The Metropolitan Police Service misled a judge to obtain search warrants during investigations into child sexual abuse amid a catalogue of other errors, a report has found.
Five serving officers – including four detectives and a deputy assistant commissioner – have been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission over their conduct during eight recent investigations that took place as part of Operation Midland, Operation Yewtree, and Operation Vicente.
The report, released on Tuesday and written by retired judge Sir Richard Henriques, identified 43 separate failings and called for an inquiry into how the search warrants were obtained using incomplete information.
The Met's commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who is stepping down from his post in February next year, said he accepted responsibility for the force's mistakes.
Commissioner: I accept accountability for failures identified within Op Midland & Op Vicente on behalf of the Metropolitan Police
In a statement, Hogan-Howe apologised to the families of three people who were implicated in the investigations but cleared of any wrongdoing: former army chief Lord Bramall, former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor, and the former home secretary Lord Brittan, who died not knowing that criminal charges would not be brought against him.
"The public identification of suspects compounded the harm of our investigative failures," Hogan-Howe said.
"They have all suffered as a result of the investigation and our description of the allegations as ‘credible and true’. We should not have said this, and we should have tested the credibility of the complainant more rigorously before conducting the searches.
"I fully recognise that Mr Proctor, Lord Brittan, and Lord Bramall are innocent of the offences of which they were accused of by the Operation Midland complainant. That investigation found no credible evidence against any of the suspects."
Hogan-Howe said he didn't ask for sympathy from the suspects in these inquiries, but asked that the public understood the context of the investigations.
"These investigations – and those in Operation Yewtree, many of which led to convictions – started at a time when there was significant concern that numerous sexual attacks on children and others had been ignored, including by the Metropolitan Police in decades gone by," he said.
“Even worse were the allegations that abuse had been covered up by the establishment, including the government. It was in the context of the creation of an independent inquiry, together with parliamentary and media scrutiny, that officers made their judgment."
Henriques says "most significant error" in #Midland: applying to judge for search warrants & giving him "inaccurate statements"
The report said there were significant failings related to Operation Midland, which was in large part based on the testimony of an alleged child abuse victim, now in his forties and known only as “Nick”, who claimed to have visited parties at Dolphin Square, near Westminster, where the alleged abuse was said to have occurred.
Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald made the highly unusual step in 2014 of calling Nick’s claims “credible and true”, a phrase that would come to haunt the Met as Operation Midland collapsed. In an unprecedented 1,200-word statement the Met would later say this description of Nick’s evidence was wrong.
The Henriques report said the force was wrong to believe this witness for so long and to publicly state that he was credible.
The Met had previously referred 47 separate allegations to the IPCC, "concerning historic allegations of impropriety by police officers when dealing with sexual abuse in the period 1970-2005." A complainant will be investigated for allegedly perverting the course of justice, according to the report.
The IPCC said in a statement: "We were advised earlier today that the Metropolitan Police is to refer the conduct of five officers, ranging in rank from sergeant to deputy assistant commissioner, to the IPCC in relation to Operation Midland. We understand the conduct of a deputy assistant commissioner will also be referred to the IPCC regarding a different operation."
buzzfeed.com