Proctor, Harvey – was King of the castle

  Harvey Proctor (b1947)

HARVEY Proctor was born in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, the son of a master baker.

He went to Scarborough High School for Boys, then the University of York where he read History.

He had joined the Young Conservatives at the age of 14 in 1961 and was chairman of York University Conservative Association in 1967–1969.Proctor became an active member of the Monday Club.

He was its Assistant Director from 1969 to 1971 and a member of its Executive Council from 1983 until he stood down as an MP in 1987.

In 1973 he moved to purge members of the National Front from the Monday Club.In 1972 Proctor,  working as a researcher for anti-Common Market Conservative MPs, was adopted as candidate for Hackney South and Shoreditch.

He fought the seat at both the February and October general elections of 1974.

He won Basildon in 1979, a seat not expected to be easy for the Conservatives to win.

As Secretary of the Monday Club Northern Ireland Policy Committee, he backed calls from Ulster Unionist MPs for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to implement her 1979 Conservative General Manifesto commitment to “establish one or more elected regional councils in Northern Ireland with a wide range of powers over local services” in place of the 1982-86 Northern Ireland Assembly, and opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which earned him the admiration and support of the then Ulster Unionist Party Leader James Molyneux (later Lord Molyneaux) and the then Ulster Unionist Chief Whip and MP for East Londonderry, Willie Ross.

Proctor opposed the call to boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 on libertarian grounds.

He also opposed establishing the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982, voted for the return of Capital punishment and rebelled on votes over the EEC.

In June 1986, The People newspaper published claims that Proctor had taken part in spanking and cane beating of male prostitutes, aged between 17 and 21, in his London flat.

The age of consent for homosexuals was still 21 in 1986, and the following year Proctor was charged with gross indecency and resigned his candidature.

At his trial in May 1987, Proctor pleaded guilty and was fined a total of £1,450.Following his resignation, Proctor opened an eponymous shirtmakers, Proctor’s, in Richmond, London.

A second shop was later opened in Knightsbridge.Several Conservative politicians invested in the shop, including Michael Heseltine and Jeffrey Archer, and by 1994 eleven Conservative MPs were shareholders in Cottonrose Ltd, the parent company of Proctor’s. Proctor’s shirts were also worn by the Prime Minister, John Major.

In 1992 Proctor was a victim of a homophobic attack in his shop. Neil Hamilton MP was present at the time, and defended Proctor, Hamilton suffered a broken nose in the incident.

Two men were later imprisoned for the assault.

By 1994 the shops were £150,000 in debt, and were forced into liquidation in 2000.

In 2003 he became manager of the Duke of Rutland’s ancestral seat, Belvoir Castle, and lived in a large country house in the grounds of the 18,000-acre estate.

He was subjected to a police raid which was later found to be unjustified. He was forced to resign his post.

Mr Proctor still lives in the Grantham area.