Carl Beech: Fantasist who claimed to have been abused by Westminster paedophile ring convicted of perverting course of justice and fraud
Victim describes £2m investigation as ‘truly disgraceful chapter in the history of British policing’
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A former NSPCC volunteer who lied about being abused by a murderous VIP Westminster paedophile ring is facing a lengthy jail sentence after he was convicted of perverting the course of justice and fraud.
Carl Beech, previously known as “Nick”, constructed slurs that ruined the reputations of those he accused and led the Metropolitan Police to raid the homes of 91-year-old Normandy veteran Field Marshall Lord Bramall, the late Lord Brittan and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor.
Mr Proctor blasted the force, calling the episode “a truly disgraceful chapter in the history of British policing”, and called for an apology from Labour deputy leader Tom Watson for giving “oxygen” to Beech’s claims.
“The Metropolitan Police were lapdogs to Mr Watson’s crude dog whistle,” he said. “It is now beyond doubt that all of these allegations could never have been true and only someone with spectacular bad judgement could think that they might be.”
Mr Watson refused to apologise but said he appreciated that Mr Proctor was “hurt and angry”. The Labour MP added: “It was not my role to judge whether victims’ stories were true. I encouraged every person that came to me to take their story to the police and that is what I did with Nick.
“I hope this trial, and the case of one person, does not prevent survivors of child sexual abuse coming forward and reporting their experiences to the police.”
The Met’s £2m Operation Midland into the lurid allegations ended without a single arrest.
Beech told detectives over hours of tearful interviews how his late stepfather, an army major, raped him, then passed him on to generals to be tortured at military bases and sadistically sexually abused by other high-profile figures in the 1970s and 1980s.
He named former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, his sworn enemy Mr Proctor, disgraced TV star Jimmy Savile and security chiefs Sir Michael Hanley, the head of MI5, and MI6 boss Sir Maurice Oldfield among the gang after meeting a journalist from the now defunct news agency Exaro.
He claimed a schoolboy named Scott was deliberately knocked down and killed, that another boy who might have been the missing teenager Martin Allen was raped and strangled in front of him, and said another youth was battered to death by ring members.
A senior detective wrongly called the allegations “credible and true” before the force had completed their inquiries.
Beech’s claims were rejected by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court who convicted him on Monday of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud, relating to a £22,000 criminal injuries payout he falsely claimed for being raped by Savile.
Jurors were unconvinced by his claims that army generals, at the height of the IRA terror threat, could sneak off unguarded to join child abuse sessions.
They saw a videoed police interview where Lord Bramall thumped the table in front of him and denied having any sexual interest in children.
Another falsely accused general, 96-year-old Sir Hugh Beach, told the jury via videolink that the allegations against him were “beyond grotesque”.
Beech had also said the head of MI5 – presumably also busy dealing with terrorists – arrived at his school to tell him his dog had been kidnapped as a warning.
He claimed that he was there when the ring shot his horse Sam, although he had no idea what happened to the body, or what his mother thought, who was paying for its stabling.
With what Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, described as “breathtaking hypocrisy”, Beech himself was a paedophile with an interest in pre-teen boys.
The school governor and NSPCC volunteer was due to be tried on indecent images and voyeurism charges last summer but went on the run to Sweden, where he bought two remote properties and tried to evade justice using false identities.
His own sexual interest in children “may be one of the reasons why he made such a compelling witness in the Operation Midland investigation”, said Jenny Hopkins, head of special crime and counter-terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service.
“In the wake of society changing its attitude to complaints of non-recent abuse, as a result of cases like Savile, Beech took advantage of the situation – and we would say he did it for his own twisted gratification.
“It’s also clear that he revelled in the attention that his tales were attracting. He was a very prolific and manipulative liar.”
Additional reporting by Press Association