The former nurse whose claims of a VIP paedophile ring in Westminster sparked a £2m Scotland Yard inquiry named only his stepfather and Jimmy Savile as abusers when he first went to police with his allegations, a court has been told.

Carl Beech, previously referred to by police as Nick, is accused of fabricating his account of being among victims of an establishment group including senior figures in politics, the military and the intelligence services who allegedly raped, kidnapped and murdered boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

On the third day of 51-year-old Beech’s trial at Newcastle crown court on Thursday, jurors were told that when he first went to the police in late 2012 with claims that he had been abused as a schoolboy, he did not provide names of other high-profile alleged perpetrators.

Beech later made further allegations to Metropolitan police in 2014, saying he had been abused by a murderous VIP group including the former prime minister Edward Heath, the former home secretary Leon Brittan, Field Marshal Lord Bramall and the ex-Conservative MP Harvey Proctor, among others.

DS Mark Lewis, of Wiltshire police, told the court that Beech was referred to his force in October 2012 by Scotland Yard’s Operation Yewtree into the TV presenter Savile.

Asked by the prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC whether Beech named any other abusers at his initial meeting with the detective in November of that year, Lewis replied: “He did not disclose any, apart from the stepfather and Jimmy Savile.

“We talked about details of his family and places where he had lived and also where he had gone to school.” He explained that Beech was “very anxious and nervous”, adding it was not unusual for abuse victims to be so. But he described Beech as “particularly nervous”.

The court was played a later recorded interview at a specialist unit in Swindon on 6 December 2012, in which a tearful Beech recounted to the detective how he claimed to have been abused at the hands of his stepfather, Major Raymond Beech, as a child in 1976 shortly after he had married his mother.

Beech, from Gloucester, told Lewis during the taped interview how his late stepfather had beaten him before moving on to sexually abuse him at officers’ accommodation where they lived.

Later, Beech claimed, his stepfather took him to an army base where a man, who he believed to be a lieutenant colonel, made him undress and looked at him. Afterwards, Beech said, his stepfather had threatened him to do what he was told as he bathed him at home.

“He said I had done well and he said he was really pleased as they wanted to spend time with me and that I was to do exactly as I was told without question, without hesitation,” Beech told the detective.

“He put my head under water and I couldn’t breathe, and every time he let me up he kept saying, ‘do you understand’, and I did understand, but he did do it again.”

Beech said he began being ferried from primary school to various locations where he was abused and raped by a group of up to 20 men, including Savile, who attended on “three or four” occasions.

He told the detective he recognised the TV entertainer’s voice but did not think he ever saw his face. “It was his voice. It was just his voice. When he was hurting me,” Beech said.

He told the detective Savile was “laughing and issuing orders he wanted me to do”. He said Savile, whom he described as wearing a long, gold necklace, raped him “every time”.

The last time he was abused by Savile he had been aged 10, Beech said, although he said he continued to be assaulted by the gang until the age of 15, even after he had moved to Kingston, south-west London.

Beech, who also worked as an inspector for the Care Quality Commission, faces 12 counts of perverting the course of justice from December 2012 to March 2016, and one count of fraud over a £22,000 criminal compensation payout he allegedly pocketed.

During his interview, Beech also said the predatory group had taken pictures of the abuse and later showed “a couple” of the snaps to him and threatened to reveal them to his mother and friends, the court heard.

Beech told the detective he used to “bunk off” secondary school which enabled the gang to abuse him. He claimed there was an “inner group” of five among the 20 who abused him, which included an American and Middle Eastern man, who gave him lifts in his dark-coloured Rolls Royce. By aged 13 or 14, Beech said the group were taking him to plush central London hotels, including the Hilton on Park Lane.

Asked why he had come forward now, Beech told the detective: “I’m stupid, I know… going back into counselling has helped me get rid of a few ghosts, I suppose, get rid of a few bad memories.”

The court was also told of how he described during the interview his emotions at seeing abuse allegations emerge in the press from other victims. He said: “Everything hit the press… I love watching the news and you just couldn’t turn without it being in the press. And people were coming forward and I felt really guilty I suppose for not doing it earlier. Certainly when my father was alive.

“And I don’t know whether people are alive or not now, I suppose part of it’s a little bit late, leaving it so long, but I thought well if other people can do it perhaps I should as well.”

The charges, which Beech denies, include that he made a false allegation of witnessing the murder of a child by Proctor, the former Conservative MP. Beech is also alleged to have lied about claiming to have witnessed the murder of two other children.

On Wednesday, the court was told how Beech was himself a “committed and manipulative paedophile” who, at the same time as he was claiming to police to be a victim of abuse, viewed indecent images of young boys and covertly recorded a child using the toilet.

The trial, which is expected to last up to three months, continues.