LONDON, (Reuters) – Police forces in two further British regions said yesteday they were examining allegations of historical child sexual abuse against the late former prime minister Edward Heath.
The revelations by police in Jersey and in Kent came a day after detectives in Wiltshire, southwest England, appealed for witnesses or victims who might be able to support allegations of child sexual abuse against Heath, who died in 2005 at age 89.
Wiltshire police said on Tuesday they had received “a number of calls” as a result of that appeal but declined to elaborate.
Heath, a keen yachtsman and musician, was prime minister between 1970 and 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party for 10 years. He was replaced in 1975 by Margaret Thatcher, with whom he had a highly fraught relationship.
Heath was unmarried and had no family. The Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, which runs a museum at his former home in Salisbury, Wiltshire, told the BBC it welcomed the inquiry and “wholeheartedly believe (it) will clear (his) name.
“We will cooperate fully with the police in their inquiries,” a foundation spokesman said.
Heath is the latest high-profile British political figure to have been linked to child sexual abuse allegations that have been growing in scope since 2012, when the late BBC TV presenter Jimmy Savile was shown to have abused hundreds of victims for decades, using the cover of his celebrity.
