WILTSHIRE Police confirmed today that the force and the NSPCC have received a number of calls following appeals for information about child sex abuse allegations against Sir Edward Heath yesterday.

The force have appealed for potential victims of Sir Edward to come forward, after launching an inquiry on the back of allegations made by a retired senior officer.

And Labour MP Tom Watson has claimed he received information relating to allegations of child abuse involving Sir Edward in 2012.

It was being reported today by the BBC that Scotland Yard is investigating child sex abuse allegations against Sir Edward Heath as part of Operation Midland, an inquiry into claims a VIP paedophile ring operated in the 1970s and 1980s.

A spokesman for the Wiltshire force said today: "The investigation team will be reviewing the information and following up any lines of enquiry as a result. In addition, the NSPCC will continue to take calls via their helpline on 0808 800 5000." 

Wiltshire Police is were unable to confirm how many people had made contact and the "validity" of the calls was not known at this stage.

The force received a mixture of "intelligence" and "third party" calls, the spokesman added.

Information recieved by NSPCC will be referred through Operation Hydrant, a coordination hub established by what is now the National Police Chiefs’ Council to oversee the investigation of allegations of child sexual abuse within institutions or by people of public prominence. 

Yesterday it emerged that the Independent Police Complaints Commission was investigating allegations that a prosecution against an individual was shelved after a threat was made to "expose" the late politician.

The police watchdog is also looking into whether Wiltshire Police followed up a claim against Sir Edward made in the 1990s.

Sir Edward, who was created a knight of the Garter in 1992, stood down as an MP in 2001 after 51 years in Parliament. He died in July 2005, aged 89, at his home in Salisbury.

According to reports a woman who was in charge of a brothel had been due to stand trial, but said she would expose the top politician.

Meanwhile an alleged victim, now aged in his 60s, has claimed he reported being sexually assaulted by the former Prime Minister in 1961 when he was 12 but was branded "a liar and a fantasist".

He alleged Sir Edward picked him up along the A2 road in north Kent as he hitched a lift and to have gone back to an apartment in Park Lane, London where he was raped, the Daily Mirror reported.

It was not until 1965 that he realised who his abuser was, recognising him from a picture in a newspaper in which Sir Edward was standing beside Margaret Thatcher.

In statements to his legal team reported in the newspaper he said: "I learned that he was MP for Bexley. This answered a lot of questions as to why no-one believed me about the London saga."

Former Conservative MP Brian Binley, who worked in Sir Edward's office for a period of time, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I find it very difficult to believe from the Ted Heath that I knew.

"There are many unanswered questions here and I don't think it would be right and fair to jump to conclusions about a man who served his country with dignity and with care, who was a considerable intellect, loved his music, was I think told by the central office to get an interest so became one of the best sailors in the country, captaining our Admiral's Cup team.

"We must be very careful. It's easy to smear people not around."

Sir Edward, who led the Conservative government between 1970 and 1974, never married and was famously reticent about his private life. One biographer concluded that he may have been a latent or repressed homosexual while another thought he was "pretty well sexless". 

  • The States of Jersey Police (SoJP) has confirmed the force is aware of an Independent Police Complaints Commission corruption probe linked to allegations against Sir Edward.

"Sir Edward Heath does feature as part of Operation Whistle, currently investigating historical allegations of abuse in Jersey," said a spokesman.

Operation Whistle was launched by police in Jersey in June as part of Operation Hydrant, a UK-wide co-ordination of sex abuse probes.

Officers said Whistle was convened against a backdrop of increased reports of historic abuse since Jimmy Savile's death in 2011 and the launch in 2014 of the independent Jersey Care Inquiry, which is looking into allegations of widespread abuse in the island's care homes including the Haut de la Garenne Children's Home.

Police said in June that the Jersey operation had six investigators looking at 45 suspects, some of whom are dead or as yet unidentified, with 13 being "people of public prominence".