Cowardice and Chicanery

The concepts of accountability and modern-day policing seem to exist in parallel universes. This is the main lesson to be learned from the belated publication of a still-redacted version of the Henriques Report into the ill-fated fiasco known as Operation Midland – probably the worst scandal in UK policing since the exposure of widespread organised corruption in the Flying Squad and elsewhere back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when over 250 London police officers resigned in the wake of Operation Countryman (another damning inquiry report that has, by the way, never seen the light of day).

Sir Richard Henriques

This is not the first edition to be released to the public of former high court judge Sir Richard Henriques' report of an inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s conduct during Operation Midland. An even more heavily-edited version was grudgingly circulated back in 2016. However, despite repeated promises by Met chiefs that the Henriques’ report would appear in full after the trial of Carl Beech (aka ‘Nick’), the key hoaxer and fraudster behind Operation Midland, there are still substantial parts of the document that remain redacted. Why? What else – beside professional embarrassment – are the police still trying to hide from the public? Perhaps we’ll never know, although the very fact that some of the inquiry findings are still being withheld inevitably fuels suspicions of an ongoing whitewash.

So what are the main revelations – laughingly referred to by the Met top brass as ‘learning points’? Perhaps one of the most serious issues is that the inquiry concluded the search warrants used by the Operation Midland team to search the homes of suspects such as Lord Bramall, Leon Brittan and Harvey Proctor had been unlawfully obtained because officers had misled the district judge, Howard Riddle, about Carl Beech’s consistency of claims and his overall credibility. These searches – which caused catastrophic distress to the men and their families – appear to have been nothing more than a police ‘fishing expedition’, designed to add weight to a very flimsy case. (My own home was raided in 2012 by the Suffolk police and I've since wondered how on earth they managed to convince a district judge or magistrate that there was a good reason to invade every area of my private life simply on the word of a repugnant fantasist, without a smidgen of actual evidence).

DS Kenny McDonald

The Henriques’ Report also focuses on the infamous statement made to the media by Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald that ‘Nick’ (as Beech was then known publicly) was making claims that were “credible and true”. What the latest version of the report reveals is that McDonald’s boss, the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Steve Rodhouse, personally authorised confirmation that the police believed ‘Nick’ in order to show the public that they were out to nail anybody, no matter how rich and famous, who was accused of historical abuse. They were collectively embarrassed after having failed to prosecute Savile and they were now going to show everyone that they were going to make good their previous errors. This authorisation from Rodhouse blows sky-high any attempt to attribute the disastrous claim to a slip of the tongue by McDonald. In fact, we now know that it was official Met policy.

As Henriques observes in his report, “I cannot conceive that any fully informed officer could reasonably have believed ‘Nick’. Yet they did. And they said so very publicly.

In fact, Henriques points out that the investigating team behind Operation Midland should have recognised that Beech’s various accounts, including his blogs and personal writings of what he claimed he’d experienced, were full of inconsistencies and of claims which were palpably incredible. Sir Richard highlights the fact that there was no factual evidence of any kind to support Beech’s lurid allegations that he was regularly abused in the most violent physical manner by his ‘torturers’: no medical evidence, no scars, no bruising or cuts that would surely have been noted by his own mother at the time. Nor was there any evidence that he had been absent from school frequently. There was no sign of any missing, murdered boys as Beech claimed. There was absolutely nothing.

Liar: Carl Beech (aka 'Nick')

Reading the report, the extent to which police seem simply to have accepted the most preposterous nonsense and perverted sexual fantasies being spouted by Beech as credible evidence of an organised VIP paedophile ring becomes painfully clear. Yet none of the supposedly trained and experienced detectives appears to have spotted that they were dealing with a compulsive liar and fraudster. Or if they did, they didn’t dare to speak up and risk challenging the ‘you will be believed’ dogma imposed by successive Directors of Public Prosecutions. There was a culture of collective mindset, with no room for any ostensible doubt.

And then there was the malign role played by Beech’s cheerleaders, including specific journalists and the disgraced Exaro agency. In fact, the Henriques’ report goes as far as stating that Exaro and its team actually ‘misled’ the police during Operation Midland. There was also evidence of active interference during the investigation, including reporters showing Beech photographs of suspects and taking him on a tour around London to identify specific locations where he had claimed he’d been abused, thus wholly contaminating the case. Sir Richard Henriques names names and it remains to be seen whether any of those he singles out for criticism will ever face any legal consequences in court. I won't be holding my breath.

Tom Watson MP (Labour)

This latest, less redacted, version of the report also shines a very unflattering spotlight on the political pressures that were being brought to bear on the Met, especially by the now Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson MP. Although at the time of Operation Midland Mr Watson was only a backbencher, he had met Beech personally and then proceeded to pass ‘hundreds of pieces of information’ to the Met, according to the report. I presume much of this was perverted twaddle and lies that the MP was being fed by Beech and his enthusiastic supporters at the Exaro news agency. It should be remembered that Mr Watson was responsible for the vicious and vile ad hominem attack launched against Lord Brittan shortly after the former Conservative Home Secretary's death in 2015. Now, why would Watson want to traduce a prominent Tory in this ruthless manner? It doesn't take much working out.

In the aftermath of the strident criticism made in the Henriques report, Mr Watson’s continued role in political life must surely be called into question. Yet, he seems determined to play Pontius Pilate and wash his hands of the whole sordid affair, in which we now know he played so central a part. Any chance of a resignation? I very much doubt it. An apology? No chance.

Despite the Met claiming that 'lessons will be learned' from the Operation Midland fiasco, senior officers are still determined to reject some of Henriques' key findings. There seems to be no genuine awareness of the reputational damage that the Met has suffered, nor any acceptance that the cultish dogma of 'believing' each and every complainant - and referring to them as 'victims' from the outset - undermines the presumption of innocence of the person accused.

Met Police: New Scotland Yard

How can a so-called investigative team conduct a fair, balanced investigation if it takes sides from day one? All this is not rocket science. Yet the College of Policing, which is the professional body responsible for police training, as recently as last month reconfirmed, in an official policy document, that anyone making a claim of sexual abuse should be considered as a 'victim' from the start. It goes even further and states that in the event an investigation ends with no charges being brought, ‘victims should not be left feeling they have not been believed’. Presumably, unless they are Carl Beech… or Jemma Beale… or any of the other notorious liars and fraudsters who have been caught lying their heads off and are now serving time in prison - not to mention the myriad liars and perjurers who have got away with their deceit. This is the reason the two friends who accused me have not faced any consequences for their false allegations, despite it being obvious they lied and lied to the police and then committed perjury at Ipswich Crown Court in 2014.

Sadly, it seems that the police have learned nothing whatsoever from the whole shameful Operation Midland fiasco. What does shine through is the invincible, damnable arrogance of the Met's most senior officers, some of whom have been promoted, despite their roles in the Beech affair. Perhaps they really don’t care. The sad thing for me is, through my own unfortunate experience, I am not in the least surprised by any of this cowardice and chicanery.

Media Report for F.A.C.T. Autumn Conference

Report delivered at the F.A.C.T. Autumn Conference in Birmingham on 28th September 2019

Before I deliver my report on recent media activities that relate directly to F.A.C.T., I’d like to preface it with a few observations about current trends of reporting false allegations in the mainstream national and regional media. I think there can be no doubt that times – and attitudes – are changing. That stated, we shouldn’t ignore the counter-attacks being launched by vocal anti-sexual violence campaigners, who seem determined to resist recent positive developments, such as greater scrutiny of complainants’ electronic communications and devices before charging decisions are made by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

There is finally a greater readiness on the part of journalists, at least from certain national print titles and television channels, to tackle the controversial issue of malicious false sexual accusations and the devastating impact these can, and do, have on innocent victims and their families. I'll come to BBC 2's Victoria Derbyshire Show in a short while. I would highlight the Daily and Sunday Mail titles in particular, owing to their investigative work on exploding the so-called ‘VIP paedophiles' myth – including the motives of those who have made some palpably preposterous claims.

Jailed troll: Sabine McNeill

In part, at least, this increased readiness to confront liars, fraudsters and hoaxers has undoubtedly arisen in the aftermath of the Carl Beech (‘Nick’) scandal, following the disastrous Operations Midland and Conifer, but also in the wake of the conviction and jailing for nine years in January of the notorious ‘Hampstead Satanic’ troll, Sabine McNeill.

Her case should be of particular concern to members of F.A.C.T., given that her innocent victims included local professional people – teachers and clergy – whose lives have been turned upside down by the vicious lies spread online by McNeill and her coterie of followers. It is high time that the criminal justice system caught up with these false accusers and, at long last, it seems that the police and CPS have acted to end this vile pantomine. McNeill herself recently lost her appeal against sentence and it is also gratifying to see that members of her gang are now also being brought to justice.

Let’s hope that this will be just the start of a much tougher response to the peddlers of lies and misery, although we all know, if I may borrow a phrase from Peter Saunders' lexicon, false accusers being brought to justice are still, here's his phrase, 'vanishingly rare'. More on Mr. Saunders in a few moments.

Convicted liar: Carl Beech

Of course, the highlight of this year so far must be the trial and sentencing of serial sexual abuse fantasist and compensation fraudster Carl Beech, whose cruel, patently outrageous lies have done a lot to highlight and strengthen the work we do here at F.A.C.T.. I attended a significant part of Beech’s trial at Newcastle Crown Court, including the summing-up by both the prosecution and the defence barristers, as well as the judge’s instructions to the jury. I also went back up to Newcastle for the sentencing.

During these days in court I took my place in the press box and live tweeted the proceedings in order to capture the highlights for a much wider audience. Apart from a reporter from Sky TV, Jordan Milne, who attended from time to time, I think I was the only person who was reporting an accurate account of proceedings, as former Exaro journalist Mark Watts, also present, seemed to have misread much of what was being said in court, judging by what he tweeted. I subsequently wrote several articles about the wider ramifications of the Beech case for Spiked Online, as well as doing a number of national radio interviews, including Radio 2, 5 and LBC. I thought the most powerful of all these interviews was the evening of the Beech sentencing, on the Stephen Nolan Show on Radio 5, on which I shared a platform with Daniel Janner, Q.C.

I believe that the extensive national media coverage of the Beech case has alerted the general public to the devastating impact that malicious false allegations, particularly of a sexual nature, have on the victims. For too long the mantras of ‘no smoke without fire’ and ‘you WILL be believed’ held sway. Most of the mainstream media was simply too cowed – cowardly – to present an alternative view of the way in which false allegations have become weaponised – either for personal revenge or as part of child custody cases – or else monetised in the form of a quest for undeserved compensation.

I have just completed my second novel Swinefest, the story of a fictitious teacher targeted by a trio of lying opportunists, and the 120.000 word manuscript is with a publishing agent. I await progress and it will be interesting to see if a publishing house is brave enough to support it.

Last month I was invited to be a guest as a panellist on the Jeremy Vine TV show on Channel 5, filmed at the London ITN studios. I fully expected to be discussing the topical issue of malicious false allegations. Unfortunately, just before broadcast, the topic was changed to a discussion Brexit-related. Thank you to those F.A.C.T. members who attended the recording, sitting in the audience, having travelled from such places as Birmingham and Ipswich: much appreciated.

Serial liar: Jemma Beale

There are few things that the average British citizen likes less than seeing compensation fraudsters getting their greedy hands on public money. Just look at the popular outrage over the myriad cheats and imposters who have been brought to justice after having made claims in the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster. Judges are coming down hard on these vile individuals and, in the same way, those who make false sexual allegations with financial gain in mind – such as serial rape liar Jemma Beale – must surely, in a supposedly just, fair society, face the consequences of their criminal actions.

Part of F.A.C.T.’s media outreach should be to highlight these cases, and others which might have been reported only in the local or regional press. I continue to do this with studiousness and dedication on my twitter feed @bbcsimonwarr. Contrary to the oft-quoted assertion that false sexual allegations are ‘vanishingly rare’, as propounded by Peter Saunders, the erstwhile chairperson of NAPAC, we need to demonstrate that this is simply not true. In contrast, what is rare, are actual prosecutions of the liars, fraudsters and hoaxers who make false claims.

Peter Saunders

On Friday 28th of June, the Victoria Derbyshire Show on BBC 2, afforded myself, Ros Burnett (on film) and Sister Frances (in the studio) a sizeable tranche on their programme to make our case about false allegations. Also in the studio with Sister Frances was Peter Saunders, who made efforts to stymie our point of view at every opportunity and, of course, now we know why. He has been for many years, as the saying goes, 'economical with the truth' about his personal experiences when it comes to this topic. While pleading vociferously on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2, when I was on with him earlier that week, he followed this up on the Derbyshire Show by aggressively putting forward the argument that campaigners like us are over-zealous and we should give the police a break as they go about their difficult job of investigating sexual complaints.

We now know, thanks to David Rose at the Mail on Sunday, all along Peter Saunders was concealing the fact that he himself was arrested in 2008 for the alleged rape of a woman, (who, disturbingly, had been abused in childhood), in the public toilets of a restaurant. His arrest was not, at the time, publicised. No wonder he's been supporting the police's standpoint during the intervening years. Many of us in this room were not as lucky as Mr. Saunders. The press/media destroyed my reputation within 24 hours of my arrest. Mr. Saunders claimed from the start he was the target of a false allegation, which makes his subsequent stance on the topic all the more bewildering.

DPP Max Hill QC

Mr. Saunders is (was?) part of a vocal lobby that seeks to minimise both the scale of false sexual allegations and the damage caused to innocent victims. Indeed, there is a vigorous backlash against what is being achieved in terms of greater scrutiny of evidence by the CPS under its new Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill QC.

Over the past few months there have been regular opinion pieces and some tendentious news articles that aim to turn back the clock in respect of analysis of complainants’ mobile phones. These dangerous arguments must be countered with facts and with calm, reasoned responses. We here at F.A.C.T. have an important role to play in this.

As an organisation, we must be prepared to be criticised for our advocacy for the falsely accused and wrongly convicted. Greater media exposure, especially in the national print titles and on television, will inevitably make F.A.C.T. a target for those who wish to see prosecutions and convictions increase for purely ideological reasons, rather than for any genuine concern for justice. Changing public opinion towards false allegations is an achievable goal and I believe that 2019 will come to be seen as a pivotal year in F.A.C.T.’s outreach via the media.

As always on these occasions, I'd like to honour our dedicated Secretary, Brian, who certainly inspires me to work tirelessly on behalf of this superb organisation. Brian, we salute you.

Thank you.

Why Anonymity Matters

Last month, in the aftermath of the Carl Beech trial, I took part in an item on BBC 2's Victoria Derbyshire programme, discussing the impact of false sexual allegations and the need for anonymity of suspects, at least until the point of charge. One of the guests in the studio was Peter Saunders, the spokesman for the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), a charity that supports victims of abuse.

BBC's Victoria Derbyshire

After they had played an interview I gave from my home in West London, Mr. Saunders stated the following: "False allegations are pernicious and horrible but it is massively rare [for someone] to make these things up.'' Sympathising with my own ordeal, he continued: ''I can't get my head around how awful it must be for Simon to have faced a false, malicious allegation (of sexual abuse).''

We now know, courtesy of the Mail on Sunday, he could indeed get his head around just how awful it is to be accused of this most heinous crime because Mr. Saunders himself was just such a target in 2008, something he has omitted to mention during the intervening eleven years. That omission matters.

Mr Saunders has always forcefully opposed anonymity for any adult accused of sexual assault, although he himself benefited from anonymity following his arrest on a rape complaint after an incident in a restaurant lavatory. These latest revelations in the Mail on Sunday concerning Mr Saunders’ arrest do suggest a certain hypocritical approach to this very important topic and they also raise important issues of public concern. The fact that his arrest and interviewing by police have only just been reported – some eleven years on – is a very strong argument in favour of legal anonymity for suspects in rape and other sexual offence investigations to be restored (it did exist between 1976 and 1988), at least until charge; although some – myself included – would extend it further until a guilty plea or the point of conviction by a jury.

Peter Saunders

In his response to the Mail on Sunday reporter, Mr Saunders states that he was falsely accused of rape by a woman following a meal at which a considerable amount of alcohol had been consumed by both parties. He emphasises that he believed the incident – in the restaurant lavatory – was entirely consensual, although he does appear to shift much of the blame onto the woman involved, whom we are told was a victim of sexual abuse in childhood and vulnerable. There is no doubt that this was a distasteful affair, but it is important to note that Mr Saunders was released without charge and the matter was never taken any further. He asserts his innocence of rape and I am willing to believe him. There is a possibility he has been the victim of a false sexual allegation.

Either way, Mr Saunders has undoubtedly benefited from the fact that his arrest and questioning by the police following the rape complaint over a decade ago have remained unknown to the general public. He has enjoyed what amounts to anonymity and the unfortunate, albeit unsavoury, incident has not – until now – impacted negatively on his life. It seems not to have damaged his family, nor does it appear to have ended his career as a vocal advocate for people abused as children. Tellingly, since the Mail on Sunday published its article, he has felt obliged to step down from the Victims and Survivors Panel of the Independent Inquiry into Childhood Sexual Abuse (IICSA), the ongoing public inquiry into sexual abuse. That, perhaps, highlights the ongoing negative impact of false sexual allegations, even after many years.

However, it is also important to note that when he appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire programme, Mr Saunders was adamant that such anonymity should not be granted to suspects of sexual offences even if they've not been charged. It is difficult to reconcile the two positions, yet, as an innocent man who was falsely accused and arrested without that fact being trumpeted all over the press and social media at the time - something which I, and many others, have had to endure - one would have hoped that Mr Saunders could have taken a more nuanced view. As it is, he seems to have benefited from a police approach that he would deny to others.

His situation also raises the important question as to whether people who have been falsely accused of a serious sexual offence, but never charged nor convicted, should be compelled to disclose that fact for the rest of their lives. One would assume that Mr Saunders’ arrest and questioning in 2008 would have been disclosed as part of any enhanced vetting checks, although the IICSA official response is that he did not do so when he joined its panel. Surely, it would also have been a required disclosure had he travelled to the USA or other countries that require information about police arrests, even when there has been no charge nor conviction.

There needs to be a much wider public debate about the plight of innocent victims of false allegations. As celebrities and public figures have discovered during the course of recent cases, including the Carl Beech scandal, merely being suspected or accused of a sexual offence can be utterly devastating, even when no-one has been arrested, especially when such police investigations are turned deliberately into an international media circus in the hope of ‘flushing out’ fresh accusers in order to bolster weak cases. False allegations, particularly of a sexual nature, are always life changing. I hope that Mr Saunders will now feel able, perhaps after a suitable period of reflection, to contribute to this debate from the position of one who has been falsely accused and is now coming to terms with the continuing fallout.

Carl Beech: He Didn't Do It Alone

The tawdry saga that has surrounded the ‘VIP paedophile ring’ fantasist Carl Beech has finally been brought to a close with him being sent to prison for a total of eighteen years (of which he must serve at least half). There was a loud gasp from the public gallery as sentence was pronounced in Court 1 at Newcastle Crown Court, but Beech himself remained impassive and emotionless – as he has throughout the trial – while standing in the dock listening to his fate. 

Carl Beech: 18 year sentence

His sentence, handed down by Mr Justice Goss at Newcastle Crown Court, includes fifteen years for the twelve counts of perverting the course of justice, while the additional three years were given in respect of the sexual offences he’d previously admitted to at Worcester Crown Court (possession of indecent images of children and voyeurism), as well as one count of fraud (£22,000 claimed falsely from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA)) and the offence of jumping bail to go on the run to Sweden). There will also be financial restitution required, although it remains to be seen what assets the disgraced nurse, turned NHS manager, still has in order to satisfy the order. 

As the judge told Beech before he pronounced sentence: “You are a highly manipulative and devious person'', adding that: “You maintained your lies of having been abused and you have not shown any remorse''. 

‘You will be believed’ 

Although the prosecution has proved its case against Beech to the satisfaction of the jury and he has been led off in shame to the first of what will doubtless be many cells he will inhabit over the next decade or so, many issues remain unresolved. Ironically, it was left for the defence barrister to raise at least some of them during mitigation, before Beech was sentenced. 

The first matter is the policy imposed on police and prosecutors that complainants in sexual allegation cases ‘will be believed’. As Beech’s counsel rightly pointed out, “With another approach, Mr Beech’s allegations would have been dismissed.” 

Sir Jimmy Savile

And there is much truth in this observation. Had there not been a radical shift towards a so-called ‘victim-centred’ justice system, perhaps malicious and calculating liars and fraudsters such as Carl Beech could not have wreaked so much havoc, wasted police time and resources, and – most importantly – ruined so many innocent people’s lives. As soon as Beech’s allegations started to evolve into what became a multi-tentacled elite paedophile conspiracy theory, embracing not only former politicians (mostly Tories) but also senior military men, ex-intelligence service chiefs and others – including, as one has come to expect, Jimmy Savile – experienced Met detectives should have smelt a very large rat.

Instead, no doubt encouraged by all the attention he and his preposterous claims were getting, Beech started to invent child murders, in which he somehow featured. We also had pet dogs being kidnapped and horses being shot, not to mention a whole host of fellow victims mentioned by Beech but none of whom able to be directly contacted. It should all have seemed much too far-fetched, precisely because that is exactly what it was. There can be no doubt that this ridiculous dogma of 'believe instantly all complainants', imposed from above for ideological motives, created a fertile ground in which fantasists and fraudsters could sew their toxic weeds, some of which – like Beech’s – blossomed into vast, dense forests of lies and conspiracy theories that eventually consumed millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and enormous amounts of police time and resources. 

In the aftermath of the Beech scandal, it’s clear that the preposterous policy of  believing without investigating thoroughly needs to be ditched, both in theory and in practice. The police should be mandated to listen to complaints professionally and to investigate them fairly, without fear or favour.

The Role of the Media 

Long before he came to the notice of the police, Beech was an inveterate and emotionally incontinent online blogger. He shared what we now know were his own lurid, perverted fantasies with others via various internet accounts. He made contact with those who claimed to have had experience of childhood sexual abuse. In some cases, he even misappropriated excerpts from the real life testimony of genuine victims in order to bolster his own fabricated tales. He's not the first to do this. Doubtless, Beech did this because he felt it might reinforce his own credibility, as well as, in his case, of satisfying his perverted obsession with the sexual abuse and torture of children.

Carl Beech when he was blogging

Several people who had been genuinely sexually abused also began to suspect that Beech might be a fraud. I’ve had communications from some individuals who've told me how they found him creepy and disturbing. They say that they tried to warn others about Beech at a time when he was being supported – even lionised – by others within the wider support community for abuse victims. However, their warnings seem to have gone unheeded and Beech became increasingly vocal with his extravagant allegations of sex, torture and murder. 

Inevitably perhaps, Beech’s burgeoning online presence attracted the notice of journalists, some of whom were quite clearly looking for major ‘splash’ stories to plaster over their tabloid front pages. One example is the Sunday People (as it then was), which ran with Beech’s rape and murder claims, although it maintained Beech's anonymity. Nevertheless, beyond the fantasist's own claims, there was simply no evidence to back up what he was alleging. 

'Evidence-based journalism'?

It was the involvement of the online Exaro news service (‘exaro’is Latin for ‘I dig up') that really turbo-charged Beech’s tall tales (and those of other fantasists, all referred to by pseudonyms such as ‘David’ and ‘Darren’). Beech himself became ‘Nick’, although he'd previously hidden behind names like ‘Stephen’ and ‘Carl Survivor’. Exaro, under its editor in chief, Mark Watts, whipped up a frenzy by slowly drip-feeding sensationalised parts of Beech’s increasingly bizarre and extravagant claims to the world. These allegations were often picked up by the national media, which then magnified the preposterous tales. However, it should be noted that Exaro had already been pushing ‘celebrity sex ring stories’ before Beech came along. 

Beech's own stories – in some cases later shown to have been ‘harvested’ from the internet or from books already published in the USA about child abuse – were promoted by Watts and Exaro as confirming the accounts of VIP paedophile rings. In reality, this was simply a case of one liar echoing the lies being told by others. In evidential terms, it signified nothing, but because of the use of pseudonyms and the often opaque way in which the allegations were being reported, it was difficult for outside observers to understand how the stories were being generated. It would take evidence given at Beech’s recent trial to expose Exaro’s true role in the affair.

The Political Dimension

At the time Beech started making his false allegations about a VIP paedophile ring operating in, and around, Westminster, there was already a febrile atmosphere. Stories were circulating about dead politicians, such as Sir Cyril Smith, a former Liberal MP.  A book, ‘Smile for the Camera: the Double Life of Cyril Smith, M.P.', had been published in 2014, written we now know largely by Matthew Baker, but also carrying the name on the cover of controversial Labour MP Simon Danczuk. Mr Danczuk’s colourful background is now much better known, but at the time he wasn’t as notorious as he later became. However, he undoubtedly used the book and the concern it generated about historical sexual abuse of children at the hands of  a popular parliamentarian as part of his shameless mission of self-promotion.

Simon Danczuk

Danczuk was not alone. Others were already riding on the rolling bandwagon, including Labour’s current deputy leader, Tom Watson. We know that he met with Beech in July 2014, but as early as 2012 he'd been fuelling the fire over rumours of a Westminster ‘paedophile ring’, even speaking about the issue in the House of Commons. Watson appeared to have a particular animus towards the former Conservative Home Secretary, Leon Brittan. Indeed, the Labour M.P. quoted directly from Beech (then called ‘Nick’) to brand the peer “as close to evil as a human being could get.” By October 2015, Watson was expressing his regret for quoting the phrase, but, by then, much of the damage had been done.

From Tom Watson's Twitter 

Watson had also launched an extraordinary attack against Lord Brittan via Twitter. In one tweet from February 2015, he proclaimed that he had met those accusing the former Home Secretary of rape and believed they were sincere, adding: ‘I think I have made my position on Leon Brittan perfectly clear. I believe the people who say he raped them. Can’t add much else.’

In addition to Watson, other Labour MPs joined in the promotion of sensational paedophile scandals. In December 2014, John Mann was in full flow, demanding that police investigate the alleged murders which he claimed had been committed in order to cover-up a Westminster-based paedophile gang. 

According to the politician, he had handed detectives a dossier involving 22 politicians, including 13 former ministers. By January 2015, the MP for Bassetlaw was confidently predicting that “tens of thousands of victims” were likely to come forward to give evidence to the inquiry into sexual abuse.

John Mann MP

Unsurprisingly, these grandiose claims appear to have gradually petered out. The prosecution, conviction and jailing of Beech is likely to have put the final nail in the coffin of the conspiracy-in-high-places theory. Yet none of these assiduous promoters of the lies and sexual fantasies of Carl Beech and others, such as ‘Darren’ and ‘David’, have made formal public apologies for the wild accusations that they were spouting, nor taken any real responsibility for the damage their irresponsible and presumptuous behaviour has caused, both to individuals and to our national institutions. 

Social Media

As became clear from the evidence given in court during his trial, Carl Beech – under various pseudonyms – first started peddling his fantasies concerning sexual abuse online long before they came to the attention of the national media. He quickly recruited a wide circle of followers, supporters and promoters who were convinced that he was a genuine ‘survivor’ of extreme abuse, both physical and sexual. No doubt the vast outpourings of praise and encouragement he received online for his ‘bravery’ fuelled his desire for attention. 

His followers on Twitter soon formed a protective circle around ‘Carl Survivor’ (among other names he was using). His claims – no matter how bizarre or preposterous – were promoted as gospel truths and anyone who dared to criticise him, or even question his tortuous accounts of abuse, was mobbed by his followers. I, and many others, who raised the possibility that Beech’s claims might be fantasies or lies, were smeared and attacked. Some of us were labelled ‘paedo apologists’ by Twitter users we’d never even met, many of whom were cloaking their real identities online.

Vast conspiracy theories were developed by the most extreme of Beech’s online cheerleaders. Totally unrelated snippets of information, much of it misquoted or downright false, were laboriously threaded together in a bid to smear those who dared to call out the increasingly fantastical lies of ‘Carl’/’Nick’. Online campaigns were run targeting critics or those campaigning against false allegations and miscarriages of justice. In the most extreme cases, there was actual real world harassment of certain individuals, involving the police and the making of malicious false allegations to people’s employers and even the intimidation of their families. In essence, the #IBelieveNick support group had become an irrational and dangerous cult, in which facts and truth were disregarded. 

Carl Beech's video interview

I believe that many of these extremists acted in this way because they wanted the allegations that Britain was being ruled by an elite group of predatory, murderous paedophiles to be true. They harbour a deep hatred of authority – the police, the armed services, politicians, journalists, the intelligence services – and cannot resist any opportunity to de-legimitise our national institutions. So what better tool to weaponise than stoking fears of paedophilia. During the period 2012-2019, it seems that it was no longer the old ‘Reds under the beds' conspiracy theory, but the ‘paedos in high places’ that people could be made to fear.

As more and more people get their news – accurate or inaccurate – online, it became a fertile hunting ground for the #IBelieveNick mob. Misguided, often vulnerable, people were being groomed and recruited via the internet. Some of these folk are genuine victims of childhood abuse and a couple have told me how they were initially taken in by ‘Nick’ and his supporters. In some cases, they later discovered that their personal histories were being looted by Beech and others to construct false narratives of sexual and physical abuse. Yet another example of the deceitful way in which Beech and his ilk exploit and misuse innocent people.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the online #IBelieveNick cult is that it's still going on, albeit in a much weakened form. There have been notable ‘defectors’ who have tried to distance themselves from the Beech crew. Twitter timelines have been purged and a few people are even proclaiming loudly that they were duped and are among his ‘victims’. However, to date, there have been very few genuine apologies for all the unjust smearing of reputations, verbal attacks and actual threats that were made online. 

Some of the victims whom Beech has injured most, including Lord Bramall and Harvey Proctor, are still being attacked and defamed online by the die-hard extremists, who continue to maintain that Carl Beech is innocent and is now being ‘silenced’ by the state, in order to prevent others from coming forward. Utterly preposterous as this falsehood is, it is being still being circulated via the internet.

Other Institutions

It should not be forgotten that Beech worked for many years for the NHS, initially as a nurse, later as a manager. He also worked for the Quality Care Commission, as well as being a volunteer with the NSPCC. Moreover, he served as a governor at two schools. He continued to contribute to NAPAC publications. Pretty much all of the above organisations have announced that there is no evidence of misconduct by Beech in any of these roles. However, given that we now know his sexual offending spanned a significant period in time, including during the years 2012-2017 when he was with the NSPCC, giving hundreds of primary school age children talks about how to keep themselves safe from would-be abusers, serious questions do need to be asked. Surely there needs to be an independent inquiry that looks at any institution where Beech held positions of responsibility? 

Even though Beech had no criminal convictions until January of this year, there should have been concerns about some aspects of his conduct. His obsession with the sexual abuse, torture and killing of children should have been obvious to anyone who came across his endless blog posts and social media accounts. I would suggest that the alarm bells should've started ringing back in 2007 when he published – under the pseudonym ‘Nurse Lucy Samuels’ – his trashy account of his work for the NHS entitled ‘Nurse, Nurse!’ The fact that the marketing of this book was linked online to Beech’s sex shop ‘Lucy’s Delights’ should have caused some internal consternation. But, as so often in the scandal of Carl Beech, no-one seems to have done any investigation. Was any patient confidentiality breached by the book? Again, seemingly no concerns. 

Perhaps the most important lesson that must be learned from the Carl Beech affair is that there should never again be unquestioning belief in those making complaints to police, particularly concerning allegations of a crime where is no direct evidence. Misguided policies, such as ‘you will be believed’, must be ditched forever. All complaints must be treated with respect and professionalism by police officers, as should those who are accused. The new Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill QC, does seem to understand the challenges facing the police and the CPS in the post-Beech era. 

As I’ve said many times before, the job of the police should be to believe neither the complainant nor the accused before a rigorous investigation has been conducted. All relevant leads should be followed, no matter where they may go. All evidence should be shared with the CPS prior to a decision as to prosecute or not. And during that investigation, no names of suspects – save in rare cases where there may be a risk to the public or to specific individuals – should be released to the press. In fact, there should be a presumption of anonymity until, at the very least, the point of charge. Personally, I'm campaigning for anonymity until conviction or a guilty plea in the case of sexual allegations, given the far-reaching damage that can be caused immediately names of the accused are publicised.

Beech in the dock

When Northumbria Police was called in to investigate Carl Beech for perverting the course of justice and fraud, its detectives showed how a thorough, professional police investigation should be carried out. Every lead was pursued, every witness who could be traced was interviewed, even those who had known him as a schoolboy were interviewed. Beech’s estranged family and relatives were questioned. His communication devices were examined forensically and his possession of illegal images of children were discovered. Every lie he'd told in his previous police statements was tested against the testimony of others or documentary evidence. His copious online ramblings under various identities were sifted through to highlight the strands of his noxious fantasies. In short, Beech was – as they used to say – ‘banged to rights’.

And when he went on the run in a bid to evade the legal consequences of his criminal activities, he was tracked down to Sweden, apprehended and then extradited to face justice. Now he is where he belongs: behind bars for at least nine years and then under probation supervision for a further nine years, so prevented from causing any further misery or havoc. 

We mustn’t become complacent. There are other Carl Beechs out there and at least some of them are quite capable of telling the most outrageous lies about crimes that have never taken place. Innocent people are already rotting in jail because of liars, fraudsters, revenge-seekers and fantasists with unscrupulous moral codes and perverted imaginations. We owe it to all their victims to reform our criminal justice system and to make the appeals process fit for purpose. If this takes significant financial investment, then that’s what will be needed. Perhaps we could reduce or eliminate the amount of taxpayers’ money that is currently being claimed by fraudsters like Carl Beech and serial rape liar Jemma Beale. We mustn’t let this opportunity for change pass us by.

Prosecuting Carl Beech – Just the Start

Well, it’s over. What should be seen as one of the most significant criminal prosecutions of the decade has finally ended with the conviction of Carl Beech, aka ‘Nick’, on twelve charges of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud. He has been found guilty as charged by a jury of his peers and now faces the prospect of what should be a very substantial sentence of imprisonment, given the utmost seriousness of his vile offences.

Carl Beech in the dock

In fact, there can't be many more heinous crimes than deliberately and falsely accusing innocent people of torture, rape and child murder. Yet, this is what Carl Beech – aka ‘Carl Survivor’, aka ‘Lucy Samuels’, aka ‘Sam Williams’, aka ‘Carl Andersson’, aka ‘Oskar Andersson’, aka ‘Samuel Karlsson’ – has done repeatedly in recent years, in a cruel attempt to get his grasping hands on a substantial tranche of compensation money to which he had absolutely no entitlement. The fraud conviction related to the £22,000 he fraudulently claimed from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA), ostensibly to pay for professional counselling, which he immediately squandered on a luxury Ford Mustang Convertible car.

Ford Mustang Convertible

At length, in court one at Newcastle Crown Court, Beech's ludicrous, cruel claims have been revealed to be what they are. His despicable attempt to ride the historical sexual abuse gravy train has at long last hit the buffers. His trial exposed him to the world for what he really is: a loathsome liar obsessed with the topic of the abuse of children, a calculating fraudster and a man who is devoid of any form of moral compass. Utterly self-centred, to the point that he even attempted to throw his ex-wife and teenage son to the wolves, in a bid to blame them for some of his own vile, criminal, sexual perversions.

As someone who has become an active campaigner against the ‘you will be believed’ cult, and its close partner in encouraging crime, the compensation culture, which fuels the bogus sexual abuse industry by rewarding the most outrageous liars and fraudsters with sizeable cash payouts, I felt that I had a moral duty to attend the latter stages of the Beech trial in person. I wanted to see the man for myself – in the flesh – and to listen to the damning closing speech given by the prosecutor, Tony Badenoch QC.

Liar, Fraudster, Fantasist & Pervert

I also took note of the valiant efforts of Beech’s counsel, Collingwood Thompson QC, to try to salvage something for his client. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the material he had to work with, the end result was hardly in doubt. Even in his own evidence, Beech had repeatedly been compelled to admit to having lied and lied again. Mr Thompson did his best to defend the indefensible, but it should be clear that no-one, other than Beech himself, is responsible for his own public annihilation.

'Someone is Lying'

HH Sir James Goss QC

Moreover, I wanted to hear for myself – and to tweet to the wider world – the key points of the judge’s summing up and his directions to the jury. His Honour Sir James Goss QC was scrupulously fair in summarising the evidence that the jury had heard. In the end, as he rightly remarked, the whole case turned on one pivotal issue: that someone was lying. And, having heard details of the thorough police investigation into Beech and his plethora of lies and deceits and aliases, the members of the jury reached their verdicts: Beech guilty on every single count.

I thought I'd experienced it all during the past seven years, since I myself was targeted by a couple of unscrupulous, lying chancers. Indeed, during this time, I've come across what can be described only as the dregs of society, people who think nothing of trashing the careers, indeed lives, of committed, hard working professionals for their own nefarious, utterly selfish ends. But what I listened to at Newcastle Crown Court during Beech's trial has exposed a monster to surpass even those treacherous, greedy fantasists. Each time during the trial that the judge afforded us a break, I felt the need to take a shower, in a bid to cleanse myself of the wretched, sordid details I'd just heard.

Already proven to be a 'devious paedophile' himself at an earlier trial, Beech pleaded not guilty to twelve charges of perverting the course of justice after dragging the names of a host of totally innocent figures, comprising politicians and senior military officers, into his depraved, degenerate world, all in a bid for both financial recompense and also to assume some sort of heroic-figure status for himself. No doubt, had he succeeded in his imposture, a 'misery memoir' book and profitable lecture tours would quickly have followed. The thought is enough to turn the stomach of even the most experienced hack.

Beech interviewed on police video

It's not within the scope of this blog to detail all the sordid, depraved activities of Carl Beech over the past few years but I am able to state with certainty that one wouldn't need a degree in psychology, having watched him in the witness box delivering his 'evidence', to come to the conclusion Beech is ostensibly in an advanced state of sociopathy. Just suppose he had been traumatically abused as a child and had opened up about it, as he persistently claimed, and was then hauled into a court of law on the charge of lying through his teeth: adding insult to injury would be an understatement. Surely the man would have been hopping mad.

On the flip side, as has now been proven, if he were making claims in a court of law that were nothing more than the province of fantasy in extremis, you'd expect the person in the dock to be highly emotional when giving his ‘evidence’, knowing it all to be a pack of lies which would wreck careers, potentially lives, of innocent men. Yet, Beech stood and delivered his testimony with barely a hint of any emotion. No wonder they say it’s the sociopaths and the psychopaths who are most likely to deceive the lie detector test. On this evidence, Beech would certainly have done so!

Beech the Sex Offender
This much is now certain: Carl Beech, disgraced ex-nurse and NHS executive – and a former school governor – is a convicted sexual abuser of children. He entered guilty pleas at his earlier trial (he could have hardly done otherwise), so there can be no rational doubt about his sordid offences.

Beech: convicted sex offender

He collected a vile library of child abuse images (some of them in category 'A', the worst category imaginable). He amassed videos of horrendous child abuse, the titles of which alone are enough to sicken any decent person. He spied on his neighbours’ children and covertly photographed them. And he betrayed the trust placed in every adult by secretly filming a friend of his own young son using the lavatory, while he was visiting the Beech family home. Who knows where his sickening fantasies would have taken him next, had he not been caught up in the web of his own making?

At his trial in Newcastle, however, Beech asked the jury to believe that, despite the evidence of his own sexually warped nature and the plethora of lies he had admitted spinning over a period of years, that he himself was the real victim in all this. He maintained his claims to have been sexually and physically abused by a long list of men, many distinguished soldiers or politicians, as part of a so-called ‘VIP paedophile ring’. He continued to claim that he had witnessed young boys being raped and even murdered, regardless of the extensive police investigations that had exploded each and every one of his bizarre assertions.

Liar, Fantasist, Fraudster
In the end, it was a unanimous jury who found Beech guilty as charged. Its members had heard his 'evidence', as well as the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, and they reached their verdicts. Those twelve men and women in the jury box rejected the defence case that Beech genuinely, perhaps misguidedly, believed the claims that he’d made to the police to be the truth. They decided that, beyond reasonable doubt, he was a liar, a fantasist and a fraudster.

Beech: guilty on 13 counts

Beech could have entered a guilty plea. He could have spared some of his victims being forced to defend themselves in the witness box. He could have saved a substantial amount of public money being wasted during the trial – that is in addition to the more than two million pounds of public money already blown during Operation Midland, which was set up to investigate his lies and grandiose fantasies. He could have done the decent thing, but he didn’t. He chose to maintain a grotesque charade in which he posed as the ‘victim’ – a role that he has been playing for years.

DS Kenny McDonald

However, it is also important to point out that Beech (and others of his ilk) has been enabled in his grotesque falsehoods and deceits by police and prosecutors, who were far too ready to believe even the most bizarre and unlikely of allegations. Who can forget the Met’s Detective Superintendant Kenny McDonald proclaiming to the world in December 2014 that: “Nick [their pseudonym for Beech] has been spoken to by experienced officers from the child abuse team and from the murder investigation team and they and I believe that what Nick is saying is credible and true, hence why we are pursuing the allegations that he has made.”


By September of the following year, the Met was left desperately trying to row back from one of the most damaging and expensive fiascos in modern policing history. Arguably, the lasting damage will be to public confidence in a police team that was so easily duped by liar Beech, who would lead them on, what was dubbed during his trial as, ‘a merry dance.’

Believers and Enablers
I believe that the sheer extent of the Beech deception was made possible only because of bad political and ideological decisions. Sir Keir Starmer, in his role as the Director of Public Prosecutions during the period 2008-2013, was an enthusiastic proponent of the ‘you will be believed’ dogma, as was his successor, Alison Saunders. This approach effectively discouraged police officers from investigating allegations of sexual offences in an even-handed way. It pre-empted proper detective work and reversed the burden of proof in sexual offences cases. Police often preferred to pass cases with little, if any, concrete evidence onto the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), content to let prosecutors authorise charges and then leave it to juries to guess who might be telling the truth. In particularly emotive trials – such as those for alleged rape or child abuse – this approach of charging with little, if any, real evidence was a recipe for wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.

From an #IBelieveNick supporter

In any sane world, Beech’s fantastic claims about a ‘murderous paedophile prime minister’ and a group of ruthless, brutal paedophiles, including senior military men of impeccable reputation, would have been given short shrift. However, in the febrile atmosphere that surrounded the multiple allegations made against the late Jimmy Savile, no-one wanted the role of the boy who called out the obvious deception in the legend of 'The Emperor’s New Clothes'. So Beech was left free to continue weaving his vast web of lies.

Yet, it was not just the police and CPS who indulged Beech’s vile fantasies. Certain sections of the national media were only too keen to jump onto the ‘VIP paedo’ scandal bandwagon. Lengthy features were churned out that gave unwarranted credence to the lies of Beech and others, such as ‘Darren’ (another warped fantasist, now utterly discredited). It is to be hoped at least some of the authors of this tosh now feel suitably humbled by the total destruction in court of Beech’s house of cards.

As Beech returns to his miserable prison cell – a convicted sex offender, a convicted perverter of the course of justice and a convicted fraudster – no doubt he will continue to see himself as the main victim in this disaster of his own making. During the week I sat in court watching him, I saw no evidence whatsoever that he had a shred of empathy for his many victims and their families. Lives and reputations have been tarnished, some who have given a lifetime of loyal service to this country. They all deserved so much better than to have become the innocent victims of the deceitful, cruel, manipulative Carl Beech and his shameless entourage of fantasists, chancers and believers. British justice failed the victims of the despicable Beech for far too long. Shame upon him and his enthusiastic supporters.

The Shame that was Exaro
And then there was the so-called Exaro news service, an online band of journalists, who often crossed the line from being objective reporters to enthusiastic believers in the grand VIP conspiracy theory. During the course of Beech's trial, evidence was given concerning the role that specific members of the Exaro team played in promoting and pushing their star source's increasingly outlandish claims.

Indeed, we heard in court that it was Mark Conrad, one of Exaro's reporters, who actually made the first contact with the police concerning Beech's allegations. Likewise, evidence was given in court that Conrad also taught Beech in 2014 how to mask his identity online, use the TOR web browser and to communicate via the ProtonMail encrypted email service.

Tom Watson MP

Beyond Exaro, Beech also amassed a hardcore group of cheerleaders and enthusiasts, who helped to give his allegations the oxygen of publicity, especially online, although public support from Tom Watson MP, currently Labour’s deputy leader, gave Beech’s noxious fantasies an unwarranted boost from a politician who was no doubt hoping that the ‘VIP paedo ring revelations’ could inflict serious damage on the Conservative Party. Will Mr Watson now make a public apology?

Beech’s most outrageous lies, that Britain’s ruling class was infiltrated by murderous kidnappers, torturers and paedophile rapists, found fertile ground among certain sections of the Twittersphere. Some of these ‘believers’ helped spread Beech’s lies because it all chimed with their own prejudices and fantasies. Their Twitter hashtag was #IBelieveNick. Anyone daring to challenge this cult risked being smeared as a ‘paedo apologist’ – or worse.

Sabine McNeill - jailed for 9 years

To date, none of these online reputation vandals has been brought to justice for the serious harm they have done, although the example of the infamous ‘Hampstead troll’ Sabine McNeill – jailed for nine years for her vicious campaign of false allegations against innocent people – may provide some hope that at least the very worse of Beech’s twisted and malicious cheerleaders might yet face prosecution. Of course, Beech was the author of this vile, vicious scam, yet he was not alone in promoting it assiduously. There are several people in professional positions whose careers should now be ended in shame, if only to protect the public from their obsessions in the future.

History is the study of the past, in order to understand the present, and so prepare for the future. Let us hope that the story of the lying, selfish, ruthless paedophile Carl Beech is a lesson none of us should ever forget.