Bartholomew's Notes

From the Daily Mail:

Former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse should face a disciplinary board over allegations he lied in public at the conclusion of Operation Midland, the police watchdog has ruled.

Also:

…In another stunning victory for the Mail, two fantasists exposed in our damning two-part probe last year have been referred to West Midlands Police to be investigated over claims they may have perverted the course of justice.

…despite clear evidence that the pair – known as Witnesses A and B – deliberately misled detectives, the Met twice declined to launch a criminal investigation into them. This involved ignoring the recommendation of retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques, who wrote a scathing report on Midland and called for them to be probed.

The decision to charge Mr Rodhouse with gross misconduct comes six months after he was served with a formal notice alleging he used ‘inaccurate or dishonest’ words at the end of Midland.

The career-threatening accusations centre on a press statement issued by the Met in March 2016 in which Mr Rodhouse said ‘officers have not found evidence to prove that they were knowingly misled by a complainant’.

The article is by Stephen Wright and Richard Pendlebury, who interviewed “Witness A” last year. The “police watchdog” is the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which previously investigated Operation Midland under the name “Operation Kentia“. Operation Midland was infamously triggered by Carl Beech, a man whose extravagant tales of VIP child sex abuse and murder were declared to be “credible and true” before any of his claims had been examined and despite obvious similarities with “Satanic panic” ritual abuse tropes from the 1980s. Beech is now in prison, both for perverting the course of justice and for possessing indecent images of children. It is alleged that Rodhouse misled the public over evidence that “Witness A” and “Witness B”, who both latched onto Beech’s allegations, had deliberately lied to police.

Rodhouse is currently joint deputy head of the National Crime Agency, and the fact that he has not been suspended while the investigation takes place is the subject of a companion article by Wright that quotes Paul Settle:

Former detective chief inspector Paul Settle, who blew the whistle on Mr Rodhouse’s disastrous pursuit of innocent VIPs, accused law enforcement chiefs of ‘double standards’. ‘If he was a junior officer charged with gross misconduct, he would be removed from operational duties or suspended immediately,’ said Mr Settle.

The article also features a chart titled “The nexus of Nick”, referring to the name the false accuser Carl Beech was given by the media before he was exposed. According to the caption blurb, it “lays bare the extraordinary police, media and political links in the still unravelling story”. As this is a (barely legible) graphic rather than text, I describe it in more detail below.

The Daily Mail article also quotes the former MP Harvey Proctor, whose decision to hold a press conference while he was still a suspect in 2015 did much to expose the extent to which the Metropolitan Police had been taken in by fantastical claims totally lacking in evidence or plausibility. His full statement has been posted to Twitter; he writes that

…The IOPC’s investigation, Operation Thyamus, reveals the corporate cover-up which has been perpetrated by the Metropolitan Police Service these last 8 years concerning its errors in Operation Midland. It is long overdue but very welcome, nonetheless.

In particular, he refers to search warrants that were allegedly issued on the basis of “lies” told by police to the magistrate, and to the destruction of documents, “particularly after I asked Cressida Dick to preserve them for future scrutiny by future public inquiries”. He has also discussed the new development on GB News in conversation with Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Operation Midland has been the subject of other scathing and mocking commentary by GB News presenters (although these presenters incorrectly attribute “credible and true” to “the head of Scotland Yard” rather than to Detective Kenny McDonald, and misleadingly say that Beech had accused “the Prime Minister”, rather than former Prime Minister Edward Heath).

The fact that the Daily Mail and GB News are the primary sources here will likely embed the impression that Operation Midland is a concern mainly of “the right” – on the left, allegations against establishment figures and old Tory right-wingers enjoyed a presumption of credibilty due to confirmation bias that overrode natural scepticism about the police. However, Wright has also assembled a more generalised united front “panel of victims of police corruption, incompetence and malpractice” that includes Doreen Lawrence and Alastair Morgan.

Selectivity in holding the police accountable also works both ways – for instance, I don’t expect to see Jacob Rees-Mogg interviewing innocent people who were recently arrested ahead of the coronation of King Charles in order to create a bogus narrative about plots to disrupt the event.

The Daily Mail‘s “Nexus of Nick” graphic

The top left of the chart starts with Operation Midland, noting officers Alison Hepworth, Erik Sword, Diane Tudway and Kenny McDonald (“all later cleared of wrongdoing”), and Operation Vincente (a separate investigation into Leon Brittan), featuring James Townly (said to have called Beech “the real deal”), David Gray and Graham McNulty. These two groups then feed into Steve Rodhouse, who is linked in turn with NCA head Lynne Owens and former Met Chief Cressida Dick. She in turn links to her deputy Sir Stephen House (“attempted to keep her out of the firing line”) and two figures associated with the Met’s Professional Standards Department: Matthew Horne and Helen Ball (said to have “tried to minimise criticism of the Met”).

Moving across the top of the chart, we see former Met chief Bernard Hogan-Howe (“Met chief when Operation Midland was launched”) and Theresa May, who at the time was Home Secretary. There’s also a direct line on the chart from Beech to May, which is pure sensationalism and is unexplained. May then links to three figures in the IOPC : Michael Lockwood, Jonathan Green and Kimberley Williams (“appointed ‘lead investigator’ of IOPC probe into Operation Midland despite inexperience”). Two furher officers are linked to Hogan-Howe: Patricia Gullan (“received briefings on both Operation Midland and Vincente”) and James Vaughan (“chief constable of Dorset Police controversially backed the Met’s decision to interview Lord Brittan under caution in Operation Vincente”).

Separate strands on “Media” feature the Exaro trio of Mark Conrad, Mark Watts and David Hencke, as well as Tom Symonds and Tom Bateman of the BBC (“Beech met Mr Symonds and Mr Bateman prior to the BBC running his story has headline news. Mr Symonds showed him images of other potential ‘victims’). Under these are listed the alleged “Victims”, a designation that is given quote marks, featuring Witness A and Witness B, as well as the Brittan accuser “Jane”. Then come “Watson’s VIP Abuse Informants”, comprising Mike Broad (“trade unionist” who “spread conspiracy theories about Lord Brittan”), Chris Fay and Peter McKelvie.

Finally, at bottom right come Tom Watson, and then under “Labour” Sadiq Khan, Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper. Starmer is included for his 2011 directive as Director of Public Prosecutions that “all victims should be believed”, but the justifications for including Khan and Cooper are weak and strained. We’re told only that “London mayor Sadiq Khan has been accused of being ‘uninterested’ in the Nick scandal… while Yvette Cooper, when chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, was reportedly reluctant to reopen an inquiry by MPs into Operation Midland”.

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From the Mail on Sunday, 22 April:

Militant protesters are plotting to sabotage the Coronation by throwing rape alarms at horses in the procession, senior security sources have told The Mail on Sunday.

Concerns have been raised at the highest level of Government that the stunt could lead to serious injuries or even deaths if spooked horses bolt into the crowds lining the route.

Organisers fear that Just Stop Oil eco-activists will join forces with other groups to orchestrate a mass disruption of the May 6 event.

…Security sources did not specify which group or groups were behind the plan, but said police and other security officials ‘planned to take a robust response with protesters who attempt to disrupt proceedings’.

…Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle condemned the rape alarm plot, saying: ‘Mindless behaviour of this sort would be utterly and totally unacceptable on any day.

…former Cabinet Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘This is not legitimate protest – this is hooliganism with a veneer of protest.’

This was a few days after a Just Stop Oil activist had disrupted the World Snooker Championship (“well these are terrible, terrible scenes here at the Crucible” – BBC Sport), and a fortnight after Animal Rebellion (aka Animal Rising) had been foiled in an attempt to prevent the Grand National horse race (1). It was therefore reasonable to assume that the two groups, and others similar to it, might seek to disrupt the Coronation procession if they thought the attempt feasible.

However, this particular story failed to convince. First, if such a plot existed, would “security sources” really want the group involved to know that they were under surveillance or had been infilitrated two weeks in advance? They were not named, but they surely would have recognised themselves. Second, a plot that would involve distress and possible injury to animals seems at odds with environmental groups’ opposition to animal cruelty. Third, “security sources” is hopelessly vague. Intelligence agents? Someone with a background in security, but now providing rent-a-quotes to grateful journalists? This is a genre of speculation where no-one is reputationally accountable or has to demonstrate proper expertise: previous items citing vague and anonymous “security sources” I have noted over the years include this 2010 Mail on Sunday story about Islamic terrorists having bombs implanted inside their breasts and buttocks.

The 22 April article also mentions, very near the end:

…Separately from the briefing from security sources, the MoS has independently discovered that the hard-Right English Constitution Party has used Twitter to urge supporters to protest at the Coronation, and ‘bring rape alarms’.

The Tweet can be seen here. Although it may have been discovered by the newspaper “separately from the briefing”, it’s reasonable to suspect that this is also what inspired the “security sources”. Were the “group or groups” supposedly “behind the plan” left unspecified deliberately, so that a false impression could be made?

But even if the “security sources” didn’t see this Tweet, it shows that the idea of using rape alarms to disrupt an event is a generic possibility. Could it be that the “security sources” provided a list of hypotheticals, and that this one was singled out for a front-page splash simply because it is the prospect most likely to anger and alienate the general public? The quote from Rees-Mogg in particular struck me as a red flag: the paper has a tendency to run dubious stories based on government talking points, such as a false claim from him in December that the Met Office (the Meteorological Office, not to be confused with the Metropolitan Police) had failed to predict a cold snap due to its employees working from home.

Nevertheless, despite such doubts the paper now claims confirmation:

Two women and a man were arrested over a plot to throw rape alarms at horses during King Charles’s Coronation.

The militant activists were arrested in the Soho area at 2am this morning – just hours before the procession.

It comes just weeks after senior security sources told the Mail on Sunday protesters were plotting to sabotage the Coronation in this way.

The newspaper quotes Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan as saying that “The intelligence we received led us to be extremely worried about the potential risk to public safety”, but it’s not clear if this was anything more substantial than a heightened concern based on the earlier Mail on Sunday article. Further, the new article adds:

It was reported that the three arrested were members of the Westminster City Council’s night time volunteers.

Councillor Aicha Less, Cabinet Member for Communities and Public Protection, said yesterday: ‘We are deeply concerned by reports of our Night Stars volunteers being arrested overnight.

The volunteers wear branded orange visibility jackets, and they reportedly carry a supply of rape alarms that they give to women who may be vulnerable on their way home after a night out. At least one of the arrested volunteers is also involved with Extinction Rebellion, but it is difficult to see how being in Soho on a Friday night connects coherently with a plot involving the procession route the next day. The situation was brought to widespread attention by Mic Wright, a journalist who attended the police station where they were taken (Elephant and Castle in South London rather than Charing Cross, the nearest station to Soho). New information may put a different light on matters, but that’s simply a truism that applies to anything. The paper’s confidence that the arrests prove their earlier story is not substantiated, and there are strong reasons to doubt it.

The policing of the Coronation of King Charles has also come under scrutiny due to arrests of the leaders of the campaigning group Republic, who had organised a lawful protest at Trafalgar Square. As reported by the BBC:

UPDATE (9 May): An announcement from Westminster City Council:

We have met with the Metropolitan Police to discuss the arrest of our Night Stars, about which we have been deeply concerned. We are pleased to confirm that all three of our volunteers, who provide such a valuable service to the community, have been released without charge and will not face any further action.

Note

1. The Mail on Sunday took credit here, revealing that “an MoS reporter posing as a member of the Animal Rebellion” had exposed the plan. This was cited by the paper’s diarist Richard Eden as supporting evidence for the rape-alarm plot, although in the latter case the paper didn’t claim first-hand knowledge.

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