Former Prime Minister Ted Heath ‘raped boy, 12, after picking him up while hitch-hiking’

A man has said he was raped by former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath when he was just 12 years old.
The claims come as police urge more potential victims of the former PM to come forward in an investigation into an alleged cover-up of child sex allegations.
Meanwhile an alleged victim, now aged in his 60s, has claimed he reported being sexually assaulted by the Conservative MP in 1961 but was branded ‘a liar and a fantasist’.
The boy, who claimed to have been abused throughout his childhood by his father and his paedophile friends, said Sir Edward picked him up along the A2 road in north Kent as he hitched a lift.
He claimed to have gone back to an apartment in Park Lane, London where he was raped, the Daily Mirror reported.
It was not until 1965 that he realised who his abuser was, recognising him from a picture in a newspaper in which Sir Edward was standing beside Margaret Thatcher.

In statements to his legal team reported in the newspaper he said: ‘I learned that he was MP for Bexley. This answered a lot of questions as to why no-one believed me about the London saga. I got called a liar and a fantasist.’
The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the claims.
It is also claimed that a prosecution against an individual was shelved after a threat was made to ‘expose’ the Conservative politician.
Sir Edward, who was prime minister for four years in the 1970s, is the highest-profile figure to be embroiled in historic abuse allegations against prominent figures.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is looking into whether Wiltshire Police followed up a claim against Sir Edward, which was made in the 1990s.
A woman who was in charge of a brothel had been due to stand trial but said she would expose the top politician, according to reports.
Wiltshire Police have appealed for potential victims of Sir Edward to come forward.