Mick Hartley

Harvey Proctor in the Telegraph speaks out at last about the appallingly smug James O'Brien:

In a recently resurfaced video [here – MH], James O’Brien claimed I “lied egregiously” about my private life, almost four decades ago, in 1987. It is a falsehood dressed as righteousness. O’Brien, so often self-appointed arbiter of truth, might reflect on his own record before smearing others.

Today the LBC presenter is once again facing calls to be taken off-air after he read out a plainly absurd and anti-Semitic claim from a listener that Jews are taught “Arabs are cockroaches to be crushed”. His latest calumny proves he hasn’t changed his ways – far from it. It is why I am speaking out for the first time about the way he treated me and other distinguished public servants who became embroiled in a heinous conspiracy theory cooked up by the liar Carl Beech and amplified by O’Brien.

For more than ten years, many people have urged me to turn my attention to James O’Brien to ensure he is held accountable for his shameful and credulous support of Carl Beech, a liar who falsely accused me of being part of the now infamous, and widely discredited, Westminster VIP paedophile ring.

Until now, I have resisted.

Not because the case against O’Brien wasn’t strong, but because I was otherwise engaged with those higher up the food chain – individuals with real power and influence who either enabled Beech or fanned the flames of his witch-hunt. These include former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson; the senior police officers who led Operation Midland, such as Steve Rodhouse; and Dame Cressida Dick, who presided over a force that treated lies as fact. They were the architects of persecution. O’Brien was its echo chamber.

His role should not be forgotten or forgiven. He was indeed a central cheerleader for one of the most grotesque miscarriages of justice in recent British history. He gave a powerful platform to Beech, a convicted liar, fraudster and paedophile, whose falsehoods wrecked lives.

While most journalists viewed Beech’s absurd conspiracy theories with justified scepticism, O’Brien indulged them regularly on his LBC programme (unlike his colleague Iain Dale, who gave unwavering support to me and other victims of Operation Midland at a time when few dared to do so).

He played recordings of Beech on air, praised the disgraced Exaro News for supposedly “schooling” the rest of the media, and accused anyone who expressed doubt of being part of an establishment cover-up. In doing so, he lent moral authority and credibility to a liar who accused distinguished public servants of the most horrific crimes – including D-Day veterans like Lord Bramall, and who falsely implicated me in the most sickening of crimes. Lord Brittan, also accused, did not live to see his name cleared.

I did. Barely. As Douglas Murray so rightly chronicled in The Spectator, O’Brien’s enthusiasm for Beech’s lies was exceptional even among the most credulous. He helped transform what should have been a laughable conspiracy into a national witch-hunt.

One result? I lost my home. I lost my livelihood. I was reduced to living in a converted shed with my partner, three dogs and no running water. At one point, I received so many credible death threats that police advised me to leave my home immediately. I feared not only for my life, but my partner’s too.

But unlike O’Brien, I do not have a radio studio from which to deflect responsibility. I had nothing but the truth, and eventually the truth prevailed, though not before devastating damage had been done.

Yet, when Beech was finally exposed and sentenced to 18 years in prison, what was O’Brien’s response? A tone-deaf tweet in July 2019 lamenting that he had been misled, while still insisting that “telling abuse survivors they’ll be believed” was the right thing to do. No apology. No mention of me, or Lord Bramall, Lord Brittan, or the other victims. Just a self-pitying shrug dressed up as principle….

The offences for which I was convicted in 1987 are no longer offences. The law has changed; society has changed. But O’Brien has not. He continues to peddle moral certainty while refusing to reckon with his own past, a past in which he gave oxygen to falsehood, ruined reputations and incited a witch-hunt with chilling zeal.

I am not the only victim of O’Brien’s actions with regard to Carl Beech – but I am one of the few still alive to respond.

Well said.