Former MP falsely accused of child rape and murder says IOPC failed in its duty to public

A former Conservative MP falsely accused of child rape and murder has condemned the police watchdog for clearing the Met officers who investigated the allegations, following a meeting with its director.

Harvey Proctor said in a statement released on Sunday that the watchdog had failed in its duty to protect the public from police incompetence, gross negligence, and “institutional stupidity”.

The formerly MP for Basildon and Billericay was among a series of high-profile establishment figures wrongly accused by jailed fantasist Carl Beech of being part of a fictitious murderous VIP paedophile ring.

Beech was convicted in July of lying about the extraordinary claims and later sentenced to 18 years in prison. Just hours after the verdict, the Independent Office for Police Conduct announced that no Metropolitan police officers would face misconduct charges over their role in Scotland Yard’s controversial £2.5m inquiry into the claims, Operation Midland.

Proctor and his lawyers met IOPC director general Michael Lockwood on Thursday. The former MP’s statement, published through his lawyers Geoffrey Robertson QC and Mark Stephens CBE accused the IOPC of whitewashing the investigation into Beech’s claims and not being independent of the police.

It said Lockwood had tried at the meeting to justify the credibility investigating officers gave to Beech’s allegations on the ground that victims should be believed.

In response, Robertson said: “They knew his allegations were not only incredible and inconsistent, but there was not a shred of evidence to confirm them. To assert, and to leave that assertion on the record for nine months, that his allegations were true, amounted to a public declaration by Scotland Yard that distinguished men were guilty of the vilest crimes of murder and rape of children.

“To fail to condemn this police misbehaviour in the strongest terms and at the first opportunity, is a dereliction of duty.”

Proctor’s criticism comes before the promised full release of the 2016 Henriques report reviewing Scotland Yard’s investigation, which found 43 failings by detectives on the case. A previously published version had been heavily redacted. The Met police could not provide an exact publication date when contacted by the Guardian.

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Despite the report’s findings, the IOPC said the three Scotland Yard officers who investigated the allegations had no case to answer and the watchdog found no evidence that anybody had deliberately withheld evidence from court applications with the intention of misleading a district judge.

Proctor was allowed by the Met to read the full Henriques report in late August. He said he could not discuss the details, because he had signed a confidentiality agreement but added that he “understood why they didn’t publish it in full”.

In July, the IOPC said investigators had analysed a “vast amount” of material before finding that officers had no case to answer, including documents from Operation Midland and the Henriques review, which indicated officers may have misled a district judge to get a warrant for the investigation.

Robertson added: “They are never recorded or transcribed in any way so police can get away with misleading the court and even telling lies – because there is no record, they would never be held accountable. If the IOPC are really concerned to guard against police misconduct, it must recommend that all police applications for search and arrest warrants must be recorded.”

The IOPC said in a statement that its work was done independently of the police, government and interest groups, adding that while none of the officers were found to have deliberately withheld evidence, their investigation identified shortcomings.

The statement read: “We met with Mr Proctor in good faith to listen to and understand his concerns, some of which we have a different view of. However, we also found many areas of commonality.

“We appreciate Mr Proctor has experienced considerable distress and anxiety as a result of the allegations made about him, which were ultimately found to be false. It is important that we identify learning from the experiences of victims and do all we can to ensure the mistakes made are never repeated again.”