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Sir Gerald's speech in the Operation Midland and Henriques report Debate:
One of the founding purposes of our Parliament, established 751 years ago, was for the redress of grievances.* Let me say from the outset that where people, particularly the young and the vulnerable, have been abused by others, however high you are you are not above the law, an assertion of the late Lord Denning which is not in dispute.* What is in dispute and the subject of this debate is the manner in which a number of police forces have chosen to operate and the rules under which they operate.
Today, I make no apologies for seeking to highlight what I and many others consider to be a major miscarriage of justice by the Metropolitan Police and, indeed, other police forces across the land.* I intend to concentrate my remarks on Operation Midland which involved the pursuit of unfounded claims of sexual offences against the former Home Secretary, the late Lord Brittan, the former Chief of the Defence Staff and distinguished Normandy veteran, Field Marshal The Lord Bramall and my long-standing friend, KHP.* Mr Proctor was also accused of murdering three children.* I served in the House with both Leon Brittan and KHP and have met the FM and the late Lady Bramall a number of times. *
Other well-known people like Sir Cliff Richard, Paul Gambaccini and even the late Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath have also been caught up in this scandal of police failure and mismanagement, but such is the weight of evidence against the police operations that time will not permit more than passing reference to them.*
These people have lost income – Paul Gambaccini told the Home Affairs Committee he had lost £200,000 in income and in legal costs following his suspension from the BBC and other broadcasters.* In the case of KHP, he lost his income following his sacking by the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, to whom he acted as Secretary, largely at the behest of the Leicestershire constabulary and social services.* Loss of the job meant he also lost his home on the Duke’s estate as well and he is now living in an outhouse with no running water and no lavatory facilities. *
That is the hard effect of this travesty, but in addition the distress caused is difficult to imagine.* During the investigation conducted under Operation Midland and Operation Vincente, both Lord Brittan and Lord Bramall’s wife died, neither knowingthat the investigations had both been wound up. *In the case of Lord Brittan, who died in January last year, it was well over a year before the Met Police told Lady Brittan the Midland case had been dropped and then, only when asked by her lawyers to verify a report in the Independent on Sunday, did they say they would not have proceeded.* The distress, though, was not confined to that aspect of the case.*
She endured the indignity of the search of her property.* As she told me, 10 to 20 officers invaded the house.* She said it was like witnessing a robbery of your treasured possessions, including letters of condolence and photographs, without ever being told why. They were insensitive to her circumstances and never told her she had certain rights during a search. In her Yorkshire house the police asked if there was any newly turned earth in the garden, again without saying why.* As Lady Brittan says, whilst it was ordinary police officers who were instructed to undertake the searches, responsibility for the control of this operation rests with senior police officers whose insensitivity and incompetence has been revealed.* As one Sergeant told Lady Brittan, ‘Thank goodness we are only lowly cogs in this investigation.’
Let me turn to my long-standing friend Harvey Proctor.* It took him 28 years to rebuild his life following conviction for a sexual offence in 1987 which is no longer an offence now.* He shunned the public spotlight and became a very private citizen until – out of the blue, his home was raided by police who spent 15 hours, removed papers and possessions and told him he was accused of being involved in historical child sexual abuse.* It took the Police a further two months to accuse him of being a child serial murderer, a child rapist and abuser of children – the wild allegations of one fantasist, known only to the public as ‘Nick’.* Not content with making these serious charges against Harvey he suggested there was a paedophile ring operating in Westminster, accusations which the Rt Hon Member for West Bromwich East and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was keen to exploit as a Tory scandal and for which he should now offer fulsome and unreserved apologies.
At least Harvey knew the nature of the charges they were trying to stick on him unlike Lord Brittan who was never told.
Harvey had staying with him in the house a couple and their child.* Harvey was told, two weeks before the search of his house by the Met that their new born child would be removed for its own safety and secret sessions between the Leicestershire Police, Social Services and the Duke's representatives were convened when pressure was placed on the Duke and Duchess to sack Harvey from his employment after the search of his house. Leicestershire Constabulary and the Met pass responsibility for this issue to each other but it happened.
So what are the charges against the Metropolitan Police – and other forces involved? *First, that they adopted a policy that the accusations were, in the words of Supt Kenny McDonald, "credible and true".* Gone was any pretence of old-fashioned policing, looking dispassionately at the evidence and to see where it leads.* This is where we are assisted by the excellent report produced by former High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques, admittedly at the request of Sir B HH.
What Sir Richard *found was that the Chief Constable of Norfolk, Simon Bailey, who I understand leads for ACPO on child protection and abuse investigation, produced guidance in November 2015 which insisted that complainants should be described as ‘victims’ writing ‘If we don’t acknowledge a victim as such, it reinforces a system based on distrust and disbelief.* The police service (note the language – no longer a Force but a Service) is the conduit that links the victim to the rest of the criminal justice system;*there is a need to develop a relationship and rapport with a victim . . . in order to achieve the best evidence possible.’ * As Sir R says in describing this approach as flawed, use of the word ‘victim’ to describe a complainant ‘gives the impression of pre-judging a complaint.’ So confident is Mr Bailey that he counteracted by asserting that since only 0.1% of all complaints were false, ‘any inaccuracy in the use of the word victim is so minimal that it can be disregarded.’* What an astonishing claim to be made by a senior police officer.* Not one complainant with whom Sir Richard discussed this issue felt that the word ‘victim’ should be applied instead.
On searches, Sir Richard concluded that they were illegal.
Sir Richard turns next to the question of ‘belief’, noting that a Police Special Notice of 2002 dealing with rape investigation read: ‘It is the policy of the MPS to accept allegations made by the victim in the first instance as being truthful’ and in 2014 in a report on police crime reporting, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary recommended that: ‘The presumption that the victim should always be believed should be institutionalised.’ *
This approach represents a fundamental reversal of a cardinal principle of English law, namely that a man is innocent unless and until proven otherwise.* As Rupert Butler, Counsel of 3 Hare Court put it to Sir Richard,
‘The assumption is one of guilt until the police have evidence to the contrary.* This involves an artificial and imposed suspension of forensic analysis which creates three incremental and unacceptable consequences.* Firstly, there is no investigation that challenges the complainant;*secondly, therefore, the suspect is disbelieved; and, thirdly, and consequently, the burden of proof is shifted onto the suspect.’
Secondly, the evidence and the reliability of witnesses.* Sir Richard observes that prominent people are more vulnerable than others to false complaints from ‘compensation seekers, attention seekers, and those with mental health problems.’* As he says, they are assisted by the internet which can provide the information and detail to support a false allegation.
‘Entertainers are particularly vulnerable to false accusations, meeting, as they do, literally thousands of attention seeking fans who provoke a degree of familiarity which may be exaggerated or misconstrued in their recollection many years later.* Deceased persons are particularly vulnerable as allegations cannot be answered.’
In addition, Paul Gambaccini, whom I met yesterday, referred to the ‘bandwagoner’, a person who hears about a complaint against a well-known personality and then adds their own false complaint, possibly to make money, a motive which should not be discounted.
Thirdly, reliability of witnesses.* ‘Nick’, the man upon whose evidence much of this monstrous mission was based was dismissed by his own mother step mother, ex-wife and siblings as a fantasist.* In the investigation now being undertaken by the Northumbria Constabulary, they must be ruthless in their analysis as to why this man should be free to make such deeply serious accusations about prominent public figures yet little research into his background.* If his own mother denounced him, why did the police attach such credence to his claims? *Or did they not even think it was worth asking his relatives?
Fourthly, ‘victims’ were constantly kept informed of progress on the case but the alleged suspects remained in the dark.* That cannot be allowed to happen again.
Finally, why did the police abandon all notion of common sense?* At the time of the alleged offences committed by Lord Bramall, he would have had any number of senior officers around him.* What early attempt was made to ask for their opinion? Or is it the case that the police preferred to believe an unknown witness against one with close knowledge of the suspect?* The idea that he was cavorting in some orgy on that most solemn of days, Remembrance Sunday, is not only absurd but an insult to a decorated war hero.
At my surgery on Saturday I met a Hampshire resident, Lt Col Ben Herman, former Equerry to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who was charged after been kept on bail for over 2 years but who was acquitted after 15 minutes consideration by the jury.* It was his contention that the attraction of his case was the opportunity to land ‘a big fish’.* For staff officers carrying out dull work, except I suppose when they were infiltrating subversive groups and fathering children by the women they were supposed to be investigating, they were salivating at the prospect of nailing a servant of the Royal Household.* How far did such sentiments permeate the minds of those engaged on Operation Midland, Operation Vincente and Operation Yewtree?
These investigations constituted a grotesque and inexcusable failure by the Metropolitan Police.* I know that Sir Bernard has accepted that there was failure, but who has been reprimanded or even sacked for the damage done to the individuals concerned, as well as to the reputation of the Met?* We await the investigation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission with interest.
I believe the behaviour of all those faced by these dreadful accusations has been extraordinarily dignified.* As MNF the Lord Dear, former Chief Constable of the West Midlands, said in contrast to the dignity shown by Lord Bramall, ‘the police investigation lurched from over-reaction to torpidity.’*
What is now needed is as follows:
First, I believe that Sir BHH, to whom I spoke briefly last night to let him know of this debate, should ensure that those responsible for authorising payments to the real victims of this witchhunt, the people whose reputations his force has shredded and to whom they have caused immense distress, provide that authority before he leaves office early in the New Year.* Forcing them to go to court to seek compensation would simply add insult to injury.* However, in the absence of an agreed arrangement, that is what they may be obliged to do.* As Paul Gambaccini said to me last week, ‘No man should acquiesce in his own annihilation.’
Secondly, the Henriques recommendations must be implemented urgently.* In particular, the requirement that those making historical child abuse claims be regarded as ‘victims’ and not ‘complainants’ must be reversed forthwith as it overturns the centuries old principle about the burden of proof.* In an article in The Guardian on 10th February this year, which he kindly sent over to me this morning, Sir BHH wrote: ‘The public should be clear that officers do not believe unconditionally what anyone tells them’, which flatly contradicts the HMIC ruling I mentioned earlier that the presumption should be that the ‘victim’ is to be believed.
Thirdly, the recommendation that anonymity before charge be introduced should also be implemented without delay.* The HASC in its report on Police Bail, published on 17th March last year was clear on this.* It concluded:*
‘Newspapers and the media are prohibited from revealing the name of a person who is the victim of an alleged sexual offence.* We recommend that the same right to anonymity should also apply to the person accused of the crime, unless and until they are charged with an offence.’*
One of the founding purposes of our Parliament, established 751 years ago, was for the redress of grievances.* Let me say from the outset that where people, particularly the young and the vulnerable, have been abused by others, however high you are you are not above the law, an assertion of the late Lord Denning which is not in dispute.* What is in dispute and the subject of this debate is the manner in which a number of police forces have chosen to operate and the rules under which they operate.
Today, I make no apologies for seeking to highlight what I and many others consider to be a major miscarriage of justice by the Metropolitan Police and, indeed, other police forces across the land.* I intend to concentrate my remarks on Operation Midland which involved the pursuit of unfounded claims of sexual offences against the former Home Secretary, the late Lord Brittan, the former Chief of the Defence Staff and distinguished Normandy veteran, Field Marshal The Lord Bramall and my long-standing friend, KHP.* Mr Proctor was also accused of murdering three children.* I served in the House with both Leon Brittan and KHP and have met the FM and the late Lady Bramall a number of times. *
Other well-known people like Sir Cliff Richard, Paul Gambaccini and even the late Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath have also been caught up in this scandal of police failure and mismanagement, but such is the weight of evidence against the police operations that time will not permit more than passing reference to them.*
These people have lost income – Paul Gambaccini told the Home Affairs Committee he had lost £200,000 in income and in legal costs following his suspension from the BBC and other broadcasters.* In the case of KHP, he lost his income following his sacking by the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, to whom he acted as Secretary, largely at the behest of the Leicestershire constabulary and social services.* Loss of the job meant he also lost his home on the Duke’s estate as well and he is now living in an outhouse with no running water and no lavatory facilities. *
That is the hard effect of this travesty, but in addition the distress caused is difficult to imagine.* During the investigation conducted under Operation Midland and Operation Vincente, both Lord Brittan and Lord Bramall’s wife died, neither knowingthat the investigations had both been wound up. *In the case of Lord Brittan, who died in January last year, it was well over a year before the Met Police told Lady Brittan the Midland case had been dropped and then, only when asked by her lawyers to verify a report in the Independent on Sunday, did they say they would not have proceeded.* The distress, though, was not confined to that aspect of the case.*
She endured the indignity of the search of her property.* As she told me, 10 to 20 officers invaded the house.* She said it was like witnessing a robbery of your treasured possessions, including letters of condolence and photographs, without ever being told why. They were insensitive to her circumstances and never told her she had certain rights during a search. In her Yorkshire house the police asked if there was any newly turned earth in the garden, again without saying why.* As Lady Brittan says, whilst it was ordinary police officers who were instructed to undertake the searches, responsibility for the control of this operation rests with senior police officers whose insensitivity and incompetence has been revealed.* As one Sergeant told Lady Brittan, ‘Thank goodness we are only lowly cogs in this investigation.’
Let me turn to my long-standing friend Harvey Proctor.* It took him 28 years to rebuild his life following conviction for a sexual offence in 1987 which is no longer an offence now.* He shunned the public spotlight and became a very private citizen until – out of the blue, his home was raided by police who spent 15 hours, removed papers and possessions and told him he was accused of being involved in historical child sexual abuse.* It took the Police a further two months to accuse him of being a child serial murderer, a child rapist and abuser of children – the wild allegations of one fantasist, known only to the public as ‘Nick’.* Not content with making these serious charges against Harvey he suggested there was a paedophile ring operating in Westminster, accusations which the Rt Hon Member for West Bromwich East and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was keen to exploit as a Tory scandal and for which he should now offer fulsome and unreserved apologies.
At least Harvey knew the nature of the charges they were trying to stick on him unlike Lord Brittan who was never told.
Harvey had staying with him in the house a couple and their child.* Harvey was told, two weeks before the search of his house by the Met that their new born child would be removed for its own safety and secret sessions between the Leicestershire Police, Social Services and the Duke's representatives were convened when pressure was placed on the Duke and Duchess to sack Harvey from his employment after the search of his house. Leicestershire Constabulary and the Met pass responsibility for this issue to each other but it happened.
So what are the charges against the Metropolitan Police – and other forces involved? *First, that they adopted a policy that the accusations were, in the words of Supt Kenny McDonald, "credible and true".* Gone was any pretence of old-fashioned policing, looking dispassionately at the evidence and to see where it leads.* This is where we are assisted by the excellent report produced by former High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques, admittedly at the request of Sir B HH.
What Sir Richard *found was that the Chief Constable of Norfolk, Simon Bailey, who I understand leads for ACPO on child protection and abuse investigation, produced guidance in November 2015 which insisted that complainants should be described as ‘victims’ writing ‘If we don’t acknowledge a victim as such, it reinforces a system based on distrust and disbelief.* The police service (note the language – no longer a Force but a Service) is the conduit that links the victim to the rest of the criminal justice system;*there is a need to develop a relationship and rapport with a victim . . . in order to achieve the best evidence possible.’ * As Sir R says in describing this approach as flawed, use of the word ‘victim’ to describe a complainant ‘gives the impression of pre-judging a complaint.’ So confident is Mr Bailey that he counteracted by asserting that since only 0.1% of all complaints were false, ‘any inaccuracy in the use of the word victim is so minimal that it can be disregarded.’* What an astonishing claim to be made by a senior police officer.* Not one complainant with whom Sir Richard discussed this issue felt that the word ‘victim’ should be applied instead.
On searches, Sir Richard concluded that they were illegal.
Sir Richard turns next to the question of ‘belief’, noting that a Police Special Notice of 2002 dealing with rape investigation read: ‘It is the policy of the MPS to accept allegations made by the victim in the first instance as being truthful’ and in 2014 in a report on police crime reporting, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary recommended that: ‘The presumption that the victim should always be believed should be institutionalised.’ *
This approach represents a fundamental reversal of a cardinal principle of English law, namely that a man is innocent unless and until proven otherwise.* As Rupert Butler, Counsel of 3 Hare Court put it to Sir Richard,
‘The assumption is one of guilt until the police have evidence to the contrary.* This involves an artificial and imposed suspension of forensic analysis which creates three incremental and unacceptable consequences.* Firstly, there is no investigation that challenges the complainant;*secondly, therefore, the suspect is disbelieved; and, thirdly, and consequently, the burden of proof is shifted onto the suspect.’
Secondly, the evidence and the reliability of witnesses.* Sir Richard observes that prominent people are more vulnerable than others to false complaints from ‘compensation seekers, attention seekers, and those with mental health problems.’* As he says, they are assisted by the internet which can provide the information and detail to support a false allegation.
‘Entertainers are particularly vulnerable to false accusations, meeting, as they do, literally thousands of attention seeking fans who provoke a degree of familiarity which may be exaggerated or misconstrued in their recollection many years later.* Deceased persons are particularly vulnerable as allegations cannot be answered.’
In addition, Paul Gambaccini, whom I met yesterday, referred to the ‘bandwagoner’, a person who hears about a complaint against a well-known personality and then adds their own false complaint, possibly to make money, a motive which should not be discounted.
Thirdly, reliability of witnesses.* ‘Nick’, the man upon whose evidence much of this monstrous mission was based was dismissed by his own mother step mother, ex-wife and siblings as a fantasist.* In the investigation now being undertaken by the Northumbria Constabulary, they must be ruthless in their analysis as to why this man should be free to make such deeply serious accusations about prominent public figures yet little research into his background.* If his own mother denounced him, why did the police attach such credence to his claims? *Or did they not even think it was worth asking his relatives?
Fourthly, ‘victims’ were constantly kept informed of progress on the case but the alleged suspects remained in the dark.* That cannot be allowed to happen again.
Finally, why did the police abandon all notion of common sense?* At the time of the alleged offences committed by Lord Bramall, he would have had any number of senior officers around him.* What early attempt was made to ask for their opinion? Or is it the case that the police preferred to believe an unknown witness against one with close knowledge of the suspect?* The idea that he was cavorting in some orgy on that most solemn of days, Remembrance Sunday, is not only absurd but an insult to a decorated war hero.
At my surgery on Saturday I met a Hampshire resident, Lt Col Ben Herman, former Equerry to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who was charged after been kept on bail for over 2 years but who was acquitted after 15 minutes consideration by the jury.* It was his contention that the attraction of his case was the opportunity to land ‘a big fish’.* For staff officers carrying out dull work, except I suppose when they were infiltrating subversive groups and fathering children by the women they were supposed to be investigating, they were salivating at the prospect of nailing a servant of the Royal Household.* How far did such sentiments permeate the minds of those engaged on Operation Midland, Operation Vincente and Operation Yewtree?
These investigations constituted a grotesque and inexcusable failure by the Metropolitan Police.* I know that Sir Bernard has accepted that there was failure, but who has been reprimanded or even sacked for the damage done to the individuals concerned, as well as to the reputation of the Met?* We await the investigation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission with interest.
I believe the behaviour of all those faced by these dreadful accusations has been extraordinarily dignified.* As MNF the Lord Dear, former Chief Constable of the West Midlands, said in contrast to the dignity shown by Lord Bramall, ‘the police investigation lurched from over-reaction to torpidity.’*
What is now needed is as follows:
First, I believe that Sir BHH, to whom I spoke briefly last night to let him know of this debate, should ensure that those responsible for authorising payments to the real victims of this witchhunt, the people whose reputations his force has shredded and to whom they have caused immense distress, provide that authority before he leaves office early in the New Year.* Forcing them to go to court to seek compensation would simply add insult to injury.* However, in the absence of an agreed arrangement, that is what they may be obliged to do.* As Paul Gambaccini said to me last week, ‘No man should acquiesce in his own annihilation.’
Secondly, the Henriques recommendations must be implemented urgently.* In particular, the requirement that those making historical child abuse claims be regarded as ‘victims’ and not ‘complainants’ must be reversed forthwith as it overturns the centuries old principle about the burden of proof.* In an article in The Guardian on 10th February this year, which he kindly sent over to me this morning, Sir BHH wrote: ‘The public should be clear that officers do not believe unconditionally what anyone tells them’, which flatly contradicts the HMIC ruling I mentioned earlier that the presumption should be that the ‘victim’ is to be believed.
Thirdly, the recommendation that anonymity before charge be introduced should also be implemented without delay.* The HASC in its report on Police Bail, published on 17th March last year was clear on this.* It concluded:*
‘Newspapers and the media are prohibited from revealing the name of a person who is the victim of an alleged sexual offence.* We recommend that the same right to anonymity should also apply to the person accused of the crime, unless and until they are charged with an offence.’*
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