Sir Edward Heath accuser is a 'satanic sex fantasist': Police warned by OWN expert that ritual abuse claims are false - including how the former PM 'went to candlelit forest for paedophile parties' 

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A leading expert called in by police to assess claims of child abuse against Edward Heath dismissed them as fantasy in an official report

A leading expert called in by police to assess lurid claims of child abuse against Sir Edward Heath dismissed them as fantasy in an official report, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Criminologist Dr Rachel Hoskins urged detectives not to be taken in by the wild allegations against the late former Prime Minister and demanded MPs be alerted to her damning findings. But Wiltshire Police are still pressing ahead with the investigation that has lasted more than a year, cost taxpayers £700,000, and tarnished Heath’s reputation a decade after he died.

We can also reveal today that:

• One of Heath’s accusers – a woman – has made astonishing claims that he was linked to a network of paedophiles who held satanic orgies and stabbed children in churches;
• One of the witnesses involved in the case is the man known as Nick, whose tales of a murderous VIP paedophile ring in Westminster were initially believed by Scotland Yard – but have now been demolished in an official review that accused police of making grave mistakes;
• There are historic links between Nick and the woman who has accused Heath;
• Expert Dr Hoskins told police that the claims are likely to be based on false memories unearthed in therapy and likened to now-discredited claims of satanic abuse that made headlines in the 1980s.

Last night Dr Hoskins said: ‘The Heath inquiry rests, like the Westminster VIP inquiry, on over-active imagination.’

Wiltshire Police insisted evidence examined by Dr Hoskins was just a small part of their inquiry, known as Operation Conifer, but she says it is a central plank of the investigation.

Heath is one of many public figures whose reputation has been tarnished by historical sex abuse allegations made against them after they died.

A staggering 3,057 alleged abusers, including 98 politicians, have been reported to a national unit known as Operation Hydrant – including 360 dead people – but some of the most high-profile and historic claims have proved baseless.

The case against Heath began in August 2015 when, in an extraordinary move, police made a statement outside his former home in Salisbury, appealing for victims to come forward. One of the witnesses in the case is the man known as Nick, who told the Metropolitan Police he had been repeatedly abused by an Establishment ring that also murdered children in front of him.

Scotland Yard spent £2.5 million on Operation Midland, tarnishing the reputations of war hero Lord Bramall, former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor. But they were forced to apologise to the innocent men and their families earlier this month after a devastating review by former judge Sir Richard Henriques found Midland had been riddled with mistakes and taken in by Nick’s false allegations.

In September, Wiltshire Police asked world-renowned ritual crime expert Dr Hoskins – who had helped identify a sacrifice victim whose torso had been found in the Thames – to assess the accounts in the Heath case, including those of Nick and three women.

Scotland Yard spent £2.5 million on Operation Midland, tarnishing the reputations of war hero Lord Bramall (left), former Home Secretary Leon Brittan (right), and ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor

Nick had given some evidence regarding Heath’s yacht, claimed he had seen him in Dolphin Square – the Westminster apartment complex popular with politicians – and that the former Prime Minister had saved him from being castrated by Mr Proctor. Wiltshire Police have not re-interviewed Nick about his claims, which Mr Proctor described as ‘so far-fetched as to be unbelievable’, not least because he and Heath ‘despised’ each other.

Dr Hoskins was also given the records of police interviews with three women who have claimed their parents were members of the occult, and who this year said Heath was friends with them and present when they were abused.

One of the women told police this year she could picture Heath with his top off and laughing as she was abused, and another time Heath himself attacked her. On another occasion she said Heath was present in a candlelit forest where symbols had been drawn on the floor ahead of sex abuse. A third woman told police that Heath was there when she was abused.

After reviewing the evidence, Dr Hoskins told Wiltshire Police in a 150-page report that there were numerous problems with it. She pointed out there were no records of missing or murdered children that matched the accounts, and it was implausible that cultists would bring children along to witness their killings.

She said that although the witnesses had made lurid claims, which crossed the boundary into fantasy, they lacked detail and there was no corroborating evidence – just memories.

Yet weeks after receiving the report, detectives are continuing with Operation Conifer.

Last night Wiltshire Police said: ‘This investigation is complex and multi-stranded. There are a number of allegations with a significant number of individuals who have disclosed allegations of abuse. In addition to this there are a number of investigations that have fallen out of the main investigation that we are pursuing.

‘When we receive an allegation we are duty-bound to investigate and we go impartially where the evidence takes us.’

Two people have been arrested during Operation Conifer but police have refused to give any details. They remain on bail.

Last night Heath’s godson Lincoln Seligman said: ‘The police have been working on Conifer for over a year but they have shown no signs of any progress. My firm belief is they have found nothing discreditable about Edward Heath, and I am convinced there is nothing.’

Official report that damns key accuser: DR RACHEL HOSKINS asks how could police believe such horror after I told them his accuser was a fantasist 

Police fears about a paedophile ring involving Ted Heath were first put to Dr Rachel Hoskins in September 

She had nipped into Tidworth Post Office for just a second. ‘He’ll be safe in his pushchair,’ she thought. ‘After all, it’s a hot day and it would be a shame to wake him.’ But the boy’s mother hadn’t counted on the satanists watching them. 

As soon as her back was turned, a small girl slid out from the bushes, released the pushchair brake and began wheeling the boy away. The ten-year-old hoped that today her father would like the offering she had found.

He was a hard man to please. Often she had to perform for him. Things which hurt. Perhaps today’s ‘gift’ would spare her the pain.

She wheeled the pushchair through the churchyard gate and on to the east porch where her father’s arm shot out and dragged the toddler inside the village church.

Today the girl is an adult who cannot be named, but we will call her Lucy X. She next remembers the naked boy splayed on the church altar and her father sexually abusing him. The boy’s legs are kicking while her father tightens the ligature around his neck. Squeezing the life from his body.

A sacrificial offering to Satan. On the altar of Tidworth village church in Wiltshire.

It is an incredible story, preposterous even. Yet today this fantastical account of satanic ritual abuse is being taken seriously – by police. So seriously, in fact, it forms a crucial part of a witness statement for one of the most highly publicised sexual abuse inquiries in the country.

The statement is made by one of the chief accusers of the late Edward Heath, a distinguished former Prime Minister believed by some to have been intimately involved with ritual satanic abuse.

Dr Hoskins has been analysing witness statements submitted to Operation Conifer since September. She has established that allegations against at least some of the people caught up in Operations Conifer and Midland are based on no more that two uncorroborated witnesses

Since September, I have been analysing this and other witness statements submitted to Operation Conifer, which is investigating such claims. I have also been examining the even more prominent investigation, known as Operation Midland into a Westminster paedophile sex ring.

As a result of this work I know that the lurid account of child sacrifice above is by no means the only outrageous claim of satanic ritual abuse to be levelled against prominent people. Worse, I have established that the allegations against at least some of the people caught up in Operations Conifer and Midland are based on no more that two uncorroborated witnesses, whose claims of satanic abuse were made under the influence of controversial psychotherapists specialising in ‘recovered memories’.

At least one of these witnesses was under the influence of hypnosis. I am profoundly disturbed. In 15 years of working as an independent police expert, I have never seen anything like it.

‘This is why today I am taking the personal risk of disclosing my findings to the public.

Police fears about a paedophile ring involving Ted Heath were first put to me in September. I was genuinely surprised when officers from Operation Conifer, run by the Wiltshire force, got in touch and asked me to examine their evidence.

A fantastical account of satanic ritual abuse on the altar of Tidworth village church in Wiltshire is being taken seriously  by police (file photo) 

Although I often work with the police as an expert – I am registered with the National Crime Agency – my specialist subject is religious ritual. You might know of my work identifying Adam, the African boy whose torso was found in the river Thames in 2001.

There we had hard evidence. Here I was to work on the basis of stories like the one at Tidworth – claims that ritual killings had taken place in southern England.

My remit, I learned, was also to cover Operation Midland, an investigation which rested on a sole and now discredited witness called ‘Nick’ against figures such as Leon Brittan, Lord Bramall, Harvey Proctor, Greville Janner and Heath.

‘The evidence overlaps,’ I was reliably informed. Nick had named some of those accused in the Wiltshire-based Conifer inquiry, and the woman behind the Heath accusations (and her associates) had named some of Nick’s Westminster VIPs.

A few days later, a detective staggered to my doorstep with large bundles. My remit was to analyse all the evidence. Then the officer pushed across a piece of paper for me to sign – a confidentiality clause, seeking to gag me from ever speaking about the cases.

I raised an eyebrow. Had not the police invited media helicopters to hover over Cliff Richard’s house? Had not Operation Conifer’s senior investigating officer, Detective Superintendent Sean Memory, stood outside Heath’s former home in Salisbury, launching the inquiry to the world’s media?

Michelle Remembers caused a sensation with its bogus ‘memories’ of satanic sacrifice and unleashed a storm of abuse allegations. It was exposed as nonsense in 1990

My analysis took two months and led to a 40,000-word report, but I soon had profound anxieties.

For I could see from the statements in front of me that key among those accusing Heath and others was the woman we are calling Lucy X, the woman who had made the incredible claims of satanic abuse described above; a woman whose evidence had been discounted as nonsense when she first presented it to the police in 1989, but had now re-emerged to damage the lives of the living and besmirch the reputations of the dead.

Before 1980, no one had heard of satanic ritual abuse. The term didn’t exist. That was the year the book Michelle Remembers hit the bookstands. The co-authors were a Canadian psychotherapist from Alberta, Lawrence Pazder and his client Michelle Smith, whose real name was Michelle Proby. The book followed 600 hours of tape-recorded psychotherapy, most of it conducted under hypnosis. Michelle alleged that, behind the suburban facade of North America, there was a satanic ritual abuse network of blood, gore and ritual sacrifice. The book flew off the shelves.

A media frenzy followed and the public lapped it up. Michelle appeared on chat shows, including Oprah Winfrey in May 1989 under the banner ‘Satanic Worship!’

Entirely innocent teachers, carers and professionals were arrested without any evidence except sole-source stories that no one seemed to question.

A special investigation in 1990 by this newspaper tore into Michelle Remembers. Mail on Sunday journalists travelled to Canada to expose the authors and their claims.

But by then it was too late. The satanic ritual abuse scare was in full swing. Arrests followed in Britain and on one sorry night on February 27, 1991, nine sleeping children on Orkney were dragged from their beds and removed from their distraught parents.

The fact that Michelle Remembers was completely bogus was lost in the satanic stampede. Until now.

Key among those accusing Heath and others was the woman who cannot be named, but we are calling Lucy X (file photo) 

In 1988, right at the height of this satanic scare, another woman went to see her Canadian psychotherapist, a woman who practised in Pazder’s home town in Alberta, Canada. They went to the same university. And most important of all, she learned the technique of recovering memories through hypnosis from her mentor, Pazder.

I have established the identity of this psychotherapist, who we will call Fiona. That day in 1988 in Alberta, Fiona put her patient under hypnosis and the patient began to ‘remember’ her childhood.

She wasn’t to know it at the time, but she was to start the Heath sex abuse inquiry. The client’s name was Lucy X. Much has been made recently of the failings over Operation Midland and the role of Nick.

The police have now been forced to admit they were wrong to trust his evidence, let alone publicly laud him as ‘credible’. Until today, however, the story of how Nick and Lucy X produced their evidence in the first place has remained hidden.

For Nick, too, I can reveal, has been helped to ‘remember’ – by separate psychotherapists using similar techniques.

I have seen in the personal notes written by both Lucy X and Nick how time and again they say their psychotherapists enabled them to recall their past.

I believe that without their psychotherapists there would have been no evidence.

The stories that Lucy X began ‘remembering’ took her back to her childhood in Britain and in Africa. At first the detail in her diaries is scant. But Lucy’s descriptions grow ever more detailed under hypnosis: satanic ritual abuse in empty houses, in churches and on Salisbury Plain.

Eventually she ‘remembered’ that members of the paedophile ring had gorged themselves on blood and body parts. They maimed and murdered children in orgiastic sacrifices at the stake or on altars.

Lucy soon spoke with three other women she knew well. They met and swapped fantastical tales.

Earlier this year they would ‘remember’ that Heath was a prime mover in a network of sadistic paedophile abusers.

'Lucy X' and 'Nick' say their psychotherapists enabled them to recall their past. Their fathers are said to have known each other (file photo) 

He had apparently taken part in rituals surrounded by candles on the forest floor.

But this was not a case built around four separate witnesses. It all went back to one patient under the hypnotic influence of a Canadian psychotherapist.

Back in 1989, when Lucy X first presented her memory of the Tidworth sacrifice to the police, they refused to go further with the inquiry. They decided that the stories stretched the imagination beyond credibility.

And there things might have remained, were it not for Jimmy Savile. In 2012, victims of Savile came forward with strong, corroborated evidence against him and a widespread panic set in.

Soon an anonymous blog from an alleged victim was spotted by investigative organisation Exaro. It also caught the attention of Labour MPs Tom Watson and Simon Danczuk. They met the alleged victim, who later became known as Nick, and on October 24, 2012, Watson rose in the House of Commons to make his now infamous allegation of a historic VIP paedophile ring.

Stung by criticism of their handling over Savile, police interviewed Nick and the result was Operation Midland. A new inquiry, Operation Conifer, was started with 21 officers assigned.

To date, the two inquiries have together cost the British taxpayer in excess of £2 million.

So what are the actual connections between Nick and Lucy X? Certainly there are geographical coincidences. Lucy X’s father is said to have worked alongside Nick’s dad in the same community, although it is not known if Nick and Lucy X have ever met. There appear to be links, too, in the way their evidence was produced.

Like Lucy X, Nick also told tales of ritual abuse. His early stories related to the same location where Lucy X’s family lived, before moving on to describe a VIP paedophile ring based out of Dolphin Square, London.

Nick recounted stories of ritual murder, including one involving Harvey Proctor. And he, too, named Heath.

Helping Nick to ‘remember’ this abuse were two key people. One was his psychotherapist, who took the trouble to accompany Nick to a scene of his apparent abuse.

Like Lucy X, Nick was encouraged to keep personal notes to help him remember. The other was a journalist from Exaro, who first produced the VIP names, including

Heath, after talking to Nick and showing him photographs. Police then interviewed Nick, leading to Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald announcing on the steps of Scotland Yard that his evidence was ‘credible and true’. It’s a pity he didn’t call me first.

A fortnight ago I submitted my report to officers on Operation Conifer.

I had shown for the first time the connection between the case and the Canadian therapists who were behind Michelle Remembers.

I showed how Lucy X and Nick appeared to have cross-contaminated their stories and demonstrated that the evidence was incoherent.

Sean Memory wrote back: ‘The report contains comment upon the credibility of the accounts provided by ‘Nick’ and Lucy X… While comment upon their credibility is well-structured, rationalised and evidence-based, its presence within the report causes me some concern.’ For the first time as an independent expert witness, police appeared to be suggesting I resubmit my evidence.

After I declined to do so, police last week did formally accept the report.

However, I have little confidence that they will pass my work to other people who badly need to know – the Home Affairs Select Committee, for example. I have no faith that they will pass my findings to the accused unless they are legally forced to do so.

I clearly hadn’t told police what they wanted to hear.

I have exposed a catalogue of fabrication at the heart of two major inquiries. Worse still, Operation Conifer ploughs ahead. People remain accused of things that simply never happened.

Wiltshire Police insist that not all their evidence is based on claims of ritual abuse. We will see. But those cases that are based on this pernicious fallacy must be closed immediately.

Did it really take an expert on rituals to tell them that the likelihood of a child being ritually sacrificed in broad daylight in Wiltshire was worthy of closer scrutiny?

In the process of these historic VIP child abuse inquiries, police have not only ruined the lives of many innocent people, including Ted Heath’s family, they have set back the cause of genuine child abuse victims, of whom there are all too many.

It is a disgrace. 

Richard Hoskins is the author of the best-selling The Boy in the River – a shocking true story of murder and sacrifice in the heart of London. Published by Pan Macmillan