Operation Conifer — House of Lords, 2018-12-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. He has been a doughty campaigner on behalf of someone whom I believe was his friend. The House should also express gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who gave us an excellent analytical examination of the past and brought the House’s attention to matters of which many of us were previously unaware Once again, we are cantering around a course of myth, hearsay and rumour. I have been raising this issue in this House for more than two and half years and we have got absolutely nowhere. Nothing has happened, although I sense a change in opinion in this House towards the events alleged, whereby basically no one now believes them. It is not that I think that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has been unsympathetic. I think she is caught in the impasse of inexplicable fear at the top of government. There is no credible evidence whatever that a former Prime Minister was involved in child abuse or any other sexual abuse The issue is simple: who in authority will have the guts to stand up and say, "We are witnessing a quasi-judicial, historic miscarriage of justice without there ever being a trial"? That is what is so important. That is what a review would be all about. We want the historical record to be corrected in the court of international public opinion. The Government have taken the position set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who said: "The police are operationally independent of government" That has been referred to before. She went on: "The Government would step in only where all other avenues had been exhausted".—[Official Report, 11/10/18; col. 178.] We are at that point. All other avenues have been exhausted. The proof of that is set out in the 2018 report of the Wiltshire Police commissioner, who states: "It remains my hope and expectation that IICSA will have something to say on the strength or otherwise of any evidence against Sir Edward Heath" He goes on: "Should IICSA maintain that position"— of failing to act— "the Home Secretary should, in my view, order a separate public inquiry with the necessary powers and the remit to establish the facts" He further states: "Wiltshire has more than met its national responsibilities, and I will not commission any further work in relation to Operation Conifer" He goes on to refer to his limited resources My problem with all that is that, while I understand the resource argument at the local level, I hesitate over the prospect of an IICSA finding of fact when the accused is dead. If a man is dead, there can be no finding of fact because there is no defence. IICSA’s operations are based on hearings. There is no one to hear, apart from the accusers, which takes us right back to the Janner case. Indeed, I note that in all the cases where accusations have been levelled against individuals who are still alive, we have had either apologies or mealy-mouthed statements withdrawing accusations. In other words, attack the dead who cannot respond and run scared of the living for fear of legal action The Wiltshire Police commissioner says that the Government should do something, and they should. Sir Edward Heath was not a Wiltshire Council leader; he was a Prime Minister with an international reputation. We either give Wiltshire all the money it needs—not part of the money, as happened before—to draw up the Conifer review, or the Government carry out a judge-led review of the evidence. Anyhow, it should not cost much. There is very little evidence, just hearsay and untruths. The Nick case will prove that The powers that be have allowed this whole debate about sexual abuse to become bogged down in political correctness. We are entering a fantasy world where anyone without principle can make a claim of sexual abuse against any other person in the knowledge that there is a presumption that the accuser is to be believed. The whole process is being greatly aided by the sexual offences compensation scheme, otherwise known as the criminal injuries compensation scheme, with legal expenses funded by the taxpayer while the scheme is undermining the credibility of legitimate claimants. All you now need is a vivid imagination, a preparedness to lie and the ability to make the accusation seem realistic by drawing on other cases already on the public record that give credence to your accusation and you are on your way to a windfall. I give your Lordships an example. Let us take the Janner case. Last week, IICSA informed me of a further accusation against Janner. It came after the collapse of the civil claims against the Janner estate when an unidentified man claimed that, "he was raped at Dolphin Square"— noble Lords will recall Dolphin Square— "whilst in the care of social services by a person he subsequently believes to be Janner" That is from paragraph 7 of Professor Jay’s letter of determination, dated 2 May 2018. Until then there had been no claim by anyone, ever, that Janner was linked to the infamously false Dolphin Square allegations. It is a patent lie, yet this individual, referred to as F54 in the IICSA inquiry, has been granted core participation status in the Janner strand, entitling him to legal representation by solicitors and counsel at huge cost to the taxpayer, running into tens of thousands of pounds. His lawyers will be able to charge for preparatory work leading up to proceedings and representation at a three-week hearing fixed for February 2020. I object, on behalf of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom: it is an outrage and it further affects the credibility of the IICSA inquiry.