£2.5m: Cost of `no arrest` Operation Midland
The financial fallout from one of the most high-profile police inquiries of recent times has been disclosed.
Aug 11, 2016
By Nick Hudson
The financial fallout from one of the most high-profile police inquiries of recent times has been disclosed.
The investigation into allegations of a VIP paedophile ring cost the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) an estimated £2.5 million, it has been revealed.
The MPS has confirmed the approximate total spent on the controversial Operation Midland.
The 16-month inquiry was launched after the MPS received claims that boys were sexually abused by public figures more than 30 years ago.
However, it closed in March without a single arrest and left in its wake rancour and an equally `high-profile` apology involving the family of former Home Secretary Leon Brittan.
Figures released in November last year by the force showed the inquiry had totted up a bill of £1.7 million four months before it was shut down.
In a statement this week, a spokesperson said: “The Metropolitan Police Service issued costs for Operation Midland periodically through the duration of the inquiry.
“Now that the investigation has concluded the total cost of the inquiry was approximately £2.5 million based on staffing costs and overtime expenditure.”
The disclosure came after the BBC reported that it was told by the force that it could not provide a figure for the cost in response to a Freedom of Information request.
Launched in November 2014, Operation Midland faced scrutiny in January when the 92-year-old former head of the British Armed Forces, Lord Bramall, was cleared almost nine months after he was interviewed under caution.
His home had been searched by a reported 22 officers while he had breakfast with his terminally-ill wife. He was not arrested.
Former MP Harvey Proctor, a fierce critic of the force`s handling of the inquiry, saw his home searched and was twice interviewed under caution.
He was not arrested and was finally told in March that he would face no further action. Both men had denied the allegations.
The investigation brought condemnation and a greater degree of public scrutiny from the family of Lord Brittan.
Police interviewed Lord Brittan, who was suffering from terminal cancer, in May 2014, but no charges were brought.
The former Home Secretary in Margaret Thatcher`s second term as prime minister died in January 2015 unaware the investigation into a claim he had raped a 19-year-old female student in 1967, which he denied, had been dropped.
The MPS said it had delayed telling the peer when he was alive because the Crown Prosecution Service had been asked to carry out a final review of the case.
His widow, Lady Brittan, was told in February this year that he would have had no case to answer under the collapsed investigation.
At the same time, MPS Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe met Lady Brittan and afterwards the family said in a statement it had accepted “a full apology” over the handling of an inquiry into the late peer.
She is understood to have tabled 30 questions regarding the investigation to Sir Bernard.
Speaking after the meeting, Sir Bernard said in a statement that he and Lady Brittan had had “a private, but constructive conversation”.
“I confirmed the apology we made some months ago now, which is an apology for not telling her at an earlier stage about the fact the Lord Brittan, who by that stage had unfortunately died, was not to be prosecuted as there was no chance of a successful prosecution.
“I thought it was important to meet her and it was a