FORMER Tory prime minister Ted Heath yesterday became the most high-profile politician to be linked to historic child sex abuse.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said it was investigating Wiltshire Police for allegedly dropping a criminal probe when a person charged with a separate offence threatened to accuse Mr Heath of attacking children.

The watchdog urged victims or witnesses to come forward with information.

“It is alleged that a criminal prosecution was not pursued when a person threatened to expose that Sir Edward Heath may have been involved in offences concerning children,” an IPCC spokesman said.

“The IPCC will [also] examine whether Wiltshire Police subsequently took any steps to investigate these claims” against Mr Heath.

The investigation was launched after Wiltshire Police referred the allegations, made to them by an ex-officer in the 1990s but ignored, to the IPCC.

Mr Heath, PM from 1970 to ’74, died in 2005 aged 89.

Campaigning Labour MP John Mann, who is fighting for justice for those abused by top Establishment figures, welcomed the probe.

“The police must follow the evidence, regardless of how senior the politician is who has had allegations made against them,” he told the Star. “There can be no ‘no-go’ areas in investigating child abuse.”

Wiltshire Police also launched its own investigation into “offences concerning children” by Mr Heath.

Speaking outside Mr Heath’s mansion in the grounds of Salisbury cathedral, Superintendent Sean Memory said the force had worked “tirelessly” since late 2014 to establish the facts about the case.

“The allegation is that a trial was due to take place in the 1990s and information was received in that trial that Sir Ted Heath was involved in the abuse of children and the allegation is from the result of that information that the trial never took place,” he explained.

“If you have been the victim of any crime from Sir Ted Heath or any historical sexual offence, or you are a witness or you have any information about this, then please come forward.”

Child protection expert and campaigner Liz Davies said she believed the police “had instructions from higher up and were stopped from investigating” at the time the they received the information.

And she told the Star: “Ted Heath’s name has come up many times — just like Cyril Smith and others.

“Those of us who have been around a long time have heard these names for years.”

The Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation said it would co-operate with the police probe, which it “wholeheartedly believes will clear Sir Edward’s name.”

The allegations come less than a month after the opening of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which will hear evidence from victims, the police and other professionals.

The Attorney General also issued an amnesty against prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act for anyone bringing forward information about historic child abuse.

Late Liberal MP for Rochdale Cyril Smith was named by police as a paedophile in 2012.

And former Labour MP Lord Greville Janner is facing charges over historic child sex offences after the Director of Public Prosecutions climbed down from a ruling that the dementia sufferer was not fit to stand trial.