Allegations link Edward Heath to child sex abuse

London: Allegations linking former Prime Minister Edward Heath to child sex abuse threatened fresh disgrace for Britain’s political establishment on Wednesday as claims of high-level historic paedophilia piled up.

Heath led Britain between 1970 and 1974, taking it into the European Economic Community in 1973, and was known as a curmudgeonly bachelor who loved sailing and classical music. He died in 2005 at the age of 89.

Now he has become the most senior figure to join the ranks of prominent Westminster politicians accused, many of them posthumously, of sexually abusing children.

The story comes as Britain enters a crucial stage in its efforts to investigate claims that people in social elites repeatedly carried out and concealed child sex abuse in the second half of the 20th century.

“I’m in absolutely no doubt that there were a significant number of politicians and many others in high society... who were committing child sexual abuse and probably continue to do so,” Simon Danczuk, an opposition Labour MP and a leading campaigner on the issue, told Sky News television.

Others urged caution, noting that Heath was not around to defend himself.

“There are many unanswered questions here,” former Conservative lawmaker Brian Binley, who once worked in Heath's office, told BBC radio.

“We must be very careful. It’s easy to smear people not around.”

A string of police forces confirmed they were investigating allegations about Heath after a police watchdog announced it was investigating a retired policeman's claim that a prosecution was dropped in the 1990s when the accused threatened to expose the ex-premier.

Police on the Channel Island of Jersey confirmed Heath features in Operation Whistle, their probe into alleged historic abuse, while police in the county of Hampshire said they were “investigating allegations”.