Frankly, I think this statement is weak from the Met.
Because of their actions a 92 year old former D-Day veteran has been named in the media as a paedophile and child murderer and their statement simply states that there is “insufficient evidence”. This neither clears nor condemns Field Marshall Lord Bramall. It is rather like the Scottish verdict of ‘Not Proven’ and it leaves an indelible stain on his reputation.
Officers working on Operation Midland have today, Friday, 15 January informed a man in his 90’s [A] from Farnham who was interviewed under caution on 30 April, 2015 that he will face no further action.
Following a thorough investigation officers have concluded there is insufficient evidence to request the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider charging the man with any offences.
This decision was taken by the Met in accordance with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) ‘Guidance on Charging’. The Met have been in discussion with the CPS during the enquiry and they are aware of the decision in this case.
Operation Midland will continue to investigate allegations of historic child sexual abuse and homicide which involves a number of potential locations over a period of several years. It is right that such grave allegations are thoroughly investigated.
Whilst officers continue to expedite enquiries, there remain lines of further enquiry which are complex.
There have been no further interviews of people under caution, or arrests.
The DPP ‘Guidance on Charging’ sets out the responsibility of the police to assess cases before referral to the CPS to ensure the ‘Full Code Test’ can be met on the available evidence. Equally, the guidance also details the responsibility of the police for taking “no further action” in any case that cannot meet the appropriate evidential standard.
theneedleblog 
What nonsense. He is not still under suspicion, get that straight. There was NO file sent to the CPS for their consideration because there was NOTHING to put in it.
As for Goddard – she won’t be looking at it either ( and I don’t care how long your reply is!)
I did not comment on any aspect of the individual case against him but just as the Inquiry has invited core participant status for the forthcoming Janner Hearing and presumably representatives on behalf of his family will be seeking this to represent his interests so to will the inquiry examine any information provided by the police in response to any statement made to them by individual especially alleged victim who has provided information.
I urge if you have not already done to study the written statements published on official site about the process of the Inquiry as well as its scope and objectives…. the truth strand, is thoroughness and comprehensiveness, that the presumption that victims are truthful is implicit but also that due process will apply throughout..
Anything, particularly from someone said to be a victim will be looked at/is being looked at by the Inquiry.. I did not suggest that there would be a formal investigation in the form of those already announced or has now been announced in relation to Lord Janner, or that there will be any public reference in some of the generic hearings or published reports.
All that has been said so far in relation to the particular individual by any authority us that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the criminal prosecution process.
If there has been any additional statement from officialdom. please provide the reference
That is true, not only the UK Secret Service, but now the French Secret Service are now involved in the Westminster Paedophile Investigation.
Mon Dieu!
Two people connected to the French secret service, and he Westminster Paedophile Group, are involved with Sir John Scarlett.
I anticipate seeing that expression in many languages during the course of the next five years or so.
and with the USA providing the electronic surveillance at appropriate arms length?
How to cover up and protect the guilty when allegations of child sex abuse by prominent people have been made …
Step 1: Plant ‘false flag’ sex abuse ‘victims’ amongst the public. These ‘victims’ make false claims against innocent individuals.
Step 2: Get the police to publicise that they are investigating these individuals and, after a period of up to 2 years, drop their investigations because there is no evidence against them.
Step 3: Argue that investigations into the guilty are a waste of time and public money on the grounds that the investigations into the innocent failed to find any evidence of abuse.
My guess is that there is someone close to Lord Bramall, perhaps another prominent military figure, who is guilty.
Yes that is how MI5 work. Perhaps the right Military Base, though?
Understanding the big picture
Damned if you do damned if you don’t.
As I believe the Justice Goddard Inquiry will establish in time there have not only been a number if cases where the police were told not to press prosecutions when VIP allegations were made because of orders from on high but decisions s were taken within the police on the initiatives of individual officers with the question how high is high and were the initiatives taken for good , not so good or bad reasons.
It is important to remember that when various groups and interests were pressing the Coalition Government for an inquiry, the government repeatedly said no and reminded everyone who had complaints to make these direct to the police or against the police to the IPCC.. The police having been accused of cover up under orders and on their own initiative had no alternative but the tackle each new complaint according to the book of rules. They were faced with an impossible task given the passage of time one word against another without corroboration so they took measure to see if there was corroboration
It is also import to remember that we have travelled this road before in 2002 when the campaign to discredit victims was at its height and well organised which much money behind the various groups wdo lobbied the media and parliament. I urge those concerned to read all 70 plus submissions to the Chris Mullin chaired Home Affairs Committee of 2002 on which sat David Cameron and Tom Watson and look at the members of the all party interest group that in some ways led the campaign for police investigations to stop alongside the pressure to stop compensation. Victims should be encouraged that one of the lawyers exerting pressure on for the right to compensation for institutions such as local authorities all the way to the European Courts now heads the legal side of the Goddard Inquiry.. Chris Mullin was then a Sunderland MP a young Sunderland lawyer, now a district judge was behind the campaign for justice for 60 former Sunderland care children 1997 2003 on top of the 60 identified 1991-1993.
The reason why there was a successful class action re Sunderland 2002- 2003 was because then then Labour Administration said no to the Mullin Committee recommendations . It also important to remember that the Labour government 1997 2001 under the leadership of Secretary of State Frank Dobson who said the government should have been prosecuted for neglect of duty should it have been possible and who wrote There can be no more excuses in 1998 and drew attention that more money was being devoted some 450 Million over three years, more money as present House of Commons Speaker john Bercow established in a debate, significantly more new money in real terms than allocated by the Coalition government in their raft of measure to sop and never again until they cam to appreciate that everything done to date had failed and in some ways had made things worse so they back to drawing board. This is the context where the police are between a rock and hard place.
OK so individual VIPS are having a hard time and there some miscarriages of justice but these individual cases have to be put into perspective often because they have the resources and or the connections to kick up a storm. so what just how many villains have been let off in the past for a range of reasons and how many innocent people have been fitted up by individuals and the system for crimes they did not commit although some may have committed other crimes and some may have been villains. Just how many IRA terrorists had their sentences cut or were given keep out of jail and we are all expendable as loyal and obedience subjects of the state through out heredity monarchy if push comes to shove in the interests of the state and the maintenance of the Queen’s peace.
It is also true that petty criminals and many victims who were in care were petty criminals and some engaged in abuse within establishments under the influence and direction of those entrusted to carte for them on behalf of the state, as well as being considered depraved beyond redemption and therefore expendable in terms of their use by the state. a complex situation in which the basic of human behaviour often inherited well as learned in the wrong environment . The truth is we all failed especially those directly involved in what should have been a food caring process and system and society failed through out appointed representatives and we plan to spend more on bombing and threatening to destroy with only a few arguing because we much rather than from revenge or keeping jobs or making profits for arms providers that we plan to do to prevent…
It also has to be said that military all braches are the most skilled and effective cover uppers second perhaps only to the Catholic church as the film Spotlight will reveals. The security y services have been pretty good because they are after all the secret services and in the context of the total police numbers I reckon they probably rank with local government in terms of extend of cover and its effectiveness and of course the national politicians also rank highly because they have official down to cover for them and official don are perhaps the greatest experts because they are trained and experienced in the task of advising how to make black appear white or at least a confusing grey. So take your own pick who were greatest cover uppers along with the BBC and other media interrests, Who covered up phone hacking most the Sun or the Daily Mirror? dont forget the Church of England and all those child care voluntary organisation who sent 100000 children to be work and sex slaves overseas. and at the end of who is going to feel better than they do now and which children if any are actually going to be safer or better offer……apart from the lawyers and those directly involved with the inquiry who will make a lot more than they may otherwise have done, ,but don’t blame the Home Sec for that, as she wanted a much simpler, quicker and less expensive outcome given that we knew the what, the why and the how but not the full extent
Lord Bramall is an Army Man, not an ‘ordinary member of the public’.
He will have come up against a lot more difficult situations than this in his life. As an Army Man he understands ‘duty’, and would expect, and demand, that the police carried out ‘their duty’, no matter what. I think the press are misrepresenting Lord Bramall.
Once an Army man, always an Army Man.
Do you understand how difficult it is investigating crimes that are thirty years old? The public way in which it was done is unfortunate, but the only way to get other victims to come forward is through publicity. I am sure that most people, including Lord Bramall, would agree that these investigations had to be carried out, especially as children were involved.
The UK police have protected many masonic paedophiles in the past – for example Jimmy Savile.
Now they have to be ‘seen to be doing something’. But everybody knows, if someone is well connected enough, even now, no action would be taken against them, regardless of what they’ve done and to whom.
It’s very sad that someone like Lord Bramall has had to suffer this indignity at his time of life.
But he is part of an establishment that is nothing more than a tenth rate totally corrupt cess pit after all.
^ Or to put it less politely, in mess room language, the evidence didn’t amount to dick, and the police seem to have made bloody fools of themselves.
The fact that he’s a D-Day veteran and decorated army general, war hero, etc, is, or at least, should be, irrelevant. Justice is (or should be) blind. This comment, however…
“It is rather like the Scottish verdict of ‘Not Proven’ and it leaves an indelible stain on his reputation.”
…I think is very astute and on-the-ball. There’s a sense in the wording of the Met’s statement, and in some of the media commentary reporting on it, of the police backtracking but not being brave enough to admit it.
Reblogged this on Floating-voter.
Pardon?
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As I have explained The Justice Goddard will consider the evidence on the present 300 plus inquiries VIPS past and present being investigated by the police and will come to judgements in relation to those who are dead.
You’re wrong. It is not for Goddard to do that. It is a criminal investigation and Bramall is still alive.
Goddard will not report for about 5 years and Bramall will likely have died before then and won’t see himself cleared.
These allegations were bullshit from the start and the police should have been clearer on this.
Justice Goddard will issue individual reports as individual investigations and hearings are completed. My understanding that on Janner will commence in March with a report on findings completed before the end of 2016. You clearly have not appreciated the nature of the statutory Inquiry and on going interaction between the Inquiry and the police. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry attempted to deal with everything including accusations against those alive who were offered immunity from prosecution of they told the truth and the hole truth. \There is now between the most of the Northern Ireland Members of the Commons and within their Executive and government over the recent interviewing of one of those who have evidence and where the issue of allegedly not telling the truth was raised.
The phone hacking inquiry was to have been in two parts with first concerned wihat needed to be done to change things for the better with the second part taking place once all the criminal prosecutions had been processed. However there is a question mark over whether Part 2 will take place possible from a deal struck between Cameron and Murdoch. The Goddard inquiry has been set up with even wider terms of reference and its victim priority orientation.
All those investigated by the police will be part of the Goddard investigation where the focus is one to bring justice to as many victims as possible and secondly to answer the question was there a cover up and why and where further police investigations and prosecutions should follow in the light of its investigations and findings. The Goddard inquiry also has two other dimensions the first is comprehensiveness with the intention of covering every previous investigation and inquiry and prosecutions going back into the era of Children’s department which is raised with it according to information being provided by government departments, the police prosecutions authorities together with individual complainants. This is separate from the named inquiries and hearings.
The final report will answer the big questions such as what happened, why and what should be done not already being done to prevent and to limit. As I recently write to one individual victims the government has in fact gone back to the drawing on everything looking at training social workers, looking at child protection and residential child care, looking how we can do between to prevent children entering and remaining in care and providing them with health especially mental health, education and preparation for life which ensure that many few end up in mental institutions o severer with mental health issues, in prison, unemployed , on benefits, with their children taken into care and in some instances children’s children. The Sir Cyril Taylor Cameron, Blair Brown solution of force adoption echoing the approach of Nazi Germany Stalinist Russian and Mao’s China of trying to eradicate this cycle by environmental change is clear destined to fail because of not facing up to genetic transferences factors .in the same way people who were gender opposite or gender mixed have only now been recognised as a birth gender condition. I recommend How new Human are made Charles E Boklage WP world scientific publications.
The bottom line is any ending police investigations about any individual especially those already under media scrutiny as a perpetrator/alleged perpetrator or involved or alleged to be involved in the a cover up will be excluded from the Goddard Inquiry. How the matter is dealt with in terms of formally announced inquiry, an aspect of one of the generic investigations and hearings or within he inquiry subsequent reports including those direct to government will evolve over time
So Lord Brammall is left twisting, twisting in the wind. His wife died recently. He has survived that sadness only to be confronted with accusations from an accuser that have been accepted as unreliable at best. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Once again, the police, in their embarrassment at failing in their duty to protect the abused in the past, make the mistake failing the innocent now.
Well at least they managed to protect the innocence of Lord Janner.
BBC News, on their front page, are asserting that Brammall has been cleared.
The form of words is to protect the position if Justice Godard comes to a different conclusion whey the inquiry had studied the facts and this is first of many similar situation will arise during the life of the inquiry.