The Metropolitan Police’s decision to shut down Operation Midland, having failed to substantiate any claims from its only witness, is a humiliating admission of incompetence. Here, GUY ADAMS lists the charge sheet against the Met...

Sir Leon Brittan and Lady Diana Brittan in 1992

Operation Midland was launched in November 2014 to investigate claims by a witness called ‘Nick’ that he was preyed on by an influential group of MPs, Cabinet ministers, top soldiers and intelligence chiefs between 1975 and 1984. Nick says the group murdered three fellow victims in his presence. The Met has yet to fully explain why it chose to launch what is believed to be the first murder investigation in British history without any bodies, and without anyone knowing who was supposedly murdered.

In December 2014, Det Supt Kenny McDonald held an emotional press conference and described Nick’s story as ‘credible and true’. McDonald has never explained why he made this extraordinary comment, given that Nick’s claims hadn’t been tested in court. At that point McDonald hadn’t interviewed a single suspect, didn’t know who the alleged murder victims were, and hadn’t found a single body.

The Met eventually issued a formal apology for McDonald’s use of the word ‘true’ in September 2015, days after the Mail revealed officers had ‘grave doubts’ about Nick’s testimony. It grudgingly admitted ‘there are questions as to whether Nick’s claims are credible and true’. The following month, McDonald was replaced as the head of Operation Midland. It has never been fully explained why it took nine months for the Met to issue its apology.

Former Tory minister Lord Brittan died in January 2015. Just weeks later, 35 officers from Operation Midland ransacked his homes in London and Yorkshire, climbing into the lofts and removing phones, diaries, clothes and computers in what many critics saw as a ‘fishing expedition’.

During the final months of his life, the Tory peer had also been investigated over baseless historic rape claims made by a witness called ‘Jane’, a Labour activist with mental health problems. In October 2015, Panorama revealed that Lord Brittan had been exonerated over Jane’s allegations long before his death, but police had failed to inform him. He therefore died under a cloud.

It soon emerged the CPS had told the police at least four times that there were no grounds for a prosecution based on Jane’s claims. However, the Met – under pressure from Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson – repeatedly asked them to review the decision. Friends of Lord Brittan described the force’s conduct in the case as being ‘as far away from natural justice as it’s possible to get’.

In February this year, Lord Brittan’s widow accepted a ‘full apology’ from Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the head of the Met, over the way his force dealt with the false sex claims. However, friends of Lady Brittan said she regarded the apology as ‘partial’ and ‘inadequate’. The climbdown came as London Mayor Boris Johnson decided to renew Sir Bernard’s £280,000-a-year contract for a year – rather than the three years he expected.

Panorama examined Nick’s claim that he saw the hit-and-run murder by members of the alleged paedophile ring of a boy in Kingston, south-west London, in the early 1980s. The programme found no evidence that such a murder, alleged to have occurred in broad daylight, took place. Panorama also established that every child from the school that the alleged victim went to, and with the same first name, is still alive. The Met has not said why, in light of these obvious inconsistencies, it continued to regard Nick as ‘credible’.

It emerged that one of Operation Midland’s supposed corroborating witnesses, ‘Darren’, was a convicted bomb hoaxer. A second witness, ‘David’, claimed to have been pressurised into making false claims by Chris Fay, a convicted fraudster who went to prison in 2011. The Met has not explained why they were ever taken seriously.

In March 2015, the police raided the home of Harvey Proctor in Leicestershire. They removed a lorry-load of possessions which have not been returned to the former Tory MP. News of the raid was immediately leaked to the news agency Exaro. Mr Proctor was interviewed by Operation Midland three months later. Among other things, he was accused of attending sex parties in a swimming pool. He is unable to swim.

At the interview, Mr Proctor was accused of attempting to castrate ‘Nick’ using a penknife. ‘It was suggested it was (former prime minister) Edward Heath who persuaded me not to castrate “Nick” with it,’ Mr Proctor said later, adding that he had never owned a penknife. Mr Proctor also pointed out that he and Mr Heath were sworn enemies. It’s unclear what evidence, beyond Nick’s say-so, convinced the Met to take this extraordinary allegation seriously.

Mr Proctor worked as private secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and lived in a grace-and-favour cottage on the 18,000-acre estate at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire. During the police investigation, the estate’s ‘legal advisers’, who had apparently had contact with detectives, decided that ‘it was no longer possible for me to continue doing my job at Belvoir Castle’, he said. He lost both his job and his home as a result of Operation Midland.

Pictured is Field Marshall Lord Bramall and Lady Bramall at a party on October 31 at a party in London

At the interview, Mr Proctor was accused of attempting to castrate 'Nick' using a penknife. 'It was suggested it was (former prime minister) Edward Heath who persuaded me not to castrate "Nick" with it,' Mr Proctor said later, adding that he had never owned a penknife

Mr Proctor revealed the two junior police officers who conducted the 6.5-hour interview (at which he was not offered a cup of tea, coffee, or even water) were so badly briefed that they did not know his full name. Although he uses Harvey, his first name is in fact Keith.

Also in March 2015, 20 officers raided the home of Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former chief of defence staff. They spent ten hours rifling through the 92-year-old D-Day veteran’s possessions while his wife, who at the time was dying, was shunted from room to room. The officers found no evidence to link Lord Bramall to any abuse claims, but didn’t tell him he was cleared until ten months later. The development was announced in an 890-word statement which didn’t contain a single word of apology and was released to the media at 8.27pm on a Friday.

Lord Bramall was accused of abusing Nick in his office at a military facility in Wiltshire. At the time, access to the field marshal was closely controlled by his aide-de-camp. However, police did not contact the aide-de-camp for a full ten months. When they did, he exonerated Lord Bramall. The BBC, by contrast, tracked down the aide-de-camp within a fortnight.

Nick claimed that his stepfather had taken him to the same military facility, the Wilton Barracks.

It took the police five months to check this basic fact. In January 2016, it further emerged that police on the operation – which has employed around 30 officers for more than a year, at a public cost of £2 million – had still not bothered to contact, let alone interview, Nick’s ex-wife.