You may, like me, have caught the former Tory MP Harvey Proctor on the TV news on Tuesday night. A rightwing Monday Club activist and fan of Enoch Powell, Proctor’s familiar package of Ukip-ish views and a foppish manner was never my cup of political tea.

But I felt a surge of sympathy for the former Basildon and Billericay MP (1979-87) as he explained how his life had been turned upside down by anonymous allegations made against him of involvement in brutal sexual crimes against boys (culminating in murder) as part of the sinister establishment ring we have all heard so much about lately.

As Rajeev Syal’s report – and the TV news – explains, Proctor denies it all and says that the Met police, which has been up to its old media leaks game again, should either charge him or strip his accuser (known only as “Nick”) of his anonymity and charge him with wasting police time.

“I denied all and each of the allegations in turn [to police] and in detail and categorised them as false and untrue and, in whole, a heinous calumny,” said Proctor’s statement. “They amount to just about the worst allegations anyone can make against another person…. I am a homosexual. I am not a murderer. I am not a paedophile or pederast.”

This is all delicate territory. It arouses strong feelings, both among those who have been victims of sexual abuse (more than society acknowledged until recently) and those who feel strongly for other reasons, among them the same notion of “establishment cover-up” which may also animate their views on Europe, the banking crisis or GM crops.

As a Powellite and Monday Clubber Proctor used to be that sort of Tory MP “with an impeccable record in defending the police”. “I have now come to believe that that blind trust in them was totally misplaced. What has happened to me could happen to anyone,” he said yesterday.

Harvey Proctor press conference - video Guardian

Proctor’s political career ended in 1987 after the People newspaper exposed him for involvement in spanking and caning sessions with rent boys under 21 (the age of homosexual consent at the time) in his London flat. He pleaded guilty to four offences of gross indecency and was fined £1,450.

Weird stuff, albeit consensual, so Proctor stressed yesterday. But he has kept out of trouble, out of politics and in employment ever since. In 1987 the Tory deputy chief whip, Tristam Garel-Jones, a kindly man with money, helped him set up a shirt shop, which later went bust.

When the police raided his flat at Belvoir Castle last winter he lost his last job as personal secretary to castle owner the Duke of Rutland. Not bad for a working-class Tory foot soldier, eh? Lucky Harvey until his luck ran out again.

What he was complaining about yesterday was being hung out to dry on what he was adamant are false charges, subjected to press attention, fuelled by “fantasists on the internet” and by the police who leaked news of their raid on Proctor’s flat even before they had left.

The Met police chief, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, rightly criticised Wiltshire police after their TV stunt outside Sir Edward Heath’s home, naming him as a suspect. But Proctor calls Hogan-Howe ”disingenuous” – and he’s right.

Despite cleanup promises and ridiculous “reform” proposals that they clear all press contacts with their bosses (it’s important that experienced police officers can talk to journalists informally as other officials do in both public and private sectors), some Met officers continue to abuse that privilege in ways that do not serve the public interest.

Where I would take issue with Proctor’s otherwise dignified defence is that it names other eminent people whom “Nick” says were also mixed up in his abuse and worse and over whom – do you know these people? – he was interviewed without arrest or charge for six hours last week.

Since Proctor clearly believes the conspiracy allegations of gang rape and murder are not true, I don’t think he should have repeated the names.

As someone who knew Ted Heath a little in old age I have written before that, while we should all be open minded, it would be a great surprise to me if he had either inclination or opportunity be be a paedophile. I mention it now because Proctor says that he and Heath – a far inferior man to Powell, whom he sacked, says loyal Harvey – had nothing but contempt for each other and never spoke.



So the idea that Proctor would (as alleged) be invited to Heath’s London home (always guarded against IRA attack by a police officer) for any reason, let alone to engage in squalid sex crimes there, is very far-fetched. It is a powerful point.

My point here is not that allegations of sexual abuse, so long shrugged off, should be lightly dismissed now. They should and are being investigated, often long after they should have been. Society is always being complacent about something – drunken driving, the Nazi menace, sugar in processed food, global warming, take your pick.

So real victims should be heard and appropriate action taken. But it should be done scrupulously according to the book, not by buck-passing, publicity-minded coppers playing to the gallery or even by MPs of similar instinct, all playing catchup and egged on by newspapers, which were just as complacent.

Victims’ justice can be as imperfect and unfair as all the other kinds. Yet anyone who says so in the current inflamed climate – you, me or the Powellite Proctor – is all but guaranteed to bring a hail of social media abuse down on their own head.