Former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor has criticised veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell for branding the late Ann Widdecombe a 'bigot' following news of her death. Writing exclusively for the Brit Brief, Proctor said Tatchell's comments were 'deeply distasteful' and that reducing a lifetime of public service to a single word on the day of her death was 'neither courageous nor compassionate – it is simply vindictive'.
Proctor's own persecution under Operation Midland
Proctor, who is gay, recalled his own ordeal during the Metropolitan Police's Operation Midland investigation into historical child abuse allegations. In 2015, after his home was raided, he told the world's media: 'I am a homosexual. I am not a murderer. I am not a paedophile.' He said the false and offensive conflation of homosexuality with child abuse forced him into the open after decades of keeping his private life private.
Operation Midland, which ran from 2014 to 2016, investigated allegations of a VIP paedophile ring. The investigation was later heavily criticised and cost the Met Police more than £2 million in compensation to those wrongly accused, including Proctor. He described the force's conduct as a 'homosexual witch-hunt'.
Silence from gay rights groups
Proctor said that when he was prosecuted for gross indecency in 1987, and again during Operation Midland, there was little public support from organised gay rights movements. 'Some LGBT organisations appeared keen to distance themselves from me rather than challenge an investigation that was trampling over the very principles of fairness and due process they so often champion,' he wrote.
He questioned whether the reaction would have been different had he been a left-wing MP rather than a Conservative. By contrast, Ann Widdecombe – whose views on homosexuality he did not always share – offered private encouragement, public support and practical help at a time when association with him carried considerable personal and political risk.
Widdecombe's support transcends political labels
Proctor said that Tatchell's attempt to define Widdecombe solely by her positions on gay rights is 'profoundly misleading'. 'Human beings are more complicated than slogans,' he wrote. 'They should be judged in the round.' He added: 'Ann and I disagreed on important issues. But when my life was being destroyed by false allegations, she defended justice rather than expediency. That speaks more eloquently about her character than any epithet ever could.'
Proctor concluded: 'Those who speak most passionately about tolerance can sometimes prove remarkably intolerant of those whose views differ from their own. Tatchell has every right to criticise Ann Widdecombe's political record. He does not have the right to assume that his judgment represents every gay person – least of all those of us whose lives were transformed by injustice, and who remember who stood with us when it truly mattered.'
