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The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has withdrawn its direction that former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse face gross misconduct proceedings after a large volume of relevant material was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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The answer to the last question is because the IOPC is corrupt . They refused my evidence of police child torture corruption, angering the Victims Commissioner who told me it was within their remit. Look at the history of police no-accountabilities : Police Complaints Authority 2004 scrapped envelopes returned “Gone away” IPCC scrapped by Mrs. Theresa May when Home Secretary as police-paid-to-lie “Profoundly corrupt”. My evidence proves that IOPC absorbed sacked corrupt lying staff from the scrapped for corruption IPCC to continue lying. IOPC set up by suspected paedophile Lockwood, now replaced, has a long bad history in police cover ups of child abuse cases. The only solution is to establish an effective National Anti abuse Corruption Command, with honest officers to prosecute officers in constabularies found to have destroyed, hidden, text-tampered with medical / crime evidence to refuse to prosecute abusers. I am lucky in I have an inquiry just starting into my cases of council baby-trafficking for torture, but there are so MANY cases covered up….As I have ststed before I am Complying with the Directives of the International Criminal Court, Office of the Prosecutor to “First exhaust domestic remedies” but what do I experience ? SILENT PSDs and SILENT PCCs. Usual story, and I think the age old constabulary system, that belongs in the museum of time, should be scrapped and replaced with proper decent professional local police forces, with National accountability, THAT DO NOT WRITE THAT PSYCHOTIC ATTEMPTED KNIFE MURDERS BY THE PSYCHOTIC I WAS TRAFFICKED TO, BEING EXPERIMENTALLY STERILISED TO SEE IF THAT BALANCED PSYCHOSIS, OFFICERS WRITING IS QUOTE “LEGAL – NO CRIME TO RECORD”. These constabularies are full of criminals in uniform , that could not get commercial jobs, but vetting allowed them to join the constabularies. Honest officers are abandoning their constabularies disgusted with their employers corruption. One senior ex-officer told me “Lindsay, don’t look too deeply, you only rise in the ranks if you accept corruption.” HMIC 2017 found 41 out of 43 constabularies corrupting child abuse. What’s changed ? Nothing, if anything with no-response portals, it is getting worse. Time to scrap them and start afresh. (With Vetting). I have just started trying to contact Lady Brittan to suggest she also asks Rowley, why he is so sobbingly asking for more cash from Cooper, or he will have to drop some cases, when he “donates” 4 million pounds annually to his private NPCC club of failed ex-Chief Constables, who represent constabulary interests, not victims, when the NPCC “Panel” lied to me in January of this year writing they could not assist re-opening my cases because 2004 is not before 2013 !! The corruption and perjury has no limit, and IOPC is profoundly corrupt in these cases – Lawless paedophile Britain so do we really “want our laws back” in the cry of the far-right, when international Treaty law is crystal clear on State and non-State child torture Denial of the Truth Crimes ?