Scotland Yard has been accused of "institutional stupidity" as the long awaited report into its handling of the VIP paedophile scandal identifies a catalogue of catastrophic failings by the Force.

Sir Richard Henriques's 400 page review of Operation Midland, published in full for the first time this morning, pinpoints 43 separate mistakes by officers investigating claims that high profile politicians and public figures raped, tortured and even murdered children in the 1970s and 80s.

The scathing report accuses Britain's biggest force of being too ready to believe the extraordinary claims of fantasist Carl Beech and failing to identify the glaring and obvious inconsistencies in his extraordinary allegations.

In 2014, Beech told senior detectives that he had been abused by a group including Sir Edward Heath, the former Prime Minister, Lord Brittain, the former Home Secretary, Lord Bramall, the former head of the Army and Harvey Proctor, the former Tory MP.

He also claimed he had witnessed members of the gang murder three boys, prompting police to launch a £2.5 million homicide investigation.

Instead of testing the claims, the Met declared the allegations to be "credible and true", something Sir Richard said had devastating consequences.

The report says there were numerous opportunities to spot his lies in the early stages of the inquiry and shut the case down.

In response, Scotland Yard's Deputy Commissioner Sir Stephen House admitted "mistakes were made" but said the force does not agree with "everything Sir Richard wrote in his report or indeed all of his recent statements regarding further investigations into the actions of officers".

Signing off the lengthy statement, Sir Stephen wrote: I am deeply, deeply sorry for the mistakes that were made and the ongoing pain these have caused. I promise we will do all we can to prevent them in the future."