Operation Conifer — House of Lords, 2018-12-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to the Dispatch Box for the first time in a debate. We look forward to hearing from her many times in the future. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on the immense tenacity that he has shown on this very important issue which concerns the reputation of one of the statesmen of this country. I did not know Sir Edward Heath; I never met him. The only connection I can possibly cite is that when Sir Alistair Graesser, who some noble Lords may recall, lived in my house before I bought it from him, Sir Edward Heath spent the night there. That is the most I can ever say about my connection with him We have to start with Operation Marble. In March 2015, the Wiltshire Police made a referral to the Independent Police Complaints Commission to investigate a suggestion that a criminal court case may have been dropped in 1994 to protect Sir Edward Heath. It was based upon the recollection of a former senior officer who in August 1992 as a young detective constable had been involved in an undercover operation into the existence of a brothel at an address in Salisbury. It was his job to go to the brothel to demonstrate that a Ms Myra Ling Ling Forde was willing to offer sex for sale. Ms Forde was charged with keeping a brothel and when her case was listed to be heard at Winchester Crown Court in February 1994, the officer in question, who has retired, recalled that he was approached by Ms Forde’s solicitor and told that if the case proceeded, Ms Forde would notify the media that she had been supplying young boys to Sir Edward. That was his recollection, but he had not recorded anything in his notebook or diary. He said that he was reminded of it 21 years later, after watching a television programme about Jimmy Savile. He named other officers who had been involved in the investigation. Two of them were named in his police notebook as having attended court with him but he said that that was not right because he was there on his own. He said he had telephoned his headquarters in Salisbury about this suggestion, but he could not remember who he had spoken to. The trial of Ms Forde did not take place and he had inferred that this was to protect Sir Edward from these allegations. That is the foundation of it; that is where it all sprang from All the case papers had been destroyed in the ordinary course of events both in the police station and in the court. The IPCC carried out an investigation. None of the officers in the case or the senior officers in the police station at the time had any recollection of this alleged threat. The defence solicitor and the defence counsel were both interviewed and they too had no recollection of a threat being made to expose Sir Edward by their client. Prosecuting counsel was Nigel Seed, who has in the interim become a Crown Court judge. He wrote a letter to the Times following the commencement of the IPCC investigation in which he stated that there had been three prosecution witnesses in his case. Two of them, who were said to have chaotic lifestyles, had failed to turn up on the morning of the trial and the third was brought to court in custody but refused to come out of the cells to give evidence. Mr Seed did recall that there were members of the press from London hanging about, and he was told that there was media interest in case Ms Forde gave evidence of supplying rent boys to Sir Edward, who lived in Salisbury. Perhaps that is where that detective constable got the idea. But the only evidence left for Mr Seed to prove that the premises were a brothel was a bag of used condoms. He personally had taken the decision to withdraw the prosecution and drop the case. That is exactly what one would expect of a competent counsel who was acting responsibly Ms Forde declined to be interviewed by the IPCC in Operation Marble but through her solicitor gave interviews to several reporters for both the national and local press in which she said that Sir Edward was not a client of hers and she had never threatened to expose him. That seems likely because in the following year she was tried and convicted of brothel and prostitution offences and was sent to prison. Even in those circumstances she made no suggestion or threat about exposing Sir Edward. The IPCC concluded that the 1994 case had not been stopped due to any threat of exposing Sir Edward and that it was a complete fabrication. That was the result of Operation Marble. There was no evidence at all that the recollection of the retired police officer after 21 years was correct or true. But on 3 August 2015, as the investigation was just starting, someone in the IPCC decided to issue a press release which contained the following sentence: "It is alleged that a criminal prosecution was not pursued when a person threatened to expose that Sir Edward Heath may have been involved in offences concerning children" At no point until the IPCC press statement had Sir Edward Heath’s name been mentioned in anything.