‘It’s difficult to get over’: Ex-MP Harvey Proctor on lifetime of homophobia 

“I will think about it on the day I die,” former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor says of all he has been through.

He describes the experiences as “horrendous”, adding: “They still have a detrimental effect on me”. 

His words linger as he reflects: “There were a lot of things against me, and no one came out to support me.” 

Now 78, and turning 79 on 16 January, Harvey has had better years as of late, and he briefly brightens up as he shares that he and his partner of 52 years recently became civil partners. 

Their long relationship isn’t widely known about. He admits he wanted to keep it out of media’s grip – after all, there has been little in his life he has been able to keep private. 

He says his partner has “been a good support through the years”, before adding: “They should never have had to go through what they went through.” 

Harvey represented Basildon in Essex from 1979 to 1983 and Billericay from 1983 to 1987. His parliamentary career ended in 1987 after he pleaded guilty to four acts of gross indecency. 

He claims publisher Robert Maxwell, who disagreed with his Conservative views on immigration, was the figure who sparked the media onslaught against him in a bid to force him out of parliament. Maxwell, father of Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned right-hand woman Ghislaine Maxwell, died in 1991.

“He regarded me being a homosexual as a weakness, and therefore used that to try and get rid of me,” Harvey says. 

Maxwell’s attempt to bring him down included sending a wired young man, paid by the publisher, to speak to Harvey at his flat. Harvey also claims that his phone was bugged. The conversations that emerged led him to pleading guilty to four counts of gross indecency, despite all of the relationships being consensual. 

He says he has encountered homophobia throughout his life and claims his chosen solicitor, the late Sir David Napley, was homophobic. 

Harvey believed he had a defence to charges – that he reasonably thought the individual involved was over 21. However, Napley informed him that the defence applied only in the heterosexual cases, not in same-sex ones. 

“There was a lacuna in the law which I didn’t know about until speaking to Sir David Napley,” he says. “I then had to plead guilty, knowing at that point that I could no longer continue as a member of parliament.” 

At the time, in 1986, the age of consent for same-sex relationships was 21, while the age of consent for heterosexual relationships was 16. The age of consent for same-sex relationships was not equalised across England, Wales and Scotland until 2000.  

‘Very isolating’

Harvey adds that he was told by police to plead guilty, warning that if he didn’t, they would continue investigating until they found others he had slept with. 

Recalling the experience as “very isolating and awful to go through”, he struggled to hold back his tears. The law at the time led to him losing his job and feel that he had become “public enemy number one in newspapers”. 

He was subjected to daily abuse, with members of the public even spitting at him. 

After leaving politics, in 1988, he became a shareholder in a Richmond shirt shop, later renamed Proctors Shirt and Ties after his own surname. His shop was vandalised several times, and he recalls receiving around 12 victim support letters from police during its operation, which was until 2000. 

In 1992, he remembers being physically attacked by two people who came crashing into his shop. The perpetrators were imprisoned for assault. 

The shop later fell into debt, which he recounts in his memoir, Credible and True. 

‘Most members of parliament get involved in one scandal…’

An activist by his own admission, Harvey became president of Facing Allegations in Contexts of Trust (FACT) in 1999, supporting those facing false allegations. After all, there is no one that can relate to that hardship better than him. 

“Most members of parliament get involved in one scandal. I have managed to get involved in two big public scandals,” he says. 

In 2015, Harvey’s home was searched by the Metropolitan Police as part of Operation Midland, an investigation into false allegations of child abuse and murder. The claims, made by Carl Beech, were found to be fictitious. 

Harvey was handed a compensation amount of £900,000 from the Met, £400,000 of which went towards his legal costs. At the time, he described the investigation as a “homosexual witch-hunt”.

Following the investigation, he and his partner fled to Spain for a year. It was there that he wrote his book.

‘I refused to accept her apology’

Speaking in a trembling voice, he recalls the move did little to ease his fear that authorities might still knock on his door and arrest him.

“I thought the police had got this so wrong for so long they’re bound to go through with this and arrest me,” he says. 

Harvey later received an apology from then Met Police Commissioner Hogan Howe and his successor, Cressida Dick. 

“I refused to accept her apology,” he says. “I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say it couldn’t happen again,” he adds, referring to homophobia within police forces. 

“I do think the media have got to be very careful about making allegations before people have been found guilty,” he adds.

Harvey continues to speak out about his past experiences, particularly around false allegations. 

In 2023, the Metropolitan Police admitted to “failings of the past”, with commissioner Mark Rowley acknowledging that the force has had “systems and processes in place which have led to bias and discrimination”. 

Harvey admits he is “constantly” thinking about the investigation and finds it “difficult to get over”. 

His advice to anyone facing false allegations is to seek “good legal advice”, relentlessly question everything, and “stick to your guns”.