Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes 'covered up by the Establishment'
More than 30 people have come forward with claims about the former PM
And they are said to have given 'strikingly similar' accounts to Wiltshire Police
The county's chief constable has said that the allegations are 'totally convincing'
Pictures have emerged of Heath driving - despite it being claimed he didn't have a car
By SIMON WALTERS POLITICAL EDITOR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Edward Heath with his piano at his home Arundells in Salisbury, Wiltshire
The police chief investigating claims that Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile is convinced the allegations are ‘120 per cent’ genuine, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
More than 30 people have come forward with claims of sexual abuse by the former Conservative Prime Minister, according to well-placed sources.
And they are said to have given ‘strikingly similar’ accounts of incidents to Wiltshire Police – even though the individuals are not known to each other.
The Mail on Sunday has been told that Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale regards the allegations as ‘totally convincing’, and plans to publish a report in June.
Detectives have established that, contrary to claims that Sir Edward could not have committed the crimes as he ‘never drove a car’ and ‘always’ had a police driver with him, he did drive – and did have a car.
They have photographic evidence that shows he is a driver, and have established that he had a driving licence. He also bought a Rover 2000 after being deposed as Tory leader by Margaret Thatcher in 1975, when he was 58.
Astonishingly, Mr Veale is also understood to support claims that Sir Edward’s alleged crimes were reported to police years ago but covered up by the Establishment.
Some of those who said Sir Edward abused them are believed to have told police they went on to commit sexual abuse crimes themselves as a result.
The investigation into Sir Edward, called Operation Conifer, was set up in 2015 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Mr Veale came under pressure to abandon the inquiry last year after separate claims of a paedophile ring at Westminster involving former Home Secretary, the late Lord Brittan, and former Defence chief, Lord Bramall, were found to be groundless.
Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale regards the allegations as ‘totally convincing’, and plans to publish a report in June
Allegations that Sir Edward was involved in satanic orgies have been dismissed as fantasy by an expert asked to review the case.
However, The Mail on Sunday has been told that Mr Veale believes the paedophile allegations are genuine. A source said: ‘Mr Veale believes in them 120 per cent and thinks they are totally convincing.
‘There are very close similarities in the accounts given by those who have come forward. The same names used for him, the same places and same type of incidents keep coming up.
‘What stands out is that the people giving these accounts are not connected but the stories and the details dovetail.
‘It contains disturbing stuff. Investigators have been shocked by what they have learned.’
Another source said: ‘The police were initially sceptical about the allegations, but now believe them. And they have come round to the view that they were covered up in the past because of who Heath was.
DO THESE PHOTOS UNDERMINE EX PM'S DEFENCE?
Sir Edward Heath seen with his car in Weymouth, despite claims he never drove
These are the photographs that appear to disprove the notion that the allegations against Sir Edward cannot be true because he ‘never drove a car’ and was always accompanied by police.
Both were taken in October 1975. In the main picture on the right, Heath is standing by the driver’s door of the Rover 2000 he bought after Margaret Thatcher ousted him as Tory leader in February that year. In the picture on the left, he is seen arriving at the Tory Party conference in Blackpool – in the driver’s seat.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that Wiltshire Police has also obtained photographic evidence of him driving.
The issue was first raised by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong, who worked with Sir Edward in No 10. Lord Armstrong said Sir Edward – whom he described as ‘asexual’ – had a 24-hour police guard and driver from the day he became PM in 1970 to his death in 2005, and did not have his own car.
‘When he was at home he had two policemen on the gate, he had the personal protection officer from Scotland Yard in the house, he never drove a car himself, he always had an official driver,’ said Lord Armstrong. ‘It seems highly unlikely he could have escaped all that to do the kind of thing that is described.’
Sir Edward Heath again pictured driving, this time leaving leaves the conference for the sea breezes of Weymouth
Sir Edward bought the Rover after losing the chauffeur-driven car he was entitled to as Prime Minister, then Opposition leader.
A confidant of the former PM said: ‘He definitely could and did drive, though was a notoriously bad one. When he went to music concerts in Salzburg and hired a car, he was meant to drive it because his British police guards weren’t officially allowed to.
‘But they insisted as they were frightened he was going to crash.’
‘They will not be deflected by the rich and powerful trying to do the same now. Mike Veale is doing a great job and should be congratulated for his courage.’
The disclosures come after several senior politicians dismissed the allegations against Heath as absurd and unfounded. Former Tory Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind complained Heath’s reputation was being ‘besmirched’. Heath’s sexuality has been the source of much speculation over the years. Some believed he was gay, others said he was ‘asexual.’ At one point, he was being investigated by no fewer than five police forces – the Met, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Kent and Jersey.
The claims, some of which have been proved false, include alleged links to a convicted brothel keeper known as Madame Ling-Ling. A paedophile dossier compiled by Labour peer Baroness Castle said he offered young boys trips on his yacht, and in a separate incident one man claimed Sir Edward picked him up hitchhiking in Kent as a 12-year-old in the 1960s and lured him to his Mayfair flat.
Labour MP Tom Watson also said he had received allegations about Sir Edward. However the claims Mr Veale is investigating, which date from the 1960s to 1990s, are not linked to the discredited evidence of the man known as ‘Nick’, who alleged a high-level paedophile ring.
One of the key counter-claims made when the allegations first surfaced came from former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong, who worked with Heath when he was Prime Minister. He said Heath ‘never drove a car’ and always had at least one policeman with him from 1970 until his death in 2005.
The fact that Sir Edward could drive was confirmed last night by a friend, who said the former Prime Minister bought a car in 1975, although Sir Edward was later given a chauffeur-driven car and police guard after IRA death threats.
Asked if Mr Veale believed the allegations against Sir Edward were ‘totally convincing’, a police spokesman said the Chief Constable was determined to ‘ensure the investigation is proportionate, measured and legal’ and that the job of the police was to ‘impartially investigate allegations without fear or favour and go where the evidence takes us. It is not the role of the police to judge the guilt or innocence of people in our criminal justice system.’
Further asked if Mr Veale had ‘120 per cent’ faith in the allegations, the spokesman declined to comment.
Police refuse to call off the dogs after VIP child sex ring fiasco
Launched in 2015 to investigate allegations against Sir Edward Heath, Operation Conifer has been dogged by claims that it traduces the reputation of a Prime Minister who died more than a decade ago and could not be put on trial.
The operation, which has a staff of 17 and has run up a bill approaching £1 million, did not get off to a good start when Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale had to apologise for launching it in front of cameras outside Sir Edward’s former house, Arundells, in Salisbury.
Demands to call it off grew last November when Scotland Yard was forced to abandon its Operation Midland investigation into similar claims of a VIP paedophile ring in Westminster.
After a flurry of false accusations, Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised to former Defence chief Lord Bramall, ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor, DJ Paul Gambaccini and Lady Brittan, widow of the late Lord Brittan.
A police officer stands at the gate of Arundells, the former home of Heath when the probe was launched
Pressure on Operation Conifer mounted after this newspaper revealed how an expert, brought in by police to assess claims that Heath was linked to paedophiles who held satanic orgies, dismissed them as fantasy.
Days after The Mail on Sunday report, Mr Veale came out fighting and insisted Operation Conifer was not a ‘witch-hunt’.
In a surprise statement released on December 2, he said he refused to ‘buckle’ to demands to abandon the inquiry, and stressed his officers had not spoken to ‘Nick’, the man at the root of Operation Midland.
The Heath investigation was not a ‘fishing trip’, he said, adding that he was ‘duty-bound’ to go ahead with it ‘without fear or favour and go where the evidence takes us’. He accused his critics of ignorance, and rebuked them for using ‘inappropriate and unacceptable pressure’ in an attempt to halt the inquiry.
Mr Veale said a ‘significant number of individuals’ had alleged abuse, but refused to say how many or give details of the only two people to be arrested.
He even said the findings of the investigation may never be made public, stating: ‘A confidential closing report will be written… and at that time I will take advice as to what I can legally put in the public domain.’
Police were ‘testing, checking and challenging the evidence and ensuring our approach is proportionate and justified’, he said.
Mr Veale argues that although Sir Edward died in 2005, other offenders may still be alive and victims could require support. ‘If the force had received allegations of non-recent child abuse against a former Prime Minister and done nothing, what would the reaction have been?’
Lincoln Seligman, Sir Edward’s godson, responded to Mr Veale’s December statement by saying: ‘If they have uncovered no evidence after 18 months they should say so. And if Conifer is wound up, [Sir Edward] deserves to be exonerated as publicly as he was initially smeared. Shuffling the inquiry’s findings off into the night is not acceptable.’
Other aspects of Operation Conifer have also come under fire. Wiltshire Police interviewed key figures at Private Eye because the satirical magazine joked about unmarried Sir Edward’s sexuality 40 years ago.
They wanted to know if its nickname for him, ‘Sailor Ted’, in his days as PM from 1970 to 1974, was a reference to rumours that he was gay. Police even asked current editor Ian Hislop what he knew about Heath, despite Hislop being a teenager during the period under investigation.
Officers have also tracked down former Downing Street staff to ask them if young men were ever sneaked into No 10. Times writer and ex-Tory MP Matthew Parris dismissed the allegations, saying: ‘If Heath was a child abuser, I’m an aardvark.’
My advice: keep your 'aunts' away from Parris.
My advice: keep your 'aunts' away from Parris.
24 babies, pregnant teens freed from Nigeria 'baby factory'
..
Small facilities house pregnant women and offer their babies for sale
AFPLagos: Nigerian police have rescued 24 babies and four expectant mothers from an illegal maternity home in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt, a spokesman said Thursday.
"In a covert operation on Tuesday, our men burst a child trafficking syndicate at Woji in Port Harcourt where 24 babies between the ages of one and two, and four pregnant teenagers were rescued," Nnamdi Omoni told AFP.
He said the victims were looking "frail and malnourished" and had been hospitalised while investigations were ongoing to find those responsible for the facility.
Does that mean they raided the facility when none of the perpetrators were there? How convenient!
Police raids on illegal maternity units - dubbed "baby factories" - have been relatively common in Nigeria, especially in the south.
The "factories" are usually small facilities parading as private medical clinics that house pregnant women and offer their babies for sale. In some cases, young women have allegedly been held against their will and raped, with their newborns sold on the black market.
But security services say many cases have seen unmarried women with unplanned pregnancies arrive voluntarily or through persuasion.
Baby boys are typically sold for 500,000 naira ($1,400, 1,250 euros) while girls fetch 300,000 naira, police have said in previous cases.
Oil-rich Nigeria boasts one of Africa's largest economies, but it has more people living in extreme poverty than any other nation in the world.
That's because it is one of the most, if not the most, corrupt country in the world.
Quebec Police arrest 'uncle', 51, in connection with
death of 13-y/o Lachute girl
death of 13-y/o Lachute girl
Océane Boyer's body was found on side of a road in Brownsburg-Chatham
CBC News
The body of 13-year-old Océane Boyer was found on the side of the road Wednesday morning.
Police are treating her death as a homicide. (Facebook)
Quebec provincial police have made an arrest in connection with the death of a 13-year-old girl whose body was found on the side of the road in Brownsburg–Chatham, Que., 50 kilometres west of Montreal, on Wednesday.
The Sûreté du Québec said they arrested a 51-year-old man in Montreal on Thursday. He will be interviewed by homicide investigators this afternoon and is expected to appear in court tomorrow.
SQ Sgt. Marc Tessier said a passerby called police after discovering the body on Horrem Road, near Berlin Street, around 11 a.m. Wednesday.
"She was sent to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. She had traces of violence on her," said Tessier.
Police are treating the girl's death as a homicide. They have not released the girl's name, but Radio-Canada sources have identified her as Océane Boyer.
Océane was last seen leaving her home in Lachute on Wednesday morning. It's not yet known whether she made it to Lavigne Polyvalente, her high school.
The girl's parents reported her missing Wednesday afternoon when they didn't hear from her after school. Once her family reported her missing, police quickly made the link to the body they had found earlier that day.
The girl's school is closed today due to the snowstorm, but Tessier said police are working with the school board to provide counselling to staff and students tomorrow.
"My own son was in her class at school last year," said Péloquin.
"You're always thinking of those moments that you never want to have to face as a parent. So this will be extremely hard," he said "It's the worst thing you could ever imagine."
Péloquin said the homicide comes as a shock to the community, which has a population of about 12,500.
"This is a close-knit community; people know each other," he said.
There is no indication of sexual assault in this report. But that is not unusual as Canadian reporters don't like to talk about such things. We can hope and pray there was no sexual assault, but will have to wait for any charges to be filed before knowing if there was one. Rest in peace, Oceane; no-one can hurt you now.
UPDATE 29-02-2020
Man charged with killing 13-year-old Lachute, Que., girl was a family friend. She called him 'mon oncle Francois'.
François Sénécal remains behind bars and has been ordered not to communicate with Océane's family. Police are waiting for DNA test results before charging him.
London, Ont. photographer acquitted on
child sexual abuse charges
CTVNews London, ONLONDON, ONT. -- A London photographer has been cleared of child sex abuse allegations.
Galloway, 60, was cleared of all allegations of sexually abusing a teenager in London between 2000 and 2006.
A Toronto court heard Galloway admit he had a BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism) relationship with the girl’s mother, but he denied sexually abusing her child.
And if you can't believe someone who is into bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism, who can you believe?
The girl, along with her two siblings, was subjected to sexual abuse by their mother, who is now on day parole in connection with a five-year prison term and earlier served a three-year sentence for abusing her children.
Galloway was arrested in 2017 (5th story on link), and was among six people charged in the case following a year-long investigation by Toronto police.
On Thursday, the judge said she acquitted Galloway because of reliability problems with the testimony of the alleged victim and her mother's testimony.
And, of course, Mom's testimony would not be tainted, just because she sexually abused her own children.
Brown says the false accusations completely tarnished his client's reputation. "He has been branded as a pedophile, and since the accusations came to light, Mr. Galloway's business was ruined."
Excuse my sarcasm. I'm sure if Mr Galloway was a paedophile, there would be evidence of it in his work, and, apparently, there was not. So, I expect justice was done.
India: 3-y/o girl raped during wedding function
A guest at the wedding found the minor girl
lying on the washroom floor, bleeding
Mainpuri: A three-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by an unidentified youth in the bathroom of a marriage hall in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri district.
The incident took place late in the Bhogaon area in Mainpuri district on Wednesday night. The girl had come with her parents to attend a wedding.
She was playing around and then went missing, but the parents did not notice her absence.
A woman guest at the wedding went to the washroom and saw the minor girl lying on the floor and bleeding. She later told the police that she had seen a youth coming out from the washroom while she was entering.
Mainpuri Superintendent of Police (SP) Ajay Kumar said the girl's condition is stable, and a medical examination has confirmed rape.
He said that an FIR has been registered under section 376 (rape) of IPC and the POCSO Act.
More than a dozen persons have been detained for questioning.
The SP further said that though eight CCTV cameras were installed inside the marriage hall, footages were not available due to technical issues in recording. "We have also formed four teams to investigate the matter and nab the accused whose sketch has been prepared on basis of the description given by the woman who saw him," he said.
The police are also screening the videos recorded by a videographer during the function to get clues about the suspect.
India: Mystery surrounds drowning of 6-y/o girl
No sexual assault has been reported in the preliminary autopsy report
IANSThiruvananthapuram: Devananda, a six-year-old girl, died due to drowning, revealed the report of the primary autopsy done at the Medical College hospital here on Friday.
The girl went missing from her house near Kollam on Thursday morning. The matter was taken up by the TV channels and it also went viral on social media.
The people in Kerala including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan were shocked when her body was found in a lake near her house by the police divers at 7.30 a.m. on Friday.
"She was such a nice little girl and was the darling of our locality. We just cannot believe that she walked out of her home and slipped and fell into the lake. If so, then why did the divers who searched at the same place where her body was taken out today, missed it yesterday. We feel something bad has happened to her," said a neighbour.
Her father, Pradip Kumar, arrived here early morning from Oman as soon as he got to know that his daughter was missing. However, he received the news of her death when he reached home.
No sexual assault has been reported in the preliminary autopsy report. The detailed report is expected in two days time. "We will continue our probe," said a top police official connected with the case.
Her mother, Dhanya, was washing clothes outside her home and the little girl was playing inside the house.
"I was talking to her as I was washing the clothes and then for about 10 minutes, hearing no sound, I went and looked inside the house but she was not there. I soon alerted the neighbours and despite a search she was not found. Then we informed the police," said Dhanya
Victims of Sunderland child sex attacker praised for bravery after suffering 'appalling and abhorrent abuse'
By Fiona Thompson
Sunderland Echo
Thomas Wright, 67, is behind bars after being convicted of sexually assaulting four children aged between 4 and 15.
He admitted to five cases of indecent assault and a further three counts of sexual assault at Newcastle Crown Court and a judge sentenced him to 15 years and four months behind bars.
His historic offending came to light in November 2017 when one of his victims contacted police after seeing other high-profile paedophile cases in the news.
She said: “The bravery that each of Wright’s victims showed is incredible and I sincerely hope his conviction can help bring them some kind of closure.
“They have all carried this burden with them for decades knowing they were subjected to appalling and abhorrent abuse by Wright. Today, their attacker is behind bars and that is testament to their strength and bravery to come forward and contact police.”
She added: “Wright was in a position of trust – and he selfishly abused that trust for his own sexual gratification. His behaviour has caused a huge amount of hurt, distress and anguish to so many people.
“He now must face the consequences of his very serious offending, and I hope today’s outcome helps give other victims, suffering in silence, the courage to come forward.
“We would always encourage any victim of rape or sexual assault, whether recent or historic, to get in touch. Our specialist officers are here to listen and support you – and we are committed to bringing offenders to justice.”
Claire Brinton, of CPS North East, said: “Over the course of his offending, Thomas Wright actively preyed on young children in the selfish pursuit of his own sexual gratification.
“His victims have spoken of the long-term emotional and psychological damage that Wright’s actions have caused them, with some still struggling to come to terms with these terrifying events decades later. This case clearly illustrates the importance of investigating and prosecuting non-recent sexual offences.
“I would like to thank Northumbria Police for their comprehensive investigation into these offences. With the evidence they have secured, the Crown Prosecution Service has been able to build a very robust case against Thomas Wright. This has left him little option but to plead guilty to all charges, sparing his victims the further ordeal of a lengthy trial.
“We sincerely hope that all of those affected by the abuse they suffered at the hands of Thomas Wright can take some measure of comfort in the custodial sentence passed on him today.”
Anyone who has been a victim of rape, sexual assault or abuse, recent or historic, is asked to contact police on 101 or report via the ‘Tell Us Something’ page of our website. In an emergency, call 999.
To contact the 24/7 Crisis Helpline, contact 0333 344 8283 or find out more about our Sexual Assault Referral Centre by searching REACH SARC online.
Victims can also contact Victims First Northumbria on 0800 011 3116 who will give independent advice and support.
No comments:
Post a Comment