at St Ermin's Hotel in Westminster. 'I am a homosexual. I am not a murderer. I am not a paedophile,' he told the packed room of journalists, who were agog. It was a brave and shrewd move; the tide started to shift and the press began to scrutinise the tales of 'Nick'. In 2016, as the inquiry dragged on, Proctor moved back to the UK. 'We had no money, we had nowhere to live,' he recalls. 'A friend let us use her garden shed to live in. Terry, me and three dogs lived in a garden shed half the size of this room,' he says, gesturing around the small sitting room. Proctor pictured himself living homeless on the streets of nearby Grantham. When the accusations first came out in 2015, some friends abandoned him, never to return; others abandoned him and later, when the truth emerged, came crawling back. He still can't work out which is worse. Other friends were loyal and supportive, 'without which you wouldn't survive'. Over a homemade lasagne, I hear how Proctor grew up in Scarborough, and his father, who ran bakeries, abandoned the family for another woman. He never forgave him and didn't go to his funeral. After graduating from York University, Proctor served as the Conservative MP for Basildon, then Billericay, between 1979 and 1987, and advocated for the voluntary repatriation of immigrants. His political hero is Enoch Powell. Proctor, by his own description, is not a clubbable man. Why does he think he was targeted by Beech? 'What happened in 1987 was definitely a factor,' he says. 'He went to journalists and I think they probably exacerbated his allegations. Thirdly, I was a homosexual and I've described [the inquiry] by the Met as a homosexual witch-hunt.' In November 2019, Proctor received nearly £900,000 in compensation and costs from the Metropolitan Police. In early 2022, he resumed working for the duke. 'No two days are the same,' he says cheerily. Slowly piecing himself back together, he has had therapy and now preaches the importance of talking things through. He is rejoining the Conservative Party and is president of the clunkily named Facing Allegations in Contexts of Trust (Fact), an organisation that advises those who have been falsely accused of abuse. He has had students, politicians and police come to him in desperation. 'I don't want anybody else to go through what I and others went through,' Proctor says. 'I try to help by talking to them, trying to reassure them and trying to establish what I lost, and that is confidence.' He feels only 'icy contempt' for his accuser, and seems to have more anger for the former director of public prosecutions (DPP), one Sir Keir Starmer, under whose five-year tenure rape convictions rose. He stepped down as DPP in October 2013, more than a year before Operation Midland was launched. Proctor says: 'He didn't like the fact that there [weren't] sufficient numbers of successful rape convictions, so he told the police wherever they would listen — and they did a lot, to a DPP — that 'henceforth you should believe the victim'. He wasn't DPP at the time of Operation Midland — he didn't need to be. The damage he'd done had already been done.' Proctor proudly shows me Belvoir Castle's art collection — Gainsborough, Holbein, Stubbs, Reynolds — and tells me about a foiled burglary last year. On the surface, his life seems comfortably back on track. But after everything — the accusations, raid, threats, homelessness and prospect of life in prison — does he live looking over his shoulder? 'I try not to but I think it's inevitable. Things can get quite difficult,' he says, his voice cracking again. 'But not everything has been doom and gloom. I've had a remarkable life. And here we are, ten years later. I'm still here.'
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Year-long ‘groping' nightmare of father accused of sexual assault after tapping male waiter on the back to avoid collision in hotel bar
A businessman found himself at the centre of a year-long nightmare at the hands of the Metropolitan Police after tapping a male waiter on the back for a second to avoid a collision in a hotel bar. Father-of-two Simon Correia was hauled before the courts after being falsely accused of intimately groping and touching the waiter's bottom following a black-tie awards ceremony held at London 's Park Plaza Riverbank hotel. CCTV footage clearly shows, from multiple angles, that Mr Correia, 48, momentarily placed his hand on the back of the man – who was holding a tray of drinks – to warn him not to step backwards. But even after viewing the footage and admitting it did not show what the accuser had described, a Met Police officer arrested the married company director, threw him in a cell for 15 hours and charged him with sexual assault. The false allegation triggered a horrific year-long legal saga which cost Mr Correia £10,000 in fees and devastated his family. His nightmare only came to an end on February 6 this year when, after seeing the CCTV footage, a judge threw the case out of court, saying it 'wholly contradicted' the waiter's account. Yet despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, Mr Correia, from Liverpool, and his wife Clare, 45, say they are yet to receive an apology from either the Met or the Crown Prosecution Service – or an explanation for why the case was ever allowed to proceed to trial. Last night, speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, Mr Correia, who feared he would be placed on the sex offenders register, broke down while describing his ordeal. He said: 'At some points I thought I was going to take my life. I would never do it, but I was so panicked about my business and about how people would perceive me - I've never been in trouble in my life and then suddenly I'd been accused of something I hadn't done by this horrible individual.' 'It was like this evil spell had been cast over us.' The couple now want recognition from both the Met and the CPS of what Mr Correia was put through – and for his accuser to face justice for making false allegations. Mrs Correia said: 'The CPS and the Met, who have allowed this to happen, have given not one apology. They've all just tried to cover their back and they've allowed a dangerous man to walk free.' Mr Correia, the director of luxury watch brand Escudo, had been shortlisted for the Family Business of the Year award by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and had travelled with Clare to the capital in February last year for the ceremony. When the event finished, the couple went to the hotel's Chino Latino bar where, after chatting with other business leaders, Mr Correia sat with his wife at a table where a waiter was setting down drinks. Aware the waiter was facing away from him, Mr Correia lightly tapped the man on the back to make him aware of his presence. Recalling the moment, he said: 'I put my phone down and then said, 'Cheers mate', while I tapped him on the back and then sat straight down in my chair behind him. That was it. It was innocent and was just a warning of, 'I'm behind you, I'm just letting you know'.' CCTV footage then shows the waiter calmly continuing to put drinks on the table. Just over an hour later, the bar manager told Mr Correia that a staff member had accused him of sexual assault. Mr Correia said: 'I was thinking, it's got to be a prank – I honestly did. In the back of my mind I was hoping someone was going to go, 'Got ya!', but it just became more real the longer it went on.' Two officers took a statement from the waiter, who claimed Mr Correia had groped him and used a finger to penetrate him. A female officer's bodycam video, seen by the MoS, reveals she then watched the incident on the hotel's CCTV. Significantly, it captures her saying, 'That's not what he's just described' – a reference to the waiter's lurid allegations. Despite this, she arrested Mr Correia and took him to Brixton Police Station, where he was locked in a cell. Fifteen hours later, he was charged with sexual assault and left in limbo until the trial. But despite their torment, at the trial, on February 6, 2025, at Inner London Crown Court, the judge threw it out almost immediately, saying the waiter's allegations were 'wholly contradicted by the CCTV footage'. Mr Correia's barrister Charlotte Godber said it was her 'shortest ever Crown Court trial' at just one hour and 56 minutes. 'I just completely broke down and couldn't stop crying,' Mr Correia said. 'Some of the jury members were even crying and coming up to me to shake my hand.' Mr Correia's business partner and stepfather, Richard Johnson, 77, described the case as a 'waste of public money and time' which 'failed the entire criminal justice system'. Meanwhile, his accuser, a Muslim man who has legal anonymity as the 'victim' of a sex crime and who told police his 'religion is very sensitive to this sort of thing', has faced no repercussions for making a false accusation. 'The worst part is, he's still out there and he's not had any punishment for lying to the police and then lying in court,' Mr Correia said. 'I just want to warn other people about how easily something like this can happen. If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.' A Met Police spokesman said: 'We have a duty to investigate allegations of crime when it is reported to us. 'This matter was assessed and then proportionately investigated by officers. Police authorised a charge and then the case was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service.' A CPS spokesman said: 'We recognise the toll the criminal process can take on both defendants and complainants, and we have written to Mr Correia to explain our decision-making in this case.'
