POLICE have revealed Sir Edward Heath would be interviewed under caution for historic paedophile claims were he alive today, as a controversial two-year inquiry draws to a close.

Wiltshire Police have this morning released a closure summary report into Operation Conifer, a national investigation into historic child sex abuse claims made against the late former Tory prime minister, who died aged 89 in 2005.

During the investigation, 40 people made a total of 42 allegations against Sir Edward, who lived in The Close for 20 years. The allegations spanned from 1956 to 1992, while Sir Edward was a serving member of parliament.

The report says: “Sir Edward Heath allegedly raped and indecently assaulted a male, aged 11 years, during a paid sexual encounter in private in a dwelling.”

Wiltshire Police has revealed that, in the case of seven of those individual disclosures, Sir Edward would have been interviewed under caution for 10 allegations of rape and indecent assault on boys aged younger than 16, if he were alive today.

But the force said “no inference of guilt should be drawn” from that finding.  

The report said three male sex workers had made allegations against Sir Edward, six ‘victims’ made disclosures of “satanic or ritual abuse” and three made disclosures of “organised paedophile activity within military settings”, including naming Sir Edward as a perpetrator in military settings in Wiltshire.

Claims made by 19 individuals were deemed to have “undermining information” and would not have met the threshold to warrant an interview under caution.

Three individuals later concluded that they had been “genuinely mistaken” in naming Sir Edward in their allegations.

And no findings were reported for ten disclosures where the alleged abuse was reported by a third party, or three anonymous allegations.

The investigation was launched in August 2015, when Wiltshire Police announced an appeal for potential victims of sexual abuse by Sir Edward and said they would be looking into his past.

He had said a prosecution against a brothel keeper was dropped because of threats to allege publicly that Sir Edward had been involved in sexual offences.

The operation was concluded on August 31, with a total cost of just under £1.5 million.