Sir Edward Heath, former Conservative British Prime minister, allegedly raped a 12-year-old boy in a London Mayfair flat after picking up the runaway youngster and offering him a place to stay, it was claimed last night.

The accusation emerged after it was revealed police are being investigated over sensational claims they covered up child sex allegations against the former Tory leader.

The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed he was unaware of Sir Edward’s identity until four years later when he saw a picture of the then MP alongside future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

He claimed he had reported the alleged attack two months after happened but was dismissed as a ‘fantasist’ and a liar.

At the politician’s home, the man, now 65, said he was offered a cup of tea and a sandwich before being asked if he didn’t mind sharing a bed because there was only one bedroom. He alleges that Sir Edward, who led the Conservative government between 1970 and 1974, then had full sex with him. 

The revelation follows an announcement that the Independent Police and Complaints Commission has launched a probe into an alleged cover-up of child sex abuse claims after a retired ‘very senior’ officer raised concerns that a criminal trial was derailed in the 1990s to protect Sir Edward.

As a result, it is alleged, he was never interviewed by police – let alone arrested – and his home was not searched.

The stretch of road where the man claims he was picked up by Sir Edward, on the A2 in north Kent, is thought to be around two miles from where the former Tory MP was allegedly warned by police in the 1950s to stop ‘cottaging’ (going to public places) for gay sex.

The man, who admits working as a rent boy in his adolescence and claimed to have been abused throughout his childhood by his father and his paedophile friends, told the Daily Mirror: ‘I think it was about August 1961 when I ran away … I decided to hitch a lift … a car pull up and the window was lowered and the driver asked me where I was going.

‘I told him the West End and he told me to get in the car. He was asking me why I was on my own and I told him I wanted to have time on my own and that … my mum wasn’t worried.’

The man claims Sir Edward then told him he could stay at his home, an offer he accepted, but said he was aware he would ‘have to pay, probably with my body’.

He was later prompted to tell his mother of the alleged incident when he saw a photo of the politician, who died in July 2005, with Margaret Thatcher.

Scotland Yard has been informed of the allegations and detectives reportedly plan to interview the man.

Heath, born in 1916, died 10 years ago.

*Culled from Mail Online