The former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor has denied having been part of any rent-boy ring or any knowledge of a VIP paedophile network alleged to have existed in Westminster, after his home was searched by police on Thursday.
Proctor, who left parliament in 1987 after pleading guilty to acts of gross indecency, took the unusual step of talking to the media about the search of his Grantham home by police investigating historical allegations of child sex abuse.
A Metropolitan police spokesman confirmed that officers from Operation Midland were carrying out a search of an address in Grantham.
The Met launched Operation Midland last November following allegations that boys were sexually abused by a paedophile ring centred at a number of addresses more than 30 years ago. An alleged victim of sexual abuse claimed to have witnessed the murder of a 12-year-old boy by a Conservative MP, and said two other boys had been murdered by members of a paedophile network.
One of those addresses was the Dolphin Square apartment block near the Houses of Parliament. Detectives have received claims that have led them to investigate other addresses, to establish whether they can be ruled in or out of their inquiries. The strand of the inquiry that led to Proctor’s home being searched is believed to concern a location other than Dolphin Square.
Proctor, 68, works for the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and lives in a house within the 16,000-acre grounds of their home Belvoir Castle, in Leicestershire, near Grantham.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I find myself in a very Kafka-esque fantasy situation … I have never attended sex parties at Dolphin Square or anywhere else. I have not been part of any rent-boy ring with cabinet ministers, other members of parliament or generals or the military.
“I conducted my private life in a discreet manner … The last thing I would have dreamed of doing was talking to other MPs or ministers or anyone else about my private life.”
Proctor said he was keen to be interviewed by police as soon as possible to clear his name. Police would not say why they had chosen to search his home, and he is understood not to have been arrested.
Asked whether he had been aware during his time in parliament of the existence of a VIP paedophile ring, Proctor told Today: “Absolutely not, no. If I had known about it at the time, I would have contacted the police. I believe the number of victims grows by the day, and the number of alleged perpetrators – through death – diminishes.”
Proctor pointed out that that his guilty pleas related to homosexual activity with men whom he believed to be above the then age of consent of 21, and who were older than the current age of consent of 16.
“I pleaded guilty to four charges of gross indecency in 1987,” he said. “Those offences related entirely to the age of consent for homosexuality. That age has since been reduced, first to 18 and now to 16.”
Proctor became an MP in 1979, representing Basildon in Essex for four years. He then represented Billericay until 1987. He also sat on the executive of the rightwing pressure group the Monday Club.
So far the only politician to have been implicated is the Liberal MP Cyril Smith, who died in 2010.