On 11 March, Alistair Lexden continued his long campaign to get the Home Office to put an end to the injustice that has been done to the reputation of Ted Heath because of the way allegations of child sex abuse made against him were handled.
In an Oral question in the Lords, he asked the Government “to appoint a senior lawyer to review the seven allegations against Sir Edward Heath left unresolved at the end of Operation Conifer in 2017.”
He said: “I remind the House of the wide cross-party support that has been expressed on numerous occasions for action to address the grave harm done to the reputation of Sir Edward Heath by the failure of the police investigation in Wiltshire to clear up all the foul allegations made against him long after his death.”
He continued: “Is it not important to remember that four of the seven unresolved allegations to which my Question refers could not possibly be true, as I made clear in a debate in January? There is good reason to suppose that the other allegations are also groundless, which is why a review of these seven allegations is imperative.”
As always, everyone who spoke in the ensuing discussion agreed—with the single exception, again as always, of the Home Office Minister in the Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. But for the first time ever he agreed, albeit grudgingly, to do something. “No direct precedent”, he claimed, existed for the kind of review proposed in the Question. “However, I am happy to ask officials to look into this to see whether it is either possible or viable, and I will report back in due course.”
Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former Cabinet Secretary who was Heath’s Private Secretary earlier in his career, backed the idea strongly, saying “this suggestion seems to me to be an economical way of disposing of [the injustice to Heath]—a report by a distinguished lawyer. Could the Minister please encourage the Home Secretary to look very carefully at it and allow it to happen?”
Will the Home Secretary at last see sense? A further question will be asked in the Lords soon to find out.
