Harvey Proctor has unsheathed his ‘sword of truth’ and come out fighting; unwilling to cower in the closet any longer whilst rumours swirl around the Internet.
Taking the lectern in the Marlborough Suite, he issued a robust response to the allegations first espoused by Chris Fay when he claimed that Proctor’s name appeared on his now discredited ‘list’ of alleged paedophiles operating out of the Elm Guest House in Barnes. Proctor firmly denies ever having set foot in the place.
He has robustly stated: “I am a homosexual. I am not a murderer or a paedophile.”
In fact Proctor has been open about his perfectly legal sexual preference for some years; in the ‘After Dark’ programme in 1988, he took journalist Annette Witheridge to task for a story she published in the News of the World a few days before his trial for homosexual activity with a youth he believed to be over 21. During the trial it came to light that he had only met the youth twice; the first time Proctor claims that the young man told him he was over 21, a claim given much credence by the fact that the second occasion, when the young man returned, helpfully wired for sound and vision by a Sunday newspaper, the young man repeated his claim that he was over 21 – on tape!
Proctor had no choice other than to accept that he had committed a crime, that of gross indecency, when he became aware that the youth was in fact only 19 – so he pleaded guilty. He also resigned as an MP a few days beforehand. However, this background made his name inevitable to join the list of ‘VIPs’ to be traded in the darker corners of the Internet. The charges he pleaded guilty to in 1987 related to the then age of consent for homosexual activity, and are no longer offences as the age of consent has been lowered to 16.
Mr Proctor said that he had been accused of being part of a child sex-ring with the late Prime Minister Edward Heath, ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan, along with ex-heads of MI5 and MI6, revealing that he had been questioned over claims of the alleged murder of three boys supposedly linked to an “elite Westminster sex ring”. Mr Proctor and another man are accused of raping a boy, before the former MP strangled him until the boy’s body went limp, according to the statement issued by Mr Proctor. He was accused of punching and kicking another boy to death.
“They amount to just about the worst allegations anyone can make against another person including, as they do, multiple murder of children, their torture, grievous bodily harm, rape and sexual child abuse.”
“I denied all and each of the allegations in turn [to police] and in detail and categorised them as false and untrue and, in whole, an heinous calumny,”
The allegations are based on the testimony of an anonymous witness.
He said the police are now in a quandary – “support the victim, however ludicrous allegations, or risk charge of cover-up.” By ‘victim’ he is of course referring to Exaro’s famously anonymous ‘Nick’. In a document that Mr Proctor says was sent to him by police before his interviews, Nick accused Mr Proctor of stripping and tying a child to a table, before stabbing him over his body during a 40 minute attack.
‘I should either be arrested and charged – or Nick should be stripped of his anonymity and be prosecuted for wasting police time.”
He has called for @tom_watson to state “outside protection of Parliament, the names of ex MPs he says are part of alleged ring” and is extremely critical of the police, calling for the head of Operation Midland, DS Kenny McDonald, to resign.He said that Labour MPs, led by Tom Watson, had acted disgracefully over their pursuit of Establishment figures allegedly linked to a child sex ring, and challenged them to sue him for saying so.
Journalist are divided, it would appear, as to whether he said he wanted DS Kenny Macdonald to be tested for signs of psychiatric illness – or ‘Nick’.
[Ed. Or do we prefer?]
He finished his statement by saying:
“The paranoid police have pursued a homosexual witch hunt, egged on by a motley crew of certain media, internet fantasists and Labour MPs”.
So far, ‘Giving Victims a Voice’ has comprised a series of low-rent documentaries, and ‘kiss and tell’ articles in the dying main stream media, backed up by a furious social media campaign designed to convince everyone that there is no such thing as an innocent man against whom allegations have been made. The rolling news has been dominated by tearful faces explaining why they never thought to mention that they were brought up on a diet of grilled foetuses and chained in a basement throughout their childhood – whilst those accused of the most heinous of crimes are rarely given column inches to speak out in the months leading up to their trial, (or more usually an arch statement from the CPS, a disgraceful number of months later, merely saying ‘not in the public interest to prosecute’)
By calling this press conference, Proctor has taken a bold gamble. He is daring to stand up to the Internet bullies, and challenging the supine main stream media to take a close look at what is going on.
I shall look with interest to see who is reporting this in the media in the morning – and how; and whether Tom Watson, who aspires to be deputy leader of the Labour party, is prepared to take up the challenge of taking his whispering campaign outside the protection of parliament.