Lord Butler of Brockwell
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Sir Edward Heath: Operation Conifer
Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, with hindsight of course we can call them “patent rubbish” but, at the time, all these allegations had to be investigated; I do not think there is any doubt about that.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, while all friends and admirers of Sir Edward Heath must be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and others for the way they have pursued this, is it not the case that with the jailing of the man who first made these allegations and the conviction of the former chief constable for gross misconduct we can take comfort in the fact that the allegations against Sir Edward have been effectively resolved and disposed of?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, it would be unwise of me to get too much into the weeds of what the original investigation looked at and the various aspects of it, but I should stress that in the two weeks after Wiltshire police made a media appeal for anyone with information to come forward, 118 people contacted them. It is definitely more than just one man’s word.