Former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor has called for Starmer to ‘apologise as leader of the Labour Party for ever considering Tom Watson to be a member of the House of Lords and putting his name forward.’
Former Labour Deputy Tom Watson had falsely accused Mr Proctor and other senior public figures of involvement in a VIP paedophile-ring leading to a £2.5 million investigation.
Asked how this reflects on the Leader of the Opposition, and plausibly, our next Prime Minister, Mr Proctor replied: ‘He should be nowhere near number 10.
‘He should never be Prime Minister. Starmer created this problem while being Director of Public Prosecutions, and he refuses to answer questions about his role in it.
Mr Proctor, 75, slammed newly confirmed peer, Tom Watson, for an apology that did not address all of the victims of the false allegations of senior public figures involved in a VIP paedophille-ring
Mr Proctor has called for Keir Starmer (right) to ‘apologise as leader of the Labour Party for ever considering Tom Watson (left) to be a member of the House of Lords and putting his name forward’
‘He inaugurated the believe the victim policy, which the Metropolitan Police took up, and believed Carl Beech before even investigating him because he was allegedly a victim.
‘And they went on television and said that Carl Beech was credible and true when he was in fact, incredible and not true.
‘So Starmer should also apologise for his role as Director of Public Prosecutions. Bet he won’t,’ said Mr Proctor.
The former Tory chancellor, Lord Norman Lamont called the announcement of Watson’s peerage in October ‘an absolute disgrace’ and a ‘stain’ on the Lords.
Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, pledged to abolish the House of Lords, but Mr Proctor said that he did not think that Watson’s peerage was out of sabotage of the upper chamber, but that Starmer genuinely believed Watson to be ‘a good guy’.
Mr Proctor has also slammed newly confirmed peer, Tom Watson, for an apology that did not address all of the senior public figures who became victims of the false allegations.
‘I think his apology as far as he went, was really to ingratiate himself in the House of Lords. Not a true and proper apology
‘He has never apologised to me. And I am the only surviving person involved in Operation Midland, as one of Carl Beech’s victims and one of the police’s victims.’
He added: ‘Is he waiting until I die to apologise to me?’
Mr Proctor added that the impact of Tom Watson’s false allegations of his involvement in a VIP paedophile-ring ‘will never go away’ until the day he dies.
On Wednesday, after being confirmed as a peer, Tom Watson addressed the House of Lords for the first time and apologised for his role in falsely accusing Lord Brittan of sex abuse crimes, saying: ‘I apologise unreservedly to Lady Brittan for the role that I played in the investigation of historic child sexual abuse.
‘Her experiences led to several recommendations about how the police conduct themselves.
‘I’m sorry and I owe it to her to work to achieve those aims in this House in the months and years ahead.’
Carl Beech (pictured) was jailed for 18 years after a court found he had fabricated the allegations
Lucy Neville-Rolfe, a Cabinet Office minister, praised Watson’s speech ‘and for the apology he rightly made to Lady Brittan’.
Mr Proctor, who lost both his home and his job following the allegations and investigation, that cost £2.5 million, was audibly emotional as he told the MailOnline of the horror he felt when he found out that the BBC News team had shown photos of three murdered children to Carl Beech.
Beech falsely identified one of these children as a boy murdered by Harvey Proctor.
‘They have never apologised for doing that. Indeed, they still employ this lead journalist who did that,’ he said.
The ex-MP, said that he was interviewed by the BBC the day after the raid of his home, at his request, but that his appearances since were cancelled by the news broadcaster eight times.
He said that he had been invited by the BBC to provide his insight on the latest story on Operation Midland ‘as a kind of unpaid researcher’ and then just before he was supposed to be interviewed on the Today Programme, they had cancelled his interview ‘not once, not twice, but eight times.’
The MailOnline has approached the BBC for comment.
The former Conservative MP, who represented Basildon from 1979 to 1983 and Billericay from 1983 to 1987, also spoke of the support he received from his late brother during his darkest hours.
‘I had a brother, he’s now dead. At least he got to know that I was innocent, not that he needed to be told, that he saw my innocence beyond doubt when he was alive.
‘He was a great support mentally and physically, and financially.
‘Of course you know who your friends are, you lose many friends. The real friends stick by you and I’m grateful to them, otherwise I wouldn’t be here,’ said Mr Proctor, seemingly holding back tears.
But the damaging impact that the false allegations that were brought by fantasist Carl Beecher AKA ‘Nick’, and promoted by the former Deputy Leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson, could have lasting consequences for Harvey Proctor.
‘It feels as though there was a period of about five or six years that I lost and when you’re my age, 75 – 76 next month – you can ill-afford to lose years of your life because you haven’t got that many left.
‘And to restore my position to what it was, before this started, probably I don’t have the years left.
‘The damage continues. Yes, I have my job back. Yes, I have my house back after six or seven years but none of that can be undone. It can’t be erased.
‘It can’t be taken away as though it never happened. And it’s just something you have to live with.
‘I’ve said it before, and I mean it, I know that I’ll feel the impact on the day I die. It will never go away.’
Carl Beech was jailed for 18 years after a court found he had fabricated the allegations. Lord Brittan died in 2015, before he could be publicly exonerated.
In February 2016, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Hogan-Howe, asked retired High Court Judge, Sir Richard Henriques, to carry out a review into the Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of a series of allegations made by Carl Beech, known as Operation Midland.
Mr Proctor lost both his home and his job following the allegations Pictured: (left to right) Harvey Proctor, Lincoln Seligman and Daniel Janner QC, ahead of the sentencing of Westminster VIP paedophile accuser Carl Beech
The report outlined serious failings in Operation Midland and Operation Vincente – the investigation into an allegation from a different person alleging rape by Lord Brittan.
Mr Proctor said that there had been a ‘cover up by the most senior officers of the Met about anything to do with operation Midland’.
‘As we speak, no senior officer has been held to account or even interviewed about what went wrong in operation Midland.
‘It has been a top level decision by the Met that their officers should not be accountable.
‘Just the reverse. They have all been enriched, promoted, ennobled’, said Mr Proctor, who was investigated as part of Operation Midland.
The former MP tweeted last week that Lady Susan Hussey, who recently came under fire for her allegedly racist enquiry into Ngozi Fulani’s ethnic origin, was ‘dignity personified’.
Asked what made Lady Susan’s apology ‘dignified’, Mr Proctor responded: ‘Honesty, fullness and admission of personal responsibility.
‘In regards to Operation Midland, I don’t think Tom Watson has shown any of that.’
