A COURT has been told of the Hereford links of a former nurse on trial over accusations he invented claims about a Westminster VIP paedophile ring responsible for the deaths of three boys.

Carl Beech, 51, had a management-type role at a hospital in Hereford before becoming an inspector for the Care Quality Commission in 2012.

He is accused of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud, after telling detectives about allegations that he was one of several children to be sadistically sexually abused in the 1970s and 1980s by a group of powerful politicians and Army figures.

Prosecutors say that the allegations, which prompted the Metropolitan Police to launch the £2 million Operation Midland inquiry, were completely made up by the father-of-one.

Beech, who jurors have been told has admitted charges of making indecent images of children and voyeurism, has just been called to the witness stand at Newcastle Crown Court.

Taking questions from his defence, Collingwood Thompson QC, Beech discussed his background after leaving school in Kingston-upon-Thames, telling jurors how he tried to emigrate to America prior to starting work as a healthcare assistant at a home for the elderly at the age of 19.

He said that after qualifying as a nurse he took a Registered Sick Children's Nursing course in Brighton, before working at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, Cheltenham Hospital, and in hospitals in Swindon and Birmingham.

After taking management-type roles at hospitals in Hereford and in Swindon, he became an inspector for the Care Quality Commission in 2012, where he was when he made the allegations, and was still in the role when the police raided his house in relation to the allegedly false claims.

Beech is now taking questions about his upbringing and the relationship he had with his stepfather, Major Ray Beech, one of the people he accused of being a sex offender.

Discussing his emotions about moving in with the stepfather, he said: "It changed, from exciting to having a father to somebody who was just nasty and somebody who drank a lot and didn't particularly like me other than for hurting me."

When questioned on the point at which the stepfather allegedly turned nasty, Beech said "when he tried to kiss me," explaining how that incident happened in the living room of their home after school.

When Mr Thompson asked how he reacted, Beech said: "At the start [I did] nothing, but when it progressed to kissing on the lips and open-mouth kissing, it wasn't something that I wanted to do [and I] pulled away.

"He wasn't happy at all, and that was the first time I can remember him physically hitting me."

Beech told jurors that the stepfather then tried to touch him between his legs, and that he was beaten again and sent to his room when he resisted.

Beech said that his stepfather would become more physical after drinking, saying: "I could get into trouble for walking into the room.

If he wasn't expecting me or he had not called me, then I could get into trouble for that."

On Ray Beech's attitude when drinking, the defendant said: "If he was trying to do other things then he would have been drinking a lot, and sometimes if he could not do what he wanted then he would take it out on me."

Asked about what these "other things" were, Beech answered "raping me", saying that the first time this happened was when he and his stepfather went to a wildlife park near Oxford with a boy named John and his father, who he understood to have been in the Army.

The 51-year-old said he was taken into the toilet for the abuse to happen, saying: "What I know now I didn't know then, but he raped me.

"It was an indescribable pain, like I was being ripped apart from the inside out."

Beech said that his stepfather introduced him to General Edwin Bramall, one of the people he accused of being part of the VIP paedophile ring, at an office at the Erskine Barracks.

He said that Lord Bramall "asked my stepfather to leave or to wait outside", adding: "I wasn't in there for very long, and he touched my head, he touched my body, I had to undress and then I had to dress again."

When asked whether the field marshal said anything to him afterwards, the defendant said: "No, nothing at all."

Asked about his stepfather's reaction to the trip, he said: "He was happy, it was one of the few times that I remember him happy, he said I had done well although I don't know what I did."

Beech also told jurors that sexual abuse by his stepfather was a "regular thing", saying: "It was a regular event with him in the house.

"I could not say exactly how often [it happened], it was just a regular thing. Sometimes it was just kissing, sometimes it was everything."