Posted on October 1, 2017 by Richard Bartholomew
Also: Questions about briefing given to Andrew Bridgen MP
Less than a week before Wiltshire Police finally publish its summary report into allegations of child sex abuse against former Prime Minister Edward Heath, the*Mail on Sunday has now given an overview of what the report will say:
42 claims of child sex abuse[,] including] at least one rape of an underage boy. Most alleged victims were boys aged 11 to 15;
Some were rent boys or from ‘low-life’ backgrounds. Others were boys he encountered elsewhere. Nine of the 42 claims were already on police files, in some cases for decades, but had been dismissed;
Allegations date from the mid- 1950s when he was Chief Whip to the 1990s when he was in his 70s;
Places where alleged crimes occurred are generally referred to as ‘public places’. At least one is said to have happened in a hotel.**Two allegations were made by ‘senior professionals’.
…The inquiry was told by a retired Wiltshire policeman that plans to prosecute an individual in the 1990s were dropped when the person threatened to claim in court that they had procured rent boys for Sir Edward.
Last week (as I discussed here), the same paper said that “sources” had confirmed that Heath would have been interviewed under caution on seven of the counts; this was treated as a particularly sensational detail, although in terms of evidence it means very little in itself.