Ted talk

There was a grim inevitability that the name Edward Heath would one day be trawled up in connection with allegations of sexual abuse of children. As one of our few unmarried prime ministers, Heath always attracted speculation about his sexuality. The public image of a private man wedded to his career, content to spend his spare time playing music and sailing, has long given way to a presumption that he must have been a repressed homosexual. Because of our national obsession with paedophilia, this in turn has all too easily morphed into the suspicion that he had a sexual interest in underage boys.

Anyone who tells the police that they were sexually assaulted as a child should be taken seriously, whatever the social and professional status of the alleged abuser. There was a time when such people were likely to be given the brush-off, but that does not mean we should leap to believe every accusation without waiting for the results of a proper investigation. The police and several high-profile politicians have conducted themselves badly over the Heath scandal.

What sparked this week’s news frenzy is a very tenuous 20-year-old case. An alleged brothel-keeper was the subject of an investigation which was apparently dropped after the woman threatened to make allegations against Heath in the dock. There are many reasons why someone in her position might, as a last throw of the dice, resort to such a threat. But even if she did genuinely believe there to be substance behind her allegations, she was not claiming to be a victim herself. The woman’s ‘evidence’ seems merely to be hearsay. Yet on this alone, Wiltshire police this week staged a press conference outside Heath’s former home in Salisbury and appealed for ‘victims’ to come forward.