Child sex abuse:How Lady Macur exonerated the Waterhouse inquiry over convicted paedophile Gordon Anglesea
9 Dec. 2017
While all eyes were on Brexit the Wales Office slipped out a revised version of the report by Lady Macur into child sex abuse in North Wales. It reveals her findings on paedophile Gordon Anglesea – exonerating the work of a previous inquiry which let him off the hook.
While the political world was convulsed over Brexit Whitehall decided to remove one of the major redactions in last year’s report by Lady Macur, an appeal judge, which reviewed the inquiry undertaken by Sir Ronald Waterhouse in the 1990s into the scandal of child sex abuse in North Wales.
The redaction involves her investigation and findings into the tribunal’s role in investigating Gordon Anglesea, a retired North Wales police superintendent, convicted of sexually abusing two teenage boys in October last year.
He is the superintendent who won £375,000 damages in 1994 in a libel case against two national newspapers, The Observer and the Independent on Sunday, the magazine Private Eye and HTV, the holder of the ITV franchise in Wales. His legal costs were underwritten by the Police Federation.
Anglesea claimed the four media organisations had accused him of being a child abuser during visits he made to the Bryn Estyn children’s home just outside Wrexham. He denied it and jury found for Anglesea.
The recent death of Anglesea – which meant he can’t appeal his conviction last year- allows him to be named in her report for the first time. And the findings are interesting given the subsequent conviction of Anglesea by Operation Pallial, the National Crime Agency’s investigation and the libel case in 1994.
The references to Anglesea are in the chapter on freemasonry. She examines the investigation carried out by the Witness Interviewing Team (WIT). This was headed by Reginald Briggs, a retired Detective Chief Inspector who had served in the South Wales police force and was a Freemason. She sees no conflict in the tribunal employing a freemason to investigate another freemason. Gordon Anglesea was also a freemason.
“This Review has specifically considered whether there is anything within the material which suggests that the investigations made on behalf of the Tribunal into freemasonry was less thorough by reason of this fact. I have found nothing to suggest this was the case and illustrate the point below predominately in relation to two establishment figures identified during the course of the Tribunal as Freemasons, namely Gordon Anglesea and Lord Kenyon,” [ Lord Kenyon was a Provincial Grand Master, and a member of the North Wales Police Authority in the 1980s]
She accepts that one survivor witness against Anglesea was difficult to trace and when finally contacted mentioned other people not him.
Another witness who was in prison is described as ” fixated by Anglesea’s and his alleged involvement in a paedophile ring.”
“The statement produced records his assertions that in 1991 he had
seen part of a video featuring Anglesea sexually abusing a boy and girl.
The video had allegedly been stolen from a local Councillor subsequently prosecuted for possession of a large quantity of pornography. He said he developed photographs from the video and sent them anonymously to the Chief Constable of the NWP.”
The tribunal concluded this witness was not credible and he was never called.
A lot of time was spent tracing people who might know Anglesea and about his visits to Bryn Estyn including finding one freemason in the same lodge but he said he only knew him by sight.
The report adds: “However, more than one contributor to this Review still question whether enough was done to find evidence against Anglesea or to properly examine the links between freemasonry and the failure to investigate child abuse allegations.”
The inquiry was hampered by one witnesses refusing to give a statement and another witness was deemed to be unreliable despite evidence of Anglesea helping the notorious paedophile Peter Howarth, who ran the home and was subsequently jailed, line up boys. The tribunal was not certain whether he was there at the time.
She does add one very interesting piece of evidence that was witheld from the tribunal.
“I am aware that an allegation of a relatively minor indecent assault was made
against Anglesea by an adult acquaintance of his family prior to the
commencement of the Tribunal hearings. It appears that Counsel to the Tribunal
was informed that “the CPS had decided to take no further action in the case on the
grounds that there was insufficient evidence to support criminal proceedings”, but
apparently not of the fact that Anglesea had lied, on his own subsequent admission, when first interviewed under caution about the allegation.”
… I wrote to the present Chief Constable of the NWP on 15 May 2015 in relation to this non disclosure. The Chief Constable responded indicating that there is no material in the possession of the NWP to indicate why the file was not disclosed, but that it is possible that the file’s relevance to the issue of credibility was overlooked.
She concludes: “I regard the evidence that had lied when first interviewed under
caution about the allegation of indecent assault against an adult acquaintance
of the family was relevant to the issue of his credibility.
Counsel to the Tribunal do not appear to have been made aware of this fact and would have been at a disadvantage in justifying their request for disclosure. It is likely that the NWP overlooked the issue of credibility in favour of considering whether the facts of the alleged offence constituted similar fact evidence.
“This information may have been significant in the Tribunal’s appraisal of his credibility and would have been ‘fresh’ evidence to that which had been available in the libel trial.”
In other words in a civil case which ended up with the media paying out £375,000 damages – the fact that Anglesea was a proven liar could have swayed the jury to bring in a different verdict.
Her overall verdict is to exonerate the Tribunal. And she is not in favour of further reviews of other tribunals covering child sex abuse and certainly not a public inquiry. She does not accept there were any paedophile rings involving Freemasons and VIPs- witholding the information from the public.
She is in favour of thorough police investigations – and perhaps mindful that the police might secure a conviction after her report- hedges her bets on this saying police investigations are better at solving complaints than public inquiries.
Her one other recommendation suggests the police should look at the perversion of course of justice and malfeasance in public office.
She concludes: ” In general, I would advise caution in embarking upon a review of the workings of previous tribunals or boards of inquiry without a considered opinion of the time likely to be involved and the consequent outcome to be achieved.”
“The conclusions of a rapid investigation into a broad and complex topic will be unlikely to allay the concerns and anxieties of interested parties or the public in general.
“An exhaustive review will produce results that may no longer be
relevant to the circumstances which initiated the investigation. In any event, it should be appreciated that the conclusions of any such body will not meet with universal approval. Those with an interest, personal or otherwise, will seek justification for their views and be unlikely to accept the contrary.”
A very Establishment view, Lady Macur. The full report and written statement from Alun Cairns, the Wales Secretary is here.
Because of the libel threat only two people can be connected to the Jillings report. Both are now dead. One is Sir Peter Morrison, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, and one of Thatcher’s key aides.
Cotsbrook Hall, Bryn Alyn Community, Shifnal, Shropshire Convicted paedophile David Stanley 18 years’ jail for sex abuse scoutmaster gets 18 years for Paedophile 17pt Gill Sans two decks (1997)
Cotsbrook Hall in Shifnal, Shropshire, where Stanley worked as a care assistant. The home was owned by the company responsible for the Bryn Alyn home in Wrexham, north Wales, whose owner John Allen was jailed for six years for paedophile offences.
Much more is known about his father, pictured above, Lloyd Tyrell-Kenyon 5th Baron Kenyon DL FSA CBE. From this point onwards refered to as Lord Kenyon.
Lord Kenyon was born 13 September 1917 and was educated at Eton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Between 1947 and 1982 Lord Kenyon was President of the University of North Wales at Bangor.
From 1948 he was the Deputy Lieutenant for Flint. (North Wales)
Between 1952 and 1957 Lord Kenyon was President of the National Museum of Wales.
Between 1962 and 1988 he was the Director of Lloyds Bank.
He was Commissioner of Wales Boy Scouts 1966
Between 1966 and 1988 he was Chairman of the National Portrait Gallery.
It really does seem a shame to me that such a great family with such a longstanding connection to North Wales should have such little about them written on the internet.
And so, I feel it is my duty to rectify that. This article shall be a work in progress and anyone who can help fill out the biographies of senior members of this illustrious family can post in reply. Please provide links to sources of info.
“A 23 – YEAR – OLD man appeared for the second time before Birmingham magistrates today accused of arson at the city’s Central Y.M.C.A.
Thomas Tyrell – Kenyon, youngest son of Lord Kenyon of Whitchurch. Shropshire, was reamnded (sic) until May 19.
He was living at the Y.M.C.A., in Snow Hill, Birmingham, at the time of the alleged offence.
Sir Andrew Watson allowed Tyrell-Kenyon bail of pounds 1,000.
A condition is that Tyrell-Kenyon remain in a secure wing of the North Walse Hospital, Denbigh.
Tyrell – Kenyon has two brothers and a sister. His father is a director of Lloyds Bank.
The Wynnstay Arms Hotel Wrexham, known as The Crest Hotel between 1960 and 1985
A great many people have been asking the question; Who was the son of a Lord who is implicated in the North Wales child abuse scandal and cover-up ?
Actually, the answer has been online for over 15 years in this very revealing article.
Because of the libel threat only two people can be connected to the Jillings report. Both are now dead. One is Sir Peter Morrison, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, and one of Thatcher’s key aides. His sister is Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen. One of his more extraordinary achievements is not hearing the IRA bomb go off while staying at the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1985.
The other is Thomas Kenyon, son of the late Lord Kenyon. Thomas died of Aids three years ago. His brother represents Wales on the EU’s Committee of the Regions. These names alone give some indication of the kind of people who might have been named in the report, if they were name-able.
It is unclear if the author was unaware of the Waterhouse injunction or, as seems more likely, wrote this article before the injunction extension came into to being.
This should answer the puzzle set by Nick Davies and below I’ve taken a part of an article he wrote back in 1997 and added [in bold] the missing names.
Lord Kenyon was a powerful man: he had a considerable private income; he was a senior freemason, a respected patron of the arts and a champion of good causes; he became a familiar figure in the corridors of power both in the City of London, where he sat on the board of Lloyds Bank, one of the largest companies in Britain, and in the political world, where he became an influential figure in regional politics. His son, Thomas Kenyon, however, was a very different creature.
Thomas Kenyon drifted into the low life of Wrexham, in North Wales, where he made his home. He drank, he mixed with a group of people who were in and out of prison and, most of all, he hung around the red-brick public toilets by the bus station in King Street. According to evidence which has been given behind a screen of anonymity at the North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal, Lord Kenyon’s son was a paedophile.
In July 1979, Thomas Kenyon, then aged 25, had an alarming experience. He woke up in a room in the Crest Hotel in Wrexham to discover that all of his clothes and possessions had been stolen – by a young boy with whom he had been having sex that night. This boy, who was then two years below the age of consent and was supposed to be in the care of the local authority, has now told the tribunal that Thomas Kenyon used him for sex “on numerous occasions”.
Thomas Kenyon had no doubt at all about how to handle this theft. He went to the police and not only named the treacherous boy but explained quite openly why it was that they were sharing a room. A contemporary note made by the boy’s social worker records that the police were aware of allegations of “homosexual activities” between the boy and Thomas Kenyon . The police investigated. The outcome was clear: the boy was convicted of theft and sent to a detention centre for three months; Thomas Kenyon was never charged with any offence at all.
Under normal circumstances, Lord Kenyon and his son,Thomas Kenyon, would both by now have been identified in the press as their names surfaced in the proceedings of the tribunal, which has been holding open sessions for eight months. The public would have joined the tribunal in making a judgement about whether Thomas Kenyon escaped prosecution simply because there was insufficient evidence (he later told police that his claim to have had sex with the boy must have been “a figment of the imagination”) or whether Thomas Kenyon was right to boast, as one convicted paedophile told the tribunal, that his influential father could intervene to protect them.
As it is,Thomas Kenyon has not been named because the chairman of the North Wales Tribunal, Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, has ruled that, unless they have been convicted in court, no living person who is or is likely to be accused of abusing children in care can be identified. It so happens that Thomas Kenyon is dead – and so is Lord Kenyon – but Sir Ronald has extended his ruling to prevent either man being named.
I should just say at this stage, that all references to Lord Kenyon in this article are to Lloyd Tyrell-Kenyon 5th Baron Kenyon and not his son the 6th Baron Kenyon who bears the same name.
For the most part information about the family has been expunged from the internet. There are no wikipedia entries for either the 5th or 6th Baron Kenyon which is unusual for members of the aristocracy. It is a bit like “the curious incident of the dog [that didn’t bark] in the night-time.”
I am aware that the following Parliamentarians knew about the elite paedophile ring and the cover-up Willie Whitelaw, John Major, Ken Livingstone, Edwina Currie, David Waddington, Michael Howard, Margaret Thatcher, Leon Brittan, Ken Clarke, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Geoffrey Dickens, Alun Michael, Rod Richards, John Merek and William Hague.
I turn to redactions: the removal of names and details by which people might be identified. On my count—I may be wrong, although I counted twice— there are 633 redactions in the report. Although many will be duplications, the Secretary of State and the Minister must appreciate that that number is extremely high.
The previous Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, said in his statement last week that redactions had been “kept to a minimum”. While I, and I am sure many people here, accept that some redactions must be made, particularly given the ongoing court proceedings and the potential for further actions, I put it to the House that to claim that redactions in the report have been kept to a minimum is frankly disingenuous.
I am particularly concerned about the extremely high number of redactions in chapters 7 and 8 on freemasonry and establishment figures respectively.
Lady Justice Macur made recommendations in her report to the Secretaries of State on what should be redacted in the published report. She said:
“It is for the Secretaries of State to determine any further redaction of my Report weighing public interest with the caution”.
The previous Secretary of State also said that the rationale behind making the redactions, as set out in the letters to the Secretaries of State by the Treasury Solicitor and the director general of propriety and ethics, “explain the reasons…fully”.
However, I put it to the Minister that those justifications are weak and bland. I sympathise with the views expressed by victims and by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, as just mentioned, who believe that the UK Government need to be more open about the process by which redactions were made.
First, I ask the Minister to tell the House how many redactions were made in addition to those suggested by Lady Macur.
Secondly, will he publish further information about why those additional redactions were made and what the process was in coming to a decision on them?
Especially alarming—possibly more so—are the numerous serious cases of missing or destroyed evidence at several different points during the various inquiries.
Lady Justice Macur’s report refers to individuals who have implied in written evidence that they hold information about abusers who were not investigated by the police or the tribunal.
She states that following an interview with—redacted name—she made a request for materials said by that person to be relevant to the review and stored by a solicitor. She goes on to say that that solicitor had since left the relevant practice and that the files in question were destroyed. She even says that the person at the firm dealing with her request recalled that, before the files were destroyed, the solicitor in question had visited the office and
“may have taken any documents he considered worthy of retention.”
22 Mar 2016 : Column 551WH
The report states that the solicitor in question had failed to respond to correspondence from Lady Macur. Does the Minister consider that a satisfactory conclusion to that line of inquiry?
Is simply ignoring correspondence until the problem goes away all one needs to do to get away with a crime? Even ignoring the allegation that the solicitor may have removed evidence, is the Minister satisfied that it would be standard practice to destroy recently archived data?
Unfortunately, that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to missing or destroyed evidence. The greatest cause for concern in relation to the process and documentation is of course the fate of the Waterhouse tribunal’s evidence originally handed over to the Welsh Office in 1998. Those documents—it says this in the report—were supposed to be archived securely for 75 years. That did not happen. The evidence received scant respect at the Welsh Office and it was then shuffled over to the Welsh Government.
This is simply a catalogue of data mismanagement: dependency on technology that becomes dated and corrupted; destruction of hardware and tapes; boxes of evidence in disorder; and a reference index that lists 718 boxes while only 398 were initially made available. It remains unclear how many boxes of evidence were finally handed over to Lady Justice Macur, but documents were still coming to light on 1 December last year. It should be noted that the report was presented on 10 December. That methodology does not instil confidence.
The significance of the destroyed computer database cannot be overestimated. That was the record of all documentation. Against that database, if extant, it would have been possible to come to a view as to whether significant evidence was present or missing. Macur states:
“It is impossible to confidently report that I have seen all the documentation that was before the Tribunal.”
We cannot therefore come empirically to an opinion on whether material has been lost, removed or concealed.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab): I interviewed six young men some years ago in the Cynon Valley. Those boys were taken to north Wales, and that may be true of boys from other parts of south Wales as well. This is talked about as the north Wales abuse inquiry, but it is sometimes forgotten that the children came from all over Wales. Those boys’ reports were harrowing, as Members can imagine. It is an absolute disgrace that there are so many missing documents; I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. Where have they gone? Who is responsible? Lots of the evidence given to the Jillings report, which preceded the Waterhouse inquiry, has also gone missing. Where is it? Who did that, and what were they hiding?
Liz Saville Roberts: I agree. There is a history, as the right hon. Lady mentioned, of a loss of evidence associated with child abuse. I refer also to the Geoffrey Dickens dossier. I ask the Minister to consider whether victims and survivors of abuse in Wales—not only north Wales, of course—can, in all honesty, be satisfied with the findings of this report.
Now that the Macur review has been published, we are left with the overall lasting impression that documentation and process have been more important than securing justice for the victims and survivors of the abuse that was perpetrated, which should have been the overarching responsibility and purpose of the review.
Symptomatic of that concern for documentation and process rather than for the victims and survivors of abuse was the failure to speak to them individually.
The review held a public session in Wrexham in June 2013. The review’s website states that, on that day, Lady Justice Macur
“met privately with anyone who asked to do so”
and that the review
“met with numerous individuals with relevant information.”
However, I have spoken with one of the survivors, Keith Gregory, who is a point of contact for other victims and survivors of abuse, and he has informed me that arrangements for interviews were forgotten by the review.
In any event, the Government have redacted, as we have heard, huge swathes of the Macur review, removing in particular the names of individuals who have been the subject of speculation and who have national recognition.
For example, the name Peter Morrison has been redacted from the report, but puzzlingly, other names—Greville Janner, Lord Gareth Williams—have not.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con): If I may correct the hon. Gentleman, Peter Morrison’s name does appear in the body of the report. It is important that the hon. Gentleman clarifies that, because it is not redacted.
Ian C. Lucas: It appears in one part of the report, but it is also redacted in other parts of it. His name appears in the introduction, I believe, but in the part that relates to establishment figures, his name is redacted.
Mr David Jones: The point I was seeking to make is that his name is not wholly redacted, and since the hon. Gentleman is making a speech that covers very important matters, it is necessary to clarify that point.
Ian C. Lucas: I am grateful for that clarification, but in the chapter that relates to establishment figures, the two names that I referred to are not redacted, whereas Peter Morrison’s name is. It is very difficult to deduce a line of principle to see why someone made that decision. I think we need to have that information, and I think it
is very important and very appropriate that the Children’s Commissioner for Wales has written to the Secretary of State for Wales, saying that
“more can be done to communicate many of the omissions to be found in the report, and seek a greater level of transparency to be afforded to victims. As such, I call on the UK Government to issue a statement explaining the methodology used for redacting the publically available Macur Review Report, giving a full rationale for the changes made. Without an understanding of the approach employed by the Government’s lawyers, many will continue to question whether there has been protection of individuals because of their position in society, rather than because there are ongoing criminal investigations, or if there is no evidence against them.”
Some of the people whose names have been redacted are dead, so there will not be any continuing criminal investigations as far as they are concerned, and it is very difficult to understand why these redactions have been made and what element of principle is involved. We need that information because we have to try to persuade our constituents that our political system is not rotten and that it does afford them some element of protection.
The most senior freemason in South Wales has defended the secretiveness of Wales’ 13,000 masons.
Provincial Grand Master Gareth Jones said the members of the order should not be forced to declare their membership.
He was responding to calls made by South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner on S4C’s Y Byd ar Bedwar current affairs programme for more openness.
Alun Michael argued that it should be compulsory for all public servants, whether police officers, council officials or politicians, to declare if they are freemasons.
Fifty years of service: The Hon. MaryMorrison (left)
‘Hon. Dame Mary Anne Morrison, GCVO Woman of the Bedchamber to HM Queen Elizabeth II since 1960′
‘[Sir Peter Morrison] was a force to be reckoned with — at the heart of the Establishment, close to the PM, and, throughout this period, his sister, now Dame Mary Morrison, was a friend and lady-in-waiting to the Queen’ [quote: former MP Gyles Brandreth]
Princess Anne & Lady-in-Waiting Mary Morrison – sister of noted pederast Peter Morrison
The Queen and landed power in Scotland
The Queen Mother is the daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore. Her sister was married to the 4th Earl of Granville, whose granddaughter, Lady Marcia is married to Jonathan Bulmer.
The 2nd Earl of Granville’s daughter was the grandmother of James Morrison, Lord Margadale.
“When we arrived in Chester in 1991, the word on the street was that Peter was ‘a disgusting pervert’. Out canvassing, knocking on doors in the large council estates, we were told that Morrison was a monster who interfered with children.
The first, and only, official acknowledgement of my predecessor’s possible involvement in child abuse came my way in 1996, when William Hague, then Secretary of State for Wales, came up to me in the Commons to let me know that he had ordered an inquiry into allegations of child abuse in care homes in North Wales between 1974 and 1990 — and that Morrison’s name might feature in connection with the Bryn Estyn home in Wrexham, 12 miles from Chester.”
It’s now remarkable to think of Thatcher being courted on 3 successive holidays in 1977, 1978 and 1979 by Lord Margadale on the Isle of Islay, while his self-confessed ‘pederast’ son Sir Peter Morrison was hovering for a role in government and then to learn that Lord Harvington, (whose child abusing son had been neatly despatched to quieter climes in Workington, Cumbria by George Hume before becoming Archbishop), was also hosting Thatcher on holiday in Jersey.
Lord Harvington – Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and her husband were among the guests on his yacht.
Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire is accused of being a “honeypot” for offenders
Forty monks and teachers have been accused of sexually abusing boys at a leading Roman Catholic school that allegedly became a “honeypot” for offenders, it was revealed yesterday.
Reports of child sex offences at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire were disclosed yesterday at a public hearing of an inquiry into the handling of abuse allegations by the Catholic church.
As a case study, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) is examining safeguarding policies at two fee-paying boarding schools run by the English Benedictine Congregation — Ampleforth, and Downside in Somerset. Riel Karmy-Jones, QC, counsel to the inquiry, said that it would consider the prevalence of child abuse within the Catholic church and the extent to which Catholic culture “has or does inhibit the proper investigation and prevention” of such crimes.
Since 1996 three monks and two lay teachers at Ampleforth have been convicted of sex offences against pupils, but Ms Karmy-Jones said that the inquiry had been notified of multiple allegations against about 40 monks and teachers.
In an opening statement on behalf of 29 abuse survivors Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, the law firm, said that the “temptation to cover up” such crimes was “particularly acute in institutions associated with the Roman Catholic Church”. He said: “Where reputation is key to an organisation’s existence, there is likely to be an almost overwhelming desire to find some way of avoiding the bad publicity associated with child sex abuse.” Shared awareness among child abusers that their misconduct would be covered up, or dealt with in-house, explained why “some institutions become honeypots where multiple offenders operate”.
Mr Scorer urged the inquiry to consider recommending a change in the law to make failure to report abuse a criminal offence.
On behalf of 14 victims and survivors, David Enright said that it was “very difficult to explain” to a non-Catholic “the power and depth of influence the Catholic church exerts over its members. The abusers were not only men in positions of trust; they were seen by the abused, and their families, as spokesmen for the God they worship. It is hard to imagine a greater hold that a child abuser could have over his victim.”
Matthias Kelly, QC, counsel for Ampleforth, said that the school and the abbey wanted “to apologise for the hurt, injury, distress and damage done to those who were abused as a result of our failings”. He said that the school’s policy today was one of “full, transparent and immediate co-operation with the statutory agencies”.
For Downside and the English Benedictine Congregation, Kate Gallafent, QC, said that the Catholic church was committed to giving the inquiry “its full co-operation. The congregation expresses profound shame that any child has been the victim of sexual abuse whilst in the care of the schools connected with its abbeys.”
Before becoming Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher loved spending time on the beautiful Isle of Islay.
Every August, she would walk on the deserted beaches, drop into the local whisky distillery with husband Denis and play charades after dinner.
Her invitation to go there arrived every year like clockwork from a young Tory whose well-heeled family owned the 80,000-acre Scottish island. Mrs Thatcher’s gratitude to him was revealed in a thank-you letter she sent from 10 Downing Street shortly after becoming Prime Minister in May, 1979.
She wrote: ‘I must let you know how much Denis and I are looking forward to our holiday this year with you on Islay. My office will be in touch with you about all the details.’
The note, signed fondly ‘Yours ever, Margaret’, was written to the Right Honourable Peter Morrison, a man spawned into a privileged political dynasty steeped in loyal service to the Conservatives.
His father, John Morrison — made Lord Margadale in recognition of his service to the Conservatives — then presciently announced at a family dinner at his grand house on Islay (three years before it actually happened): ‘Mark my words, Margaret Thatcher will be the next leader of the (Tory) Party.’
In due course, his son, Peter, became MP for Chester and was the first backbencher to urge Mrs Thatcher to stand for the party leadership. The Morrisons were so intimate with Mrs T that women in the family even gave her fashion tips. And over the years, no political colleague was more close to her than Peter.
Immediately after Mrs Thatcher became PM, he was given a job in the Treasury. Then, after a series of junior ministerial roles, he was elevated to deputy chairman of the ConservThere was talk of an incident at a public lavatory in his constituency, of him trawling central London for rent boys, of having a private house where wild parties were held for under-age males, and secretive visits from Chester over the border into Wales to see what he called ‘his young friends’.
Questions were increasingly asked in Westminster, in private at first, if it was wise for a man who was bedevilled by such deeply unpleasant rumours to be so close to the Prime Minister.
The Mail’s political columnist Simon Heffer says that, as early as 1988, concerns over Morrison were circulating in the Tory top ranks.
He remembers: ‘A very senior person in the party said that Peter had been discovered by police kerb-crawling for rent boys in Sussex Gardens, London
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory Party chairman and another Thatcher confidant, has admitted he, too, heard the sordid rumours ‘through unusual channels’ just before Morrison became the PM’s closest aide.
Lord Tebbit has told the BBC that ‘rumours had got to my ears’ over Morrison having sex with under-age boys. ‘I faced him up and asked him bluntly whether there was any truth in them. He assured me there was not. There was no action on the part of the police . . . I accepted his word.’
The Tory grandee says that he now believes a VIP ring of paedophiles operated in Westminster over many years and that their activities were covered up by those in powerful places to protect the British establishment.
In July 1990, one-time Health Secretary Edwina Currie wrote in her diary which was published –
‘Peter Morrison has become the Prime Minister’s PPS. Now he’s what they call a “noted pederast” with a liking for young boys. She either knows and is taking a chance, or doesn’t; either way, it’s a really dumb move.’
Morrison had, indeed, been cautioned, the police admitted (it is believed to have been in 1990, the year he took the job as Mrs Thatcher’s PPS), for having sex with a 15-year-old boy in the public lavatories at Crewe railway station.
By not pressing charges, he was given the green light to carry on.’
Jonathan Aitken, a close friend of Sir Peter Morrison’s
Jonathan Aitken, a close friend of Morrison’s at Eton, wrote in his Margaret Thatcher biography last year: ‘The allegations against him (Morrison) were never substantiated, and the inquiry was subsequently dropped.’
Police officers in Chester and Westminster complained that a less powerful man would not have been let off with just a caution but would have been charged with gross indecency.
What’s more, they said that, since the boy victims were under-age Morrison should have been charged with the much more serious offence of sexual crimes against children.
The disgruntled police also said that paperwork about Morrison’s caution had disappeared on the orders of ‘those on high’.
But what of Morrison’s secretive visits to North Wales, a short drive over the border from his constituency?
Gyles Brandreth, his successor as Chester MP, says he and his wife were told ‘repeatedly and emphatically’ that Morrison was a ‘disgusting pervert’.
Rod Richards, a former Conservative MP and leader of the Welsh Tories, says he has seen confidential documents prepared for earlier inquiries which state clearly how Morrison was a ‘frequent and unexplained’ visitor at the homes.
He says: ‘I saw his name and it stayed with me because I knew he was a politician. I think there have been many cover-ups along the way to protect him and others.’
Mr Richards’s memories chime with those of a former resident of the Bryn Estyn care home who told Channel 4 News he had seen Morrison there five times.
The man said: ‘Going through some papers recently, I saw his face. I know now he was the MP for Chester at the time. Morrison. Red wavy hair. I recognised him straight away.
‘I saw him at Bryn Estyn. He turned up in a car, the boy went off in his car. We used to see a lot of people we didn’t recognise, not staff. They couldn’t have been there for the same reason the staff were there. They turned up at odd hours, early evening and the night. Really nice shoes, I always remember the shoes.’
It remains deeply disturbing that Morrison should have been allowed to rise so high and get so close to Margaret Thatcher.
In 1986, when he was moved from his post as a Department of Trade and Industry junior minister to become deputy chairman of the Tory Party, Mrs Thatcher wrote him another effusive letter.
Hinting at their very close relationship, it began: ‘I hasten to say that I am not intending to write to you the normal letter for Ministers leaving the Government.’
“I underlined the names of Keith Joseph, Rhodes Boyson and one MP still serving today. I also said I had seen Michael Havers at a party in Blackpool held at the hotel pool in 1983.”
Early in 1979 the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation publishedBroadcasting and … The Foundation is deeply grateful to Peter Mandelson, Sara Morrison and the .
via unseen_influencer
“The late Sir Edward Heath was notoriously uneasy with women, but there was one, Sara Morrison, who was a good friend and an important political confidante. She was with him when he died on Sunday. ”
Edward Heath ‘was not a sexual being’, says closest female friend Sara Morrison
Sara Morrison lunched weekly with the former prime minister and was his confidante
Mrs Morrison, promoted by Heath from local government to vice-chairman of the Conservative Party in the early 1970s, often played host in later years when Heath had dinners at his house in Salisbury
Edward Heath’s Former Secretary Shot Himself After Child Abuse Arrest
16 Aug 2015
‘An ex-aide of former Tory Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, shot himself in the
head following his arrest for potential child abuse offences.
Two days after being questioned by police investigating images on his computer, 40-year-old Nick Edgarkilled himself near his parents’ Cambridgeshire estate.
The Sun reports the father of three, who worked as Sir Edward Heath’s Private Secretary in the 1990s, was held by police investigating child abuse crimes in April 2010. Having been questioned again four months later, Edgar shot himself with a
shotgun near his parents’ home.
The former Oxford University Union president started working with Sir Edward in 1992 when he was in his early 20s. He worked as his Private Secretary for several years, spending months at the former Prime Minister’s Wiltshire home.’
Seven police forces across Britain are looking into historic child sex abuse allegations made against Sir Edward himself, who died in 2005 aged 89.
He led the Tories to a surprise General Election victory over Labour, took Britain into Europe and lost power after failing to beat the unions over the three-day week.
But Sir Edward Heath might never have had a stint in 10 Downing Street had he not heeded advice to stop ‘cottaging’ for gay sex.
For he was warned in the 1950s that cruising for homosexual encounters could destroy his political career.
Sir Edward, a lifelong bachelor who died in 2005, always refused to comment on his sexuality.
But Brian Coleman, a senior Tory member of the London Assembly, has claimed the ex-Prime Minister had actively sought gay sex in public places.
He said it was ‘common knowledge’ among Conservatives that Sir Edward had been given a stern warning by police when he underwent background checks for the for the post of Privy Councillor.
In an internet article for the New Stateman magazine, Mr Coleman claimed that gay men had run the Conservative Party in the capital for years, whether as officials, councillors or volunteers.
One of the things we are all starting to learn recently is that ‘gay’ is Tory code for paedophile. …large number of Conservative paedophiles who were not only members of parliament but also of the old GLC and local councils.
In June 1995 Heath’s private office, headed at that time by Nicholas Edgar, was set the task of organising three days of lavish celebrations for our visitors at the most prestigious London venues.
John Granville Morrison, 1st Baron Margadale TD, DL (1906 – 1996), was a British landowner and Conservative Party politician. An MP from 1942 to 1965, he notably served as Chairman of the 1922 Committee between 1955 and 1964.
Morrison was the son of Hugh Morrison and Lady Mary Leveson-Gower, daughter of the Liberal statesman Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville. (There’s a name we recognise).
The eldest of John Morrison’s sons, James , married Sophia Cavendish, daugher of the youngest of the Mitford sisters, Deborah. Deborah Mitford is also known as DEBO.
The Mitford sisters were heavily influenced/influencing of Oswald Mosley, who may have been the influence for the political stance of THE MONDAY CLUB.
Debo was known to Savile and in his auction of personal artefacts was a card provenance as signed by Debo Duchess of Devonshire.
A collection of Christmas greetings cards, including from members of the Royal Household, four from Princess Alexandra (1936- ) The Honourable Lady Ogilvy and Sir Angus Ogilvy (1928-2004); and two handwritten postcards from Deborah (1920- ) Duchess of Devonshire, signed ‘Debo’ (approx. 30)
Provenance: From the estate of Sir Jimmy Savile. OBE, KCSG, LLD (1926-2011)
The second son, Sir Charles Andrew Morrison (1932–2005) sat as Conservative MP for Devizes from 1964 until 1992.
He was one of the investors in the shirt shop Cottonrose in Richmond. That property’s freehold is said to be owned by ‘Puddles’ (from the Mary Moss documents). It had been run by ex MP Harvey Proctor,Tory MP for Basildon 1979-1983 and Billericay 1983-1987, who was forced to resign following his activities involving a rent boy/spanking.
Sara Morrison, Charles Morrison’s wife has been described as Edward Heath’s friend and important political confidante and she was with him when he died.
The daughter of Viscount Lang and the Duchess of Marlborough, Sara Morrison was a director of the influential program, Fourth Channel TV, and one of the principal organizers of the Conservative Party, said to be a close confidante of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
She was a director of General Electric Co. of England (now Plessy – ? linked to the Rothschilds).
The third son, Sir Peter Morrison (1944 –1995), was Conservative MP for Chester from 1974 to 1992 and died aged 51 in 1995.
He lived at Puddington in Cheshire, according to the Chester Chronicle, and at the end of his life he was living in Somerset.
He was Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary and deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.
In October 2012 it was alleged that evidence has been seen that linked Peter Morrison to the North Wales children’s homes case, in which up to 650 children in 40 homes were sexually, physically and emotionally abused over a 20 year period.
It has also been alleged that Sir Peter was protected by a “culture of sniggering, of giggling and of nudge-nudge, wink-wink” and that his behaviour was covered up by senior party members and the media.
Morrison is now named in connection with a fresh inquiry into these allegations, which could also implicate the late DJ and TV presenter Jimmy Savile.
John Morrison’s daughter, Dame Mary Morrison, was a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth II for forty years.
Margaret Thatcher ‘Told Of Sir Peter Morrison Paedophile Claims’
Margaret Thatcher was told about alleged sex parties with under-age boys held by one of her closest aides claims her former personal bodyguard.
Barry Strevens, who worked as the prime minister’s personal bodyguard, said that he passed on allegations about her confidant Sir Peter Morrison.
“A senior officer in Chester had told me there were rumours going around about under-age boys – one aged 15 – attending sex parties at a house there belonging to Peter Morrison,” he said.
At the time, Sir Peter was being considered as the replacement for deputy party chairman after Jeffrey Archer had stood down over prostitution claims in 1986.
The former senior police officer said that Lady Thatcher appointed Sir Peter deputy party chairman of the Conservatives despite learning of the rumours.
Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes ‘covered up by the Establishment’
More than 30 people have come forward with claims about the former PM
And they are said to have given ‘strikingly similar’ accounts to Wiltshire Police
The county’s chief constable has said that the allegations are ‘totally convincing’
Pictures have emerged of Heath driving – despite it being claimed he didn’t have a car
19 February 2017
The police chief investigating claims that Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile is convinced the allegations are ‘120 per cent’ genuine, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
More than 30 people have come forward with claims of sexual abuse by the former Conservative Prime Minister, according to well-placed sources.
And they are said to have given ‘strikingly similar’ accounts of incidents to Wiltshire Police – even though the individuals are not known to each other.
The Mail on Sunday has been told that Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale regards the allegations as ‘totally convincing’, and plans to publish a report in June.
Detectives have established that, contrary to claims that Sir Edward could not have committed the crimes as he ‘never drove a car’ and ‘always’ had a police driver with him, he did drive – and did have a car.
They have photographic evidence that shows he is a driver, and have established that he had a driving licence. He also bought a Rover 2000 after being deposed as Tory leader by Margaret Thatcher in 1975, when he was 58.
Astonishingly, Mr Veale is also understood to support claims that Sir Edward’s alleged crimes were reported to police years ago but covered up by the Establishment.
Some of those who said Sir Edward abused them are believed to have told police they went on to commit sexual abuse crimes themselves as a result.
The investigation into Sir Edward, called Operation Conifer, was set up in 2015 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Mr Veale came under pressure to abandon the inquiry last year after separate claims of a paedophile ring at Westminster involving former Home Secretary, the late Lord Brittan, and former Defence chief, Lord Bramall, were found to be groundless.
Allegations that Sir Edward was involved in satanic orgies have been dismissed as fantasy by an expert asked to review the case.
However, The Mail on Sunday has been told that Mr Veale believes the paedophile allegations are genuine. A source said: ‘Mr Veale believes in them 120 per cent and thinks they are totally convincing.
‘There are very close similarities in the accounts given by those who have come forward. The same names used for him, the same places and same type of incidents keep coming up.
‘What stands out is that the people giving these accounts are not connected but the stories and the details dovetail.
‘It contains disturbing stuff. Investigators have been shocked by what they have learned.’
Another source said: ‘The police were initially sceptical about the allegations, but now believe them. And they have come round to the view that they were covered up in the past because of who Heath was.
‘They will not be deflected by the rich and powerful trying to do the same now. Mike Veale is doing a great job and should be congratulated for his courage.’
The disclosures come after several senior politicians dismissed the allegations against Heath as absurd and unfounded. Former Tory Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind complained Heath’s reputation was being ‘besmirched’. Heath’s sexuality has been the source of much speculation over the years. Some believed he was gay, others said he was ‘asexual.’ At one point, he was being investigated by no fewer than five police forces – the Met, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Kent and Jersey.
The claims, some of which have been proved false, include alleged links to a convicted brothel keeper known as Madame Ling-Ling. A paedophile dossier compiled by Labour peer Baroness Castle said he offered young boys trips on his yacht, and in a separate incident one man claimed Sir Edward picked him up hitchhiking in Kent as a 12-year-old in the 1960s and lured him to his Mayfair flat.
Labour MP Tom Watson also said he had received allegations about Sir Edward. However the claims Mr Veale is investigating, which date from the 1960s to 1990s, are not linked to the discredited evidence of the man known as ‘Nick’, who alleged a high-level paedophile ring.
One of the key counter-claims made when the allegations first surfaced came from former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong, who worked with Heath when he was Prime Minister. He said Heath ‘never drove a car’ and always had at least one policeman with him from 1970 until his death in 2005.
The fact that Sir Edward could drive was confirmed last night by a friend, who said the former Prime Minister bought a car in 1975, although Sir Edward was later given a chauffeur-driven car and police guard after IRA death threats.
Asked if Mr Veale believed the allegations against Sir Edward were ‘totally convincing’, a police spokesman said the Chief Constable was determined to ‘ensure the investigation is proportionate, measured and legal’ and that the job of the police was to ‘impartially investigate allegations without fear or favour and go where the evidence takes us. It is not the role of the police to judge the guilt or innocence of people in our criminal justice system.’
Further asked if Mr Veale had ‘120 per cent’ faith in the allegations, the spokesman declined to comment.
DO THESE PHOTOS UNDERMINE EX PM’S DEFENCE
Sir Edward Heath seen with his car in Weymouth, despite claims he never drove
These are the photographs that appear to disprove the notion that the allegations against Sir Edward cannot be true because he ‘never drove a car’ and was always accompanied by police.
Both were taken in October 1975. In the main picture on the right, Heath is standing by the driver’s door of the Rover 2000 he bought after Margaret Thatcher ousted him as Tory leader in February that year. In the picture on the left, he is seen arriving at the Tory Party conference in Blackpool – in the driver’s seat.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that Wiltshire Police has also obtained photographic evidence of him driving.
The issue was first raised by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong, who worked with Sir Edward in No 10. Lord Armstrong said Sir Edward – whom he described as ‘asexual’ – had a 24-hour police guard and driver from the day he became PM in 1970 to his death in 2005, and did not have his own car.
‘When he was at home he had two policemen on the gate, he had the personal protection officer from Scotland Yard in the house, he never drove a car himself, he always had an official driver,’ said Lord Armstrong. ‘It seems highly unlikely he could have escaped all that to do the kind of thing that is described.’
Sir Edward Heath again pictured driving, this time leaving leaves the conference for the sea breezes of Weymouth
Sir Edward bought the Rover after losing the chauffeur-driven car he was entitled to as Prime Minister, then Opposition leader.
A confidant of the former PM said: ‘He definitely could and did drive, though was a notoriously bad one. When he went to music concerts in Salzburg and hired a car, he was meant to drive it because his British police guards weren’t officially allowed to.
‘But they insisted as they were frightened he was going to crash.’
New BBC paedophile scandal as ‘hero’ ex-chauffeur is unmasked as convicted child rapist
17 JUL 2016
Niven James Sinclair was so influential he sat in on BBC meetings – but Dame Janet Smith’s abuse probe in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal failed to identify him
A pervert with three child sex convictions worked as a BBC chauffeur for almost 30 years.
Niven James Sinclair drove VIPs including former Prime Minister Ted Heath and was employed to run BBC transport as a third party contractor. His firm supplied up to 150 cars.
He was so influential he sat in on BBC meetings and was involved with shows including Newsnight and Panorama.
And astonishingly, Dame Janet Smith’s probe into paedophiles at the BBC in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal failed to identify him.
Sinclair only stopped working for the broadcaster in 2005, aged 82, when his firm was still supplying 92 vehicles.
A glowing 2005 profile on the BBC website, still online tonight, was headlined: “A driving
Top Tory slaps down police chief claims that Edward Heath was a Paedophile http://shr.gs/yjNKhKa Has Rifkind (Leon Brittan’s relation) read Wilts police statement?
Edward Heath Charitable Foundation supported by Keith Vaz
Heath aide suicide over paedo arrest
Secretary shot himself
15th August 2015
SIR Edward Heath’s ex-aide killed himself after being arrested by cops investigating child abuse claims.
Nick Edgar, 40, put a shotgun to his head two days after questioning over images on his computer.
The father of three worked as ex-PM Sir Edward’s secretary in the Nineties. He was held by child abuse investigation police in April, 2010.
Edgar was quizzed again four months later but then shot himself near his parents’ Cambridgeshire estate.
The former Oxford University Union president got the job with Sir Edward in 1992 and worked for him until late in the decade, spending months at the politician’s Wiltshire home.
DISCLAIMER: THE POSTING OF STORIES, COMMENTARIES, REPORTS, DOCUMENTS AND LINKS (EMBEDDED OR OTHERWISE) ON THIS SITE DOES NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, NECESSARILY EXPRESS OR SUGGEST ENDORSEMENT OR SUPPORT OF ANY OF SUCH POSTED MATERIAL OR PARTS THEREIN.
It appears paedophile Clarence Howard-Osborne, Australian Parliament stenographer, trafficked children to PIE members.
Howard-Osborne was a contact point for senior PIE figures and a leading pedophile called John Stamford in Amsterdam.
And the thing that was very disturbing about them was that the Brisbane kids [photographed by Osborne] were appearing in the German magazines …
then we’d find a copy of the same magazine in English … and it was almost like a tourist guide for paedophiles.
“They could come to Brisbane and meet these kids.
And this was all arranged through bloody Clarry.
We discovered that the motto of the paedophile group over there was – ‘sex before eight [years old] before it’s too late’.
“One of the German magazines was named Spartacus and it was the codename of an international underground paedophile network.
It was run by a bloke called John Stamford out of Amsterdam.
He originated from the UKand I think sort of got himself in a bit of strife there and went over to Amsterdam and he was running this network, and Clarry Osborne was part of that.”
The names on the index cards, so dutifully recorded by Osborne, were not only those of the boys he had seduced, but adults – members of the judiciary, the legal profession, politicians, academics, and even police officers – with sexual interests in children.
ELM GUEST HOUSE
10% DISCOUNT TO SPARTACUS CLUB MEMBERS
CLARENCE HOWARD OSBORNE’s photos appeared in Spartacus magazine – Brochures for Elm Guest House in the UK advertised discounts for Spartacus members.
Spartacus was in fact published by former British Catholic priest and paedophile Stamford, who had fled the UK for Amsterdam
Stamford also ran the Spartacus Club, part of the British-registered Spartacus International.
Two secret inquiries were held by the Public Service Board in 1973 into Osborne, and as a result, the chief court reporter was moved to the Hansard bureau at Parliament House
18.15 – Eric Kasir / Neil Kier / Carol Kasir
[CHRIS] I knew who to complain to, how the system worked. Now, when the police, because they thought, they knew that Carol Kasir’s son, Eric, was 10, was living there. They also suspected and their own words ‘that other children might be present’ they approached Richmond Services, told them about the raid. Now procedure dictates that normally you would have got, say, the local field social worker in the local office who would have come in with the police on the raid. Any children present, they would have taken, they would have taken them into care. However, on the day of the raid, the man from Kingston, err from Richmond Council, who, who was on the raid with the police was Neil Kier, the officer in charge of Grafton, who took Eric into care.
[BILL] That’s her son Eric?
[CHRIS] That’s her son Eric. So you can understand why Carol was so angry.
[BILL] So, so, she knew, she knew that all the kids were coming from this children’s home. Then what they done on the night of the raid was took her own child and put her own child in that children’s home.
[CHRIS] Not only that, but with the very guy who had been one of the people supplying the boys, so Carol knew full well what that meant.
21.20 – David Hamilton Grant / Kings & Queens parties / Monday Club / Harvey Proctor / John Stamford / Peter Glencross / John Rowe / Michael Rowe (aka Captain Paul Reinhart)
[BILL] And one thing we never touched on, also, in this video suite, there was also a regular visitor there and his name was David Hamilton Grant. David Hamilton Grant was a child pornographer.
[CHRIS] Yeah.
[BILL] He made child pornography and
[CHRIS] Distributed it.
[BILL] Distributed it
[CHRIS] Yes.
[BILL] and the possibility of snuff movies as well.
[CHRIS] Yeah, but you need to understand where this starts from, and we’re talking about ..if you’re talking about the movies that were made in the video conference facility, but you have to broaden it out and understand the Kings and Queens parties. Now most of the people who attended the Kings and Queens parties were from organisations like The Monday Club.
[BILL] And what was The Monday Club exactly?
[CHRIS] The Monday Club was a right wing Tory party club for extreme right wing views, and people like Harvey Proctor belonged to it. All those sort of people belonged to it. Now one of the people who was involved with Carole Kasir, if you go back to prior to the raid, the evidence we’ve got, and indeed still have is The Monday Club paying for adverts in Capital Gay, which was the main gay newspaper in London.
[BILL] Capital Gay.
[CHRIS] Capital Gay. For the Elm Guest House. They were also paying for adverts to be put in a magazine called Spartacus. Now Spartacus was a magazine run by a man called John Stamford, who operated out of Holland. Stamford ran a European wide vice ring involving children. He was a known paedophile. He was a known maker of very nasty child pornography.
Prince Charles & David Hamilton-Grant ‘The Souvenir Video Guide to Royal London’
David Hamilton-Grant 16 CHILD PORN BRITS BOOTED OFF SUN ISLE The Sun 03-08-88
David Grant (producer)
David Grant (born 1937) sometimes billed as David Hamilton Grant was an Englishporn producer, and suspected child pornographer during the late 1960s and 1970s.
David Hamilton Grant was born Willis Andrew Holt in Uxbridge in 1939. He changed his name by Deed Poll on the 22 January 1982 to David Hamilton Grant.
Originally a photographer, Grant first film was Love Variations (1969) a sex education film that was based on a ‘marriage manual’ Grant had photographed/published a year earlier. Grant’s sex film empire grew in the 1970s, he opened up a number of adult cinemas, the first being ‘The Pigalle’ in 1974,[1] distributed foreign sex films through his “Oppidan” company.
ELM GUEST HOUSE; DAVID HAMILTON GRANT; DENHAM GILBART-SMITH
“In 1984 he was convicted and imprisoned for ‘possession of over 200 copies of an obscene article for publication for gain’ this was in connection with the film ‘Nightmares in a Damaged Brain’ a violent ‘video nastie’ which featured children in sex scenes.
“Upon being released from prison, David Hamilton Grant fled to Cyprus and lived there until he was deported in 1988.
“An article in The Sun around that time described Grant as a “drug dealer” who had “corrupted thousands of children”, during his time in Cyprus.
“It would seem from Mr Grant’s central position in the schematic below that it was not just the children of Cyprus that he corrupted.
“David Hamilton Grant is thought to have died as a result of a contract killing in 1991.
“The ‘family tree’ document appears to show the commercial chain involved in the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children from Richmond care homes.
“Above David Hamilton Grant we can see the ‘Care Home’ part of the chain.
On Feb. 2 , in London’ s Old Bailey court, four men were convicted for running a ring of pedophiles-adults who sex usually use children-which had recruited at least 150 young boys , some as young as nine, for repeated sodomic abuse.
It is the biggest ring of pedophiles yet uncovered in Britain.
British newspapers Feb. 3 said it had been run as a “Mafia like conspiracy. ” One man arrested was too frightened to testify, declaring that the ring was “more powerful than the Mafia. “
According to experts on child abuse in Britain, this case is only the beginning. Interviewed on British television Feb. 3 , Dianne Core, head of the Childwatch organization, stated that “people in high places” were involved in pedophiliac activities , and that the whole matter would “explode” during the coming months.
The London Daily Telegraph’s crime correspondent reported Feb. 3 : “Despite the convictions , police believe there is still a flourishing pedophile network in Britain, with a sophistication said to resemble the Mafia. “
The most prominent figure in the ring, Colin Peters , was trained at Oxford, and was formerly a senior adviser in the British Foreign Office. Following his Foreign Office work, he prosecuted cases for the British Customs and Excise.
Investigators working on the case had interrogated at least one senior member of the House of Lords , one vicar in West London, and officials in Whitehall , “but the police did not have sufficient evidence or manpower to pursue their suspicions ,” the Telegraph reported.
Alan Delaney, the official head of the ring, is a cleaning company director. Delaney would procure young boys for pedophiles , by putting job advertisements in the press .
The ring would also procure boys who were members of a junior soccer team. Many of the youngsters had been at special boarding schools for educationally below-normal children.
Others were runaways , who were caught up by members of the Delaney-Peters ring, who would roam” the streets of London scouting for boys .
According to the Feb. 3 Telegraph account, the young boys were “passed around its members for sexual degradation and, when the attraction faded, abandoned to a life of prostitution, drugs , and petty crime . . . . The boys were tempted off the unfamiliar London streets with promises of food,
accommodation, money, and a sympathetic ear. Some were plied with drugs, including cocaine, and sexually assaulted while under their influence.”
When he was brought before presiding Judge Pownall for sentencing Feb. 3, Colin Peters was told: “On your own admission, you found boys to satisfy your lust. You were prepared to encourage them to drugs or to lace their drinks and you have made matters worse by trying to get witnesses not to attend court. You did that to save your own skin. That was disgraceful. You of all people should have known that. “
‘A permanent conspiracy’ British deputy police superintendent John Lewis , who oversaw the investigations , is calling on Scotland Yard to create a special squad to deal with pedophile rings. Lewis declared Feb. 2 that “these people are as organized and sophisticated as any other criminals, and are involved in a permanent conspiracy which is renewed daily as they hunt for new boys. They need to be targeted like bank robbers. It
is important that we should not feel complacent. Positive policing should be continued.”
British police investigators were reportedly angered by the light sentence meted out to Peters , Delaney, and their two collaborators. The four received, in total, only 34 years of sentences. Peters received only 8 years, for combined charges of conspiracy to commit buggery (sodomy), buggery and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Delaney was jailed for 1 1 years , on conspiracy to commit buggery, indecent assault, taking indecent photographs , indecency with a child, and attempted buggery. One of the four was given only 6 years.
A senior British police officer told the Daily Express Feb.
4: “It should have been more. The damage these people have
done to young lives is very severe.”
In an editorial entitled, “Is This Justice?” the Express Feb. 4 called the sentences “woefully inadequate . . . weighed against the enormity of their crimes and the emotional and physical damage they did to their victims , some of whom were only nine years old. “
Moncini and the Satanist track
The London case has refocused attention on another recent case, in Trieste, Italy, involving one Alessandro Moncini, a businessman nabbed by law enforcement in the United States and convicted in 1988 for importing child pornography (although he received a paltry one-year sentence and was released “on good behavior” after serving less than three months in jail).
Investigators in Trieste working on the Moncini case have recently been to the United States, attempting to accumulate more information on what they believe to be a “most exclusive ring of international pedophiles.”
Informed sources in Britain believe that the Delaney Peters ring and the Moncini-linked networks are connected,
and that both are part of an international pedophile conspiracy.
U. S. law enforcement officials have in their possession tapes of Moncini attempting to procure a young girl, for Satanic-ritual abuse purposes.
Experts on ritual abuse stress that pedophile rings , as horrifying as they are in and of them selves , are actually fronts for, or extensions of, hard-core Satanist cults , for whom the pedophiles provide young boys.
In Britain, however, the Home Office has repeatedly indicated its opposition to allowing the matter of satanism to be pursued by police and in the courts.
Should this attitude continue, it will be impossible to crack the command-structure controlling powerful pedophile rings.
Investigative leads
Experts in pedophilia and Satanism report to EIR, that
that the dossiers on previously publicized cases of European
based pedophile rings have never been fully closed, and may
now be reopened. These involve pedophile rings that were
either cracked or exposed in the 1 986-87 period. Three of
them are worth noting:
• On June 1 8, 1987, the head of the Belgian national office of UNICEF was arrested for involvement in a large scale child pornography and pedophilia ring. Ring leader Jozef Verbeeck had used his influential position in UNICEF to procure children, often from broken homes, some as young as eight months old, for some 400 wealthy clients across Europe. The basement of UNICEF in Brussels was used to store pornographic pictures of children.
• In spring-summer 1987 , Dutch authorities uncovered
one of the worst cases of collective child sex abuse in record
ed history. In a small town called Oode Pekala, during the
Easter holidays , a gang of pedophiles , dressed as clowns,
lured more than 70 children into taking part in pornographic
movies.
• On Aug. 3, 1986, the Sunday Times of London “Insight Team” exposed the activities of a secretive organization called the Spartacus Club, based near Amsterdam in Holland, which sent pedophile literature to 25 ,000 subscribers in Great Britain, and which specialized in procuring boys from the Philippines for pedophile activity. Headed by one John Stamford, the club was part of Spartacus International, which published homosexual literature and the Paedo Alert News, “a magazine about boy love. “
Members of the judiciary, the legal fraternity, there were politicians, it was the top end
in Australia and the UK …
Clarence Howard-Osborne
According to police who saw the files, Howard-Osborne was also distributing child pornography and had links to PIE – the Paedophile Information Exchange – based in Amsterdam, and with paedophile contacts around the world.
March 18, 2016
QUEENSLAND government stenographer and paedophile Clarence Howard-Osborne gassed himself in his car in the garage of his home in Mount Gravatt, on Brisbane’s southside, in September 1979.
He had accidentally come to the attention of police, and fearing the exposure of his “life’s work” – extensive files on his boy victims – he took his own life.
On searching Howard-Osborne’s house in Eyre St, police soon discovered a monstrous cache of documents, audio recordings and photographs pertaining to more than 2500 young male victims. According to police who saw the files, Howard-Osborne was also distributing child pornography and had links to PIE – the Paedophile Information Exchange – based in Amsterdam, and with paedophile contacts around the world….
…a dark force beneath everything, weakening official inquiries into it, sending files missing, impelling alleged suicides when the truth strayed too close.
He was a world-class stenographer and his name was Clarence Henry Howard-Osborne.
…a leading shorthand writer for the Queensland courts and later state parliament in Australia.
caught photographing boys in bushland near Mount Gravatt.
Items seized from Howard-Osborne’s home.
Osborne was taken by police to Eyre St. There, they discovered thousands of pictures of naked children, hundreds of hours of tape-recorded conversations with boys and a meticulously organised filing cabinet filled with index cards bearing the details of his victims, from their names, ages and addresses, to their physical measurements. It was later estimated that Osborne had been involved with more than 2500 under-aged males over a 20-year period.
Police took Osborne back to headquarters in the city for questioning. They also confiscated three carloads of materials – a fraction of Osborne’s sordid trove of information.
Investigators were initially bewildered by the magnitude of the case
Down at headquarters, police noted that Osborne was remarkably cooperative.
Former Juvenile Aid Bureau officer Dugald William MacMillan said the JAB was not informed of the Osborne case on the day he was brought in by CIB officers and questioned. “They [the original investigating officers] never came near us,” MacMillan recalled. “I was absolutely stunned when I heard this story.
I couldn’t understand why the CIB hadn’t followed it up and they’d let him go.”
Incredibly, Osborne and his voluminous files were never thoroughly investigated by police. According to officers who viewed the Osborne material at the time, the names on the index cards, so dutifully recorded by Osborne, were not only those of the boys he had seduced, but adults – members of the judiciary, the legal profession, politicians, academics, and even police officers – with sexual interests in children.
One former officer said the Osborne material was enough “to bring down the [then Queensland] government overnight”.
The officer said when he suggested the Osborne case deserved a thorough investigation, despite the fact that Osborne himself was dead, he was warned off by a senior officer and told to leave the matter alone.
Premier of Queensland Australia – Joh Bjelke-Petersen with Queen Elizabeth at the opening of the Queensland Art Gallery in 1982
MacMillan added: “My understanding is the case went as high up as the premier’s (Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s) office because of who Osborne was.”
By the early 1980s the Osborne case had been all but forgotten, and many of the diminutive stenographer’s secrets were presumed lost with him. Except a retired Queensland police officer with a conscience and a phenomenal memory, who wanted to pursue Osborne at the time – and was warned off by senior officers, and who received a death threat after he pushed the paedophile investigation too far – only to be drummed out of the force, never forgot the case.
And in breaking his silence, he wouldlink Osborne to an international paedophile ring, and the child abuse scandal currently rocking Westminster in the UK.
During the 1970s, Osborne was a familiar face around Parliament House. Political staffers remembered his outgoing personality, and his obsession with holidaying in Thailand. And a trainee shorthand co-worker recalled Osborne’s most peculiar hobby. “He used to take and develop his own photos of the boys he went with,” remembers the co-worker. “He would show these photographs around at work.
I saw hundreds of them. There were even pictures of babies.
Complaints over Osborne’s behaviour were lodged.
Two secret inquiries were held by the Public Service Board in 1973 into Osborne, and as a result, the chief court reporter was moved to the Hansard bureau at Parliament House
In the winter of 1980, almost a year after Osborne had gassed himself at Mount Gravatt, a Juvenile Aid Bureau detective in the city branch headed down to the storeroom to retrieve a fresh police notebook. He could not know that that routine trip for some stationery would change his life.
In the storeroom, he noticed dozens of boxes on the shelves marked “Osborne”. “Within those boxes were all these index cards …
I recognised names … it was quite obvious there were members of the judiciary, the legal fraternity, there were politicians, it was the top end …
there were no bloody truck drivers and bricklayers amongst them,” the retired officer, who requested anonymity, said.
The following year, another young detective was transferred into the JAB. The officer developed a trust and rapport with the newcomer, and they were soon digging through the Osborne files together. “But we both realised we had to do it on the quiet, we had to sneak the stuff out,” he said.
“We found magazines. There were German issue magazines. There were American magazines.
And the thing that was very disturbing about them was that the Brisbane kids [photographed by Osborne] were appearing in the German magazines …
then we’d find a copy of the same magazine in English … and it was almost like a tourist guide for paedophiles.
“They could come to Brisbane and meet these kids. And this was all arranged through bloody Clarry.
We discovered that the motto of the paedophile group over there was – ‘sex before eight [years old] before it’s too late’.
“One of the German magazines was named Spartacus and it was the codename of an international underground paedophile network.
It was run by a bloke called John Stamford out of Amsterdam.
He originated from the UKand I think sort of got himself in a bit of strife there and went over to Amsterdam and he was running this network, and Clarry Osborne was part of that.”
Spartacus was in fact published by former British Catholic priest and paedophile Stamford, who had fled the UK for Amsterdam in the early 1970s after being convicted of sending obscene literature through the post.
Stamford also ran the Spartacus Club, part of the British-registered Spartacus International. The company described itself as “general publishers of trade and business directories, periodicals, newspapers and journals”.
Through the 1970s Stamfordalso appeared regularly in the press as an advocate for gay rights, and was a leading member of what was known as the Paedophile Information Exchange PIE.
It was founded in 1974 as a pro-paedophile activist group. In addition, PIE had a “contact page”, a bulletin where members placed advertisements. They were required to quote their membership number, general location and their sexual predilections. PIE managed the replies through a private post office
As Osborne was sitting down with Wilson at UQ on the other side of the world, PIE was causing a storm in the UK.
Several members were charged with conspiring to corrupt public morals, and details of the outfit emerged during court proceedings. It was described as “sick and a force of evil”.
PIE’s contact point in Australia was Clarence Howard-Osborne
Media coverage of PIE intensified through the late 1970s, as did the group’s attempts to push its message, which included the abolition of the age of consent. And its contact point in Australia was Osborne.
“Clarry had been operating for so long that he virtually became the guru of paedophiles,” the officer said. “All of the paedophiles that we looked at were all in there [in the Osborne files], and that was only scratching the surface. They all came from Osborne’s system.”
In the end, the officer and his partner were on the brink of launching a major sting.
The tension was just unbelievable. We took some of the Osborne files one day and we read them on a hill in Dayboro. We couldn’t get caught with it.
“It got to the point where we actually said to each other, don’t be surprised if they find one of us dead in the Brisbane River … that’s how bad it was getting.”
The officer also found a bullet in the drawer of his desk at the Juvenile Aid Bureau. He took it as a death threat. In the end, his investigation petered out, having met with constant obstructions.
More than three decades later, the impact of PIE continues to play out in Britain via its Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse, announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in mid-2014 following the scandal surrounding late entertainer Jimmy Savile and his abuse of hundreds of children.
The Independent Child Sex Abuse Inquiry was established by Home Secretary Theresa will investigate alleged allegations of child abuse by key members of Westminister and Whitehall.
It was set up after investigations in 2012 and 2013 into the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal revealed widespread abuse, including claims of abuse stretching back over decades by prominent media and political figures, and inadequate safeguarding by institutions and organisations responsible for child welfare.
Incredibly, a part of that same massive ring had taken root in Brisbane, Queensland, courtesy of Clarence Osborne.
Equally astonishing is that the extensive Osborne files were never properly investigated, despite the best efforts of a handful of honest officers. The boxes of material sat for years in the JAB storeroom under lock and key.
Their whereabouts are currently unknown.
In Osborne’s wake remain a number of serious questions.
Why did the Queensland police never look into the expansive Osborne material given that his notorious activities were known to some officers prior to his suicide in 1979?
How did the Osborne material, given its global reach, manage to evade the serious scrutiny of various subsequent inquiries, including the Fitzgerald and Kimmins inquiries?
And why hasn’t Australia’s current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse not examined historic links with government and institutions such as the police?
“I don’t believe there can be any doubt what his biggest legacy is – he was the long-term leader of a Government which engaged in rampant nepotism and used a corrupt and sometimes brutal police force for their own political ends…. the kickbacks for illegal brothels...
it was the intimidation and harassment in so many individual people’s daily lives that was the worst aspect of the police force of the time.
Political activists were continually having their houses raided and searched (with the constant fear that drugs might be planted), cars were followed and often stopped and occupants questioned or searched for no particular reason.”
Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Fountain celebrations at the Queensland Art Gallery site, 11 March 1977
In 1984…
Bjelke–Petersen was knighted by the Queen in 1984.
Also in 1984
Leon Brittan and the 1984 “Cabinet Minister Scandal”
The ‘Cabinet Minister scandal’ ran for exactly one week at the height of the Miners Strike, 21st June-28th June 1984.
It started with a denial in The Times, and ended with libel threats and an MP being gagged by the Speaker of the House of Commons. It was never mentioned again in British newspapers.
If the Thatcher government believed the ‘MI5 smear’ story, then why wasn’t there an inquiry into MI5’s alleged role in the scandal?
The way the Thatcher government dealt with the scandal was similar to the way the Elm Guest House scandal was suppressed in August 1982. That story made the headlines for 10 days before the Attorney General joined forces with Elm Guest House’s lawyers to threaten libel action against any newspapers that dared to print further allegations.
Clockmaker Keith Harding played vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring
MUSIC box collector and clock maker Keith Harding, whose staff restored antiques for royalty, played a vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring.
The pervert met regularly with MPs Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith at his world-renowned workshop.
The former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe would also drop by along with key members of the vile Paedophile Information Exchange Steven Adrian Smith and Tom O’Carroll.
A PIE list seized in 1984 records Harding, who died from cancer last year aged 82, as member 329 and his address as Hornsey Road, Holloway, north London.
He is understood to have kept hidden a list of more than 1,000 PIE members with prominent names including top politicians from the Thatcher era.
One of his staff, who worked for him between 1980 and 1987, said: “Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith were both regular visitors to the shop.
Usually they would come in via the side door, other times they would ring the bell at the front entrance and come in.
“They’d straight away ask for Keith who would be coming down the stairs.
“Then they would then either go up to his office for a private meeting or they’d go out for several hours.”
Top Tory Leon Brittan ‘photographed entering underage sex den during police investigation’
The former MP for Cleveland and Whitby is said to have been snapped by officers on a 1986 surveillance operation focusing on rent boy orgies
Our sources say it is unclear what happened to the photographs or why the raid was called off.
A friend of the officer on the investigation said: “The rent boys would be driven to flats or garages where large groups of men were waiting.
“These included Brittan and Smith. Pictures were taken as men entered or left buildings where the abuse was taking place.”
He was a leading shorthand writer for the Queensland courts and later state parliament- a world-class stenographer and his name was Clarence Henry Howard-Osborne.
A book on Osborne, The Man They Called a Monster, was written by criminologist and academic Dr Paul Wilson
Wilson also wrote about a British pedophile outfit called the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
At the time of writing his book, several members of PIE were being prosecuted for various crimes throughout Britain and Europe. Wilson speculated that the charges against PIE were not because crimes had been committed, but because “the very existence of such an organisation … offended both the government’s and the police’s sense of morality”.
In the mid to late 1980s, years after the publication of The Man They Called a Monster, PIE was exposed in the world press as part of a massive international pedophile ring, its tentacles reaching into Westminster.
And Clarence Howard-Osborne, was part of that network.
According to a retired Queensland police officer who viewed Howard-Osborne’s files in the early 1980s, there was evidence that Howard-Osborne was a contact point for senior PIE figures and a leading pedophile called John Stamford in Amsterdam.
Also in the files were innumerable references to a pedophiles involved in local rings.
Paedophilia is a ‘hobby’: Queensland academic advocated to have no age of consent laws
November 26, 2016
A Queensland criminologist and convicted paedophile once advocated to scrap the age of consent laws for children because he believed they “should have the right to conduct their sexual lives like adults do”.
In the book, Wilson suggested that paedophilia was a “hobby” and claimed abusers went to “great lengths to look after the child” they were preying upon.
By the early 1970s, Wilson was an established commentator and civil libertarian, known too for his sandy hair and his red sports car. He was part of an academic experiment to test if transcendental meditation might have a favourable impact on crime rates. The experiments were to be conducted, of all places, in the tough mining town of Mount Isa in far northwestern Queensland.
Wilson in the early 1990s at the Queensland University of Technology.
It was in the mid-1970s – not long after the offences occurred at Indooroopilly – that Wilson claimed he had a peculiar encounter in his office at the University of Queensland. By his own account, Paul Wilson was paid a visit by a top government shorthand expert, Clarence Howard-Osborne.
Howard-Osborne, in his late 50s, had brought with him documents and a manuscript about his life and philosophies.
Wilson would learn that Howard-Osborne had had relationships with more than 2500 boys over a 20-year period and had carefully documented these encounters.
Howard-Osborne had a filing cabinet filled with index cards detailing the boys’ physical attributes, as well as thousands of photographs of naked children he’d taken himself, and more than 8km of secret recordings.
“Howard- Osborne said that he had come to see me because of my reputation as a civil libertarian and because he was sure I would respect his rights to privacy,” Wilson later wrote.
Howard-Osborne claimed he was afraid he was about to be arrested.
A pornographic film of men having sex that he had bought by mail order from Denmark had been seized by Australian Customs.
His primary worry, however, was that police might confiscate his “research” – the unprecedented and lurid documentation of his sexual activities with children that he had amassed over the years.
Wilson claimed he met Howard-Osborne over the next few months.
By the time of their meetings, some senior police and members of the legal fraternity were fully aware of Howard-Osborne’s behaviour. Some had known for years.
In late 1979, Howard-Osborne had by chance come to the attention of police.
In November 2012, Wilson was accused of sex abuse alleged to have happened in the early 1970s. He is fighting the charge.
On 16 May 2014, Wilson was committed to stand trial on six charges of indecent treatment of girls under the age of 17. Wilson pleaded not guilty to the charges.
High-profile criminologist denies having a full frontal photo taken with a CAT covering his genitals as he faces court charged with four counts of sexually abusing a young girl
12 February 2016
Leading criminologist Paul Wilson on trial over four counts of molestation
Paul Wilson is accused of molesting a child under 12 (from age 8-11) in the 1970s
The jury heard the retired criminologist played sexualised hide-and-seek
He said he has no memory of a photo with a cat covering his genitals
Mr Wilson said he has a hazy memory of taking a nude photograph
A retired Queensland criminologist accused of molesting a young girl in the 1970s has begun giving evidence at his trial.
Paul Richard Wilson, 74, is fighting four charges of indecently dealing with a child under 12, between March 1973 and November 1976, in Brisbane’s District Court.
The jury has heard allegations he played sexualised hide-and-seek and kept a full-length naked poster of himself in his wardrobe that he showed to his alleged victim.
The Man They Called a Monster, by criminologist and academic Dr Paul Wilson
Professor Paul Wilson
Fulbright Scholar, Wilson would held distinguished academic posts – in the early 2000s he was Dean of Humanities at Bond University on the Gold Coast, as well as that institution’s Chair of Criminology – and Paul Wilson was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Australia Day Honours of 26 January 2003.
Prof Paul Wilson OAM is an Australian author, sociologist and criminologist. He currently holds the Chair of Criminology at Bond University. Prior to this he held academic appointments at the University of Queensland and several American Universities. He also was a Fulbright Scholar. He has authored 24 books on crime and related social issues. He is an occasional columnist for several Australian newspapers. In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for ‘services to education, particularly as a writer and lecturer in the field of criminology and to the community through raising public awareness of social justice issues’.
Paul Richard Wilson (born 1941) PhD, OAM is an Australian author, sociologist and criminologist.
He currently holds the Chair of Criminology at Bond University. Prior to this he held academic appointments at the University of Queensland and several American Universities. He also was a Fulbright Scholar.
He has authored 24 books on crime and related social issues, He is an occasional columnist for several Australian newspapers. In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for ‘services to education, particularly as a writer and lecturer in the field of criminology and to the community through raising public awareness of social justice issues’.
Bibliography
* The Police and the Public in Australia and New Zealand (with D. Chappell), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1969)
* The Sexual Dilemma: Abortion, Homosexuality, Prostitution and the Criminal ThresholdUniversity of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1971)
* The Policeman’s Position Today and Tomorrow: An Examination of the Police Force (with J. Western), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1972)
* The Australian Criminal Justice System (with D. Chappell), Butterworths, Sydney (1972)
* Australian Social Issues: Perspectives for Social Action, Butterworths, Sydney (1972)
* Immigrants and Politics, Australian National University Press, Canberra (1973)
* Crime and the Community (with J. Brown,) University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1973)
* Deviance in Australia (with A. Hiller), Cheshire, Melbourne (1975)
* The Helping Professions: A Critical Appraisal (with A. Pemberton and P. Boreham), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1976)
* Public Housing for Australia, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1976)
* Delinquency in Australia: A Critical Appraisal, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1977)
* Of Public Concern, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1977)
* The Australian Criminal Justice System (with D. Chappell), revised, Butterworths, Sydney, (1977)
* Planning for Turbulent Environments (with J. Western), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1977)
* The Other Side of Rape, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1978) ISBN 0 7022 1167 2
* Mental Disorder or Madness (with E. Bates), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1979)
* The Two Faces of Deviance (with J. Braithwaite), University of Queensland Press, Brisbane (1979)
* Intimacy , Cassell Collier-Macmillan, Sydney (1979)
* The Man They Called a Monster, Cassell, Sydney (1981)
* Black Death, White Hands, Allen and Unwin, Sydney 1982 (revised editions 1985, 1988).
* Murder of the Innocents: Child Killers and Their Victims, Rigby, Adelaide (1985)
* Street Kids (with J. Arnold), Dove, Melbourn (1986)
Professor Paul Wilson OAM is a Research Fellow and Honorary Professor in Criminolgy and Forensic Psychology at Bond University. He has worked in Canadian and American Universites and research institutes, was Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at two Australian Universities and also Director of Research at the Australian Institute of Criminology. He has co-authored or authored thirty books and hundreds of articles or reports mainly in the areas of miscarriages of justice, violence and violence prevention and most recently, mass crimes of atrocity. He is a practicng forensic psychologist and in August, 2011, will be givng a keynote address to the Australian Psycholgical Society National Conference on Miscarriages of Justice and the role of the forensic psychologist
Experience
1993–2011
Professor and Chair of Criminology, Bond University
Revealed: Paedophile criminologist Paul Wilson wanted age of consent scrapped and defended child abusers saying they ‘look after’ their victims
Paul Wilson convicted of playing blindfolded sex games with a young girl
The abuse took place in his Brisbane home between 1973 and 1976
In 1981 Wilson published a book defending paedophiles and child abuse
Argued against an age of consent and said children ‘should have the right to conduct their sexual lives like adults do’
Called child abuse a ‘hobby’ and said abusers ‘look after’ their victims
25 November 2016
He was once one of the country’s most well-regarded criminologists – but following his conviction this week Paul Wilson will now go down in history as a child abuser.
While his guilty verdict shocked many in court on Wednesday, it has emerged that Wilson has a sordid history of defending paedophiles and promoting ‘man-boy love’.
In 1981, Wilson published a book defending the activities of a follow paedophile as merely a ‘hobby’, suggesting that abusers ‘go to great lengths to look after the child’ they attack, and arguing that the age of consent should be abolished.
The book was called The Man They Called a Monster and was based on the life of Clarence Howard-Osborne, a government official and serial child abuser.
Over the course of two decades Howard-Osborne preyed on young boys, photographing and filming the encounters as well as keeping a detailed filing cabinet full of ‘data’ he collected.
He wrote: ‘Clarence Osborne and his fellow paedophiles are just part of a long tradition of folk devils created by a vengeful society and a sensationalist press.’
In his view, there was nothing wrong with having sex with children, provided no ‘violence, force, fraud or pressure’ was used.
In a section dealing with the ‘rights’ of children, he added: ‘It is only logical that children should have the right to conduct their sexual lives with no more restrictions than adults do.’
In the same section he argued for the abolition of any age of consent, and ‘all legislation relating to the age of consent in the field of sexuality specifically.’
Journalists Chris Masters and Phil Dickie with Paul Wilson and former premier Peter Beattie.
Paul Wilson awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his contribution to education.
He was sentenced to six months in prison.
Judge Julie Dick sentenced Wilson to 18 months imprisonment suspended after six months. Dick said the offending was persistent, brazen and involved the corruption of a child “of tender years”.
Bond Uni has been in the news recently with criminologist lecturer Professor Paul Wilson facing court on child abuse charges. Former student Fiona Barnett says the rot at the University goes deep.
Bravehearts Child Abuse Agency tries to erase their relations with Convicted Pedophile Bond University lecturer Paul Wilson
November 26, 2016
On Wednesday 23 November 2016, my former Bond University forensic psychology lecturer Professor Paul Wilson, was convicted of 4 counts of child sexual abuse. The following day, he was sentenced to 18 months prison. I have it on good authority that such a long line of female victims are waiting to testify against Wilson regarding their own historical child abuse experiences, Wilson should spend the rest of his life in prison – or court.
The media refer to Wilson as a ‘now-retired’ academic, psychologist and criminologist. This is misleading, since Wilson was head of Criminology at Bond University right up until police started investigating him. People like Wilson simply don’t retire from academia. Some of my Bond University lecturers are much older than Wilson who was Dean of Humanities at Bond for 10 years.
I got to know Paul Wilson while taking a forensic psychology class he shared with Katarina Fritzon in 2006. That same year, I assisted Fritzon and Wilson with their textbook, ‘Forensic psychology and criminology: an Australasian perspective’ and was mentioned in that book. At that time, I knew nothing about Paul Wilson’s pro-pedophilia articles and books, and blindly trusted that Bond University was an ethical institution. As it turns out, Paul Wilson is not an exception, and Bond University is a pedophile haven.
Wilson is part of a Queensland based VIP child abuse network. Back in the early 1980’s, when lecturing at the University of Queensland, Wilson organised a pro-pedophilia conference to be held at UQ until public outcry forced the university to cancel the event. Also while a UQ lecturer, Wilson ‘accidentally’ showed a class of psychology students the end of a kiddie porn snuff film. One student in that class was the daughter of a Queensland police commissioner; other student witnesses are now practising psychologists.
Until now, Paul Wilson has evaded arrest and conviction due to his VIP pedophile network connections which included Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis who had a dirt file on Wilson which featured in the Kimmin’s Report and found its way into the Fitzgerald Inquiry. The existence of the snuff film that Wilson did indeed show at UQ was whitewashed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
This pedophile did not only commit numerous crimes against children, but he also brazenly promoted pro-pedophilia doctrine and anti-victim thinking within academia and the Australian media that he regularly addressed.
I personally experienced the pro-pedophilia / anti-victim stance taken by Paul Wilson and the other Bond University criminology, law and forensic psychology lecturers. In fact, I was victimised, placed under excessive scrutiny, and finally subjected to a false and vexatious notification by Bond University staff to the psychology registration board because I adhered to mandatory reporting legislation and took a pro-victim / anti-pedophile stance in my classes.
Every connection with Paul Wilson must now be questioned. This includes the fact that Paul Wilson’s wife Robyn Lincoln, who also lectures in criminology at Bond University, sat on Braveheart’s advisory board.
Robyn Lincolnresigned her position on the Bravehearts executive committee immediately following the arrest of her husband Paul Wilson in late 2012. Bravehearts subsequently tried to erase record of their relationship with pedophile Paul Wilson’s wife, including in 2013 revising the Two Strikes article and replacing Robyn Lincoln’s name with Hetty Johnston’s. This is fraudulent.
Bravehearts should be open and transparent about their relationship with the woman who supported her pedophile husband throughout his multiple trials.
Since addressing the national press in Sydney a year ago, I have been inundated with contact and information from hundreds of victims of child abuse and VIP child sex trafficking rings around the globe. I have been entrusted with names, times, places, and connections. I now have a unique and thorough understanding of the nature of child sex trafficking and networks. I know which police, judges, lawyers, universities, government agencies, politicians and child abuse support agencies are engaged in child sex trafficking and its cover-up.
Bravehearts is a fake advocacy agency funded by the government to gather information and silence victims of child trafficking. Hence their close relationship with Bond University and their pedophile protector lecturers.
After Paul Wilson was charged, Terry Goldsworthy replaced Wilson as Bond University’s head of Criminology, and he replaced Robyn Lincoln on Bravehearts’ advisory board.
I was targeted by Bond University after adhering to mandatory reporting laws in the Bond University psychology clinic. I reported fresh allegations of child abuse by a Miami (Gold Coast) DOCS foster parent against a 10 yo child. In response, Bond University psychology lecturers made a false & vexatious notification to the Psychology Board about me. Terry Goldsworthy – whom I have never met – removed my age at the time of my child abuse and reported me to police & AHPRA as an adult perpetrator instead of a child victim of my childhood abuse. In support of this false & vexatious notification, Goldsworthy used his position as a Bond University lecturer & a Gold Coast police officer. Goldsworthy exchanged emails with authorities that referred to me as a criminal ‘suspect’.
Goldsworthy called my child abuse experience “outlandish claims.”
Terry Goldsworthy’s research interests include the role of the Nazi Waffen SS… His first book Valhallah’s Warriors examined the genocidal actions of the German SS in Russia during WW2.
Is Terry Goldsworthy who labels a child abuse victim’s testimony ‘outlandish’ the sort of person suited to being on a child abuse organisation’s advisory board?
Too many of these exist – they need exposing and closing
Pedophilia Network Exposed in Australia — It Starts at the TOP, Just Like in the USA and UK
A woman has claimed that she was sold for sex by a “VIP pedophile ring” which allegedly included a former Prime Minister of Australia. Fiona Barnett, 45, claimed to media in Sydney that she was trafficked to “pedophile parties” at Parliament House in Canberra aged five, according to the News.com.au site.
She claimed she was abused by an ‘elite’ ring which she says included high-ranking politicians, police and members of the judiciary.
back to Joh Bjelke-Petersen…illegal brothels, ugly sex
...the truth about his administration began to emerge from an inquiry into police corruption.
In late 1986 two journalists independently began investigating the extent of police and political corruption in Queensland and its links to the National Party state government.
Dickie’s reports, alleging the apparent immunity from prosecution enjoyed by a group of illegal brothel operators, began appearing in early 1987
This was too much even for a tame Bjelke-Petersen cabinet. After trying to block the inquiry and dismissing five ministers, he was forced to resign in December 1987.
The inquiry went on to expose crime, corruption and cronyism extending far beyond the police.
On September 23, 1991, he went on trial for corruption and perjury. However, a hung jury ended the trial, and Bjelke-Petersen went free.
It was later discovered that the jury foreman was a member of Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party and had assisted in raising funds for his legal expenses.
Four cabinet ministers were eventually jailed; a fifth died while awaiting trial. The police commissioner, Sir Terence Lewis, got 14 years. The voters threw out the Nationals in favour of Labour, and Sir Joh became the 213th person to be charged
later years…he had become a tourist attraction in his old brick family farmhouse, with its pictures of the Queen and Sir Joh together.
Despite their estrangement, former Queensland police commissioner Terry Lewis and his biographer Matthew Condon have one thing in common: their love for little fish. It’s the meanings behind the metaphor that differ. For Lewis, little fish were the small bribes before “The Joke”, as it was colloquially known, became big business. For Condon, author of the true-crime trilogy Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers and All Fall Down, they are titbits of new information he regularly receives about old corruption scandals.
Lewis, 88, will die protesting his innocence, but he was self-accused. His obsessive diarising secured his conviction on charges of corruption, the entries partly corroborating the evidence of Jack “The Bagman” Herbert. Recording his memoir was his biggest mistake. His second biggest was engaging Condon in the belief it would clear his name.
Condon instead provided an insight into the Lewis persona, particularly his fascination with power, status and indispensability. His influence has waned but his malice has not. As Condon describes in this book, Lewis, even before he terminated their collaboration, used intimidation to try to manipulate his biographer.
Unlike Condon’s trilogy, Little Fish are Sweet features Lewis as a peripheral character. Condon returns to the era of Frank Bischof, who was commissioner between 1958 and 1969, sponsor of the young Lewis, and patron, along with many corrupt detectives, of the notorious National Hotel.
The place to go for after-hours drinking and illegal prostitution, the National was the subject of a royal commission in 1963-64, chaired by Queensland judge Harry Gibbs, who was later chief justice of the High Court.
A quarter of a century later, another royal commissioner, Tony Fitzgerald, examined Gibbs’s finding that there was “no acceptable evidence that any member of the Police Force was guilty of misconduct or violation of duty in relation to the policing of the hotel”.
Fitzgerald was sympathetic towards Gibbs, stating that “nothing in the terms of reference or structures of the Royal Commission … would have alerted it to the possibility that it confronted an orchestrated ‘cover-up’ based on, and supported by, institutionalised police attitudes and practices”.
Condon, in contrast, argues that Gibbs’s findings amounted to a spectacular failure. He cites a former legal intern who worked for the solicitor-general’s office at the time. Not only did Bischof influence the draft terms of reference, alleges the intern, but Gibbs “was aware he was not getting the full story”. Gibbs effectively had three choices. He could have requested the government expand his terms of reference or he could have resigned. He instead continued with the inquiry, thus compromising himself and emboldening a new generation of corrupt police. What should have been Bischof’s Watergate moment was instead a whitewash.
Establishing who these police protected remains Condon’s interest. There’s no question they included the operators of illegal brothels and casinos, but Condon muses as to whether the network shielded even more insidious criminality. He cites the case of Brisbane man Clarence Howard-Osborne, 61, who took his life in 1979. Described by Condon as one of the “worst serial pedophiles”, Howard-Osborne, by the time of this death, had been involved with more than 2500 under-age males, photographing them naked and meticulously recording their personal details and physical measurements.
Howard-Osborne appeared not to have acted alone. A former Juvenile Aid bureau officer who viewed the seized material discovered names of alleged co-conspirators including judges, lawyers, politicians, academics and police, and links to overseas pedophiles. What should have been a major criminal investigation was terminated during Lewis’s reign, with threats to the officer and his premature retirement on medical grounds.
Having looked far back into the 1950s and beyond, Condon believes a network of teachers and counsellors across various Brisbane schools put Howard-Osborne in contact with his victims. From a purely evidentiary point of view, more research is needed to validate that belief, but it’s not unreasonable speculation. Whatever the case, Condon’s research into several other high-profile Queensland pedophiles of that period reveals the effectiveness of universities and elite schools as their shield and haven.
Joh Bjelke-Petersen conspired to appoint corrupt Terry Lewis as Queensland police commissioner
March 22, 2014
THE notorious Ratpack that ruled Queensland for decades conspired with then premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen to install a bent cop into the top job, sparking the most corrupt period in the state’s history.
1984 – Bjelke-Petersen was knighted and awarded an honorary law degree by the University of Queensland.
January 2, 2015
As the year ended police commissioner Terry Lewis – later jailed for corruption – was criticised over his handling of achild pornography scandal revealed by The Courier-Mail.
David Moore (right) with then Police Commissioner Terry Lewis (left) TV puppet Aggro and TV presenter Fiona MacDonald in the 1980s.
Ex-TV cop “Officer Dave” Moore committed for trial on child porn charge
FORMER national children’s television police identity “Officer Dave” Moore has been committed to stand trial in Brisbane for possessing child pornography.
In Osborne’s wake remain a number of serious questions.
Why did the Queensland police never look into the expansive Osborne material given that his notorious activities were known to some officers prior to his suicide in 1979?
In 1987, the Fitzgerald Inquiry into the Queensland government began, and Hutcheson attended some of the hearings:
I couldn’t believe that the hypocrisy of these men was finally about to be exposed. It was personal by then. The Hearings seemed like a surreal circus from somewhere in Eastern Europe, lots of large, overweight, ruddy men in big black shoes. And nobody knew anything, ‘No Hear, No See, and No Speak.’ It was about cover ups, ugly sex, bribery
The misconception the monarch has a hands-off role in Australia has been exposed
…publication of a book that sheds fresh light on the notion that Queen Elizabeth II might not only be Queen of the United Kingdom and Queen of Australia, but Queen of NSW and, for that matter, Queen of Queensland.
Further evidence of Queen’s involvement in the 1975 dismissal uncovered
‘Volcanic’: Evidence of Queen’s involvement in the 1975 dismissal uncovered
Representatives of the British government flew to Australia in the lead-up to the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam government to meet with the then governor-general, casting further doubt on the accepted narrative that London officials did not play an active role in Australia’s most significant constitutional crisis.
Historian Jenny Hocking discovered files in the British archives showing Sir Michael Palliser, the newly appointed permanent under-secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, arrived in Canberra a month before the dismissal and held a joint meeting with Sir John Kerr and the British High Commissioner, Sir Morrice James, just as the Senate was blocking supply.
The Queen talks with the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, in 1977
Some of the decisions by the new Queensland LNP Government have a striking resonance with those of long-time Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen
The Newman State Government is showing its monarchist colours with Queensland set to become the first state in Australia to restore the title of Queen’s Counsel.
After nearly two decades of Senior Counsel, the state’s top barristers are expected to soon resume the old title, QC. The title QC dates back to the late 16th century, when Sir Francis Bacon was appointed the first Queen’s Counsel.
When Queensland decided to dump the title in 1994, it was riding the wave of modernism that was sweeping though many Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries. It was replaced in many places with various permutations of Senior or State Counsel, with no apparent loss of efficiency or purpose. The Bar Council of the Queensland Bar Association has confirmed to the Attorney-General’s office its in-principle support for the proposal to recommence the appointment of QCs, and the matter is expected to go before Cabinet soon. Queensland Bar Association president Roger Traves SC, acknowledged in a letter to members that some might view the move as pro-monarchist.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will take evidence at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre on July 14, 2015 in London, England. The inquiry will ‘investigate whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales’.
Update:
6 November 2016
Former student who was ‘oiled up, photographed and sexually abused’ before being caned for ‘telling lies’ says school tried naming building after headmaster who oversaw paedophiles
John, who is in his 60s, said his housemaster Harry Wippell assaulted him
He claims then principal Harry Roberts caned him for ‘telling lies’
Principal Harry Roberts oversaw four convicted paedophiles at Churchie after he was hired in 1947.
Housemaster Harry Wippell
John said he was soon introduced to Wippell’s friend, government stenographer Clarence Henry Howard-Osborne, who allegedly photographed him after making him take off his clothes and covering him in oil.
Paedophile Kingpin Charles Geerts & John David Stamford (Dutch) De Telegraaf 31-12-93, p37
Elm Guest House – CHE
In 1975, a Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality (CHE) was formed by party members, led by Peter Walter Campbell, a Professor of Politics at Reading University.
Campbell belonged to the Monday Club, a sub-group of ultra-libertarian Conservatives who believe in privatising everything from the prisons to the police. He was a member of the Albany Society which had campaigned for homosexuality to be legalised in 1967, and the very left-wing dominated Campaign for Homosexual Equality. They might have regarded him as an oddity, but he was like many of them in one striking way – he was a paedophile.
The name “Peter Campbell – Monday Club” is found on this list of clients of the Elm Guesthouse, a boy-brothel.
The place was closed down in 1988 but before she died, Mrs Kasir gave a list of regular clients to a former child protection officer, Mary Moss, who was investigating allegations made by victims. It was stunning, full of famous names from the world of show-business, M15 and politics. It included numerous MPs, and “Peter Campbell – Monday Club”.
It could not refer to anyone else. Other Monday Club members on the list were Conservative MPs Charles Irving, Peter Bottomley and Harvey Proctor. Not only did Peter Campbell use the boy-brothel, but he advertised it in the newsletter of the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality, which he edited.
The advertisement mentioned that Elm gave a discount to members of the “Spartacus club” – an infamous pederast network that fixed up paedophiles with victims to molest while on trips abroad.
Researchers for NAPAC (the National Association of People Abused in Childhood) have tracked down a letter Campbell wrote in 1982, at the time of this advertisement, with a handwritten note on it from Peter Campbell to John Rowe, another frequenter of the Elm Guesthouse, saying “I have now inserted the entry about the hotel but can’t find the text about the Dutch adventure – could you please let me have another copy? – Pete”. The Netherlands was the nearest and most popular destination for the boy-molesting holidays organised by Spartacus Club. Campbell could hop on the train at Reading and be in Paddington in forty-five minutes. From there he could take the Central Line Tube or more likely, on his professorial salary, he could afford to take a taxi to Barnes in Richmond. There he would select whatever bewildered, depressed young boy took his fancy, take him to a bedroom or even into the sauna, perform obscene acts on him, check him back in, and then have a drink in the bar before going on to meet friends at the House of Commons, or home to Reading. He was probably a member of the Spartacus club himself, and despite all of that he went on teaching in a British university. This molester of children was paid to teach teenagers aged from 18 upwards.
Under the leadership of John Major, the CGHE increased in size and strength and by 2010 it had quite simply taken over the party.
ASSOCIATES – JOHN PINNIGER, SIR CHARLES IRVING, DEREK LAUD, HARVEY PROCTOR…
John Pinniger, Lambeth Councillor at the same time as John Bercow and a fellow member of The Monday Club
Other Monday Club members – John Remfrey Pinniger (far left) was a leading activist and political adviser in the right-wing Conservative Monday Club during the early 1980s
Three of the Young Members’ Group at a Club Conference at Chilham Castle, 1980: John R. Pinniger (YMG Chairman), Richard Turnbull, & Gregory Lauder-Frost.
John R Pinniger – former Conservative councillor for Lambeth 1990
Pinniger worked closely with the Conservative Member of Parliament Harvey Proctor, who was then Chairman of the Monday Club’s Immigration & Repatriation Committee.
He co-authored papers with Proctor including:
”Immigration, Repatriation, & the Commission for Racial Equality”, by Keith_Harvey_Proctor, M.P., John R. Pinniger, M.A., with a foreword by Sir Ronald Bell, Q.C., M.P., published by the Monday Club, 1981, (P/B).
John Pinniger was a “research assistant” to Harvey Proctor MP and to Sir Charles Irving MP and Pinniger worked at Harrod’s menswear shop in between his parliamentary duties.
Peter Tatchell was a leading member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) but never knew or met any GLF members that were paedophiles like John David Stamford ?
On 27 August 1971, I arrived in Britain from Australia. The next day, I saw a lampost sticker near Oxford Circus advertising the Gay Liberation Front. My immediate reaction was a feeling of exhilaration. Four days later, I was at my first GLF meeting. Within a month, I was helping to organise many of GLF’s bold, irreverent zaps.
May/June: CHE takes part in two episodes of Jimmy Saville’s Speakeasy, the first with GLFand the second on its own. This is the largest audience CHE has achieved to date, and the phones at the London Office, staffed by volunteers, don’t stop ringing afterwards for twelve hours, despite having two extra lines put in for the occasion.
If you want to understand how we won LGBTI law reform in the UK, read this history of the pioneering Campaign for Homosexual Equality – and remember with pride the CHE campaigners who trailblazed the equal rights we now enjoy.
Pensioner backed Paedophile Information Exchange and may hold key to links with left wing groups
Nettie Pollard was a key figure in the London left – a Sunday People investigation reveals her to be a chief apologist for some of PIE’s most chilling demands
Even those who have lived beside her for years have little idea about her life – none of her neighbours has ever been invited inside the home she has lived in alone for almost 30 years.
She was a key figure in the London left, working for the National Council for Civil Liberties for two decades.
But a Sunday People investigation reveals Pollard to be chief apologist for some of PIE’s most chilling demands.
Our investigation found that throughout her career Pollard gave a constant stream of support to paedophiles and promoted their views. She also:
Supported PIE’s call to scrap the age of consent.
Argued against the introduction of a bill to protect children.
Sat on committees with known paedophiles and PIE members.
Wrote a twisted essay defending sex between adults and children.
It emerged MP Harriet Harman, husband Jack Dromey and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt had been involved with the NCCL when PIE was affiliated to it.
Mrs Harman has subsequently moved to distance herself from Pollard and paedophiles, with a spokesman stating they “did not influence any of the work she did there”.
However one source involved with the London left in the 70s claims – embarrassingly for Mrs Harman – that she and Pollard did work together on occasions within the NCCL .
The source said: “Nettie was a big presence in the movement back in the 1970s and couldn’t be ignored by anyone wanting to get on in the NCCL.”
Our investigation first places Pollard in 1975 working as the Gay and Lesbian Officer for the NCCL.
And that brought her into close contact with the infamous PIE – the child sex group which campaigned to have the age of consent lowered or scrapped.
As well as her role at the NCCL, Pollard was and remains a significant member of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality – a group that defended PIE’s rights at their 1983 conference.
But even after PIE was disbanded in 1984, Pollard made no secret of her sympathy for the organisation’s aims.
In 1993 she contributed a defence of the sexualisation of youngsters to a book called Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures.
Entitled The Small Matter of Children, Pollard’s essay draws on work by knownpaedophiles such as former PIE vice-chair Warren Middleton to build its case.
Pollard argues child sex should be legal if the act is “consensual”.
It also uses language like “willing partners” to describe sex between adults and children.
But by far the most disturbing section is Pollard’s attempt to justify the sexualisation of children.
She writes: “Far from being ‘innocent’ and becoming sexual at puberty, as was once the common belief, it is now indisputable that everyone is sexual, even before birth.”
The research cited was also used in PIE’s bid to reduce the age of consent to just four.
Pollard continued to work for the NCCL until her mysterious departure from the group in 1997.
She was made redundant but reports from Feminists Against Censorship implies murkier reasons behind her exit.
A newsletter from the time reads: “Within the last several months, two of NCCL’s employees have remarked that the organisation’s longest-serving staff member, Nettie Pollard, was the last civil libertarian left on the payroll.”
Challenging the cost-cutting explanation given it added: “Since she is one of the few indispensable staff members, and the most expensive to make redundant, we suspect economy is not the reason.”
Pollard, whose Facebook page currently shows her support for causes including an anti-drones campaign and attacks on the “Big Brother” state, also showcases her taste in music with a link to indie rock band The Donutsh – described by one of their following as sounding “like Johnny Cash biting off Johnny Rotten’s head”.
She refused to answer the door to us when we visited her home.
Feb 2014: Convicted paedophile, Tom O’Carroll told The Guardian he remained a member of the NCCL’s gay rights committee for several years after Harman claimed his organisation was marginalised. NCCL archives in London have also shown how O’Carroll, a former chairman of PIE, asked Nettie Pollard, a staff member at the organisation, about the possibility of amendments to the 1978 child protection bill.
Is Peter Tatchell A Paedophile Or Simply Misunderstood?
Peter Tatchell was born in Melbourne Australia on 25th January 1952, he moved to London in 1971 to avoid conscription. In 1978 Tatchell joined the Labour Party and moved to Bermondsey, South East London. Tatchell ran as the Bermondsey Labour Party candidate in the 1983 General Election. Despite Bermondsey being a Labour stronghold he lost to Liberal candidate Simon Hughes. In February 2000 he left the Labour Party for unknown reasons. In 2004 he joined the Green Party and was chosen to be their candidate for Oxford East in the 2010 General Election, however for some reason he withdrew his candidacy in 2009.
Comrade Tatchell
Peter Tatchell (the UK’s most prominent homosexual activist and a favourite of the BBC)has done more than demand the abolition of the age of consent, he has broken the law on the age of consent in Britain at least once.
Peter Tatchell is a regular on the BBC. The BBC have refused to state whether he appears as a human rights activist, homosexual campaigner or paedophilie apologist. Peter Tatchell is a regular on the BBC. The BBC have refused to state whether he appears as a human rights activist, homosexual campaigner or paedophile apologist. They have also refused to state how much they have paid him for appearances.
As a gay 18-year-old Australian anti-Vietnam war draft-dodger, he came to the UK in 1971 and lived with a 16-year-old boy in London. The homosexual age of consent in England at the time was 21. Later he campaigned for lowering it to 16, and now he wants it lowered again to 14. What will he want after that?
When the age of consent for homosexuals was lowered to 16 an Outrage (Tatchell’s organization) banner said “16 is just a start” – it didn’t state what the end goal was.
Mr Tatchell criticises the age of consent laws. Here is a quotation from his own website:
“Nevertheless, like any minimum age, it is arbitrary and fails to acknowledge that different people mature sexually at different ages. A few are ready for sex at 12; others not until they’re 20. Having a single, inflexible age of consent doesn’t take into account these differences. It dogmatically imposes a limit, regardless of individual circumstances“.
Peter Tatchell wrote the chapter “Questioning Ages of Majority and Ages of Consent” for a book openly advocating paedophilia and finding ways “to make paedophilia acceptable“.
This book, published in 1986 and called The Betrayal of Youth (B.O.Y.), was edited by Warren Middleton, then vice-chairperson of the Paedophile Information Exchange, Britain’s number one paedophile advocacy group.
How some university academics make the case for paedophiles at summer conferences
Ken Plummer is emeritus professor of sociology at Essex University, where he has an office and teaches courses, the most recent scheduled for last month. “The isolation, secrecy, guilt and anguish of many paedophiles,” he wrote in Perspectives on Paedophilia, “are not intrinsic to the phenomen[on] but are derived from the extreme social repression placed on minorities …
“Paedophiles are told they are the seducers and rapists of children; they know their experiences are often loving and tender ones. They are told that children are pure and innocent, devoid of sexuality; they know both from their own experiences of childhood and from the children they meet that this is not the case.”
As recently as 2012, Prof Plummer published on his personal blog a chapter he wrote in another book, Male Intergenerational Intimacy, in 1991. “As homosexuality has become slightly less open to sustained moral panic, the new pariah of ‘child molester’ has become the latest folk devil,” he wrote. “Many adult paedophiles say that boys actively seek out sex partners … ‘childhood’ itself is not a biological given but an historically produced social object.”
Prof Plummer confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that he had been a member of PIE in order to “facilitate” his research
Robert Kingsley Whitehead outside Melbourne Magistrates Court in 2015.
Puffing Billy sex abuse scandal hidden by official failures
25 June 2018
Monumental failures by Victorian officials perpetuated one of the state’s worst child sex abuse scandals, according to an inquiry into abuse of children at the iconic Puffing Billy Railway tourist attraction.
In an inquiry prompted by an expose in The Age, Ombudsman Deborah Glass has said that officials at Puffing Billy and other Victorian railway groups put the organisation’s reputation above the welfare of many vulnerable children, exposing them to sexual abuse by paedophile Robert Whitehead.
“Whitehead was a life-long offender whose abuse was facilitated by the wilful blindness, indifference or ineptitude of a succession of organisations from Victorian Railways to Puffing Billy,” Ms Glass said.
Ms Glass’ inquiry has led to the disbanding of the board that oversees the iconic tourist train. Puffing Billy’s longstanding chief executive John Robinson took sick leave ahead of the tabling of the Ombudsman’s report. His contract has not been renewed.
The report centres on Whitehead, a lifelong sex offender who was a volunteer at Puffing Billy from 1961 until 1990.
Whitehead died in prison in 2015 after being convicted of sexually abusing six boys.
Whitehead was first convicted of a child sex offence in 1959. But he was given his job on the Victorian government railway back after being released from jail in 1960.
Ms Glass found he used his status as a government train controller to groom boys. She said, “we do not and will never know how many he abused”.
Ms Glass said the victims of sexual abuse at Puffing Billy were owed a public apology.
“The action and inaction of people in authority is inexcusable,” she said.
“ Double standards prevailed for decades. Puffing Billy reported minor thefts but not decades of child sex abuse.”
Puffing Billy, 1975
Another paedophile, Anthony John Hutchins, operated at Puffing Billy alongside Whitehead in the 1980s. He was jailed after pleading guilty to 66 offences.
Over 30 years, Whitehead used Puffing Billy to prey on children, including those who attended the railway’s overnight working parties. Some members of the Puffing Billy Board were aware of allegations Whitehead was abusing children but never reported these matters to police or sought to restrict his access to children.
Ms Glass said certain board members “failed to act on complaints” and in “one notable case” punished a teen abuse victim by banning him from Puffing Billy.
The state government will back all the recommendations of the ombudsman’s inquiry.
Among these are to set up a victims’ support taskforce to help people who have been abused seek redress, and to ensure the new board of the railway introduces child safety standards recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Another paedophile, Anthony John Hutchins, operated at Puffing Billy alongside Whitehead in the 1980s. He was jailed after pleading guilty to 66 offences.
Over 30 years, Whitehead used Puffing Billy to prey on children, including those who attended the railway’s overnight working parties. Some members of the Puffing Billy Board were aware of allegations Whitehead was abusing children but never reported these matters to police or sought to restrict his access to children.
Ms Glass said certain board members “failed to act on complaints” and in “one notable case” punished a teen abuse victim by banning him from Puffing Billy.
The state government will back all the recommendations of the ombudsman’s inquiry.
Among these are to set up a victims’ support taskforce to help people who have been abused seek redress, and to ensure the new board of the railway introduces child safety standards recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
John Eren, the Minister for Tourism and Major Events, is understood to have taken a close interest in the scandal since it was first revealed in The Age, viewing it as an opportunity to address past injustices and a systemic governance failure involving the railway.
In an emotional press conference on Monday, Mr Eren said Puffing Billy management had ignored repeated ‘‘cries for help’’ by children and their families about the abuse.
‘‘There’s some vindication for the victims and obviously [Whitehead], through his time in prison, has deceased and is hopefully burning in hell,’’ Mr Eren said.
Mr Eren accepted Ms Glass’ recommendation he issue a public apology to children abused while involved with Puffing Billy, and said it would take place following private apologies.
‘‘Over decades, Puffing Billy railway protected pedophiles and chose to ignore allegations of sexual assault against children,’’ he said.
Mr Eren said the entire Emerald Tourism Railway Board and Puffing Billy chief executive had resigned, with an interim group installed.
Speaking alongside Mr Eren, the acting interim chair of Puffing Billy, Jennifer Fleming, said the organisation would also issue a formal apology to victims.
The case is a stark example of how multiple cases of sexual abuse could occur inside a government entity with limited or no intervention, effectively providing impunity to offenders.
The child sex abuse epidemic was revealed in The Age in 2015 after the newspaper was contacted by victim Wayne Clarke.
The victim’s story
Clarke’s story of abuse and survival is harrowing. On Australia Day weekend in 1974, Clarke, then an 11-year-old, visited Melbourne’s Spencer Street station to look at a historic rail carriage. He left having given his name and address to a 43-year-old man. It would be four decades before Clarke would be able to bring himself to walk into Cheltenham police station to tell officers what happened next.
Like countless boys the world over, Clarke loved trains. He had travelled alone from his home in Mentone just to see an 1899 rail carriage known as the 30AV. Purpose-built by the Victorian railways, it had a curved wooden roof and ornate wooden window shutters. It was a beauty.
As Clarke studied the carriage, he was approached by its owner, a powerfully built man who was a senior railways officer and a leading member of the Puffing Billy service. His name was Robert Kingsley Whitehead.
The pair talked about their infatuation with trains. Whitehead asked the boy to give him his address and telephone number so he could send him some special train articles. Clarke went home excited at having met a man he aspired to be like. But it was the beginning of a nightmare that many other children would also endure.
Clarke is one of a band of now middle-aged men who had their childhoods ruined by predators including Whitehead who throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s operated often with impunity within Victoria’s government and historic railways, including the iconic Puffing Billy.
At least four other men volunteering at Puffing Billy or at the Australian Historical Rail Society in North Williamstown have been convicted for child sex offences over the past 30 years. Other abusers were never caught and have died. Some are living as free men. For far too long, Whitehead was too, until he was finally jailed in 2015 for decades of abuse involving six children.
The predator
Whitehead presented as charming and harmless. Born in 1931, he grew up in Melbourne’s sandbelt suburb of Cheltenham. His father, Ken, was secretary of the Cheltenham Golf Club. His mother, Margaret, was from a prominent local family. Young Robert was a boy scout. Comfortable rather than wealthy, the family stood out mainly because of where they lived – a historic homestead in Charman Road that Margaret had inherited, along with some family connections that some observers would later speculate helped their son stay out of trouble.
The property endowed Whitehead with an aura of grandeur that he further extended by telling people that he was schooled at the exclusive Mentone Grammar. Actually, he went to the local state secondary school. Perhaps we can read something into that small lie – a habit of pretending to be someone other than who he was. Or not. Children embellish the truth, or they do sometimes – it was a truism that Whitehead himself would exploit to devastating effect as an adult. But there is little in his childhood to seize on for those of us looking for clues – unless it was the house itself, which was known as Ulupna, and which back in the 19th century had been a lunatic asylum.
After leaving school, Whitehead brought his boyhood loves of trains and the scouts into adulthood. He rose through the ranks to become a Scoutmaster. He started in the Victorian government railways as a 17-year-old and by his mid-20s, he was working as a stationmaster. Outside his day job, most of his time was spent as a volunteer at Puffing Billy – the steam train in the Dandenongs beloved by generations of Victorian children – and the rail society in North Williamstown. He would have long associations with both, and later would also spend several years at the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre. Back in the mid-’70s however his haunt was the disused Taradale rail station near Bendigo, which he and a few friends leased from the state.
Whitehead was in no rush to build his friendship with the young Wayne Clarke. Sometimes he would drop in to the boy’s home where he impressed his parents with his charm and respectability. The boy and the man would go out for the odd day trip and train rides. Then, on October 18, 1975, everything changed. Clarke remembers the telephone at his house ringing at 6pm. It was Whitehead. He wanted to know if Clarke would join him that night for an overnight stay at Taradale.
By 7.30pm, Clarke was in the car with Whitehead, heading north. And it was here that he felt his first moment of unease. They were passing through Moorabbin when Whitehead made a strange comment. “He said, ‘By the way, everyone who goes to Taradale has a nude initiation’,” Clarke recalls. He had never heard Whitehead speak like this before. He hoped it was a bad joke.
It was late when they arrived at the old station. They got out of the car and trudged toward the old stone building. Whitehead unlocked the wooden door and ushered the boy inside. Clarke remembers feeling his temperature drop as he entered the building. The momentary quiet was interrupted by the door locking behind him. Then Whitehead spoke. His voice was different. More a bark: “Take your clothes off.” Clarke had just turned 13. He did as he was told.
“I froze. I was terrified,” Clarke, now 52, remembers.
Years of abuse
How often did Robert Whitehead slip between the cracks? How many times could he have been stopped? Towards the end of 1959, when he was 28, Whitehead disappeared for seven months. He would later tell people he had gone to Darwin. In fact, he was in Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison. Some months before, the urges that Whitehead would much later tell police had been building inside him since his schooldays, had surfaced. He had abducted the son of a policeman from a Scout hall and molested him. He was found guilty on November 2, 1959, and sentenced to 18 months in Pentridge Prison. He was released on parole seven months later.
Scouts Victoria took swift action, forcing him out and writing to their affiliate bodies across Australia to warn them never to allow him near children. A letter dated February 25, 1960, from Scouts Victoria to Supreme Court judge Trevor Rapke, indicates it was the judge who specifically requested steps be taken to ensure Whitehead “did not come into contact with boys in future”.
Somehow, however, Whitehead was welcomed back into his government job at the railways and would progress to become a controller at Spencer Street station in Melbourne’s CBD. It was a job that would give him great authority in the railway fraternity – and unimpeded access to children.
Extraordinarily, Victoria’s railway department deemed it appropriate for Whitehead to return to a prestigious job that would bring him into regular contact with children. Through their actions- or inaction- certain officials afforded Whitehead protection over the years when complaints about him were periodically raised.
Whitehead abused Clarke at a disused railway station. He preyed on others, too.
More victims
Nineteen ninety-seven. A V/Line train to Seymour. The train’s conductor is a young man called Bill. As he passes through one of the carriages, he sees the familiar burly frame of a man sitting comfortably as the train rolls through open country. Their eyes meet. “He knew who I was,” Bill recalls. “I watched him like a hawk and thought, ‘If you go near a kid on my carriage I’ll kill you’.”
Bill, who has asked for his surname not to be published, was 12 when he first met Whitehead. It was on the Puffing Billy line in the mid-1980s. “I just loved railways at the time.” Bill, now 48, says he was abused by Whitehead and a colleague called Anthony John Hutchins while at Puffing Billy. He says both men warned him no one would believe him if he spoke out.
But unlike Clarke, Bill did speak out. He told his parents.
In 1986, Bill’s parents were among a small group to contact police, alleging that Whitehead and Hutchins had abused their children at Puffing Billy. Hutchins fell to pieces. He confessed and was convicted of 66 sex charges against children. But Whitehead was cool – or clever. He didn’t sweat, let alone confess. For years, he was able to persuade his doubters and confound his victims. By the 2000s, the state government and various local councils were even using him as an expert historian to promote tourist railways.
Bill, who went on to work for V/Line himself, recalls that he was once threatened with losing his job after referring to Whitehead as “paedophile Bob” in front of a V/Line manager. Whitehead seemed to be untouchable. Bill meanwhile coped by drinking. Once he tried to kill himself.
Bill and his mother Alice remain staggered that Whitehead escaped charges in 1986. “Whitehead must have had friends in high places,” Alice said in an interview in 2015.
The ombudsman’s report has confirmed that Whitehead’s tale encapsulates a gross failure by successive state governments and Victoria’s close-knit railway fraternity to protect vulnerable children. If only steps had been taken to exile Whitehead from Victoria’s railway movement upon his first conviction, Clarke and at least five other boys would have been spared the abuse that has scarred their lives. If only people had acted on what was known as far back as 1959, the story of Robert Kingsley Whitehead would hardly be worth telling.
In an interview in 2015, the chief executive of Puffing Billy, John Robinson, says it was only in 1990 that management became aware of an “unconfirmed allegation” of abuse against Whitehead by an unknown victim. He says Whitehead was questioned and denied the claim. But management immediately revoked his volunteer status and cancelled his membership.
Similarly he says, the organisation ejected Hutchins in 1986 after parents complained and he confessed.
“In both cases from my knowledge I can categorically deny the allegation that management was aware of allegations against either man and took no action. In both cases, management took immediate and firm action,” Robinson says.
The victims have disputed this and in her report, ombudsman Deborah Glass said that Mr Robinson’s position as chief executive should be reviewed.
The survivor
Today, Clarke lives with his partner and two stepchildren. He says he is happy but acknowledges that Whitehead’s abuse has affected his life in many ways. He is less trusting, more wary. His secret affected past relationships. He felt unable to confide. He struggled with keeping what happened from his mother, afraid she would blame herself.
It was not until a few weeks after he had walked into Cheltenham police station in July 2014 to report to police what had happened all those years before, that Clarke finally told her the whole story of what happened on that night in 1975 when he went away with the railway man.
Clarke had spent the previous two days giving his statement to detective Nova Graham when he called in to see his mother. He was drained. “We were sitting together and she asked me if I was OK,” Clarke says. Then she asked him the question she had been holding close to her all those years: ‘Was it that man I let you go away with? I’ve always worried that something might have happened to you that night.'”
Whitehead’s jailing is all down to Clarke. But Rolf Harris helped. It was the hubris of the disgraced entertainer in the face of his own sexual abuse charges that prompted Clarke to go to the police. There had been other times when he came close. Other public figures. Other disclosures. But something inside kept holding him back. Until Harris. As details of Harris’ brazen predation of his young fans continued to emerge, Clarke was overcome with disgust, not only at the entertainer, but at a society that had seemingly turned a blind eye. It was time. “I knew I wouldn’t be Whitehead’s only victim,” he previously told The Age.
On Monday morning, the ombudsman singled out Clarke for praise. His bravery, Ms Glass said, had allowed the foll horrors of the scandal to be finally revealed.
Puffing Billy paedophile Robert Whitehead: the secret he took to the grave
December 31 2016
When Victorian railway sex predator Robert Whitehead died in jail last year, he took a big secret with him.
That secret was the identity of a small but powerful group of Victorian men who, according to his victims, ran what amounted to a protection racket for Whitehead, and whose influence allowed him to abuse train-loving boys, whenever he wanted, for at least three decades.
Probe into claims Puffing Billy paedophile Robert Whitehead had high-level protection
June 28 2017
Claims that Puffing Billy sex predator Robert Whitehead was enabled and protected by a cabal of powerful men are to be investigated by the state Ombudsman.
Justice took a long-time to catch up to Whitehead, who died in 2015 at the age of 84. His death came months into a lengthy prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to 24 charges involving six boys and ranging from sexual penetration and indecent assault to false imprisonment.
Robert Whitehead, pictured in 2015, died months into a lengthy prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to 24 sex crime charges.
The offences occurred from the 1960s to 1980s.
Sex crimes detectives believe Whitehead may have had many more victims, and Fairfax Media understands there is at least one new accuser who is considering reporting Whitehead’s alleged abuse of him during the 1990s.
Wayne Clarke, one of Whitehead’s victims. Photo: Simon O’Dwyer
Three of Whitehead’s victims spoke out last yearabout their belief that a small group of police, politicians and railway officials shielded their abuser from scrutiny. Whitehead was the subject of numerous complaints to police and railway officials over the years, but it appears action was not taken.
One victim who still works for the Victorian railways said Whitehead told him it would be futile to report him, because he “had protection”.
The victim also said Whitehead had enough influence within the Transport Department to have a job offer to become a train driver rescinded.
“I’ll never forget Whitehead standing on the stairwell above me saying: ‘I told you that you should’ve bent over for me.’ ”
It can also be revealed that the Puffing Billy Preservation Society may face legal action over the failure of its previous leadership to protect boys under its care by not acting on complaints against Whitehead.
Law firm Ryan Carlisle Thomas is acting for several of Whitehead’s victims and is investigating all potential entitlements to compensation.
The Ombudsman’s investigation will go as far back as 1959, the year Whitehead served his first prison term, for abducting and molesting a boy scout.
Despite the serious conviction, Whitehead was given his job back on the Victorian government railways after his release from Pentridge Prison thanks to the intervention of Bolte government minister Sir Murray Porter, who lobbied railway chiefs as a favour for Whitehead’s father, who was his friend.
Whitehead grasped his second chance, rising to become a controller at Melbourne’s Spencer Street Station. He also became a prominent figure at the Puffing Billy tourist railway and other volunteer rail services.
He used his government and volunteer railway positions to befriend boys, several of whom he went on to sexually abuse. Farifax has previously revealed how at least one boy was sadistically abused and imprisoned at a dis-used railway building Whitehead leased from the government at Taradale, near Bendigo.
A letter from Deputy Ombudsman Megan Philpot to Wayne Clarke, one of Whitehead’s victims, reveals the investigation will examine how Whitehead got his job back with the Victorian railways after his first conviction.
The investigation will also examine how Whitehead was able to lease state-owned property at Taradale and at Brighton beach in Melbourne’s south-east. His role as secretary of the Puffing Billy Preservation Society will also come under scrutiny.
Importantly, the investigation will delve into how the Victorian railways department, the Puffing Billy Preservation Society and other volunteer railway groups responded to complaints about him.
Fairfax has previously revealed how police could not find a record of Whitehead’s 1959 conviction in their archives.
Victoria Police has investigated why no record of Whitehead’s first offence could be found and determined that his record had been removed from its main criminal registry in error.
Fifty years after a mum first raised the alarm, men get $7m for teacher’s abuse
Ten men abused as children by a paedophile teacher who was shuffled between primary schools for 14 years have been paid more than $7 million by the Victorian government.
Robert Leonard Morris, 72, started abusing boys the year he began teaching in 1966.
A mother reported him to the Education Department in 1967 but he continued teaching up until 1980 in Melbourne’s east and country Victoria, despite further reports to police and principals.
He left dozens of victims in his wake. The youngest was six years old.
Ten of his victims, now aged in their 40s and 50s, were awarded compensation following civil action in which the government accepted it was legally responsible for Morris’ crimes.
The settlements for Morris’ crimes significantly exceed what the Catholic Church has paid-out. Victims received an average $46,000 under the Melbourne Response and a $270,000 average settlement for those who tried to sue, according to a 2015 Age analysis.
Robert Leonard Morris.
Two survivors of Morris’ abuse received between $1.5 and almost $2 million; thought to be record figures in Victorian sex abuse claims.
“He deserves to rot,” one of those two men told Fairfax Media.
“It wasn’t easy to sue the Education Department, but there have to be consequences for putting a known paedophile in a classroom of little kids.”
“I’m proud of standing up for myself and for other survivors. I’m glad I did it and I urge other survivors, if they can, to do the same – talk to police, talk to the lawyers. Make sure this never happens again.”
A Department spokesman said it was a tragic case with a heartbreaking impact.
“We apologise unreservedly for failing to protect the victims of this teacher when they were students in the 1970s,” he said.
Rightside Legal’s Michael Magazanik, who represented the 10 men and another three who have sued, said the Education Department could have stopped it at the beginning.
In 1967 a mother reported Morris to the Education Department for abusing her son, he was reported to at least two principals in the 1970s and, damningly, he was allowed to return to the same school in Ringwood in 1979 despite being charged and acquitted of abusing six boys.
It’s understood one principal put him in a classroom opposite his office to keep an eye on him. But still he continued to assault students, Mr Magazanik said.
Much of the abuse was public; in classrooms, on crowded school buses, at school camps and in playgrounds.
Jailed last year for at least four years, the County Court heard in one instance, Morris made a seven-year-old boy sit on his lap in front of his class and masturbated him from behind a book.
One of the boys, the court heard, now suffers from a debilitating compulsion to wash himself over and over.
The civil claims for Morris’ abuse were settled before trial, except for one victim, for whom the compensation amount was contested. Government lawyers argued the man, who was able to work full-time, suffered mild anxiety that did not prevent him for leading a secure life.
Justice Rita Zammit awarded the 51-year-old $717,000 in damages, future losses and medical costs in the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Friday.
Justice Zammit said the abuse – which he experienced weekly through his grade 4 year at a Ringwood school – insidiously affected all aspects of his life.
“The abuse was prolonged, gross and public and it had a profoundly damaging effect,” Justice Zammit said.
It is believed the government is considering counter-suing Morris to recover some of the pay-out. Police are also understood to be investigating claims from further victims.
Morris was jailed last year for a maximum six years, with a minimum of four behind bars, for abusing six boys at two schools in Cranbourne and Ringwood. He lost an appeal against his sentence in December.
Morris, who was a Cub leader in Melbourne’s east, left teaching in 1980 after he pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of a student.
He went on to teach international students in Sydney and China from 2001 to 2008 before his arrest in Canberra last year.
The Education Department spokesman said the way schools identify and respond to suspected child abuse has been overhauled.
‘Seduction’ of children did little harm, said Catholic gatekeeper
September 18, 2019
The psychologist who worked with the Catholic church for three decades to screen candidates for the priesthood once characterised child abuse as “seduction” that would do little lasting harm to its victims.
Ronald Conway, the Melbourne Archdiocese’s “consulting psychologist for religious vocations” tested applicants to the Corpus Christi seminary from 1969 to at least 2001, during which time 16 child abusers graduated as priests.
Mr Conway himself was later accused of historical sexual misconduct by former patients of his private practice, though never charged or convicted.
Ronald Conway, the psychologist who acted as mental-health gatekeeper to Corpus Christi seminary.
An investigation by The Age has exposed how some of the Catholic church’s worst paedophile priests shared victims, passed on details of vulnerable children, and worked together to conceal their crimes as part of informal networks of abuse. At the centre of a number of these clusters was Corpus Christi, where Mr Conway and psychiatrist Dr Eric Seal were the mental health gatekeepers.
Mr Conway was largely responsible for formulating screening practices that led to many unsuitable candidates entering Corpus Christi training college and eventually becoming priests. One candidate told the royal commission he was classified as fit for the priesthood in 1993 after being asked to sort a series of coloured cards and look at ink blots during a testing session that lasted only 90 minutes.
Mr Conway and Dr Seal, now both deceased, also provided treatment to priests and religious brothers caught committing acts of abuse between the late 1950s and the early 2000s. Among their clients were notorious paedophiles Gerald Ridsdale, Paul David Ryan, and David Daniel. So too was Paul Pavlou, who Mr Conway assessed in 2001 as a “better than average” candidate for the priesthood. Two years later, Pavlou began sexually assaulting young boys.
In a 1987 assessment, the psychologist referred to Father Daniel Hourigan’s abuse of a child as a “seduction” that represented only an “unfortunate lapse” in behaviour more than a decade in the past.
“There seems to be no evidence that he has misbehaved himself in recent times, and I am inclined to accept his assurances at face value,” Mr Conway wrote in a file note tabled in the royal commission.
The church ultimately paid out at least seven of Hourigan’s victims for offending over 32 years, and he was criminally charged with abusing one boy and accused by three others. He died before charges could get to court.
Mr Conway’s dismissal of the seriousness of clerical offending in his professional work for the church was mirrored in public pronouncements about the abuse scandal as it gained attention in the 1990s.
“The overwhelming majority of one-off adult/child sex encounters usually do little lasting harm,” he wrote in The Age in 1993.
Over the years, Mr Conway also stridently defended the archdiocese and its vetting of priests, claiming that effective psychological screening processes had been in place since 1970.
Mr Conway was regarded as a respected Catholic thinker and social commentator, authoring a number of well-known books on Australian culture and society, as well as regularly contributing pieces to The Age, The Australian and ABC on addiction, sexuality and gender issues.
His supporters included former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who briefly trained for the priesthood in NSW. Mr Abbott told Parliament in a tribute to Mr Conway when he died in 2009: “His particular gift was to help young men to understand that masculine love did not mean they would become sooks. He was indeed a prophet and he should be honoured in his own country.”
Former Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, also honoured Mr Conway in a eulogy.
The Age has confirmed that some of Mr Conway’s former patients accused him of abusing his position by forming sexual relationships with them in the 1960s and 70s, reporting their experiences to research and survivor advocacy group Broken Rites.
One male victim who spoke to The Age said the therapist had advised him to take LSD to help him come to terms with being gay. At the time LSD was considered to have therapeutic uses. The patient went for treatment firstly at the Newhaven private hospital and then at Conway’s Canterbury home. It was there on a plastic-covered couch in a room lined with hieroglyphic wallpaper that Mr Conway made his advances.
“He came towards me and I was so surprised that we ended up sliding off the plastic and onto the floor. He said, ‘This shouldn’t have happened, but given it has then we should do it properly in his bedroom’. I was shocked,” the man said.
The Melbourne Archdiocese did not comment on whether officials were aware of any complaints of sexual misconduct by Mr Conway while he was working for the church.
An Age snapshot of 34 Corpus Christi graduates who were accused or convicted of committing acts of child abuse, and for whom reliable records exist, found that 17 priests had offended within three years of being ordained. Four began offending even before they were ordained.
Melbourne Archdiocese spokesman Shane Healy said that while seminary training had “not always been consistent” in the past, “the inadequate standards of the past are not the reality today.”
The Dioceses of Victoria and Tasmania have insisted for many years that every seminarian who enters into seminary formation undertake a thorough psychological assessment administered by a registered independent clinician.”
“Today, Corpus Christi College forms future priests in a professional environment that includes human, spiritual, academic, pastoral and missionary formation,” he said.
The century-old Corpus Christi, which is owned and governed by the five dioceses of Victoria and Tasmania, has produced more than 1000 priests, from jailed Cardinal George Pell to Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge.
Hands bound in what police described as a ‘frenzied attack’
Youngest son abused by two local priests
One priest seen covered in blood on day of murder
Police cleared suspects using wrong D
Trace: Police admit DNA bungle wrongly cleared paedophile priest as suspect in cold case murder
Father Bongiorno was ruled out of involvement in Maria James’ murder as a result of a DNA mix-up
July12 2017
Police have admitted they used an incorrect DNA sample to rule out a paedophile priest in the brutal killing of Melbourne cold case murder victim Maria James.
The ABC understands a bloodied pillow case, used to establish a DNA profile for the suspected killer of the Thornbury single mother, came from an unrelated crime scene.
Local priest Father Anthony Bongiorno, as well as multiple other suspects in Maria James’ 1980 murder, were cleared as a result of DNA testing against that incorrect sample.
Her two sons, Mark and Adam James, have now formally applied to the Victorian coroner to set aside the original finding and reopen the 37-year-old case.
Maria James was stabbed 68 times in her home out the back of her Thornbury bookshop in what police described as a “bizarre” and “frenzied” killing.
The ABC’s Trace podcast has been reinvestigating the murder for over a year, and recently became aware that an incorrect DNA sample had been used to rule out persons of interest in the case.
On presenting that information to authorities, the ABC was issued a statement by Victoria Police stating it had discovered “an error in the handling of an exhibit”.
“The exhibit in question had been forensically tested and used to eliminate suspects. A recent review by the homicide squad however has shown that the exhibit was in fact unrelated to the Maria James case,” the statement said.
“A small number of persons of interest who had previously been eliminated will now be re-assessed in accordance with normal investigation procedures.
“Victoria Police would like to stress that this was an isolated human error, and not the result of any flaws in the forensic testing process.”
‘I’m devastated by this information’
For nearly four decades, police have failed to identify Maria James’ killer.
In 2013, it was revealed Father Bongiorno sexually abused her 11-year-old son Adam, who has cerebral palsy and Tourette syndrome, in the weeks prior to her murder.
Now 48, Adam said he told his mum of the abuse and believed she planned to confront the priest.
Father Bongiorno died in 2002.
Trace also revealed a local electrician working at the nearby St Mary’s church said he saw Father Bongiorno with blood on his face, arm and hands on the afternoon of the murder.
The electrician, Allan Hircoe, said he took the information to Victoria Police, but was told it was not pertinent to the Maria James case.
“They just told me that the DNA [they] found at the scene is not [Bongiorno’s],” Mr Hircoe said.
“They had the DNA of [Maria James] and other DNA, and they said it’s not his.”
Police visited Maria’s eldest son Mark James on Tuesday night to inform him of their error.
Mark James said he was “shaken up” by the DNA bungle and found it difficult to accept.
“I’m devastated by this information,” he told Trace.
“They mentioned I think nine suspects that need to be retested, based on this error, and Father Bongiorno was among them.
“They apologised to me for what’s happened, and they apologised for previously being told that Father Bongiorno had been eliminated, whereas now they can confirm Bongiorno has not been eliminated through any type of DNA testing.
“I acknowledge human error is a fact of life, but it seems a bit odd that somehow this pillowcase got put into mum’s evidence lot.”
In light of the new information, police are hoping the killer’s DNA exists on other exhibits from the Thornbury crime scene.
Mark James said he believed police should reinvestigate Father Bongiorno as a key suspect.
He also called for an investigation into Father Thomas O’Keeffe, who was parish priest at St Mary’s Thornbury, and once abused Adam James on the same day as Father Bongiorno.
Survivors who had been abused by Father O’Keeffe in other parishes around Melbourne prior to him moving to St Mary’s told Trace he was a terrifying and violent “psychopath”.
Father O’Keeffe died in 1984, but it is understood police could access familial DNA that would establish a DNA profile for him.
This could then be compared against any newly created DNA profile of the killer.
Victoria Police said they were committed to achieving justice for the family of Maria James, but would not comment further on the case.
“My brother was sexually assaulted by both Bongiorno and O’Keeffe right before my mum was killed,” Mark James said.
“My mum found out about it. She had contact with the church, where that contact indicated she was going to complain, and within a matter of a day or two, she’s murdered under very mysterious circumstances.
Father Anthony Bongiorno (right) was seen covered in blood on the day of Maria James’ murder.
Witness saw paedophile priest covered in blood near cold case murder victim Maria James’ house
27 Jun 2017
A priest who sexually abused the son of cold case murder victim Maria James was seen covered in blood on the day of her murder, metres from the crime scene.
The priest — identified as Father Anthony Bongiorno — had blood on his face and arm as he ran into St Mary’s Parish Thornbury, roughly 50 metres from the Melbourne bookshop and home where Maria was stabbed 68 times in 1980.
Prestigious boys’ schools face multimillion-dollar lawsuits as lawyer claims children were sexually abused on an ‘outrageous’ scale
Lawyer claimed some of Sydney’s top schools face huge sexual abuse lawsuits
Jason Parkinson, who has 1,500 cases, said the abuse was on ‘outrageous scale’
He said it was ‘cruel’ that parents worked hard to send children to the schools
Mr Parkinson added that treating victims was likely to cost taxpayers ‘a fortune’
30 January 2017
A handful of Sydney’s most prestigious schools reportedly face multimillion-dollar lawsuits from hundreds of people for historic claims of having been sexually abused as children.
Lawyer Jason Parkinson told the Daily Telegraph that top schools like Trinity Grammar, Knox Grammar and St Patrick’s College, Goulburn, were among the schools facing a series of legal claims.
He also claimed acclaimed schools such as Newington College and De La Salle colleges in Revesby Heights and Marrickville were among those facing huge lawsuits.
A handful of Sydney’s most prestigious schools reportedly face multimillion-dollar lawsuits from hundreds of people for historic claims of having been sexually abused as children. Pictured, Trinity Grammar School
Mr Parkinson said the abuse took place on ‘an outrageous scale’ and said the deluge of lawsuits was similar to that seen when asbestos was found to be harmful.
‘There has not been a common thread of criminality or negligence that has affected more Australians than child abuse and it is more egregious than asbestos because these institutions’ reason for being was caring for children,’ he said.
Lawyer Jason Parkinson claimed that schools like Trinity Grammar, Knox Grammar (pictured) and St Patrick’s College, Goulburn, were among the schools facing a series of the historic allegations
The lawyer also claimed that private schools were more likely to cover up abuse as it is not mandatory for them to report it, whereas it is in state schools.
Mr Parkinson, who says he has 1,500 sex abuse cases on his books, said many o the boys who were abused are now seeing psychologists and psychiatrists – costing ‘a fortune’ to the taxpayer.
Neil Futcher had taught at Sydney Grammar School, Knox Grammar School and Trinity Grammar School. Mr Anderson had first gone to police in 1990 but there was no investigation. He again reported it in 1997. The investigation only began after Mr Anderson gave evidence to the child sex abuse Royal Commission.
Futcher’s trial had heard distressing details of how he sexually abused six boys, aged between 12 and 15, while he was working as a teacher and swimming coach between 1974 and the early 1980s.
Fourth former Trinity Grammar teacher accused of historic sex abuse
Allegations of historical sexual abuse have emerged against a fourth teacher at Trinity Grammar, raising concerns there was a cluster of predatory employees at the Melbourne private school in the 1970s.
Four former employees – a senior teacher, an assistant chaplain, a boarding tutor and now, a science teacher – were all at the Anglican school at the same time.
Christopher Howell pictured in the 1977 Trinity school magazine
The most recent claim alleges that shortly after an incident – which cannot be detailed for legal reasons – with the school’s science teacher when he was 15, the former student was abused by Christopher Howell, the senior teacher.
Now in his 50s, the former student says the incident and subsequent abuse sent him on a downward spiral, and left him feeling like “the teachers were all in it together”.
He raised the allegations with the school in 2015 before going to police. Investigators were unable to pursue the claim because the science teacher had died. Instead they took a statement about Howell, who was alive at the time.
Howell, who taught at the school for 40 years, took his own life days before he was due to face court last year on an indecent assault charge. Five former students have come forward to say they were molested by him.
Christopher Howell from Trinity Grammar publication ‘The Grammarian’ July 2013.
The science teacher ran outdoor education camps and was known by some students to watch boys in the shower. One former student remembers his classmates being ordered to get into the sleeping bag with the teacher to stay warm.
In the second claim, another survivor says when he was 15, he and his parents tried to report Howell’s abuse to his boarding master Leslie Wiggins. He said Wiggins told them the allegation was “nonsense” so they reported it to then headmaster John Leppitt. Mr Leppitt, the survivor said, told his parents their child needed to be disciplined.
Leslie Wiggins, pictured in The Mitre, the Trinity Grammar year book.
It can now be revealed a former teacher has provided a statement claiming Wiggins, the school’s assistant chaplain, was moved in 1975 because of an abuse allegation.
Known by students at the time as a “fiddler”, Wiggins was convicted in 1991 of indecently assaulting three boys on the Mornington Peninsula. He died several years ago.
Rightside Legal lawyer Michael Magazanik, who is preparing legal action against Trinity, says the allegations show there was a culture of cover-up.
“Trinity, like Geelong Grammar, was a haven for abusers,” Mr Magazanik said.
“Many lives have been damaged as a result. We know of at least two suicides thought to be linked to abuse at the school. It’s time the school faced up to just how bad things were.”
The fourth alleged child abuser, who was a boarding house tutor, is facing a criminal trial accused of sexually assaulting five boys, two who were from Trinity, in 1975 and 1978.
A fifth teacher, John Hamilton Buckley, was jailed in 2015 for abusing boys in the 1980s at Geelong Grammar’s junior school Glenmorgan in Toorak. He taught at Trinity for one term in 1986 as a replacement for a teacher on long service leave.
Trinity’s current headmaster, Dr Michael Davies, said any allegations of abuse at the school were deeply concerning and very upsetting.
“I would like to reassure the Trinity community that we treat these matters with the utmost seriousness and have strict and clearly communicated policies around reports of abuse,” Dr Davies said.
“If abuse was reported in prior years and not acted upon or appropriately documented then that is in total contravention of policies and procedures which are now rigorously adhered to in the school.”
Legal action focuses on Howell and the former science teacher. Another firm, Maurice Blackburn, is representing two other complainants who say they were abused by Howell and the former boarding tutor.
The allegations against Howell, who rose to the position of assistant headmaster, caused deep divides. Many simply refused to believe the claims.
“It has torn apart the community,” a friend of Howell’s said. “So many have great memories of Chris, but clearly there are some who don’t …Tragically, there is a stain on his career.”
The ruptures were exposed when Dr Davies and his deputy Rohan Brown paid tribute to Howell’s “extraordinary legacy” after his death, despite knowing he’d been charged. “To many, including those penning this letter, Chris Howell was, is and always will be the best educator we have known.”
The letter led to the president and treasurer of the Old Boys board to resign in disgust. One of the survivors said he had never been more revolted with something than that letter.
“The vision of Howell was enough to make me sick, but what the school was saying about him; it was a lie and the school knew it was a lie and it protected him. The school has broken faith with every parent, every child.”
Head of Trinity Grammar in Sydney misled school council on abuse claims
Royal commission finds Milton Cujes did not disclose he was aware of allegations of assaults in boarding house
18 October 2017
Trinity grammar school’s longtime headmaster misled the prestigious Sydney school’s council over the handling of allegations of boarders sexually abusing other boys, a royal commission has found.
The school council had expressed full confidence in its headmaster, Milton Cujes, and staff over the way they dealt with allegations of boarders being sexually abused with wooden implements in 2000.
But the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse found Trinity’s school council was misled by the head, who is retiring at the end of this year after 21 years in the role.
The commission said if senior school psychologist Katherine Lumsdaine had not carried out her own inquiries, there would have been no investigation into sexual assaults occurring in the boarding house in 2000.
Apart from Lumsdaine’s investigation, Trinity did not seek out other boys who may have been assaulted, the commission said in findings released on Wednesday.
“It follows that support was not given to the boys affected.”
In February 2001, around the time two boys pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting another Trinity student known as CLA, the school council backed staff’s handling of the boarding house allegations.
The commission found Cujes did not disclose that he, the boarding master and senior master were aware of CLB’s August allegations, thereby misleading the council about the adequacy of their response.
Cujes and Trinity had argued against such a finding.
The commission also found another elite Sydney boys school, the King’s School, failed to report an assault allegation to police that occurred amid a bullying culture.
Trinity Grammar knew about abuse and protected teacher, victim says
An alleged victim of a Trinity Grammar teacher has come forward after 40 years, saying the school knew he was abused and they are still protecting the teacher today.
Christopher Howell from Trinity Grammar publication ‘The Grammarian’ in July 2013
The man, now in his 50s, came forward after Fairfax Media reported on Monday that school heads sent out a letter paying tribute to former teacher Christopher Howell’s “extraordinary legacy”.
“I’ve never been more disgusted with something than that letter,” John*, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said.
“The vision of Howell was enough to make me sick, but what the school was saying about him; it was a lie and the school knew it was a lie and it protected him.
“The school has broken faith with every parent, with every child.”
Christopher Howell pictured in the 1977 Trinity school magazine.
Christopher Howell was a teacher at the exclusive Melbourne private school for more than 40 years. He took his own life in January 2016, three days before his first court appearance on one count of indecently assaulting a student in the 1960s. He had retired in 2009 as the acting head of the senior school and was still involved with the school, but withdrew when he was charged in November 2015.
On the day of the January 29 court appearance, Trinity headmaster Michael Davies and his deputy Rohan Brown sent a letter to the school community in tribute.
“To many, including those penning this letter, Chris Howell was, is and always will be the best educator we have known. He was a hero to many who worked with him and alongside him,” it read.
The letter caused deep divides within the Anglican school. Several former students who contacted Fairfax Media said they made complaints to the headmaster and both the president and treasurer of the Old Boys board resigned in disgust. They claimed the heads tried to ban the board from debating the handling of the complaint and subsequent letter.
“There can be no winners out of this horrid situation, not least the victim(s) of sexual abuse who may have had to experience the displeasure of reading the Headmaster’s letter,” former treasurer Thomas Hudson wrote in his resignation letter obtained by Fairfax Media.
The first time John was aware of the letter was when he read it in the paper on Monday having left the school in 1975 following the alleged abuse.
“I felt on Monday exactly as I felt after it had happened. I felt dishonoured. I felt ill,” he said.
“Everything came back to me. Everything.”
John said he was sexually assaulted twice by the teacher when he was 15 and a boarder at Trinity. John claimed Mr Howell tried to force his penis into his mouth inside the tent John was sleeping in during a bushwalking trip at Tonimbuk, east of Melbourne, in 1973.
He said he was also assaulted in a storeroom on school grounds about two weeks later.
John said he disclosed the abuse to his father and mother in 1974.
“I remember his [his father’s] words. He said ‘Son, we love you, we believe you and we’ll make this right’,” he said.
John claimed he was with his parents when they reported it to boarding master and priest Leslie Wiggins, who was later convicted of indecently assaulting boys in Rosebud. After being told the claims were “nonsense”, John said he and his family reported to the headmaster John Leppitt.
John said Mr Leppitt told his parents: “You need to discipline your child and you need to consider whether or not to keep him in the school.”
On their way out of the school, John said they ran into Mr Howell in the corridor. He said his father grabbed Mr Howell by the throat, punched him and said “If you touch him again, I’ll kill you”. John said the sixth form master in a nearby classroom witnessed the tail-end of the altercation.
John contacted Trinity again following Monday’s report and spoke to headmaster Dr Davies, he said.
Dr Davies said in a statement to Fairfax Media that the safety and wellbeing of current and former students was of utmost important.
“If someone makes us aware of an allegation against a former teacher, we immediately offer counselling and support and encourage that person to contact police. Any allegation is treated seriously and with immediacy. Where allegations have been made, we have co-operated fully and openly with the police,” he said.
“If abuse was reported in prior years and not acted upon then that is in total contravention of policies and procedures which are now strictly adhered to in the school.
“The safety and wellbeing of our boys and old boys is our highest priority and we continue to encourage anyone who is upset, has grievances or concerns to contact the school or the relevant authorities.”
John has joined two other men in legal action launched by Rightside Legal seeking compensation against the school and Mr Howell’s estate.
Another alleged victim has contacted the law firm.
“I’m so angry. But I’m doing this because I have to,” John said, encouraging others to come forward.
Another former employee of the school is facing a County Court trial in May. Mark Watson, who cared for boarders, is accused of abusing boys between 1975 and 1978.
Education Department faces lawsuits over claims paedophile teacher was shuffled between schools
September 19 2016
Robert Morris, who was jailed this year for abusing young boys in Cranbourne and Ringwood in the 1970s.
The Victorian Education Department is facing lawsuits that could cost it millions of dollars over allegations a paedophile teacher was shuffled from school to school despite reports to police, principals and a senior department official.
Robert Leonard Morris, now 71, was a primary school teacher between 1966 and 1980, working in country western Victoria and in Melbourne’s outer-eastern suburbs.
He was jailed in March after pleading guilty to abusing six boys, aged as young as six, at two schools in Cranbourne and Ringwood.
Four of those boys, along with another six who recently came forward, launched civil action in the Supreme Court against the department, which they claim moved Morris from school to school when concerns about his behaviour surfaced.
The department said it could not comment given the case was before the court, but pointed to policies it had put in place to better protect children in light of the royal commission into child sex abuse.
Lawyers for the victims, who are now in their 40s and 50s, say several reports were made by parents to principals, and on one occasion, to a senior department employee, but Morris continued teaching.
“The Education Department shuffled a paedophile from school to school for years, effectively supplying a child abuser with new victims year after year,” Rightside Legal partner Michael Magazanik said.
“Dozens of very young boys were horribly traumatised. For many, the damage has lasted a lifetime.”
Mr Magazanik said the reports ranged from molestation disclosed to parents by their sons to concerns about inappropriate behaviour witnessed by other teachers, such as Morris getting boys to sit on his lap on school bus rides.
“One of the most shocking things is the public nature of the abuse,” Mr Magazanik said.
“Our clients were abused in classrooms, on crowded school buses, in bunk rooms full of boys and in playgrounds.”
In 1977, one of those reports resulted in a police investigation into Morris. He was acquitted by a jury. The following year he was allowed to return to teaching at a school in Ringwood where he had previously taught, Mr Magazanik said.
“The government sent him straight back to teaching young boys, and Morris immediately resumed abusing them,” he said. “It was so predictable and the results were so tragic.”
Morris, who was also a cub leader for the Scouts in Melbourne’s east, came under police scrutiny again in 1980. This time, he pleaded guilty to the indecent assault of one of his students and left teaching.
After his Victorian teaching career was over, he worked at the Commonwealth Public Service in Melbourne and the ACT, before he took up teaching international students in Sydney and China from 2001 to 2008.
Morris was arrested in Canberra last year and charged with abusing six boys. In March, he was jailed for six years, with a four-year non-parole period.
In the County Court sentencing hearing, the court was told Morris had made a seven-year-old boy sit on his lap in front of his class and masturbated him behind a book.
He rubbed another young victim’s penis as he sat next to him on a bus returning from a swimming lesson.
One of the boys, the court heard, now suffers from a debilitating compulsion to wash himself over and over, and throw away clothes he felt were contaminated.
In his sentencing, County Court judge Gerard Mullaly said Morris’ offending was sickening, and a “comprehensive abuse of trust”.
“Each of them has been left with lifelong scars,” Judge Mullaly said.
Morris has since appealed the length of his sentence. A judgment is yet to be handed down. Trial dates have not been set for the civil actions.
Mr Magazanik said the real number of Morris’ victims must be “enormous”, given he had worked at at least seven primary schools in 15 years, was a cub leader and coached junior sports.
Brisbane Grammar, St Paul’s had history of sex abuse, commission finds
February 15, 2017
Two prestigious Queensland schools have been revealed as sites of significant historical child sexual abuse, with “no systems, policies or procedures” in place to deal with allegations made against two staff with a long history of alleged child sexual abuse.
The Royal Commission released it’s findings into two Brisbane schools, including Brisbane Grammar School, an affluent boarding school for boys, and St Paul’s School, a coeducational private school operated by the Anglican Church, this morning.
It comes after a number of former students from both schools gave evidence to the Royal Commission, claiming they were sexually abused by Mr Kevin Lynch and Gregory Robert Knight while they were teachers between 1973 and 1997.
Mr Kevin Lynch worked as a teacher and then counsellor at Brisbane Grammar school, in Spring Hill, and St Pauls School, in Bald Hills.
He was found to have “sexually abuse a large number of students” during his time at Brisbane Grammar.
A number of senior staff at Brisbane Grammar were made aware of complaints against Mr Lynch but the headmaster, Doctor Maxwell Howell “did not report the matter to the police of the board of trustees”.
“In doing so he failed in his obligations to protect the safety and well being of the students,” the Royal Commission found.
“We find that during Dr Howell’s period as headmaster there was a culture at Brisbane Grammar where boys who made allegations of sexual abuse were not believed and allegations were not acted upon”.
Mr Lynch left Brisbane Grammar and took up a position as a counsellor at St Pauls’ Anglican School in 1989, where he continued sexually abusing students.
He was charged with 9 counts of abuse committed against one St Paul’s student in 1997 and committed suicide the following day.
The report found both schools had failed, in several cases, to investigate sexual abuse allegations and take measure to ensure the students under their care were kept safe.
Gregory Robert Knight worked as a teacher at St Paul’s between 1981 and 1984 and had previously worked at Willunga High School in South Australia and Brisbane Boys’ College in Queensland.
Inquiries uncovered that Knight had sexually abused a number of boys during his time in South Australia but, instead of being referred to the police, he was allowed to resign which meant “he maintained his registration as a teacher in South Australia”.
Allegations of sexual abuse continued during Mr Knight’s subsequent employment at Brisbane Boys College, in Brisbane’s western suburbs, and St Pauls’ Anglican School, where complaints were made that he had sexually abused a number of students in his capacity as a teacher.
The Royal Commission found that, following these complaints, St Pauls’ headmaster Gilbert Case accepted Knight’s resignation and gave him a favourable reference.
He then went on to teach at Dripstone High School in the Northern Territory, where another student alleged he had sexually abuses them and he was eventually charged with a number of offences.
He was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment.
The report pointed to a number of systemic failures in both Brisbane Grammar and St Pauls that “did not encourage or facilitate the reporting by students or staff of any instances or suspected instances of child sexual abuse”.
Two prestigious Queensland schools failed to protect students from sexual abuse, doing nothing about complaints from victims who were not believed, a royal commission has found.
The culture at Brisbane Grammar School for 24 years under former headmaster Dr Maxwell Howell meant boys who alleged abuse were not believed, the commission said on Wednesday.
After counsellor Kevin Lynch moved on to the Anglican St Paul’s School where he again sexually abused students during counselling sessions, two boys who went to headmaster Gilbert Case were labelled liars.
Mr Case’s inaction when told Lynch and teacher Gregory Robert Knight had sexually abused children meant he did not achieve his most fundamental obligation to keep students safe, the commission said.
It said Mr Case, who was headmaster at St Paul’s from 1979-2000, was put in charge of all Anglican schools in Brisbane despite former archbishop and governor-general Peter Hollingworth and diocese general manager Bernard Yorke, knowing about allegations he took no action when told of abuse by Lynch.
Brisbane Grammar missed opportunities to discover Lynch’s abuse because it failed to keep adequate records of students’ attendance at counselling sessions and their absence from classes, the commission said.
A number of complaints about Lynch were made to senior Brisbane Grammar staff, most significantly to its 1965-1989 headmaster Dr Howell, who died in 2011.
The commission said Dr Howell did not investigate a 1981 complaint or report it to police or the school’s board of trustees, failing in his obligation to protect students.
“We find that during Dr Howell’s period as headmaster there was a culture at Brisbane Grammar where boys who made allegations of sexual abuse were not believed and allegations were not acted upon.”
St Paul’s also took no action to deal with complaints about Lynch sexually abusing students, the commission’s report said.
The commission rejected Mr Case’s evidence that two students did not tell him they had been abused by Lynch, who committed suicide a day after being charged in 1997 with sex offences against another St Paul’s pupil.
“Mr Case told the students they were lying and threatened to punish them if they persisted with the allegations,” it said.
There were allegations during Knight’s three years teaching music at St Paul’s that he sexually abused a number of students.
The school’s only action was that Mr Case accepted Knight’s resignation in October 1984, giving him a favourable reference, the commission said.
Knight was accused of sexually abusing students at a South Australian school before joining St Paul’s and afterwards at a Northern Territory school, where he tried to resign but was immediately sacked and reported to police.
Dr Hollingworth’s successor as archbishop Phillip Aspinall reached a negotiated settlement for Mr Case to leave his position as executive director of the Anglican Schools Commission, a role that required him to ensure the schools had proper child protection policies.
Current Anglican Schools Commission executive director Sherril Molloy said measures were now in place to better protect children, including trained student protection officers in each school.
Brisbane Grammar repeated its unreserved apology and said it has learnt from its past failures.
Cranbrook headmaster Nicholas Sampson wrote ‘misleading’ letters after sexual abuse allegations raised #caroyalcomm
14 Feb 2017
Headmaster: response ‘just not good enough’
Former Geelong Grammar headmaster Nicholas Sampson faces questions about how the school dealt with allegations of sexual misconduct by former teacher Jonathon Harvey
The headmaster of one Sydney’s most expensive private schools, Cranbrook, wrote “misleading” letters about a teacher accused of child sexual abuse at his former school and failed to report the allegations to a higher authority, a royal commission has found.
Nicholas Sampson, then the headmaster of Victoria’s Geelong Grammar, paid teacher Jonathan Harvey to retire early in 2004 to avoid any formal complaints of child sex abuse being made against him.
Mr Sampson told the commission he was alerted to allegations against Harvey by the victim’s brother, BLW, and conducted a “fairly cursory” investigation before asking Mr Harvey to retire early.
The commissioners found Mr Sampson should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching about the allegations and that he “should have made a documentary record of the reason [Harvey left the school]”.
Instead, Mr Sampson wrote letters to Harvey thanking him for his “outstanding service”, praising him as a “wonderful teacher, an outstanding housemaster, a fine and thoughtful colleague and a tremendous and committed schoolmaster”.
A second letter from Mr Sampson to Harvey confirmed an extra year of pay following his retirement “due to the exceptional service [he] offered”.
The commission dismissed Mr Sampson’s defence that the letters were for personal use: “The letters were plainly kept amongst the school’s formal records in relation to Harvey,” it found
“We also reject the submission that the letters were not misleading. No other records were produced which recorded the real reason for Harvey’s departure from the school, and no explanation was given as to why such documents were not produced.”
Mr Sampson, who became the headmaster of Cranbrook in 2012, an Anglican, $35,000-a-year school in Bellevue Hill, told the commission he was acting in the best interests of the victim, BLF, who did not want his identity revealed.
“We accept that Mr Sampson attempted to act in the best interests of BLF by securing Harvey’s resignation without disclosing his identity,” the Commission found. “It is clear, however, that he should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching.”
Royal Commission: Vatican has no test for paedophiles
In a separate sitting on Tuesday, the Commission also heard there was no requirement for the Catholic clergy to be screened for sexual attraction to children but that the Vatican does have a detailed assessment procedure for homosexuality.
The Catholic Church’s central authority spent 13 years developing a protocol on homosexual tendencies among potential priests but has stayed “silent” on the issue of paedophiles, the commission heard.
The commission is examining factors behind abuse claims in the Catholic church, with data showing seven per cent of priests were alleged offenders between 1950-2010.
“As I understand it, the Vatican is specific that you must test for homosexual tendencies but the Vatican is silent in that same way on testing for children,” Commissioner Andrew Murray said.
Sister Lydia Allen, who assesses candidates for the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Homebush, said the Vatican was working on such a document.
“I have asked them if they have any documents on this situation of child abuse and they don’t yet … it’s part of a project they are going to work on,” she said.
“They do not have . . . anything that says, ‘You must assess for that’.
“However, I think it would be an unspoken rule. I don’t think it needs to be stated explicitly because it’s so obvious.”
David Leary, an academic and Franciscan friar, told the inquiry the assessment process was flawed.
“The first test for a candidate for either religious life or the seminary or for the priesthood is not a question about whether or not they’re homosexual,” he said.
“It’s about whether or not they are compassionate and that’s the thing that needs to be tested.”
Dr Leary said the Catholic church was “highly resistant” to understanding how its structures may have led to child sexual abuse.
“I don’t think we understand the psychology that underpins … child sexual abuse,” he said. “It’s really clear in every other jurisdiction except the church.”
Peter Thompson, rector of Vianney College in Wagga Wagga, told the commission it would be impossible to effectively screen every candidate for the priesthood.
“No one can infallibly predict that someone is not going to offend,” he said.
The hearing, before Justice Peter McClellan, continues.
Marlborough College, educator of royalty – the school in Wiltshire where Princess Eugenie is a pupil.
Former pupils include the poets John Betjeman and Siegfried Sassoon, the actor James Mason, the traitor Anthony Blunt, and songwriters Nick Drake and Chris de Burgh
Ghislaine Maxwell is alleged to have supplied a number of under-aged girls for Jeffrey Epstein‘s sexual abuse and sex-trafficking scheme, according to US court documents.
The 53-year-old was educated at Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford.
TEACHER Andrew Richards has left Marlborough College after police launched an inquiry into his alleged possession of computer porn.
This week both police and the £22,000-a-year public school, where Princess Eugenie is a pupil, have confirmed that a teacher is being questioned over material found on his computer.
Neither the school or police would name the teacher but the Gazette has established that the man arrested was the housemaster of C3 House.
Sources within the police force and the school confirmed that it had been Richards who was arrested.
The maths teacher was arrested in his home at the school after police carried out an undercover operation two weeks ago and seized his computer. They took action after receiving information that Richards had downloaded obscene images on his computer, which is still being examined by a specialist team of officers.
After news of the arrest began to circulate in the town this week the school issued a statement saying: “Marlborough College can confirm that following the discovery of inappropriate material on a computer, one of our masters has left the school with immediate effect.
“There is no suggestion of improper behaviour with any pupil in the school.
“The College brought the matter to the attention of the relevant authorities, with whom we have been working closely.
“We understand that the police are carrying out an investigation into
this matter and therefore it would not be right for us to comment
further.”
The master of the public school, Nicholas Sampson, said he was unable to make any further comment.
Wiltshire police put out a statement saying: “On Saturday, April 30 as a result of information received from Marlborough College a male member of staff was arrested and interviewed at Salisbury police station.
“The man was subsequently bailed without being charged to return to Salisbury police station on a date in June.
“Inquiries are being completed to establish if any offences have been committed.”
Marlborough College, one of the top five public schools in the UK, has been rocked by several sex scandals in recent years.
In 2003 the school’s swimming pool manager, Mark Davies, was arrested after allegedly indecent pictures were found on his computer. Davies, brother of the Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, was cautioned but not charged.
In 2002 there was another scandal when students sitting an exam saw pornographic pictures projected onto a screen. Teacher Richard Jowett, who had been invigilating, had been looking at pictures of naked women on his computer unaware that it was sending the images to an overhead screen in full view of pupils.
Geelong Grammar took no steps to protect students after abuse reports, says inquiry
14 Feb 2017
Royal commission releases report into prestigious Victorian private school criticising headmaster who went on to Eton College
The prestigious Geelong Grammar School’s long-time headmaster took no steps to bring in measures to protect students from a teacher alleged to have sexually abused pupils, a royal commission has found.
Geelong Grammar’s 1980-94 headmaster, John Lewis, allowed Jonathan Harvey to remain at the school despite knowing about allegations against him, the child sex abuse royal commission said.
It said by 1991, Lewis – who became headmaster of England’s elite Eton College after leaving Geelong Grammar – knew about allegations Harvey sexually abused students in 1982 and 1985 as well as allegations of inappropriate conduct with students.
“Despite this knowledge, Mr Lewis allowed Harvey to remain in a position where he had unsupervised access to students,” its report said. “Mr Lewis did not take any steps to prepare policies or procedures to protect the safety and welfare of the students at Geelong Grammar.”
Geelong Grammar’s 2001-04 headmaster Nicholas Sampson, now headmaster of Sydney’s Cranbrook School, organised for Harvey to be paid his entire 2005 salary to retire a year early after a staff member complained his brother had been abused by the teacher in the 1970s.
Sampson attempted to act in the victim’s best interests by securing Harvey’s resignation without disclosing the former student’s identity, but should have notified the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the commission found.
Sampson thanked the maths teacher for his outstanding service and did not record in writing the real reasons for Harvey’s departure, despite verbally informing others at the school about the allegations.
The commission said he should have made a documentary record of the reasons, but accepted Sampson’s evidence that he would now approach a similar situation very differently.
The royal commission also criticised Geelong Grammar for not investigating a boarder’s 1989 complaint that he was sexually abused, before expelling the 14-year-old for speaking out.
No member of staff notified police of the allegations, the commission said. Lewis should have ensured the allegation was investigated, it said.
The commission also found the school’s Highton campus master Robert John Bugg was involved in the boarder’s dismissal for discussing the sexual assault with other students.
Bugg must have believed the likely perpetrator was probably a staff member, it said. “In removing BIW from the school and not investigating the complaint, Mr Bugg failed to protect BIW’s interests and the interests of other students at Highton.”
Live-in boarding house assistant Philippe Trutmann was convicted for abusing BIW and 40 other Geelong Grammar students.
The commission found the school put its own financial interests before those of a student seeking compensation after being sexually abused by a teacher by not disclosing that it knew the teacher may have been jailed for pedophilia.
‘A tsunami of survivors’: Law firms swamped by historical child abuse victims
2 Apr 2017
Australian legal firms are experiencing unprecedented demand from people who have suffered alleged child sexual abuse in institutions such as churches, schools and youth groups.
The demand has been spurred on by revelations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and legal reforms which allow survivors to make a claim for damages regardless of when the abuse allegedly occurred.
Shine Lawyers received 61 inquiries about historical child sexual abuse in 2012, prior to the commencement of the royal commission in 2013. Last year the firm received 730 inquiries, an increase of more than 1000 per cent.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn has also experienced a surge in people exploring their legal options, with hundreds of new inquiries.
Shine Lawyers abuse law principal Lisa Flynn said the commission had created widespread public awareness about the devastating impact of abuse.
“It is an extraordinary increase which is largely due to the spotlight cast by the royal commission,” she said.
“The royal commission’s work over the past four years has really encouraged people to come forward and seek assistance. It’s been a tsunami of survivors coming forward.”
The commission held its final public hearing last week and will hand down its final report in December.
Ms Flynn said that while the long-running inquiry is wrapping up, it has left a strong legacy for survivors.
“Survivors have seen the bravery of others in coming forward and that’s given them the encouragement they need to come forward themselves,” she said.
“We know from people who have told their stories, it’s such a powerful way of seeking validation and justice.”
A number of states, including NSW, have scrapped the statute of limitations for civil action by child sexual abuse survivors, many of whom take decades to disclose.
Maurice Blackburn institutional abuse specialist Danielle De Paoli??? said the reform had allowed more survivors to come forward and seek justice.
“We expect this to continue, particularly given many states have now acted to ensure that archaic statutes of limitations have been removed to allow long overdue access to justice for abuse survivors,” she said.
Ms De Paoli said many defendants unnecessarily delayed redress for people who had been abused in an institution.
“Unfortunately too many organisations, including Scouts NSW and organisations of the Anglican and Catholic Churches, still continue to do the wrong thing by survivors, in spite of the significant evidence uncovered by the royal commission,”she said.
Figures released by the royal commission show the Catholic church paid $280 million in compensation to victims of alleged child sexual abuse between 1980-2015 and Anglican church dioceses have payments of just over $34 million in response to complaints over the same period.
The Federal government has announced a national redress scheme to compensate survivors to run for 10 years from 2018.
Extraordinary legacy and hero to many; school knew of abuse allegation when it sent a tribute letter
The heads of a Melbourne private school knew a former teacher had been charged with abusing a student when they wrote a letter paying tribute to his “extraordinary legacy”.
The letter, branded by lawyers as “stupid and insensitive”, prompted two Old Boys to seek legal action against Trinity Grammar.
It’s the second abuse claim to rock the exclusive school, with another former employee set to go to trial over 41 historical sex offences against five boys.
The latest scandal involves respected former teacher Christopher Howell, who was charged by police in November 2015 with the indecent assault of a student in the late 1960s.
Mr Howell, who had taught at the school for 43 years, took his own life days before his court appearance last January.
In a letter to the school community after his death, the school’s heads paid tribute to his “extraordinary legacy”.
“To many, including those penning this letter, Chris Howell was, is and always will be the best educator we have known. He was a hero to many who worked with him and alongside him,” the letter, by headmaster Michael Davies and deputy headmaster Rohan Brown, stated.
“Chris was admired by so many; he always worked in the best interests of the boys and tirelessly in the service of others.”
The letter prompted three men, including one who sparked the criminal court case, to seek legal representation.
Two have subsequently issued civil claims in the Victorian Supreme Court against the school and Mr Howell’s estate.
“Stupid and insensitive is the only way to describe the headmaster’s letter,” Rightside Legal partner Michael Magazanik said.
“Our clients were appalled. Each of them had spoken with the school about what had happened to them.”
One of the men reported being sexually abused in the boarding house, where Mr Howell had been a resident master, and another said he was repeatedly sexually assaulted on a bushwalking trip in Victoria’s mountains. The boys were about 14 and 16 at the time.
The school was aware of the criminal charge against the former teacher at the time of the letter after his death.
In November 2015, Dr Davies said the Anglican school fully supported police in their investigations.
“The allegation has been brought by an Old Boy of Trinity who attended the school in the late 1960s,” he reportedly wrote in a letter to parents.
“He was made an offer of counselling and ongoing support and was referred to the police.”
He said the former teacher, who was still involved with the school, withdrew from all activities following the charge.
He encouraged all other pupils who felt “aggrieved” to come forward.
“Our greatest concern is for our students and, as ever, we prioritise their well being and that of our Old Boys.”
It is believed other former students had also contacted police following Mr Howell’s death.
Fairfax Media made repeated attempts to contact the school for a response.
A long-term colleague of Mr Howell’s said the allegations have rocked the school community.
“It has torn apart the community and we know, from our Old Boys particularly, they are devastated. So many of them have great memories of Chris, clearly there are some who don’t,” they said.
“I don’t know how you can defend something like this when the person is no longer here.”
Mr Howell was the acting head of the senior school at the time of his retirement in 2009.
Mark Watson, another former employee, has been listed to face a County Court trial in May. Mr Watson, who cared for boarding school students, is accused of abusing boys between 1975 and 1978.
Two of the alleged victims, aged 12 and 13, were Trinity students.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn is handling the compensation claims of at least one of the alleged victims.
Royal commission: Outrage over church’s financial support for paedophile priests
24 Feb 2017
An admission that the Sydney Catholic archdiocese provides financial support for convicted paedophile priests has drawn outrage from sex abuse survivors at a royal commission.
Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher told the inquiry the church supports convicted Catholic clergy living in the community.
“That would include assistance with housing and some other kinds of assistance,” he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
“I am so angry at what they have done, I don’t want to give them anything further by way of help, but throwing them back on their family or community … others would say that’s just the church washing its hand again of responsibility.
“It’s a situation of damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”
Archbishop Fisher, along with archbishops from Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, faced their second day of questioning at the inquiry into Catholic church authorities.
He told the commission the church could not confidently monitor convicted paedophile priests in the community.
“I can’t pretend we have remotely sufficient supervision for me to be assured they are not misbehaving again, that they are no risk,” he said.
“People can be very deceptive and clever in not letting on what they are up to.”
Archbishop Fisher’s comments drew the ire of Catholic church sex abuse survivors, many of whom say they have not been compensated fairly.
Outside the hearing, survivor advocate Gabrielle Short questioned how the church could justify financially supporting convicted priests when many survivors lived in poverty.
Advocate Mark Fabbro described the church’s internal complaints handling schemes, Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response, as “failures” that have not adequately compensated victims.
“It’s clear they are still in the mode of protecting the church at all costs,” he said.
“The priority seems to lie with putting the interests of the church before the interests of the victims.”
Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart told the inquiry the future of the Melbourne Response was under consideration ahead of the introduction of a national redress scheme next year.
“I’d have to take advice on the pros and cons with that but I’d certainly be prepared to look at it,” he said.
The inquiry heard the archbishops would directly inform Pope Francis of the concerns raised at the royal commission, which has spent the past three weeks examining factors that led to a high proportion of child sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge said the Vatican was too far removed from victims.
“One of the difficulties that the Holy See faces is that at times these are people who have never been at the coalface,” he said.
“They have never sat down with victims. They haven’t heard the stories. They haven’t listened to the pain. As long as that continues there will be fumbling … from the Holy See.”
The five archbishops indicated support for a new national regulator, Catholic Professional Standards Ltd, which will set, enforce and audit new benchmarks.
Archbishop Fisher told the inquiry the body would lead to greater transparency and accountability within the church.
“Clearly what we don’t want is any risk of returning to era of cover-ups and excuses and avoiding scrutiny,” he said.
The hearing, before Justice Peter McClellan, has adjourned.
Cardinal Pell (pictured) was previously the Archbishop in both Sydney and Melbourne and is now serving at the Vatican
The alleged abuse was said to have taken place in the back room of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s, with the choirboy then asking to leave the choir, the book alleges.
Cardinal George Pell accused of sexually abusing two choirboys, book claims
Vatican’s financial chief, who has always denied wrongdoing, faces fresh allegations of abuse, relating to his time as archbishop of Melbourne
Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, is accused of abusing two boys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the 1990s
New allegations of child abuse are being levelled against Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s financial chief and the most senior figure in the Australian Catholic church.
Fairfax Media has reported claims contained in a new book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, that he sexually abused two choirboys at St Patrick’s cathedral after becoming archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.
The author Louise Milligan first flagged these claims on the ABC’s 7.30 Report in July last year. But according to Fairfax Milligan’s book, to be released on Monday, contains details of the accusations that have not been made public before.
After the 7.30 Report Pell accused the ABC of conducting a “scandalous smear campaign.”
Cardinal Pell’s office issued a statement on Saturday saying the cardinal had “not been notified by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions or Victoria police of the status of their investigations, which have been underway since at least February 2016.”
“Cardinal Pell will not seek to interfere in the course of justice by responding to the allegations made by Melbourne University Press (publisher of Milligan’s book) and media outlets today, other than to restate that any allegations of child abuse made against him are completely false,” the statement said.
“He repeats his vehement and consistent denials of any and all such accusations, and stands by all the evidence he has given to the royal commission.”
The boys, students at St Kevin’s College, sang in the cathedral choir and were allegedly abused by the archbishop in a room somewhere in the precincts of the cathedral. They left the choir and the school shortly afterwards.
Milligan claims one of the choirboys died of a drug overdose in 2014. His mother was subsequently told by the second boy that they had been abused by Pell when they were teenagers at the cathedral.
Milligan writes that both spoke to the Sano taskforce established to investigate allegations that emerged during a parliamentary inquiry in Victoria and the later royal commission into child abuse.
Pell has now been accused of abusing boys at three stages of his career: as a seminarian, a priest and as archbishop of Melbourne.
He has denied all these allegations on a number of occasions. No charges have ever been laid against him in relation to them. The cardinal, prefect of the secretariat for the economy at the Vatican, has stated that he willingly co-operated with the detectives of the Victoria police when they interviewed him in Rome in October last year.
Sano has also investigated allegations that as a young priest Pell abused boys in the swimming pool of his hometown Ballarat. Pell also denies these allegations.
Milligan writes that Pell and his defenders have been able to “bat off or gloss over” the swimming pool allegations by casting them as “horseplay or a bit of rough and tumble … The story of [the choirboys] has no such ambiguity. If these allegations are true, they point to utter, sinful hypocrisy.”
Citing ill health, Pell declined to return to Australia to give evidence to the royal commission in person last year and instead gave evidence by videolink from Rome. In February this year the Australian senate called on the cardinal to return home “to assist the Victorian police and office of public prosecutions with their investigation into these matters.”
Pell dismissed the parliamentary resolution as “an interference on the part of the Senate in the due process of the Victoria Police investigation.”
Cardinal George Pell ‘to be CHARGED over child sex abuse allegations’ sending shockwaves through the Catholic Church
Cardinal George Pell will reportedly be summoned to Australia by police
The summons is believed to be related to a child sex abuse investigation
Authorities are expected to announce the possible charges this morning
28 June 2017
Cardinal George Pell is expected to be charged over child sex abuse allegations.
It is understood Cardinal George Pell will be summonsed to Australia from Rome in relation to a child sex investigation by Victoria police.
The summons will be issued today to the 76-year-old head of finances for the Vatican, according to The Australian.
Authorities are expected to provide additional details on the investigation and possible charges this morning.
It is not clear whether the cardinal will return home from Europe or if he will be extradited to face the charges.
Cardinal George Pell is expected to be charged over child sex abuse allegations (pictured eating in Italy)
Cardinal Pell will be summoned to Australia from Rome in relation to a child sex investigation by Victoria police
Cardinal Pell appeared via video-link for a public hearing of Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission in early 2015.
When he was asked to fly to Australia to appear in person, he declined, citing health problems.
The Cardinal was interviewed by three detectives from the taskforce in Rome in October 2016, who updated the evidence.
He has strongly denied the allegations of abuse.
The Office of Public Prosecutions submitted a second brief of evidence on Cardinal Pell to the police last month, according to The Herald Sun.
The summary said charges could be laid against Pell based on the evidence but that it was up to the to decide if they wanted to or not.
The Sano taskforce, which investigates allegations of sexual abuse, has been investigating Cardinal Pell since 2016
Police could be powerless to make Cardinal Pell return to Australia because he is so high up in the Vatican that he has diplomatic immunity.
Cardinal Pell was appointed to the Vatican’s Secretariat of Economy in 2014, the third highest ranked position within the church.
His high ranking grants him diplomatic immunity in Australia, meaning he cannot be forced to attend court or provide information, according to legal experts.
New South Wales state parliament member David Shoebridge told the Newcastle Herald in May that Australia had an extradition treaty with Italy, but it did not include the Vatican.
‘[Australia] hasn’t managed in 44 years to get one in place with the tiny pretend nation-state of the Vatican that exists wholly within Rome,’ he said.
‘This is why George Pell can’t be forced back to face questioning.’
Victoria Police will not comment on reports Cardinal George Pell is to be charged by summons over historic child sex abuse allegations.
A series of letters and documents published on the sex abuse royal commission’s website reveal details of Ridsdale’s abuse and the response from the Catholic Church, including Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns.
Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale (left) arriving to court with George Pell
Ridsdale has been convicted for abusing more than 50 children over three decades, dating back to his ordination in 1961.
After parents complained to then Ballarat Bishop James O’Collins about Ridsdale in 1961, O’Collins told him: “If this thing happens again then you’re off to the Missions” and sent him to Mildura. The royal commission was also told Bishop Mulkearns knew in 1975 that Ridsdale had abused boys — but did not act until 1988.
One of Australia’s most notorious paedophiles, Gerald Ridsdale
Inquiry probes Ridsdale’s relationship with Cardinal George Pell
Ridsdale told the royal commission the fact Cardinal George Pell accompanied him to court on child sex abuse charges in the 1990s was insignificant.
He said he could not recall much about his relationship with the then Father Pell in Ballarat in the 1970s, except he “would’ve met him, because he was Ballarat born-and-bred”.
“I can’t remember him being there … I can’t remember him … I never had much to do with him,” Ridsdale said of Cardinal Pell.
“We needed some people to come along [to court] for support … I don’t see it as having a very big significance.”
Ridsdale said his barrister asked Cardinal Pell to go to court, and he did not ask him himself.
He said, at the time, he did not know if Cardinal Pell knew about the nature of his charges, and he did not know, what Cardinal Pell planned to say.
Royal Commission into sex abuse hears of suicide problem in Ballarat
May 20, 2015
IT has been called a city that has a suicide rate “through the roof” and is marred by a “landscape of death”. And one old class photo illustrates it in black and white.
Ballarat is considered one of the most horrific sites of abuse in Australia after it was revealed
that at one time in the 1970s all the male teachers and the chaplain at the St Alipius primary school were molesting children.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse this week moved to the regional Victorian city for hearings, and is expected to hear from one of Australia’s most vile paedophiles, Father Gerald Ridsdale.
It has also heard from sex abuse victims, who are detailing the crimes that were committed against them — and the lifelong trauma that created.
Philip Nagle was the first witness to give evidence yesterday. From the witness box, he held a black-and-white picture up of his grade-four photo from St Alipius Primary School in 1974, The Age reported.
Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale will be called to give evidence at the Ballarat hearings of the Royal Commission into child abuse.
There were rows of boys in uniform, who should all be aged in their 50s now. Instead, a third of the boys in the image are dead, believed by suicide.
It’s a graphic example of the suicide problem Ballarat has grappled with since the sexual abuse of what is feared to have been hundreds of schoolboys.
The exact number of victims isn’t known. There is no concrete evidence to link the suicides to sexual abuse, although Fairfax has previously detailed secret police reports that count at least 40 suicides by people sexually abused at the hands of Catholic clergy in Victoria.
But some are in no doubt the two are linked.
Peter Blenkiron, was 11 when he was abused at the Brothers’ other school in Ballarat, St
Patrick’s College, estimates there’s been 10 suicides in the regional Victorian city in the past year alone.
He told the ABC: “Ballarat has got this hidden trauma and landscape of death about it. I believe the suicide rate is higher than the road toll and we don’t hear about it. We have to stop that.”
He said the suicide rate was “through the roof” and believed since the abuse by the Christian Brothers an “atomic bomb went off and it’s destroyed so many lives over the years.”
Along with the suicides, there had been a number of other premature deaths linked to substance abuse.
St. Alipius primary school in Ballarat where many boys were molested.
Another victim will give harrowing evidence today of losing three family members to suicide who were abused as children by Catholic clergy in Ballarat.
The victim, who cannot be named, was sexually abused by convicted paedophiles Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale and Brother Robert Charles Best.
His brothers and a cousin committed suicide after being abused.
He is expected to tell his story to the royal commission today, the second day of a three-week hearing in the Victorian regional city devastated by decades of abuse.
Paedophile Gerald Ridsdale (left) arriving to court with George Pell
A major focus of the Ballarat hearing is who was responsible for moving Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale from parish to parish, allowing him to continue to offend, and why.
Ridsdale abused more than 50 children as he was moved between nine Victorian parishes over three decades. He also abused an altar boy in Sydney.
Witness Philip Nagle has told the royal commission a third of his classmates had committed suicide
Then Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew Ridsdale had abused boys, “so he was taken out of there” and again moved to another parish, the commission heard yesterday.
Ridsdale will give evidence from jail via videolink later during the hearing.
THE photograph was striking: There was George Pell, then an auxiliary bishop, walking side-by-side into court with Gerald Ridsdale, the man later found to be Australia’s worst paedophile priest.
The decision by Cardinal Pell, now a Vatican cardinal, to support his former housemate that day in 1993 led to an image that has lived on in infamy in Australia for more than two decades, creating an image of a man who appeared to be more concerned with protecting the church than its flock.
And it made him something of a PR scapegoat for all that was wrong with how the Catholic Church handled the clergy sex abuse crisis.
Though Cardinal Pell went on to ascend the ranks of the Catholic Church and become Pope Francis’ chief financial adviser, he would eventually find himself pulled back to Australia.
On Thursday, Australian police charged him with “historic sexual assault offences” making Cardinal Pell the highest-ranking Vatican official to ever be charged in the church’s long-running abuse scandal.
George Pell with Gerald Ridsdale (left) arriving to court in 1993.
Cardinal Pell has vehemently denied the allegations and vowed to return to Australia to clear his name. But he is likely to face a cool reception in his homeland, where he faced years of accusations that the church mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney.
The towering former Aussie rules player’s abrasive nature has long been off-putting to many, with the father of one clergy abuse victim once accusing him of having a “lack of empathy.”
Cardinal Pell himself acknowledged as much in 2013, saying of his decision to support Ridsdale that day 20 years earlier: “I intended no disrespect to the victims. I understand now that they perceived it — and probably rightly — as such, but I did not at the time.”
Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinal George Pell.
Cardinal Pell has said he set the program up out of compassion, though victims later criticised it as a way to keep them from suing the church.
“His style can be robust and direct; he does not wear his heart on his sleeve,” seven Australian archbishops and bishops wrote in a statement supporting Cardinal Pell in 2015.
“But underneath, he has a big heart for people.”
Cardinal Pell was born in 1941 in Ballarat, a deeply Catholic city in the southern Australian state of Victoria that would eventually become the epicentre of the nation’s clergy abuse crisis.
He was ordained a priest for the Ballarat diocese in 1966, and became an auxiliary bishop of the Melbourne Archdiocese in 1987. In 1996, he was appointed archbishop of Melbourne and was made Sydney archbishop five years later.
Impressive as his career trajectory was, he never managed to shake the Ridsdale controversy.
In many ways, the photograph encapsulated the Catholic Church’s attitude toward sex abuse the world over: Church leaders regularly sided with the priests who stood accused of raping and molesting children, placing the reputation of the church above the safety of the young and the real needs of abuse victims.
And despite what supporters dubbed his pioneering efforts to compensate victims, he was dogged for years by allegations that he should have done more to stop clergy from abusing children in the first place, particularly in Ballarat.
The city was devastated by disclosures of a huge number of church abuse victims, scores of whom killed themselves in an unprecedented cluster of abuse-related suicides.
In 2012, Australia’s government announced a royal commission into how the Catholic Church and other institutions have responded to child sex abuse.
Cardinal Pell testified repeatedly before the commission, and was peppered with questions about current Vatican efforts to address the scandal as well as how he dealt with abuse allegations against other clergy members during his time in Australia.
The cardinal largely deflected any blame, though eventually conceded that he had erred by often believing the priests over victims.
Last year, Cardinal Pell sparked a fresh wave of anger in Australia after saying he was too ill to travel back to his home country to testify — for a third time — before the commission, opting instead to testify via video link from Rome.
A crowd-funding campaign was quickly set up to send abuse victims from Ballarat to Rome so they could watch the testimony in person. Comedian and musician Tim Minchin released a blistering song entitled Come Home (Cardinal Pell), in which he called the cardinal an ethically hypocritical, arrogant coward.
In 2014, Pope Francis named Cardinal Pell prefect of the new economy secretariat, tasked with getting the Vatican’s vast and complicated finances under control. Critics in Australia saw Cardinal Pell’s move as an attempt to leave the church’s troubles behind and avoid dealing with the abuse scandal.
His reception in Rome wasn’t much rosier; Cardinal Pell has been a polarising figure at the Vatican ever since his appointment. Soon after he was named, he drew swift scorn from the mostly Italian-headed Vatican bureaucracy for boasting that he had “found” some 1.4 billion euros “tucked away” in Vatican accounts that didn’t appear on balance sheets. In fact, the money was well known to the secretariat of state.
Cardinal George Pell says he will return to Australia to fight the charges. Picture:
And over the years, he clashed with many other cardinals who resented his attitude suggesting that he was the main force for transparency and reform while others were resistant to change.
Cardinal Pell’s initial mandate was huge, tasked with broad rein to control all economic, administrative, personnel and procurement functions of the Holy See.
But the mandate was subsequently restricted to performing more of an oversight role. In a statement Thursday, the Vatican said Francis greatly appreciated Cardinal Pell’s “honesty” in working in the Curia and was grateful for his collaboration.
Francis was particularly grateful “for his energetic dedication to the reforms in the economic and administrative sector, as well as his active participation” in the pope’s group of nine cardinal advisers, the statement said.
But it was well known that Cardinal Pell and Francis had their differences in both style and substance.
It was Cardinal Pell, for example, who handed Francis a letter signed by 12 fellow cardinals complaining about the procedures surrounding Francis’ landmark synod on the family in 2015. The letter warned that the Catholic Church was at risk of collapse if bishops went too far in accommodating the flock over the contentious issue of letting civilly remarried Catholics receive communion.
In the end, Francis went ahead with the accommodation, albeit obliquely. In a statement Thursday, Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher stood by Pell and said the archdiocese would support him with accommodation upon his return.
“The George Pell I know is a man of integrity in his dealings with others, a man of faith and high ideals, a thoroughly decent man,” Fisher said.
Vatican treasurer George Pell faces Australian court
July 26, 2017
One of the most senior figures in the Vatican will plead not guilty to multiple charges of historical sexual assault offenses, his lawyer told an Australian court on Wednesday.
Cardinal George Pell faced the Melbourne Magistrates Court Wednesday for his first hearing since the charges were made by Victoria Police last month.
Wednesday’s brief court hearing marked a significant moment in Australia, where Pell is the country’s most senior Catholic.
Pell is the most senior cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church ever to face criminal charges.
The cardinal, who is being represented by one of Australia’s leading criminal barristers, Robert Richter QC, has risen through the ranks from working as a young priest in Victoria to the third most powerful figure within the inner sanctum of the Vatican alongside Pope Francis.
His next court date will be on October 6.
The trial begins as Australia is still coming to terms with the shocking statistics published by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The figures released February showed 7% of Australian priests, as well as other non-ordained religious brothers and sisters and other Church personnel, were accused of abusing children between 1950 and 2010.
The Commission found that approximately 40% of the priests from the religious order Brothers of St. John of God have allegations of abuse against them during this period.
The Commission also stated that the Church had been reluctant to investigate the reported abuse and also assisted in covering up the incidents after they were reported.
How George Pell gazumped other bishops to claim credit for tackling child abuse in the church
May 14 2017
Broadly speaking, my aim in introducing the Melbourne Response was to make it easier for victims to achieve justice, and to seek financial compensation and counselling, without needing to establish legal liability. I believe that it was the first scheme of its kind implemented anywhere in the world to respond to victims of child sexual abuse. I was, and remain, proud of its establishment and the assistance it has provided to victims since 1996. Statement of Cardinal George Pell, August 2014
It was 1996 and the media was going after the percolating child abuse issue in a big way. The victims were becoming emboldened. It was becoming a dominant narrative: terrible PR for a Church whose mass attendance numbers were already in freefall. It was also potentially costly in terms of compensation payouts. And it was unclear just how many priests Pell as archbishop might lose to criminal prosecutions, but suffice to say they were falling over like dominoes.
Gerald Ridsdale outside court with George Pell in 1993. Photo: Geoff AmptMelbourne had more paedophile priests than any other place in the country. And most of them operated during George Pell’s time in Victoria as priest or bishop. The Cardinal is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. He consistently cites it when he is being scrutinised in the media and points out that he was probably the first in the world, let alone here in Australia, to boldly go where no other bishop had dared to tread.In 2016, he said: “When I became Archbishop, I turned the situation right around so that the Melbourne Response procedures were light years ahead of all this obfuscation and prevarication and deception.”
Cardinal George Pell is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. Photo: Joe ArmaoYou have to wonder, then, what this religious leader who was so zealously committed to rooting out child abuse was doing in March 1996—just four months before his appointment as archbishop— at the funeral of one Nazareno Fasciale.
Fasciale was parish priest at Yarraville in Melbourne’s inner west. In the preceding December, Fasciale had been charged by Newport detectives with multiple counts of indecent assault and gross indecency against four victims who had been assisted by the newly formed victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites.
The priest had been remanded to appear in court the following February. As the new year arrived, the Newport detectives discovered that there was another file on Fasciale with three further victims in the nearby town of Geelong, and police had planned to apply to the Office of Public Prosecutions to combine the cases.
When the matter came to court in February, a Church solicitor applied for an extension of time, alleging poor health on the part of Fasciale. The date was set for six weeks later. Fasciale was dead within a month. Fasciale’s skirmishes in the criminal justice system right before his death did not deter his priestly colleagues from giving him a glorious requiem mass send-off at St Mary’s in West Melbourne.
Cardinal George Pell talks to the press at the end of the Royal Commission’s public hearing. Photo: Marco Di Lauro[Pell joined] four bishops, along with an extraordinary sixty priests, attending the funeral. The Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne Peter Connors led the ceremony, referring only obliquely to Fasciale’s crimes.
“The life of our brother Nazareno Fasciale was not without its own fair measure of pain and suffering,” Connors conceded. “He would be the first to confess that he too was a sinner.”
Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.Maybe Pell just didn’t know that Fasciale had been charged with indictable offences against little kids. Priests, he would often later chide, don’t gossip. This was not, I might say, my experience, in writing my book
Two years before the funeral, in 1993, when Fasciale resigned for euphemistically titled “ill health and stress” after, handwritten archdiocesan notes attested, being “shocked and repentant” about what he had done to children, Pell was on the Personal Advisory Board which accepted the resignation letter. Pell agreed that of the five members of the board that day, three—Archbishop Little, Monsignor Gerry Cudmore and Monsignor Hilton Deakin—were aware of child abuse complaints against Fasciale.
Pell was most certainly not the first person in the Catholic Church to decide to address the issues, he just got in at the last minute, before the national response was about to be released.
So, was Pell? Did they tell him? “I can’t remember whether they did or they didn’t. It is possible that they did,” Pell much later said. The funeral of Fasciale occurred about three years after the fateful day when Pell accompanied serial paedophile Gerald Ridsdale to court in Warrnambool.
The photograph will haunt Pell to his grave — it is used by the media every time there is a discussion of him and child abuse. On a kind interpretation, Pell was just doing what real Catholics do, walking with a sinner at his darkest hour
But from the Ridsdale victims’ point of view, this “priestly act of solidarity”, as Pell much later called it, is nothing more than a slap in the face to them and their enormous suffering.
The Fasciale business suggests that perhaps Warrnambool didn’t represent a one-off, well-meaning, priestly brain snap, that it represented an attitude.
Whatever he thought in March 1996, by Pell’s account in July, his resolve had hardened against this dreadful paedophile scourge. Launching the Melbourne Response at a press conference Pell apologised unreservedly to victims. It seemed like this was a turning point. The scheme included, a Special Commissioner, a compensation panel which could award the victims up to $50 000, and an independent counselling service known as Carelink.
Victoria Police released a statement welcoming the Melbourne Response, saying it was “a positive step in tackling this very sensitive community issue”. In his much later statement to the Victorian parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Institutions in 2014, Pell wrote that as archbishop, he knew he had to act immediately.
“This was an issue that needed urgent attention and … we needed to do much better in our response,” the Pell statement says. “At that stage no decision had then been taken by the Australian bishops to set up the Towards Healing procedures. This was decided at the November 1996 meeting of the Australian Bishops’ conference. The Towards Healing Protocol was published in December 1997.”
While this is all strictly true, it’s a pretty selective analysis of the facts. In 1996, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference was working on a scheme called Towards Healing and had been developing it and consulting with stakeholders for three years. The man charged with running it was the Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Geoffrey Robinson.
The history of how this took place is significant, because Pell’s immediate refrain whenever he is questioned about his handling of child abuse matters, is that he was, through his Melbourne Response, the first Catholic bishop in Australia, and anywhere in the world, to come up with a comprehensive program to tackle the child abuse question.
Pell was most certainly not the first person in the Catholic Church to decide to address the issues, he just got in at the last minute, before the national response was about to be released.
In the 1980s, the Church’s euphemistically titled “Special Issues Committee” was headed by, of all people, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns from Ballarat, who had covered up the offending of priests in his diocese for decades. However, the committee began to acknowledge the scale of the problem as the realisation dawned on the Church internationally that something must be done.
Robinson said that at first psychiatrists told them they could cure paedophile priests, but that changed as the profession came to terms with the incurable nature of paedophilia. Robinson was appointed to develop a new protocol, which was to become Towards Healing.
One of the questions often asked of the Church is why develop a protocol at all? This was, after all, a criminal justice issue — why not direct the complainants to the police? But Robinson says the majority of complainants he met at that time were not interested in going to the police. So, Robinson set his mind to developing an alternative forum for victims to get some sort of restorative justice, not to mention making sure that none of the accused priests remained in service with access to children.
But turning around the attitudes of his colleagues was a massive effort. He bore the brunt of some of the bishops’ ire.
“One bishop called me a fanatic, another an avenging angel, and yet another accused me of ‘acting like Adolf Hitler in the way you harangued and bullied the bishops’,” Robinson said.
Having said that, of the forty-one bishops present at a vote in April 1996, only five voted against the protocol. As one of the senior people involved with the developmental stages of Towards Healing remembers, getting the protocol drawn up was a tricky business: “It had been going on for three years. Every time we drew up a protocol, Geoff Robinson would rightly insist on taking it to the victims’ groups and understandably, it was never good enough [for them] and we had draft after draft after draft.”
Robinson also had to get diverse dioceses and religious orders, each with their own leaders who had differing views, to come together as one. It was a massive task. “So instead of having this thing in 1994 as we expected, it had dragged on to November 1996.
“George came in as archbishop and because he thought we were taking too long, he decided he would introduce his own protocol,” the person told me.
“Geoff [Robinson] sent out about ten things trying to achieve consensus before we were all due to meet in the November,” recalls Bishop Emeritus of Canberra-Goulburn, Pat Power.
“Then out of the blue, George Pell comes up with his own thing. When he claims that he was the one that gave the lead, he really just broke ranks with everyone. Certainly, the thing of him coming out early was something everyone felt very critical about.”
“The Melbourne bombshell,” Robinson later called it, confirming that Pell had been there for all of the discussions on Towards Healing, all of the motions, but hadn’t said a word against it.
Robinson knew nothing of the Melbourne Response until Pell made it public without telling any of the other bishops. “He later would claim that he was the first person in Australia to have such a protocol, he was ahead of everybody, in other words. I mean, that’s only a very partial truth.”
Bishop Bill Morris, who had joined the Bishops Conference in 1993 as Bishop of Toowoomba, says the other bishops were very disappointed.
“Well, this is George, George will go his own way because George wants to reform the Church according to George Pell,” Morris says.
“It would have been much better for the Church in Australia to act as one to bring in a national approach and I am sure those who were close to George would have said that to him.”
The November 1996 meeting, which included bishops from every diocese in the country, as well as the leaders of all the religious orders such as the Jesuits and the Christian Brothers, was the day that the bishops approved the Towards Healing protocol — a united Church front to make an attempt to address this scourge.
Some who were present were particularly furious at Pell’s lack of consultation with others — especially his failure, as they put it, to hear the opinions of the religious leaders who would be operating in the Melbourne Archdiocese.
One of those was Bill Uren, Provincial of the Jesuit order.
The big meeting was at Kensington in Sydney on 22 November 1996. On the conference floor, Uren’s blood began to boil because when Robinson would mention “the protocol” (Towards Healing), Pell would interrupt and say, “there are two protocols”.
After it happened several times, Uren saw red. He jumped to his feet and confronted Pell across the conference floor for not consulting the religious leaders of Victoria before going ahead with the Melbourne Response.
Pell replied that he did consult them, but Uren said to Pell he believed the only one Pell had spoken to was Brother Paul Noonan — who was then the head of the Christian Brothers.
Uren had received the information in one of those typical Catholic coincidences — his personal assistant was the wife of the Christian Brothers’ lawyer.
Uren went on to correct Pell about the “consultation”, saying it was simply a statement informing Noonan that it would be happening. It was said that you could have heard a pin drop.
Uren really got going then, saying that the rest of them had been working on Towards Healing for three years and had been gazumped by Pell without any consultation with the religious leaders.
After the meeting, sources told me the two went toe-to-toe in the doorway, where Pell is said to have told Uren he objected to being called a liar in front of his fellow bishops.
Uren finished up as Provincial of the Jesuits the following month, in December 1996. Ironically, and much to Uren’s dismay, his successor, Daven Day, was the only religious leader (or bishop) in Australia to opt to go with Pell’s Melbourne Response, rather than Towards Healing.
Morris and many others I have spoken to in the Church believe that Towards Healing, while certainly not perfect and in many ways wanting, had a more pastoral outlook than the Melbourne Response, which was set up under the auspices of a Queen’s Counsel and had a more legalistic framework.
Pell’s argument is that the situation was so dramatic that he had to act swiftly. To be fair to Pell, things in the Catholic Church move in a byzantine and sluggish way. He knew the job needed to be done. But many of his colleagues believe that in going about it the way he did, he undermined the national process with an inferior scheme, and that unity was vital when addressing such a vexed issue.
In covering the later Royal Commission and speaking to survivors, solicitors and advocacy groups, I found that the response to the Response, from the people it was meant to help, was overwhelmingly underwhelmed. This was a position later reflected in the Victorian parliament’s Betrayal of Trust Report by the Parliamentary Inquiry in the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Institutions of November 2013.
One of the issues some survivors had was that the counselling service Carelink was run by a psychiatrist, Professor Richard Ball, who had provided treatment not just to victims, but to priests of the archdiocese and had also provided expert witness statements on the priests’ behalf.
The Royal Commission later agreed that while it did not question Ball’s integrity, “where there is a power imbalance, perceptions matter a great deal”.
Then there is the fact that Pell’s solicitor was given medical and psychological reports and assessments of the victims (albeit “on a confidential and without prejudice basis”), and was involved with each component of the process, at the same time as he was acting on behalf of the archdiocese.
The Royal Commission later found the fact that the solicitors were performing these dual roles raised “clear potential for conflict. It also raises difficulties with confidentiality.”
Child abuse royal commission: Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school, inquiry hears
23 Jul 2015
A notorious paedophile priest abused every boy at a regional Victorian school between the age of 10 and 16, the child sex abuse inquiry has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is holding long-awaited public hearings in Ballarat to examine historical abuse suffered by children at a number of schools in the regional centre, at the hands of Catholic clergy and other members of the Church.
Some of Australia’s most notorious abusers, including Gerald Ridsdale, Robert Best and Edward Dowlan, were part of a paedophile ring operating in and around Ballarat for years.
In her opening address, Senior Counsel Assisting the Commission, Gail Furness SC, outlined the extent of Ridsdale’s offending.
She said the inquiry would hear evidence of Ridsdale’s time at the Mortlake parish during the early 1980s, including comments from the priest who took over from Ridsdale.
“Father Dennehy told the Catholic Church’s insurance investigator that he thought every male child between the ages of 10 years and 16 years, who were at the school, had been molested by Ridsdale,” she said.
Ms Furness said Ridsdale was a “prolific offender” during his time at Mortlake.
“There will be evidence that his behaviour around boys was no secret,” she said.
She also told the inquiry Cardinal George Pell – who later became Archbishop of Sydney and now oversees the Vatican’s finances – was one of seven present at a meeting in September 1982 where Bishop Ronald Mulkearns discussed the need to remove Ridsdale from the school.
She said under the heading of “staff” the notes from that meeting read:
The Bishop advised that it had become necessary for Father Gerald Risdale to move from the Parish of Mortlake.
Negotiations are under way to have him work with the Catholic Enquiry Centre in Sydney.
A new appointment to Mortlake will be necessary to take effect after October 17th.
The minutes did not disclose whether the Bishop said why the move was necessary, she told the inquiry.
“However … it is expected that there will be evidence that Bishop Mulkearns knew it was because Ridsdale had abused boys in Mortlake and that he had offended in this manner in 1975,” she said.
All male teachers at St Alipius PS were molesting
Ballarat was one of the most horrific sites of abuse and it was revealed that in 1971, all male teachers and the chaplain at the St Alipius primary school were molesting children.
Ms Furness said the royal commission would also hear from a survivor who had a photograph of his grade four class at St Alipius in the 1970s.
She said he would tell the hearing, of the 33 boys pictured, 12 had committed suicide.
In his opening address, inquiry chairman Justice Peter McClellan urged those attending the hearing to remember the victims and survivors.
“The evidence in the first stage of this hearing will include the personal stories of a number of survivors,” Justice McClellan said.
“That evidence will describe the gross violations of individuals by ordained members of the Catholic Church.
“As you are aware, the royal commission has revealed many shocking stories of the betrayal of children.
“As we listen to the evidence in this hearing, we should all reflect on the impact for those who have suffered in the Ballarat region, and the thousands of others who have suffered throughout Australia.”
Ridsdale to give evidence to inquiry via video link from prison
Justice McClellan said the inquiry would also hear from perpetrators but not directly about the circumstances of their offending.
“That has already been dealt with by the courts,” Justice McClellan said of Ridsdale’s crimes.
“However, the evidence has an important part to play in the royal commission coming to understand both the way ordained members of the Catholic Church became abusers and how the Church responded to allegations of their abuse.”
Ridsdale is serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to 30 child sex offences in 2014.
It is the fourth time he has been jailed after three previous stints in prison for more than 100 other offences.
He will give evidence, possibly next week, via video link from prison.
The hearing will also consider why Ridsdale was able to move around to so many locations in Victoria, without being reported to police.
He offended and re-offended in Horsham, Inglewood, Camperdown, Ballarat North, Mildura, Swan Hill, Warrnambool, Ballarat East, Apollo Bay, Edenhope, Melbourne and Mortlake.
“I appreciate that the evidence of perpetrators may be confronting for some people, in particular survivors,” Justice McClellan said.
“However, without the evidence of perpetrators the true story of the response of the Church in Ballarat may never be completely revealed.
“I am aware that there may be different and strongly held views about the conduct of ordained people and the appropriateness of the response of leaders in the Church in the Ballarat Diocese.
“Many want this hearing. There are others who doubt the need for a public hearing. Some may not want the story told.
“Unless the truth is revealed and known publicly then [the] prospect of effective healing for survivors and institutions is diminished.”
Support on hand as inquiry prepares for gruelling three weeks
Today’s hearing was packed with survivors and their supporters and a spill-over court was set up in an adjacent building to cope with demand.
Justice McClellan said support would be on hand for survivors as the hearing progressed.
The Catholic Church also warned of a gruelling few weeks of evidence.
Bishop of Ballarat Paul Bird released a statement urging people across the region to support one another throughout the hearing.
He will also give evidence, as will Brother Peter Clinch, the Province Leader of the Christian Brothers Oceania Province.
Former Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who is accused of moving perpetrators and destroying documents to avoid detection, is not on the witness list.
He did not appear before the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse, citing ill health.
Ms Furness said 17 abuse victims would give evidence and the commission would also hear from a psychiatrist about the post-traumatic effects of child abuse on survivors.
Some victims will give evidence anonymously, under a pseudonym.
“Many witnesses are expected to say that they were reluctant to disclose their abuse to anyone,” Ms Furness said.
“They are expected to give reasons such as feelings of shame, guilt, disgust, fear of punishment, fear of judgment and a belief that they would be disbelieved.”
Perpetrators must be called to account, victims say
Abuse victim Patrick Nagle, 50, of Ballarat, was abused at St Alipius and said testifying before the commission was “extremely difficult”.
“We’ve known this has been coming for about three months and I haven’t slept [the] last couple of nights,” he said.
“You’ve got to prepare yourself for it.
“[It was] very, very tough indeed, but [I’m] glad it’s over [I’m] going to go and have a beer now.”
Andrew Collins, 46, of Mount Helen, was abused by four different men at Ballarat schools and churches during his teenage years.
He said it was important that those who moved these men around and did not report the abuse to police were brought to justice.
“It’s not just the perpetrators, it’s the hierarchy that facilitated those abusers to cause so much more hurt, pain and suffering,” he said.
Mr Collins said the number of victims who had committed suicide was “horrendous”.
“There’s been over 40 confirmed suicides where suicide notes have been linked to the abuses, but we’re aware of many other victims who have taken their own lives,” he said.
“We’ve had 10 [suicides] in the last 12 months and it is just painful and horrendous to open up the newspaper and see that somebody you know, you know was abused, hasn’t told their family, has taken their own life.”
Even when Gerald Ridsdale was a young man he had the habits of a sinful old bastard.
Almost from the moment he was ordained in 1961, the Catholic Church in Australia’s most vicious offender was up to no good.
With his ear to the local gossip — perhaps even in the confessional when parishioners across western Victoria’s vast plains purged their fears and regrets — Father Gerry would be poised, waiting anxiously for the information he needed.
Word of a broken home, a death in the family, financial troubles; any weakness would do.
With this knowledge, Ridsdale — 81 on Wednesday — would swoop on grieving families, pretending to be offering wise counsel and pastoral relief. Doing the Lord’s work.
All the while, he was quietly preying on the parish’s children.
The more fragile the child the better for Father Gerry.
He has been convicted of abusing 54 children, but it is quietly speculated that Ridsdale’s victims can be counted in their hundreds.
While child abuse is cruel, Ridsdale was vicious, buggering most, revelling in the sexual depravity of using blunt instruments on children too young to play mini-colts football. Most victims were boys.
But when he tired of males, he would turn to girls.
When the royal commission into institutional child sex abuse marches tomorrow into Ballarat, the de facto capital of western Victoria, it will have been a long time coming for victims and parishioners alike.
To date, no national inquiry has tried to unpick the disaster of the Ballarat diocese that unfolded in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
For while Ridsdale led the charge, he was not alone. In the mix were other convicted offenders including Brother Robert Best, Brother Edward Dowlan and Father Paul Ryan, who were aided by a grossly negligent church and, at times, a duplicitous police command. The bulk of the offending occurred in the 70s and 80s when Ronald Mulkearns was bishop of Ballarat.
Mulkearns, since retired, has been thrown under a bus by the church hierarchy in Australia, accused of destroying documents that would help piece together how such abuse could be covered up over decades.
Mulkearns, about the same age as Ridsdale, was the man who, once notified about the offending, was responsible for dealing with the offenders.
To say the modern church is outraged by the actions of the then pope’s man in Ballarat is an understatement.
“To say I took no action is wrong. I sent them for counselling. I can’t help if they blame me for what happened,’’ Mulkearns said in a recent interview.
“I regret terribly what happened. I wish I knew then what I know now because I would’ve done things differently.’’
The travesty of the Ballarat offending was that at the stroke of a pen on many, many occasions, offenders were simply shifted to a new parish. Ballarat one day, Edenhope the next. Things would go to custard in Inglewood, next stop Swan Hill.
All with the rubber stamp of the diocese.
For Peter Blenkiron, the next three weeks in Ballarat will be excruciating. He was abused at the age of 11 at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College by Christian Brother Edward Dowlan, who was everything but a Christian. Now aged 65, Dowlan has admitted abusing boys at St Alipius in Ballarat in 1971, St Patrick’s College in Ballarat in 1973 and 1974, Warrnambool Christian Brothers College in 1975-76, Chanel College in Geelong in 1980 and Cathedral College, East Melbourne, between 1982 and 1988.
Blenkiron admits that he still struggles to cope with the effects of the abuse but is committed to speaking out because the alternative is watching his generation disappear, succumbing to suicide and drug and alcohol abuse.
“A lot of the stuff doesn’t even make the death notices because it’s too hard for the families, which is understandable,’’ Blenkiron laments. “Change is possible. It will be difficult. But to not do it will cause generational genocide.”
He says it’s not just the survivors of the abuse in Ballarat who are hurting but also their families, and these secondary victims also need support. “The ripple effect isn’t a ripple effect in Ballarat. It’s an atomic bomb.”
The impact of the abuse was immense, with the diocese covering several thousands of square kilometres — all the way to the South Australian and NSW borders.
The church, certainly until the 80s, dominated a region that was strongly old-school Irish Catholic, but so vast was the abuse that it was as if the church used the pedophiles as pin cushions across western Victoria.
The pins were moved whenever word spread that the priest was a predator.
For Blenkiron, like so many others, there is vastly more at stake than money, even if the diocese almost went broke under the weight of the offending.
“When you address this from a bottom-line point of view and don’t incorporate the values, you end up with trying to limit liability, save money, which is what the Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response did,’’ he says.
“It was about those two things, limiting liability, saving face, giving people some money, sign off, don’t mention it. That’s what used to happen.”
Blenkiron would like to see a national redress scheme trialled in Ballarat, along the lines of one for returned servicemen with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Everyone says it’s too hard. Keep people out of jail, keep people alive, save the community money, change the culture. It’s a simple message.”
Francis Sullivan is the chief executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which is co-ordinating the Catholic Church’s response to the royal commission.
He believes the church leadership is still struggling with the backlash and agrees there needs to be a national redress scheme and an independent umpire who investigates and determines what the compensation should be.
“The Catholic Church will pay its full weight just like every other institution that has to, but it needs to be administered independently because the days of the Catholic Church investigating itself are over,’’ he says.
“I think the magnitude of the anger and disenchantment, not only in the community but in the Catholic community, has surprised, if not shocked, some of the leaders.”
He thinks that even though the church put redress schemes in place years ago, that effort has not taken away the anger people have towards the church.
“Its history is shameful and confronting and I think the royal commission and the reactions that have happened both publicly and privately demonstrate that, and I think that’s been again a real … learning, awareness, awakening,’’ Sullivan says.
“I think the church leadership has also recognised that an overly legalistic and risk management type of approach that was adopted in the past is just not suitable for a church and that real commitment to survivors and their families is a lifelong pastoral commitment.”
Yet Sullivan’s views are not always embraced by the modern church leadership, which, despite the white noise, has worked assiduously to right some of the wrongs.
The Melbourne Response adopted in the Archdiocese of Melbourne at the behest of former archbishop George Pell — despite some flaws — has been judged by those who know as being generally generous and biased towards the victims.
Much of the criticism has come from the fact that the weight of suffering has been so profound that few victims could be expected to respond with thanks toward the church. Indeed, why would they?
For the next three weeks, the royal commission will attempt to unpick the disaster that has been the Ballarat diocese.
The scope of the first hearing into the diocese includes St Alipius Primary School, St Alipius Parish, St Patrick’s College and St Patrick’s Christian Brothers Boys’ Primary School. At each school offending occurred.
It will also potentially hear evidence from offenders and seek to understand the extent of the damage to the community.
Shireen Gunn is the manager of Ballarat’s Centre Against Sexual Assault. CASA runs fortnightly support groups for male survivors of institutional abuse and Gunn says the group has just “grown and grown”.
She says there is anxiety among the groups about the commission and an air of expectation. “We have got some very heavy few weeks about to descend on our town,” she says.
Not surprisingly, she says CASA expects other survivors to come forward and make contact once the royal commission starts, but many of the abused are now dead. “We have a very high suicide rate … That’s what needs to basically stop.
“How that stops is people (being) able to reach out and be supported.”
Like all social catastrophes, the implications are local, national and even international.
It is certain news of the Ballarat hearings will filter quickly, if not immediately, to the Vatican.
Like Ridsdale, Pell is a Ballarat boy. While Ridsdale is wicked, Pell used his towering intellect to become, effectively, the Vatican’s treasurer. This makes him one of the world’s most influential Australians. Ever.
When Ridsdale appeared in court in 1993 for the first time to face charges, Pell naively supported his priestly brother.
Pell had shared a house with Ridsdale for about a year from early 1973 at the St Alipius Presbytery, next door to the primary school, where some of the offending had occurred.
By then, Pell was climbing the church’s equivalent of a greasy pole and was an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne.
“It was simply a gesture on my part,” Pell later lamented.
During a recent Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse, both Pell and incumbent Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart criticised Mulkearns and former archbishop of Melbourne Frank Little over their handling of abuse.
Those who understand the gravity of this will look back at these words as probably the most significant of the entire parliamentary inquiry.
While the inquiry served a purpose, it also seemed to become bogged down in its own self-importance, leaping on “revelations’’ that were in fact old news.
There is no doubt Pell and Hart have made mistakes, but, conspiracies aside, they have also done more than most to address the systemic failures, which almost exclusively occurred under the watch of Little and Mulkearns.
Little is dead. But it was clear from the evidence that he covered up abuse. Mulkearns, meanwhile, was accused by Pell, under parliamentary privilege, of destroying crucial church documents.
The Australian has unsuccessfully tried to interview Mulkearns, who failed to give evidence to the parliamentary inquiry because of a recent stroke. Until late 2013 at least, he had been saying mass in the diocese.
For Blenkiron, abused so long ago by Dowlan, the royal commission is difficult but necessary.
“It’s going to be difficult because we’re talking about authority figures in the judicial system, and it was authority figures that got us as kids,’’ he says.
“It’s a necessary pain … and I’m motivated by having nobody else die. Too many people have died.”
No one is sure of how many people have died after being abused. Police have made attempts to create a list detailing the number of suicides but The Australian understands that it is most likely inaccurate.
What is certain is that hundreds of people were abused in the Ballarat diocese, and most of these victims were so spiritually damaged that their lives will have been laced with misery.
Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese exposed after ‘fiercely resisting” a child sex victim in court
11 Jul 2017
MAITLAND-Newcastle Catholic diocese “fiercely resisted” paying compensation to the victim of a notorious child sex offender teacher in 2005 despite internal legal advice in 1990 conceding his victims would have “a pretty good case” to sue the church, royal commission documents released on Monday show.
The teacher’s trail of destruction through the Hunter over several decades included a parting gesture to the church a year before his death – his evidence to the 2005 court case saying he warned the diocese he was a convicted child sex offender before it employed him in 1974.
His crimes against children included threatening a 10-year-old boy victim that he would “kill your mum” if the boy told her about the serious sexual assaults.
Documents released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse show the teacher’s evidence on February 16, 2005 caused Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) less than a week later to refuse to cover the diocese for any claims by the teacher’s victims, and increased the substantial compensation ultimately paid to 10 victims because of the diocese’s liability.
Told: Former Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone was told Catholic Church Insurance refused to cover the diocese for claims initiated by victims of a paedophile teacher.
The documents show CCI advised the then Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone that “the dilemma we now face is the difficulty of defending the actions of the diocese, who allegedly allowed a known sex offender to work as a teacher in the Catholic education system”.
While it had originally planned to cover the diocese for claims against the teacher and was “conscious of its obligation to support the diocese in these difficult circumstances”, the Catholic insurer said “new information which has recently come to light” caused it to change its position.
It followed an affidavit by the teacher, who cannot be named by order of the royal commission, that he told Catholic Education Office directors Monsignor Frank Coolahan and Monsignor Vince Dilley during employment interviews in 1974 that he was convicted of sexually assaulting young boys at a Hunter public school in 1962.
The teacher, known by the royal commission as GKI, was a student at Marist Brothers, Maitland in the 1940s.
GKI was convicted in 1989 of sexually assaulting two boys, aged 10, at a Hunter Catholic school. But documents held by the Newcastle Herald, and others released by the royal commission on Monday, show parents raised the alarm about GKI on at least three occasions in the 1980s, including reports to the Catholic Education Office.
The documents include a report to the then Bishop Leo Clarke in 1990 by a church committee headed by the then Monsignor Philip Wilson, and tasked with reporting on the diocese’s handling of the teacher’s case.
The committee found serious gaps in the diocese’s child protection protocols, including a reluctance to include details of alleged sexual misconduct on a teacher’s personnel file.
“It would seem that if a teacher faced with allegations of sexual abuse resigns, there is nothing to guarantee that he/she will not be employed at some time in the future in a Catholic school in another diocese, or indeed in this diocese, given the reluctance to place information regarding the allegations in the personnel file,” Monsignor Wilson’s committee found.
It recommended that “personnel files contain all documents related to allegations, charges, convictions in relation to sexual abuse”.
The committee report noted that GKI had to be ordered by his probation officer to stay away from the church, the school and the children after he harassed children at Mass, followed the school bus and approached them in the street.
“Parishioners were extremely angry when they discovered that one of the teacher’s former parish priests had testified on his behalf at the court case in which the teacher had pleaded guilty,” Bishop Clarke was told.
“It would seem that there has been no attempt by the parish, school or Catholic Education Office to ascertain whether the victims have suffered financial hardship because of the events which have occurred since the time of the abuse.”
A note at the bottom of the report warned Bishop Clarke that parents had the right to sue the Catholic Education Office and the diocese for “failing to adequately protect their children”.
“Our legal consultant suggests that the parents in this case would have a pretty good case if they chose to act,” the note said.
But when one of the 10-year-old boys whose complaints led to GKI’s conviction for child sex offences in 1989 tried to sue the diocese for compensation in 2005, his case was “fiercely resisted”, his barrister Andrew Morrison, SC, said in a report on the case in 2009.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he was “not at all surprised” to learn the diocese knew GKI’s victims had a “pretty good case” to sue the church, based on its knowledge it had employed a child sex offender to put in charge of young children.
“The Catholic Church doesn’t appear overall to have learnt the lessons from what has occurred and been revealed, although there are significant changes in some areas and it is not the only institution to have been found wanting,” Mr Morrison said.
“It’s got a long, long way to go. There are still some very ugly attitudes among some decision-makers.”
Another Former high ranking parish priest accused of child sex abuse
19th Jul 2017
A RETIRED Catholic parish priest who stands accused of several child sexual abuse offences was excused from appearing in Lismore Local Court on Tuesday where his case was mentioned.
Richard St John Cattell, 77, who now lives on the Gold Coast, faces nine historic charges including intercourse with a male between 10 and 17 years old as well as aggravated indecent assault with a boy under his authority.
Cattell served as a parish priest at several NSW parishes in the 1970s and 1980s before being promoted to Vicar-General of the Diocese of Parramatta in the early 1990s.
The offences allegedly occurred during Cattel’s time as a parish priest at various NSW parishes in Sydney and surrounds.
Prosecutor Luke Wiggins told the court on Tuesday the “bulk” of the alleged offences occurred in the Hawkesbury region on the Central Coast, while some of the charges occured at other locations such as Mollymook on the South Coast.
Magistrate David Heilpern adjourned the matter to Penrith Local Court on July 28.
Cattell was excused from appearing at the next court date if legally represented.
In Mildura in 1972, Detective Constable Denis Ryan sought to charge a priest, Monsignor John Day, for sex offences against children. Ryan had obtained a number of statements from victims. The allegations were of a serious type — acts of gross indecency, buggery, rape, sexual assault.
It would have been the first time a Catholic cleric was charged with child sex offences in Victorian criminal history.
This unhappy story had its roots in an event on the streets of St Kilda in 1956, when Ryan as a young constable in the company of two more senior officers, detained Day, then a priest at Apollo Bay, after the priest was found drunk and semi-naked in his car in the company of two prostitutes. Ryan wondered why Day had not been charged at the time and was told by his sergeant, “Short of murder, no Catholic priest could be charged with any offence in Victoria.”
Detective Sergeant Jim Barritt, was a member of the group and was a close friend of Day’s. Barritt set himself up essentially as Day’s protector. Ryan did not inform Barritt of his inquiries and referred them to the most senior police officer in the area, Superintendent Jack McPartland at Swan Hill. McPartland ordered Ryan off the case and instructed him to hand over all statements to Barritt’s partner in crime, Superintendent Alby Irwin.
But Ryan would not let the matter go and continued to make inquiries and take statements from victims. In all 14 victims came forward before Ryan was forced out.
Ryan claimed he could have obtained statements from 100 victims. We now know Day has been the subject of more than 100 Towards Healing claims. I believe he had been an active paedophile for 50 years. He died unpunished in 1978.
Enter then Superintendent John O’Connor who travelled to Mildura with his sidekick Chief Inspector Harvey Child. They were “toe-cutters”, then Chief Commissioner Reg Jackson’s special investigators. Initially O’Connor offered Ryan an inducement, a promotion to the rank of detective sergeant and Barritt’s job in Mildura. Ryan knocked him back. That was when the shit hit the fan.
Ryan was ostracised within the force. O’Connor tried to fit up Ryan with disciplinary charges that were laughable and never got off the ground. He ordered Ryan’s transfer back to Melbourne, something he knew Ryan would not cop. O’Connor effectively destroyed Ryan’s career. Ryan left the force in 1972.
I co-wrote the book Unholy Trinity with Ryan. He came to my home and for four months we sifted through files and sat in my little office putting his story together. When he arrived he presented as a deeply anxious character. He spoke of nightmares, insomnia and lived with the almost constant onset of panic attacks. There was no doubt in my mind he was suffering the symptoms of post-traumatic stress and had done so for decades. Never mind that he had once been one of them, the cops had really done a number on him. A hamburger with the lot, in their dark parlance.
The book was published in 2013 and was received as a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2014. Ryan gave evidence to the commission in December 2015. His evidence was not challenged, he was not cross-examined. Rather, he simply read sections of his statement into the record at the commission. In the space of a morning’s proceedings, Ryan finally received the vindication he had sought since 1972.
Outside the courtroom, a long line of senior police, including the current Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, stepped forward to express regret and offer their apologies.
The simple fact of the matter is Ryan need not have waited so long.
For many years prior to giving evidence to the commission, Ryan hammered away at Victoria Police, demanding answers. He was roughly ignored and the door remained shut on what I regard as the force’s darkest secret, the protection it afforded clerical paedophiles.
A Victorian independent MLA for Sunraysia, Russell Savage, decided to take up the cudgels on Ryan’s behalf. Savage was a former cop and had met Ryan and knew Ryan was telling the truth. He raised the Day investigation and Ryan’s disgraceful treatment in Victorian parliament. The then police minister, Tim Holding, requested VicPol conduct an internal review of the matter.
Ryan thought finally the wheel had turned in his favour. Surely an investigation by Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon would end his suffering and provide some form of succour. After all, it was 2006 and a raft of priests and clerics had been convicted of child sex offending, many of them in the Ballarat Diocese.
But despite Nixon’s investigation the big lie persisted. She responded with a letter in response to Savage’s inquiry in the parliament. The penultimate paragraph of that letter reads: “Following examination of this extensive statement by former Assistant Commissioner O’Connor, I am completely satisfied with the conduct of the investigations into the Day matter and that Denis Ryan resigned from Victoria Police of his own accord.”
This was the same O’Connor who had tried to fit Ryan up and who had ultimately conspired with bishop Ronald Mulkearns in Ballarat to pervert the course of justice by not charging Day and demanding Mulkearns merely move the perverted priest out of Mildura into another parish and a fresh group of unsuspecting children.
At the time of writing the book, we did not know the contents of O’Connor’s statement. We knew it existed but despite a successful application to VCAT for the release of police documents, O’Connor’s statement remained under lock and key. Now that we have seen it, we know why it was withheld.
O’Connor’s statement, sworn by him in 2006 when he was 90 years of age, was a litany of lies from a man prepared to perjure himself to the grave. When sections of the statement were read into the record by counsel assisting the Royal Commission, the public gallery burst into laughter, so ludicrous and outrageous was it.
Among the more extraordinary claims in the statement, O’Connor stated there were two Father John Days in Victoria and since 1956 Denis Ryan had battled under the misapprehension of mistaken identity. It was a lie and provably so.
According to her letter in 2006, Nixon relied almost entirely on O’Connor’s statement to form the view that the Day investigation which saw the priest removed from the Mildura parish but not charged, sent off to another parish where he would offend against children again, was a legitimate one and that Ryan had resigned of his own accord.
If you think that’s rough on Ryan then imagine what Day’s victims were going through. They had been told again they did not matter and the profound indignities they suffered at the hands of Day did not happen.
Comment was sought from Christine Nixon. She referred my questions to Victoria Police.
The trouble with that is Victoria Police have already conducted their inquiries. After the release of Unholy Trinity, former Chief Commissioner Mick Miller contacted his successor, Graham Ashton and urged him to read the book. Ashton did and then demanded the police files. He sifted through the files and quickly formed the view the Day investigation was a farce and that Ryan had been at best very poorly treated.
James Fraser Darling member of the Spartacus Club 33 years FOR THE SCOT WHO PREYED ON THAI KIDS
Sentenced to 33 years for paedophile offences in Thailand. Released on appeal and deported. Served a grand total of 2 years inside.
James Fraser Darling – who preyed on boys as young as eight – gives one-to-one lessons to the children of wealthy families.
Darling, 56, who lived in Morningside, Edinburgh, before going to the Far East, is working in a private language school in Zhuhai in south China.
We discovered the pervert – the son of an Oxford don – posing as a respectable teacher in the same week as pop paedophile Gary Glitter jetted back into Britain.
But while Glitter, 64, was placed on the UK sex offenders’ register, Darling is subject to no monitoring or restrictions.
At his school in Zhuhai, Darling, who is paid pounds 450 a month, refused to speak to the Sunday Mail.
School principal Li Lulin said she knew nothing about Darling’s crimes – but would not sack him.
She said: “Give him a break. His performance here has been good. I won’t tell parents.
“It’s not up to the Chinese government to punish him for his past. His contract finishes in September. I’ll let him go peacefully.”
A Foreign Office spokswoman said: “It is a matter for the Chinese authorities if they admit him to the country. We wouldn’t necessarily know if Mr Darling was there.”
At the Chinese Embassy in London, a spokeswoman refused to say whether any action would be taken to remove Darling.
CHILD SEX SHAME OF SCOTS TOFF: He molested Thai lads, court told
Fraser-Darling and other Westerners allegedly molested the boys at the picnics and in Fraser- Darling’s cottage near the poor village of Rawai.
The boys showed investigators photos of themselves naked with the man they knew as “Uncle James”.
More nude pictures were found at Fraser-Darling’s home, along with a Spartacus magazine article on “boy love” written by a J.Darling. Fraser-Darling denies being the author.
Fraser-Darling, who went to posh Repton school, was arrested in November 1995 after a colleague at the university reported him.
He was about to leave Thai-land for Cambodia when police swooped.
The pervert was taken from prison to court in his brown jail uniform early yesterday. His ankles were chained.
Fraser-Darling admitted he was a paedophile.
But he denied the charges, claiming he was a scapegoat in Thailand’s “witch- hunt” against child sex perverts.
Fraser-Darling’s father is Scots academic Sir Frank Fraser-Darling, an expert on Scottish birds and Hebridean wildlife.
Someone was pulling strings to get him out of Thailand.
A PAEDOPHILE has arrived in Scotland to claim a family inheritance – still lying about his sleazy past.
Toff James Fraser Darling, 51, is in the Highlands to get what is left of his family’s cash after being freed from a Bangkok jail.
But while the former teacher claims he won an appeal against all convictions, the truth is that the Thais kicked him out after only reducing his jail sentence.
Fraser Darling was left a small fortune while languishing behind bars and used some of the money to win his freedom.
Now the pervert, who preyed on young boys in the seedy resort of Phuket, is staying at an pounds 18-a-night guest house in Forres near his former family home while he plans his future.
Local residents are unaware that he is a convicted paedophile.
LIES OF DEPRAVED TOFF
Fraser Darling’s father, Sir Frank, died in 1979 at the age of 73 after his retirement as chief officer of the Imperial Bureau of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh-born Christina was his third wife and met him when she was taking care of his children after his second wife’s death.
Since Fraser Darling’s arrest he has been too ashamed to contact his brother Richard, 52, a senior Foreign Office intelligence officer, and his sister Francesca, 46, who lives in the USA.
He says he has spent his time in Scotland trying to register for work after a lifetime working abroad in Thailand, Iran, Sri Lanka and El Salvador.
THE paedophile son of a Scottish knight was jailed for 33 years in Thailand yesterday for preying on young boys.
Teacher James Fraser Darling, 47, whose father, a leading academic – was an authority on Scottish wildlife, was chained by the ankles as he was led away to the cells wearing regulation brown prison shirt and shorts.
The appalling sex acts he was convicted of were carried out on boys from a sea gypsy community at a Thai beach resort.
He was sentenced to five years each on nine counts of separating children from their parents.
Darling is the son of Sir Frank Fraser Darling, an Oxford don and expert on Scottish bird-life and Hebridean wildlife, who became chief officer of the Imperial Bureau of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh. He died in 1979.
Darling’s mother, Lady Christina Darling of Forres, Moray, died while he was on trial.
His brother Richard, a senior intelligence officer specialising in the war against drugs, works for the Foreign Office in Britainand did not attend the court.
Richard Ogilby Leslie Fraser Darling Counsellor, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Pervert Darling, a London University arts graduate, travelled the world teaching in Brazil and Sri Lanka before arriving in Thailand four years ago.
A book published by the Spartacus organisation – a European group linked to paedophilia – was found in his house, and a chapter inside, written by J Darling, described Roman orgies with young boys.
However, Darling denied that he was the author of the work.
The court’s decision was welcomed by FACE, the coalition against Child Exploitation, which has been monitoring suspected paedophiles in Thailand.
How disgusting can you get 2 years then deported back too our country!! Bloody loose around innocent children! Thank you for sharing this
James Fraser Darling
Son of Sir Frank Fraser Darling Brother of Richard Ogilby Leslie Fraser Darling (MI6!)
1998 Sentenced to 33 years (originally even longer) for paedophile offences in Thailand.
Released on appeal (sentence reduced)and deported.
Served a grand total of 2 years inside.
Apparently now teaching English again in China, or was.
Three of the Salvation Army’s most senior commanders are related to alleged or convicted abusers
26 Apr 2017
Three of the Salvation Army’s most senior commanders are closely related to men who have been accused of, charged with or convicted of sexual offences, including against children.
The revelation demonstrates how deeply the church child-sex scandal has affected the tight-knit Salvation Army community and comes after a royal commission uncovered evidence of horrific assaults allegedly committed by its officers and staff.
The commission identified at least 19 alleged child abusers within the Salvation Army over recent decades, while an ongoing police investigation into boys’ homes run by the church has led to two arrests so far.
WOODBURY, MAJOR ERROL
Major Errol Woodbury of the Salvation Army became a police chaplain in 1984. In 1988 he was appointed full-time as a senior chaplain a position he held until January 1995. Since then Major Woodbury has continued as an honorary chaplain. He is also actively involved in pastoral care ministry for the Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army’s national chief secretary, Colonel Mark Campbell, is the son-in-law of a former major, Errol Woodbury, who was the subject of “historical allegations” that led to his being stripped of his position in 2015.
Queensland’s divisional commander, Lieutenant Colonel David Godkin, is the son-in-law of a former Salvation Army soldier, Maurice Press, who is serving 5½ years in jail for 11 counts of sexual assault on a child.
The Australian has previously revealed that Ray Pethybridge, whose son Kelvin is chief secretary-in-charge of the church’s powerful eastern territory, will face court next month charged with 14 sexual offences, including indecent assaults on girls under 16.
Two of Mr Pethybridge’s alleged victims said they grew up in the Salvation Army but left the church after they came forward claiming to have been assaulted
“They just didn’t do anything about it,” said one woman, whose family reported the allegations to the Salvation Army in the 1980s.
“I don’t know whether they just turned a blind eye and didn’t know anything about it but I also think there was a mentality back then that if you ask God’s forgiveness … you will be forgiven.
The second woman said: “They like to think they have (changed) but how can they? To me, the Salvation Army has lost all humanity in the way we have been treated.”
More than 250 of those who gave evidence in private to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse said they were abused in recent decades in children’s homes run by the Salvation Army.
Evidence before the commission shows Mr Woodbury was involved in handling claims of physical and mental abuse against one such child in 1993.
In a statement, the church said it had “commissioned an independent external investigation into historical allegations made against Mr Woodbury, with the findings from that investigation being provided to both the Queensland Police and the NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian.
“A decision was made to terminate Mr Woodbury’s officership in 2015. Mr Woodbury is strictly prohibited from representing the Salvation Army in any official capacity,” the statement said.
The Salvation Army has previously said it “co-operated with a police investigation and … criminal proceedings” against Press, who was jailed in November.
A Salvos spokesman said “a number of significant changes to ensure policies and procedures remain best-practice’’ had been enacted. “The Salvation Army would like to again sincerely and unreservedly apologise to survivors, their families and the Australian public for serious past failures.”
Isn’t it funny how sometimes odd little coincidences occur in life?
Take this one for example – the Uncle, Cousins and Brother of the arch=pedophile Clarence Henry Howard Osborne – aka Clarrie Osborne – all lived withing a short walk or a decent stone’s throw from the Anglican Church Grammar School in East Brisbane, then known as the Church of England Grammar School, but best known as Churchie.
Gee that’s interesting Archie, I hear you say, but Brisbane’s a small town and sh*t happens and what does it all mean?
Plenty is the answer, especially in a town of well over a million that ain’t that small at all, but hold your breath and I’ll tell you why in a few minutes.
But for now just take a gawk and get the lay of the land.
First up, Clarrie’s Dad’s brother Merv – aka Mervyn Howard-Osborne – a lawyer about Brisvegas town.
He lived at number 11 Longlands Street, East Brisbane, a short jog or a mid-range gunshot from Churchie.
Cool Arch, I hear you say. So what?
Just ask the Bovver Boy.
The joint below is where Clarrie’s brother Len – Leonard James Howard-Osborne – used to live, back in the days when Clarrie was in the Army.
The army? Clarrie?
I’ll tell you more about that in a minute too.
First though, have a peek at where Len used to live. It’s even closer to Churchie than Uncle Merv and the cuzzie bro’s joint.
De La Salle College at Revesby a ‘hot spot’ of paedophilia, claims Sydney lawyer
July 17, 2017
DE LA Salle College at Revesby Heights has been labelled a “hot spot of paedophilia” by a Sydney lawyer who is working through thousands of historical child sex abuse cases.
The revelation about the Catholic boys school comes after countless men came forward with allegations of being sexually abused by numerous staff at the school in the 1970s and ’80s.
Among the worst offenders was Brother Anselm Hallam, also known as Tom Hallam, who was allegedly moved to the Sydney school from one in Melbourne after sexual abuse complaints were made against him.
Mr Hallam died in the early 1990s aged 92 before his charges could be heard in court.
John Comerford told NewsLocal that at age 18 he went to the Revesby school with a loaded shotgun to confront Mr Hallam, who allegedly raped him seven years earlier, but was told the teacher was dead.
Jason Parkinson, of Porters Lawyers, said an article that referenced the school in January led to about 15 men contacting him and saying they had been assaulted at the school.
“I think that says a lot about the number of children being abused,” he said.
“The men have complained to us that Brother Anselm would routinely molest the entire class of children by having them stand up at the side of their desk, and have them unbutton their shorts and then go from one child to the next.
“We consider it to be a hot spot of paedophilia in Sydney.”
Former Kings Cross sex worker opens little black book on high profile clients
December 7, 2015
A FORMER Kings Cross sex worker has opened his little black book containing the names and details of high profile clients he claims were a part of a “sick” and elaborate paedophile ring.
Dave*, 47, told news.com.au that high profile judges, lawyers, navy captains, a prominent lord mayor and business executives were among hundreds of clients who prowled the Sydney red light district and the “Darlinghurst Wall” pick-up spot to lure underage boys into their hotels and penthouses for sex in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Dave, aged 18 at the time, said a pimp forced him into prostitution and a “seedy” underworld where he was abused, sodomised, threatened and taken advantage of by “hundreds” of men in Sydney over four years.
“The main thing I was concerned about was the people I was meeting, their jobs and positions and things like that and what bothers me was they had underage people,” he said.
He said former Wollongong mayor Tony Bevan — whose other victims previously signed statutory declarations to allege was a paedophile — was the “sick” ringleader with a network of men reaching into all facets of the community.
“Tony Bevan, he’s the filthiest person I’ve ever met,” Dave said.
“I never forgot his name because of what they made us do.
“There would be five or six of them (in the one room) and me and this other guy Brian* would say we were going for a walk and they’d say ‘no you can’t’, then they’d get physical and push us down and all of them would get on both of us and sodomise.
“It’s the high profile ones who were the worst: filthy and dirty and threatening.
“There were judges, lawyers and two navy captains and some officers, and a respected business man who now owns a major clothing company.”
Former Wollongong mayor Tony Bevan faced multiple allegations of paedophilia.Source:News Limited
Dave said he was groomed by Mr Bevan to approach younger boys from the streets and lure them back to hotels and apartments for the men in the network to have sex with.
“I feel guilty because I was asked to befriend these people for them,” he said.
“The going price was $50 then you go with them and they pay you or give you clothes.
“The boys would be around the Cross, they have seen them then get me to befriend them and see if they were willing to come back and introduce them and stuff like that.
“That’s part of the reason I haven’t gone to the police, because I’m scared I’ll get in trouble for it.
“I’ve got to live with the guilt and shame. I battled with mental health. I faced it. I’ve accepted it. It’s taken a lot of years.
“I think about those boys all the time and wonder how they are.”
The Wood Royal Commission into police corruption and paedophilia — which started three years after Mr Bevan’s death — was told the former mayor, known in paedophile rings as Commander Hook, lured young boys with gifts and aeroplane rides and then used them in a sex ring he ran in Wollongong and Sydney.
Evidence given by the young victims was damning, horrific and explicit.
Dave said some of the perpetrators who victimised him had since died, including Mr Bevan in 1991, while others not named in the Royal Commission still held top positions in the community.
Dave said he believes “at least some” of the alleged offenders affiliated with Bevan’s Sydney network were still preying on vulnerable and troubled youths, based on information from his connections.
“I think it’s because of their position, they can manipulate with money, ‘we’ll buy you this if you do this’,” Dave said.
“There are kids on the streets who tell me they experience the exact same things I did — I know what they’re going through.”
He said it was easy for youths to fall under the spell of seasoned criminals.
“It happened to me when I was young and homeless and approached by a man while resting at Central Station,” he said.
“I was a very young-minded 18-year-old. He came and said ‘stay with me’.
“I went with him and later found out he was a heroin addict when we were living in Paddington.
“He introduced me to the Cross and I started meeting people and going to bars that were gay, like the Fish Bowl and the Rex Hotel.
“Then one day he took me up to ‘the (Darlinghurst) Wall’ and said ‘if you stand here we can make lots of money’.
“I said ‘what do I have to do?”
“He said ‘you have to have sex’.
“I said ‘I don’t want to do it’ but he said ‘you’re going to have to if you’re going to pay for your living’ so I done it.
“If I didn’t I’d get bashed and beaten.”
Running away crossed his mind but wasn’t a feasible option at the time, according to Dave.
“I was afraid to say no to the offers,” he said.
“I didn’t want to do certain things, like being sodomised.
“I would try to get away by just teasing them or just touching them but that never really worked.”
Dave said he required medical attention after one of his encounters with “a respected businessman”.
“He tried to penetrate me … I had it forced,” he said.
“It was behind a wall, he took me in a dark alley and he was very strong.
“I went to the reverend across the road and fell on the floor crying and told him why … he referred me across the road for medical treatment but I didn’t want them to call police because I was scared I would be in trouble too.
“I had torn tissue and I can’t remember how long it took to recover physically.”
He said forced prostitution was an industry that thrived in Australia during the 1980s and ’90s.
“A lot of times I woke up naked, and I didn’t know how I’d got there,” he said.
“I reckon I was drugged with a sleeping tablet or something.”
Dave said he wanted to share his experiences to educate vulnerable people on the dangers of sexual predators and to increase awareness of the sly tactics they adopt to rope their targets into prostitution.
“These scumbags need to be dealt with,” he said.
“The public need to be aware they’re out there.”
Dave said after four years as a sex worker, he met the “love of (his) life” in a bar who helped change his life.
He is now happily married and works part time as a cleaner.
WARNING: This story contains graphic details that readers may find disturbing.
It was the death that could have pushed Wollongong over the edge.
In the late 1990s, the New South Wales city had become a cesspool of corruption and abuse involving civic leaders and Catholic priests, and was in the grip of a heroin epidemic, its streets littered with needles.
Then, 20 years ago on June 26, 1998, the gruesome bashing murder of former Wollongong lord mayor and state MP Frank Arkell helped break the curse that had dragged the steel city to its darkest depths.
Known as Mr Wollongong, Arkell, who was lord mayor from 1974-1991, had proudly coined the phrase ‘Wonderful Wollongong’ to describe the place he loved to work and play.
To many in high places he was the city’s saviour, but to others who knew his dirty secrets, including his predilection for young boys, he was a ‘rock spider’ who deserved what was coming to him.
‘I wanted to kill someone that day’
Arkell’s murder at the age of 62 came exactly a fortnight after the garrotting and decapitation of 59-year-old gay man David O’Hearn.
O’Hearn happened to live a few houses away from 19-year-old unemployed man Mark Valera — who was found guilty of both murders — in Albion Park, south of Wollongong city.
Police evidence revealed Valera posed as a gay man to gain access to Arkell’s West Wollongong home.
Southern Highlands-based police inspector John Klepczarek was an acting sergeant at Lake Illawarra at the time and remembers going to both crime scenes.
“The O’Hearn murder is by far the most gruesome I have ever come across in my career in the NSW Police,” he said.
“Considering what kind of tragedies and murders we have seen in the Illawarra, that is saying something.
“The mental state of the person who committed those crimes I can’t even begin to imagine. The time and effort to commit those crimes, it was absolutely horrific.”
Valera was found guilty of the murders and sentenced, in December 2000, to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment, never to be released.
Dirty old town
Steen, a proud gay man who today runs a tea shop and theatre company in Wollongong, knew Arkell “quite well”.
“Being in the arts and community sector we came across Frank all the time and I have to say when you meet Frank, [he was a] charming, lovely person to talk to, very good at hiding what he was up to in his private life,” he said.
“You can’t deny Frank did a damn good job at promoting the town, but you can’t deny that he also did a good job at smudging its name on the way out.”
For Steen, Wollongong in 1970s and ’80s was a dangerous place.
“I myself was beaten over the head and left for dead in a creek bed just for what I was wearing, so you kept quiet and you kept everybody else’s secrets,” he said.
There were well known gay beats operating where hoons would turn up to bash so-called ‘poofters’ for fun.
In a city peppered with many Catholic Church-run schools, there was also the dark scourge of child sexual abuse, which authorities all too often turned a blind eye to.
“I can tell you as an absolute fact that it did happen in one school because I was a victim of it, and I was only eight at the time,” Steen said.
“And all they did was just move the priest to another school where he did exactly the same thing all over again.
“Thankfully he is behind bars now.”
The royal commission that broke the stranglehold
Well before the recent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse came the Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption, which was extended to investigate paedophilia.
It was a massive undertaking.
Starting in June 1995, it ran for 451 hearing days with evidence from 902 public witnesses, and cost an estimated $64 million.
The royal commission investigated claims Arkell and retired judge David Yeldham were potential paedophiles.
Arkell’s secret life preying on young boys did not become public until five years after he left public office, when state MP and anti-paedophile campaigner Franca Arena effectively outed him in state parliament.
She asked whether Arkell was W1, who was under investigation by the Wood Royal Commission for having sex with underage boys.
It set off a spiral of controversy that turned Arkell from a man who could do no wrong to a person widely despised and verbally attacked.
Yeldham took his own life in November 1996, while Arkell, who denied the allegations, was virtually forced into hiding before he had the chance to clear his name in court.
“Once the Franca Arena allegation became public, the charges then became public,” said Glenn Mitchell, honorary senior fellow in history at the University of Wollongong.
“Had he not been murdered in June 1998, some time in 1998 between June and December he would have been before a judge and jury in Wollongong Court defending the allegations and the charges against him.”
Some of the other names associated with paedophilia in Wollongong at the time included former mayor and businessman Tony Bevan, alderman Brian Tobin, parish priest Father Peter Lewis Comensoli and former Edmund Rice College principal Brother Michael Evans.
Bevan — reputedly known in paedophile rings as ‘Commander Hook’ — was investigated by the Wood Royal Commission three years after his death from cancer in 1991.
Tobin killed himself just two hours after being interviewed by investigators from the Wood Royal Commission paedophile team in 1996.
Evans also took his own life in Rockhampton in 1996.
“It was a sad time, a dark time, and with what was being uncovered in the Wood Royal Commission there was a feeling the place was pretty well evil,” current Wollongong Mayor Gordon Bradbery said.
Current mayor counselled ‘delusional’ Arkell
After the Arena bombshell, Arkell’s life started to rapidly slide downhill.
“Several graffitists had put ‘W1 equals wanker’ and other words that I can’t repeat painted on his front fence,” Dr Mitchell said.
“He was the subject of several prank calls, one of whom was Mark Valera, his eventual murderer.”
It was around this time a new Uniting Church minister assigned to work in Wollongong’s Church on the Mall and its associated food kitchen catering for those living rough met Arkell.
That minister, Gordon Bradbery, who is now the mayor, said he found the retired politician “delusional”.
“I sat with him for quite a while and was convinced he was heading towards full-blown dementia.”
The Mayor said the Catholic Church had had an immense influence on the city when he arrived in 1996.
“There were locations in Wollongong where we had intense power in the Catholic Church. It could control the narrative,” he said.
He said the shackles of the past were thrown off in part by the Wood Royal Commission, but also the later ICAC inquiry into sex for development at Wollongong Council and the growing influence of the university.
Path to redemption
The city’s transformation, brought on by the necessity to progress past a narrow reliance on ever-shrinking industrial base, opened Wollongong up to greater scrutiny from the outside world.
“What I think probably opened it up more than anything else was the work of the university, just the fact that people were coming in here and asking questions and expecting a higher standard of accountability, transparency and good government,” Cr Bradbery said.
This extended to the moral behaviour of its citizens, with murder and paedophilia scandals doing little to enhance the image of Wollongong as a desirable location.
The Wood Royal Commission and association media publicity helped bring the skeletons out of the closet, but many still feel even now it remains a work in progress.
“[Royal commissions] are a wonderful part of the process, but unfortunately I don’t think they go far enough, because there are still people at the top covering their tracks,” Steen said.
The murders of Arkell and O’Hearn at the hands of Valera were not the only murders going on at the time — they were simply the worst of a very bad lot.
A bizarre additional chapter of the double murder played out when Valera’s sister, Belinda Van Krevel, pleaded guilty in 2003 to soliciting her boyfriend Keith Schreiber to murder her father Jack Van Krevel while she was pretending to sleep in the adjoining bedroom.
Schreiber, now imprisoned for life, was also the best friend of Valera.
The murder triangle serves as a reminder of how things have changed for the better and the need to remain vigilant against secrecy and complacency.
For Dr Mitchell the journey has been a difficult but necessary one.
“We have come along a very gut wrenching and torturous journey, but I think the destination we have reached is probably a better destination than anyone could have dreamed of,” he said.
Two former Wollongong Lord Mayors, Tony Bevan and Frank Arkell, reportedly ran a paedophile ring in the 1960s to 1990s.
The ring involved child sex trafficking between Wollongong and Sydney.
This was the same child trafficking ring that Fiona witnessed as a child.
Both mayors were ritually murdered.
Wollongong Mayors Tony Bevan and Frank Arkell: alleged child sex traffickers. Both were brutally murdered.
5 Nov 1996 Sydney Morning Herald
Clergy who fail to report child abuse heard in confession should be charged – royal commission
Commissioners say they have heard evidence that disclosures of child sexual abuse were made in confession but were not passed on to authorities
13 August 2017
Clergy who received information during religious confession that an adult associated with the institution is sexually abusing or had sexually abused a child should get no exemption or privilege from the failure to report the offence, it concluded.
Child abuse royal commission: Bishops oppose forcing priests to report details heard in confession
Aug 14 2017
The Catholic Church has signalled it will oppose any move to force priests to report details of child sexual abuse received during confession, despite calls from the royal commission to make it a legal requirement.
Clergy who fail to report information about child sexual abuse heard during confession would face criminal charges under a series of sweeping changes to the criminal justice system recommended in a new report.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has detailed 85 proposed changes to the law in a report released today.
There should also be “no excuse, protection nor privilege” for priests who fail to alert police because the information was received in confession, the report said.
“We are satisfied that confession is a forum where Catholic children have disclosed their sexual abuse and where clergy have disclosed their abusive behaviour in order to deal with their own guilt,” it said.
But the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, said protections for confession should be respected.
The royal commission said it had heard evidence of multiple cases where abuse was disclosed in confession, both by victims and perpetrators.
“We heard evidence that perpetrators who confessed to sexually abusing children went on to reoffend and seek forgiveness again.
“We have concluded that the importance of protecting children from child sexual abuse means that there should be no exemption from the failure to report offence for clergy in relation to information disclosed in or in connection with a religious confession.”
The royal commission also called for greater use of evidence by multiple victims in relation to a single perpetrator, arguing the exclusion of this evidence in the past has led to “unwarranted acquittals”.
Child abuse inquiry recommends an end to Seal of the Confessional
August 14, 2017
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – the official independent inquiry in Australia, has recommended that the failure to report child sexual abuse in institutions should be made a criminal offence. And it said that there should be “no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offence granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in connection with a religious confession.”
The recommendations are amongst a sweep of 85 legislative and policy changes proposed in a report Criminal Justice, released by the Commission today (Monday), “aimed at reforming the Australian criminal justice system in order to provide a fairer response to victims of institutional child sexual abuse.”
In their report, the commissioners say: “Before discussing a criminal offence, we consider it important to make clear that persons who know or suspect that a child is being or has been sexually abused in an institutional context should report this to police – not necessarily as a legal obligation enforced by a criminal offence but because it is moral and ethical to do so.
“Child sexual abuse is a crime and it should be reported to police. There should be no doubt that police are the correct agency to which child sexual abuse should be reported.”
In the secular world, colluding with or protecting paedophiles is frequently described as a constituent element of a paedophile ‘ring’.
Melbourne archbishop says he’d rather go to jail than report child abuse heard in confession
Hart said he stood by comments he made in 2011 that priests would rather be jailed than violate the sacramental seal.
Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest and professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, joined Hart in saying he would not adhere to any legislative changes.
“And if there is a law that says that I have to disclose it, then yes, I will conscientiously refuse to comply with the law,’’ Brennan told the Australian.
Should Australia change the law, priests would be expected to obey the law, like everybody else, or suffer the consequences.
“If they do not this will be a personal, conscience decision on the part of the priest that will have to be dealt with by the authorities in accordance with the new law as best they can,” he said.
Why is the Catholic Church protecting paedophiles?
This is the only way to interpret the church’s desire to allow allegations of abuse made in the confessional to be exempt from mandatory reporting to police.
In an extraordinary admission, Catholic bishops have opposed any move to force priests to report details of child sexual abuse received during confession.
This is despite calls from the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse to make it illegal for them not to do so.
Recommendations released by the commission this week suggest clergy who fail to report such information would face criminal charges.
The report states confession has been a forum where both victims and perpetrators have disclosed sexual abuse in the past.
So it seems absolutely unbelievable that president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, said protections for confession should continue to be respected.
This absurd notion needs to be immediately challenged. Religious freedom should not give priests the freedom to sexually abuse children, or protect others who do so.
Why does the church want to absolve paedophiles?
You would think the Catholic Church wouldn’t want to absolve paedophiles, but to hand them over to authorities.
And yet it would seem this is not the case — the church appears to be more concerned that priests are healed than the people they abuse.
Catholic bishops not obliged to report clerical child abuse, Vatican says
10 February 2016
Vatican guide says ‘not necessarily’ bishop’s duty to report suspects to police despite Pope Francis’s vows to redress Catholic church’s legacy of child abuse
The Catholic church is telling newly appointed bishops that it is “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.
A document that spells out how senior clergy members ought to deal with allegations of abuse, which was recently released by the Vatican, emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally.
“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” the training document states.
The training guidelines were written by a controversial French monsignor and psychotherapist, Tony Anatrella, who serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family.
Allen noted that a special commission created by Pope Francis, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, had appeared to play no role in the training programme, even though it is supposed to be developing “best practices” to prevent and deal with clerical abuse.
Indeed, a church official familiar with the commission on abuse said it was the committee’s position that reporting abuse to civil authorities was a “moral obligation, whether the civil law requires it or not”.
Pope Francis has called for the church to exhibit “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults by clergy and that “everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse”.
He said in a 2012 interview – when he was still a cardinal – that he was once called by a bishop asking him for advice on how to deal with an allegation of sex abuse. Cardinal Bergoglio – as he was then known – allegedly told the bishop to take away the priests’ licences and begin a canonical trial that would deal with the matter internally.
SNAP, a US-based advocacy group for abuse victims that has been very critical of Pope Francis on the issue, said the news outlined in John Allen’s Crux article proved that the church had not substantially changed.
“It’s infuriating, and dangerous, that so many believe the myth that bishops are changing how they deal with abuse and that so little attention is paid when evidence to the contrary – like this disclosure by Allen – emerges,” the group said in a statement.
Catholic brother Francis Brophy guilty of BoysTown sex abuse
August 21, 2017
A CATHOLIC brother who inflicted “sheer terror” on vulnerable boys at a Queensland orphanage, sexually abusing nine of them, has been jailed for his historical crimes.
“Your legacy disgusts me and every right-minded member of society,” Brisbane District Court Judge William Everson told Francis Brophy today.
The 87-year-old, who was found guilty by a jury of five offences and sentenced for more than 30 counts in total, sexually abused the orphans at BoysTown, near Beaudesert, between 1978 and 1983.
Judge Everson denounced him as “a cowardly, evil paedophile” who masqueraded as a follower of God while inflicting lifelong damage on the children who were meant to be in his care.
He said Brophy presided over a “Gulag right in our midst” that left some of his victims ravaged by nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder as adults.
“The combination of your depraved sexual offending and the terrifying violence you meted out makes your conduct particularly heinous,” Judge Everson told him.
“It is the sheer terror that you presented to the victims in the context of their complete and utter helplessness that places your conduct in a special category of seriousness.”
He sentenced Brophy to a head term of eight years behind bars but set a parole eligibility date for two years’ time.
There were tears in the public gallery as the court heard one of Brophy’s victims froze and endured “significant pain” when he was sodomised by the brother, who took his vows in 1952 and retired in 1994.
A victim was also “viciously” strapped for smoking, while another was punched in the stomach when he appeared to mock another brother.
As he walked away, Brophy laughed and told the winded boy: “You’re not as tough as you make out to be”.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the De La Salle Brothers said “a member of the Order” had been sentenced for crimes that amounted to a profound betrayal of the trust of children.
Dr Peter Macarthur in a picture from The Armidale School newsletter Binghi in December 1983.
Convicted child sex offender quietly exits International Grammar School board
A convicted child sex offender has quietly exited the board of a top Sydney private school after a prospective parent conducting background checks inquired whether board members had any contact with children.
Dr Peter Macarthur, an ear, nose and throat doctor with practices in Armidale and Taree, served 21 years as a director of the co-educational International Grammar School (IGS) in inner Sydney until last month. He has also quietly left the board of the NSW Association of Independent Schools (AIS) on which he sat for 30 years.
On four occasions since 2010, including at the start of this year, Dr Macarthur signed disclosures to the school stating that he met fit-and-proper person requirements, including that he had not been convicted of an offence against children, or engaged in a deliberate pattern of immoral or unethical behaviour.
After learning about the allegations in May, IGS only informed parents who pay up to $23,850 a year for their children’s tuition about the circumstances of Dr Macarthur’s departure late on Friday afternoon following inquiries from the Herald.
The Herald understands that IGS acted after being alerted to Dr Macarthur’s convictions when a parent contacted the school asking about enrolling their child. But Dr Macarthur has insisted to the board that his convictions were known to both IGS and the AIS when the offences were dealt with in the mid-1990s.
Board papers seen by the Herald reveal chairwoman Dr Marie Leech implemented “mitigation measures” in relation to supervision of Dr Macarthur on campus after learning of his convictions.
In 1995, Dr Macarthur was convicted of two counts of sexual assault on patients under anaesthetic on the operating table of Armidale Hospital as they were being transferred from an operating bed onto a trolley in 1993. One victim was a woman aged 23, the other was a girl aged 13. Dr Macarthur was 55 at the time of the offences.
A PAEDOPHILE ring in Australia’s arts community included literary figures and famous artists for whom prepubescent sisters were “jailbait”.
June 10, 2018
STUNNING revelations of an Australian paedophile ring involving celebrity arts figures have been laid bare by the daughters of a prominent playwright.
Rozanna and Kate Lilley, the daughters of playwright and poet Dorothy Hewett, say they were forced into sex aged 15 by men including the late Bob Ellis and Martin Sharp, The Australian reports.
Sharp, Australia’s foremost pop artist, designed record covers and posters for Bob Dylan, Donovan and Eric Clapton and wrote songs for Clapton’s band, Cream.
Ellis was a political commentator, write and film maker who penned 22 television and screenplays.
The Lilley sisters, who each have written new books, say their mother encouraged underage sex between her daughters and famous men she entertained at her Sydney house.
The sisters say the men enjoyed having young girls around and their mother, considered a left wing radical and admired feminist, encouraged their joining in the libertine sex scene of the times.
“We were these nubile girls … jailbait,” Kate Lilley said, describing her mother’s house as “a brothel without payment”.
Rozanna and Kate Lilley (left, as teenagers) claim they were molested by author Bob Ellis (top right), and (bottom right) painter Martin Sharp and photographer David Hamilton.Source:Supplied
Poet Dorothy Hewett, above with daughters Kate and Rozanna Lilley in about 1976, encouraged her underage daughters having sex with older men.Source:Supplied
Dorothy Hewett’s Sydney house was like an ‘unpaid brothel’ for the underage sisters who were ‘jailbait’ for prominent arts figures.Source:Supplied
Other men included a local film producer who is still alive and a poet who raped Kate Lilley when she was underage, plus renowned British erotic photographer, David Hamilton.
Known for his soft-lit images of prepubescent young girls, 83-year-old Hamilton took his own life in 2016 after a former model accused him of raping her in 1987 when she was 13 years old.
In the Woollahra terrace Hewett shared with her husband, writer Merv Lilley, a queue of famous men attended parties in the salon-like atmosphere where the sisters spent their early teens.
Sex was facilitated by Hewett who also slept with some of the men, while her husband had sex with other women.
When she turned 16 years old, Kate Lilley had already slept with six men and her younger sister Rozanna had slept with a dozen men by the time she reached the age of consent.
The men were older artists and writers, including Bob Ellis and Martin Sharp, and Hamilton who photographed pornographic images of Rozanna.
Rozanna said she had sex once, when she was 15, with Martin Sharp, who decades later apologised to her.
Decades later, artist Martin Sharp called Rozanna Lilley to apologise for taking advantage of her sexually.Source:News Corp Australia
Writer Bob Ellis would have sex with Kate ‘whenever he turned up’ and with her younger sister.Source:News Corp Australia
Kate (left) and Rozanna Lilley who say their famous mother failed to protect them from sexual predators on the arts scene. Picture: John Feder.Source:News Corp Australia
Kate Lilley’s new book, Tilt. Source:Supplied
David Hamilton took close photographs of her genitals after showing her pornographic images of girls to prove others had consented.
“It was unbearable at home,” Kate Lilley said, “I used to have sex with men to prevent them having sex with Rosie.
“But then I would find out they did have sex with Rosie.”
Kate Lilley’s teenage years are referred to in poems in her new book, Tilt, which the 57-year-old poet and university English professor has published.
Rozanna, 55, an anthropologist and autism researcher also writes poems about sexual abuse by (unnamed) older men in her book, Do Oysters Get Bored? A Curious Life.
Kate Lilley told The Australian she had sex four times with Bob Ellis when she was aged 15 and 16, “whenever he turned up”.
Rozanna has written a poem about her sexual encounter with Ellis as a child.
At the age of 13, Rozanna Lilley was cast in the lesbian-themed film Journey Among Women about female convicts living in the bush.
Her mother, Dorothy Hewett, wrote the script.
The film is still available on DVD.
Rozanna Lilley on the set of Journey Among Women. Source:Supplied
The Lilley sisters’ parents Merv Lilley and Dorothy Hewett at their Blue Mountains home shortly before Hewett’s death.Source:News Limited
Writer Bob Ellis – His university life put him in contact with Clive James, Bob Hughes, Germaine Greer and Les Murray, who were also studying there at that time.
Germaine Greer calls for punishment for rape to be reduced
May 31 2018
Germaine Greer has called for the lowering of punishment for rape and said society should not see it as a “spectacularly violent crime” but instead view it more as “lazy, careless and insensitive”.
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Detectives knew of 300 names in a secret club that advocated sex with children
Police kept the secret membership list of a controversial group which advocated sex with children and let it “sit in a drawer”, leaving several of those named on it free to commit serious child abuse.
“has a consuming passion for the activities supposedly carried out by the German SS towards Jewish children. These incredibly sadistic accounts of atrocities directed towards children he has sent to Hayman who, just as incredibly, enjoyed them.”
H.3: Sir Peter Hayman
28. Peter Hayman was born in 1914. He married in 1942 and had two children. He held a number of important roles in the Diplomatic Service. Between 1964 and 1966 he was with the British Military Government in Berlin, between 1966 and 1969 he was Assistant Under Secretary at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, between 1969 and 1970 he was Deputy Under Secretary of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and between 1970 and 1974 he was the British High Commissioner in Canada. He was knighted in 1971.[1] He retired in 1974 and died in 1992.
29. There were allegations Hayman had been a member of PIE using an assumed name and that he had been sending and receiving through the post obscene material, for which he was not prosecuted. There has been long-standing public concern whether the decision not to prosecute Hayman either for his involvement with PIE or for sending obscene material through the post might have been politically motivated. Those concerns were first expressed in the House of Commons by Geoffrey Dickens MP in 1981 but they have continued to be aired ever since.
30. One of the investigating police officers in the Hayman and PIE cases, Bryan Collins (now retired), made a series of allegations to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to the effect that the prosecution of Hayman was dropped inappropriately, that Hayman’s name was intentionally kept out of the trial of other PIE members which did go ahead, and that Hayman unsuccessfully attempted to bribe Bryan Collins and his fellow police officer. These allegations formed the basis of IOPC investigations.
The police investigation
31. In about 1974, Bryan Collins joined the Obscene Publications Squad at Scotland Yard as a police sergeant (PS). His role was to investigate the production and sale of pornography.
32. As a result of a News of the World article, an investigation was commenced into PIE which focussed on Tom O’Carroll, one of the group’s organisers. PS Collins and his partner, Police Constable (PC) Dave Atkins, were in possession of a list of members of PIE, from which they selected for interview a dozen or so of “probably the worst” individuals, based on their correspondence with PIE through Magpie (PIE’s publication) indicating their “desire in connection with sexual activity with children”. It was by those means PS Collins and PC Atkins put together a case against O’Carroll for conspiracy to corrupt public morals.[2] One individual selected for interview on the list was a member of PIE called ‘Peter Henderson’.
33. In a police report titled ‘Hayman & Others’, date-stamped as received by the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office on 7 December 1978, PS Collins set out the facts.[3]
34. A quantity of obscene photographs and correspondence, sent through the post to an individual named Peter Henderson at 95 Linden Gardens, London, W2, was found on a bus on 21 March 1978 by a member of the public and handed in to the police. The officers discovered Henderson was a member of PIE “which consists of people who advocate sexual acts between adult and child”.[4] They went to the address on 2 October 1978 where they were let in by the managing agents and a locked wardrobe was forced open. In it, on shelves, were 45 volumes of photographs and writings, each of about 200 pages, which contained a record of sexual activities over the previous six years. The report states:
“These records contain nothing but obscenities on every conceivable sexual act, deviation and perversion … are a complete, specific record of Henderson’s sexual acts with other men and women, both pictorially and of written matter.”[5]
Trophy items were pressed between the leaves of the volumes and other items were found fixed to the wardrobe.
35. When Henderson arrived at the flat that day, the officers spoke to him. He accepted all the items were his and that he had been engaged for many years in exchanging obscenities through the post with others. He made a short statement under caution. It was obvious to the officers that he was not who he claimed to be but at no time did he reveal his true identity.[6]
36. A few weeks later, a briefcase containing various obscene writings and photographs was found and handed in to police. The IOPC Operation Hesper closing report refers to this. It was found in St James’s Park by an officer of the Royal Parks Police with Metropolitan Police dog handlers. Documents inside the briefcase named Peter Hayman. Also found were envelopes containing black and white photographs of boys aged between eight and 11 dressed only in their underpants.[7] Mr Collins said he did not recall this.[8]
37. Henderson was seen again by police on 24 October 1978, when he identified himself as Peter Hayman. He identified the briefcase and its contents as his, saying it had been stolen from his car some weeks earlier.[9] In the police report, PS Collins wrote:
“Many of the obscenities written in Hayman’s books referred to children and although it was reasonable to assume that much of it was fantasy, further enquiries were made in this direction.”[10]
38. Other parts of the police report mention children. Some of the images circulated among Peter Hayman’s correspondents were “normal snaps” of children but pages from Hayman’s records for 1975 included a photograph of an 11-year-old girl with obscene comments written about her.[11] ‘The Circle’ was Hayman’s description of those with whom he corresponded.[12] In relation to a family Hayman had become involved with, the report states:
“Although the sex volumes contain references to the … children there is no evidence to suggest they have been involved in any way in this matter apart from being fantasised about by Hayman and other members of ‘The Circle’ … ”[13]
The report states Hayman had made contact and corresponded with a man (ciphered as WM-F24) through PIE. WM-F24 was in possession of a quantity of obscene material relating to young children. He also had two photographs of naked young girls which Hayman had sent to him.[14]
39. Robert Wardell was a bus inspector and a PIE member. He and Hayman had established contact, and exchanged obscene letters through the post. In the report, PS Collins wrote that Wardell had sexual fantasies which were:
“the most horrific and sickening accounts of sexual desires that one could possibly imagine. He has a consuming passion for the activities supposedly carried out by the German SS towards Jewish children. These incredibly sadistic accounts of atrocities directed towards children he has sent to Hayman who, just as incredibly, enjoyed them.”
Wardell also sent Hayman photographs of children fully clothed.[15]
40. A retired headmaster, John Sewell, was a member of Hayman’s ‘Circle’. He had convictions for indecent assault of young boys. He was spoken to by police in relation to the PIE enquiry, when he denied association with an advert in the PIE contact sheet advertising an interest in “little girls in white pants and little boys without them”. Sewell had sent Hayman two photographs of young girls showing their underwear with obscene comments on them. Sewell had further similar material in his possession.[16]
41. Another correspondent (ciphered as WM-F25) sent letters to Hayman through the post which related to sexual activity with young boys. The report states “although they will be claimed to be fantasy, [WM-F25] admitted when seen originally that he had indecently assaulted a young boy some five years ago”.[17]
42. In light of this, Mr Collins was asked in the course of his evidence why he had felt that Hayman’s writings in relation to children were fantasy. He said it was because they were so extreme. In some instances, he said, Hayman was referring to well-known people as well as friends of his family. He added:
“It was obvious that some of the stuff, or most of the stuff … no, not most; some of it was fantasy”.[18]
He said there was no evidence to charge Hayman with any offence of child sexual abuse. He was asked what “further enquiries” had been made in relation to Hayman’s writings about children.[19] He recalled visiting some addresses where there were families with children.[20]
43. In a subsequent and very lengthy police report which focussed on the activities of PIE, PS Collins noted that Hayman, using the assumed name Henderson, had corresponded with PIE “in the person of David Grove”[21] seeking advice about progressing a sexual relationship with a little girl. In light of this material, and Hayman’s association with PIE, Mr Collins was asked whether, at the time, the police could have had confidence that Hayman was not in fact a paedophile. His response was:
“I can’t see how anyone would say that. I think he would havegrasped at any opportunity to take advantage of man, woman or child sexually.”[22]
44. PS Collins concluded his first report by remarking that Hayman had a great deal to lose by reason of his position in society but:
“the sheer filth spread far and wide by him, particularly its content with regard to the sexual and physical abuse of children, must place him in the category of being one of the worst offenders in relation to sending obscene material through the post”.[23]
The Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision not to prosecute Sir Peter Hayman
45. PS Collins expressed the view in his report that offences had been committed under section 11(1)(b) of the Post Office Act 1953,[24] which provided:
“A person shall not send or attempt to send or procure to be sent a postal packet which – (b) encloses any indecent or obscene print, painting, photograph, lithograph, engraving, cinematograph film, book, card or written communication, or any indecent or obscene article whether similar to the above or not.”
The sentence for conviction on indictment was imprisonment for not more than 12 months.
46. He told us in evidence that he recalled receiving a phone call from Sir David Napley, who was Peter Hayman’s solicitor. He asked him if he was dealing with the Hayman case and then asked him who was dealing with it at the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office. Mr Collins knew it was Jeremy Naunton, as he had been talking to him about the dates of charges. He did not wish to land Mr Naunton with a call from Sir David Napley and so he told Sir David he would find out and get back to him, to which Sir David replied “Don’t bother. I’ll talk to Hetherington”.[25] Sir Thomas Hetherington was the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time.
47. It was, said Mr Collins, the next day that he and his partner were called into Chief Inspector Shepherd’s office to be told that Hayman was not to be prosecuted but cautioned instead. Mr Collins said he was never told why. (It was not until he read material in advance of giving his evidence to the Inquiry that he learned that Hayman had been claiming to be suicidal. Mr Collins remarked that being suicidal had not prevented Hayman from appearing on Mastermind or subsequently importuning a lorry driver in a public toilet.[26]) Hayman subsequently accepted the caution, so he admitted the offending.[27]
48. Jeremy Naunton was a solicitor who began working in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office in around 1971. Following the submission by PS Collins of his police report on the investigation into Hayman and its receipt by the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office on 7 December 1978, an interim advice note was written within the office.[28] Mr Naunton told us he thought the advice note was “probably my note”; he recognised the handwriting at the end of the note as his. The note was addressed “A/D Met” which was an abbreviated reference to the Assistant Director of the Met Division, who was Mr Naunton’s line manager.[29] The note stated that, like most of Scotland Yard’s investigations under section 11 of the Post Office Act 1953, this case left “a lot to be desired and it is difficult to make a decision without seeing the original photos or the latest letters”.[30] Mr Naunton said he had not seen any of the original exhibits and therefore no decision could be made until they were available, though the idea had been to progress the case towards a prosecution.[31]
49. He wrote that despite the theme of PIE running through the papers, there was “no evidence to suggest that any of them have committed offences with children”. He added:
“Whilst we are shortly to receive a full report on the activities of PIE I am told by the police that this is an independent offshoot that can be dealt with separately. I hope that any decision we make here will not be a rod for our own backs when the PIE case arrives.”[32]
50. This cautionary note was rather prescient in light of PS Collins’ later report on PIE which noted Hayman’s correspondence with a ‘David Grove’ about his sexual desires involving a little girl.[33] Mr McGill remarked this was:
“a salutary reminder to all prosecutors that, before making a decision, you need to have all the facts at your disposal … Because if you do it too quickly, there could be material that may materially affect the decision you’ve made.”[34]
51. In his advice note, Mr Naunton recorded that:
The police were anxious that proceedings were taken against those named and possibly for conspiracy to contravene section 11 of the Post Office Act 1953.
The articles found in Hayman’s flat were obscene and indecent and must have been sent through the post.
There was no organised general postal distribution of obscene articles.
While Hayman’s articles were obscene, they did not appear to fall within the usual categories under the Obscene Publications Act, because although money did pass there was no real arrangement for a financial gain to be made.
He added the activities described were for the personal and private sexual benefit of the individuals, some of whom had been known to each other for years, and not for indiscriminate circulation. Thus, he noted, the case fell into a lower category than others they saw and could possibly be dealt with by individual substantive charges under section 11 of the Post Office Act 1953.[35]
52. Mr Naunton told us there had been no policy in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office when considering Post Office Act offences or Obscene Publications Act offences. Obscene Publications Act offences required the person to publish or have an obscene article for publication for gain, whereas the Post Office Act was, he said, aimed at the protection of Post Office employees and was “slightly obsolete”.[36]
53. In the view of Mr McGill, the decision not to prosecute Hayman under the Post Office Act 1953 was reasonable given the offence was considered to be outdated. It was aimed at protecting Post Office employees and so the circulation of the material had not harmed those it was designed to protect; the material was circulated among like-minded adults and there was no intention to make any financial gain from it.[37]
54. Mr Naunton’s advice note went on to consider each of the suspects, beginning with Hayman. Mr Naunton noted that Hayman had admitted being a member of PIE “for a while about a year ago” and in his statement under caution he had said he “disagreed totally with PIE’s views”. When later questioned about his relationship with PIE, Hayman had said:
“I wish you to believe that I have never interfered with children, all I have written about is pure fantasy, I suppose I know I should never have sent those things through the post but I never really thought about it”.[38]
The advice note concludes with Mr Naunton observing:
“No one can really support what the ‘defendants’ have been doing but I consider that the police are making a storm in a tea cup – as far as I can see (subject to [WM-F25] … ) no child has been affected by their group activities and no one has been offended by seeing any obscene writing through the post.”[39]
55. As for the suggestion that Hayman’s writings about children were pure fantasy, Mr McGill told the Inquiry that, today, in such circumstances, he would expect prosecutors to consider the offence under section 1 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 of publishing obscene material. In particular, where there did not appear to be any evidence of contact abuse offences against children, fantasy discussion of abusing children can fall within the definition of obscenity and can also be captured by the offence.[40]
56. Mr Naunton denied knowledge of PS Collins’ later report on PIE, and said the decision to caution had not been his but, had it been, he said he would have taken into account the information in the PIE report in deciding on charge.[41] He added even though Hayman had been cautioned, there was no reason why he should not have been prosecuted for any other offences disclosed in the later report.[42] Mr McGill agreed.[43]
57. Mr Naunton had questioned in the advice note whether there was any useful purpose in prosecuting any of the possible defendants, as no harm had been done to anyone, but if proceedings were to be instituted he advised substantive charges under section 11 of the Post Office Act 1953. He made clear that his opinion was based on the papers and what he had been told by the police.[44]
58. In evidence he said that he had not been considering the public interest but the evidential test only, ie whether there was a reasonable prospect of conviction (which was the test before the Code for Crown Prosecutors). He said that consideration of public interest factors would probably have “gone up higher” because of Hayman’s background.[45]
59. Mr Collins gave evidence that, before the decision was made to caution him, Hayman had turned up at Scotland Yard to speak to him and PC Atkins, and had tried bribing them with £25,000 each. Mr Collins recalled telling him not to be so stupid as he was in enough trouble already. However, neither officer reported the bribe because, said Mr Collins in evidence, Hayman did not actually try giving them any money. Mr Collins recalled but rejected the criticism in the Operation Magnolia report that they did not follow Metropolitan Police policy.
60. Mr Collins told us that he had not considered that Hayman’s approach had amounted to perverting the course of justice, which might have strengthened the case against Hayman on the other offences.[46] Mr Collins said Hayman was in a terrible state, by which he said he meant “his whole family, his future … it was diabolical for the man and his family that it should come to light”. He said he was sympathetic towards him in that sense.[47]
61. In Mr Naunton’s view, if the bribe had been a genuine offer it ought to have been reported. He agreed it would have been taken seriously but said he had no idea if it would have led to a further investigation or charge. He was not prepared to be drawn on whether a substantial sentence of imprisonment would have followed a conviction for perverting the course of justice in such circumstances.[48]
62. Mr Naunton told us he had later become aware that a meeting had in fact taken place between Sir David Napley and the Director of Public Prosecutions, but had known nothing about it at the time and was not invited to attend. Mr Naunton would not say whether a meeting between a suspect’s solicitor and the Director of Public Prosecutions was normal but asserted that the Director of Public Prosecutions had control over his office and could decide whether to meet Sir David Napley. Mr Naunton said he had no idea if anyone else had been in attendance or if minutes of the meeting had been taken. He did however accept that, in all his time as a solicitor in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office and then the Crown Prosecution Service, he had no experience of the Director of Public Prosecutions entertaining a suspect’s solicitor and coming to a resolution of a case.[49] The impression we are left with is this was an exceptional if not unique occurrence.
63. Mr Naunton said he had never discovered the reason why Hayman was cautioned. He was asked why at the end of his advice note he had written “I am told by Sir David Napley that Hayman has suicidal tendencies because of the case”.[50] He claimed Sir David Napley might have rung him and it was merely his “assumption” that his suicidal tendencies was the point that was raised with the Director of Public Prosecutions. He thought he annotated the advice note before Sir David Napley had seen the Director of Public Prosecutions. He could not recall PS Collins ever tipping him off that Sir David Napley might call. He accepted the possibility that Sir David Napley had discovered his name and had spoken to him about Hayman. He did not accept participating in the decision to caution. He said he might not have taken an enormous amount of notice of what he had been told about Hayman’s suicidal tendencies, unless he had received some psychiatric evidence because, as he put it, those who claim to be suicidal tend not to act on it.[51] He did not know if the Director of Public Prosecutions had been provided with any psychiatric evidence to support the claim that Hayman was suicidal. He was not prepared to agree that the decision that was taken was highly charitable.[52]
64. For his part, Mr McGill thought that any suggestion that a person arrested for crime is suicidal had to be treated with some scepticism. Faced with such a claim today, the Crown Prosecution Service would expect to see some medical evidence in support and, for a serious offence, would ask that the suspect be examined independently by a psychiatrist instructed for the prosecution. It would not be accepted at face value.[53]
Wardell and Norris
65. On 2 October 1980, Robert Wardell and a co-accused John Norris pleaded guilty at St Albans Crown Court to an offence of conspiracy to infringe the provisions of section 11(1)(b) of the Post Office Act 1953. The particulars of the offence in the indictment were that, between 1 January 1975 and 18 April 1979:
“they conspired together unlawfully to send packets to each other containing obscene written communications namely sadistic accounts of the sexual torture and killing of children”.
They were conditionally discharged for three years and ordered to pay costs.[54]
66. John Sewell was not charged with Wardell and Norris but he became a witness in Tom O’Carroll’s trial.[55] Following a retrial at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey), on 13 March 1981, O’Carroll was convicted of conspiracy to corrupt public morals in the PIE case and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.[56]
67. Mr Collins distinguished the way Peter Hayman and Robert Wardell were treated. Hayman, he said, had the services of Sir David Napley and was not prosecuted, yet Robert Wardell, a bus inspector, was prosecuted on exactly the same material. The IOPC Operation Magnolia report noted that Wardell had been charged due to the serious and extreme nature of the content.[57] Mr Collins said he thought there was “one law for Wardell and another for Hayman”.[58] It was obvious that Mr Collins remained greatly affected by the decision in the Hayman case.
68. Mr Naunton did not know whether Hayman and Wardell had received differential treatment or whether the outcome in Hayman’s case could be explained by him being shown undue deference. He said “I wasn’t responsible, as far as I know, for the prosecutions of those two people”. Mr Naunton then remarked:
“The taller they are, the harder they fall, and Hayman was fairly tall in respect of the diplomatic side of it. Therefore … he had a lot to lose. I’m not saying the others didn’t but he had a lot to lose if he was prosecuted.”[59]
Mr Naunton told us he did not think that the decision in Hayman’s case had anything to do with showing him undue deference; he thought that the decision was made due to the serious risk that Hayman might commit suicide “because of his position in society”.[60]
The political fallout
69. On 24 October 1980, Private Eye exposed the Hayman case in an article entitled ‘The Beast of Berlin’. It reported that his role had emerged:
“after two men were conditionally discharged for three years after pleading guilty to sending obscene material through the post. The decision not to prosecute Hayman, who was certainly as guilty as these two unfortunates, came from high up, much to the disgust of DPP Tony Hetherington’s aides and also the policemen involved in the case”.[61]
The “two unfortunates” were Wardell and Norris.
70. Lord Armstong told us that neither the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office nor the Security Service knew anything about the matters in the article until it was published.[62] In a minute of 27 October 1980 from Lord Armstrong (then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong) to the Prime Minister, he drew attention to the Private Eye article and made reference to the Collins 1978 police report, including the fact Hayman was a member of PIE. He observed that the only sexual activity that could be shown to have occurred was with consenting adults and there was “no evidence for actual activities with children”.[63]
71. Private Eye published a second article on 7 January 1981 claiming there had been a “flaming row” between the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General.[64] On the same day, the Director of Public Prosecutions produced a memo saying that he was not aware of any disagreement between the Attorney General and himself.[65] Lord Armstrong told us that assertion related to the Hayman case.[66] He said that he had been wrong to say in his witness statement that the Director of Public Prosecutions had been minded to authorise a prosecution but had been overruled by a higher authority and that the Attorney General had in fact accepted the Director of Public Prosecutions’ advice not to prosecute.[67]
72. In another memo to the Prime Minister, dated 9 January 1981, Lord Armstrong discussed Security Service enquiries thus far and the need once they were over for the Security Service to speak to Hayman himself. Those enquiries involving colleagues had revealed two instances of concern when Hayman had been in Baghdad and Ottawa but “Hayman gave his colleagues no cause to suspect that he might be engaged in irregular sexual activities”.[68] Lord Armstrong said he could not recall if, by the use of that term, Hayman’s colleagues were aware he was engaged in “irregular sexual activities”. Lord Armstrong said he thought he had been referring to Hayman’s general activities as described in his diaries and the term did not mean sexual activity with children but “irregular sexual activities” outside marriage.[69]
73. The Security Service (MI5) had indeed been involved in making enquiries. They had first become involved within days as a result of the first Private Eye article.[70] The MI5 witness told us about MI5’s interviews with Hayman, in which he denied reports that local boys had visited his house in Baghdad, saying “I am not interested in boys”. Hayman said he had been given “immunity from prosecution” by the Director of Public Prosecutions on the ground that his offence did not warrant such punishment, adding “I have been punished by the press.” The MI5 witness was unable to interpret Hayman’s use of the word “immunity” other than to say that it normally meant an assurance not to prosecute a person if they do something.[71] (Mr McGill agreed, saying that there was nothing in the material he had seen to suggest Hayman was given any immunity and that the word is sometimes used by suspects to mean that because a decision has been taken that they will not be prosecuted on particular facts, that is usually an end to that matter and they are unlikely to be prosecuted on the same facts in the future.[72]) The MI5 witness told us that the outcome of the investigation was, while Hayman had rendered himself vulnerable to pressure by a foreign intelligence service, there had been no actual prejudice to security.[73]
74. Peter Hayman’s name had been inadvertently mentioned during the O’Carroll retrial. The Director of Public Prosecutions’ memo of 7 January 1981 noted that the first O’Carroll trial was to commence on 14 January 1981, adding that:
“Hayman was never considered to be an organiser, and is not involved in the prosecution, although the possibility that his name will be mentioned cannot be excluded.”[74]
75. A background note of 17 March 1981 from the Law Officers’ Department (now the Attorney General’s Office) stated there had been no policy that Hayman’s name should not be mentioned in the PIE case, or, if mentioned, only under his assumed pseudonym. The note added that Hayman’s name had cropped up at the committal proceedings and he was then referred to by the name under which the witness being examined knew him, which was “normal practice”; Hayman was not called as a witness and it was understood that he was not referred to by the prosecution at the Crown Court; and the defence had only made reference to a “senior civil servant”.[75]
76. Mr McGill understood from the material he had read that during the O’Carroll trial Hayman had been referred to as Peter Henderson. He had seen nothing to suggest there had been any positive decision not to name Hayman. The parties only knew Hayman by his alias and it was likely they referred to him that way for the sake of consistency.[76]
77. Newspaper articles in The Guardian and The Times on 7 April 1981 show that Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney General, denied Hayman had received special treatment and explained that Hayman’s name had not been mentioned in the O’Carroll trial because witnesses only knew him as Henderson, and because he was not directly involved in the case.[77]
78. There is no evidence of the existence of any arrangement not to name Hayman during the O’Carroll trial, and it is implicit from the sentence quoted from the Director of Public Prosecutions’ memo of 7 January 1981 that there was none.
79. Fearing an establishment cover-up and using parliamentary privilege, on 18 March 1981, Geoffrey Dickens MP publicly named Sir Peter Hayman in written Commons questions as being the diplomat referred to in O’Carroll’s Old Bailey trial. He asked about the security implications Hayman’s activities might have posed, and if the Attorney General would prosecute Hayman for sending and receiving pornographic material through the Royal Mail.[78]
80. The Attorney General’s written answer provided on 19 March 1981 was that the Director of Public Prosecutions had advised against prosecuting any of the persons under the Post Office Act 1953 or for any other offence and that among the considerations he took into account were the factors that the correspondence had been in sealed envelopes passing between adults in a non-commercial context and that none of it was unsolicited. A further report had shown that two others had shared an obsession about the systemic killing and torture of young people and children, and the Director of Public Prosecutions had decided to prosecute them for conspiracy to contravene section 11 of the Post Office Act 1953 (a clear reference to Wardell and Norris). The Attorney General added Hayman had never sent or received that kind of material through the post (yet PS Collins’ police report said Hayman had in fact received “sadistic accounts of atrocities directed towards children” and that he “enjoyed them”[79]). Insofar as PIE was concerned, the Attorney General said Hayman had never been involved in PIE’s management. The Attorney General said he was in agreement with the Director of Public Prosecutions not to prosecute Hayman and the other persons with whom he had carried on an obscene correspondence.[80]
Undue deference
81. In his oral closing submissions on behalf of the complainant core participants, Mr Richard Scorer submitted that the Director of Public Prosecutions had “dismissive attitudes towards child sex offending” as illustrated by the Montagu and the Hayman cases.[81] It was, Ms Johnson QC argued, an age of deference and an age when victims were not placed at the forefront of the criminal justice system. She suggests we cannot safely conclude that the decisions were taken because the accused were members of the establishment rather than because as defendants their interests were placed above those of their victims.[82] Indeed, at the end of his evidence, the Chair asked Mr Collins if there was a general sense at the time that possessing indecent images was a victimless crime. Mr Collins said there were different attitudes then and children did not take precedence.[83]
82. A newspaper article written by Ronald Butt appeared in TheTimes of 26 March 1981 in which Sir David Napley was quoted as justifying the decision in Hayman’s case not to prosecute:
“on the quite different grounds that a customary factor taken into account when deciding whether to prosecute was ‘whether the indirect punishment and hardship which a defendant may suffer is likely to be so disproportionate to the severity of the alleged offence and to any penalty imposed by a court that it would be unjust to prosecute. This’, Sir David asserted, ‘was overwhelmingly the situation in Sir Peter’s case and manifestly justifies the director’s decision’. On the contrary, far from justifying the DPP’s decision, the excuse condemns it. If a man is to be excused the due process of law, other things being equal, because he is well known, then we are indeed in a two nations society.”[84]
83. The 17 March 1981 background note from the Law Officers’ Department, which was written in anticipation of Mr Dickens publicly naming Hayman, also states:
“The first decision not to prosecute Sir Peter Hayman was based on policy and his eight potential co-accused were also not prosecuted under the same policy. He was never seriously under consideration as a potential defendant in the second case. His former position was not a factor taken into consideration in reaching these decisions and no attempt was made to cover up the facts to save either him or the Government embarrassment.”[85]
84. There is no mention in the background note of Hayman’s claimed suicidal tendencies or that “the first decision” resulted in a caution. This is a surprising omission if Hayman’s suicidal tendencies played a part in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision not to prosecute but only to caution him. If the risk of suicide played no part in the decision, the question arises why Hayman was not prosecuted and only cautioned following a private meeting between Hayman’s solicitor and the Director of Public Prosecutions. Was the disposal in his case due to some prosecution policy as suggested in the Law Officers’ note? Mr Naunton told us there was no prosecutorial policy under the Post Office Act 1953.[86] It suggests that no faith can be had in the accuracy of the Law Officers’ note of 17 March 1981 when it claimed that Hayman’s former position was not a factor taken into consideration and that no attempt was made to cover up the facts to save him or the government embarrassment.
85. Moreover, the quotation in The Times from Sir David Napley did not seek to justify the decision in Hayman’s case as based on the risk of suicide. In fact, Sir David was not quoted as making any mention of Hayman’s alleged mental state at all. The implication of his justification of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision is that Hayman was a special case because he had suffered a very public fall from grace.
86. The evidence leads to the firm impression that Hayman was indeed the beneficiary of preferential, differential and unduly deferential treatment as a person of public prominence. We sympathise with Mr Collins’ view that Wardell, who was a bus inspector, was prosecuted for sending the most seriously obscene material to Hayman, while Hayman, who was the recipient of it from Wardell, was only cautioned. If PS Collins’ 1978 report about Hayman having received that material from Wardell is accurate (and there is no reason to think otherwise) then the Attorney General’s answer to Mr Dickens on 19 March 1981 that Hayman had never received that kind of material through the post was incorrect and misleading.
87. Ms Johnson was right to decry the access Sir David Napley had to the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is difficult to imagine less-well-known solicitors for less-well-known clients being given the same level of access. She argued that it did not mean there had been a cover-up but that it was more indicative of the “old boys’ network”.[87] It is now clear that Wardell was prosecuted for sending through the post the very kind of seriously obscene material Hayman had received from him.
88. Based on all the evidence it is clear that, because of his prominent position, Hayman was able to engage in special pleading for which he received special treatment, to which he referred in his later interview with MI5 as “immunity from prosecution”.[88]
Anyone who is connected to PIE & any other organisation should be held to account.They wouldn’t be accepted as a volunteer 4 an organisation
Easy as PIE – the rebranding of paedophilia
12 Sepy 2019
Trauma expert Dr JACQUI DILLON reports how she was intimidated and had her Twitter account suspended for raising questions about ‘minor-attracted persons’ amid a worrying trend of dangerous child abusers becoming organised online
CURRENTLY, there is a growing movement to rebrand paedophilia — a word which in itself is problematic — although it is currently synonymous with people who sexually abuse children.
As a survivor of organised childhood sexual exploitation (CSE), I can attest that the sexual abuse of children is the antithesis of love, unlike the denotion of the etymology of the word.
Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to legitimise paedophilia. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), was a British-based pro-paedophile activist group, founded in 1974.
The group campaigned for the age of consent to be lowered to the age of four, while receiving significant funding from the Home Office and was affiliated with the National Council for Civil Liberties.
Such groups still exist internationally. In a letter to the Guardian in 1997, Peter Tatchell stated that friends as young as nine had sexual experiences which gave them “great joy.”
Tatchell inferred that while he was unable to condone paedophilia, he claimed that not all sex involving children was “unwanted, abusive or harmful.”
The current attempts to legitimise paedophilia have become apparent on Twitter, with a growing number of people describing themselves as “Maps,” an acronym for “minor-attracted person,” a term used by individuals who are sexually attracted to those below the age of consent, including: nepiophilia or infantophilia (attraction to babies and toddlers); paedophilia (attraction to pre-pubescent children); hebephilia (attraction to pubescent children/early adolescents); and ephebophilia (attraction to late adolescents).
Twitter currently has a policy which explicitly states that “discussions related to child exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction to minors are permitted, provided they don’t glorify CSE in any way.”
This change in policy was achieved by a renowned expert in the treatment of paedophilia and “Map” advocate lobbying Twitter’s director of trust and safety, stating that it would “help reduce the stigma associated with pedophilia [sic].”
Anyone who is 13 or older can access Twitter where they are now exposed to content where adults openly discuss their attractions to children with impunity.
I began disseminating this information on Twitter and questioning the motivations of “Maps” and their advocates.
I have been trolled on numerous occasions, including a time when Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aslo known as Tommy Robinson) and his followers Twitter mobbed me and told me that I deserved to be gang raped because I objected to their cynical hijacking of CSE for their fascist agenda.
They dismissed the fact that the perpetrators who abused me were all white and British, displayed zero interest in CSE perpetrated by white offenders, who are by far the vast majority of all sexual offenders, or expressed outrage at such offences being committed within their own ranks.
However, my experiences with the lengths that “Maps” are willing to go to is on another level.
I have been viciously and relentlessly trolled for weeks, an obsessive and libellous blog, clearly written by a highly disturbed individual, has been circulated about me, attempting to discredit me.
I have been bombarded with Photoshopped images of my face grafted onto graphic, pornographic images. And other things I will not share due to safety issues.
I have been advised by those speaking from personal experience that “Maps” have a history of doxxing people and their children. And worse.
Consequently, a group of “Maps” mass reported me to Twitter for objecting to their attempts to normalise their predilections and their attempts to legitimise sexual attraction to children as being innate and immutable, which based on current research is highly contestable.
For example, many advocate adding a P to LGBT. Naturally, many of us within the LGBT community find this idea abhorrent.
“Maps” and their professional allies advocate child sex dolls, arguing that there is no evidence that they increase the likelihood of offending.
Equally, there is no evidence that they reduce the risk of offending — a child sex doll is just another form of objectifying a child for sexual gratification.
I was then notified by Twitter that my account had been permanently suspended for “abuse and harassment.” Despite appealing my permanent suspension it was upheld.
It was only when I and others directly lobbied the vice-president of Twitter Europe, stating that my suspension was a travesty that suddenly, without explanation, my suspension was lifted.
Clearly Twitter, with its vast profits, needs to employ people to monitor activity on its platform rather than relying on algorithms to maintain safety and integrity.
Crucially, it urgently needs to review its CSE policy which is currently not fit for purpose.
As soon as my permanent suspension was lifted, I was flooded with new reports from Twitter.
Those who had conspired to get my account suspended, openly gloating about it when they thought they had succeeded, were the same people scrutinising my timeline on @jacquidillon @beckrdalliance, an alliance I founded for survivors of CSE, looking for tweets to report.
Again, they openly discussed their intention to silence me. For the first time ever, I locked both accounts over the summer break.
Professor Jennifer Freyd coined the acronym “Darvo” to describe a set of tactics perpetrators often employ to avoid being held accountable for their actions.
Perpetrators frequently Deny their behaviour, Attack the individual who is holding them to account and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender, so that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the victim into the alleged perpetrator.
The behaviour of these “Maps” is entirely consistent with perpetrator behaviour.
There is a small but significant number of people who want to sexually abuse children. Bearing in mind that one perpetrator can wreak havoc on numerous children’s lives, as a society, we have to address this unpalatable truth in order to stop the epidemic of child abuse and its devastating consequences.
However, constructing one’s identity around a predilection to sexually abusing children, creating a community with a dubious agenda, rather than seeking help in more appropriate settings, is highly suspect.
The notion of “non-offending” offers little reassurance. Child abusers are notoriously deceitful. Perhaps the opportunity to access a child has not yet arisen or they have simply not been detected.
Therefore anyone with an unhealthy interest in children must be deemed a risk to children. Additionally, this distinction between contact and non-contact is meaningless in a space where identities and claims cannot be verified.
I have been sent evidence that some of the most vociferous “Maps” have committed extremely serious crimes against children and are currently grooming children.
Authorities have been notified. These people are organised, using multiple identities, groups, platforms and are linked internationally. Their methods are insidious yet blatant — hidden in plain sight.
As a survivor of CSE who is directly challenging “Maps,” I am seen as a real and present threat.
One of the things that I have learned through surviving the horrors of my childhood is that is essential to defy such intimidation tactics.
I have always been outspoken. It is an entirely strategic position I take as a working-class woman, survivor and activist.
As the great Audre Lorde said: “Your silence will not protect you.” I refuse to be silenced by a group of paedophiles ever again. I look forward to making my Twitter account public again today.
Steering Committee – Peter Righton, G. Godfrey Issacs, Miss Mary Joynson (Director of Child Care of Dr Barnado’s), Miss Janet Matlinson (Tavistock Centre), John Rea Price (Director of Social Services for the London borough of Islington. Nicolas Stacey (Director of Social Services Kent)
Freemasons /Senior Police Officers in Islington 1988 by David Rose
Despite being billed as a philanthropic venture by Lord Henniker, Islington Council was picking up the tab to send selected Islington children from schools, day centres and play schemes to spend 4 day weekends camping at the Project’s Thornham Magna campsite.
John Whittingdale, half-brother of convicted PIE secretary Charles Napier, was SPAD to Leon Brittan who was close friend of (PIE member) Keith Harding. Coincidence?
Did BHH ask Ms Brittan why her paedophile husband regularly visited Keith Harding, PIE membership secretary, while being asked to ban PIE?
IslingtonSurvivorsNetwork @theIslingtonSN
28 May 1977: PIE held its third AGM at 274 Upper Street N1 at London Friend islington – Peter Righton resigns as “Community Liaison Officer” – Tom O’Carroll takes over as Chair – Social Worker Jonathan Simon new organiser local groups PIE Central
‘Stop Press – Stop Press’, p. 12
AGM took place at Islington HQ of London Friend on May 28th. Resignations from EC: Hose (as Chairperson) and Peter Righton (as Community Liaison Officer). Full national EC election results: ex teacher/journalist Mr Tom O’Carroll, new Chairperson Former lecturer/assistant JP Mr David C Grove new Secretary Ex-teacher Mr Charles S. Napier, Treasurer (returned) Social Worker Mr Jonathan Simon, new Organiser Local Groups Private Businessman Mr Warren Middleton (p), Magazine Editor (returned) Teacher Mr David Brownough (p), new Newsletter Editor University lecturer/sociologist Dr. Humphrey Barton* (p), new Research Director (*subject to confirmation)
Remember the Jim’ll Fixit episode featuring Keith Harding? Guess who did the sinister film work outside the shop and shop window!
It was David Secrett, a trusted employee at Keith Harding’s shop.
Have a guess where Secrett lived and worked in the 90s!
Thornham Magna.
David Secrett – Clocks and Automata – Eye Suffolk
Peter Righton PIE Member #51, Keith Harding PIE Member #329
Righton and Napier
After Righton’s 1992 conviction on child pornography, he moved to live in a cottage on the estate of the eighth Lord Henniker, in Thornham Magna, North Suffolk, and was allowed to use the estate for special holidays for vulnerable children from Islington (at the very time when there was an epidemic of child abuse in Islington care homes– see here and here for vital material
The Chief Constable of Suffolk visited Henniker personally to warn him that Righton was a career paedophile, but he ignored this advice, and Righton was able to continue hosting children on the estate until his death in 2008.
Through PIE (Righton) made contact with the campaign’s treasurer, Charles Napier, a teacher who had banned from working in all English schools after he was convicted of indecent assault on five infants.
(Charles Napier, half-brother to MP John Whittingdale)
A recently discovered press cutting shows that Peter Righton was questioned about indecent assaults on children by the Obscene Publications Squad in November 1994 – several months after the Hereford & Worcester investigation had been shut down, and after the BBC documentary Secret Life of a Paedophile had been broadcast. It can be assumed by the absence of any further news reports that he was never charged with an offence, despite clear evidence from his diaries including names and ages of victims, along with the name of the institution where he abused them. The November 1994 arrest took place in Eye, Suffolk – presumably at Lord Henniker’s estate, where he had been living since his 1992 arrest.
Henniker was needing cash for his stately pile upkeep – quite a business he had going – somehow the cash kept flowing in…………….
I think I am probably one of the last surviving members of the old Thursday Club, the gang of cronies that the Duke of Edinburgh used to gather round him in the 1950s to have a bit of fun away from his serious life at Buckingham Palace.
On an average night of the Thursday Club there would be 10 or 15 members present. There would be Lord Louis Mountbatten, Arthur Koestler, Prince Philip, Cecil Beaton, and little Larry Adler playing his mouth organ in the corner, and maybe one or other of theKray brothers.
” SECRET files about Prince Philip’s private life are to remain locked behind closed doors for 100 years.
Most confidential Cabinet documents relating to relating to the royals and government are covered by the “30-year rule”.
But at least 27 royal files in the vaults of the Public Records Office at Kew, West London and many of , are considered so delicate they are labelled: “Closed for 100 years“.
More than 10 concern astonishing MI5 and Scotland Yard reports on the Duke Of Edinburgh’s private life.
As an explosive new biography of the Queen hints that the Greek-born Prince was unfaithful to the Queen, we can reveal that Buckingham Palace courtiers and security chiefs were once so concerned about Philip’s non- royal activities that they ordered round-the-clock surveillance.
They feared the Royal Family would be compromised and that there would be a constitutional crisis if news leaked out of how the Prince was behaving.
He was known to be “letting his hair down” with celebrities of the day at weekly meetings of the Thursday Club above exclusive Wheeler’s Restaurant in Soho.
One senior detective, now retired, who was attached to the Prince’s protection team, said: “It’s true we had to report back on where we had been and who had been present.”
But he refused to discuss the Prince’s private visits.It is not known what details of Prince Philip’s private life were made known to the Queen or the Privy Council. But it will not be until the years 2052 to 2060 that they will be released – if then.”
‘Official’ papers may not tell whole story of historical paedophilia scandal
Posted on 19 Feb 2015
The discovery and release of government papers detailing the investigation into the alleged ‘unnatural’ sexual conduct of diplomat Sir Peter Hayman generated substantial press coverage. Unreported, however, were alternative contemporary accounts offering a different story of the legal proceedings brought against members of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) in the early 1980s.
The official National Archives documents confirmed what we already knew about Hayman. A retired diplomat and former High Commissioner in Canada, he was exposed in Private Eye in 1980, named by the MP Geoffrey Dickens under parliamentary privilege in 1981, and scrutinised in the press, where he was linked to PIE.
It is not surprising to learn that reports on Hayman crossed Margaret Thatcher’s desk and that a press ‘line’ was agreed. The authorities’ main concern seems to have been the possible national security implications of Hayman’s indiscretions, demonstrative of long-standing Cold War anxieties about the subversive potential of sexual blackmail.
While the National Archives files – known as PREM 19/588 – suggest there was no official protection of Hayman, that he was not immune from prosecution, and that there was no evidence linking him to specific crimes, a different story exists in alternative archival sources. In particular, the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) Gay Rights Sub-Committee documented events differently.
As with many organisations from the ‘gay left’, this sub-committee was concerned about the potential implications of the PIE prosecutions on the future policing of ‘non-normative’ sexual behaviour, including homosexuality. Civil libertarians more generally were anxious about the vagueness of conspiracy charges in general. The sub-committee was also close to the defence team, and its Gay Rights Officer, Barry Prothero, attended committal proceedings outlining the evidence gathered in relation to PIE.
In November 1980, Prothero corresponded with campaigners in Canada about the case. He wrote: ‘The DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions] seems to be negotiating to drop the conspiracy charges [because] there is another man who may have been charged and who was not because of his connections and blowing the cover-up is likely to be worse for the DPP than proceeding with the prosecutions.’
Prothero noted that ‘although assisting in a “cover-up” may be distasteful, not only the defendants but the entire gay movement in this country would be delighted if this one succeeded in order to keep the case out of court.’
A second letter was more specific. Prothero wrote that the DPP used only a ‘tiny fraction of the evidence presented at the committal proceedings’ and called just four of the 13 witnesses present at the earlier hearing: ‘Of the hundred-odd boxes of material that were used at the committal, only five magazines and a handful of letters were used at the trials.’
Accordingly, Prothero observed that it was ‘clear that most of the evidence that was not used was dropped because Hayman, the erstwhile HC [High Commissioner] to Canada, was the central figure in its production. The defence barristers tell me that he began the “round Robin”, as the letter writing circle is called, which generated most of the material upon which the committal was based.’
While the Gay Rights Sub-Committee’s interest in PIE was problematic, it did mean that it was well-informed about the case. Its documents suggest that questions must still be asked about these competing accounts, as well as the evidence disregarded by the DPP and how decisions were made at that level.
The contents of these documents also show some difficulties in searching for accounts of historical sex offences. Official archives are often limited and partial; there are constraints on the past that they capture. The processes permitting the assembly and compilation of material influence what has been included, excluded and catalogued.
More will be revealed if additional files can be found and those which are under closure orders are opened. Now that the official inquiry into historic child sex offences is mobilising, it is important that official reports and documents are properly investigated. It is equally vital, however, that evidence produced outside of the state and, perhaps most importantly, the testimonies of survivors, are properly and sensitively gathered and evaluated. Consideration of the abused is absent from PREM 19/588.
If the files fail to show the ‘establishment’ cover-up that NCCL members felt occurred, they are still demonstrative of an official attitude favouring protection over investigation; shutting down inquiries rather than opening them up. It remains unclear if that attitude has entirely changed.
A version of this article first appeared on the University of Birmingham’s Modern British Studies: Birmingham blog.
…there was a major effort, near the Labour to push a multi-channel (academic / political / media) pedo agenda slipstreamed in as part of the nascent gay rights movement.
Nice summation. And it appears to be sourced in Fabian (Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, Wilfred Trotter/Bion, Norman Glaister) ideas about socio-spiritual engineering via sexual interference/”liberation” – currently being promoted as “the evolutionary power of trauma” by LSE-grad Whitley Strieber and Esalenite Jeffrey Kripal, among others.
I am referring to the Dolphin Square Inquiry made re child abuse complaints by “Nick”. And whether historical inquiry explored the implications of Sir John’s death 1991 concerning his casework that was cut short.
Without knowing what further correspondence took place between attorney general and police minister and Sir John I can only say that it was inevitable his casework would have led to questions about the six years of disabled child deaths 1966 to 1972 in Islington and Hackney care at The Beeches Ixworth. A village close to the Henniker Estate later home to Peter Righton and allegedly abusive Islington Suffolk project.
Would you disclose how far advanced the BBC is in providing the Panorama broadcast, the research and the follow up deliberations to the CSA Inquiry please ?
The programme featured Edwin BAARS a mental patient discharged homeless to Margate. In time he ended up in one of the resort’s many “Section 37” Homes. Former boarding houses registered as care homes (not nursing homes and hence no requirement to employ qualified nurses)
At the time Barbara Castle MP was DHSS minister with special advisor barrister jack STRAW. And a question arises about two dogs that neither barked nor bit. BBC and MIND where Peter RIGHTON was an executive I think.
The most recent Commons question then re Section 37 homes avoiding qualified staff expense was 1972 by Barbara Castle MP about Sue Ryder HQ Cavendish. Sir Keith Joseph refused care inquiry. He also refused inquiry into six years of child deaths of disabled children in social services London care at the Beeches Ixworth Suffolk a village adjoining the now notorious Henniker estate (abusive Islington Suffolk Project)
For public record I should also point out that Sue Ryder’s husbands charity had been subject of Dept of Health commissioned group psychiatric research by Tavistock Institute. Possibly as a consequence the Leonard Cheshire inmates of Le Court Cheshire home had revolted in 1972 after Sir Keith Joseph’s refusals I think of care inquiries at the Sue Ryder HQ of the charity. This led to the creation of disabled persons human rights movement. In fact Dr Laurence Clarke years later wrote a study of Leonard Cheshire versus the Disabled Persons Rights Movement.
By 1975 I would have thought the inmate revolt was sufficiently well known that Barbara Castle would have raised the care inquiries Labour MPs had called for only 3 years earlier. The European Convention of Human Rights provisions re inmates of Leonard Cheshire Homes being subjected to Tavistock Institute research commissioned by govt. The attorney general says the legal advice situation is still secret.
Dame Janet Smith conducting your Savile review at BBC ruled both the Sue Ryder deaths cases 1972 (and a related Regional Crime Squad inquiry into GP death registration malpractice) and the 6 years of questions about death certifuications at Beeches Ixworth as beyond her terms of reference SHIPMAN Inquiry. To examine and make recommendations to improve death registration practices.
Clearly now we can see that at the time, of the two dogs BBC and MIND that neither barked nor bit thus rather letting Mrs Castle off the hook, 1975/76 SAVILE was getting away with abuse at Sue Ryder Child Hospice Leeds.
It was always open to Mrs Castle to order care inquiry re Sue Ryder and the Beeches. But she did not. Even when one of the MPs calling for inquiry was Islington’s Michael O’Halloran. Islington where STRAW was a Labour Cllr with Mrs Hodge and PIE set up its HQ.
I think you should fwd this FOI to Dame Janet Smith as she may care to make a submission to the CSA Inquiry explaining how she was not in fact compromised to conduct Savile Inquiry at BBC.
Paedophile register of controversial group ignored by police – allowing several members to commit abuse
20/3/16
Detectives knew of 300 names in a secret club that advocated sex with children
Police kept the secret membership list of a controversial group which advocated sex with children “sit in a drawer”, leaving several of those named on it free to commit serious child abuse.
Detectives were given the membership list containing more than 300 names and addresses of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) group in the 1980s, but effectively did nothing with it.One member of the group, which publicly campaigned for adults to be allowed to have sex with children from the age of 10, was convicted 27 years after police were first given the names.
The list has now been passed to the independent Goddard inquiry
The great British paedophile support campaign
Claims of police inaction over child sex abuse allegations comes as Scotland Yard was reportedly planning to announce this week that it will end Operation Midland, its controversial investigations into allegations of VIP child sex abuse and murder.
Labour MP Tom Watson said: “The PIE list shows that there were clear intelligence lines that could have been investigated at the time.
One of those on the list and later convicted was Leo Adamson
Another PIE member later convicted was Charles Napier.
He bragged of easy access to young boys and how he could send obscene images back to Britain in diplomatic bags.
A group of Mps, including Sir John Eden MP for Bournemouth East, are waiting to receive a full report on PIE from the Minister of State at the Home Office.
The Paedophile Information Exchange PIE was allegedly given £70,000 by the Home Office between 1977 and 1980 – the equivalent today of about £400,000.
A former Home Office worker revealed that Jim Callaghan’s Labour government and Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration, which took over in 1979, may have provided funding for PIE.
The whistleblower said senior civil servant Clifford Hindley, who was head of the Home Office’s voluntary services unit, signed off a three year grant for £35,000 in 1980.
So this is where it comes full circle back to Peter Righton – also an Anglican Franciscan for a while – & the @c_of_e monastic movement(s)
so favoured by Bishop Peter Ball he simply had to set up his own entire movement, just like Father Trevor Huddlestone’s alma mater the college & community of the Resurrection, Mirfield
Peter Righton’s time in retreat as an Anglican Franciscan is also central to the involvement of the Southbank Trio & Albany Trust
Hubert Brasier, Theresa May’s father joined the priests at the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.In years to come the Community of the Resurrection would become known for the systematic sexual abuse of children at the seminary by the Italian Verona brothers, who were rampant sex offenders in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
A social worker who abused two boys at an Islington Council children’s home in the 1970s was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment earlier this week.
Michael Taylor pleaded guilty at London’s Snaresbrook crown court to seven counts of indecent assault at Gisburne House.
When he left Gisburne House he became deputy superintendent of Bersham Hall children’s home in North Wales where he repeatedly assaulted two 11-year-old boys in his care.
Taylor was arrested after the people he abused, now adults, went to the police. He was previously convicted of two indecent assaults in 1980. His name will be added to the sex offenders’ register.
On Feb. 2 , in London’ s Old Bailey court, four men were convicted for running a ring of pedophiles-adults who sex usually use children-which had recruited at least 150 young boys , some as young as nine, for repeated sodomic abuse.
It is the biggest ring of pedophiles yet uncovered in Britain.
British newspapers Feb. 3 said it had been run as a “Mafia like conspiracy. ” One man arrested was too frightened to testify, declaring that the ring was “more powerful than the Mafia. “
According to experts on child abuse in Britain, this case is only the beginning. Interviewed on British television Feb. 3 , Dianne Core, head of the Childwatch organization, stated that “people in high places” were involved in pedophiliac activities , and that the whole matter would “explode” during the coming months.
The London Daily Telegraph’s crime correspondent reported Feb. 3 : “Despite the convictions , police believe there is still a flourishing pedophile network in Britain, with a sophistication said to resemble the Mafia. “
The most prominent figure in the ring, Colin Peters , was trained at Oxford, and was formerly a senior adviser in the British Foreign Office. Following his Foreign Office work, he prosecuted cases for the British Customs and Excise.
Investigators working on the case had interrogated at least one senior member of the House of Lords , one vicar in West London, and officials in Whitehall , “but the police did not have sufficient evidence or manpower to pursue their suspicions ,” the Telegraph reported.
Alan Delaney, the official head of the ring, is a cleaning company director. Delaney would procure young boys for pedophiles , by putting job advertisements in the press .
The ring would also procure boys who were members of a junior soccer team.
Many of the youngsters had been at special boarding schools for educationally below-normal children.
Others were runaways , who were caught up by members of the Delaney-Peters ring, who would roam” the streets of London scouting for boys .
According to the Feb. 3 Telegraph account, the young boys were “passed around its members for sexual degradation and, when the attraction faded, abandoned to a life of prostitution, drugs , and petty crime . . . . The boys were tempted off the unfamiliar London streets with promises of food, accommodation, money, and a sympathetic ear. Some were plied with drugs, including cocaine, and sexually assaulted while under their influence.”
When he was brought before presiding Judge Pownall for sentencing Feb. 3, Colin Peters was told: “On your own admission, you found boys to satisfy your lust. You were prepared to encourage them to drugs or to lace their drinks and you have made matters worse by trying to get witnesses not to attend court. You did that to save your own skin. That was disgraceful. You of all people should have known that. “
‘A permanent conspiracy’ British deputy police superintendent John Lewis , who oversaw the investigations , is calling on Scotland Yard to create a special squad to deal with pedophile rings. Lewis declared Feb. 2 that “these people are as organized and sophisticated as any other criminals, and are involved in a permanent conspiracy which is renewed daily as they hunt for new boys. They need to be targeted like bank robbers. It
is important that we should not feel complacent. Positive policing should be continued.”
British police investigators were reportedly angered by the light sentence meted out to Peters , Delaney, and their two collaborators. The four received, in total, only 34 years of sentences. Peters received only 8 years, for combined charges of conspiracy to commit buggery (sodomy), buggery and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Delaney was jailed for 1 1 years , on conspiracy to commit buggery, indecent assault, taking indecent photographs , indecency with a child, and attempted buggery. One of the four was given only 6 years.
A senior British police officer told the Daily Express Feb.
4: “It should have been more. The damage these people have
done to young lives is very severe.”
In an editorial entitled, “Is This Justice?” the Express Feb. 4 called the sentences “woefully inadequate . . . weighed against the enormity of their crimes and the emotional and physical damage they did to their victims , some of whom were only nine years old. “
Moncini and the Satanist track
The London case has refocused attention on another recent case, in Trieste, Italy, involving one Alessandro Moncini, a businessman nabbed by law enforcement in the United States and convicted in 1988 for importing child pornography (although he received a paltry one-year sentence and was released “on good behavior” after serving less than three months in jail).
Investigators in Trieste working on the Moncini case have recently been to the United States, attempting to accumulate more information on what they believe to be a “most exclusive ring of international pedophiles.”
Informed sources in Britain believe that the Delaney Peters ring and the Moncini-linked networks are connected,
and that both are part of an international pedophile conspiracy.
U. S. law enforcement officials have in their possession tapes of Moncini attempting to procure a young girl, for Satanic-ritual abuse purposes.
Experts on ritual abuse stress that pedophile rings , as horrifying as they are in and of them selves , are actually fronts for, or extensions of, hard-core Satanist cults , for whom the pedophiles provide young boys.
In Britain, however, the Home Office has repeatedly indicated its opposition to allowing the matter of satanism to be pursued by police and in the courts.
Should this attitude continue, it will be impossible to crack the command-structure controlling powerful pedophile rings.
Investigative leads
Experts in pedophilia and Satanism report to EIR, that
that the dossiers on previously publicized cases of European
based pedophile rings have never been fully closed, and may
now be reopened. These involve pedophile rings that were
either cracked or exposed in the 1 986-87 period. Three of
them are worth noting:
• On June 1 8, 1987, the head of the Belgian national office of UNICEF was arrested for involvement in a large scale child pornography and pedophilia ring. Ring leader Jozef Verbeeck had used his influential position in UNICEF to procure children, often from broken homes, some as young as eight months old, for some 400 wealthy clients across Europe. The basement of UNICEF in Brussels was used to store pornographic pictures of children.
• In spring-summer 1987, Dutch authorities uncovered
one of the worst cases of collective child sex abuse in record
ed history. In a small town called Oode Pekala, during the
Easter holidays , a gang of pedophiles , dressed as clowns,
lured more than 70 children into taking part in pornographic
movies.
• On Aug. 3, 1986, the Sunday Times of London “Insight Team” exposed the activities of a secretive organization called the Spartacus Club, based near Amsterdam in Holland, which sent pedophile literature to 25 ,000 subscribers in Great Britain, and which specialized in procuring boys from the Philippines for pedophile activity. Headed by one John Stamford, the club was part of Spartacus International, which published homosexual literature and the Paedo Alert News, “a magazine about boy love. “
James Fraser Darling member of the Spartacus Club 33 years FOR THE SCOT WHO PREYED ON THAI KIDS – serves only 2
Sentenced to 33 years for paedophile offences in Thailand. Released on appeal and deported. Served a grand total of 2 years inside.
James Fraser Darling – who preyed on boys as young as eight – gives one-to-one lessons to the children of wealthy families.
Darling, 56, who lived in Morningside, Edinburgh, before going to the Far East, is working in a private language school in Zhuhai in south China.
We discovered the pervert – the son of an Oxford don – posing as a respectable teacher in the same week as pop paedophile Gary Glitter jetted back into Britain.
But while Glitter, 64, was placed on the UK sex offenders’ register, Darling is subject to no monitoring or restrictions.
At his school in Zhuhai, Darling, who is paid pounds 450 a month, refused to speak to the Sunday Mail.
School principal Li Lulin said she knew nothing about Darling’s crimes – but would not sack him.
She said: “Give him a break. His performance here has been good. I won’t tell parents.
“It’s not up to the Chinese government to punish him for his past. His contract finishes in September. I’ll let him go peacefully.”
A Foreign Office spokswoman said: “It is a matter for the Chinese authorities if they admit him to the country. We wouldn’t necessarily know if Mr Darling was there.”
At the Chinese Embassy in London, a spokeswoman refused to say whether any action would be taken to remove Darling.
CHILD SEX SHAME OF SCOTS TOFF: He molested Thai lads, court told
Fraser-Darling and other Westerners allegedly molested the boys at the picnics and in Fraser- Darling’s cottage near the poor village of Rawai.
The boys showed investigators photos of themselves naked with the man they knew as “Uncle James”.
More nude pictures were found at Fraser-Darling’s home, along with a Spartacus magazine article on “boy love” written by a J.Darling. Fraser-Darling denies being the author.
Fraser-Darling, who went to posh Repton school, was arrested in November 1995 after a colleague at the university reported him.
He was about to leave Thai-land for Cambodia when police swooped.
The pervert was taken from prison to court in his brown jail uniform early yesterday. His ankles were chained.
Fraser-Darling admitted he was a paedophile.
But he denied the charges, claiming he was a scapegoat in Thailand’s “witch- hunt” against child sex perverts.
Fraser-Darling’s father is Scots academic Sir Frank Fraser-Darling, an expert on Scottish birds and Hebridean wildlife.
Someone was pulling strings to get him out of Thailand.
A PAEDOPHILE has arrived in Scotland to claim a family inheritance – still lying about his sleazy past.
Toff James Fraser Darling, 51, is in the Highlands to get what is left of his family’s cash after being freed from a Bangkok jail.
But while the former teacher claims he won an appeal against all convictions, the truth is that the Thais kicked him out after only reducing his jail sentence.
Fraser Darling was left a small fortune while languishing behind bars and used some of the money to win his freedom.
Now the pervert, who preyed on young boys in the seedy resort of Phuket, is staying at an pounds 18-a-night guest house in Forres near his former family home while he plans his future.
Local residents are unaware that he is a convicted paedophile.
LIES OF DEPRAVED TOFF
Fraser Darling’s father, Sir Frank, died in 1979 at the age of 73 after his retirement as chief officer of the Imperial Bureau of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh-born Christina was his third wife and met him when she was taking care of his children after his second wife’s death.
Since Fraser Darling’s arrest he has been too ashamed to contact his brother Richard, 52, a senior Foreign Office intelligence officer, and his sister Francesca, 46, who lives in the USA.
He says he has spent his time in Scotland trying to register for work after a lifetime working abroad in Thailand, Iran, Sri Lanka and El Salvador.
THE paedophile son of a Scottish knight was jailed for 33 years in Thailand yesterday for preying on young boys.
Teacher James Fraser Darling, 47, whose father, a leading academic – was an authority on Scottish wildlife, was chained by the ankles as he was led away to the cells wearing regulation brown prison shirt and shorts.
The appalling sex acts he was convicted of were carried out on boys from a sea gypsy community at a Thai beach resort.
He was sentenced to five years each on nine counts of separating children from their parents.
Darling is the son of Sir Frank Fraser Darling, an Oxford don and expert on Scottish bird-life and Hebridean wildlife, who became chief officer of the Imperial Bureau of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh. He died in 1979.
Darling’s mother, Lady Christina Darling of Forres, Moray, died while he was on trial.
His brother Richard, a senior intelligence officer specialising in the war against drugs, works for the Foreign Office in Britainand did not attend the court.
Richard Ogilby Leslie Fraser Darling Counsellor, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Pervert Darling, a London University arts graduate, travelled the world teaching in Brazil and Sri Lanka before arriving in Thailand four years ago.
A book published by the Spartacus organisation – a European group linked to paedophilia – was found in his house, and a chapter inside, written by J Darling, described Roman orgies with young boys.
However, Darling denied that he was the author of the work.
The court’s decision was welcomed by FACE, the coalition against Child Exploitation, which has been monitoring suspected paedophiles in Thailand.
How disgusting can you get 2 years then deported back too our country!! Bloody loose around innocent children! Thank you for sharing this
James Fraser Darling
Son of Sir Frank Fraser Darling Brother of Richard Ogilby Leslie Fraser Darling (MI6!)
1998 Sentenced to 33 years (originally even longer) for paedophile offences in Thailand.
Released on appeal (sentence reduced)and deported.
Served a grand total of 2 years inside.
Apparently now teaching English again in China, or was.
Prince Charles has been given access to secret files on the sex lives of the world’s most powerful men and wome – to make sure he is fully informed when he finally becomes king.
The Sun 10-14-12, p9
Prince Charles has been given access to secret files on the sex lives of the world’s most powerful men and women, to make sure he is fully informed when he finally becomes king.
The Crown Jewels of classified intelligence, normally seen only by the queen and senior ministers, are understood to contain details of Princess Diana’s death and the IRA assassination of Lord Mountbatten. he will also see files on UK security threats.
a senior whitehall source said “ he can see everything but not the files on him and Camilla as he is not allowed to see the dossier where he is the subject”
ww:
The inference must be that maj has this information – or how could she be the reigning mollusc?
Which means she would have had all the info from Dickens Dossiers- the dossiers to Maggie Thatcher – Blunt – Prime – Hayman- – all the MP’s so far named – and those as yet unnamed-
and – of course
Jimmy Savile
“I’ve got eight names of big people, really important names, public figures. And I am going to expose them in Parliament.” (read more)
Although he had previously named senior diplomat Sir Peter Hayman as a paedophile, he never made good on his promise to expose the eight public figures. Just over two months after making the threat, Geoffrey Dickens’s name and address was found in a ‘hit list’ in a notebook belonging to Arthur Hutchinson, who was wanted for three brutal murders and was already on ‘a serious sex charge’.
During his trial, on 11 September 1984, Hutchinson accused Mike Barron, then a reporter with the Sunday Mirror, of committing the murders.
He even pointed to him in court, saying “That’s your killer there”. He explained his prints had been on the champagne bottle because he had picked it up to use as a weapon to defend himself against Mr Barron. Hutchinson claimed that the media had had a vendetta against him, and that:
“Every week for the last 10 months, that man there has been going to my mother’s house threatening her. I was frightened for her and wanted to get the truth out. There’s your killer.”- Arthur Hutchinson
At the time of his arrest, Napier, a retired languages teacher, playwright and theatre director, was living in Sherborne with their mother in her home just 1/2 mile from royalty/freemason/establishment-linked Sherborne Schools
In 2012 he gave a lecture on William Shakespeare at the town’s literary festival and was to have a play in winter
Amateur Players of Sherborne: Mr Napier has acted in, directed, or designed the set for the last six productions for the players prior to his arrest
Sherborne School for Girls, the leading public school gives free places to children helped by Kids Company and was attended by founder Camila Batmanghelidjh in the 1970s.
Kids Company boss Camila Batmanghelidjh admits she cheated to get into a the top school Sherborne School for Girls when her mother took an exam for her
Sherborne was a major financial donor to Kids Company – investigated by Parliament, the Charity Commission and the police, before the charity collapsed insolvent in August amid allegations of sex abuse on its premises.
Kids Company’s number one cheerleader in the Cabinet, Oliver Letwin, is a governor and former trustee of Sherborne School for Girls.
Oliver Letwin, the MP for West Dorset, visited the Little Gryphons Nursery School
Margaret Thatcher Arrives to support Oliver Letwin with “noted pederast” Peter Morrison
William Hague appointed Letwin as a member of his Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in September 2000.
Mustard heir, Mr Colman, and his wife Susan, a former spiritual director of the defunct charity KidsCompany funded pervert John Smyth QC for nearly 30 years
Mr Colman was an Eton contemporary of the Most Rev Justin Welby, while his father, Sir Michael, oversaw the Church’s investment portfolio between 1993 and 1999, holding the post of First Church Estates Commissioner. He was subsequently awarded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Cross of St Augustine.
A catastrophic charity collapse. Two inquires that hit the buffers. As a musical lampoons the fiasco… Will Kids Company Camila and her BBC stooge EVER face the music?
Stage production depicts the hugely publisised fall of Kids Company charity
Comes two years after the controversial charity met its demise amid allegations
Inquiries are ongoing but there is not indication of when they might conclude
Camila Batmanghelidjh’s autobiography, due out this year, is similarly delayed
3 July 2017
Alan Yentob, BBC creative director, throws up his arms in despair. His rich baritone trembles with bathos as he sings: ‘Michael Gove even said it was an inspirational charity!’
The audience titters. The line does not have the lyricism of a Rodgers and Hammerstein, but it is genuinely funny.
And true. The real Mr Yentob — rather than the actor playing him in this stage production — really did say, rather than sing, it.
Just like the BBC bigwig himself, who became embroiled in the scandal surrounding the collapse of the Kids Company charity of which he was chairman, there is something more than a little unconventional about this new musical being previewed in London last week.
First, there is the title: ‘The Public Administration And Constitutional Affairs Select Committee Takes Oral Evidence On Whitehall’s Relationship With Kids Company.’
Then there are the lyrics, taken verbatim from the Hansard transcript of the testimony given by two witnesses who appeared before that committee of MPs on October 15, 2015.
One was Mr Yentob. The other was enigmatic charity supremo Camila Batmanghelidjh, once known as ‘the angel of Camberwell’.
The pair had been summoned to the Commons to explain how Kids Company, the charity of which Ms Batmanghelidjh was founder and CEO, had gone bust amid allegations of financial irregularity and sexual abuse, having received almost £50 million of public money.
That was almost two years ago. And while the musical is opening this week, the public still awaits a definitive official explanation of the charity’s controversial modus operandi and dramatic demise.
The select committee had no powers to act on its own damning findings of an ‘extraordinary catalogue of failures’. Two statutory bodies that do have such powers — the Charity Commission and the Insolvency Service — were supposed to deliver their own reports on Kids Company last autumn. They did not.
Both bodies say inquiries are ‘ongoing’ but there is no indication as to when they might end. Ms Batmanghelidjh’s autobiography, due out late last year, is similarly delayed.
And so the extraordinary saga rumbles on.
The woman at the centre of it all, 54-year-old Camila, keeps, in contrast to her life before the scandal, a low profile these days.
On a rare outing last summer, she was photographed as she went to lunch with representatives of a foreign government ‘which is having to deal with a lot of young refugees’ at the Michelin-starred Pied a Terre restaurant.
Ms Batmanghelidjh says she is continuing to help many Kids Company children, with the financial backing of donors who stayed loyal.
Kids Company rented a £4,000-a-month Grade II-listed art-deco mansion in North London, in which a member of the finance department and one of Ms Batmanghelidjh’s PAs lived
While the Metropolitan Police found insufficient evidence to press any criminal charge, anecdotal evidence of institutional anarchy and excesses at Kids Company still has the power to shock.
Brown envelopes stuffed with cash were handed to troubled children as a matter of course. Twelve-year-old clients were given £150 trainers; others were flown first class to America. Some £50,000 alone was allegedly spent on taxis at the charity’s Christmas party.
Kids Company received £46 million from the UK taxpayer over 13 years, including £3 million days before it shut. Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson is pictured with Camila Batmanghelidjh London Evening Standard’s ‘1000: London’s Most Influential People’ in 2014
Flamboyant, Iranian-born Camila could charm the birds from the trees. Then prime minister David Cameron was said to be ‘mesmerised’ by her, while his wife Samantha was a backer, along with Prince Charles and a host of other A-list celebrities and City financiers.
Kids Company received £46 million from the UK taxpayer over 13 years, including £3 million days before it shut. Rock band Coldplay ploughed in a further £8 million from royalties.
Ms Batmanghelidjh claimed her charity had 36,000 young ‘clients’.
No doubt there was and remains a very real need for children from splintered families to be supported in Britain’s troubled inner cities.
But something within the organisation was not right. It needed only a small push for the already teetering edifice to collapse. That pressure came from an unlikely quarter.
Pensioner Joan Woolard was the catalyst to Kids Company’s spectacular downfall and remains one of Ms Batmanghelidjh’s fiercest critics.
Having heard the charity boss speak on Radio 4, Mrs Woolard was inspired to sell her home and donate the proceeds — more than £200,000 — to the Kids Company.
Doubts began when she asked how the money had been spent.
The answers were unsatisfactory. Her experience of spending some time at Kids Company offices alarmed her further — and she asked for her money back.
Hers was the first public voice of dissent against this fashionable and feted good cause. Ms Batmanghelidjh denied any wrongdoing.
But the money remained in Ms Batmanghelidjh’s hands. Kids Company needed it desperately.
Encouraged by Mrs Woolard’s public stand, whistle-blowers from inside the organisation began to come forward.
The unsubstantiated allegations of sexual abuse were the final straw.
In August 2015, the charity shut down, laying off scores of staff and abandoning thousands of children.
Some of the evidence subsequently given to the Commons select committee presented a shocking litany of financial chaos, rampant nepotism and very dubious methodology.
The committee concluded: ‘There appears to have been a catastrophic confluence of factors that have conspired to allow this charity to operate as it did, for as long as it did.’
Their report said the ‘approach of successive governments and ministers towards Kids Company has proved to be an improper way to conduct government business or handle public money’.
Alan Yentob had failed to restrain his ‘unaccountable and dominant’ CEO. His employer, the BBC, was also ‘accused of poor leadership for failing to take action against him when he tried to make suggestions about the BBC’s reporting of Kids Company’.
One of the committee’s witnesses, a high-ranking worker who was granted anonymity, gave a particularly damning insight into what Kids Company had become.
She said: ‘The charity was run by the CEO as her personal fiefdom, with no regard whatsoever for the financial implications. It was simply unsustainable to continue to take in anyone who asked for assistance and, in certain specific areas, ridiculous amounts of money were spent wantonly and inappropriately.’
Ms Batmanghelidjh had favourites among the youngsters she helped. ‘One group of young adults — many of them in their late 20s — were known throughout the organisation as “Camila’s kids” and inordinate amounts of money and resources were lavished on them; creating envy and resentment among others.’
But staff were also treated lavishly, the witness stated, and nepotism was rife. ‘Sasha and Jamie Handover (the children of former WH Smith boss Richard Handover, a trustee) were both employed at KC,’ the witness said.
‘The so-called “Operations Manager” — a sweet but totally inefficient woman who kept odd hours — turned out to be the mother of one of the IT chaps.
‘Magbule Mulla — who worked in the finance department — is the sister-in-law of Jeton (Tony) Cavolli, who was Camila’s driver.’
(While her Linked In page still describes her as ‘Assistant Accountant Kids Company’, Mrs Mulla was described by Ms Batmanghelidjh in one interview as ‘the woman who sews for me’.)
Ms Batmanghelidjh would eventually admit that her charity had paid for both of Mr Cavolli’s children to be put through private schools; one of them a boarding establishment where the chairman of governors was one Richard Handover (a trustee).
Mr Cavolli had been described by Ms Batmanghelidjh as a ‘therapist tasked with dealing with difficult young men and only had a car in order to go to their aid late at night’. But in the time she worked there, the witness only ‘heard him referred to as “Tony the Driver”.’
Some of the evidence subsequently given to the Commons select committee presented a shocking litany of financial chaos. Squatters are pictured at the former offices of Kids Company in Kenbury Street, Camberwell
It was ‘Tony the Driver’ who was pictured holding the car door open for Ms Batmanghelidjh prior to that lunch at Pied a Terre restaurant last summer.
He was not her chauffeur, she later explained. He was working as an Uber driver and had given her a lift as a ‘favour’.
A university academic whose role as an Ofsted inspector in South London alerted her to Kids Company more than 15 years ago had watched its progress with alarm.
‘The whole history of Kids Company is one of a failure of due diligence by local government, donor charities, the Tory Party, Prince Charles. They all failed. It is astounding,’ she told me.
Hers is only one of many critical voices. But there is an approaching counterblast. Approaching, but repeatedly delayed. Ms Batmanghelidjh’s autobiography was due to be published last autumn. Her ghost-writer is Tim Rayment.
In early 2015 he was sent by his newspaper to investigate Ms Batmanghelidjh. Now he is firmly in her camp.
One view is that Rayment fell under her spell; like so many financiers, pop stars, politicians and royals before him, he was ‘hypnotised’, one colleague said.
‘I want to give voice to someone who has been silenced,’ Mr Rayment told me last year, rather generously of someone who had the ear of royalty and prime ministers.
‘Have I been naïve? Have I been mesmerised?’ he asks. ‘The time to make that judgment is on publication.’
The fall-out has indeed been complex and messy for those involved. Last December, Mr Yentob stepped down as Creative Director of the BBC as a direct result of his involvement in the Kids Company collapse
Last night, a spokesman for Ms Batmanghelidjh’s publisher, Biteback, said she expected the book to appear in August. She explained: ‘We had initially hoped to do a very fast turnaround on this title, and therefore gave it a very ambitious publication date.
‘But it has turned out to be far more complex, both legally and in terms of the science involved, than we had first anticipated.’
The fall-out has indeed been complex and messy for those involved. Last December, Mr Yentob stepped down as Creative Director of the BBC as a direct result of his involvement in the Kids Company collapse.
Earlier this year, it was reported that the Insolvency Service had written to lawyers acting for Kids Company’s former board members to warn them it was minded to ban them from holding directorships.They included Ms Batmanghelidjh, Mr Yentob and Mr Handover. Which brings us back to the musical.
Flamboyant, Iranian-born Camila could charm the birds from the trees. Then prime minister David Cameron was said to be ‘mesmerised’ by her
‘Mr Yentob’ bewails the sudden denial of the public purse gold seam. He had mined it for years thanks to his contacts with David Cameron and the latter’s desire to give his Big Society slogan some substance and street cred.
Last night, a Charities Commission spokeswoman said: ‘When an inquiry is under way, we do not provide updates on when it is likely to conclude.
‘This is a high-profile case and when a report is available it will be posted online with full findings.’
An Insolvency Service spokesman said: ‘Our investigation into Kids Company remains ongoing. Each case has its own complexities and differences depending on the number of directors involved. There is no timescale for us to reach any conclusions. As such, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further at present.’
Miles Goslett, the journalist who first raised questions about Kids Company, in February 2015, is sceptical about the delay.
‘Both inquiries were set up the best part of two years ago and I was told privately last year they’d be published by Christmas 2016 at the latest,’ he said this week.
‘Even if these bodies are short on manpower, I’d have no difficulty believing that someone in Whitehall has taken the decision it would be politically sensible to keep them from public view for a while yet.’
Another name that appears is that of a known paedophile, the late senior diplomat Sir Peter Hayman
The Napier and Hayman families had a long record of imperial service at the highest level. Many members of the family were senior Freemasons:
Sir Peter’s grandfather Canon Henry Hayman was Provincial Grand Master of Nottinghamshire and a Past Grand Chaplain of England; while Charles Napier’s ancestors included a Grand Master Mason of Scotland.
Charles Napier’s parents were cousins: his maternal grandfather Brigadier Arthur Napier had top level intelligence connections as military adviser to the Ministry of Supply.
At the time of his paedophile offences, Napier’s cousin Rosemary Blomefield was married to Sir Peter Hayman, a senior MI6 officer who was later himself exposed as a paedophile though never prosecuted.
Napier was jailed for 13 years in 2014 for hundreds of sex attacks on schoolboys.
Peter Righton was a founder of PIE, Napier its one-time treasurer. Righton, incredibly, was also one of Britain’s leading child protection specialists when Virginia Bottomley was Health Secretary
The file also contains a John Napier, who had been convicted for running a “child brothel” in London in the early 1970s.
“The police had the lists from the late 1980s…The files sat in a drawer, metaphorically speaking, until 2012, when Operation Fairbank decided to go back and have a look.
Jimmy Savile and Keith Harding on BBC’s Jim’ll Fix It
Keith Harding invited to show to mend a 13-year-old girl’s music box, which her brother says was a “set-up” by the production team.
MUSIC box collector and clock maker Keith Harding, whose staff restored antiques for royalty, played a vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring. He is also on the list.
He was a “schedule 1” offender – meaning his convictions remained on his police file for life.
But he was later given the Freedom of the City of London and became a member of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, meeting business and political figures at the height of his career.
The clockmaker and music box expert ran a museum regularly visited by children, despite social services being aware 20 years ago of his convictions for child abuse.
He had been convicted of indecent assault against four children aged eight and nine in 1958 when he was a teacher.
Harding was influential among high-profile paedophiles
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
I stumbled across this tweet referring to John Whittingdale having used the alias John Napier ‘in those days’.
His name appeared ‘namely’ right next to that of his half-brother Charles Napier who affectionately referred to Whippo in correspondence as ‘Little Johnny’, a man who he would entrust stuff to for safekeeping. Charles, a prolific abuser, was a very close friend of Peter Righton.
HRH Crafty Muvva @craftymuvva
Another John Napier to add to the mix… this one’s a doctor, living at Dolphin Square in 1976…
Paedophile Mason Keith Harding ran lodge set up for GCHQ
ONE OF Britain’s most influential paedophiles was the head of a Masonic lodge founded and frequented by GCHQ spies.
A PIE list seized in 1984 records Harding, as member 329
The pervert met regularly with MPs Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith at his world-renowned workshop.John Whittingdale was pps to Leon BrittanOne of Harding‘s staff, who worked for himbetween 1980 and 1987, said: “Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith were both regular visitors to the shop.Usually they would come in via the side door, other times they would ring the bell at the front entrance and come in. “They’d straight away ask for Keith who would be coming down the stairs. “Then they would then either go up to his office for a private meeting or they’d go out for several hours.” Keith Harding was very upper class and mixed in those sorts of circles.Jeremy Thorpe, Cyril Smith, David Steel………………………………………………………………………………………………
Jeremy Thorpe and Cyril Smith would also drop by along with key members of the vile Paedophile Information Exchangeincluding Tom O’ Carroll and Steven Adrian Smith:
Steven Adrian Smith (who worked at the Home Office and kept PIE files stored there) boasted that he ran the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) from behind his desk at the Home Office
Keith Harding’s shop: The former worker added: “The shop had many high profile customers, including the Royals.”
Keith Harding he was asked to build a special clock in honour of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.
linkThe Worshipful Company of Clockmakers : memorial slab in the floor of Westminster Abbey, London, was unveiled by HRH The Prince Philip The stone memorial slab in the floor of Westminster Abbey, London, was unveiled by HRH The Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh in 2006 at a special celebration of the life and achievements of John Harrison, arranged by The Clockmakers’ Company.
There are 307 names on the list seen by The IoS, including four women.
There are several members living abroad, and one of them currently appears to be a children’s entertainer.
Some of the PIE members also feature on a list amassed by the US Customs child pornography and protection unit which collected a list of British customers of American suppliers of child abuse images.
The US list was also supplied to UK law enforcement agencies but little if anything was done about it.
One of those on both lists is former school teacher Terence Waters. In 1994, he was jailed for 10 years for possessing indecent images of children and sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy.
Leading anti-child sex abuse campaigners said that they were astonished at the police inaction over the PIE membership list.
“We know that those who look at sexual images of children often go on to become ‘contact’ offenders, so had more action been taken as a result of the police having the lists, many children would not have been abused, as is clear from the case of Adamson. There still seems to be a mindset that says we should all just move on and leave the past in the past, yet people have a lifetime of trauma to deal with and the police should have recognised that in their handling of these cases.”
“Jo Richardson MP, the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights are among the several individuals and organisations that have protested to the Lord Chancellor, on PIE’s behalf, over a judge’s comments at a recent Old Bailey trial.
They are demanding that the judge be disciplined, andare supporting the Exchange in its claim that the remarks may well have been a “serious breach of legal ethics.”
When sentencing Andre Stephen Thorne (21) to 3 years for theft and the attempted blackmail of a PIE applicant, the judge, Mr Justice King-Hamilton, said that PIE had “access to potential dynamite,” and added: “On the face of it, some sort of an offence is being committed by the person or persons running this organisation (THE SUN, Feb. 4th).. I wonder if the membership forms are collected from members of the public for the purposes of blackmail (SOUTH LONDON PRESS)?
PIE’s reaction was fast and furious. Secretary, Tom O’Carroll drafted an immediate letter to THE GUARDIAN; and on March the 17th, Deputy Leader, Warren Middleton despatched a press release announcing that the group would lodge the “strongest possible protest” with the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary.
Soon after, PIE’s Chairperson, Keith Hose, contacted the NCCL, finally requesting Jo Richardson (Labour, Barking) to table a question in the Commons. She declined, but has since filed an official complaint with Elwyn Jones.
The first of the protests, from the NCCL (29/3/’77), described the comments as “extremely unfortunate” and accused the judge of “misusing his position to make comments which were unwarranted and without any apparent foundation.”
Prompted by the reply which, said a Council official, was “totally unsatisfactory,” the NCCL then approached Lord Beaumont of Whitley asking him to raise the matter in the Lords. But he, too, declined.
Now, the Council is seeking the advice of Lord Hailsham, himself a former Lord Chancellor, and will act in accordance with his reply.”
Sherborne School Alumni – Stanley Johnson, Alan Turing
Sir David Spedding: Former Head of Secret Intelligence Service
Stanley Johnson (center) with friends
Other Establishment connections with Sherborne School:
Christopher BournesRhys-Jones – The father of Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones (married to Prince Edward) was a geography master at Sherborne School, Sherborne
Tory MP’s half-brother who was known as ‘Rapier Napier’ by his pupils and helped run Paedophile Information Exchange is jailed for 13 years for HUNDREDS of sex assaults on young boys in the 60s and 70s
assaulting 21 victims aged as young as eight
Acting Detective Chief Inspector Keith Braithwaite said: ‘Napier is an arrogant, controlling and manipulative individual who has shown no remorse for the serious sexual offences he committed against young and vulnerable victims.
‘He has offended throughout most of his adult life; exploiting opportunities to continue his criminality against children through his employment and standing within society.
Mr Napier said:
“I agreed to take part in the literary festival months before I knew where the talk would be held. Then it never crossed my mind that it would be problem.
“I am devastated that I cannot be involved with the APS and with A Winter’s Tale anymore. I think I might not ever be able to take part in something like this again.
“It is sad that something like this has happened…
I hope at least that I will be able to remain in Sherborne
Chris Davis, 53, was dismissed from £34,000-a-year Sherborne School
His personal assistant Micaila Vivier was then fired after ‘leaking emails’
She claimed Mr Davis was sacked after disagreement with governors
Ms Vivier said headmaster wanted pupil to move to a different school
A statement posted to the school’s website insisted: ‘There is absolutely no element whatsoever of untoward activity on the part of the outgoing Headmaster, or any other member of the staff, that has led to or contributed to this decision.’
….I think it was odd that he was dismissed after only three days of term and it would be helpful if the governors had told us more about the reason behind his sudden departure. It would put an end to what will doubtless be endless speculation.”
Speaking to The Times, Mr Davis’s wife Innes, 52, declined to comment on the reasoning behind the departure.
David Aaronovitch, a columnist on The Times well known for dismissing claims about paedophile VIPs as “conspiracy theory”, …an article by Aaronovitch in The Observer in 2003 … attempted to diminish the seriousness of “child porn”.
David Aaronovitch’s column “Let’s See Some Evidence. Then We Can Panic” published in the Times on July 10th. As a general rule of thumb, anyone who refers to public inquiries and investigative journalism into organised child sexual abuse rings as “paedogeddon” is already starting from a position of disbelieving the statements of victims of child sexual abuse.
Last year’s Provincial Grand Lodge meeting was held at Sherborne School on Thursday 30th October. Prior to the meeting, the 2014 Dorset Masonic Magazine was delivered by post to all Brethren subscribing to a Lodge in the Province of Dorset and this contained a removable agenda for the Provincial meeting.
Lord Montgomery at Sherborne 1959
re: Hamilton’s Biography of Lord Montgomery:
“Hamilton himself referred to Monty’s (Lord Montgomery) “romantic friendships with young boys” in the original book, specifically the 12-year-old Swiss lad Lucien Trueb “who engaged Monty’s affectionate attention”.
The question Hamilton is really posing now is not whether Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein was gay, but whether he was a repressed paedophile.”
Lord Louis Mountbatten former chauffeur Norman Nield exposed him
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, there have been such newspaper headlines as, “‘Uncle Dickie’ the Sex Pervert” (N.Z. Truth, Sept. 8, 1987), since Mountbatten’s former chauffeur, Norman Nield, started revealing details of the late Lord Mountbatten’s alleged sexual exploitation of boys.
Edward Prince of Wales and his cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten “relax” in a canvas swimming pool on board H. M. S. Renown during their 1920 Empire Tour.
Lord Louis was a great grandson of Queen Victoria and the uncle of Prince Philip (consort of Queen Elizabeth II). Mountbatten was also a promiscuous bisexual who was famously rumored to have had an affair with Edward VIII (who was Prince of Wales at the time) when he accompanied him on his Empire tours (see photo above).
The Queen. Like any human being, she is subject to the influence of those around her. While he lived, Lord Mountbatten was a persuasive counsellor, and he formulated the plan for Prince Charles’s unusually rigorous education.
Letwin insisted on giving £3 million of public money to Kids Company in July, against the advice of Whitehall mandarins.
The BBC has commissioned a documentary about the charity, scheduled to be shown next year. Insiders have expressed surprise about this, given that £330,000-a-year BBC executive Alan Yentob was Kids Company chairman of trustees between 2003 and 2015.
Kids Company
The leaked email shows how Yentob, currently the BBC’s £330,000-a-year creative director, mounted a concerted operation to lobby the Labour Government to cancel the bill.The bill was waived the following year. The message, sent using a BBC email address to nine Kids Company colleagues – including Ms Batmanghelidjh – revealed he had contacted Dawn Primarolo, then the Paymaster General in the Treasury, and Paul Boateng, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, about the tax bill.
Mr Yentob said he had been advised by Ms Primarolo’s aides to put the charity’s case to her in a letter, so she could refer the matter to the Inland Revenue – which Mr Yentob said he would be doing ‘with a little bit of help from my friends’.
Both Ms Primarolo and Mr Boateng worked at the time for the then-Chancellor Gordon Brown.
Mr Yentob also says in the message: ‘Paul Boateng and I have managed to miss each other on the telephone but his office has been extremely co-operative and concerned and a phone call is being set up for tomorrow morning.’
A few months later, £589,957 was written off using taxpayers’ money, with an additional £100,000 debt met by an unidentified donor.
The charity’s unpaid bill was first revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week, which led to this newspaper obtaining the Yentob email.
The charity has received about £4 million from the Government every year for the last decade.
Ms Batmanghelidjh claims the Government has targeted her because she has a list of Establishment figures allegedly involved in historical child sex abuse.
Mr Boateng said last night: ‘I do not recall the details. I would not be prepared to comment without consulting Treasury papers. I was responsible for spending, not tax.’
Wealthy Cabinet minister Oliver Letwin takes in lodgers at his London home Oliver Letwin, David Cameron’s close ally, takes in lodgers at the south London home which has hit the headlines in the past.
Swathes of London would ‘descend into savagery’. There would be riots in the streets, and widespread looting. Angry mobs would carry out ‘arson attacks’ on government buildings.
This apocalyptic scenario formed the basis of an extraordinary document sent to the Government from the email account of Kids Company chief Camila Batmanghelidjh.
As a sort of ransom note to ministers, signed by her charity’s chairman Alan Yentob, its message was simple: hand over a £3 million emergency grant to my charity or London will burn.
To a degree, it had its desired effect because that money was promptly given.
Yet those millions weren’t enough. Kids Company hit the wall. Around £1.2 million of the £3 million was lost. And now three major inquiries are investigating the collapsed charity, which over the past decade has got through more than £30 million in public funds.
Born in Tehran on New Year’s Day 1963, Camila Batmanghelidjh is one of four children of Fereydoon Batman-Ghelidj, a property developer and doctor who belonged to one of pre-revolutionary Iran’s wealthiest and most influential families.
Her uncle, Hooshang, was the Iranian ambassador to Turkey. Grandfather Mehdi was a wealthy property developer, too. And a great uncle, Nader, was an army general and loyal henchman of the country’s ruling Shah.
In interviews, her mother, Lucile, has been described as ‘a Belgian aristocrat’
The Women of the World WOW festival, which begins today and runs over the weekend, includes an impressive list of speakers from the spheres of politics, popular culture and activism. Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts, Eve Ensler, Camila Batmanghelidjh, Erin Pizzey and Helena Kennedy are just some of the women who will be appearing at the festival – and of course our own director, Shami Chakrabarti, will be at a number of the events over the four days. The festival will cover issues as diverse as domestic violence, sustainable business, Mary Whitehouse and Margaret Thatcher.
PIE Keith Harding antique piece in the Garrick Club
Harding, fig. … (front base) Prov: Btby R. B. from Keith Harding Antiques, Hornsey Road, London Source: One of seven figures based on engravings in John Tallis’s Shakespeare Gallery (1852-53); also an engraving by T. Sherratt, after H.
Garrick Club Members
In 2011, the Garrick Club newsletter compiled a list of 100 notable deceased members (since updated), yielding:
Michael Havers, Baron Havers – the brother of Baroness Butler-Sloss
Sir Michael Havers was appointed as Attorney General by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and was made Baron Havers in 1987. He intervened three times between 1981 and 1983 to stop the investigation and exposure of Establishment paedophiles, and to prevent the publication of stories which showed that Establishment figures were members of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Sir Douglas Bader beside Janner
via cassandra cogno
Bader interested in Leics PHAB group– 1 founder was albany trust’s youth worker Ric Rogers
given Hon Presidency of PHAB in 1974 & it’s spun off as separate charity from NAYC
wondering if jimmy Martin a member-under ex HBOS chairman lord Dennis Stevenson savile
There are various articles about Janner taking up the cause of that young boy with thalidomide
In the picture with, them, cutting the cake are (left-to-right): Eric Parker, Reg Varney, Bill Cotton Jr, Jimmy Savile, Nigel Broackes, Sir Douglas Bader, Lord George Brown, and Denis Compton.
Sir David Napley – Janner’s solicitor
Isnt it weird that Sir David Napley was both solicitor to Sir Peter Hayman and a certain prominent ex-mp, (Proctor) fond of spanking
twitter.com/REBELTROOP
1987, May – Harvey Proctor resigns as MP for Billericay shortly after his trial and after being fined pounds 1,450 for acts of gross indecency;
he was involved in homosexual spanking sessions with young male prostitutes.
His lawyer is Sir David Napley: influential solicitor, who represents also Commander Trestrial who is also on the Elm Guest House list.
Liz Davies comment
Keith Harding’s shop closed just a year before I was working in Islington in my social work office in the same road.
Another centre of PIE was also just a street away.
Some of the children who were being sexually exploited in that area may have known about this shop but I had no idea about it at the time.
They will now be in their 40s. Some of the social work staff must have known about the shop as Harding made a point of having a high profile locally. The Islington child abuse story reached a peak in 1992 and again in 2003 but it isn’t over as yet.
Dr Liz Davies, who originally blew the whistle on the borough’s paedophile ring, says
“I firmly believe there was a link between Savile and Islington children’s homes.”
The astonishing thing regarding the exchange “holidays” for care home children that took place between the child abuse hot spots of Islington care homes and Haut de la Garenne in Jersey is the distinct lack of evidence.
The exchange trips took place and yet there appears to be no official record. That lack of bureaucratic paperwork in itself raises extremely disturbing questions, regardless of whether child abuse took place, as former residents claim.
How can young children be transported from one local authority across the English Channel to another without any record of the trips existing ?
Either the exchange trips did not take place (yet we know they did) or someone has been extremely careless or negligent with the paperwork.
In 1987, Harding moved to Gloucestershire where social services were aware nearly 20 years ago of his criminal convictions.
Gloucestershire County Council declined to comment on the fact that he continued to run a music box museum in Northleach, which was regularly visited by children, until his death aged 82 in June.
Lord Justice Fulford was revealed to have been a founder of a ‘defence committee’ for the Paedophile Information Exchange while it was openly calling for the age of consent to be cut to just four.
He discussed holding courtroom protests at meetings with PIE chairman Tom O’Carroll – who was jailed for two years in 1981 for conspiracy to corrupt public morals – and wrote articles claiming O’Carroll’s trial was an ‘act of oppression’ because the child sex campaigners only wanted to ‘make friends’.
The Prime Minister has approved the appointment of Lord Justice Fulford as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner.
The Prime Minister has approved the appointment of Lord Justice Fulford as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner for a 3-year term. Lord Justice Fulford will take up appointment with immediate effect.
Prime Minister Theresa May said:
I’m pleased to announce the appointment of Lord Justice Fulford as the first Investigatory Powers Commissioner. He brings a wealth of experience in the judiciary and expertise in matters of law which will be crucial to his vital role scrutinising the use of investigatory powers, as part of a world-leading oversight regime.
Biographical notes
The Rt Hon Sir Adrian Fulford qualified as a barrister in 1978 and took Silk in 1994. He was appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court in 1995. He was appointed a High Court Judge of the Queen’s Bench Division on 21 November 2002. He was elected to serve as 1 of the 18 judges of the International Criminal Court in 2003 for a term of 9 years, and was assigned to the Trial Division. He was sworn into office on 11 March 2003. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal on 10 May 2013.
With effect from 1 January 2015, Sir Adrian was the Deputy Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales. From 1 January 2016 he became the Senior Presiding Judge. He is currently the Judge in Charge of IT and leads for the judiciary on HM Courts & Tribunals Service reform.
Whilst holding the appointment as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Sir Adrian will remain a Judge of the Court of Appeal.
Background
Section 227 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 provides for the Prime Minister to appoint the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC). The role of the IPC is to authorise and oversee the use of Investigatory Powers by public authorities.
Sir Adrian will now begin work on establishing his office, and will take on the statutory functions of the IPC in due course.
MI5 agents can commit crime in UK, government reveals
Secret order on authorised criminality by spies made public after legal battle by rights groups
2 Mar 2018
MI5 agents are allowed to carry out criminal activity in the UK, the government has acknowledged for the first time.
The prime minister was on Thursday forced to publish the text of a direction to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, the spying watchdog, on governing “security service participation in criminality”.
It instructs the IPCO to oversee the participation of MI5 agents in criminal activity, which was previously conducted by the now-defunct office of the Intelligence Services Commissioner, under a secret order referred to as the “third direction”.
However, guidance about when British spies can commit crimes, and how far they can go, remains confidential.
The commissioner, Lord Justice Sir Adrian Fulford, said: “I welcome the government’s decision to make public my oversight of this sensitive area of work.”
The order was published after a legal battle by the human rights groups Reprieve and Privacy International.
Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve, said: “After a seven-month legal battle the prime minister has finally been forced to publish her secret order but we are a long way from having transparency.
“The public and parliament are still being denied the guidance that says when British spies can commit criminal offences and how far they can go.
“Authorised criminality is the most intrusive power a state can wield. Theresa May must publish this guidance without delay.”
Judge Fulford presided over Roger Laing 2015 Oct 2 Court of Appeal [7] No aspersions are being made about whether the right decision was made in this particular case of child abuse.
However the appeal brought to mind that Judge Fulford was accused in 2014 by the Mail of backing the Paedophile Information Exchange PIE and being in groups that supported it. High Court judge and the child sex ring: Adviser to Queen was founder of paedophile support group to keep offenders out of jail[8]
He has apologised for some of his links but says he has no memories of others, states the Guardian, Judge apologises for involvement with NCCL group linked to PIE [9]
The Mail on Sunday states “But he said he had “no memory” of being a founder member of the Conspiracy Against Public Morals, which the Mail continues was set up to defend PIE leaders facing criminal charges.”
An official investigation by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office took place by Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore. It concluded on 18 June 2014, that the allegations against Fulford were “without substance” and he “was not and had never been a supporter of PIE or its aims”. Following his exoneration, Fulford resumed sitting as a judge on the full range of appeals [10]
Unfortunately the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office have not been transparent about the investigation.
They issued a dismissive press statement [11a] and below, stating that Fulford was exonerated after after two “lengthy” interviews with “searching questions” put to him by fellow Justice, Justice Lord Kerr, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to which Adrian Fulford reponded!
How much easier if their names were given as well..
Just for information the Lord Chief Justice was Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who is John Thomas, Baron Thomas of Cwmgiedd [18] and without the titles just plain John Thomas. The Lord Chancellor was just plain Chris Grayling[19]. Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore turns out to be Brian Kerr, Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore or just plain Brian Kerr [20]
The Ministry of Justice has refused to publish a copy of the report on grounds of confidentiality and personal information [11b]. They even took the statement down from their website after a year as revealed by this FOI request[11]
Whilst the Mail group is often gossip from the gutter, the MOJ statement, undated and unsigned is breathtaking in its arrogance. It does not even address the issue of group that Adrian Fulford is supposed to have founded – “Conspiracy against Public Morals” which supported PIE.
It is not denied that Fulford (Adrian) was there at the third meeting on 11 Sept 1979 nor even that he founded the group. In October 1979 the Mail says Fulford wrote a full-page article in gay rights magazine Broadsheet, in which he was described as ‘the founder’ of the PIE support group.
Among those also attending the 11 Sept meeting were Sandy Marks and Tim Brown.
Sandy Marks and Tim Brown were both members of the radical Fallen Angels collective who according to Charlotte Russell, the pre-eminent researcher in this field, “the Fallen Angels took it upon themselves to call the Gay Movement to account, their final three sentences underlined concluding their case” [16]
“The question is whether gay complicity in the oppression of children and pedophiles is to persist”
“The ILGA must acknowledge adult-child relations as crucial to the development of a coherent sexual politics.”
“We demand the right to form alternative relations with kids – on their terms, and to affirm the erotic in those relations.”
Tim Brown wrote “Show me an adult who is not a paedophile…Sex with children is wonderful… Children are wonderful they should not be subjected to any kind of guilt trip or legal shit about their bodies and their sexuality. It is theirs and nobody else’s.” Tim Brown, London N19 [16]
Sandy Marks chaired the Islington social services committee during the children’s homes scandal of the 1990s, attended a conference with a radical pro-paedophile activist group called Fallen Angels in 1980.
Her other paedophilic links are explored in this article Islington kids’ homes scandal: Shame of ex-mayor Sandy Marks’ pro-paedophile past [17]
These articles by Ms Russell confirm the agenda of the Fallen Angels and much else
CONSPIRACY AGAINST PUBLIC MORALS: PAEDOPHILIA & PUBLIC MORALS (OCTOBER 1980) [13]
IGA Conference April 1980: The Fallen Angels take PIE’s fight to Barcelona[14]
Little Angels? A letter to Socialist Challenge from Fallen Angel Tim Brown (October 1979) [15]
Fallen Angels: Paedophilia – Summary Submission to the ILGA Conference, Barcelona 1980 [16]
Islington kids’ homes scandal: Shame of ex-mayor Sandy Marks’ pro-paedophile past [17]
“.. Islington had become a focal point for the politicisation of paedophilia,” said Ms Russell.
Although Adrian Fulford is reported as saying that Tom O’Carrolls presence ‘left me feeling extremely uncomfortable’, he does not mention that the Fallen Angels made him feel at all queasy.
Sandy Marks has said various things about the time, one of which is she cannot remember events of this time due to illness. Islington Council have said they are shocked and that there will be an investigation by a “top lawyer”. It is not clear who the “top” lawyer is, or how “top” they will be, whether the investigation has begun or when the Report will be published.
It is essential that Adrian Fulford must give evidence to this inquiry. He clearly would have first hand evidence, from the inside, of what happened at the time. Perhaps he could be “top witness”.
Clearly if someone of his position does not give evidence, then the Islington investigation cannot be remotely to be said to be a thorough investigation. It would be negligent not to.
It would also be very interesting as to what Sandy Marks might have to say about Adrian Fulford..
As long as the MOJ is secretive and dismissive, and justice is not seen to be done then there naturally will be suspicions. The public obviously do not know the detail of what was considered, but would be right to demand further information. Is it right that Judges investigate themselves and then publish the report? These Judges could even be friends.
Ministry of Justice and Child Protection Policy
Also worrying is that the Ministry of Justice does not have any child protection policy [11c]
Can you email me the Child Protection Policy of the Ministry of Justice?”
The MoJ adheres to the requirements of the Children’s Acts 1989 and 2004. To establish whether the information was held I conducted a thorough search, and made enquires within Judicial Office as well as Civil and Family Justice Policy areas. It may help if I clarify that the information being requested is not held by MoJ because there is no legal or business requirement for MoJ to do so. There is no MoJ wide Child Protection Policy each business area would consider the need for a specific policy given the context of the work which that area carries out. The work of the MoJ is vast and diverse and as such one policy would not necessarily encompass the entirety of its business sufficiently and different areas of the MoJ have policies designed to address their unique needs.
Judges and Blackmail
If a Judge was a paedophile supporter it would be quite within the bounds of possibility, in fact the very MO of the “security” services that the judge was blackmailed by the deep state, the secret services. He could be put into positions of power to do the bidding of those very services. Indeed the secret services are often accused of running the child abuse networks for this very purpose.
Lord Justice Fulford, is now a Lord Justice of Appeal and as of 1 January 2016, is the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales. He was also appointed as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner for a 3-year term on 3 March 2017[10]
Fulford’s job is to “authorise and oversee the use of snooping powers by public authorities” [12].
Some people may still be worried that he is “authorising and overseeing” authorities who could have control over him by blackmail.
Some may be worried that as Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, Sir Adrian Fulford has not been publicly exonerated of being free of any sinister influence over him in the public positions he holds.
Is it right that a Judicial Report about the links to paedophile and child abusing groups, of a man who is Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, is kept secret?
Shame on the murky Judicial Conduct Investigations Office and MOJ.
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office – a body that is supposed to investigate complaints into the judiciary.
Is that not extra reason for justice to be seen to be done?
Is that not extra reason to be transparent?
Is it the same old story that power breeds arrogance?
Is it the illusion of justice that is being propagandised to the people?
Are the judiciary being blackmailed by the deep state?
How do we know that the following is not the true scenario?
Brian had a couple of chats with his friend Adrian, perhaps at the urinals down at the club. Adrian replied. Brian told John and Chris who were in the bar, that there was nothing to it. Squeaky clean old boy, squeaky clean. It was all dressed up as legit, titles added, committee names, hyperbole, as per, so on and so forth. Jobs a good un.
John, Chris, Brian and Adrian all know Andy. Its in the interest of national security, after all.
Apparently so is raping children….
If its not, then the Report of the Inquiry into Sir Adrian Fulford must be published.
Keith Harding was given the Freedom of the City of London and made a member of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.
He moved to Gloucester in 1987 after PIE disbanded, setting up Keith Harding’s World of Mechanical Music, a museum in Northleach, near Cheltenham.
He was exposed as a member of PIE last November when footage emerged of him appearing alongside Jimmy Savile on a Christmas special of Jim’ll Fix It.
It later transpired that he had been convicted of indecent assault against four children aged eight and nine in 1958 when he was a teacher.
He apparently confessed to a friend he had the list of names kept in a safe.
One of his staff, who worked for him between 1980 and 1987, said: “Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith were both regular visitors to the shop.Usually they would come in via the side door, other times they would ring the bell at the front entrance and come in. “They’d straight away ask for Keith who would be coming down the stairs.“Then they would then either go up to his office for a private meeting or they’d go out for several hours.” The former worker added: “The shop had many high profile customers, including the Royals, because we were one of the few antique dealers in the world that specialised in restoring clocks, music boxes and automatons. “It’s only now, with what I know about Brittan and Smith, and of course Keith, that has made me wonder what they were doing. Jeremy Thorpe too was an occasional visitor.” link
Stuart Hall is known for his eccentricity and is a collector of antique clocks
The former worker added: “The shop had many high profile customers, including the Royals, because we were one of the few antique dealers in the world that specialised in restoring clocks, music boxes and automatons.
Convicted paedophile Stuart Hall would most likely have known Keith Harding??
The Chairman of PIE told the Daily Mirror: “There would be no penalty for a paedophile having sex with a child under three years old. But he would probably be prevented from it by a system of injunctions which we would like to see brought in.”
Readers’ responses to Gay News editorial ‘The PIE Affair’ in Gay News No 127 [22 Sept – 5 October 1977]
‘Over-Dramatised Report’ from Graham Wilkinson, Hove, Essex [CHE’s organiser of the Nottingham Conference which caused controversy over Dr Brongersma delivering a speech and a workshop scheduled to discuss Paedophilia]
‘Smug, Self-Righteous’ from Charles Napier, Treasurer of PIE
‘False Sentiment’ from Patrick Wilson, Kent is concerned about PIE’s exploitative lack of regard for the inequality of infancy in adult-child sexual “relationships”
‘Back Stabbing’ from Keith Hose, ex-Chairman on behalf of PIE
‘Straight Paper’ from Terry Waller, N4
‘In Perspective’ from Ian Harvey, W2
‘Lack of Sympathy’ from Tony Deane, N4
‘Nothing Sacrosanct’ from Micky Burbidge, N19 [co-drafter of PIE’s submission to the Criminal Law Reform Committee alongside Keith Hose, Chairman]
‘Slippery Slope’ from Julian Carter, Dorset – a lone voice “Whatever next for CHE – necrophilia perhaps?”
40YearsAgo:Two masterminds of #PIE, Peter Righton & Micky Burbidge, convene the Joint Council for Gay Teenagers (JCGT) upstairs at Grapevine, 296 Holloway Road. Righton & Burbidge want to create an umbrella organisation to gain dominion over grassroots gay youth groups
Dr Richard Barker@swrb1
Peter Righton has since died. His partner, Richard Alston, who lived with him at Thornham Magna, has since been convicted and imprisoned for sexual offences against children.
Righton was PIE’s bridge between the far left (Micky Burbidge) & the far right (Ian Greer)
Why did Peter Righton hide out in Thornham Magna @ Islington Suffolk Project?
Cassandra Cogno@CassandraCogno
If Lord Henniker was such a philanthropist why was he taking money off islingtonBC for Islington Suffolk Project? Also as @ian_pace noted Richard Alston thanks Islington resident & PIE lobbyist Micky Burbidge in the foreword of Sir Colin Davis bio
Secret service infiltrated paedophile group to ‘blackmail establishment’
2014
BRITISH security services infiltrated and funded the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange in a covert operation to identify and possibly blackmail establishment figures, a Home Office whistleblower alleges.
The former civil servant has told detectives investigating the activities of paedophiles in national politics that the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch was orchestrating the child-sex lobbying group in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
It emerged late last year that PIE was twice gave amounts of £35,000 in Home Office funding between 1977 and 1980, the £70,000 total equivalent to over £400,000 in today’s money.
Until now, speculation about the grant has centred on Clifford Hindley, the late Home Office manager who approved the payments. However, the whistleblower told the Sunday Express he thought higher and more sinister powers were at play.
He has given a formal statement to that effect to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, which is looking into allegations of historic sex abuse at the Elm Guest House in south-west London.
PIE, now considered one of the most notorious groups of the era, had gained respectability in political circles. Its members are said to have included establishment figures, and disgraced Liberal MP Cyril Smith was a friend of founder member Peter Righton.
In 1981, Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens used Parliamentary privilege to name Sir Peter Hayman, the deputy director of MI6, as a member of PIE and an active paedophile. In 1983 Mr Dickens gave the Home Office a dossier of what he claimed was evidence of a paedophile network of “big, big names, people in positions of power, influence and responsibility”. The Home Office says the dossier no longer exists.
Whistleblower Mr X, whose identity we have agreed to protect, became a very senior figure in local government before retiring a few years ago. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was a full-time consultant in the Home Office’s Voluntary Services Unit run by Clifford Hindley.
In 1979 Mr X was asked to examine a funding renewal application for PIE, but he became concerned because the organisation’s goal of seeking to abolish the age of consent “conflicted” with the child protection policies of the Department of Health and Social Security and asked for a meeting with Mr Hindley, his immediate boss.
Mr X recalled: “I raised my concerns, but he told me that I was to drop them. Hindley gave three reasons for this. He said PIE was an organisation with cachet and that its work in this field was respected.
“He said this was a renewal of an existing grant and that under normal Home Office practice a consultant such as myself would not be involved in the decision-making process.
“And he said PIE was being funded at the request of Special Branch which found it politically useful to identify people who were paedophiles. This led me not to pursue my objections. At that time, questioning anything to do with Special Branch, especially within the Home Office, was a ‘no-no’.
“I was under the clear belief that I was being instructed to back off and that his reference to Special Branch was expected to make me to do so.
“Hindley didn’t give me an explicit explanation of what Special Branch would do with information it gleaned from funding PIE, but I formed the belief that it was part of an undercover operation or activity. I was aware a lot of people in the civil service or political arena had an interest in obtaining information like that which could be used as a sort of blackmail.”
He said he asked for a file the Home Office kept on PIE, but his request was refused. However, he was certain then Tory Home Office Minister Tim Raison, who died in 2011, must have signed the 1980 funding application.
Mr X has given a formal written statement to the inquiry set up last year into former Home Office links with PIE but has refused to meet the inquiry in person because he fears “repercussions” under the Official Secrets Act.
U DCL/858/4 File. Paedophile Information Exchange Aug 1977 – Feb 1978
View U DCL/858/3 File. Paedophile Information Exchange 1978 – 1987
View U DCL/688/11 File. Heterosexual sex under age: PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) Trial 1980 – 1981
Two trusts which receive grants from Government funds are supporting the Paedophile Information Exchange – the group which wants to legalise sex between adults and children -an MP claimed in the Commons yesterday
Sir Bernard Braine (C, SE Essex) said he had evidence that both the Albany Trust and the Princedale Trust gave encouragement and publicity to PIE.
Home Office Minister of State, Mr Brynmor John, told Sir Bernard that the Voluntary Services Unit had paid £43,625 to the Albany Trust and £86,000 to the Princedale Trust since 1974.
A final grant of over 3,000 was still due to Albany and the Education Department was giving it £5,717 in 1976/77.
Later, Mr John told Mr Alan Clark (C, Sutton) that he was still examining information on child pornography. On the legal side there were difficulties…He was having discussions with Mr Cyril Townsend (C, Bexleyheath), who has a Private Members Bill on the subject.
Antony Grey: The Trust’s involvement with this group occurred after its then chairman, Harold Haywood, OBE; and I attended a workshop on Sexual Minorities organised by MIND (the National Association for Mental Health) some two years ago (1975)…
Mr Haywood suggested to me that the Trust …should convene a meeting of psychiatrists, social workers, probation officers, and other interested in the problem, and also ask some paedophiles to come along and put their points of view.
In Lambeth paedophile Michael John Carroll was supported in their fostering efforts – maybe west Germany’s “experiment” not so rare?
DSAP & a French group were only 2 foreign p’phile groups to pledge support to PIE in 1980 at 2nd international gay association Barcelona
With passports handed in PIE five defendants awaiting trial on bail couldn’t attend IGA so it was up to N19’s Fallen Angel Collective to
Represent British paedophiles though they later fell out bcse FAC thought o Carrolls book was not radical enough
One of the Fallen Angels lived with Barry prothero the NCCL gay rights officer after Nettie Pollard PIE member
In some socialist circles in N19 there would be no revolution without children’s liberation & their right to have sex with adults
Westminster paedophiles: Bulic Forsythe, when PIE went gay and the death of scepticism
Operation Cayacos: investigating allegations of a paedophile ring linked to dead convicted paedophile Peter Righton – a founding member of the Paedophile Information Exchange. PIE suggested that, as homosexuals had become “gays”, paedophiles should be called “kind persons”. It wasn’t rape, they argued. It was just sexual freedom. PIE members – which numbers around 450 at it speak – were keen to be seen as an oppressed group, like homosexuals.
PIE got a good write up in Community Care, the social workers’ trade paper. A four-page article in 1977 mused “Should we pity the paedophiles?”
Paedophilia in Academia: Dr Ken Plummer, University of Essex
The German Green Party recently apologised for their part in promoting paedophilia. Read more The Green’s co-leader, Jurgen Trittin, was accused of signing off a 1981 pamphlet calling for the decriminalisation of sexual acts between adults and children “that occur without the use of threat or force”. People who promote paedophilia may not be paedophiles themselves, but they provide paedophiles with the intellectual justification to perpetrate crimes against children.
In the UK it is a crime to incite racial hatred – why doesn’t a similar law apply for inciting sexual crimes against children?
Dr. Ken Plummer has been associated with the University of Essex since 1975, and was once Head of the Sociology Department. In his biography he states that his main interests “have always been in the development of a humanistic method and theory to help towards a better social world where there will be less socially produced suffering”. University of Essex website
It could be said that he has done the opposite – he has helped create more suffering by promoting paedophilia and providing ‘academic’ opinions which support the views of those who sexually abuse children. In fact he openly admits his intentions:
By applying sociology to the field of paedophilia we may partially relativise it, humanise it, normalise it, and politicise it. (1)
Ken Plummer attempted to redefine the language surrounding child sexual abuse. In his world, child victims are ‘partners’, sexual abuse is ‘consensual’, a child being sexually abused by an adult is ‘a relationship’, and long term effects of sexual abuse are mostly ‘a myth’.
…there is the stereotype that the child is “innocent”, “uninvolved” and “non-participating”: this can be so (notably in rape cases) but this is usually not the case with paedophilia. (2)
A sixth stereotype suggests that the consequences to the child of paedophilia are devastating. They can be, but frequently they are not. This is a complex issue and three crucial distinctions must be made here; the first requires distinguishing between experiences that are consensual (paedophilia) and those that are not (child rape)… (3)
His language is very similar in tone to that of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), an organisation that campaigned for the age of consent to be reduced to 4 years old, effectively legalising paedophilia. This might not be a coincidence, as it has been said that Ken Plummer was member no. 236 of PIE, and regularly corresponded with other members of PIE, including Peter Righton.
Righton was a highly respected child care expert who had helped create a network of paedophile academics and intellectuals that preyed on children in schools and children’s homes across the UK. BBC Inside Story: The Secret Life of a Paedophile
Plummer and Righton both contributed to a book called Perspectives on Paedophilia. The book was a supposedly objective look at paedophilia, and was designed to be used on social work training courses. If Plummer was a member of PIE at the time, or was supportive of their views, he should have declared this interest and therefore his lack of objectivity.
He refers to paedophiles sexual abusing children under 6 years old as ‘a relationship’, and uses inverted commas around the word ‘victim’:
But again, studies suggest that relationships with children under 6 are rare – and that relationships with early adolescents are the most common. (4)
A second group of assumptions highlights the nature of childhood and “child victims”. (5)
Plummer concedes the shortcomings of research of the subject of paedophilia, but is still happy to cite outdated studies if they can be used to support the sexual abuse of children.
While there is little scientific research in this field – and what exists usually depends upon biased psychiatric and prison samples… (6)
He uses this inadequate ‘research’ to undermine the fact that sexual abuse causes devastating harm to the child, and instead lays the blame for any harm with parents, the police, and the courts:
A further image concerns the impact of paedophilia on the child: in the short run, the child is traumatized; and in the long run, seriously damaged. Perhaps surprisingly, the evidence does not support this. In the short run, studies suggest that children’s problems often flow from the reactions of parents who respond to the event with such horror that it elevates the significance of the experience in the child’s eye. The significance can be compounded by police and court action. In the long run, the “victims” are generally shown to lead “normal” lives. In Gagnon’s sample of 333 “victims”, only 5 percent had damaged adult lives – but even “damage” could have had diverse origins. (7)
Plummer goes on to deny that paedophiles are usually interested in sex with children, that it is forced upon the child, and that it is exploitative. Note his use of ‘quotes’ from members of the public in a blatant attempt to demonstrate how uneducated and vulgar the opponents of paedophilia are.
Three further ‘myths’ focus upon the kinds of relationship between paedophile and child. It is usually seen as a coital relationship (interestingly, the press convert “paedophilia” (literally “love of children”) into “child-sex”, so people could remark: “They’re after fucking little kids, ain’t they”); as a forced relationship (“It’s an open door to rape”; “If you’ve got a little child 4 years old and you think one of these bastards is gonna rape the child, and it’s gonna be legal…”); and as an exploitative one. (8)
Despite his admission about the shortcomings of research on paedophilia, Plummer cites an obscure 1964 study by Mohr to challenge the idea that paedophiles use force and to lay blame on the child for inviting the abuse:
Indeed, in some cases the child can be seen as “inviting” the relationship, and – according to Mohr – “most children could have avoided the experience if they wanted to”. The Kinsey study also noted: “In our total of 18,000 interviews, no man or woman reported being victimised by a child.” (9) See also Kinsey’s Paedophiles
Plummer also frequently cites Mohr in ‘Constructing a Sociological Baseline’ to peddle the lie that victims of child abuse are ‘willing partners’:
A third stereotype suggests that the sex act is forced on the child and is uncontrolled. It is not. Again Mohr (1968)…observes that paedophilia occurs in part with the cooperation of the child either out of sexual curiosity or out of emotional need. It is comparatively rare that the sex act is forced upon the child. (10)
Plummer refers to “many case histories” which he claims prove that “children have been greatly assisted in their development” by being sexually abused by an adult (11), and denies that the abused child is exploited by the adult:
It is difficult, then, within a paedophile relationship to be very clear about the balance of power. Certainly if one just studies existing relationships, the power balance can be very ambiguous – for maybe as Tom O’Carroll suggests “Power in a consensual relationship resides with the party that needs the relationship less”, and very often that is the child. Sometimes, then, it is possible for the child to “exploit” the adult – financially and emotionally. (12)
Please note that Tom O’Carroll was Chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange and in 2006 was convicted for distributing a collection of 50,000 images of child abuse. He was arrested after undercover police infiltrated a group known as the International Paedophile Child Emancipation Group and its subsidiary, Gentlemen with an Interesting Name.“According to police O’Carroll saw the groups as a base for an “international secret society” of “academic” child abusers…Children, mainly boys and some as young as six, had been filmed and photographed being raped and tortured.” BBC News
In University contracts there is usually a clause about ‘not bringing the University into any disrepute’.
The University also has a duty of care to the students.
It is time that the University of Essex’s Vice Chancellor and Governors addressed these issues with Dr Plummer who should surely, like the German Green Party, be asked to apologise for the pro-paedophile views he expressed so forcefully in the above writings.
The essays quoted above are dated and it’s possible that Dr Plummer may have altered his views since then, as there is much more academic material available now, as well as many first hand accounts from survivors which explain the hugely damaging long term effects of child sexual abuse.
Questions for the Vice Chancellor of University of Essex
– Do you understand that Dr Plummer’s views as expressed in the above texts could be said to bring the University into disrepute?
– If thse same views have been presented to students at your University through Dr Plummer’s teaching and writing, do you consider that this has demonstrated a breach of the University’s duty of care towards its students?
– Will you facilitate Dr Plummer in making a formal apology to victims and survivors of child sexual crime for the views he expressed in his writings as cited above?
– Will you provide a statement that Dr Plummer’s teaching, writing and research does not in any way currently promote pro-paedophile perspectives?
– I will publish the Vice Chancellor’s response on this website.
Questions for Dr Ken Plummer
– Do you still hold the same views on paedophilia that are expressed in your essays Paedophilia: Constructing a Sociological Baseline and Images of Paedophilia?
– If you do still hold these views, does your teaching reflect these views?
– If your views have changed, have you written anything which clarifies your position? I’ll happily publish it on this blog.
– If you do still hold these views, what do you say to child victims and survivors who may have been abused by those students influenced by your teachings? I’ll happily publish an apology on this website to the victims, survivors and students.
References
(1) p.244, Paedophilia: Constructing a Sociological Baseline by Kenneth Plummer, from Adult Sexual Interest in Children, edited by Mark Cook and Kevin Howells, University Press, 1981
(2) p.226, Paedophilia: Constructing a Sociological Baseline by Kenneth Plummer, from Adult Sexual Interest in Children, edited by Mark Cook and Kevin Howells, University Press, 1981
(3) p.226, Paedophilia: Constructing a Sociological Baseline by Kenneth Plummer, from Adult Sexual Interest in Children, edited by Mark Cook and Kevin Howells, University Press, 1981
(4) p.539, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(5) p.538, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(6) p.537, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(7) p.539, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(8) p.539, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(9) p.539, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(10) p.225, Paedophilia: Constructing a Sociological Baseline by Kenneth Plummer, from Adult Sexual Interest in Children, edited by Mark Cook and Kevin Howells, University Press, 1981
(11) p.539, Images of Paedophilia by Ken Plummer, from Love and Attraction: An International Conference, edited by Mark Cook and Glenn Wilson, Pergamon Press, 1979
(12) p.243, Paedophilia: Constructing a Sociological Baseline by Kenneth Plummer, from Adult Sexual Interest in Children, edited by Mark Cook and Kevin Howells, University Press, 1981
From Ken Plummer, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Essex
Amiable Warriors is a magnificent achievement. Peter Scott-Presland has given us a wonderful gift that future generations can cherish. In this richly documented, meticulously crafted and beautifully written study we are shown the earliest days of struggles to bring about a more human world. I look forward to more volumes to come. …
From Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
If you want to understand how we won LGBTI law reform in the UK, read this history of the pioneering Campaign for Homosexual Equality – and remember with pride the CHE campaigners who trailblazed the equal rights we now enjoy.
1966-1970: coming out as gay, starting a PhD on gay life in London at the LSE, starting teaching at a soon-to-be Poly (Middlesex), and becoming a sociologist and a member of the National Deviancy Conference. I was not directly involved in the student politics of 1968, but was involved in gay reformism (at the Albany Trust) and then in 1970 with the LSE based Gay Liberation Front.
Post #1103 mentions 1968 Albany Trust Ken Plummer! #Uni of Essex
“Paedophiles are told they are the seducers and rapists of children; they know their experiences are often loving and tender ones. They are told that children are pure and innocent, devoid of sexuality; they know both from their own experiences of childhood and from the children they meet that this is not the case.”
As recently as 2012, Prof Plummer published on his personal blog a chapter he wrote in another book, Male Intergenerational Intimacy, in 1991. “As homosexuality has become slightly less open to sustained moral panic, the new pariah of ‘child molester’ has become the latest folk devil,” he wrote. “Many adult paedophiles say that boys actively seek out sex partners … ‘childhood’ itself is not a biological given but an historically produced social object.”
Prof Plummer confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that he had been a member of PIE in order to “facilitate” his research.
Library set up tribute to paedophile campaigner Ian Dunn
Bosses at the National Library of Scotland have removed an exhibit which paid tribute to a late gay rights campaigner after it was revealed he was a co-founder of a notorious child abuse network.
A small display in a reading room at the academic centre in Edinburgh hailed Ian Dunn as a champion of LGBT rights – but failed to mention he was also involved in establishing the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
Dunn, who died in 1998, has been widely named as an influential member of a national campaign that called for the legalisation of sex between adults and children. PIE was disbanded in 1984 after a series of newspaper exposures, with many of its leading activists subsequently jailed.
Staff at the library hurriedly removed the tribute to Dunn yesterday after being alerted to his past by The Times newspaper. A spokeswoman said the exhibit had been installed by a staff member in good faith in late 2018, with no complaints being registered. A single tweet sent to the library in November by a member of the public, which expressed concern about its appropriateness, was missed.
Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells said: “No-one wants to see regular interference from politicians when it comes to archives and artefacts. “But displaying these items which are so blatantly tainted by someone with links to a group promoting paedophilia is a misjudgement. “It will be disturbing and upsetting to anyone who’s been a victim of paedophilia, and I hope this decision is revisited.”
Dunn worked as a local authority town planner in Edinburgh and helped run the Lavender Menace bookshop in Forth Street in the 1980s. His links to PIE have been well-documented. Last year, the BBC faced criticism for uploading a 1976 documentary on gay rights in Scotland to its website as Dunn was listed as one of the programme’s presenters.
Newspapers were reporting Dunn’s links to paedophilia as far back as 1984. A Sunday Mail report from the time alleged he “allows his flat to be used as the main contact address for Britain and the whole of Europe for paedophiles”.
A library spokeswoman said: “Material from Dunn’s archive was unfortunately selected for a small display relating to gay rights in one of our reading rooms. “Small displays such as these are not routinely subject to the same level of curatorial scrutiny as our larger displays or exhibitions. We have since been extremely concerned to learn of Dunn’s wider history and immediately removed the display and any associated promotional activity.”
Peter Tatchell was a leading member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) but never knew or met any GLF members that where paedophiles like John David Stamford ?
Nettie Pollard was NCCL’s Gay & Lesbian Officer, and chaired the NCCL’s gay rights committee, which included Paedophile Information Exchange leader Tom O’Carroll. She was responsible for inviting PIE to affiliate with NCCL in 1975.
Nettie Pollard was member number 70 of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Pollard played a leading role in the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, who voted to support PIE at their 1975 conference, and defended PIE’s “right to speak and organise freely” at their 1983 conference.
In 1993 she wrote an essay called ‘The Small Matter of Children’, which begins by talking of “children’s rights” but then gives the game away by quoting speeches given to American paedophile group NAMBLA, and a book called Betrayal of Youth, which was edited by PIE member Warren Middleton aka John Parratt. It also peddles the lie that child rape can be ‘consensual’, talks of ‘mutual sexual pleasure’ and…
PIE’s first journal Understanding Paedophilia, the predecessor of Magpie.
The Blog of Ian Pace, pianist, musicologist, political animal. A place for thoughts, reflections, links, both trivial and not so trivial. Main website is at http://www.ianpace.com . Contact e-mail ian@ianpace.com.
Nettie Pollard was NCCL’s Gay & Lesbian Officer, and chaired the NCCL’s gay rights committee, which included Paedophile Information Exchange leader Tom O’Carroll. She was responsible for inviting PIE to affiliate with NCCL in 1975.
Nettie Pollard was member number 70 of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Pollard played a leading role in the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, who voted to support PIE at their 1975 conference, and defended PIE’s “right to speak and organise freely” at their 1983 conference.
In 1993 she wrote an essay called ‘The Small Matter of Children’, which begins by talking of “children’s rights” but then gives the game away by quoting speeches given to American paedophile group NAMBLA, and a book called Betrayal of Youth, which was edited by PIE member Warren Middleton aka John Parratt. It also peddles the lie that child rape can be ‘consensual’, talks of ‘mutual sexual pleasure’ and…
An Islington Gazette cutting from November 1983 shows that former Islington Council leader Margaret Hodge signed a petition to ban the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), an organisation that wanted to lower the age of consent to 4 years old.
Mrs Hodge’s anti-paedophile stance must have been the cause of constant arguments, since her husband, Henry Hodge, and her close friends Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey, were all senior officials of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which was affiliated to the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Although Margaret Hodge was well aware of PIE’s activities, she says she was unaware that paedophiles wanted to work with children. During her time as leader (1982-1992), every one of Islington’s children’s homes was infiltrated by paedophiles.
She recently tried to explain her total failure to protect children in care from paedophile rings, prostitution, and trafficking by saying “All that happened when we didn’t really…
Posted: April 7, 2014| Author:Ian Pace|Filed under:Abuse, NCCL, PIE | Tags:criminal law revision committee, national council for civil liberties, nccl, paedophile information exchange, pie|6 CommentsBelow is the text of all sections of Sexual Offences: Evidence to the Criminal Law Revision Committee. NCCL Report no. 13 (February 1976, revised edition March 1976) which are relevant to issues concerning PIE, to whom they had become affiliated by this time. Some of this has been quoted in various newspaper articles, but the complete text should make clear the extent to which NCCL’s recommendations were being influenced by PIE-style thinking (though some of it is perfectly reasonable). I will provide proper commentary, together with other NCCL-related information, at a later date.
Differences between the February and March 1976 versions of the report, both of which I have looked at, are tiny and cosmetic.
Introduction to the second edition
The publication of NCCL’s evidence on the law relating to sexual offences has caused considerable controversy. Unfortunately, the publicity given to the proposals to lower the ages of consent did not generally make clear the distinction which we made between an area of private morality, where the individual may make his or her own choice, and the area where the criminal law should intervene. Some commentators preferred to assert the innocence of ‘childhood’, ignoring the fact that a number of people below the age of 16 do choose to have sexual intercourse. Others defended the existing law on heterosexual activity on the ground that the law is a defence of the girl who wishes to say ‘no’. There is no evidence to suggest that the existing law does protect girls who wish to avoid intercourse: NCCL’s case is that such protection, if it does exist, should not be given at the expense of making criminal sexual activity between partners who consent.
Timely illustration of how objectionable the use of the criminal law is in this area was given this month when Justice Melford Stevenson criticised the police for charging an 18-year-old man with unlawful sexual intercourse with his 15-year-old girlfriend – whose consent, according to the judge, was not in doubt. The law is, of course, very rarely enforced, and it is not clear whether those who uphold its existence wish to see such prosecutions brought more frequently.
There has been considerable criticism of NCCL’s proposals on the ages of consent some based on a misunderstanding of our reasoning. But the proposals have also attracted support from those who share our conviction that the criminal law should not interfere with private, consenting sexual activity, and from a number of young people, and those working with them, who welcome the recognition that they are capable of making their own choice. This report has already stimulated public discussion about major issues of law and morality, and we welcome continuing debate on the proposals which we have made.
March 1976
Introduction
One of the most empty opinions frequently given about our society is that it is a ‘permissive society’. The term is rarely defined. It is true that certain barriers to sexual activity have been lowered, but the high threshold of guilt that affects many people often distorts relationships and behaviour and makes quite legitimate sexual freedoms beyond the reach of many people. The law still operates harshly to discourage certain sexual activities, even where no harm to others is identifiable. It would be equally true to say, as Anthony Grey of the Sexual Law Reform Society recently did, that ours is a repressive society. It is quite usual for advocates of any sexual freedom to be regarded as if they were calling for sexual licence. The test of any freedom – and there is no reason to exclude sexuality from this rule – is its effect on the legitimate freedoms of others.
Although in the past it was accepted that ecclesiastical laws and, subsequently, civil laws could properly enforce a moral code, in more recent times the feeling has been growing that Acts of Parliament should not, and cannot, control the moral side of our lives. It was put forcibly in a perspicacious sentence of the Wolfenden Report (1957) : ‘Unless a deliberate attempt is to be made by society, acting through the agency of the law, to equate the sphere of crime with that of sin, there must remain a realm of private morality and immorality which is, in brief and crude terms, not the law’s business.
The NCCL believes that the main function of the law on sexual behaviour should be protection; the only reason for making a sexual activity illegal is because it may result in other people being harmed. This rules out all laws concerned solely with morality. It also rules out paternalistic laws which attempt to stop an individual from harming himself; it is quite difficult in reality, to harm oneself by having too much sex.
There are, in NCCL’s opinion, two areas where a protective law may properly restrict sexual behaviour:
i) Where one or more parties to a sexual act have not consented;
ii) Where sexual behaviour results in demonstrable suffering or offence to other people.
Age of Consent
True consent has not been obtained unless all the participants have freely entered into the activity. The law must prevent individuals from forcing their attentions upon others by using violence, threats, fraud, blackmail or other improper pressures, such as taking unfair advantage of those under one’s authority or those who are handicapped in some way. Most people would agree that the law must intervene in such circumstances. The problem of consent becomes controversial when one has to decide at what age a child is responsible for his/her actions and is therefore capable of giving consent.
Many people hold strong opinions about the age of consent, but there is very little real evidence that can be used to support any one particular age. It is possible to use very similar arguments to support the age of 12, 13, 14, or 15. The choice of any particular age is quite arbitrary; this may seem inevitable to lawmakers, but one should not forget that this appears ridiculous to young people who are told sexual intercourse is illegal one day and legal the following day.
Some doctors support the present age of consent in the belief that the cervix is more liable to damage by sexual intercourse at 14 than at 16 but this is disputed by other medical experts and the evidence either way is far from convincing. The main arguments in favour of a high age of consent are psychological and emotional. It is said that adolescents may be physically capable of exercising their sexuality, but they are not mentally prepared for this experience. People who put forward this argument are really thinking about emotional commitments more than physical acts, but there is no law that can, or should, control romantic attachments.
It is also said that adolescents cannot have a very realistic idea of the possible consequences of their sexual activities and that giving expression to their desires could lead to a pregnancy with unfortunate consequences for the offspring, as well as for the adolescents, their parents and the community. Against this it can be argued that there are now fairly efficient ways of avoiding an unwanted pregnancy, if adolescents can be persuaded to make use of them. But many of these young people, who need contraceptives and advice about sexual matters, may be reluctant to ask for help when they know that they are breaking the law by engaging in sexual activities below the age of consent. Counsellors, doctors and others who wish to help adolescents are also put in an awkward position because in theory, at least, they are aiding and abetting an offence. Furthermore, the law making heterosexual sexual intercourse illegal under 16 is often broken and rarely enforced. (This argument, about prevention of pregnancy, does not of course apply to sexual activity between persons of the same sex.)
The law also takes no account of the fact that the age of puberty is much lower now than when it was decided to make 16 the age of consent. There is no real biological justification for any particular age. Less than a hundred years ago, the age of consent was 13. It was changed in 1885 following a scandal concerning child prostitution. Most girls have reached puberty by the age of 12 and most boys intend to have early sexual experience, whatever the law may be. Contemporary psychological research has shown that children have sexual feelings and desires from a very early age. As the age of puberty covers a wide range, any age of consent will be too high for some and too low for others. In any case, it is not sensible to choose one age when suddenly boys and girls are permitted to engage in heterosexual activities without fear of legal sanction. The ability of teenagers to make suitable judgements and control their impulses depends upon upbringing and education, not upon the law of the land.
The severity of the present laws affects relationships that cross the age of consent even when they are, in the ordinary sense, mutual. In the public mind, the legal term ‘assault’ that is applied in these cases probably suggests brief, violent encounters. In fact, the law, as well as prohibiting such undesirable sexual acts, may bring to a crushing end caring and mutual relationships of long standing, and some where the partners are close in age. Although in these cases, the ‘harm’ that the law is meant to discourage evades scientific discovery. The harm that flows from the law’s operation is all too evident.
Although it is both logical, and consistent with modern knowledge about child development, to suggest that the age of consent should be abolished, we fear that, given the present state of public attitudes on this topic, it will not be politically possible to abolish the age of consent. Accordingly, we propose a series of ages of consent, which would have the effect of reducing the harmful effects of the present laws.
i) A person aged 14 or over should be legally capable of giving consent.
ii) A person aged under 10 should be presumed legally incapable of giving consent.
iii) Where both partners are aged 10 or over, but under 14, a consenting sexual act should not be an offence.
iv) Where one partner is aged 10 or over, but under 14, the law should presume that consent was not present, unless it is demonstrated that it was genuinely given and the child understood the nature of the act.
v) As the age of consent is arbitrary, we propose an overlap of two years on either side of 14, so that, where the participants are aged 12 or over, but under 16, a consenting sexual act will not be an offence.
vi) The exception provided in S 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 should be retained, with the amendment that a person be not guilty of unlawful sexual acts with a child under 14 if he is under the age of 21 (not 24, as at present), has not previously been charged with alike offence, and reasonably believes the other person to be aged 14 or over.
We are particularly concerned that the present review of the law should not introduce new restrictions where none exist at present. The ages of consent would therefore continue to apply only to girls participating in heterosexual acts, and to boys participating in homosexual acts.
[….]
Homosexuality
In the second paragraph of this memorandum, the blunt words of the Wolfenden Committee were quoted to support the proposition that people’s private morality is not the business of the law. That statement was made in that part of the Wolfenden Report which was specifically concerned with homosexuality. There is no logical or sensible reason why homosexuality should be treated differently by the law from heterosexuality. But the law discriminates against homosexuals – and mainly male homosexuals – in the following ways:
i) Homosexual acts between consenting adults in private, which became lawful in England and Wales after the Sexual Offences Act 1967, are still illegal in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
ii) Homosexual acts are still illegal in the Armed Forces and aboard UK Merchant ships.
iii) The age of consent for female heterosexuals is 16, but for male homosexuals is 21.
iv) The penalty for indecent assault on a male is a maximum of ten years, but the maximum for indecent assault on a female is two years.
v) It is illegal for a man aged over 21, to have sexual relationships with a man under 21, even in the reasonable belief that the younger man was over 21 and when the two men were close in age.
vi) The definition of privacy is more restrictive for homosexual acts.
vii) It remains an offence for a third party to procure a homosexual act, even though such an act is now quite legal. (This especially includes the publication of contact advertisements).
viii) It is an offence for a man persistently to solicit another man for an immoral purpose, but not for a man persistently to solicit a woman.
ix) Local bye-laws are used against homosexuals in a way that they are never used against heterosexuals.
These anomalies cannot be justified. Most of them were compromises made to facilitate the passing of the 1967 Act. It might have seemed to be good tactics at the time, but there is no logical reason for discrimination between these two forms of sexual behaviour.
At the very least, the same laws on sexual behaviour should apply throughout the United Kingdom. There should be no special prohibitions applying to the Armed Forces or the Merchant Navy. The definition of privacy should mean that a sexual act should not take place where it might be observed by others who might object. The age of consent should be the same for homosexuals and heterosexuals. The law on soliciting should be implemented without reference to the sex of the people concerned. No enactment of bye-law should prohibit conduct between persons of the same sex if it does not also prohibit similar conduct between people of the opposite sex. Penalties for sexual offences should be set at the same level for equivalent offences, whether they apply to male homosexual, or heterosexual offences.
Homosexual and Heterosexual Offences
It is not necessary to discriminate between homosexual and heterosexual behaviour in any of the laws regulating prostitution, brothel keeping, pornography, advertising for sexual partners, or in the application of any of the vague all-purpose common laws like conspiracy to corrupt public morals or breach of the peace.
We propose that the offences of buggery (S 12 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956) and assault with intent to commit buggery (S 16) be abolished. As the law [end p. 10] stands, a man and woman who have anal intercourse are both liable to a maximum term of life imprisonment, but the Sexual Offence Act 1967 allows a man over 21 to be lawfully penetrated and to penetrate another man over 21.
Importuning
Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 re-enacts an older law which was originally intended to catch prostitutes’ touts or bullies, but has been used almost exclusively against male homosexuals. Indeed a recent judgment in the Divisional Court (Cooke v Edmondson, 1966) held that S 32 cannot be used against a man who solicits a woman. The law which prohibits homosexual conduct has been reformed, but this law on importuning is still the cause of much injustice.
Although the use of the word ‘persistently’ in the original wording of the Act suggests that the intention as to protect members of the public from interference or annoyance, the interpretation by the courts means that in practice the world of a plain-clothes policeman is usually accepted by the magistrate. In such a situation, it is not necessary to stress the possibility of exaggeration or perjury.
So fearful is the homosexual of the social repercussions that he can often be persuaded to plead guilty to lesser charges under a local bye-law on the promise from police of no publicity. A policeman is neither authorised to give such a promise, nor is he able to prevent publication of the proceedings in the press. It is not sufficient to argue that the penalties are comparatively light, for the ignominy that follows a conviction for importuning for homosexual purposes can still have a shattering effect on a man’s relationship with his family and friends, and on his circumstances at work.
As the law stands, it is not even necessary to show that someone has been annoyed or offended. The courts convict on police evidence alone, sometimes after doubtful means of entrapment have been used, such as an agent provocateur who incites a person to commit an offence. Someone who shows that s/he is available for sex by being in a certain place or by giving another person an enquiring look cannot be said to be acting in an offensive manner.
Soliciting only becomes annoying if it is directed towards the same person persistently and pressingly. The police should be required to produce the evidence of the person who has been persistently importuned. Consequently the law on soliciting should be amended to require that a person cannot be convicted of this offence unless it is proved that at least one member of the public (i.e. not a policeman) was offended by his or her conduct. It should also be a defence to show that the member of the public encouraged the soliciting.
As homosexual relations between consenting adults are no longer illegal, the existence of the offence of importuning or soliciting for an immoral purpose means that a person may be charged, convicted and punished for attempting acts which are not in themselves unlawful. All soliciting, from begging to high pressure salesmanship, can reach a stage when it becomes offensive, but it is doubtful if the public really requires extra protection when the soliciting is for sexual purposes.
Incest
For hundreds of years the crime of incest has given rise to such intense feelings of revulsion that public discussion on the subject has often been uninformed and irrational. The incest taboo is world wide and has a close connection with religious cults and magic. Recent researches (Maisch, 1973) cast some doubt on these historical and anthropological beliefs. The present day case against incest is firstly, that genetic damage may result in the offspring and secondly, that an incestuous union is disruptive to the cohesion of the family.
The first objection is strongly held, but recent studies on human reproduction do not give much support to this theory, and it is in direct contradiction to the practices of successful animal breeders. In any case, the advent of reliable contraceptives and safer abortion weakens this argument. As for the second objection, the evidence (Gebhard, 1965) suggests that families in which incest occurs between parent and child are often disturbed before it starts. To this extent, incest is not the cause but is one symptom of a disrupted family.
Although some of those charged with this crime are mentally or emotionally inadequate, this is not always the case, especially when the incestuous union is between brother and sister. In our view, no benefit accrues to anyone by making incest a crime when committed between mutually consenting persons over the age of consent. When force of threats are used, or when one of the partners is under the age of consent, the law on assault should come into operation.
We would therefore propose that the crime of incest be abolished. It may be argued, with some justification, that in cases of parent-child incest, undue pressure to consent could be placed on the child who is economically and emotionally dependent on the older party. This is just the sort of situation where bringing in the law could do immense harm to the child, the father and the rest of the family. A young person is far more likely to confide in a teacher, social worker or member of the family if this would not result in bringing down the full force of the law, with the possible outcome of the break up of the family with the father being sent to prison, the child having to appear in court and perhaps being put into care. There are many cases where the victim does not appear to suffer from any obvious psychological disturbance until after the case has come to court. It is often the publicity in the local press and the reaction of neighbours that is most damaging to the whole family.
Paedophilia
The strong emotions that surround the subject of paedophilia make it particularly difficult for justice to be done in such cases. Feelings of revulsion are often shown by parents, police, witnesses, magistrates and judges, and even by the lawyer briefed to defend the accused. In such circumstances, a wish for retribution can easily take precedence over a concern for the child’s welfare. Where the child was a willing partner in the sexual activity the strength of prejudice surrounding the case and the visible psychological effect on the defendant (who may have been a friend of the child) will be highly disturbing. Where the act involved force or was otherwise without consent, the need is to assist the child overcome the trauma, which may only be reinforced by legal proceedings.
Although clearly in the case of a genuine assault on a child, action has to be taken to protect other children from the offender, there is a growing feeling that the present legal system causes unnecessary suffering for the child victim of a sexual assault. In their report for the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, Gibbens and Prince make the point that isolated events are unlikely to have any profound effect on a child who would probably soon forget about their experience if it were not for the significance given to it by parental concern and legal proceedings. They point out that several children appear to be undisturbed at the time they are required to give evidence in court, but later have a breakdown and become increasingly unsettled. It is important to realise that in some cases the child will have felt coerced into giving evidence damaging to someone s/he was fond of, and will at the same time have had his/her feelings of sexual guilt raised to a high pitch.
The lay person is often unaware that an ‘indecent assault’ in law can be committed without violence or physical harm being done to the child. A man can be convicted of an indecent assault without there being any physical contact with the child’s genitals; thus, putting a hand on a child’s thighs can be an indecent assault. Virkkunen (1975) studied a group of 64 paedophiles and reported : ‘Aggressive behaviour was not as a rule a characteristic of these offenders: on the other hand they seemed to be in a pronounced manner gentle, fond of children and benevolent.’
Parents, police and lawyers find it hard to believe that the child may actively seek the sexual relationship. Bender and Blau (1937) report : ‘This study seems to indicate that these children undoubtedly do not deserve completely the cloak of innocence with which they have been endowed by moralists, social reformers and legislators . . . frequently we considered the possibility that the child might have been the actual seducer, rather than the one innocently seduced.’ Other researchers (Gibbens, Virkkunen) agree that the children often take the initiative; some of them have sexual experiences with several adults.
Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage. The Criminal Law revision Committee should be prepared to accept the evidence form follow-up research on child ‘victims’ which show that there is little subsequent effect after a child has been ‘molested’. Several researchers (Gagnon, 1965; Gibbens and Prince, 1963; Tolsma, 1957; Doshay, 1943) have shown that it is possible to exaggerate the damage done to the child. Bender and Grugett (1952) write: ‘Modern psychiatric follow-up studies of a sizeable series of individuals who as children had known these types of sexual experiences have not disclosed any directly adverse effect of the early incidents upon later social adjustments’. A large number of people (one researcher estimated it to be about one third of all children) have one or more pre-pubertal sexual experiences with an adult. So at least some of the readers of this report should ask themselves whether their early sexual activities with an adult have resulted in any unfortunate after-effects.
As many male paedophiles are attracted to boys, there is a fear that the boy who has sexual relations with an adult man will grow up to be a homosexual, but again there is no evidence for this. Rainer (1960) writes : ‘Homosexual seduction in itself was not found to determine homosexual behaviour, nor deter heterosexual behaviour’. Coon (1957) writes : ‘To assume categorically that these relationships are going to be traumatic for the boy is prejudgment of a type which certainly has no place in dynamic psychiatry’. The Speijer Report, recently produced by the Dutch Council of Health for the Ministers of Justice and of Social Affairs, concluded that homosexual experiences might benefit boys who later would live heterosexual lives, in the same way that young male homosexuals could only benefit form sexual experiments with both girls and women.
There is little doubt that a law court can be an alarming place for a child. During a trial on indictment the number of people present in court may be thirty or more, not including ordinary members of the public. A child is apt to be overwhelmed by the formality of the court. Although many of them will have seen court scenes on television, recognition of a familiar scene will be offset by the fear that their words may be twisted by a clever lawyer. The circumlocutions of lawyers can be confusing for a child, even when the lawyer is not directly challenging the child’s evidence. If the child has been a willing partner in the offence, s/he will know that retribution can be avoided by claiming to be an innocent victim – which is what parents and others will want and expect to hear. Furthermore, the child will be required to repeat the story to parents, police (sometimes more than once) and then in court, with the risk that the child’s memory may become faulty and that details may be elaborated.
It is important that courts dealing with paedophilia should arrange to have the child’s evidence given in court at second hand, unless this is unfair to the defendant. If the statement from the child is not disputed, it can be treated as evidence. Where the defence wants to cross-examine the child, a magistrate can see the child with one representative form either side, but following less formal procedures than in a courtroom.
This suggested change in the law is merely a palliative. The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all case of paedophilia result in lasting damage. The present legal penalties are too high and reinforce the misinformation and prejudice. The duty of the court should be to inquire into all the relevant circumstances with the intention, not of meting out severe punishment, but of determining the best solution in the interests of both child and paedophile.
[Texts referred to in the above]
Lauretta Bender and Abraham Blau, ‘The reaction of Children to Sexual Relations with Adults’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 7, 500-518, 1937.
Lauretta Bender and Alvin Eldridge Grugett, ‘A Follow-up report on Children who had Atypical Sexual Experience’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 22, 825-37, 1952.
Earl A. Coon, ‘Homosexuality in the News’, Arch. Crim. Psychodynam., 2. 843-65, 1957.
L.J. Doshay, The Boy Sex Offender and his Later Career. Grune and Stratton, 1943
John Gagnon, ‘Female Child Victims of Sex Offences’, Social Problems, 13, 176-92, 1965.
T.C.N. Gibbens and Joyce Prince, Child Victims of Sex offences, ISTD, 1963.
J.D. Rainer, A. Mesnikoff, L.C. Kolb and A. Carr, ‘Homosexuality and Heterosexuality in Identical Twins’, Psychosomatic Medicine, 22, 251-9, 1960.
F.J. Tolsma, De Betekenis van der Verleiding in Homofeile Ontwikkelingen, Amsterdam Psychiatrical Juridical Society, 1957.
Matti Virkkunen, ‘Victim-precipitated Paedophilia Offences’, British Journal of Criminology, 15, April 1975.
Part One: Five Controversial Areas
Clive Coliman, ‘Incest’
Richard Green, ‘Child Pornography and Erotica’
Warren Middleton, ‘Child Prostitution’
Liz Holton and Kathy Challis, ‘Gender Differences’
Eric Presland, ‘Power and Consent’
Part Two: Miscellaneous Chapters
Tuppy Owens and Tom O’Carroll, ‘Love and Let Love’
Michael Ingram, ‘Children and Sex: A Child Counsellor’s View’
Beatrice Faust, ‘The Pedophiles’
Peter Tatchell, ‘Questioning Ages of Majority and Ages of Consent’
Roger Moody, ‘Ends and Means: How to Make Pedophilia Acceptable…?’
John Lindsay, ‘Socialism, Class, and Children’s Rights’
Part Three: Protection or Oppression?
Warren Middleton, ‘Childhood Sexuality and Pedophilia: Some Questions Answered’
Part Four: How Youth See the Issues
Jeff Vernon, ‘The Oppression of the Young: An Inside Perspective’
Appendices
Appendix 1: Steven A. Smith, ‘PIE, from 1980 Until its Demise in 1985’
Appendix 2: Timothy d’Arch Smith, ‘The Uranians’
The first of these two appendices is informative as an insider’s history of PIE. As with all writings by PIE members themselves, this should be read sceptically, aware of how much might have been omitted or distorted in the interests of the author or other members. My earlier post on PIE and the Home Office clarifies how Smith (also known as Steven Freeman) essentially ran the organisation from the Home Office itself. He fled the country for the Netherlands soon after writing this article, as detailed below, and was eventually jailed in 1991, and then more recently was given an indeterminate sentence in 2011 after being convicted of producing drawings of children being raped (‘Ex-paedophile group leader Freeman jailed over child rape drawings’, BBC News, July 15th, 2011). Nonetheless, there is clearly lots of important information to dissect in this chapter which I reproduce complete, without comment, below.
Appendix 1
Steven A. Smith, ‘PIE: From 1980 until its Demise in 1985’, pp. 215-245
The name of PIE has cropped up several times in this collection. Since the group had, in its time, been so thoroughly misunderstood and misrepresented, it was deemed only fair to allow Steve Smith, its last chairperson, an opportunity to redress the balance. Accordingly, he now takes up the story from where Tom O’Carroll left off. –ed.
Questions of Priority
It seemed to me, when I succeeded O’Carroll as chairperson in 1979, that the most sensible order of business for PIE was firstly to regulate its internal affairs (MAGPIE [1] was appearing very erratically – partly my own fault – and members were receiving nothing else of value from the group); secondly to begin an energetic recruitment drive to replenish our depleted executive committee; thirdly to formulate collectively a coherent body of policies on key issues; and fourthly to tackle our campaigning objectives as a group, rather than as one or two individuals speaking on behalf of the group. More than simply addressing an occasional CHE branch, student gaysoc or academic conference, what I wanted to see was PIE producing a manifesto on video for the widest possible circulation (as GYM had done), or trying for ‘community access’ slots on TV and local radio, or producing posters and broadsheets aimed at the public rather than potential members, or even working in concert with the NUSS (the now-defunct National Union of School Students) to redress the steady flow of anti-paedophile propaganda which the police were imparting to schools all over the UK.
PIE had always felt a sense of kinship (not often reciprocated) with the gay movement, and a firm commitment towards autonomous youth liberation (children’s rights), but I wanted to see develop a far closer interaction – on practical as well as philosophical levels – between PIE and the various paedophile groups in Europe and the States. I felt we should lend considerable effort to the formation of an international alliance along similar lines to the International Gay Association (this was before we discovered how bureaucratic the IGA was in practice). Lastly, with the abandonment of PIE’s Contact Page under the menace of further prosecutions, the EC felt very keenly that members still needed something from PIE in the way of social support; something beyond the ad hoc counselling which many committee members undertook on a one-to-one basis. If British law prevented paedophiles from writing directly to one another through a simple small ad service, then some alternative had to be found which would abrogate the profound isolation which had driven them to the desperate resort of joining PIE in the first place. We began to look afresh at the establishment of local groups, which PIE had attempted in earlier years without much success.
In the event, PIE failed to draw onto its committee the kind of radicalised, hard-working people that were needed, and not one of the above objectives was realised. Year by year, PIE had sunk deeper into a state of collective torpor, grimly determined to survive, if only in catatonic immobility. So, we failed to attract into PIE useful paedophiles who were commited [sic] both to political action and to the development of a mutual support framework – this was due in part to PIE’s consummately negative image in all quarters (the radical leader was quite as easily duped by the press stories about us as anyone else, judging from the strange impressions of PIE that had reached our ears), but due also to obstruction and non co-operation wherever we sought wider publicity for the group’s address. Many gay and alternative journals must share the blame for PIE’s then continued parlous, debilitated condition. I’m convinced there are still many thousands of paedophiles in the UK alone who are ignorant of PIE having ever existed, and I know for certain there are many others who saw the various ‘exposés’ and shock reports about us, but were thwarted in their efforts to find us.
Perspectives on Pearl Harbour
A former treasurer, on resigning from the EC, put it to me (though not quite in these terms) that PIE’s reputation across the board had become so desperately negative that the groups’ mere existence could only harm the paedophile cause, whatever we tried to do about it. We were a pariah among alternative movements, evil incarnate to society at large, and by continuing to exist so doggedly in the face of all opprobrium, PIE was doing for British paedophiles what AIDS was doing for the gay community. A harsh judgement, I feel. If AIDS had not existed the Moral Majority would’ve had to invent it. If PIE had not existed, it would have been necessary for the NEWS OF THE WORLD to invent us. And in one sense it’s true to say that the gutter press did invent PIE – or at least, the image of PIE which had been in general coinage since 1977; that of a secretive international ‘cult’, probably with underworld connections, certainly with influence in ‘high quarters’; a porn-producing syndicate of callous men intent upon nothing but their own sexual gratification. But if PIE’s early strategy had been different, how different would its public image have been?
Several times the idea of folding PIE and replacing it with a new paedophile grouping was mooted on committee, but we’d never have successfully jettisoned PIE’s reputation by the simple expedient of a name-change, and even a substantially different alignment would not for long have escaped the vitriolic attention PIE had enjoyed. This rose by any other name would have smelled no sweeter. There was nothing endemic in PIE itself which another broad-based group could have avoided and thus somehow bridged the ‘credibility gap’. NAMBLA in the US, for example, has placed its emphasis exclusively on gay paederasty (men attracted to teenage boys and youths), thus neatly sidestepping the two most controversial planks of PIE’s platform – heterosexual and pre-teen paedophile relationships. Notwithstanding this, NAMBLA has been attacked, boycotted and obstructed every bit as much as PIE had been by the media, women’s groups, sections of the gay scene, and has come in for just the same intimidation and harassment from the authorities. So much for tactical compromise. PIE’s trajectory into the public eye in 1977 can be compared to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, after which Admiral Yamamoto observed: “I fear that all we have done is to waken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve”. Doubtless, many paedophiles wish we’d let this particular giant sleep on, but neither they nor children can be liberated from his tyranny without at least waking him in the process.
The conflicting demands of our campaigning and befriending objectives from the start presented a fundamental dichotomy in PIE. What for years we viewed as one of PIE’s greatest strengths may in truth have been its greatest weakness, or at least its greatest liability; our acceptance into the group and onto its Executive Committee of paedophiles, whatever their attitudes, abilities or political persuasion (with the exception of the far Right, of course). By straining to be all things to all paedophiles I doubt that we fully satisfied any, and we certainly alienated a few. There is a very powerful argument which runs thus: that the accommodation of a passive, inert membership consumes so much of the energies of a small group’s activist core that the raison d’être of the group is lost in a sea of ‘club-shit’. In other words, committee devoted so much of its time and attention to the routine of organisation and providing reading material and other services for consumption by the Moloch that vital campaigning work was neglected. After six years hard labour on the PIE committee I can only say that this was absolutely true.
Probably the only way ahead for paedophilia in the UK will be the emergence of two distinct groupings – though working in concert – attending to these differing needs. I for one did not wish to see the majority of paedophiles abandoned while the few activists diverted their attentions elsewhere, as some would have had us do, but equally I recognised that our political momentum had been retarded by a plague of part-time paedophiles – those who wanted to know what was going on without getting involved any deeper; who wanted to see changes made but not to help bring them about. PIE’s committee did not comprise many true activists anyway – it never did – so it alone did not have the capacity to diverge, and the very few paedophile activists who could be identified outside the group showed no interest in helping the metamorphosis come about.
Perhaps PIE’s mistake was in tackling non-paedophile prejudice in the first place? Perhaps instead we should have operated under the most stringent security precautions as a kind of Masonic network through which paedophiles might have contacted one another in safety? I’ve heard this view from outsiders. I don’t think that locking oneself in the closet would have been a terribly progressive move; by its nature such a network would have benefited only a tiny minority of those ‘in the know’, and the outside world would have been vindicated in its suspicions about us if we had behaved so furtively and were so indifferent to public opinion and the political imperative of children’s liberation.
The most bizarre misconception about PIE was held by a guy who later joined the committee for a short while – Lee Edwards. He’d visualised PIE being as affluent and neatly-organised as the Mormon Church, with smoked glass offices in the City of London and a full-time secretariat. He was, let’s say, a shade disillusioned by the reality. PIE did actually have an office in Westminster only a smirk away from the desk of the Home Secretary, but more of that later. The group’s silence in recent years had done nothing to dispel the illusions of people – friend and foe – about us, but then Pie itself had been undergoing an identity crisis of sorts, uncertain about which direction it should be taking. But one thing is quite certain – if we were none of the things people expected us to be, we were certainly none of the things the press had claimed us to be in their haste to deceive the British public.
Loaves and Fishes
I found PIE in 1978 entirely by accident through a classified ad in TIME OUT magazine. Many others came to us through a regular listing in GAY NEWS. However, both sources of new blood had been closed off long before the trial. [3] Occasionally, we would discover a listing in some unexpected place, inevitably giving an old address, but in general PIE was unable to get a listing in any gay or alternative paper in the UK. After the trial we attempted to retrieve this situation by a general approach to dozens of such papers here or abroad, asking for either free listings or concessionary advertising rates. A special appeal was made to the membership for donations to fund this advertising drive. MANCUNIAN GAY was the only paper in the UK willing to help us. Abroad, our ad was accepted without qualm by THE BODY POLITIC (Toronto) and GAY COMMUNITY NEWS (Boston) – both excellent gay papers whose unequivocally supportive stance on paedophilia put the faint-hearted GAY NEWS to shame – also by REVOLT (Sweden), CSC NUSLETER (California) and several others. But where we needed members most of all, where members were potentially of most value to the group, here in the UK, the drive got us nowhere. TIME OUT kept our hopes up for several months with repeated promises of a listing, but finally backed out with the feeble excuse that, as PIE wasn’t strictly a gay group, it was inappropriate to include us in a gay listings column. The only option left to us – a rather desperate one – was to litter PIE’s address around the streets by means of a sticker campaign, and this is what we did.
The sticker featured the silhouette of a standing child embracing a seated adult encircled by our name and address. We decided on this low-key format, foregoing bold and provocative slogans, as the object was simply to attract new members, not to outrage every parent that saw them. Even so, we were politely requested by one (prospective) London MP to desist planting them in his constituency (they had been discovered rather close to schools, you know!). Well, the campaign brought us just a handful of new people – too few members had been planting the stickers on a regular basis for fear of being caught red-handed and beaten up; those that were planted were being far too eagerly torn down; and worst of all one committee member made the terrible gaffe of not renewing the postal address on the sticker, so that later mail was never redirected to us at all. Perhaps the act of planting stickers, like writing political graffiti, is little more than a satisfying gesture of defiance for the individual, but I think we made a mistake in not concentrating our efforts on a far smaller area – probably London itself – and perhaps, if there had been a next time, we should have gone for those bold, provocative slogans.
There were a number of projects in various stages of completion during this period – none of which had any significance to non-paedophiles. The PIE Press Service was revived, making available once more all PIE’s early material (UNDERSTANDING PAEDOPHILIA and CHILDHOOD RIGHTS, for example) together with items like Tom’s book PAEDOPHILA: THE RADICAL CASE, [4] which PIE subsidised to its members; the early US boylove magazine BETTER LIFE; and the celebrated BODY POLITIC article ‘Men Loving Boys Loving Men’ [5] (which has been subjected to not one, but two trials of its own). We owe thanks to Julian Meldrum of the Hall Carpenter Archives for supplying us with much early PIE material. So many important documents were lost whenever Scotland Yard descended on the homes of committee members that arrangements were made with the Brongersma and Bernard Foundations in Holland to deposit copies with them for safe keeping.
A reading list of paedophile fiction was added to the press service, complied by Lewis Grey, David Joy and Leo Adamson, and later a non-fiction list condensed by Tom O’Carroll from the copious bibliography of his book. Work was also begun on a film guide and on a survival guide for paedophiles in the UK.
A growing number of our members were captives in US prisons. Coping with the special needs of these people prompted us to set up a prisoner support scheme which, under Peter Bremner and later Tony Zalewski, found correspondents for these prisoners and sought sponsors to cover the expenses of their membership, mailing them recommended books and items from the press service. It hardly needs saying that our attempts to operate the scheme with inmates of British prisons were scotched by this country’s Draconian censorship restrictions. Mail from US prisoners often carried an apologetic stamp on the envelope which read: “Prisoners’ mail uncensored. Not responsible for contents.” I look forward to the day when British prisons need to be so apologetic – I had a long and fractious correspondence with the governor of Wormwood Scrubs over the confiscation of several letters of mine and other items sent to Tom O’Carroll. As with all things in the US, prison regulations vary wildly from state to state, so while some members were receiving regular visits from the boys for whose ‘protection’ they had been imprisoned, others were not even permitted to receive MAGPIE. NAMBLA was far better placed than we were to defend the interests of these people, and is now doing so. PIE was powerless to help prisoners in the UK without some referral arrangement with the social services, and the Home Office lifting restrictions on visits and correspondence.
Given the monstrous treatment of many paedophiles in prison, and the squalid, dehumanising conditions that prevail throughout the prison system, it is a marvel to me that people can emerge from this ordeal without a deep and burning animosity towards the society that abused them so. Imprisonment is the grossest indecency.
If there was one venture that I expected to be an unqualified success and firmly supported by the membership, it was the re-establishment of social meetings through local group organisers. This was the sort of freedom which other oppressed groups – blacks, gay men and women, and many more – took entirely for granted. Any attempt by PIE to arrange social venues (this applied equally to workshops, AGM’s, marches and demonstrations of any kind) carried with it the implicit danger of press harassment, police observation, and physical attack from fanatics of every species. Accordingly, such precautions had to be taken to insulate these meetings from the hostile gaze that the people who had most need of them – frightened, solitary people with zero political awareness – were the last to be invited to them. Where possible, committee members attempted to meet new people in order to establish their bona fides, but there was always a substantial part of the membership who could not be directly vouched for, and we knew there was an agent of the NEWS OF THE WORLD among them.
Having an EC member in Birmingham, the first step was to organise meetings in this area for members in the midlands. Several meetings took place, but then the host was arrested and sent to remand prison on an unconnected charge, and interest petered out. With my help, an Australian member attempted to generate support for a PIE branch in his country (we had more members in Australia than in Scotland and Wales together), but the majority of those approached preferred to keep the breadth of the globe between them and the kind of flak which PIE attracted. This was not too surprising when one learnt that an earlier bid to establish an independent Australian paedophile group – SYBOL – crashed when a conservative gay group threatened to hand the organisers’ names and addresses to the police. Plans for a Canadian branch of PIE went awry also, but happily NAMBLA was able to establish a chapter there soon after.
Our greatest concentration of members had always been in London and the home counties. All but a handful of PIE’s workers through the years had lived there. From August ’82 we booked a private room one night a week in a series of West end pubs, inviting along all members who were known to us. The average attendance was very disappointing: always the same few faces. Presumably, everyone feared that a press plant would be present, as had in fact happened once before in 1979: A known freelance operating for the NOTW, had turned up half drunk at one pub meeting and begun asking those present to procure boys for him. “I know there are kids around who’ll go with you for money,” he said, “but where are they? Why don’t we do something instead of just sitting here?” No such investigative journalist graced any of the more recent meetings. TIME OUT reporter, John Gill, came along once or twice, but he was there at our invitation, preparing a feature on the anxieties and expectations of paedophiles living in London (a feature subsequently suppressed by the magazine’s editors). Other guests present at those meetings included many GYM members and one or two representatives from CHE – one of them a woman who was entirely supportive. Discussions with these people were on the whole constructive and stimulating, and made the meetings worthwhile for us on the EC, but the objective of a social forum for members outside the committee was never realised.
Babel Wasn’t Built in a Day
In August 1980 PIE circulated an open letter among every known paedophile group in Europe, Scandinavia and North America, and also to prominent individuals such as Dr. Edward Brongersma, Dr. Frits Bernard, Drs. Theo Sandfort, and Valida Davila of CSC (Childhood Sensuality Circle). The letter outlined an ambitious, some would say grandiose, proposal for a new transnational paedophile federation through which member groups would collaborate on material projects and share resources at the same time as working towards a common philosophical platform. As I wrote in MAGPIE 15, “Much more than a simple mutual aid society, such a federation would be the consolidation of a coherent international paedophile and children’s liberation movement out of the present chaos of tiny national groups working largely oblivious of one another”. This initiative was very much a personal commitment of my own – my committee colleagues were not all so inspired by this euro-vision. I had learned through PIE that there were groups in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, yet we knew virtually nothing about these people and their organisations, what they were doing in their own countries, or how their political analyses differed from that of PIE. Any contact we had established had been of a token kind, genuine in spirit but superficial in practice, so it was safe to assume that these groups were in the same state of ignorance about us. It seemed important to me that a full and penetrating dialogue be established at least with the strongest of them.
Inevitably, there were language obstacles. We mustered a few members to translate from French, German and Dutch for us, but although our files were brimming with magazines from these groups we could hardly ask people to translate whole magazines, and in any case one could not always rely on forming an accurate view of a group’s thinking merely by reading its general literature. (There had been no language barrier for Tom O’Carroll when he represented PIE at an Oslo conference ‘Amnesty for Love and affection’ hosted by the Norwegian group, NAFP, in 1979. There had even been discussions there on forming a new, broad-based international group called ‘Amnesty for Child Sexuality’, but nothing had come of this.)
The Open letter included a proposal for an early ‘summit’ conference of interested groups to discuss the general concept of an IGA-type alliance, and areas of practical collaboration between us. The most enthusiastic responses we received came from people and groups who had least to gain from the proposed alliance: “I am in complete agreement with your plans,” wrote Valida Davila; “Some people are ruined by oppression and persecution, and others are fired to fight back. I see your committee has chosen the latter road.” “We think the idea of an international association for paedophiles excellent,” wrote REVOLT of Sweden; “If there is anything we can do to support, never hesitate to ask.” Pasteur J. Doucé of the Centre du Christ Libérateur, Paris, wrote: “If I can be of any help in the formation of an international paedophile fellowship please let me know.” An anarchist commune for young people in Nuremberg, the Indianner, said that although they had deep reservations about the German group, DSAP, they still wished to “join a basic form” with us.
The groups themselves were not prepared to take a lead. They wanted to see PIE set up the conference itself. What better demonstration of the poor grasp our friends had on the political realities for PIE? We were possibly the only group among them which was unable to hold a general meeting for its own members without grave risk of injury to those attending, and prosecution of the organisers. After the events of 1977 for PIE, did anyone seriously expect an international paedophile conference to be permitted in the UK? NAMBLA chose to “wait and see what leadership develops on these concepts”. The paedophile wing of the Dutch civil rights umbrella organisation, NVSH, felt that their priorities should be domestic, and that international co-ordination should be left to the auspices of the IGA itself. NAFP in Norway “sympathised” but wanted “more concrete ideas”. [6]
The first months of the following year saw the emergence in France of a new paedophile organisation – the Groupe de recherché pour une Enfance Différente – and four of us from PIE sped along to its inaugural congress in November. Also present on that occasion were David Thorstad representing NAMBLA, Frits Bernard representing DSAP, and a member of the Belgian Paedophile Studygroup [sic]. The atmosphere at that opening day was something I had not experienced before even at PIE’s 1978 AGM – an intensity, an electric urgency of expression that welled as much from the floor as from the platform. The strength of the GRED committee was plain to see, as one after another they all addressed the meeting with equal vigour and self-assurance, and everyone it that packed hall (including, to our delight, a handful of women paedophiles) was involved, not quietly receiving the transmitted wisdoms of the committee. With the promise of an imminent reduction in France’s homosexual ‘age of consent’ from eighteen to fifteen, the liberation of children was for these people far from a remote utopian objective.
I came away from that conference profoundly frustrated, both with the inadequacy of PIE and my own inadequate French. I went to listen, but came away having understood little that I’d heard. I went to contribute my views, but came away without having said a word. I went to take part, but was obliged merely to observe. It’s not entirely unreasonable, of course, that a French group meeting in France should conduct its meeting in French, but I had rather hoped that, at least in the workshop on international collaboration, some concession would be made to a humble Anglophone like myself. Unfortunately, GRED’s English was only a little better than my French. One might think such a lesson in futility would have made me reconsider the practicality of collaboration on the level suggested by the Open Letter but, on the contrary, I felt all the more keenly how much we had to gain from a close dialogue and mutual co-operation with people such as GRED. If we left them with a rather poor understanding of PIE and what we had to deal with over here, that was entirely our own fault, of course, but even among the extrovert committee of GRED, and in its journal, PETIT GREDIN, there was a hint of the same parochialism displayed by the NVSH paedophiles and others, confining their analysis of the problems and solutions within national boundaries. Perhaps PIE was unique in this respect – that more than half our membership lived abroad, scattered among twenty or so countries, and it was plain to us that the ignorance and intolerance of paedophilia knew no frontiers, as with the inhibitory myths of childhood. While the police and the agents of ‘moral’ conformity were concerting their efforts internationally against us, would we not even collaborate in our own defence, if for no better motive?
Another item under preparation for the PIE Press Service at that time was a comprehensive directory of paedophile/children’s liberation groups – the first such guide ever to be published in the English language, filling in a little detail to that cold, unwelcoming expanse of acronyms: SAP, DAP, DSAP, PAC, AKP and so on. Questionnaires were distributed hot on the heels of the Open Letter, and the information that came back immediately helped to dissipate our own ignorance a little. We discovered, inevitably, that some of the groups had already collapsed. In Germany, for example, the Deutsche Studie und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Pädofilie had disintegrated over an ideological clash between anarchists, conservative reformists, and revolutionary socialists – notably about the nature and extent of freedom it wished to seek for young people. Blackmail threats had come into play here too, as with SYBOL in Australia, but this time one paedophile against another, to the utter damnation of those that made them. NAFP in Norway also, sadly, dissolved. And for each group that vanished another would suddenly appear elsewhere on the map – Stiekum in Belgium, for instance.
At the GRED conference it was agreed that the groups represented there would all follow NAMBLA’s example in joining the IGA itself and through it lobbying the gay movement directly for firmer support. The extent of our links with the gay political scene was an essential aspect of PIE’s strategy (insofar as PIE had such a thing) which I want to consider separately but, in the absence of a constructive dialogue with gays (or anyone else) in our own country about the radical means to accomplish our short and long term objectives, other paedophile groups abroad remained the only people from whom alternative strategies could be learned, our own analysis refined, different perspectives examined. Practical alteration to the law and its institutions is an objective necessarily specific to one’s own country, but awakening a whole culture to the living realities of sexuality and of youth is the promulgation of an idea, a new system of living, and is not confined to the arbitrary frontiers of states.
Prodigal Son? _ Or A Cuckoo in the Nest?
1983 was the first time in PIE’s nine-year history that a handful of members carried a PIE banner at the London Gay Pride march. The banner read simply: ‘Adults Loving Children loving Adults’ – a bisexual extension of the famous BODY POLITIC caption. This bold initiative was largely due to the efforts of one EC member, Leo Adamson, who, in a very short time of involvement in PIE, had propelled the group a deal closer to the gay movement than it had been for a considerable while. As a member of GYM (Gay Youth movement), Leo was able to speak for PIE at their annual conference ‘Gym’ll Fix It’, and he also took an active role in the group’s lobby of Parliament. In July ’83 he represented PIE at the IGA conference in Vienna. One could say that PIE had waited a long time for individuals with Leo’s stamina and conviction to come along and fulfil this vital liaison role.
Eric Presland, writing in CAPITAL GAY, [7] rejoiced in the appearance of PIE’s banner at the Gay Pride march, and bade us a hearty ‘Welcome back!’ While there was no doubting the sincerity of Presland’s support for PIE, nor his personal commitment to the liberation of children, there was an assumption behind his remarks that PIE had somehow drifted away from the gay movement in recent years, had now seen the error of its ways and returned – like the prodigal son – to its spiritual home. But it was not PIE that moved away from the gay movement in the UK, it was the gay movement that moved hastily away from us once the muck began to fly; and not because it viewed PIE as too reformist, sexist or reactionary – these tags were slapped on us much later – not because our proposals were insufficiently radical; they were too radical by half for the majority of gays. If we had concentrated, as NAMBLA had done in the US, simply upon sexual relationships between men and teenage boys, gays might have been rather more sanguine about solidarity with us. We were not prepared to barter away the interests of so many paedophiles and of pre-teenage children to realise that support.
If anything, the political leaning of the EC had become further to the Left than ever before, though unfortunately there was no output from PIE to attest to this. Committee may have been radical in its sympathies, but was singularly reticent to express this thinking through MAGPIE or CONTACT. [8] Repeatedly it was put to them that committee should buckle down and talk through some coherent policy positions on key questions – I prepared a discussion paper on pornography to set this process going – but there was no enthusiasm at all for the hard graft of policymaking. Little wonder then that Pie was seen as complacent and insular when it could not produce a single political position or line of analysis to promote wider debate. Those people who troubled to look for evidence of PIE’s philosophy or political credentials were left to glean what they might from the tone and content of MAGPIE, or from documents published years ago by a very different EC – the ‘Questions & Answers’ booklet [9] and our ‘Evidence to the Home Office Criminal Law Revision Committee’. [10] I don’t think there was anyone active in PIE at this time who was happy with the proposals contained in the ‘Evidence’ paper; many would have liked to see them publicly rescinded. All in all, if gays regarded PIE with some suspicion as being an unknown political quantity we had no-one but ourselves to blame for that.
“I don’t think the time is yet read,” wrote an editor of REVOLT in answer to our Open Letter, “for a great association that would support both gays and paedophiles. There are still too many prejudices in the various camps, and paedophile liberation has some very specific aspects which certainly would be overlooked (or neglected) in a general gay association.” I entirely agree with that view. Whereas those paedophile groups that had sprung initially from the gay movement (PIE, NAMBLA, GRED) had tended to survive without the umbilical intact, those which tried to submerge back into the gay movement, becoming just one of several special interest groups within it, (NAFP for example) expired in the process. It is manifestly obvious that the struggles and obstacles faced by paedophiles in the UK today, and indeed the major arguments marshalled against us, bear a striking resemblance to those which gays themselves were confronted with a scant few decades ago. Many of the tasks that face us are the same – combatting the monolithic heterosexuality of ‘educational’ propaganda, for one – and there is great scope here for joint action, but our demands of society are far from being identical, and nor are they at the same stage of accomplishment.
To pluck a metaphor from the mouths of our critics, in any relationship between paedophiles and gays, it is gays who are demonstrably the stronger partner, far greater in size and power, their social status much higher. In contrast, paedophiles are weak, vulnerable, and – as a political force – lacking in experience, our status just about the lowest there is. Can true equality ever be realised in such a relationship? Will gays not simply abuse their power advantage to silence or control paedophiles? Does the gay movement really care about the needs and aspirations of its younger protégé?
Well, you may be sure that PIE did not endorse that kind of negativistic approach. The assumption that the strong will tend inevitably to exploit the weak is true of fascists, not of sexual groupings. I believe that the gay movement in the UK neglected PIE’s struggle to establish a discrete paedophile consciousness, as it has largely neglected the predicament of gay people younger than sixteen or seventeen. From its position of comparitive [sic] strength it had much to offer us by way of philosophical analysis as well as options for positive action. Instead, we found ourselves forced consistently onto the defensive, perpetually having to justify our very sexuality, to avouch our responsibility as caring people. We were nothing beyond a coffee-table controversy to most gays, and our demands for acceptance and support were given barely more credence here than that which society gives to demands for gay equality. I’m afraid the movement itself has much to answer for the continuing misery and frustration gay children in this country are compelled to endure.
It was a measure neither of PIE’s ineptitude, nor of the political vacuousness of British paedophiles, that so few radical activists materialised among us. It was rather too facile to apply to us the logic of gay and feminist activism, as though the realities were no different for a paedophile coming out in a militant way. Every risk that a gay or lesbian accepts in entering a career of sexual politics, on whatever level, is multiplied many times for a paedophile doing likewise. It is a simple equation of greater risks equalling fewer volunteers. Beyond this rather elementary observation, it is in the nature of paedophilia that the greater number of us will channel their whole energies into working with and for children (however misguidedly), whether this be as youth workers, teachers, nurses or, yes, as scoutleaders. Individuals who would have been of immense value to a group such as PIE either never contemplated joining because their attention was squarely focussed on working with the young, or shied away from deeper commitment for fear the publicity would disable them from continuing such work. True, many of these people themselves inadvertently abet the social conditioning of youth, but they are sincere in the belief that their work is beneficial and constructive. The essential point is that a paedophile’s natural first loyalty is to children – not to other paedophiles.
Unlike gays and feminists, who seek the company of people like themselves for social and sexual reasons, and then develop a political consciousness within that society, drawing strength from their community for ‘coming out’ and embarking on political work, paedophiles do not tend to gravitate so readily into one another’s company, (those that would have no means of doing so, of course) and the breeding medium for radicalisation is so much less fertile for this often-overlooked reason. In the company of a thirteen year old boy one can learn a good deal about the realities of powerlessness and dependence and the frustration of being thirteen in this society – all the more so from a girl – but this is a long way from assimilating a commitment to political struggle. The younger the children a paedophile seeks for company, the more this argument applies.
Thanks in large part to PIE, some paedophiles did befriend one another, but all too often in such meetings the differences of perspective were more apparent than the congruences. There was a commonality of interest without a commonality of awareness. Therefore among paedophiles this consciousness has to be cultivated in an altogether more deliberate and artificial way. Those paedophiles who regard themselves (sometimes mistakenly) as the most revolutionary are generally those that move largely in gay circles. Undoubtedly, coming out as a paedophile via the gay movement increases one’s exposure to radical though – though anyone acquainted with CHE might laugh at this – but it may also leave one with a smug and false sense of security.
While my own sexual tastes extend to eighteen or nineteen year old guys, I confess I never had much inclination to join a gay group or frequent any gay clubs. I think my perspective might have been rather less parochial if I had, but this is to illustrate that there are many paedophiles like myself who wish to work in close harmony with gay society, not to join it. To those who say, “So why didn’t PIE make more effort towards a rapprochement with radical gay groups?” I reply, “Why didn’t the stronger, more numerous, and better-equipped gay groups approach PIE with advice, criticism, active support, even when we were reeling in the wake of an Old Bailey trial?” Why should we have had to make all the running? Let me cite one or two instances of the positive vibrations PIE was receiving from the mighty ‘λ’.
At the 2nd annual conference of the IGA (Barcelona, 1980), the only group to abstain from a general motion calling on member organisations to support paedophile groups more vigorously was Britain’s CHE, who insisted on their exception being noted for the record. At GYM’s 1982 lobby of Parliament (which only twelve of some four hundred MPs felt obliged to attend), it was a vice-president of CHE, Martin Stevens, MP (Conservative, needless to say), who favoured the retention of the homosexual age of consent at twenty-one (for males), whilst others present were quite willing to negotiate an initial reduction to eighteen. Stevens’ rationale – if we may dignify it by that term – was that if homosexual behaviour was legally sanctioned among teenagers, “teenagers might in later years regret their youthful flings”. Similarly, at the IGA’s 1983 Vienna conference, it was Michael Brown of Britain’s Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality who supplied the most stentorian opposition to every paedophile motion put before the conference. In this case, where one of the motions called upon PIE to urge all other paedophile groups to affiliate as we had done, Brown was joined by Denmark’s F48, Norway’s DNF48, and Lavender Left of New York, who had apparently determined by explicit resolution to vote against all paedophile-supportive motions. The excellent ‘Gay Youth Charter’ composed by GYM in 1982 was rejected by CHE’s own conference until a reference to paedophilia had been expunged from it. A comparison between GYM’s ‘Gay Youth Charter’ and CHE’s ‘Charter for Gay Rights’, published in the same year, is extraordinary – the one is detailed, uncompromising, bold and lucid; the other bland, timid and cursory.
CHE’s dilemma was summarised by their own Law Reform Committee thus: “CHE has hitherto directed its campaign towards achieving equality under the law relating to heterosexual and homosexual behaviour. The reasons for this, while in large part tactical, are nonetheless important. The argument for equality is much easier to explain to a prejudiced audience and can be forcefully advocated on grounds of simple justice.” It goes on to ask, “Would adopting a position in favour of the abolition of all ages of consent laws risk appearing, in the eyes of the general public, to be so extreme as to make (CHE’s) aims on other issues more difficult to achieve; or has it reached the position where no further significant advance can be made without working – in collaboration with other organisations – for reform of these and the other laws relating to sexual behaviour generally?” [11]
It was the same dilemma which confronted broader civil rights groups like the NCCL (National Council for Civil Liberties) when the rights at issue were those of PIE. Any association with our particular cause threatened to undermine their own political credibility cross the board. PIE was the hottest potato of all, and triggered off all kinds of atavistic terrors in more respectable reformist groups. We were therefore sacrificed on the altar of short-term tactical compromise.
Not to confine this criticism to gay and civil rights groups however the producer of London Weekend Television’s ‘Gay Life’ programme (screened once a week in the late night horror slot) promised me there would be a programme on paedophilia in the second series to which PIE might be allowed to contribute. Alas, there was not. Among the helplines which consistently declined to give PIE’s address to paedophile callers were Icebreakers, London Gay Switchboard, Brighton Gay Switchboard, and Friend. One of these told me their solicitors had advised them that by passing out our address it might be construed that they were acting as agents for the organisations.
The fact that PIE was not exclusively homosexual represented part of the reason for this moratorium. GAY NEWS and TIME OUT both quickly zeroed in on this objection, though as with the ubiquitous power argument, it often serve as a radical justification from the mouth for a decidedly unradical prejudice in the mind. I think it stood to the credit of the PIE EC (whose most active members had always been boylovers) that we did not cave in under such pressure. No heterosexual paedophiles ever stepped forward to defend their own ground, and this made it rather difficult for us to answer the challenges of the gays and feminists with total conviction. Between gays and our heterosexual members the strand of mutual acceptance was very thin indeed (between them and feminists it did not exist at all).
David Thorstad, while still spokesperson of NAMBLA, expressed his own position all too clearly: When Anita Bryant would say that gay men are child molesters, they would say ‘Oh no, we don’t do that; gay people are not molesters, it’s the heterosexual who are the molesters’. I’ve used that argument myself; I believe it’s true.”
Many heterosexual paedophiles are just as ready to swallow society’s stereotype model of gays, their masculinity squirming uncomfortably at the prospect of too close an association with the world of such caricatures. This kind of stupidity is an obstacle we can all do without.
No-one will be astonished to hear that the facet of gay politics in the UK for which PIE felt the closest affinity was gay youth, and that GYM came top of our list of groups to form an alliance with. The first meeting between members of our two committees only reinforced this feeling. As we sat about a table in a London pub, no more than a dozen of us, it was not a bunch of middle class, middle-aged liberal paedophiles confronted with a bunch of radical gay teenagers suspicious of our motives. In fact the majority of both committees were in their mid-twenties. The youngest PIE representative was twenty-one, the oldest GYM representative, twenty-six. Some suspicion was evident on GYM’s part, or rather a wry scepticism about PIE’s political soundness, but it was expressed with candour, not hostility. For our own part, the only major criticism of GYM was its arbitrary self-imposed age limit of twenty-six (a strange paradox in a group whose existence is a reaction against arbitrary age boundaries), in that this tasted a little of ageism in reverse – the idea being that, without an upper age limit, GYM would be taken over by older gays (older than the then committee guiding lights), or that gays would flock to it like moths to a flame in search of teenage boyfriends.
Strategically, so much more can be accomplished under the banner of gay youth than would ever be possible for an overtly paedophile organisation, but that apart, GYM has a freshness and directness which PIE lost long ago. Whereas we talked years back of producing a general information video, GYM have gone and made one. While PIE made ginger overtures to carefully-chosen MPs, GYM staged a general lobby of Parliament. While PIE agonised over whether or not we dared to call another AGM, GYM revels in mass meets.
It is time that gay society in this country woke up to the crucial role it has to play in the foundation of a stable, vigorous and independent paedophile movement which is committed to radical change. What emerges may not be PIE, nor will it be a clone of the gay movement itself, for paedophiles are more than simply gay and straight adults who like their partners particularly young. Ours is a whole different sexuality, our needs and priorities are very different. We are brothers with the gay world, not twins.
PIE in the Face of Fleet Street
Journalism is one of those unsavoury professions – advertising is another – in which an individual’s potential for success is inversely proportional to that person’s scruples. Note that I do not say there are no journalists of conscience or integrity in Fleet Street, only that such people had never been to the fore when the focus of attention was on PIE, or paedophile matters, or rights (in their totality) of people under sixteen, and that such exotic blooms must seem strange indeed in that arid, thorny habitat. Doubtless there remains one detective at Scotland Yard who really believes the police are the servants of the community, and not its warders; or doubtless Thatcher has one Cabinet Minister who genuinely believes in equality of opportunity. These are all, however, statistical freaks. If we find journalism itself to be venal and corrupt – as I believe it is – then this is a profound cause for alarm. As one American commentator observed succinctly, (but glibly), “The news media have become Orwell’s Big Brother of ‘1984’ – all pervasive, all influencing. The freedom of the press is eating away the freedom of the individual”.
Television long ago supplanted religion as the opiate of the working class, and most of the criticisms I make here of the press apply with equal force to the broader media, notably television. There is a disturbing trend towards tabloid-style presentation in TV news programmes, with the same crass, superficial coverage, the same rampant sexism and imperious moral tone, and the same calculated imbalance. Recent reports, for example, of a mother seeking legal compulsion on doctors to inform parents before prescribing contraceptives to girls under sixteen were invariably followed or preceded by progress reports from police investigating the sexual murder of a five year old girl. Such judicious editorial juxtapositions are common. (A contemporary report in a local Harrow paper on similar demands from the ‘Harrow Child and Family Protection group’ appeared on the same front page as an overtly sexist pin-up – of a fifteen year old girl.)
As to the quality of the coverage – in a Central TV news report on the swelling number of teenage runaways in the midlands (‘minors’ voting with their feet?), it was emphasised throughout that the principal fear was not of physical, but ‘moral’ peril; that girls would be “drawn into drink, drugs and prostitution”, and that boys would “fall into the hands of homosexuals”. (TV journalists, like their Fleet Street counterparts, do not care to use the word ‘paedophile’, you may notice.) As always, the people who had most to say on the matter, the people most directly affected, whose anxieties and exasperations had driven them to take off in the first place, were the only people not consulted. It might have been a report on lost dogs or stolen cars. So much for the objectivity and impartiality of British television news.
Every year since PIE had come into being, during the slow news time of parliamentary recess, the minions of the soft-porn tabloids had scurried out with their indignation and their power-winder cameras to rake together another shock story about the group. We were a silly-season staple for the NEWS OF THE WORLD, the SUNDAY PEOPLE and the DAILY STAR. The danger with papers of this vulgar, facile kind is that they are widely dismissed as being of no consequence to significant trends in popular opinion. The NOTW is generally regarded as a joke, but without the implicit malevolence and cruelty behind the joke being fully appreciated, or the extent to which the paper’s four million readers are being duped by the fantasies of its squalid-minded editor and staff. There is no room here to catalogue all the misshapen, libellous reports that have appeared concerning PIE over the last few years. An analysis of the coverage of the Old Bailey trial alone would require a full chapter, and in any case, such a virulent poison permeates this sea of press cuttings that the mere task of reading them all through is grossly offensive and unhealthy for one’s state of mind. Confronted with such wholesale, indiscriminate hatred a sense of proportion is difficult to maintain. There had been several major stories on PIE since Tom O’Carroll was convicted, each of which had repercussions far beyond the immediate distress inflicted on the committee members named, and illustrate well the harm which the gutter press can cause.
The first of these stories (NOTW, March 22nd., 1981) was occasioned by PIE having to open a new post Office box, the sponsor of our previous box, David Grove, having died. The Post Office leaked the home address of our new sponsor, Peter Bremner, to the NOTW so fast that the reporters were at his door before the box had even been used, and before the Executive Committee itself, let alone our members, knew where the P.O. Box was located.
Inside, the paper ran a feature on PIE, and the child pornography industry, being careful to blur any distinction between the two. The reporters were Charles Sandell and George Edwards. ‘The Dreadful Web of Child Corruption’ began as follows: “The evil men of Britain’s child sex organisation, the Paedophile Information Exchange, are just the tip of an iceberg. Behind them lies a web of pornography and degradation that spreads its tentacles worldwide – and even involves the Mafia.” After another couple of paragraphs which could leave no doubt in the reader’s mind that PIE was in fact a front for the manufacture and distribution of pornographic material, Sandell and Edwards went on: “The magazines… they produce do not stop at sexual abuse. Some show the systematic slow torture and even murder of children and young people.” Now if that was not a cut and dried case of libel, what is? Who could blame the public for its outrage against PIE when such nightmarish tales could be published about us with complete indemnity?
Someone else who spreads his tentacles worldwide is Rupert Murdoch, the Jehovah of yellow journalism, and the essence of this NOTW story quickly resurfaced as far away as Australia and in Sri Lanka where, in the SUNDAY OBSERVER (April 5th), PIE was described as “the sick porn merchants of the West”. Sri Lanka, like the Philippines, had long been celebrated among paedophiles and gays for its tolerance to homosexuality in general, and sudden government moves late in 1981 to curb sexual contact between local youth and Western tourists have been attributed in part to the scare campaign triggered by the NOTW. Perhaps this is overestimating the impact of that tawdry little paper, but the snowball effect of press hysteria was a very real phenomenon, as later stories demonstrated.
It was an open secret among anyone linked to the Executive Committee that for four years I was employed by a firm of electrical contractors, Complete Maintenance Ltd, to monitor a control panel of alarm systems at the Home Office, Westminster. The job entailed practically no work on my part, beyond attending the panel, and in fact I had a furnished office completely to myself seven days a week on a rotating shift basis. Much of PIE’s less sensitive file material was stored in locked cabinets there, where no police raid would ever have found them. Each year my security clearance was renewed by Scotland Yard without my connection with PIE being discovered. I’d known from the start that such a marvellous snook could never be cocked forever and sure enough the News of the World got hold of this information eventually. The paper contacted the Home Office immediately of course and gleefully drew this oversight to their attention. My security clearance was cancelled on the spot, my employers notified and I found myself not sacked but ‘rendered without employment’ – on the same day that reporter Alex Marunchak greeted me on my doorstep. ‘Child Sex boss in Whitehall Shock’ ran the headline.
And what do you suppose? – “Home Office security chiefs knew all about Steven Adrian Smith’s links with PIE”, claimed the report; “A Home Office spokesman said, ‘We’re aware of Smith’s background, and since the NEWS OF THE WORLD contacted us he has been told he’s no longer acceptable to us. He no longer works here. It would be true to say that he would still be here if you hadn’t been in touch.’” This silly bit of official face-saving apart, Marunchak went on to concoct a brief interview with myself. Instead of slamming the door in his face, which I seem to recall having done, I appear to have told him (with a swirl of my opera cloak), “Yes, I’m the chairman of PIE. So you’ve found out!” and so on. There was possible libel here too, for he alleged that at an EC meeting I had “bragged of (my) relationships with boys and urged members to organise a ‘dirty weekend’ with children at a south coast hotel.” This is imputing to me a specific criminality, but nonetheless – we were advised by a solicitor – whether I won a libel suit or not, and I stood every chance of doing so, that the sympathies of the jury would be wholly against me, and any damages derisory.
Some of us had fondly hoped that my inevitable discovery would at least throw such egg on the face of the government as to oust the Home Secretary (then, Mr. Whitelaw), but in the event, this story was curiously not picked up by any other paper (obviously, the ‘ruling class’ had to be protected), and our own attention was diverted by a plague of visits from DAILY STAR reporters the very next week. (Incidentally, the extent of security chiefs’ knowledge of my activities did not prompt them to investigate the content of my filing cabinets and a carload of PIE files was safely spirited from the building before it could occur to them to intervene.)
Once upon a time a reporter in the alternative press wrote (with just a hint of sarcasm) that it was about as difficult to ‘infiltrate’ PIE as to infiltrate Piccadilly Circus. He was absolutely right. One of the hazards of keeping our door wide open (as any counselling group must) is that all manner of creepy-crawlies are apt to find their way in along with more welcome visitors, and such a one was Charles Oxley, principal of two public schools, Christian fundamentalist, and wizened protégé of Mary Whitehouse. [12] Under the name of David Charlton he joined PIE with offers of practical help in EC work. He was good enough to type out for us Tom O’Carroll’s copious non-fiction booklist, and to photocopy at his own expense many other items for the PIE Press Service. As with anybody else who expressed a willingness to work, he was first met by an EC member to assess his character and reliability, then invited along to a couple of committee meetings. His sensational findings formed the basis of a four-page spread in the DAILY STAR (‘Child Sex Spy Tells All’ – August 21st, 1982) and many subsequent radio, press and police interviews. On the strength of just two meetings with the EC, Oxley had become the Establishment’s trusted authority on PIE. Who was taken in the more by his fantasies, PIE or the Establishment, is open to question. STAR reporters Paul Henderson and Barry Gardner played Woodward and Berstein [sic] to Oxley’s ‘Deep throat’.
Four committee members were named – David Joy, Peter Bremner, Lee Edwards and myself, and photos appeared of three of us (my mother was later to comment that the STAR photo was one of the best of me she’d seen!) It was no coincidence that the three committee members who were to be raided by the Obscene Publications Squad, almost exactly a year later, were David Joy, Peter Bremner and Lee Edwards. Not content with publishing our addresses, the DAILY STAR carried photos of our homes too, for greater ease of identification by neighbourhood vigilantes, mums’ armies, and neo-fascist groups.
The text itself was rather lame, even amusing in comparison to the previous year’s NOTW extravaganza, and only of interest for the crude, obvious manner in which colour was added. To convey the impression of PIE as a shifty, back-street organisation, our homes were variously described as “dingy”, “seedy”, and “an old mansion that comes straight from a horror movie”. Meetings were arranged, it said, “through a complicated exchange of letters and coded telephone calls” using “secret codes and passwords”. This was total fantasy and a familiar lie printed about the group – arrangements were far more mundane and prosaic than that, I’m afraid. Oxley knew that no pornography had been handed round at the meetings, but he was determined to create that impression at least: “Various paedophile books and magazine were mentioned and passed around” he hinted darkly. As I remember, Oxley took away one of these magazines himself for closer inspection, and never returned it – it was the latest issue of PAN (Paedo-Alert-News).
The news-gathering tactics of the DAILY STAR rate a mention here. We learned later that they had used menaces toward several children in Lee’s home street who would not answer their questions (Lee was staying with a family at the time, and the two daughters were tailed by the press for several days). When this proved fruitless, they set up a couple of young boys to accost Lee in the High Street and make conversation just long enough for him to be photographed form a parked car across the road. (Even when he called on me, Henderson had attempted to force his way into my house.) It was a standard routine for reporters on this kind of story to make a point of visiting all one’s neighbours and filling their heads with who-knows-what horrific yarns. There was a knife attack on Lee shortly after the story appeared, but as Lee is an ex-boxer he managed to send his assailant away with a bloody nose, never to return. Another standard hurdle with these reports was the local press follow-up, a boringly predictable after-shock when your local paper contrives to regurgitate the story for those of your neighbours who missed it the first time around. In this particular instance the STAR itself ran a follow-up story a few days later (‘Ban the PIE Men’) in which glory-hunting Tory back-bencher, Geoffrey Dickens, vowed he would table a Private Member’s Bill at the next session of Parliament which would proscribe PIE explicitly, and outlaw any other pro-paedophile organisations. [13] Dickens was the same stalwart who named diplomat Sir Peter Hayman, under House of Commons privilege, as the PIE member whose identity had been concealed throughout the trial (some six months after Hayman had been publicly identified in PRIVATE EYE magazine). Dickens did not win the Private member’s ballot, as chance would have it, and nothing more was heard of that pledge, but it seemed to us a serious threat at the time. Even a bungling oaf of Dickens’ calibre could hardly have failed with such an intimidatingly populist Bill, had he won the ballot.
By the winter of ’82, the papers were full of the Geoffrey Prime affair. Prime was exposed as a Russian supermole who worked at the government’s intelligence HQ at Cheltenham. Imprisoned for sex offences against young girls, as well as spying, it was alleged, unsubstantiated of course, that he either had links with Pie or was actually a member under an assumed name. As with the much earlier Sir Peter Hayman affair (he was the former British high Commissioner to Canada), and the later revelation that I myself and an EC colleague, Barry Cutler, were both employed on security at the Home Office, this latest scandal must have caused considerable embarrassment to the government. By now, PIE’s name must have been truly hated in the corridors of power. [14]
In June, 1983, the NOTW ran yet another of its regular silly stories, this time claiming that top TV stars and MPs were members of the Exchange. No names were mentioned, of course – except those of EC members. As a result of this and follow-up stories in such scandal sheets as the STAR and the SUN, committee members Mike Williams and Richard Travell lost their voluntary work as a scoutmaster and Sunday School teacher respectively. Travell was later denounced by his father, a church minister, and forced to move out of his home.
It would be possible to go on and on about the shock/horror stories concerning PIE, but this would serve little purpose since the point has been made. Suffice it to say that press harassment of the group was real, and it seemed that reporters were prepared to use any means, fair or foul, to ensure the organisation was destroyed. The time is coming when something will need to be done about the press in this country – and the sooner the better.
Final Words
If paedophiles have little faith in the press, they have certainly got even less for the criminal justice system in this country, for being a paedophile is an invitation for every sort of injustice there is. While baby batterers walk away with derisory sentences after being slapped on the wrist and told not to do it again, people whose only ‘crime’ is that they love children can expect to have the book thrown at them and endure years of attacks in squalid prisons from real criminals. One can inflict horrendous physical suffering on a child, but if one is unfortunate enough to be a paedophile who has consensual sex – oh well, that’s classed as worse than murder.
Similarly with ‘corporal punishment’ which is, in truth, nothing more than a euphemism for legal assault. This practice is widely supported in these isles, and it is no coincidence that the organisations and people who were most opposed to PIE were the very ones who endorsed it most. The message is clear: abuse is okay as long as it is socially approved.
Back in its earlier days, PIE itself initiated a campaign against this practice and received letters of support from such well-known people as Baroness Wootton, and Sir Alfred Ayer, the philosopher. But PIE, being a tiny organisation, could only do so much.
For PIE, the time has now run out; but the ideas behind it will continue to survive.
Editor’s note: Soon after the above article was written, its author along with two other PIE EC members were arrested on incitement charges in connection with issue No. 6 of the group’s internal bulletin, CONTACT. Before the trial, Steve Smith fled to Holland where he still resides. The two other defendants were subsequently found not guilty of the incitement charges, but guilty of a lesser charge. After renewed threats to proscribe PIE, the group finally succumbed to political pressure, and the organisation disbanded in early summer, 1985. Because of this, all articles in this book referring to PIE, including the above, have had the tense changed from present to past.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. A journal of PIE
2. Lee Edwards was later alleged (though unproven) to have given or sold confidential information about PIE and its members to the NEWS OF THE WORLD, which published the details, much of them erroneous, in a front page splash.
3. I refer, of course, to the notorious Conspiracy to Corrupt Public Morals trials of early 1981.
4. Tom O’Carroll (Peter Owen, London, 1980).
5. ‘Men Loving Boys Loving Men’, by Gerald Hannon (BODY POLITIC, March/April, 1979).
6. It was Kenneth Clarke in CIVILISATION who said that ‘nearly all the upward steps in the history of civilisation have been internationalist steps.”
7. CAPITAL GAY (July 15th, 1983).
8. CONTACT! Which was edited by myself, was the internal bulletin of PIE.
9. PAEDOPHILIA: SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (PIE, 1979).
10. EVIDENCE ON THE LAW RELATING TO, AND PENALTIES FOR, CERTAIN SEXUAL OFFENCES INVOLVING CHILDREN – FOR THE HOME OFFICE CRIMINAL LAW REVISION COMMITTEE, ed. by Keith R. Hose and Michael Burbidge (PIE, 1975).
11. THE LAW RELATING TO CONSENSUAL SEXUAL ACTS: A DISCUSSION PAPER (prepared by The CHE Law Reform Committee’, 1980).
12. Oxley was, at the time of writing, chairman of the right wing National Campaign for Law and Order, which incidentally supports hanging and corporal punishment, and deputy chairman of Mary Whitehouse’s Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association.
13. Even revelations that he was consorting with two other women, despite the fact that he was married, didn’t stop Dickens attacking PIE. Hypocrisy has no bounds, it seems. I often wonder what the dickens the man would do if it weren’t for paedophiles???
14. Well before the Hayman affair, another Establishment figure, Lord Bingham, had also been revealed as a PIE member.
[ADDENDUM: The ‘Lord Bingham’ in question here was Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, Viscount Mersey (1934-2006), who admitted PIE membership and contact with a 10-year old girl, who would remove her clothes when offered money and sweets by him; the girl’s mother went on trial in Manchester Crown Court in 1978 on charges of inciting one of her daughters to commit gross indecency with Bigham. See ‘Peer’s son in sex case ‘revolted”, Glasgow Herald, July 20th, 1978]
Truthseeker @thewakeupcall09
Richard Bigham – Eldest son of viscount of Mersey admitted he was a member of PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange).
Halfway through Richard Maurice Clive Bigham’s, 12 month jail sentence suspended for two years. Richard Bigham became 4th Viscount Mersey in 1979, and joined the House of Lords.
Within 3 years of conviction PIE member Richard Bigham was speaking as Viscount Mersey in House of Lords. How was Richard Bigham allowed to make 273 speeches in House of Lords from 1981-1999 ?http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/people/mr-richard-bigham/…
Did ANY MP speak out about Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, the 4th Viscount Mersey, if not, WHY not ?
The after-effects of prosecution for sexual abuse of young boys …
(1) Sir Ian Horobin MPs (Con: Oldham East) ebullient bounceback from his 1962 conviction by publishing a poetry anthology with a foreword by John Betjeman in 1973 (nb. the curiously mournful comment ‘Even the elms are dead’), written during post-prison recuperation in Tangiers where boys could be preyed upon; and
(2) Charles Hornby’s successful application for a gun licence just over six months after his release from prison for his part in the Playland Piccadilly Amusement Arcade Trial of 1975, granted by a Recorder who didn’t need to recuse themselves over a dinner party or two,
it appears the ill-effects of ‘loss of reputation’ can be very much countered by one’s well-placed friends rallying around so that life and even reputations may resume post-prosecution.
Horobin was sentenced to four years in prison and moved to Tangiers on his release, where boys were in more plentiful supply with less fear of criminal repercussions.
It was never suggested that any of the young men sustained any physical injuries from their encounters with Horobin. The liaisons were consensual, the term ‘assault’ being a peculiarity of legal language. The head groundsman at the Settlement told the jury that Horobin claimed to have helped the lives of far more boys than he had ever ruined.
I’m assuming Parris and his co-author, Kevin MacGuire, didn’t bother to speak to many of Horobin’s victims in order to reach such a conclusion, nor do they understand that children DO NOT have the capacity to consent.
Upon his release, Horobin emigrated to Tangier in Morocco – Morocco seems to be a popular haunt for some – and in 1972 he published a book of poetry dedicated ‘with gratitude and affection to my partners in crime.’ Sir John Betjeman, whom he met at a Soho club upon his release, supplied the book’s introduction. Horobin died in Tangier in 1976.
Prince Charles‘s spiritual guru Sir Laurens van der Post “impregnated a 14 year old daughter of a family friend he’d been entrusted to look after on a sea voyage when he was 46.”
Prince Charles’s spiritual guru Sir Laurens van der Post introduced Prince Charles to Dr Alan McGlashan.Prince Charles received therapy from Dr Alan McGlashan for 14 yearst, according to American author and historian Sally Bedell Smith.
Dr McGlashan was trained at the Tavistock Clinic.
During the Second World War Dr McGlashan served as a consulting psychiatrist on the War Office Selection Board.
Prince Charles’s spiritual guru Sir Laurens van der Post was a friend of the Conservative member of Parliament Sir Ian Horobin.In July 1962 Sir Ian Horobin pleaded guilty to a number of indecent assaults on boys at the Fairbairn Boys’ Club in the East End of London. 52 years on: The Forgotten Fly in the Reshuffle | Bits of Books Boys’ clubAt the age of 24, Horobin became Warden of Fairbairn Hall, Plaistow in East London.
“310 Barking Road is not too far from the Mile End Road’s Regal Billiard Hall in Eric Road where by the mid-fifties a twenty year old Ronnie Kray was also admiring the view of boys taking their shots at the snooker tables.”
Jimmy Savile
Amateur boxer Billy Walker, while working as a doorman for Jimmy Savile at the Ilford Palais, aged 16, trained at Fairbairn Amateur Boxing Club on Barking Road”Fairbairn Boys Club … flourished in all sports including Boxing, Rugby, Cricket and Football.
“Famous sports personalities to emerge through the Club are Billy Walker, Terry Spinks, Graham Gooch, Alan Sealey and Alan Curbishley”
“After boxing bouts the boys would occasionally find Horobin supervising proceedings in the communal bath area, perched on a shooting stick…”
Terence Stamp
“One old boy, the actor Terence Stamp, recalls how ‘there was all kinds of gossip about Sir Ian, the strongest being that he was a bit of a ginger beer.’
“Despite the rumours, Stamp’s autobiography describes how, aged fourteen, he was ‘chuffed’ to receive an invitation to Horobin’s flat one Saturday afternoon to show off some paintings he had entered in a competition.”
The Butler Did It – Paul Pender (2012) Murderous butler Roy Fontaine falls into the Somerset Maugham, Lord Mountbatten, Vic Oliver, Lord Boothby set during WWII
1961-1976: Between McAlpine and Polaris – ‘Singing Hymns to Tigers’ Jimmy Savile’s Jesuit pop priest Father George Giarchi goes back to university to study the destruction of democracy in his hometown. The establishment of US Naval Base Polaris in Dunoon and the influx of single men to a tiny town creates a growing trade in sex, a sharp increase in teenage pregnancies and the arrival of spies setting up hotels.
Sir Nicholas Fairbairn defends a spy by ridiculing his attempts to pass information in court…but were other spies more successful? The sex trade servicing the US Naval ratings gradually moves across Holy Loch to the nearest town, Glasgow, and becomes more organised servicing new arrivals too – McAlpine Construction’s North Sea Oil Rig workers
1962: 52 years on – The Forgotten Fly in the Reshuffle Sir Ian Horobin, former Conservative MP for Oldham East, is forced to turn down a knighthood from Harold Macmillan due to his arrest for abusing boys aged 11+ at Fairbairn Boys’ Club in the East End. Just as Horobin is due to appear in court, Harold Macmillan culls a third of the cabinet in the long night of the knives and plucks Peter Rawlinson MP (Con: Ewell & Epsom, Surrey), Horobin’s defence counsel, just before the trial commences to become Attorney-General and promotes Home Secretary Richard Butler to Deputy Prime Minister.
July 1971: Peter Righton at the House of Lords – Lord Beaumont calls an Emergency Meeting of the Albany Trust Antony Grey returns to the Albany Trust – dispute over lease on 32 Shaftesbury Avenue and costs ‘the offices were too large and expensive for the time of retrenchment ahead’ – Grey moves the Trust to Kilburn during 1971/72 and then to Highbury before settling at 31/33 Clapham Road spring 1975 – 1976
December 1974 – April 1975: Antony Grey absent from the Trust with Appendicitis
10 February 1975: Four new trustees join Albany Trust: Rodney Bennett-England, Harold Haywood O.B.E. (ex-Director NAYC), Sue Barnett (Family Planning Association – Grapevine) and Tony Smythe (MIND) Albany Trust moves to 31/33 Clapham Road: warehouse and 9 offices
PIE Member No. 2: Dr Michael Coulson, who was a Professor of Sanskrit at University of Edinburgh, Chairman of Scottish Minorities Group (responsible for campaigns and lobbying) and Ian Dunn’s first adult relationship, commits suicide on 16 October 1975 and in a PIE Newsletter obituary is revealed as PIE member No.2
December 1976: What went on in Rottingdean? Robin Bryans writes and speaks to Rev Michael Butler of the Albany Trust regarding Father Colin Gill’s abuse of boys – in April 1977 he is poisoned, in a coma, when Labour’s Attorney General Sam Silkin orders he is in contempt of court in order to restrict Bryans’ letters to Butler from being circulated further
1977
Revealed: How Gordon Brown was duped into aiding the founder of vile paedophile group who infiltrated gay rights rally
Gordon Brown was duped into backing an event by PIE founder Ian Dunn
Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Brown sponsored the congress
PIE was trying to piggy-back gay rights conference In Edinburgh in 1974
The vile group planned to use the event to push its disturbing agenda
Paedophiles were secretly invited to the conference from around the world
Delegates were invited to attend a planned paedophilia ‘workshop’
Former PM says he did not know PIE were at the congress 40 years ago
Links between Labour grandees and PIE were revealed earlier this year
15 November 2014
Mr Brown and former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook were among several key figures on the intellectual Left who sponsored a conference…Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was seeking to piggy-back its way into a legitimate movement.
Both men believed they were simply supporting a gay rights congress and, on that basis, agreed to lend their names to it.
But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that it was organised by the founder of PIE, the sinister 1970s lobby group dedicated to legalising sex with children.
Publicly available documents show:
PIE planned to use the congress to push its own disturbing agenda.
Paedophiles from all over the world were secretly invited and assured the event would take ‘paedophilia in its stride’.
PIE was mentioned in a congress programme as a ‘new Scottish-based group of paedophiles’.
Delegates were invited to attend a planned ‘workshop’ on paedophilia.
PIE would later use similar tactics to infiltrate the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) when it moved its powerbase to London a few years later.
Earlier this year, shocking links were exposed between PIE and Labour grandees Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt, who all held key roles in the NCCL.
Ms Harman belatedly expressed ‘regret’ that the group – which police suspect of abusing children on an ‘industrial scale’ – was allowed to forge links with the council. However, she refused to apologise.
The International Gay Rights Congress was held over four days in Edinburgh in December 1974 and organised by Ian Dunn, who had set up PIE a few months earlier.
At the time, Gordon Brown was rector of Edinburgh University, representing students to the senior management, and was already identified as a future Labour star.
In addition to Mr Brown and Mr Cook, Dunn also secured support for the congress from David Steel, the future leader of the Liberal Party.
All three knew Dunn as founder of the Scottish Minorities Group and a prominent spokesman for the gay community in Scotland. There is nothing whatsoever to suggest they knew about PIE’s existence at this time, or were aware it planned to use the congress as a launchpad.
They had been invited as ‘prominent Scotsmen’ and told only that the conference – the first of its kind – would examine ‘social and political situations affecting homosexuals’ across the world.
But had they seen a programme, which it is understood was sent to delegates ahead of the congress, they might have noticed a reference to PIE under the heading ‘Projected workshops & small discussion groups’.
One was called Sexual Minorities and lists ‘Pedophilics, transsexuals, cross-dressers, s/m aficionados, asexuals’. Next to this listing in the ‘individuals participating’ column it says: ‘Pie, a new Scottish-based group of pedophiles, will be represented.’
Last night, Mr Brown’s office said he was unaware of PIE’s presence at the congress. Asked if he attended the congress, she said: ‘Not according to any records that Mr Brown has.’
Dunn wrote to the future Prime Minister, then aged 23, in July 1974 and briefly outlined plans for the conference, saying he would be ‘honoured’ if he would be ‘associated with our effort’.
He added: ‘The limit of your “sponsorship” would be your willingness to allow your name to appear with your co-sponsors at the foot of our letterhead, hence the reason for our writing to a small number of people in the fields of politics and education. We await your reply with anticipation.’
Both Mr Brown and Mr Cook agreed and, along with other sponsors, co-signed a letter three months later recording their ‘support for the ideals of the congress as expressed by the organisers’.
They urged Edinburgh councillors to grant the delegates a civic reception ‘in the accustomed manner normally accorded to important national conferences held in Edinburgh’.
However, at least one Scottish politician declined to be an ‘honorary sponsor’. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, then a Conservative MP in Edinburgh, raised concerns in his reply to Dunn in August 1974.
Although he had no inkling at the time that PIE intended to use the congress to advance its agenda, he wrote: ‘I cannot help but believe that the type of congress which you envisage, with all the attendant publicity, will be likely to encourage the growth of homosexual activity among the very young… While I have no desire to prevent adult members of the community indulging in such sexual activity as meets their requirements, I feel the objectives of your congress go far beyond that…’
Last night, Sir Malcolm, who was Foreign Secretary under John Major, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Mr Dunn’s attempt to encourage MPs and other people to associate with this congress were clearly mischievous if that congress had a wider purpose which he was not revealing.’
The event was lauded as the first post-war conference of homosexual emancipation movements from around the world. But its link to PIE has never been revealed until today.
Experts said the event was one of many examples of how PIE leaders managed to infiltrate groups who were not aware of their true aims and dupe innocent people.
Author and jounalist Christian Wolmar – who later helped end PIE’s use of a legal charity’s address – said: ‘Their whole strategy was to make themselves respectable through linking themselves with prominent organisations and people. These people would not have known what PIE were advocating.’
Details of PIE’s involvement emerge from documents held at the National Archives of Scotland.
Michael Hanson, who was on the congress organising committee, made plain PIE’s primary aim in the SMG’s newsletter published in September 1974. It was, he wrote, to ‘campaign for the legal and social acceptance of paedophilic love’, adding: ‘I hope most [SMG] members will accept that we wish to recognise the value of PIE…’
In a letter to a friend on September 10 that year, Hanson, who admitted being attracted to boys as young as 13 but denied being a paedophile, wrote: ‘The Congress is taking paedophilia and other sexual minorities in its stride and invitations have been sent out to paedophile groups in Switzerland, the Netherlands, West Germany and the USA.’
‘…There will be opportunities for individuals to set up workshops on anything not covered by the conference agenda, and it has already been decided to hold one on paedophilia… It will be good for paedophiles to understand general gay problems and for gays to be reminded about the minority in their midst.’
Hanson, who was PIE’s first chairman, added: ‘Paedophila/pederasty as such is not a subject which will be discussed by a full session of the Congress, but paedophiles will undoubtedly be interested in the sessions on Law and Rights of Young Homosexuals and, we hope, have a general interest in the other subjects under discussion.’
Ian Dunn arranged the PIE workshop with Michael Hanson, the vile paedophile group’s first chairman
At the time, homosexuality was still illegal in Scotland, though not in England and Wales, and much of the congress was taken up with discussion of changing the law. Other subjects included ‘homosexuals in politics, public education on homosexuality and the fight against persecution’.
In another letter, Hanson wrote about plans for a PIE newsletter that would have ‘the important role of… putting paedophiles in touch with each other’.
He also said the publication could include information about the ‘legal situation in various countries, books to read, the best part of certain towns for meeting boys’.
The group, he added, would need a leader but initially ruled himself out, saying that he did not have ‘practical experience and knowledge ready to answer many of the queries that would turn up. (eg where in London can I meet boys? What do I do when the parents find out?)’
While Hanson helped organise the congress, most of the credit for its success went to Dunn.
An egocentric individual, he worked as a town planner in Edinburgh and was a trade union official and Labour Party activist. At one stage he was a Labour council candidate and, before his death in 1998, had applied to become a candidate for the Scottish Parliament.
For most of his life he denied he was a paedophile, claiming he had become involved in PIE because he believed in supporting minorities. Yet he allowed his flat to be used as the mailbox for a journal called Minor Problems, which billed itself as ‘a radical review for free intergenerational and child sexuality’.
When this was exposed, Dunn threatened to sue, but quietly dropped the legal action after a tape emerged of his boasting about having sex with a 14-year-old boy.
At his funeral, one young man turned up and said bitterly: ‘I just came to make sure he was dead.’ Explaining his anger, he said that he had been raped by Dunn when he was 15.
Derek Ogg, now a prominent Scottish QC, was the chairman of the congress and a leading figure in the SMG. In June 1975, he wrote to members urging them ‘positively to recognise the value of PIE and PAL [Paedophile Action for Liberation]’.
He wrote: ‘The proposed policy to PIE and PAL states, “As paedophilia is not a homosexual condition but an all-sexual condition, SMG has no official connection with either of these organisations. We recognise them, however, as organisations seeking in difficult circumstances to further the knowledge and understanding of the paedophile sexual condition, and recognise their value as such.’
r Ogg went on to head Scotland’s National Sex Crimes Unit. Last night, he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I have never, even as a naive teenage student, expressed support for the child sex agenda touted by PIE or any other group or individual.’
He also denied PIE was launched at the congress. ‘There was certainly no PIE workshop. I do not even know if such a workshop for minorities, whether advertised or not, actually took place. I did not attend any paedophile workshop.’
Of his comments on SMG’s policy towards paedophilia, he said: ‘This may (in the knowledge of what PIE became in following years) seem a naive statement now, I leave that to your readers.
‘It achieved what I wanted, no affiliation of the group to ours and protection of young homosexuals within SMG itself.
‘It also reconciled with my “private morality”, and that of many others, that child sex was plain wrong.’
Lord Steel said: ‘I think at the time I was one of the three party sponsors of the campaign in Scotland to decriminalise homosexuality, which could be why I would be listed as a sponsor of the congress, but I had no other knowledge of the event.’
Mr Brown’s office said he had no relationship with Ian Dunn or Michael Hanson and that he was unaware of their sympathetic views towards paedophiles.
Posted: March 16, 2014| Author:Ian Pace|Filed under:Abuse, NCCL, PIE | Tags:campaign for homosexual equality, mind, national association for mental health, nccl, paedophile information exchange|3 CommentsThe following is the complete text of the PIE Chairperson’s Report from 1975/76, authored by Keith Hose, the first chair of PIE after the organisation had moved from Scotland to London. It contains important information relating to NCCL, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE), and the National Association for Mental Health, MIND. Some of the writing referred to in The Guardian can be read here. See also this and this.
PIE CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT 1975/76.
PIE c/o/ Release, 1 Elgin Avenue, London W9
BL Cup 351/61
The year that has passed since our inaugural meeting in 1975 has been an extremely important one for PIE and Paedophiles. We have seen our membership shoot up from 43 to 171, a successful London group which meets regularly has been formed, the contact page is now sent out once a month, and the Newsletter which is already greatly improved is to be turned into a magazine. On the campaigning side PIE will go down in the pages of history as contributing to changing social attitudes to sexuality. We have spoken in support of paedophilia to many groups, numerous letters have been written to newspapers and various other bodies, and articles have appeared in several journals. Hundreds of letters from paedophiles all over Britain, and abroad, have been answered.
Among our major achievements are the following:
The passing of a motion at the Campaign for Homosexual Equality’s conference in Sheffield, August 1975, in which the delegates held that paedophilia was an important subject. The result of which was the first positive publicity ever achieved on the paedophile issue in a British national daily newspaper in which the guilt free paedophiles viewpoint was expressed. Positive articles appeared in the Guardian, the Times Educational Supplement, Time Out and Gay News. This achievement, although slightly marred by an attack by John Torode a few days later, was magnified by the resulting discussion of the issues in both CHE and which appeared in the national press as a consequence of the motion.
Another conference causing quite a stir was the ‘Sexual Minorities Workshop’ held by MIND, the National Association of Mental Health, in September last year. At that I spoke about my own personal experiences as a paedophile. Not as an adult, but as a child growing ujp with an awareness of sexual feelings and of the social taboos. This awareness gradually formed from my earliest memories of them at 7 and 8 to the extreme guilt and isolation I felt when I became conscious of the unacceptability of first my homosexuality and then my paedophilia at 16 and 23. The candid nature of my speech shocked some conference delegates and touched others, and the lively and electric workshop group that followed effected many there. MIND-OUT the magazine of the institute ran a precis of my speech and published PIE’s address. However, not everyone likes to be told the truth, and News of the World reporters visited the offices of Tony Smythe the director of MIND after the conference to ask, in what I was told was rather an impertinent manner, why he was giving support to paedophiles. A female social worker who attended the conference also complained to Tony Smythe, and it was when criticising evidence supplied to the Criminal Law Revision Committee, in an article in the TIMES that Ronald Butt quoted part of the speech I gave at MIND.
The evidence that we supplied to the Home Office Criminal Law revision Committee in November 1975, proposing the abolition of ‘ages of consent’, and the removal of consensual sexual activity at all ages from the criminal law, was our most ambitious achievement so far, and I have been told by researchers and people involved in other pressure groups that it is the best evidence on the ‘age of consent’ issue they have seen to date. However, despite sending out a well prepared press release together with the report, to a comprehensive list of newspapers, radio and television companies and press agencies, the media coverage was sparse. Peace News, Gay News, Time Out and a little later Ronald butt in the Times carried mentions of the report, and I had unreported interviews with the Scotsman and the Daily Mirror, but there seemed to be a deliberate editorial silence. In fact the more I see printed about paedophilia and the more newspapers who refuse to publish letters of reply and journalists refuse to publish letters of reply and journalists refuse even to speak to me on the telephone, the more I feel that except for a few newspaper and magazines there is a policy to write only the negative arguments about adults who are sexually interested in children.
But despite the low level of press coverage of our PIE report it has affected many people who have read it. At a meeting of the Gay Rights sub-committee of the NCCL that I attended, changes were proposed to the draft NCCL evidence, including an incorporation of a few of the ideas and a couple of research quotes from our evidence. Copies of our evidence were sent to the executive of NCCL before their decision on their policy in this area was reached, and some of the proposals of the gay rights sub-committee were adopted. The section on paedophilia in the report would undoubtedly not have been as positive had it not been for our lobbying. Our report therefore had some effect on the NCCL evidence, which because of the sensational press coverage, has done more to raise the issue of the ‘age of consent’ than any other document. As a source of positive ideas and arguments towards paedophilia our report will continue to influence researchers, pressure groups and paedophiles who read it for a long time.
Presently we are near to the completion of the first stage in two other areas of work. We are compiling evidence on the ‘treatment’ of paedophiles with anti-libidinal drugs, that is chemical castration. We are particularly interested in those who are or were sex-offenders and who were treated with drugs such as Androcur, Benperidol, Oestrogen, etc. However, any information on this particular ‘treatment’ or any other maltreatment (including aversion therapy, physical violence etc) of paedophiles in or out of prison, is useful. We have started a campaign against this chemical castration, and we attempted to pass a motion calling on the NCCL AGM to condemn the practise [sic] on sex-offenders, but a move to refer the motion to the Executive Committee of NCCL was passed marginally. It is important therefore that we collect enough evidence to force this committee to use their organisation to campaign against chemical castration in the coming year. I spoke for the motion openly as a paedophile and this and another paedophile proposal certainly went a long way to educating NCCL members attending the meeting about paedophilia.
Data obtained from the PIE survey has been collated, and a report written, which will be published shortly. This contains some interesting results. PIE is no longer an exclusively male homosexual paedophile organisation. More and more male heterosexual and male bisexual paedophiles are joining. Another interesting fact is that the majority of our membership also relate sexually to adults as well as children. We must realise that we are a pan-sexual organisation and may have to work on all sexual liberation issues, while concentrating on paedophilia and children’s sexuality. In our survey, to help explain our results, it has been postulated that the definition of sexuality plays an important part in who is defined or who defines themselves as paedophile. An act which is objectively or subjectively defined by one person as sexual may not be by another person. This definition varies from culture to culture, sex to sex and from person to person. Females are treated differently from males and many acts which are regarded as being sexual in men are not regarded to be so in women. For instance, two men embracing is considered more a sexual relationship than two women embracing which is considered to be more of an emotional relationship. This could effect the definition of a woman as a paedophile, and explain why PIE has such few women members. Paedophilia is used to describe a sexual relationship with a child. Men are seen more in terms of sex than women and therefore would be more likely to define themselves as such. But this should not be used as an excuse nor the sole reason why we have such few women, and considering the nature of women’s oppression as woman, we should accept that a group in which the vast majority of members are men is not likely to attract women. PIE should as soon as we have enough women to do it, try to set up a separate group for women. We should allow them to use separate advertising and campaigning if necessary to attract more women paedophiles to join the fight with us.
As with a group for some areas of the UK, a group for those male paedophiles interested in little girls is already a viable proposition. A group can be formed on, a letter writing basis if someone co-ordinates this. How about volunteer co-ordinators for this, or any regional groups contacting the PIE executive committee as soon as possible?
Despite all this progress and activity, any achievements have been made under difficult circumstances. The press and police harrassment [sic] of PAL, the Playland Trial and the ‘Johnny Go Home’ programme have all contributed to make sure paedophiles remain oppressed. The ‘expose’ of PAL caused panick [sic] among some of the then serving E.C. members of PIE. Michael Hanson had planned to resign many months before the Sunday People article because of a move to live in Greece. Other E.C. members however, caught fright and it was left to me and co-opted E.C. member Warren Middleton to keep PIE alive. We did this believing that the only way for PIE to survive was to seek out as much publicity for the organisation as possible and that if we got bad publicity we would not run into a corner but stand and fight. We felt that the only way to get more paedophiles joining PIE, particularly more male heterosexual paedophiles and female paedophiles in general was to seek out and try to get all kinds of publications to print our organisations name and address and to make paedophilia a real public issue. But PIE has not come out of all this without receiving all kinds of attacks. John Torode in the Guardian wrote three articles condemning us and our ‘Sheffield motion to CHE’. The hysteria in this article showed that even some of those who are regarded as serious and liberal journalists cannot even discuss paedophilia rationally. Ronald Butt, not the most egalitarian of people, wrote an attack on our aims and my speech to the MIND conference and this was printed as the Times newspapers somewhat pathetic contribution to the discussion on sexual law reform. The NCCL evidence was received with a kind of paranoia by editors and journalists. The Daily Telegraph was still twitching with snide editorials about it weeks after it had been released. Some members may see these attacks as nothing but harmful and I would agree they are biased against us, but even some of the worst attacks have quoted some of what we say, and some of the quotes are even in context. The Ronald Butt article is an example in question, although he attacks Lord Beaumont savagely he obviously believes that we will be condemned by our own words. What I say is let them continue – we will win in the end!
More serious a handicap for PIE was the loss of our British Monomark address. This was as a result of the News of the World (they seem fond of us) harrasment [sic] of the staff of this mailing service. The directors reused to handle our mail from then on, despite our obvious victim role in the whole affair. As a consequence we had no address for a period of 2 or 3 weeks. Through very hard work a new address was found. Many commercial firms refused to handle our mail after they heard about British Monomark and some were too expensive, and because we felt the same thing might happen again, we tried alternative and left wing organisations. We knew that it was more likely that they would accept we had a right not to be molested and help us. RELEASE did, and we are truly grateful to them. They have assured us that visiting News of the World reporters would not get a comfortable ride. Since we used to pay for the BM address, I move that we give release the same amount each year in donations. At the moment we pay them nothing. The loss of our address meant that many letters sent to us have had to be destroyed and that many people despite being informed of our new address may refer people to our old address by mistake. It is a mammoth task contacting again all those organisations informed of our existence and let me apologise publicly to any we may have overlooked.
We have had an extremely rough ride due to outside attacks but this has not been the only cause of hardship. With inflation and the rise in membership we have been running at a very substantial loss. Approaching a 50% loss! If it had not been for donations generously given in the past, particularly by Warren Middleton and past Newsletter editors, there would be no PIE. Despite this we have improved the Newsletter size and content, we have now started to run the contact page once a month, meetings in London are meeting more regularly and a series of campaigns and special projects are under way. We do this not because we are mad, but because we believe we are still only doing the minimum to achieve our aims. We want to see many more improvements to the services to our members, but to do this we have been forced to raise the membership to four pounds for U.K. and Ireland (Two pounds for non-earners) and seven pounds in other countries. Yet to achieve all that is necessary we need more money still. We have a number of ideas for making money for PIE, and need others, and help, to bring our ideas into practise [sic]. If you think you can help lease make contact with the E.C.
Keith Hose
8th May 1976
Back cover says ‘This report was adopted at the Annual General Meeting 8th May 1976.’
Posted: February 27, 2014| Author:Ian Pace|Filed under:Abuse, Labour Party, NCCL, Peter Righton, PIE, Westminster|11 Comments[NOTE OF WARNING: In absolutely no sense whatsoever does the printing of the below material constitute any type of endorsement; in fact the very reverse]
Below is a range of material from PIE’s first journal Understanding Paedophilia, the predecessor of Magpie. I have copied the most significant material from those issues I was able to access.
Vol. 1 No. 2, June/July 1976
Cover pic: tearful Mark Lester, from film Run Wild, Run Free (1969)
p. 2. ‘Notices’
Ed: Warren Middleton (p)
Research Director: Humphfrey Barton (p)
Regular Correspondents; Steve Barker (p), USA, Graeme Parrish (p), New Zealand, Bernard Beafort (p), France, Richard Docker (p), Australia, J E Rekustad, NAFP/Norway.
Regular Contributors: Keith R Hose, John Bradshaw (p), Humphfrey Barton, Dr Frits Bernard, Dr Edward Brongersma, Warren Middleton, Tom O’Carroll.
[‘(p)’ indicates a pseudonym]
Dr Edward Brongersma, ‘Love In Education: The Unapproachable Risk’, pp. 2-4
Cyril Halley (p), ‘Lewis Carroll Revisited’, pp. 4-5
[…]
Lewis Carroll spent his life sublimating what he regarded as ‘abnormal desires’. Yet his love for children was hardly surpassed in his own, or any other age, and his contributions to world literature certainly need no further appraisal. He died at Guilford on January the 14th, 1898, and his gravestone carries the name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson made immortal… HERE LIES THE REMAINS OF LEWIS CARROLL, AND CHILDREN THE WORLD OVER CAN REMEMBER THEIR LOVING FRIEND.’ (p. 5)
Review of William Kraemer (ed), The Forbidden Love: The Normal & Abnormal Love of Children, reviewed by Humphrey Barton (p) (a lecturer in sociology at a British university), p. 5.
Alan Stanley, ‘Angels of the Lyre’, p. 6. Reviewed by Warren Middleton.
‘It’s the Magnificent Six’, p. 7
New EC:
Keith Hose – re-elected to serve as National Chairperson for the coming year
Warren Middleton – re-elected as National Vice Chairperson/PIE Magazine Editor
Tom O’Carroll – elected as PIE General Secretary/responsible for the formation of local groups/PIE members’ contact service/Publicity
David C Grove – elected as Director of PIE’s forthcoming children’s rights campaign/responsible for distribution of mail
Charles Napier – elected as Treasurer/responsible for recruitment of new members.
Peter Righton – elected as Organiser of prison-hospital visits/general correspondence/PIE befriending.
Want applicants for Legal adviser and Director of Research.
‘PIE has asked U.P. to convey their thanks to all who attended the AGM, especially Miss Nettie Pollard of the NCCL, and PIE member No. 149 who came direct from France for the event.’ (p. 7)
‘Concern over List 99’, p. 7
NCCL concerned about an envelope which has gone missing, containing a ‘secret’ government file, a DoE blacklist of 1000 people said to be unfit for the teaching profession.
Nettie Pollard has appealed for anyone who thinks they may be included on the list to come forward.
‘Judge Slams Sex Law’, p. 7
Justice Neil McKinnon, QC attacked age of consent law as ‘An attempt to protect fully mature young women against their own natural inclinations’. After 22 year old Jonathan Groves and his brother David were in court having admitted having intercourse with two 15-year old schoolgirls. Jonathan received conditional discharge, and David a suspended 9 months jail sentence.
‘P.C. ‘Whacko’ Quits’, p. 8
Ex P.C. Anthony Betteridge, 36, fired after admitting to five charges of assault, indecent assault and gross indecency with young boys.
‘PIE’s New Campaign’, p. 8
An inquiry into physical/chemical castration of sex offenders.
Vol. 1 No. 3, Aug/Sept 1976
Cover ‘The Modern Ganymede: Bjorn Andresen’, photo from Death in Venice
Douglas Sarff (‘NewsWest’ Editor), ‘Sex Begins At A Very Early Age: The Work and Theories of the Guyon Society’, pp. 2-4
Reprinted from an American gay journal
Tom O’Carroll, ‘News Report: The PIE Survey’, pp. 4-5
A questionnaire, basic things
In 2 years PIE has attracted over 200 members. 96 took part in the survey. Two were women.
Of men, 68% attracted to boys only, 13% to girls only, 19% to both.
One in five of male paedophiles were married. Much higher for heteros (75%) than homos (7%)
Majority (59%) also attracted to adults. (p. 4)
‘Your Letters’, pp. 5-6
One from ‘Charles Gerriovenski’, saying similar things to in later issue
Also from a former headmaster, ‘Michael Gooch’, who received a 12 month suspended sentence for ‘offences’ involving young boys.
Reviews of Desmond Stewart, The Vampire of Mons; John F Trimble, Paedophilia; Dr. George P Rossman, Paederasty: Sexual experience between Men and Boys. Reviewed by John Bradshaw (p), David Grove, Humphrey Barton (p) respectively., p. 6.
Grove bio, p. 6. Born in 1904, spent most of childhood in China, then studied history at Wadham College, Oxford. Lived in various parts of the world, including being Assistant Deputy Officer (Deputy Magistrate) in Nigeria. Enlisted in Welsh Guards, then into teaching career in 1939. Now retired.
‘Looking Around’, p. 7.
Review of Visconti Death in Venice.
[….]
‘Visconti had long toyed with the idea of bringing Mann’s masterpiece to the screen, but when reality supplanted the dream, eh was almost defeated by the casting of Tadzio, a part demanding a boy of rare beauty and exceptional charm.
His searches for this ‘perfect’ boy took the director all over Europe. But the gods appeared to favour him, finally rewarding his efforts in Scandinavia. Bjorn Andresen, his beautiful Swedish prodigy, seemed tailor-made for the casting, and with characteristic flair the delighted Visconti proclaimed him “the most beautiful boy in the world.”’
[….]
‘Dr Humphrey Barton gave a highly successful paper on paedophilia at the Manchester Gaysoc/British Sociological Association’s conference in early September.
The conference was well attended by other notables including Glenys Parry and Ken Plummer.
Nice one Humphrey!’ (p. 7)
‘The PIE-Do-File’
Author Yul Duersted has been withheld permission to publicise Pie in any of his future works. (p. 7)
PIE formally established two years ago in October by three members of Scottish Minorities Group under chairmanship of Michael Hanson. (p. 7) [This was a mistake – it was three, not two, years previously]
‘Exit Jenkins, Enter Rees’, p. 7
Asking if Merlyn Rees likely to be sympathetic. Not sure.
Vol. 1 No. 4 (1977)
Picture of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver on front.
Editor: Warren Middleton
Research Director: Dr. Humphrey Barton (p)
Regular Contributors: Keith R. Hose, John Bradshaw (p) , Dr. Frits Bernard. Dr. Edward Brongersam, Tom O’Carroll, David C Grove, Dr. Humphrey Barton, Warren Middleton
Regular Correspondents; Steve Barker (p), USA, Graeme Lovejoy (p), New Zealand, Bernard Beaufort (p), France, Richard Docker (p), Australia, J E Rekustad, NAFF – Norway
Address given as 1, Elgin Avenue, London W9.
Printed by the Wellington Bureau, 23, Craven Street, Charing Cross WC2.
Special thanks with news item ‘fighting for justice’ on p. 10 of this issue – thanks Miss Nettie Pollard and the Executive Committee of the NCCL; Mr Mike Rowland, Mr John Gallagher and the EC of the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights; Jo Richardson, Labour MP for Barking; Mr Michael Burbidge of Icebreakers; Mr Antony Grey, ex Director of the Albany Trust; the staff of the People’s News Service; Mr Johannes Werres, editor GAY NEWS GERMANY/BOY LOVE NEWS; Mr Michael Mason, news editor GAY NEWS; Dr. Arabella Melville and Colin Johnson, editors of LIBERTINE; the PEACE NEWS collective; Mr Andy Leighton and staff of IT; and last but by no means least, to Mr Keith Hose, Mr Tom O’Carroll and the remainder of PIE’s EC. (all p. 2)
Protection of Children Bill: Lords Amendment to be debated Friday 14th July. Spoke to Jo (Richardson) last night. She does not want to be the only one to put down amendments. She will try to find others who will also amend. I’ve notified her of date.
HH (Harriet Harmen)
The ‘right’ to sleep with children was one ‘civil liberty’ that NCCL supported
The Seventies was an era of sudden sexual emancipation. To some on the Left, sex with children was just another boundary to be swept away
Harriet Harman with her husband Jack Dromey
In 1975, NCCL had granted PIE official “affiliate” status. It put O’Carroll on one of its working groups, it made him a platform speaker at an NCCL conference in spring 1977, and it strongly defended paedophiles against “hysterical and inaccurate” newspaper attacks.
…The book, a manifesto for the legalisation of sex with children, is called Paedophilia: The Radical Case. O’Carroll was a teacher, and the “raven-haired little charmer” was one of his pupils, an 11-year-old schoolboy called Chris. Uncle Herman was in his fifties, and the girl he had sex with was 12.
But most unusually of all, O’Carroll’s foreword, with its passionate plea not to “deny children their sexual life, including the possibility of sexual contact with adults”, expresses his “heartfelt thanks” to those who helped him write his rallying-call, “especially… Ms Nettie Pollard of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) [who] read the whole text in draft and made many helpful suggestions”.
O’Carroll had been a “sexually predatory” paedophile, “determined to find a boy, or boys, for what I assured myself would be mutually pleasurable and affectionate sex… All I had to do was pop out to the nearest canal bank, or swimming baths, or park.” After this didn’t work, he “rained letters” on Chris, then turned up on the child’s doorstep “emboldened by drink, and aggressive with it”. O’Carroll was any parent’s darkest nightmare.
at the time this book was published, in 1980, O’Carroll and the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) – a body founded to openly lobby for child sex – were part of NCCL, now Liberty, Britain’s foremost mainstream civil rights organisation.
For most of the Seventies and early Eighties, the “right” to sleep with children was one of the “civil liberties” that NCCL supported and the policy differences with PIE were ones only of degree. PIE favoured lowering the age of sexual consent broadly to four.
Pensioner backed Paedophile Information Exchange and may hold key to links with left wing groups
Nettie Pollard was a key figure in the London left – a Sunday People investigation reveals her to be a chief apologist for some of PIE’s most chilling demands
Even those who have lived beside her for years have little idea about her life – none of her neighbours has ever been invited inside the home she has lived in alone for almost 30 years.
She was a key figure in the London left, working for the National Council for Civil Liberties for two decades.
But a Sunday People investigation reveals Pollard to be chief apologist for some of PIE’s most chilling demands.
Our investigation found that throughout her career Pollard gave a constant stream of support to paedophiles and promoted their views. She also:
Supported PIE’s call to scrap the age of consent.
Argued against the introduction of a bill to protect children.
Sat on committees with known paedophiles and PIE members.
Wrote a twisted essay defending sex between adults and children.
It emerged MP Harriet Harman, husband Jack Dromey and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt had been involved with the NCCL when PIE was affiliated to it.
Mrs Harman has subsequently moved to distance herself from Pollard and paedophiles, with a spokesman stating they “did not influence any of the work she did there”.
However one source involved with the London left in the 70s claims – embarrassingly for Mrs Harman – that she and Pollard did work together on occasions within the NCCL .
The source said: “Nettie was a big presence in the movement back in the 1970s and couldn’t be ignored by anyone wanting to get on in the NCCL.”
Our investigation first places Pollard in 1975 working as the Gay and Lesbian Officer for the NCCL.
And that brought her into close contact with the infamous PIE – the child sex group which campaigned to have the age of consent lowered or scrapped.
As well as her role at the NCCL, Pollard was and remains a significant member of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality – a group that defended PIE’s rights at their 1983 conference.
But even after PIE was disbanded in 1984, Pollard made no secret of her sympathy for the organisation’s aims.
In 1993 she contributed a defence of the sexualisation of youngsters to a book called Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures.
Entitled The Small Matter of Children, Pollard’s essay draws on work by knownpaedophiles such as former PIE vice-chair Warren Middleton to build its case.
Pollard argues child sex should be legal if the act is “consensual”.
It also uses language like “willing partners” to describe sex between adults and children.
But by far the most disturbing section is Pollard’s attempt to justify the sexualisation of children.
She writes: “Far from being ‘innocent’ and becoming sexual at puberty, as was once the common belief, it is now indisputable that everyone is sexual, even before birth.”
The research cited was also used in PIE’s bid to reduce the age of consent to just four.
Pollard continued to work for the NCCL until her mysterious departure from the group in 1997.
She was made redundant but reports from Feminists Against Censorship implies murkier reasons behind her exit.
A newsletter from the time reads: “Within the last several months, two of NCCL’s employees have remarked that the organisation’s longest-serving staff member, Nettie Pollard, was the last civil libertarian left on the payroll.”
Challenging the cost-cutting explanation given it added: “Since she is one of the few indispensable staff members, and the most expensive to make redundant, we suspect economy is not the reason.”
Pollard, whose Facebook page currently shows her support for causes including an anti-drones campaign and attacks on the “Big Brother” state, also showcases her taste in music with a link to indie rock band The Donutsh – described by one of their following as sounding “like Johnny Cash biting off Johnny Rotten’s head”.
She refused to answer the door to us when we visited her home.
Tom O’Carroll was invited to address an NCCL conference, and sat on an NCCL gay rights sub-committee alongside Nettie Pollard.When O’Carroll was finally arrested in 1981 — and later convicted — for conspiring to corrupt public morals, the NCCL expressed its outrage at the ‘deplorable nature of the conspiracy charge used by the prosecution’, to quote the words of Patricia Hewitt at the time.
In the group’s official publication, The NCCL Guide To Your Rights, an address was provided for the Paedophile Information Exchange at Elgin Avenue in West London. This was, in fact, the base of Release, an ultra-liberal drugs charity that received funding from the Home Office.
On the right hands in the pockets of her coat is PIE member no 30 Nettie Pollard – protesting the hypocrisy of Thorpe esp re the Dilly Boys?
Tides Of History@labour_history
1979: Thorpe cleared of murder charges. Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is cleared of the attempted murder of Norman Scott. He hails his acquittal as “a complete vindication”. The case is due to be re-opened.
Harriet Harman and Peter Tatchell
Feb 2014: Convicted paedophile, PIE member, Tom O’Carroll told The Guardian he remained a member of the NCCL’s gay rights committee for several years after Harman claimed his organisation was marginalised. NCCL archives in London have also shown how O’Carroll, a former chairman of PIE, asked Nettie Pollard, a staff member at the organisation, about the possibility of amendments to the 1978 child protection bill.
A discarded match or an overturned candle were the most likely reasons why Tangley House, near Winchester, Hampshire, was destroyed in February but despite months of work by investigators there could be no certainty, Grahame Short, the coroner for Mid Hampshire, was told. He recorded an open verdict after hearing that the couple were believed to have been overcome by smoke in their beds before the fire burnt the entire interior of the house.
The couple’s children, Jamie Cayzer-Colvin, Arabella Gaggero and Amanda Ponsonby, joined other family members at the inquest in Winchester.
Harry Marriott purchased the rubble and burnt timbers.
After Marriott moved in with his family, the thenBishop of Basingstoke, now Bishop of Dover, The Rt Rev Trevor Willmott, aided by another priest, Rev Ray Whettingsteel, ‘blessed’ the new house.
High Court judge and the child sex ring: Adviser to Queen was founder of paedophile support group to keep offenders out of jail
Lord Justice Fulford was named last year as an adviser to the Queen
He was a key backer of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange
Police suspect the group of abusing children on an ‘industrial scale’
He is revealed as a founder member of campaign to defend PIE
At the time it was calling for the age of consent to be lowered to just four
One of Britain’s most senior judges actively campaigned to support a vile paedophile group that tried to legalise sex with children, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Lord Justice Fulford, named last year as an adviser to the Queen, was a key backer of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which police suspect of abusing children on an ‘industrial scale’.
An investigation by the Mail on Sunday has discovered that Fulford was a founder member of a campaign to defend PIE while it was openly calling for the age of consent to be lowered to just four.
It can also be revealed that the Appeal Court judge and Privy Counsellor:
Planned demonstrations outside courts where defendants – described by prosecutors as ‘sick’ and a ‘force for evil’ – were on trial.
Wrote an article claiming PIE, now under investigation in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, was merely a way for paedophiles to ‘make friends and offer each other mutual support’.
Sought help with the campaign from future Labour Minister Patricia Hewitt, then in charge of a controversial civil rights group.
Attended meetings to discuss tactics with PIE chairman Tom O’Carroll, who has since been jailed for possessing thousands of pictures of naked children.
Was praised by the paedophile group for coming to its defence.
Fulford was a founder member of an organisation called Conspiracy Against Public Morals set up to defend PIE leaders facing criminal charges.
t later published a sickening pamphlet claiming that children would be freed from the oppression of the state and their parents if they were allowed to have sex with adults.
The 60-page document, unearthed by The Mail on Sunday, is adorned with disturbing child-like pictures and sexual cartoons.
At the time the organisation went under a slightly different name but had the same postal address as Fulford’s group had.
When asked last night about his involvement in the group, Fulford said: ‘I have no memory of having been involved with its foundation or the detail of the work of this campaign.’
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He added that any contribution he made would have been in general terms against a law banning ‘conspiracy to corrupt public morals’ which he believed ‘could be used against a wide variety of people in potentially inappropriate ways’.
‘I have always been deeply opposed to paedophilia and I never supported the views of the PIE,’ he added.
Fulford is the most senior public figure to be implicated in the work of PIE.
Today’s revelations follow controversy over the roles of Labour grandees Patricia Hewitt, Harriet Harman and her husband Jack Dromey, who were all involved in the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) when it counted paedophile activists among its members.
Last night Fulford said: ‘On reflection the NCCL gay rights committee should never have allowed members of PIE to attend any of its meetings.
‘I am very sorry for what happened. I have never espoused or in any way supported the objectives of PIE – the abuse of children – which I consider wholly wrong’.
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Nonetheless, the revelations are likely to raise questions about what vetting he underwent during his career.
However Fulford insisted ‘There was nothing to report to the Lord Chancellor’s department… at the time of my various appointments.’
The revelations also prompted fresh calls for a full investigation of the links between the Establishment and paedophile groups, following long-running allegations of cover-ups.
Scotland Yard is already looking into PIE as part of Operation Fernbridge, its probe into allegations of a child sex ring involving senior politicians at a south London guest house.
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High Court judge and the child sex ring: Adviser to Queen was founder of paedophile support group to keep offenders out of jail
Lord Justice Fulford was named last year as an adviser to the Queen
He was a key backer of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange
Police suspect the group of abusing children on an ‘industrial scale’
He is revealed as a founder member of campaign to defend PIE
At the time it was calling for the age of consent to be lowered to just four
22 January 2015
One of Britain’s most senior judges actively campaigned to support a vile paedophile group that tried to legalise sex with children, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Lord Justice Fulford, named last year as an adviser to the Queen, was a key backer of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which police suspect of abusing children on an ‘industrial scale’.
An investigation by the Mail on Sunday has discovered that Fulford was a founder member of a campaign to defend PIE while it was openly calling for the age of consent to be lowered to just four.
Implicated: Lord Justice Fulford, pictured in his full legal regalia, was named last year as an adviser to the Queen
It can also be revealed that the Appeal Court judge and Privy Counsellor:
Planned demonstrations outside courts where defendants – described by prosecutors as ‘sick’ and a ‘force for evil’ – were on trial.
Wrote an article claiming PIE, now under investigation in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, was merely a way for paedophiles to ‘make friends and offer each other mutual support’.
Sought help with the campaign from future Labour Minister Patricia Hewitt, then in charge of a controversial civil rights group.
Attended meetings to discuss tactics with PIE chairman Tom O’Carroll, who has since been jailed for possessing thousands of pictures of naked children.
Was praised by the paedophile group for coming to its defence.
Fulford was a founder member of an organisation called Conspiracy Against Public Morals set up to defend PIE leaders facing criminal charges.
It later published a sickening pamphlet claiming that children would be freed from the oppression of the state and their parents if they were allowed to have sex with adults.
The 60-page document, unearthed by The Mail on Sunday, is adorned with disturbing child-like pictures and sexual cartoons.
At the time the organisation went under a slightly different name but had the same postal address as Fulford’s group had.
When asked last night about his involvement in the group, Fulford said: ‘I have no memory of having been involved with its foundation or the detail of the work of this campaign.’
He added that any contribution he made would have been in general terms against a law banning ‘conspiracy to corrupt public morals’ which he believed ‘could be used against a wide variety of people in potentially inappropriate ways’.
‘I have always been deeply opposed to paedophilia and I never supported the views of the PIE,’ he added.
Fulford is the most senior public figure to be implicated in the work of PIE.
Today’s revelations follow controversy over the roles of Labour grandees Patricia Hewitt, Harriet Harman and her husband Jack Dromey, who were all involved in the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) when it counted paedophile activists among its members.
Last night Fulford said: ‘On reflection the NCCL gay rights committee should never have allowed members of PIE to attend any of its meetings.
‘I am very sorry for what happened. I have never espoused or in any way supported the objectives of PIE – the abuse of children – which I consider wholly wrong’.
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Nonetheless, the revelations are likely to raise questions about what vetting he underwent during his career.
However Fulford insisted ‘There was nothing to report to the Lord Chancellor’s department… at the time of my various appointments.’
The revelations also prompted fresh calls for a full investigation of the links between the Establishment and paedophile groups, following long-running allegations of cover-ups.
Scotland Yard is already looking into PIE as part of Operation Fernbridge, its probe into allegations of a child sex ring involving senior politicians at a south London guest house.
As The Mail on Sunday revealed last year, the Home Office is also carrying out urgent checks into a whistle-blower’s claims that taxpayers’ money was handed to PIE.
Labour MP Tom Watson said: ‘Today’s revelations reinforce the argument that there should be a full investigation into the role of PIE.
‘It’s incredible that someone of such distinguished legal authority could misunderstand the need to protect children.’
Tory MP Sir Paul Beresford added: ‘I find it staggering. It wasn’t a clever or appropriate campaign. They were a paedophile group and at the end of the chain were little children’.’
Peter Saunders of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said it was ‘more than alarming’ that anyone in the judiciary could be linked to PIE.
Fulford, now 61, is the most senior public figure to be exposed as an apologist for paedophiles among Left-wing political groups of the 1970s and 1980s.
He has enjoyed a stellar rise through the legal profession, becoming a QC in 1994 and a part-time judge the following year.
In 2002 he became the first openly gay High Court judge, being nominated for a knighthood by Tony Blair, and in 2003 took up a prestigious role at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Last year he was nominated as an Appeal Court judge by David Cameron and appointed to the Privy Council, the elite group of senior politicians, judges and clergy who advise the Queen on constitutional matters.
Back in the late 1970s he was a newly qualified Left-wing barrister when he joined the NCCL, now known as Liberty, which had links to known paedophile groups and attempted to lower the age of consent to 14 and water down child pornography laws
Fulford’s involvement with the radical movement to legalise child sex goes even further than that of the Labour Ministers, documents uncovered by The Mail on Sunday show.
He personally set up a group to support the ‘executive committee’ of PIE in the summer of 1979, after they had their homes raided by police.
Images of child abuse and group literature were seized and five leaders, including chairman O’Carroll, were charged with the rare offence of ‘conspiracy to corrupt public morals’.
Fulford and his colleagues called the organisation the Conspiracy Against Public Morals (CAPM), and it went on to distribute leaflets calling for the PIE ‘show trial’ to be dropped, and held protests outside courtrooms.
In October 1979 Fulford wrote a full-page article in gay rights magazine Broadsheet, in which he was described as ‘the founder’ of the PIE support group.
He claimed that classified adverts placed by PIE members, which led to the trial, were ‘simply to enable paedophiles to make friends and offer each other mutual support’ rather than to contact children or exchange banned images.
A leaflet distributed by CAPM and available through PIE’s mailing list went further, claiming: ‘This is a trumped-up charge designed to silence a group merely because it is unpopular with the guardians of public morality.’
And the prosecution was condemned as ‘an attack on PIE’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of association’.
A longer briefing note put together by the CAPM called the paedophiles a ‘minority group ripe for bashing’ because they were open about their aims.
In 1980, a Marxist collective used the almost identical name, Campaign Against Public Morals, and the same Central London PO Box address as Fulford’s group to publish a 60-page diatribe that called for the age of consent to be scrapped ‘for the liberation of children’.
The revelations follow controversy over the roles of Labour grandees Patricia Hewitt, left, and Harriet Harman, who were all involved in the National Council for Civil Liberties when it counted paedophile activists among its members
Fulford successfully proposed a motion at the August 1979 conference of an established gay rights group, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, that it should affiliate itself to his new group and also call for the PIE leaders to be cleared.
His actions were praised in the paedophiles’ in-house journal, Magpie, which declared: ‘No longer alone – new group to support PIE’ and said they ‘owed much to a speech by barrister Adrian Fulford, which Gay News declared to be the best made at the conference.’
The following month the CAPM held its third meeting at which Fulford and O’Carroll himself were present, as well as several members of the NCCL gay rights committee.
Minutes of the gathering show that they discussed picketing the magistrates court where the PIE defendants appeared and state ‘Adrian’ would ‘ask Patricia Hewitt about the possibilities of using NCCL’s number to take messages’.
Probe: Labour MP Tom Watson said there should be a full investigation into the role of PIE
Records show PIE leader O’Carroll – who was jailed for two years in 1981 – was a member of the gay rights committee at the same time as Fulford.
The paedophile group was often discussed at the gay rights committee’s meetings, and O’Carroll was given its support as he came under increasing public pressure.
Last night, Fulford admitted he attended meetings of the NCCL gay rights committee when O’Carroll was there, but added that his presence ‘left me feeling extremely uncomfortable’.
He added: ‘In the main, I provided some legal advice in the context of general civil liberties objections to the wide-ranging charge of conspiracy to corrupt public morals.’ And he stated that he has never wanted the age of consent to be lower than it is now.
PIE folded in 1984 after the arrest of several more leading figures, including one – Steven Adrian Smith – who had worked at the Home Office.
Miss Hewitt, Miss Harman and Mr Dromey have now expressed regret for the paedophile activists involvement with the NCCL, while insisting they never condoned child sex and that PIE did not influence their policies.
However archive material shows the NCCL’s Nettie Pollard actually invited PIE to become an affiliate group in 1975, offering them the chance to propose motions and take votes at its conferences.
Last night, Fulford said: ‘On reflection, the NCCL gay rights committee should never have allowed members of PIE to attend any of its meetings and a clear separation should have been created with the two organisations.’
Is Peter Tatchell A Paedophile Or Simply Misunderstood?
Peter Tatchell was born in Melbourne Australia on 25th January 1952, he moved to London in 1971 to avoid conscription. In 1978 Tatchell joined the Labour Party and moved to Bermondsey, South East London. Tatchell ran as the Bermondsey Labour Party candidate in the 1983 General Election. Despite Bermondsey being a Labour stronghold he lost to Liberal candidate Simon Hughes. In February 2000 he left the Labour Party for unknown reasons. In 2004 he joined the Green Party and was chosen to be their candidate for Oxford East in the 2010 General Election, however for some reason he withdrew his candidacy in 2009. Comrade Tatchell Peter Tatchell (the UK’s most prominent homosexual activist and a favourite of the BBC) has done more than demand the abolition of the age of consent, he has broken the law on the age of consent in Britain at least once.
Peter Tatchell is a regular on the BBC. The BBC have refused to state whether he appears as a human rights activist, homosexual campaigner or paedophilie apologist.
They have also refused to state how much they have paid him for appearances.
As a gay 18-year-old Australian anti-Vietnam war draft-dodger, he came to the UK in 1971 and lived with a 16-year-old boy in London. The homosexual age of consent in England at the time was 21. Later he campaigned for lowering it to 16, and now he wants it lowered again to 14. What will he want after that?
When the age of consent for homosexuals was lowered to 16 an Outrage (Tatchell’s organization) banner said “16 is just a start” – it didn’t state what the end goal was.
Mr Tatchell criticises the age of consent laws. Here is a quotation from his own website:
“Nevertheless, like any minimum age, it is arbitrary and fails to acknowledge that different people mature sexually at different ages. A few are ready for sex at 12; others not until they’re 20. Having a single, inflexible age of consent doesn’t take into account these differences. It dogmatically imposes a limit, regardless of individual circumstances“.
Peter Tatchell wrote the chapter “Questioning Ages of Majority and Ages of Consent” for a book openly advocating paedophilia and finding ways “to make paedophilia acceptable“.
This book, published in 1986 and called The Betrayal of Youth (B.O.Y.), was edited by Warren Middleton, then vice-chairperson of the Paedophile Information Exchange, Britain’s number one paedophile advocacy group.
So how with all the surveillance were the paedophiles for peace lobbyists missed?
Or were they a useful control/eye on non-paedophile peace campaigners?
Were paedophiles used as informants on anti-nuclear protestors?
Perusing Peace News from 1975+ I was glad to find ONE letter to Editor saying what I was thinking….
paraphrased: “What’s with Peace News new preoccupation with paedophile rights? What’s it got to do with anti-nuclear/peace activism?”
Writer of letter was an extremely disappointed long-term subscriber who just couldn’t fathom what had changed for Peace News
Government lawyers…in a vain attempt to keep a lid on Peter Wright’s revelations, seem to be turning a blind eye toward Peace News – the paper published passages from Spycatcher.
Stephen Green, anti-paedophile campaigner wrote: “The book was part of a campaign to abolish all ages of consent, destroy the responsibilities of parents for their children, deny any ill-effects on children of interference by paedophiles, and withal to make it easier for paedophiles to gain sexual access to children.“
In The Betrayal of Youth Tatchell wrote that the age of sexual consent is “Reinforcing a set of increasingly quaint, minority moral values left over from the Victorian era“.
Tatchell often ambushes public figures who don’t support the homosexual/paedophile agenda. The MSM and especially the BBC usually give him great publicity for these stunts.
Tatchell often ambushes public figures who don’t support the homosexual/paedophile agenda. The MSM and especially the BBC usually give him great publicity for these stunts.
He was not on his own in this belief.Many of his fellow socio-communists and homosexual activists thought the same:
Campaign for Homosexual Equality chairman Michael Jarrett was identifying paedophiles as an oppressed group, and the CHE list of “demands” included the complete abolition of minimum ages for sexual activity. The Labour Gay Rights Manifesto of 1985 said ‘A socialist society would supersede the family household. … Gay people and children should have the right to live together. … It follows from what we have already said that we favour the abolition of the age of consent.’
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Feminists like Beatrice Faust contributed to The Betrayal of Youth, as well as other homosexual activists besides Tatchell, including Jeffrey Weeks and Eric Presland, who “related his first paedophile experience with an Asian boy of thirteen, and boasted of interfering with a little boy of six“.
The book is considered so toxic that Amazon doesn’t sell it and you cannot search its content in Google Books.
Tatchell is well aware of how much all this is bad publicity for him and keeps rationalizing and adjusting his positions, but only the ideologically blind or pathologically naive cannot see through his self-excuses.
He has prepared a standard self-defence which can be found on his own website and has been repeated verbatim on many outlets. It used to also be on the site of his friend militant atheist, Richard Dawkins, but it’s not there any more. Maybe even Dawkins draws a line at what is morally allowed, even though his motto is “There’s probably no God – now stop worrying and enjoy your life”.
In this article that supposedly should serve to exculpate him, Tatchell has nothing better than this: “The critics also cite Warren Middleton’s 1980s book, Betrayal of Youth, to which I contributed a chapter. I had no idea that he was involved in child sex abuse matters when I was asked to write.”
Considering that Warren Middleton was co-founder and vice-chairperson of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), a prominent group promoting paedophilia, it was impossible for Tatchell not to have known his propensities. In addition, both Tatchell and Middleton were part of the Gay Liberation Front/Angry Brigade, a neo-Marxist revolutionary group of radical students at the London School of Economics, thus making Tatchell’s protestations of ignorance verge on the ridiculous.
Peter Righton of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Peter Righton of the Paedophile Information Exchange – a Child welfare expert who wanted the age of consent lowering to four.
Were you aware that Tatchell contributed a chapter to this book?
THE BETRAYAL OF YOUTH
The contents and contributors of The Betrayal of Youth:
Chapter 1: ‘Incest’ by Clive Coliman: Described as “An ardent supporter of the children’s rights movement.”
Chapter 2: ‘Child Pornography and Erotica’ by Richard Green: Illustrator for the Paedophile Information Exchange magazine under the pseudonym “Dominik”
Chapter 3: ‘Child Prostitution’ by Warren Middleton of P.I.E.
Chapter 4: ‘Gender Differences’ by Liz Holtom and Kathy Challis: both from the anti-Christian Peace News.
Chapter 5: ‘Power and Consent’ by Eric Presland: Homosexual activist. Contributed also to the American paedophile book “The Age Taboo.”
Chapter 6: ‘Love and Let Love’ by Tuppy Owens, Editor of the Sex Maniac’s Diary, and Tom O’Carroll: ex-Chairman of P.I.E. who was convicted in 1981 of conspiracy to corrupt public morals by sending out a paedophile contact list.
Chapter 7: ‘Children and Sex’ by Fr Michael Ingram: Catholic priest, defender of paedophilia.
Chapter 9: ‘Questioning Ages of Majority and Ages of Consent’ by Peter Tatchell.
Chapter 10: ‘Ends and Means: How to Make Paedophilia Acceptable?’ by Roger Moody of Peace News: “One of the most outspoken advocates of children’s rights in Britain .” Well-documented as a ubiquitous paedophile intellectual.
Chapter 11: ‘Socialism, Class, and Children’s Rights’ by John Lindsay: “ardent supporter of children’s rights.” Member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. Homosexual activist, hates the institution of the family.
Chapter 12: ‘Childhood Sexuality and Paedophilia: Some Questions Answered’ by Warren Middleton of P.I.E.
Chapter 13: ‘The Oppression of the Young: An Inside Perspective’ by Jeff Vernon: Involved in Gay Youth Movement and Campaign for Homosexual Equality.
Appendix 1: “P.I.E., from 1980 Until its Demise in 1985” by Steven A. Smith: ex-chairman of P.I.E. Fled to Holland in 1984, became “active in the Dutch crusade for children’s rights,” was deported back to the UK in 1991 and sentenced to 18 months for sending indecent articles through the post.
Appendix 2: “The Uranians” by Timothy d’Arch Smith: Bookseller. Author of “Love in Earnest.”
Peter Tatchell’s self-defence begins with:
“Unlike many Catholic clergy, I have never abused anyone. Unlike the Pope, I have never failed to report abusers or covered up their crimes.”
These are blatant falsities. It wasn’t many Catholic clergy, it was an extremely small minority. And, as shown in Lies About The Catholic Church Child Sex Abuse Scandal, there is no reason, except bigotry and prejudice, to single out Catholic clergy who in fact have committed fewer of these crimes than any other pedagogic institution, religious or secular.
Peter Tatchell and his homosexual/paedophile allies often attacked the Christian Church for having Christian values. There is no record of him bursting in to a synagogue or mosque to protest against their religous values.
Peter Tatchell and his homosexual/paedophile allies often attacked the Christian Church for having Christian values. There is no record of him bursting in to a synagogue or mosque to protest against their religious values.
Saying what he does about the Pope is a criminal act, it is slander. The Pope has never covered up for anyone.Tatchell and his friends in the mainstream media (especially the BBC) think that if you repeat a lie enough times your audience will start to believe that it’s true.
But blaming the Church whenever you’re in trouble is a good way to distract the public from your own deviations from the norm. It’s worked so far so why shouldn’t it work now? Maybe because people have started calling your bluff, Pete.
Peter Tatchell has a seething hatred of Christian morals and values.
Peter Tatchell has a seething hatred of Christian morals and values.
The above should tell you how trustworthy and credible Tatchell is, but there’s more.
Look at his defence of the book Dares To Speak:
“Dares to Speak was an academic book published in 1997, authored by professors, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, a Dutch senator and a former editor of a Catholic newspaper. It discussed the age of sexual consent and whether all sex between young people and adults is necessarily unwanted and harmful, based on what it said was objective research with young people.
The book does not endorse or excuse sexual relationships with young people that involve coercion, manipulation or damage. The authors queried, among other things, the balance between giving young people sexual rights and protecting them against abuse. These are entirely legitimate issues to discuss.”
Leaving aside the irony (probably lost on humorless Tatchell) about his using a “former editor of a Catholic newspaper” as a guarantor of the morality of a book while he constantly treats the Catholic Church like a den of abusers. The book Dares to Speak, that Tatchell praises so much as an academic achievement, was edited by Joseph Geraci, who was also the editor of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia. The book is a collection of articles from the journal.
Before it was quietly removed, this was Wikipedia’s entry for the publication:
Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (1987–1995) was a journal published by the Stichting Paidika Foundation whose purpose was to promote the normalization of pedophilia. Its editor was Joseph Geraci and the editorial board included articles by writers Frits Bernard, Edward Brongersma, Vern L. Bullough, and D. H. (Donald) Mader, some of whom campaigned as pro-pedophile activists.
After the normalization of homosexuality, we’ll have the normalization of paedophilia.
Graham Ovenden was a Guest Editorial of Paidika Journal of Paedophilia in 1994
PAIDIKA NUMBER 10 WINTER 1994: Guest Editorial: Fall from Grace, by Graham Ovenden
Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia
Full-Text Files (PDF, GIF and plain-text searchable HTML)
Documents Not Likely to be Widely Available in Libraries
archived here by
Gerald Jones, Ph.D.
University of Southern California, 1964-2007:
Student, Lecturer, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Statistics, Staff (Retired)
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Here is Tatchell’s letter to the Guardian dated 26th June 1997 (a few weeks after Labour’s General Election win) which he denied writing when I asked him about it. However I can find no record of a complaint to the Guardian, the Press Complaints Commission or any lawsuit for libel:
Ros Coward (Why Dares to Speak says nothing useful, June 23) thinks it is “shocking” that Gay Men’s Press has published a book, Dares To Speak, which challenges the assumption that all sex involving children and adults is abusive. I think it is courageous. The distinguished psychologists and anthropologists cited in this book deserve to be heard. Offering a rational, informed perspective on sexual relations between younger and older people, they document examples of societies where consenting inter-generational sex is considered normal, beneficial and enjoyable by old and young alike.
Prof Gilbert Herdt points to the Sambia tribe of Papua New Guinea, where all young boys have sex with older warriors as part of their initiation into manhood. Far from being harmed, Prof Herdt says the boys grow up to be happy, well-adjusted husbands and fathers. The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy. While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted,abusive and harmful.
Peter Tatchell.
Picture 9
Peter Tatchell has repeatedly denied writing the letter above. However below is his reply in the Guardian (1st July 1997) to criticism of his original letter. In his second letter (below) he never denies writing the first letter (above) or claims he was edited in any way.
Peter Tachell’s second letter to the Guardian on 1st July 1997.
Peter Tachell’s second letter to the Guardian on 1st July 1997.
Peter Tatchell has often claimed he lives a monk-like existence living on a mere £9,000 income per annum. When I challenged him on this he changed his claim to £29,000 plus expenses. However he has refused to disclose his payments for his numerous main stream media appearances or disclose how much his yearly expenses are.
Peter Tatchell in his Council flat.
Peter Tatchell in his Bermondsey Council flat.
Peter Tatchell has declined to be interviewed for this article, however I will leave him the option of the right of reply in the comments section.
This post contains 3 items from Niall Meehan, Faculty Head, Journalism & Media, Griffith College, Dublin. They show the Northern Ireland Inquiry into “historical abuse” was factually incorrect about Morris Fraser and show Niall Meehan’s attempts to correct the record. It appears the authorities are slow to do this.
1. The first, the text of which is reproduced in this post and on this pdf [1] is a letter from Niall Meehan, pointing out serious deficiencies and errors of fact in the Northern Ireland Abuse (NIA) inquiry when it considered Morris Fraser in his work at Lissue Hospital and also police failures to inform NI Hospitals Authority and RUC of their investigation of Morris Fraser.
2. 2017 Sept Niall Meehan Report published previously in Spinwatch ‘Northern Ireland abuse inquiry (HIAI) failed to investigate paedophile doctor, Morris Fraser, who managed Lissue children’s psychiatric hospital’ pdf [2]
3. Niall Meehan Report published previously in 2017 Nov Village Magazine ‘Stormont should correct HIAI report to reflect police paedophile delinquency’ pdf [3]
The text of Niall Meehans letter is as follows:-
1. Letter /Email from
To: David Sterling. Executive Office, NIO, Belfast
Copy to: James Brokenshire MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
From Dr Niall Meehan, Faculty Head, Journalism & Media, Griffith College, Dublin.
16 November 2017
The HIAI and Dr Morris Fraser (2 pages)
Dear David Sterling,
On 17 May 1972 at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court London, a child psychiatrist
employed by the NI Hospitals Authority, Dr Maurice Fraser, pleaded guilty to abusing
a 13-year-old Belfast boy in London in August 1971.
I attach two reports I authored on Dr Morris Fraser, in September and (just published)
November 2017.
They are entitled:
• ‘Stormont should correct HIAI report to reflect police paedophile delinquency’, Village
magazine, November 2017 pdf [3]
• ‘Northern Ireland abuse inquiry (HIAI) failed to investigate paedophile doctor, Morris Fraser, who managed Lissue children’s psychiatric hospital’, Spinwatch, September 2017 pdf [2]
(I draw your attention also to my first, March 2016, report on Dr Fraser: 2016 Mar 31 Niall Meehan, ‘Morris Fraser, child abuse, corruption and collusion in Britain and Northern Ireland’ [4] )
Both reports detail a serious deficiency in the findings, and also errors of fact, in the
Report of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI), as they concern Dr Fraser.
I wish to make two points on that subject, which are supported by evidence cited in the
attached reports. I draw your attention in particular to copies of archival documents
(cited here) in my September 2017 report on Dr Fraser.
1. Fraser’s work in Lissue Children’s Psychiatric Unit
The January 2017 HIAI Report, chapter 26, page 82, briefly considered and then
dismissed discussion of Fraser’s work, and of his official treatment. It found that,
… the way the medical authorities and the police dealt with Dr Fraser after his conviction
in London are not matters that fall within the Terms of Reference of this Inquiry and we
have not considered them.
The conclusion was based on a finding, that relied on the 45-year-old memory of Dr
Fraser’s 1971-73 superior, Dr William Nelson, that Fraser’s work in 1972-3, with
institutionalised children in Lissue hospital’s child psychiatric unit, was peripheral, at
best, to his main work with outpatient children in the RVH. Inquiry paragraph 87 in
chapter 26 asserted, ‘There is no evidence of Dr Fraser’s work at Lissue’.
The HIA Inquiry dealt only with the treatment of institutionalised children
As my latest reports point out, the Inquiry ignored (and made no reference to the
possession of) documentary evidence sent to the Inquiry by the General Medical
Council (GMC) in September 2016.
A document, one of two July 1973 letters from
Fraser’s immediate superior, the same Dr William Nelson, for GMC consideration,
demonstrated that Fraser’s main work was in Lissue Hospital’s inpatient child
psychiatric unit, for at least a year after his May 1972 child abuse conviction.
The letter, dated 6 July 1973, stated also that Dr Fraser was promoted to medical manager
of the children’s psychiatric unit within that time period. Finally, Dr Nelson’s letter noted that Fraser interacted with social care workers in allocating vulnerable childrento various institutions.
This latter point is in line with an allegation from Kincora Boys’ Home victim Richard Kerr, that the Inquiry attempted to undermine (though Kerr refused to interact with the Inquiry). A second letter from Dr Nelson, dated 11 July 1973, stated a willingness to accept Dr Fraser back working in the child psychiatric unit.
Therefore, the Inquiry decision to ignore investigation of Morris Fraser’s behaviour and official treatment was contradicted by evidence in its possession, which the Inquiry decided, irrationally, to ignore. The ignored evidence suggested that Investigation of Fraser, a paedophile who interacted with vulnerable institutionalised children, was within the HIA Inquiry’s terms of reference. That concludes the first point.
2. Police failure to inform NI Hospitals Authority and RUC frustration of
GMC investigation of Morris Fraser
The second issue I bring to your attention concerns how Fraser came to be working with children, though he was a convicted child abuser. That is because the London Metropolitan Police plus the Royal Ulster Constabulary (and/or the NI Police Authority) refused, contrary to explicitly stated official regulations (cited in the
attached November 2017 Village article [3]), to inform the NI Hospitals Authority of Dr Fraser’s unreported (by the media) May 1971 conviction.
Had the HIA Inquiry found, correctly, that Fraser’s behaviour and treatment was within its terms of reference, it would have been bound to investigate why the RUC (and/or the NI Police Authority) failed in its duty to inform a hospital authority that an internationally known child psychiatrist it employed was also a child abuser. The police authority admitted an obligation to inform, through duplicating Metropolitan Police notification to the GMC.
The HIAI would have been obliged also to consider other GMC evidence in its possession, indicating that the RUC, in particular, frustrated, and also thereby delayed, the GMC’s investigation of Fraser. The HIAI would have been bound to consider RUC culpability in the subsequent abuse of children, by a career paedophile whose object was to scan an available child population in order to select those he might abuse. The HIAI failed in its duty to investigate a proven paedophile who worked with vulnerable institutionalised Northern Ireland children.
For that reason I ask you to refer back to the Inquiry those findings and errors of fact as
they concern Dr Morris Fraser, that are clearly contrary to evidence available to the
Inquiry. I ask you also to bring these observations to the attention of responsible
ministers.
When may I expect notification of your decision(s) in relation to this matter and
considered reply?
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Niall Meehan
Morris Fraser
BBC presenter was linked to the Paedophile Information Exchange
This article was published in the Mirror the day after Tom Watson’s PMQ in October.
PIE, which is now outlawed, also had links with another BBC presenter who was investigated over child sex allegations in the late 80s. Like Savile, the unnamed star was accused of using a charity as a cover to abuse vulnerable children. The charity was set up by a PIE member in the 80s, offering yachting classes to vulnerable and underprivileged children.
The BBC presenter was investigated after police became aware of allegations he was abusing boys during sailing trips. No charges were ever brought against the star for reasons that remain unclear.A child protection source said yesterday: “The presenter was going out on a boat with vulnerable children and a leading former member of PIE.
“The charity was being used as a way of taking indecent pictures of the boys and there was also physical abuse occurring.” One man was later convicted of abusing boys during the yachting outings and jailed for four years in the early 90s. Detectives are expected to re-examine the case in the light of the flood of allegations regarding Savile.
This section of the story seems to have gone unnoticed, there’s not a single reference to it in the comments thread. I can add a bit more information to the article:
The charity was the Azimuth Trust.
The “leading former member of PIE” was Dr. Morris Fraser, who features in the BBC documentary on Peter Righton, ‘The Secret Life of a Paedophile‘. More on Morris Fraser here
It reports that the mystery BBC presenter was investigated at the time after police became aware of allegations he was abusing boys during sailing trips.
No charges were ever brought against the star – for reasons that remain unclear.
A child protection source is said to have told the Mirror: ‘The charity was used as a way of taking indecent pictures of the boys and there was also physical abuse occurring.’
One man was later convicted of abusing boys during the yachting outings and jailed for four years in the early 1990s, the paper reports.
A FORMER BBC reporter appeared in court yesterday accused of sexually abusing two boys under the age of 14, spanning a decade.
Clifford Luton, 88, who has been charged with three indecent assault charges between January 1971 and January 1981, arrived at Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court in a wheelchair.
The alleged sex attacks in Poole, Ealing and Essex involve two young victims who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Luton from Ashley Road in Parkstone, Poole, is also charged with 30 offences of possessing an indecent image of a child, including photographs in the most serious grade five category, at his home in April last year.
Represented by Mark Price, he did not enter any pleas and was granted unconditional bail. Magistrates have already rejected jurisdiction and the case was committed to Bournemouth Crown Court on June 24.
Luton worked for the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s reporting on major issues including The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Cod Wars with Iceland, the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne and the Lebanese Civil War.
In 1967 he chartered a plane to search for round-the-world sailor Francis Chichester who had gone missing in a storm around Cape Horn.
While working for the Daily Mail Luton interviewed famous historian David Irving in the 1950s.
During yesterday’s brief court appearance, Luton spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth, using a hearing aid to follow proceedings.
BBC reporter Clifford Luton child sex charges case halted
A former BBC News reporter may never be tried over alleged sexual offences after a judge upheld a decision to indefinitely halt the case.
Clifton Luton, of Ashley Road, Poole, had been accused of indecently assaulting two boys under the age of 14 and possessing indecent images.
But in December the case against Mr Luton was indefinitely halted because of his age and ill health.
On Friday a judge concluded the court had jurisdiction to make that decision.
‘Too ill’
Mr Luton had been accused of assaulting one of the boys on three occasions between 1971 and 1974 and one attack on the other alleged victim between 1980 and 1981.
But in December the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) made an application to stay the proceedings, which indefinitely halts further legal process in a court case.
The application followed medical reports from the defence and prosecution which concluded the 90-year-old was too ill to face criminal proceedings.
However, in April the CPS had what Judge Peter Johnson described as “second thoughts” and questioned whether a judge at Bournemouth Crown Court had jurisdiction to grant the application.
Having considered the case law, Judge Johnson concluded the court had been correct to grant the application.
Mr Luton is understood to have worked as a BBC reporter for 15 years in the 1960s and 1970s.
Clifford Luton was a BBC reporter for 15 years between the 1960s and 1970s. Despite numerous court appearances charged with abusing children, the justice system never seemed to conclude a case against him and in one of the later trials, part of the case wasn’t heard in court. I have my own theory as to why this might be, but there is no proof.
June 1957
Luton wrote a letter to the New Scientist. His address is stated as The Vineyard, Richmond, Surrey. LINK
September 1960
Luton was working as a reporter at the Daily Express. LINK
October 1963
Luton appears as a character witness in the intriguing trial of Laurence Terence Bell. Bell appeared at the Old Bailey, accused of indecency with young guardsmen at Chelsea barracks. He was eventually found not guilty having pled that he was framed by ‘the powers that be’ as he gave information to the press regarding Stephen Ward, John Profumo and Christine Keeler – in particular allegations of Ward’s attempts to acquire nuclear information. It is a fascinating case and one I urge you to read up upon. Luton knew Bell. The Guardian, Newspapers.com
The Guardian 03 May 1988
Stephen Ward at the centre of the Profumo affair was killed on orders from MI5, according to an unnamed MI6 operative. The MI6 contact told them Ward was a threat. He is quoted as saying there were sex photographs, which could damage the Macmillan government and the royal family. …on the night he died, Ward wrote to the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke, but the letter was suppressed.
November 1974
Luton writes a letter to The Times. His address is stated as 12 Elm Grove Road, London, W5.
November 1978
Luton appeared at Tottenham Magistrate’s Court charged with abusing a girl and three boys. Unknown outcome. The Times
The Times: 9 November 1978
REMAND ON BAIL FOR BBC REPORTER
Clifford Luton, a BBC television reporter, was remanded on bail until January 19 at Tottenham Magistrate’s Court, London, yesterday, charged with indecently assaulting a girl and three boys.
Mr Luton, aged 54, of Ashley Road, Poole, Dorset, was accused of indecently assaulting a girl aged 15 between December 28 last year and January 10 this year, a boy aged 14 between July 22 and 29 this year, a boy aged 12 between August 5 and 12, and another boy of 12 between September 2 and 4.
There is no further information about this case as The Times was not printed December 1978 and November 1979 due to a labour dispute. However, mention is made to it on a forum whereby it is suggested the abuse happened in Northern Ireland. I am unable to confirm if this is true or false. (See further reading)
July 1989
Luton was named in a Sunday Mirror expose as having being one of those men being questioned by police investigating a paedophile ring. The three men named were Dr Roderick Morris Fraser, Luton and Nicholas Reynolds. The article (on the Spotlight blog) states:
Luton, 64, a former SAS captain, organises boat trips for children from his Dorset home.
Former BBC reporter Luton also refuses to comment about the police investigation. He runs the North Sea Cruise Association from his home in Ashley Road, Parkstone, near Poole, Dorset.
The Association founded by Luton 25 years ago, advertises boat trips for youngsters.
As a high-flying journalist, he reported on war zones including Beiruit, Northern Ireland and the Congo. He also covered Francis Chichester’s historic voyage around Cape Horn.
A skilled yachtsman himself, he owns a 28 foot boat, the Sarah Jane.
This group was one of those set up pre-Azimuth Trust.
Azimuth Trust
Azimuth Trust was founded by Dr Roderick Morrison Fraser, Michael Johnson and John Lambeth. Johnson and Fraser were connected to other paedophiles such as Charles Napier (brother of John Whittingdale), Peter Righton and Terence Waters among others. Cathy Fox has done a great indepth blog post about it all, and there is also the blog post I put together regarding the Righton investigation – Operation Clarence.
There is also a very interesting video about Azimuth and it’s members on YouTube. Interestingly, the only person to be convicted was Johnson and in 1994 the police were criticised over their handling of the case.
January 2011
Luton launched a complaint via the PCC against The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times over their obituaries for reporter Murray Sayle. LINK
June 2013
Luton appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court accused of indecent exposure and possession of indecent images. There was also a further charge but the details were not heard in court.. The case was adjourned until September 2013 and Luton was released on bail. LINK
September 2013
Luton appears at Bournemouth Crown Court accused of indecent exposure and possession of indecent images. There was also a further charge but the details were not heard in court. LINK
December 2013
A judge halts the trial of Luton indefinitely due to his health. LINK
October 2014
A judge halts the trial of Luton indefinitely due to his age and health. LINK
Nothing more is known about Luton. He simply disappears. In typical Janner style, he became too old and mentally unwell to face justice.
BBC News NI has tracked down a serial child sex abuser who admitted his crimes to police but has never been brought to justice.
Henry Clarke, 75, confessed to abusing three different boys at care homes in Northern Ireland.
A retired church pastor, he has been living in Canada since he made the admissions in 1985.
NI’s Director of Public Prosecutions directed no prosecution and the RUC failed to act on a further confession.
Today, he lives in a small town hundreds of miles from the nearest city in northern Canada.
One of his victims, Billy Brown, 61, who was abused when he was a 12 year-old boy, described Henry Clarke as “a monster”.
Mr Brown, who has waived his right to anonymity, said: “You just had to stay away from him. You went to bed at night, you pulled your blankets around you as tightly as you could.”
Henry Clarke emigrated to Canada in the late seventies but he eventually admitted the accusations of abuse during an interview with police in Belfast in 1985 and afterwards in a letter he wrote from Canada.
Clarke was pastor of four churches in Canada after he emigrated.
Statement issued by Colin Wallace following the publication of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry Report.
Although I initially offered to give evidence to the Inquiry, I later decided not to, mainly on the grounds that the Government repeatedly refused to give it the same legal powers as the corresponding Inquiry in London.
I believe that both the perception and the reality of the Government’s decision is one ofunfairness to the victims.
Despite my decision, I did, however, provide the Inquiry with 265 pages of comment and supportingdocuments, drawing attention to false or misleading information contained in the transcripts of thepublic hearings. My reason for doing so was to enable the Inquiry to investigate and corroborate theaccuracy of my past comments about Kincora and related matters, and to provide the Inquiry with theopportunity to correct the relevant errors in the its published transcripts.
None of the information I provided to the Inquiry is new.
Although some of it has not previously been in the public domain, it has been in the possession of the Ministry of Defence and other Government agencies for many years and should have been made available by those authorities to the Inquiry.
It should, therefore, also have been made available by the authorities to previous Inquiries and the Government needs to explain why that did not happen. Even more worrying, is the acknowledged fact that key Army Intelligence files relating to Tara and William McGrath – including the one compiled by Intelligence officer, Captain Brian Gemmell – appear to have gone missing after they were handed over by the Army to MI5 in 1989, prior to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s admission to Parliament (30 January 1990) that Ministers had“inadvertently misled” Parliament about my case.
Clockwork Orange
There also appears to be no record whatsoever of what became of all the ‘Clockwork Orange’ project files which I handed over to my superiors when Ileft Army Headquarters in Lisburn in February 1975. Some of those files related to William McGrath.
To make matters worse, it is now clear from the Inquiry’s transcripts that a senior MI5 officer, Ian Cameron, falsely accused me of ‘leaking’, without authority, information to the press about William McGrath.
The MI5 claim is bizarre.
As my Army superior at the time has confirmed in the press, I was officially instructed by my superiors in Psychological Operations, at the behest of Major General Peter Leng, to brief the press about McGrath as early as 1973, in a bid to attract media attention to his activities.
It is also significant that the MI5 officer who accused me of ‘leaking’ information about McGrath to the press later refused to be interviewed by the Terry Inquiry investigators about why he ordered Captain Brain Gemmell, to stop investigating McGrath.
Intelligence Agenda
Clearly, the Army and MI5 had very different agendas regarding McGrath and his activities.The astonishing claim by the authorities that they knew nothing about the allegations surrounding McGrath’s sexual activities until 1980 is a total travesty.
As my documents clearly show, it is simply not credible that I knew more about McGrath and his activities than the combined Intelligence community did in 1973/74. One must conclude, therefore, that the Intelligence Services did not tell the Inquiry all they knew about McGrath during the 1970s.
Indeed, most of the information I possessed about McGrath in 1973/74 came from within the Intelligence community and was quite substantial. Moreover, my 1973 press briefing document clearly contains more information about McGrath than the Intelligence Services have claimed to the Inquiry that they possessed at that time!
For example, that document states that McGrath “is a known homosexual” and that he “runs a home for children on the (236) Upper Newtownards Road. Telephone: B’fast 657838.”
Finally, to suggest that because I gave the press the exact postal address (including the street number of the property), plus the telephone number of the Kincora home, but did not actually include the name,‘Kincora’, that somehow invalidates my evidence.
That is an unacceptable attempt to avoid facing up to what I have been saying over the years, and also shows that the claim made by the Intelligence Services to the Inquiry that they were not aware until 1980 of where McGrath worked is demonstrably false.
Overall, I believe the Inquiry has been a wasted opportunity to establish the full facts relating to this matter and I feel the victims have been let down yet again, as they were by previous Inquiries.
Further Information by Ciarán
Colin Wallace has been a great supporter of the McGurk’s Bar Campaign for Truth and was actually on-site at British Army Headquarters when word of the bombing was reported by Security Forces on the ground.
He has written that the authorities that Army HQ knew that the bar was attacked and this has since been proved beyond any doubt with my latest archive find.
He also wrote the Foreword of my book which you can read here.
Members/Activists/Connected of P.I.E
Former PIE Chairperson and current pro-paedophile activist Tom O’Carroll
tom
David Joy, 66 – once No2 in the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange. In 1984 he was jailed for 18 months for publishing obscene material in a PIE newsletter. In 1996 he got two more years after admitting indecent assaults dating back to the 80s. Then in January 2006 cops found 1,129 images of children aged one to 13 at his rundown flat in Loughborough, Leics. Some were in the level 5 category – featuring sado-masochism, torture or bestiality.
david-joy1
DR Morris Fraser – P.I.E founder member & leading child psychiatrist – had a criminal record for taking indecent photographs of children and assault in 1972. Good friends with both Napier, Waters and Righton
morris
Terrence Waters – Former prep school teacher – Closely linked to several P.I.E members incl Andrew Sadler – adopted the alias “James Opphin daler”. The name contains an anagram of the word “paedophile”. In 1994 Waters was sentenced to ten years for possessing child abuse images and the sexual abuse of a 10 year old boy. In 2011 convicted for more sexual abuse against children at Allen House School – More on Waters on this link
Michael Johnson – jailed for four years on six specimen counts of indecent assault against two boys aged nine and 11. In 1988 Dr Morris Fraser and Michael Johnson set up a sailing charity for disadvantaged boys called the Azimuth Trust based in Cornwall.
Andrew Sadler – Former teacher who was jailed abroad for sex offences against boys – Links to Fraser and Napier –
Andrew Sadler
More on Sadler on this link
Leo Adamson helped set up Pie to distribute obscene pictures of young boys while John Parratt aka Warren Middleton was a former vice-chairman of the organisation
Leo Adamson, left. John Parratt right
Former chairman/leader Steven Freeman aka Steven Adrian Smith
freeman
Freeman/Smith was a former Home Office security guard and was described in court in 1984 as the, “powerhouse and engine room of P.I.E, and the life blood of contact which he edited and printed.
The members’ hotline for the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) rang, of all places, inside the Home Office. The phone would be picked up by Steven Smith, a paedophile and member of the group who worked in security in Whitehall, from where he would tell callers where to go for the next meeting to discuss issues including decriminalising sex with children as young as four.
John Morrison and Barry cutler – Members
john morrison left. Barry Cutler, right
Geoffrey Prime – Former member and KGB spy
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Sir Peter Hayman – Several links to P.I.E and its members – Former High Commissioner to Canada
peterhayman01
Notorious paedophile and TV presenter Jimmy Savile was almost certainly a full member of P.I.E
Jimmy+Savile
Peter Bremner (aka Roger Nash) Member level – Bremner has convictions for indecently assaulting children. Jailed for 6 months in 1994 with David Joy. in 1978 Bremner was given a three month prison sentence suspended for 2 years and fined £150 for indecently assaulting 3 boys, two aged 8 and one aged just 5
peter brmner
John Stamford – A former church minister published international guides for child molesters. He died before his trial. Stamford used a homosexual travel guide called spartacus as a front for a mailing ordering service offering information on child prostitutes in Thailand, Brazil and other nations. The organisation was alleged to have operated through a box number in London. The details of each of the members, including their sexual preferences, the desired age of the children and preferred countries of origin were stored on a computer. The members received personalised lists of children.
Stephen King aka Stephen Gosling – so called child expert was a member of P.I.E. His unbelievable role was to advise UK judges on sentencing for paedophiles
Child rapist Stephen King who used to advise judges on sex offenders jailed for sick photos, videos and ‘paedophile manual’
25 Sept 2017
A convicted child rapist who used to advise judges on how to deal with paedophiles has been jailed again after he was found with thousands of sick videos and photos, including a ‘Paedophile manual’.
Stephen King, 68, pleaded guilty to six charges, including possessing indecent images of children, nearly 3,000 of which were the most extreme kind.
Included were 85 videos in the worst category, which included a baby being sexually abused.
He was also caught in possession of a ‘paedophile manual’ at a house in Richmond on May 1 which “contained guidance about abusing children sexually”.
King was sentenced today (September 25) to 20 months in prison, the most lenient possible, due to his ill health – he recently suffered a heart attack and a stroke.
The 68-year-old was also charged with meeting up with another sex offender in Richmond, which he was prevented from doing under a sexual harm order, but pleaded not guilty to this charge, which will lie on file.
King, of Herne Hill, who appeared at Kingston Crown Court via video from Wandsworth Prison, was convicted in 2004 of more than 20 of sexual offences, including having sex with a girl under 13 years old.
Previous to his first conviction, he had given government agencies and judges advice on protecting youngsters from child molesters, and even suggested jail terms for child sex offenders.
After being released from prison, King was staying at a house in Richmond.
In May, King tried to contact a six-year-old girl, something he was prevented from doing under a sexual harm order.
He was arrested and charged on May 1. After admitting the charge, he was sentenced to eight months in Wandsworth Prison.
On May 3, two days after he was arrested, a cleaner in the house he had been staying at found a black suitcase. After asking the other tenants if it belonged to them, she concluded it must have been King’s.
She brought it to Richmond police station, where he was brought after the arrest, and police found thousands of indecent images on memory sticks, along with letters purporting to be from children who had sex with him and “enjoyed it”.
No child has been connected to the letters, and his defence lawyer Peter Cordwell said the letters were “self-penned”.
There was also “extreme” bestiality images on the memory sticks.
Judge Judith Coello described the images found in King’s possession as “disgusting and debauched”.
Sentencing, she said: “By engaging in this type of activity you and others like you are providing a market for a heinous crime.
“You encourage those who make these images to continue making them.
“People like you are an absolute menace to decent society.”
Richard Bigham – Eldest son of viscount of Mersey admitted he was a member
Former Vicar and millionaire Michael Studdert –financial backer and member level millionaire-michael-studdert
David Wade – The treasurer of P.I.E
Entry level members – Robert Bushell, Geoffrey Taylor, David Hooper, Nigel Beatman – Click this to see summary of their convictions
Michael Hanson – First chairman (set up P.I.E. as a special interest group within the Scottish Minorities Group with Ian Dunn)
Keith Hose – 2ND Chairman In the PIE Chairperson’s Annual Report for 1975-6, Keith Hose wrote that ‘The only way for PIE to survive, was to seek out as much publicity for the organization as possible…. If we got bad publicity we would not run into a corner but stand and fight. We felt that the only way to get more paedophiles joining P I E… was to seek out and try to get all kinds of publications to print our organization’s name and address and to make pedophilia a real public issue.’
British antiques expert Keith Harding was active in the Paedophile Information Exchange
Harding was convicted of indecent assault against four children aged eight and nine in the late 1950s and was a “schedule 1” offender – meaning his convictions remained on his police file for life.
But he was later given the Freedom of the City of London and became a member of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, meeting business and political figures at the height of his career. The clockmaker and music box expert ran a museum regularly visited by children, despite social services being aware 20 years ago of his convictions for child abuse.
harding1
A document held by police in the mid-1980s listed Keith Harding as PIE member number 329 next to his north London address.
Ian Campbell Dunn – Co-founder (born 01/05/43 died 10/03/98)
iandunn1
Michel José Rosoor, Jacques Francis, Beat Meier ‘London tape’ Witte Comites Blancs, p7
Michel José Rosoor, Jacques Francis, Beat Meier ‘London tape’ Witte Comites Blancs, p8
The tortured victim on the “London Cassette”, an 8-year-old British child identified by the British police, had been placed at the disposal of the network by his parents who had attended Meier from 1983 to 1987.
I assume the parents are from London and had known Beat Meier very well and they themselves may of been paedophiles.
Roger Lawrence was in the car with Beat Meier but released without charge
Shortly before his death, Dunn, a prominent gay activist, became convener of lobby group Outright Scotland. In 1997, he condemned police over a camera surveillance operation in public toilets in Stirling which led to several gay men being charged – even though the investigation also revealed that some men had sex with a 13-year-old boy. In 1974, Dunn co -founded the Paedophile Information Exchange ( PIE) with Michael Hanson. It became the leading contact group for adults campaigning for the right to have sex with children. In an interview in 1997, Dunn admitted he and Hanson had agreed to facilitate research into sex with children.
Dunn was caught on tape bragging abut interfering with a fourteen-year-old boy. The existence of the tape caused him to abandon a libel action he had brought against a Sunday newspaper, which named him as a paedophile. The encounter itself does not seem to have been a one-off – at his funeral in 1998, a young man claimed Dunn had raped him when he was fifteen. Dunn also supported a paedophile magazine called ‘Minor Problems.’
Charles Napier One-time treasurer of PIE Charles Napier is alleged to have sexually assaulted boys whilst a gym master at Copthorne School. He became an English Language Trainer at the British Council and was convicted of sexual assault against minors in London in 1995 and investigated as an alleged member of a paedophile network operating in British schools in 1996. He set up his own school in Turkey and resumed English Language Training with the British Council after serving his sentence
Charles Napier
Michael Dagnall · Tony Zalewski – Lee Edwards –Named in Daily Express, 26th August 1983
Lee Edwards aka Edward Brand executive committee member of PIE Does the photofit look like him ?
Lee Edwards & the Paedophile Friendship Service
Bernard Haunch – Teacher – He was also a member of a group called the Paedophile Information Exchange but apparently claimed it was a discussion group
Bernard Haunch
Dr Edward Brongersma (Deceased) – has written extensively in the area of sexuology, especially on pornography, ephebophilia, pedophilia and the age of consent. His books on this subjects include: Das Verfehmte Geschlecht (in German, 1970), Sex en Straf (“Sex and Punishment”, 1972), Over pedofielen en kinderlokkers (“On Pedophiles and Child Molesters”, 1975), and his last work is his magnum opus and entitled Loving Boys (two volumes, 1988–1990).
Dr Edward Brongersma
Peter Righton AKA Paul Pelham – Righton was the former director of education at the National Institute for Social Work, and a consultant for the National Children’s Bureau. Yet he was also a founding member of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which wanted the age of consent reduced to four. Righton published essays justifying paedophilia, which he called no more mysterious than “a penchant for redheads”. Police raided his home and found hundreds of letters between him and other paedophiles
Warren Middleton, aka John Parratt one of PIE’s first London members – Creater of the Understanding Paedophilia (UP) magazine that was eventually replaced by Magpie
Michael Dagnall – Close friend and fellow abuser with Tom O’carroll Click this , it mentions Dagnall and P.I.E involvement @ page 19
Richard Travell – Active member status – Travell was handed a three-year community order in 2006 for possessing indecent images of children.
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Paedophile Information Exchange founding member who plied victims as young as 10 with alcohol and parties is jailed for 24 years
Douglas Slade was expelled from the Philippines and brought back to the UK to be charged with 13 offences of abusing childrenCredit: Avon and Somerset Police
A founding member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, a group which campaigned for sex with children to be decriminalised, has been jailed for 24 years.
Slade, formerly of Bristol, was convicted of all charges against him following a trial at Bristol Crown Court.
The offences, committed in Bristol and other parts of the country between 1965 and 1980, were against five boys – the youngest aged 10 at the time.
He’s shown absolutely no remorse for his sickening crimes or for the lasting emotional and psychological damage he’s causedDet Sgt Paul Merton
Judge Euan Ambrose jailed Slade for 24 years and ordered him to serve an additional 12 months on licence upon his release.
“Your interest in young boys was well established,” the judge told Slade, who has no previous convictions.
“It had led you to become involved in two notorious organisations, Paedophile Action for Liberation and the Paedophile Information Exchange.
“I am satisfied that you were involved in both organisations. I cannot determine the precise role that you played. You liked to boast about having been involved in setting them up, whether that was in fact true or not.
“It reflected your interest in sex with young boys and your wish to see sex between adults and young boys decriminalised.”
Slade was convicted of seven offences of indecent assault and six other sexual offences against his victims, who were aged between 10 and 16 at the time.
Victim impact statements provided to the court showed the “extremely deep and long lasting” effect of the abuse on their lives, the judge said.
The investigation into paedophile Douglas Slade began in 2010 when one victim came forward to report being abused in the 1970s
Those targeted had home lives that were chaotic, with Slade providing them with parties, alcohol and cigarettes.
“The dreadful truth was that behind all that lay, the objection of persuading these boys to have sex with you,” the judge said.
Slade, who suffers from diabetes and high cholesterol, remained emotionless as the sentence against him was passed.
The investigation into Slade began in 2010 when one victim came forward to report being abused by him and several others in the 1970s.
A second victim was identified and three men were convicted of sexual offences, but charges could not be brought against Slade as he was living in Angeles City in the Philippines.
“What has happened is your past has caught up with you – a past about which you appear wholly unrepentant,” Judge Ambrose added.
Douglas Slade was convicted of all charges against him following a trial at Bristol Crown Court
Slade was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life and adhere to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order banning him from contacting boys aged under 16.
Following the sentencing, Detective Sergeant Paul Melton, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: “Slade was part of a network of men whose sole aim was to find vulnerable children to abuse.
“He’s shown absolutely no remorse for his sickening crimes or for the lasting emotional and psychological damage he’s caused. No child will ever be safe in his company.”
Christopher Skeaping, 72, formerly of Hounslow in London, will be sentenced for one count of indecent assault against one of Slade’s victims at a date to be fixed.
Belfast hospital’s paedophile doctor and unanswered questions that won’t go away
The case of serial sex abuser Dr Morris Fraser should have rung bells when Niall Meehan sent his report on it to Judge Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry… so why didn’t it?
13/02/2017
Career paedophile: Dr Morris Fraser
Dr Morris Fraser is a career paedophile whose abuse of boys was detected in 1971, but whose position as a doctor, after four abuse convictions, ended voluntarily in 1995. Why was he not stopped when the RUC confirmed Fraser’s abuse in October 1971? Sir Anthony Hart’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI) should have investigated. It is a mystery why it did not do so.
Fraser used his post as a Royal Victoria Hospital child psychiatrist, and role as a scout leader on Belfast’s Antrim Road, to target children. In the early 1970s, a contrived panic about the effect of the Troubles on children gave Fraser an international media profile.
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Like a lot of abusers, Fraser conspired with others and became a manipulating liar.
Two institutions supposed to safeguard the public should have halted Fraser in his tracks, the police and the General Medical Council. The doctors’ body spent over a year faffing about, but faced extraordinary levels of police non-cooperation. In turn, police minimised Fraser’s crimes and refused to tell his employer about their celebrity doctor.
Two policemen who prosecuted Fraser are alive.
One, an RUC officer, participated in the 1983 Terry police inquiry into the Kincora Boys Home paedophile scandal. He spoke anonymously to the BBC about Fraser last year.
Two factors that should have been a spur to finding out seem instead to have inhibited the HIAI. Both are linked to Kincora.
The inquiry seemed determined not to link Kincora to security force collusion, to significant loyalist paramilitary activity, and attempts to suborn adults who made use of a linked paedophile prostitution ring.
One factor is Colin Wallace. He attempted in the early to mid-1970s, while a British Army intelligence officer, to expose the role of Kincora paedophile William McGrath. Wallace became a victim of security force infighting, to the extent of being framed and imprisoned for a manslaughter he did not commit. He was eventually entirely exonerated.
The second factor is Richard Kerr, a Kincora victim who reported that Morris Fraser was responsible for an early experience of institutional abuse.
For some reason best known to itself the HIAI report went to extraordinary lengths to undermine the testimony of these victims of injustice, who did not appear before it, and demonstrated naivety in unquestioned acceptance of testimony from police and intelligence sources.
Any hint of security force collusion with paedophiles was sufficient to provoke the inquiry’s disinterest.
The HIAI even smeared Roy Garland, whose sincere efforts in the early 1970s are largely responsible for the Kincora scandal emerging in 1980.
Last June I sent the inquiry a submission and my March 2016 report on Fraser. I wrote again in August. The submission appears to have suffered from the HIAI’s Kincora groupthink. But reference to Kincora is not necessary to investigate Fraser.
I asked the inquiry to investigate why the RUC and London Metropolitan Police failed to inform hospital authorities that Fraser was responsible for sexual abuse of two Belfast boys in London, aged 10 and 13, in August 1971.
The RUC investigated the allegation initially and took Fraser’s October 21, 1971 statement. He admitted abuse and revealed he was in cahoots with another paedophile, Ian Bell, who had joined him on an earlier scouting trip, that included sleeping with boys in tents. They selected three boys to accompany Fraser, Bell (plus Bell’s flatmate), from Belfast to the London apartment of the third man. It was decked out like a boys’ playground, in other words like a paedophile den.
Bell admitted to me last year that the boys were plied with alcohol and claimed that was Fraser’s idea of ‘therapy’.
After the boys returned to Belfast, a complaint reached police regarding the 13-year-old. Fraser was charged with abusing him. Bell abused the 10-year-old. Fraser claimed that the third man slept in the same room as the third boy. He was not charged.
That was an anomaly. More arrived thick and fast.
Fraser’s guilty plea at Bow Street Magistrate’s Court on May 17, 1972 was not reported by news media, possibly because he appeared at 9.35pm. He paid a £50 fine and received a three-year conditional discharge. Fraser claimed that his child victim corrupted him, a fantastic lie police promoted and magistrates, plus the GMC later, accepted. Fraser testified, without contradiction, to fleeting oral sexual contact. Yet the boy had come to official attention in hospital, where it was ‘found that he had been interfered with’. That suggested physical injury. Furthermore, the RUC detective who arrested Fraser said on BBC last year that Fraser’s victim showed signs of rape.
Ian Bell appeared at 11.14pm. He claimed innocence of the charge. At Crown Court later he changed to guilty and received six-months, suspended.
Bell and Fraser’s separate treatment, that seems designed for Fraser’s benefit, obscured evidence of a paedophile conspiracy.
Be that as it may, after conviction, the RUC still did not inform the Northern Ireland Hospital Authority that their famous child psychiatrist was a child abuser.
The guilty paedophile was the main speaker at a Jordanstown ISPCC conference one week later. The Irish Times reported Fraser warning that all Northern Ireland children were in danger, from the Troubles rather than from paedophile psychiatrists.
Fraser continued appearing in newspapers and on TV in Ireland, Britain and the USA, pontificating about the conflict. He continued assessing vulnerable children. Richard Kerr testified convincingly on the BBC that Fraser took Polaroid photographs of his genitals. That was a hallmark of Fraser’s later paedophile persona. The Hart inquiry report’s dismissive treatment of Kerr compounds the abuse he suffered as a child.
It was only after a publicised arrest in New York in May 1973, as part of a nine-man US paedophile-ring, that Fraser was removed from his post. One week after that, one year late, police sent a certificate of Fraser’s May 1972 conviction to the NI Hospital Authority.
It is surprising that the Hart Inquiry did not investigate why police permitted an admitted abuser to continue interacting with institutionalised children. Were it not for publicised detection of Fraser’s new crimes, presumably he would have done so indefinitely. A further anomaly lies in Fraser’s 1974 US abuse conviction, that violated his 1972 conditional discharge. That should have seen him back before a British court. It never happened.
The HIAI has not explained its inaction. The failure casts light on the inquiry’s approach to the Kincora scandal.
That approach extended to censoring information in the public domain from Colin Wallace. Wallace mentioned one time Unionist Party Westminster MP, Sir Knox Cunningham, plus other prominent figures said to have had contact with McGrath on both sides of the Irish border during the 1960s.
Cunningham provides an interesting link to paedophilia after 1970. The Spring 1977 edition of the Lyric Players journal Threshold contains a section entitled ‘Letters from Forrest Reid’ to Cunningham, and an essay on Reid by his biographer, then Queen’s (later Essex) University academic Brian Taylor.
Reid, a Northern Ireland novelist, was also a paedophile, an interest his biographer shared.
Taylor had written ‘Motives for guilt free pederasty’ in 1976. He edited Perspectives on Paedophilia in 1981, that contained a chapter by a notorious abuser, Peter Righton, and one by Morris Fraser.
Taylor, Fraser and Righton were members of the 1970s Paedophile Information Exchange. Taylor was its ‘information officer’.
Why the Hart inquiry censored information in the public domain about Cunningham and his connections is unknown. Northern Ireland writer Robin Bryans published on it in 1992 and was not sued. Ironically, the inquiry ignored a hitherto unpublished allegation that Thomas Passmore, a leading Orange Order official who died in 1989, was a paedophile.
Only HIAI members can answer the questions raised here. Over to them.
Dr Niall Meehan teaches at Griffith College, Dublin
Was Thomas Passmore, paedophile, politician and County Grand Master of the Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge, an MI5 agent?
A man interviewed on RTE’s Liveline on 16 September described how he was sexually abused by a senior figure in the Orange Order. Although not named, the abuser was Thomas Passmore, the County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge. Was he an MI5 agent?
20 September, 2019
On 16 September last Paul Graham told RTE’s Liveline that he had been sexually abused by a senior figure in the Orange Order. Although not named, the abuser was Thomas Passmore, the County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge. That Passmore was a paedophile will not come as news to the Northern Ireland Office, MI5 and MI6. In 1973 he was named in a press briefing prepared by the British Army at Lisburn, Northern Ireland. The briefing concerned Tara, a Loyalist paramilitary organisation led by William McGrath, the notorious child rapists and Housefather at Kincora Boys’ Home. McGrath, who acted as an agent for MI5 and MI6, was convicted for child rape in 1981. To its credit, a number of senior military figures in the British Army tried to put an end to the abuse of children at Kincora. Foremost among them was Capt. Colin Wallace. He and his military colleagues were thwarted by the NIO, MI5 and MI6, especially a senior MI5 officer called Ian Cameron. Cameron was once a runner for the post of Director-General of MI5. Those organisations and the PSNI persist to this day in covering up the full extent of the abuse at Kincora and elsewhere.
The 1973 Tara Press Briefing (’73 TPB) described how “other people closely associated with McGrath and aware of his activities are, Thomas PASSMORE, Rev PAISLEY, Rev Martin SMYTH, James MOLYNEAUX and Sir Knox CUNNINGHAM QC MP.
Thomas Passmore, child rapist, friend of William McGrath (above) and County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge; Paul Graham (below)
In July 2018 Village published an article entitled ‘Kincora’s Smoking Guns: The Documents With Hugh Mooney’s Handwriting On Them’ which included a description of ’73 TPB.
The ‘Kincora’s Smoking Guns’ article also described a number of other documents which demonstrated that the British Government knew about the sexual abuse of children at Kincora Boys’ Home long before the scandal was exposed by The Irish Independent in 1980.
Passmore was not named during the RTE interview but is the Orange Order figure mentioned briefly (at 13 minutes 30 seconds).
The fact that Passmore abused Paul Graham would explain why he did nothing to halt the rape of children perpetrated by his brother Orangeman William McGrath. It is unlikely in the extreme that Paul Graham was Passmore’s only victim.
Wiliam McGrath, Housefather at Kincora, child rapist and Orangeman; Kincora Boys’ Home
Richard Kerr, who was a resident at Kincora, has long since described how he too was abused by Orangemen.
The reference to Passmore in ’73 TPB was not highlighted in the ‘Kincora Smoking Guns’ article as its focus was on other aspects of the Kincora scandal. However, a copy of the 1973 document was reproduced in full in the printed edition of Village.
WAS THOMAS PASSMORE AN MI5 AGENT?
Thomas Passmore JP, was a senior Loyalist politician and Orangeman who operated at the highest levels of Unionist politics in the 1970s and 1980s. He became County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge in 1973. He was unmarried and lived in Townsend Street, Belfast.
He was not only an associate of McGrath but purchased the printing press which McGrath’s paramilitary group Tara used for its publicity. Passmore published an evangelical magazine with it.
Passmore became Chairman of the Woodvale Unionist Association which was formed by Charles Harding Smith who later became Chairman of the UDA.
In 1973 Roy Garland, an associate of McGrath who was once in Tara, raised McGrath’s abuse of boys within the Orange Order. Passmore was one of those who blocked the taking of any action against McGrath. He may have done this for any one of three reasons: first, because he wanted to protect a fellow child abuser; second, because he was being blackmailed by MI5 and MI6 for whom McGrath was an agent; third, because by 1973 he had become an MI5/6 agent. Perhaps it was a combination of all of these possibilities.
In 1976, the IRA killed Passmore’s father in an attack which he claimed was aimed at him.
Why did the Guardian take down the sociologist Brian Taylor’s online obituary?
Friday, 04 May 2018
Why did the Guardian take down an online obituary to the sociologist Brian Taylor, without telling readers?
In November 2016, the Guardian published a celebratory obituary, online, of the Sussex University sociologist Brian Taylor, who had died aged 66. In May 2017 the newspaper took it down, but did not explain the decision to readers. They were left in the dark.
My intervention in February 2017 led to the decision to delete the obituary. I did not ask for deletion. I asked the paper to add important information that was missing. Censorship was not a satisfactory response to the problem with the obituary.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Brian Taylor played a major part in the attempt to decriminalise sexual relations between adults and minors, in other words legalising child sexual abuse. He published academic research on the subject of paedophilia, but did not disclose his membership of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) lobbying group. In articles such as ‘Motives for a guilt free pederasty’ (1977), plus in his editorship, and lengthy introduction to, Perspectives on Paedophilia (1982), Taylor attempted to ‘normalise’ child-adult sexual contact.
Three more contributors to Perspectives on Paedophilia were also undeclared PIE members. They were Dr Morris Fraser (previously and subsequently convicted of child abuse), Peter Righton (subsequently convicted), and Professor Ken Plummer of Essex University. The latter said in 2014 that he joined PIE for purposes of ethnographic research. He appeared to regret his former interest in the subject. This saga is discussed in detail in Professor David Pilgrim’s excellent, Child sexual abuse: Moral panic or state of denial?(Routledge, 2018). Spinwatch published two reports on Morris Fraser, in 2016 and 2017.
To return to Brian Taylor, his paedophile interest went beyond academic writing. As ‘Humphrey Barton’, he was PIE’s research director, in which capacity he contributed to its first magazine, Understanding Paedophilia. Taylor/‘Barton’ then edited the new PIE publication, Magpie, in 1977. Taylor/‘Barton’ edited the PIE magazine, Magpie. It published sexualised images of children and also contact-advertisements for men who wished to meet children for an illegal purpose, sexual abuse.
A passage in a 1976 article by ‘Barton’ for a paedophile journal, Kalos (Vol. 1, No. 1) was almost identical to one in Taylor’s Perspectives on Paedophilia introduction. ‘Barton’ and Taylor lived simultaneously in Belfast in 1976, where Taylor lectured in Queen’s University’s Social Studies department. Understanding Paedophilia (June-July 1976) informed readers that ‘Barton’ was a sociology lecturer in a British university. Later in 1976 (Aug-Sept) it congratulated ‘Barton’ for giving ‘a highly successful paper on paedophilia’ at a sociology conference in Manchester, at which a ‘B. Taylor’ spoke on ‘Aspects of sexual deviance: Paedophilia’.
The evidence appears irrefutable, that ‘Barton’ and Taylor were the same person (for more detail, see the attached PDF).
The Guardian obituary contained none of this information. Writing and agitating on paedophilia constituted for many years a major part of Brian Taylor’s research output, of his political and also (presumably) of his personal life.
It was not possible for readers to discern Taylor’s research interest from the following obituary passage,
[Taylor’s] teaching career began with a year at Queen’s University, Belfast, before his move to Sussex in 1977. There he initially focused on aspects of deviance and religion but his main interest was literature, especially Ulster novelists of the early 20th century.
As Perspectives on Paedophilia was published in 1982, Taylor’s interest in ‘deviance’ was not left behind in Belfast. Furthermore, his literary research linked in with Taylor’s pre-existing concerns. The obituary mentioned that Taylor ‘wrote the definitive biography of the Irish author Forrest Reid’, but not that Reid was a paedophile whose fiction was devoted to paedophile themes. The obituary appreciation presented instead Taylor’s ‘criticism of British compromises with the IRA in Northern Ireland’.
An obituary appreciation that made no reference to important aspects of Taylor’s life was misleading.
Taylor vacated his academic post in the mid-1990s, aged 45 or so, for as yet unexplained reasons. The obituary mentioned Taylor departing Sussex in 2001 for retirement in France, but not precisely when he ceased full-time teaching at the University of Sussex.
During the mid-1990s media focus on criminal aspects of paedophilia increased. In June 1994 the BBC broadcast an Inside Story exposé of the paedophile criminal and retired director of the National Children’s Bureau, Peter Righton. The programme featured also the recently imprisoned (in 2014) teacher and one-time PIE treasurer Charles Napier, and the child psychiatrist Dr Morris Fraser, who finally vacated the medical register in 1995. In 1981, as supposed professional childcare experts, Righton conspired with Fraser to have Napier’s teaching ban rescinded. Fraser and Napier, who were first convicted of child sexual abuse in 1972, later conspired together to abuse boys.
Perspectives on Paedophilia featured on the BBC programme. It was mentioned also in a Guardianarticle on Righton the same day, 1 June 1994. It is not known what media or official contact, if any, was made with Taylor and/or his employer at that time. At the very least, perhaps it was anticipated that attention on Taylor was about to increase. That is speculation.
I put it to the Guardian that I was in a position to supply the missing information. The newspaper decided to do nothing and to leave the obituary as was. The author of the piece, David Harrison, a colleague and friend of Taylor’s since 1977, responded to the Guardian after it notified him of my concerns. He kindly allowed the paper to share his response with me. Harrison said he was not aware of Taylor’s membership of PIE. He added that the obituary did not mention Taylor’s editorship of Perspectives on Paedophilia, because the book received ‘so much hostility’. That seemed to me a reason to mention the work.
After some further correspondence, I wrote to the Guardian Readers’ Editor, Paul Chadwick. He responded as follows on 1 May 2017:
‘As requested, I have looked into this matter.
In all the circumstances, I believe the appropriate course is for the article to be taken down from the Guardian website and I will make arrangements accordingly.’
I responded that an addendum would have been preferable. I asked if it was Chadwick’s intention to tell the readers he represented what had happened to the obituary. Had that information been published it would have been acceptable, if not preferable. I received no reply.
Readers are served by information, rather than by its secret withdrawal. Successful censorship was possible because the obituary was published online. Had it been in the newspaper, it could not have been deleted as though it never existed. Paul Chadwick’s solution, censoring the obituary seemed, a tad, unethical, which brings us here.
To set the record accurately on the removal of Brian Taylor’s obituary, Spinwatch is publishing this explanation and also correspondence with Paul Chadwick that contains a copy of my suggested short addendum (download pdf attachment). It contains also the Brian Taylor obituary the Guardian subsequently deleted and the I June 1994 Guardian article on Peter Righton.
Ex-NI Secretary of State present at disciplinary hearing into paedo doctor
Lord Patrick Mayhew
A former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was present at the General Medical Council’s disciplinary hearing of convicted paedophile and child psychiatrist Dr Morris Fraser.
Lord Patrick Mayhew, who was Secretary of State between 1992 and 1997, is listed as a panel member at one session of the hearing by the GMC’s disciplinary committee, during March 11 to 13, 1974.
His role is listed as ‘Legal Accessor’, although the GMC could not clarify what this role specifically entailed.
The committee heard evidence for and against Fraser over two years across four sessions, from 1973 to 1975.
Other luminaries present on the panel during this period included Sir Donald Macleod Douglas, surgeon to the Queen in Scotland.
The revelations were contained in minutes of Fraser’s hearing released by the GMC. They were initially disclosed in a report on Fraser by Dublin-based academic Niall Meehan.
The month before Fraser’s March 1974 hearing, Lord Mayhew had been elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Tunbridge Wells constituency, then called Royal Tunbridge Wells. He later held the posts of Minister of State (Home Office) and Attorney General.
Dr Fraser was appearing before the committee after admitting to indecent assault on a 13-year-old boy from Belfast at an address in London in August 1971. He pleaded guilty to the charge at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in May 1972. Fury erupted recently after Meehan’s report revealed that the GMC allowed Fraser to continue practising as a child psychiatrist despite having two convictions for abusing children. He went on to assault many other youngsters.
During one session of the hearing, it was acknowledged by the disciplinary committee’s chairperson that the 1971 charge against Fraser had been proven.
At the session at which Lord Mayhew was present, the disciplinary committee ruled that it would not “yet be proper for them to conclude your case. They have accordingly determined that judgement should be further postponed for a period of four months until their meeting in July, 1974.”
During this time, Fraser was convicted of abusing children in the United States. “Those who were present at the GMC hearing, including Patrick Mayhew, need to explain why they did not consider the US conviction as well,” said Meehan. “It’s interesting that so many important people were present at his hearings.”
Colin Wallace, an ex-Army intelligence officer based at Army HQ in Lisburn during the 1970s, told the Belfast Telegraph last week he believed the Army had known Fraser was a paedophile.
He also said that he believed a senior officer had intelligence indicating that Fraser had links to Kincora Boys Home or associations with the home’s carers who were later jailed themselves for sexual offences against children.
A recent BBC report said that Fraser had been involved in allocating boys to the home.
Lord Mayhew, now retired and believed to be battling with ill-health, faced controversy in the early 1990s when he was accused by Sir Hilary Miller, once the Tory MP for Bromsgrove, of attempting to pervert the course of justice during the Iraq supergun affair.
Sir Hilary said Mayhew had attempted to dissuade him, in court, from producing documents which showed the businessmen arrested in connection with the scandal were innocent.
Such a revelation, reported The Independent newspaper at the time, would have proven deeply embarrassing for the government.
Questions have been raised about how Fraser was allowed to practice for so long without being struck off by the GMC.
Large portions of his GMC hearing were held ‘in camera’ – meaning the public were excluded from the proceedings.
Fraser’s abuse of children, spanning from the UK to New York, is well documented. Yet little is known about his time in Northern Ireland.
Responding to the allegations, a spokeswoman for the Conservative Party insisted that the matter was a personal one.
Paedophile Ban Call: Patrick Mayhew turned down the demand.
During this time, PIE member Dr Morris Fraser was convicted of abusing children in the United States. “Those who were present at the GMC hearing, including Patrick Mayhew, need to explain why they did not consider the US conviction as well,” said Meehan. “It’s interesting that so many important people were present at his hearings.”
The Church of England has told Scotland Yard that William Whitelaw, the former home secretary, and Enoch Powell were accused of being members of a political satanic abuse ring.
Journalism academic castigates media over paedophile doctor
16 June 2016
He points to failings that allowed child abuser to continue working at a hospital
A week ago, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme in Northern Ireland, Spotlight, investigated a disgraced psychiatrist, Morris Fraser.
The Paedophile Doctor told how Fraser was allowed to continue working with children after being convicted in London in 1972 of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy.
He was allowed to remain in his post as a child psychiatrist at a Belfast hospital because the RUC (the Northern Ireland police force at the time) and the Metropolitan police failed to tell the hospital authorities.
He was, of course, gratified that Spotlight followed up on his paper and pleased that it highlighted important new information, notably the negligence of the General Medical Council (GMC) in its dealings with Fraser’s case.
But time limitations, the problem that always faces TV documentary makers, prevented the programme from touching on several institutional failings.
In his document, Meehan points to a disturbing series of events that suggest some kind of official cover-up. It begins with failures by both the Met police and the RUC to inform hospital authorities in Belfast about Fraser’s 1972 conviction for abusing the boy in London.
At the time, Fraser was fined £50 and received a conditional discharge. Meehan notes: “The case was not reported in newspapers… He was effectively tried in secret.”
He calls on the Hart inquiry to “attempt to discover why both of these things happened.” Did the police seek to “manage” Fraser’s disgrace? If so, why?
Meehan suggests that Fraser may have had a relationship with the security forces, a belief reinforced by the refusal of a 2015 freedom of information request about Fraser, partly on the grounds of national security.
He also contends that there was a failure by the GMC to investigate Fraser’s criminal and unethical behaviour. In 1973, after Fraser was arrested in New York with seven other men accused of abusing 15 boys, the GMC’s disciplinary committee charged him with professional misconduct.
But it is Meehan’s belief that the committee not only ignored Fraser’s US arrest, it also overlooked the fact that, in the following year, he pleaded guilty to the New York offences.
Instead, he argues that the GMC considered, belatedly, only the London conviction and then took “the bizarre view” that he had been involved in a single “sordid” act, having been corrupted by a drug-addicted homosexual child.
Fraser accepted psychiatric treatment and this was later declared to have been successful, so he was permitted to practice without professional restriction.
Meehan also castigates media in Britain and Ireland for promoting Fraser’s research – after his New York arrest – on the alleged affects of the Irish troubles on children. He also accuses journalists of failing to notice the July 1973 GMC revelation that Fraser, a convicted child abuser, was left in post for a year.
For a much fuller, detailed account of Meehan’s research to the two inquiries, which includes eye-opening “mistakes” suggestive of the authorities’ turning a blind eye to Fraser’s activities, see Meehan’s submission on Spinwatch.
It’s same folk working across NGOs, charities, political campaigning groups (big, small & tiny) to push pro-paedophile agenda w/i gay rights
They are dedicated, absolutely committed, relentless – you can be following 1 set of org minutes & 1 resigns, will then pop up immediately in another committee/NGO/Charity or setting up own LGBT youth charity or moves town & becomes a councillor but always pushing same issues
Guardian 30/9/78 @davidhenckewhy would Dep of Environ want to keep authors of Housing pack anonymous under Official Secrets Act? #Burbidge
Burbidge spoke at conferences/wrote articles about visiting housing estate after housing estate to compile pre 1978?@davidhencke
remarkable though that Burbidge was PIE manifesto/RCCP submission co-drafter & civil servant in Lambeth?@davidhencke
1971-1975: Ivor Street, Icebreakers and PIE
A key clique to emerge out of the explosion of energy and activism created by the Gay Liberation Front during 1970-72 was The Counter-Psychiatry Group, emulating US West Coast groups formed in reaction to gay men and women treated as if they had a medical or psychological condition which could be expunged or made heterosexual with ‘treatment’ such as aversion therapy.
Icebreakers, a gay counselling/befriending group would emerge from the Counter-Psychiatry group during 1972, under the leadership of 35 year old sociologist and lead Housing Development researcher at the Department of Environment, Michael J Burbidge.
One third of the founding twelve members of the NCCL Gay Rights Committee established in September 1974 already knew one another through Icebreakers:
Micky Burbidge (PIE Manifesto co-drafter);
Keith Hose (first PIE Chairman);
Nettie Pollard (NCCL Gay Rights Officer responsible for PIE and PAL’s affiliation with NCCL and PIE member); and
Anna Duhig
“In London the group formed around Elizabeth Wilson, herself a psychiatric social worker with previous experience of the anti-pysychiatry theories and writings of RD Laing. The original lists of GLF members interested in the group survive and show twenty-eight names including Elizabeth, Mary, Jeffrey Weeks, Micky Burbidge and David Hutter, all of whom were to be centrally involved in its writings, actions and spin-off groups.” [No bath but plenty of bubbles: An oral history of the GLF 1970-73, Lisa Power, p.42]
“Version therapy (usually electric shock treatment) was such a major issue because it was the publicly accepted way of dealing with homosexuality. I knew that I was gay in 1962 and decided that I didn’t want to be. I read an article about a man who did aversion therapy for homosexuals and I wrote to him asking for therapy. He had a long waiting list, so nothing happened. Then I read a story in the paper about a man who had aversion therapy to make him fall out of love with the wrong woman and I suddenly realised that it was awful to think of switching off loving feelings by shock treatment. There had to be another way of dealing with it. That totally changed my mind and I decided that I wanted to be what I was, after all.” (Micky Burbidge, No bath but plenty of bubbles: An oral history of the GLF 1970-73, Lisa Power, p.93)
Nettie Pollard and Micky Burbidge
“I was in the Counter-Psychiatry Group with Micky and others. I helped to organise a conference at the London School of Economics in Autumn 1971 — Homosexual Oppression? Freedom? Mary McIntosh spoke on abolishing the age of consent and people from outside, like doctors, came along.” (Nettie Pollard, No bath but plenty of bubbles: An oral history of the GLF 1970-73, Lisa Power, p.97)
By 1972 the Counter-Psychiatry Group had become a regular Sunday evening meet-up at 24 Ivor Street, Camden, NW1, where Micky shared a house with a 24 year old Scottish soon to be drama student Angus Suttie and 27 year old Jeffrey Weeks.
On occasion the Counter-Psychiatry Group would meet elsewhere, as when Nettie Pollard (who 2 years later would become a founding member of NCCL Gay Rights Committee alongside Micky Burbidge; and PIE member #70) hosted it at her home, as on Sunday 8th October 1972:
In line with the Counter-Psychiatry Group’s thinking on and rejection of medical experts’ opinions on homosexuality, a new counselling/befriending group called Icebreakers began to emerge who believed there were no better or additional qualifications necessary to counsel gay people other than the counsellor being gay and out themselves. This put the group’s attitude to counselling at odds with the Albany Trust’s more conservative approach and Antony Grey’s emphasis on professionalism and concern to associate himself professional counselling bodies.
1973-74: Phoney Bishop of Gleaves once housed Icebreakers
During 1973-1974 the Icebreakers crystallised into a collective of just over 20 gay men and 2 women on a rota answering a phone every evening between 7.30pm and 10.30pm. Keith Hose [PIE’s first Chairman] became a ‘prominent member of Icebreakers‘ and Anna Duhig, another founding member of NCCL Gay Rights Committee also joined Burbidge’s Icebreakers.
Surprisingly, considering Icebreakers had formed out of the GLF, the Icebreakers phone wasn’t at the GLF centre on Railton Road but instead was installed at one of the Bishop of Gleaves’ hostels on Branksome Road in Brixton [see further on the murder of Billy Two-Tone and TV documentary Johnny Go Home, Gleaves’ associate Malcolm Raywood as co-defendant with Charles Hornby in the Playland Trial].
However, it soon became apparent that Gleaves was answering the phone himself and directing teenagers and young men looking for support from Icebreakers to come and stay at one of his hostels. Lambeth Council had started asking questions about a ‘male brothel run by priests’. Only 3-4 years previously in November 1970 had a group of men been found guilty of prostituting and sexually abusing children in a flat on Solon Road, moments from Branksome Road. Gay News reported Icebreakers had swiftly severed links with Gleaves and moved in to the South London Gay Centre on Railton Road, Brixton instead.
March 1975 Ivor Street, Camden: PIE’s London Inauguration
Three years after Icebreakers’ first meeting, the first official London meeting of PIE also took place at an address in Ivor Street. Michael Hanson resigned and a young graduate from Hull University who had led the university’s Sexual Liberation Society, Keith Hose, was elected as Chairman.
During autumn that same year Micky Burbidge and Keith Hose would work together swiftly to produce the Paedophile Information Exchange’s response to the Criminal Law Revision Committee consultation. Together Burbidge and Hose would propose the abolition of the age of consent and the decriminalisation of ‘consensual’ sexual activity with children. Despite deploring the trauma of courtroom appearances for children as a reason for decriminalisation, the civil system of injunctions they proposed to replace it meant children (with no distinction made for pre-verbal and non-verbal children in their lack of ability to voice consent) would still be required to give evidence in court, the only difference being that it would a civil court rather than a criminal court.
It is unknown whether PIE’s London inauguration gathered at Micky Burbidge’s address at no 24 on Ivor Street in Camden or whether there happened to be another house on this short street where a gathering of pro-paedophile activists would have been welcomed.
“It was Martin also, who along with Keith Hose presided over the PIE gathering at London’s Ivor Street in March – with the object of initiating London PIE meetings.”
The suggestion of paedophiles as needing medical treatment conflicted with Burbidge’s belief that the categorisation of paedophilia as a psychiatric disorder was as wrong as homosexuality’s categorisation as a psychiatric disorder and should be campaigned for alongside homosexuality under the umbrella definition of ‘sexual orientation’. Instead, Burbidge argued,
“The ‘harm’ which sometimes is associated with paedophilic (sic) relationships is real enough: it stems from the bigoted reactions of adults, from the hounding and interrogation of younger partners by the police and others, and from the intense feelings of guilt and anxiety which distort relationships.”
So Michael Hanson (PIE #40) a University of Edinburgh student in his final year couldn’t do more than 6 months producing PIE’s first newsletters because he’d got a job @themjcouk Municipal Journal post graduation as their Planning & Development Correspondent
Truthseeker1@thewakeupcall09
An ex-queer basher, Paul, talks to Angus Suttie, David Seligman, Jeffrey Weeks and Micky Burbidge Gay News 14-10-72, p8
38. Dennis Grain – Greystone Heath Approved School for Boys. Promoted to other homes in the Warrington area
Worked as a teacher at Eton during the years Prince William was in attendance. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk…g-1336189.html
40. Stephen Norris – Greystone Heath Approved School for Boys
Officer-in-charge of the Cartrefle community home in Clwyd, North Wales, pleaded guilty to five specimen charges of indecent assault against boys in his care. Worked with Peter Howarth http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/644289.stm
PRO PIE – no positive ID membership of PIE – connected to other abusers
Nicholas Ferguson
Bill Thornycroft
Terry Waller
Ian Harvey
Tony Deane
Nicky Burbidge
Keith Spence
Rictor Norton
Brian Percival – Clerk and stores Greystone
Alan Langshaw – Principal St Vincents Catholic Boys Reform School Southport. Attended a birmingham course on childcare
Edward Stanton – care worker. Attended a birmingham course on childcare. Got job via Shuttleworth
Terence Hoskins – worked with Grain. Became headteacher of St Aiden’s Community Home in Widnes.
Registration card of David Chamier Grove, of Ellenslie, Clarendon Road, St Helier, 11/03/1904, Jennifer Georgina Frances Chamier Grove born 03/02/1940, registered as child on back of card
Following his recent expose of the disgraced paedophile psychiatrist Morris Fraser, Dr Niall Meehan has made this submission to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (Hart Inquiry) in Northern Ireland.
Dr Morris Fraser was employed by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority as a child psychiatrist from 1 August 1970. He occupied the post of senior registrar in psychiatry in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children on the Falls Road.
A recent episode of the Spotlight current affairs television programme examined the career of this disgraced paedophile psychiatrist. [1] The BBC programme was prompted by my recently published (and attached) research paper on Dr Fraser, Morris Fraser, Child Abuse, Corruption and Collusion in Britain & Northern Ireland. [2] In hearings conducted by your inquiry on 4 and 13 April 2106, references to Dr Fraser were made in public session, arising from media reporting of my research (which was not cited by the inquiry). [3]
The Spotlight programme brought important new information into the public domain and revealed that the General Medical Council intends to send to you information in its possession concerning Dr Fraser.
Because of time limitations the programme did not foreground some information of particular concern to society in Northern Ireland. I would like to bring this information to your attention. I hope you can obtain explanations from those responsible. I include also some new information.
My report on Dr Fraser pointed to three key institutional failings:
POLICE FAILURE
Police (RUC, Metropolitan) failed to inform the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority that their employee, celebrity child psychiatrist Morris Fraser, was convicted on 17 May 1972 in Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, London, of abusing a 13-year-old-boy. The abuse occurred at 6 St Augustine’s Mansions, Blomberg Street, London, between 27-30 August 1971. Fraser was fined £50 and was conditionally discharged for three years and seven days. The case was not reported in newspapers. Fraser was effectively tried in secret. Your inquiry might attempt to discover why and how these things happened, and the extent of RUC and/or Metropolitan Police responsibility.
The above information points to an attempt by police to manage Dr Fraser’s disgrace. This is compounded by the fact that research revealed that a second, 10-year-old, boy was abused in the same place at the same time. An Ian Bell was charged with this crime, though he appeared separately from Fraser. Bell pleaded not guilty and was sent to Crown Court after two more Bow Street hearings. Bell informed me, by telephone 14 June 2016, that he pleaded guilty on advice in Crown Court and was sentenced to six months, suspended. Bell also informed me that Fraser brought three boys to London and that he permitted them to drink alcohol over the course of the weekend. This was, claimed Fraser, part of their therapy in escaping from their blighted lives.[4]
An intention by police to cover-up Fraser’s conviction is indicated by failure to forward certification of conviction to Fraser’s employer in May 1972.
However, the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court record reveals that a certificate of Fraser’s conviction on 17 May 1972 was sent to the NI Hospitals Authority one year later, on 11 May 1973. Undoubtedly it was dispatched then because of Fraser’s highly publicised New York arrest six days earlier, on 3 May 1973 (this is dealt with in more detail under point 2, below).
The probability of a relationship between Fraser and security forces is further reinforced by refusal in 2015 of a Freedom of Information request concerning Fraser, partly on ‘national security’ grounds.[5]
Finally, since Fraser was conditionally discharged in May of 1972 in London, he should have been brought back in front of a UK court after his US arrest, guilty plea and conviction on child abuse charges, in 1973-74. This further lack of action constitutes additional failure by police.
Each of the above failures contributed to Fraser’s continued capacity to abuse children and to the abuse of children by paedophile networks with which Fraser was associated in Northern Ireland, in Great Britain, and elsewhere.
GMC FAILURE
The General Medical Council (GMC) failed to adequately investigate and to properly sanction Fraser’s criminal and unethical behaviour.
On 3 May 1973 Fraser was arrested in New York, USA, as a participant in a paedophile network with seven other men. They were accused of abusing 15 boys. US, London and Belfast newspapers (plus one in Dublin) reported Fraser’s arrest on days following.
The GMC’s Disciplinary Committee then charged Fraser with professional misconduct.
However, when it met in July 1973 the GMC ignored Fraser’s US arrest. Subsequent meetings ignored Fraser’s guilty plea on 28 February 1974, plus conviction and sentence on 21 June 1974 in Suffolk County, New York.
The GMC instead investigated (and thereby revealed for the first time) Fraser’s previous effectively secret May 1972 conviction for child abuse.
The GMC ignored also Fraser’s co-accused Ian Bell and the other abused child.
The flat where the abuse took place in August 1971 was apparently set up as a paedophile den, with elaborate games, train sets, etc.. This was not mentioned. There were three men, including Fraser, in the London flat in August 1971. Fraser brought the three boys with him from Belfast. This significant fact, confirmed by Bell, is also not in GMC documentation. However, Disciplinary Committee spokesperson John Phillips mentioned it (or perhaps let it lip out) while talking to the press in July 1973 (Belfast Telegraph, 18 July 1973).
The Disciplinary Committee was enabled by means of these omissions to present Fraser as involved in a single ‘sordid’ act as an innocent doctor corrupted by a drug-addicted homosexual child, rather than as engaged in a predatory paedophile conspiracy. The GMC discussed Fraser’s case on four occasions, 16-21 July 1973, 11-13 March and 15-18 July 1974, before concluding over 14-16 July 1975 that psychiatric treatment had been successful (note: future Attorney General and NI Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew was a legal assessor at the March 1974 hearing).
Fraser stated publicly after his last GMC encounter in July 1975 that he was permitted to practice without professional restriction. Fraser was a career paedophile who continued, courtesy of the GMC’s failure, to make use of his professional standing to abuse children and to enable abuse by fellow paedophiles.
MEDIA FAILURE
The media failed to note in July 1973 the GMC revelation that Fraser had been working for a year in the RVH as a convicted child abuser and that he had been convicted effectively in secret in May 1972. Furthermore, no media in Ireland or Britain reported Fraser’s US guilty plea in February 1974. No newspaper reported Fraser’s US conviction and sentence in June 1974. Media organisations promoted Fraser’s research on the alleged affects of the Troubles on children, even after becoming aware of his suspected and actual paedophilia. In addition, reputable book publishers in Britain and the US published Fraser’s Northern Ireland-based research in 1973, 1974, 1977 and 1979. Newspapers reviewed Fraser’s book positively after they reported his New York arrest (the Irish Times promoted and also reviewed his book after not reporting the arrest). The book’s findings were based partly on examination of children Fraser either had abused or had targeted for abuse (as a predatory paedophile).
Apart from establishing that Fraser’s US conviction was ignored by the GMC and that the doctor’s body had defamed Fraser’s victim, the Spotlight documentary was unable due to time restrictions to explore elements of the Fraser story noted above.
Bell was not mentioned as Fraser’s co-accused. Nor was the second 10-year-old abused boy. Police failure to inform Fraser’s employer was not mentioned. The programme did not state that three men and three boys were in the flat in London in August 1971.
The programme concentrated on the GMC’s failings with regard to Fraser that extended to the mid 1990s. In a valuable contribution to the public interest, it examined Fraser’s continuing paedophile activities and the GMC’s ongoing negligence.
It noted also an additional, fourth, Fraser conviction in 1995.
The programme interviewed anonymously a retired RUC police officer who took Fraser’s confession and the 13-year-old victim’s statement during 1971-2. He did not speak, it appears, about RUC failure to inform the Royal Hospital Belfast that Fraser was a convicted child abuser.
The RUC interviewee said on the programme that he was ‘totally and absolutely shocked’ to see Fraser playing a church organ ‘in a place of worship’ on a BBC Songs of Praise programme broadcast on 6 March 1977.
It may be inquired as to why this interviewee was not similarly shocked one week after Fraser’s 17 May 1972 conviction. According to the Irish Times, on 25 May 1972 Fraser spoke at a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) conference at the Ulster Polytechnic in Jordanstown. The recently convicted child abuser warned that ‘all Northern Ireland’s children were at risk’, though not from him. Police failure made Fraser’s grotesque, in the circumstances, utterance possible.
Why was the RUC interviewee not shocked, also, at Fraser appearing on television in his professional capacity as a practising child clinician? This for a full year after Fraser’s May 1972 conviction. He was reported similarly, regularly, in newspapers.
Fraser posed a more serious and continuing danger to children than to church organs.
July 1973 GMC Disciplinary Committee minutes name RUC Detective Constable Samuel Reginald (Ronnie) Mack as giving evidence on ‘the circumstances leading up to the facts in the charge’ that resulted in Fraser’s arrest and conviction. Mack is named as such also in my report. I mentioned similarly Metropolitan Detective Inspector Tony Rich, who appears also in GMC minutes. Rich is noted on the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court record as having charged Fraser.[6]
Mack went on to serve later in a senior capacity in Sir George Terry’s 1983 inquiry into abuse at the notorious Kincora Boys Home. It appears that Fraser was not a focus of that investigation, even though he allocated vulnerable children to institutions including Kincora. In 2015, and on the Spotlight programme, Kincora victim Richard Kerr accused Fraser of abusing him and of being involved in sending him, underage, to Kincora. Fraser should have been considered a person of interest by the Terry investigation, particularly as one of the team was aware of Fraser’s crimes and of his work with vulnerable children in Belfast in the early 1970s.
The Spotlight programme exposed the GMC’s role in protecting Morris Fraser from adequate sanction, and in failing to protect children from Morris Fraser.
The RUC and the Metropolitan Police also have questions to answer. Please do your duty and ask them.
Niall Meehan, Faculty Head, Journalism & Media, Griffith College Dublin14 June 2016
*Copy to Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (Goddard Inquiry), England, Wales
Footnotes:
[1] Broadcast 7 June 2016, BBC 1 NI, repeated BBC 2, 8 June, presenter Chris Moore, producer Denise O’Connor. The programme, ‘Dr Morris Fraser: the Paedophile Doctor’, is available at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXGVLA8BHJ8.
[4] According to Bell, the alcohol fuelled children shouted abuse at Londoners (for example, ‘Fuck the Pope’). A closed National Archives file mentioning an Ian Bell exists. Its description states:
MEPO 26/344 – George Wayne JACOBS, Ronald William FORTUNE and Brian Arthur JOHNSON: convicted of indecent assaults on three boys at Orpington, Kent, in May 1974. Ian BELL and Peter Frank HICKMAN, members of the same paedophile gang, convicted of indecent assaults on other boys.
On 28 April 2016 I requested that the file be opened. I received an email from the National Archives on 13 June 2016 stating ‘we are required to conduct a public interest test in relation to your request and we will let you know the result of this by 11 July 2016’.
[5] Mick Browne, James Hanning, ‘Northern Ireland authorities refuse to reveal details of paedophile with links to former government adviser on national security grounds’, Independent, Saturday 11 July 2015.[6] As Detective Chief Inspector, formerly operational head of the Drugs Squad, Tony Rich was reduced to the rank of constable and was dismissed from the Metropolitan Police in November 1981, for failure to account for and to safeguard property, disposing of it, and for making a misleading statement about the disposal. In 1978 Rich had been found not guilty ‘of conspiracy to obtain, possess, supply, deal in, and steal cannabis resin’, Alan Doig, Corruption and Misconduct in Contemporary British Politics, Pelican, 1984, p244.
The penny just dropped that the guy ushered in to do the original Kincora investigation was the same guy in charge of the force that ‘investigated’ Vishal Mehrotra’s disappearance. SafePairOfHands?
Paedophile ring allegations: police are failing us, murdered boy’s father says
Vishambar Mehrotra fears police covered up links between his son’s killing and activities at south-west London Elm guest house
The father of a murdered child who believes he may have died at the hands of a paedophile ring involving high-profile individuals said the Metropolitan police was still failing his family 33 years on from the killing of his eight-year-old son.
Vishambar Mehrotra told the Guardian that if the police had covered up the links between his son’s abduction and killing in 1981, and the activities of paedophiles at a guest house in south-west London that is now at the centre of a new police inquiry into murders of children, they should be working even harder to bring the killers to justice today. Mehrotra’s son, Vishal, went missing in July 1981 in Putney, less than a mile from the Elm House guest house in Rock Lane, Barnes, while on his way home with his family from watching the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Diana Spencer.
‘Powerful elite’ of at least 20 establishment figures may have been part of paedophile ring that abused children for decades
Former child protection manager claims abusers operated for 65 years
Peter McKelvie first raised alarm about paedophile politicians in the 1980s
Says abusers may also include judges and people linked to Royal Family
McKelvie says victims may finally get justice after decades of being ignored
Lord Warner says ‘children’s homes were a supply line’ for paedophiles
8 July 2014
A ‘powerful elite’ of at least 20 prominent establishment figures formed a VIP paedophile ring that abused children for decades, a whistleblower claimed today.
Peter McKelvie – the former child protection officer who first raised the alarm about high profile individuals engaged in child sex abuse – said senior politicians, military figures and even people linked to the Royal Family are among the alleged abusers.
Mr Kelvie said that their campaign of abuse may have been going on for as long as 65 years but ‘there has always been the block and the cover-up and the collusion to prevent an investigation.’
Speaking in public for the first time in 20 years, Mr McKelvie, whose claims led to Scotland Yard’s 2012 Operation Fernbridge investigation into allegations of a paedophile network linked to Downing Street, said the alleged VIP child abuse ring may at last face justice, although several members may be dead.
Allegations: Peter McKelvie said abusers could include senior politicians, military figures and even people linked to the Royal Family. ‘At the most serious level, we’re talking about the brutal rape of young boys’, he said
Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight programme, Mr McKelvie said: ‘For the last 30 years and longer than that, there have been a number of allegations made by survivors that people at the top of very powerful institutions in this country – which include politicians, judges, senior military figures and even people that have links with the Royal Family – have been involved in the abuse of children.’
‘At the most serious level, we’re talking about the brutal rape of young boys,’ he added.
Describing the child abusers as making up a ‘small percentage’ of the British establishment at the time, Mr McKelvie admitted there was ‘a slightly larger percentage’ of people who knew about the abuse but did not report it to the police.
He said these people ‘felt that in terms of their own self-interest and self-preservation and for political party reasons, it has been safer for them to cover it up than deal with it.’
Mr McKelvie, a former child protection manager for Hereford and Worcester council, has spent the past 20 years compiling evidence of alleged abuse by establishment figures.
His claims prompted Operation Fernbridge – the 2012 Scotland Yard investigation into allegations of a paedophile network with links to Downing Street.
+9
In a separate interview with the BBC website, Mr McKelvie said child abuse by establishment figures may have been going on for as long as 65 years but added that a ‘cover-up’ has always prevented an investigation’
Following yesterday’s announcement by Home Secretary Theresa May that there would be two public inquiries into how historical claims of child abuse were dealt with, Mr McKelvie said it was ‘crucial’ that victims have the biggest say on who carries out the investigations.
One of the inquiries, led by NSPCC chief Peter Wanless, is to review an investigation conducted last year into the Home Office’s handling of past child abuse allegations.
But Mr McKelvie said he was sceptical that the involvement of the NSPCC would encourage victims to come forward because it is widely seen to be the ‘charity of the establishment.’
‘For many many years [the NSPCC] had people like Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile associated with the fundraising side of it,’ he added.
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Lord Warner, who ran social services in Kent and was later an aide to Jack Straw when he was Home Secretary, was asked if he believed claims MPs and peers were among the 20 alleged paedophiles.
‘I think they are possibly true. I haven’t seen the evidence. What I do know is that the 1980s was a slightly strange period when what started to emerge was much more detail, many more cases, about children being sexually abused. Some of this abuse was actually taking place within families… but many others, as a pivotal point, in children’s homes,’ he said.
‘We certainly know from the inquiry I did in 1992 for Virginia Bottomley children’s homes were targeted by people in power, powerful people. It’s possible that people who were authoritative, powerful, in particular communities did sometimes have access to children’s homes,’ he added.
‘We know for historical purposes that children’s homes were a supply line sometimes’.
A Whitehall inquiry found that £476,250 was granted to organisations connected to the Paedophile Information Exchange. The findings were released as Home Secretary Theresa May (above) announced a major inquiry
Mr McKelvie’s allegations come as it emerged the Home Office gave nearly £500,000 to groups linked to campaigners for sex with children.
A Whitehall inquiry found ‘clear evidence’ that £476,250 was granted over a decade to two organisations connected to the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange.
The findings were released yesterday as Home Secretary Theresa May announced a major inquiry into how public bodies dealt with historical allegations of child sex abuse.
As the paedophile scandal continued to engulf Westminster, it also emerged that:
A separate inquiry, led by NSPCC chief Peter Wanless, is to review an investigation conducted last year into the Home Office’s handling of past child abuse allegations;
Prosecutors decided in 1998 not to lay child abuse charges against Liberal MP Cyril Smith despite ruling they were likely to succeed;
A former head of PIE hid documents inside the Home Office, where he was cleared to work as a contractor;
A member of the Heath government suggested he could secure the loyalty of MPs by covering up scandals involving them and ‘small boys’;
An unnamed minister in Tony Blair’s government was alleged to have tried to help a convicted paedophile foster two boys;
Former home secretary Lord Brittan insisted allegations that he failed to deal properly with allegations of child abuse were completely without foundation;
One of the first MPs to call for an overarching inquiry, Lib Dem Tessa Munt, revealed she was a victim of child abuse.
A Daily Mail investigation earlier this year revealed shocking links between PIE, which campaigned for the age of consent to be dramatically lowered, and three senior Labour figures who held key roles in the National Council for Civil Liberties.
Former health secretary Patricia Hewitt was forced to apologise for her dealings with PIE, although Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman and her husband, home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, strongly denied giving any support to the pro-paedophile group.
Earlier this year former health secretary Patricia Hewitt (Above) was forced to apologise for her dealings with to the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange
Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman and her husband, home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, have previously strongly denied giving any support to the Paedophile Information Exchange group
But Lord Warner stopped short of describing the matter as a cover-up, saying: ‘A cover-up to me means something is very organised. I think much more of this is about people being insensitive to some of these concerns and not being as preoccupied with protecting vulnerable people, children and adults.’
Last December a former employee accused the Home Office of giving tens of thousands of pounds to PIE through its Voluntary Services Unit, which provided annual grants for charities.
Civil servants launched a trawl through 35,000 documents to investigate the claims, focusing on the VSU’s activities between 1973 and 1985.
Their findings were finally published yesterday, prompting concerns that it had been timed so it would be overshadowed by Mrs May’s announcement of an over-arching inquiry.
It found that two groups associated with the child sex-supporting lobbyists did receive hundreds of thousands of pounds from the VSU.
The Albany Trust, which was founded to support ‘sexual minorities’, received £65,750 between 1974 and 1980.
The trust invited representatives from PIE and a group called Paedophile Action for Liberation to a series of meetings in 1975 to discuss setting up a paedophile support group and publishing an information pamphlet about paedophilia.
In 1977 the Home Office expressed ‘some disquiet’ about the way in which the trust was carrying out its work, the report noted. In 1970 the Albany Trust funded the translation of the findings of a Dutch government inquiry, known as the Speijer Report, which looked at lowering the age of consent for homosexuals.
A Whitehall inquiry found ‘clear evidence’ that £476,250 was granted to the organisations while the Home Office was situated in its former location in Petty France, Westminster (above)
It also emerged that prosecutors decided in 1998 not to lay child abuse charges against Liberal MP Cyril Smith (left) despite ruling they were likely to succeed and that former home secretary Lord Brittan (right) insisted allegations that he failed to deal properly with allegations of child abuse were completely without foundation
Campaigner Mary Whitehouse alleged that PIE obtained this English translation several years later and sold it for £1 per copy.
A second charity, Release, which offered advice on issues including drugs, medical and housing problems, was given £410,500 by the VSU between 1974 and 1984 via the Princedale Trust.
In 1975 Release moved to 1 Elgin Avenue in London.
The same year Release allowed PIE to begin using the same address for correspondence.
The Home Office report said it was ‘impossible to determine’ whether VSU money given to the two charities was indirectly used to support PIE’s work, although it noted no evidence was found to confirm that it did.
The report said the whistleblower’s account of seeing a Home Office document from about 1980 that listed a grant renewal of £30,000 for PIE was ‘credible’. But the review concluded that ‘on the balance of probabilities’ no money was given to PIE.
Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale who exposed Cyril Smith’s abuse and led calls for a full inquiry into the alleged official cover-up of child abuse, said: ‘This report raises as many questions as it answers about the Home Office’s use of public funds to support groups linked to the Paedophile Information Exchange.
‘This does little to end concerns about the Home Office’s handling of child sexual abuse allegations over many years.
‘Releasing the report on the same day that the Home Secretary announced a major public inquiry into these issues will make some people wonder whether there has been an attempt to bury its findings.’
How the story unfolded: Chilling claims that sex abuse ring may have operated in British establishment date back to 1983
The chilling claims that a paedophile ring may have been operating within the British establishment first emerged in an investigation by campaigning Conservative politician Geoffrey Dickens.
In November 1983, the MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth in Greater Manchester sent a 40-page document to then Home Secretary Leon Brittan detailing alleged VIP child abusers, apparently including former Liberal party chief whip Cyril Smith and other senior politicians.
In a newspaper interview at the time, Mr Dickens claimed his dossier contained the names of eight ‘really important public figures’ that he planned to expose, and whose crimes are believed to have stretched back to the 1960s.
November 1983:
Geoffrey Dickens produces a huge dossier detailing allegations of sexual abuse against prominent figures in the British establishment. He tells his family the claims will ‘blow apart’ the VIP paedophile ring.
March 1984:
Home Secretary Leon Brittan tells Mr Dickens that his dossier has been assessed by prosecutors and passed on to the police, but no further action is taken. The dossier is now either lost or missing.
May 1995
Geoffrey Dickens dies. A short time later his wife destroys his copy of the paedophile dossier. The only other copies – one received by Mr Brittan and another allegedly sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions – are believed to have been lost or destroyed.
September 2010
The 29-stone Rochdale MP Sir Cyril Smith dies aged 82 without ever being charged with sex offences.
2011/2012:
Following the death of Sir Jimmy Savile, dozens of claims of historic child abuse emerge – including a number of alleged victims of Smith, who is said to have spanked and sexually abused teenage boys at a hostel he co-founded in the early 1960s.
October 2012
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour MP Tom Watson claims there is ‘clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No10’.
November 2012
Lancashire Police announced they will be investigating claims of sexual abuse by Smith relating to incidents before 1974, while Greater Manchester Police will investigate claims after 1974.
November 2012
The Crown Prosecution Service admits Smith should have been charged with crimes of abuse more than 40 years earlier. The CPS also admitted Smith had been investigated in 1970, 1974, 1998, and 1999 but rejected every opportunity to prosecute him.
November 2012
A former special branch officer, Tony Robinson, says a historic dossier ‘packed’ with information about Smith’s sex crimes was actually in the hands of Mi5 – despite officially having been ‘lost’ decades earlier.
December 2012
Scotland Yard sets up Operation Fairbank to investigate claims a paedophile ring operated at the Elm Guest House in Barnes, southwest London, in the 1970s and 80s. Among those abusing children are said to have been a number of prominent politicians.
February 2013
Operation Fernbridge is established to investigate the Elm Guest House alleged paedophile ring.
February 2013
It is claimed a ‘paedophile ring of VIPs’ also operated at the Grafton Close Children’s Home in Richmond, Surrey.
February 2013
Two men, a Catholic priest from Norwich, and a man understood to be connected to Grafton Close, arrested on suspicion of sexual offences and questioned by Operation Fernbridge officers.
June 2013
Scotland Yard claims that seven police officers are working full time on Operation Fernbridge and are following more than 300 leads.
June 2013
Charles Napier, the half-brother of senior Conservative politician John Whittingdale, is arrested by Operation Fairbank officers.
December 2013
Some senior Labour party politicians linked to pro-paedophile campaign group the Paedophile Information Exchange, which was affiliated with the National Council for Civil Liberties pressure group, now known as Liberty, in the 1970s and early 1980s.
December 2013
Police search the home of Lord Janner as part of a historical sex abuse investigation. He is not arrested.
February 2014
Current deputy leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman, who was NCCL’s in-house lawyer at the time of its affiliation with PIE and even met her husband Jack Dromey while working there, is forced to deny she supported the activities of the pro-paedophile collective.
February 2014
Patricia Hewitt, Labour’s former Secretary of State for Health who was NCCL’s general secretary for nine years, later apologised and said she had been ‘naive and wrong’ to consider PIE a legitimate campaign group.
June 2014
Lord Janner’s Westminster office is searched by police. Again the peer is not arrested.
July 3, 2014
Labour MP Simon Danczuk called on Leon Brittan to say what he knew about the Dickens dossier. It emerges the dossier has now been either lost or destroyed and the Home Office admits it can find no evidence of any criminal inquiry relating to it.
July 5, 2014
More than 10 current and former politicians are said to be on a list of alleged child abusers held by police investigating claims of an alleged paedophile ring.
July 6, 2014
Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill reveals that 114 files relating to historic allegations of child sex abuse, from between 1979 and 1999, have disappeared from the Home Office.
It is also revealed that former Home Secretary Lord Brittan was accused of raping a student in 1967. The 2012 allegation was not investigated until Director of Public Prosecutions
Former MI5 agent, Dr Barry Trower, willing to inform UK Inquiry re: Paedophile MPs
July 2014
A former prison worker claims he contributed to the missing paedophile dossier by handing over names of VIPs and MPs who were coercing teenage rent boys behind bars.
Barrie Trower (pictured above) from Liverton, Devon, who claims he has information regarding a mssing Whitehall document
Barrie Trower, 68, says he was recruited by M15 to work as a spy in the education department of Wormwood Scrubs jail in the 1960s and 1970s.
His role was to secretly record details of senior politicians, top police officers in the Met and high-ranking civil servants who had links with inmates.
The former science teacher claims he pooled together a string of damning facts from unsuspecting inmates – including teenage rent boys.
Many of them admitted spending weekends with MPs, taking part in spa trips and weekend breaks.
Barrie also says he saw and heard officials including MPs contacting teenagers in the prison to try and buy their silence by offering to get them freed.
He claims his information including letters and phone calls between inmates and VIPs was part of the Westminster child abuse dossier which went missing in the 1980s.
Barrie says that during his time at the prison, between 1967 and 1978, he passed on the intimate details of 16 VIPs, whose extra-curricular activities were disclosed to him.
He added that one of the accused politicians – who he named – was a household figure who has since died.
Barrie, of Newton Abbot, Devon said he was working as a teacher and scientist when he was approached to take on a job as a PE teacher and spy at the jail in 1967.
He said: “My main job was to obtain information from these vulnerable youngsters about paedophile activity within the establishment.
“I was trained over about a 14 month period to just listen and gather information that could be useful for MI5 and MI6 whilst I was teaching.
“I would have to be on the lookout for paedophiles and homosexuals and especially those within the establishment, for example police officers, civil servants and MPs.
“There were around 233 boys and girls that I was responsible for. There were a group of the boys, who I would describe as “pretty boys”, many of them were rent boys.
“They would talk about very famous faces who had been at parties and events messing around with these boys, many of them were between 11-15.
“Ministers, police and civil servants, many of them known to the public were known by the public.
“Often the boys would get phone calls from these people, which obviously have to be logged, as well as letters which again we kept records of.
“They would have messages from MPs and Civil Servants saying things like: ‘You won’t do the full two year sentence, I’ll make sure you’re out in 16 weeks’.”
Mr Trower started working at the prison as a physical education teacher in 1967.
He had been working as a science teacher and research scientist but was approached by the Government to take on a spying role in the prison.
As part of his role he was trained to detect spies, paedophiles and homosexuals and would give daily verbal revelations of links between inmates and VIPs.
Barrie explained the information he disclosed was passed on to four security officers who then handed the information on to MI5.
The revelations were then collated into 114 files which has since gone missing in a suspected cover-up.
He said: ”I would speak to the boys on a daily basis and they would start to name drop.
“I said to them that it must be nice to have friends like that and they would say ‘they drive me around in their Jaguars, teach me how to swim and take me to saunas’.
“I was well trained – I know blackmail when I see it and those rent boys were being blackmailed.”
The Home Office is facing calls to explain why a 1980s dossier about alleged paedophiles at Westminster was “destroyed” by officials.
The document was handed to then Home Secretary Leon Brittan by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens.
Lord Brittan passed concerns in it to the relevant authorities, but the file itself was not kept.
Labour MP Simon Danczuk said it may contain evidence that would identify child sex abusers.
The Home Office said a 2013 review found the “credible” elements of the dossier which had “realistic potential” for further investigation were sent to police and prosecutors.
It added that other elements in the report were either not retained, or were destroyed.
Barrie says the only person he will disclose the MP names to is judge Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss who is leading a non-statutory inquiry into the affair.
Former prison worker ready to name Establishment figures in child sex abuse scandal Western Morning News 11-07-14
The rev Jan Knos of St Michael and All Angels in Orchard Park
Rev. Jan Knos was a child abusing vicar who owned a barge and two ocean-going yachts at one time [20]. He died in jail of a [suspected] heart attack, waiting for trial on 28 charges of gross indecency and indecent assault against underage boys and girls [20]. He was going to be named by Geoffrey Dickens in Parliament, until Dickens was warned not to by Bernard Wetherill the speaker. Dickens helped in private prosecutions because it appeared that local police in Hull were protecting him. The police had decided not to prosecute, and that decision was taken in Hull but they wrongly said it was a Director of Public Prosecutors decision[19]. See also [38][37]
They all protected the vicar: the Church of England, the Humberside police, even the politicians.
When a Childwatch trustee, Geoffrey Dickens MP, tried to name him in Parliament, his question was returned “disallowed by Mr Speaker – unnecessary invidious use of a name.”
When complaints were made up to bishop level, the excuse was that there had not been a conviction.
When the police were questioned, they said they could not get a conviction because of the problem of corroborating the testimony of the boys.
And all the while, the Reverend Jan Borge Knos was able to carry on touring the council estate, picking up boys and abusing them; renting his soft porn videos from the shop, and flouting every moral law in the good book.
Crime paid, he owned a yacht. And while a trusting community was systematically raped by the vicar of St. Michael and All Angels Church, in Hull, the authorities did nothing.
Were we wrong to kick up a fuss? The Church of England thought so. But there were too many unexplained features to the case of Jan Knos, not least of which was the curious inactivity of the police.
They said they had investigated the complaints, and that a file had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, which was then returned to them marked “No Action.”
This surprised us, because we were under the impression that Humberside Constabulary had failed to take any such action.
A piece of that part of the jigsaw had slipped into place, because Patrick Mayhew, the Attorney General, wrote to Geoffrey Dickens in July 1991:
…the police had carried out a full investigation but questions had been raised about a decision taken locally not to prosecute. It was open to the Director to call for the papers and he did so with the result that Mr Knos was charged with criminal offences.
Now we know that the police had decided not to prosecute, and that decision was taken in Hull – not in London. That decision was not good enough for the parents and teachers; they had no shortage of evidence about what was going on. They had to cope with the behavioural problems that were human testaments to the traumas which the Man of God was inflicting on his victims – with impunity.
Faced with the guns of the Big Battalions, the amateurs do start to get tarred with various brushes. We become “busy-bodies” or “do-gooders” who ought to leave the professionals to get on with their job. Jan Knos was their job, and they failed to bring his dirty deeds to a halt at the earliest possible time.
Robert Webster (who was to become a trustee of Childwatch) was deputy headmaster of Danepark Junior High School on Orchard Park Estate at the time. He was first alerted by a telephone call from a mother who said that her son, while absent from school, had been sexually assaulted by a “prominent person”. The rumours circulated, and eventually the name of the vicar came to the surface. His activities were common knowledge on the estate.
Robert Webster and the headmistress, Miss M.M. Whincup, wrote to the Chief Constable to express their “increasing concern at a situation known to the police but about which there appears to be no action of late”, and the reply from the Chief Constable’s deputy explained:
When young children are victims, the law demands that we must corroborate what they have to say before their evidence will be accepted by a Court, This has presented us with difficulties in the enquiries we have made up to the present time.
Again – children as out-laws, denied the full rights that are accorded to adults.
But that was not the full story. Corroborative evidence from adults either was obtained, or could have been obtained. Robert Webster was outraged at the inactivity of the police. He was to write in a memo:
I learnt from my school children that Jan Knos was going blatantly around the Estate with some young people chasing children and taking them away in his small estate van. I was given the time of night when this was happening along with the location in which it was happening and yet to the best of my knowledge, having passed that information to the police, no action was taken to catch him at it. I feel that the police might at least have provided plain clothes disguised men to keep surveillance on these happenings.
I mounted a media campaign to alert the general public, following which the Director of Public Prosecutions decided to intervene and overrule the locally-taken decision. The vicar was arrested. He died of a heart attack in Hull Prison before coming to trial.
Jan Knos had led a charmed life. No-one interrupted his extra-clerical activities. Why, they even tried to protect him while he was in his grave. The mother of one victim was told by the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev. & Rt. Hon. John Habgood: “I find the publicity which has followed Jan Knos’s death very distasteful because it seems to imply that a man can be judged after his death by the media, even though in life he had had no chance to defend himself.”
Jan Knos did not wish to have to defend himself, in this or any other world. And from the level of the street pavements – the ones from which he kidnapped and molested little boys – it looked as though there were people in authority who were conniving to grant him his wish.
Voluntary agencies like Childwatch, which are not armed with legal rights or taxpayers’ money, are obliged to use every means in the book to achieve justice. Their task is uniquely difficult when trying to protect children, because the law enforcement agencies still treat boys and girls as unbelievable.
– Extract from Chasing Satan by Dianne Core, founder of Childwatch.
I had no idea that ‘Release’ was a group of lawyers!! (From 1973)
Guilty until proved innocent? Release Lawyer Group (Release, 1 Elgin Avenue, London, W9, 40p)
PIE had already moved to Home Office funded Release on Elgin Avenue, Maida Vale (near the BBC Maida Vale Studios on Delamere Road) within about a year of forming, before Christian Wolmar arrived at the office in 1976:
“Under O’Carroll’s astute leadership, PIE developed a strategy to infiltrate the wider libertarian movement. I had personal experience of this. I worked for Release, an agency that helped people with legal and drug problems. When I started there in 1976, PIE was using its address, the respectable sounding 1 Elgin Avenue, London W9. There were plenty of offices available, but allying itself with the Home Office-funded Release and an auspicious address gave PIE respectability.
Piers Corbyn, Jeremy Corbyn’s brother squatted at numbers 9-51 Elgin Ave during the 70s
The council would buy up properties in the area whenever they became available and turn them into council housing.
One of the houses they bought was the rather rundown but spacious Victorian property to which our semi was attached.
They then left it empty and unsecured. Within weeks of the purchase, it was occupied by squatters who were not the desperate homeless of Haringey but an international assemblage of people who included an Italian rock musician with a Jaguar, several young Irish people who appeared distinctly un-impoverished and a couple of Americans. This odd collective then proceeded to sell drugs quite openly on the doorstep and from the window of the Jaguar parked outside, and to hold all-night festivities which reverberated through the party wall where our two young children were sleeping – or not sleeping as the case may be.
Once, in the small hours of the morning, my husband walked over to the house of our local councillor – one Jeremy Corbyn – and rang the doorbell. Mr Corbyn leant out of an upstairs window and complained that he was trying to sleep, to which my husband replied that so were we – perhaps he would like to take some steps to remove the delinquents next door who were making that impossible.
None of this, I hasten to mention, could possibly have had any connection to the fact that Piers Corbyn, brother of Jeremy, was then a Squatters’ Association organiser and spokesman.
eventually the police came to our rescue by making a drugs bust on the squatters, and they secured the crime scene properly. This embarrassment seemed to have some effect on the council, and work to renovate the property finally began. Sort of. What followed was a further illuminating chapter in how things worked in Corbyn World.
We marvelled at the quality and array of fittings that were – slowly but steadily – being installed. Most of them were far beyond our financial reach.
We learnt, in the end, the reason for this very high standard of interior finish. The two flats into which the house had been converted were not destined for poor tenants on the housing waiting list, but for high-level council staff whose bourgeois tastes were impeccable. Indeed, one of the first items of furniture to enter the ground-floor flat was a baby grand piano.
Malcolm Raywood aka Tony the Butcher lived in 459 Garrett Lane (above the butcher shop), Earlsfield, Wandsworth. A couple of the Playland defendants also lived there from time to time and they let Playland boys live with them. There were 2 youth clubs and a school close by.
Truthseeker@thewakeupcall09:
Paedophile Malcolm Raywood POLICE APPEAL TO GAYS IN HUNT FOR KILLER Islington Gazette 18-01-92, p2
Andrew Novac, Malcolm Jack Raywood, Basil John Andrew-Cohen and others: variously charged with conspiracy to procure the commission of acts of gross indecency, living on prostitution, persistent importuning and other offences. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11513278…
Playland amusement arcade near Piccadilly was a main hive of activity back in the 70s. Charles Hornby, Malcolm Raywood, Abraham Jacobs and of course Gleaves were at these places, giving the kids money to play machines and getting them food. The consequences were always extreme and how many of those kids disappeared? Never to be seen again, maybe we will never know.
In August 1983 a Scottish headmaster, Charles Oxley, handed over a dossier about PIE to Scotland Yard after infiltrating the group, the Glasgow Herald wrote. He said the group had about 1,000 members.
But the NCCL continued to defend having PIE as a member. As late as September 1983, an NCCL officer was quoted in the Daily Mail saying the group was campaigning to lower the age of consent to 14. “An offiliate [sic] group like the Paedophile Information Exchange would agree with our policy. That does not mean it’s a mutual thing and we have to agree with theirs.”
How much did Harman and her husband the MP Jack Dromey knew about the group during their time working at the National Council for Civil Liberties, now Liberty, in the late 1970s. PIE was affiliated to the NCCL from the late 1970s to early 1980s.
Former racing driver who was part of a paedophile ring has been jailed for five years for indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy in the 1980s
Christopher Skeaping, 72, of Hounslow, London, indecently assaulted boy
He was involved in Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL) and Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE)
Both campaign groups called for sex with children to be decriminalised
Former mechanic has already served seven years in jail for abusing boys
25 July 2016
A former racing driver linked to a paedophile ring which campaigned for sex with children to be decriminalised has been jailed for five years.
Christopher Skeaping, 72, indecently assaulted a 15-year-old in the 1980s while he was involved in the former Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL) and the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
The campaign groups – which Jimmy Savile has been linked to – openly lobbied for the age of consent to be lowered to allow sex with children to be legalised.
+1
Christopher Skeaping (right), 72, indecently assaulted a 15-year-old in the 1980s while he was involved in the former Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL) and the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). He stood trial with Douglas Slade, 75 (left), who was convicted of 13 child sex offences earlier this month
Christopher Skeaping (left), 72, indecently assaulted a 15-year-old in the 1980s while he was involved in the former Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL) and the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) along with Slade (right)
Skeaping, formerly of Hounslow, London, has now been jailed for five years after he was convicted of one count of indecent assault.
He has already served seven years behind bars for abusing teenage boys.
Handing down the sentence, Judge Euan Ambrose said Skeaping, a former mechanic, had spoken ‘openly’ about his interest in young boys.
He said: ‘(The victim) said it was common knowledge that you were interested in boys sexually.
‘He said that you spoke about the Paedophile Information Exchange, a now notorious organisation, and you spoke about it quite openly.
He said you spoke quite openly about being into sex with boys, you couldn’t understand how it was considered a problem that older men would want to have sexual relationships with children.
‘You used to express your views on this in a very crude manner.’
Skeaping stood trial at Bristol Crown Court with Douglas Slade, 75, who was jailed for 24 years earlier this month after being convicted of 13 child sex offences.
The court heard Skeaping introduced his victim to Slade, also a member of PAL and PIE, who went on to abuse him.
In 2010, Skeaping was jailed for five years for three offences he committed against one boy aged under 16 in the 1980s and 1990s.
He was sent to prison for seven years and six months in 2012, having been convicted of two offences against a boy aged under 16 in the 1970s.
The court heard Skeaping introduced his victim to Slade (pictured), also a member of PAL and PIE, who went on to abuse him
Mitigating, Rosaleen Collins said there was no evidence Skeaping had continued to offend while in France, where he lived from 1995 to 2007.
She said his medical condition was ‘very poor’.
The Paedophile Information Exchange was formed in 1974 and was affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties.
The group campaigned for ‘children’s sexuality’ and wanted the government to lower the age of consent.
Adults who were in ‘legal difficulties concerning sexual acts with consenting ‘under age’ partners’ were offered support.
But the organisation’s real wish was to normalise sex with children.
PIE tied to link itself with the fight for gay rights in the 1980s and focused on the idea of sexual liberation which won itself some supporters.
But that focus took attention away from PIE’s work to make it easier for paedophiles to operate.
Slade’s trial heard how he bragged about his prominent position in the evil PIE network and ran a helpline to give advice to ‘distressed’ men on how to abuse children who resisted them.
Slade, originally from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, fled to the Philippines in the 1980s and grew wealthy through a business supplying food to hotels and restaurants, while exploiting the country’s poverty and corruption to continually abuse young boys.
Wealthy Slade was arrested at his home in Angeles City in December 2014 – just four days after MailOnline revealed how he had abused scores of boys as young as eight for years but repeatedly paid off police and officials to avoid arrest.
The brazen 22-stone paedophile had built a house overlooking a primary school playground in one of the city’s poorest districts and lured boys into his home where he would pay them the equivalent of the price of a pair of flip-flops for sex acts.
Detective Sergeant Paul Melton, of Avon and Somerset Police, said there was evidence Skeaping and Slade were part of a wider network of men interested in sexually abusing children.
‘Our investigation into Slade, Skeaping and their associates is ongoing and we believe there will be more victims who haven’t yet come forward,’ he said.
‘I’d like to send them a message – we are here to listen and support you. You don’t have to suffer in silence. Please contact your local police force or any of the excellent support agencies available and you will be given all the help and support you need.’
Anyone with information should call Mr Melton on 101, quoting Operation Falcon, or use the form on Avon and Somerset Police’s website.
They were often doozies, with topics involving abusive cops, provocative films, highlights from his many travels abroad, things in Little Saigon that would require actually going to Little Saigon to know they exist and, my personal favorite, the North American Man/Boy Love Association.
Um … wait … just to be clear: I’m not outing Dan or myself as NAMBLA members; he planned to cover a conference.
He’s also been the host since 1993 of the KUCI public affairs program Subversity, which has included interviews with Ramsey Clark, Amy Goodman, Mike Davis, Bao Nguyen and, as Tsang reminded his well-wishers, Bill Ayers. That was back in 2002, but the vast right-wing media hacked the tape and replayed it before the 2008 election to smear Barack Obama over his association with the counterculturist. I’m pleased to report Tsang says he’ll continue hosting Subversity despite no longer being on UCI’s payroll.
He is also a dedicated queer activist, Asian rights activist, civil rights activist—hell, if it’s anything other than a Christian conservative activist, check the roster, he’s likely on your team. In left field, no doubt.
In 1989, Rule donated a collection of her writings to the University of British Columbia.[2] Rule was inducted into the Order of British Columbia in 1998, and into the Order of Canada in 2007
Truthseeker1@thewakeupcall09
Martin Hough Executive Committee member of PIE Any further details on him ? PIE Newsletter (No.6) 1975, p.4
Roderick Arthur Ryall knew PIE member Peter Righton
Sir Donald Thompson, the former Conservative MP, whip and junior minister in Margaret Thatcher’s administration in the 1980s
He was one of the first of the Thatcher intake to receive office, being made a junior whip in 1981 and, nine years later, a senior whip with responsibility for pairing in 1990;
….a county councillor for the old West Riding from 1967 to 1974 and was afterwards briefly a member of West Yorkshire county council and then a Calderdale district councillor from 1975 until his election to the Commons in 1979.
He won early promotion to ministerial office, via the whips’ office, which Mrs Thatcher was to use as a try-out for talent. He was a whip for five years from 1981 and a junior minister at the then ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food for three years.
He was chairman of the appeal fund for the Animal Health Trust and when he left Parliament, he became Director General of the Friends of War Memorials, now known as the War Memorials Trust. The Prince’s Trust, Age Concern and a local epilepsy fund are among other organisations he helped.
He spent much of his career in the whips’ office, and only rose as far as parliamentary private secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, a position in which he proved an adroit manoeuvrer in labyrithine EEC committees.
Director of Social Services in Calderdale Roderick Arthur Ryall is accused of ten offences
Judge instructed the Jury to find him Not Guilty on grounds of a prejudiced trial.
Richard Travell, a vicar’s son in his twenties who lost his computer job after being exposed by the News of the World.
#29 Richard Travell
13th December 2006
Child porn user spared prison term
A CHILD porn downloader has avoided a prison sentence.
Richard Travell was handed a three-year community order banning him from seeking employment likely to bring him into contact with children.
The 47-year-old, of Kent House Road, Beckenham, must not have children at his home or stay overnight at any address where children are present.
At a hearing at Croydon Crown Court in September, Travell pleaded guilty to six charges of possessing indecent images of children.
Prosecutor Philip Jones said police raided Travell’s home on October 18 last year and took away his computer, which was found to contain 205 indecent images.
Travell had attempted to cover his tracks using specialist software.
He has two previous convictions for smuggling indecent material into the country and was jailed for six months in 1996.
After reading a report prepared by the probation service, Judge Simon Pratt issued the community order, with supervision to last for the same length of time.
Travell must also allow police into his home at any time to check his computer and will be on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years.
Sentencing him on December 1, Judge Pratt stressed if Travell broke any conditions, he would face jail.
2016 – Author Rev. Dr. John Travell FRSA [[left] welcomes Lord Fellowes of West Stafford DL [centre] and HM High Sheriff of Dorset Sir Philip Williams Bt. JP DL
(Photograph by Michel Hooper-Immins)
The Society has its beginnings in the combined initiatives of two people- William Watkins and G. R. Crickmay. In 1898, architect Crickmay organised a dinner and meeting at the Whitehall Rooms in London, to promote the idea of forming the Society
Distinguished guest speakers at County Dinners have included Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, Bishop of London Rt. Hon.& Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, Admiral Lord West of Spithead and Lieutenant General David Leakey, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod at the House of Lords.
From the beginning, the association between the Society and the Dorset military has always been close.
Julian Fellowes, himself the son of a senior British diplomat, wrote: ‘Thoroughly revolted as I am by the Paedophiliac Society with all its professed aims, I feel I cannot be alone this week in being almost as disgusted by the spectacle of a Tory MP dangling his victim over the slavering jaws of the media.
‘The feeblest student of human nature must surely be aware of how slight the connexion between pornography and practices need be.
‘To flirt with fetishes is hardly rare in the best circles . . . now he has to have his life, public and private, more thoroughly smashed than if he had murdered his kinsman in broad daylight.
‘It is particularly depressing that Salem-like justice should be meted out by a Conservative Party (MP) . . . their one faintly convincing battle cry has always been the importance of championing the rights of the individual against the so-called good of the faceless, heartless state.’
What of the rights of the children featured in the pornography, some might wonder.
Today the Oscar winner and Downton Abbey creator is a Tory peer — Lord Fellowes of West Stafford. He is married to a lady-in-waiting.
The Queen honoured The Society of Dorset Men with a message to 200 members and their wives, attending their annual County Dinner at the George Albert Hotel on Wardon Hill.
Secretary Hayne Russell read the Society’s Loyal Greetings sent to The Queen. Lord Fellowes of West Stafford DL announced the reply from Buckingham Palace: “The Queen appreciates your thoughtful message and sends her best wishes to all those who are present at your County Dinner for a most enjoyable evening.” The Society has received a message from The Queen at every County Dinner since 1954.
Chaplain Robert Bushell, saying grace earlier, referred to the 60th. anniversary of The Queen’s coronation and the birth of HRH Prince George.
The president of the Society of Dorset Men Sir Anthony Jolliffe (third from right) with his principle guests before the County Dinner at Sherborne School
FORMER Lord Mayor of London Sir Anthony Jolliffe is to retire as president of the Society of Dorset Men after 28 years.
He announced his intention to step down next April at the annual County Dinner at Sherborne School.
Sir Anthony, who is the only Weymouth man to become Lord Mayor of London, said: “I’ve now been president for 28 years and I have decided this is my last year.
The Izodia investigators would find that Smith still had an appetite for webs of opaque, complex and multi-layered activity.
Smith visibly enjoyed the lifestyle of the successful businessman. His home in Jersey outshone even the governor’s next door. Another in Surrey overlooked the fifth tee at Wentworth. But investigators from the SFO soon discovered that this golden life was not as secure as it appeared.
“Smith had recently purchased 37 Thistle hotels using a £600m loan. The interest charges were enormous and the cash-flow implications were about to start hurting,” explained Kevin McDonald, the SFO principal investigator.
With the first payments due within weeks, in the final days of July 2005 Orb – a Jersey-based holding company controlled by Smith – took control of a 29.9pc stake in Aim-listed Izodia. A casualty of the dotcom boom, Izodia was a shell company with no business, but almost £40m of cash.
Izodia’s two long-time non-executive directors were replaced by Orb nominees, Jar Vahey and Peter Catto. Sir Anthony Joliffe, a highly respected City figure, became Izodia’s chairman at a hastily arranged board meeting on August 2.
“When Herman Spielman, a pillar of Manchester’s Jewish community and centre of an international child porn ring, pleaded guilty to child prostitution and was sentenced to six years, John was asked to advise on his appeal.”
The Mirror – 27 July 1978
Shocking secret in a porn merchant’s locker
By Brian Crowther
GUILTY: Herman Spielman – known to little girls as Doctor John. He built an empire of child porn.
HUGHES: Sold her two little girls for vice
CROSS: Told all
An evil child porn racket operated by company boss Herman Spielman was uncovered by a sheer fluke.
One of his workers opened a cupboard – and a secret hoard of sordid photographs tumbled out.
When police were tipped off they smashed a sinister empire that was piling up huge profits for 57-year-old Spielman.
The innocent little girls he enticed into his web called him “Doctor John.” He doled out chocolates, sweets and money as he taught them to pose for obscene pictures that were sold worldwide.
Some of his “little Lolitas” were trained in degrading sex acts, then hired out to wealthy perverts who lust after children.
The reckoning came for Spielman at Manchester Crown Court yesterday. He got a six-year sentence after admitting indecency charges.
***Also jailed was 39-year-old Victoria Hughes, who sold her two daughters – aged six and ten – for sex.***
Hughes, of Delft Walk, Salford, Lancs. got a four-year sentence.
Denial
She had denied the charges, claiming that when she introduced her little girls to Spielman she did not realise he was a porn merchant.
But Mr Justice Forbes told her: “It is very difficult to imagine a worse case of indecent assault on a small girl than one in which a mother provides her own child for that purpoe.”
Spielman, whose home is in Stanley Road, Salford, belongs to a strict Jewish sect. He prayed every day at a synagogue.
He is the father of six children, and told detectives at one stage: “I am a good family man. I love children.”
But the man who found that tell-tale bundle of photographs, 34-year-old Denis Rogers, said: “Some of the children in them looked absolutely petrified at what was being done to them.
“There were little girls hardly out of the nappy stage.”
Spielman’s normal feelings for children ended at his own from door.
…
[Let’s not forget about the very spooky and evil Eric Mervyn Harold Cross. Victoria Hughes sold her children to PIE member Viscount Mersey through Herman Spielman and International Child sex trafficker Eric Cross.]
The worldwide trail of vice
By Sidney Williams
Herman Spielman was part of an international network of child vice.
His sordid role became clear after the Los Angeles arrest of Eric Cross, the man exposed by the Mirror earlier this year as the sex pervert with children for sale.
American police questioned Cross for several days before he broke down and spoke about Spielman, the man he knew as Fred Watling, boss of the Watling Press in Manchester’s Corporation Street.
Detectives uncovered a network of child prostitution spreading through Britain, Europe, America and the Far East.
They learned how Spielman drove “customers” round Manchester to meet girls aged six, 11 and 12 for sex.
The price, said Cross, was not cheap. Spielman wanted 80 per child.
The Mirror has in its possession a letter from Cross in which he refers a client to Spielman.
“You can refer to me,” wrote Cross. “It is not cheap however, so I am not sure if this would pay since you have enough dolls to play with.”
Cross also gave police a dossier of British mothers who could be willing to make their children available to the vice network.
…
A viscount’s son told a court yesterday that he travelled to Manchester to meet child prostitutes, and paid £70 for an introduction. He also said that after “contact” with a girl of 10 on a bed he was revolted by his actions.
Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, the Master of Nairne who is the eldest son of the third Viscount Mersey, was giving evidence at the trial in Manchester Crown Court of a 39-year-old mother accused of inciting one of her daughters to commit gross indecency with him.
Mr Bigham, aged 44, said he had been a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange, but said of his activities with the girl: “It was revolting and was the worst thing I could conceivably do.”
The 10-year-old girl told later about a trip to Rotterdam. On another occasion at home, she said, she took off her clothes when offered money and sweets. She was then photographed by a man she thought was a doctor.
The girl’s mother, Victoria Hughes, a self-employed hairdresser, of Delft Walk, Salford, Lancs., pled not guilty to three charges.
They are: Encouraging an indecent assault on a girl under 16; indecent assault, with two men, on a girl under 13; and, with a man, inciting a girl of 10 to commit gross indecency with Mr Bigham.
Mr Bigham, a film technician, told the jury he was interested in paedophilia “on a photographic level only.” He said he met a man called Spielman in Manchester to be “introduced by him to child prostitutes.”
He said he paid Spielman £70 and Spielman sold him two boxes of chocolates for the children.
Bigham, of Rosmead Road, Notting Hill, London, claimed his sexual attraction to children had been through photographs. “I suppose I was trying to climb back on my fantasy bandwagon of photographs,” he said. “I was revolted.”
He was not trying to justify what he did in the bedroom.
He told the police he thought what he had done was within the law because it was with parental consent.
In the witness box later, the 10-year-old girl said when she went to Rotterdam with her mother, brother, and sister, they were met by a man as they got off the boat.
The children had then been shown round by the man who met them at the boat, the girl said. “I saw a Dutchman and I think an Italian man putting white things over the beds. I thought they were doctors because they had white coats.”
The girl’s brother said the doctor took photographs of himself and his sister when they were unclothed and that he had been given a box of chocolates and £50 by the man.
Shown a statement he made to police last October, the boy said its contents were untrue. He said: “They put the words into my mouth.”
Eight-year-old girl’s name on child sex list The Glasgow Herald 30-05-78, p4
Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, 4th Viscount Mersey – Mervyn Harold Eric Cross – Herman Spielmann – Victoria Hughes Police clear ‘porn’ girl The Glasgow Herald 01-06-78, p1
Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, 4th Viscount Mersey – Mervyn Harold Eric Cross – Herman Spielmann – Victoria Hughes Trial told of ‘lady seeks gents’ ad The Glasgow Herald 21-07-78, p8
Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, 4th Viscount Mersey – Mervyn Harold Eric Cross – Herman Spielmann – Victoria Hughes
Threats to sex trial woman brings warning The Glasgow Herald 22-07-78, p5
I’m innocent, says vice-charge mother The Glasgow Herald 25-07-78, p5
Truthseeker@thewakeupcall09
Prostitute sold her children to porn The Age 28-07-78, p6
Halfway through Richard Maurice Clive Bigham’s, 12 month jail sentence suspended for two years. Richard Bigham became 4th Viscount Mersey in 1979, and joined the House of Lords.
Was this ‘Herr Mann’ who attended the PIE meeting@anthonydaly01?
Anthony Daly@anthonydaly01:
Herr Mann is indeed the man in the photo. I’m currently writing an article in which I will name him, but will also do so now. You have stolen my thunder, but no hard feelings! Herr Mann is actually “Herman” Spielman.
He was a German born Jew. I suspect he put on the heavy accent for my benefit. He also went by the name of Fred Watling and owned a company, Watling Press in Manchester. I thought he was in his late 30s early 40s but he was actually a youthful looking 54 in 1975.
He was a prominent member of an international child abuse ring. He was into sex with kids himself, but for a hefty fee, he procured children for other paedophiles. He was jailed for five years in 1978.
Another man at that party was called Wendy. Wendy’s real name was Richard Bigham and he was called Wendy by the others because, unlike most PIE members, he was into little girls. Wendy was a client of Herr Mann. He became the 4th Viscount Mersey in 1979.
In 1978, the year before his elevation, he appeared in court and was found guilty of indecent assault and gross indecency with two girls aged six and ten. He had paid Herr Mann £70 for a 40 minute session with the girls.
In a sentence befitting the son of a Viscount, he was given a one year jail sentence, suspended for two years and walked free
craftymuvva:
I wonder if the convicted nonce Richard Bigham aka Viscount Mersey knew Colin Peters? They lived right by each other…
They also lived very close to where Martin Allen went missing on 5 Nov 1979. Bigham inherited the title of Viscount following his father’s death on 1 Aug 1979 and was able to take his seat in HoL.
PIE MEMBER: HERMAN JACOB SPIELMAN (DR QUACK), THE TRAFFICKER, PROCURER AND INTERNATIONAL PORNOGRAPHER
DR QUACK, THE TRAFFICKER, PROCURER AND INTERNATIONAL PORNOGRAPHER
PAEDOPHILE INFORMATION EXCHANGE MEMBER
In the latter half of 1978, three trials took place involving a ‘Mr Spielman’. One of those trials involved a man named Richard Maurice Clive Bigham, or to give him his correct title, Master of Nairn,Viscount Mersey. Whilst Bigham’s name hit the headlines, Spielman seems to have flown under the radar yet seemed to play a very large role in child exploitation and abuse. Piecing together information obtained from numerous articles and records, I aim to provide as much detail as I can on Spielman and those connected to his sordid activities – especially an equally depraved individual, Eric Cross, who seemed to have connections to the Civil Service. I have only scratched the surface of this particular strand but I believe it to be worthy of further investigation – especially those connected to Westminster and the Civil Service.
Although I won’t go into the specific details of abuse, I will give a trigger warning as some people may find this blog upsetting.
HERMAN SPIELMAN
Herman Jacob Spielman was born in 1921. A Jewish refugee from Germany, he settled in Manchester with his wife and six children, living in Stanley Road, Salford. His profession was described as a ‘printer’ and he had a business – Watling Press – in Corporation Street, Manchester. But beneath the facade was an international trafficker, procurer and pornographer, who took indecent images of small children and was also a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
Spielman’s sordid secret life was, in part, uncovered by accident when one of his employees opened a cupboard and a ton of explicit photographs of young children tumbled out, but it was an arrest of a man named Eric Cross across the Atlantic for child sexual exploitation that blew Spielman’s activities wide open. During Cross’s police interviews he named Spielman as an associate (whom he knew as ‘Fred Watling‘ of Watling Press.) Cross would advertise in magazines and newsagents windows and refer clients to Spielman, who would then drive them to different homes in Manchester where they could abuse little girls for a premium price and he would take photographs. Detectives uncovered a network of child prostitution across the world, including Britain, Europe, America, Australia and the Far East. Cross, as it turns out, was originally from the UK and a major player, and I have given a brief overview about him towards the end.
For a few pound, chocolates and sweets, Spielman had groomed and coerced young children into his web of depravity and used his connections overseas to make large sums of money out of them, with mothers that were complicit and happy to sell their children into his web of abuse.
Aliases:
Dr John
Dr Quack
Fred Watling
Mr Johnson
TRIAL ONE – JULY 1978 – MANCHESTER CROWN COURT
On 19th July 1978, Spielman was named in court as having been involved in the procurement of two little girls for Richard Maurice Clive Bigham. Spielman, for some inexplicable reason, did not appear at the trial despite having a major role in the disgusting affair.
VICTORIA HUGHES
The case involved mother of three, Victoria Hughes, 39, who was described as a ‘simple-minded’ self-employed hairdresser of Delft Walk, Salford. In fact, Hughes was a prostitute who had a number of previous convictions.
RICHARD MAURICE CLIVE BIGHAM
Bigham, who described himself as “a documentary film technician, interested in paedophilia on a photographic level only” was the eldest son of Viscount Mersey, whose title he inherited following his father’s death on 1st August 1979. He married Joanna Murray at Christ Church, Hampstead, in 1961 and they lived with their children at 1 Rosmead Road in Notting Hill.
Despite his membership of PIE, conviction for child abuse and admission of his sexual attraction to children, just a year later he was able to sit in the House of Lords, where he continued to be active until 1999. Yet another paedophile connected to Westminster.
TRIAL
Spielman had placed an advertisement in ‘a child porn magazine’, Lolita, offering the sexual services of children. Having responding to this ad, on 6th October 1977 Bigham took a train from his home in London to Manchester’s Piccadilly Station, where he had arranged to meet Spielman who was going to introduce him to “child prostitutes.” They headed to the home of an associate of Spielman – Victoria Hughes.
Spielman had originally met Hughes after she had advertised in two contact magazines as “Lady wishes to meet gents.” Hughes said of Spielman (whom she knew as ‘Mr Johnson’ and whom her children knew as ‘Dr John’), “He is fetish. I used to cane him.”
Before entering Hughes’s home, Bigham handed Spielman the £70 fee as well as £4 for two boxes of chocolates to give to the children. He was then introduced to Hughes’s two young daughters, aged just six and ten. They headed upstairs where Bigham abused the older child whilst Spielman photographed the abuse.
During the trial Bigham admitted that he had previously abused a child, stating: “My sexual attraction to children had been through photographs. Having had a real sexual experience with a child, and finding it confusing and later horrible, I suppose I was trying to climb back on my fantasy bandwagon of photographs. I was revolted.” He also told the court that he thought his actions were lawful because it was with parental consent.
Surveillance
The sordid events only came to light because police were following Spielman having received information from Los Angeles police, who had arrested Eric Cross. (See below.) It’s not known for how long the surveillance had been going on, but a number of Playland trials had taken place in the few years beforehand, and we now know that PIE members were closely connected to some of the firm at Playland, according to Anthony Daly’s book, which I covered here. Both Bigham and Spielman were members of PIE and Anthony recalls seeing them both at a meeting in London.
The court heard how Woman Det Sgt Reay Barker followed Spielman’s van from the station to Hughes’s home, where the two men spent 38 minutes and during which time Hughes never left the property. Four days later, Det Sgt Barker executed a search warrant at Hughes’s home looking for obscene photographs. During her interview, Hughes claimed the men had been visiting in a social capacity and denied any knowledge of photographs having been taken, although Det Sgt Barker claimed she was paid £10 for allowing her two young daughters to be abused. However, three local shopkeepers claimed that Hughes had visited their shops at the time police claimed she was home.
During the trial it was claimed that Hughes had received threats which the judge warned were in contempt of court. She also complained that she had to pay for her children who had been taken into care even though “I did not put them there.”
Holland
Hughes’s ten-year old daughter bravely gave evidence in which she detailed what had happened with Bigham and Spielman. She also described how she had been taken to a “posh house” in Holland, where they had stayed for two days and where there had been “cameras and lights.” (Who owned this house?) Her young brother also gave similar evidence. According to her children, at some point Hughes had taken them to Rotterdam where they were filmed “in grotesque sexual activity” with several people. Hughes had been paid £100 plus expenses for the use of her children whom she professed to the court that she loved.
Verdicts
Victoria Hughes was jailed for four years. Mr Justice Forbes said Hughes had supplied her children to be used in an… “abominable way. That would be bad enough if they were just children, but they were your own. It seems different for me to imagine a worse case of indecent assault on a small girl than that in which a mother provides the child for that purpose.” Hughes subsequently lost her husband, her children and her home.
Herman Spielman was sentenced to six years in prison for possessing and publishing obscene photographs, indecently assaulting a 10-year old girl and inciting the girl to an act of gross indecency with Bigham. The judge said that Spielman “had provided children so that men could act out their perversions” and who “started an international traffick in child pornography.”
Richard Bigham, who had actively abused the child and who was tried separately earlier in the month with no press coverage, was given a 12-month suspended sentence after admitting assault and gross indecency. The following year he entered the House of Lords, where he remained until 1999.
TRIAL TWO – SEPTEMBER 1978 – NOTTINGHAM CROWN COURT
In September 1978, Spielman was once again named in court during a trial which involved a woman alleged to have supplied a young girl to paedophiles.
Iris Ingham, 42, of Wrenbury Avenue, Withington, Manchester was cleared of all charges after the 12-year old girl – who was the central witness to the case – became upset and despite two adjournments, refused to give evidence.
The court heard how Ingham had sold the ‘sexual services’ of the girl to a man known as “Dr Quack” (AKA Herman Spielman.) She had invited Spielman to her home a number of times between 1976-77 for the purpose of making indecent images of the girl and abusing her in return for money. On one occasion she had allowed Spielman to undertake a physical examination of the girl despite him having no medical qualifications.
Spielman was already in prison following his conviction at the earlier case.
APPEALS
Both Hughes and Spielman appealed against their sentences in 1980, but lost. You can read the judgement on the Cathy Fox blog.
ERIC CROSS
Eric Mervyn Harold Cross was a stereotypical married man and father of two from Whittlebury near Towcester, with a respectable facade as company director and school principal at Whittlebury School. But in 1966 Cross was imprisoned and his wife left him, taking their children with her. Cross headed over the Atlantic where he became a central figure in a huge international pornography and child trafficking ring. Piecing together information I can find, here is his timeline:
1966: Declared bankrupt in The Gazette, and stated as serving time in HMP Bedford.
1969: Discharged in The Gazette.
George Green, a former general secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association, claimed he was duped into becoming Cross’s London agent. Green told the Mirror that he would initially forward mail to an address is Hove, Sussex, but that following telephone calls, this changed to locations in Amsterdam and The Hague.
1974: Detectives from Scotland Yard arrested Cross who was to answer charges of rape and indecent assault on children in Florida. He was extradited to the US, found guilty and sent to Florida State Mental Hospital. Despite receiving letters from Cross with an ‘Osceola County Jail’ postmark, Green agreed to continue forwarding his mail thinking it a bit odd.
1975: Having somehow evaded both Florida police and customs officials, Cross was then able to travel back to the UK, where he turned up at Green’s civil service London office in Balham High Road, London, and gave a new forwarding address in Tallahassee, Florida.
1975: Robert Carter Lodge, a married school teacher from Seattle, answered an advertisement by a mail order company owned by Cross called Cine International (which dealt with the making and distribution of indecent images of children.) Their friendship grew over their mutual disgusting perversions.
1976: Green stopped forwarding letters on to Cross due to an unpaid bill.
1978: Whilst Cross awaited trial in a Los Angeles jail and following information forwarded from US police to Scotland Yard, a large international investigation had begun into the trafficking of children and making of indecent images, and a number of British children were taken into care. During questioning, Cross claimed that he had been working with Fred Watling (AKA Herman Spielman) in the UK, and also handed over a dossier that contained details of UK mothers who allowed their children to be abused for the international network.
1978: After responding to a lonely hearts ad, 38-year old divorcee, Mrs B, of Guildford, Surrey, took her two little girls and travelled to Florida having been groomed by Cross for over a year into believing they had a future together. She arrived just as he was sentenced to 28-years imprisonment for ‘lewd conduct involving two young girls.’
1978: Cross and Lodge decided to join forces to produce and market indecent images of children. Cross would arrange opportunities for Lodge to take photographs of children and Lodge would then develop the images. (Although one such plan failed after the mother of the children involved mistakenly mentioned the plans to Lodge’s wife.)
1979: Through his attorney Raymond Cramer, Cross offered to assist the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in their investigations into child pornography.
1980: Cross met with Department agent Michael Brick to discuss how he could assist, but no agreement was reached.
1980: Later that year, Department agent George Syring (who had taken over from Brick) and US Postal Inspector, Ted Griem, met with Cross and asked him to correspond with four magazine advertisers. Cross asked for immunity but this was never forthcoming.
1980: Cross once again recruited Lodge in a scheme involving sending obscene material through the post. With the assistance of another paedophile – Elmer Donald Woodward – Lodge would develop negatives that Woodward supplied.
1981: Cross, Lodge and a new female recruit – Ruksana Diwan, 26, from Zanzibar but who lived in St Petersburg, Florida – created a false company – Viewfinder, Inc – that duped the parents of child models into thinking Cross was an independent movie producer who required images of children who he wished to cast for a documentary entitled ‘Susan’s Magical Carpet.’ They contacted ‘Dot Burns Talent Agency’ in Tampa and asked for young girls between eight and twelve-years. In order to deflect attention away from the fact Cross was in prison, Diwan arranged conference calls on his behalf, and forwarded his mail.
1982-3: Having contacted unknowing photographer Dean Cason, shots were taken of the girls with promises that they wouldn’t be copied and would be forwarded to the parents in due course. The negatives were sent over to Lodge to develop so that they could be sold and Diwan delivered copies to Cross.
1983: A search of Lodge’s home unearthed photographs and negatives that had been supplied by Woodward, as well as photographs of children provided by the talent agency.
1986: During the trial, Cross represented himself and called several law enforcement officers and prisoners to testify that he had planned this scheme because he was working as a police informant. Two character witnesses (one a fellow prisoner) testified on his behalf. The court also heard how the images were also connected to Europe and, incredibly, not only had Cross and Lodge never actually met in person, Lodge claimed not to know that Cross was serving time in prison. Cross was sentenced to 95 years and Lodge received a four-year prison sentence.
1986: Although Diwan was due to stand trial alongside Cross and Lodge, on the eve of the trial she fled to England where she applied for asylum. She was taken into custody by authorities in Liverpool. Before leaving Florida, she left a letter for Cross which was delivered in court by a former prison mate of Cross, Gilbert Knerr, who claimed he sometimes received mail for Cross.
Woodward was serving time in a Californian prison for sex offences against four children at the time of the trial.
1987: Diwan was extradited from England back to the US, where she pled guilty and was sentenced to 10-years imprisonment, fined and ordered to be deported. By this point she claimed to have married Cross.
1991: During his appeal, Cross maintained that during his trial he had wished to call his daughter as a witness but didn’t know her exact location – only that she lived in Canada. He wanted her to testify that during the 1950s and 1960s, he had been a legitimate film producer.
United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Mervyn Harold Cross A/k/a Eric Cross, and Robert Carter Lodge, Defendants-appellants, 928 F.2d 1030 (11th Cir. 1991)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit – 928 F.2d 1030 (11th Cir. 1991)
April 16, 1991
Catherine McWilliam-Rinaldo, Tampa, Fla., for Lodge.
Terrance Bostic, Marie Tomassi, Tampa, Fla., for Cross.
Fran Carpini, Asst. U.S. Atty., Tampa, Fla., Karen Skrivseth, Attorney, Crim. Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for U.S.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before FAY and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges, and THOMPSON* , District Judge.
MYRON H. THOMPSON, District Judge:
Appellants Mervyn Harold Cross and Robert Carter Lodge were each indicted in November 1984 by a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, on one count of conspiracy to persuade a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual or print media, 18 U.S.C.A. Secs. 371 (1966) and 2251 (1982); one count of mailing obscene material, 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1461 (1984); and 18 counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1341 (1984). After a jury trial, Cross was convicted on all counts with the exception of one count of mail fraud, and Lodge was found guilty on only the conspiracy charge.
The evidence at trial showed that between 1980 and 1983, Cross and Lodge, together with co-defendant Ruksana Diwan, conspired to exploit children sexually in order to produce and sell child pornography.1 Cross, while a prison inmate in Florida, orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to obtain nude photos of child models from the Tampa, Florida area by falsely portraying himself as a film producer and misrepresenting that the pictures were necessary for casting decisions for a legitimate educational documentary. Lodge, who, like Cross, was a pedophile interested in pre-adolescent girls, used a lab in his Seattle, Washington home to develop these pictures as well as obscene photos of two California children which Cross arranged for him to receive in the mail. Diwan assisted by placing telephone calls, directing mail, and serving as a Florida contact for Cross.
Cross and Lodge have appealed their convictions on a multitude of grounds: co-conspirator hearsay, immunity, denial of a continuance, prosecutorial misconduct, sufficiency of the evidence, improper jury instructions, unduly prejudicial evidence, recanted testimony, a false search warrant affidavit, and refusal to sever.2 We now affirm.3 BACKGROUND
Cross and Lodge began their association in 1975 when Lodge responded to an advertisement by Cross’s mail order company, “Cine International,” offering “erotic” photographs of children. Cross and Lodge soon started to exchange such pictures and share accounts of their sexual experiences with children. In 1978, the two men, through letters and phone calls, began to discuss a series of proposed ventures for producing and marketing child pornography. Cross offered to arrange several opportunities for Lodge to take sexually explicit photos of pre-adolescent girls. In return, Lodge would process the film and send the pictures to Cross, who would sell the photos and share the profits with Lodge. Lodge expressed to Cross his interest in several of these ventures and at least one such photo session was arranged but had to be cancelled at the last minute when a woman, whose two young daughters Lodge had intended to pay to pose nude, telephoned Lodge’s home and mistakenly mentioned the plan to Lodge’s wife.
In 1980, Cross recruited Lodge for a scheme that involved sending obscene materials through the mail. Several years earlier, Cross had begun communicating with Elmer Donald Woodward concerning “their mutual interest in child pornography.”4 On several occasions, Woodward mailed to Cross the negatives of obscene photographs of a seven-year old California girl and her younger brother. Cross indicated to Woodward that Lodge could develop the pictures for a reasonable fee, and offered to pay for the film processing himself if he also could receive a set of prints. Cross subsequently arranged for his attorney to mail the Woodward negatives to Lodge. Both the negatives and black and white prints of the photos were later discovered during a search of Lodge’s home in May 1983.
In 1981, Cross and Lodge, this time with Diwan’s assistance, initiated a new attempt to obtain nude photographs of children and market them as child pornography by means of an elaborate confidence game in which the parents of child models in the Tampa, Florida area were misled into believing that Cross was an independent movie producer who required such pictures in order to make casting decisions for a new film.5 Using a dummy corporation as a front, Cross contacted a Tampa talent agency, and requested and received composite photographs and resumes of actresses between the ages of eight and twelve.6 Cross informed the head of the agency that he was looking for a young girl to star in an educational documentary he was producing, and indicated that because it might involve some nudity, the agency should inform him as to which children did not suffer from “modesty problems.”7
Cross contacted the parents of several of the agency’s models,8 and later enlisted a professional photographer in Tampa to take “casting” pictures of these young girls.9 Cross instructed the photographer to shoot several nude photos of the girls, allegedly in order to gauge their reactions to being filmed in the nude, and to determine whether the models were too physically developed to play the role of a young child. Cross further directed the photographer to provide him with full frontal nude pictures in the form of color transparencies three times the size of normal slides.10 Like the talent agency, both the photographer and the girls’ parents were told by Cross that the photo sessions were necessary because the film would include scenes in certain locations where native people routinely wore little or no clothing. Cross also assured them that these photos would not be reproduced and would be returned to the parents.
However, soon after receiving the transparencies, Cross mailed them to Lodge to be processed and enlarged so they would be suitable for sale. Lodge developed and sent to Cross slides from some of these transparencies, but indicated that several of the other pictures would need to be retaken because of their inferior quality.11 When Lodge’s house was searched in May 1983, police discovered a negative strip containing a sequence of nude, black and white photos of one of the Tampa girls.12 In addition, the strip contained versions of these photos that Lodge had cropped to highlight the girl’s nude torso, followed by closeup photographs of adult female genitalia which he had added.
Neither Cross nor Lodge testified at trial. Cross, who represented himself, called several law enforcement officers and fellow prisoners to testify, in an attempt to show that he had planned and engaged in these various child pornography schemes in the course of acting as a police informant. Two character witnesses testified on Lodge’s behalf.
DISCUSSION
Lodge contends that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial as a result of being tried jointly with his co-defendant Cross. Lodge argues that the district court erred in summarily denying his pre-trial motions for severance, and that he was unfairly prejudiced by a joint trial.13 He advances three grounds in support of this claim of error: (1) that Cross would have provided exculpatory testimony on Lodge’s behalf had their cases been severed, (2) that Lodge’s and Cross’s defenses at trial were antagonistic, and (3) that Cross’s behavior during the trial and evidence introduced solely against him had a prejudicial spillover effect on the jury’s determination of Lodge’s guilt.
As a general rule, defendants who have been jointly indicted should be tried together, particularly in conspiracy cases. United States v. Castillo-Valencia, 917 F.2d 494, 498 (11th Cir. 1990). The decision whether to grant a severance is committed to the sound discretion of the trial court and can only be overturned for an abuse of such discretion. United States v. Rucker, 915 F.2d 1511, 1512 (11th Cir. 1990) (per curiam). In considering a motion for severance under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 14, a district judge is required to balance the prejudice that a defendant may suffer from a joint trial, against the public’s interest in judicial economy and efficiency. In order to establish that a refusal to sever constituted an abuse of discretion, an appellant must demonstrate that he “suffered compelling prejudice against which the trial court was unable to afford protection.” United States v. Riola, 694 F.2d 670, 672 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1073, 103 S. Ct. 1532, 75 L. Ed. 2d 953 (1983). Guided by these principles, the court considers each of Lodge’s separate theories.
Lodge argued to the district court in his motions for severance that if he and Cross were tried separately, Cross would provide exculpatory testimony on Lodge’s behalf. In support of this contention, Lodge submitted an affidavit from Cross, in which Cross promised to testify “if I can do so without exposing myself to criminal jeopardy in [this] case,” and described his proposed testimony. In his affidavit, Cross stated that Lodge had neither known of nor participated in the Tampa photo arrangements, but had “inadvertently” been mailed these photographs; that he and Lodge had otherwise never exchanged child pornography but only “naturist photographs” of the kind found in “nudist magazines;” and that he had communicated with Lodge as a police informant surreptitiously seeking information about illegal activities. Lodge now contends that Cross’s testimony could have refuted the government’s conspiracy charge against him.14
In order to warrant severance based on a co-defendant’s potential testimony, an accused must first show: “(1) a bona fide need for the testimony; (2) the substance of the desired testimony; (3) the exculpatory nature and effect of the desired testimony; and (4) that the codefendant would indeed … testif [y] at a separate trial.” United States v. Funt, 896 F.2d 1288, 1297 (11th Cir. 1990). If the defendant satisfies these threshold requirements, the trial judge then must “(1) examine the significance of the testimony in relation to the defendant’s theory of the case; (2) assess the extent of prejudice caused by the absence of the testimony; (3) consider judicial administration and economy; and (4) give weight to the timeliness of the motion.” Id.
We are not persuaded as to the exculpatory nature or effect of Cross’s proposed testimony. The affidavit consisted of little more than bare conclusory assertions of Lodge’s lack of involvement, and contained no clear indication of any “specific and exonerative facts” to which Cross would have testified. United States v. Pepe, 747 F.2d 632, 651 (11th Cir. 1984). See also United States v. Johnson, 713 F.2d 633, 641 (11th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1081, 104 S. Ct. 1447, 79 L. Ed. 2d 766 (1984). Furthermore, Cross’s proffered testimony was entirely self-serving in light of its emphasis on his own defense theory that he was acting as a police informant, and was contradicted by the extensive evidence of Lodge’s considerable involvement in the Tampa photo scheme which was introduced at trial. For these reasons, Cross’s affidavit lacked any substantial credibility. Therefore, the exculpatory value of his proposed testimony would have been trivial, and Lodge’s defense did not suffer harm, let alone compelling prejudice, as a result of Cross’s unavailability. See Pepe, 747 F.2d at 651; Johnson, 713 F.2d at 641; United States v. Metz, 608 F.2d 147, 156 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 821, 101 S. Ct. 80, 66 L. Ed. 2d 24 (1980).15 However, even if the court were persuaded that Cross’s testimony would have benefitted Lodge, we would still conclude that Lodge was not entitled to a severance on this basis. The trial in this case lasted approximately two months, and involved dozens of witnesses and hundreds of exhibits. As in Pepe, “the savings in time and resources produced by holding a joint trial in such a complex conspiracy case outweighed the possible benefit” Lodge might have “derived” from Cross’s testimony. Id., 747 F.2d at 651.16 See also Metz, 608 F.2d at 156. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to try Lodge and Cross separately on the basis of Cross’s alleged exculpatory testimony.17
A defendant is not entitled to a trial separate from that of his co-defendant simply because their defenses are prejudicial to one another. Rather, a trial court abuses its discretion in denying a severance only when the defenses advanced are “so antagonistic as to be irreconcilable or mutually exclusive.” United States v. Castillo-Valencia, 917 F.2d 494, 498 (11th Cir. 1990). Severance is compelled only “if the jury, in order to believe the core of testimony offered on behalf of one defendant, must necessarily disbelieve the testimony offered on behalf of his co-defendant.” United States v. Rucker, 915 F.2d 1511, 1513 (11th Cir. 1990) (per curiam), quoting United States v. Berkowitz, 662 F.2d 1127, 1134 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981).18 See also United States v. Caporale, 806 F.2d 1487, 1510 (11th Cir. 1986) (severance mandated only when “the jury will infer that both defendants are guilty solely because of the conflict” between their defenses), cert. denied, 482 U.S. 917, 107 S. Ct. 3191, 96 L. Ed. 2d 679 (1987). Lodge’s and Cross’s defenses at trial, however, were not so incompatible that the jury could not reasonably have decided on a version of events that accommodated both of their theories. See Castillo-Valencia, 917 F.2d at 498; United States v. Sawyer, 799 F.2d 1494, 1504 (11th Cir. 1986) (per curiam), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1069, 107 S. Ct. 961, 93 L. Ed. 2d 1009 (1987). At trial, Lodge sought to undercut the government’s charge that he joined and participated in the Tampa photo conspiracy. In cross-examination and argument, Lodge’s counsel suggested to the jury that Lodge had not solicited these nude pictures from Cross, and never intended to prepare them for commercial distribution as child pornography. Cross’s defense, on the other hand, was that he communicated with Lodge as a police informer acting under a grant of immunity. The jury could have believed both stories–that Cross was secretly working for law enforcement, and that Lodge received the photos but never agreed to become a part of Cross’s scheme.19 This is not a case in which Cross’s defense was Lodge’s guilt. See Rucker, 915 F.2d at 1513; United States v. Magdaniel-Mora, 746 F.2d 715, 720 (11th Cir. 1984). Therefore, we also conclude that the trial court’s refusal to grant a severance on the basis of an antagonism between Cross’s and Lodge’s defenses was not an abuse of discretion.
Finally, Lodge claims that his conviction should be reversed because his joint trial with Cross created a prejudicial spillover effect on the jury’s determination of Lodge’s guilt. Lodge contends that Cross’s misbehavior as a pro se litigant and the government’s introduction of inflammatory evidence against Cross deprived Lodge of his right to a fair trial.20 We find that this theory, like Lodge’s other grounds for challenging the denial of severance, is without merit.
As the court has noted, denial of severance will be considered error where the defendant can demonstrate that he suffered “compelling prejudice” as a result of the spillover effects of being tried jointly with a co-defendant. The applicable test is whether it was “within the capacity of [the] jurors to follow [the] court’s limiting instructions and appraise the independent evidence against each defendant solely upon that defendant’s own acts, statements, and conduct.”21 United States v. Silien, 825 F.2d 320, 232 (11th Cir. 1987) (per curiam). In this case, the trial court specifically charged the jury that, “each offense and the evidence pertaining to it should be considered separately,” and that “the case of each defendant should be considered separately and individually.”22 See United States v. Pritchett, 908 F.2d 816, 822 (11th Cir. 1990); United States v. Garrett, 727 F.2d 1003, 1015 (11th Cir. 1984), aff’d, 471 U.S. 773, 105 S. Ct. 2407, 85 L. Ed. 2d 764 (1985). Indeed, the fact that the jury acquitted Lodge on a number of counts on which it convicted Cross confirms that the jurors “sifted the evidence and made individual determinations of guilt and innocence.” United States v. Khoury, 901 F.2d 948, 966 (11th Cir. 1990). See also United States v. Berkowitz, 662 F.2d 1127, 1135 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981). Moreover, Lodge fails to explain how any particular comment by, or testimony against, Cross was either adverse to Lodge or created a risk of conflating the jury’s determination of each defendant’s guilt.23 See United States v. LaChance, 817 F.2d 1491, 1497 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 928, 108 S. Ct. 295, 98 L. Ed. 2d 255 (1987). We are not persuaded that Lodge suffered contaminating prejudice as a result of his joint trial with Cross. The trial court’s refusal to sever was not an abuse of discretion on this or any of the other rationales advanced by Lodge.
Lodge also contends that the district court erred in failing to conduct a pretrial evidentiary hearing on his motion to suppress evidence seized during a search of his Seattle home in May 1983. At trial, Lodge argued that Detective Thomas Dittmar of the Seattle Police Department intentionally or recklessly included false information and misleadingly omitted material facts from his search warrant affidavit. The district court, however, found that even if the allegedly false or misleading statements were deleted or corrected, the affidavit was still sufficient to establish probable cause for the search of Lodge’s house. Relying on our independent weighing of the allegations in such a redacted affidavit, we too conclude that the Seattle judge who issued the search warrant had a “substantial basis” for finding that probable cause existed. See United States v. Sims, 845 F.2d 1564, 1571 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 957, 109 S. Ct. 395, 102 L. Ed. 2d 384 (1988); United States v. Kirk, 781 F.2d 1498, 1505 (11th Cir. 1986). We therefore find no error.
In Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S. Ct. 2674, 57 L. Ed. 2d 667 (1978), the United States Supreme Court recognized the limited constitutional right of a criminal defendant to attack the veracity of a warrant affidavit.24 In order to merit an evidentiary hearing on such a claim, however, an accused must make a concrete, preliminary showing that: (1) the affiant deliberately or recklessly included false statements, or failed to include material information, in the affidavit; and (2) the misrepresentation was essential to the finding of probable cause. Id. at 171-72, 98 S. Ct. at 2684-85. Accord United States v. Jenkins, 901 F.2d 1075, 1080 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 111 S. Ct. 259, 112 L. Ed. 2d 216 (1990).
In this case, Dittmar’s affidavit contained information that he received from William Dworin, a Los Angeles police detective who had corresponded with Lodge in the course of an undercover investigation of child pornography.25 In a then-recent letter to Dworin, Lodge had stated that he was “fairly active in photography,” had a collection of “15,000 to 20,000 negatives,” and had “contacts that may eventually lead to some good models.” Lodge had also indicated that he had “a fair amount of European material, but as you know acquisition has been difficult lately.” Lodge assured Dworin that it would be “safe” to send him “any mail of any type.” In addition to providing the Seattle detective with a copy of Lodge’s letter, Dworin also informed Dittmar that Lodge’s name had appeared on Cross’s mailing lists for child pornography when he arrested Cross several years earlier. Finally, Dittmar’s affidavit also contained certain information about Lodge’s involvement in the Tampa photo hoax. According to the affidavit, the source of this last material was a government official who, in turn, had learned of the conspiracy from Cross.
Lodge argues that the following “facts,” which he presented to the district court, constituted a “substantial preliminary showing,” mandating a pretrial hearing on his suppression motion: (1) Dittmar failed to contact Cross to verify Lodge’s involvement in the Tampa scheme; (2) Cross denied making the statements attributed to him in the affidavit; (3) Dittmar failed to disclose that such information actually came from several prisoners incarcerated with Cross, whose reliability was unproven; and (4) the affidavit did not describe or attach the letter from Dworin which elicited Lodge’s return correspondence.
We assume, as did the district court, that Cross has satisfied the first prong of Franks by alleging, in more than conclusory fashion, a deliberately or recklessly false statement or material omission from the affidavit. However, even if all the information attributed to Cross were removed and the letter from Dworin to Lodge were added, the redacted affidavit would still contain allegations sufficient to support a finding of probable cause. See Jenkins, 901 F.2d at 1080; Sims, 845 F.2d at 1571; United States v. Ofshe, 817 F.2d 1508, 1513 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 963, 108 S. Ct. 451, 98 L. Ed. 2d 391 (1987). Lodge’s letter, with its cryptic references to “European material,” “good models,” his huge collection of photographs, and the need for secrecy, could reasonably be read as a veiled discussion of child pornography.26 Such an interpretation is only supported by Dworin’s antecedent letter to Lodge,27 and by the fact that Lodge’s name had earlier appeared on Cross’s child pornography mailing list. In short, even if restricted to such information, the affidavit demonstrated “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime [would] be found in” Lodge’s home. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 2332, 76 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1983). See also Jenkins, 901 F.2d at 1080; United States v. Strauss, 678 F.2d 886, 892 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 911, 103 S. Ct. 218, 74 L. Ed. 2d 173 (1982). For this reason, we hold that Lodge was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his Franks motion.28
In his third and final claim of error, Lodge challenges his conviction of conspiracy to exploit a minor sexually, on the ground that the evidence introduced against him at trial was insufficient as a matter of law to sustain a guilty verdict on this charge. In evaluating the sufficiency of evidence, we must view the evidence and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from it in the light most favorable to the government.29 Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S. Ct. 457, 469, 86 L. Ed. 680 (1942); United States v. Diaz, 916 F.2d 655, 656 (11th Cir. 1990). The jury’s verdict must be upheld “if any reasonable construction of the evidence allowed the jury to find the appellants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Obregon, 893 F.2d 1307, 1311 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 1833, 108 L. Ed. 2d 961 (1990). See also United States v. Vera, 701 F.2d 1349, 1357 (11th Cir. 1983) (“It is not necessary that the evidence exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence or be wholly inconsistent with every conclusion except that of guilt”).
Lodge was convicted, under the federal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 371 (1966), of conspiring with Cross and Diwan to sexually exploit children in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2251(a) (1982).30 This latter section, as it existed at the time of Lodge’s offense, applied to “any person who employs, uses, persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any minor to engage in any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual or print medium depicting such conduct … if such person knows or has reason to know that such visual or print medium will be … mailed, or if such visual or print medium has actually been … mailed.” 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2251(a) (1982).31 Lodge now contends that the evidence at trial failed to prove the elements of a conspiracy under Sec. 371. To support a conviction for conspiracy, the prosecution must prove that two or more persons agreed to commit a crime, that the defendant knew of the conspiracy, and that he voluntarily participated in helping to achieve its objective. United States v. Roper, 874 F.2d 782, 787 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 189, 107 L. Ed. 2d 144 (1989). An additional element, under Sec. 371, is an overt act committed by one of the co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy. 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 371 (1966); United States v. Hollifield, 870 F.2d 574, 577 (11th Cir. 1989) (per curiam). The existence of a conspiracy may be demonstrated by direct or circumstantial proof, including inferences from statements or conduct of the participants. United States v. Lignarolo, 770 F.2d 971, 978 n. 9 (11th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1105, 106 S. Ct. 1948, 90 L. Ed. 2d 358 (1986). Similarly, the defendant’s knowledge of and membership in the conspiracy may be proven by acts on his part which furthered the goal of the conspiracy.32 United States v. Morales, 868 F.2d 1562, 1572 (11th Cir. 1989).
The evidence presented by the government amply demonstrated both the existence of, and Lodge’s knowing involvement in, a conspiracy with Cross and Diwan to produce and market child pornography. The correspondence between Cross, Lodge, and third parties, as well as altered versions of the Tampa photos found in Lodge’s home, make clear that Lodge knew of Cross’s and Diwan’s plan to deceive the models and their parents into providing nude pictures, and that Lodge actively participated in the scheme by processing and modifying these photos in order to render them suitable for commercial distribution. The proof at trial was more than adequate to support Lodge’s conviction.33
Cross also argues that the evidence at trial was legally insufficient as to the conspiracy charge of which he too was found guilty. Cross alleges not that the government failed to prove all the elements of a conspiracy; rather, he contends that his conviction should be reversed because the evidence did not demonstrate that the Tampa photos were obscene, or that he endeavored to produce them for pecuniary gain. However, the antecedent version of 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2251, which Cross was convicted of violating, did not require that either the “sexually explicit conduct” engaged in by the minor or the “visual or print medium” created from that conduct be obscene.34 See 18 U.S.C.A. Secs. 2251(a), 2253(2) (1982); New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 762 n. 15, 102 S. Ct. 3348, 3357 n. 15, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1113 (1982); S.Rep. No. 438, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 12-14, reprinted in 1978 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 40, 49-52.35 Furthermore, while Cross is correct in pointing out that, prior to the 1984 amendments, an accused could not be convicted of violating Sec. 2251 absent proof that he produced the material in question for financial gain,36 nevertheless, the government’s evidence, including Cross’s writings and testimony by his then-fellow prison inmates, clearly showed that one of his ultimate purposes in hatching the Tampa photo scheme was to profit from sales of the nude pictures.37 This claim of error is therefore without merit.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350, 107 S. Ct. 2875, 97 L. Ed. 2d 292 (1987),38 Cross asks us to reverse his mail fraud convictions on the ground that the jury could have concluded that he perpetrated the Tampa photo hoax simply to indulge his own personal, sexual gratification, and therefore could have found him guilty of engaging in a scheme to deprive his victims of intangible, non-property rights, outside the scope of the mail fraud statute, 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1341 (1984).39 However, after reviewing the indictment, the evidence offered at trial, and the jury instructions, we conclude that the jury in this case necessarily determined that Cross schemed to defraud the Tampa models, along with their families, the photographer, and the modeling agency, of various services and property of some value.40 See United States v. Lang, 904 F.2d 618, 627 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 111 S. Ct. 305, 112 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1990); United States v. Dynalectric Co., 859 F.2d 1559, 1570 (11th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1006, 109 S. Ct. 1642, 104 L. Ed. 2d 157 (1989). Therefore, we reject this claim of error.
In disposing of an appeal by Cross’s co-defendant, Diwan, this court has already determined that the indictment in this case sufficiently alleged a plot to deprive the victims of property or money.41 See United States v. Diwan, 864 F.2d 715 (11th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 921, 109 S. Ct. 3249, 106 L. Ed. 2d 595 (1989). The court explained:
One objective of this conspiracy … was that the girls forfeit modelling services, photographs, and the likenesses that emanate therefrom. The photographer would lose the value of his services, as would the … [t]alent [a]gency … the photographer would necessarily have to use film and other materials in producing the photographs, and [the talent agency] would forfeit proprietary business information–the identities and the addresses of aspiring actresses. All of these items have value to the owner.
Id. at 719. Nevertheless, Cross now argues that the evidence presented at trial and the jury charge on the elements of mail fraud allowed the jury to convict him of engaging in a deception involving intangible, McNally-type rights. In attempting to identify such rights in this case, which were unprotected by the mail fraud statute, Cross contends that his guilty verdict may have improperly rested on proof showing only that he sought to obtain the Tampa photographs to satisfy his own sexual appetites.
Cross is wrong on all accounts. The evidence at trial proved the indictment’s allegations of losses suffered by the victims, as described in Diwan. More importantly, the district court’s instructions specifically directed the jury that it could return a guilty verdict on the mail fraud counts only if it found that Cross had devised “a scheme to defraud or for obtaining money or property,” and defined scheme to include any plan to obtain “money or property.” See Dynalectric, 859 F.2d at 1573 (concluding that identical instruction comported with McNally) . The court also charged that to act with “intent to defraud” meant acting “ordinarily for the purpose of causing some financial loss to another or bringing about some financial gain to oneself.”42 As for Cross’s claim that his convictions should be reversed because the ultimate goal of the plot was to indulge his pedophilia and not turn a profit, Cross incorrectly focuses on his own ultimate purposes, rather than on the harms suffered by his victims.43 In rejecting the same contention in Diwan’s case, this court stated:
Diwan misses the point when she argues that the primary objective of the scheme was merely personal sexual indulgence, and not the deprivation of property through fraud. The entire array of deprivations announced in the indictment would be a necessary result of the overt acts planned to further the scheme. If the defendants were to achieve success in their endeavor in the chosen manner, the girls, the photographer, and the talent agency would have to lose, and what they would lose is property.
Diwan, 864 F.2d at 719-20. Cross’s mail fraud convictions were not invalid under McNally and its progeny.
As the centerpiece of his defense at trial, Cross sought to prove that, in corresponding with Lodge, he was acting as an informant for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement under an official grant of immunity. Cross claims that his convictions should be overturned because the trial court improperly admitted as evidence letters that he wrote to Lodge as part of his work on behalf of a government investigation of child pornographers.44 For the purposes of resolving this issue, we accept, as did the district court, Cross’s contention that such evidence would be subject to exclusion if it were indeed a product of either an actual immunity agreement or Cross’s good faith belief that he had been granted immunity from prosecution. See United States v. Harvey, 869 F.2d 1439, 1444 (11th Cir. 1989); Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524, 527-28 (11th Cir. 1982); United States v. Weiss, 599 F.2d 730, 735-36, 738 n. 17 (5th Cir. 1979). The district court overruled Cross’s objection to admission of the correspondence, in light of the government’s contrary evidence that Cross was not working as a law enforcement informant.45 Because Cross’s immunity contentions raised an issue relevant to his guilt or innocence, the jury was allowed to hear the evidence and received instructions on this defense.46 In convicting Cross on the conspiracy count, the jury necessarily found that Cross had possessed the requisite criminal intent when he conspired with Lodge. We find no reason to disturb the jury’s resolution of this factual issue against Cross.47
In 1979, Cross, through his attorney, Raymond Cramer, contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to explore the possibility of assisting the Department in an investigation of child pornography distribution. In 1980, Cross, Cramer, and Department agent Michael Brick met on several occasions to discuss ways in which Cross could aid in the investigation, but no agreement was reached. Brick suggested that Cross maintain his contacts with pornography distributors, but not with individual pedophiles. Brick also instructed Cross to mail only written materials, and specifically rejected a proposal by Cross that he send out a fake brochure containing pictures of nude children.48 Later that year, Department agent George Syring, who had been reassigned in Brick’s place, together with United States Postal Inspector Ted Griem also contacted Cross in order to solicit his assistance in gathering information about child pornographers. At a meeting with Cross in 1981, Syring and Griem instructed him to correspond with four magazine advertisers, who they suspected were peddling child pornography, through a post office box rented by Syring under a false name. No letters to or from Cross were ever received at this post office box. Instead, Cross asked the Department for a grant of immunity before proceeding with any correspondence. Several months later, the Department’s legal counsel forwarded a draft immunity agreement to Cross which he signed and returned to the Department through his attorney, Cramer.49 The agreement was never signed by any law enforcement official and was never returned to Cramer or Cross.50 Cramer testified that he assumed that the Department’s failure to return the immunity agreement meant that they had decided not to go forward with it.51
What is most telling is that, contrary to his instructions, Cross never informed any of the government officials with whom he communicated during this period about the Tampa photo scheme or that he was mailing nude pictures, nor did he ever receive permission from any law enforcement officer to engage in such activities.52 Indeed, Cross’s intrigues involving the child models occurred in late 1982 and early 1983, well after he had last had any discussions with or received any news from law enforcement officers concerning his assistance in an investigation or the possibility that he would be granted immunity. In short, based on these facts, it was not unreasonable for the jury to find that Cross did not engage in these activities under a good faith belief that he was acting on behalf of law enforcement and under a grant of immunity.53 Clearly rather, Cross was, as the government aptly describes it, “playing both ends against the middle in a cynical effort to create a defense for himself if his efforts to obtain pornographic pictures of little girls were discovered.”54
In addition to challenging the admission of his correspondence with Lodge on the basis of his purported immunity agreement, Cross also claims that the letters should have been excluded because they were unduly prejudicial and because those which predated the conspiracy were irrelevant to the charges against him. A district court’s admission of “extrinsic act” evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion.55 United States v. Jones, 913 F.2d 1552, 1556 (11th Cir. 1990). In order to be admissible under Rule 404(b), extrinsic act proof must simply be relevant.56 Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 689, 108 S. Ct. 1496, 1501, 99 L. Ed. 2d 771 (1988). Cross’s pre-1980 correspondence to Lodge,57 in which he discussed at length various plots to produce and distribute child pornography, was properly introduced to demonstrate both appellants’ intent to accomplish this same illegal purpose with regards to the Tampa photo hoax.58 See Fed.R.Evid. 404(b); Jones, 913 F.2d at 1566; United States v. Collins, 779 F.2d 1520, 1533 (11th Cir. 1986). Evidence explaining the onset of Cross and Lodge’s planning of illegal activities was particularly important because of the unusual circumstances in this case: Cross and Lodge had never met, they lived on opposite coasts, and Lodge was not aware that Cross was incarcerated. See id.; United States v. Mancari, 875 F.2d 103, 105 (7th Cir. 1989); United States v. Marks, 816 F.2d 1207, 1209 (7th Cir. 1987). In short, contrary to what Cross suggests, there is no absolute bar on the introduction of evidence which pre-dates an alleged conspiracy if the evidence is otherwise relevant. See United States v. Diaz, 878 F.2d 608, 614 & n. 2 (2nd Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 543, 107 L. Ed. 2d 540 (1989); Mancari, 875 F.2d at 105; Marks, 816 F.2d at 1209.
Cross, however, also contends that even if the correspondence were relevant, the probative value of these and other, post-1980 letters used against him by the government was substantially outweighed by their unfair and unduly prejudicial impact on the jury. See Federal Rule of Evidence 403.59 Cross points, in particular, to some of the letters’ sexual references to children, and argues that their admission created an unacceptable risk that the jury convicted simply because he was a pedophile. A conviction will not be set aside because of a district court’s refusal to exclude evidence under Rule 403 absent a clear abuse of discretion. Cauchon v. United States, 824 F.2d 908, 913-14 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 957, 108 S. Ct. 355, 98 L. Ed. 2d 380 (1987). Indeed, Rule 403 is “an extraordinary remedy which should be used sparingly,” and the trial court’s discretion to exclude evidence as unduly prejudicial is “narrowly circumscribed.” United States v. Norton, 867 F.2d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 200, 107 L. Ed. 2d 154 (1989). The “major function” of Rule 403 “is limited to excluding matter of scant or cumulative probative force, dragged in by the heels for the sake of its prejudicial effect.” United States v. Sawyer, 799 F.2d 1494, 1506 (11th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1069, 107 S. Ct. 961, 93 L. Ed. 2d 1009 (1987), quoting United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616, 633-34 (5th Cir. Unit B), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 1008, 102 S. Ct. 2300, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1303 (1982).60 As previously discussed, the correspondence was of considerable probative value in proving Lodge’s and Cross’s intent to create and market child pornography.61 Moreover, because there was ample other evidence offered at trial that Cross was a pedophile and child pornographer, it is unlikely that the references in these letters to sexual exploitation of children injected any unfair prejudice into the jury’s determination of Cross’s guilt. We find no error in the district court’s admission of Cross’s correspondence.
Cross insists that he is entitled to a new trial as a result of the district court’s refusal to grant a continuance to enable him to call his daughter as a witness. The decision whether to continue a trial is committed to the sound discretion of the district court. United States v. O’Neill, 767 F.2d 780, 784 (11th Cir. 1985). The factors to be considered in evaluating such a claim of error are: (1) the diligence of the defense in interviewing the witness and procuring her testimony; (2) the probability of obtaining the testimony within a reasonable time; (3) the specificity with which the defense was able to describe the witness’s expected knowledge or testimony; and (4) the degree to which such testimony was expected to be favorable to the accused, and the unique or cumulative nature of the testimony. United States v. Costello, 760 F.2d 1123, 1126 (11th Cir. 1985). See also Dickerson v. Alabama, 667 F.2d 1364, 1370 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 878, 103 S. Ct. 173, 74 L. Ed. 2d 142 (1982).
Cross’s claim fails to satisfy several of these criteria. First, Cross was not diligent in endeavoring to secure his daughter’s presence, and did not demonstrate that she would actually be available to testify within a reasonable period of time. He first indicated to the trial court that he was having difficulty locating his daughter, who lived in Canada, two weeks after he had begun to present his defense, on the day he rested his case. At such time, the court granted Cross a five-day continuance, indicating that he would be allowed to reopen his case during or after Lodge’s defense in order to call his daughter as a witness, but that if she were not available on that date, the trial would be completed and the case submitted to the jury. On the day that Cross’s daughter was supposed to appear, he moved for another continuance on the ground that she had been forced to remain in Canada to care for a sick relative. Cross did not specifically indicate to the court when his daughter would be available to testify.62 Refusing to further delay the trial, the court denied Cross’s motion.
Second, his daughter’s testimony would have been, at best, cumulative and of marginal benefit to Cross’s defense. Cross contends that she would have testified that he had, in the 1950’s and 60’s, been a legitimate film producer and had intended to produce a documentary similar to the one that was the subject of the Tampa hoax. Such evidence, however, would have been of little relevance to the question of whether, decades after the events claimed by his daughter, Cross obtained nude photos from the young models in order to create child pornography. Indeed, the evidence at trial that Cross’s activities were not aimed at producing a legitimate film was overwhelming. Moreover, two other witnesses, the head of the talent agency and the Tampa photographer hired by Cross, each testified that he indeed demonstrated a professional familiarity with the film business and appeared to be a knowledgeable, experienced producer. The district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant Cross a second continuance.
Cross next argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the district court erred in admitting irrelevant, cumulative, and unfairly prejudicial expert testimony by Kenneth Lanning, an FBI agent, on the characteristic behaviors of pedophiles. A trial court has wide discretion in determining whether to exclude expert testimony, and its action will be sustained on appeal unless “manifestly erroneous.” United States v. Burchfield, 719 F.2d 356, 357 (11th Cir. 1983) (per curiam). See also Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 108, 94 S. Ct. 2887, 2903, 41 L. Ed. 2d 590 (1974); United States v. Bagnell, 679 F.2d 826, 833 (11th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1047, 103 S. Ct. 1449, 75 L. Ed. 2d 803 (1983). A properly qualified expert witness may testify regarding his specialized knowledge in a given field if it “would assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.”63 Federal Rule of Evidence 702. See United States v. Rouco, 765 F.2d 983, 995 (11th Cir. 1985) (expert may be used if his testimony can offer something “beyond the understanding and experience of the average citizen”), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1124, 106 S. Ct. 1646, 90 L. Ed. 2d 190 (1986); Burchfield, 719 F.2d at 357 (expert testimony admissible where it is “the kind that enlightens and informs lay persons without expertise in a specialized field”). See also Notes of Advisory Committee on Proposed Rule 702.
In regards to the California photos that were the subject of Count II of the indictment, Lanning testified that these pictures would be of sexual interest to pedophiles and offered his expert opinion that they were obscene. Count II charged both Cross and Lodge with mailing obscene material in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1461 (1984), and the obscenity of these photos was an essential element of the offense. It is well settled that such expert testimony is permissible in an obscenity prosecution, particularly when “contested materials are directed at … [such] a bizarre deviant group that the experience of the trier of fact would be plainly inadequate to judge whether the material appeals to the prurient interest.” Bagnell, 679 F.2d at 833, quoting Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 56 n. 6, 93 S. Ct. 2628, 2634 n. 6, 37 L. Ed. 2d 446 (1973).64 Accord Hamling, 418 U.S. at 108, 94 S. Ct. at 2903; United States v. Petrov, 747 F.2d 824, 830 (2nd Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1025, 105 S. Ct. 2037, 85 L. Ed. 2d 318 (1985).
Lanning’s testimony was also helpful to the jury and relevant to its consideration of the conspiracy and mail fraud charges against Cross. In his defense at trial, Cross contended that the Tampa photos were innocent “nude studies,” rather than child pornography, and that he had arranged them for the purpose of casting a legitimate film. In describing the habits of pedophiles, Lanning testified that such persons characteristically derive sexual satisfaction from and collect even such ostensibly non-sexual nude photographs of children. Lanning also told the jury that these kinds of pictures, rather than more graphic ones, are frequently published in magazines distributed to pedophiles in an attempt to circumvent laws against obscenity and child pornography.65 Such evidence clearly shed light on one of the critical issues in the case–whether Cross obtained the photos with the intention of using them to produce and distribute child pornography. Indeed, federal courts have ordinarily allowed law enforcement officials “to testify as experts … to establish the modus operandi of particular crimes,” in order to “explain the actions of the defendants.”66 Burchfield, 719 F.2d at 358 (counterfeiters). Accord United States v. Thomas, 676 F.2d 531, 538 (11th Cir. 1982) (drug couriers); United States v. White, 890 F.2d 1012, 1014 (8th Cir.) (same), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 3254, 111 L. Ed. 2d 763 (1990); United States v. Anderson, 851 F.2d 384, 392-93 (D.C.1988) (pimps and prostitutes), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1012, 109 S. Ct. 801, 102 L. Ed. 2d 792 (1989).67 Lanning’s testimony on these matters was also proper.
Cross, however, also insists that even if Lanning’s testimony were relevant and helpful to the jury, it should nevertheless have been excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 because its probative value was substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice and tendency to mislead the jury. See Rouco, 765 F.2d at 995. Cross specifically suggests that Lanning’s testimony created an unacceptable risk that the jury convicted him simply out of disgust for pedophilia. As the court has already recognized in its discussion of Cross’s claim of error regarding admission of his correspondence,68 a conviction will not be overturned on the basis of a violation of Rule 403 absent a clear abuse of discretion. Cauchon v. United States, 824 F.2d 908, 913-14 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 957, 108 S. Ct. 355, 98 L. Ed. 2d 380 (1987). This rule is “an extraordinary remedy which should be used sparingly,” and, indeed, the trial court’s discretion to exclude evidence as unduly prejudicial is “narrowly circumscribed.” United States v. Norton, 867 F.2d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 200, 107 L. Ed. 2d 154 (1989). As noted above, Lanning’s testimony on the obscene nature of the California photos and the sexual appeal and marketability of the Tampa pictures to pedophiles was of considerable probative value in proving each of the charges contained in the indictment. Moreover, because there was extensive, particularized evidence of Cross’s sexual attitudes toward children offered at trial by the government and, indeed, by Cross himself, it is doubtful that Lanning’s more generalized testimony about the nature of pedophilia could have independently affected the jury’s verdict. See Anderson, 851 F.2d at 394. The jurors were instructed to determine for themselves the weight to be given the opinion of each expert witness. See Burchfield, 719 F.2d at 358. We find no error in the district court’s admission of Lanning’s testimony over Cross’s Rule 403 objection.69
In his initial pro se brief, Cross complains that the district court improperly admitted certain hearsay statements made to law enforcement officers by Diwan and Lodge. At trial, a prison inspector and state police official from Florida each testified that Diwan provided and identified for them certain documents that the government later introduced as exhibits at trial, including a package of nude photographs which Diwan indicated she had received from the Tampa photographer. In addition, Seattle Detective Thomas Dittmar also testified that at the time he and other officers searched Lodge’s home, Lodge acknowledged to him that he collected child pornography, knew Cross, and that the dummy corporation created as a front for the Tampa photo scheme had been Cross’s idea.
An out-of-court statement by a co-conspirator is admissible under both Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d) (2) (E)70 and the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment if the trial judge determines that the government has proven by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) “the declarant and the defendant were involved in an existing conspiracy,” and (2) “the statement was made in furtherance of that conspiracy.”71 United States v. Jones, 913 F.2d 1552, 1563 (11th Cir. 1990). See also Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 175, 107 S. Ct. 2775, 2778, 97 L. Ed. 2d 144 (1987). Although we are bound to apply a “liberal standard” in determining whether a statement was made in furtherance of a conspiracy, see United States v. Byrom, 910 F.2d 725, 735 (11th Cir. 1990), it is clear that these statements by Diwan and Lodge were admissions after the conspiracy had effectively ended, and as such, were not made “in furtherance of that conspiracy.”72 The district court’s finding to the contrary was clearly erroneous. See United States v. Turner, 871 F.2d 1574, 1581 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —-, 110 S. Ct. 552, 107 L. Ed. 2d 548 (1989).
However, this conclusion does not end our inquiry. It is well-established that the improper admission of co-conspirator hearsay, like other Confrontation Clause errors, is subject to the harmless error rule of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705 (1967). Turner, 871 F.2d at 1581-82. See also Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684, 106 S. Ct. 1431, 1438, 89 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1986). We find that Cross is not entitled to prevail on appeal, despite the district court’s erroneous failure to exclude these statements, because there is “no reasonable probability” that such evidence “might have contributed to [his] conviction [s].” Turner, 871 F.2d at 1582, quoting Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87, 84 S. Ct. 229, 230-31, 11 L. Ed. 2d 171 (1963).73 See also United States v. Petit, 841 F.2d 1546, 1557 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1237, 108 S. Ct. 2906, 101 L. Ed. 2d 938 (1988); United States v. Santiago, 837 F.2d 1545, 1549 (11th Cir. 1988). Diwan’s and Lodge’s statements to law enforcement officers were of little significance to the case against Cross. The government presented abundant, independent proof of the inculpatory facts referred to in these statements, namely, that the Tampa photographer had conveyed nude photos to Cross, and that Cross had hatched the idea of chartering a corporation to disguise his pornographic enterprise. Moreover, because the evidence of Cross’s guilt on all counts was so overwhelming, we can be virtually certain that the admission of these statements did not influence the jury’s verdict. Cross is not entitled to a new trial, because the error in question was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” See Turner, 871 F.2d at 1582; United States v. Pendegraph, 791 F.2d 1462, 1465 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 869, 107 S. Ct. 235, 93 L. Ed. 2d 160 (1986). See also United States v. Weinstein, 762 F.2d 1522, 1535 (11th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1110, 106 S. Ct. 1519, 89 L. Ed. 2d 917 (1986).
Cross contends that Warren Mumpower, a former fellow inmate and government witness, has since recanted the testimony he gave at Cross’s trial.74 However, the proper procedure for presenting such newly discovered evidence would have been to file a motion for a new trial in the district court. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 33. Cross has failed to pursue this avenue and it is now closed to him, as the prescribed two-year period in which to move for a new trial under Rule 33 has expired.75 This court cannot consider a claim that rests on factual allegations outside the record which the district court has never considered. See United States v. Costa, 890 F.2d 480, 483 (1st Cir. 1989); United States v. Lara-Hernandez, 588 F.2d 272, 275 (9th Cir. 1978).76 As a federal prisoner, Cross is free to bring a habeas corpus action in the district court, under 28 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2255, collaterally attacking his convictions on the basis of Mumpower’s alleged perjury. See id.
We now dispose of Cross’s final claim that he is entitled to a new trial because the prosecution improperly obtained his sealed witness list, and colluded with Diwan’s defense counsel to induce her to flee the country.77 As a general matter, we will reverse a conviction on the basis of governmental misconduct only if the misconduct may have prejudiced substantial rights of the accused. United States v. Collins, 779 F.2d 1520, 1534 (11th Cir. 1986). Specifically, the government’s improper acquisition of defense strategy is fatal to a conviction only where there was “a realistic possibility of injury to [the defendant] or benefit to the State.” United States v. Franklin, 598 F.2d 954, 956 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 870, 100 S. Ct. 147, 62 L. Ed. 2d 95 (1979), quoting Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 558, 97 S. Ct. 837, 845, 51 L. Ed. 2d 30 (1977). In this case, Cross submitted to the district court, ex parte, a list of witnesses he wished to call together with a description of the relevant, anticipated testimony of each one, in order to obtain subpoenas and expenses for these witnesses. Cross himself admitted that this document was unsealed when received by the clerk of the district court, although he insists that it was sealed when filed by his standby counsel. Even if it were true that, as Cross alleges, the witness list was later revealed to the FBI agent assigned to the case, Cross did not demonstrate that the agent or any member of the prosecutorial team was responsible for unsealing the document, or that it was unsealed other than by accident. This does not amount to governmental misconduct. Moreover, Cross has failed to describe how the revelation of his witness list prejudiced his case, and he has not contradicted the government’s contention that they already knew the nature of his defense and the identities of many of his witnesses. Presented with these allegations, the district court properly denied Cross’s motion to dismiss the indictment on the basis of the unsealed witness list.78
As for the other element of Cross’s misconduct claim, it is true that government intimidation of defense witnesses can constitute a denial of due process. See United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099, 1108 (11th Cir. 1990); United States v. Stewart, 820 F.2d 370, 375 (11th Cir. 1987). See also United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 867, 102 S. Ct. 3440, 3446, 73 L. Ed. 2d 1193 (1982). The district court held several hearings to inquire into allegations by Cross that the government had deprived him of favorable testimony from Diwan by colluding with her defense attorney to persuade her to abscond rather than face trial. Although testimony by Cross and Diwan,79 together with a purported transcript of one of Diwan’s conversations with her attorney, indicates that the attorney may have suggested to Diwan that she consider leaving the country, there was no evidence whatsoever that the government induced the attorney to make this suggestion, or otherwise colluded with Diwan’s counsel.80 We concur in the district court’s finding that Cross’s witness intimidation claim has no merit.
PIE members
1. Thomas Victor O’Carroll (ex-chairman) (aka Carl Tom)
Founder (From Warwickshire but dual Irish/British national moved to Leam Street, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire in 1972. Moved to Shildon, County Durham after P.I.E. disbanded. born circa 1945) Also helped run P.I.E.s successor, The International paedophile Child Emancipation Group and a subsidiary, Gentlemen Without an Interesting Name. In 1977 was press officer for the Open University. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/c…re/5367968.stm
3. Peter Righton (deceased) (aka Paul Pelham)(aka Cantwell)
Co founder one time treasurer (one of Britain’s leading child protection specialists)
Inside Story – The Secret Life of a Paedophile – YouTube http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news…-could-1430365
4. Steven Adrian Smith (Chairman 1979-85) (aka Steven Freeman) (aka Steven Smith)
Former Home Office security guard from Catford used name Steven Adrian born circa 1954
26. Michael John De Clere Studdert
Former Chaplain at Crowthorn School, Hampshire from Churt Road, Hindhead born circa 1939. Had largest know child porn collection ever found in UK in a secret vault on his 17 acre country estate. Heavily involved in charity. http://content.met.police.uk/News/Me…/1257246745756
31. David Bloomfield
Inside Story – The Secret Life of a Paedophile – YouTube
32. Dr Morris Fraser – BBC Kaleidoscope
Inside Story – The Secret Life of a Paedophile – YouTube
He wrote: “The form of the child-adult encounter, so very often idealized by writers, is almost too painfully authentic here, too horribly real – yet depicted so beautifully. The Lost Boys has that rare virtue of blending truth with exquisite taste and perception.” http://www.anno.co.uk/Lost_Boys_TV_reviews.htm
36. Keith Laverack – Master Greystone Heath Approved School for Boys. Got 18 years for abusing children at Kneesworth House School Kneesworth, Cambridgeshire in 1997. Greystone Heath School, Warrington, Cheshire, Midfield Observation and Assessment Centre, Oakington, Cambridgeshire and Kneesworth House School, Royston, Herts. The infamous Keith Laverack worked in all these establishments between 1965 and 1988.. He ran the Guardian Ad Litem panel and represented children and their best interests in Court cases. This allowed access to case files of vulnerable children nationwide. http://andrewgroveandco.com/page7.htm http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Camb…rom-prison.htm http://www.matso.tv/laverack2.html
38. Dennis Grain – Greystone Heath Approved School for Boys. Promoted to other homes in the Warrington area
Worked as a teacher at Eton during the years Prince William was in attendance. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk…g-1336189.html
40. Stephen Norris – Greystone Heath Approved School for Boys
Officer-in-charge of the Cartrefle community home in Clwyd, North Wales, pleaded guilty to five specimen charges of indecent assault against boys in his care. Worked with Peter Howarth http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/644289.stm
PRO PIE – no positive ID membership of PIE – connected to other abusers
Nicholas Ferguson
Bill Thornycroft
Terry Waller
Ian Harvey
Tony Deane
Nicky Burbidge
Keith Spence
Rictor Norton
Brian Percival – Clerk and stores Greystone
Alan Langshaw – Principal St Vincents Catholic Boys Reform School Southport. Attended a birmingham course on childcare
Edward Stanton – care worker. Attended a birmingham course on childcare. Got job via Shuttleworth
Terence Hoskins – worked with Grain. Became headteacher of St Aiden’s Community Home in Widnes.
White devotes an entire chapter of his 1995 report to History, Context, and Culture of Islington.
Nowhere is it mentioned that a decade previously the small inner London borough had served as the headquarters of the national pro-paedophile rights activism between 1975-1984.
If White had been aware of the press coverage of the Paedophile Information Exchange’s activities in Islington he doesn’t mention it.
Leisha Fullick, the Chief Executive of Islington Council appointed in 1996, stated in her report ‘Modernising Islington’ that one of the risks identified as the Council being ‘vulnerable to lobbying groups.’
Which lobbying groups? If these ‘lobbying groups’ were lobbying for pro-paedophile rights, what does the Chief Executive’s admission of the Council’s vulnerability mean?
Vulnerable in what sense? Capable of being influenced by? Ideologically? Financially?
For five years, between 1975 – 1980, Islington Council helped fund a voluntary organisation — London Friend — enabling its move from Paddington to Islington. This voluntary organisation proceeded to vigorously promote, support and defend PIE from its HQ located only a few doors down (305 ft to be exact) from Islington Town Hall
During 1975-1980 London Friend’s two General Secretaries were quoted in the press as vocal defenders of PIE, both of whom also served on the NCCL Executive Committee and on the NCCL Gay Rights Committee alongside Paedophile Information Exchange stalwarts Micky Burbidge, Nettie Pollard, Keith Hose and later Tom O’Carroll
In May 1977, London Friend’s support for PIE extended to hosting PIE’s Annual General Meeting at their Islington premises with 31 paedophiles and pro-paedophile rights activists gathering for four hours to elect Charles Napier as Treasurer, Tom O’Carroll as Chair and accept Peter Righton’s resignation as Community Liaison Officer.
In October 1978 Peter Righton co-founded a new gay youth group in Islington with PIE Manifesto co-author Micky Burbidge along with Roland Jeffery attending. The Joint Council of Gay Teenagers (JCGT) was hosted by London Friend and Grapevine – both voluntary organisations also in receipt of funding from Islington Council. JCGT was conceived of and convened as an umbrella organisation under which pro-paedophile activists could gather existing grass roots gay teenage organisations to prey on and use as a front for lobbying purposes.
From 1983 Islington Council was also funding the sending of groups of children from Walter Sickert Court, Rosemary School (Prebend Street) on vacations to the Islington-Suffolk Project based in Thornham Magna, where Peter Righton fled to following his conviction in 1992.
In looking past the fact PIE operated in Islington, a central question is avoided:
To what extent did the Paedophile Information Exchange recruit Islington Council’s social workers and residential child care staff as members?
Peter Righton, as an Executive Member of PIE, was identified and published under his own name (possibly because Righton felt safe to say he was counselling paedophiles in either his role of Community Liaison Officer or Prison Visitor) despite most of PIE’s Executive Committee using pseudonyms. Any social worker or residential care staff joining PIE who recognised Righton’s name (from Social Work Today, Community Care articles or training he’d delivered) would have felt reassured. Any conflict between personal interests in lobbying for paedophile rights and their professional duties such as acting in the best interests of children’s welfare were surely negligible if Peter Righton, the person responsible for training residential childcare staff, didn’t see a problem.
1974-1975: Home Office Urban Aid scheme applications for Islington
While PIE was busy putting a call out, recruiting social workers to the cause of promoting paedophilia as acceptable …
….On 11 February 1975 Islington Council voted in plenary on whether to contribute to voluntary organisations for which 75% of funding had already been raised through the government Urban Aid Scheme.
Just prior to being appointed Islington’s Social Services Director, John Rea Price had been working for the Home Office on the Community Development Project & Urban Programme in Southwark, out of which the Urban Aid scheme had evolved.
Letter to the Editor, The Guardian, [date 1973]
Islington Council Minutes, 11 February 1975
The ‘Homosexual Centre’ Councillor Denton was at pains to make clear he disapproved of was the Greater London & Home Counties branch of ‘Friend’, a national counselling and befriending organisation which had so flourished establishing various local Friend groups that it had spun off from the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) as a separate concern.
Originally based in a shopfront facing onto the busy market of Church Street, W2, almost equidistant between two national railway stations at Marylebone and Paddington, London Friend had been conveniently based to deal with some of the fall-out from Playland Trial 1 but by late 1974 the voluntary organisation was due to become homeless and was casting around for funding and somewhere to put down roots.
Mike Launder, an Islington resident and social worker activist had co-founded Friend and it was to Islington that Friend’s London HQ would move.
Islington Social Services Committee had come to the rescue with an Urban Aid application for funding and shop premises at 274 Upper Street, a few doors down from Islington Town Hall.
Islington Gazette, ‘Government money for Islington Gay Centre’, 21 February 1975, p.15
Despite Islington Gazette’s robust editorial reiterating Social Services Committee Chair Mrs Patricia Brown’s points about discrimination, a homophobic tirade from a Baptist Pastor from Highbury Place made it into the local press,
Note the use of “child molestor”, a term that PIE would erase from news reporting’s lexicon once paedophile became the accepted descriptor.
Islington Gazette, 1975
London Friend was given £7,900 per year over 5 years, which would be a total of £39,500 except for some reason the Gazette put the total at approximately £35,000 (possibly due to the Urban Aid grant being received part-way through financial year of 1974-75?)
25% of the total was provided by LBI council, 75% from Home Office urban aid
Using the Bank of England Inflation Calculator, in today’s money London Friend was due to receive £315,003.71 over five years (c. £63,000 p.a.)
LBI was scheduled to contribute somewhere between £7,900 – £9875 (in today’s money £63k – £79k)
“The organisation operates awareness groups and hopes to link up with other homosexual advice and information services to share resources.”
PIE wasn’t exclusively homosexual but it did consider itself an ‘information exchange’ and service to its members.
Islington Gazette, March 1975
“The Committee has pursued a policy of submitting urban aid applications on behalf of voluntary organisations. This has resulted in a great deal of central Government money coming into the borough to help solve pressing social problems. It is not our policy to exclude any groups seeking urban aid grants.” (Mrs Pat Brown, Islington Council Social Services Committee Chair)
May 1975: London Friend recruits first General Secretary
Having secured premises in Islington but not moved in yet, London Friend was ready to advertise for their co-ordinator, offering a salary of up to £2,500 (c.£20k p.a.). Without a permanent office address London Friend had to advise job applicants to write care of Peter Righton (PIE luminary and social work trainer and residential childcare policy): 48 Barbican Road Greenford Middlesex
“We are about to move into new premises in Islington, and are looking for a man or woman to run the office, coordinate the work of brefrienders, and build up effective communication and relationships between London Friend and the community at large.”
How far Peter Righton’s influence seeped into London Friend’s recruitment process beyond offering a postal address for prospective candidates to apply to is unknown.
London Friend’s 1st General Secretary
(September 1975 – September 1977)
Roland Jeffery was the lucky applicant who wrote into Righton’s address, was interviewed (by whom?) and bagged the job, starting in September 1975.
At Oxford University (1971-1974?) Jeffery had been a student CHE convenor and so was able to demonstrate previous experience in a voluntary organisation related to London Friend.
During 1975 he began volunteering with the NCCL Gay Rights Committee, campaigning alongside some of PIE’s most vocal and influential pro-paedophile rights activists: Micky Burbidge (PIE Manifesto author with Keith Hose), Keith Hose (PIE Chair 1975 – 28 May 1977), and Nettie Pollard.
NCCL Executive Committee Elections Ballot April 1978: Candidate biographies – Roland Jeffery
Throughout Jeffery’s tenure as London Friend’s General Secretary (September 1975 – September 1977), London Friend continued to receive PIE Newsletters.
PIE publications in archives bear ‘London F
It is partially courtesy of London Friend’s subscription to PIE and their newsletters and their subsequent submission to the LSE archives, that there is an archive of PIE’s publications.
October 1975: ‘Befrienders tackle sex with clients’
Gay News reported a debate at the National Friend conference on 25 October 1975.
At the conference, as well as a workshop and discussion on paedophilia, a discussion took place on whether Befrienders should or could have sexual relationships with clients who had approached the voluntary organisation for help.
Despite elsewhere reporting a percentage of under 16s as contacting Friend, any concerns that a sexual relationship between a Befriender and a lonely isolated adult contacting the organisation was a potential abuse of power or at all exploitative were disregarded. There were apparently no concerns that paedophiles could abuse this leniency to access vulnerable minors offering ‘counselling’ or ‘befriending’.
Roland Jeffery suggested Befrienders could offer ‘sex therapy’ and have sex with clients or “use education and porno films” in cases of sexual dysfunction.
Would paedophilia be considered a sexual dysfunction Befrienders should try to alleviate the loneliness and frustration of? Would ‘befriending’ a paedophile in such a case have included the provision of child abuse images or films in the case of lonely isolated and sexually frustrated paedophiles? The Protection of Children Act 1978 was not yet in force.
May 1977: Islington Council funded voluntary organisation hosts PIE’s Annual General Meeting
31 members of PIE travelled to no 274 Upper Street Islington N1, representing over 13% of the reported PIE total membership of 227. Postage costs were up to £25 per month.
Nettie Pollard of the NCCL Gay Rights Committee was keen to advertise NCCL as an emergency port of call for paedophiles seeking legal advice or to choose a defence solicitor or barrister.
“Nettie Pollard from the NCCL gave the meeting a short, but very helpful speech about homosexuality and the law, and about arrest. She outlined several aspects of some of the cases involving paedophiles which had come to her notice in her work as Gay Rights Organiser of the NCCL.”
“Care should be taken in the choice of a lawyer — NCCL maintained a list of suitable lawyers, and that organisation should be asked for their advice.”
Gay News No 126, September 1977
London Friend’s 2nd General Secretary (1977- 6 March 1980)
Richard McCance
When Richard McCance took on the position of London Friend’s General Secretary following Roland Jeffery’s departure, the enthusiastic and vocal support for the Paedophile Information Exchange — 25% of which was being funded by Islington Council over five years — continued.
CHE 1977/78 Executive Committee Biographies
Social Worker Richard McCance’s support for PIE extended beyond his tenure as London Friend’s General Secretary, before and after.
A keen trade unionist and member of the British Association of Social Workers, McCance was eager to harness support for Tom O’Carroll, chairman of PIE, by using the Anti-Discrimination Clause he had successfully campaigned for adoption by a number of Trade Unions during 1976-77.Just prior to joining London Friend, while on the CHE Executive Committee Richard McCance gave the view (‘Gays join PIE fight’) that since the National Union of Journalists’ anti-discrimination clause included sexual orientation, the NUJ would take up Tom O’Carroll’s suspension by his employer the Open University.
The implied assertion being that a paraphilia like paedophilia was a sexual orientation like heterosexuality or homosexuality and therefore capable and deserving of being protected against discrimination in employment.
Guardian, September 1977
In January 1981, while giving evidence for the defence at the PIE Trial of 4 of the Executive Committee, McCance said that as General Secretary of London Friend he received the magazine Magpie but without the contact page. He read it because elsewhere there was so much misinformation about paedophiles and Friend often had to help gay paedophiles who are “having to cope with all the hostilities of society.”
Gay News 22 Jan – 6 Feb 1981, Judge Orders PIE Re-Trial
Gay News, Judge Orders PIE Re-Trial, 22 Jan – 6 Feb 1981 p.
When Richard McCance penned an Editorial for CHE’s in-house publication Broadsheet (August 1978) denouncing “the virulent hostility towards paedophilia and paedophiles” and criticising Gay News for their betrayal of paedophiles who had supported their legal defence against Mary Whitehouse’s private prosecution for blasphemy, other CHE members felt strongly there should be more editorial consensus reached before allowing individual’s free reign for opinion pieces, and so an insert disclaiming McCance’s opinion as representative of CHE was included.
CHE Broadsheet, August 1978
McCance’s conflation of gay rights with paedophile rights was an essential and well-used approach to blackmailing gays and lesbians into feeling intolerant if they weren’t willing to campaign for the rights of adult to have sex with children:
“The virulent hostility towards paedophilia and paedophiles is not dissimilar to that encountered by the gay movement not so many years ago when CHE and GLF tried to hold their first meetings in public halls.”
Gay News 149 August 1980 p10
Roland Jefferies (sic) of the NCCL said:
“When PIE is under attack we should support them. Dropping the listing of PIE from the Gay News Guide may seem to them to be bad faith on our part.”
CHE Vice-Chairman slams Gay News, Gay News, September 1978
1978: PIE organising Islington’s gay youth
Following Dr Brongersma’s attendance at CHE’s annual conference in Nottingham, PIE’s Executive Committee past and present were repositioning their campaigning to more closely resemble the Dutch paedophiles approach. Instead of paedophiles campaigning for the right to have sex with children, paedophiles must create or infiltrate youth organisations so it appeared to be teenagers campaigning to abolish the age of consent and their rights to have sex with adults.
During October 1978 Peter Righton co-founded a new gay youth group with PIE Manifesto co-author and Islington resident Micky Burbidge: the Joint Council for Gay Teenagers.
1979-1980: London Friend suffers Council funding cutback
Over Christmas 1979 London Friend was “fighting a last-ditch battle to save its council grant.”
In 1978-79 Islington Social Services Committee had granted London Friend £14,350 but during 1979, despite Friend’s application for an increased grant of £17k, the Social Services Committee had voted to grant only £5,500.
However it soon became clear that there may be no money to be found for the borough’s funded help services and now all grants will be examined again before the final decision on January 29 1980.
Gay News 181, 13 December 1979 – 9 January 1980
Gay News March 1980
Within 3 years of leaving London Friend, Richard McCance had moved to Nottingham to be elected as a Labour Councillor.
Peter Righton’s Haven: Council funding for the Islington-Suffolk Project
Islington Council Minutes, March 1983 – Agenda Item 5.
Over the course of five years, funding from Islington Council to the Islington Suffolk Project had jumped from an annual ‘Capital Grant’ contribution of £3,233 to approximately £27.5k per year.
Despite being billed as a philanthropic venture by Lord Henniker, Islington Council was picking up the tab to send selected Islington children from schools, day centres and play schemes to spend 4 day weekends camping at the Project’s Thornham Magna campsite.
However, by March 1988 the Project faced losing £5,000 in Council funding cuts, a reduced contribution of £22.5k meaning that £50 per group (£25 of which was a deposit for camping gear) would be charged.
David Pare, Director of the Project based on St John Street in Clerkenwell spoke to the Islington Gazette about the council’s funding cuts.
Islington Gazette, March 1988
‘Defend the PIE! Free Joy and Bremner! Stop the attacks on gays!’ This angers me the most (& there is a lot to be angry about here), this deliberate, but incorrect and damaging, conflation of paedophiles and gay people together.
‘Their ‘crime’ advocating the proposition that youth under the ‘age of consent’ should be allowed to screw. This moral majority frame-up is truly obscene & loathsome. We demand the immediate release and dropping of charges against Joy & Bremner. Smash the witchhunt against PIE!’
Workers Hammer, Dec 1984 p.5 ‘Free the jailed PIE members!’ Workers Hammer was/is the paper for the Spartacists, who are named after Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary communist group, see this thread for a little more on them: https://twitter.com/TimesCorbyn/status/1057212787313836032…
‘whatever the problems with PIE’s positions, it has attempted to bring into the open a discussion which is of immense importance and which is so subversive in its possibilities that the ruling class will use every trick to keep it bottled up.’
‘PIE appears to suggest that what they call free, non-violent mutually satisfactory relations between adults & children are possible in present society – when in reality they are not even possible between adults.’
Socialist Challenge 29 Sep 1977 p.4; about a PIE meeting in 1977. Socialist Challenge was Tariq Ali’s International Marxist Group’s (Piers Corbyn was a member) paper.
‘Lonely’ paedophile, 68, behind notorious 1970s group that advocated abuse is allowed to contact another child sex offender because he’s ‘socially isolated’ and has no friends
Barry Cutler, 68, jailed in 2011 when he was arrested with other paedophiles
He was arrested with former members of the Paedophile Information Exchange
Cutler given sexual prevention order (SOPO) to stop him talking to paedophiles
But a judge allowed Barry Cutler to talk to Anthony Zalewski, an ex-PIE member
26 February 2019
A former member of a defunct paedophile ring which wanted the age of consent to be abolished has been allowed to talk to a fellow member because he is ‘socially isolated’ and has no other friends, a judge ruled.
Barry Cutler, 68, was jailed in 2011 after he was arrested alongside members of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which became infamous in the 1970s for advocating sex with children and was officially disbanded in 1984.
Cutler was arrested when police raided the home of PIE ringleader Steven Freeman, in Putney, south west London, and found 15,000 indecent images and films, along with 3,000 obscene sketches, in July 2008.
Barry Cutler bottom) was arrested when police raided the home of PIE ringleader Steven Freeman (top), in Putney, south west London, and found 15,000 indecent images and films
Cutler, from Beckenham, south east London, was jailed for 12 months in July 2011 after he pleaded guilty to four counts of possession of indecent photos of a child and one count of failing to disclose a key to protected information.
He was given a sexual prevention order (SOPO) which banned him from meeting or communication with anyone who has been convicted of sexual offences against a child.
But Judge Nicholas Cooke, QC, agreed to alter the SOPO order by allowing him to contact Anthony Zalewski, an ex-PIE member with two child sex convictions dating back to 1976 and 1985.
Judge Cooke said he was concerned Anthony Zalewski, who was present when Cutler was arrested for the offence which led to his conviction, but added the matter had been investigated and was concluded he had not offended.
Speaking at the Old Bailey, Cooke said: ‘His former membership of the Paedophile Information Exchange is also worrying.
‘However, the prosecution or Commissioner has never sought an order preventing the applicant from having any contact with former members of the Paedophile Information Exchange, per se.’
Judge Cooke refused to roll back to SOPO any further after Cutler demanded for it to be removed.
Cooke labelled Cutler a ‘sad figures’ who ‘lacks insight into the damage done by child pornography.’
He added: ‘I am convinced that unrestrained by the parts of the sexual offences prevention order with which I decline to interfere he would be likely to offend again.’
Cutler had tried to argue his social circle was ‘extremely limited’ by the order, and tat a ‘restriction on ‘associating with individuals who he saw as friends, some of whom he had known for over 30 years, was disproportionate’.
But again, appeal judges refused the application, ruling that doing so would do nothing to prevent the perverts passing sick child abuse images between them.
They found Cutler ‘was a member of a determined and sophisticated paedophile ring’ which utilised data encryption ‘to avoid detection’.
There was there was still ‘an obvious risk’ of them continuing to offend, adding that ‘the abhorrent views of the individuals were reinforced by the group and the meetings between them’.
Cutler’s friends, John Parratt, 70, and John Morrison, 44, were jailed alongside him in 2011.
On his initial sentencing, Oliver Sell QC told him: ‘It is plain beyond doubt that you were all part of what has been described as a paedophile ring engaged in the possession, the viewing and the distribution of indecent images of children.
‘The photographs I have seen necessarily involved and encouraged the abuse and the exploitation of children who are vulnerable and unable to protect themselves from such perverted adult behaviour.
‘In your different ways and to varying degrees you have all contributed to that abuse of children wherever they may be.’
Freeman was told by the judge he posed significant risk to children and should be locked up indefinitely for the protection of the public.
The twisted paedophile drew sickening child rape scenes with young boys which he shared among the group he dubbed ‘My Paeds’.
He also had a sick board game called ‘Epicenium’ which could be played by children and adults.
The players took the parts of Roman slaves and masters and various pictures were displayed as the game continued.
‘The nature of the game is adult men having sex with boys. A computer version of this game was at the home Mr Freeman shared with John Morrison,’ said prosecutor Mark Gadsden.
The court heard the aim of the computer games was to have as much sex with as many boys as possible.
One of the instructions reads: ‘You will score highest with fully-consummated anal sex. In short, buggery wins.’
Police who raided Cutler’s home found if so full with magazines, photos and clutter that they had to walk through the hallway sideways to get past.
Three weeks after his arrest, Freeman posted an internet message under the name ‘Alcibiades’, which read: ‘Time for some more bad news then I’m afraid.
‘For over ten years now I’ve been hosting regular weekly gatherings of former PIE colleagues with occasional visits from other paed friends or friends of friends.
‘Four weeks ago on one of those evenings, at about 8pm, my house was invaded by a dozen or so shouting people brandishing weapons.
‘It was a police raid. I an five of my friends were arrested.’
In another, he heralded the internet as an ‘enabling technology’ which allowed paedophiles to further their sickening cause.
He wrote: ‘The anonymity of the internet allows paedophiles to communicate more freely with one another than was physically or legally possible before.
‘It’s a massive enabling technology. The question for the thinking paedophile of today is: how do we make best use of this technology to further our collective interest?
‘How do we translate the limited freedom of the web into the greater social freedoms we seek? How can this cyber community help us to promote greater tolerance and understanding?
‘When we finish talking to one another sooner or later we must begin talking again to the world at large, addressing its fears and suspicions.
‘How, where and when we take that step should be the abiding question for all of us.’
What was the Paedophile Information Exchange?
The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984
The group campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent and was openly advocating sex between minors and adults.
PIE was set up by Scottish student Michael Hanson, a gay student living in Edinburgh, who became the group’s first chairman, and Tom O’Carroll.
The group became particularly influential among left-leaning and progressive circles and tried to conflate its cause with gay rights.
On at least two occasions the Campaign for Homosexual Equality conference passed motions in PIE’s favour.
The group presented their argument as a way of liberating children sexually.
PIE became associated with the National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty).
The NCCL argued photographs of undressed children should not be considered ‘indecent’ – and therefore illegal – unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered harm.
In February 2014, Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, issued an apology for the previous links between the NCCL.
A number of former members have been arrested on paedophilia charges.
How did the pro-paedophile group PIE exist openly for 10 years?
By Tom de Castella & Tom HeydenBBC News Magazine
27 February 2014
Image copyrightPA/Rex FeaturesImage caption Former KGB spy and PIE member Geoffrey Prime (left) and PIE Chairman Tom O’Carroll
The Paedophile Information Exchange was affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties – now Liberty – in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But how did pro-paedophile campaigners operate so openly?
A gay rights conference backs a motion in favour of paedophilia. The story is written up by a national newspaper as “Child-lovers win fight for role in Gay Lib”.
It sounds like a nightmarish plotline from dystopian fiction. But this happened in the UK. The conference took place in Sheffield and the newspaper was the Guardian. The year was 1975.
It’s part of the story of how paedophiles tried to go mainstream in the 1970s. The group behind the attempt – the Paedophile Information Exchange – is back in the news because of a series of stories run by the Daily Mail about Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman.
The Daily Mail has revisited the story of PIE to ask how much Harman and her husband the MP Jack Dromey knew about the group during their time working at the National Council for Civil Liberties, now Liberty, in the late 1970s. PIE was affiliated to the NCCL from the late 1970s to early 1980s.
Many of the revelations are not in fact new. The story’s return to the front pages demonstrates the shock people feel about how a group with “paedophile” in its name could operate so openly for so long.
PIE was formed in 1974. It campaigned for “children’s sexuality”. It wanted the government to axe or lower the age of consent. It offered support to adults “in legal difficulties concerning sexual acts with consenting ‘under age’ partners”. The real aim was to normalise sex with children.
Journalist Christian Wolmar remembers their tactics. “They didn’t emphasise that this was 50-year-old men wanting to have sex with five-year-olds. They presented it as the sexual liberation of children, that children should have the right to sex,” he says.
Media captionJohn Tusa interviews two members of the Paedophile Information Exchange on Newsnight in 1983
It’s an ideology that seems chilling now. But PIE managed to gain support from some professional bodies and progressive groups. It received invitations from student unions, won sympathetic media coverage and found academics willing to push its message.
It’s wrong to say that PIE was tolerated during the 1970s, says Times columnist Matthew Parris. “I remember a lot of indignation about it [PIE]. It was considered outrageous.”
The group’s visits to universities were often opposed. In 1977 PIE’s chairman Tom O’Carroll was ejected from a conference on “love and attraction” at University College, Swansea after lecturers “threatened not to deliver their papers if Mr O’Carroll stayed”, the Times reported. The May 1978 issue of Magpie, PIE’s in-house newspaper, records how O’Carroll had been invited to address students at Liverpool and Oxford University but that the visits were cancelled after local opposition.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption Protestors and police outside Conway Hall, London, where PIE was holding its first open meeting in 1977
One of PIE’s key tactics was to try to conflate its cause with gay rights. On at least two occasions the Campaign for Homosexual Equality conference passed motions in PIE’s favour.
Most gay people were horrified by any conflation of homosexuality and a sexual interest in children, says Parris. But PIE used the idea of sexual liberation to win over more radical elements. “If there was anything with the word ‘liberation’ in the name you were automatically in favour of it if you were young and cool in the 1970s. It seemed like PIE had slipped through the net.”
Some have suggested that the nature of the debate was different then. “In this free-for-all anything and everything was open for discussion,” said Canon Angela Tilby on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. “There were those who claimed that sexual relationships between adults and children could be harmless.” Homosexuality had only been decriminalised in 1967. There was still prejudice and inequality. The age of consent was 16 for heterosexuals but 21 for homosexual men.
Wolmar had first-hand contact with PIE. In 1976 he began working for Release, an agency helping people with drug and legal problems. Its office at 1 Elgin Avenue in London was a mailing address for PIE. Nobody knew much about them, Wolmar says. “They used to drop in once a week to pick up their mail. They were greasy men,” he recalls, people who fitted the stereotype of the “dirty mac” brigade. After Wolmar raised questions about PIE it was decided to bring them in for a meeting.
Wolmar’s colleagues pressed the man from PIE on the age of consent. Wolmar says that the man said there should be no age of consent. Shocked at the idea of a group advocating sex with babies, he and his colleagues unanimously decided to “boot them out”.
It was easy to join PIE. According to a Times legal report on a blackmail case from February 1977, there was no need for subterfuge, just an application and a cheque for £4. In the report, the prosecutor in the case stated: “He said on the form that he was a paedophile, male, married, 29 years old and attracted to girls between the ages of seven and 13 years.” The judge proclaimed himself “horrified” at the existence of PIE.
Unsettlingly for a modern audience, the PIE member received anonymity (as is typical in blackmail cases) and there is no mention of any prosecution of him. Meanwhile, the blackmailer was jailed for three years.
The brazenness could be shocking. Keith Hose, one of PIE’s leaders during the 1970s, was quoted by a newspaper saying: “I am a paedophile. I am attracted to boys from about 10, 11, and 12 years of age. I may have had sexual relations with children, but it would be unwise to say.”
When Polly Toynbee interviewed O’Carroll and Hose in the Guardian in September 1977 she heard men incredulous at the lack of support from the press. They seemed genuinely aggrieved at what they called a “Fleet Street conspiracy”. One of them told her: “We would expect the Guardian, a decent liberal newspaper to support us.”
Image copyrightPAImage caption Labour politicians Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt have come under fire for the NCCL’s links to PIE
In a Guardian piece from 1975 it’s clear “paedophile” was still not a widely used term and the opening line explains it – “one who is sexually attracted to children”. In the piece, Hose is treated as a reliable source throughout.
There were divisions within progressive circles. In 1977 the Campaign for Homosexual Equality passed by a large majority a resolution condemning “the harassment of the Paedophile Information Exchange by the press”.
When Peter Hain, then president of the Young Liberals, described paedophilia as “a wholly undesirable abnormality”, a fellow activist hit back. “It is sad that Peter has joined the hang ’em and flog ’em brigade. His views are not the views of most Young Liberals.”
And when a columnist supported Hain in the Guardian he was inundated with mail from people – many willing to give their name – who defended sex with children.
Reading the newspapers of the time there is a palpable anxiety that PIE was succeeding.
A Guardian article in 1977 noted with dismay how the group was growing. By its second birthday in October 1976, it had 200 members. There was a London group, a Middlesex group being planned, and with regional branches to follow. The article speaks of PIE’s hopes to widen the membership to include women and heterosexual men.
Toynbee talked of her “disgust, aversion and anger” at the group but added that she had “a sinking feeling that in another five years or so, their aims would eventually be incorporated into the general liberal credo, and we would all find them acceptable”.
There was a battle raging over free speech.
Some, such as philosopher Roger Scruton, felt that freedom of speech had to be sacrificed when it came to groups like PIE. In a Times piece in September 1983 he wrote: “Paedophiles must be prevented from ‘coming out’. Every attempt to display their vice as a legitimate ‘alternative’ to conventional morality must be, not refuted, but silenced.”
A Times letter writer, Peter Cadogan, took a different line, defending PIE from the National Front despite loathing them. “Yet again, they assaulted me with stink bombs and sundry soft fruit when I was defending the freedom of speech of another group I abhorred, viz, the Paedophile Information Exchange.” He continues that the way to cover “nasty people with nasty ideas” is to “give them all the rope they want and then hang them with it every time they practice what they preach”.
But during the 1980s, PIE came a cropper. Its notoriety grew in 1982 with the trial of Geoffrey Prime, who was both a KGB spy and a member of PIE. He was jailed for 32 years for passing on secrets from his job at GCHQ to the Soviet Union, and for a series of sex attacks on young girls.
A short article from the Daily Mail in June 1983 records how a scoutmaster in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, resigned after being exposed as a member of PIE.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption PIE critics: Head teacher Charles Oxley, who infiltrated PIE, Mary Whitehouse and Geoffrey Dickens MP
In August 1983 a Scottish headmaster, Charles Oxley, handed over a dossier about PIE to Scotland Yard after infiltrating the group, the Glasgow Herald wrote. He said the group had about 1,000 members.
But the NCCL continued to defend having PIE as a member. As late as September 1983, an NCCL officer was quoted in the Daily Mail saying the group was campaigning to lower the age of consent to 14. “An offiliate [sic] group like the Paedophile Information Exchange would agree with our policy. That does not mean it’s a mutual thing and we have to agree with theirs.”
The authorities debated ways of shutting PIE down. O’Carroll was sentenced to two years in jail for “conspiracy to corrupt public morals” and PIE was disbanded in 1984.
It’s hard now to believe the group existed for more than a decade. “Even then the word paedophile was pretty taboo,” says Wolmar. “I do find it slightly astounding that they were able to use that name.”
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Dozens of Church of England officials ignored sex abuse victim ‘for decades’ despite being told of horrific abuse at hands of paedophile clergyman
15 March 2016
Over 40 years, the victim repeatedly spoke about the treatment he suffered as a 15-year-old
It was described as ‘a tragic catalogue of exploitation and harm’
Report by safeguarding expert Ian Elliott found officials failed to act
The perpetrator Revd Garth Moore, a former Chancellor of three dioceses of Southwark, Durham, and Gloucester and vicar of St Mary’s Abchurch in the City of London
The Church of England published only the conclusions and recommendations of the review, without names, but last night The Guardian revealed further details from within the report.
when questioned for the report, none of the senior figures (three bishops and a senior clergyman who was later ordained as a bishop) could recall the conversations.
‘What is surprising about this is that [the victim] would be speaking about a serious and sadistic sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by a senior member of the hierarchy. The fact that these conversations could be forgotten about is hard to accept,’ the report said.
It was while he was a house guest with Chancellor Moore in Gray’s Inn, in central London, where alleged attempted rape took place
Chancellor Garth Moore was a barrister of Gray’s Inn
One difference in the London case is that the survivor has been able to produce a series of witnesses who recalled hearing his story down the years.
On the other hand, other senior figures, including two bishops, have said that they do not recall hearing the survivor’s story. This, the survivor says, has contributed to his conviction that the church hierarchy has long been engaged in a cover-up.
Many senior lawyers are freemasons and there are a number of lodges based on legal practice. These include the elite Chancery Bar and Gray’s Inn lodges….
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Kenneth Clarke ‘failed to act’ over Lord Janner and Cyril Smith child abuse tip
Government’s sex abuse inquiry – which has first preliminary hearing on Wednesday – will hear claims that former home secretary was warned of abuse in the early 90s
The hospital was the subject of an inquiry following allegations that a child paedophile ring was operating within its walls and that patients held child pornography videos
Kenneth Clarke 1991 Secretary of State for Education
Government officials tried to remove 155 sex assault claims by pupils to Childline from official dossier
Esther Rantzen Crookham Court School
Dame Esther said: “I will forward the report and memo to Justice Goddard.
2 May 2015
…… Department of Education officials wanted 155 allegations of attacks, mainly by teachers, to be censored
The 1991 report reviewed the findings ofan experimental phone line for boarding school children set up by Dame Esther Rantzen and funded by the Government.
The report was never published, but the Sunday Mirror last week obtained a copy through Freedom of Information.
And it came with a damning memo by a DES official that mysteriously advised a “low-key” approach to publicity and moaned it was a waste of public money.
The NSPCC, which now runs ChildLine, has been unable to find a copy of the report in its archives.
The Department for Education said it would “submit any information relating to historic child sexual exploitation” to the Goddard inquiry. Dame Esther said: “I will forward the report and memo to Justice Goddard.
“Leon Brittan was the outstanding man of our generation”
Kenneth Clarke, William Hague and Nick Clegg among politicians who attend memorial service for Leon Brittan
Kenneth Clarke and Norman Lamont described Lord Brittan as one of the cleverest politicians of his generation, as well as being a warm, witty and reliable friend.
Kenneth Clarke has been forced to shelve his plans to halve jail terms for rapists and violent offenders who plead guilty, following a storm of protest.
The panel included Melanie Philips, Blackburn MP Jack Straw, David Dimbleby, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke and Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti
In a radio phone-in, the Justice Secretary repeatedly suggested that some rapes were not as ‘serious’ as others.
Ken Clarke roared with laughter at suggestions he should resign.
Sir Edward Heath is pictured with paedophile Cyril Smith, a former MP for Rochdale, in Leeds in 1975, who is known to have been a linchpin in the Westminster paedophile ring
Brothel madam Myra Ling-Ling Forde allegedly had a prosecution against her dropped to avoid a probe into the former PM Ted Heath
Ken Clarke was Home sec when Myra Ling Ling trial was abandoned – in 1992
JERSEY:Children were loaned to rich paedophile yachtsmen
One of those who stood most to lose was Sir Edward Heath, the former prime minister from 1970-74, who was known to visit the Jersey care home the Haute Garrene among others to take young boys on boating weekends on his yacht called ‘Morning Cloud’
We know from court cases and statements made [during the 2008 inquiry] that children in Jersey care homes were ‘loaned out’ to members of the yachting fraternity and other prominent citizens on the pretence of recreational trips but during which they were savagely abused and often raped.
When these children complained they were beaten and locked in cellars at Haut de la Garenne
A source spoke to one of his victims and he said about others who were present, and more important, who was supplying the children to him.
Jimmy Savile at Haut de la Garenne
The person bringing children for him to abuse is Sir Jimmy Savile. He was seen by the witness, victim, taking young boys onboard Heath’s yacht the morning cloud when they were at party conference. Allegedly Savile is known for supplying a number of high profile MP’s with children for them to sexually abuse.
Mother claims she had told police a child vanished after going on Sir Edward Heath’s yacht but officers were warned not to investigate by ‘someone above’
The story had first trickled out in November 2007, gaining almost no press attention.
Following a covert police inquiry into allegations of mistreatment in the island’s care homes, police and the NSPCC in London had appealed to former residents to come forward.
By January 2008, hundreds were said to have made contact, reporting physical and sexual abuse, mostly at Haut de la Garenne, a grim, Victorian industrial school that had, until the mid-80s, served as Jersey’s main children’s home.
Jack Straw – and then Ken Clarke – supported and endorsed the illegal sabotage of that Jersey investigation from back in 2008.
Detailed, evidenced submissions were made to Ken Clarke, too – when he had become Secretary of State for Justice – concerning the Jersey child-abuse cover-ups – and the concealment of other profoundly serious crimes in Jersey.
Since then Ken Clarke has been accused of indecently assaulting a young male actor who was playing beneath the age of consent when the alleged indecent assault is said to have occurred. For reasons that might – in usual circumstances – have appeared mystifying, rather than Clarke suing Ben Fellows for defamation, the state embarked upon the breathtakingly ill-advised and doomed attempt to prosecute Fellows
Jack Straw tried to pass legislation to make it illegal in Part 2 of the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 for Children in Childrens’ Homes to speak out.
Jack Straw and Leon Brittan’s cousin – Sir Malcolm Rifkind – in latest ‘cash for access’ scandal
A picture of Kenneth Clarke’s wedding. John Gummer is best man and the ushers include Michael Howard and Leon Brittan. Norman Lamont and Norman Fowler were also friends.
Clarke’s time as a Cabinet Minister is the fifth-longest in the modern era, having spent over 20 years serving under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron.
In 2011 and 2012, Clarke faced criticism for his Justice and Security Bill, in particular those aspects of it that allow secret trials when “national security” is at stake
Ken Clarke is made Companion of Honour
22 July 2014
David Cameron rewarded Ken Clarke with the more exclusive Companion of Honour.
He will enter a small clique of people who can use the letters CH after their name. The order was founded by George V in 1917 to recognise services of national importance, made up of the sovereign, plus no more than 65 members.
In June 2013 Clarke ‘forgot‘ he was one of three trustees of the Bilderberg Association and “may have failed fully to declare his role organising the secretive meetings of the Bilderberg Group of world leaders.”
Supporting the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation:
Sir Peter Bottomley MP
Lord Tristan Garel-Jones – Mr Proctor turned from politics to hosiery and opened his shop in Brewers Lane, off Richmond Green, in 1988 with a pounds 2,000 grant from the Government’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a little help from his friends: a start-up fund of pounds 75,000 was organised by Tristan Garel-Jones MP, the former Tory deputy chief whip and one of the party’s best-known fixers.
Armstrong was aware of Sir Peter Hayman’s paedophilia, and since leaving office, has commented “Clearly, I was aware of it at the time but I was not concerned with the personal aspect of it.”[5]
He knew about allegations of Savile’s sexual abuse of children
Armstrong gave Margaret Thatcher what he calls a “veiled” warning not to sanction Jimmy Savile’s knighthood for charitable work, due to allegations around his sexual abuse of children.
Armstrong was warned by the security services in 1986 that an MP had ‘a penchant for small boys’. But no action was taken and Armstrong, who refused to name the MP involved, insisted the allegations were just ‘shadows of a rumour’. He said he believed the decision not to investigate the paedophile claims was ‘correct at the time’.[7]
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The Queen talks with the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, in 1977
Robert Whitehead, pictured in 2015, died months into a lengthy prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to 24 sex crime charges.
Wayne Clarke, one of Whitehead’s victims. Photo: Simon O’Dwyer
Robert Leonard Morris.
Gerald Ridsdale outside court with George Pell in 1993. Photo: Geoff AmptMelbourne had more paedophile priests than any other place in the country. And most of them operated during George Pell’s time in Victoria as priest or bishop. The Cardinal is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. He consistently cites it when he is being scrutinised in the media and points out that he was probably the first in the world, let alone here in Australia, to boldly go where no other bishop had dared to tread.In 2016, he said: “When I became Archbishop, I turned the situation right around so that the Melbourne Response procedures were light years ahead of all this obfuscation and prevarication and deception.”
Cardinal George Pell is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. Photo: Joe ArmaoYou have to wonder, then, what this religious leader who was so zealously committed to rooting out child abuse was doing in March 1996—just four months before his appointment as archbishop— at the funeral of one Nazareno Fasciale.
Tim Tate 
.
It was while he was a house guest with Chancellor 
goodnessandharmony 
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