This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A close schoolfriend of a man accused of lying about a VIP paedophile ring and claiming they murdered a boy in a hit-and-run has told a court he has no recollection of any such incident.

Carl Beech told a Scotland Yard detective that a group of high-profile establishment figures murdered three boys, including his childhood friend “Scott”, who he claimed was run down in a car in a revenge attack.

Steven White, who attended school with Beech from the age of 11, said he had no memory of any boy being knocked down and killed, although he did recall something similar happening to a chemistry teacher.

Beech, who pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children at a separate trial, is accused of fabricating his claims, which sparked a £2m police inquiry that closed without a single arrest being made.

He alleged the abuse gang included the former prime minister Edward Heath, the former home secretary Leon Brittan, Field Marshal Lord Bramall and the former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, among others.

Beech, a former nurse from Gloucester, denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud over a £22,000 criminal compensation claim he received.

On Tuesday, White told jurors at Newcastle crown court that he and Beech attended the Rivermead school, which became Tudor school, in Kingston-upon-Thames, south-west London. They were close friends with another boy, Jonathon Budd, he said.

White told the court: “We were rejects no one else spoke to. I think we bonded. We were all probably socially awkward and introverts, spending time in the library and talking.”

Asked by Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, if he could recall any boy being knocked over and killed while at the school, White said he could not. He said he remembered hearing, aged about 14, that a teacher had been killed while helping someone change a tyre on a motorway.

White said he had not seen Beech for around 35 years until coming to court to give evidence. Their friendship had ended when he stayed on at school to take his A-levels and the defendant left aged 16.

Budd, giving evidence via videolink, said he remembered Beech being a well-behaved boy with a good school attendance. “He didn’t get into bad behaviour, he didn’t have detentions, he was a good kid and a nice friend,” Budd said. “My parents liked me being friends with him because he was one of the good kids.”

Earlier in the trial, jurors heard that Beech tearfully recounted to a Scotland Yard detective how, in the summer of 1979, the paedophile gang killed a boy for being his friend. He claimed Scott, a dimpled, freckled boy, was hit by a car in Kingston and left in a pool of blood. Beech was then dragged away into a vehicle, he claimed.

He alleged he had ignored a warning by a former head of MI5, Michael Hanley, not to have friends. “They warned me a number of times but I was selfish, I didn’t listen,” he told the detective.

The trial continues.