Head of Scotland Yard’s VIP sex abuse investigation Steve Rodhouse faces gross misconduct charge over allegations he lied in public
The head of Scotland Yard’s catastrophic VIP sex abuse investigation is to face gross misconduct proceedings following an explosive Daily Mail investigation.
Former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse should face a disciplinary board over allegations he lied in public at the conclusion of Operation Midland, the police watchdog has ruled.
The astonishing development, following the Mail’s eight-year campaign for justice and accountability, has plunged Britain’s biggest police force into yet another crisis.
In the past, the Met has repeatedly defended the conduct of Mr Rodhouse and briefed against a Mail journalist who has exposed the VIP abuse inquiry scandal since 2015.
Mr Rodhouse is the first officer to face disciplinary proceedings over Midland, widely regarded as the worst Scotland Yard investigation in modern times. He was previously cleared of misconduct in 2017 but the police watchdog launched a new probe into him following a two-part Mail investigation last year.
Former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse should face a disciplinary board over allegations he lied in public at the conclusion of Operation Midland, the police watchdog has ruled
The decision to charge him with gross misconduct – a sackable offence if proven – is also hugely embarrassing to Britain’s version of the FBI, the National Crime Agency, where Mr Rodhouse is now head of operations and joint deputy head on a remuneration package of more than £200,000 a year.
Amid claims of cronyism, the NCA has repeatedly declined to answer a series of questions from this newspaper about how the controversial police chief was appointed.
In another stunning victory for the Mail, two fantasists exposed in our damning two-part probe last year have been referred to West Midlands Police to be investigated over claims they may have perverted the course of justice.
The men, who have extensive criminal records and a long history of lying, came forward to support the lies of Carl ‘Nick’ Beech.
But despite clear evidence that the pair – known as Witnesses A and B – deliberately misled detectives, the Met twice declined to launch a criminal investigation into them. This involved ignoring the recommendation of retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques, who wrote a scathing report on Midland and called for them to be probed.
The decision to charge Mr Rodhouse with gross misconduct comes six months after he was served with a formal notice alleging he used ‘inaccurate or dishonest’ words at the end of Midland.
The career-threatening accusations centre on a press statement issued by the Met in March 2016 in which Mr Rodhouse said ‘officers have not found evidence to prove that they were knowingly misled by a complainant’.
He reiterated this in a TV interview over the collapse of the 16-month inquiry which centred on the Establishment rape and murder claims of serial liar and paedophile Beech, then known as ‘Nick’.
Serial liar Carl ‘Nick’ Beech (pictured)
Addressing reporters after a high-level Diamond Group meeting chaired by Assistant Commissioner Patricia Gallan, Mr Rodhouse said: ‘As part of this enquiry, I haven’t seen any evidence to prove that anyone, Nick or otherwise, has knowingly provided false information to the investigation. Of course, if that situation changes, then we will review the evidence.’
But last year the Mail revealed how two other serial liars, A and B, who backed up Beech’s far-fetched claims escaped criminal charges despite clear evidence that they had made up stories about innocent VIPs.
In a confidential Met report written in the spring of 2016, and leaked to this newspaper, Mr Rodhouse – ‘gold commander’ of Midland – wrote in great detail about the appalling criminal records of the men.
He also wrote extensively about their track record for being dishonest and the huge discrepancies and holes in their accounts of supposed VIP abuse.
Despite spelling out his strong suspicions that they had made up their stories, Mr Rodhouse concluded that no evidence had been uncovered which would ‘prove’ their allegations had been ‘wilfully or maliciously made by people who knew it to be false’.
Yet months later, in August 2016, he apparently contradicted himself when he told Sir Richard’s bombshell inquiry into Midland: ‘I am satisfied that both A and B have told deliberate lies.’
As a result of this, Sir Richard stated in the redacted part of his report published in November 2016 that in addition to an independent criminal investigation into ‘Nick’, consideration should be given to the prosecution of A and B for perverting the course of justice and that another force should conduct the inquiry.
He fully expected the Met to follow his instructions – it is up the CPS to decide on whether someone should be prosecuted after evidence is first gathered by police. But nothing was done about A and B.
Beech, whose claims were enthusiastically supported by former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, was jailed for 18 years in 2019 for perverting the course of justice and other offences.
Carl Beech was convicted of perverting the course of justice
Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, who was the subject of a tissue of sex abuse and murder lies by Beech and A and B, welcomed the decision to charge Mr Rodhouse with gross misconduct but demanded a wider investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into an alleged ‘corporate cover-up’ at the Met.
Praising the Mail’s marathon campaign, he said: ‘At last, a senior police officer of the Metropolitan Police is being held to account for misconduct within Operation Midland.
‘At last Witnesses A and B are being investigated by an outside police force for perverting the course of justice.
‘As cracks start to appear in the police cover-up, it is now time to hold a full public inquiry into Operation Midland and police misconduct.’
He also demanded a criminal inquiry into how police obtained search warrants to raid his home and those of war hero Lord Bramall and ex-home secretary Lord Brittan’s widow. A senior judge has stated publicly that he believes he was conned into granting them.
The Mail has seen a copy of the IOPC’s report into Mr Rodhouse and Witnesses A and B. It reveals:
- Mr Rodhouse declined to have a face-to-face interview with the IOPC;
- Another key senior officer also declined to be quizzed;
- Minutes of an important Gold Group meeting of high-ranking officers about whether to investigate Witnesses A and B have disappeared;
- Witness A, a serial child sex offender and prolific criminal, was cautioned by a provincial force during Operation Midland for telling lies about another case;
- In February 2016, a detective raised concerns about ‘very noticeable inconsistencies’ in his accounts of abuse by Mr Proctor.
Elsewhere in the report, there is also the startling revelation that Witness A contacted Northumbria Police in May 2017, doubling down on his claims that Mr Proctor had murdered a schoolboy, Martin Allen. In an email sent to detectives investigating Beech for perverting the course of justice, he asked why the former MP was ‘untouchable’.
The IOPC report also reveals that in 2017, a senior Met lawyer emailed a detective superintendent with draft rationale suggesting it would not be ‘proportionate’ to investigate A and B for perverting the course of justice.
The 62-page dossier states: ‘Evidence was readily available to all of the reviews (into A and B) which arguably provided a reasonable suspicion that the allegations of Witnesses A and B were knowingly false. A criminal investigation was required in order to try and prove or disprove this.’
The latest twist in the Midland scandal is likely to be welcomed by Lord Brittan’s widow and relatives of the late Lord Bramall. Supporters of ex-prime minister Sir Edward Heath, also accused by Beech, will also be encouraged by developments.
Mr Rodhouse was cleared of wrongdoing in Midland by the police watchdog – then known as the IPCC – in 2017 without even being interviewed, only three months after his actions during the investigation were identified as potentially ‘gross misconduct’ by two senior officers of the Met’s internal Department of Professional Standards.
Mr Rodhouse was cleared of wrongdoing in Midland by the police watchdog – then known as the IPCC – in 2017
The allegations were that ‘a failure to properly investigate allegations made by complainant ‘Nick’ which lead (sic) to an avoidable extended investigation which caused prolonged and undue stress to those suspected’, and ‘the enquiry team failed to present all relevant information to a judge when applying for search warrants.
‘Parts of the searches were not conducted lawfully and some exhibits were seized otherwise than in accordance with the warrants.’
A third claim, that misleading statements to the media and providing information to complainant ‘Nick’ which led to breaching anonymity, was deemed a matter of operational learning by a senior professional standards detective.
During his chequered career, Mr Rodhouse has also led shambolic probes into a false rape allegation made by a mentally ill Labour activist against Lord Brittan and true claims of sexual abuse made against Jimmy Savile while he was alive.
Yet despite running these three controversial investigations, Mr Rodhouse was promoted in 2018 to be director general (operations) of the NCA under Dame Lynne Owens, his old boss from the Met and Surrey Police. She is now deputy commissioner of the Met but has recused herself from the Rodhouse case because of her close dealings with him.
Mr Rodhouse was promoted in 2018 to be director general (operations) of the NCA under Dame Lynne Owens (pictured)
In part one of our series last year, the Mail revealed that former Tory Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was targeted by Witness A.
Mr Aitken, now an Anglican vicar, joined calls from across the political divide for an independent police probe into Midland. He was not one of those who made complaints about A and B to the IOPC. He accused then Met Commissioner Cressida Dick’s force of an ‘institutional cover-up’.
In an interview with the Mail two years ago, Lord Brittan’s widow attacked the ‘culture of cover-up’ and ‘lack of moral compass’ at the top of Scotland Yard – a claimed denied by senior Met figures. But Dame Cressida was sacked a year later.
Last month Lord Bramall’s son Nicolas attacked the running of Midland during a speech at a Covid-delayed memorial service for his late father, who died aged 95 in 2019.
From the lectern in Winchester Cathedral, Mr Bramall told the congregation, including the Duke of Kent, who was there representing the King, and the Duchess of Gloucester, representing the Queen Consort: ‘It was a bizarre and disgraceful story but one which the Metropolitan Police believed from the outset.
‘It was, of course, absolute rubbish but it subjected my father – and others – to a truly appalling ordeal played out in the full glare of public scrutiny.’
He told how his father had displayed ‘extraordinary courage and dignity throughout’, but had said before his death he was ‘never so mortally wounded in battle’.
Mr Bramall said Midland ‘cast a dark shadow’ over his father’s last days and was ‘unnecessary’. His father, he said, blamed it all ‘entirely on the Metropolitan Police for their stupidity in believing such a fantastical story’.
Source: Read Full Article
