Scotland Yard has come under renewed fire over its handling of a £2.5m inquiry into false VIP paedophile ring allegations after a retired high court judge who reviewed the investigation said police broke the law.

Sir Richard Henriques is calling for a criminal investigation after he said Metropolitan police officers “unlawfully” obtained search warrants by using false evidence to raid the homes of high-profile figures during their inquiry into Carl Beech’s allegations.

The retired judge, whose 2016 review found a catalogue of failings, said detectives described Beech as “consistent”, misleading a judge into issuing search warrants to raid the homes of the D-Day veteran Edwin Bramall, the widow of the ex-home secretary Leon Brittan and the former Tory MP Harvey Proctor.

Beech – known under the pseudonym “Nick” – was jailed for 18 years last week after being found guilty of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud following a 10-week trial.

The 51-year-old had claimed an establishment group, including the former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, Lord Bramall, Lord Brittan, Proctor and others, abused, kidnapped, tortured and murdered boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The former nurse fled to Sweden and went on the run when his story unravelled. Beech is also a convicted paedophile having pleaded guilty to hoarding hundreds of indecent images in a separate case this year.

After the guilty verdicts last Monday, the policing watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), announced it had cleared three officers involved in the police inquiry into Beech’s claims.

But in an article for the Daily Mail, Henriques said “the course of justice was perverted with shocking consequences”, adding: “A criminal investigation must surely follow.”

Henriques’s 2016 review of the Met’s Operation Midland, which shut after 16 months without an arrest being made, highlighted 43 separate failings in the force’s investigation.

His review found that senior detectives fell for Beech’s “false allegations” and then misled a judge to get warrants to search the homes of innocent members of the establishment, distressing them and their loved ones.

Henriques said he stood by his findings, writing: “I concluded in my review – and maintain the opinion – that the three search warrants authorising the searches of the homes of Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan and Harvey Proctor were obtained unlawfully.”

Proctor, who was falsely accused of child murder and rape by Beech, backed the call for a criminal investigation and described Henriques’s intervention as a “gamechanger”.

He told the Guardian: “The Metropolitan police are in the doghouse … No one but no one has been held responsible for the 43 errors that Sir Richard identified.”

Proctor called for Northumbria police – the force that carried out the investigation into Beech for perverting the course of justice – to be put in charge of a criminal investigation.

He also urged the Home Office to set up a separate QC-led inquiry into Scotland Yard’s handling of Operation Midland. The IOPC was “not fit for purpose”, he said, calling for the body to be replaced.

Daniel Janner, the son of late Labour peer Greville Janner who was falsely accused of abuse by Beech, called for the IOPC report to be reopened “with a view as to whether or not former police officers were guilty of misfeasance in a public office in light of Sir Richard’s comments”.

In his piece, Henriques said the warrant applications stated that Beech had remained consistent in his allegations when he had not. He said he was “unable to conclude that every officer acted with due diligence and in good faith” and claimed officers leading the inquiry were “fully aware” of six matters that undermined Beech’s credibility but that they were not disclosed to the district judge who granted the warrants.

“I concluded in 2016 – and I remain of the view – that the officers responsible for the three applications did not in fact fully believe that there were reasonable grounds to believe Beech’s allegations,” he said.

Henriques also expressed surprise that his review had not led to more serious consequences. “Knowingly misleading a district judge is far more serious than mere misconduct. The IOPC should in my judgment have investigated whether a criminal act had been committed, and if so by whom,” he wrote.

He also said there was no explanation from the IOPC “as to why the two most senior officers were exonerated without interview”.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “None of the five officers involved in the original referral or the three officers subject to investigation [by the IOPC] were found to have cases to answer in relation to any of the allegations.

“None of the officers involved in the allegations which were referred to the IOPC remain as serving MPS officers. They have either retired or moved to other jobs. The DS who retired as a police officer is employed in a civilian role by the MPS.”

The IOPC said it had conducted a careful assessment and concluded there was “no suspicion of criminality”. The watchdog spoke to Henriques as part of its investigation and took a formal statement from the retired judge. It has a full copy of his report, not the heavily edited version that was made public.

It said it had no plans to reopen its investigation.

A spokesman said: “The investigation did not identify any information to suggest that officers deliberately withheld evidence from the applications, with the intention of misleading the district judge.

“We have acknowledged the delays in the investigation and are now in the process of preparing the final publication report, which we expect will be published in September.”