Lord Bramall has accused police of conducting a witch-hunt against him after being told by detectives investigating child sexual abuse allegations that he would face no further action.
The 92-year-old former chief of defence staff and Normandy veteran was interviewed under caution last April by Metropolitan police officers working on Operation Midland.
Bramall said there had never been a credible case against him. “None of the allegations had a grain of truth in them. I think they were being heavy-handed,” he told the Telegraph.
“They are under such pressure, the police, because of what happened over Jimmy Savile; the thing has developed into a witch-hunt. They searched my house and then interviewed me under caution and then the media had a field day with it.”
Bramall added: “It was all based on statements which were … bizarre and outrageous and grotesque.”
He described the experience as “really awful”, telling the Times: “I think it’s a terrible thing for someone of my age, with an impeccable record of public service … only now, very grudgingly, do they [the police] say they don’t propose to take any action.
“To have these awful, entirely untrue allegations hanging over one’s head, without the police saying there is not a grain of truth in them, is really awful.”
Anthony Stansfeld, the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner who served under Bramall, strongly criticised the police investigation. “This is a man who has commanded our nuclear deterrent; was in charge of all our armed forces,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday.
“He would have been surrounded by staff, he would have had a very, very detailed diary of every day. It is utterly inconceivable and the slightest investigation would have shown that.
“Instead they seem to have barged into the house of a 92-year-old. His wife was dying of Alzheimer’s in the house – she subsequently died. The victim in this entirely is Field Marshal the Lord Bramall.”
Bramall, as Field Marshal Edwin Bramall, was head of the British army during the Falklands war, before being promoted to the top military post.
The journalist and author Sir Max Hastings told Today: “There are two sets of potential victims here … Lord Bramall has been through absolute hell.
“[The police] won’t say sorry … This is not good enough.”
