Carl Beech trial: VIP paedophile accuser claims he was abused by Jimmy Savile​

Beech named Jimmy Saville as an abuser
PA
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A man accused of lying about a Westminster VIP paedophile ring claimed he was abused by his stepfather and Jimmy Savile in his first recorded police interview, a court has heard.

Jurors were shown the video with Carl Beech weeping as he told a Wiltshire Police detective at a specialist unit in Swindon in 2012 that he had been abused by a group as a schoolboy.

He then went on to claim the disgraced TV presenter had been part of the group.

Newcastle Crown Court has heard the defendant is himself a "committed and manipulative paedophile" who has admitted in separate proceedings to making and possessing indecent images of boys and voyeurism.

Sketch of paedophile accuser Carl Beech on trial at Newcastle Crown Court.
Crown Prosecution Service/PA Wire

The 51-year-old, from Gloucester, told Detective Constable Mark Lewis his stepfather, the late Major Ray Beech, started beating him soon after he and his mother, the Rev Charmian Beech, moved into the officer's accommodation on an Army base.

Sitting on a red sofa, wearing a hoodie and beige trousers, Beech told the detective Maj Beech moved on to kissing him, and later committed sex acts on him and forced him to do the same.

Beech alleged his stepfather later took him to an Army base where an older officer made him undress and looked at him.

He told the detective his stepfather held his head under the water in his bath and said he was to do exactly as he was told "without question, without hesitation".

In the same interview, Beech said he was taken out of school to be abused by a group, telling the detective one of them was Savile.

He said: "I didn't know that at the time, part of me thought I did..."

Westminster paedophile accuser Carl Beech being interviewed by the Metropolitan Police
Crown Prosecution Service/PA Wire

Beech claimed Savile was there on three or four occasions and seriously sexually assaulted him each time, when he was aged nine or 10.

Beech told Det Con Lewis he recognised the voice but he did not see the TV star's face, and that he remembered seeing a gold necklace.

He said he recalled hearing Savile laughing and issuing instructions about what should happen.

Asked if he had told anyone when he was a child about his ordeal, he said "the dog" - an English setter.

Yesterday, jurors were told that Beech hid his sexual interest in young boys behind a secret app on his iPad and tried to frame someone else, before finally admitting a series of charges.

Officers raided his rented Gloucester home and seized electronic devices on which they found indecent images of young boys, covert images of schoolboys taken by him, and recordings.

Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said: "These child sex offences were committed whilst he was speaking to investigating police officers.

A photo of Carl Beech, as a child, shown to the jury during his trial at Newcastle Crown Court.
PA

"At the same time as he perpetuated these lies about Harvey Proctor and so many others, he was also viewing indecent images of the gravest kind and spying on small boys.

"He had installed on his own iPad a secret App. It was an app which looked to all and intents and purposes like a calculator. Only it wasn't.

"Two codes were required to look at the content stored behind the calculator image.

Mr Badenoch added police then discovered: "Indecent images of young boys of the most serious kind and a covert recording."

Beech was prosecuted and tried to frame someone else until he pleaded guilty, after a jury had been sworn in, Mr Badenoch said.

The Wiltshire detective said he picked up the case after Beech first made allegations to the Metropolitan Police as part of Operation Yewtree into Savile.

Beech claimed he and other children were sexually abused by powerful figures - including former prime minister Ted Heath, the head of the Army and security chiefs - in the 1970s.

Others he named included former MP Harvey Proctor, the late Lord Brittan and other Army generals, and he claimed three children were murdered by the ring.

Beech, a former nurse and Care Quality Commission employee, denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud relating to a £22,000 criminal injuries claim.

The trial continues.

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