Police Wind Up Sir Edward Heath Child Sex Abuse Inquiry

So much for that!

Sir Edward Heath in 1964 CREDIT:  HARRY TODD/FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

Robert Mendick, chief reporter 
Telegraph

The £1  million police investigation into allegations that Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile is being wound up amid claims it has found no evidence to justify tarnishing the former prime minister’s reputation.

Private investigators hired by police to help conduct the inquiry have been told contracts are not being renewed, according to sources.

The inquiry, code-named Operation Conifer, will be closed in the coming weeks, but the report on its findings will remain confidential.

Friends of Sir Edward insisted that the Wiltshire police inquiry had found no evidence to implicate the Conservative politician. 

Supt Sean Memory making his appeal for victims outside Heath's home

They said the nature of questions put to former members of staff and sailing friends were so lacking in detail that it suggested an absence of hard evidence.

The investigation began in August 2015 when Supt Sean Memory, standing outside Sir Edward’s former home in Salisbury, launched an appeal for victims to come forward. He is now on long-term sick leave.

Would that be stress leave? If so, from whence cometh all the stress?

A well-placed source said investigators, mostly retired detectives, hired a year ago on 12-month contracts had been told they were not being renewed.

“The inquiry is coming to an end. The contracts are up and have not been renewed even though there was an option to do that,” said the source.

Chief Constable Mike Veale will come under pressure to resign if his force fails to justify the investigation. Reports claimed he believed “120 per cent” the former prime minister was guilty.

Sir Edward at his former home, Arundells, in 1999 CREDIT: MIKE LAWN / REX FEATURES

Lord Armstrong, the former Cabinet secretary and Sir Edward’s principal private secretary from 1970 to 1974, said: “I simply don’t understand how the Chief Constable got himself into such a position. Some of the lines of inquiry they are pursuing are absolutely ludicrous.

“They have interviewed former staff at No  10 and asked them if they were ever aware of young men slipping in and out of 10 Downing Street. It’s absurd. You couldn’t slip in or out. There was a door with a policeman on it.”

Anthony Churchill, who crewed with the Tory leader on his racing yacht Morning Cloud, said: “If the police chief thinks it is 120 per cent likely that Edward Heath was a paedophile, then the crew of Morning Cloud would say it is 140 per cent certain he was not.”

Chief Constable Mike Veale reportedly claimed he believed “120 per cent” the former prime minister was guilty

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said of the final report: “Our approach to public confidence is to be as open and transparent as possible, and at the conclusion of the police investigation, the force will take advice as to what we can legally put in to the public domain.”

Mr Veale denied having stated a view on Sir Edward’s guilt. He said: “Our role is to objectively and proportionately go where the evidence takes us. Further, those who choose to continue to comment on this case whilst not in possession of the facts ultimately may serve to unfairly damage both the reputation of Sir Edward Heath and/or those who have disclosed abuse.”

At least 7 men have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse. One allegation has Heath throwing a boy overboard after molesting him. There are accusations of child rape in Satanic ceremonies. There are also allegations of a cover-up of such accusations in the 1990s. It looks like 20 or 30 years from now there may be more allegations of another cover-up. Or perhaps Scotland Yard has completely lost its ability to investigate historical crimes.

Child Sex Abuse Inquiry Trawls ex-Prime Minister’s Diaries and Letters

Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath © Str / Reuters

British police are to spend a year reading through the private papers of the late-former prime minister Edward Heath as part of an inquiry into sex abuse allegations.

Wiltshire Constabulary is recruiting civilian investigators – usually retired officers – to examine the archive of the late Conservative PM who died in 2005 after several claims of sexual abuse surfaced.

Detectives will search through 4,500 boxes of uncatalogued material, which includes diaries and personal letters, all of which are held in the Sir Edward Heath archive at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The investigation comes in response to at least seven allegations of abuse brought against Heath, including one claim the former PM abused a boy on his yacht before throwing him overboard.

The Times reports that police will question former political aides, housekeepers, cooks, household staff, musicians and even guests who visited him for lunch at his home in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

The inquiry has been prompted by a retired officer’s claim last year that abuse allegations against Heath were covered up in the 1990s.

A retired Wiltshire police officer, who reached a senior rank in the force, revealed that a case involving a brothel owner had been dropped when she said she would expose Heath.

A colleague of the whistleblower, another retired officer, said he is sure the allegations will prove to be true.

He told the Daily Mail last August: “I have no doubt that the allegation that a prosecution was stopped in suspicious circumstances, because of a potential link to Sir Edward, is true.”

Heath’s principal private secretary Lord Armstrong of Ilminster believes Heath was asexual and that police are “barking up the wrong tree.”

“All the allegations of which I am aware are totally tenuous and not credible … if there’s nothing more than that to go on I can’t believe that it is worth spending a lot of resources in this way to pursue somebody who’s dead.”

“I very much regret the slur on Edward Heath and I always regret the consumption of public resources on this scale for what seems to be an unnecessary inquiry.”

Heath was also implicated in Operation Midland, an investigation into a suspected Westminster VIP pedophile ring which has failed to turn up any evidence despite entering its fifteenth month.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is separately investigating a retired officer’s allegations that a case against a brother owner was dropped in 1992 when she threatened to expose Heath.

Allegations to be investigated by Wiltshire police may include claims Heath abused children on board his private yacht, Morning Cloud.This allegation has reportedly been undermined by his former navigator, who said the vessel needed a crew of three and had no private space.

Wiltshire police told the Times it would not comment on an investigation in progress.