From the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), 5 June:
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has withdrawn its direction that former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse face gross misconduct proceedings after a large volume of relevant material was recently disclosed to the IOPC by the Metropolitan Police.
…The allegations centred around comments made to the media in March 2016, concerning his beliefs about the honesty of two witnesses to Operation Midland – a Met investigation into allegations of non-recent sexual abuse – and remarks he is alleged to have subsequently made to former High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques who had been commissioned to carry out an independent review of the handling of Operation Midland in August 2016.
…There is no evidence within the recently disclosed material that there was any inappropriate motivation in Mr Rodhouse’s comments to the media or which supports that he made those remarks during Sir Richard’s review.
There was, however, substantial evidence to indicate the comments made to the media were the result of collaboration between senior Met officers and staff and that there had been appropriate considerations, including a desire not to discourage victims of historic sex offences coming forward…
It was announced that Rodhouse would face an investigation in 2023. 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. Two other individuals, “Witness A” and “Witness B”, latched onto Beech’s allegations, but so far they have not been made accountable for false statements made to the police.
The implication of the IOPC statement is that the “recently disclosed material” is exculpatory for Rodhouse, but it remains unclear how exactly. The case against him was set out long before its discovery, and so the fact that it contains “no evidence” against him is neither here nor there. Neither would we expect it to have any evidential bearing as to what Rodhouse might have said privately to Sir Richard Henriques.
Further, although details of “collaboration between senior Met officers and staff” may reveal something of Rodhouse’s decision making, it is not clear why it therefore absolves him of responsibility. The statement seems to be saying that “collaboration” means that responsibility was so diffuse that no-one can be blamed. The public may take the opposite view, that the case against Rodhouse has been dropped to keep the lid on a wider scandal.
The IOPC decision has been criticised by Lady Brittan, who is Leon Brittan’s widow, and by Harvey Proctor, who has issued a statement that includes the following:
…The IOPC has upheld my complaints. They acknowledge Rodhouse misled the public about Operation Midland – but now claim he was not alone. Instead of naming those responsible and holding them to account, they have dropped the case entirely. Because the misconduct was collective, no individual will be held responsible. What sort of justice is that?
For Mr Rodhouse to claim he acted with “honesty, integrity and care” in Operation Midland is as grotesque as it is offensive.
Sir Richard Henriques found over 40 failings in the Met’s investigation -an investigation Mr Rodhouse led. Innocent men, including myself, had our reputations shredded, homes raided, and lives wrecked based on obvious falsehoods. Mr Rodhouse authorised those raids. He was warned about the unreliability of Carl Beech, now convicted as a paedophile and fraudster, yet he pressed on. That is not integrity – it is dereliction…
I will be writing to Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to demand a meeting and an explanation. I will also ask the IOPC to justify how it can claim to uphold complaints while simultaneously refusing to act on them…
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