All language subtitles for The.Unbelievable.Story.of.Carl.Beech.2020.720p.HDTV.800MB.x264-GalaxyRG

This programme contains
some strong language from the start

and scenes which
some viewers may find upsetting.

"| had just turned seven.

"| didn't know what it was to mean,
but for eight years, I endured it

"as a child and a teen."

"My father started
to hit and touch me.

"But this was just the start."

"He groomed me and prepared me
for the group.

"| had to participate
in some awful things

"and deal with the nightmares
that today it brings."

"Electrocution and drowning
were some of their tools,

"when I was bad
and broke their rules."

"It didn't stop there.

"They used snakes and wasps
or left me out in the dark

"to die in the frost."

Well, he obviously didn't die,
did he?

Because he's alive, and still
in fucking prison, for fuck's sake.

In 2014, Carl Beech, a seemingly
unremarkable man from Gloucester,

perhaps better known
by his pseudonym, Nick,

claimed he'd been the victim
of a VIP paedophile ring

in the 1970s and '80s.

I wish it never happened.

Life would've been very different
if it had never happened.

These appalling allegations
and all the aftermath

of that and the press and the...

You know, maybe the staring
in the street. Who knows?

But all of that.

I mean, you have to have
an enormous sense of inner reserves

just to get you through it.

It was humiliating.

It was an affront to everything
he stood for.

You know, duty,
service to his nation.

Um...

You know, it was sort of
incomprehensible, really.

So who was Carl Beech,

and why did he choose to go public
with this extraordinary story?

I think to understand
what happened with Carl Beech,

we have to step back a few years.

Late in 2011, jimmy Savile died

and a number of people undoubtedly
knew what Savile was up to.

The rumour had been spreading,

but it was suppressed.

We knew that jimmy Savile
had been a prolific child abuser.

That changed the nature of the way

that the UK was dealing with
child sexual abuse as an issue.

The pendulum went from the disbelief
of jimmy Savile

through to the opposite spectrum

that actually, now, all these cases
were coming out the woodwork,

if you like,
and needed to be believed.

And into this mix came Carl Beech.

They knew where I was.

They knew where I went to school.

Don't know, they knew everything.

I don't know how.

In 2012, Beech told Wiltshire Police
he'd been sexually abused

by his stepfather, by jimmy Savile

and by some other men
he called "the group".

So how would you end up being
at these places with the group?

|—| was taken there,
sometimes from school.

During the day,
I'd be taken out of school.

When you say taken out of school —

were you in a playground
and dragged out,

or are we talking
something different?

How were you taken out?

Just taken out of school.

After a brief investigation,

Wiltshire Police
dismissed Beech's allegations.

But not before Beech had submitted
a compensation claim

for the abuse he had suffered.

Two years later, he began writing
about his abuse online.

I first came across the person

that I later identified
as Carl Beech

through a blog on a website.

And, on that website,

there was a guest blogger
who had blogged under the name Carl.

I met him in central London,
in Self ridges.

He came across as very nervous,
very vulnerable.

He's a bright guy.

He's very clever.

And he's very articulate.

Beech named 12 men who he said
had abused and raped him.

The list included Beech's
stepfather, an Army major...

...as well as more high-ranking
members of the military...

...including
Field Marshal Lord Bramall.

BEECH: I was just shown
into an office

when the senior officer
was there — General Bramall.

My father saluted and introduced me.

You didn't challenge them.

You know, that fear was ingrained
from day one.

Also on the list were politicians

and other members
of the establishment.

Some of them had already been
accused of sexual of fences.

Others had unproven rumours
about their sexual proclivities

circulating on the internet.

One of these was Lord Brit-tan.

BEECH: He was sadistic.

He took...

...pleasure...in hurting.

Or seeing us in pain.

Another was Sir Edward Heath.

BEECH: He told me he used
to run the country.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Right.

Whether he actually said that he was
Prime Minister, I don't know.

But he used to run the country. Mm.

Again, that didn't really mean much.

Yeah.

It doesn't, to an 11—year—old.

Yeah, I can understand that.

Beech even alluded
to a possible murder.

Without question, they were the most
serious allegations I'd ever heard,

certainly in terms of the magnitude
of the allegations.

They were mind-blowing.

GRENADES EXPLODING, GUNFIRE

BEECH: That first occasion,
I was seven.

It was mainly military bases
for probably a good few years.

And the only one I'd know
for sure now is lmber,

which is on Salisbury Plain.

It's just like a village,
but a ghost village.

Nothing there.

I had, um, poppies...

...pinned to my chest.

Whilst they did whatever
they wanted to do.

I remember thinking...

..."Blimey,
this could make or break you."

But I'd said to him,
"Obviously, I'm a journalist.

"In order for us to cover this,

"if we're going to
go anywhere with this,

"we need to find other witnesses.

"We need to corroborate
the information."

I took him to various locations
in the early clays,

just to see whether or not
he recognised them.

I remember taking him to an area
that Ted Heath had lived in.

So I walked him down this road,

just to see if he
picked out the property.

And, to my surprise,
he stopped outside

the former home of Ted Heath.

He didn't identify the actual house,

but he stood
on that part of the road

and he looked around and he said,

"This is very familiar to me.
I'm familiar with this arrangement."

Although Beech couldn't provide
any hard evidence, for Conrad,

this was an irresistible story with
the potential to make his career.

He arranged an interview with Beech

on the investigative
news website Exam.

VOICE DISGUISED: The common one
was for us, or me,

to give them oral sex.

But it would always culminate
in being raped.

It was a scoop.

And, you know,
I know that we got contacted

by a lot of the UK's media
after that,

who wanted access to Beech,

who wanted footage
from the website.

We were getting phone calls
left, right and centre

from not just the tabloids,
but the broadsheets, too.

Did you ever go to his house?

I went to his house
on a couple of occasions.

He lived in
an unspectacular suburban home

on the outskirts of Gloucester
with his son.

And, you know, obviously,
he'd explained to me

that he was separated
or divorced from his wife

and that, you know,
he lived alone with his son.

Beech and his wife had first met

when they were both training
as nurses in the NHS.

But in 2010, after 18 years
of marriage, they split up.

He was friendly.

He was nice.

And, in a way, he could almost
show me a life that...

...was a little bit more privileged.

Were you happy in the marriage?

Hmm. That's an interesting question.

Um...

I was happy...

...but then I was also unhappy.

Oh, God... It's all right, Dawn.

What were the things in the marriage
that weren't good for you?

One of the issues was
the intimate side of the marriage.

It was... It just wasn't
very good at all.

Had it ever been good?

Not really, no.

Did he ever tell you that he'd been
sexually abused as a child?

Yes.

He said to me, "I've got a letter
that I've written to my mum,

"and I want you to read it."

This was the letter
that he wrote to his mum to say

that he had been sexually abused
by his stepfather, Ray Beech.

And when I read it,
I just remember looking at Carl

and just saying, "Oh, my God."

And I think I hugged him,
because what else can you do?

In the first instance, he said the
reason why he went and sought help

through a counsellor was really
through relationship counselling

and that what emerged
from the discussions then

was the background
of child sexual abuse

and how that had impacted upon him
subconsciously down the years.

"| met a few counsellors

"before I settled on one
that I felt comfortable with,

and this was so important.

"| would not have said
I trusted them at that stage,

"but I felt comfortable with them
and they helped me to share

"what happened to me,
little by little.

"As I told her more and more
over time,

"she said it was like looking
at me through a forest.

"Gradually, as she gets closer,
she can see more of me.

"She was cutting through my past
to get to me."

As part of his therapy,

Beech's counsellor asked him
to chart and describe the injuries

he'd sustained
in the course of his abuse.

"Green — broken bones.

"Yellow — I was hit everywhere,

"face, side and back of head.

"Red — burn.

"The red on the soles of my feet
was from a lighter.

"Blue — needles and pins
were stabbed into me,

"mainly on the soles of my feet,

"in between my fingers
and on my chest.

"Purple — snake bites.

"Black — wasps' stings."

BEECH: I never thought
I would be in a position to...

...report any of them.

And then that all changed
when the Metropolitan Police

contacted me via Exaro.

To my surprise, at that stage,
Beech said,

"Yes. I'll talk to the police."

And that was the U-turn,
that was the change of heart.

Encouraged to go to the Met
by Labour MP Tom Watson,

Beech now claimed to have witnessed
three murders.

An investigation called
Operation Midland was launched.

The BBC conducted interviews
with Beech, lending the story weight

by running it
as the lead item on the news.

Police are investigating
the possible murders of three boys

in connection with an alleged
historic paedophile ring

involving powerful people.

The group is alleged
to have included senior figures

in public life, the military,
politics and law enforcement

in the 1970s and '80s.

Police are now appealing
for witnesses to come forward.

ACTOR'S VOICE AS BEECH: I've never
experienced pain like it.

I hope I never do again.

They had no fear at all
of being caught.

It didn't even cross their mind.

The first murder
Beech had described to police

was a hit-and-run incident
he said he'd witnessed in Kingston.

BEECH: I heard, um, the car,

the engine.

And as I turned round
to see what the noise was,

it hit him.

And he was, um...
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

...thrown up into the air,

and everything just stopped.

Everything just stopped.

There was a lot of blood.

I had blood on my hands.

And I was dragged away,

but he died because I didn't do
as I was told.

Beech also said he'd witnessed
a second boy being fatally stabbed,

and a third boy being strangled
to death by the group.

"The murder of three young boys.

"To me, they were not just
three boys.

"They meant everything.

"They were my friends.

"We shared a common bond,
horrific as it was.

"We shared each other's fear
and pain.

"And we knew what each other
was thinking

"when no words were allowed.

"The trauma of watching them die,
of holding them in my arms,

"of having their blood on my hands

"and the total helplessness
of not being able to stop it.

"| feel guilty every day
that I survived and they didn't.

"The grief is overwhelming.

"| have had no closure.

"| didn't get to say goodbye."

Carl Beech was becoming
Twitter famous.

He had acolytes who followed him.

He became not just a middle manager
for an NHS Trust,

but he was suddenly...

...courted by people on Twitter

who wanted to know more
about his story.

I joined Twitter,

and, um, I saw what I felt
was quite an amazing

kind of concept.

Beech had given himself
the Twitter handle RAVSCA —

Raising Awareness for Victims
and Survivors of Child Abuse —

and was proposing an art exhibition

inspired by the poppy installation
he'd seen at the Tower of London.

It was, and remained, a very good
idea that he came up with.

It would get victims of child sexual
abuse to send in images or pictures

that were of emotional importance
to them,

that would help them to tell us
a broader story about child abuse.

And it was... I think it was called
the Wall of Silence,

and it is all about breaking down
the barriers of silence

around child abuse in the UK.

Did you meet him in person, Mike?

I did. I thought he was fragile.

He was anxious and, you know,

kind of unsettled, if you like.

And if I were asked if I felt
that he'd experienced abuse trauma,

I would have said, "Yes."

Nick has been interviewed
over a long period of time

by experienced detectives
from the Child Abuse Command,

and he has also met an investigator
from the Murder Command.

They and I believe what Nick
to be saying is credible and true.

I was at the press conference.

There were gasps within the room
when it was said.

I couldn't believe that
the word "true" had been used.

Here he was,

a white, middle class male —
well-spoken, articulate,

and a health professional
in the NHS.

He was a person of some substance.

What reason would he have to say
these things?

There's no doubt that, in the early
stages of this investigation,

the police officers proceeded
on the basis

that everything they had been told,
remarkable as it was,

and in my view, highly improbable
from the very outset...

They simply accepted
the truth of everything

that Nick had said to them.

BEECH: It's been a secret
for far too long.

It's not just me.
There are others.

I'm trying to encourage somebody
else to come forward,

but I can't pressurise them.
It has to be their own decision.

I need others to come forward
and speak to us.

You will be believed,
you will be supported,

as we look to build this case.

At that time, Nick had talked
about another victim called Fred,

and he had told Operation Midland

that he was in contact with Fred.

Um, and that Fred was ambivalent
about coming forward.

And obviously the Midland officers,

you know, very much
wanted to talk to him.

The police request for me
to make contact with Fred,

because Nick had provided his e-mail
address, came in February 2015.

"Dear Fred, from what Nick
has outlined to the police,

"it is clear that your childhood
involved some horrific ordeals.

"Many people who have experienced
sexual and other types of abuse

"just want to move on with
their lives and put it behind them.

"This might particularly apply
to this abuse perpetrated

"against Nick, you and others,
given the people involved

"and the allegations
of previous cover—up."

BEECH: I don't trust people per se.

It takes a long time
for me to establish trust.

But I do have confidence
in the police.

They seem to be very... dedicated
in what they're doing,

and passionate about
getting results.

SIRENS WAIL

8:30 in the morning,
knock at the door,

two police officers outside,

and they said
they had to search the house.

I was sat in this room,

in that chair,
traumatised with shock.

You know, like a fly stuck to
a fly paper, I couldn't move.

On the 4th of March 2015,

the Met coordinated raids
on the homes of three of the men

Beech had named,
searching for evidence of murder.

As the police raided
the Westminster home

of former Home Secretary
Lord Brit-tan,

who had only very recently died,

in Yorkshire, officers also arrived
to search the Brit-tans' second home.

The doorbell went,
and it was about half past eight,

and the police were outside
with this warrant,

and they came into the house

and they said they were going to
go right through the house,

and they did, from top to bottom.

Penny! Penny! Penny! Penny!

The stuff that was taken was shown
to me, and all I remember saying is,

"| can't think
why you're taking those videos,"

because, you know,
these were videos of, I don't know,

Inspector Morse
and things like that.

The boss was fanatical
about saving things.

Saved bank stubs, photographs,
Christmas cards.

They bagged everything, dated it,

and they started to bring it
all downstairs.

All these bags,
full of... rubbish, really.

The thing that hurt the lady
more than anything,

they took his slippers.

There's something about slippers
which are different from shoes.

You know, it's... It's, you know,
slippers and fires and pipes

and all the rest of it.

Were they nice slippers?

They were a pretty awful
pair of slippers, to be honest.

No monogram.

At the same time, on the same day,
the Met also searched the home

of the former Tory MP
Harvey Proctor...

...and the home of Lord Bramall,

former head of the British Armed
Forces, who lived in Hampshire.

There was a knock on the door

and two police officers stood
at the door and he said, "Come in."

He thought it was possibly
a security issue.

I said, "Oh, nice to see you.
What can I do for you?"

And they said, "There's
an allegation been made about you."

Behind those two men came
a sort of truckload of...

...20 other people, I think.

And they went through
the whole house.

They had a special officer,
who dealt with paedophile cases,

asking my daughter questions
and so on.

And my wife was seriously ill,

but she was downstairs on a walker,

and I had to move her
from room to room,

and she just kept on saying,
"What are they all doing here?"

And I, of course,
couldn't really explain,

cos she had Alzheimer's.

I think they took...

...a speech he made to cadets
at Sandhurst,

but there was nothing,

nothing here at all.

The trouble was that,
once it was in the media,

the media made the most of it.

They thought there must be
some presumption of guilt.

So of course, every time my name
or my picture appeared in the paper,

it was connected
with wider sex scandal,

or you had a picture
and underneath it said,

"High level cover-up —
question mark."

They always, by innuendo,
tried to spread the idea

that there must have been something
in these allegations against me.

You know, you're always worried
about what you might call

a "no smoke without fire brigade",
you know.

Were those tactics heavy-handed?

Well, we've not confirmed
what searches

have taken place or have not,

so I'm not going to comment
on individual actions that we take.

The point to make, from
my perspective, is that we will go

where the evidence takes us
without fear or favour.

I think that's what the public
expect and it's certainly

what our investigators are doing
and are keen to continue to do.

BEECH: They seem to be very careful

that they're
doing everything correctly,

and it takes time
to gather the evidence,

and, yeah, if the evidence is there,
they need to make the arrests.

And, I mean,
I would like to see justice.

As the investigation continued,

Beech received his pay—out
from his compensation claim

and spent the money on a sports car.

Carl likes his cars, and he always
liked American cars.

So, when he said to me that he was
getting the Mustang, I mean,

I didn't have a clue
what even it looked like.

But I wasn't surprised
because I just thought,

"Actually, I can see him in it."

When he bought the Mustang, did
you know how he was paying for it?

No. No.

In August 2015,
Harvey Proctor made a bold move

in an attempt to clear his name.

Furious about the public insinuation
of guilt,

he held a press conference

where he described in detail all
of Beech's incredible allegations

and asserted his innocence.

I denied all and each of
the allegations in turn

and in detail...

...and categorised them as false
and untrue

and, in whole, a heinous calumny.

They amount to just about
the worst allegations

anyone can make
against another person,

including as they do...

...multiple murder of children,

their torture, grievous bodily harm,

rape and sexual child abuse.

I am completely innocent
of all these allegations.

I am a homosexual.

I'm not a murderer,

I'm not a paedophile or paederast.

A month later,
doubts about the story

began to emerge in the press...

...and the BBC Panorama programme
ran an expose

that shed significant doubt
on Nick's claims.

There may be a danger the police
are now spending

an undue amount
of time investigating cases

that have all the hallmarks
of being fantasy.

ACTOR'S VOICE AS BEECH: I've never
experienced pain like it.

I hope I never do again.

They had no fear at all
of being caught.

As soon as I saw
the silhouetted head,

I knew immediately it was Carl.

Had Carl ever mentioned to you
that he'd been sexually abused

by a group of prominent people?

No.

Did you think any of it
could be true, Dawn?

No.

I thought
"What? What? What? Really?

"Really? Really? Come on."

You just think, "What the actual
fuck is that about?"

I remember dropping our son off
one day and Carl came to the door

and he was tearful, and I sort of
said to him, "Oh, God, are you OK?"

And he sort of said,
"Well, I am Nick."

I had to be
a little bit of an actress

and say, "Oh, my God. Really?"

What were you thinking, Dawn?

"No shit, Sherlock."

I was called in
nearing the end of the inquiry,

at the end of 2015,
round about the November time.

What were your findings
in this case?

That I thought that
there was a big question mark

over the reliability of his memory.

I had serious doubts about
the reliability of his memory.

And what was the police response
to your serious doubts?

Well, they thought it was...
It was food for thought.

They didn't check his computers.

They didn't seek his full
medical records at the time.

They didn't even ask
to see his injuries.

They didn't ask
for his mobile phone.

These were all matters that would
have brought this investigation

to a crashing halt within hours.

Astonishingly, the Met still hadn't
even spoken to Beech's ex-wife.

But, in January 2016,

15 months into a £2 million
police investigation,

they finally began
to challenge Beech,

questioning him about
the uncannily accurate drawings

he claimed to have made from memory.

There is an incredible amount
of similar detail

contained within certain
drawings and sketches

from a recollection of approximately
30 to 40 years ago,

in comparison to images

which are freely out there
on the internet to be looked at.

Do you understand? Mm-hm.

Did you draw these places
solely from your memory?

Yeah.

Do you understand why
that question has arisen?

Can you see why it's arisen?

BEECH GRUNTS

Sorry? Yeah.

Beech started to get some criticism.

People started saying,
"Is this guy a fantasist?"

And, at that point,
he found that discomforting,

so then he would call me

and he would reveal his,
um, new—found reticence.

He then started to ask me

about withdrawing
as a police witness.

And that's when obviously
I got very suspicious.

You know, why would you want to
do that at this stage?

In March 2016,

the Metropolitan Police finally
closed down Operation Midland,

having identified no murder victims
and made no arrests.

By now, Exam were facing criticism,

having peddled Beech's allegations
for nearly two years

without ever finding convincing
evidence they were true.

Did you still believe Carl Beech
at that point?

No, I would say that
there was a very big change

in the way that we perceived it
inside Exaro generally

at that point, because so much
had been hung on the police's use

of the term "true" that, when
the police investigation closed

without any action being taken, that
made it impossible for us to think

that the police still believed
the allegations.

So there was clearly a very big
change of approach at that point.

Some people have probably assumed...
Mm—hm.

...that Beech took you for a fool...
Mm—hm.

...and that you believed what he
said, hook, line and sinker. Mm-hm.

Did you? No.

No.

We're not talking about a guy
who was easy to disprove here.

If that had been the case, we'd have
got to that much, much sooner.

The police would have got
to that much sooner.

Is that poor policing?
Is it stupidity? What is it?

It was extremely poor policing.

Unjustifiable,
and frankly incompetent.

There was a post-Savile
over-reaction

and a determination to bring
prominent people to justice

for sexual misconduct.

About that, there can be
no doubt whatsoever.

They wanted this to be true.

This was like
the Holy Grail of abuse, wasn't it?

And I think they were seduced
by this

and they lost all sort of sight
of sort of rational thought.

Following a report
by Sir Richard Henriques

into the Met's
disastrous investigation,

Northumbria Police were tasked
with investigating Beech himself.

December 2016, I had four missed
calls on my mobile and two messages.

And it was from a social worker...

...asking me to ring the school
as there was a safeguarding issue

with my son.

And that's when
the social worker told me

that Carl was a potential risk
to children

and couldn't be with anyone
under the age of 18,

which totally blew me away
because I thought...

..."Hang on a minute.

"He's been living with our son.

"He's a children's nurse.

"Why are you saying this now?!"

The police raided his house
in Gloucester

and seized electronic devices.

They went through them, analysed
them and found that some of them

contained indecent images
of children.

Indeed, he'd been filming,
covertly, schoolboys

and analysis of these images
later found

that there's 28
of the worst category —

the very most serious
categories of abuse.

Another 100 at Category B
and nearly 200 Category C images.

So, quite a collection.

I mean, they kept saying
to me, our son is fine.

He hasn't, um...

You know, nothing has happened.

But how do you deal with that?

How-how do you deal with that?
What...?

There is no words that you can
actually describe how you feel

when you hear that about somebody...

...who you were married to
for 18 years,

that you shared a bed with, and
they've got that on their computer.

Everything about it.

I mean, even thinking about it now
makes me just... Ugh.

I don't like to think about it.
I don't want to think about it.

I was genuinely gobsmacked

by the revelation
that he was himself, er...

...had paedophilic interest

and an unhealthy interest
in young children.

Nothing within my interaction
with Beech

had indicated
that that was the case.

And, when that bombshell dropped,
I was genuinely shocked.

In july 2018, Beech was due in court
to face charges

of possessing indecent images,
but failed to appear.

This is the house Carl bought,

and the house he renovated.

Whose antlers are they?

It is a... Um...

An elk's. An elk?

Elk's.

With the horn. Antlers. Mm?

In an unexpected turn of events,
Beech had fled to Swedish Lapland,

where he'd bought a house
near the Arctic Circle

and was living off his NHS pension.

Did he say why he had come here?

It's cheap to buy houses

and it's a beautiful place to stay.

Hm. It's quite cold.

Yes, but he said he liked...

"| like the cold."

I remember that. Mm.

"No problem," he said.
"| like the cold."

Did he speak Swedish?

Yes, some.
He speaks some Swedish.

My intuition said he was a good man,

honest man, who wanted to
do his best and...

...he was grateful.

A friendly man.

A man you can trust.

Did he talk about his life
in England?

No, never.

Did he mention that he had a child?

No, never.

So there was never any indication

that he had come here
to escape justice?

No.

In October 2018,

Beech was extradited from Sweden
and brought back to the UK

to face trial for
perverting the course of justice,

fraud and the paedophile of fences.

NEWSREADER: Accused of
being a liar —

the man who claimed several high
profile figures were paedophiles

goes on trial.

The prosecution dissected
all the many lies Beech had told.

It turned out there was no sign
of any injuries on his body.

He'd also lied about being
taken out of school by the group.

He claimed to being able to walk
out of school any number of times,

and yet there was no equivalent
record of absenteeism.

He claimed to have
an aversion to poppies,

in that they'd been pinned to his
naked body during abuse parties

by military people
at Remembrance Day.

But when we were student nurses
back in the end of the '80s,

we used to wear them
on our uniforms,

buy a poppy and tuck them in behind
your name badge to hold them on.

Never having an issue.

He used a Proton e-mail account —

that's a Swiss-based
e-mail account which is anonymous.

He set up that account
for someone he called Fred,

who was known as Fred to the police.

And it was Northumbria Police whose
investigations eventually proved

that that e-mail account in Fred's
name was, lo and behold, Carl Beech.

Carl Beech claimed that Ted Heath
had taken him on board his yacht,

taken him into a cabin,
on a double bed

and been sexually abused.

Police spoke to yachtsmen
who'd worked with Sir Ted Heath

and found that racing yachts
don't have cabins,

don't have double beds —
they have hammocks.

That's demonstrably untrue,
what he claimed.

Beech's lies were laid bare most
clearly by the computer evidence.

It can take you two minutes
to find those images of lmber

on the internet. We know now
Carl Beech was doing that

and not only that, he'd also been
back to lmber on one of the visits

that you can have every year.

So it wasn't that he was recalling
memory from the distant past

with brilliant accuracy.

It was just that he was good
at using Google

and got on a trip to lmber.

It turned out Beech
had been researching his hoax

from the very beginning,

even before he made
his compensation claim

and reported his abuse
to Wiltshire Police.

The police were able to prove
that Carl Beech had looked

at an Evening Standard article,

detailing how victims
of jimmy Savile could...

...claim compensation.

One of the things you needed
was a crime reference number,

so to do that, he obviously
had to contact the police,

and that's what he did.

He contacted Wiltshire Police
to make his allegations.

A fantasist
who made false allegations

of murder and child sex abuse

against several high—profile figures
has been jailed for 18 years.

The judge said Carl Beech was
a manipulative and devious person

who'd fabricated
a VIP paedophile ring,

accusing people with
the highest integrity of vile acts.

Ultimately, Beech turned out
to be a complete malicious hoaxer,

and incredibly dangerous.

They should have given him longer,
actually...

...for the grief he's caused.

I can't fathom why anyone
would do that in particular

to a group of random people.

I mean, it is beyond
my comprehension, to be honest.

I think...

...possibly the incentive
would be financial.

I don't buy that he was motivated
entirely by the money

because £22,000 might seem like
a lot of money to some people,

and it is fair chunk of cash,

but he's a middle class guy,
he had a decent job,

it's probably about half
his salary annually.

In those terms, when you weigh it up
against what he did

and what he's been prosecuted for,

the financial motivation
doesn't really make much sense.

£22,000 to ruin your life as well as
the lives of so many other people,

to serve 18 years in prison,
an 18-year sentence,

doesn't seem to be something
that would tempt you into doing it.

Possibly the attention
he was enjoying.

I mean, if you're suddenly
surrounded by press

that are interested in your story,

police that are also interested
in your story...

I suppose
it's that five minutes of fame.

I think the backlash now
against Carl Beech

is to dismiss anything
and everything that he said

and to assume that actually
he was a liar, a pathological liar,

right from the word go.

I was asked to look into this

and the fairly lurid accusations
that he was making.

I think it's possible
that something did happen

in the distant past
in his childhood.

I still think that what he said
about Ray is true.

I don't understand,
if that isn't true,

why he would
make something like that up.

I have to believe that.

He told me such a long time ago,

why would I not believe what
happened with Ray really did happen?

As tempting as it may be
to speculate

that Beech's story
must contain a kernel of truth,

it seems that
even Beech's allegation

that his stepfather, Raymond Beech,
abused him was also, in fact, a lie.

Before he went to
Wiltshire Police,

he made sure
that his stepfather was dead —

in fact, he got a private
investigator to check up on that —

so he was free to make
whatever allegations he wanted

about his stepfather

without his stepfather
being interviewed by the police.

I feel sure that
these allegations against him

would never, ever, ever
have happened.

Never.

It's alien to his nature.

He was too honest, too above board.

No, it would never have happened.

Explain to me why you're
not showing your face, Heather.

I don't particularly
want myself and my children

associated with this any more.

It's been such a horrendous time
for all of us.

And even though it's been proven

that all of what he said
is completely fabricated,

it's the sort of
"mud sticks" thing —

you worry that there are still
people out there who are saying,

"Where did this come from?
"Something must have happened,"

whereas we are adamant
that absolutely nothing ever did.

And it's so hard when you see
that the public figures

have been given official apologies

and they're now getting
that sort of level of sympathy

and yet we're still very much

the family of somebody
who was accused.

It almost feels as though
that name hasn't yet been cleared.

Do you believe that Carl Beech
was abused by his stepfather?

I most certainly do not.

The only evidence that he was abused
by his stepfather comes from Nick.

There is simply no evidence,

it's as simple as that.

It all comes down to evidence, and
it has to come down to evidence —

that is what this country's
criminal system is based on.

Does the evidence seem credible
beyond reasonable doubt?

And in the Carl Beech case,
it clearly didn't,

and that is not just a tragedy,

it is a scandal
and has affected and ruined

a significant number
of people's lives.

I think if I had not had a very good
set of friends and supporters,

you do begin to wonder
whether you wouldn't... you know,

have a nervous breakdown
or be really quite ill

as a result of the stress.

What saddens me is a man who's
had such a distinguished career,

the last four years of his life were
really all about Operation Midland.

You know, a time that should have
been for sort of quiet reflection

on a life well lived...

...became a nightmare, really.

Um, I can't really forgive the man
for that.

I think Carl has got to realise
what he's put me through,

what he's put his mother through,

and what he's put our son through.

It's his mum and his son, you know,

that are really the people that have
been seriously damaged by this.

Has his betrayal
been traumatic for you?

Mm, yeah, without a doubt.

I had someone who I felt
really represented —

or wanted to represent — people
who have had no chance in life,

and what he'd done, he's driven
a wagon through that, you know,

and smashed the lot up, really.

Total destruction.

Total.

He has set back the cause
by a considerable amount.

Not only are people now probably
more wary to come forward,

there's now a suspicion that
anybody who brings an accusation

of childhood sexual abuse
is making it up like Beech did,

and that's a whole area of damage

that will last
for many years to come.

"The men enjoyed what they did
with always a grin.

"They hurt me in ways
you just can't imagine."

"The counselling has been intense
and gone really fast,

"dealing with the nightmare
and reliving the past."

"Some powerful men were
at the heart of the group,

"they are now being tackled
so, at last, there's hope."

"| know some of them will get away,

"but despite it all,
I survived here to stay."

Was this in his blogs? Yes.

Even one verse —
would you even do me one verse?

Oh, God.

I couldn't read that.

MUSIC: Would I Lie To You?
by Charles 81 Eddie

# No, no, no, baby

# Mm-mm-mm
H00

# My, my, my, my, my girl
Look into my eyes

# Would I lie to you?
Would I lie to you, baby?

# Would I lie to you?

# Look into my eyes,
can't you see they're open wide?

# Would I lie to you, baby,
would I lie to you?

# Oh, yeah... #