A "manipulative" and "devious" fantasist who invented a murderous Westminster VIP paedophile ring has been jailed for 18 years.
Carl Beech, once only known in media reports as "Nick", was convicted of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud.
Beech made the claims of a Westminster VIP paedophile ring dating back to the 1970s and 1980s.
The Metropolitan Police investigated his allegations, raiding homes and interviewing alleged suspects - but the £2 million Operation Midland ended without making a single arrest.
Northumbria Police was later tasked with investigating his claims.
Beech's malicious deceit ruined the reputations of those he accused and led the Metropolitan Police to raid the homes of 91-year-old Normandy veteran Field Marshall Lord Bramall - the late Lord Brittan - and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor.
Mr Proctor blasted the force, calling the episode "a truly disgraceful chapter in the history of British policing".
Speaking during his sentencing hearing, prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC said: "In this case, the defendant's conduct amounted to the cynical manipulation of the criminal justice system on an unprecedented scale."
He said that the offences demonstrated an "unparalleled cruelty and disregard" towards those who he wrongly accused.
Mr Badenoch added: "These offences were motivated by entirely selfish purposes."
The prosecutor said that it was clear that Beech was aware that his accusations were of the "most serious nature" and that the stories he invented to detectives would be-front page news.
He said: "He also sought to inject himself into and thereby pervert the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse."
The prosecution has alleged Beech, 51, from Gloucester, deliberately and persistently lied to police and fraudulently claimed £22,000 in criminal injuries compensation.
The prosecution described him as a "manipulative paedophile" after telling the jury he has previously admitted downloading indecent images of boys, and voyeurism.
Mr Badenoch said during the two-month trial that the divorced father-of-one had shown "breathtaking hypocrisy" in accusing others of child sex abuse while he was pursuing an interest in boys himself.
Beech told detectives over hours of tearful interviews how his late step-father, an Army Major, raped him, then passed him on to generals to be tortured at military bases and sadistically sexually abused by other Establishment figures in the 1970s and 1980s.
He named former prime minister Sir Edward Heath, his sworn enemy Mr Proctor, disgraced TV star Jimmy Savile and security chiefs Sir Michael Hanley, the head of MI5, and MI6 boss Sir Maurice Oldfield among the gang after meeting a journalist from the defunct news agency Exaro.
He claimed a schoolboy named Scott was deliberately knocked down and killed, that another boy who might have been the missing teenager Martin Allen was raped and strangled in front of him and said another youth was battered to death by the ring.
Daniel Janner QC, whose father Lord Janner of Braunstone QC faced allegations before he died, said police must be held accountable after a jury returned guilty verdicts for the fantasist who falsely claimed to have been a victim of a powerful VIP paedophile ring.
The comments "gave other fantasists legs to run these things", Mr Janner said.
"It is the police that have to be held to account for this.
Just think of the costs of Operation Midland," he told PA.
"My father's wonderful name has been tarnished, and we've had to devote ourselves to fighting back.
"The policemen who put out that Carl Beech's lies were 'credible and true' in 2014 should be prosecuted for the crime of misfeasance in a public office.
"In my judgment, there are ample grounds for prosecuting them because they were reckless amounting to misconduct."