Sir Edward Heath named in child sex abuse investigation

Sir Edward Heath. Photo / AP

Police have named former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath as a suspected paedophile in the most dramatic twist yet in the ongoing investigation into allegations of historic child abuse.

Wiltshire police, who are appealing for potential victims of the late former leader to come forward, revealed that he had been named in relation to offences concerning children.

The force declined to give any further details about the nature of the allegations against Heath, who died in 2005, aged 89.

A man has claimed he was raped at age 12 by Heath. The alleged victim, now in his 60s, claimed he reported being sexually assaulted by the Conservative MP in 1961, but was branded "a liar and a fantasist".

The boy, who claimed to have been abused throughout his childhood by his father and his paedophile friends, said Heath picked him up along the A2 road in north Kent as he hitched a lift.

He claimed to have gone back to an apartment in Park Lane, London, where he was raped, the Daily Mirror reported. It was not until 1965 that he realised who his abuser was, recognising him from a press photo in which Heath was with former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In statements to his legal team reported in the newspaper, he said: "I learned that he was MP for Bexley. This answered a lot of questions as to why no one believed me about the London saga. I got called a liar and a fantasist."

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the claims.

Yesterday it was announced that the Independent Police Complaints Commission was investigating claims that police had quietly dropped a criminal trial in the 1990s after the defendant threatened to expose Heath as a paedophile.

Last year a retired police officer, who was with the force at the time, claimed that senior officers had ordered a prosecution be stopped because it would have led to the former Prime Minister's name being dragged through the mud. It is understood the defendant was not claiming to have been abused by Heath himself. The trial is thought to have been at an early stage and was dropped before a jury had been sworn in.

It is understood that while Wiltshire police are not aware of any other allegations against Heath his name had been passed to the Metropolitan Police for Operation Midland, an investigation into claims of a historic VIP paedophile ring operating around Westminster.

Heath was famously reticent about his private life and while rumours often circulated around Westminster, this is the first time the unmarried former Tory leader's name has publicly surfaced in connection with child abuse.