There are so many active pedophiles at large that if they were all convicted and sent to jail the prison system would not be able to hold them all, according to a police chief.

Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas warns the sex offenders register is growing so quickly that police simply do not have the ability to monitor pedophiles as hoped.

The dire warnings come after it was revealed that the police chief investigating claims the former British Prime Minister Ted Heath was a prolific pedophile is convinced they are “are 120% genuine.”

The Daily Mail reports: More than 30 people have come forward with claims of sexual abuse by the former Conservative Prime Minister, according to well-placed sources.

And they are said to have given ‘strikingly similar’ accounts of incidents to Wiltshire Police – even though the individuals are not known to each other.

The Mail on Sunday has been told that Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale regards the allegations as ‘totally convincing’, and plans to publish a report in June.

Detectives have established that, contrary to claims that Sir Edward could not have committed the crimes as he ‘never drove a car’ and ‘always’ had a police driver with him, he did drive – and did have a car.

They have photographic evidence that shows he is a driver, and have established that he had a driving licence. He also bought a Rover 2000 after being deposed as Tory leader by Margaret Thatcher in 1975, when he was 58.

Astonishingly, Mr Veale is also understood to support claims that Sir Edward’s alleged crimes were reported to police years ago but covered up by the Establishment.

Some of those who said Sir Edward abused them are believed to have told police they went on to commit sexual abuse crimes themselves as a result.

The investigation into Sir Edward, called Operation Conifer, was set up in 2015 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Mr Veale came under pressure to abandon the inquiry last year after separate claims of a paedophile ring at Westminster involving former Home Secretary, the late Lord Brittan, and former Defence chief, Lord Bramall, were found to be groundless.

Allegations that Sir Edward was involved in satanic orgies have been dismissed as fantasy by an expert asked to review the case.

However, The Mail on Sunday has been told that Mr Veale believes the paedophile allegations are genuine. A source said: ‘Mr Veale believes in them 120 per cent and thinks they are totally convincing.

‘There are very close similarities in the accounts given by those who have come forward. The same names used for him, the same places and same type of incidents keep coming up.

‘What stands out is that the people giving these accounts are not connected but the stories and the details dovetail.

‘It contains disturbing stuff. Investigators have been shocked by what they have learned.’

Another source said: ‘The police were initially sceptical about the allegations, but now believe them. And they have come round to the view that they were covered up in the past because of who Heath was.

‘They will not be deflected by the rich and powerful trying to do the same now. Mike Veale is doing a great job and should be congratulated for his courage.’

The disclosures come after several senior politicians dismissed the allegations against Heath as absurd and unfounded. Former Tory Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind complained Heath’s reputation was being ‘besmirched’. Heath’s sexuality has been the source of much speculation over the years. Some believed he was gay, others said he was ‘asexual.’ At one point, he was being investigated by no fewer than five police forces – the Met, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Kent and Jersey.

The claims, some of which have been proved false, include alleged links to a convicted brothel keeper known as Madame Ling-Ling. A paedophile dossier compiled by Labour peer Baroness Castle said he offered young boys trips on his yacht, and in a separate incident one man claimed Sir Edward picked him up hitchhiking in Kent as a 12-year-old in the 1960s and lured him to his Mayfair flat.

Labour MP Tom Watson also said he had received allegations about Sir Edward. However the claims Mr Veale is investigating, which date from the 1960s to 1990s, are not linked to the discredited evidence of the man known as ‘Nick’, who alleged a high-level paedophile ring.

One of the key counter-claims made when the allegations first surfaced came from former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong, who worked with Heath when he was Prime Minister. He said Heath ‘never drove a car’ and always had at least one policeman with him from 1970 until his death in 2005.

The fact that Sir Edward could drive was confirmed last night by a friend, who said the former Prime Minister bought a car in 1975, although Sir Edward was later given a chauffeur-driven car and police guard after IRA death threats.