Westminster child sex abuse probe: Pressure mounts on Met commissioner to apologise to Lord Bramall

Lord Bramall has been told he will face no further action in connection with historical allegations of child abuse

Lord Bramall has strongly denied the allegations (PA)

Pressure is mounting on the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, to apologise to Lord Bramall, Britain’s most-distinguished living soldier, after the force said he will face no further action in connection with historical allegations of child abuse.

Normandy veteran Lord Bramall, 92, who was head of the British Army during the Falkland’s war, was interviewed under caution as part of Operation Midland on 30 April last year after his house in Farnham, Surrey, was raided by 20 officers.

The Met confirmed on 15 January that there was insufficient evidence to request the Crown Prosecution Service consider charging the former Chief of the Defence Staff with any offences.

Lord Bramall, whose wife was suffering from Alzheimer’s and died last summer, has accused police of conducting a witch-hunt over the “awful, entirely untrue allegations”.

Supporters of the highly-decorated former soldier have now called on Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe to personally apologise for the distress Lord Bramall has suffered during the investigation, which lasted nearly a year.

It follows the Met’s disastrous handling of allegations against Lord Brittan, the former Home Secretary, who died last January without being told that a historic rape allegation against him had been dismissed.

Calls for an apology have been led author and journalist Sir Max Hastings, a close friend of Lord Bramall.

“It seems to me that Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has a clear responsibility to make an apology to Lord Bramall and to make the statement that the Metropolitan Police should have made in its letter to him that these charges have been exhaustively investigated and have been found to be baseless,” he told The Independent.

“That’s what they should have done. They should also make some sort of offer to Lord Bramall. He has faced a huge legal bill because of this.”

Lord Bramall’s ordeal has also led further criticism of Operation Midland, which is part of a wider umbrella of investigations by the Met into allegations of child abuse involving senior politicians and other high-profile figures.

The operation began after Labour’s now deputy leader Tom Watson told the Commons in 2012 there had been a “powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No.10”.

It centres on the testimony of a man known as “Nick”, who has claimed he was abused by an establishment paedophile ring, which he said included Lord Bramall, at Dolphin Square in Pimlico, and that he witnessed the murders of three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

He made separate allegations against Lord Bramall of rape and indecent assault between 1976 and 1984, that allegedly took place at a military base in the West Country.

Lord Bramall, who was not arrested and has strongly denied the allegations against him from beginning to end, told The Daily Telegraph he had been through an “awful” ordeal. He also accused the police of being “heavy handed” for pursuing the “grotesque and bizarre” allegations against him.

He said the police letter he received late on 15 January informing him the case was not being pursued amounted to only a “grudging” admission that the investigation had been ill-considered.

Lord Guthrie, another former Chief of Defence Staff who has been a close friend of Lord Bramall for 40 years, said the Met should now pay Lord Bramall’s legal bills.

“Lord Bramall has been terribly wronged by the country he spent a life protecting,” he said in the Mail on Sunday. “A profound and formal apology won’t make up for that, but it would be welcome.”

The Met has also come under fire for releasing its statement about Lord Bramall late on 15 January.

A spokesman for the Met, when asked about the calls for an apology, said the force would not be releasing any further statements.

The Met said in its statement on 15 January: “Following a thorough investigation, officers have concluded there is insufficient evidence to request the Crown Prosecution Service to consider charging the man with any offences.”

VIP paedophiles: 'Nick’s' now-discredited story

A man in his 40s known only as “Nick” told police he was abused by a VIP paedophile ring over nine years in the 1970s and 1980s and witnessed the murders of three boys.

Apart from Lord Brammall, he named a former prime minister, Sir Edward Heath, a former home secretary Lord Brittan and two former heads of MI5 and MI6.

The since-discredited claims might once have been dismissed, but in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile revelations detectives took them seriously. And so Operation Midland was launched.

“Nick” told officers that he had been first abused by his father and was then given to the paedophile ring.

He said he was taken to a property in London’s Dolphin Square for what he described a “abuse parties” on at least 10 occasions. He said he was “sexually punished” for refusing to beat another boy.

He also claimed to have witnessed a Tory MP strangle a child to death. Another boy was said to have been murdered while a Conservative cabinet minister watched. And he further alleged that a third boy was killed as a “warning” to the others not to go to the authorities.

Lord Bramall was accused of raping and indecently assaulting Nick at a military base in south-west England.

Nick later had counselling and he then spoke to journalists from the investigative news website Exaro. They described him as “intelligent and articulate”. At that point he went to police.

The collapse of the case against Lord Bramall prompted the peer to call for Nick to be investigated.