Poster boy for eastern European immigration dies in horror crash: Devastated fiancée of Romanian man who was first to come to UK after 2014 EU visa deal pays tribute to ‘happiest person on earth’ who ‘lived life to the full’
Victor Spirescu was greeted at Costa in Luton Airport by the Labour MP in 2014
He worked as a car washer before setting up his own business fitting air valves
Friends paid tribute to Mr Spirescu on Facebook and one said, You were the best’
He died in crash just one mile from his home in Milton Keynes at 4am yesterday
Victor Spirescu, originally from Sibiu County in central Romania, became famous after he was greeted by the Labour MP outside a Costa coffee branch at the airport in 2014 (pictured)
16 January 2018
A poster boy for Romanian immigration into the UK, who was welcomed at Luton Airport by Keith Vaz before setting up his own construction business, has died in a car crash.
Victor Spirescu, 33, became famous after he was greeted by the Labour MP outside a Costa coffee branch at the airport in 2014 following the lifting of rules preventing migrants from new EU members moving to the UK.
Mr Spirescu, originally from Sibiu County in central Romania, died in a collision just one mile from his home in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, at 4am yesterday morning.
His heartbroken fiancee, Suzana Mates, 23, today told MailOnline he was the ‘happiest person on earth and said she was ‘so lost’ and ‘cannot believe he isn’t coming back’.
Victor proposed to Miss Mates on May 16 2016 in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, while they were paragliding and popped the question as they were coming in to land on her birthday.
The pair were due to get married and would have been together for three years in March.
They lived together in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, and he ran an air conditioning company – but also worked for Glenn Armstrong.
His body will be flown back to Romania where will be buried in Bucharest.
Speaking to MailOnline, Miss Mates said: ‘My future husband was in the car with a friend and there was a car accident on a straight road which is bizarre because Victor was the most confident and reliable driver and I don’t think he would make this mistake, a beginner’s mistake.
We still don’t know what happened, so many people are contacting me. I can’t cope, it is overwhelming.
‘I will book a chapel in London where everyone can come and celebrate his life. He was in the UK for four years.
‘There are a lot of people who know him and love him. The police investigation is expected to last a week.
‘He told everyone that we were going to get married, he was so excited. We were planning the wedding, he proposed to me, we were so happy.
‘There was no ring because rings are meaningless and the love we had was so inexplicable, so unexplained, we were crazy about each other.
‘I am just so lost, I’m so confused, I don’t believe this is happening and that he isn’t coming back. Oh my god, I loved him so much.
‘I need to be patient and wait for the results of the investigation, he was the most wonderful man on this planet and I loved him so very much.
‘He was so smart, so intelligent, he was the happiest person on earth, a wonderful human being and he also said carpe diem – live life to the full.
‘We are suffering, we can’t believe it. We will never forget him, I feel his energy with me even now.’
On the meeting with Keith Vaz, she said ‘he made the UK his home, he worked hard’.
She said he actually met Mr Vaz several years later when he was working near the MI6 building and walking to Westminster tube.
She added: ‘Keith said “Victor, Victor, it’s so nice to see you” and he invited him to the houses of parliament for tea one day.’
They had no date set for the wedding, they were planning one wedding in Romania and one in Cyprus as she is half-Cypriot.
Miss Mates, who spent New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his parents, added: ‘He told everyone we were getting married because he was so excited.’
Friends wrote tributes to Mr Spirescu on social media, with one adding, ‘God takes friends, you were the best’.
Adrian Claudiu posted on Facebook: ‘Today I lost a dear friend to me and my family… left way too fast between us.’
Mr Spirescu’s meeting with Mr Vaz, the then chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, was widely covered by the media.
The Romanian first set up as a car washer, before setting up Air Vent Systems LTD.
His death was widely reported in Romanian media and confirmed to MailOnline by Suzana, who said she felt ‘exhausted and devastated’.
No more details were available on Tuesday evening about the circumstances of Mr Spirescu’s death.
Upon his arrival to the UK Mr Spirescu told reporters that he was not here ‘to rob your country’, adding that he wanted to get a job, earn money, and then go back to Romania with his wife.
He has been linked to several women. He met Zoe Russell, 22, shortly after his arrival in the UK, and moved into her three-bedroom home before Mr Spirescu returned to Ms Suzana, his then ex.
Retired officers association banned from Navy training centre after failing to bar paedophiles
A Royal Navy training centre has banned an association of retired officers’ from using its base after they failed to expel two convicted predatory paedophiles from their club.
For decades, hundreds of members of the President Retired Officers Association attended formal lunches, dinners, lectures and drinks receptions at HMS President on the River Thames in London.
But, senior officers in charge of the “stone frigate” – a naval base on land – launched an investigation after finding that two high-profile sex offenders had been among those attending functions at the reservist training centre, also used by young Sea Cadets.
Allan Waters and Duncan Grant were allowed to renew their membership of the retired officers association despite both being jailed in India for six years in 2006 for preying on vulnerable boys at an orphanage in Mumbai.
After completing their jail terms and arriving back in the UK five years ago, Waters, a former lieutenant commander, was made honorary secretary of the association, while Duncan Grant, previously a reservist officer, renewed his membership.
When Waters, now 68, and Grant, 73, completed their sentences and returned to Britain they were made to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Waters’ conviction led to fears he may have targeted children while serving as a senior officer training youngsters in the Sea Cadets. In 2017, a former Sea Cadet alleged to a BBC Panorama programme that Waters abused him when he was 14, and attending a Cheshunt Sea Cadets centre in Hertfordshire in 1979
Last year, Commander John Herriman, the officer running HMS President, discovered the two men had been spotted attending the independent association’s functions at the Royal Navy’s centre that serves London reservists and cadets.
He then banned both Waters and Grant and the entire association from using the centre over concerns the club lacked a “rigorous” membership criteria, and consequently posed a threat to the centre’s ability to “maintain a safe training environment”.
A source close to HMS President’s senior officers praised Mr Herriman, who retired last year, for his decisive actions, explaining that he was determined to ensure an “old boys’ club” could not tarnish the reputation of a Navy training centre.
“The main concerns was that individuals who could have been or were on the Sex Offenders Register could be allowed to join such an esteemed association,” the source said. “It wasn’t considered good governance from the perspective of the President Retired Officers Association that these men could saunter back in as if nothing had happened.
“HMS President is essentially a training establishment with young people studying there. There may have been occasions where these two men would have access to the unit for lunches or events.
“The challenge running a military training establishment is to make sure you are creating a totally safe environment and there are no opportunities for risks to occur. The best way to do that was to bar the association that was thought not to have robust membership procedures in place.”
It is understood Grant played on his family’s respected military past to allow him to join the association. Grant is the grandson of Major General Sir Philip Grant, who rallied the defence against the German offensive of March 1918 in the First World War.
Waters was appointed superintendent of the Sea Cadet training centre in Portsmouth in 1996. He later became a member of the Sea Cadet Council, the highest body of the corps.
A Royal Navy Spokesperson said: “The Royal Navy has no official link with the President Retired Officers Association, but can confirm we take a very robust stance where there is any risk to our personnel, in particular vulnerable groups such as minors.”
Although no one from the association was prepared to speak on the record, a source said that Waters and Grant were allowed to renew their membership because they had served their sentence and were only attending functions where no young cadets or reservists would be present.
He added that many of the members of the association felt the blanket ban on holding functions at HMS President unfairly penalised retired officers who played no part in allowing the two paedophiles to renew their membership and may have been unaware of their criminal past.
Dr Jacqueline Craissati from London is made an MBE by Prince Willim
Jackie Craissati is a HCPC registered Consultant Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, Trustee of Samaritans, and a Non-executive Director for a large mental health trust.
Psychologist who recommended taxi rapist John Worboys for release has spent 30 years calling for softer sentences for sex offenders and paedophiles
15 Jan 2018
His release was signed off by the Parole Board following a report by Dr Jackie Craissati, a renowned clinical psychologist hired by Worboys’ defence team.
Four years ago, she argued that there were different levels of severity of child abuse in a paper entitled ‘Can paedophiles be good people?’
She also criticised the media coverage of child molesters, claiming that it made them ‘defensive, anxious, withdrawn, uncooperative’.
The court heard Lady Lucan had gone through the final edit of her autobiography a month before she died with publisher, Pamela McCleave, which she hoped would come out before Christmas.
Lady Lucan ‘left her fortune to charity rather than her children’
Lady Lucan’s husband, John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared in November 1974.
Lady Lucan pictured in 1975
January 14 2018
Lady Lucan, whose husband famously vanished in the 1970s, cut her children out of her will and left her fortune to a homeless charity, her daughter is reported to have said.
The 80-year-old was found dead at her home in Westminster, central London, by police in September after she was reported missing.
Lady Lucan, formally named Veronica, Dowager Countess of Lucan, severed relations with her family in the 1980s, and continued to decline contact with them right up until her death.
George Bingham, the only son of missing peer Lord Lucan (Nick Ansell/PA)
She had three children, Frances, Camilla and George, now the 8th Earl of Lucan.
Camilla Bingham, a QC, told the Daily Mail after an inquest held in London: “Mummy left her estate to the homeless charity, Shelter.”
The charity told the newspaper the proceeds will “help us to continue fighting bad housing and homelessness”.
Despite Lady Lucan’s severance of ties her family said they remembered her “lovingly and with admiration”.
They said in a statement after her death: “She had a sharp mind, and when she spoke it, she did so eloquently. She was courageous and, at times, outrageous, with a mischievous sense of humour.
“She was, in her day, beautiful and throughout her life fragile and vulnerable, struggling as she did with mental infirmity.
“To us she was and is unforgettable.”
Lady Lucan’s husband, John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared in November 1974.
Lord Lucan vanished following the discovery of the body of nanny Sandra Rivett at the family’s home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, central London, on November 7 1974.
Although officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999, he was reportedly sighted in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand, and claims even surfaced that he had fled to India and lived as a hippy called “Jungly Barry”.
On the night of his disappearance, Lady Lucan was also beaten severely before she managed to escape and raise the alarm at a nearby pub, the Plumbers Arms.
Lord Lucan’s car was later found abandoned and soaked in blood in Newhaven, East Sussex, and a year later an inquest jury declared the wealthy peer was the killer.
In 2017 Lady Lucan gave a television interview in which she said she believed Lord Lucan had made the “brave” decision to take his own life.
The aristocrat is said to have killed herself with a cocktail of drink and drugs after wrongly self-diagnosing with Parkinson’s disease.
The arrogant behaviour of some of Lucan’s former associates did little to quell the conspiracy theories. Aspinall, in particular, enjoyed goading the police and the media by camping up the “Clermont Set’s” reputation for ruthlessness and snobbery. “If she’d been my wife, I’d have bashed her to death five years before and so would you,” he told the police .
After leaving the train station, the prince was met by community dignitaries and Sir Jimmy Savile.
Sir Jimmy, who has known the prince for 42 years, said: “In case he had forgotten who I was, I introduced myself as Lord Lucan and because he’s got a terrific sense of humour, that was him finished for the next five minutes.”
Prince Charles – with Sir Jimmy Savile -praised hospice staff
WHY DIDN’T SCOTLAND YARD INVESTIGATE SIGHTING OF LUCAN WITH DIANA’S STEP-UNCLE?
10 March 2012
Scotland Yard received a report that Lord Lucan had been spotted standing on a bridge in Kenya with a close friend but failed to investigate.
A holidaymaker visiting the East African country in the late Eighties told police he had seen the fugitive Earl with his brother-in-law Bill Shand Kydd, the step-uncle of Princess Diana.
A source told The Mail on Sunday that the sighting was believed to be credible because detectives were working on the theory that the aristocrat had settled in Kenya after fleeing Britain.
But within days of the report being made to police in 1988 or 1989, officers were told to discontinue the inquiry and the lead was never followed up.
The source said: ‘It was never said why the inquiry was dropped.’
Scotland Yard would not comment on reports of specific sightings.
Bill Shand Kydd’s half-brother Peter Shand Kydd became Princess Diana’s stepfather when he married her mother Frances.
Meanwhile, a source claimed that two of Lucan’s relatives believe he is alive and are plotting to bring him back to the UK to settle a land dispute case.
It is believed the dispute centres on land in Ireland.
Tenants stopped paying rent when Lucan disappeared in 1974, arguing they should not have to pay to an absent landlord.
This comes as no shock, as paedophile rings have been operating in Calderdale for decades. Rod Ryall was Calderdale council’s Director of Social Services and convicted paedophile.
Rod Ryall former Calderdale Council’s Director of Social Services – JAILED FOR SEX OFFENCES
Social Work Today 1st December 1988
Brian Roycroft Report 13.19 states “There is no evidence that offences were being committed against any other boys. The police satisfied themselves on this point. None of the offences were committed on boys whilst in care.”
Aillie Kerrane, Calderdale Council operations manager, said: “We were aware of problems and we have got a number of strategies in place to tackle them, including the appointment of a new manager. (2005) Westgarth did not meet basic standards
Blood-soaked body of ‘James Bond-style’ private eye who conned the fund to find Maddie McCann out of £300,000 is found at his Surrey mansion
EXCLUSIVE: Mystery surrounds the death of private detective Kevin Halligen, 56
His body was found at a Surrey mansion and police have launched a probe
Halligen took over the private investigation into the McCann case in May 2008 but was later accused of conning the family fund out of £300,000
13 January 2018
The blood-soaked body of a private detective who probed the disappearance of Maddie McCann has been found at his Surrey mansion.
Mystery surrounds the death of Kevin Halligen, 56, who is said to have presented himself as a ‘cloak-and-dagger, James Bond-style spy’. Police today confirmed to MailOnline today that a probe has been launched into the circumstances.
Halligen took over the private investigation into the McCann case in May 2008 but was later accused of conning the family fund out of £300,000.
It is believed he was found at the home he shared with his long-term girlfriend. There is no suggestion that she was involved in his death. Sources said the house was ‘covered in blood’.
A spokesman for Surrey Police said today: ‘We were called to an address in Cobbett Hill Road, Normandy, Guildford, on Monday following a report of a man in his 50s having been taken unwell, who subsequently died.
‘The death is being treated as unexplained and a file will be passed to the coroner’s office in due course.’
Former associates of Halligen described him as a heavy drinker. One ex-colleague told MailOnline: ‘The house was covered in blood but apparently that was from Kevin falling down so much.
‘His body is now in the morgue. The police are looking into it.’
Defence consultant Tim Craig-Harvey, a former associate of Halligen, wrote online: ‘The lies and alcohol finally caught up with him.’
Another source told MailOnline: ‘He died at his girlfriend’s place near Guildford, a miserable pathetic death caused by alcohol.’
The McCanns hired Halligen’s firm in a bid to boost the search for Maddie after failing to come up with any plausible leads one year after she went missing.
They agreed a £500,000 fee with Oakley International, which was described by a source close to the family as ‘extremely secretive’ but ‘absolutely the best’.
Defence consultant Tim Craig-Harvey, a former associate of Halligen, wrote online: ‘The lies and alcohol finally caught up with him’
Kate and Gerry McCann were initially impressed by Dublin-born Halligen, believing he ‘was in a different league’ to other private investigators.
He boasted of employing ex-FBI, CIA and Special forces officers while offering undercover surveillance and intelligence gathering in Portugal.
The detective even said he could provide satellite imagery and details of telephone traffic from the night Madeleine disappeared.
But within a year, questions began to emerge about Oakley and Halligen in particular.
Researchers claimed that the firm had not looked into hundreds of calls made to a special hotline – while specialists found that their bills were unpaid.
The promised satellite images also allegedly turned out to have been grabbed from Google Earth.
Six months into the highly-paid assignment, the McCanns were growing increasingly concerned about Halligen.
A family friend said: ‘He had this sense of cloak-and-dagger, acting as if he were a James Bond-style spy.
‘The McCanns found him hard to deal with, because he was forever in another country and using different phones. He promised the earth but it came to nothing.’
The contract was terminated early after £300,000 had been paid to Halligen.
MailOnline understands that relations broke down after the detective’s team discovered he was enjoying a lavish lifestyle, staying in the best hotels and eating at the top restaurants in London – all at the expense of the Find Madeleine fund.
Colleagues said that far from being an expert in undercover operations, Halligen was ‘out of his depth’ with ‘no experience of such investigations.’
There is no suggestion that any former associates are involved in the death of Kevin Halligen.
After being sacked from the McCann investigation in 2009, Halligen was arrested in the UK and extradited to America on fraud charges for an unrelated case
He pleaded guilty to defrauding Trafigura, based in the Netherlands, who had hired him to help free two company executives arrested in Ivory Coast in 2006.
He received about $12 million to provide ‘security, intelligence and public relations’.
Trafigura gave Halligen an additional $2.1 million to ‘hire lobbyists and influence officials in the United States on Trafigura’s behalf’.
The next day, Halligen used nearly $1.7 million of that money to buy a large home with a swimming pool.
The Washington Post reported at the time: ‘Owners of Washington restaurants remember him spending thousands on long, boozy days and evenings. He traveled everywhere in a chauffeured Lincoln.’
One restaurant owner said he and his staff called Halligen ‘James Bond’ because of his stories of spy derring-do and his habit of tossing around huge sums of cash.
His fraud conviction carried a maximum of 20 years in prison, but under federal sentencing guidelines he would serve no more than 41 months.
As he had been in custody awaiting trial for 42 months, he was freed and deported, returning to his birthplace of Dublin.
In 2014, Kevin Halligen made a rare public appearance, agreeing to be interviewed for a Channel 5 documentary – The McCanns and The Conman.
He denied that he misused money raised to find Madeleine. Answering claims that he spent the money on first class travel, luxury hotel suites and a chauffeur, he said: ‘It is gross distortion of what was actually happening.’
A source close to Kate and Gerry McCann said they had terminated their contract with Oakley international at the end of 2008 and had not had anything to do with Kevin Halligen since.
‘Clearly this is now a matter for the police and the Coroner’s office,’ the insider said.
The hunt for Madeleine McCann continues, more than 10-and-a-half years after her disappearance.
A team from Scotland Yard has been probing the case since 2011 at a cost to the British taxpayer of more than £11.3million. Portuguese police have lead status in the investigation.
In October 2017, the Home Office allocated an extra £154,000 to Scotland Yard to pursue a ‘critical line of inquiry’ and extend the search to the end of March 2018.
Former chair of governors, 68, appears in court accused of sex offences against boys and girls at £37,000-a-year private school
Brian Martin is accused of offences against boys and girls aged between 13-17 The 68-year-old carried out the alleged offences between 2005 and 2010 He has denied charges said to have taken place at Queen Ethelburga’s College
Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate comprises four schools:- Chapter House Preparatory School, King’s Magna Middle School, Queen Ethelburga’s College and The Faculty of Queen Ethelburga’s. It also has a Kindergarten for children under three.
Controversies
In November 2015 North Yorkshire Police reported that former chair of governors Brian Martin, 66, had been arrested on 20 October in Harrogate on suspicion of indecent assault on a child and on conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and voyeurism. Martin stepped down as chair of governors.[15].[16] He was later charged with 10 counts of indecent assault, three counts of attempted buggery and one count each of possessing indecent images and buggery. All charges relate to two children between 1982 and 1995. He is due to stand trial at Leeds Crown Court on 10 July 2017.[17]
In 2015, £5,000,000 of taxpayers’ money was used to subsidise Armed Forces’ boarders at the school. This was more than double the amount paid to any other fee-paying school. [18]
In May 2016 The Guardian reported that, in March 2012, $20,792 (£14,350) was sent via Lloyds Bank in Harrogate to Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate. This was said to be money laundered from the Russian Hermitage Capital Management fraud.[19]
In September 2017, The Guardian reported that £89,800 were transferred to Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate. The money was reportedly connected to the Azerbaijani Laundromat scandal, in which the Azerbaijani government is supposedly involved.[20]
Croydon headmaster John Coatman spared jail for abusing teenage boy
A former headmaster, honoured for his services to young people, has been spared jail after admitting sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.
In August 2016 retired John Coatman, 76, was found guilty of gross indecency for an offence committed in the 1970s.
His conviction had been thrown out by the Court of Appeal last April because of an error on his charge sheet.
When the case returned to the Old Bailey for a retrial he pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent assault.
‘Rough and tumble’
Coatman, of Leyburn Gardens, Croydon, south London, was sentenced by Judge Anne Molyneux to 21 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
He was also made subject to a 12-month supervision order.
The court heard that the teenager would visit Coatman’s home, where they would engage in “rough and tumble”, which later took a sexual turn as the adult touched the boy over his clothes.
Matters escalated when, on three separate occasions, the pair undressed in Coatman’s bedroom and the head teacher touched the boy sexually.
‘Difficult to comprehend’
The defendant was headteacher of St Andrew’s secondary school in Croydon, but the complainant was not a pupil there.
Coatman retired in 1998 after 42 years as a teacher and was awarded an MBE in 2012.
Prosecutor Mark Trafford QC told the Old Bailey: “The defendant’s MBE for services to young people was something that he (the complainant) found difficult to comprehend under the circumstances.”
Claims against Coatman, who has inoperable cancer, surfaced in 2014.
In a victim impact statement, the complainant said the incidents had left him with emotional and relationship difficulties.
Sentencing, Ms Molyneux said: “You were in a position of considerable trust, and he trusted you. He enjoyed being with you over a short period of time.”
A man abused as a child by a paedophile teacher is demanding to know why an inquiry into what happened has not been published.
David Nolan started as a pupil at St Ambrose in Altrincham in 1972: the same time teacher Alan Morris joined the school.
Rev Alan Morris –
The Roman Catholic Holy Angels’ Church
St. Ambrose College is a Catholic Boy’s Secondary School situated adjacent to Holy Angels Church and Hale Road, near the centre of Hale Barns village. The Christian Brothers came to England from Guernsey during the Second World War and remained to establish the college in 1946.
In December 2012, the college was implicated in a child sex abuse case involving teaching staff carrying out alleged acts of abuse both on and off school grounds, although no current staff are said to be involved.[20]More than fifty former pupils contacted police, either as victims of, or witnesses to, sexual abuse. The alleged sexual abuse, including molestation of children while corporal punishment was administered, stemmed from 1962 onwards and continued over four decades.[21]
50 ‘old boys’ speak out in school abuse probe
Police have received a steady stream of former pupils alleging they were sexually abused by teachers from St Ambrose College in Hale Barns between 1962 and the 1990s
28 JAN 2013
A police sex abuse probe at a top Catholic school has now uncovered more than 50 possible victims and witnesses.
As the sheer scale of the investigation became apparent, the detective leading the enquiry into St Ambrose College in Hale Barns said he was determined to ensure ‘justice is done’.
Some ‘old boys’ who have been in touch with officers have alleged they were molested both in the school and at the homes of teachers.
Others have come forward as witnesses to alleged abuse.
The police investigation has uncovered at least five former teachers against whom allegations have been made.
One former teacher has already been arrested and released on bail pending further enquiries.
The police investigation is concentrating on a period between 1962 and to the 1990s.
It is understood some allegations were made by pupils at the time but they had second thoughts about pursuing their grievances.
Former pupils who have now come forward say they were sexually abused while they were being given corporal punishment.
No current teachers have been implicated in any of the allegations being investigated.
One ‘old boy’ : “All the school friends I have spoken to are expressing a degree of surprise it has taken so long for this to come out.
“There was questionable behaviour going on from members of staff. Most people were aware of it. But, obviously, times have changed since the Jimmy Savile scandal.
“The size of the police investigation just shows how this spans generations. These are not just one-off incidents. There was a culture of violence over several years.”
Det Insp Jed Pidd said: “We have received dozens of calls from former pupils reporting historic sexual abuse. Reporting such matters is clearly a very difficult and distressing thing to do and we are working hard to support them.
“We are determined to identify any offenders and have a dedicated team of officers working towards one primary objective: to ensure justice is done.
“It would not be appropriate to divulge the number of potential victims at this time, but they and the wider public can be reassured that we are working closely with the CPS to ensure this wide-reaching investigation is dealt with thoroughly and as quickly as possible.
“These are historic allegations with the date of the last alleged incident being in the 1990s, and the school has and continues to provide every support and cooperation with this investigation that it can.”
Altrincham school suspends staff over Alan Morris abuse allegations
AN Altrincham school has suspended two members of staff over allegations they knew about the sexual abuse carried out by disgraced former teacher, Alan Morris.
Morris, 64, of Rivington Road, Hale, was jailed for nine years in August after being found guilty of committing a string of sexual offences at St Ambrose Catholic College, Hale Barns.
The former Chemistry and RE teacher was convicted of 19 offences of indecent assault and inciting a child to perform an act of gross indecency.
The offences were committed against ten boys between 1973 and 1990.
On Friday, a St Ambrose College spokesman said: “Following allegations from a former pupil that two members of staff may have been aware of Alan Morris’s activities, on the advice of the police and local authority the school has suspended those two members of staff pending an independent inquiry.”
Earlier this year, Minshull Street Crown Court judge, Timothy Mort, concluded that Morris had had ‘shamefully used’ his victims for his own sexual gratification.
The court heard that Morris joined the then Christian Brothers private school straight out of university and quickly established himself as the head of discipline, later becoming deputy head.
He used his position of authority as a ‘cloak’ to make inappropriate use of corporal punishment, often repeatedly targeting specific individuals.
Numerous witnesses, many of whom were at the school during different decades, described Morris taking them into isolated areas of the school because they needed to be ‘chastised’, before he would hit them with various implements or his own hand.
Alan Morris was jailed three years ago for abusing 10 boys, including David. As he began his sentence, specialists started an investigation into how he escaped justice for so long.
Morris was a deacon with Holy Angels Church, Hale Barns, at the time of his arrest and was subsequently withdrawn from active ministry with the Diocese of Shrewsbury.
Mr. Alan Morris was ordained to the Diaconate by Bishop Malone in Holy Angels in the summer of 1992, and recently took early retirement.
The first Speech Day under Brother Coleman’s headship took place in the spring of 1985, with Brother Foley, our former Headmaster of 1961-67, as Guest of Honour. This has since become an annual event, with distinguished guests including David Alton, Chris Patten and Dr.John Morrill (Cambridge historian. old boy of Altrincham Grammar School, who has recently been ordained to the diaconate). as well as an old boy in the person of John Bason.
The first small group of sixth-formers to visit Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight accompanied Alan Morris there in the summer of 1972. This venture became an annual event for the next twenty years.
In addition to joining in the community life of the Benedictine monks, especially the celebration of daily Mass and the Divine Office, the parties visited places of interest on the Island. Osborne House, the favourite holiday home of Queen Victoria, was a great treat. The walk up the extensive chalk downs on the south west corner of the island above Freshwater Bay. Tennyson Down, was always popular. Tours of the ancient churches of the island were conducted by Alan Morris
Brother J.C. Ring (1973-1979)
Brother Ring had taught at St.Ambrose College during the ‘Woodeaves’ period in the 1950s. He had later taught at Blackpool, Orrell and St.Edwardts, Liverpool. A generous, sensitive, sincere man, with a dry sense of humour (a Limerick man!), he was always immaculately dressed. Cultivated and cultured, he enjoyed visiting the theatre and Halle concerts (often in the company of Mr.Alan Morris); his brother was a professional singer.
Paul’s service at Holy Angels, was presided over by his Jesuit priest friends from Stonyhurst College , Fr Michael Halloran and Fr John Twist along with Deacon Alan Morris.
What is the ailment that means an MP can go on working and only affects his accountability for his behaviour, I wonder? What doctor recognises such a condition?KeithVaz
Dame Alun Roberts
You wouldn’t think the man standing behind @jeremycorbyn at this Yemen Day event is actually written off sick to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of his rent boys saga, would you?
HRH Crafty Muvva @craftymuvva
Keith Vaz – Too ill to be investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Office, but well enough to chair the Yemen Parliamentary Group. Can anyone explain this please?
WESTMINSTER SLEAZE: The investigation into disgraced Keith Vaz, the Labour MP accused of paying for rent boys & was taped discussing buying cocaine, has been suspended… because he’s not very well.
“ill” Keith Vaz out and about in #leicester last month tweeted by Midland Heart today
Why would it even take nigh on SIXTEEN MONTHS for the investigation to get going on KEITH VAZ . He is using the GREVILLE JANNER defence
“ill” keith vaz in Jan this year out and about#Leicester
“ill” keith vaz looked miles better 11 days ago
Barry Bennell Trial, day four: Trial continues after Bennell called alleged victim’s allegations ‘impossible’
January 11, 2018
The sex abuse trial of former football coach Barry Bennell enters its fourth day today, after the first alleged victim gave evidence yesterday.
The testimony, provided via video, said that Benell, a scout for Manchester City at the time, was “touchy” with the alleged victim when he first met the coach at the age of about 11.
The complainant said Bennell had a set of bunk beds next to his own bed in the room above the video shop he ran, adding that “he always put music on in the bedroom. It was panpipe music.”
Following a break for lunch the alleged victim was cross-examined while sitting behind a screen, with talkRADIO reporter Alex Dibble saying there was some “definite tension” between him and the defence.
The court also saw a recreaction of a police interview with Barry Bennell, in which the defendant said his first alleged victim was “the one that got away with it” by not being groomed.
Bennell also called some of the claims against him “ridiculous” and said he’d never do some of the things alleged while there were other boys in the bed at the same time.
The defendant even described some of the testimony of the first alleged victim as “impossible”, saying he “would never do something like that”.
Bennell has already admitted seven sexual abuse charges, but denies a further 48, relating to 11 complainants.
Roman Polanski will not face criminal charges for allegations of 1975 molesting
Prosecutors will not bring criminal charges against director because they say allegations that woman was molested during a photo shoot are too old
Los Angeles prosecutors will not bring criminal charges against Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski after a woman said he molested her in 1975 – when she was 10 years old – because the allegations are too old.
A district attorney’s office memo obtained by the Associated Press on Monday says prosecutors were declining to bring charges in the case because the statute of limitations had expired.
The 84-year-old Polanski has been a fugitive since fleeing to France in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old.
The latest allegations were reported to police in October. The woman said she was molested during a photo shoot in 1975 after Polanski had her pose nude.
‘Feminist’ Natalie Portman Wants Child Rapist Roman Polanski Pardoned
January 12, 2018
Natalie Portman is a total feminist. For instance, at the Golden Globes, she wore all black, signaling that it’s “Time’s Up” for sexual harassment in Hollywood. And she made it clear while she was presenting the award for Best Director how uncool it was that only men (gross) were nominated.
The appearance of it all is lovely, of course. But Portman, like the rest of her Hollywood cohorts righteously decked-out in all black, is a phony.
It appears that Ms. Portman only cares about some instances of sexual misconduct, or that people merely believe she cares, since the actresses signed a petition calling for child rapist Roman Polanski to be pardoned.
Portman signed the petition created in 2009 by France’s Bernard Henri Levy, which called for the release of the director. Other Hollywood elites, such as Harrison Ford and Emma Thompson (before she eventually removed her name) also lent their signatures.
Polanski, as you might recall, pleaded guilty to child rape in 1978 and has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least five women.
“The incident which sparked the long battle took place in 1977, when Polanski had unlawful sex with 13-year-old Samantha Gailey at actor Jack Nicholson’s Hollywood home,” reported the BBC in 2009. “The film-maker was arrested and charged with a string of offences, eventually admitting to having sex with a minor. The other charges were dropped as part of a plea bargain.”
But, remember, Portman wore all black and bashed men while the cameras were rolling, so she’s still a feminist. Or something.
Private Eye reports TobyYoung attended a Secret Eugenics Meetings in which he discussed Pedophilia & option of giving Children something 2 make them sleep so they would not be aware of being abused. Also, discussed was preventing Working Class from breeding London Free School
Paul Lewis@paullewismoney
So it wasn’t “the one-sided caricature from his armchair critics” but this stunning revelation in Private Eye about Toby Young that would surely have got him sacked. He attended a recent secret eugenics conference with neo-nazis and paedophiles (c) Private Eye
Free School advocate Toby Young linked to neo-Nazi who argues sex with unconscious children is acceptable
Toby Young RESIGNS from new universities regulator just eight days into role
Position at Office For Students watchdog was put into jeopardy over sick tweets
Obscene tweets including a sexual ‘joke’ about starving children on Comic Relief
9 January 2018
Mr Young – a close friend of Cabinet Ministers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – was a self-confessed pornography addict who had watched thousands of adult films.
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said:
I am a huge admirer of Mr Young’s pioneering work in free schools and do not believe he is unsuitable to work with young people in universities.’
Universities minister Jo Johnson
He spent three months in Kenya in 2013 to help a friend who was trying to establish a primary school and added: ‘I’ve helped set up four free schools and have been running a charity for more than a year, helping other people set up schools.
Mr Johnson, who is Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s brother, dismissed Mr Young’s detractors as ‘armchair critics’.
He stood firm in his support of Mr Young, who is a champion of free schools, which were introduced by David Cameron’s administration.
Schools like Pembroke House in Gilgil, where I’ve put my own four children for half a term. In these antiquated institutions, which seem to have been preserved in aspic from the 1950s, the ideals of British education have survived, untarnished by state interference.
Hartley serves as an adviser in the U.K.-based, oil-exploration company Soma Oil and Gas Holdings Ltd., which is chaired by Baron Howard and active in Somalia, and in which Hartley is a minority shareholder.
Police officer caught with 1,500 child sex abuse images walks free from court after judge takes pity
PC Darren Wright admitted downloading, possessing and sharing pictures of child sex abuse, but the judge ruled he committed the crimes in a “state of considerable isolation”
The 38-year-old, who worked for Merseyside Police, amassed the collection over a two-year period.
But he was spared jail after Liverpool Crown Court heard how he suffered mental health problems after twice battling leukaemia.
The stash included 23 Category A images – the most serious category in sentencing guidelines – involving child rape.
Wright had downloaded a further 26 Category B and 1,368 Category C indecent photographs.
Judge Denis Watson, QC, said Wright made a positive contribution to society but developed mental health issues after two bouts of cancer.
Since when did mental health issues cause people to become nonces?
Judge Denis Watson QC gets the ‘Judge Mental’ award today for sentencing Andreas Bauminis, a Latvian national to only 8 months in prison despite the fact that he possessed an alleged snuff movie.
“A 20-minute ‘snuff’ video showed a 15-year-old girl being raped, strangled with a wire and apparently murdered before being wrapped in a plastic sheet and dragged out the room.”
Regardless of whether it was genuine or not, and the Judge having watched it thought it was genuine, anyone who would seek to get pleasure from such a video should receive a much greater custodial sentence than 8 months (out in 4 months).
It is also rather odd that a story that involves a ‘snuff’ movie, which must surely now be evidence in a potential murder inquiry somewhere in the world and a tip off from The Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation has only been reported in a few local newspapers. So, unusual did this seem to me that I had to contact Liverpool Crown Court and the Police myself to verify the details.
Man who raped toddler walks free because judge says there is ‘no real purpose’ in imprisoning him
Legal technicality meant John Mason escaped harsher sentence
16 September 2017
Speaking at Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Denis Watson, QC, said: “Although you committed a grave offence which has had a lasting impact, you too are wracked with remorse for what you have done.
Another case where Judge Denis Watson, QC gives a slap on the wrist..HarrisPolak was the “darling” of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party in 1976 when he addressed the conference at the age of 17.
He stole £650,000 told to pay back just £1,620
He has a brother Stuart Polak.
Harris Polak and Stuart Polak
Fake charity collector who netted £650,000 told to pay back just £1,620
A shamed businessman branded “low” by charities after stealing £650,000 from people who believed they were donating to good causes was ordered to pay back just £1,620 after blowing a fortune on holidays. And his wife got off.
His wife Reva Polak is accused of aiding and abetting him in those alleged crimes.
Reva Polak was also charged with handling stolen goods, the proceeds of the alleged frauds and theft, between October 2007 and October 2011, to which Harris Polak was charged as an aider and abetter.
Polak was the “darling” of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party in 1976 when he addressed the conference at the age of 17
Harris Polak, 54, organised bucket collections outside supermarkets for charities, including Cancer Relief UK.
He helped raise more than £655,000 from 2007 to 2011 and was supposed to take a small percentage as his commission, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
But instead he swindled the charities, which also included the Wirral’s Clatterbridge Cancer Research Trust and Cerebral Palsy Care For Children, out of an estimated £213,906.83. Polak – who was once the youngest person to address a Conservative party conference – was jailed last July for 45 months.
Polak was the “darling” of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party in 1976 when he addressed the conference at the age of 17. A year later, his record was beaten by the now Foreign Secretary William Hague, then aged 16.
Judge Denis Watson QC, said Polak had stolen a “breathtaking figure”, which he largely spent on holidays, including luxury cruises.
The judge added: “The harm to public confidence is immense. Giving to public causes will suffer immensely because of this.”
He ordered Polak to pay back £1,620 within 28 days or face another four weeks behind bars.
A LIVERPOOL man and his wife are accused of a criminal plot in which cancer charities were allegedly defrauded.
Harris Polak is charged with fleecing a number of organisations of up to £250,000, the ECHO can reveal.
It is alleged the 53-year-old stood outside supermarkets across the country under the guise of raising cash for cancer organisations.
But a Merseyside Police investigation has probed Harris and wife Reva’s business dealings over the past half-decade and will claim a complex and long-running fraud that amounted to a quarter of a million pounds.
It is alleged the Polaks knowingly committed the offences over a six-year period, between January 2005 and September last year.
The ECHO understands the former Broadgreen butcher stationed himself close to shops with collection boxes and lobbied customers for money.
It is believed Polak was in contact with some of the cancer charities but prosecutors will argue substantial sums of money subsequently went missing.
Former King David School pupil Polak, from Childwall , is charged with two counts of fraud by false representation and three counts of money laundering.
His wife Reva, also 53, is accused of three money laundering offences.
Over the past ten years records show he was a secretary or director of at least five different companies, all since dissolved.
The latest, called Portfolio Services Ltd, of which Polak was a charity consultant, collapsed just over two months ago.
Another charity he was connected to was The Longmeade Wellness Foundation while he had senior roles in firms called Pledge Direct UK Ltd, Enablize Limited and Optimum Advice Ltd, official papers show.
Previous to that, in 1997, Polak launched a venture called Professor Polak’s Perfect Pronunciation, designed to turn Scousers into winners in business.
Polak, who once spoke of having a keen interest in public speaking and elocution, is a well-known member of the Jewish community in Liverpool.
Polak became interested in politics when a teenager and was chairman of the Wavertree branch of the Young Conservatives.
Harris and his wife, of Childwall Park Avenue, appeared before magistrates in Liverpool yesterday where proceedings were adjourned for a committal hearing later this month.
GROOM Nick Angel spent 15 hours to reach the Hilton Hotel in Liverpool for his wedding to Bettina Polak.
Nick travelled with his family and friends from his home in London to Liverpool at the height of the recent chaotic weather.
Nick and Bettina met at Leeds University where Nick, son of Melanie and Leon Angel, of London, was president of the Jewish Society.
Bettina, daughter of Reva and Harris Polak, of Liverpool, and Nick were married by Childwall Synagogue’s Rabbi Lionel Cofnas, the bride’s grandfather Rabbi Malcolm Malits and Stanmore Synagogue’s Rabbi Mendy Lew.
Trainee accountant Nick and Bettina, a teacher, started dating in their first week of university.
Best men were the groom’s brother Richard Angel and cousin Simeon Ezra.
Bridesmaids were Bettina’s sister, and Jewish Telegraph columnist, Sabrina Polak, Ilana Angel and Amy Malits and Lauren Silver along with Ella Brand and Talia Jaffe.
Pageboys were Joshua Perry and Louis Grozner.
Grandparents are Rabbi Malcolm Malits, Stephanie and Richard Polak, of Liverpool, and Gloria Green, of London.
Guests attended from Israel and South America.
After sheva brachot, Nick and Bettina spent a week in New York and have settled in London.
Sabrina regularly acts for Local Authorities, parents and children. She has represented parties at interim removal hearings, case management hearings, issues resolution hearings and final hearings. Sabrina has been involved in cases involving neglect, non-accidental injuries and sexual abuse.
Sabrina’s lectures/seminars have included the following:
•A training day for social workers on s17 and s20 Children Act 1989.
•Court skills training with social workers.
•The Children and Families Act 2014.
•The ‘Voice of the Child’ in the Court arena
•Removal of a child at the interim stage and proportionality
CFI has established itself as a highly effective lobby group. Polak regularly takes leading Conservatives on trips to Israel to educate them. The sceptics invariably return, if not indoctrinated, fully onside.
A familiar face around the corridors of the Houses of Parliament, he has done more than anyone else to promote Israel’s case to the right of British politics.
THE director of an influential Conservative party organisation is also a partner in a consultancy that lobbied parliament — successfully — on behalf of a foreign defence company.
The two roles of Stuart Polak, director of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), have emerged as a result of this newspaper’s exposé last Sunday of “generals for hire”. He denies any impropriety.
As well as heading CFI, a significant party donor, Polak is a key figure in The Westminster Connection (TWC), a political consultancy.
Clients of TWC include Elbit Systems, Israel’s defence electronics giant.
Retired Lieutenant General Richard Applegate, Elbit’s British chairman, boasted of his own and TWC’s role in lobbying MPs on behalf of Elbit when he was secretly taped for last week’s report.
Chief Rabbi will be present. He spoke on Radio Four’s Thought For the Day this morning and shared his memories of the Conservative politician, (Margaret Thatcher) recalling how she helped him with homework when he was a schoolboy and she was his constituency MP.
Baroness Thatcher, who was MP for Finchley, served as president of North London branch of CFI.
Stuart Polak’s colleagues…Janner, Pickles, Rabbi Sacks etc
Stuart Polak with Cameron and Hague
Stuart Polak, Baron Polak
Resignation of Priti Patel
On 3 November 2017, the BBC’s Diplomatic correspondent James Landale reported that Polak had accompanied Priti Patel, the Secretary of State for International Development when she had held a series of meetings in Israel in August 2017 without telling the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. They met Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s centrist Yesh Atid party, and visited several organisations where official departmental business was discussed. Those meetings, and others later, led to Patel’s resignation from the Cabinet on 8 November 2017.[6]
Meet Stuart Polak, the Israel lobbyist at centre of Priti Patel scandal
Known for being a back-room operator who keeps behind the scene, this latest scandal has put Polak at the centre of the revelations that continue to unfold in Westminster.
Ms Dandridge of Arista stated “… There is a code of conduct that we follow, I am not aware of any reports of sexual harassment and with the calibre of guest, I would be astonished.”
At their initial interviews, women were warned by Ms Dandridge that the men in attendance might be “annoying” or try to get the hostesses “pissed”. One hostess was advised to lie to her boyfriend about the fact it was a male-only event. “Tell him it’s a charity dinner,” she was told.
“It’s a Marmite job. Some girls love it, and for other girls it’s the worst job of their life and they will never do it again . . . You just have to put up with the annoying men and if you can do that it’s fine,” Ms Dandridge told the hostess.
Two days before the event, Ms Dandridge told prospective hostesses by email that their phones would be “safely locked away” for the evening and that boyfriends and girlfriends were not welcome at the venue.
The uniform requirements also became more detailed: all hostesses should bring “BLACK sexy shoes”, black underwear, and do their hair and make-up as they would to go to a “smart sexy place”. Dresses and belts would be supplied on the day.
For those who met the three specific selection criteria (“tall, thin and pretty”)
Guest List
Alexander Spencer-Churchill – grandson of the 10th Duke of Marlborough and a distant relative of Winston Churchill.
The Tories are desperately trying to distance from themselves from the Presidents Club after it was revealed women working at its men-only gala were subjected to sexual harassment.
Boris Johnson apparently “knew nothing” of the fact a lunch with him was among lots at the club’s now notorious charity auction.
And Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who attended the event, says he “didn’t stay long enough” to witness the appalling behaviour documented by an undercover reporter.
But the organisers of the “slimeball” event have links with the Tory party that go right to the very top.
Charity Commission records show that the Presidents Club has three trustees – David Robert Meller, Harvey Soning and Bruce Ritchie.
Two of them are major Tory donors. Meller and Ritchie have given the Tories £222,273 – almost £70,000 of it in the past two years.
David Meller, who has just resigned as a board member at the Department of Education over the scandal, has given £18,773 to Tory HQ and individual MPs:
Bruce Ritchie has given some £203,500 to the Tories, according to Electoral Commission records.
His last donation was £50,000 – the minimum donation necessary to be part of the Tories’ Leader’s Group, which entitles members cash for access meals with Theresa May and Cabinet ministers.
A document published by the Conservative party shows Ritchie dined with the PM less than a year ago:
The charity aspect of that Sex Pest Gala Dinner touches on something that doesn’t get brought up enough: Rich people who expect something in return for “philanthropy”, rather than paying tax.
Moira Gilbertson@MoiraEwesfulone
So many saying if these rich “people” paid their taxes we’d need no charities at all
Alastair StewartVerified account@alstewitn
The @FT story on the #PresidentsClub shindig gets curiouser: @nickwattabc reports on @BBCNewsnight that ‘
DfE director Meller’s ‘Presidents Club’ dinner rocked by sexual harassment allegations
24 Jan 2018
A charity fundraising dinner run by a Department for Education director and academy trust founder has been rocked by allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by guests, following an undercover investigation by journalists.
A story by the Financial Times, published earlier today, revealed allegations of “groping, sexual harassment and propositioning” of women hired as “hostesses” for the Presidents Club Charity Dinner, which took place at London’s Dorchester Hotel last Thursday.
David Meller, a non-executive director at the Department for Education and founder of the Meller Educational Trust who was made a CBE in the new year’s honours list, is co-chair of the charitable trust that runs the event.
Nadhim Zahawi, the newly-appointed children’s minister, is also understood to have been in attendance, but left early, according to reports.
According to the FT, which sent two reporters to work undercover as hostesses, the 130 women hired to work at the men-only event were “told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels”.
Hostesses “reported men repeatedly putting hands up their skirts, and one “said an attendee had exposed his penis to her during the evening”.
Many of the hostesses met by FT journalists were students, “hoping to launch careers as lawyers or marketing executives”, the newspaper reported.
A spokesperson for the Presidents Club told the FT the organisers were “appalled by the allegations of bad behaviour at the event”, adding that “such behaviour is totally unacceptable”.
“The allegations will be investigated fully and promptly and appropriate action taken.”
According to the Department for Education’s website, Meller joined as a non-executive board member in June 2013. He set up the Meller Educational Trust, which runs four schools and a University Technical College. He is also chair of the National Apprenticeship Ambassador Network and the Apprenticeship Delivery Board.
Outside education, Meller chairs his family business The Meller Group, one of the largest luxury home and beauty suppliers in the UK.
A DfE said that both Meller and Zahawi had “attended in a personal capacity”, and said the department would not comment further because “it was not official departmental business”.
A couple of months before Christmas, invitations began landing on the leather-topped desks of some of London‘s most powerful businessmen.
Embossed, and carrying a quasi-masonic logo based on an italicised letter P, they encouraged wealthy recipients to spend £2,000 a head bringing friends and contacts to an event at The Dorchester hotel.
Called the Presidents Club Charity Dinner, and held each January for the past 33 years, the lavish bash has, in certain rarefied circles of the property and finance industries, become a staple of the social calendar.
despite its starry guest list – the Presidents Club has chosen to keep its annual shindig firmly below the radar.
Photographers are banned, mobile phones are confiscated from staff who work there, and the names of patrons have always remained a closely guarded secret. Until now, that is.
a hefty proportion of the women working at the Presidents Club dinner – which was compered by comedian David Walliams and attended by senior representatives of a host of blue- chip City firms, including the advertising agency WPP, Barclays bank and the property giant Residential Land, which is run by Presidents Club co-chairman Bruce Ritchie – found themselves being groped, sexually harassed and lewdly propositioned.
Some of their alleged abusers were captains of industry and household names.
After dinner, guests adjourned to an after-party
Scandalously, these unedifying scenes appear to have occurred not by accident, but by design. Artista, a Berkshire events company, was hired to source the 130 hostesses for the evening. It claims on its website to work for a number of major firms, including Bentley, Aberdeen Asset Management, Moet Hennessy, the Economist, and, oddly, the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
Their phones were confiscated and they were required to sign a five-page non-disclosure agreement banning them from talking later about the proceedings
Hostesses were introduced to guests by being paraded across a stage to the song Power by the girl band Little Mix. As they walked to tables, pictures of sick children were flashed up on video screens.
With Great Ormond Street Hospital having pledged to give back money raised by the Presidents Club, there are also awkward questions to be asked of the scores of other charities to have received funds.
They range from Prince Charles’s Prince’s Trust to such blue-chip outfits as the Tate Gallery, Cancer Research UK, the British Olympic Association, the NSPCC, the Lord’s Taverners, and the scandal-hit and defunct Kids Company.
Lots sold during the fundraising auction included a night at Soho’s Windmill Club – a lap-dancing venue whose licence was revoked recently after dancers were caught flouting no-touching rules, and a course of plastic surgery that was promised to ‘add spice to your wife’. The auctioneer was filmed drumming up bids by announcing: ‘This is what your Missus could look like! Who’ll give me £10,000?’
Tory junior minister Nadhim Zahawi claimed to have been unaware of the nature of the bash when he accepted the invitation (although the BBC has reported that it was his second time there, having also attended before he became an MP).
Others caught in the fallout, having been in the room, include Ocado founder Tim Steiner, clothing tycoon Sir Philip Green and Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones. His former colleague on the show Theo Paphitis also featured on the guest list, although it’s unclear whether they actually attended.
But they can’t say they weren’t warned. As long ago as 2004, when the then London mayor Ken Livingstone was the guest of honour, newspaper diary items remarked on the ‘large numbers of very pretty women in attendance’.
Four years later, when the guest list was said to have included Formula 1 tycoons Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore (who was once chairman of Queens Park Rangers), property developers Nick Candy, David Reuben and Gerald Ronson, and comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, a report drew attention to the large number of hostesses paid £120 for ‘fetching drinks’ and ‘socialising with’ the glitzy guests.
‘It was quite a racy event… but the beauty parade seemed to be something of a hit,’ the Daily Telegraph noted. ‘The boys tucked into the girls.’
The ultra-secretive Presidents Club – the annual charity dinner attended by London’s wealthiest businessmen – had its latest majestic gathering in the ballroom of the Dorchester hotel
The lavish bash was organised by coat-hanger tycoon Peter Shalson – who once booked Elton John to play at his wedding celebrations – and his guests included oligarch Len Blavatnik; Goldman Sachs boss “Fat Mike” Sherwood; newly wed Carphone Warehouse chief Charles Dunstone; plus Sir Martin Sorrell and Richard Desmond from the media world.
Also in attendance were Formula 1’s Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore; property tycoons Nick Candy, David Reuben and Gerald Ronson; fund manager Howard Shore; impresarios Harvey Goldsmith and Jarvis Astaire; restaurateur Jimmy Lahoud; entrepreneur Dan Wagner; oh, and funny man Jimmy Tarbuck.
the most eye catching part of the event – which is strictly for male diners – was the bevy of hostesses dressed in short black or red dresses, who entered the ballroom after dinner, to the fanfare of Shania Twain’s “Feel Like a Woman”. Each are paid £120 for “fetching drinks” and “socialising with” the glitzy guests.
It is quite a racy event for the conservative HSBC to sponsor, but the beauty parade seemed to be something of a hit.
“The boys tucked into the girls,” confesses my man on the inside, before adding swiftly: “after I’d left.” Naturally.
Conservative Friends of Israel director Stuart Polak receives peerage
Amid the rumours and rows surrounding the announcement of the long-awaited dissolution honours list, one name was repeatedly highlighted as an inevitable inclusion.
Stuart Polak, the veteran Conservative Friends of Israel director, was handed a seat in the House of Lords when David Cameron finally revealed the names on the list today, months behind schedule.
He said it was “a once in a lifetime opportunity”.
Elevation to the famous red benches marks the high point of Mr Polak’s 35 years campaigning for Israel and encouraging the leaders of Britain’s political right to back the country.
He will now step down as CFI director, but he leaves the group in a position of undeniable strength as the largest of parliament’s lobby groups.
Honoured alongside him was former parliamentary chairman of the group, James Arbuthnot, who retired as an MP in May after nearly 30 years in the Commons.
In a statement, Mr Polak said: “I have had the enormous privilege of leading CFI for some 26 years and over that time have had the honour to work with some wonderful people both here in the UK and in Israel.
“The aims and objectives of CFI are simple to understand, we support the Conservatives and support our democratic ally Israel. Something we proudly have tried to fulfil throughout the last 26 years.
“The Prime Minister has given me a once in a lifetime opportunity to enter the House of Lords which will enable me to continue to advocate for Israel.”
He added that he was retiring from his CFI role next mongth, but would become honorary president of the organisation.
Eric Pickles and Stuart Polak
He said: “CFI has an amazingly talented young professional team and, together with the directors and the newly constituted Pprliamentary group led by the outstanding Sir Eric Pickles, the future is exciting and I look forward to continuing to play my part going forward.”
As a young chazan, Liverpool-born Mr Polak sang at the city’s Childwall Hebrew Congregation on High Holy Days, before joining fellow teenagers on educational trips to Israel at the age of just 15.
After moving to London he began his career as a United Synagogue youth officer in Edgware, north London. He has gone on to have the ear of almost every senior Tory since Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.
Mr Polak was an astute networker even as an officer at the Board of Deputies in the 1980s, encouraging then Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph to help Jewish students on university campuses.
He left that role in 1989 — aged 28 — to take on the job at the CFI. At the time the JC predicted he was a “strong prospect for the upper reaches of communal leadership… a ready wit and unaffected style make him a popular figure”.
He offered his own take on his prospects, explaining in 1990: “I was brought up to put as much as possible back into the community. I’m as ambitious as the next man, but I’m motivated more by a sense of duty.”
A CBE in last year’s New Year’s Honours list hinted at what was to come for the 54-year-old. CFI’s annual lunch last December, at which Mr Cameron spoke, was attended by more than 700 people, including almost the entire parliamentary Conservative party and most of the cabinet.
CFI chairman Andrew Heller said: “We are delighted that our friend, colleague and long-term director of CFI, Stuart Polak CBE, has been elevated to the House of Lords.
“This notable achievement is the culmination of work done, over many years, in both strengthening and developing the Anglo-Israel relationship. It is also recognition of the significance and success of CFI as an organisation. We celebrate this richly deserved accomplishment.”
Also joining the Lords will be former Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone.
She lost her Hornsey and Wood Green seat at May’s general election and is elevated as one of former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s selections.
She had been the most senior Jewish politician in the coalition government.
Sir Alan Beith, former long-serving president of the Lib Dem Friends of Israel, was also elevated to the Lords.
Barking MP Margaret Hodge was also made a dame in the list.
Mr Polak was an astute networker even as an officer at the Board of Deputies in the 1980s, encouraging then Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph to help Jewish students on university campuses.
Stuart’s remarkable 25 year career has so far spanned four Conservative Governments in the UK and a remarkable nine Governments in Israel. In this time he has coordinated and led more than 150 political delegations to Israel. He has helped set up several Jewish faith schools. He has even received a CBE award from Her Majesty the Queen. There isn’t a great deal Stuart hasn’t achieved.
He assembled around him a brilliant team of individuals such as Nathalie Tamam (now in the Cabinet Office) and James Gurd (who leads the CFI Professional Team), Chairman Andrew Heller, Sir Eric Pickles as the Parliamentary Chairmen, and formerly Richard Harrington (now Minister for Refugees) and James Arbuthnot (who is entering the Lords alongside Stuart).
I first met Stuart when I was at University over twenty years ago. He was running Conservative Friends of Israel even then, transforming the organisation from a relatively small base, into the incredible campaigning group that has emerged today.
Tory Cabinet Minister has admitted to having an affair with the head of the Conservative Party’s youth wing.
Robert Halfon, who is the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, confessed to having an affair with Alexandra Paterson, the chair of Conservative Future, after he came to believe there was a plot to blackmail him.
According to the Mail on Sunday, Halfon, who is 46 and has a partner, conducted the affair with 30-year-old Paterson at the East India Club, a private members club where he stays when he is in London.
Halfon says he admitted to the affair after he came to believe that Mark Clarke, the former head of RoadTrip (another Conservative party youth organisation), was planning to photograph him with Paterson in order to gain leverage over him.
Conservative Friends of Israel director Stuart Polak receives peerage
Amid the rumours and rows surrounding the announcement of the long-awaited dissolution honours list, one name was repeatedly highlighted as an inevitable inclusion.
Stuart Polak, the veteran Conservative Friends of Israel director, was handed a seat in the House of Lords when David Cameron finally revealed the names on the list today, months behind schedule.
He said it was “a once in a lifetime opportunity”.
Elevation to the famous red benches marks the high point of Mr Polak’s 35 years campaigning for Israel and encouraging the leaders of Britain’s political right to back the country.
He will now step down as CFI director, but he leaves the group in a position of undeniable strength as the largest of parliament’s lobby groups.
Honoured alongside him was former parliamentary chairman of the group, James Arbuthnot, who retired as an MP in May after nearly 30 years in the Commons.
In a statement, Mr Polak said: “I have had the enormous privilege of leading CFI for some 26 years and over that time have had the honour to work with some wonderful people both here in the UK and in Israel.
“The aims and objectives of CFI are simple to understand, we support the Conservatives and support our democratic ally Israel. Something we proudly have tried to fulfil throughout the last 26 years.
“The Prime Minister has given me a once in a lifetime opportunity to enter the House of Lords which will enable me to continue to advocate for Israel.”
He added that he was retiring from his CFI role next mongth, but would become honorary president of the organisation.
He said: “CFI has an amazingly talented young professional team and, together with the directors and the newly constituted Pprliamentary group led by the outstanding Sir Eric Pickles, the future is exciting and I look forward to continuing to play my part going forward.”
As a young chazan, Liverpool-born Mr Polak sang at the city’s Childwall Hebrew Congregation on High Holy Days, before joining fellow teenagers on educational trips to Israel at the age of just 15.
After moving to London he began his career as a United Synagogue youth officer in Edgware, north London. He has gone on to have the ear of almost every senior Tory since Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.
Mr Polak was an astute networker even as an officer at the Board of Deputies in the 1980s, encouraging then Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph to help Jewish students on university campuses.
He left that role in 1989 — aged 28 — to take on the job at the CFI. At the time the JC predicted he was a “strong prospect for the upper reaches of communal leadership… a ready wit and unaffected style make him a popular figure”.
He offered his own take on his prospects, explaining in 1990: “I was brought up to put as much as possible back into the community. I’m as ambitious as the next man, but I’m motivated more by a sense of duty.”
A CBE in last year’s New Year’s Honours list hinted at what was to come for the 54-year-old. CFI’s annual lunch last December, at which Mr Cameron spoke, was attended by more than 700 people, including almost the entire parliamentary Conservative party and most of the cabinet.
CFI chairman Andrew Heller said: “We are delighted that our friend, colleague and long-term director of CFI, Stuart Polak CBE, has been elevated to the House of Lords.
“This notable achievement is the culmination of work done, over many years, in both strengthening and developing the Anglo-Israel relationship. It is also recognition of the significance and success of CFI as an organisation. We celebrate this richly deserved accomplishment.”
Also joining the Lords will be former Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone.
She lost her Hornsey and Wood Green seat at May’s general election and is elevated as one of former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s selections.
She had been the most senior Jewish politician in the coalition government.
Sir Alan Beith, former long-serving president of the Lib Dem Friends of Israel, was also elevated to the Lords.
Barking MP Margaret Hodge was also made a dame in the list.
Conservative Friends of Israel director Stuart Polak receives peerage
Amid the rumours and rows surrounding the announcement of the long-awaited dissolution honours list, one name was repeatedly highlighted as an inevitable inclusion.
Stuart Polak, the veteran Conservative Friends of Israel director, was handed a seat in the House of Lords when David Cameron finally revealed the names on the list today, months behind schedule.
He said it was “a once in a lifetime opportunity”.
Elevation to the famous red benches marks the high point of Mr Polak’s 35 years campaigning for Israel and encouraging the leaders of Britain’s political right to back the country.
He will now step down as CFI director, but he leaves the group in a position of undeniable strength as the largest of parliament’s lobby groups.
Honoured alongside him was former parliamentary chairman of the group, James Arbuthnot, who retired as an MP in May after nearly 30 years in the Commons.
In a statement, Mr Polak said: “I have had the enormous privilege of leading CFI for some 26 years and over that time have had the honour to work with some wonderful people both here in the UK and in Israel.
“The aims and objectives of CFI are simple to understand, we support the Conservatives and support our democratic ally Israel. Something we proudly have tried to fulfil throughout the last 26 years.
“The Prime Minister has given me a once in a lifetime opportunity to enter the House of Lords which will enable me to continue to advocate for Israel.”
He added that he was retiring from his CFI role next mongth, but would become honorary president of the organisation.
He said: “CFI has an amazingly talented young professional team and, together with the directors and the newly constituted Pprliamentary group led by the outstanding Sir Eric Pickles, the future is exciting and I look forward to continuing to play my part going forward.”
As a young chazan, Liverpool-born Mr Polak sang at the city’s Childwall Hebrew Congregation on High Holy Days, before joining fellow teenagers on educational trips to Israel at the age of just 15.
After moving to London he began his career as a United Synagogue youth officer in Edgware, north London. He has gone on to have the ear of almost every senior Tory since Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.
Mr Polak was an astute networker even as an officer at the Board of Deputies in the 1980s, encouraging then Education Secretary Sir Keith Joseph to help Jewish students on university campuses.
He left that role in 1989 — aged 28 — to take on the job at the CFI. At the time the JC predicted he was a “strong prospect for the upper reaches of communal leadership… a ready wit and unaffected style make him a popular figure”.
He offered his own take on his prospects, explaining in 1990: “I was brought up to put as much as possible back into the community. I’m as ambitious as the next man, but I’m motivated more by a sense of duty.”
A CBE in last year’s New Year’s Honours list hinted at what was to come for the 54-year-old. CFI’s annual lunch last December, at which Mr Cameron spoke, was attended by more than 700 people, including almost the entire parliamentary Conservative party and most of the cabinet.
CFI chairman Andrew Heller said: “We are delighted that our friend, colleague and long-term director of CFI, Stuart Polak CBE, has been elevated to the House of Lords.
“This notable achievement is the culmination of work done, over many years, in both strengthening and developing the Anglo-Israel relationship. It is also recognition of the significance and success of CFI as an organisation. We celebrate this richly deserved accomplishment.”
Also joining the Lords will be former Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone.
She lost her Hornsey and Wood Green seat at May’s general election and is elevated as one of former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s selections.
She had been the most senior Jewish politician in the coalition government.
Sir Alan Beith, former long-serving president of the Lib Dem Friends of Israel, was also elevated to the Lords.
Barking MP Margaret Hodge was also made a dame in the list.
Former football coach Barry Bennell pleads guilty to child sex offences
Former football coach Barry Bennell has pleaded guilty to seven child sex offences at Liverpool Crown Court.
The 63-year, ex-Crewe Alexander coach admitted six offences on the first day of his trial, which is expected to last eight weeks.
A reporting restriction on a guilty plea to a charge of indecent assault entered by Bennell at an earlier hearing was lifted by Recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone QC.
Bennell, who was charged under the name Richard Jones, is still due to stand trial for 48 offences including 35 counts of indecent assault, 11 counts of buggery and two counts of attempted buggery.
The charges he will stand trial on relate to 11 complainants and allegedly took place in the 1970s and 1980s, when the alleged victims were boys aged between eight and 15.
Bennell entered the pleas when he appeared via videolink in court wearing a grey jumper.
A jury is expected to be sworn in for his trial on the outstanding charges later on Monday.
Former football coach Barry Bennell was a “predatory and determined paedophile” who abused one boy on more than 100 occasions, a court has heard.
The ex-Crewe Alexandra coach “had pretty much unfettered access” to boys dreaming of a life in the professional game, prosecutors alleged.
Mr Bennell, 63, now known as Richard Jones, denies 48 sex offence charges involving 11 boys.
Liverpool Crown Court was told offences took place Johnson said one alleged victim, who says he was abused more than 100 times, met Mr Bennell when he was a scout for Manchester City.
The complainant would stay at Mr Bennell’s house with other youngsters.
“Not only was there the promise of high quality football, but they were given lots of sports kit and allowed to eat takeaway food,” Mr Johnson told the jury.
The court also heard how Mr Bennell would “play fight” with the boys and play a game with them called Follow Me, where they would copy his actions while he would increase degrees of intimacy to gauge how compliant the boys would be to abuse.
The complainant said Mr Bennell would turn the lights off and play music to mask the sounds of the abuse, the jury heard.
Mr Bennell denied sexual contact with the boy when questioned by police.
Mr Johnson said another complainant said he had been “desensitised” by Mr Bennell, who committed “relentless” serious sexual assaults against him.
That complainant had described the last time he was abused – after he met Mr Bennell to discuss signing forms for Manchester City – as the “worst day of his life” .
A further complainant described Mr Bennell’s home as a “paradise” for young boys as he had a pool table, fruit machine and big TVs.
Mr Johnson told the court that several of the alleged victims had said they were impressed with the pets he kept it his home – at various times he had a wild cat and a monkey.
‘Devious paedophile’
The prosecutor said that while Mr Bennell “was a skilled and relatively successful coach, we allege that he had a much darker side”.
“He was also, we say, a predatory and determined paedophile. His particular predilection was pre-pubescent boys.”
Mr Johnson told the jury they would need to decide whether they were listening to a group of men, who as Mr Bennell argues, had jumped on the bandwagon and made up stories, or to a series of serious sexual offences by a “devious paedophile” against “very vulnerable lads”.
Mr Bennell is on trial for 35 counts of indecent assault, 11 serious sexual assaults and two counts of attempted sexual assault, on boys aged between eight and 14.
He appeared via video-link on Tuesday. The jury was told this was due to an illness that required him to be fed through a tube.
The court was told how during questioning, Mr Bennell told police he was suffering with cancer which in turn had caused memory problems.
Mr Bennell had said one complainant had financial motivations for accusing him, the jury heard.
Before the trial, Mr Bennell admitted seven charges of indecent assault committed between 1981 and 1991, relating to three boys aged between 11 and 14.
Will 1967 Tattingstone suitcase murder of Bernard Oliver ever be solved?
06 January 2018
This weekend marks 51 years since teenager Bernard Oliver left his London home to spend the evening with friends – 10 days before his dismembered body was found in two suitcases in a village just outside Ipswich.
A clipping from the Evening Star after Bernard Oliver’s body was found.
Known as Operation Tattingstone, the investigation into the 17-year-old’s grisly murder remains one of the county’s longest running ‘cold cases’.
On January 6, 1967, Bernard left the Muswell Hill home he shared with his father and five siblings.
He was seen in the area by people unaware he had been reported missing by his father the following day.
On January 16, his body was discovered in the two suitcases under a hedge in Tattingstone.
With no clue as to the identity of the victim, police took the unusual step of sending media a photograph of the head.
Local and Metropolitan police were involved in the inquiry, which then crossed international borders in an effort to establish the source of the suitcases and a laundry mark found inside.
The dismembered body of Bernard Oliver was dumped in a field a few hundred yards from the main Ipswich to Manningtree road. Picture: ARCHANT ARCHIVE
The first months of investigation generated thousands of statements and attracted national interest.
New leads were still being followed up the following year – but the trail grew colder with passing time, until police had only snippets of information to pursue.
An artist’s impression of a man police were seeking for interview. Picture: ARCHANT ARCHIVE
Two main suspects – doctors John Byles and Martin Reddington, both wanted for the death and sexual assault of another boy – have since died, but Suffolk police continue to review lines of investigation in a bid to solve the mystery – one of several unresolved crimes on the books of the joint Suffolk and Norfolk Cold Case Team, set up in 2008.
Last year, one of Bernard’s five siblings, younger brother Chris, who was 15 at the time, told this paper of the trauma his family still felt.
The police had a very good idea who did it but didn’t bring prosecutions due to ‘lack of evidence’. More likely they had friends in high places
Two main suspects – doctors John Byles and Martin Reddington, both wanted for the death and sexual assault of another boy – have since died = so never arrested or tried?
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in 2004 revealed that the prime suspects in the Bernard Oliver murder were two medical doctors, Martin Reddington and John Byles.
Martin Bruce Reddington (26 June 1931-May 1995) had a surgery in Muswell Hill. In 1965 a warrant had been issued for Reddington’s arrest on charges of buggery and indecent assault of males. However, before inquiries could be completed, he left the UK for South Africa. Reddington made a number of return visits to the United Kingdom, but no evidence has been found placing him in the vicinity of the murder. In 1977 a private investigator claimed to recognise the suitcase with the initials P.V.A. on its side as belonging to three men who used a laundrette in Muswell Hill, one of whom was Martin Reddington. Reddington was never interviewed in connection with the offence, and it was decided there was insufficient evidence to extradite him from Australia. In 1977 Reddington was charged in Sydney, Australia with committing an indecent assault on a male. He died in May 1995, aged 63.
John Roussel Byles (January 27 1933-19 January 1975) was acquitted along with another man in November 1963 of assaulting a 16 year-old male at their flat in Earl’s Court, London. Byles left the UK for Australia in the early 1970s when inquiries began into the sexual abuse of boys aged between 9 and 14 in Huddersfield. On 17 December 1974 Byles was arrested in Sydney, Australia in relation to an alleged indecent assault on a boy, but absconded on $2,000 bail. His body was found in a room of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Proserpine, Queensland on 19 January 1975. He left two suicide notes, one addressed to Scotland Yard, the other to Martin Reddington. The note to the police contained an apology for his actions, but no direct reference was made to the Tattingstone murder.
Fury as new figures reveal almost half of paedophiles convicted of grooming children for sex online are let off jail by ‘lenient’ judges
EXCLUSIVE: 56 per cent dodged jail in 2016 compared to 33 per cent year before
The others were handed suspended sentences by judges in England and Wales
Former Christ’s Hospital teacher jailed for sexually abusing pupils
Peter Burr given four years after admitting nine counts of indecent assault on boys aged 11 to 14 between 1969 and 1973
Peter Burr is the second former teacher from the private school near Horsham to be jailed in as many months. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
Press Association
A former top private school teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing four of his pupils.
Peter Burr was jailed at Hove crown court on Friday after admitting nine counts of indecently assaulting the boys aged between 11 and 14 at Christ’s Hospital between 1969 and 1973.
The judge, Christine Henson QC, initially sentenced him to 42 months in prison and concluded the hearing.
Moments later, the parties were called back to court.
Henson returned to say she had read out the wrong figure and sentenced him to 48 months instead. She added that her views on sentencing had not changed.
Burr is the second former teacher from the boarding school near Horsham, West Sussex, to be jailed in as many months.
Henson said he displayed a pattern of preying on his victims in a “gross abuse of trust”.
She continued: “You had unlimited access to vulnerable young boys separated from their families. They obtained a place at the school because of the death of a parent or a low income. This strengthened their reluctance to speak out about you.”
Burr, 73, of Kingswear, near Dartmouth in Devon, was handed concurrent sentences for each victim and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.
Burr would invite pupils to visit his study for tea and cake before fondling them, the court heard.
One survivor described how Burr would entice them with chocolate biscuits, which were seen as a treat.
Ahmed Hossain, for the prosecution, said who was a house tutor as well as a physics teacher, would also become sexually aroused when he played with them in the swimming pool.
One of the survivors tried to report the crimes to officers at Horsham police station in 2000 but felt he was being “batted back” and no further action was taken, Hossain said.
It was not until 3 December 2016 that the former pupil was prompted to email the producer of Vanessa Feltz’s BBC Radio London programme when she discussed the football abuse scandal.
The producer put him in touch with detectives and an investigation was launched after he made contact with police in February last year.
Burr’s prosecution is part of a wider investigation into allegations of abuse by former teachers at the school.
A former house master, Peter Webb, 74, was jailed for four years in December.
Three more men are due in court later this year. Police have said the prosecutions are not linked.
Ajaz Karim, 63, who lives in London, denies nine charges of indecent assault and one attempted indecent assault against six female pupils. He is to stand trial in April.
James Husband, 67, of York, is accused of four counts of rape and five counts of indecently assault against a woman.
Gary Dobbie, 66, of Albi in France, is charged with seven counts of indecent assault and one attempted indecent assault against two boys, as well as three counts of indecently assaulting two women.
Husband and Dobbie deny the charges and are to stand trial in May.
Pope Francis listens as Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, speaks during an audience with commission members at the Vatican Sept. 21.
In December 2013, Pope Franciscreated a group to advise him and future popes on how the church worldwide could protect children, appointing experts on the issue and even survivors of abuse to a new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Now, as of this writing four years later, that commission has lapsed into an inactive state. Its members’ terms of office, as set by the group’s Vatican-approved statutes, expired Dec. 17. Neither the pope nor the Vatican have made known when or if the current members will be reappointed or new members found.
That Francis has allowed this lapse to occur is worrisome. A commission without validly appointed members ceases to be a commission; its members may carry on their work but if they do, they do so as individuals without legal standing or vested authority to back them. What work could they carry on? This never should have been allowed to happen.
That the Vatican felt no need to offer an official explanation is just as worrisome, because it suggests that the protection of children is not as high a priority as statements from the Vatican say it is. That decision makers in the Vatican apparently didn’t realize — or didn’t care — that this lapse would be perceived negatively is also troubling. A lack of an official response sends a tone-deaf and disappointing message to Catholics and the world. It points to the causal negligence at the heart of the scandal that has plagued the church for decades and demonstrates why the church can’t shake allegations that its leaders “just don’t get it.”
We cannot forget that less than 10 months ago, Marie Collins, an original appointee and a survivor of clergy abuse, resigned from the commission out of frustration with an intransigent Vatican bureaucracy.
We’ve been told not to read too much into the vacant commission. It’s just a bureaucratic snafu, we’re told, and it will be corrected by April, when the commission’s next plenary assembly is set. The office in the Curia meant to support the work of the commission will continue its work, we’ve been told. These statements, meant to be assurances, sound too much like hollow promises of the kind we’re been programmed to hear from church officials when it comes to the abuse of minors by clergy.
In March, Collins recalled that when she was appointed, “I said publicly that if I found what was happening behind closed doors was in conflict with what was being said to the public I would not remain. This point has come. I feel I have no choice but to resign if I am to retain my integrity.” We seem to have reached a time again when private actions are not matching public statements.
The Vatican has known since Collins’ resignation that the commission was suffering a credibility problem. Their bureaucratic neglect on commission memberships only exacerbates that problem. We repeat: that the Vatican didn’t recognize this as a problem or doesn’t care that it is a problem is very worrisome.
Hundreds of boys ‘tortured’ at youth detention centres in 1970s and 1980s
Survivors calling for public inquiry into sexual and physical abuse during Thatcherite ‘short, sharp shock’ policy
4 January 2018
HMP Kirklevington is among the sites where abuse allegedly took place
Hundreds of boys say they were subjected to sexual and physical abuse amounting to “torture” in youth detention centres, sparking calls for a public inquiry.
A lawyer representing the alleged victims said they had been raped, beaten and sexually assaulted during the 1970s and 1980s.
David Greenwood, the head of child abuse at Switalskis Solicitors, said he was already representing more than 400 men and being “approached constantly” by new claimants.
“Clients I’ve spoken to have said it was like torture – they were locked up and couldn’t get away,” he told The Independent.
Former inmates at Eastwood Park Detention Centre in Gloucestershire have told Mr Greenwood they were punched if they did not answer officers’ responses with “Sir”.
Others described being regularly hit “for the slightest misdemeanour”, being whipped with rubber pipes, forced to perform extreme exercise, have cold showers and were made to crouch in stress positions without chairs.
Police are already investigating allegations relating to Medomsley Detention Centre in County Durham and Kirklevington Detention Centre in North Yorkshire, where more than 400 victims have already come forward.
But Mr Greenwood said the scale of abuse is “most definitely wider”.
“It was an institutional problem that seemed to have been taking place at all these detention centres at that time,” he added.
When asked what kind of sexual assaults his clients told him took place in the centres, Mr Greenwood listed them as “rape, indecent assault and oral sex”.
Some of the alleged abuse has been attributed to policies brought in by Margaret Thatcher’s government, including Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw’s ‘short, sharp shock’ initiative.
The policy saw young offenders detained in secure units and subjected to quasi-military discipline, despite the fact there was no evidence it would deter them from reoffending.
Victims are calling for a new public inquiry to be opened into the treatment of young male convicts at all detention centres in Britain.
HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) claimed the allegations would be covered by the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, but critics argue its remit is not wide enough to fully address the new allegations.
Mr Greenwood argued the current inquiry does not specifically address physical abuse, and its scope is also limited by ongoing criminal proceedings. “We’re hoping that the Home Secretary will look at this again and think about a proper public inquiry,” he added.
A HMPPS spokesperson said: “There is already an inquiry looking into these allegations, which is part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
“The allegations of abuse by former members of staff at Medomsley Detention Centre are subject to an ongoing police investigation, therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Sex offender treatment scheme led to increase in reoffending
Jun 30 2017
Inmates on the prison-run programme were slightly more likely to commit further sexual offences on release, a Ministry of Justice review found
ex offenders who completed a group treatment programme in prison were more likely to commit further similar offences, a Ministry of Justice review has found. The analysis warned that group therapy could allow offenders to share “contacts and sources” or normalise criminal behaviour.
Some 10% of criminals who completed the prison-based core sex offender treatment programme (SOTP) committed at least one sexual offence during the period covered by the review, compared with 8% of those who had not received the treatment. For offences involving explicit images of children, the reoffending rate was 4.4% for those who had completed the programme, compared with 2.9% in the comparison group.
Overall, the review found that the core SOTP, which has been used since 1992, was “generally associated with little or no changes in sexual and non-sexual reoffending”, but that “there were small increases in the sexual and child image reoffending rates”.
Ridiculous outcry over Toby Young. He will bring independence, rigour and caustic wit. Ideal man for job
Jon Stone
How British politics works: as editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson commissioned Toby Young as a writer. Now Boris’s brother, Jo Johnson, a Cabinet minister, gives Young a public sector job. Boris, now also a Cabinet minister, endorses the appointment
One episode where Tobes failed to distinguish himself – other than by once again talking well, but lying badly, was the hacking of schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone on behalf of the late and not at all lamented Murdoch Screws. Young had just been appointed as political correspondent of the Screws’ replacement, the Sun on Sunday
Tobes declared that the Milly Dowler affair was nothing more than “That murdered schoolgirl thing”,
Terence Ewing was arrested with Gleaves. Who are these MPs?
Were Austin Mitchell and John Hemming aware of the fact that Terence Ewing was a paedophile?
The Association of McKenzie Friends are the group ‘supporting’ Ella Draper and Abraham Christie, who along with Sabine McNeill are wanted for questioning by police in relation to allegations of harassment and child abuse connected to the Hampstead Satanic Claims.
Belinda McKenzie, Terence Ewing, and Sabine McNeill
Terence Ewing, having been described by a high court judge as “unattractive and indicative of a lack of personal integrity and honesty”, is banned from taking a civil action in England and Wales unless he has the permission of a High Court judge. (BBC News)
I’m sure that many will think that this proves nothing other than that Terence Ewing has an extremely poor taste when selecting business partners.
However, call me old fashioned but I do believe that it is extremely unethical and potentially illegal for ‘The Association of McKenzie Friends’ to seek to sell “video evidence”, “interviews with victims of child trafficking”, and “documentation regarding child abuse”.
John Hemming MP withdrew as patron of The Association of McKenzie Friends on 22nd January 2015.
Two charged with historic sexual abuse at Old Rectory Children’s Home, Singleton
2 Jan 2018
TWO men are facing a total of 26 charges of historical sexual abuse of young boys at a children’s home.
The alleged offences are believed to have taken place in West Sussex between 35 and 44 years ago.
John Michael Webber, 77, retired, of Clifton Hill, Brighton, and Don Grasty, 94, retired, of Beach Road, Selsey, have been summonsed to appear at Worthing Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, February 6.
The charges allege that they committed the offences at the long since closed privately-run Old Rectory Children’s Home in Church Road, Singleton, against eight boys aged between nine and 15, between 1974 and 1983.
Webber, who was owner of the Home during the period of the alleged offences, faces 12 charges – seven of indecent assault, two of gross indecency and three of buggery – almost all involving multiple incidents, allegedly committed against five boys.
Grasty, who was a manager at the Home during the same period, faces 14 charges – 10 of indecent assault, three of gross indecency, and one of buggery – again almost involving multiple incidents, allegedly committed against five boys.
Two of the boys are alleged to have been victims of both men.
Police emphasise that the premises closed as a children’s home in the late 1980s and that any management or occupants of the address since that time have no connection whatsoever with this case.
Fr Seed was put into Knowl View children’s home in Rochdale, where he stayed until he was 17. There was a paedophile ring operating there involving Sir Cyril Smith. Seed was abused there and had been asked to provide evidence for Rochdale Council’s internal investigation into the school.
Maggie Oliver joined Greater Manchester Police in 1996
Rochdale child sex grooming scandal– was assigned as a witness protection officer to some of the vulnerable victims
worked on an almost identical operation in 2004, Operation Augusta
a detective in the Major Incident Team and as a family liaison officer and worked on a number of big cases. But I was contacted in November 2010 and asked to join Operation Span, a major investigation into the abuse in Rochdale.
Cambridge University students ‘abused child sex slaves’ – escaped prostitute reveals torment
1/1/2018
An underage ‘sex slave’ claims she was hired out to students at the famous university.
She claimed she was just one of many underage sex workers who suffered violence and abuse at the hands of wealthy men in the 1980s.
“I was the youngest one there. A lot of the men were people who wanted to be quite violent,” she said. “There were men who had a lot of money and would pay for a long time.
“Some of it was Cambridge students. A lot of them were rich students who you could tell were training to be politicians and saw themselves as very privileged people. The way they treated us was as if they could do what they liked with us.”
The woman, who has not been named for legal reasons, has since left Cambridge, where she grew up. She described a grooming process that has similarities to the systematic abuse of children in towns such as Rotheram and Newcastle.
“All the men were at least ten years older than the girls,” she said. “You had to sit at the bar and the men would choose somebody. But you would get a lot of free drinks and drugs.
“A lot of it seems really fragmented in my mind. But I remember the flats you were taken to were nearby. It was men queuing up to do what they liked with you. There was a lot of gang raping and really violent men. It was really quite horrible, especially for underage girls.”
The woman says her suffering was so immense that she even considered suicide. She claims she was trapped in the cycle of exploitation.
She said: “I think sex slavery is something you do that you have no choice about. There was violence involved and it was really hard to get out of it.
“There is mental abuse as well as violence, and you are made to feel as if you are not really human. The most important thing for me is it was not work. It was done without a choice.”
She claims she escaped the torment after being hospitalised by an aggressive client: “I had a chance to think about what was going on, and I decided to run away,” she said.
“I thought I should either kill myself or run away. I went to Manchester and it kind of changed my life. I realised I deserved more out of life. I needed to get away from Cambridge to live. I didn’t feel safe.”
Surrey Police launched a two-year investigation into the school in 2007.
The IPCC said:
During the course of the school probe, an allegation of an assault at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire, was received
The detective did not pass details of this claim to Thames Valley Police
As a result, it was not recorded by the force until 2013 – five years after the claim was disclosed to Surrey Police.
Investigators also found Savile’s status as a “very well-known celebrity” influenced decision-making during the investigation.
His status appeared to have been “considered throughout” by the senior officer, referred to as DI B in the report.
In particular, the watchdog said:
Savile’s celebrity “affected the way in which police approached witnesses and which agencies were informed and when”
The force chose to interview him under caution in October 2009 after prosecutors advised there was no case to proceed
Savile appeared “to have dictated the date and location for the interview” based on his own schedule
This added ” undue delay to the conclusion of the investigation”
It was unclear why Savile, who was in his eighties, was allowed to have a “friend and appropriate adult”, present during the interview
Investigators found it “unlikely that a non-celebrity member of the public would have been afforded the same courtesy”.
However, Savile’s high profile had “no influence” on the ultimate outcome of the investigation, according to the report.
‘Pattern of abuse’
Although the IPCC found no other evidence of wrongdoing, it did express concern at some aspects of the investigation.
These included:
Communication failures with West Yorkshire police over comments made by Savile about alleged inappropriate relationships with officers on that force
And there was also no evidence that witnesses had been made aware of safeguarding measures available to protect their identities.
The second officer’s performance was also described as unsatisfactory and falling below the expected standards of professional behaviour.
But, the report said, she would not have had to answer a case for professional misconduct.
In a statement, Surrey Police said it investigated alleged sex offences by Savile at Duncroft in 2007-09.
It said: “Whilst the enquiries in the original 2007-09 investigation pre-dated much of what we now know about Savile and his pattern of abuse, the force has always accepted there are things which should have been done differently.”
“These were highlighted in a report Surrey Police published in 2013 and relevant organisational learning was implemented as a result.”
As part of its investigation, Surrey Police interviewed more than 100 former pupils at Duncroft, a school for emotionally-disturbed girls which closed in the 1980s.
Savile, who died in 2011 aged 84, was a Radio 1 DJ and the presenter of the Jim’ll Fix It show on BBC One.
He was one of Britain’s most prolific sex abusers and is thought to have assaulted hundreds of people between the ages of five and 75.
Savile denied allegations of abuse at the school when questioned by police in 2009.
For their eyes only: the secret stories ministers don’t want you to read
At the turn of every year, hundreds of classified government documents are made available at the National Archives in Kew, south-west London. Many due for release are withheld or, as the Guardian has reported, have been lost. Whitehall departments do not have to explain why they have been retained, or where they are.
Documents held back this year include files relating to the Scott inquiry into the arms-to-Iraq affair, a file on allegations of sexual abuse at the Kincora boys’ home in Belfast which the former army information officer Colin Wallace said were covered up by MI5, and a file on the late Brian Nelson, a British army informer in Northern Ireland eventually jailed for conspiring to kill Catholics.
Also withheld is a document on Anthony Blunt, surveyor of the Queen’s pictures, who was granted immunity from prosecution before confessing to having been a Soviet spy. Papers are retained, temporarily or indefinitely, while Whitehall weeders conduct what are called “sensitivity reviews”.
The file also reveals that Thatcher and her successor, John Major, were concerned that a planned history of the army’s Intelligence Corps would reveal what the regiment had been up to in Northern Ireland. The Ministry of Defence told them not to worry as any reference to Northern Ireland would be “particularly anodyne”.
Israeli ambassador claimed former DUP leader Paisley contacted him ‘to obtain arms’, declassified files reveal
29 December, 2017
THE Israeli ambassador to the UK claimed former DUP leader Ian Paisley contacted him “to obtain arms”, declassified state papers released reveal.
The claim, which prompted surprise from the Irish government, is contained among hundreds of previously confidential files published in Dublin and Belfast today.
The documents, dating back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, also reveal that:
The claim that Mr Paisley had asked the Israeli ambassador about arms is included in files released by the National Archives of Ireland.
In June 1985, Noel Dorr – Ireland’s ambassador in London – wrote a letter to his boss in Dublin on the conversation he had at a recent function.
“I expressed surprise at this since I thought it unlikely that Paisley
would leave himself open on something like this,” Mr Dorr wrote.
The Israeli ambassador, Yahuda Avner, said Mr Paisley was talking about “border protection”.
“I said I presumed that the emphasis was on surveillance equipment rather than on arms but the ambassador did not elaborate further on the detail of the request,” Mr Dorr said.
“I would assume that what happened is that Paisley may have written to the ambassador to seek a meeting in regard to ‘border protection’. The ambassador possibly interpreted this general phrase as referring to weapons rather than technology.”
The ambassador told Mr Paisley that “these things” could only be dealt with between governments.
Haughey was tried and acquitted in the early 1970s, while Lynch was prime minister on charges of conspiring to import arms into Ireland illegally, allegedly for the IRA.
Haughey believed Jimmy Savile would be a good mediator for Thatcher dealings
A letter in the National Archives reveals details of a meeting between the pair at the Central Remedial Clinic in the 1980s.
Dec 28th 2013
CHARLES HAUGHEY BELIEVED BBC presenter Jimmy Savile would make a good mediator for meetings between the British and Irish governments.
Following a meeting in 1980 at the Central Remedial Clinic, founder Lady Valerie Goulding, wrote to the Taoiseach to thank him for seeing Savile, one of the charity’s most important patrons.
The document, released under the 30 Year Rule today, repeats a suggestion by the Fianna Fáil leader that the Top of the Pops front man “could be a good mediator as he really is very well in with Mrs. Thatcher and members of the Opposition as well”.
Haughey and Savile sat down for tea at the CRC on 26 May 1980. The DJ became a regular visitor at Abbeville when he visited Dublin to organise sponsored walks as part of his charity work for the CRC.
Jimmy Savile guest of An Taoiseach…Photographed at an Taoiseach’s Office, Government Buildings…1980-05-26.26th May 1980.26-05-80.05-26-80..From left:..An Taoiseach Charles Haughey TD..Lady Valerie Goulding of the Central Remedial Clinic..Jimmy Savile.
It was another two decades before allegations of paedophilia emerged publicly about Savile. The CRC has issued statements to stress that he never had private access to patients during his visits to the treatment centre for those with disabilities.
Since ITV aired a documentary last year, police in London have launched Operation Yewtree to investigate allegations of sex abuse within the BBC. The probe is split into three strands – allegations involving Savile, those involving Savile and others and those involving others.
More than 600 people have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Savile alone, making him one of the most prolific sex offenders the UK has ever seen.
Larger version here. (Image: Sinéad O’Carroll/TheJournal.ie)
The CRC has been at the centre of its own controversy this year as it became embroiled in the salary top-ups scandal.
Under Section 38 of the Health Act 2004, which includes both health agencies and voluntary hospitals, bodies may not supplement approved rates of remuneration with either Exchequer funding or non-government sources of funding.
The Sunday People revealed how Jimmy Savile once told one of their journalists that he could fix anyone with just one phone call – to the IRA terrorists.
Savile said: “All I have to do is call my friends in the IRA. They’ll have someone waking up in hospital the next morning eating their breakfast through a f***ing straw.
“I know the IRA, men from the IRA, and you don’t need to ask these guys twice.
“I’m serious. Don’t f***ing think I’m not serious. I can get them done – just with a phone call. That’s all it takes, young man.”
Central Remedial Clinic founder Lady Valerie Goulding (Monckton) with then President Erskine Childers and Jimmy Savile. Savile also befriended Charles Haughey.
The Central Remedial Clinic, which Savile fundraised for…
The Irish government has been urged to investigate paedophile Jimmy Savile’s close associations with a children’s charity in Ireland by the man representing 176 of his victims in Britain.
Irish journalist Nicola Anderson has recalled an interview with Savile at the CRC in Clontarf on his last visit to Ireland in 2001.
During the interview Savile boasted of the number of girlfriends he had.
Anderson wrote in the Irish Independent: “In September 2001, I wrote that clad in a gob-smacking suit emblazoned with Superman cartoons, Jimmy Savile had “glided in the door of the clinic in Clontarf like true royalty.
“Some 13 years on, the man’s false sense of entitlement around the Central Remedial Clinic is what remains strongest in my mind. “Clearly, he considered it to be ‘his’ clinic and the staff to be ‘his’ staff.
“That is my chief memory of our encounter, along with Savile’s peculiar demeanour during our interview: his odd rambling speeches and the almost pathetic clinging to what he clearly saw as his glory days – but which has far, far more sinister connotations today. “‘You wouldn’t guess how many girlfriends I’ve had’, he told me in an outburst in the middle of that interview in which we had been discussing another topic entirely. “They were ‘countless’, he claimed. In my ignorance, I smiled politely, thinking that the man must be delusional. He was. They were not ‘girlfriends’ but victims.”
Solicitor Richard Scorer has told Irish media outlets that an investigation needs to look at Savile’s activities in Ireland.
Scorer has called on the Irish authorities to ‘dig deeper’ into the late Savile’s close associations with the Central Remedial Clinic in Clontarf.
Savile was a regular visitor to the Dublin clinic and spearheaded many fund raising events for the facility.
Ireland’s Health and Children’s ministers have planned to look at the many visits he made here in the 1970s.
Central Remedial Clinic was set up in April 1951 by Lady Valerie Goulding and Kathleen O’Rourke as a small non-residential treatment centre in a house in Upper Pembroke Street in the heart of Dublin
[Jimmy Savile with Central Remedial Clinic founder Lady Valerie Goulding (Monckton)]
Lady Valerie Goulding (Monckton)
Born Valerie Hamilton Monckton, she was the only daughter of Mary Adelaide Somes Colyer-Ferguson and Sir Walter Monckton (later 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley).
On account of her widespread popularity, in 1977 she was nominated by the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, to Seanad Éireann, where she worked to raise awareness of disability issues. She sought election to Dáil Éireann twice as a Fianna Fáil candidate, both times unsuccessfully. She was spoken of as a possible President of Ireland in 1983, along with former Nobel and Lenin Peace Prize winner Sean MacBride and former head of the International Olympic Committee Lord Killanin, should the president, Patrick Hillery, decline to seek a second term. (Hillery ultimately was re-elected).
Walter Turner Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley,
A lawyer, Monckton served as advisor to Edward VIII during the abdication crisis, having been Attorney General to the Duchy of Cornwall since 1932. He was Recorder of Hythe from 1930-37.
( she was his letter carrier between the palace and her father )
He worked in propaganda and information during World War II and became Solicitor General in Winston Churchill’s 1945 caretaker government, although he refused to join the Conservative Party. He finally joined after the war and became a Member of Parliament for Bristol West at a 1951 by-election. Churchill soon appointed him to the cabinet as Minister of Labour and National Service, in which post he served from 1951 to 1955. He was Anthony Eden’s Minister of Defence 1955–56, but was the only cabinet minister to oppose his Suez policy, and was moved to Paymaster-General 1956–57
He was promoted Major General in 1963, and became Army director of public relations, dealing with press scrutiny into the behaviour of soldiers in Germany in the aftermath of unhelpful comments from the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. He became Chief of Staff at the Headquarters of the British Army of the Rhine in 1965. He was appointed a Commander of the Belgian Order of the Crown in 1965 (Léopold III of Belgium was Colonel of his regiment), and Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1966. He left the Army in 1967, but was Colonel of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers from 1967 to 1973.
He is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Broderers,
an Officer of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem,
a Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta,
and a member of the Roman Catholic Mass Media Commission.
He is also a qualified Day Skipper with the Royal Yachting Association, and has been a Trustee of the Hales Trophy for the Blue Riband of the Atlantic since 1986.
In 1979, Monckton met Alfred Sherman, who co-founded the pro-Conservative think tank the Centre for Policy Studies with Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph in 1974.
Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (born 14 February 1952) is a British politician, public speaker,[1] hereditary peer, and former newspaper editor. He has worked for The Universe, The Sunday Telegraph, Today and Evening Standard newspapers. Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, he served in Conservative Central Office and worked for Margaret Thatcher’s Number 10 Policy Unit during the 1980s.
HRH and Rosa Monckton are amused by model
Her Niece
Rosa Monckton (“a close friend since the early 1980s“ of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein)
Rosa Monckton is the daughter of Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and was educated at the Ursuline Convent at Tildonk in Belgium.[1]
She is married to the journalist Dominic Lawson
Lawson was educated at Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford.
He is the elder son of Nigel Lawson, a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, and socialite Vanessa Salmon, heir to the Lyons Corner House empire
Thatcher and Lord Nigel Lawson
Lawson has several times been accused of working with MI6 (by for instance Richard Tomlinson), but has denied being an agent.[6]
From 1995 until 2005, Lawson was editor of The Sunday Telegraph. In 2000 the newspaper was named Newspaper of the Year at the British Press Awards. In 2006, he started to write columns for The Independent newspaper and in 2008, he became the main columnist for The Sunday Times.
Monckton was a friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. Regarding Diana’s alleged pregnancy at the time of her death, Monckton told a BBC documentary in December 2006 that Diana had had her period while they were on holiday together ten days before Diana died
Rosa Monckton has disclosed that someone close to her was involved with MI6.
Miss Monckton told the inquest into the princess’s death that she personally had “no connection with the security services” but that “someone close to me is connected with the SIS”
Viscount Monckton [his father attended a number of Pilgrims Society meetings], who acted as one of Kock’s patrons in 1967, was a director of Morrison’s company, and Morrison was an associate, too, of Jonathan Aitken [intel-connected; unofficial arms negotiator; head of the private, hard-right intelligence group Le Cercle] both before and at the time that Aitken was director of Astra’s BMARC [1980s]… Years later I bumped into Peter Shore [important politician and Privy Council member] in the changing rooms of the Roehampton Club… What I actually said to Shore was, ‘Why has the main witness not been interviewed [in the Pergau Dam/ Malaysian arms deal affair]?’ Shore, assuming that I meant Thatcher, began to reply – ‘It’s her prerogative as Prime Minister…” When I interrupted, telling him I meant Kock, Shore’s telling response was, ‘But that is another level of government altogether.'”
Chalfont was deputy chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority under Thatcher. Consultant to private security firm Zeus Security Consultants (this firm did high level government contract work), owned by Major Peter Hamilton, a close associate of Stephan Kock, the MI5, MI6, SAS agent who allegedly once headed a government assassination team, Group 13.
Stephan Kock, discussed on this thread previously, is also an ‘associate’ of Sir John Cuckney, Westland.
At the completion of the Fourteenth Annual Walk in aid of the Central Remedial Clinic in Clontarf, Jimmy Saville visited the CRC itself.
J Holland@Giantkiller173
The order had to involved Lord peter Brooke….the mechanics of prepping the order had to involved kenneth harvard Hind..then peter brookes PPS…no wonder Brooke was granted 24/7 police protection for the rest of his life.
Please ignore Tony Holland he if he tries to contact you .He is a former client convicted in1981 at Bradford Crown Court of receiving having admitted the offences to the police ,He appealed against his sentence but not his conviction which was reduced from 18months imprisonment to 6 months.I last saw him as I left the Court of Appeal in 1982. Following the death of one of the main prosecution witnesses in 1993 he has been abusing in different ways and now on the internet , the solicitors and counsel who represented him , the Judge and prosecutor . Somehow in 1982 he managed to get into Australia where he resides having written a book claiming to be an MI6 officer which was never mentioned at his trial .The essence of the book is that he was framed by the secret service who then connived in sending him to Australia He has stalked and abused the Judge counsel and his solicitor for 20 years. Ignore the ramblings of this man who is obsessed . He is currently the subject of investigation in the UK and Australia.If he sets foot in the UK he will be arrested. His most recent allegations against me are that the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe who murdered 13 women is innocent and I am covering up his wrongful conviction .This is despite the admissions made to the police psychiatrists and pleas of guilty to manslaughter in the trial on the basis of insanity rejected by the jury who convicted him of murder. He has been interviewed about the deaths of a further 17 women .
Sutcliffe and Savile
Detectives ‘had a cast made of Savile’s teeth’ to check against bite-marks left on bodies of Yorkshire Ripper victims
Police knew Savile used prostitutes, according to friend of dentist involved
Caldey Island: Compensation call for sex abuse victims
Dec 29 2017
A call has been made for the founding monastery to compensate people who were sexually abused by a monk in Wales.
A devotee of the abbey on Caldey Island said Scourmont Abbey in Chimay, Belgium, had a “moral and ethical duty” to take some responsibility for the offences of Father Thaddeus Kotik.
Teresa Elwes, who regularly visited Caldey Island, off Pembrokeshire, said she was horrified by the allegations.
Scourmont Abbey denied responsibility, saying Caldey was a separate entity.
Father Thaddeus, who lived on the island for 45 years before his death in 1992, is accused of sexually abusing several young girls during the 1970s and 1980s.
Six of his victims were compensated by Caldey Abbey in an out-of-court settlement in March. A number of others have since come forward with allegations.
It is understood the abbot of Scourmont Abbey denied any legal liability in the civil proceedings.
Ms Elwes, a supporter of Caldey Abbey, claimed Scourmont, which brews Chimay – one of Belgium’s most popular beers – could afford to compensate victims more adequately.
She said: “When abuse is revealed you have to do your utmost to apologise, take responsibility, provide compensation and do everything you can for the victims.
“If [Scourmont] said ‘not our problem’ I’d say that’s pretty disingenuous… there are very strong links between Caldey and Scourmont.
“Whether they have a legal duty or not, they have a moral and ethical duty to make sure people are properly cared for and compensated… these people’s lives have been ruined.”
BBC Wales previously reported the former abbot of Caldey, Brother Robert O’Brien, became aware of allegations against Kotik in 1990 but did not refer them to police.
Ms Elwes, a former forensic psychologist who regularly visited Caldey Island from the age of 14 into her 20s, claims Brother Robert, who died in 2009, was appointed by Scourmont.
A book about Caldey Abbey, published in 1996, said the authority for the monastery reverted to Scourmont after the former abbot, Dom James, died.
The book stated the then-abbot of Scourmont, Dom Guerric Baudet, appointed Brother Robert.
But this is disputed by the present abbot, Dom Armand Veilleux, who said Brother Robert was “elected” by the Caldey community.
Scourmont established a monastery on Caldey in 1929 and the earliest monks there were Belgian – some were still members of the Caldey community at the time of the alleged abuse.
Although Caldey Abbey became autonomous from the Belgian abbey in the mid-1930s, Ms Elwes points to books about the island which refer to Scourmont’s ongoing financial support for the abbey into the 1970s.
After joining Caldey Abbey, Father Thaddeus spent time at Scourmont as part of his training.
BBC Wales has contacted Dom Armand Veilleux asking him to address these points, but has not received a response.
Ms Elwes, from London, said she met Father Thaddeus on occasions when visiting the island, but was not among his victims.
“I had a wonderful and quite deeply spiritual experience of Caldey, so to think there was a monk doing this is shocking,” she added.
Former Lib Dem leader “Nick Clegg” to receive knighthood the same person who refused to hold independent inquiry into former MP Cyril Smith involvement in child abuse and what Former Leader David Steele KNEW at that time
‘The disappearances raised fears over how government ministries can remove official papers long after they have been declassified and made available to the public’
Official papers kept secret for 30 years are dominated by issues connected to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
Christmas 1971: I wonder if Kincora featured in his visit?
The Northern Ireland file said to have been “misplaced” while on loan back to the government dates back to the Heath era, rather than the Thatcher era.
Elite paedophiles and CSA at Kincora … This gov have a habit of losing abuse files and appointing inappropriate investigation heads
Savile and the Falklands
Jimmy Savile declared that he had been in Margaret Thatcher’s company on Sunday 2nd May 1982. Whilst walking together, on receipt of a note her face had turned ashen. Jimmy Savile had looked at her with concern “What is the matter, Margaret”, he said. ” The Belgrano has been sunk”, was her reply.
Thatcher appeared to have no emotional reaction after the order was given to sink the Argentine cruiser, the General Belgrano, killing 323 people on board.
Pope takes part in disgraced Cardinal Law’s funeral
Pope Francis prayed Thursday for a merciful final judgment for Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of the Catholic Church’s failure to protect children from pedophile priests and its arrogance in safeguarding its own reputation at all costs.
The dean of the college of cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, celebrated the funeral Mass, along with some 30 other cardinals, and eulogized Law without making any mention of the scandal.
US Ambassador-designate Callista Gingrich and her husband, Newt, as well as some other members of the diplomatic corps were on hand in the pews, along with the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
Law, who died Wednesday at age 86, resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston in 2002 after revelations that he covered up for dozens of priests who raped and sexually molested children, moving them to different parishes without telling parents or police.
St. John Paul II’s decision to promote Law to head a major Rome basilica in 2004 reinforced the impression that the Vatican — which had turned a blind eye to abuse for decades — still hadn’t grasped the scale of the problem, the trauma it caused its victims, and the moral credibility it had lost as a result.
Francis has inherited that legacy and has promised ‘‘zero tolerance’’ for abuse. But his own record has been marked by questionable appointments, a reneged proposal to create a Vatican tribunal to prosecute negligent bishops like Law, and giving the issue less urgency than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Just this week, Francis’ much-hyped commission of experts to advise the church on keeping children safe was allowed to lapse after its initial three-year mandate.
Sodano was John Paul’s powerful secretary of state at the time of Law’s downfall and would have been instrumental in the decisions the Vatican took in those years to deal with the burgeoning scandal.
But Sodano himself has a tainted legacy, having been a key supporter of the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the drug-addicted founder of the Legion of Christ religious order who sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children. It was only after John Paul died and Sodano was sidelined that Benedict ordered Maciel to live a lifetime of ‘‘penance and prayer’’ for his crimes.
The alleged assaults were said to have taken place in Drake’s Island tunnels and in dark rooms at the Royal William Yard, all involving volunteers for a Plymouth charity.
The jury was sent out shortly before midday on Monday to consider its verdict.
Howeson, 68, denied 11 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted buggery, dating from 1985 and 1994.
udge Horton told Howeson that he was going to be sent to prison. He gave the defendant the chance to speak to a probation officer and face up to his guilt.
Daniel Janner, QC for Howeson, replied: “The defendant’s position remains the same. He didn’t commit these offences and he has been wrongly convicted.”
Judge Horton adjourned the case until February 2 when Howeson will be sentenced or a date will be set for a new trial.
Ex-priest Laurence Soper jailed for sexually abusing boys
21 Dec 2017
An ex-Catholic priest who abused boys at a London school in the 1970s and 1980s has been jailed for 18 years.
Laurence Soper, 74, fled to Kosovo with £182,000 from the Vatican bank in a bid to avoid prosecution for abusing boys at the independent St Benedict’s School, in Ealing, where he taught.
He was extradited to face 19 charges of indecent and serious sexual assault against 10 former pupils.
He is the fourth man to be convicted of molesting children at the school.
Sentencing, Judge Anthony Bate said Soper’s conduct was “the most appalling breach of trust” and he had “subverted the rules of the Benedictine order and teachings of the Catholic Church”.
He said the former abbot and headmaster’s life would now be “overshadowed by the proven catalogue of vile abuse”.
Prosecutor Gillian Etherton QC told how the victims were subjected to “sadistic” beatings by Soper for “fake reasons” and on many occasions “with what can only have been a sexual motive”.
The “reasons” included kicking a football in the wrong direction, failing to use double margins and using the wrong staircase.
St Benedict’s apologised unreservedly for the “serious wrongs of the past”.
Soper’s victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were supported by relatives in court when he was sentenced earlier.
One victim suffered from nightmares and flashbacks after the abuse, but chose not to come forward out of fear of more beating, the jury heard during the trial.
WESTMINSTER SLEAZE: The investigation into disgraced Keith Vaz, the Labour MP accused of paying for rent boys & was taped discussing buying cocaine, has been suspended… because he’s not very well.
have we so quickly moved from health being a factor in sentencing , to health being a factor in decision to prosecute and now health being factor in whether to investigate? Perhaps MPs could just be given doctors note in advance to excuse them for anything?
Dame Alun Roberts
So you’re being investigated for stealing a Mars bar from the local newsagent and have a medical condition? Talk to your solicitor about Lex Vaz. I’m sure it will apply to you, too!
Somehow reminiscent of Vaz’s mate Janner, don’t you think?
I simply don’t get it: Labour suspends MPs and aides like a string of pearls yet Keith Vaz offers to buy drugs for his rentboys and gets off scot-free! What is it about that man?
HRH Crafty Muvva@craftymuvva
Is he still undertaking his parliamentary duties? If so there’s no reason for the investigation to be halted.
Andrew Bridgen @ABridgen
I instigated the complaint into Keith Vaz in Sept 2016. If more than 15 months later he is not fit to be held to the standards expected of a Parliamentarian, then he’s not fit enough to be a Parliamentarian and we should be expecting a by-election in Leicester East
Andy O’Brien@Camelot_1966
John Bercow blocked Andrew Bridgen MP from revealing investigation into Keith Vaz after accepting £41,000 in donations with links to Keith Vaz
He’s not dead, he’s still a working MP, investigation should continue.
Cathy Higgins….@justmebeingme4
How can a guy with the chequered background like Keith Vaz get away with corruption & sleaze 4 so long?…Could the answer be he has Shit on all of @UKParliament? In 450 pages, the damning verdict on bullying Vaz is laid bare by MPs
Keith Vaz has been bloody busy for a man too ill to be investigated by Parliamentary Standards.
Abused Mind@AbusedMind1
Wonder if he will be claiming expenses for all this work , while too ill to answer questions ….
HRH Crafty Muvva
Is it Vaz who is unwell, or the Parliamentary Commissioner?
Most peculiar…
Andre Walkerr @andrejpwalker4
On the day Damian Green is sacked for looking at porn. Keith Vaz is allowed to keep his job despite using rent boys. Amazing to see consistency in action
The 61-year-old is the third Cabinet minister after Sir Michael Fallon and Priti Patel to quit in just seven weeks. But the timing of Mrs May’s decision to accept his resignation, just before the Christmas holiday, sparked criticism that she was too weak to sack him when the spotlight was on him over the pornography claims.
Just hours earlier, Mr Green had sat next to Mrs May at the final PMQs of 2017. Photographers had later arrived at Downing Street yesterday to take pictures of the Cabinet discussing Brexit but were mysteriously booted out 10 minutes beforehand. Mr Green would have been expecting to been by the PM’s side.
The inquiry by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood.
David Davis had vowed to quit if Mr Green was sacked over the porn claims. But in yet another Tory U-turn, a spokesman said the Brexit Secretary would not be leaving.
Damian Green sacked after ‘misleading statements’ on porn claims
20 DEC 2017
Damian Green, one of Theresa May’s closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.
He was “asked to quit” after he was found to have made “inaccurate and misleading” statements about what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.
He also apologised for making writer Kate Maltby feel uncomfortable in 2015.
Laura Kuenssberg said the PM “had little choice but to ask him to go”.
The BBC’s political editor said the departure of a close friend left Mrs May a “lonelier figure”.
The 61-year old Mr Green, who as first secretary of state was effectively the PM’s deputy, is the third cabinet minister to resign in the space of two months, Michael Fallon and Priti Patel having both quit in November.
In her written response, Mrs May expressed “deep regret” at Mr Green’s departure but said his actions “fell short” of the conduct expected of a cabinet minister.
He had been under investigation regarding allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards journalist and Tory activist Ms Maltby. He denied suggestions that he made unwanted advances towards her in 2015.
He also denied that he had either downloaded or viewed pornography on a computer removed from his Commons office in 2008.
An official report by the Cabinet Office found that two statements he had made in November about being unaware pornographic material had been found on a computer in his office were “inaccurate and misleading” and constituted a breach of the ministerial code.
The report also found that although there were “competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings” between himself and Ms Maltby, the investigation found her account “to be plausible”.
Her parents, Colin and Victoria Maltby, said in a statement they were not surprised to find that the inquiry found Mr Green to have been “untruthful as a minister, nor to that they found our daughter to be a plausible witness”.
They praised their 31-year-old daughter for her courage in speaking out about the “abuse of authority”.
Ms Maltby is not commenting on Mr Green’s resignation until she receives more details from the Cabinet Office.
In his resignation letter, Mr Green said statements he made about what he knew about the pornography could have been “clearer”, conceding his lawyers had been informed by lawyers for the Met Police about their initial discovery in 2008 and the police had also raised the matter within him in a phone call in 2013.
“I apologise that my statements were misleading on this point,” he said.
Damian Green has never been a politician with a huge public persona, or even a hugely well-known character.
But he was an extremely important ally of Theresa May. Not just a political friend but a genuine one, close to her for decades.
Ok Damian Green has been given the boot (temporarily) so it looks good&proper, don’t know about anyone else but I want to know exactly what Genre of Porn he was watching, it’s important, we need to know the mind set of the Man, is he a risk in society ? should he still be an MP?
Truthseeker@thewakeupcall09
acts which result in or are likely to result in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals; bestiality; or necrophilia. They also provide for the exclusion of classified films etc. and set out defences and the penalties for the offence. https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extreme-pornography…
Joseph Ducreux@yawnanothertwit
How can a secure government network access porn websites?
Simon Worrall@sworrall
Quite so. My employer, like many, uses a blocker device which prevents staff access to entire categories of disreputable websites. As you say it would be flagged immediately.
Jon Styler: £140,000 payouts to alleged abuse victims
19 December 2017
Solicitors representing the eight claimants said Newport council has been unable to find Mr Styler’s old personnel record.
They also claim other education records important to the cases were “lost”.
Jon Styler, who denied all the allegations, hanged himself in 2007
Eight men allegedly abused by a head teacher thought to be one of Wales’ most prolific paedophiles have received £140,000 in settlements.
Jon Styler is said to have abused boys in schools in Newport and Worcestershire in the 1970s and 1980s.
Newport council has agreed out-of-court settlements with the men, with no admission of liability, but said it could not comment further.
A spokesman said: “However, we would like to stress that the allegations in relation to Mr Styler are historical and there are no links between the schools where he taught many decades ago and those schools today.”
Solicitors believe Mr Styler may be one of Wales’ most-prolific sex offenders, with more than 100 victims.
Life on the Grand Scale featuring Jon Styler at the piano
Styler was well-known in his home city of Newport. He was a pianist and as a performer – his name on the billing was guaranteed to pull in an audience.
Sad also to report the death in August 2007 of pianist Jon Styler, who worked with Gerri Smith in The Dorothy Squires Story, which Gerri performed at the Edinburgh Festival and toured in 1999 including a performance at London s Westminster Theatre.
Jon died on 14 August and Gerri says: Jon was an inspirational piano player and, without him, I would never have considered putting the show on. We had a great time rehearsing and performing the show, and both of us had some truly eerie moments when we truly thought Dot was with us along the way.
Jon was at my birthday party of 16 July, and last New Year s Eve we were together performing Say It With Flowers. I will miss him always.
He raised concerns in 1974 with governors, councillors and his union and he had a meeting with a senior official at the Education dept at the Gwent County Council
Styler’s employer Gwent Education Dept
Malpas Church in Wales jnr and infants School in Newport
Newport council inherited liability from the old Gwent County Council, which employed Mr Styler when he worked in Wales. Several men have said they were abused by Mr Styler when he was head teacher at the Malpas Church in Wales Primary School in the 1970s.
He has been described as a well-known, charismatic figure who specialised in teaching music and drama, who often taught children alone in his office
One man, who wants to remain anonymous, said he was violently sexually assaulted by Mr Styler as a child.
He said: “This man was a monster, he took advantage of young boys and was able to manipulate staff out of the way for his own sexual gratification.
“I endured terrible sexual attacks against me as a child – I was sexually attacked in a caravan and it was absolutely horrendous.”
He said he has given his money – tens of thousands of pounds – to relatives and they do not know where it has come from.
Jon Styler highlighted in a photograph of Bowbrook private school pupils in the late 1980s
There is at least one more claim ongoing against Newport council.
Solicitors said they have been contacted by men from all over the world.
Rhys Dando, from the law firm Collingbourne Hennah, negotiated many of the settlements and believes there could be more to come.
“This is very much a live issue in our eyes, clients are making contact with us fairly regularly, certainly we’re getting further accounts of experiences,” he said.
“It appears these claims could be widespread and will continue to occur over the next few years.”
Styler had been arrested on suspicion of similar offences allegedly committed 27 years earlier.
The Argus reported that authorities, including the church, governors, unions and the former Gwent County Council allegedly knew about the concerns after a former senior staff member at the school reported his concerns.
Another was abused by Styler at St Julian’s Junior School in the 1960s
10 November 2015
Styler was arrested in 2007 following an allegation of sexual abuse made against him during his time teaching at the Church in Wales school.
However, an investigation by the BBC show has now discovered that police investigating the allegations failed to take into account claims against Styler that were logged two years earlier.
A man, who cannot be named but who spoke to the programme, claims he went to Gwent Police in 2005 claiming he and his brother – a former police officer – were targeted by Styler in the headteacher’s office.
But the man decided at the time not to pursue the matter as a formal complaint because of concerns about the impact a police probe might have on his brother’s career and family.
Despite this, his brother – a police officer at the time – said this information should have been kept on file as a matter of course for intelligence.
He said: ‘It’s such a shame. Little things, details matter in policing. They matter enormously. So why wasn’t that link made? Why wasn’t there an investigation into other teachers from the school? Why weren’t questions asked, even in 2007?’
Three weeks after Week In Week Out contacted Gwent Police, a report was found relating to the allegation made in 2005 against Styler.
Gwent Police has now launched an internal review as a result of the programme’s investigation, which will look into why these allegations did not come to light at the time of Styler’s arrest in 2007.
Newport City Council social services department should also have a log that Gwent Police contacted the authority in 2005 and 2007 but it told the BBC programme that no such record can be found.
The authority also said it has no record of Styler’s personnel files, which it would have inherited from Gwent County Council following local government reorganisation.
Lyndon Millinship, a former deputy headteacher at the school in Malpas, has spoken publicly for the first time about the historic abuse allegations against Styler.
He said he raised concerns with Gwent County Council and governors at the school about Styler’s behaviour in the late 1970s – but Styler was allowed to continue teaching.
Mr Millinship said he was disappointed that no one in authority spoke to the children back then.
‘In hindsight I think you can say it was very costly,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing really: they could have spoken to the children quite easily as long as the parents were present every time.’
He also said he would have been happy to speak to the police in 2005 or 2007 if he had been contacted.
There are now numerous allegations made against Styler spanning 25 years.
The latest person to come forward is a former pupil of Bowbrook School in Hartlebury, Worcester who claims he was assaulted during the 1980s. Bowbrook private school now no longer exists.
In August, another alleged victim – Jeffrey Parry, 50, from Pontypool – came forward to claim he was sexually abused by Styler during his final year at the Church in Wales school in 1975/76.
He claimed that Styler used extra reading sessions in his office, which had a red/green light outside his door, so that he would not be disturbed.
Mr Parry, who was a member of the school choir under Styler’s watch, said that Styler ‘ruled the school with an iron rod’ and was ‘very stern’.
He told the South Wales Argus that Styler would run his hand up and down his right leg and thigh before abusing him.
At the time, a spokeswoman for the Church in Wales said: ‘In the 1970s the Church in Wales didn’t have the formal safeguarding policies it has in place today.
‘However, to ensure that no allegations of sexual abuse had not been dealt with we launched a historic case review in 2009 which involved an independent examination of all clergy files – both those serving and those retired.
‘We also launched an appeal and telephone helpline for people to report any concerns of abuse. The results of that review were published in March 2011.
‘We have no record on our files of abuse claims against Mr Styler.’
Sally Holland, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, told the latest BBC investigation that the 2004 Clywch Report made clear recommendations about how all public bodies should log and share information on child sex abuse cases.
She said he believes the way the Styler case has been handled should be looked at further.
‘This case fits for me exactly within the Goddard inquiry, that’s a general inquiry into historic sexual abuse claims for the whole of England and Wales’, she said. ‘Its whole intention is to look at where institutions and organisations may have let down children.
‘I’d be absolutely supportive of any of the victims who wished to refer the case forward and my office would be prepared to support them in doing that.’
Ian Johnson, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent, said mistakes might have been made in the past, but lessons have been learned and he is urging any victims of historical abuse to come forward.
‘Part of the internal investigation now will look at the possibility of there being other cases,’ he said. ‘You need to sit down and put process and procedures in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
Solicitor Mr Collingbourne also told the programme that the alleged victims did not complain at the time because they did not think their stories would be believed.
But today they are determined to get answers, he said.
‘This is their way of exorcising their demons really,’ he added. ‘It’s a chapter of a book that has remained open all their life and they want to close it.’
He is now bringing a case against Newport City Council on behalf of former pupils alleging that Styler may have been stopped earlier.
It is understood a formal complaint has also been made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission regarding Gwent Police’s handling of the case.
Church in Wales school declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline regarding the latest allegations about Styler.
Week In Week Out: My Teacher the Paedophile, Tuesday, November 10, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm.
Contact had been made by Gwent Police with other police forces in Hereford and Worcestershire, Bedfordshire and Surrey.
Styler was then arrested and just as the investigation was widening to other schools he had worked at, including Brynglas Primary School and Bowbrook Private School, the former head teacher was due to be rebailed.
Styler, who lived alone at Queens Hill Crescent in Newport, had not yet been charged and on the day he was due to surrender bail, he committed suicide.
MP says he doesn’t remember a hint of scandal when Jon Styler was headteacher
NEWPORT West MP Paul Flynn, who interviewed the former headteacher accused of abusing children at a Malpas primary school, said he did not remember a “whisper of scandal” at the time.
Yesterday the Argus revealed more allegations against Jon Styler, who allegedly molested boys at Malpas Church in Wales School during the 1970s.
Mr Styler, who lived alone on Queen’s Hill Crescent in Newport, committed suicide in 2007 while on police bail.
Mr Flynn MP was councillor for Malpas at the time Jon Styler applied for the leadership post.
In a 2007 blog post, he said: “Jon Styler is dead. I interviewed him in 1972 when he was applying for the headship of Malpas Church in Wales School. He was a very talented and polished 30 year old teacher. It was a bold decision to give him the headship at such an early age.
“He had a long and brilliant career as a teacher and a teacher composer. He added joy and lustre to many lives. Now he has taken his life at the age of 65. The report said that he faced a charge for an offence alleged 27 years ago. He strenuously denied any guilt.
“There are many hundreds of past pupils and his many friends who will be greatly saddened by his passing.”
A former colleague has claimed that concerns about Mr Styler were raised with authorities including Gwent County Council and the church but nothing was done.
Speaking after Wednesday’s interview with an alleged victim appeared in the Argus, Mr Flynn MP said: “I was horrified to read the allegations and I don’t remember a whisper of scandal at the time.”
Collingbourne Hennah Law solicitors, representing the alleged victim, say they have been contacted by other former pupils about abuse at the school since the Argus printed his allegations.
Mr Styler allegedly picked “attractive” young boys to read to him in private in his study, placing a red light next to the door which meant he should not be disturbed.
A former colleague claimed: “I would disregard this and enter the study without notice where I would continue to witness Mr Styler reading with the children while they were sitting between his legs.
SEX abuse claims against a teacher and TV dramatist were covered up, claims Welsh children’s commissioner Peter Clarke.
20 APR 2013
SEX abuse claims against a teacher and TV dramatist were covered up, claims Welsh children’s commissioner Peter Clarke.
One official, David Matthews, failed in his duty of care so badly that he may have committed a criminal offence, said Mr Clarke .
Yesterday he unveiled his long-awaited report, Clywch (Listen), into the activities of John Owen, a teacher at Rhydfelen school in Pontypridd, South Wales, between 1975 and 1991.
The report makes recommendations which will have implications for all education authorities in Wales.
Mr Clarke recommends setting up of a new tribunal system to deal with disciplinary complaints against teachers.
He said the Welsh Assembly Government should establish a task force to look into establishing these tribunals.
John Owen, who went on to became a successful TV dramatist, killed himself in 2001, aged 47, the day before his trial on five charges of sexual abuse against boys was due to begin.
Detailed allegations of sexual abuse by Owen were made by pupils at the school in late 1990 and early 1991, but there was a failure to pass on information to the police and to the school governors.
Six pupils made allegations at that time. Police were eventually called in by a parent, but Mr Owen was not charged.
In 2001 four men made further allegations against Owen relating to their time at Rhydfelen. A fresh police investigation led to Owen being charged.
The report found:
* Then director of education at Mid Glamorgan Council Edwin Roberts and area director of education David Matthews led a “consistent and successful effort” to deny the school governors access to information about Owen.
* Mr Roberts “did not bother” to establish the details of the allegations and did a deal with Mr Owen whereby the teacher resigned and the disciplinary procedure stopped. Mr Clarke calls this “grossly irresponsible”.
* Little was done despite a memo, prepared for Mr Matthews in 1991, from senior teachers at Rhydfelen outlining their very serious concerns about Owen’s behaviour and the children’s allegations.
* The WJEC exam board did little despite individual examiners stopping Owen’s drama practicals because they were so obscene and a letter from a mother objecting to an obscene song set for a drama exam.
* Mr Matthews did not contact police or social services in January 1991 despite spending five days at the school re-interviewing pupils and being handed the teachers’ memo.
Mr Matthews is currently director of education at Bridgend Council. Mr Roberts has retired.
The allegations, made in January 1991, include claims that Owen had forced pupils to dance naked in drama practicals, and that he abused children at his home. Pupils were also alleged to have been told to carry out sexual acts with each other during drama classes and exams.
Mr Clarke says: “In and since 1991 there have been allegations circulating in private and in public of a cover-up relating to Mr Owen… I find that the action of the local education authority in 1991 did indeed amount to a collection of acts and omissions that may accurately be so described.”
In a statement issued through his solicitor, Mr Matthews said: “I have spent my entire career promoting the welfare of children and I have every sympathy with the objectives that the commissioner is trying to achieve.
“I strongly believe however that many of his findings in this instance are unjustified and that he has ignored his statement of procedures in making them. The report is riddled with inconsistencies and judgments based on opinions and not facts.”
Wales’s education minister Jane Davidson said the report was “deeply disturbing”.
She said it was essential schools and LEAs had clearer procedures in place, and that there “must be action” from the WJEC to improve its procedures.
The Assembly is to debate the report’s findings in September.
Suicide after arrest
JOHN Arwyn Owen, the domineering drama teacher who went on to create a successful TV teenage drama, created a cult around himself which allowed him to groom children for abuse.
Owen killed himself at a caravan in Trecco Bay, South Wales, in October 2001, the day before his trial on five charges of sexual abuse was due to begin.
He had been a teacher at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen, Pontypridd, between 1974 and 1991, at one stage holding the post of acting deputy head.
He gained a reputation for being different from the other teachers, sometimes wearing a black gown and metal-capped boots.
In November 1983, a cleaning lady burst into Owen’s office and found one boy sitting semi-naked on his lap. Owen was warned about his future conduct but no further action was taken.
Allegations eventually led Owen to resign in 1991, but, following a deal with education director Edwin Roberts, the disciplinary inquiry into his behaviour was stopped.
The allegations included that he suggested pupils touch each other sexually during drama practicals, and that the material he prepared for pupils was obscene.
The inquiry heard testimony from one female pupil who alleges she was raped by Owen after refusing to perform a sex act on another pupil.
After he left the school, Owen wrote television drama series, Pam Fi Duw? (Lord, why me?).
But in May 2001 four young men walked into Pontypridd Police Station, and made further allegations against Owen relating to their time at Ysgol Rhydfelen.
He was arrested in September and killed himself a month later.
Son of Greggs bakery founder, 76, who was convicted of indecently assaulting boys over three decades has five years slashed from jail sentence
Colin Gregg from Newcastle had been jailed for 13-and-a-half years in March
He had been found guilty of nine counts of indecent assault against four boys
Gregg, 76, appealed his conviction and sentence over the historic sex abuse
Appeals court judges in London reduced his jail term to eight-and-a-half years
19 December 2017
The son of the founder of the Greggs bakery empire has had his jail sentence for indecently assaulting young boys cut by five years.
Colin Gregg, 76, of Home Steadings, Gosforth, Newcastle, was found guilty of nine counts of indecent assault committed against four boys over three decades and was sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in March.
Gregg, who helped build up the family business and also worked as a social worker, teacher and headmaster, lost a bid to have his convictions overturned at London‘s Court of Appeal on Tuesday.
But senior judges said his jail term, imposed at Newcastle Crown Court, was ‘too long’ and reduced it to eight-and-a-half years.
Gregg, who watched the proceedings over a video link from prison, was said to have played a ‘significant part’ in the expansion and success of his family’s business.
He was also a well-respected member of the community and had raised thousands of pounds for charitable causes before his convictions.
Allegations were first made against Gregg by a young boy in the 1990s and he stood trial, but was cleared at that time.
During his trial earlier this year he denied all the charges, claiming he was the victim of a ‘witch-hunt’ and the complainants wanted compensation.
Sasha Wass QC, representing him at the Appeal Court, argued his sentence was excessive in light of the fact his offending was not in the most serious category.
Lord Justice Davis, sitting with Mrs Justice Nicola Davies and Judge Nicholas Dean QC, said the appeal against sentence must be allowed.
He added: ‘Having reflected upon the matter, the view of this court is that a total sentence of eight-and-a-half years is appropriate for this offending and for this offender.’
Medomsley detention centre: Former officers in court
19 Dec 2017
Seven former officers at a youth detention centre have appeared in court charged with abusing inmates during the 1970s and 1980s.
Nearly 1,400 men have claimed they were abused at Medomsley, in County Durham.
The seven men have been charged with misconduct and physical abuse, with four also accused of sex offences.
No pleas were entered at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court and they were bailed to appear before Teesside Crown Court on 16 January.
The defendants and their charges are:
Kevin Blakey, 65, two counts of misconduct, two counts of wounding, and two of assault
Alan Bramley, 69, misconduct, wounding, and two counts of assault
Johnson Brian Greenwell, 70, misconduct, buggery, false imprisonment, and two counts of assault
David McClure, 62, misconduct, wounding, and four counts of assault
John McGee, 73, misconduct, four counts of assault, two counts of indecent assault, buggery, and wounding
Christopher Onslow, 71, two counts of misconduct, two of buggery, two counts of wounding, two counts of wounding with intent, three counts of assault, and one of indecent assault
Neil Sowerby, 60, misconduct, three counts of buggery, two counts of assault and four counts of indecent assault
Following an application on their behalf, the court did not release their addresses.
Former Barclays City lawyer is cleared of having indecent pictures of children after blaming a Grindr ‘chem-sex’ party guest
Tim Varchmin, 44, cleared at Old Bailey of having indecent images of children
Varchmin previously worked as lawyer for JP Morgan and Clifford Chance
Police also found crystal meth and crack pipe at his home in Lancaster Gate
18 December 2017
A former Barclays banker and judge has been found not guilty of possessing indecent images of children after he blamed a Grindr ‘chem-sex’ party guest.
Tim Varchmin, 44, who worked as a civil and criminal law judge in Germany before securing jobs with JP Morgan and Clifford Chance, was accused of having more than 100 indecent images of children on his computer and phone.
Officers raided his luxury flat in Lancaster Gate, West London, in October 2014 where they found 830 milligrams of the class A drug crystal meth and a crack pipe on his coffee table.
Varchmin denied any wrongdoing, saying he would invite men for drugs and sex parties through the dating app Grindr and allow them to do as they pleased.
He began to host the parties with his former German boyfriend Jacob after learning they both caught a drug resistant strain of HIV, where Varchmin admitted he had unprotected sex with men.
Varchmin told the court: ‘It is a life-changing event. It’s something you have to come to terms with. That bonded us together but at the time we were fighting over it. We developed a more aggressive sexual life.
‘We had the feeling that now these stages of HIV were not a concern any more, we could have more sex with other men, unprotected sex as well. That was our idea.’
Following a lengthy and drawn-out legal battle, Varchmin was found not guilty of seven charges of possessing indecent images of children and possessing 830 milligrams of crystal meth after three hours of deliberation by the jury.
Sky Broadband alerted the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection team regarding suspicious searches on Varchamin’s computer.
The court was told how officers carried out a coordinated raid at Varchmin’s home addresses in Lancaster Gate and Edgware Road, as well as his office in Canary Wharf.
Jurors were told how officers ‘pounded on the door’ for five minutes and then smashed the door down when no-one answered. Upon entering, they found 45,000 images and 106 movies on his iPhone and Apple computer, the vast majority of which were ‘adult porn’.
Varchmin pleaded that the crack pipe and crystal meth was not his, and that he only took GHB.
Prosecutor Roger Daniells-Smith said Varchmin had to ‘take responsibility’ for allowing people to come into his house.
He said: ‘If you lie with dogs, you get fleas. If you allow people you do not know to come and use your equipment, you have to be responsible for that equipment.’
Daniells-Smith said the defendent, who was born in Germany, had searched the internet for indecent images of children using Germany words, although Varchmin claimed is could have been his ex-boyfriend.
Speaking following the case, Varchmin said: ‘I am grateful that having been so badly let down by those I once trusted, the trust I chose to place in the jury has been repaid.
‘It is absolutely correct that the police act to protect children and minors from sexual abuse. It is absolutely right that those who perpetrate and view sexual abuse of children are prosecuted with vigour.
‘But it is disproportionate to prosecute every case simply as a point of policy where the evidence against a single individual is so weak and where any number of people could have committed the crime.
‘My mistake was to react badly to my HIV diagnosis, to trust those who did not deserve to be trusted and to find solace from the shock of my illness in the self-destructive world of chem-sex.’
Varchmin worked as a civil and criminal law judge in Germany before securing banking jobs with Barclays, JP Morgan and Clifford Chance
Downside head ‘may have burnt evidence of sexual abuse’
16 DEC 2017
Five years ago, the headmaster of a leading public school made trips with a loaded wheelbarrow to a distant part of its grounds, where he made a bonfire. Consumed in its flames were staff files dating back to the early 1980s.
Father Leo Maidlow Davis destroyed files
Father Leo Maidlow Davis, 63, is today the senior monk at Downside Abbey. In 2012 he was in charge of its neighbouring boarding school. The fire may have destroyed evidence of child sexual abuse. The monk was one of the senior Benedictines who gave evidence during three weeks of hearings that ended yesterday at the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
Their focus was two fee-paying schools, Downside, in Somerset, and Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, chosen by the inquiry as a case study in its wider investigation into the Catholic church. Sworn testimony came from monks, former pupils, lay staff, police officers and safeguarding experts. No school bonfire could cleanse the sins they revealed.
In his opening statement a lawyer representing abuse survivors warned of the “beguiling charm” of lauded schools in beautiful surroundings, where robed monks invited and received a high degree of trust. Such institutions promised “a Harry Potter world” that hid, in the words of a former Downside abbot, a “heart of darkness”.
At Ampleforth, about 40 monks and teachers have been accused of sexually abusing children since the 1960s. When police investigated sex offences at Downside in 2010, it emerged that “historic allegations and concerns” had been raised about 16 of its 23 monks.
The inquiry heard of a locked basement room at Downside, used by monks to watch personal videos. It learnt of brown envelopes containing allegations against monks that were locked in the abbot’s safe. Victims described childhood ordeals. Naked boys were taken into monks’ beds. Some were abused so often that it became routine. It was a world in which paedophiles flourished.
That there were child sex crimes at boarding schools is no secret. What shocked observers were the measures taken by Benedictine leaders to protect child abusers. From the Children Act 1989 onwards, the “paramountcy principle” has been central to safeguarding: the welfare of a child must be the primary consideration. The inquiry heard that when a Benedictine was accused of sex abuse it was often the monk’s welfare that took priority.
Each Benedictine monastery is self-governing, headed by an abbot who, within its grounds, holds the place of Christ. Father Timothy Wright, abbot of Ampleforth from 1997 to 2005, wrote in a letter in 2003 that for monastic brethren the abbot was a “trusted confidante”. Father Timothy’s relationship with police and social services was described by his successor, Father Cuthbert Madden, as “very uneasy, if not profoundly secretive”.
Father Charles Fitzgerald-Lombard, abbot of Downside from 1990 to 1998, was asked to whom the abbot was answerable. “Apart from the Almighty, not a lot,” he said, explaining that abbots since medieval times have enjoyed “more or less the status of bishops within their own territory”, which was “a sort of exempt enclave”.
Father Charles, 76, was among three Downside abbots accused by Father Aidan Bellenger, in a private letter, of tolerating child abuse. Father Aidan, abbot from 2006 to 2014, said his predecessors “protected and encouraged” paedophile monks.
Wrongdoers at both schools, including Father Anselm Hurt, brother of the late actor John Hurt, were quietly moved between Benedictine monasteries and parishes.
Reference was made to instructions from Rome to destroy documents that were damaging to priests. Father Leo insisted that his decision to make a bonfire of Downside’s staff files was prompted by a desire to “get rid of unnecessary old material”. He accepted that the files should, under safeguarding requirements, have been kept for 70 years, conceding that he may have unintentionally destroyed information about child abuse.
Richard Scorer, a child abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon who represents 29 survivors of Benedictine abuse, said the hearings exposed an organisation “pervaded by casual disregard for the most basic norms of child protection”.
The inquiry is due to produce an interim report next year.
Take a difficult teenager, send him to a top boarding school charging thousands of dollars a year, and watch as he blossoms into a high-achieving advertisement for good education.
That was the idea behind a British TV show that plucked 14-year-old Ryan Bell from a south London housing project and paid for him to attend the exclusive Downside School in western England.
For nearly two years, the experiment seemed to work: Bell, expelled from his previous school for disruptive behavior and considered unteachable, became a star pupil at Downside. He outperformed classmates in biology and Latin and excelled at rugby.
Ryan’s story was part of a television series called “Second Chance” that was broadcast by Britain’s Channel 4.
But the TV fairy tale turned sour this week when the $24,000-a-year school run by Benedictine monks expelled Bell, now 16, after a Sunday afternoon drinking binge sent him to a hospital with alcohol poisoning.
“Since this is Ryan’s third suspension for a serious breach of school regulations, I have decided with regret that Ryan will not be readmitted to Downside,” headmaster Leo Maidlow Davis said in a statement.
The school refused to give details of Bell’s other breaches of conduct. The Times newspaper reported that one incident allegedly involved taking the data card from another pupil’s cell phone.
“In spite of this sad event, Downside believes that Ryan is an able and gifted young person who has developed during almost two years at the school,” Davis said. “Downside hopes to be able to assist Ryan as he looks for a way forward in his life.”
Channel 4, which aired the series on Ryan’s progress at Downside last month, affirmed its “commitment to support Ryan and his family in whatever they decide the next step should be.”
“The family is considering a range of options,” the station said in a statement. “We are very disappointed for Ryan, but at the same time feel he’s made tremendous strides in his past two years at Downside.”
A spokeswoman for Channel 4 said Bell’s mother, an unemployed catering worker, had found the expulsion “deeply upsetting” and didn’t wish to speak to the press. She also didn’t want her son to be interviewed.
The spokeswoman, Sophie Toumazis, said Channel 4 would pay Bell’s fees if he decided to attend another private school. She also rejected claims by residents of Bell’s Larkhall housing project, reported in The Times, that Channel 4 had “played God” with the teenager.
“The reason that’s not fair is because we worked with the consent of the child, his mother and educationalists on the project,” Toumazis told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “We’re still continuing to do that. We’re giving them as much support and advice as we can.”
May 8, 2003
Dr Tony Sewell, an educationalist and research consultant at the University of Leeds’ School of Education, who advised Pepper Productions during the making of the programme, admits that some errors were made. He said that there should have been a better defined support structure for Ryan beyond that offered to every other Downside student, and that there was little that could be done to stop the new headteacher at Downside from treating Ryan in a ‘ruthless’ manner.
Call for an inquiry into the cover-up of child abuse on the Groucho Club’s members forum
The Groucho club’s management has refused to issue a full and transparent account of the child abuse network, the rapes and the sexual haressment and assult of an employee.
Many of the celebrities now facing allegations, arrested or convicted in the past few years for sexual depravity such as the infant rapist, Ian Watkins, Weinstein, Spacey, Glitter, Saville, Harris, Hall, Max Clifford and others have frequented the Groucho Club. Harvey Weinstein is a lifetime member and was invited to write a chapter in a book about the Groucho Club where he talks about his membership.
contributions from Club members such as Keith Allen, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Dom Joly, Dylan Jones, Gary Lineker, Jonathan Meades, Vic Reeves, Rowland Rivron, Janet Street-Porter, Harvey Weinstein and Sam Taylor-Wood. Introduced by witty, deprecatory forward by Stephen Fry and in memoriam to 2005
Katz, the long-established, statement jacket-wearing “prince of Soho”. Having been at the club for 21 years, looking after everyone from Jaime Winstone and Sienna Miller to Noel Gallagher and Damien Hirst, he knows all the secrets of the A-listers that call the place home – and has earned a fearsome reputation as a fixer.
Former housemaster at top private school jailed for abusing pupils
Peter Webb, 74, sentenced to four years in prison for abusing boys at Christ’s Hospital school in Horsham in 1970s and 80s
Peter Webb arrives at Hove crown court for sentencing.
A former teacher at Christ’s Hospital School near Horsham has been sentenced for historic sex offences against young boys. Peter Webb, 75, of Kennedy Road, Dane End, Ware, Hertfordshire, was sentenced to a total of four years imprisonment when he appeared at Hove Crown Court on Friday (December 15) for a series of sexual offences against four boys. Webb – a former woodwork teacher and housemaster at Christ’s Hospital School – previously pleaded guilty to eleven offences of indecent assault when he appeared at Lewes Crown Court, sitting in Brighton, on September 6, 2017. The court heard how one boy was assaulted three times, another on two occasions, the third on five occasions and the fourth on one occasion. Webb pleaded not guilty to another alleged incident against a fifth boy which the court ordered to remain on court file. Webb had previously been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, in April 2015, after pleading guilty to three offences of historic indecent assault against another boy. On Friday, the court heard statements from three of the four victims who outlined the affect Webb’s abuse has had on their lives. One of the victims said he had kept quiet until another victim contacted Sussex Police, in November 2016, inspiring him to come forward ‘to ensure nobody else experiences the same level of abuse’. Defending, Simon Ray argued Webb’s decision to remove himself from being in contact with children or young boys as soon as he left Christ’s Hospital School should have accounted for a lesser sentence. He said: “Webb resigned from the school in 1984 and decided to abandon his career in teaching and, instead, chose to withdraw all contact completely to pursue a career in joinery. “He took all the practical steps he could after leaving the school to prevent being a risk to children and young boys in particular. “There have been no previous convictions recorded against him since leaving the school in 1984.” Judge Christine Henson QC refused to accept this and argued that Webb missed an opportunity to plead guilty to all offences when he was convicted for separate incidents in 2015. In passing her sentence, she said: “You had the opportunity to wipe the slate clean in 2015 but you didn’t and now you are the author of your present situation. “I have read the impact your abusing has had on the lives of these four people. Their lives will be affected forever because of your offending.” Webb was sentenced to two years and sixth months’ imprisonment for the first five offences to run consecutively with the 18 month sentence for the remaining six offences. In all, Webb was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and is now a registered sex offender for life. He will serve half his sentence in custody and half on licence. He was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) to last until further court order, severely restricting his access to young people. Sussex Police had full co-operation from management at the school during both investigations, according to a police spokesman.
So Hogan-Howe now advises HSBC. Good job the met didn’t prosecute them over #HSBCfraud
An Alpine apartment, £6m pension pot and lucrative advisory roles: Scandal-hit former Met chief forced to reveal details of his retirement after accepting a peerage
Crossbench peer Lord Hogan-Howe enjoys apartment in upmarket Swiss region
He has yet to vote or speak in the House of Lords despite his endless perks
He has also taken on two paid roles less than a year after collecting huge pension
He’s a consultant and advisor for both Towergate Insurance and bank HSBC
15 December 2017
The controversial former head of Scotland Yard was yesterday forced to reveal details of his Alpine holiday home and lucrative new advisory roles.
Crossbench peer Lord Hogan-Howe – who has yet to vote or speak in the House of Lords – enjoys an apartment in an upmarket region of Switzerland popular with wealthy expats.
He has also taken on two paid roles less than a year after collecting his £5.8 million pension pot. He is a ‘consultant on risk management’ with Towergate Insurance and is advising HSBC on ‘financial crime risk reduction’.
The details will enrage critics of the former top officer, whose tenure was marred by controversies including the failed VIP sex abuse inquiry.
Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, who is suing the Met after being falsely accused of child sex abuse, branded Lord Hogan-Howe’s rewards as ‘extraordinary’.
And one ex-colleague said the roles ‘could be awkward’, adding: ‘Despite everything, it seems he is determined to remain in the public eye.’
Lord Hogan-Howe, 60, was ordered to declare details of his income, properties and commitments after accepting a peerage. Yesterday, the Parliamentary website revealed the keen skier and horse rider owns a holiday apartment in the southern Valais region.
Valais is home to some of the world’s most exclusive ski resorts, including Verbier and Crans-Montana. It appeals to visitors all year round, with hikers and mountain bikers enjoying the slopes once the snow has gone.
The peer also took on paid roles with Towergate Insurance and banking giant HSBC. Last year Lord Hogan-Howe was criticised for saying victims of fraud should no longer be reimbursed by their banks.
Towergate issued an apology last July after the Financial Conduct Authority imposed a fine in relation to a former director’s mishandling of an estimated £12 million. The company came close to collapse two years ago and was last year fined £2.6 million for mishandling client funds.
Lord Hogan-Howe left his £270,000 Met post in February. Experts calculate that his gold-plated taxpayer-funded final salary pension pot was worth at least £5.8million. His pension will depend on any lump sum he withdrew on retirement.
Lord Hogan-Howe was widely criticised for presiding over the disastrous £2.5 million inquiry into a fictitious VIP paedophile ring. He was also the driving force behind the Yard’s bungled £20 million Operation Elveden inquiry into alleged payments to public officials by journalists.
Crossbench peer Lord Hogan-Howe – who has yet to vote or speak in the House of Lords – enjoys an apartment in the upmarket Valais region of Switzerland (pictured) popular with wealthy expats
Mr Proctor, who was wrongly accused of rape and murder by a fantasist known only as ‘Nick’, said: ‘It is extraordinary that someone who got so many things wrong in his professional life is rewarded in this way.’
Earlier this week war hero Field Marshal Lord Bramall, 93, who has been paid £100,000 compensation after also being investigated over false child-sex claims, criticised Lord Hogan-Howe.
He said: ‘They say they might prosecute “Nick”, but the ones who should be prosecuted are the police who led the inquiry.’
Lord Hogan-Howe shows no sign of fading from public life.
He appeared on BBC Question Time last month, spoke at Oxford University and undertook a paid speaking appointment for the Business Continuity Institute.
He was seen by some as a potential outside candidate to head the Irish Garda, with a flurry of bets made on him taking the role in September.
The peer remains under investigation by the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime over comments he made during the VIP sex ring scandal.
He is accused of misrepresenting the origins of the phrase ‘credible and true’, used by the senior investigating officer about the most outlandish allegations.
The retired headteacher of a Croydon school, honoured with an MBE by the Queen in 2012 for services to young people, today admitted to sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy over 40 years ago.
John Coatman of Leyburn Gardens, 76, was found guilty of gross indecency in August 2016 when volunteering at a Christian youth group called The Crusaders in the 1970s.
However, soon after his conviction it emerged that there had been an error in the level of the charges against him by the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge adjourned sentencing as it became obvious the case would go to the Court of Appeal. The Court eventually quashed his conviction in April this year and ordered a re-trial.
At his retrial at the Old Bailey on Monday, Coatman pleaded guilty to an amended charge of indecent assault.
Coatman was headteacher at St Andrew’s Church of England High School in Waddon. During his trial, he told the jury he worked with over 22,000 young people during a 50-year association with the Christian group for boys but “had never had any sort of complaint”. The jury rejected Coatman’s explanations and found him guilty of two counts of gross indecency but not guilty of buggery.
Claims against Coatman emerged in 2014 after the victim was suffering from problems at work and his marriage broke down.
At his trial, he denied the claims that “rough and tumble” had turned sexual, saying the only physical activity the young people engaged in was the children’s game British Bulldog.
Coatman told jurors he was “shocked” and “deeply shaken” after his arrest, saying the theme of sex cropped up in youth group meetings only in reference to religion.
Tim Varchmin – Grindr, top level banks etc – wonder if Peter Allott of St Benedict’s attended his chem-sex parties?
Tim Varchmin, 44, was allegedly caught with more than 100 indecent images of children after his devices were seized by police from his luxury apartment in Lancaster Gate, west London.
Mr Varchmin was a judge presiding over criminal and civil law cases in Germany before securing roles with JP Morgan, Barclays and the law firm Clifford Chance.
Tim Nicholas VarchminLocality: E14 4BB London, United Kingdom Job: Assistant Vice President Organizations: Board Member of German Derivatives Association (DDV), Alumni KCL, Alumni LSE, Rechtsanwaltskammer Frankfurt am Main Education: Kings College London (International Business Law, Master of Laws), Universität Hamburg (Rechtswissenschaften, Jurist) Status: Employee Language: German, English, French Experience: (Assistant Vice President), J.P. Morgan, Investment Bank, London, (Associate & Senior Counsel/ Rechtsanwalt), Clifford Chance LLP, (Rechtsanwalt/ Associate Banking & Capital Markets), Clifford Chance Düsseldorf, (Trainee Solicitor Corporate Finance), Deutsche Botschaft Tokyo, (Trainee) Haves: Extensive knowledge in Derivative laws, EMEA OTC and Retail Structured Products, DCM and European securities and regulatory laws.
On the morning of Friday October 17 2014, officers searched Varchmin’s home addresses in Lancaster Gate and Edgware Road and his offices in Canary Wharf.
When officers went to the Lancaster Gate flat, they “pounded on the door” for five minutes and smashed it down when no-one answered, only to find Varchmin walking into the hallway.
They found 45,000 images and 106 movies on his iPhone and Apple computer, the vast majority of which were “adult porn”, jurors were told.
Many of the indecent images that formed the charges against Varchmin were duplicates, the court heard.
Mr Daniells-Smith alleged the defendant, who was born in Hamburg, had searched the internet for indecent images of children using German words.
Officers also uncovered 20 short stories about sexual activity between adults and children, “very sophisticated” cleaning software, and the Tor browser that gives access to the Dark Net.
Varchmin denies seven charges of possessing indecent images of children and possessing 830 milligrams of crystal meth.
More extraordinary evidence at @InquiryCSA : Richard Yeo, until recently President of the Benedictines, admits that during his Presidency sex offenders were knowingly appointed as school governors and had input into safeguarding
Father Yeo was a member of the Cumberlege Commission into protecting children in the Catholic Church.
Father Yeo was a member of the Cumberlege Commission. as was
Priest jailed for child abuse images lived on scandal-hit Caldey Island
Exclusive: revelations mean that four men convicted or accused of sexual offences against children lived or stayed on tiny monastic Welsh island
Father John Shannon, who was subsequently caught on the mainland with pictures of children as young as nine, lived on the island off the Welsh coast for nine months. Photograph: Archant Cambs/Archant
A priest who was jailed for downloading hundreds of pictures of child sexual abuse is the latest offender to be identified as having close links with the monastic island of Caldey, which is at the centre of a growing scandal.
Father John Shannon, who was subsequently caught on the mainland with pictures of children as young as nine, lived on the island off the Welsh coast for nine months.
The revelation means that four men convicted or accused of sexual offences against children have now been identified as having lived or stayed on Caldey and will increase pressure for an inquiry.
The abbot, Daniel van Santvoort, has confirmed that Shannon, lived on the island in 2008 and 2009.
Shortly afterwards, in 2010, police found 740 indecent images of children on a computer that he had downloaded while working as a lecturer at a Catholic seminary in county Durham. Three of the images were “level five” – of the most serious nature – and 75 were level four.
Shannon’s barrister argued at his client’s sentencing hearing that he had never had a chance to explore his sexuality and viewing the images became a compulsion.
Van Santvoort told the Guardian that Shannon took on the role of priest on a trial basis in 2008 with the abbey’s approval after islanders asked for the parish church of St David’s to be re-opened.
“[Shannon] came with good references and took up residence in a cottage. During this period it was evident the role of a parish priest was not viable and he left the island within nine months of his arrival, in 2009,” the abbot said.
“We understand that some time later, whilst working on the mainland elsewhere in the UK, he was investigated by the police for offences committed on the mainland after he had left the island and was subsequently convicted.
“That inquiry did not involve any allegations of offences committed on the island and the police did not conduct any inquiries on the island in respect of this person. We understand therefore that he had no criminal convictions when he came to the island nor when he left.”
While Shannon was living on the island, Ashton was hiding from police there. Ashton was wanted after police found 5,000 images of child sexual abuse on his computer and in 2011 was found on Caldey , where he had been living under an assumed identity for seven years.
A whistleblower has told the Guardian that another convicted criminal, John Cronin, is suspected to have lived under an assumed name in a cottage owned by the monastery for a month in 2009.
The source said the man they believe to be Cronin left the island suddenly, taking keys to a property and owing money after he was recognised by a monastery employee from online photographs.
Cronin had allegedly requested through the abbey to stay at a monastery property on the island over winter.
However, Van Santvoort said the abbey did not know of Cronin’s alleged stay.
“We have no knowledge of this person whatsoever. The name is completely unfamiliar to us,” he said.
Thaddeus Kotik and two children on Caldey Island. Photograph: Supplied
Another six women and a man have since approached the Guardian alleging abuse by Kotik.
The Conservatives’ children’s spokesman in the Welsh assembly, Darren Millar, has called on the Welsh government to launch an investigation into Caldey Island.
A trial has started at Jersey’s Royal Court of a 78-year-old man who is accused of sexually abusing two girls and raping one of them.
Lester Charles Quenault has recently returned to Jersey after years of living away.
He’s on trial on 27 counts of sexual abuse. They include six counts of raping a pre-teenage girl.
The other charges relate to another pre-teenage girl and include 11 counts of indecent assault and 10 of ‘procuring the girl to commit an act of gross indecency’.
All the charges relate to the 1970s, all of which Quenault denies.
The trial is expected to last 7 days.
77-year-old Quenault was born in Jersey but is currently in the process of moving back from England.
A project to build new disabled facilities at an equestrian centre in Albourne has received a funding boost. West Sussex County Council has awarded £5,400 to Albourne Equestrian Centre and work has already begun to install new toilets and a viewing area that are both fully accessible to disabled people. Megan Hughes and Lester Quenault, owners at the equestrian centre said: “We are so happy to have received the funding.
County Councillor and Chailey Heritage School Governor Peter Griffiths, who supported the bid, said: “I am a great supporter of any project that enhances the community and am excited to see Albourne Equestrian Centre expand to offer more accessibility for users.
Support to secure the funding also came from the local branches of The Pony Club, Riding for the Disabled Association, and Horseheard CIC.
Funding was granted through West Sussex County Council’s Community Initiative Fund – a scheme that has provided vital funds to community groups and organisations across West Sussex since it was started in 2006. The improvements to the Albourne centre will benefit young and disabled people in the Mid Sussex area, along with members of the community with an equestrian interest.
Great half page write up in the Mid Sussex Times, all about the funding we have received to refurbish our facilities. A big thank you to SDHW PC, Court Meadow RDA and HorseHeard for your letters of support.
Chailey Heritage Foundation
Our PatronHRH, The Duchess of Gloucester, our Patron since 2003
Temp Passe in the JEP -25 year old former car salesman Lester Quenault of Woodbine St. Peter, achieving his childhood dream of owning a donkey, and doing Donkey rides down at family land at El Tico, 1964
Lester Quenault (78), who wasknown as the ‘Donkey Man’ as he used to run a donkey ride business at Gorey,
About Horsham and Mid Sussex Equestrian Academy We are pleased to present HMSEA – a brand new equestrian facility set on the well established site of Albourne Equestrian Centre, near Burgess Hill, West Sussex. On 19th April 2017, Mayfield Market Towns Ltd took over ownership of the property and Horsham and Mid Sussex
Equestrian Academy (HMSEA) Ltd was formally launched. HMSEA builds on the legacy that has been established by Megan Hughes and Lester Quenault since Albourne Equestrian Centre was formed in 1993.
With the backing of Mayfield Market Towns Ltd, HMSEA aims to support the sport of equestrianism by providing a range of opportunities alongside a high standard of provision, whilst making equestrian pursuits as accessible as possible. HMSEA will be continuing the existing relationship with South Down Hunt West Pony Club branch and hopes to broaden it’s horizons further to service other community areas in due course.
ARMED bandits robbed Jerseyman Lester Quénault as he travelled by coach from Rio de Janeiro airport to his hotel last Thursday night.
No one was hurt when the 32 passengers on the Horse Racing Abroad tour were robbed by four men on route to their hotel, but the bandits made off with jewellery, passports and credit cards.
Mr Quénault (66) , who now lives in Albourne, West Sussex, with his partner Megan Hughes, told his Jersey resident son Gavin on Saturday that he did not realise the robbers were armed.
Mr Quénault lived at Mont Mado in St John until the early 1990s and was well-known in the Island for running donkey rides.
He will be heading home to West Sussex tomorrow as planned.
Lambeth Council has published details of what could be a £100m compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse including at Shirley Oaks. Money will have to be borrowed. Scheme still opposed by
‘Hypocrite’ Leeds church minister downloaded sickening images of children and animals being sexually abused
An Anglican minister caught with hundreds of depraved images of children and animals being sexually abused was branded a ‘hypocrite’ by a judge. John Bullamore, 76, accessed the sickening images from his home in Leeds for more than two years before he was arrested.
Leeds Crown Court heard West Yorkshire Police officers went to Bullamore’s home on Hornbeam Way, Whinmoor, in June this year after receiving information that illegal images had been accessed from a computer linked to the address.
Under the leadership of Rev John Bullamore, of the Anglican parish of Swainswick and Woolley, near Bath, Somerset, England, an ecumenical group of Christians connected with Churches near Bath made their way to Iona, a small island off Mull, Scotland, in September 2008
Rochdale Council protecting perverts again. How many of these inquiry leaders have they been through now?
Kevin@northernscums
Give him his 5 minutes in jail then give him his pension he justly deserves! Isn’t that the standards?
More Benedictine paedophiles and cover-ups….
Cardinal Hume and a former Downside Abbey headmaster ‘did nothing at all’ after paraplegic woman informed them of alleged sex abuse, national inquiry told
08 December 2017
In 1985, the witness visited Cardinal Basil Hume in Archbishop’s House in London and told him about the alleged abuse
Cardinal Basil Hume and a former Downside Abbey headmaster “did nothing at all” after a paraplegic woman informed them that she had been sexually abused by a Benedictine monk from the Abbey over several years, the national inquiry into child abuse has heard.
On the eighth day of a three-week hearing on the English Benedictine Congregation as part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), the inquiry heard from a witness allegedly abused by a chaplain from Downside Abbey in Somerset.
The witness told the inquiry that she had met the chaplain – referred to as F80 – on a pilgrimage at Lourdes in 1984 when she was 17 years old. She was confined to a wheel-chair and told the inquiry that at that time she felt “suicidal.”
In a statement read to the inquiry, the witness described how, over the following two years, F80 visited her in her parent’s home where he sexually abused her.
“F80 groomed and manipulated me and my emotions and used my fear of others to keep my silence,” she said.
In early 1985, the witness visited Cardinal Basil Hume in Archbishop’s House in London and told him about the alleged abuse.
The witness said Cardinal Hume was “very concerned that I was so distressed” and suggested she talk to the headmaster of Downside Abbey, Father Dom Philip Jebb.
The witness explained to the inquiry that she had told Father Philip who she said was “very sorry and very sympathetic” but that he remained convinced that the alleged abuser should not know that he – Father Philip – knew about the abuse.
The witness said she spoke to Father Philip about the abuse “again and again and again.”
“It was like being passed backwards and forwards between Basil Hume and Philip Jebb,” she told the inquiry.
“I believe that Basil Hume and Father Philip Jebb had a conversation about what was going on,” she added.
Cardinal Hume visited the alleged abuser at one stage and told him to stop, the witness said. However, after a short period the abuse continued.
The witness told the inquiry she went back to Cardinal Hume and told him the abuse was continuing. Again Cardinal Hume told her to approach the headmaster: “and backwards and forwards I went,” she said.
The witness told the inquiry she continued to see Cardinal Hume about the alleged abuse up until he died in 1999.
In June 2007, the witness approached the then Abbot, Aidan Bellenger, and told him about the abuse. F80 was still teaching at the school. Abbot Aidan confronted F80, but did not take any action, the witness told the inquiry.
Eventually in 2010, Abbot Aidan approached Clifton Diocese’s safeguarding team, after which police became involved in the case, the witness told the inquiry.
On the opening day of the IICSA inquiry, a spokeswoman from Downside Abbey made a statement on behalf of the Abbey expressing regret for past abuses.
Kate Gallafent QC, for the English Benedictine Congregation, said that as the number of children abused had become apparent, there had been a sense of shame and “intense sadness at the anguish caused to so many people”.
Child abuse ‘was encouraged by school’s abbots’ at Downside Abbey, Somerset
A renowned Roman Catholic school hid a “heart of darkness” in which monks who sexually abused children were protected and indirectly encouraged by their superiors, its former abbot has claimed.
Aidan Bellenger accused his three predecessors at Downside Abbey of tolerating child abuse. He also alleged that the monastery in Somerset, which owns and runs an adjoining public school, still sheltered paedophiles.
Father Richard Yeo was accused by Aidan Bellenger of hiding abuse
One monk who is still at Downside was said by the former abbot to be guilty of “perverse and criminal” activities; two more were “open to allegations of paedophilia”. Another monk, who is no longer at the monastery, was accused of “monstrous” behaviour, including “the rape case”.
Among the former abbots said by Dr Bellenger to have sheltered child sex offenders between 1974 and 2006 is Father Richard Yeo, until recently Britain’s most senior Benedictine monk.
Father Richard, Downside abbot from 1998 to 2006, stood down as abbot president of the English Benedictine Congregation in August.
The claims about the monastery were made in letters sent last year by Dr Bellenger to Father Leo Maidlow Davis, the school’s present chairman of governors. Their contents were disclosed yesterday at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is investigating past offences at Downside and another leading Benedictine school, Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire.
James Whitehead criticised the governance of Downside, where he is headmaster
The inquiry also heard damning criticism of the Benedictine “culture of monastic superiority” from James Whitehead, Downside’s headmaster.
Alumni of the school, which has 380 pupils and where annual boarding fees are £32,700, have included the journalist Auberon Waugh, the Mad Men actor Jared Harris and the former England rugby player Simon Halliday.
In his letters Dr Bellenger, the monastery’s abbot for eight years until 2014, referred to Father Richard White, known as Father Nicholas, who was jailed for five years in 2012 for gross indecency and indecent assault against pupils in the 1980s. He also mentioned Father Dunstan O’Keefe, who was convicted of performing a sex act in a car outside a primary school, and later jailed for possession of child abuse images.
Dr Aidan Bellenger
Dr Bellenger wrote: “At the heart of darkness in the [Downside] community is the issue of child abuse which was tolerated by all my predecessors as abbot.” He said he was “particularly concerned that Richard [Yeo], who should have known better, attempted to protect Nicholas and Dunstan when he should have been protecting their victims”. He added: “Neither was penitent. Both were protected and indirectly encouraged by their abbots, John [Roberts], Charles [Fitzgerald-Lombard] and Richard [Yeo].”
The inquiry was told that Father Leo did not reveal the existence of the letters until August this year, when he informed Dr Whitehead.
Dr Whitehead, who is due to leave Downside next year, said that the allegations potentially raised “very serious concerns that those abbots may have actually encouraged paedophilia”. He criticised the Benedictines’ “ineffectiveness of governance”, saying that a “fundamental problem” was that “members of the monastic community aren’t accountable to anyone unless they commit a criminal offence”.
Former children’s home worker jailed for six years for assault on child
Operation Equinox is Nottinghamshire Police’s dedicated team investigating allegations of historical abuse of children at children’s homes
6 DEC 2017
A former children’s residential home worker has been jailed for six years after being found guilty of indecent assault and indecency with a child.
Barrie Pick, 74, of Peveril Drive, The Park, worked at Beechwood Children’s Home, in Mapperley, at the time of the offences in the 1970s.
Pick originally denied the offences, but was found guilty by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court today ( December 6) of two charges of indecent assault on a child and two charges of indecency with a child.
The convictions relate to the same victim – a boy under the age of 14.
Pick had previously admitted six charges of possessing indecent photographs of children.
He today received a six-month prison sentence for each of those offences, all of which will run concurrently with the six-year sentence.
Operation Equinox is Nottinghamshire Police’s dedicated team investigating allegations of historical abuse of children at children’s homes and other institutions in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
Chief superintendent Rob Griffin, strategic lead for Operation Equinox, said: “Thirteen people have now been charged in connection with Operation Equinox, and so far six of these have been convicted.
“There are a number of other investigations ongoing into allegations of historical abuse of children and we are determined to seek justice for anyone who has been affected.
“This case demonstrates that we take this issue extremely seriously and even though these offences happened many years ago our dedicated team’s meticulous investigations can lead to prison sentences for those responsible.”
Alexis Jay, will propose that no evidence be called about decades of abuse of pupils at Ealing Abbey and its adjoining independent school, St Benedict’.
Patrick Rock found guilty of having child abuse images on his computer was an aide to Chris Patten
(Patrick Rock was Patten’s former adviser on the West Balkans)
Patrick Rock moved to Brussels and worked for Chris Patten (European Commissioner) …Patten preceded by Leon Brittan
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
2011 David Cameron brought Patrick Rock back into Downing Street appointing him deputy head of the influential No 10 policy unit. The same year Peter Allott was chosen to work on David Cameron’s Big Initiative Policy Project
Lord Patten of Barnes is an Old Priorian and the Patron of Ealing’s St Benedict’s School
AVENGER-52%@REBELTROOP
Yes, there was a paedophile ring at the school! From reviewing victims accounts, they were all bullied and abused by these monks, and all knew what the other priest was doing. The stories, are horrifying and highlight, the sickening extent of what went on at St Benedict’s
None of these recent news articles about other abusers at St Benedict’s, mention deputy head Peter Allott
The judge: ‘It was at the drug parties that you became aware of, and addicted to, indecent images of children. I use the phrase of a paedophile ring, that’s precisely what that was.
…blew £600 a week on paedophile drug parties is jailed for horrific stash of porn images featuring children as young as two
London priest who fled to Kosovo found guilty of abusing schoolboys
Andrew Soper convicted of sexually abusing pupils at St Benedict’s school in Ealing during 1970s and 80s
6 December 2017
A former abbot who fled to Kosovo to escape justice has been convicted of abusing 10 boys at a Catholic-run school in London during the 1970s and 80s.
Andrew Soper, 74, formerly known as Father Laurence Soper, was found guilty of 19 charges of rape and other sexual offences after a lengthy trial at the Old Bailey.
Soper sexually abused pupils while he was master in charge of discipline at St Benedict’s school in Ealing, west London. He would assault them after subjecting them to corporal punishment using a cane.
The first victim contacted police in 2004 after Soper left his role as abbot of Ealing Abbey and moved to the Benedictine order’s headquarters in Rome.
The former pupil was initially told by officers there was insufficient evidence.
Soper was later interviewed at Heathrow police station in 2010 and subsequently fled to Kosovo while on police bail the following year.
He was arrested at Luton airport in August 2016 after being deported by the Kosovan authorities and returned to the UK.
Tetteh Turkson, a senior Crown Prosecution Service lawyer involved in the case, said: “Soper used his position as a teacher and as a priest to abuse children for his own sexual gratification.
“He compounded this by trying to evade justice and fleeing to Kosovo in order to go into hiding. The victims’ bravery in coming forward and giving evidence has seen him convicted of these serious offences.”
A statement on behalf of the fee-paying independent school was issued by Alex Carlile QC after the conviction. He said: “St Benedict’s school is deeply concerned for, and distressed by, the ordeals faced by the victims of Laurence Soper, who have lived with the pain of his activities for so long.
“The school apologises unreservedly for the serious wrongs of the past. The school regrets that Soper did not have the courage to plead guilty.
“The result has been that innocent victims, whom he abused when they were boys in the school, were compelled to give evidence. They were subjected to cross-examination about matters in relation to which they were both helpless and innocent.
“The fact that these matters took place many years ago does not mitigate the pain and injustice endured by them.” The statement said the school was now “a completely different institution”.
Lord Carlile added: “The tough lessons of the past have been learned, and the errors and crimes of the past are in the daily consciousness and conscience of the school management … St Benedict’s cannot and will never forget Soper’s crimes. Nevertheless they are proud of the school as it now is, and as confident as ever they can be that everything is being done to ensure that such events cannot recur.”
The school, which charges fees of about £5,000 a term, counts the former Conservative chair Lord Patten and entertainer Julian Clary among its alumni.
Gillian Etherton QC, who led the prosecution, told the court victims were subjected to sadistic beatings by Soper for “fake reasons”.
They included kicking a football “in the wrong direction”, “failing to use double margins”, and “using the wrong staircase”, leading to a caning and a sexual assault, she said.
“It is the prosecution case that ‘punishments’ as described by the complainants in this case were carried out by Soper in entirely inappropriate ways and circumstances and, on many occasions, with what can only have been sexual motive,” Etherton added.
Many of his victims have experienced flashbacks and nightmares. During the trial Soper denied using the cane as a ruse to abuse boys.
The judge, Anthony Bate, remanded Soper in custody to be sentenced on 19 December. He was convicted of two counts of buggery, two counts of indecency with a child and 15 counts of indecent assault.
Woman ‘was sexually assaulted by hooded figure called The Devil helped by cult of satanic nuns then buried alive overnight’ at orphanage
She described sisters who ran it as ‘cult’ which presided over bizarre rituals
The man, at Smyllum Park orphanage in South Lanarkshire, she said was responsible was wearing a hood – and the sisters told her he was ‘the Devil’
Afterwards, she said she was buried alive overnight then forced to bathe in blood
In other chilling evidence, the SCAI heard a young girl was bea7 December 2017 ten by nuns
7 December 2017
In extraordinary evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI), she told how she was sexually assaulted in a candlelit chapel in the grounds of the Smyllum Park home run by the nuns.
The man she said was responsible was wearing a hood – and the sisters told her he was ‘the Devil’.
Afterwards, she said she was buried alive overnight at the orphanage in Lanark, then forced to bathe in what she was told was blood.
The claim comes after previous allegations that deaths of children at Smyllum were ‘covered up’
In other chilling evidence, the SCAI heard a young girl was beaten by nuns – and never seen again.
The claim comes after previous allegations that deaths of children at Smyllum were ‘covered up’.
The testimony about the Satanic sex ritual is the latest in a catalogue of evidence about abuse at the home, which was run by a Catholic religious order and closed in 1981.
The alleged victim addressed a hearing in Edinburgh yesterday, using the name Janie, and said she had been born in 1961 and was admitted to Smyllum in 1965.
She said: ‘To be honest, nowadays I think they were a cult.
‘They would take us from our beds at night, they would take us to the big field [outside Smyllum].
‘There was quite a lot of us, with the sisters, five or six of them, maybe more. They would take us out into a big field and make us stand in a circle and dance around a tree.
‘They would take us to the back of a chapel, they would take us down the stairs – it was dingy and dark with candles. There would be a big square slab, they laid me on that.’
Janie said: ‘I was sitting on one of the nun’s knees, they gave me a lollipop. They said, “The Devil’s coming out now”.’
She said she did not know who her abuser was but ‘it was a guy in a hood – and they said it was the Devil’. She was sexually abused by the man then taken outside, where they ‘buried me alive, left me there’.
One of the nuns whispered to her: ‘Don’t worry, you will get back out.’
She said she was ‘buried in a drain’ and left overnight, and released in the morning.
Janie said the nuns dragged her upstairs in the home, where she was forced to take a bath in what she was told was blood, but now believes to be ‘red dye’.
She said: ‘They made out it was blood, they soaked me under it.’
Smyllum provided care for orphans but also children from poor, working-class families and troubled homes
Janie also said she was ‘constantly’ tied to her bed and had masking tape placed over her face while nuns tried to suffocate her with a pillow.
On other occasions she was trapped in a wardrobe in her room, but was never sure why.
Janie said: ‘I’ve not got a clue. It’s just like they liked doing it. Maybe I was hyper, or wanted to play.’
She said the children were once woken by a nun carrying a box that she had said contained a baby.
Janie said: ‘She woke up the dormitory and said one of the sisters had done a sin, and had a baby, and they were going to bury the baby alive.
‘Were they just trying to play with our heads? Was it true? Was it real?
‘Were they just trying to make us demented?’
Janie also told how she and her older sister were taken away from Smyllum in a van late one night.
They were with some nuns and ‘quite a few men’ who tried to put her in a straitjacket which was too big for her. She believes she was drugged but then ‘conked out’ and was later taken back to the home.
Smyllum provided care for orphans but also children from poor, working-class families and troubled homes.
Other evidence, from a woman called Margaret, described an attack on a girl of about eight or nine
Janie was not an orphan and left Smyllum when her mother spotted that she had bruises and immediately contacted a social worker.
In a statement to the inquiry, Janie said she suspected the nuns had ‘murdered people’, adding: ‘We should get justice.’
It was revealed in September that at least 400 children from Smyllum are thought to be buried in a mass grave at Lanark’s St Mary’s Cemetery.
Other evidence, from a woman called Margaret, described an attack on a girl of about eight or nine.
Margaret, born in 1950, was detailing her ordeal at Smyllum between 1955 and 1960. She said: ‘They beat her up… I never saw her again.’
On one occasion, Margaret said she was taken with other children into a room where a dead nun lay on a bed, and they were told to kiss the corpse.
Margaret refused, spitting on the dead nun instead. She was grabbed by the hair by other sisters who told her she would ‘rot in hell’. Mother-of-two Margaret, now a widow, said: ‘She was probably one of the nuns who had beat the living daylights out of us.’
The inquiry has already heard this week that an eight-year-old girl was sexually abused by a priest at Smyllum, then had her arm broken by a nun who had found out about the assault.
Dr Theresa Tolmie-McGrane, now 55, said she was later forced to receive Communion from the priest who abused her – who told her she was ‘a soldier of God’.
When she alerted other priests to the abuse, she was told to pray for those responsible.
The inquiry has also heard claims that Francis McColl, 13, died after a Smyllum worker struck him with a golf club.
In posthumous testimony, read to the SCAI this month, a former resident said Francis was struck by a ‘psychotic’ employee – who was not a nun and who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Further accusations about Smyllum staff were made by a witness named John, who was born in 1948 and went to the orphanage in 1958.
He described the home as a ‘concentration camp’ where nuns used hairbrushes – concealed in their tunics – to beat children. The inquiry has also heard from a witness named Paul, who was taken into care as a baby and who believes he was born around 1959.
He said he was raped by a priest at Smyllum after revealing that he had been sexually assaulted by another clergyman.
Paul said he was pinned down and beaten with a cricket bat by nuns, and trapped in a wicker laundry basket for four days. A nun once beat him with hosepipe and told him he ‘should be grateful’.
Last week, a witness called David told the SCAI that a six-year-old, Sammy Carr, died days after a nun launched a frenzied attack on him, kicking him in the head.
Shamed priest will be quizzed at child abuse inquiry
A former priest who sexually abused young boys in care is to give evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
Sex offender Bernard Traynor, 64, has been called to give his testimony after allegations about him were made to the inquiry by former residents at Smyllum Park in Lanark last month.
Two former residents told Lady Smith, who leads the inquiry, they were sexually abused by Traynor after they were moved to another orphanage run by the same Catholic order in Newcastle.
One witness said he was sexually abused by Traynor at a caravan park in Scarborough in the 1970s.
Another former Smyllum resident said Traynor had sexually abused him at the Wallis’s Holiday Camp in Cayton Bay, Scarborough.
He also said the abuse continued at the St Vincent’s children’s home in Newcastle, run by the Daughters of Charity of Vincent de Paul, for “two or three years” afterwards.
The two former Smyllum Park residents told the inquiry they were instrumental in Traynor’s first conviction in 1995.
The former Gateshead parish priest was brought to justice nearly two decades after his offences.
Michael told Lady Smith at the hearing on December 7 how having made a complaint to the police in Newcastle, the investigating officer then wrote to the local bishop to say he was investigating Father Traynor.
In evidence, Michael said by the time police went to arrest Father Traynor he had vanished.
He said: “It took the police 18 months to find out where he was.
“They had him hid in a monastery down in Hampshire.”
At Newcastle Crown Court, Traynor escaped a jail term after pleading guilty to committing six offences of indecent assault against four boys.
He was sent to a Catholic retreat in Gloucester where he received therapy and treatment for alcohol abuse.
In 2001, the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle said Traynor had been kicked out the church after being “immediately and permanently suspended from the priesthood.”
But in 2015, Traynor was back in court on new sexual offence charges.
The former clergyman pled guilty to one count of indecent assault on a 13-year-old boy between 1977 and 1978 at the hearing at Teeside Magistrates Court.
The then 62-year-old was sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for two years and placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
As well as hearing evidence from Traynor, the inquiry will hear from former St Vincent de Paul staff members, including nuns who worked at Smyllum Park. The inquiry has so far heard evidence that there was widespread physical and sexual abuse at the home, which closed in 1981.
Last September, a Sunday Post and BBC investigation revealed that up to 400 children who went to Smyllum Park are believed to be buried in a mass grave in Lanarkshire.
A former bishop jailed for sex offences and his twin brother have said they are looking to join the Catholic Church to “live and worship in anonymity”.
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
What a damning endictment of the Catholic church as a haven for paedophile priests!
Trent@RandolphTrent
Where their sins can be forgiven just like Blair did!
Truthseeker@thewakeupcall09
Am sure Father Seed will forgive him for his sins
Tony Blair’s priest fixed papal knighthoods for cash: Senior Catholic took up to £50k donations for honours
Sex abuse bishop Peter Ball and brother seek Catholic switch
06 December 2017
A former bishop jailed for sex offences and his twin brother have said they are looking to join the Catholic Church to “live and worship in anonymity”.
Peter Ball, who is now 85, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences against 18 teenagers and men.
The former Bishop of Lewes and of Gloucester carried out the abuse between the 1970s and 1990s.
Ball’s identical twin and former bishop Michael Ball said in an email events had “wearied and reduced us”.
In the email, mistakenly sent from Michael Ball to BBC South East’s Colin Campbell among others, the brothers said having been “battered by the Church” they would be looking to join the Roman Catholic Church.
They said they would like to “end our days in a church where we can live and worship in anonymity and without constant fear”.
The BBC contacted Michael Ball about the email and he said a move to the Catholic Church was “a possibility”.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton said in a statement: “We confirm that Peter Ball has been in contact with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, in which diocese he now lives, expressing an interest in becoming a member of the Catholic Church.
“This matter is subject to discussions between Clifton Diocese and the statutory authorities, who are the lead with regards to Peter Ball’s risk management in the community.”
Dame Moira said he had received seven letters from families and individuals following the arrest and cautioning of Ball in 1992 for gross indecency – when he stood down as Bishop of Gloucester – but failed to pass six of them to the police.
Lord Carey had also failed to put Ball on the the “Lambeth List” which names clergymen whose suitability for ministry had been questioned.
Dame Moira also heard Bishop Michael Ball allowed his brother to attend functions in his place, even after his resignation, and on one occasion Peter Ball had introduced himself as his brother.
In 1994 Michael Ball campaigned to Lord Carey to return his brother to the ministry, with one bishop calling the brothers’ activities “manipulative”, Dame Moira reported .
Between 1995 and 1997, with Lord Carey’s backing. Peter Ball returned to church ministry, eventually undertaking duties such as confirmations.
After a series of investigations Balls’ ministry ceased in 2011, Dame Moira reported.
Only now named due to being conveniently dead for nearly a year…….Gordon Anglesea
5 Dec 2017
A former senior police officer jailed for indecently assaulting boys has been named in a revised version of a judge’s review of an inquiry into abuse of children in north Wales.
Gordon Anglesea’s name had originally been redacted from Lady Justice Macur’s report published in March 2016.
Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said his conviction and death meant there was “no reason” to keep his name secret.
Yesterday’s order paper showed Keith Vaz being discharged from his position on the International Trade select committee, just three months after he joined. Vaz is being replaced by Tom Watson’s old flame Stephanie Peacock. Sources say Vaz hasn’t been seen much around the House recently, and he hasn’t voted since 18 October. A few months back Momentum were coming for his place on the NEC; surely he isn’t now being lined up for a frontbench job? Wonder what he’ll do with his newly free time…
Charles Howeson says it would have been ‘impossible’ to grope men on ship
The high ranking officer denies touching the two men in a sexual way whilst aboard HMS Cleopatra
4 DEC 2017
A Plymouth Royal Navy officer said it would have been “physically impossible” to have sexually touched a man whilst on the ship which they both worked.
Charles Howeson, 67, is on trial at Bristol Crown Court for 11 counts of indecently assaulting ten young men and a boy and one count of attempted buggery.
He denies the charges dating from 1985 and 1994.
Under cross examination by Paul Dunkels QC, Howeson, of Cragie Drive, told the jury that accusations of sexual touching whilst aboard HMS Cleopatra would have been “impossible” because he didn’t come into contact with the alleged victims’ genitals.
When questioned about the incident in which one of the victims alleged Howeson had grabbed his backside, the high ranking naval officer said he had stumbled on a curtain shielding part of the bridge, causing him to fall down four steps – which resulted in Howeson touching the victim “chest to chest”.
He added that the impact of the fall pushed the victim backwards against the bulkhead, and that it would have been “impossible” for him to have touched the man inappropriately.
Mr Dunkels said: “When you lost balance, didn’t you grab his [the victim’s] bottom to steady yourself? You didn’t come into contact with the inside of his leg by his genitals?”
Howeson replied: “Certainly not, absolutely not. It was accidental and nothing like [the victim] describes. [Sexual contact] would have been impossible.”
Mr Dunkels asked Howeson about another incident alleged to have happened aboard the ship, involving “rubbing his [the victim’s] leg” as he followed him up some stairs.
Howeson told the jury that he recalled going up the stairs before the victim, saying: “It [the touching] would have been physically impossible as I would have been on the bridge.”
The court heard how “commonplace banter” took place between the officer and one victim on HMS Cleopatra, which came about during a man overboard exercise.
Mr Dunkels said that Howeson had made comments about the victim’s stomach being harder than his own, adding that while making those comments Howeson was “squeezing [the victim’s] thighs, penis and testicles – a claim which Howeson refuted.
The 67-year-old said the conversation about his weight was “commonplace banter, not to be misinterpreted as having a sexual component to it.”
Mr Dunkels said: “The truth of the matter is you were using your position in each of these situations [as a naval officer and a boss of the Groundwork Trust] to engineer a situation where you could take advantage of your victims. You had power and control. Was the risk you were taking part of the excitement?”
Howeson replied: “There was no excitement and I did not do this. The risk would have been utterly appalling for anyone in my position to do this.”
Howeson is accused of indecently touching men in the lower naval ranks, civilians in and around his home and some men working for The Groundwork Trust, a charity where he was the boss.
One of Theresa May’s closest friends, Alicia Collinson, deals with paedophile rings via her legal work
Protecting Prince Charles’ friend and mentor convicted paedophile Bishop Peter Ball ….
Gloucs1
Alicia Collinson, wife of porn-loving Damian Green, is a barrister who deals with cases of child sexual abuse. She is also Deputy Chancellor of the Diocese of Gloucester.
Gloucs2
John Neale, a former bishop and very close friend of Peter Righton, is honorary assistant bishop in Gloucester. Neale was chaplain at Ardingly prior to the paedophile bishop Ball, friend of BigEars, taking up the same post.
Robert Alston, third from right with Prince Andrew
PIE member Peter Righton’s boyfriend’s brother, Robert Alston, was Chairman of Governors at Ardingly College between 2005 and 2010. John Neale, by the way, served in the Royal Artillery during World War II, a division which spawned many paedophiles.
Gloucs4
But back to Damian’s Alicia, close friend of Theresa May: Would Alicia as Deputy Chancellor of the Diocese of Gloucester since 2013 where Ball was bishop have given advice re. Ball?
Gloucs5
The diocese of Gloucester hired a former policeman to investigate, and if possible discredit, Ball witnesses. From the moment the first victims came forward, the response of the church up to the highest level was one of institutional self-protection.
Oh dear! Alicia Collinson, Damian Greene’s wife, deals with all aspects of significant harm and sexual abuse, including paedophile rings. She is Deputy Chancellor of the Diocese of Gloucester I wonder what she thinks of Damian’s jobtime viewing?
Gloucs7
Oh, and while we’re at it: Robert Alston was an aide to l-Don’t-Carey who protected Ball. He was on the staff of Archbishop George Carey from 1999 until 2002.
Gloucs8
Oh, and Alicia Collinson’s friend Theresa May chose Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to head the CSA Inquiry. A weird choice, given her family ties to paedophiles and her protection of Bishop Ball!
Damian Green and Queen Elizabeth 2008
Alicia Collinson and Queen Elizabeth
Mike Cameron@mikercameron
So this “parliament” place, then. Seems you can drink like fish in the subsidised bars at all hours, letch over all the employees and walk into anyone’s office to watch porn on their computer.
Do these people have a single fucking clue how they look to the outside world?
Friends: Theresa Brasier, as she was then known, circled with Damian Green. His future wife Alicia is in front row…
May and Green…pictured alongside each other, above, at an Oxford University Edmund Burke Society dinner in 1976. They grew up 25 miles apart in the Home Counties. In the front row, is Alicia Collinson, Mr Green’s girlfriend at the time and now his wife.
At the time, Ms Collinson was the tutorial partner of Theresa Brasier, as she was then known, at St Hugh’s College. Mr Green attended Balliol.
During his involvement in the Union, luminaries who appeared included Richard Nixon. May’s predecessor as president was none other than Sir Alan Duncan and two years before the post had been held by Damian Green. Both Sir Alan and Mr Green are now MPs and part of Mrs May’s Government.
“Alicia and Theresa were great mates,” one Oxonian recalls. “Alicia threw herself into the Union at once, Theresa a little bit later, and looked to Alicia to introduce her and take her round.
“Alicia then fell into the arms of Damian, while Theresa fell into the arms of Philip May, who became President of the Union a few terms after Damian. So they were a sort of quartet at the time, two girls out with two boys. It was the fresh flowering of youthful love.”
Damian Green – a former financial journalist who worked for the BBCand Channel 4, his Barry-born father, Howard Green, rose up the ranks at the South Wales Echo before moving to Reading to launch an evening paper.
The newly revealed documents also suggest that Ball associated with other sex offenders in the clergy, that he was investigated in 2008 for being part of a suspected paedophile ring, and that he assisted other priests accused of sex abuse.
The diocese of Gloucester hired a former policeman to investigate, and if possible discredit, the witnesses.
From the moment the first victims came forward, the response of the church up to the highest level was one of institutional self-protection.
The complaint was not reported to the police, but only to the archbishop of Canterbury, then George Carey, who persisted long past the point of reason in hoping that his colleague was innocent. The police were not told until after the first victim to come forward, Neil Todd, had attempted suicide twice – and even then it was his parents and not the church who made the complaint.
Mr Todd took his own life in 2012, after the allegations against Ball resurfaced.
In 1994, when she was distributing Royal Maundy money in Truro, Ball was there with his brother, who was Truro’s bishop.
After lunch in the Chapter House, the Queen, who had been on the high table with local dignitaries, went across to Ball, held out her hand and said in the clearest of voices: ‘My love and encouragement, Bishop.’
The diocese of Gloucester hired a former policeman to investigate, and if possible discredit, the witnesses.
From the moment the first victims came forward, the response of the church up to the highest level was one of institutional self-protection.
The complaint was not reported to the police, but only to the archbishop of Canterbury, then George Carey, who persisted long past the point of reason in hoping that his colleague was innocent. The police were not told until after the first victim to come forward, Neil Todd, had attempted suicide twice – and even then it was his parents and not the church who made the complaint.
And...Robert Alston was an aide to Carey (who protected Ball)
Robert Alston on the staff of Archbishop George Carey from 1999-2002;
and Theresa May chose Elizabeth Butler-Sloss (who protected Ball) to head the CSA Inquiry
and
The newly revealed documents also suggest that Ball associated with other sex offenders in the clergy, that he was investigated in 2008 for being part of a suspected paedophile ring, and that he assisted other priests accused of sex abuse.
Righton was a governor of New Barns school in Gloucestershire where his partner Richard Alston (torture porn fan John Whittingdale MP’s half-brother) was headmaster. In 2015, Alston was convicted and imprisoned for sexual abuse of a former pupil in the 70s.
(Damian Green’s) friendships across the spectrum of the party, including Andrew Lansley, Tim Collins, David Willetts and even John Bercow.
invited to join John Major’s policy unit, specialising in the affairs of the Department for National Heritage, the precursor to today’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Theresa May’s good friend Alicia Collinson – wife of Damian Green
Leaving their posh West London house this morning with a small suitcase, smiling Alicia Collinson said she does not believe any of the claims being made against her husband.
Asked what she made of the accusations, she said: “I think they are such rubbish.”
The address linked to former Police Minister Damian Green was apparently used from a computer in Parliament in 2007 to register with the cheaters’ site
The address linked to former Police Minister Damian Green was apparently used from a computer in Parliament in 2007 to register with the cheaters’ site.
Whoever enrolled with Ashley Madison typed in the maiden name of Mr Green’s mum – Lyons – for the security question and appealed for a woman who “aches for good sex”.
Last night Mr Green, 59, said he had never used the notorious website.
He added he could not remember whether the aol.com address was his.
In 2006, Damian Green told a civil servant to get “as much dirt on the Labour party, the Labour government as possible” and encouraged leaks of Home Office documents. With the typical Tory sense of entitlement, he doesn’t like it when his dirt gets exposed
Now the top brass of the Police are rallying to Damian Green’s support, criticising their own colleagues for being whistle blowers! If a member of the Government is involved in something shady, the Country has a right to know, It’s a Police Officers duty!
Damien Green recruited by a member of the notorious Hogg family:
From 1978 to 1992 Green worked for the BBC and The Times, as well as Channel 4, where he was a producer and presenter specialising in business programmes. In 1992 he joined John Major’s policy unit, where he worked for 2 years.
Green first made his name as an adviser to John Major. He was recruited to the former prime minister’s policy unit in 1992 by its head, Sarah – now Lady – Hogg who had been Green’s patron in journalism.
Green had come to the attention of Hogg when she joined the Channel Four News programme when it was launched on the new channel in 1982. He was appointed business producer, a position he held until 1984 when he moved to the Times as business news editor.
Bank job that opened the door on a royal sex scandal
The ex-gang member said he was terrified to discover one box belonged to the-then head of the judiciary.
He said: “It was owned by Quintin Hogg, the Lord Chancellor.
When we opened it we dropped it on the floor like it was a time bomb. We didn’t want to take anything that might give us extra trouble so we left it. All we wanted was cash and jewels.”
And what was most disturbing was the child pornography we found.
We were disgusted and left it in their open boxes so police could trace the owners.”
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson Policing Minister Damien Green and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howes
Thousands of pornographic images on Damian Green’s computer, says detective
Pressure grows on Theresa May’s deputy amid further pornography revelations from former Scotland Yard detective
1 Dec 2017
Pressure is mounting on Theresa May’s effective deputy, Damian Green, after a detective who examined his computer said it contained thousands of pornographic images.
The former Scotland Yard officer Neil Lewis said the internet history on the device, which was seized in 2008 while Green was an opposition spokesman, showed pornography had been viewed extensively.
Lewis, who retired from the Metropolitan police in 2014, claimed the device contained thousands of thumbnail images of legal pornography.
In his first broadcast interview about the investigation, Lewis was asked by the BBC how he could be sure it was Green, now the first secretary of state, who accessed the images. He said: “The computer was in Mr Green’s office, on his desk, logged in, his account, his name.
“In between browsing pornography, he was sending emails from his account, his personal account, reading documents … it was ridiculous to suggest anybody else could have done it.”
Lewis said he was shocked by what he found: “The shocking thing as I was viewing it, I noticed a lot of pornography – thumbnails, which indicated web browsing. There was a lot of them. I was surprised to see that on a parliament computer. I had to take a step back because I wasn’t expecting that.”
He said the images were not extreme, as earlier reports claimed, and featured no images of children or sexual abuse.
Green is the subject of a cabinet office inquiry by its head of propriety and ethics, Sue Gray, into allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards a young Conservative activist, Kate Maltby.
Green’s office would not be drawn on Lewis’s claims. In a statement, it said: “It would be inappropriate for Mr Green to comment on these allegations while the cabinet office investigation is ongoing, however, from the outset he has been very clear that he never watched or downloaded pornography on the computers seized from his office.
“He maintains his innocence of these charges and awaits the outcome of the investigation.”
Labour’s Jess Phillips, the chair of parliament’s women and equalities committee, said Green should resign if pornography was found on his computer.
“If what is being said, which I hope is being submitted to the proper investigation, is believed to be true on the balance of probabilities, then yes it does change things and Damian Green cannot stay in his position,” she said.
“The pressure is mounting on him. There is no illegality but would you be fired if you looked at pornography on your work computer? The problem for me in all of this is how people use their power to not live by the same rules that everybody else has to.”
She conceded that Lewis may have be wrong in publicising confidential information about Green, but she added: “Both people can be in the wrong and there still has to be a case to answer.”
The Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell accused Lewis and Quick of trying of blacken the name of his friend.
He told Today: “Mr Green has been absolutely emphatic repeatedly that he never downloaded nor viewed this material. And I think that Mr Green is entitled to be believed. You are not guilty until proven so in this country. I think the hounding of Mr Green over information which everyone is clear was entirely legal, and which he has emphatically denied either downloading or viewing his completely wrong.”
Mitchell, who lost a libel case against the Sun newspaper over a report that he called a police officers “fucking plebs”, added: “Nine years later, after a pretty contentious raid of a senior politicians office, entirely legal information is now leaked to blacken the name of a serving cabinet minister. And I think that is wrong.”
He added: “The police need to explain why there was any record kept of entirely legal activity. He [Lewis] says he is doing it to back up his friend Bob Quick. I don’t think it is proper for retired police officers to behave in this way. I don’t think it is giving Mr Green natural justice.”
Lewis said he had not been contacted by Gray, but the cabinet office was aware of his role in examining Green’s computers.
The search of Green’s computer was made when he was shadow immigration minister, as part of Operation Miser, an investigation into Home Office leaks.
Lewis said: “When I left the police I kept one notebook and that was the notebook for Operation Miser, because that was the case that I was uncomfortable with.”
Lewis said he was motivated to come forward when he read Green denying claims by his superior, Bob Quick, the former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, who told the Sunday Times that pornography had been found on the politician’s computer.
“His outright denial of that was quite amazing followed by his criticism of Bob Quick,” Lewis said.
He added: “I contacted Bob Quick to offer my support.”
Asked if it was possible for anyone else to access Green’s machine, Lewis said: “It was so extensive, whoever had done it would have had to push Mr Green to one side to say ‘get out, I’m using your computer’.”
He also dismissed a suggestion that a mistake could have been made. Lewis said: “I was the one who seized it from Portcullis House. I was the one who examined it, photographed it. I deal with computer forensics. That’s what I do, I produce digital evidence to court in relation to terrorists at the Old Bailey.”
The senior Labour MP Hillary Benn said the cabinet office should examine Lewis’s claims, but he stopped short of calling for his resignation.
Benn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are all waiting for the outcome of it and clearly it should look at all available evidence in reaching a decision. All evidence that is relevant to the inquiry should be considered by the cabinet office. There is a process and we should let it do its work.”
Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality party, accused Conservative politicians of double standards by defending Green after staying silent about allegation of sexual harassment, calling their backing for the minister “extraordinary”.
Sophie WalkerVerified account@SophieRunning
Extraordinary story of @DamianGreen even more extraordinary that colleagues will defend him to the hilt, but were silent or dismissive when their female colleagues spoke of sexual harassment in Westminster.
Andrew Soper trial: Jury deliberating case of abbot accused of abusing boys at Ealing school
The jury is out after a two-month trial into alleged sexual abuse at St Benedict’s School, Ealing
30 Nov 2017
A former abbot at Ealing Abbey accused of abusing boys while working at a school in Ealing is awaiting the verdict in his trial at the Old Bailey.
Andrew Soper was headmaster and senior priest at St Benedict’s School, a fee-paying independent school in Ealing, and he stands accused of abusing 10 boys there during the 1970s and 80s.
Now aged 74, Mr Soper denies 19 offences of indecent assault and buggery against the boys, who claim they were subjected to sexual touching and beatings with a cane.
Prosecutors said the school had a history of “both violence and sexual abuse” by the adults in charge, describing it as “sadly prevalent”.
A former pupil accused the school of covering up covering up “serial abuse” by teachers and priests over the past six decades in his testimony.
Jurors heard Father David Pearce, a former headmaster at the school, and John Maestri, a former maths teacher, have previously been prosecuted for child abuse crimes there.
A pupil told the court that he believed Maestri ran a paedophile ring at the school, but defence lawyer Jane Humphreys QC accused the man of concocting the stories to get back at school masters who had caned him.
“You say Mr Soper caned you and other masters did as well. You said that you want to bring the Benedictine order to its knees,” said the barrister.
The victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the beatings were given for “fake reasons” such as kicking a football “in the wrong direction”, “failing to use double margins” and “using the staircase”, the Old Bailey heard.
During his defence, Mr Soper told jurors incidents had been interpreted in a “sexual way” against a “tsunami of media attention as I am named fairly frequently”.
The abbot was extradited from Kosovo for the trial after he fled there from Rome upon learning he was the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation in 2011.
Explaining why he fled, he blamed “stupidity and cowardice” and told the jury that his life had been ruined by the allegations.
The jury retired to consider the verdicts on Thursday morning following a two-month trial.
‘Men Who Are Attracted to 13-Year-Old Boys Make the Best Teachers’ – Director of Kent Social Services ’74-’85
The Confessions of Rev. Nicolas Stacey
Nicolas Stacey was Director of Social Services for Kent from 1974 to 1985.
In the archives of the British Library are five tapes which should be a cause of concern to us all. Much of the interview with Rev. Nicolas Stacey relives his action-packed adventures at war, his unlikely turn as an Olympic athlete, and his time in the Church of England. Some of the content of the tapes have caused victims of Kendall House sexual abuse to call for an immediate inquiry.
Nicolas Stacey was the Director of Social Services for Kent from 1974 until 1985. The position was relatively new and had only been created three years prior. Nick had made a sideways move from being Director of Social Services for Ealing from its inception in 1971. On the tapes, Stacey says “They started these social service departments, and I thought that this could be something that I could do. Although I was neither a social worker, nor local government officer.”
He goes on to explain, “I think the Chief Executive thought, ‘Look, I’m going to upstage Keith Joseph’ (the then Secretary of State for Social Services) by persuading the council to put up somebody who would be turned down again, because I was not, simply not, qual… ‘cause in general, almost all the people that were appointed had some social worker training.” Stacey was obviously unsuitable for the role but by 1974 he was in charge of six thousand staff across Kent, and responsible for over one hundred thousand potential service users.
If we rewind the tape at this point and go back to Nicolas Stacey talking about his school days, we can begin to see why he was so inappropriate for the role.
Billy Williamson
I was amazed to hear Rev. Stacey talk of his old Deputy Headmaster at Wellesley House Pre-Prep School, Broadstairs, Kent. I had already heard of the fiendish Billy Williamson whilst investigating Ashdown House Prep School, the Sussex boarding school where Boris Johnson was a student. After his time as Stacey’s deputy head in Broadstairs, William Glynn Williamson became the headmaster of Ashdown House and his reign of terror was unforgettable to the students whom he ruled. He was known for bare-bottom flogging of teenage boys, harsh corporal punishment, and a short fuse. William Glynn Williamson had married the mother of a Wellesley house pupil, Laura Violet Morton, and used her fortune to acquire Ashdown House boarding school for boys.
In Alex Renton’s book, Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes, and the Schooling of a Ruling Class, we can see examples of Billy Williamson and his behaviour towards children. Renton writes, “Billy Williamson had taken over Ashdown shortly after the Second World War. One of his pupils in the early 1940s, when he taught at a school called Wellesley House, was publisher Anthony Blond. In a memoir, he described Williamson as a ‘magic man,’ a brilliant teacher. Blond says Williamson was ‘in love, as teachers have to be (without being practising pederasts) if they are to stay sane, with the concept of ‘boy’ – and some specimens more than others’.” Williamson was a keen flogger of their “bare bottoms,” but the pupils liked their master no less.
Rev. Stacey was good friends with Anthony Blond, who also published his autobiography Who Cares? in 1971. Nick Stacey describes on the tapes how Blond was a “very colourful man” and goes on to say, “He married and then I think he got divorced, and he lived with the most ‘beautiful boy’ in London, called Andrew McCall, and that split up. And then he married a very upper class girl. And much younger than him. And I said to Anthony when he got engaged to her, what do her parents think about this and he said, ‘They think I’m an elderly bisexual Jew.’”
Nick Stacey would also describe Billy Williamson in a peculiar manner on the recordings. “Willie Williamson, who went on to be headmaster at Ashdown Forest where Princess Margaret sent her son, was a genius with bright, attractive 13-year-old boys… and absolutely never did anything that was the least bit improper — but I mean he was really an example of [how] people who are attracted to boys of that age are the most brilliant teachers.”
Williamson would also employ Martin Haigh, the teacher who in 2017 was convicted of sexually abusing four boys during his time teaching at Ashdown House. Billy Williamson’s brutal abuse of young boys would continue unabated until he stepped down as headmaster of Ashdown in 1975.
Rev. Nicolas Stacey frequently used terms like “bright attractive 13-year-old boys,” “beautiful boys,” and made statements like “people who are attracted to boys of that age are the most brilliant teachers.” If those statements were to be made in an interview for the Director of Social Services for Kent today, what would happen? I would suggest the result should be a public inquiry.
Stacey’s Blanket Silencing
The third and fourth tapes contain damning evidence of neglect, cover ups, and a systematic culture of ignoring children that went right to the top of Kent Social Services. Stacey became relaxed speaking to the interviewer, Louise Brodie. After hours of stating his early triumphs, Nick begins to speak of his tenure as the Director of Kent Social Services. At times, he makes more statements that cause concern.
“It’s terribly sad when you’re sexually orientated towards children,” he said, while defending a Canadian child sex offender who was a church organist. Stacey describes how he frightened the other Directors of Social Services because he was “a different beast.” But his tone becomes almost sinister when talking of rules he set down with his six thousand member staff about dealing with accusations of abuse. “Nobody was to go to the police about accusations against staff without my approval. And it is incredible the way times have changed. I could never begin to do that now. But children, especially children in care, are incredibly manipulative.” Nicolas Stacey should never have been director of Kent social services.
Children were physically pinned down in Kendall House, drugged with excessive doses of controversial medications, beaten regularly, mentally abused, sexually abused, and in some cases raped. Nicolas Stacey states, “I never once went to the police. This was because I never felt that we had a serious case and never in the eleven years I was there did a scandal occur. I mean no scandal that I know of, or none that got out in the public.” Louise Brodie cuts in on the recording and asks Stacey, “No scandal about your staff?” Stacey replies, “About my staff. Now what I did do, I said ‘Look, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to resign. I am going to have you put on the register of “at risk”.’” A clear admission by Rev. Nick Stacey that he had covered up abuse whilst head of the Kent Social Services. This was Stacey’s “Frost-Nixon” moment. “I would try and get them to go to counselling, had it emerged, you know, that… rampant abuse of kids had occurred, you know.”
Nick Stacey openly admitted on tape that there were cases of abuse, but that he had not informed the police, and instead offered voluntary counselling to the abuser. No mention of the abused at all. But the shock confessions don’t stop there. Stacey went on to say, “A member of staff once hit a child very hard and we had to go to the police. But I went into the dock. I got one of the best QCs. In fact, he was a son of Canon John Collins, you would know from your South African experience. And I went to court and spoke. I said you’ve got no idea how these children wind care staff up. You know, we sit comfortably at our home, we expect care staff with small pay to look after some of the most admittedly tragically deprived. It’s not their fault that they wind people up, and they’re aggressive. Once somebody loses their cool and they do hit somebody then, you know, you say they should be locked up. And I got them off.” Stacey seemed to be very focused on his staff and never on the service users in his care. How many other cases of abuse did he cover-up?
The Survivors
For Stacey it was always about winning, but for the former residents of Kendall House during his term as Director of Social Services for Kent, life had been about loss. The tapes, which were recorded in 2006, were discovered by one of the survivors. Teresa Cooper had once been locked in a room for over a hundred and sixty days in Kendall House. That was one of the many various illegal punishments that the teenage girls living in the care home endured.
My initial thought whilst listening to the Nicolas Stacey tapes was of the various survivors of Kendall House during his tenure as director. I spoke with Teresa Cooper and I asked how it felt when she first discovered the tapes. “I was shocked,” Mrs. Cooper told me, “and then I cried because I didn’t know who to tell as no one listens to me.” I could only imagine the range of emotions that Teresa Cooper experienced. She went on to tell me “I can’t describe how shocked I was. Mortified is an understatement because when you listen to the recordings you realise what you are up against.”
What’s clear from listening to the seven hours of interviews, is that Nicolas Stacey was very much a part of the establishment. Rev. Stacey admitted to hiding cases of abuse while he was responsible for the safety of the children in care homes around Kent. This admission should be enough to deserve a public inquiry into Kent Social Services during his reign as well as the Kent Police force’s response to the recorded confessions. Nick Stacey is a perfect example of the culture that existed in the United Kingdom during the 70s and 80s, where the cries of victims were ignored. Instead, Stacey routinely protected sexual predators and child abusers in general. It is important for all of us to understand what went wrong during that period of systematic child sexual abuse. Kent Police and Kent Social Services refuse to take any responsibility for their inaction even after the facts have surfaced.
There are still hundreds of people who suffered abuse, whilst in Kent care homes, who remain unrepresented. Their extreme experiences and ongoing related sufferings have been ignored by the current Kent establishment. And yet, before Nicolas Stacey’s death in May 2017, he was honoured as a speaker at the Kent Legend’s Association dinner. His various obituaries in the major British newspapers praised him as a man who helped revolutionise the care industry. His sympathy for and aid to paedophiles has been completely ignored.
Teresa Cooper talks about her experience of abuse at Kendall House.
Fortunately, Teresa Cooper recorded Eric Pickles discriminatory remarks
30 Nov 2017
Court 7 at 10am Jury deliberating in the case of Andrew Soper, a Catholic priest, who has denied sexually abusing 10 boys at a west London school in the 1970s and 80s.
Senior Partner and Head of Litigation, Giles Ward is acting on behalf of people who would have us believing “It is not in the Public Interest to learn the ’the hows whys & whos’ did, permitted or enabled the #CSA at Ampleforth Abbey & Schooling Complexity.
Former pupils tell inquiry of sexual abuse by priests at Ampleforth College
Boys as young as six allegedly beaten and sexually assaulted at Roman Catholic school in Yorkshire, inquiry into child abuse hears
29 Nov 2017
Priests at a leading Roman Catholic school abused boys as young as six, including beatings and sexual assaults, the national inquiry into child abuse has heard.
Former pupils at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire gave evidence to a hearing in London on Wednesday, and written statements by other former pupils were read.
Many of the allegations centred on two priests, Piers Grant-Ferris who was jailed for two years in 2006 for 20 counts of indecent assault on boys in his care, and another priest referred to as RCF4.
One witness who spent 11 years at Ampleforth College and its preparatory school Gilling Castle from 1965 to 1976, said RCF4 had treated him “disgracefully”. “He was physically violent from the outset… I was physically and psychologically abused,” he told the hearing. RCF4 had been “nasty, cruel and physically violent towards me”.
In his second year, when the witness was eight years old, he said Grant-Ferris would walk behind boys sitting at long refectory tables for meals and select children for beatings. “If he stopped behind you and tapped you, then you knew it was you. If he stopped behind someone else and tapped them, one thing that disturbs me to this day is the feeling of relief that it wasn’t going to be me,” he said.
Once he was beaten in the chapel confessional by the priest after being told to take off his clothes. “It was always with his hands … and his hands would always linger on one’s bare bottom after each smack.”
On another occasion, the witness said Grant-Ferris told him to undress and lie face down on the priest’s bed. “He proceeded to take my temperature rectally. I didn’t even know people could have their temperatures taken rectally, I’d only ever had a thermometer put in my mouth. I begged him not to do it, because I didn’t know what was happening, but he continued anyway. I think technically that was a form of rape.”
Grant-Ferris, the son of a Tory peer, was “the full authority figure” the witness told the hearing. At the school, there were “sexual overtones and currents all the time”, he added.
After he left school, the witness suffered a “total psychological collapse” which lasted seven or eight years. “I wasn’t able to do anything, I couldn’t function.”
He said he believed that Basil Hume, who was abbot of Ampleforth Abbey for 13 years until appointed archbishop of Westminster in 1976, had been aware of abuse at the schools. “I have no doubt he knew exactly what was going on at the time.”
Another witness, who was sent to Gilling Castle at the age of six, told the hearing that he and other boys would cry under their blankets at night as monks wearing long black robes patrolled the dormitories. Grant-Ferris was known as “Pervy Piers” among the children, he said.
According to yet another statement, Grant-Ferris was “handsome and aristocratic” with a perpetual mood of excitement.
This witness also described how another teacher had put his hand down the boy’s trousers “to check my breathing” when he was auditioning for the choir. As a result of his experiences, he said: “I became a very quiet child who didn’t talk to people much.”
The inquiry also heard from a female former pupil at Ampleforth College, who left the school in 2010. She said that a music teacher, Dara De-Cogan, had sexually abused her over a period of years. De-Cogan was jailed for 28 months earlier this year pleading guilty to 10 charges of engaging in sexual activity while in a position of trust.
The witness said that he had groomed her from the age of 13, and his abuse resulted in her self-harming. “I thought I deserved to be punished somehow for what I was doing … [self-harming] gave me a sense of numbness.”
On some occasions, De-Cogan gave her marks out of 10 for oral sex, she said. “He would comment on it as if it was a piece of homework.”
Child protection procedures at Ampleforth were “very poor”, she said. Because of earlier convictions of monks, the college had an “obsessive emphasis on the completion of paperwork, but common sense and looking at what was in front of their faces – that went by the wayside.”
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse began a three-week hearing on Monday focusing on the Benedictine schools of Ampleforth and Downside. In some cases, abusers were permitted to stay in their posts and allowed to have contact with children and other vulnerable individuals, the hearing was told earlier this week.
Charles Howeson was vetted at highest level by Royal Navy, jury hears
29 NOV 2017
A jury heard how a prominent Plymouth figure accused of groping 10 young men and a boy was vetted at the highest level by the Royal Navy as part of his secretive work in Gibraltar.
Charles Howeson, aged 68, told the jury at Bristol Crown Court that after leaving the second-in-command post of HMS Cleopatra he was posted to Admiral command in Plymouth for two-and-a-half years to carry out “NATO counter terrorism work”.
He told the jury: “I had a highly sensitive job. What it stated on the door tally wasn’t quite what I did”.
After promotion to Commander he was then posted to Gibraltar to an “equally sensitive” role “if not more sensitive” which he explained the Royal Navy called the “Operations and Plans and Intelligence” department.
He added: I was responsible for all the ships coming into Gibraltar. All of them.”
However, he left the Royal Navy after what he had previously described as a “triple whammy” of tragic family events.
He was asked by his barrister Daniel Janner QC what his plans had originally been. Howeson explained that he would have remained as a Commander in Gibraltar and gone to sea as Captain of his own ship before being posted to a senior position with the Ministry of Defence.
Asked about the vetting process for such work he replied: “At that time there were three levels of vetting.”
He said the “normal” vetting was the basic level while “positive vetting” covered “positions of sensitive and secret” nature while the highest was “EPV – Extra Positive Vetting for a few people in very sensitive positions. I held the latter”.
Mr Janner referred to the Royal Navy’s Service Investigation Squad inquiry at the time into the allegations made by sailors aboard HMS Cleopatra.
Howeson said the investigation was “very, very thorough”, but later revealed he had been given opportunity while on board to view the statements by the alleged victims prior to his interview with SIS officers.
Howeson also revealed he had written a 13-page account of his movement and actions relating to the allegations while on board the RFA tanker which he had been transferred to following the claims being made.
He said he sealed the document in an envelope and sent it over to the HMS Cleopatra using a rope “within 72 hours” of the allegations being made.
He was later presented with this document and read out the details of the actions he took on those occasions to the jury.
In the account he explained how he had felt unwell and suffered a rare bout of seasickness after leaving Bermuda. He felt increasingly unwell with a rising temperature and had “aching legs”.
After his transfer to the RFA tanker Howeson was bed-bound with flu for three days before he was able to write his report.
In response to questions by a jury member, it was revealed both the prosecution and defence teams had seen a final Admiralty report of the inquiry into the allegations. Howeson said he had only seen the report when it was presented to him a month ago.
The jury heard he was asked directly by the SIS officers if he had any “homosexual tendencies”, to which he replied “no, and I’m quite positive on that” citing his wife and then two children.
After explaining he was given a lift to Admiral Hogg’s home after his SIS interviews by one of the officers, where he met his wife who took him the rest of the way home, he was asked if he was friends with the Admiral.
Howeson said his wife was friends with Admiral Hogg’s wife, adding that he had served under Admiral Hogg “when he was a commander and I was a cadet”.
Howeson said: “We’re friends now. It’s very difficult for a Lieutenant Command and an Admiral to be friends.”
Mr Janner replied: “Like a barrister and a judge?”
Howeson, noting Judge Mark Horton’s intense glance at his barrister, answered: “There’s a huge age range in age and seniority” which prompted laughter from the jury.
The jury heard Howeson was later phoned by the SIS to be told it had been examined by Royal Navy lawyers and there was no further action to be taken.
When questioned about an alleged attack on a young boy at his property Smallack House in 1985, Howeson said he did not move there until 1987.
The alleged victim, who identified Howeson from picking him out from a series of images, had told the jury earlier in the trial Howeson had allowed him to ride his Honda 250 Superdream motorbike and taken him to a nearby field to learn how to shoot an air rifle.
Howeson told the jury he had not owned an air rifle, claiming he only owned a licensed shotgun which was kept secured in a loft. He also explained he not only did not own a 250cc motorbike but he had no such licence to ride one. He admitted to owning a small 80cc Suzuki moped which had been brought from his former home in Cornwall to allow him to commute to work.
When asked by Mr Janner if his face was often in the local press, Howeson replied that “rightly or wrongly” he appeared in the Plymouth Herald “frequently” sometimes with a picture. He noted how the Herald had an extensive photographic library, adding: “They have a lot of pictures of me in it
At one stage Mr Janner read out an “officer’s confidential report” on Howeson from his commanding officer at Gibraltar Rear Admiral Biggs, following his request to leave the Royal Navy.
A departmental report from Air Commander RAF Lovett said Howeson had been responsible “for setting up the tri-Service Operations and Plans Division in our embryo Joint Headquarters.
That it is up and running at some speed in two months before the official ‘go-live’ date is a reflection of his vitality and capacity for sustained hard work. With his marked enthusiasm he is a point of inspiration for his team and gets a lot out of them. As a Staff Officer he had great output and expresses his ideas with clarity: he is an impressive orator who commands immediate attention, and his writing, although not always as concise as one might wish, is punchy and easy to read.”
The ‘general report’ completed by Rear Admiral Biggs noted at how Howeson had been “beset by a number of domestic tragedies that could have destroyed a lesser man. He, though, has carried the burden, cared for his family and continued to do his job with efficiency and flair. He has shown that he has deep reserves of moral courage, unswerving determination and unquestionable loyalty to the Service”.
The Rear Admiral notes how Howeson was “blessed” with a “colourful, bubbling personality, a delightful sense of humour and a relaxed and confident manner”.
He wrote how people “look to him [Howeson] for leadership and he never fails them; but he does dominate the stage ad can sometimes deny others the opportunity to display their own initiative. He has a good intellect, an agile mind and sound powers of reasoning. He works fast and is impatient of delay, and it is perhaps this latter quality that occasionally leads him to see things in rather blacker or white terms than is actually warranted. But above all he is an outstanding achiever whose successes far outweigh any minor or temporary shortcomings.
“Sadly Howeson has opted to leave the Navy on his return home from Gibraltar, and the Service will thus lose a most able and colourful character with enormous generosity of spirit and all the qualities for successful Command at sea. Were he to change his mind I would recommend him strongly for this and for EARLY [sic] promotion to Captain when eligible.”
The jury were shown a promotional video for the Plymouth Area Groundwork Trust which explained the ideals and actions of the organisation. Filmed by the BBC, it included footage of the Queen opening the Groundwork’s headquarters at the Royal William Yard.
Howeson told the jury he would visit Drake’s Island at least once a week and take a circular tour of the entire island. He said the ultimate aim was to see it handed over by the Crown Estate who owned it at the time, to become “a public trust for the people of Plymouth”.
When asked how he first heard of the allegations, he said he was met by Scott Norman, chair of the Trust saying there was “some unpleasant allegations” made about Howeson by members of staff”.
Howeson said he was not given any names or details other than the complaints were “sexual allegations”.
He said he responded with “shock… horror”. Howeson said he was advised by Mr Norman to go home and consult a lawyer. However, he was told he was unable to use his ‘normal’ lawyer because it was the one used by the Groundwork Trust. He instead used a “distinguished lawyer” from Bristol who told him his position was “untenable”. Noting there was a “group of employees” making allegations which were “similar” he said the lawyer told him he had experience of such situations and chief executives “never go back when something has reached this stage”.
Howeson said he was never interviewed and never went through any investigative process until his arrest years later. As each allegation was read out to him by Mr Janner, Howeson strenuously denied each one.
He said he felt it was “a fait accompli”, claiming the investigation by the Trust itself had concluded before he even sought legal advice.
Howeson said he recognised that “this would cause great damage to an organisation that quite frankly I loved and had built up.
“You may feel you’re very important but the organisation is more important. No sailor’s more important than his ship”.
He wrote a letter of resignation, and Mr Janner read out a letter from Mr Norman to the Trust’s partners to let them know Howeson had resigned due to him being “under stress for some considerable time”.
Mr Janner asked Howeson if he was under any conditions – specifically whether he was told he could not work with young people or children.
“Absolutely not,” replied Howeson. “There were no conditions”.
He said he received numerous letters of thanks and appreciation for his efforts and work for the Trust.
The jury also heard he contacted a member of staff, to ensure a two-page supplementary article he had written for the Plymouth Herald about the proposals for Drake’s Island was still to be sent.
He also revealed that while he was unable to return as an executive director to the Groundwork Trust he spent eight months as a paid consultant writing a detail submission to the Crown Estate for the future plans of Drake’s Island.
He told jury the ultimate objective and his “personal challenge” was to see Drake’s Island turned from “a derelict embarrassment to become a publicly owned trust, to allow them [the public] to access it and a sustainable maintenance regime” put in place. He had earlier said the population of Plymouth had were “thoroughly ashamed” of the state of the island, claiming “it should have been the jewel in the crown of the 27 miles waterfront” instead of being “derelict and covered in seagull droppings”.
Howeson, of Craigie Drive, Stonehouse, denies 11 counts of indecently assaulting 10 young men and a boy and one count of attempted buggery, charges which date from 1985 and 1994.
Charles Howeson takes to the stand for the first time
28 Nov 2017
He married his wife Emma in 1978 and they had four children, sadly later losing one. He confirmed he had recently become a grandfather.
He said he had left the Navy for “personal reasons”, stating that he and his wife had lost a child while he was in Gibraltar, a tenant of his had “wrecked our house” and “stolen most of our belongings” and his mother had died. This “triple whammy” meant he feel he had to spend more time with his family “and a little less time on my career.”
He had also been the chair of a consumer watchdog which over saw the Royal Mail group, involved with St Peters church in Plymouth assisting it with a “multi-million pound refit” using Lottery money.
the jury heard Howeson had been chair of Plymouth Area Business Council Plymouth business council and a governor of city school for girls.
Earlier today, prosecutors closed their case against Howeson, finishing police interviews carried out after his arrest.
Mr Janner said the jury would hear a “considerable” amount of evidence to support his case, as well as from a number of witnesses, including Howeson’s wife and adult children, Royal Navy personnel and charity staff.
In addition, the jury would hear from a large number of character witnesses who knew the defendant during the periods addressed in the 12 charges which date from 1985 and 1994.
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.”
Unnamed setting once again. The courts seem to have become agents of unnecessary secrecy. These were non-recent crimes. Why is the school not named?
Beaumont was due to be sentenced today but prosecutor Louise Beattie told the court said she had received information that he had left the UK last week and fled to Albania with £9,000.
Ms Beattie said: “Given the report from social workers they were not surprised.”
So why didn’t they stop him?
Former Solihull teacher jailed for child sex abuse
27th Nov, 2017
A FORMER Solihull teacher who is wanted by courts in England and Scotland has been jailed in his absence for sexually abusing a boy on a school trip more than 30 years ago.Roderick Beaumont had been granted bail after pleading not guilty to two charges of indecently assaulting the nine-year-old boy around 1980.But when the 62-year-old from Braehead, Methvan Walk in Dundee, failed to turn up for his trial at Warwick Crown Court, he was tried in his absence and convicted of both charges.He was believed to have fled to Albania, and a warrant was issued for his arrest, after which a European arrest warrant was also granted.Judge Andrew Lockhart QC, said Beaumont poses ‘a clear and present danger’ to children,’ and sentenced him in his absence.Passing an extended sentence of four years, of which Beaumont will have to serve at least two-thirds before he can even be considered for parole, he also imposed a five-year extension to the time he will then spend on licence, and ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.When Beaumont, who is also subject to a warrant issued at Airdrie Sheriff Court in Scotland in October last year, is finally arrested, he will be brought before the court to be told of his sentence.Prosecutor Graeme Simpson had told the jury that in around 1980 Beaumont, who now describes himself as a ‘global coach,’ was working as a teacher at a Solihull school.During a school trip he had got a boy aged eight or nine out of his bed and taken him into another room where he got the boy to perform a sex act on him.Then on a later occasion, at Beaumont’s home, he fondled the boy and got the boy to touch him.The offences only came to light last year, and following his arrest Beaumont denied acting indecently towards the boy, and was granted bail.Mr Simpson said the matter predated an indecent assault on a child under the age of 16 in 1983, for which he appeared at the court in 1984 and was given a six-month suspended sentence.In October 2016 he pleaded guilty at Airdrie Sheriff Court to sending messages of a sexual nature to a 14-year-old boy.On that occasion his case was adjourned with him on bail for reports to be prepared on him – and a warrant was issued for his arrest when he failed to turn up to be sentenced in December.He was said to have caught a flight from Edinburgh to Albania with £9,000 in cash on him, but it is now rumoured he has since moved to Mexico.Jailing Beaumont for the Solihull offence, Judge Lockhart observed: “There is a significant degree of planning, grooming behaviour and a breach of trust.“He is 61 years of age, and the offending took place a long time ago, between 1979 and 1981. He had been a teacher at this young boy’s school, and they had been on a trip away.“The case I tried was conducted in the absence of this defendant, and he was convicted of those two counts. At the time, the offence carried a maximum of ten years. Now it would be 14.“There was a breach of trust, and a significant one. One can barely imagine how upset and traumatised that boy would be, being taken to a man’s bed in the dead of night while he was away from home.“I am absolutely satisfied this man presents a clear and present danger which could result in serious psychological or physical harm.“Mr Beaumont is not here. In due course he will no doubt be arrested and brought before a court. When he is arrested, he should be brought before me.”
Convicted sex predator tracked down in Mexico trying to buy props to teach yoga to kids
A paedophile who went on the run from Scotland after admitting grooming a teenage boy online has been identified by an online seller.
The court heard the former airline pilot, who describes himself as a “global coach”, caught a flight from Edinburgh to Albania with £9000.
…two other people contacted us to claim they were abused by Beaumont in the past when he lived in the US.
They saw the story about Beaumont dodging court and going on the run last December. One victim said: ”I’ve been following the story about Roderick Beaumont.
“Thirty years ago, Mr Beaumont conned his way into a youth organisation, where he met me.
“While he befriended my family, friends and teachers from my school, he sexually abused me.
“Everyone around me thought the world of Mr Beaumont and my distress was often regarded as defiant teenage behaviour because he had become a parental figure.
“He told everyone he was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and they gave him an equivalent rank based on his story.
“There was a youth component to CAP (Civil Air Patrol Squadron.) and I was awarded cadet of the year.
“Mr Beaumont was a certified flight instructor and free lessons were part of my award. Mr Beaumont has several pilot licences, including multi-purpose engine and commercial ratings. The education and management consultant …
Beaumont – who specialises in youth impact coaching and claimed to have successfully coached children as young as 10
Beaumont claims to have visited 138 countries as a “global coach” and worked in 23 countries.
It is feared that his experience of travelling and living abroad will make it easier for him to blend into local communities in different countries.
Former employers have included the CIA, UPI, US-AID, US-IA and many others.
1999
UNESCO Education Expert Available for Interviews.
PRESCOTT, Ariz., July 1 /PRNewswire/ — Prescott, AZ resident Rod Beaumont has been invited to take a top seat on the U.S. National Action Committee presiding over the UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) International “Innocence in Danger — Children Online” initiative. The national committee was formally launched June 15th at a press conference at the United Nations in New York. Besides the main committee Beaumont will sit on the School, Library and Community Task Force as well as the Opinion makers Task Force.
Besides this top honor, Beaumont is an expert on the UNESCO International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century as well as an advocate against child labor/slavery activities world wide.
Some of his most passionate advocacy areas include the “Lost Children of Brazil” and other South and Latin American countries as well as making education reform and implementation a part of humanitarian relief efforts. Beaumont has published a book entitled “A Guide to School to Work” which focuses on education reform to increase standards while increasing awareness of “real world” opportunities and expectations. He is currently writing a book on the Workforce of the Twenty-first Century, to be published later this year.
Beaumont is available for interviews on Radio talk shows at no charge via telephone. For expert opinions please contact Mary Beaumont ato set up an interview appointment.
Stunning expose – why weren’t they investigated then?...
February 8, 2001
Fighting Bullies
Rod and Mary Beaumont are the duo behind the Safe Schools, SafeStudents organization, a nonprofit group whose biggest claim to fame is its anti-bullying hotline. Rod Beaumont, 45, who has a doctorate in communication, is the founder and CEO of the organization. He is also a best-selling author, an internationally known educational consultant, a school safety czar, a renowned school-to-work authority, a leading anti-bullying expert, a popular speaker, a seasoned pilot and former journalist.
Or so he says.
A visit to the Prescott headquarters yields a clue that these anti-bully crusaders are not all they say they are. They claim a cadre of 66 student and 40 adult volunteers, but on that Tuesday afternoon, only Rod, Mary and their son are present at the center until schools let out. Then, four teenagers report for duty, and one of them is their daughter, Kat.
A closer look at him and his organization reveals what may be a modern-day, high-tech version of the Wizard of Oz. Seemingly huge and impressive behind an Internet façade, the Stop the Bully organization is really a small-town operation run by a couple whose own finances are in ruin, who tend to stretch the truth or flat-out lie — all in the name of fund-raising.
And helping kids, of course.
Just three weeks before opening their hotline, the couple filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Phoenix, claiming debts of more than $125,000, assets of about $6,900 and a combined monthly income of $3,616 — stemming from Rod Beaumont’s income from his own educational consulting organization called Paradigm Marketing, and Mary’s disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He says he received an undergraduate journalism degree and a master’s in education and communication from the University of Birmingham, England, and a doctorate in communication from St. Andrew’s in Scotland. (Officials at both institutions say they had no readily available record of him attending there, but cautioned that a more careful search might turn up some verification.)
On that site (stopthebully.org) are other suspicious endorsements. One page includes direct quotes from British celebrities touting the hotline and Safe Schools’ work. But the colorful page is a near duplicate of one that appears on the ChildLine, a U.K. hotline Beaumont says he used as a model for the Prescott version. On that British Web site, the same celebrities say the same things, only the word “ChildLine” appears in place of “Safe Schools.”
Honorary President Julia Ogilvy – Founder and Honorary President
yes THAT ogilvy family – daughter-in-law of jJimmy Savile’s friends Angus & Alexandra Ogilvy
.Julia was Chair of the ProjectScotland Board from launch until 2011 during which time she won the Scottish Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. She also won a number of awards in her previous role as Managing Director of Hamilton and Inches including Businesswoman of the Year. She was a member of Gordon Brown’s Council for Social Action and is the author of Turning Points. Julia is a Trustee of Tearfund, Buttle UK and the Arnold Foundation and is an Elder in the Church of Scotland, focusing on youth work.
He is in the FAA Airmen records database with a medical dated to January 1991 and with Airline Transport Pilot Flight Instructor and type ratings for A/CE-500, A/LR-JET, and C/DC-3.
Rod Beaumont has an FAA pilot record that supports claims of CAP Flight Instruction in the United States.
Rod Beaumont uses the alias Rod Beau, as in:
Discover Rod Beau Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting. Executive and Personal Coaching, Youth Intervention, NLP Practitioner, Scotland based – International coach. Motivational speaker. Facebook, Twitter and Social Media. LinkedIn, FAQ We have many different courses and programs which are bespoke to YOU our clients and YOUR identified needs. Check out our SERVICES tab to see the most popular options and remember to contact us today and start that journey towards your goals!
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A dynamic, creative, polymath, and analytical team player with excellent organizational and managerial skills and more than 25 years in education, training and project management experience; 15 years flight experience as a pilot and instructor; eight years in newspaper production, design, and editing, combined with six years of experience as a photo journalist and over 18 years as a consultant. A proven performer with a rich track record of success and exceptional problem-solving and leadership abilities.
Check out my web site or LinkedIn for details Book your FREE initial session directly with me here.
I have been to 138 different countries and lived and worked in more than 23. I have an adopted son, Alex who is now 18 and have lived mainly outside the UK for the last 30 years.
Former Royal Navy officer was ‘too familiar’ with sailors, jury heard
Charles Howeson questioned about numerous allegations while he was in Royal Navy
A leading Plymouth businessman admitted to police he had been confronted by a fellow naval officer, who claimed that he was ‘too familiar’ with sailors, a jury heard.
But former lieutenant-commander Charles Howeson, who turned 68 today, explained ‘that’s kind of how I am’.
Howeson, Bristol Crown Court heard, also replied to a detective interviewing him about allegations made against him by ‘lower ranks’ stating; “you don’t hold top security clearance in the Navy if there’s something dodgy about you”.
The jury at Bristol Crown Court, where Howeson faces 11 counts of indecently assaulting 10 young men and a boy and one count of attempted buggery, listened as transcribed interviews between investigating officer Det Con Paul Enticknap and the former executive director of the charity Groundwork Trust were read out by the officer and prosecution junior Patricia Cornwall.
Det Con Enticknap, in the witness box, had questioned Howeson about the numerous allegations while he was in the Navy.
Howeson recalled that on board one ship – HMS Cleopatra – where he was second in command there was “only about five baddies and I wasn’t one of them”.
He recalled a man overboard drill he had instigated but said he could not recall nominating a sailor to assist him.
The former junior rating had given evidence saying Howeson had groped at his genitals over his trousers during the drill in December 1985.
He had claimed in court he believed the senior officer had arranged the test as a pretext to get him alone at night.
The jury heard how during his police interview that Howeson admitted he had had ‘daily’ contact with the sailor, but denied groping the man, saying it was a night time exercise, the deck was dark and he was holding onto the back of the man’s life-jacket who had been wearing ‘foul-weather gear’ at the time.
Earlier during the trial the jury heard the man had immediately gone to the Master at Arms to make the complaint and that he was “shaking and very upset” and appeared “grey”.
He said he recalled being brought into the Captain’s cabin to be told “Charles, I’m very sorry but a serious allegation has been made against you and we need to investigate it”. He was then transferred off the ship to a Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) tanker as the investigation was carried out which Howeson said was “all completely in order”.
During the interview Howeson said he believed they were taken to Portsmouth and he was then driven home. However, the officer highlighted a statement from a member of the Navy’s Special Investigations Squad (SIS) how two days after the incident the vessel they docked at Gosport in Hampshire and Howeson was driven home.
However, the jury heard how Howeson agreed with Det Con Enticknap that he had called his wife and then a Rear Admiral while on board the RFA, admitted he was a friend and is now a neighbour. The jury heard how Howeson was initially driven by an SIS to meet his wife at the Rear Admiral’s home before returning to Plymouth.
He said he was later telephoned by a member of the SIS and told ‘investigation over, no further action’. Two weeks later he returned to the ship to collect his belongings as the Captain was leaving and Howeson had already been recommended for promotion.
When questioned by Det Con Enticknap about the alleged indecent assault, Howeson replied “it would’ve been a superhuman thing to do given the clothing we were wearing”. He also told police he was never told all the details of the allegation.
He said he could “attribute no motive” to the sailor’s allegation, stating he “was a perfectly good bloke”.
Howeson admitted another officer who was of the same rank as him had taken him to one side earlier in the operation as the vessel crossed the Atlantic from Barbados to criticise his “leadership style”. Howeson said the officer ‘thought I was too familiar”.
“Touchy feely?” asked Det Con Enticknap.
“That’s kind of how I am,” answered Howeson.
He said the Rear Admiral had not stopped his promotion, which he was capable of doing, but that the Captain had recommended Howeson’s promotion. He told the detective: “Can I say my report from [the Captain] was exceedingly good, in fact it was quite exceptional”.
Questioned about an allegation regarding groping another sailor, Howeson had replied “I deny it then and I deny it now.
“You don’t hold a top security clearance in the Navy if there’s something dodgy about you”.
Questioned about the allegations of indecent assault while he was chief executive of the Groundworks Trust he told the officer the allegations all appeared the same and “make for horrific reading – I deny all of them”.
He said he knew some of the complaints came at the time, saying: “Some people did complain about me being touchy feely.” When asked what he thought the phrase meant he answered “putting arm around somebody’s back. I’m a sort of person do would do that… but not that.”
He said he was recruited to head up the charity after he left the Royal Navy having had “a jolly career” and wanted to have more time with his children at home.
He said the ‘raison d’etre’ of the charity was to get people into employed work and it had taken on people “from probation” and on “benefits”.
Their work included garden on more than “50 projects” around the city including Royal William Yard and Drake’s Island. He admitted he left after he was called in by the chairman and deputy chairman of the charity and confronted with the complaints, adding “I left in part because of these complains and I wanted to dis-embarrassment the Groundworks [charity]” and because he had “a heart murmur”.
When asked why the complaints about indecent assaults may have come about he said he did not have the details, but added “I may have dismissed some of these people” noting there had been incidents of “drug taking on Drake’s Island”.
He told the detective around 10 individuals from Groundworks were living on the island as they carried out the clearing and repair work and had been interfering with the Royal Navy’s navigation lights, turning them on and off. He had been contacted by angry Navy personnel and “I shut it down”.
He said: “We had about 10 people who lived on Drake’s Island and they certainly were drug users” which he admitted had drawn the attention of the Ministry of Defence police.
He added that they were led by “a dealer” describing the man as “most able, most literate”.
He insisted he left Groundworks because he felt the complaints would damage the charity’s reputation.
He denied he had taken anyone into the tunnels of Drake’s Island or into sheds or outhouses at Royal William Yard to indecently assault them.
Howeson was formerly chairman of First Great Western trains and also chairman of the now defunct South West Strategic Health Authority, which used to oversee health spending.
He joined the Royal Navy in 1967.
Howeson, of Craigie Drive, Stonehouse denies all 12 charges which date from 1985 and 1994.
The trial, before Judge Mark Horton, continues and is expected to take between four and six weeks
Social work professor denies he is an ‘apologist for child abusers
A PROFESSOR of social work who previously ran secure units for children in Edinburgh where youngsters were sexually abused has claimed the evidence against child abusers can be “flimsy” and he hasn’t come across a case yet where he has been convinced of guilt.
Mark Smith also admitted that when he heard the details of some charges he has thought, “I’ve done that”. The University of Dundee academic previously managed council care homes for traumatised young girls in Edinburgh, including St Katharine’s home.
One former carer at St Katharine’s, Gordon Collins, took advantage of his position of trust to groom, molest and rape teenagers between 1995 and 2006 at the home. He was jailed last year for the historical abuse of four girls. Another man, Kevin Glancy, was jailed in 2008 for possessing 239 pictures and 70 video clips of child abuse.
Smith wrote an article entitled “Criminalising everyday care” for a legal news website about miscarriages of justice.
One campaign group which supports survivors of abuse has described Smith as “an apologist for child abusers”. Smith’s former employer, City of Edinburgh Council, distanced themselves from Smith and insisted all convictions against its former employees are “safe”.
Smith has defended his article, claiming he has not tried to deny “genuine abuses”. His current employer, the University of Dundee, also defended the academic’s right to “freedom of speech”.
Smith said in his article he had “come uncomfortably close to cases of historical abuse over the past dozen or so years” and had given evidence to both prosecution and defence and been a witness in cases where he has “worked directly with the accused”.
He wrote: “I have not come across a case yet where I have been convinced of guilt. In fact I have been horrified by the flimsiness, indeed the banality, of the evidence that finds its way to court. Not only that, I found myself thinking on hearing of some charges: “I’ve done that”.
Smith, who participated in a Scottish Government review of secure accommodation for young people in 2005, goes on to say the prosecution of historical child abuse cases “owes very little to evidence of actual abuse but is driven by shifting attitudes and assumptions about how to care for children”.
Citing the case of a former colleague who was convicted of abusing boys at a residential school where they both worked in the 1980s – and who Smith said was wrongfully convicted – Smith said when staff showered with young boys “cold water may have been thrown about – bodies flicked with rolled-up towels” and insisted “all of this was done in fun – I don’t believe for a minute that any boy was traumatised”.
Smith said it’s not only “the odd bad apple” who may face prosecution, adding that he fears every carer who worked in a residential setting “risks becoming caught in the cross hairs” of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
Abuse survivor David Whelan, of campaign group Former Boys and Girls Abused (FBGA), was targeted by paedophile John Porteous who was jailed in 2002 for historical sex offences against boys. He said: “Mark Smith fails to recognise that many people were actually convicted of crimes in a court of law. His article is an attempt to discredit genuine victims. I would go as far as to say he’s an apologist for child abusers.
“He’s excusing behaviour that wasn’t normal, such as carers showering with children. When adults did do this they had a propensity to abuse children. In my own case my abuser John Porteous used to shower with the boys. Mark Smith seems to suggest this wasn’t a sexually-motivated act.”
Janine Rennie of Wellbeing Scotland, an organisation that supports survivors of abuse, said she was “extremely angry” by Smith’s claim that he is unconvinced of the guilt of convicted child abusers.
She said: “Of 1,500 case files we have there’s not one we’d assess in the same way he has. I am concerned that this social work lecturer doesn’t see the significance of child abuse or understand how difficult it is for survivors to talk about their experiences. It takes a huge amount of courage for a survivor to come forward, so these entirely inappropriate views are very dangerous and could discourage people from speaking to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry or indeed the police.”
Abuse survivor Dave Sharp, founder of SAFE (Seek and Find Everyone Abused in Childhood) was beaten and raped by a Christian Brother in a shower room at St Ninian’s school in Fife. He said: “People who make these kinds of comments which play down abuse must be scrutinised.”
A senior source at City of Edinburgh Council said the local authority does not share Smith’s views and they have “no doubt about the safety of convictions” of former residential care staff.
A spokesman for the council added: “The views expressed in no way represent the views of the council and we would refute them. We are co-operating fully with the current Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. We work closely with Police Scotland and our partner agencies to investigate any allegations of abuse, whether current or historical.”
A spokesman for the University of Dundee said: “One of the core principles of academic freedom is freedom of speech and we support that for all of our academics.”
Smith told the Sunday Herald: “The question I have addressed in my article, which was first published more than four months ago, is one that is of considerable debate – whether the application of modern standards to behaviour that occurred decades ago and in a time of different cultural norms means people are at risk of being unfairly prosecuted or demonised.
“In doing this I have not made reference to specific cases. What I have said is descriptive of practices at the time, which were commonplace and open.
“This is not an attempt in any way to deny genuine abuses that took place or make apologies for truly awful behaviour.
“Of course we do not want to discourage victims of abuse to come forward.
“But we also have to be extremely careful we are not making abusers of people who took part in innocent practices, which is the essence of my article.
“I would stress that I speak on the basis of decades of experience in the area of residential care and claims of abuse.”
Parallel Universes; social workers and abused children
27 Nov 2017
Court 7 at 10am Jury expected to retire in the case of Andrew Soper, a Catholic priest, who has denied sexually abusing 10 boys at a west London school in the 1970s and 80s.
UK watchdog launches inquiry into teacher who admitted molesting boys
Stephen Jackson was hired by two British schools despite facing multiple child abuse allegations in the US
26 November 2017
Stephen Jackson, also known as Stephen Myers, was dismissed after teaching for just 13 days at Tendring college when police raised child protection concerns.
The UK teachers’ watchdog has launched an investigation into alleged misconduct by an American teacher who the Guardian revealed was hired by two British schools despite previously admitting molesting boys.
Stephen Jackson was fired in late September by Tendring Technology College when Essex police alerted senior staff to concerns about him. The 72-year-old was recruited to teach English to 11- to 14-year-old boys despite facing multiple child abuse allegations in the US. He also taught at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Knights Academy in Bromley from 2009 to 2011.
The investigation by the National College of Teaching and Leadership was launched shortly after Jackson left the country in October. He has previously admitted to police in Santa Cruz, California, that he was attracted to 14- to 16-year-old boys, that he touched a boy’s penis on a camping trip, molested a pupil aged 15 or 16, and slept in the same bed as one of his students. US investigators also received evidence suggesting he may have sexually assaulted his four-year-old adopted son.
Dan Thiel, now 51, who alleges Jackson molested him when he was about 13, told the Guardian: “There were the two of us in a tent and he talked me into getting into my sleeping bag naked. When I woke up in the middle of the night he had his hand on me. He was groping me and feeling me up.”
Jackson, who was also known as Myers, was dismissed after teaching for just 13 days at Tendring college when police raised child protection concerns.
Giles Watling, the school’s local MP, said the case appeared “shocking”, and demanded answers on why he was not identified earlier. “I want to ascertain how the system can be improved to ensure it never happens again,” he said.
Tendring College said it did not tell parents about Jackson because it had no child protection issues with him while he was there, but insisted it had acted swiftly.
“There is annoyance that the system did not pick up on the historical allegations even though all relevant checks were in place,” said Michael Muldoon, principal at the college.
Jackson was recruited by an employment agency, Red, which said it carried out checks with the FBI and Colorado Bureau of Investigations but nothing showed up. Despite police investigations, Jackson has never been charged or convicted. Knights Academy said “all the legally required checks were carried out”.
The case has alarmed child protection experts. Dame Moira Gibb, one of Britain’s leading social workers, said she was disappointed lessons from a previous inquiry into an American paedophile teacher who found work in a UK school did not appear to have been learned.
“Teachers who move around and don’t have complete employment histories should be seen as posing a threat that requires more effort on vetting,” she said. “I am surprised the school didn’t think it needed to tell parents and that it was reasonable for them to assume that nothing reported meant that nothing of concern had happened. Schools have to be open and transparent and demonstrate that they want to create a culture where speaking up is welcomed.”
Gibb led the serious case review into William Vahey’s abuse of 60 boys at Southbank International school in London.
Connie Durant, a former colleague of Jackson’s who runs a support network for his alleged victims, welcomed the investigation.
“This is extremely encouraging, especially since the last time a government agency investigated him was over 15 years ago,” she said. “We’ve had to rely on reporters, as well as our informational website, to keep the spotlight on Jackson. Having a government agency get involved is very good news.”
For more than two decades, Jackson ran the “Traveling School” (a separate entity to the current Traveling School which offers leadership skills to young women), which based its curriculum around six- to eight-week trips, on bikes, in buses and station wagons, camping and staying in lodges around north America and abroad.
Bernie Escalante, the investigations lieutenant at Santa Cruz police department, said there were three investigations into Jackson in the 1990s. The first was into “body awareness” activities with the Traveling School, which were “extremely odd and suspicious” but not illegal.
The school’s ethos was based partly on Erhard Seminars Training, a system of personal development work that some labelled cultish.
The second investigation was into molestations in Colorado and South Africa that were beyond the statute of limitations and out of jurisdiction. During a trip to South Africa, Jackson admitting molesting a boy, aged 15 or 16, who was ill in bed.
The third investigation was into allegations about his four-year-old adopted son. Jackson’s police file from the time also contains remarks made by Jackson’s adopted son after he was removed from his care. Their notes showed the boy had told them Jackson played games with his penis, hurt his “butt” and watched films with him in bed of “boys being silly naked”.
The district attorney did not pursue the case and Myers later emailed a friend claiming “Art Danner, the district attorney, put a stop to it. Art knew me and the school and didn’t want to see the school ruined.” Danner has since died.
Escalante said the boy’s parents decided not to move forward with the investigation, but the child’s adoptive mother claims she did pursue the complaint and that an appointment for the boy to be interviewed by a specialist was scheduled and cancelled several times.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury could face police probe into whether he broke the law by covering up for a paedophile bishop
Police are considering a formal inquiry into Church of England’s former leader
Lord Carey, 82, could face being interviewed under caution in investigation
Rev Peter Ball indecently assaulted 18 boys and young men from 1977 to 1992
Former leaders could face criminal charges for not passing on abuse complaints
25 November 2017
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, could face a police investigation into whether he broke the law by covering up for a paedophile bishop.
Officers are understood to be considering a formal inquiry to determine whether the former leader of the Church of England and other senior church officials should face criminal charges over their failure to pass on sex abuse complaints made against ex-bishop Peter Ball.
Such an investigation would be highly controversial and may involve 82-year-old Lord Carey being interviewed under caution.
Sources say police are collecting evidence and scrutinising a scathing Church of England report commissioned by the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
It concludes that senior church figures ‘colluded’ to protect Ball and says the decision by Lambeth Palace not to pass the complaints to police ‘must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment’.
Lawyers representing victims of Ball, who have called for a police investigation, believe the former Archbishop could face a charge of misconduct in a public office, for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
Ball, a friend of the Prince of Wales, (and other members of the royal family) was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after indecently assaulting 18 boys and young men between 1977 and 1992 in one of the biggest scandals ever to rock the Church of England.
It has been claimed, however, that he might have been convicted more than 20 years earlier had Lord Carey and his staff at Lambeth Palace not withheld from the police six letters making other claims about his behaviour. The letters were sent in by members of the public after allegations against Ball surfaced in the 1990s. Ball was arrested and subsequently resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993.
But his only punishment at that time was a caution for gross indecency for molesting a teenage monk and he was later allowed a licence to work as a retired priest.
Peter Ball, pictured with Prince Charles, was jailed for 32 months in 2015 after indecently assaulting 18 boys and young men between 1977 and 1992
Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Anglican officials who had privately reviewed the case suggested that had the letters been given to detectives in 1993, Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences.
The report commissioned by Archbishop Welby, published this summer, concluded that the ‘greatest failure’ of the handling of the case was the ‘management’ of the correspondence, in which Lord Carey was ‘significantly involved’.
Lord Carey strongly denies any cover-up or collusion. His supporters have also argued that Ball could still have received a caution in 1993 even if Lambeth Palace had handed the letters to the authorities.
David Greenwood, the head of the child abuse department at Switalskis solicitors and who represents a number of victims of Peter Ball, said the failure to pass them on provided ‘reasonable grounds’ for the Metropolitan police to open a formal investigation.
The Met and Lord Carey both declined to comment.
Lord Carey is already facing questioning next year by the Government’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
Mary Boyle murder and its cover-up may be linked to Anglo-Irish paedophile ring, of which Lord Louis Mountbatten was an alleged member
21 November, 2017,
There is growing frustration and fury that justice has not been done and little doubt that the case involves a cover-up of enormous magnitude.
There are few scandals that embarrass the establishment more, not least because of the sinister role played by senior political, Garda and media figures in suppressing the truth about what happened to the six-year-old. Yet despite a virtual blackout by the mainstream media on all of the astonishing new revelations in the case, the lid is slowly being lifted on this sad and sordid story, and the public is hungry for justice.
Few believe the story as it was spun in 1977 when Mary went missing during a visit to her grandparents’ home in Cashelard, Ballyshannon. It is implausible that a little girl, who was born in Birmingham, could simply vanish without trace on an isolated farm while in the company of at least 10 members of her family.
Sean McEniff was one of the first on the scene in Mullaghmore harbour on the day of the explosion. Eyebrows were raised when the Donegal councillor later called for the erection of a memorial to Mountbatten in sligo, generating consternation in some quarters as to why a Fianna Fáil politician from outside the area would take such a stance, and questions were asked as to who exactly he was trying to impress.
Fianna Fail’s connections with Mountbatten’s close friend Jimmy Savile are well documented. The ‘Top of the Pops’ host who sexually abused hundreds of children at the height of his fame in the 1970s was a regular visitor to Charles Haughey’s Dublin home ‘Abbéville’ in Kinsealy.
Another close associate of Mceniff, Bundoran beef baron Hugh Tunney, became an unlikely friend of Mountbatten during his stays in Sligo.
The former butcher’s apprentice, who went on to own the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, came to his aid when he could no longer fund the running of Classiebawn.
In 1976, a leasing agreement was put in place between the pair which allowed the British royal to visit the 3000-acre estate every August.
Reported to be a devout Catholic, Tunney was said to be present in the castle saying his rosary on the day the explosion struck.
Local affection for Tunney, who died in 2011, is thin on the ground.
Within the castle grounds, a graveyard containing the remains of dozens of unbaptised infants has become the subject of controversy in recent years. In 2006, a group of locals asked Tunney if they could erect a memorial to the children in the burial ground known as Cill na mBochtan, but he turned them down.
They were forced to place it on the roadside outside the estate instead, leaving a sour taste in the community for the millionaire cattle-dealer. Questions linger as to why he would not grant permission for it.
Earlier this month, Mountbatten’s murder again came under scrutiny when it emerged that a former British military police officer who worked as his security guard in Sligo had warned superiors several times that his old fishing boat was vulnerable to a bomb attack. The officer, Graham Yuill, said his concerns met deaf ears.
He was removed from his post shortly before the bombing and was told that Gardaí would be looking after Mountbatten from then on, an unusual decision given his status in the royal family.
These revelations add credence to theories that his IRA killers may not have acted alone and that he may have been killed for reasons that went deeper than the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Was a darker side to Mountbatten’s life in Sligo about to be revealed? Did others, apart from the Provisionals, want him dead? Why was security around him so lax given the fact that he was such an obvious target?
There’s little doubt that powerful forces were involved in Mary Boyle’s disappearance and the cover-up that followed. Is it possible that the sordid world of Anglo-Irish child abuse trafficking networks in London and Belfast, and of associated secret-service blackmailings, outlined in recent months by Joseph De Búrca in Village, had tentacles that reached into Cashelard in Donegal? This might explain the baffling failure by so many Garda commissioners, justice ministers and Irish governments to deal with a case that many believe could easily be solved. it could also provide an insight into why the British authorities have turned their backs on Mary Boyle, even though she was one of their own who went missing, abroad.
Former boarding school for troubled children ‘at the centre of major child abuse probe spanning three decades’
Kinton School in Woking faces accusations of abuse from the 1970s to 2000
To date, 17 people have been arrested or interviewed under caution by police
Former pupil of the Surrey school gives harrowing account of alleged abuse
Officers have conducted more than 1,500 inquiries relating to abuse so far
25 November 2017
A former residential school for troubled boys and girls is at the centre of a major child abuse investigation, spanning three decades and involving dozens of potential victims.
The large-scale police operation, which has been running in secret for four-and-a-half years, has conducted more than 1,500 inquiries relating to allegations of sexual, physical and mental abuse.
To date, 17 people have either been arrested or interviewed under caution, and detectives ‘believe there are a number of others who may have committed criminal offences’.
A former pupil of the Kinton School in Woking, Surrey, has given The Mail on Sunday a harrowing account of the abuse that is alleged to have taken place there from the early 1970s up until its closure in 2000.
He claimed a girl told him she was raped, staff used brutal restraining techniques and youngsters were taunted that ‘their parents didn’t love them’.
In 1973, the Mayford Approved School became a Community Home with Education (CHE) under the control of the Surrey County Council. The establishment was also known as Kinton House
Kinton Community Home with Education (The Oaks Centre Children’s Home)
Kinton Community Home with Education (Kinton CHE) was also known as the Oaks Centre Children’s Home. Based in Mayford Green in Woking, The local authority who ran the home was Surrey County Council. Closed in the early 1990s the venue was split into ‘houses’ but with communal areas i.e. main hall, farm etc. It was a boys only establishment.
Care worker Keith Hammerton, was jailed for six years in 2006 when he was found guilty of sexually abusing boys in his care in the 1970s.
Former Secret Service Agent Threatens To Reveal Details About Bill Clinton And Epstein’s “Lolita Express”
Nov 24, 2017
In a furious twitter exchange with a Clinton aide on Friday, former secret service agent Dan Bongino threatened to reveal new details about Bill Clinton’s 26 documented trips aboard notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”
Bongino and former Hillary Clinton aide Nick Merrill started feuding after Merrill challenged Bongino’s claim that Clinton was the most “manipulative political person in a position of power [he had] ever met in my entire life,” as Paul Watson pointed out.
Merrill fired back that Hillary “has enormous respect for the Secret Service & a great relationship with the agents on her detail.” He also alleged that Bongino was never on the Clintons’ detail – a claim that Bongino almost immediately disproved by supplying a photo of him sitting behind Hillary Clinton back in 2001.
I’ve worked for Hillary Clinton for a decade and 2 things are true.
1) She has enormous respect for the Secret Service & a great relationship with the agents on her detail.
2) This guy was never on the Clintons’ detail, & I don’t recognize him in the slightest. https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/933504096736370689 …
This pic is from NY Newsday’s inside cover taken at the US Open in 2001. It’s one of literally hundreds of operations I conducted with Hillary documented throughly by official US govt paperwork of which I still have copies. You’re welcome to stop by & review the paperwork.Thanks. pic.twitter.com/C0lmJRlrDm
After accusing Merrill of being a “fraud”, Bongino dropped a ominous-sounding threat: “Be careful Nick, people know things not yet released publicly about your messiah Hillary. Don’t poke the bear loser, you may not like the results. #Epstein #EmailGate,” tweeted Bongino.
I’ve worked for Hillary Clinton for a decade and 2 things are true.
1) She has enormous respect for the Secret Service & a great relationship with the agents on her detail.
2) This guy was never on the Clintons’ detail, & I don’t recognize him in the slightest. https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/933504096736370689 …
Be careful Nick, people know things not yet released publicly about your messiah Hillary. Don’t poke the bear loser, you may not like the results. #Epstein#EmailGate
He then taunted Merrill by asking: “Dear Nick, are you guys sure you know everyone on the Epstein planes?”
I’ve worked for Hillary Clinton for a decade and 2 things are true.
1) She has enormous respect for the Secret Service & a great relationship with the agents on her detail.
2) This guy was never on the Clintons’ detail, & I don’t recognize him in the slightest. https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/933504096736370689 …
Dear Nick, are you sure you destroyed ALL of the Blackberries. Was there govt property in the bunch? #PeopleKnow
For those who are unfamiliar with his story, Jeffrey Epstein is a New York City financier who pled guilty in 2008 to a single count of soliciting sex from an underage girl. He eventually spent 13 months in prison and was forced to register as a level three sex offender (considered the highest risk of re-offending) though stories of his lust for girls as young of 12 have spread like wildfire in recent years.
Epstein allegedly installed beds in his custom jet, and also purportedly filmed powerful men during romps with underage girls to obtain materials for blackmail.
According to Fox News, Epstein allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on Epstein’s “Orgy Island,” an estate on Little St. James in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein now lives permanently in the US Virgin Islands.
Bill Clinton took repeated trips on the ” Lolita Express”—the private passenger jet owned by billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—with an actress in softcore porn movies whose name appears in Epstein’s address book under an entry for “massages,” according to flight logbooks obtained by Gawker and published today for the first time. The logs also show that Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually service Epstein and his friends and acted as a “potential co-conspirator” in his crimes.
* * *
Epstein’s predatory past, and his now-inconvenient relationships with a Who’s Who of the Davos set, hit the front pages again earlier this month when one of his victims, Virginia Roberts, claimed in a federal court filing that Epstein recruited her as a “sex slave” at the age of 15 and “sexually trafficked [her] to politically-connected and financially-powerful people,” including Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. (The latter, the filing claimed, had sex with the victim “on private planes”; Dershowitz vigorously denies the charges, as does Prince Andrew.)
* * *
Two female associates of Epstein—the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein’s former assistant Sarah Kellen—have been repeatedly accused in court filings of acting as pimps for him, recruiting and grooming young girls into their network of child sex workers, and frequently participating in sex acts with them. Kellen in particular was believed by detectives in the Palm Beach Police Department, which was the first to start unraveling the operation, to be so deeply involved in the enterprise that they prepared a warrant for her arrest as an accessory to molestation and sex with minors. In the end, she was never arrested or charged, and federal prosecutors granted her immunity in a 2007 non-prosecution agreement that described her as a “potential co-conspirator” in sex trafficking.
Maxwell, the daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell, has been accused by Roberts of photographing Epstein’s victims “in sexually explicit poses and [keeping] the child pornography on her computer,” and “engag[ing] in lesbian sex with the underage females she procured for Epstein.” She has denied the allegations in the past.
Clinton shared Epstein’s plane with Kellen and Maxwell on at least 11 flights in 2002 and 2003—before any of the allegations against them became public—according to the pilots’ logbooks, which have surfaced in civil litigation surrounding Epstein’s crimes. In January 2002, for instance, Clinton, his aide Doug Band, and Clinton’s Secret Service detail are listed on a flight from Japan to Hong Kong with Epstein, Maxwell, Kellen, and two women described only as “Janice” and “Jessica.” One month later, records show, Clinton hopped a ride from Miami to Westchester on a flight that also included Epstein, Maxwell, Kellen, and a woman described only as “one female.”
In 2002, as New York reported previously, Clinton recruited Epstein to make his plane available for a week-long anti-poverty and anti-AIDS tour of Africa with Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, billionaire creep Ron Burkle, Clinton confidant Gayle Smith (who now serves on Barack Obama’s National Security Council), and others. The logs from that trip show that Maxwell, Kellen, and a woman named Chauntae Davis joined the entourage for five days.
That last name, Chauntae Davies, emerged elsewhere in papers unearthed by the various investigations into Epstein’s sex ring: his little black book. Davies is one of 27 women listed in the book under an entry for “Massage- California,” one of six lists of massage girls Epstein kept in various locales, with a total of 160 names around the globe, many of them underage victims.
Today, Davies is an actress with credits including HBO’s Enlightened. In 2002, she was 23. According to her IMDB profile, in addition to her apparent massage work for Epstein, she landed a role that year as a “lingerie model” in Exposed, a movie produced by a softcore porn company called MRG Entertainment. (Other MRG films include Deviant Desires and Carnal Confessions; the company has since been purchased by Larry Flynt. Exposed, appropriately enough, was directed by a pseudonymous auteur who went by the name of Clinton J. Williams.) Davies’s role in Clinton’s flying AIDS-prevention circus isn’t clear, and though her LinkedIn page claims a certificate in Swedish massage, there is no evidence that she ever actually treated Epstein to one. Reached via e-mail, she said only, “I really am not interested in being slandered in the media for having known this person a time ago. Some of the things being said are not things I have information on.”
Full flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express”
Another protected Benedictine paedophile – Thaddeus Kotik of Caldey Island
Prince Charles HRH The Prince of Wales meets monks Father Robert, Brother Gabriel, and Acting Abbot Father Daniel during his visit to Caldey Island in 1997
and also on Caldey island – paedophile Paul Ashton who was in charge of their internet – found with 5000 images
Sex offender hid in Caldey Island abbey for seven years
24 Nov 2017
Paul Ashton was found while on the run after his image was posted on a Crimestoppers Most Wanted list
A sex offender lived in the abbey on Caldey Island for seven years while on the run from police until he was found in 2011, taken back to the mainland and jailed.
Paul Ashton lived among the Cistercian monks on the private island off the Pembrokeshire coast in south-west Wales as police searched for him after finding thousands of images of child abuse on his computer. Ashton was finally found after his image appeared on a Crimestoppers Most Wanted gallery.
The abbey has been keen to emphasise that the Kotik allegations are of a historical nature and no members of the current community were on the island at the time. But victims claim there is at least one monk still alive who knew Kotik and say the abbot himself knew Kotik from 1990, two years before the monk died in 1992.
The fact that Ashton, a suspected sex offender wanted by the police, was able to live at the abbey so recently and for so long will cause huge concern.
The current head of the abbey, Daniel van Santvoort, has been abbot since 1999.
Following the Guardian’s revelations about Kotik, whistle-blowers came forward to describe how Ashton lived on the island under the name Robert Judd.
Ashton had been arrested by police in West Sussex in 2004 when officers executed a warrant at his address in Bracklesham Bay. He was given bail while police examined his computers. Officers found more than 5,000 images of children but he had vanished when they returned.
At that time, a man in his 50s calling himself Robert appeared on Caldey. Whistleblowers said Ashton arrived on the island as a monastery guest in 2004 but stayed and moved in.
“When Robert arrived, he offered to help and made himself indispensable,” a whistleblower said. “He operated the island’s satellite internet and phone system, managed online accommodation bookings and the accounts and worked in the mail room. He put himself in an ideal position.”
They said that “Robert” changed his phone number frequently, encrypted his emails and never left the island.
In May 2011, “Robert” further aroused the suspicion of the whistleblower by emailing him that he had “met another family” that included two young boys on the island and had invited them to his private quarters in the monastery.
Curious and worried, the whistleblower began investigating Ashton and discovered that a man called James Robert Judd was named as a director of a cleaning company called St Martins of Caldey, according to Companies House records.
The whistleblower carried on investigating. “ I just knew in my gut that something was wrong,” they said. Eventually an image appearing to be Robert was found on the Crimestoppers site. It named him as Paul Ashton.
“One evening we had a phone call telling us to look at a website and there [Robert] was, on the most wanted list,” he said. “I saved and printed the photo, showed it to the abbot and asked him who it was. He said: ‘That’s Robert of course.’ I asked if he was absolutely sure and he said: ‘Yes without a doubt’.”
Whistleblowers have passed on photographs they took of plainclothes police officers escorting Ashton to the boat Caldey Island II beside the island on 6 July 2011.
At Chichester crown court on 1 March, Ashton admitted possessing more than 5,000 indecent images of children and was jailed for 30 months. The court was told he was found after an anonymous call was made to the Crimestoppers charity.
It heard that South Wales police arrested him in relation to the Sussex inquiry – and said that more computer equipment containing further images were found on his Caldey Island computers.
Speaking after Ashton’s conviction, DC David Midgley, of West Sussex CID, said: “Credit must go to the anonymous informant to Crimestoppers who became suspicious and rang in. Thanks to their actions, Ashton was finally brought to justice after spending nearly eight years in hiding.
“In each image, a child was a victim of crime. The length of the sentence shows how the justice system will punish those who download indecent images of children.”
The Guardian has sought comment from van Santvoort who is believed to be in France but has not yet received a reply.
Six women sued the abbey over the allegations against Kotik and another seven women have now come forward to the Guardian since the article exposed the offender last Saturday. The victims have welcomed calls for an inquiry into the protection of child sex offenders on the island.
On Sunday 9th September 2007 the statue was blessed and dedicated in a moving ceremony conducted jointly by the Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, and by Bishop Dominic Walker of Monmouth, Church in Wales. A very large crowd gathered for the occasion, in the region of 800 people.
Dominic Edward William Murray Walker OGS DL (born 28 June 1948) is a retired Anglican bishop. He was a canon and prebendary of Chichester Cathedral.
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
Dominic Walker was one of Ball’s biggest supporters and he named POWELL, ABSE and WHITELAW as abusers.
Enoch Powell accused of satanic sex abuse:
The Right Rev Butler was given the politicians’ names by Dominic Walker, former Bishop of Monmouth, who heard the allegations when he was a vicar counselling in the 1980s.
Mr Walker told senior clerics that Abse was named by three abuse survivors whom he counselled when he was a vicar in Brighton in the 1980s.
He also passed on the names of two former Conservative cabinet ministers, who have not yet been publicly linked to the scandal. Mr Walker was questioned by the Right Rev Butler after the discovery of a book from 1991 in which he described counselling sessions with adult survivors.
Dominic Walker, the former Bishop of Monmouth, has told senior clerics that Abse was named by three alleged adult survivors of abuse whom he counselled when he was vicar of Brighton in the 1980s.
by D Hilliard – 1976 – Cited by 53 – Related articlesJonathan Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. .. 38 The Anglican Benedictine community on Caldey Island is described by Peter Especially before the 1950s, when homosexuality was a taboo subject, many
Peter Anson a leading authority on episcopi vagantes, who says that Vilatte did nothing other than ordain Ignatius to the priesthood, making it clear that Ignatius refused to consider being raised to the episcopate, even though it is equally certain that Vilatte did offer to consecrate him.[15]
Anson, who was at one time a monk under Aelred Carlyle at Caldey, wrote extensively on the Llanthony and Caldey Anglican monastic experiments, and describes the Baroness de Bertouch’s hagiographic book (for which Ignatius himself furnished much information) as being one that “reads like fiction”).[16]
…many young men were drawn to join the community out of personal affection for Carlyle.
The self -styled Lord Abbot of Caldey introduced practices into the life of his monastery which many outsiders, accustomed to the austere atmosphere of the existing Anglican men’s communities, found disconcerting. “Stories Toto Told Me” by “Baron Corvo” (Frederick Rolfe), which had originally appeared in The
Yellow Book, were often read aloud to the assembled monks at recreation time, and
…during the summer months they regularly went sea-bathing in the nude. Nor did Carlyle make any secret of his liking for charming young men.
Frederick Rolfe, who early in his career also published under the name “Baron Corvo,” became famous for his “Hadrian the Seventh” (1904), in which an Englishman is unexpectedly elected Pope, and later became infamous for his writings on his love for Venetian boys.
Spiritual friendships were “not discouraged,” recalled his biographer, himself a former member of the Caldey community:
… and their expression sometimes took a form which would not be found In any normal monastery today. . . . Embraces, ceremonial and non -ceremonial, were regarded as …
Oxford football club got in ‘Bomber’ Harries to exorcise the place from a gypsy curse. Those of a certain age will know that Harries has the country’s best-known expert on these matters in his team, the Bishop of Reading, Edward Walker. ‘Dominic’, as he is known since his days in the Bishops Ball’s hand-knitted Community of the Glorious Ascension, told us all about his psychic speciality in a glorious Technicolor spread in… wait for it… SAGA magazine!
True soccer psychics will know that Oxford United is really haunted by the ghost of its former owner – triple agent and part-time fraud, Robert Maxwell. They never recovered from his time in charge.
Dominic Edward William Murray Walker OGS DL (born 28 June 1948) is a retired Anglican bishop.[1] He was the Bishop of Reading, an area bishop, from 1997 to 2002 and Bishop of Monmouth from 2003 to 2013.
Walker was the second child to a Welsh mother and English father. He was brought up on Dartmoor. [2] He was educated at Plymouth College[3] King’s College London, Heythrop College in London and the University of Wales.
Ordained ministry
Walker was ordained priest in 1972.[4] He began his ministry with a curacy at St Faith’s Southwark[5] after which he was domestic chaplain to the Bishop of Southwark,[6] rector of Newington St Mary, Team Rector of St Peter, St Nicholas & the Chapel Royal Brighton, Rural Dean of Brighton and a canon and prebendary of Chichester Cathedral.
Walker never married and became a member of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd. He served as father superior from 1990 to 1996.[4]
Walker was appointed Bishop of Reading, an area bishop in the Diocese of Oxford, in 1997.[4] He then became a diocesan bishop as the Bishop of Monmouth in the Church in Wales in 2003, succeeding Rowan Williams who had become the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England.
Walker’s last episcopal seat was at Newport Cathedral. At the end of 2012, it was announced that he intended to retire, which he did on 30 June 2013.[7] In retirement he is an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon.[4]
Paranormal and exorcisms
Walker is an expert on the paranormal and has published many articles on the topic. He is a trained exorcist[12] and has said that during his 35 years of ordained ministry he has performed “countless acts of deliverance along with six exorcisms”.[12]
In an August 2015 article, which concentrated on the death of Morgan Freeman’s step-granddaughter, Walker rejected the use of violence when performing an exorcism.[13] He argued that an exorcism is the command of the mouth.[clarification needed]
Present
In 2015 the British tabloid press published articles saying that Walker had reported Leo Abse, George Thomas and Enoch Powell to the police as suspected paedophiles.[14] He said that “A number of survivors independently gave the name of a particular MP being involved … I don’t believe there was any collusion in their stories.”[15] Walker went on to tell senior clerics that Abse was named by three abuse survivors whom he had counselled when a vicar in Brighton in the 1980s.
Upon retirement, Walker became a “humble monk”.[16] He has since settled in Monmouth and continues to deliver conference papers and lectures. He lectured in July 2015 at the University of Warwick.[17]
The belief of social workers that children in Nottingham who were sexually abused were also forced to take part in ritual practices connected with Satanism has now been supported by the director of the city’s social services department. In a report issued last week, Mr David White said that “on the basis of the children’s testimony it would be unwise not to accept the possibility that there were ritualistic elements to this case”. Nottingham Police strongly reject the suggestion that ritual practices played any part in the Broxtowe child abuse case, in which ten adults were jailed in February 1989 for offences of incest, indecent assault and cruelty against 23 children in the extended family; a view which Mr White originally shared.
The case became controversial when some of the children, who had been made wards of court after being sexually abused, started to describe experiences of a bizarre nature of which foster parents and social workers had no previous knowledge. They talked, among other things, of being burnt by sticks, of animals sacrificed and of drinking the blood, of witchcraft parties and even of other children being killed. A report commissioned by Mr White and the chief constable of Nottinghamshire, which appeared in December 1989, concluded that there was no evidence of Satanic abuse. It criticised the work of social workers concerned in the case who, it suggested, had unwittingly encouraged children to believe in and allege bizarre abuse.
The new report, which was expected to be approved on Wednesday by Nottinghamshire social services committee, follows intense media interest in the case and the disruption of working relationships between the police and social workers in the city. It praises the work of the specialist group of social workers concerned, and says that “the disclosures made by the children are unlikely to have been created in their minds by the social workers or foster parents”. Having read the diaries of the children involved, Mr White now supports the social workers’ view that even if the children had not suffered each incident physically they were made to believe that they had.
Mr White argues that the case is of national significance in that it challenges the conventional wisdom about how children should be listened to and how matters can be dealt with which are beyond existing knowledge. Mr White’s recommendations include the setting up of a joint police and social service body to review practices and procedures in the field of child protection; and the establishment by the Department of Health of a nationally co-ordinated research programme to monitor the problem and offer guidance.
Social workers in Manchester, who also had been criticised for encouraging children to make up stories of ritual abuse, were defended recently by the Anglican Bishop of Manchester, Stanley BoothClibborn (The Tablet, 6 October). Allegations of ritual abuse have also been made in Rochdale. Canon Dominic Walker, co-chairman of the Christian Deliverance Study Group, which trains Anglican and some Catholic exorcists, told The Tablet that the Churches are concerned and are holding meetings with social workers, police and psychiatrists. “People are fairly convinced that something is going on“, he said, “and that it is not just an invention of fundamentalism. What is not clear is whether it is a new development of Satanism or whether the people involved are paedophiles who are adding Satanic ritual to their practices.”
The secretary to the Committee for Social Welfare of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Mgr Michael Connelly, noted however that no evidence had been produced of ritual practices associated with child abuse. Only one diocese has informed him of such a case.
Caldey Island: Sex offender evaded justice at abbey
March 2012
A fugitive child sex offender fled to a Pembrokeshire island’s abbey to evade justice and remained there for seven years, it has been revealed.
Paul Ashton, from Sussex, went on the run in 2004 charged with possessing indecent images of children.
When he was discovered at Caldey Island in 2011, more indecent images were found on his computer in the monastery.
He was arrested and brought to justice after a visitor recognised him from a Crimestoppers “Most Wanted” list.
The revelation comes after it emerged six women have been paid compensation by Caldey Abbey after they were abused by a monk on Caldey Island in the 1970s and 1980s.
Since that information came to light last week, a further five women have come forward accusing Father Thaddeus Kotik of abusing them.
Allegations were made to the abbey in 1990 but complaints were not passed on to police.
Dyfed Powys Police was eventually made aware of the allegations in 2014 but could not prosecute Kotik as he died in 1992.
The current abbot, Brother Daniel van Santvoort, has apologised the complaints were not referred to police sooner.
Ashton is understood to have arrived on Caldey Island as a guest in 2004, but stayed and moved into the clock tower which overlooks the island.
He was provided with accommodation and food by the monks, who knew him by his alias Robert Judd.
A source said: “When Robert arrived he offered to help and made himself indispensable.
“He operated the island’s satellite internet and phone system, managed online accommodation bookings and the accounts and worked in the mail room.
“He put himself in an ideal position.”
Ashton had absconded from his home in Bracklesham Bay, West Sussex after Sussex Police executed a search warrant and confiscated computers in 2004.
In July 2011, an anonymous call was made to Crimestoppers by someone who had seen Ashton’s face on its “Most Wanted” list, and he was arrested on the island.
Sussex Police said: “They recognised the picture as a man working in south Wales but under a different name… police were informed and local officers swiftly arrested him in relation to the Sussex inquiry.
“More computer equipment containing further images was also found.”
Ashton, then aged 59, pleaded guilty at Chichester Crown Court to possessing more than 5,000 indecent images of children on his computers, hard drives and USB sticks.
He was jailed for 30 months in March 2012 and was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.
The Caldey Island monks get into the broadband habit
There are few places left in the UK so remote that they rely on a dial-up internet service. Remember the infuriation of feeling your life is ebbing away as you watch and wait for every web page to load, pixel by pixel, minute by minute? It’s enough to try the patience of, well, a monk.
“Patience is one of the characteristics of monastic life, but even the patience of the brothers was being tested by our slow dial-up internet service,” said Father Daniel, the abbot of Caldey Abbey.
“Broadband access has made a huge difference to our internet usage. We knew that we needed a faster connection, but we had almost given up trying to find a workable solution which would give us an internet connection at speeds enjoyed by others on the mainland. We have many plans to develop our commercial activities now we have a modern, high-speed communications link.”
The monks, along with their west Wales neighbours, have been ‘released’ from their dial-up hell by ntl:Telewest Business, which has responded to a pent-up demand in the area by working with TFL group to expand its wireless broadband service in the area. The Wimax connection should provide a connection of up to 300 Mbps – and the reason the network wasn’t sorted out sooner is purely down to geography, according to TFL group’s director of operations Jonathan England.
“Putting fibre optic cables in the ground would be a massive project and cost-prohibitive, but TFL has tackled the challenge with a wireless network that reaches the entire area. By using a backhaul service that connects our infrastructure to the ntl:Telewest Business fibre optic network near Swansea, we are able to bring the capacity advantages of that network to our customers.”
As Treasurer of the Paedophile Information Exchange in its peak period of membership in the mid 70’s Charles Napier holds the key to the identity of hundreds of dangerous abusers who continued to abuse thousands of children over many decades.
In 1993 I spoke to 3 victims who refused to give evidence. One told me very convincingly that Napier took him to parties ” where he was introduced to the rich and famous ” and that Righton was involved in all these activities as well.
Wanted paedophile hid in Welsh island monastery for seven years while on the run from police
25 Nov 2017
He aroused suspicion in 2011 when he emailed a whistleblower saying that he had ‘met another family’, including two young boys on Caldey Island and had invited them to his private quarters in the monastery.
Ashton was escorted off the island by plain-clothed police officers on July 6 2011.
Appearing at Chichester Crown Court on March 1, he admitted possessing more than 5,000 indecent images of children and was jailed for 30 months.
The court heard that South Wales Police arrested Ashton in relation to Sussex Police’s inquiry and said more computer equipment containing indecent images was found on Caldey Island.
A 59-year-old man found with more than 5,000 indecent images of children has been jailed after almost eight years in hiding.
Paul Ashton, from Sussex, but of no fixed address, fled the area after he was arrested in 2004.
Ashton was only caught following a tip-off after he was featured on the Crimestoppers Most Wanted list.
He was discovered living in South Wales under an assumed name.
He has now been jailed for 30 months.
Ashton was initially arrested in 2004 after Sussex Police raided his home in Bracklesham Bay and recovered computer equipment.
He was arrested and bailed while officers analysed the hard drive.
His address was searched again a few months later with more computer equipment seized.
Police said all the computers contained numerous indecent images on the hard drive and USB sticks.
Indecent pictures
However, Ashton fled his home and did not answer bail. He was only traced in July last year after someone spotted his photo on the Most Wanted list.
South Wales Police were told and he was arrested, when more computer equipment with further indecent pictures of children was found.
He pleaded guilty at Chichester Crown Court to possessing more than 5,000 indecent images at a hearing on Thursday (March 1).
DC David Midgley, of West Sussex CID, said: “This case highlights how an individual’s criminality will catch up with them – whether it’s weeks, months or years later.
“Credit must go to the anonymous informant to Crimestoppers who became suspicious and rang in. Thanks to their actions, Ashton was finally brought to justice after spending nearly eight years in hiding.
“Ashton recognises that in each image, a child was a victim of crime.
“The length of the sentence shows how the justice system will punish those who download indecent images of children.”
Ashton was also given a Sexual Offences Prevention Order and will sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.
Revealed: monk who abused children on ‘crime free’ Caldey Island for decades
17 November 2017
Abuse by a monk who preyed on girls on a tiny island off the coast of Wales was covered up in the 70s and 80s
Kotik offended against the six girls between 1972 and1987, though the women believe there may be many more victims, over many more years.
A former soldier who fought in the Free Polish army during the second world war, Kotik moved to the island in 1947, joined the strict Cistercian order and was ordained a priest in 1956. He lived on the island until his death in 1992. It appears he was never questioned by police and that they were not informed until 2014.
In the late 80s, when she and her family were residents of the island, Emily, then five years old, told the then Abbot Robert O’Brien – who died in 2009 – about Kotik assaulting her. The abbot ordered Kotik to stay inside the monastery enclosure, but Kotik regularly escaped from the monastery grounds and continued to abuse children.
Abbot Robert O’Brien
The girls reported the offences to the principal of their school, St Phillip’s Christian College in Newcastle, New South Wales in the late 1980s. According to Charlotte the deputy principal Richard Rule, who now runs a child care centre, prayed for the students and told them they “didn’t need to talk of this again because God has forgiven everyone”.
Also in 2014, Charlotte emailed the current abbot of Caldey Abbey, Brother Daniel van Santvoort, seeking an acknowledgment of the crimes committed against her and her sister. “The effect that this abuse has had on me has been quietly catastrophic,” she wrote.
No secret
But it wasn’t the first time van Santvoort had heard allegations against Kotik. In a response to Charlotte he wrote: “I have heard occasionally about this serious matter as regards Fr Thaddeus”.
Van Santvoort told her the monastery knew about the monk’s offences and that he had been reprimanded and banned from contact with islanders and visitors in the 1980s, but had not been reported to police. “I am fully aware now of this terrible criminal offence and Fr Thaddeus should have there and then been handed over to the police – something that never happened.”
The island was bought by Anglican benedictine monks in 1906 and it was this group that built the monastery and abbey which sits in the centre of the island.
Now it is home to about 40 residents and a group of about 18 Cistercian monks.
Caldey Island: police investigate second man over sexual abuse claims
Separate investigation comes after it was revealed that Cistercian monk allegedly abused at least 11 girls in 1970s and 80s
Detectives are investigating a second man over accusations of sexual abuse on Caldey Island after it was revealed that a Cistercian monk allegedly abused at least 11 girls in the 1970s and 80s.
Police said the alleged assault took place at about the same time, and the accused was visiting the island off Tenby in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales.
Officers refused to give further details because they said it would jeopardise the investigation, but said he was not a member of the abbey or abbey staff.
The Guardian reported on Friday that six women claimed they were abused as children by Father Thaddeus Kotik.
Since then, it has emerged that five others allegedly suffered abuse, and earlier this week, the head of Caldey Abbey issued an apology acknowledging that allegations of serious child sexual abuse made against Kotik should have been passed on to police.
Dyfed-Powys police are aware of allegations by eight women – the six original complainants and two more who have since come forward. A spokesperson said: “Following the recent media reporting of sexual abuse at Caldey Island, police received two further reports of non-recent sexual abuse.
“They relate to offences committed during the same time period (between 1977 and 1987) and with the same named perpetrator, Thaddeus Kotik. These crimes have been recorded and officers are in contact with the victims during the investigation and to offer specialist support.
“Police have also received one further report of a sexual assault by another male at Caldey Island around the same timeframe. The report has been made by one of the original six victims.
“This is being investigated separately to the Caldey Island abuse and concerns a man who was visiting Caldey Island at the time and no longer lives there. No further information can be released at present as it would jeopardise the investigation.”
Simon Thomas, a Plaid Cymru AM, said: “What is most troubling about this case is that the victims of sexual assault felt that they were not able to make a complaint at the time, and that complaints made were not dealt with properly. As a result the perpetrator was never brought to justice and children grew up bearing the weight of being a victim of these terrible crimes.
“Caldey Island is a landmark on the Welsh coast, and children and tourists visit there every day to learn about the abbey’s history. It’s important that people can visit there with confidence. ”
But journalist Amanda Gearing, who has spoken to victims, said three more women now claim to have been sexually assaulted by Kotik.
One woman who reported her case to police on Monday told the Guardian she broke down and was unable to sleep for 36 hours after reading about Kotik’s abuse of others.
She said her abuse was “low level compared with others” but it happened when she was sat next to Kotik on a bench.
“He put his hand up my top. Then his hand went up my back and under my arms. I squirmed away from him and walked away. I didn’t go near him after that,” she said.
Another woman told the Guardian she and her two sisters were abused by Kotik, but claimed there was pressure by both the church and family for victims to “shut up”.
Kotik befriended families who regularly visited the island. After gaining the trust of parents he would babysit the children and sexually abuse them, court papers have suggested.
There are fears there could be more victims and calls have been made for an independent inquiry by the Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors group.
Inquiry calls into abuse complaints on Caldey Island
21 Nov 2017
There are calls for an independent inquiry into allegations of historical sexual abuse at an abbey on Caldey Island off Pembrokeshire.
It’s understood six women were paid compensation following claims against a monk – Thaddeus Kotik in the 70s and 80s. But it’s feared there could be more potential victims.
Police say they did receive reports of historic sexual abuse but could not proceed with a prosecution because the monk died in 1992.
Now a support group, Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, says an independent investigation should take place and the abbey should apologise.
Six women have received an out of court settlement, after claims they were abused by the monk Father Thaddeus Kotik when they visited the island as children in the 1970s and 80s.
Three of them shared their experiences with Australian journalist Amanda Gearing:
The effect of the abuse on these women has been particularly severe – partly because of the threats made against them which separated them from their parents.
The offender told them that if the children reported what was happening their parents would not want them anymore and would leave them on the island with him
– Journalist Amanda Gearing
It is claimed Brother Thaddeus Kotik groomed, and sexually assaulted the children of families staying on the island and although they spoke out at the time, no formal action was taken.
It wasn’t until almost thirty years later the crimes were brought to the attention of the police. By that time, Kotik had been dead for two decades.
Dyfed-Powys Police told ITV News that “Appropriate professional support was offered and the matter was drawn to a close.”
Dyfed-Powys Police can confirm that in 2014 and 2016 it received reports of non-recent sexual abuse that occurred at Caldey Island with the named offender being the deceased Thaddeus Kotik.
These reports were recorded as crimes and victims contacted by police. During the investigation, information was obtained to confirm that the perpetrator was deceased and therefore a prosecution was not possible.
Dyfed-Powys Police always encourages anyone who has suffered abuse to come forward and report it by calling 101.
– Dyfed Powys Police
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, says although action should be taken, it’s too early to call for an enquiry.
“I’ve been in contact with the National Catholic Safeguarding Advice Service and also have written directly to the abbey on Caldey Island to seek reassurance that they are following the Catholic churches national safeguarding policies and procedures on child protection.”
The victims believe they’re not alone. and that Kotik – who lived on the island for 45 years – abused others.
ITV News has contacted Caldey Abbey for comment but has not yet had a response.
Caldey Abbey apology over handling of monk sex abuse claims
22 Nov 2017
An abbey at the centre of child sexual abuse allegations has apologised that claims against one of its monks were not passed to police.
Eleven women allege Father Thaddeus Kotik abused them on Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire, in the 1970s and 1980s.
A letter shows Kotik’s abuse was reported to abbot Brother Robert O’Brien in 1990, but not to police.
Caldey Abbey said they should have been reported, adding: “This clearly did not happen and we apologise.”
In a statement, current abbot Brother Daniel van Santvoort said: “It was with great sadness and regret that we heard allegations of historical sexual abuse involving Father Thaddeus who died in 1992.
“Any allegations of child abuse should be reported to the appropriate authorities and investigated. This clearly did not happen and we apologise.”
Brother Daniel said at the time the incidents were alleged to have taken place, the present Caldey Abbey Community was not on the island, which exacerbated the difficulties of the claims.
He said he knew nothing of the allegations when he first came to the island in 1990, or when he later became abbot in 1999, but said he forwarded the matter to police and the abbey’s solicitors in 2014 when he was contacted by a claimant.\
Brother Daniel said: “I acted at every step with compassion and empathy, and expressed my regret and sorrow at any such abuse. I flew to Australia to meet two claimants expressly to apologise.”
He continued: “I am truly sorry that my predecessors did not report allegations to the police and I am sorry that as an abbey, it has taken so long to compensate for these claims.
“Caldey Abbey has worked to ensure this can never be repeated. We now have robust child protection procedures in place on the island including a child protection coordinator.”
“As abbot, I very much regret any harm caused to any layperson as a result of the actions of one of my community, and strive to ensure that every visitor to Caldey enjoys only peace, comfort and the feeling of wellbeing,” he added.
Brother Daniel said the abbey was working with Children’s Commissioner for Wales, however Sally Holland has denied that is the case.
She has advised anyone with concerns to contact police or the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the Truth Project, so allegations can be considered.
Brother Daniel added the abbey would fully cooperate with its inquiry and any other investigation.
Monks of Caldey Island break silence over sacking of couple
7 January 2005
An order of Cistercian monks in a remote island community broke their vow of silence yesterday to deny claims that they had unfairly dismissed a couple who had worked for them for 22 years.
One of the reasons that 60- year-old Andrew McHardy was sacked, they insisted, was that he had a drink problem. The monks said they were in an ideal position to know – two of them were former members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Andrew and Sally McHardy are claiming that, in January, they were summarily and unfairly dismissed after 22 years’ service with the order at Caldey Island, off west Wales, with just four weeks’ notice and three weeks redundancy money. They also shared a £1,000 present given in “friendship”.
The monks allegedly refused them additional time in their tithe cottage while they looked for another home, and failed to provide any information about appeals against dismissal.
Brother Robert O’Brien explained that, while the order remained “largely silent”, members were allowed to speak when absolutely necessary. They also followed a regime of self-sufficiency where ” idle chatter” was avoided.
However, the monks had begun to whisper among themselves in wonder at the supposedly copious amounts of alcohol Mr McHardy was imbibing and asked questions about how he could afford to do so.
Guests staying on Caldey also remarked on the drinking, and wondered “how Mr McHardy could have paid for such a quantity of alcohol”, said Bro O’Brien. “People came to me behind Mr McHardy’s back to say he was drinking rather a lot. Two members of the community were members of Alcoholics Anonymous and wanted me to do something.”
Bro O’Brien told the tribunal at the Halliwell Centre, Carmarthen, that the monks discovered that Mr and Mrs McHardy had ordered goods for themselves on a business account. When questioned, the couple maintained that was a mistake and the shopkeepers had been told to put the purchases on their personal account. The items were a coat, a glass and prescription medicine. But, said the monk, “it was a concern that it might have been the tip of the iceberg”.
There had also been allegations that donations given by the public, while the couple were running the island’s guest house, had disappeared. “People, when they stayed
Mrs McHardy was a “good seamstress” and the monks enjoyed the food cooked by her husband, said Bro O’Brien. However, Mr McHardy, who worked a 20-hour week, had taken 11 weeks’ holiday in the year, and, during those times, the monks had to cook for themselves. The estate at Caldey Island, including the Abbey, is run as a charitable trust and has an obligation to keep costs low and use volunteer labour whenever possible.
Mr and Mrs McHardy had originally been employed in the guest house. They later worked at an adjoining tea garden before being moved to the Abbey.
Bro O’Brien said the work at the Abbey, however, should have been done by the monks themselves. “We were under constant pressure from the Charity Commission to explain how we managed the trust. In particular, they wanted to know the trading aim of the trust because it was not making a profit in preceding seasons”.
Under cross-examination from John Bradbury, a solicitor from the Haverfordwest Citizens’ Advice Bureau, Bro O’Brien agreed Mr and Mrs McHardy had not been given a written contract. He also agreed that there was no written evidence to back up the claims of theft, or records to confirm how much time Mr McHardy was supposed to have taken off.
The couple sacked from an island monastery because of dwindling funds today lift the lid on their two decades of life with the monks.
ANDREW and Sally McHardy won a case for unfair dismissal against the monks of Caldey Island last week after being made redundant and told they had four weeks to leave home.
The chef and seamstress were even accused, during the tribunal, of pilfering monastery funds to fund a drinking habit, although monks admitted they had no proof and withdrew the allegations.
But the family had lived happily on the island for 23 years and brought up three children there – Andrew Paul, Claire Louise and Kate Elizabeth, all now grown up.
They were one of three or four families with children growing up during the 1980s on Caldey, unlike the present day which sees the old school empty and the monastery short of funds.
But Mr McHardy, 60, said apart from the dispute, the family led the good life on Caldey, which is three miles off Tenby on the Pembrokeshire coast.
And he urged visitors to flock to the island this summer to help the monastery after it was revealed it is in dire financial need.
Mr McHardy said despite his bad experience he could never turn his back on a community where his family has had links since the 1920s.
For years they lived under the shadow of the centuries-old monastery, as the near-silent monks looked down on the tiny village below.
Mr McHardy’s grandfather moved down from Fort William in Scotland with the monastic community as they sought to re-establish the historic Italianate Caldey Abbey.
Then Mr McHardy’s father worked as a stable boy in Tenby for many years. Despite moving to Brighton and running a business with a growing young family, Mr McHardy jumped at the chance to return to Caldey in the early 1980s.
“I knew the island well because we had visited on so many occasions, which is not to say I was looking at the job through rose-tinted glasses,” he said.
“It was a big move as the children at the time were seven, eight, and 18 months.
“The two eldest knew the island and the youngest did not have much choice. They were all quite excited actually, and I believe they had a lovely childhood.
“You never had to lock the door and there was tremendous peace and quiet.
“You could walk the dogs on the beach which was 100 yards away.
“Of course there are not that many people left living there now. There are certainly two less after we were made redundant, and all the children have grown up.”
The children were educated on the small island school – which had just nine pupils during its most busy period – until the age of 11 before going to Netherwood School in Saundersfoot.
And the couple sometimes went to the mainland for appointments, or to visit relatives for extended periods, but often they ordered in supplies by boat.
Mrs McHardy, 58, said the children’s upbringing was certainly a little unusual but they were content. “Most of their friends were island children but you felt they were extremely safe,” she said.
After the sacking last year, the couple moved to Tenby but Mrs McHardy said she was keen to visit Caldey again. “Nobody has said we cannot ever go back, but it is a bit fresh at the moment.
“I would love to go back and hopefully put this behind us.”
She remembers moving there for the first time, following in her husband’s family tradition.
At first she admits she was in awe of the robed holy men who walked silently among the villagers. The monks rise at 3am for three hours of meditation before mass and then breakfast and retire by 7pm.
“They could always look down on us, see us in the garden or walking through the village.
“But I discovered they were just human beings with the same interests, and we chatted normally sometimes.”
Although the monks kept strict hours of sleeping, studying and worship, Mrs McHardy said she was relatively independent and that they did not have to comply completely with the strict monastic regime.
And Mr McHardy did not have to rise extra early to make breakfast because the monks would get their own – he would cook dinner or the main meal of the day, lunch.
“It was lovely for me because I would work 9am to 2pm, after years of 16-hour days at the island guesthouse,” said Mr McHardy.
“I also drove the crane for loading or unloading the boat.
“The monks are all vegetarian as part of their beliefs but it was no problem. I would make shepherds pie with Quorn or whatever.”
His wife added, “You had to be a special type of person to live on the island but we respected their way of life and what they had to do. We could not have been as strict as they were, with the hours of waking they kept and so on, but it was just the way of life and it felt secure and happy.
“I think in the tribunal people misunderstood how the island worked sometimes. It was just a case of getting on with things yourself even if you were not told to, as it was such a small community.”
Her duties as seamstress included making three habits for every monk on the island. If a new monk arrived she had to make all his clothes.
Mr McHardy said, “It is just like your wardrobe, they needed three pieces of clothing but they were all habits which made it easier to get dressed I suppose.”
His wife added, “They did wear civvies and work clothes sometimes but habits mostly.”
And the monks did socialise at times, even on special religious occasions like when a brother was getting ordained.
“We used to get together socially at Christmas and if there were events during the year.
“They would have celebrations, we would join in and help prepare. It was so nice when we could mix with them.”
Mr McHardy said it was possible to talk to the monks at times, despite their vows of near-silence and unwillingness to indulge in idle chit-chat.
“It was not as if you had to write things down on a piece of paper,” he said.
“But I think everybody on the island began to talk only when necessary. You became used to not speaking much and soon it was never an issue.”
And he hopes he can remain friends with monks like Brother Robert O’Brien, who gave evidence against them at the tribunal.
“We did not sue the monks, we sued the company, so there is a difference,” he said.
During much of their time on Caldey, the family’s home was a large six-bedroom house. They were moved to a smaller cottage as the need for greater accommodation to raise funds for the monastery became apparent.
But their homes had all mod cons despite being so isolated – including a TV and computer, providing a vital link to the outside world during the long evenings.
“It was very much like the mainland in that respect, there was not much difference, we certainly watched television and so on,” said Mrs McHardy.
“The only difference is that there wasn’t a bus going past the door, but a boat.
She said the monks’ enigmatic personalities and relationships with modern life were difficult to describe to non-island people.
“They have to be in this world with the rest of us; but they are also in their own world, of course,” she said.
She said the monks were also willing to embrace modern technology. “They have their online business so they have to be bang up to date and use computers and the like.”
They will need to do good business now more than ever. Although the final amount of compensation for the McHardys has yet to be decided, the monks say it will lead to “hardship” at the monastery. But Mr McHardy said, “It was never about the money. It is just the way we were dismissed.”
The compensation claim centred on the fact that the decision to make the McHardys redundant was made months before they were even told.
Mr McHardy said that he never imagined things getting so bad when he was working for the monks, and he never suspected his job was at risk.
He first heard about it when talking to Brother Robert in the kitchens where he worked.
“It could have been done far more sensitively. I had no idea before I was told,” he said.
“Things did get nasty and there were unfounded allegations in the tribunal. The finger will be still pointed at us for some time now, but we have strength of character and I will laugh about it, although I was quite hurt.”
But he admitted that he was drinking too much by the end of his time on the quiet island, which has a museum and post office but little else in the way of distractions. The monks drink on feast days only, but I drank all the time as you have no doubt read.
“I cannot argue with the alcoholism, that was quite straightforward and I admit I was drinking too much.
“It just crept up on me, I was working very long hours at the guesthouse on the island at the time you see, although there was no excuse for it.
“But alcoholism is an illness and not really a judgment on our character, so to say we had our hands in the till was what I really thought was below the belt.
“Without John Bradbury from Haverfordwest Citizen’s Advice Bureau we would have really been stuck because he did so much work for our case.
“People will still think I am an old drunk because of what was said, but I am in a period of recovery. And hopefully people will realise that we have been honest.
“But I have no axe to grind against the island, please visit it more, and make sure that the monks can survive. And help pay us too, if I can joke about it.”
Natural beauty
CALDEY ISLAND has been lived and worked on by monks for nearly 1,500 years.
Today it belongs to the Reformed Cistercian Order who devote their lives to the service of God within the monastery.
With its natural beauty and freedom from noise and traffic, a day at Caldey is unique.
A small museum and the post office offer visitors a chance to see the history of the island and even get a postcard franked with the unique Caldey imprint.
Near the landing stage is Priory Beach looking out to Tenby. From the harbour a fleet of boats runs from the Spring Bank Holiday until late September. These boats are owned by local boatmen and many of these crews also form the Tenby Lifeboat service.
An order of monks living under a vow of silence were unable to shut up a drunken guest who sang into the night.
Unemployed Ray John, 58, from Fishguard, has been visiting the 19 Cistercian monks on Caldey Island, west Wales, for the past 30 years.
Magistrates at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, heard that on his latest visit Mr John had brought alcohol with him. The inebriated guest then started a solo midnight performance of his favourite Christmas carols.
Abbot Father Daniel Van Santvoort said: “He was up all night making a terrible racket. We observe a vow of silence but it wasn’t a very silent night – even if it was Christmas.
“We couldn’t tell him to hush so I’m afraid some of us had very little peace that night.
“All we could do was lie in our beds and cover our ears.”
The Roman Catholic monks observe a strict rule of silence for 12 hours every night.
John was asked to leave the island the next day but he continued to drink on the mainland where police found him collapsed on a railway line.
The court fined him £50 for being drunk and disorderly.
Michael Kelleher, defending, said: “Mr John had gone to Caldey for Christmas but unfortunately had something of a disagreement with one of the monks.
“He came back on Christmas Eve feeling rather depressed and got drunk again.
“He was rescued by police for which he is very, very grateful indeed.”
Father Daniel is leader of the monks on the island, which is reached by a two-mile boat trip from the resort of Tenby.
‘Under the influence’
Mr John stayed in a guesthouse attached to the monastery which is used as a retreat for outsiders.
Father Daniel said: “He is a Welsh speaker and was going to teach me some of the language during his stay.
“But he was under the influence when he arrived and carried on drinking in his room.”
Although the monks’ hearing may have been dented, their sense of charity is still intact. Father Daniel added that John, who has studied theology and is a favourite guest of the monks, would be welcome to return in the future.
The modern abbey is an Italianate building of the early 20th century. It was founded by Aelred Carlyle, an Anglo-Catholic who was determined to restore Benedictine monasticism in the Anglican church. He established a little community of monks in Yorkshire in 1902 with the help of the Anglo-Catholic peer Lord Halifax. In 1906, he raised the money to buy Caldey and moved the community there. They were later joined by the last few monks from Father Ignatius’s foundation at Capel-y-ffin near Llanthony
In 1913, Aelred Carlyle and most of his monks converted to Catholicism. The community found island life increasingly difficult, and in 1928 they moved to Prinknash, where they still live today. The following year, Caldey was taken over by a community of Trappist monks from the abbey of Our Lady of Scourmont in Chimay, South Belgium. They run a retreat centre at the abbey. Only male visitors are allowed into the monks’ church, but women are welcome on retreats.
Strode started …HCPT or Hosanna House and Children’s Pilgrimage Trust is a United Kingdom based charity which travels with disabled and disadvantaged children and adults on pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, in Lourdes, France. HCPT stands for Hosanna House and Children’s Pilgrimage Trust, Hosanna House being the property the organisation owns in the hills above Lourdes.
1955. Dr Michael Strode (rear far rgt) … Br Michael of Caldey
In 1956, Dr Michael Strode, took four children with disabilities from Chailey Heritage School in Lewes, Sussex, on a pilgrimage tailored for children with disabilities to the Catholic pilgrimage site of Lourdes.
We take a broad range of children from throughout the Highlands on the trip to Lourdes. We are the furthest north group in the trust and are unique in the fact that we share the group leadership on a yearly basis. Margaret has been involved with the trust for 44 years and I have been involved for 30 years. The late Frances Shand Kydd, the mother of the late Princess Diana, travelled with us for a number of years as a helper.
Every Easter over 1,000 disabled and disadvantaged children enjoy a week in Lourdes, staying in hotels with their volunteer helpers.
HCPT Group 554 (serving Strood, Rochester and Kent)
Summer Group HCPT region: Metropolitan South EastWe are a small parish group, which began making the “jumbulance” pilgrimage to Lourdes with the Across Trust, then changed to HCPT in 1993. We fundraise locally to help those unable to finance their own travel and accommodation in Lourdes.
Jumbulance & Jimmy Savile had a long term affiliations
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s most senior Catholic clergyman, spoke of his friendship with the entertainer while Tom Allen, financial trustee of Across, the charity that takes seriously ill or disabled pilgrims to Lourdes by Jumbulance, said he had been a patron of the charity and was a great loss.
“We were saddened to hear of the death of Jimmy Savile who had a long connection with the Across Trust and Across. Jimmy launched the first Jumbulance to the press in June 1973
Michael had to spend most of 1949 in the naval hospital at Haslar, where he started to make a slow recovery. This was completed when he transferred to the King Edward VII Chest Hospital at Midhurst in Sussex, but not until late in 1950. When he was well again Michael decided to update and expand his medical experience fairly rapidly (bearing in mind that it had been over three years since he had left St Thomas’s), and took three appointments in fairly quick succession. These were as House Physician at King George V Chest Hospital, House Physician at St James’s Hospital in Balham and Resident Medical Officer at the Sydenham Children’s Hospital, from which he left to join Chailey Heritage in July 1953. He worked at Chailey until his retirement in December 1988.
Dr Strode would be well in w/the royals who visited Chailey
Strode at chailey from 1953 until his retirement in December 1988.
Princess Margaret watches Peter (left) and Louise fitted with artificial limbs as she opens the Lady Hoare Thalidomide Experimental Workshop and Training Unit built at Chailey Heritage (Craft School and Hospital) in Sussex 1963
Chailey Heritage – where dr strode worked most of his life
Happy memories for duchess at Chailey Heritage, near Uckfield
The Duchess of Cornwall spoke movingly as she visited a charity in East Sussex, closely linked with her late mother, which helps young people with disabilities.
The duchess toured part of the Chailey Heritage Foundation’s base near Uckfield, where her mother Rosalind Shand volunteered in the 1960s and 1970s.
Afterwards, she told guests: “It brings back very, very many happy memories for me as my mother volunteered here for 17 years.
“I know wherever she is now, she would be looking down so proudly on Chailey Heritage to see how far it has gone from strength to strength, and she would be very proud and equally pleased that I have come back again after all the work she did here in the past.”
The visit by the Duchess of Cornwall, who was accompanied by the foundation’s patron, the Duchess of Gloucester, was to mark the centenary of the foundation’s St Martin’s Chapel and the opening of a new life skills centre.
As a kid, it was great meeting famous people like Cliff Richard and Rod Stewart as part of the campaign, and I felt proud of my dad, but as soon as the photographers went away, I was taken straight back to Chailey.
At the age of 13, Louise claims she was raped by a boy who lived at Chailey, but she says staff chose to ignore the situation.
The Queen, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret visited the Heritage Craft Schools for crippled children, at Chailey, Sussex, famous for remedial and educational work, and spent a considerable time talking with the little inmates. During the royal visit a gift to the schools of 50,000 from Sir Henry Price was announced.
BBC Song’s of Praise from Caldey Abbey – home to HCPT Founder Brother Michael Strode from 1991 to 2016
HCPT
Founder – Brother Michael Strode
President – The Right Reverend Kieran Conry, Bishop of Arundel and Brighton
Patron – HRH The Duchess of Kent GCVO
The last year in which he participated as a doctor with HCPT was in 1990. In October 1991 Michael entered the Cistercian community on Caldey Island as an Oblate. He took simple vows on 4th June 1995 and made his final commitment as an Oblate on 7th June 1998.
He still plays a very active role in the running of HCPT – and recently travelled to Lourdes to join the 2013 Easter pilgrimage, during which he was awarded the prestigious Médaille Notre-Dame de Lourdes in recognition of his long dedication to pilgrims and pilgrimages to the Shrine.
The Prior of Caldey – copper engraving 1926 – Eric Gill
Dom Theodore Bailey – Caldey monk and assoc of paedophile Eric Gill
The rules of the new guild had been amended so as to avoid the mistakes of Ditchling. After supper one night in Wales he read out his proposals to Philip Hagreen, David Jones and Dom Theodore Bailey, Benedictine monk and artist and another long-term visitor. Hagreen and David Jones rejected the idea, and Gill, hurt …
Apr 22, 2013 – Scandal: English sculptor Eric Gill, who created the statue outside Broadcasting House, abused his daughters and his sister. Sexual abuse charities are urging the BBC to remove the statute in front of Broadcasting House made by artist Eric Gill
Downing Street has said it may not publish any report into allegations against Damian Green, despite introducing rules to make similar reports against police fully disclosed #hypocrisy
Damian Green inquiry report into allegations may not be published
24 Nov 2017
Result of investigation by Cabinet Office expected in coming days, but No 10 says full report may not be made public
Downing Street has said it may not publish any report into allegations against the first secretary of state, Damian Green, who is currently under investigation by the Cabinet Office.
The inquiry by its head of propriety and ethics, Sue Gray, was launched in early November after journalists and the Conservative activist Kate Maltby wrote a piece claiming Green had touched her knee in 2015 and, one year later, sent her a suggestive message.
Green, who has been Theresa May’s de facto deputy since he was given the role this summer, said the claims were “untrue and deeply hurtful”.
ONE of the reasons @theresa_may is reluctant to get rid of #DamienGreen apart from he’s a sick pervert, is because Paul Dacre ( low life ) of @DailyMailUK is holding back ( blackmailing) Green’ investments via Philip the PM’s Hubby
Any update on #DamienGreen that’s what I want to know @theresa_may ? We folks that are anti – Government cover up of Child abuse have not put that on the back burner as much as you’d like us to ! WHAT WAS ON HIS COMPUTER ? Cause I’ll tell what I’ve been told, IF YOU WON’T
Natalie RoweVerified account @RealNatalieRowe
No PM ( difficult for me to call Theresa May a PM) should ever hand over sensitive material to an individual – Damien Green who enjoys visual stimulation of Women or Men being tortured? he’s sick and open if not already to being blackmailed
Catholic officials threaten to sue ex-altar boys over sexual misconduct allegations
24 Nov, 2017
Catholic Church officials in Italy have threatened to file criminal defamation charges against former altar boys of the Pope, after they accused an older seminarian of sexual misconduct. The alleged crimes reportedly occurred within the Vatican’s walls.
The claims originated from an ex-student identified as “Marco,” who says a seminarian one year older than him would come into his dorm room at night and demand oral sex. This began when Marco was 13 and continued until he was 18, the alleged victim told Italian reporter Gaetano Pecoraro.
Marco’s roommate, Kamil Jarzembowski, says he witnessed dozens of such incidents, and brought them to the attention of seminary officials. He then wrote to cardinals, and ultimately to Pope Francis in 2014.
Church officials say internal investigations were conducted and the claims determined to be false. However, officials did not interview the boys in question, according to AP. Marco, Jarzembowski, and a third boy who reported a groping incident when the seminarian was 20 and he was 15, went public with their allegations in a book and series of investigative reports on Italia 1 TV’s program “Le Iene” (“The Hyenas”).
The public allegations haven’t gone over well with the Catholic Church, whose officials are reportedly now threatening the three alleged victims with criminal defamation charges, AP reported on Friday.
Riccardo Rolando Riccardi, a lawyer representing the Catholic association Opera Don Folci which runs the Vatican’s St. Pius X pre-seminary, wrote in a November 17 letter to at least one former student that he was preparing a criminal defamation case in Rome’s tribunal. The letter states the case “for the alleged crime committed by the divulgation of news to the press about alleged acts of sexual assault that allegedly occurred” in the seminary. The letter, seen by AP, instructed the ex-student to come in for questioning or face interrogation by prosecutors in Rome.
Opera Don Folci had previously addressed the boys’ claims on its website, calling them “mud,” a “violent attack on the church,” and “nothing more than calumny and falsifications.”
Meanwhile, Le Iene revealed during a broadcast last week that it had received a letter from the diocese of Como warning it against proceeding with the story. The program showed the letter on air, which once again stressed that a church investigation had shown “everything that was alleged turned out to be unfounded.” Lawyers in the diocese of Como have also warned Mediaset television network, which oversees the Le Iene program, against broadcasting the boys’ claims.
However, Le Iene’s Pecoraro also interviewed Rev. Andrea Stabellini, the Como vicar who conducted the investigation. Thinking the camera wasn’t rolling, Stabellini admitted he had recommended the probe continue because he believed there was sufficient evidence to support the boys’ claims. Pecoraro told AP he has since learned that church officials were pressuring Stabellini to recant that view.
Stabellini was overruled in the original investigation by other church officials, with top Vatican cardinal Angelo Comastri – who oversees the seminary as the Pope’s vicar for Vatican City – intervening in the case. Comastri has denied any cover-up, saying he ordered three separate investigations about alleged wrongdoing in 2013.
The accused became a priest this year, with the diocese of Como stating earlier this month that church superiors had investigated claims against the former seminarian and had deemed him worthy of becoming ordained. It said that church authorities in Rome had also given him a “positive” evaluation.
Meanwhile, the Vatican says it has launched another investigation into the reports. It claims the new probe is aimed at trying to shed “full light on what really happened.”
Six charged in connection with non-recent abuse and neglect at Cumbria school
23/11/2017
Six men have been charged today (November 23rd) as part of Operation Tweed – an investigation into non-recent abuse and neglect allegations at residential schools in South Cumbria.
The following men have been charged:
Roger Whitehouse, 77, of Butterflowers Caravan Park, Haverigg, has been charged with two offences of assault ABH and two offences of child cruelty;
Mike Lynch, 71, of Kirkhead Road, Grange-over-Sands, has been charged with one offence of assault ABH;
Alec Greening, 68, of Dalton, Carnforth, has been charged with one offence of child cruelty;
Glyn Waterhouse, 61, of Stainton, near Kendal, has been charged with one offence of assault ABH;
Andrew Elliot, 67, of Main Street, Stamford, has been charged with one offence of assault ABH;
Anthony Maxwell, 70, of Liquorstane, Falkland, Scotland, has been charged with one offence of assault ABH.
The above have all been charged in relation to offences reported to have taken place at Witherslack School.
They have all been bailed to appear at Furness and District Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 3rd January 2018.
Former school owner convicted of two charges and found not guilty of six others
20/03/2018
Derrick Cooper outside Carlisle Crown Court earlier in the trial
THE former owner of a South Cumbria residential school has been found guilty of two charges – and acquitted of six others.
Verdicts in the case of 77-year-old Derrick Cooper – who for more than two decades ran Underley Hall, Kirkby Lonsdale – were delivered by a jury foreman at Carlisle Crown Court today (TUES). These followed a trial lasting several weeks, and deliberations by jurors of more than 24 hours.
Cooper had denied six assault allegations and two charges alleging cruelty of boys at his school during the 1970s and 1980.
He was convicted on a majority verdict of assaulting one pupil, who told jurors how the owner had “head-butted me”, “gave me a few kicks around the body”, and “tried to put his fingers in my eyes”.
Cooper was also found guilty, unanimously, of cruelty towards a second child. That ex-pupil told the jury he was subjected to violence in a dining hall which left him bloodied; and forced to wear only a towel to sleep in a below-freezing corridor.
Jurors found Cooper not guilty of alleged assaults on three boys and acquitted him on a further charge alleging cruelty towards another youngster.
In evidence, Cooper said he had not been responsible for any violent acts at a school for “maladjusted” boys he had intended to be “different and better” than others of its type.
After learning that jurors were unable to reach verdicts on a further two assault allegation charges faced by Cooper, they were discharged by Judge James Adkin.
Cooper, of Hillberry Green, Douglas, Isle of Man, will be sentenced for two offences at the crown court on April 26.
In the meantime he was granted bail by Judge Adkin.
Judge Adkin said “all options” would be open at the sentencing hearing.
Upon hearing that the prosecution would not seek a re-trial on the two outstanding charges, nor offer any evidence, Judge Adkin entered not guilty verdicts.
Teacher at London girls’ school resigns after claims of sexual abuse
Staff member leaves St Paul’s private school with immediate effect after being implicated in allegations by former students
22 Nov 2017
A teacher at St Paul’s girls’ school, a prestigious independent school in west London that has been at the centre of historical sexual abuse allegations, has resigned after being implicated in some of the claims.
Former pupils received a letter on Wednesday from the headteacher, Sarah Fletcher, saying that several women who had been students had recently reported “troubling events” which they said had happened during their time at the school.
Some of those allegations, dating back several decades, concerned a current member of staff “who has decided to resign his position with immediate effect in the best interests of all”, she said.
Staff at the school in Brook Green, Hammersmith, had contacted the police and been told there were no immediate plans to investigate the allegations, the letter said.
“We have, nevertheless, referred the individual to the relevant statutory authorities so that his suitability to teach and work with children may be assessed. For this reason, it would not be appropriate to name the member of staff,” the letter continued.
The allegations first emerged after the school contacted former pupils asking them to contribute to a drama project about sexual harassment inspired by the #MeToo campaign.
Initially, the school confirmed two women had made claims relating to personal experiences, while others had notified the school about alleged abuse described to them by friends.
The school confirmed the resignation in a statement to the Guardian on Wednesday.
The latest letter from Fletcher, who is described as the school’s high mistress, gave no detail about the number of allegations that have now been made.
“We are treating every allegation brought to us very seriously, and are working closely with the relevant authorities to ensure that appropriate action is taken,” it said.
Fletcher repeated her appeal to any other former students, known as Old Paulinas, to come forward with complaints and said there would be a full independent inspection of current pastoral care and safeguarding measures at the school.
“I want to ensure that we have a culture here, not only of the highest standards in everything we do, but also an open culture where girls, parents, staff and Old Paulinas feel able to share any concern where they believe those high standards are not being lived up to.”
The letter was sent by email, and in a mistake likely to anger alumnae further the email addresses of all recipients were visible. A second apology email was sent out saying: “We are resending this message as we immediately became aware that, due to an error, email addresses were visible to all. The original email has been recalled where possible.”
Many former pupils at the £24,000-a-year school told the Guardian they were outraged to be asked to volunteer their experiences of abuse and harassment for a school drama project.
One said she had been groomed by a member of staff who then had sex with her when she was 15. She never reported it.
“The atmosphere at the school was not one of ready empathy and not one where deviations from the norm were embraced,” she said.
Another described the drama request email as “tone deaf” and accused St Paul’s of trying to capitalise on former pupils’ experiences of abuse and harassment when it had failed to support them adequately when they were students.
Laura Tully, who is now a clinical psychologist, said she welcomed recent changes at the school but said: “As students, many of us were harassed and/or assaulted at SPGS and beyond.
“Many of us were dismissed or denigrated for these experiences, our sexual orientations and other identities we tried to express.”
Caldey Island: police investigate second man over sexual abuse claims
Separate investigation comes after it was revealed that Cistercian monk allegedly abused at least 11 girls in 1970s and 80s
Detectives are investigating a second man over accusations of sexual abuse on Caldey Island after it was revealed that a Cistercian monk allegedly abused at least 11 girls in the 1970s and 80s.
Police said the alleged assault took place at about the same time, and the accused was visiting the island off Tenby in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales.
Officers refused to give further details because they said it would jeopardise the investigation, but said he was not a member of the abbey or abbey staff.
The Guardian reported on Friday that six women claimed they were abused as children by Father Thaddeus Kotik.
Since then, it has emerged that five others allegedly suffered abuse, and earlier this week, the head of Caldey Abbey issued an apology acknowledging that allegations of serious child sexual abuse made against Kotik should have been passed on to police.
Dyfed-Powys police are aware of allegations by eight women – the six original complainants and two more who have since come forward. A spokesperson said: “Following the recent media reporting of sexual abuse at Caldey Island, police received two further reports of non-recent sexual abuse.
“They relate to offences committed during the same time period (between 1977 and 1987) and with the same named perpetrator, Thaddeus Kotik. These crimes have been recorded and officers are in contact with the victims during the investigation and to offer specialist support.
“Police have also received one further report of a sexual assault by another male at Caldey Island around the same timeframe. The report has been made by one of the original six victims.
“This is being investigated separately to the Caldey Island abuse and concerns a man who was visiting Caldey Island at the time and no longer lives there. No further information can be released at present as it would jeopardise the investigation.”
Simon Thomas, a Plaid Cymru AM, said: “What is most troubling about this case is that the victims of sexual assault felt that they were not able to make a complaint at the time, and that complaints made were not dealt with properly. As a result the perpetrator was never brought to justice and children grew up bearing the weight of being a victim of these terrible crimes.
“Caldey Island is a landmark on the Welsh coast, and children and tourists visit there every day to learn about the abbey’s history. It’s important that people can visit there with confidence. ”
Inquiry calls into abuse complaints on Caldey Island
21 Nov 2017
There are calls for an independent inquiry into allegations of historical sexual abuse at an abbey on Caldey Island off Pembrokeshire.
It’s understood six women were paid compensation following claims against a monk – Thaddeus Kotik in the 70s and 80s. But it’s feared there could be more potential victims.
Police say they did receive reports of historic sexual abuse but could not proceed with a prosecution because the monk died in 1992.
Now a support group, Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, says an independent investigation should take place and the abbey should apologise.
Six women have received an out of court settlement, after claims they were abused by the monk Father Thaddeus Kotik when they visited the island as children in the 1970s and 80s.
Three of them shared their experiences with Australian journalist Amanda Gearing:
The effect of the abuse on these women has been particularly severe – partly because of the threats made against them which separated them from their parents.
The offender told them that if the children reported what was happening their parents would not want them anymore and would leave them on the island with him
– Journalist Amanda Gearing
It is claimed Brother Thaddeus Kotik groomed, and sexually assaulted the children of families staying on the island and although they spoke out at the time, no formal action was taken.
It wasn’t until almost thirty years later the crimes were brought to the attention of the police. By that time, Kotik had been dead for two decades.
Dyfed-Powys Police told ITV News that “Appropriate professional support was offered and the matter was drawn to a close.”
Dyfed-Powys Police can confirm that in 2014 and 2016 it received reports of non-recent sexual abuse that occurred at Caldey Island with the named offender being the deceased Thaddeus Kotik.
These reports were recorded as crimes and victims contacted by police. During the investigation, information was obtained to confirm that the perpetrator was deceased and therefore a prosecution was not possible.
Dyfed-Powys Police always encourages anyone who has suffered abuse to come forward and report it by calling 101.
– Dyfed Powys Police
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, says although action should be taken, it’s too early to call for an enquiry.
“I’ve been in contact with the National Catholic Safeguarding Advice Service and also have written directly to the abbey on Caldey Island to seek reassurance that they are following the Catholic churches national safeguarding policies and procedures on child protection.”
The victims believe they’re not alone. and that Kotik – who lived on the island for 45 years – abused others.
ITV News has contacted Caldey Abbey for comment but has not yet had a response.
Former Caldey Island monk lifts the lid on an austere world
29 MAR 2013
Paddy Lyons has written a book about the four years he spent inside Caldey Island’s monastery.
“When I went back with my wife two years ago, I met Father Robert who had sat at a table opposite me while I was there.
“For four years we never spoke to each other but two years ago we never stopped.
Mr Lyons only lasted four years before he went away on a course and decided not to go back.
He has since been a social worker, a Financial Times journalist, a press officer for what is now the charity Action For Children, has got married to wife Elsie and raised five children in Barnet, none of whom are practising Christians.
Theresa May and Amber Rudd suppress Westminster child abuse documents for national security reasons
November 20, 2017
Labour MP Lisa Nandy just revealed in parliament the embarrassing inconsistencies between Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd over documents being hidden from the inquiry into allegations of child abuse by MP Cyril Smith.
“The Home Secretary told me that some papers would be withheld from the Cyril Smith inquiry for national security reasons,” Nandy told the House of Commons, yet she added: “this week the Prime Minister has written to me to say we are clear that the work of the security services will not prevent information being shared with other such inquiries.”
– And she challenged Amber Rudd to confirm “for the survivors of Cyril Smith who have waited for decades” for justice – whether papers on historic allegations of child abuse against Smith will be withheld from inquiries for reasons of national security.
Cyril Smith was a Liberal MP for Rochdale in the 1970’s after Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe – who later resigned amid sexual scandal – insisted the local party have Smith as a candidate even though police had investigated serious allegations of sexual abuse of young boys in care homes in Rochdale where he had been Mayor.
The police investigation was dropped in 1970. Smith died in 2010 and two years later the Crown Prosecution Service admitted that he would have faced prosecution for allegations of child abuse where he still alive with allegations that had surfaced since.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse last month heard how Smith was a governor at several schools in Rochdale, including Knowl View, where one abuse survivor attended as a boy when Smith was governor. He gave horrific testimony of a rape by Smith.
The inquiry is investigating historic abuse in Rochdale schools and care homes and heard how police had warned that Smith had “used his unique position to indulge in a sordid series of indecent episodes with young boys towards whom he had a special responsibility.”
The inquiry was provided evidence by MI5 that the security service had been aware at the time that the Director of Public Prosecutions had lied to journalists about not charging the MP, saying a case hadn’t been referred to them. MI5 appear to have not pursued this serious allegation as their role was “to defend the realm”, the inquiry heard.
A police report into Smith when he stood for election in 1970 read: “he has used his unique position to indulge in a sordid series of indecent episodes with young boys towards whom he had a special responsibility.”
The inquiry also heard that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would have been likely to be aware of the allegations against Cyril Smith when she awarded him a knighthood in 1988.
Lead counsel Brian Altman QC told the inquiry: “It is important to bear in mind the extent to which Cyril Smith continued to involve himself in serious issues related to the welfare of children. A knighthood would only have reinforced Smith’s veneer of respectability and power.”
Government papers relating to Cyril Smith will not be withheld, PM pledges
Prime Minister Theresa May has given assurances to an MP that Government papers relating to the late Cyril Smith will not be withheld.
Former shadow minister Lisa Nandy told the Commons that she had received a letter from the Prime Minister which stated the “work of the security services will not prevent information being shared”.
The letter prompted Ms Nandy to ask Home Secretary Amber Rudd whether she had been wrong to assert last month that some papers would be held back “under national security”.
The Wigan MP said: “Last month in this House the Home Secretary told me that some papers would be withheld from the Cyril Smith inquiry for national security reasons.
“This week the Prime Minister has written to me to say we are clear that the work of the security services will not prevent information being shared with other such inquires.
“So can she can confirm to the survivors of Cyril Smith (pictured) who have waited for justice for decades that she was wrong and that the Prime Minister is right?”
Ms Rudd replied: “Well I am happy to confirm the Prime Minister is always right and I will certainly look carefully at the letter that she has received to ensure that we comply with it.”
Smith, who was an MP for Rochdale between 1972 and 1992, is accused of sexually abusing a number of boys.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has heard evidence of the abuse and will publish its findings next year.
In her letter to Ms Nandy, the Prime Minister said: “As with the Government’s co-operation with the investigation into allegations of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in the 1970s, we are clear that the work of the security services will not prevent information being shared with other such inquires.
“Material relating to the allegations of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home was disclosed to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry team in full.
“To assist with disclosure, a memorandum of understanding was established between the inquiry team, government departments and security services with regards to viewing and securing potentially relevant material.
“If material was identified as relevant to the inquiry, government department and security services would consider it for public disclosure, in line with UK Government disclosure obligations.”
Former staff members at Medomsley Detention Centre to appear in court over abuse allegations
21 Nov 2017
Seven former workers at Medomsley Detention Centre, in County Durham, are set to face charges in relation to allegations of abuse.
The men have all been summonsed to appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, December 19 to answer charges of misconduct in a public office and physical abuse offences. Some will also answer sexual abuse charges.
The men are Christopher Onslow, 71, Brian Johnson Greenwell, 70, Alan Bramley, 69, John McGee, 73, Kevin Blakely, 65, David McClure, 62, and Neil Sowerby, 61.
Christopher Onslow, John McGee, Brian Johnson Greenwell, and Neil Sowerby, will answer charges of misconduct in a public office, physical abuse and sexual offences.
David McClure, Alan Bramley and Kevin Blakely, will answer charges of misconduct in a public office and physical abuse offences only.
Durham Police launched Operation Seabrook, in August 2013 and is one of the largest of its kind in the UK.
So far, more than 1,480 men have contacted the Operation Seabrook team to report allegations of either sexual or physical assaults while detained at Medomsley from the 1960s to when the centre closed in 1988.
The officer leading the investigation, Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Green, vowed the operation will not stop here.
He said: “The Operation Seabrook team and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) remain committed in continuing to move the investigation forward.
“In February this year, we submitted 32 files to the CPS for charging decisions. A number of people are still under investigation.”
Leicester Mercury probably thinking of their Leicester MP Keith Vaz
Here’s the article:
‘Where’s the little ginger kid without a dad? Mr Janner wants him…’
January 21, 2016
John Gater walked by the working men’s club in Humberstone Gate one morning a few weeks ago, writes Lee Marlow.
He didn’t go in. “I wouldn’t ever go in,” he says. He hasn’t set foot in a working men’s club for nearly 40 years.
But the doors were open and he could smell it. That signature bouquet of beer and polish.
The smell stopped him in his stride. It took him back, to a place in his memory he doesn’t like to see – the lounge at Gypsy Lane Working Men’s Club
It was a splendid hideaway for an eight-year-old, the lounge at Gypsy Lane Working Men’s Club. There was velour everywhere, he remembers. Hoyes pop and Golden Wonder crisps.
And The Good Man who was kind to him, The Important Man who asked about his schooling and plied him with more pop, more crisps.
The Caring Man who would drape his arm around John’s young shoulder and stroke his hair and make him feel – this kid, this eight-year-old kid from Northfields who didn’t have a father – that he mattered.
That’s how it began, says John. Him and The Kind, Caring, Important Man who looked after him.
It ended, he says, in the worst kind of violation; a sordid sexual assault that would play out in the velour lounge of Gypsy Lane WMC every month over three years.
The Man who was the respected Labour MP for Labour West. The Man who died last month, escaping the justice that John and a small band of other unsuspecting boys, now middle-aged men, their lives all scarred by what happened to them, had hoped he would receive.
The Man who was Greville Janner.
Finally, John, 50, of Leicester, can tell his story.
IT’S not as if he hasn’t tried to tell his story before. He approached Leicestershire Police nearly 10 years ago, but they didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for him.
“They didn’t want to know,” he says. They told him, instead, to “go to see his doctor”.
And then, last year, he saw an advert in the Leicester Mercury. A big ad, over two pages, a new message from the Police and Crime Commissioner, Sir Clive Loader.
“If you are a victim of historic sexual abuse, come forward,” he said. “We’re better at dealing with this now. We will listen to you.”
John felt as though the police commissioner was speaking directly to him. It was March 2015. He went back to the police. This time, they took John’s story seriously.
It turned out John wasn’t alone. There were more boys, just like him.
JOHN Gater was the youngest of three children. His parents moved to Leicester in 1966 when John’s mum was pregnant with him. They settled in Northfields.
When John was three, his father left home. His mum worked all day and most evenings to keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. John was a latch-key kid. “I had to grow up quickly,” he says.
He was a contradictory mix of things as a kid; independent, confident and yet emotionally fragile. “My mum was always busy and I didn’t have a dad,” he says. He didn’t realise it back then, but he missed that father figure in his life.
He didn’t realise, either, he was easy prey for The Important Man who used the lounge at Gypsy Lane Working Men’s Club.
MRS Gater skipped from one day job to another – cleaning, factory work, anything, really – to pay the bills. The one constant was her part-time evening job as a pot-washer at Gypsy Lane Working Men’s Club.
She was there most nights, remembers John. He was either shunted off to a friend or a neighbour for the night or he would go along with Mum. “I didn’t mind that, I loved going to the club.”
He remembers the place vividly; the upstairs concert hall, the adjacent dressing rooms, bingo sessions, the pop and the bags of crisps.
Gypsy Lane WMC was his playground; free to roam where he chose. “I had the run of the place,” he says
Except the lounge. The lounge, with its plush velour and wallpaper, was out of bounds. No-one seemed to use the lounge, which was a bit odd, he always thought. It always seemed too grand a room to remain empty.
And then, one day, there was a man in there. A man and a table full of papers. A very important man, everyone said, in hushed tones as if they were almost afraid of him.
John Gater wondered why.
His constituency did not cover Gypsy Lane WMC – that was Leicester East – but he would turn up, a couple of times a month, with his papers and his folders, pressing the flesh of the stewards and the union men. He based himself in the club lounge.
John doesn’t remember the first time they met. He just remembers The Nice Man buying him pop and crisps and asking how he was getting on at school.
“Nobody asked me how I was doing at school,” he remembers. John liked that.
He liked it when The Important Man put his arm around his shoulder and stroked his hair as they sat in the velour lounge. It seemed like he cared, John says. He started looking forward to seeing The Velour Lounge Man, which, presumably is just what The Velour Lounge Man wanted.
THE abuse, when it started, was insidious. “It just… I don’t know…. it’s hard to explain… I thought maybe this was the way things happened.
“He bought me pop. He was kind to me. It seemed like this was what was expected of me, almost.”
What John didn’t realise – he was eight-years-old, after all – was that he was being groomed.
And this was the story he has wanted the police to hear: Every month, sometimes twice a month, for the next three years, he was sexually assaulted by the Labour MP for Leicester West in the velour lounge at Gypsy Lane Working Men’s Club.
“All I remember, really,” he says, “is that it hurt.”
AT the age of 11, John switched schools. He went to Soar Valley. He had new a timetable, a new routine, new friends. His regular trips to Gypsy Lane became less frequent.
He didn’t know who Janner was until a decade later. “I started to take more of an interest in politics,” he says.
“I read the Mercury, I watched political debates – and he was there. It was him.” He became a Conservative, he says.
There may have been other children he groomed at that club, he thinks. And there may have been people who knew that, or at least suspected, that this is what the MP for Leicester West was doing.
“If he was there, and I was in the club and I hadn’t seen him, he would send for me.
‘Where’s the little ginger kid without a dad – Mr Janner wants him…’”
He doesn’t blame people for not knowing. It was a different time, a different era. We didn’t think, back then, like we do today, he says.
For John, though, even at the age of 11, the damage was done. The die was cast.
He was a quiet, reclusive teenager, wary of authority. He struggled forming relationships. He didn’t realise why that was for a long, long time, he says.
JOHN struggles to explain why he kept the abuse quiet for so long. There were all sorts of reasons, each of them, in isolation, not good enough to justify nearly 40 years of silence.
He had tried to block it out. He felt ashamed. He felt guilty. He felt no-one would believe him.
In January 2007, as his marriage crumbled, he decided to do something. “I would see him [Janner] in the Mercury and on TV and I would think: ‘You know, that’s not right. He shouldn’t be doing that…’”
He contacted Leicestershire Police. They told him to go and see his doctor.
The real tragedy here is not just John’s story – it’s that there were others, boys just like John, who had suffered a similar fate.
Greville Janner was investigated three times – in 1991, 2002 and 2006. He was never charged.
When he was finally charged in 2015, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, decided he would not stand trial as he was too ill. Janner died on December 19 last year, aged 87.
A trial of the facts, which was due to take place this April, will now not take place. The politician’s family insist he is entirely innocent.
But he also remembers the dying words of his own mother: “Nail the bastard, John.” The message stays with him.
Allegations of his child abuse will now be heard by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, led by the Honourable Lowell Goddard QC.
John is not hopeful. Not now. “You know how these inquiries work, they take years,” he says. “I don’t expect we will get to the bottom of this in my lifetime.”
What annoys him, looking back, is how Janner was protected each time the police came close to arresting him.
“You look back at the case and you can see the Establishment – the rich, the powerful, the privileged – close in around him.”
Leicester East MP Keith Vaz spoke publicly in the House of Commons in 1991 in defence of his colleague and how “delighted” he was to give him his “full support”.
Allegations that Janner was involved in any kind of child abuse were cowardly, said Mr Vaz, who called his political colleague the “victim of a wicked attack by people who simply did not care what damage they did to him”.
Twenty-five years on, Mr Vaz’s words still rankle with John.
“I accept he was defending a fellow Labour MP and colleague. But he knows different now, surely. He should apologise for what he said. He never has.”
John has written to Mr Vaz. The Mercury e-mailed Mr Vaz so he could respond to John’s comments. He didn’t respond.
There is a full meeting of Leicester City Council tomorrow night. John will be there. He wants to ask some questions.
Does the council agree a full inquiry should be held to determine the scope of Janner’s alleged abuse?
Should Barnett Janner House – a council-owned sheltered accommodation unit in Beaumont Leys – be renamed?
And can the council ensure no other innocent child – in light of the recent crisis and damning Ofsted report on the council’s children’s and young persons services – will ever be placed in a vulnerable situation?
Because that’s what it’s all about, says John.
All this is meaningless if it happens again.
Another innocent child, another life ruined.
Former policeman’s sex assault trial delayed until 2019
16th November 2017
Police said the charges relate to offences allegedly carried out against males and females in the 1970s and 1980s in Stratford-upon-Avon.
A FORMER Warwickshire police officer accused of sexually assaulting a number of children almost 40 years ago will not stand trial until the early part of 2019.
Timothy Lively appeared at Warwick Crown Court today, Thursday, for what was intended to be a plea and trial preparation hearing on 20 allegations in relation to ten boys and three girls.
The offences are all alleged to have taken place in Stratford in the 1970s and 1980s when Lively, aged 58, of Old School Mead, Bidford-on-Avon, was a serving Warwickshire Police officer.
But Judge Stephen Eyre QC was told by prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC that both the prosecution and defence were asking that the indictment should not be put to him.
Miss Cottage explained that Lively, ‘who was a police officer and, before then, a cadet,’ denies all of the allegations.
Stephen Vullo QC, defending, said: “We are going to conduct an investigation and were going to ask for time. An extra four months will not make any difference.”
The charges Lively faces include raping and indecently assaulting a girl when she was under the age of 16, and indecently assaulting another girl when she was over 16.
In relation to a third girl, he is accused of two charges of indecently assaulting her, one relating to when she was under 14 and one when she was under 16, as well as committing an act of gross indecency with her.
Lively is also charged with committing sexual offences with a boy when he was 15 in the early 1980s, and again when he was over 16, without his consent.
He further faces charges of indecently assaulting each of seven boys who were under 16 at the time, and four of indecently assaulting two of those boys and two others when they were 16 or over.
Ex-Warwickshire Pc Robert Tedds sentenced for child indecent images offences
Man who made indecent images was former police officer
03 July 2013
Warwickshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Ball confirmed this morning that Robert William Tedds, 58, of Grange Road, Leamington, served as an officer for the force (for 30 years) before working as a police driver later in his career.
His wife – Warwickshire Police Superintendent Debbie Teddsjoined Warwickshire Police in 1989,
Tedds, who is the husband of serving Warwickshire Police Superintendent Debbie Tedds, appeared at Redditch Magistrates Court yesterday (Wednesday) where he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of a child and five counts of outraging public decency.
Mr Ball said that the investigation was handled by Mercia Police due to Tedds’ background as a former Warwickshire officer who is married to a ranking officer in the force and this is the reason why the courts in Redditch and Worcester are being used as opposed to courts closer to Tedds’ home. Warwickshire Police has reported that Tedds was ‘previously a member of staff’ and have said they will be making no further comment while proceedings are active and the court process is underway.
A former police constable with more than 32 years spotless service “pressed the self-destruct button” when he decided to film a naked teenage girl, a judge has said.
Robert Tedds, who retired as an officer in 2011, had also taken pictures up strangers’ skirts in a petrol station, an office, in the back of a car and on a train
Tedds was sentenced to a three-year community order with supervision and ordered to sign the sex offenders register after admitting three charges of making an indecent image of a child and five counts of outraging public decency.
The 58-year-old, previously an officer with Warwickshire Police, had been working in a civilian role with the force’s firearms licensing unit when he carried out the offences over a three-week period between May and June, this year.
He had also carried out “some driving duties on a part-time basis for senior officers”, according to Warwickshire Police.
Debbie Tedds has performed are Patrol, Criminal Investigation, Child Protection and Protecting Vulnerable Persons, Intelligence and Special Investigations. She has also performed roles at both operational and command level within Search, Firearms, VIP Protection, Public Order and Hostage and Crisis Negotiations as well as working at a National level with Her Majesty Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Moving into the Alliance with West Mercia Debbie was the Policing Area Commander for South Warwickshire and more latterly headed up the Alliance Strategic Service Improvement function being based at Hindlip Park. Latterly she has undertaken temporary roles as ACC covering both Protective Services and Local Policing prior to taking up her new post as Head of Crime in May 2017.
Prince Charles HRH The Prince of Wales meets monksFather Robert, Brother Gabriel, and Acting Abbot Father Daniel during his visit to Caldey Island in 1997
Revealed: monk who abused children on ‘crime free’ Caldey Island for decades
17 November 2017
Abuse by a monk who preyed on girls on a tiny island off the coast of Wales was covered up in the 70s and 80s
Kotik offended against the six girls between 1972 and1987, though the women believe there may be many more victims, over many more years.
A former soldier who fought in the Free Polish army during the second world war, Kotik moved to the island in 1947, joined the strict Cistercian order and was ordained a priest in 1956. He lived on the island until his death in 1992. It appears he was never questioned by police and that they were not informed until 2014.
In the late 80s, when she and her family were residents of the island, Emily, then five years old, told the then Abbot Robert O’Brien – who died in 2009 – about Kotik assaulting her. The abbot ordered Kotik to stay inside the monastery enclosure, but Kotik regularly escaped from the monastery grounds and continued to abuse children.
Abbot Robert O’Brien
The girls reported the offences to the principal of their school, St Phillip’s Christian College in Newcastle, New South Wales in the late 1980s. According to Charlotte the deputy principal Richard Rule, who now runs a child care centre, prayed for the students and told them they “didn’t need to talk of this again because God has forgiven everyone”.
Also in 2014, Charlotte emailed the current abbot of Caldey Abbey, Brother Daniel van Santvoort, seeking an acknowledgment of the crimes committed against her and her sister. “The effect that this abuse has had on me has been quietly catastrophic,” she wrote.
2013Standing: from left, the Caldey community: Brother Titus, Brother Teilo, Father Senan, Father Daniel (Abbot of Caldey), Brother Anthony, Brother David, Brother Michael, Brother Paul, Brother Luca, Father Gildas, Father Jan. Seated: from left, Father Martin (Pluscarden), Brother Giles (Prinknash), Father Stephen (Caldey), Father Aelred (Prinknash), Father Francis (Abbot of Prinknash), Father Anselm (Abbot of Pluscarden), Father Mark .http://www.tenby-today.co.uk/article.cfm?id=2378&headline=Centerary%20pilgrims%20to%20Caldey&searchyear=2013
But it wasn’t the first time van Santvoort had heard allegations against Kotik. In a response to Charlotte he wrote: “I have heard occasionally about this serious matter as regards Fr Thaddeus”.
Van Santvoort told her the monastery knew about the monk’s offences and that he had been reprimanded and banned from contact with islanders and visitors in the 1980s, but had not been reported to police. “I am fully aware now of this terrible criminal offence and Fr Thaddeus should have there and then been handed over to the police – something that never happened.”
The island was bought by Anglican benedictine monks in 1906 and it was this group that built the monastery and abbey which sits in the centre of the island.
Now it is home to about 40 residents and a group of about 18 Cistercian monks.
22nd July 1989: A first blessing for Fr Michael Napier, (right) then Provost of the London Oratory and Apostolic Delegate of the Holy See to the Confederation of the Oratory
The Fathers of the Oratory are a distinctive group in the Catholic Church because they are not religious but secular priests who live in a community. They make no vows
Cousins
Convicted paedophile/PIE member Charles Napier is a cousin of The Rev Michael Napier – linjed to child sexual abuse as well:
Michael Scott Napier, priest: born 15 February 1929; ordained priest 1959; Superior of the London Oratory 1969-81; died London 22 August 1996
Michael Scott NapierMichael Napier must rank as one of the most outstanding superiors of the London Oratory since its foundation by Newman and Faber in the last century. On 22 August, on his way to the altar to celebrate Mass, he suffered a brain haemorrhage and died, aged 67.For 43 years, he lived the life of an Oratorian, giving a remarkable witness of consistency to the very end. As he lay dying at the foot of the altar, clothed in his priestly vestments, he gave silent testimony to a life devoted to his community and to the worldwide Confederation of the Oratory he had served so well.The son of Major-General Charles Scott Napier, a relation of the Lords Napier and Ettrick, Michael Scott Napier was born in India in February 1929. He was educated at Wellington and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he became a Catholic, having been instructed by Mgr Alfred Gilbey, who remained a close friend, mentor and example for the remainder of Napier’s life.(Rev Michael Napier’s relation -(The 14th Lord Napier and Ettrick worked for Princess Margaret – served Princess Margaret as her Private Secretary for 25 years, and then as her Treasurer for four years until her death in 2002.An old friend of the royal familyHe and his wife often accompanied Princess Margaret to Villa Jolie, her private home on Mustique.Napier took over as the Princess’s Private Secretary, Comptroller and Equerry in 1973, and was by her side when her separation from her husband the Earl of Snowdon was announced in 1976Francis Nigel Napier was born at Berwick-upon-Tweed on December 5 1930, the eldest of four sons of the 13th Lord Napier and Ettrick . A prominent forebear was John Napier of Merchiston (1550-1617), the inventor of logarithms and populariser of the decimal point, whose son Archibald, Treasurer Depute of Scotland, was created the 1st Lord Napier.The 10th Lord Napier — who served as ambassador to the United States, the Netherlands, Russia and Prussia, and as Governor of Madras and Acting Viceroy of India — was created the 1st Lord Ettrick in 1872, having turned down a Scottish earldom because he wanted his descendants to be able to sit in the House of Lords.After Eton and Sandhurst, Nigel Napier was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1950 and went to Malaya, where he led patrols in the jungle as a platoon commander.Francis Nigel Napier was born at Berwick-upon-Tweed on December 5 1930, the eldest of four sons of the 13th Lord Napier and Ettrick . A prominent forebear was John Napier of Merchiston (1550-1617), the inventor of logarithms and populariser of the decimal point, whose son Archibald, Treasurer Depute of Scotland, was created the 1st Lord Napier.The 10th Lord Napier — who served as ambassador to the United States, the Netherlands, Russia and Prussia, and as Governor of Madras and Acting Viceroy of India — was created the 1st Lord Ettrick in 1872, having turned down a Scottish earldom because he wanted his descendants to be able to sit in the House of Lords.After Eton and Sandhurst, Nigel Napier was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1950 and went to Malaya, where he led patrols in the jungle as a platoon commander.From 1955 to 1957 Napier served as adjutant to 1st Battalion the Scots Guards, then spent two years as Equerry to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. He retired from the Army in 1960 in the rank of major, and worked as a stockbroker before going to the Commonwealth Relations Office as Deputy Ceremonial and Protocol Secretary, working for Duncan Sandys and then Arthur Bottomley .Napier served as a Conservative whip in the House of Lords in 1970-71He was appointed LVO in 1980, CVO in 1985 and KCVO in 1992.Napier had a lifelong interest in art, antiques, family memorabilia and shooting. During his life he owned several Rolls-Royces, and he was a long-standing member of the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club.In 1987 he was cleared by magistrates of sporting a dangerous mascot on his bonnet — from the 1950s he had displayed a silver eagle with a 10in wingspan on the front of all his cars, and he successfully argued that he needed the mascot in order to be recognised by the police at the various palaces he had to visit.He was president of the London District of the St John Ambulance Brigade and a member of the Royal Company of Archers (Queen’s Body Guard for Scotland).)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/royalty-obituaries/9184239/Lord-Napier-and-Ettrick.html10 Apr 2012Secretary to Princess Margaret and chief of the Clan Napier;Charlie Napier, president of the Clan Napier Society, has spoken warmly of his clan chief: “He was very active and always supportive in matters concerning the clan.“He was an excellent host and despite being wheelchair-bound he hosted gatherings in 1993 and 2000 in Selkirk village hall for the American Napier Society. Lord Napier was a charming gentleman of the old school; very good company.”In fact through his wife, Delia, Lord Napier had family connections with the royal family.Her maternal grandfather was Lord Blackburn (a Lord of Session) whose wife, Lady Constance Bowes-Lyon, was the daughter of the 13th Earl of Strathmore. Lady Napier was therefore a first cousin once removed of the Queen Mother, and a second cousin of The Queen.Lord Napier was a Member of the Royal Company of Archers, a Deputy Lieutenant, a Justice of the Peace and a County Councillor for Selkirkshire (1946-48).He was president of the Border Area Council, the British Legion and served on the committee of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs. He acted as Purple Staff Officer at the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1966.http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/obituaries/13053743.Major_the_14th_Lord_Napier___Ettrick/ (Princess Margaret, was patron of Lighthouse charity which took care of paedophile priest Fr Martin appointed by Father Michael Napier. See below)Like so many converts before him, he entered the London Oratory in November 1953 and was ordained priest in Rome in 1959 after completing his studies at the Beda College. He was elected provost in 1969, and it fell to him to guide the London Oratory through the difficult period of post-conciliar adjustment. This he did with tact and firmness of touch.The liturgical tradition of splendour combined with prayerfulness and deep interior participation made the Oratory vulnerable in a time of profound change in the Church’s worship. Fr Napier, supported by his community, maintained and enriched that tradition while remaining absolutely faithful to the Apostolic See.Having re-elected him for four consecutive three-year terms as provost, the worldwide Oratorian Confederation chose him as Visitor of the Apostolic See in 1981. As each Oratory fiercely guards its autonomy, this is not an easy task. Fr Napier fulfilled it with great delicacy and was re-elected for a further six years in 1987.During his time as Visitor, he encouraged and nurtured several infant congregations, two of which, those of Vienna and Toronto, took particular inspiration from the life and customs of the London Oratory. He was again elected provost in 1991 and combined the two duties with unstinting devotion.Passionately interested in travel and history, particularly in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, Napier felt great sympathy for the work of Aid to the Church in Need and was a member of its executive committee. He also continued a long-established Oratorian tradition by serving as a chaplain of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.He was tall and imposing, but his external appearance hid a tenderness and capacity for affection and friendship which perhaps he himself never fully realised. Sensibility and discipline were the two very different forces which grace brought into harmony. He could have been a soldier or he might have been an aesthete. God combined the qualities of both to excellent effect.It is a truism that a real Oratorian is known only in death. As he rendered his soul to God, attended by a former provost and his first novice, Michael Napier confirmed this in a remarkable way.RONALD CREIGHTON-JOBt
The son of Major-General Charles Scott Napier, a relation of the Lords Napier and Ettrick, Michael Scott Napier was born in India in February 1929.
He was educated at Wellington and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he became a Catholic, having been instructed by Mgr Alfred Gilbey, who remained a close friend, mentor and example for the remainder of Napier’s life.
Having re-elected him for four consecutive three-year terms as provost, the worldwide Oratorian Confederation chose him as Visitor of the Apostolic See in 1981. As each Oratory fiercely guards its autonomy, this is not an easy task. Fr Napier fulfilled it with great delicacy and was re-elected for a further six years in 1987.
During his time as Visitor, he encouraged and nurtured several infant congregations, two of which, those of Vienna and Toronto, took particular inspiration from the life and customs of the London Oratory. He was again elected provost in 1991 and combined the two duties with unstinting devotion.
Passionately interested in travel and history, particularly in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, Napier felt great sympathy for the work of Aid to the Church in Need and was a member of its executive committee. He also continued a long-established Oratorian tradition by serving as a chaplain of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
The Fathers of the Oratory are a distinctive group in the Catholic Church because they are not religious but secular priests who live in a community. They make no vows, but have a three-year novitiate, when they express an intention of stability.
Michael Napier was ordained in 1959, and was elected Provost in 1969. Such were his powers of leadership that he was to be re-elected four times, and he ruled with firmness and a sound administrative sense.
The famous generals bearing the name of Napier were Charles, George and William, the three sons of Lady Sarah Napier, daughter of the Duke of Richmond. The family seat was outside Dublin, and gives further force to the argument that the best generals in the British army were all of Irish origin. There is a statue in Trafalgar Square to Charles Napier, and Sir William wrote the history of the Peninsular Wars in six volumes.
Michael Napier’s father, Major-General Charles Napier, served in the Royal Engineers, and was a backroom boy in charge of movement control, especially for the D-Day operations. He was to die young at the age of 47, when his only son was 17. He was not a Catholic, but Michael’s mother, who was of French origin, was a convert. An only child, Michael was educated at Wellington, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
It was at Cambridge that he began his instruction to be a Catholic, under Monsignor Alfred Gilbey (Gilbey spent his last years in the Travellers’ Club, in Pall Mall in London), and he used to say that he was “polished off by ‘Zulu’ ” (for the uninitiated, Canon de Zulueta at the Holy Redeemer, Chelsea). He was received into the Church in October 1952, worked in the City for a year, and then entered the London Oratory in 1953.
In 1982 Napier gave up as Superior at the Oratory and began organising a great appeal for pounds 1m to renovate the Oratory
He also served for many years as chairman of the governors of the London Oratory School. He was President of the British section of Aid to the Church in Need, a charity principally for the relief of Catholics in Eastern Europe, and was a chaplain of the Order of Malta and the Constantian Order of St George.
To some, Fr Michael Napier might have seemed stern and aloof, but there was a quiet charm about the man. There was even a boyish- ness about him, and a loyalty to his brethren and his parishioners.
If Brompton Oratory has the position it has in London today, this is in great part due to Michael Napier. His community knew his worth by re-electing him four times. As Apostolic visitor, the Oratorians world-wide knew his value – a devoted man, dedicated to the ideals of his mentor, St Philip Neri.
Kit Cunningham
Michael Scott Napier, priest: born 15 February 1929; ordained priest 1959; Superior of the London Oratory 1969-81; died London 22 August 1996
^ The author of above Independent obituary of Michael Napier is paedophile Kit Cunningham …
“He was my priest and my friend. Then I found out he was a paedophile
How the scandal of Father Kit Cunningham has made Peter Stanford question his church and his faith”
This priest was a monster.”
Poppleton had been repeatedly sexually abused as a young boy by Fr Kit, an experience that he says “broke me down and broke my spirit”. The abuse took place at St Michael’s, Soni, in the 1960s, in what was then Tanganyika, now Tanzania. Four of the priests who taught there, all members of the Rosminian order, and including Fr Kit, perpetrated physical and sexual abuse that made this boarding school, according to Poppleton, “a loveless, violent and sad hellhole”.
From the website of the Diocese of Westminster; it’s from Fr David Myers, British Provincial of the Rosminian order which permitted Fr Kit Cunningham and other priests to assault little boys in their schools in England and Africa.
I apologise without reservation on behalf of the Rosminian brethren in the UK to all those who have suffered. Such abuse was a grievous breach of trust to them and to their families. We are appalled by what was done to them.
I and all my brethren are deeply shocked at what has happened and acknowledge our inadequate response. We are committed to the pastoral care and support of those who have suffered abuse and to the procedures laid down by the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission.
“Well, yes, Father, I’m sure you and your brethren were deeply shocked, particularly at the revelation that the loveable late Fr Kit committed unspeakable paedophile crimes. But you’ve known about all this for a long time, haven’t you? You knew about it when you – David Myers – preached a sermon at Kit’s memorial service, though you said not a word to the congregation. You knew about it when the Rosminians declined to pay compensation to the victims, on the grounds that (a) you didn’t have the money and (b) there were better uses for it anyway. Why did you wait for the BBC documentary to be aired before you apologised publicly?
Tags: child sex abuse, Fr David Myers, Fr Kit Cunningham, Rosminians
The London Oratory School Schola was established in 1996 by John McIntosh CBE and is a choir for Catholic boys.[1] The current director of the Schola is Charles Cole. The choir’s patrons are Princess Michael of Kent, barrister Cherie Blair, actor Simon Callow and composer James MacMillan
A Gay Priest Who Died of Aids, Claims of Child Abuse, a Boy’s Suicide – the Dark Secrets of London’s Top Catholic School;
(1) the Blairs’ Choice: Cherie with Euan, Who Was Deputy Head Boy at the Oratory (2) Unholy Row: The Oratory in Fulham Is One of Britain’s Leading Roman Catholic State Schools but the Dumping of an Aids Charity This Week Has Resurrected a Scandal That Followed the Death of Father David Martin
THE jealously-guarded serenity of the Oratory School, London’s premierCatholic state school and alma mater of Tony Blair’s sons Euan and Nicky, isabout to be rocked by an unholy row. Gay campaigners are planning anunprecedented protest after the school’s choir suddenly cancelled its plan toraise money for the Terrence Higgins Trust, one of Europe’s most-respected Aidscharities.
The official reason for dropping the trust, which helps homosexuals, was thatit is not a suitable recipient of charity from a Catholic institution. Thatposition, controversial as it may be, is only part of the matter. An EveningStandard investigation reveals a story that echoes The Da Vinci Code, involvinga highly conservative and secretive group of priests, an act of conscience by amuch-admired actor and a very dark secret. That secret turns on the lonelydeath of a homosexual priest and allegations of sexual abuse at the heart ofThe London Oratory School in Fulham.
The actor is Simon Callow, who is a patron of The London Oratory School choir,or Schola. The Schola was founded in 1996 to give Catholic boys from the age ofseven a choral education inside the state school system. It has become a majorforce in religious music, making international tours and contributing to thesoundtracks of cinema hits including The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter andthe Prisoner of Azkaban..
The Schola will be performing at a World Aids Day concert at the Cadogan Hallin Chelsea on 1 December. The proceeds were to have been shared with theTerrence Higgins Trust (THT) but last week The Oratory School telephoned thetrust to say its plans had changed and it was switching support to survivors ofthe Rwandan genocide, many of whom were deliberately infected with the HIVvirus.
When Simon Callow learned of this, just a matter of days ago, he reacted withdisbelief. As well as being a patron of the Scholawith Princess Michael of Kenthe is also an active supporter of the THT. He wrote an email to David McFadden,headmaster of The Oratory School, threatening to resign as a patron of thechoir. “If what they tell me is true,” he wrote, “you will readily appreciatethat I couldn’t attendI’m a patron of the THT. Indeed, I’m afraid I’d have to withdraw as a patron ofthe Schola: if it’s subject to that sort of pressure from the Catholic Churchthen I’d find it really hard to endorse it.” What Callow may not have knownwhen he sent his email was that McFadden was caught in a desperate situation.
He took up his appointment in January after the retirement of John McIntosh, acharismatic teacher who had spent his working life at the school.
McIntosh was well versed in the peculiar politics and opaque running of TheOratory School, linked as it is to one of the most conservative Catholicchurches in Britain, the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, popularly known as Brompton Oratory.
The church is controlled by a group of fathers known as Oratorians who celebrate Latin mass and wear the traditional biretta, or square cap.
Although they are admired for their pastoral work and the dedication andkindness of individual priests, the fathers are also viewed by many Catholicsas reactionaries, opposed to any change or modernising trend. Their criticsinclude senior figures in Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s WestminsterDiocese. The Cardinal is head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales butthe mainstream church is thought to have little influence with the fathers.
The Oratorians’ conservatism was being blamed for the dumping of the THT as arecipient of money raised by the Oratory Schola but Mr McFadden told me thedecision was his, and his alone. No doubt that is true, but what influenceswere at work behind the scenes? In his letter to parents announcing the switchto the Rwandan charity Mr McFadden said he had been “made aware” of concernsabout money going to the THT. The Trust, he noted, “supports a viewpoint thatdoes not align with the teachings of the Catholic Church”.
Mr McFadden would have known that from the beginning, of course. The THT makesno secret of the fact it helps homosexuals. But what those who originallywanted to give the trust money may not have known is that an organisationlinked to the Terrence Higgins Trust played an innocent part in an affair theBrompton Oratory’s fathers may prefer to forget, a matter that still resonatesas the darkest chapter in The
Oratory School’s recent history. In 2000, two pupils at the school rang th eChild- Line charity to say they had been the victims of sexual abuse.
Euan Blair who was 16 at the time, and his brother Nicky, who was 15, were not involved in any way. The boys, who were never identified, expressed fears that they might have contracted the HIV virus. They claimed they had been abused byThe Oratory School’s chaplain, Father David Martin.
Father David had died two years earlier, aged 44, from an Aids-related illness.
In the last weeks of his life he was cared for at a hospice in Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, run by The Lighthouse charity which, soon afterwards, merged withthe Terrence Higgins Trust.
“Any mention of that trust raises the spectre of David Martin,” a source said.
“You can imagine the horror in some quarters when it was realised the Scholawas doing a performance for it.” The David Martin story is a sad one. He wasthe son of a wealthy family in Ayr; his father had a property and estate agencybusiness. David came to London as a young man and worked in the City as astockbroker. Then, at the age of 34, he was ordained a priest and joined theorder of the Fathers at the The London Oratory.
In 1991 the order’s provost, the late Father Michael Napier, was told Father David was HIV positive. The information was kept secret and Father David continued his work as chaplain to The Oratory School in Fulham, visiting once aweek and holding discussion sessions with pupils.
When he became too ill to continue, he was taken in by The Lighthouse.
Nothing was said openly about his condition until the calls made to ChildLine two years later. The information was passed to Hammersmith and Fulham’s child protection team, and then police were called in. Officers wanted to re-examinethe suicide of one of The Oratory School’s gifted pupils, 15-yearold Dario Iacoponi.
The boy shot himself with his father’s gun in November 1998, two months afterFather David died. He had kept secret diaries chronicling a descent into depression and the police wanted to know whether he had been a victim of abuse. No evidence was found to suggest this was the case and his mother, Saleni, saidshe was sure her son’s death had no connection with the Father David affair.
Indeed, the only evidence found to support claims of abuse came from the twopupils who made the allegations.
They said Father David invited boys to his room, but the police found no confirmation of this. The case was dropped, but it left painful memories thatthe Oratory fathers do not wish to revive..
Now, with the furore over the Aids Day concert, they find themselves facing not just criticism but also the threat of protests.
Gay campaigners are talking about picketing the Oratory school and distributing leaflets to pupils to make them aware of the decision to drop the Aids charity from the benefit concert. Peter Tatchell, co-founder of OutRage!, said: “I find it disgraceful that the Oratory School is putting dogma before humanitarian concerns. The THT is a world acclaimed HIV charity. It has helped to savethousands of people through its education and awareness work. To withdraw support like this is an insult to all the people it has helped over more thantwo decades.” Debbie Holmes, director of fundraising at the THT, said the charity had hoped for at least [pounds sterling]2,000 from the concert.
“What is puzzling,” she said, “is that they came to us. They got in touch a couple of months ago and asked if we wanted to be a beneficiary of ticket sales on the evening. Naturally, we were delighted. Aids charities are not the easiest to raise funds for. Then last week we got a call saying they were dropping us. It was very disappointing.” The charity adopted in place of the THT is SURF, a fund for survivors of the Rwanda genocide. The Oratory School has a long-standing association with SURF and a number of pupils work for it as volunteers. Lee Ward, director of music at the Schola, said: “The Choristers felt an immediate empathy with the plight of children orphaned by this disease.” According to a person with close knowledge of the affair, the original idea of adopting the THT came from a senior figure at the school who is also a supporter of the trust: “They didn’t know the can of worms it would open.” The source also pointed out a fact that might prove awkward for those who defend the decision to drop the THT because its work conflicts with Catholic teachings.
The Schola has recorded music for a new film, The Golden Compass, part of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The film has been condemned in the United States as promoting atheism and the American Catholic League has called for Christians everywhere to boycott it.
The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman, opens in the first week of December, just after the Aids concert..
‘Any mention of the Terrence Higgins Trust raises the spectre of Father Martin’s death.
You can imagine the horror over the choir performing for it ‘
THE Roman Catholic priest at the centre of child abuse allegations at the London Oratory School was known to be HIV positive when he was ordained, the Church said yesterday.
A number of present and former pupils at the school in Fulham, south west London, have made detailed allegations about Fr Martin’s conduct. It has been claimed that he lured boys to his room at the Oratory, Brompton Road, and sexually assaulted them.
(Father Michael Napier, the provost of the order at the time Father Martin joined in 1988 and at the time of his ordination in 1994
A former chaplain at one of London’s leading state schools, who was HIV-positive when he died two years ago, has been accused of sexually abusing at least one pupil.
Father David Martin, at the age of 44 in September 1998, had been acting chaplain one day a week at the Oratory School in west London, where the prime minister’s sons, Euan and Nicholas, are now pupils.
Last night a spokesman for the church admitted that successive heads of Father Martin’s religious order, the Oratory Fathers, had known that he was HIV positive several years before he was ordained in 1994.
It was not known whether they passed that information to the school before he started work there in 1997.
Claims about his conduct surfaced in a letter to Hammersmith and Fulham social services department last week. Earlier letters making less specific allegations were sent to leading figures in the church including the Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy O’Connor and to national newspapers in late October and were also referred to Hammersmith and Fulham.
A spokesman for the Westminster diocese said: “Naturally the church is deeply concerned whenever any allegations are made against a priest and especially if there are any victims of abuse. Any allegations need to be fully investigated and the church authorities will cooperate fully.”
In a terse statement, Father Ignatius Harrison, provost of the Oratory Fathers, of which Father Martin had been a member, said only that the order was fully aware of the investigation. He later added that there had never been any concerns about Father Martin’s behaviour.
Father Michael Napier, the provost of the order at the time Father Martin joined in 1988 and at the time of his ordination in 1994, is now also dead. Church sources said that Martin had been diagnosed HIV positive in 1991 – and had confided in Father Napier. The information was subsequently given to Father Harrison when he succeeded as provost in 1996.
The church was unable to say whether the school had carried out its own checks when he was recommended to them by the order as a governor and chaplain. Father Martin continued to visit the school until July 1998.
Child protection officers were yesterday attempting to establish the identity of the boy who made the complaints. They have only a first name to go on.
“There was a child protection meeting six weeks ago but they considered that there was no evidence with which to base any further investigations, because the letter was anonymous, there was no specific allegation of child abuse, and obviously Father Martin was dead,” said a spokeswoman for Hammersmith and Fulham.
The latest letter alleging child abuse came from a boy claiming to be at the school. The allegation is that abuse of one boy took place away from the school and unconnected with school activities, but relating to the priest’s church work.
In 2000, two pupils at the school rang theChild- Line charity to say they had been the victims of sexual abuse.
Euan Blair who was 16 at the time, and his brother Nicky, who was 15, were notinvolved in any way. The boys, who were never identified, expressed fears thatthey might have contracted the HIV virus. They claimed they had been abused byThe Oratory School’s chaplain, Father David Martin.
Father David Martin had died two years earlier, aged 44, from an Aids-related illness.
In the last weeks of his life he was cared for at a hospice in Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, run by The Lighthouse charity which, soon afterwards, merged with the Terrence Higgins Trust.
“Any mention of that trust raises the spectre of David Martin,” a source said.
“You can imagine the horror in some quarters when it was realised the Scholawas doing a performance for it.” The David Martin story is a sad one. He wasthe son of a wealthy family in Ayr; his father had a property and estate agencybusiness. David came to London as a young man and worked in the City as astockbroker. Then, at the age of 34, he was ordained a priest and joined theorder of the Fathers at the The London Oratory.
In 1991 the order’s provost, the late Father Michael Napier, was told FatherDavid was HIV positive. The information was kept secret and Father Davidcontinued his work as chaplain to The Oratory School in Fulham, visiting once aweek and holding discussion sessions with pupils.
When he became too ill to continue, he was taken in by The Lighthouse.
Nothing was said openly about his condition until the calls made to ChildLinetwo years later. The information was passed to Hammersmith and Fulham’s childprotection team, and then police were called in. Officers wanted to re-examinethe suicide of one of The Oratory School’s gifted pupils, 15-yearold DarioIacoponi.
Princess Margaret Visiting The London Lighthouse, As Patron
[1992 Princess Margaret, sister of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, will become royal patron of the London Lighthouse charity, which helps AIDS sufferers and people infected with HIV.]
The boy shot himself with his father’s gun in November 1998, two months after Father David died. He had kept secret diaries chronicling a descent into depression and the police wanted to know whether he had been a victim of abuse
The Schola has recorded music for a new film, The Golden Compass, part ofP hilip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The film has been condemned in the United States as promoting atheism and the American Catholic League has called for Christians everywhere to boycott it.
“What is puzzling,” she said, “is that they came to us. They got in touch acouple of months ago and asked if we wanted to be a beneficiary of ticket saleson the evening. Naturally, we were delighted. Aids charities are not theeasiest to raise funds for. Then last week we got a call saying they weredropping us. It was very disappointing.” The charity adopted in place of theTHT is SURF, a fund for survivors of the Rwanda genocide. The Oratory Schoolhas a long-standing association with SURF and a number of pupils work for it asvolunteers. L
The Evening Standard (London, England), November 9, 2007
According to a person with close knowledge of the affair, theoriginal idea of adopting the THT came from a senior figure at the school whois also a supporter of the trust: “They didn’t know the can of worms it wouldopen.” The source also pointed out a fact that might prove awkward for thosewho defend the decision to drop the THT because its work conflicts withCatholic teachings.
The Schola has recorded music for a new film, The Golden Compass, part ofPhilip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The film has been condemned in theUnited States as promoting atheism and the American Catholic League has calledfor Christians everywhere to boycott it.
The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman, opens in the first week ofDecember, just after the Aids concert..
The two largest HIV charities, London Lighthouse and Terrence Higgins Trust, are on honeymoon this week. They married on Sunday and will now be known as Terrence Higgins Trust Lighthouse. The merger is one of the biggest seen in the voluntary sector and creates an organisation with an annual turnover of at least £8m.
Father David Martin died aged 44, from an Aids-related illness.
In the last weeks of his life he was cared for at a hospice in Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, run by The Lighthouse charity which, soon afterwards, merged with the Terrence Higgins Trust.
“Any mention of that trust raises the spectre of David Martin,” a source said.
1992 Princess Margaret, sister of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, will become royal patron of the London Lighthouse charity, which helps AIDS sufferers and people infected with HIV.
Nxivm cult members held wild parties and seminars on Sir Richard Branson’s private Caribbean island, Necker.
Former Nxivm publicist Frank Parlato said: “I was told the reason they staged the seminars on Necker was they hoped to recruit Branson into the organization.”
“Branson would have been the biggest score they ever had — a billionaire businessman.”
Several group members, including co-founder Nancy Salzman, visited Necker for two seminars in 2007 and 2010. The cult’s leader, Keith Raniere, did not attend either trip.
At least one of the visits is said to have been paid for by billionaire heiress and Nxivm follower Sara Bronfman, whose late father, businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr., knew Branson.
Sara and her sister Clare are committed followers of Nxivm, but there is no suggestion that any of the Bronfman family are involved in or aware of criminal activities by Raniere or his followers.
Pictures provided by Parlato, reportedly taken on Necker in 2010, show Branson with Sara, Allison Mack and others.
Parlato said: “In 2007, Nancy Salzman came back from the Necker seminar and she told me Richard Branson was there.”
“Nancy said she did the teaching by day. But she said he became increasingly restless and hosted really crazy parties that started earlier and earlier.”
“The classes started at 7 a.m. and were supposed to run to 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., but everyone was up late at night and no one wanted to show up on time.”
The tycoon maintains he was not aware of any seminars — believing instead it was a booking for Sara Bronfman’s friends and family only.
A Virgin Management spokesman said: “Sir Richard Branson has never heard of Keith Raniere, he has never met him and there is absolutely no association between Sir Richard and the Nxivm group or its leader.”
The boys made their claims in letters circulated to senior church figures and also contacted ChildLine. Police child protection officers and social workers have begun the task of interviewing some of the children involved. Euan and Nicholas Blair, the Prime Minister’s elder sons who are pupils at the school, are not involved in the inquiry.
The investigation will also include claims about two other Oratory priests, who have been named in letters, and may also examine three suicides connected to the school. Fr Ignatius Harrison, Provost of the London Oratory, said the order was “fully aware of investigations concerning the late Fr David Martin” and was “co-operating fully with the authorities”.
Fr Martin, a Scot who was raised in a Baptist family, worked in the City as a stockbroker before deciding to convert to Catholicism. He was baptised at the Oratory in 1980 and six years later became a novice with the Institute of Charity, an order also known as the Rosminians, studying at a centre in Guildford, Surrey.
Fr Anthony Meredith, father provincial of the order, said: “If he hadn’t decided to leave us we would have asked him to go. There was a feeling that he was probably of a homosexual disposition.” In 1988 Fr Martin was accepted as a novice at the Oratory and in 1991 informed Fr Michael Scott Napier, the then provost, that he was HIV positive and had become infected before joining the order.
Fr Scott Napier could have refused to ordain Fr Martin but decided that would be discriminatory. The late Cardinal Basil Hume ordained him at the Oratory in 1994.Between 1997 and 1998, Fr Martin was junior house chaplain at the school. Officially, his duties required one day’s attendance a week, but he also served as a governor.
Child protection meetings about Fr Martin were first held last October when several anonymous letters were circulated to Church figures and the media. Among those who received letters were the Most Rev Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, and Lord Nolan, who is heading the Church’s review of child protection procedures.
Cardinal Hume
For three decades between 1966 and 1995, a number of boys at the school endured sexual abuse at the hands of some of the monks who taught there, assaults that ranged from relatively minor incidents to, allegedly, rape. These were the decades during which Cardinal Hume was first the Abbot of Ampleforth, and then Archbishop of Westminster.
Exactly how many young boys were abused is difficult to say. Police say they have identified between 30 and 40 victims, although former pupils estimate the true tally could reach three figures.
Some of the victims at Ampleforth’s prep school were less than 10 years old
A TEACHER committed suicide by swallowing up to 90 painkillers after a break-up with his homosexual lover, an inquest heard yesterday.
Martin Smith, 32, who taught at the London Oratory school, was found dead in his flat by his boyfriend, Renato Piuma, an air steward. Mr Piuma went to the flat in Bloomsbury after the school raised the alarm when Mr Smith failed to arrive for work.
Mr Smith, described as a devout Christian, had previously tried to commit suicide in July 1999 by taking a range of prescription drugs, St Pancras Coroners’ Court was told. The teacher, who had tried the drug ecstasy, had been upset following a row with his boyfriend, but received counselling following the suicide attempt.
Mr Piuma, his boyfriend of 18 months, said they had decided to have a break in their relationship. He said: “The last time I spoke to Martin was the week before he died. He seemed OK, we had a normal conversation. He agreed that we were having problems.”
others who have attended The London Oratory School – children of Harriet Harman, Nick Clegg
London Oratory School Schola
The choir is most famous for its contribution to the double-platinum award winning soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The choir also works extensively for charity, helping raise funds for various charities including Macmillan Cancer Support, Save the Children and the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program.[7]
The choir’s concert for World Aids Day took place at the Cadogan Hall in London on 1 December 2007. . All proceeds from the concert went to the SURF Fund (a campaign which works in Rwanda campaigning for free anti-retroviral treatment for survivors of the genocide, and provides medical support to reduce the effect of opportunistic infections) and SOS Children’s Villages (a charity working in Swaziland to provide resources for those living with Aids and to help prevent family abandonment).[8][9]
In November 2008 the choir performed in a concert for Save the Children at St Paul’s Cathedral
St Michael’s Catholic Boarding School, Soni, Tanzania
A prominent United Kingdom member of the order, Fr Kit Cunningham, together with three other Rosminian priests were exposed after Cunningham’s death as paedophiles.[1][2][3][4][5]
While at Soni, Cunningham perpetrated sexual abuse that made the school, according to one pupil, “a loveless, violent and sad hellhole”. Other pupils recall being photographed naked, hauled out of bed at night to have their genitals fondled and other sexual abuse.[2][6]
Although known about by the Rosminians before Cunningham’s death in 2010, the abuse was only publicly revealed by the media in 2011.[7][8]
Formal action was launched by 22 former pupils at the civil court in Leicester on 20 March 2013.[9]
Grace Dieu Manor Catholic School, UK
Victims of abuse by staff at Grace Dieu Manor School, England are suing the Rosminians. Their abuse was catalogued in the BBC documentary Abused: Breaking the Silence.[1][2][3][10]
Industrial schools in Ireland
The Rosminians ran St Joseph’s Industrial School, Clonmel (known as Ferryhouse) and St Patrick’s Industrial School, Upton. Both were investigated by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. Like many residential institutions in Ireland, following publication of the Ryan report in 2009, Ferryhouse and Upton were recognised as places of systematic physical and sexual abuse of children carried on over many years.[11] Sexual abuse by members of the religious order was a chronic problem and it was dealt with in a manner that put the interests of the order, the institution and even the abuser ahead of that of the children.[12] Abusers were transferred to other institutions, putting children at those institutions at risk.[12] The Rosminian order was aware of the criminal nature of the abuse, but did not treat it as a crime.[12]
Apology for English Abuse By Provincial of English Rosminians
According to an online news story, issued on 23 June 2011,: “Following the U.K. broadcast of a documentary detailing the abuse of some 35 boys by four Rosminian priests in the 1960s, the order’s provincial in England released an apology for the acts of abuse and for our “inadequate response.””[13]
In 1984 Brompton Oratory celebrated the centenary of its consecration with a triumphant internal redecoration and an exterior cleaning, completed in 1994. A commemorative volume of essays followed, by Fr Michael Napier & Alistair Laing (eds.), The London Oratory Centenary 1884–1984. Many of its scholarly contributors were found amongst the worshipping congregation.
Arrest of Alastair Laing and Colin Peters, members of HM Diplomatic Service, in Naples
This record is closedClosed For 87 years
Opening date: 01 January 2056Description:
Arrest of Alastair Laing and Colin Peters, members of HM Diplomatic Service, in NaplesDate: 1967 Jan 01-1968 Dec 31Held by: The National Archives, Kewdiscovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C6100084
An artist’s impression of a man police were seeking for interview. Picture: ARCHANT ARCHIVE
(Rev Michael Napier’s relation -(The 14th Lord Napier and Ettrick worked for Princess Margaret – served Princess Margaret as her Private Secretary for 25 years, and then as her Treasurer for four years until her death in 2002.An old friend of the royal familyHe and his wife often accompanied Princess Margaret to Villa Jolie, her private home on Mustique.Napier took over as the Princess’s Private Secretary, Comptroller and Equerry in 1973, and was by her side when her separation from her husband the Earl of Snowdon was announced in 1976Francis Nigel Napier was born at Berwick-upon-Tweed on December 5 1930, the eldest of four sons of the 13th Lord Napier and Ettrick . A prominent forebear was John Napier of Merchiston (1550-1617), the inventor of logarithms and populariser of the decimal point, whose son Archibald, Treasurer Depute of Scotland, was created the 1st Lord Napier.The 10th Lord Napier — who served as ambassador to the United States, the Netherlands, Russia and Prussia, and as Governor of Madras and Acting Viceroy of India — was created the 1st Lord Ettrick in 1872, having turned down a Scottish earldom because he wanted his descendants to be able to sit in the House of Lords.After Eton and Sandhurst, Nigel Napier was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1950 and went to Malaya, where he led patrols in the jungle as a platoon commander.Francis Nigel Napier was born at Berwick-upon-Tweed on December 5 1930, the eldest of four sons of the 13th Lord Napier and Ettrick . A prominent forebear was John Napier of Merchiston (1550-1617), the inventor of logarithms and populariser of the decimal point, whose son Archibald, Treasurer Depute of Scotland, was created the 1st Lord Napier.The 10th Lord Napier — who served as ambassador to the United States, the Netherlands, Russia and Prussia, and as Governor of Madras and Acting Viceroy of India — was created the 1st Lord Ettrick in 1872, having turned down a Scottish earldom because he wanted his descendants to be able to sit in the House of Lords.After Eton and Sandhurst, Nigel Napier was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1950 and went to Malaya, where he led patrols in the jungle as a platoon commander.From 1955 to 1957 Napier served as adjutant to 1st Battalion the Scots Guards, then spent two years as Equerry to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. He retired from the Army in 1960 in the rank of major, and worked as a stockbroker before going to the Commonwealth Relations Office as Deputy Ceremonial and Protocol Secretary, working for Duncan Sandys and then Arthur Bottomley .Napier served as a Conservative whip in the House of Lords in 1970-71He was appointed LVO in 1980, CVO in 1985 and KCVO in 1992.Napier had a lifelong interest in art, antiques, family memorabilia and shooting. During his life he owned several Rolls-Royces, and he was a long-standing member of the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club.In 1987 he was cleared by magistrates of sporting a dangerous mascot on his bonnet — from the 1950s he had displayed a silver eagle with a 10in wingspan on the front of all his cars, and he successfully argued that he needed the mascot in order to be recognised by the police at the various palaces he had to visit.He was president of the London District of the St John Ambulance Brigade and a member of the Royal Company of Archers (Queen’s Body Guard for Scotland).)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/royalty-obituaries/9184239/Lord-Napier-and-Ettrick.html10 Apr 2012Secretary to Princess Margaret and chief of the Clan Napier;Charlie Napier, president of the Clan Napier Society, has spoken warmly of his clan chief: “He was very active and always supportive in matters concerning the clan.“He was an excellent host and despite being wheelchair-bound he hosted gatherings in 1993 and 2000 in Selkirk village hall for the American Napier Society. Lord Napier was a charming gentleman of the old school; very good company.”In fact through his wife, Delia, Lord Napier had family connections with the royal family.Her maternal grandfather was Lord Blackburn (a Lord of Session) whose wife, Lady Constance Bowes-Lyon, was the daughter of the 13th Earl of Strathmore. Lady Napier was therefore a first cousin once removed of the Queen Mother, and a second cousin of The Queen.Lord Napier was a Member of the Royal Company of Archers, a Deputy Lieutenant, a Justice of the Peace and a County Councillor for Selkirkshire (1946-48).He was president of the Border Area Council, the British Legion and served on the committee of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs. He acted as Purple Staff Officer at the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1966.http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/obituaries/13053743.Major_the_14th_Lord_Napier___Ettrick/ (Princess Margaret, was patron of Lighthouse charity which took care of paedophile priest Fr Martin appointed by Father Michael Napier. See below)Like so many converts before him, he entered the London Oratory in November 1953 and was ordained priest in Rome in 1959 after completing his studies at the Beda College. He was elected provost in 1969, and it fell to him to guide the London Oratory through the difficult period of post-conciliar adjustment. This he did with tact and firmness of touch.The liturgical tradition of splendour combined with prayerfulness and deep interior participation made the Oratory vulnerable in a time of profound change in the Church’s worship. Fr Napier, supported by his community, maintained and enriched that tradition while remaining absolutely faithful to the Apostolic See.Having re-elected him for four consecutive three-year terms as provost, the worldwide Oratorian Confederation chose him as Visitor of the Apostolic See in 1981. As each Oratory fiercely guards its autonomy, this is not an easy task. Fr Napier fulfilled it with great delicacy and was re-elected for a further six years in 1987.During his time as Visitor, he encouraged and nurtured several infant congregations, two of which, those of Vienna and Toronto, took particular inspiration from the life and customs of the London Oratory. He was again elected provost in 1991 and combined the two duties with unstinting devotion.Passionately interested in travel and history, particularly in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, Napier felt great sympathy for the work of Aid to the Church in Need and was a member of its executive committee. He also continued a long-established Oratorian tradition by serving as a chaplain of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.He was tall and imposing, but his external appearance hid a tenderness and capacity for affection and friendship which perhaps he himself never fully realised. Sensibility and discipline were the two very different forces which grace brought into harmony. He could have been a soldier or he might have been an aesthete. God combined the qualities of both to excellent effect.It is a truism that a real Oratorian is known only in death. As he rendered his soul to God, attended by a former provost and his first novice, Michael Napier confirmed this in a remarkable way.RONALD CREIGHTON-JOBt
