Carl Beech scandal exposes the need for hard truths
Back in 2001, the controversial Channel 4 show, Brass Eye, proved why it was so controversial when it satirised the culture of fear that had become somewhat prevalent in the UK. It labelled it “Paedogeddon” and we either laughed or were appalled, depending on our notions of good taste, at the casual way the greatest taboo was being treated. Yet, even back then, Chris Morris seemed to have a point. Those were the days when The News of the World splashed paedophile stories on its front pages with depressing regularity as it sought the right to “name and shame”. Paedophilia seemed rife in every community, according to the media, and, as a consequence, in 2000, yobs daubed the word “paedo” on the home of a hospital paediatrician.
The crisis escalated in 2011 when Jimmy Savile died. His life was celebrated until that moment when stories of his crimes began to appear. Soon the nation would be so appalled that we would subsequently ask too few questions. Instead, his grave was defiled, his image scrubbed from the BBC archive, and he was reduced to that place where “monsters” live in our collective imagination. But by then, we also had Operation Yewtree to occupy us and into that morass stepped Carl Beech with his tales of a Westminster paedophile ring.
If Savile’s crimes were real, the same now can’t be said about the allegations made by Beech who Is serving eighteen years for perverting the course of justice and fraud. Chris Morris has been proved right and, if anything, in the clear light of 2019, we can see how our paranoia was further compounded by political expediency and a media frenzy. This morning, The Daily Mail, published a damning response by Sir Richard Henriques, former High Court judge, to the Beech case. His conclusion: that the Met Police had acted unlawfully when applying the search warrants for the homes of war hero Lord Bramall, Lady Brittan, and former MP Harvey Proctor.
Was it moral panic that led the officers to be so lax? Was it a sense that great crimes allowed even greater injustices? Whatever the reason, as Sir Richard says, “officers leading the investigation were fully aware of six matters in particular which undermined Beech’s credibility” yet did nothing to bring that to the attention of a judge.
People who should have known better acted in ways that now make them potential subjects of investigation and prosecution. Others should be subject to great scrutiny. That is certainly true of Tom Watson MP, Labour deputy leader, who did more to bring Beech’s allegations to the public’s attention than perhaps any other actor. As reported in The Sunday Times this weekend, it was Watson who “gave the highest-profile endorsement of the claims of the now-defunct Exaro news agency that there was an establishment paedophile plot and cover-up involving top Conservatives”.
According to Daniel Janner, the son of Labour peer Lord Janner, Watson was guilty of “whipping up a moral panic”, while Harvey Proctor has said, “the Metropolitan Police were lapdogs to Mr Watson’s crude dog whistle”.
It is hard, now, to convey the scale and depth of this cultural and political imbroglio. At the time, Watson brought a degree of respectability to what had been an outlandish story on the fringes of the mainstream press. Always a sceptic of his popular appeal, I even wrote a diary piece at the time remarking on how he had “worked tirelessly around the business of Westminster paedophiles”. Watson achieved new levels or recognition off the back of that work so it seems entirely fair if that spotlight is now turned back on him.
Certainly, it not enough to now say that in the heady days of 2015 it was easy to be blinded by the conspiracies. The names of high-profile politicians had been traduced, reduced to the stuff of cheap internet gossip at times in their lives when they were least able to defend themselves. Leon Brittan, our former Home Secretary, died in 2015, not knowing if his innocence would ever be proved. Sadder yet in this tale of interweaved sadnesses was the death of Lord Brammall’s wife, who died before his own innocence was established by the courts.
It is the psychosis of our age, that blind moral panic we still experience whenever we hear something so appalling that we feel obliged to prove our innocence rather than establish the truth. Pick a #MeToo moment and find a little of that unreason clinging to its underside, but that is especially true when the stories involve the abuse of children. That’s when we feel so compelled to act that we throw every other of our beliefs onto the bonfire; the right to a fair trial being one of them, but also the innocence of the accused before being proven guilty.
The end of a case so fraught with complications should rightly bring hard questions, some of which should also lead to further prosecutions if only to test in a court of law the conduct of our police. Tom Watson too should be asked to account of his conduct, even if that means putting aside any sympathy any of us might have to his current political struggles. This isn’t about Johnson or Corbyn, Brexit or a second referendum. This is about the primacy of laws that had served us well until the likes of Watson started to act as though hearsay held more sway. Tom Watson might well have acted in what he felt was the pursuit of justice but, as is so often the case when individuals feel they have “the truth” in their sight, they are blind to the injustices they commit.
Lastly, beyond the famous names are the not so famous names. We should all ask ourselves if and why any of us harboured doubts when the police raided Cliff Richard’s home or whenever Woody Allen maintains his innocence. Why did stories about Ted Heath, a single man who happened to enjoy yachting, resonate with so many people? Why, even today, do stories involving Jeffrey Epstein convince some of the guilt of all of his associates, as though we were all at those parties, on those jets, in those private rooms and can know what happened? Answers to those questions will tell us nothing about the culpability of royals, presidents, and celebrities. They might, however, tell us something about ourselves, our delusions, our fears.
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