When he died, the obituaries mourned the passing of a “national treasure.”

History, though, will record a far darker verdict on Sir Clement Freud, MP, broadcaster, wit and, it now transpires, suspected paedophile.

Now, possibly coincidental but deeply sinister connections are being noticed about the man who combined popularity on Radio 4’s Just a Minute with the gravitas gained from 14 years’ service as a Liberal MP.

Liberal politician Alan Beith’s unwitting, innocent reminiscences, made at the time of Freud’s death in 2009, about sharing an office in 1973 with Clement Freud and Cyril Smith, cease to be about “learning the different ways in which these two celebrities worked to help their constituents.”

Now they place two celebrity paedophiles together and potentially in cahoots.

Freud’s talk of giving the then unknown, now convicted sex offender Rolf Harris his first break, when running the Royal Court Theatre Club in London's Sloane Square, are no longer just the showbusiness anecdotes of the distinguished grandson of the ‘father of psychoanalysis’ Sigmund Freud.

And how, now, are we to view what the obituarists praised as Freud’s “loyalty” in standing by his friend Jeremy Thorpe when the Liberal leader faced claims he had sought to have his former gay lover Norman Scott killed? When the scandal first broke in 1976, Freud was the only Liberal MP to urge Thorpe to remain as party leader. When downfall became inevitable, it was Freud who helped Thorpe compose his letter of resignation.

And the speculation about what occurred between Freud and Thorpe, Harris, and Cyril Smith will not even be the most fevered.

That unwanted distinction will fall to the possibility – which police are now being urged to investigate - that Freud might somehow have played a role in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Freud had a villa in Praia da Luz, the Portugese resort where the three-year-old went missing in 2007.

After the disappearance, he took it upon himself to befriend Madeleine’s parents, who are now reportedly, and understandably “horrified” to learn that the man they considered “warm, funny and instantly likeable” was allegedly a paedophile.

Even when so many former celebrities have been accused of sexual offences that the words “disgraced 70s entertainer” have become almost the punchline to a grim joke, the allegations about Freud still have the power to shock.

This wasn’t just some undemanding 1970s light entertainment act like Harris.

This was the man who fled 1933 Nazi Berlin to spend a childhood in Hampstead and British private schools, who despite his German birth became more quintessentially English than the English.

When Freud died it was as a member of the British Establishment, his national treasure status seemingly assured by the lugubrious wit he had displayed during four decades as a stalwart on Radio 4’s much-loved panel game Just a Minute.

His funeral was attended by the rock star Bono, by celebrity comedian Stephen Fry, by the politicians George Osborne and David Steel.

The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown read the lesson and told the distinguished guests: “I was proud to have known him.”

The most haunting ironies, though, came in the tributes that acknowledged his (known) flaws and politely repackaged them as virtues.

The Independent’s obituary cited the former Just a Minute producer Norman Brett’s 2001 remark: “I found he had a capacity to be more directly rude to people than anyone I had encountered. He has a very rare and enviable human quality: he doesn't care if people dislike him. What I find admirable is that he does not pretend to be other than he is."

Now, it seems, he pretended all too well.

Hiding in plain sight probably comes easily when you have – seemingly effortlessly – acquired glamour, power and prestige.

The Madeleine McCann case Show all 25 1 /25 The Madeleine McCann case The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann One of the last photos of Madeleine before her disappearance EPA The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann Madeleine McCann was three when she was abducted during a family holiday in 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Top worn by a man that detectives investigate with connection to disappearance of Madeleine McCann A computer generated image of the distinctive burgundy long sleeve top worn by a man that detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are looking for The Madeleine McCann case Apartment in Portugal from where Madeleine went missing An aerial view of the Ocean Club apartments and pool where Madeleine McCann went missing Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Kate McCann Kate McCann speaks to the press outside the court house in Lisbon on 12 September 2013 following the first audience of the McCann couple's libel proceedings against former inspector Goncalo Amaral for a book written about the case of their missing daughter The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Kate McCann and Gerry McCann before the start of the 'Miles for Missing People' charity run in Regent's Park in London, 2011 The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Kate and Gerry McCann make an appeal at a press conference in the holiday resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal 7 May 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann The McCann's give an interview with a Spanish television channel at their home in Rothley The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Madeleine McCann was abducted in Portugal in May 2007 AP The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Preliminary forensic analysis on samples recovered from the McCanns' hire car raised the possibility of a match with Madeleine's DNA profile, according to the leaked report Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Pope Benedict XVI blesses a photo of four-year-old abducted British girl Madeleine McCann, while meeting her parents Gerry and Kate McCann, after his weekly general audience at the Vatican, 2007 Reuters The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Gerald McCann and Kate McCann speak to the press on 4 May 2007 at the Ocean club appartement hotel in Praia de Luz in Lagos after Madeline vanished while her parents were out to dinner The Madeleine McCann case Portuguese police search for Madeleine Dozens of Portuguese police aided by dogs search for missing three-year old British girl Madelaine McCann in front of the Ocean club appartment hotel in Praia de Luz in Lagos The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Gerald McCann and Kate McCann walk holding their two other children outside the Ocean club apartment hotel in Praia de Luz in May 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann Madeleine McCann pictured at the age of three, left, and as she might have looked aged nine PA/Teri Blythe The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann The parents of missing Madeleine McCann have described as "pure speculation" reports in the Portuguese press suggesting that a chief suspect in the disappearance of their daughter was killed in a tractor accident four years ago. PA The Madeleine McCann case Tribute for missing Madeleine in Rothley, Leicesteshire Three year old Cally prepares to add a yellow ribbon to a floral tribute for missing Madeleine McCann in Rothley in Leicesteshire, 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Support for the missing Madeleine Everton captain Lee Carsley (L) leads his team onto the field, followed Mikel Arteta (C) and Manuel Fernandes (R) wearing Tshirts bearing a message of support for the missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, prior to the English Premiership match between Chelsea and Everton, at Stamford Bridge in London, 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann A poster appealing for information about Madeleine McCann at a Spanish railway station PA The Madeleine McCann case BBC's Crimewatch reconstruction of Madeleine McCann's disappearance Former porn star Mark Sloan (L) was cast in the BBC's Crimewatch reconstruction of Madeleine McCann's disappearance BBC The Madeleine McCann case Clarence Mitchell holds two artist's impression of the new suspect McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell holds two artist's impression of the new suspect on 20 January 2008 in London. The description has come from British woman Gail Cooper, who was staying with her family close to the McCann's apartment in Portugal The Madeleine McCann case Image of a woman sought in the case Clarence Mitchell, the press spokesman for the McCann family, releases a photofit image of a woman sought in the search for missing Madeleine McCann Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Suspect in disappearance of Madeleine McCann Police released two e-fits of suspect in disappearance of Madeleine McCann Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Raymond Hewlett Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett, who is being sought in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann PA The Madeleine McCann case A picture of a suspect An artist's impression of a suspicious man seen by a witness apparently watching the McCann family's apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, the day before Madeleine McCann went missing Channel 4

If he began as a refugee from fascism, it was as distinguished one, bearing the already prestigious name Freud.

His wartime service as a staff officer was of a kind that would allow him, decades later, to tell a Tory MP accusing him of weakness over the Falklands War: “I don't think that you worked directly and personally under Field Marshal, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. During the Second World War. I did."

His postwar training as an apprentice chef at London's Dorchester Hotel would later help him burnish his credentials as a polymath. He became an award-winning food and drink writer and, arguably, one of the country’s first celebrity chefs.

As a young man, he became the manager of the five-star Martinez Hotel in Cannes. He returned to London and started running the Royal Court Theatre Club.

Like his older brother, the artist Lucian, with whom he had a near lifelong feud, he became a Soho ‘character’.

In 2009, when it could safely be seen as affectionate, Stephen Fry spoke of Clement Freud’s raffishness, his “air of disreputability”, of how he was “a real Soho figure – he knew all the girls of easy virtue, he knew the pimps, the racetrack tipsters".

The air of insouciant raffishness was only enhanced by the manner in which he was elected Liberal MP in the Isle of Ely by-election of 1973.

The seat seemed so safely Tory it had been occupied by the late Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, chairman of the 1922 Committee. Offered odds of 33-1, Freud bet £1,000 on himself to win.

“Ladbrokes,” he recalled triumphantly, “Paid for me to have rather more secretarial and research staff than other MPs, which helped to keep me in for five parliaments."

The increases in his majority were also assisted by his constituents knowing their MP was a celebrity. He first gained significant public recognition through a 1960s dog food advert – TV viewers were fascinated by how Freud’s hangdog expression matched that of his co-star Henry the basset hound.

He was on the first pilot episode of Just A Minute in 1967, and remained a regular panellist until his death.

By then, Freud was the senior member of what was commonly viewed as a very distinguished dynasty. His son Matthew is the head of one Britain’s most powerful PR firms and the former husband of Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth. His nieces are the fashion designer Bella Freud and the writer Esther Freud.

Clement’s daughter, Emma, is a highly regarded broadcaster and the partner of Richard Curtis, the Four Weddings and a Funeral screenwriter.

And so, the alleged paedophile who remained unchallenged and feted in life, bequeathes one more injustice in death.

It will be left to the blameless, younger generation to witness the fury caused by what he is said to have done.