Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who has died aged 95, was chief of the defence staff from 1982 until 1985, the pinnacle of a long military career that began just in time to land him on the beaches of Normandy as a freshly minted second lieutenant in the D-day invasion of June 1944.

But in March 2015 he was drawn into the saga of claims of historical paedophilia and child abuse in high places that began with the unmasking of Jimmy Savile in 2012. Bramall’s cottage in a village near Farnham, Surrey, was raided by police as part of a co-ordinated initiative that also included the homes of Lord (Leon) Brittan, the former home secretary, who died in January 2015. All this was part of Operation Midland, set up by the Metropolitan police in response to allegations against a number of notable public figures.