How long before Joe and Jane Average figure it out?
That a great percentage of the world’s top politicians, VIPs and societal elites are evil, depraved, mentally unbalanced individuals ‘with profound sociopathic / psychopathic tendencies”
over the weekend, some files called #FINCEN were leaked. They contain over 200,000 suspicious financial transactions worth over $2trillion that were facilitated by banks around the world, including UK bank HSBC. Both the US and UK Gov’t appears to have ignored them.
One of these dodgy transactions was for $8m and involved another Russian oligarch called Vladimir Chernukhin. He’s a close ally of Putin and a general bad guy. He’s been accused by US officials as “playing a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities”.
Vladimir’s wife, Lubov Chernukhin, has donated £1.7m to the Tory party just before the Brexit vote. She’s paid £160,000 to Boris Johnson for a game of tennis too. The Chernukhin’s live in London.
Very powerful, wealthy, and loyal Russian oligarchs have set-up base in London. They own and use the British press and the UK’s generous tax avoidance network, including British banks, along with the inner sanctum of the Tory party to influence UK politics to their advantage.
Former Broadmoor psychiatrist faces investigation for role in Ecclesiastical abuse claims
16 Sep 2020
Professor Tony Maden, psychiatrist and the former head clinician of Broadmoor’s dangerous and severe personality unit, is facing two separate investigations by the General Medical Council for his role as an expert witness in Ecclesiastical insurance church abuse claims, Post has learned. One in eight claims submitted to the GMC are investigated. The possible outcomes of the investigation include: no further action, a warning, agreeing undertakings with the GMC to address a problem with their practice, or the case being referred to the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service for a substantive hearing. Maden continues to practice. In one case it is alleged Ecclesiastical is citing litigation privileges, a legal right but a decision criticised as “immoral” by the claimant, to prevent the GMC from accessing relevant documentation. Ecclesiastical declined to comment. Maden has been contacted for comment. A Church of England spokesperson told Post: ”The Church is committed to listening to and responding well to survivors and voted unanimously at its Synod in February to work towards a more fully survivor-centred approach. We have made representations to EIG on behalf of a small number of survivors who asked us to do so, and this had included cases where Tony Maden had been used.” Professor Julie Macfarlane, a dispute expert based in Canada and survivor of church abuse in Chichester, is one of the complainants. Macfarlane and her lawyer were instrumental in drafting Ecclesiastical’s 2016 guiding principles for abuse claims. She has waived her right to anonymity. In Macfarlane’s complaint, seen by Post, she alleges Maden “breached both his duty to the court to provide an informed neutral assessment (it was neither informed nor neutral) and to his profession to act with integrity”. Quotes from Maden’s report into Macfarlane for her 2015 case, seen by Post, included as evidence in the complaint, included that: “The fact that she took so long to raise this issue suggests it cannot have seemed to her like much of a problem.” Maden further argued that the reason the claimant had gone far away for university was not to escape her abuser, former vicar Meirion Griffiths who was jailed for eight years in February, but because “home was not entirely happy for her”. Because Macfarlane went on to lead a successful life, according to Maden’s report, there is “little or nothing to suggest” she had been impaired by any mental illness. Macfarlane opposed points raised by Maden, including one which she says he suggested “I could certainly have stood up to the minister because I was assertive”. Macfarlane alleged in the complaint: “Maden does not exhibit the slightest shred of genuine understanding of sexual abuse, of power dynamics, of the fear but also the necessity victims feel about taking action, nor does he show any empathy for victims. What this report does exhibit in abundance is the use of every bit of tortured logic at Dr Maden’s disposal to reinforce the legal case of his employer: the Church of England. “In producing this report – which my psychologist, a regular expert witness herself, described as ‘the most ridiculous thing I have ever read’ – Dr Maden breached both his duty to the court to provide an informed neutral assessment (it was neither informed nor neutral) and to his profession to act with integrity.” Expressing concern for other claimants, Macfarlane told Post: “He’s supposed to be appointed as a neutral expert – that’s his role.” Desktop Maden was also the desktop expert in the case of a claimant, known as Tony, who was hospitalised on suicide watch at the time. The report produced attributed just 10% of the claimant’s problems in later life to abuse (reduced to 5% as one incident of abuse was not part of the claim), a factor in Ecclesiastical offering a lower amount in a further round of settlement negotiations than previously,as shown in documents obtained via a subject access request – a move blasted as “unethical” by a leading bishop and safeguarding expert Ian Elliot. In the 2016 case a request to use a joint expert had been rejected by Ecclesiastical. Tony told Post: “Maden’s own report on me was astonishing. It was written without even meeting me. To understand the impact of abuse on an individual you need to be able to understand that person and the difficulties they have faced and are facing. I believe it is medically and ethically improper to reach any percentage causation under such circumstances, with such limited experience and material. I strongly believe that this practice of producing remote ‘desktopping’ reports should be wiped out.” Tony continued: “If their experience of the civil claims system is adversarial and negative, it would be very uncharacteristic for a victim to complain about what has happened. To do so would involve re-visiting the original trauma – again, while also experiencing fresh trauma from the additional re-abuse. It is very uncommon that someone would complain. I have spoken to a number of fellow victims who have been through the ‘mill’, felt very let down and re-abused, but felt it would be too painful to re-visit the detail of their case to the detail that would be required to submit a complaint.” Earlier this year Maden confirmed to Post he was sometimes approached by insurers to produce desktop reports on claimants he was not expected to meet. Haringey The psychiatrist acted as an expert witness for the defence in a recent failed £1.1m Haringey Council appeal spearheaded by Mercantile Indemnity, based on action originally involving RSA as the insurer. Haringey Council, which faced anger from claimants and negative publicity over how the case was handled, blamed its insurers for the legal action and arguments within. Making a diagnosis of personality disorder, Maden had testified to inconsistencies in the claimant’s accounts, picking out details such as whether or not the claimant’s parents would have gone to see him perform in a play. In his report he had argued the abuse had not made “more than a minor contribution” to the claimants mental health problems, court documents show. The expert suggested it was substance abuse and work pressure that had contributed to a worsening of his personality disorder and led to the claimant’s breakdown in 2011, rather than the sexual abuse he had endured as a teenager at the hands of his PE teacher, Andrew Adams. The judge, Mrs Justice Cutts, found: “The reason that he [the claimant] has not been able to work since 2011 and will have difficulty finding work in the future is not confined to the 2011 breakdown. It is attributable to his complex PTSD, diagnosed after that breakdown and caused, as I have found, by the abuse. The damage arises from the sexual abuse.” The appeal judges agreed with her verdict – though flagged concerns about the acceptance of the diagnosis as an “error of law” because complex PTSD was not yet a published diagnosis. Lady Justice Nicola Davies noted: “Professor Maden conceded that if the court accepted the respondent’s account that he was groomed in the manner alleged, his opinion as to the contribution of the abuse to the respondent’s personality disorder would be different. Professor Maden’s evidence on causation was dependent on the findings of primary fact relating to the abuse with which I do not take issue. It follows that Professor Maden’s opinion upon causation is undermined by the court’s findings on those facts.” Consultant Using documents from publicly available court judgment archive Baili, Post found one instance of Maden acting on behalf of child sexual abuse claimants from 2016 onwards, compared to 16 appearances or examinations for defendants. Most historic child abuse cases are settled before they make it before a judge. This means there is no public record of many settlements and how they were reached. It is, therefore, not possible to say exactly how many cases an expert has been involved in. Consultant psychiatrists in CSA claims will generally sit with patients for upwards of an hour before supplying a report, with claimant lawyers suggesting experts will generally earn a fee of between £2500 to £4000 for each case. IICSA noted in 2019 it is less traumatic for claimants to use one joint expert, while it is specified in Ecclesiastical’s 2016 guiding principles that a joint expert should be used. Phil Johnson, the chair of survivor group Macsas, was assessed by Maden when he initiated his 2010 claim against Ecclesiastical. The insurer hired Maden to assess Johnson based on medical records, a previous report by another expert and a one page resume from a psychotherapist. The two met face-to-face once for “about 45 minutes” according to Johnson. After sending a letter pointing out 34 examples of alleged “inaccuracies, supposition, speculation and in places fabrication” in Maden’s 2010 assessment of him, seen by Post, Johnson alleges the psychiatric profile provided arguing he was “genetically predisposed” to mental health problems and, therefore, the abuse was not responsible for his difficulties was quietly dropped by the insurer’s lawyers. Many survivors will begin to make a claim because they have started on a course of therapy and are seeking to recoup the costs, according to Johnson. He has been involved with survivor groups for over 20 years, describing the claims process as like “horse trading” with very few cases ever making it to court. He accused insurers of using a “very hostile medical examination to undermine the victims”. “The purpose of it is really to minimise the damages,” Johnson criticised. Background Maden has acted as an expert witness in at least 30 court cases since 2010, including in compensation claims from victims of black cab serial rapist John Worboys and the case of teacher Shaiira Alexis whose student spiked her water with cleaning fluid after the educator allegedly called her a “white prostitute”. The psychiatrist is perhaps best known for his work at high-security psychiatric hospital Broadmoor, which has housed notorious individuals such as Ronnie Kray, Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Brady. Maden served as former lead clinician of Bracknell-based Broadmoor’s Paddock Centre, a dangerous and severe personality disorder unit shuttered by the government in 2012. He has appeared on television documentaries including Channel 5 show Meet the Psychopaths and Inside Holloway and features in journalist Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test. The emeritus professor of forensic psychiatry at Imperial College London has written or contributed to at least 36 publications, with a focus on violent offenders and substance misuse. He does not appear to have contributed to literature around child abuse.
Kevin Spacey sued for alleged sexual assault of two teenagers in 1980s
Actor Anthony Rapp and another man file suit against Hollywood star at Manhattan court
Sept 10, 2020
Actor Anthony Rapp and another man filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Kevin Spacey, accusing him of sexual assaults in the 1980s when they were teenagers.
Rapp, who starred in Rent on Broadway and in Star Trek: Discovery on TV, had first spoken out against the Oscar-winning Spacey in 2017, a decision that led to others speaking up and Spacey’s celebrated career coming to an abrupt end.
In the lawsuit, filed at the state supreme court in Manhattan, Rapp detailed what he has said publicly about Spacey: that the older actor made a sexual advance to him when Rapp attended a party as a teenager.
When Rapp first made the accusation, Spacey issued a statement saying he didn’t remember the encounter but apologised.
The other plaintiff, who goes by the initials CD, said that he met Spacey as a teenager while taking an acting class, and that Spacey invited him to his apartment on multiple occasions and engaged in sexual acts with him. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff said Spacey attempted to assault him sexually on his final visit.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
An email seeking comment was sent to Spacey‘s attorney.
Since the allegations started emerging, Spacey has been embroiled in other legal cases. Last October, prosecutors in Los Angeles rejected a sexual battery case because the accuser had died.
In July, prosecutors in Massachusetts dropped a case after the 18-year-old man who accused Spacey of groping him refused to testify.
The Associated Press does not normally name people alleging sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Rapp has done.
Horror at Kensington Palace: Corpse is found in the ornamental lake outside William and Kate’s London home
A body had been retrieved from the pond outside Kensington Palace last week
Endellion Lycett Green, 51, had been missing for a week, police confirmed
Her family’s grief turned to relief after corpse turned out to be another woman
Overlooking one of London’s most beautiful parks has many advantages for the residents of Kensington Palace, who include the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children, as well as Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.
But there was horror last weekend when word got round that a body had been retrieved from the ornamental lake in front of the palace.
For the family of artist Endellion Lycett Green, granddaughter of much-loved former poet laureate Sir John Betjeman, the discovery was heart-breaking because they were told that the body was hers.
Endellion, 51, who is known to her friends and family as Delli, had been missing for a week and the Metropolitan Police had made public appeals for help in finding her.
However, the family’s grief turned to deep relief when Delli was found alive this week and the corpse turned out to be that of another woman. It had been a case of mistaken identity.
‘My sister Endellion is alive, safe and well,’ her brother John Lycett Green said in a message shared with grateful friends. ‘Thank you all for the support and love you showed for Delli and her family.
‘Sorry to all of you that, like us, were grieving for the wonder that is Delli. We were told a body was found and was her. It was not, and Delli was found last night.’
He added: ‘RIP the soul that was found in Kensington Round Pond on Saturday morning.’
Endellion is a distinguished artist and good friend of David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, and The Wire actor Dominic West.
She lives in Wiltshire with her film editor husband Rob Nagel and their two children.
A friend of the family tells me: ‘Delli went through a bad patch, but it’s a huge relief to everyone that she is safe and well. It’s been a traumatic week.’
The body found in the pond remains unidentified. A Scotland Yard spokesman tells me: ‘The death is being treated as unexplained at this time, but is not thought to be suspicious. Inquiries are ongoing.’
The spokesman says Endellion’s family were contacted ‘as part of inquiries to establish the identity of the deceased’.
Former Fettes College pupil sues for alleged abuse during swimming lessons
A former pupil of Fettes College is suing the prestigious Edinburgh school following allegations she was sexually abused during swimming lessons.
30th August 2020
According to a report in the Mail on Sunday, the woman claims she was groped by a member of staff in the early 1990s.
The article states concerns were raised at the time but the teacher was not sacked.
Fettes College in Edinburgh.
The former pupil – who is due to give evidence later this year to the long-running Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry – said: “What happened to me and the way the school reacted has affected my whole life. The inappropriate touching in the pool and the way I was humiliated and bullied made me want some remedy.
“As a child I felt powerless, but I have a voice now.”
The law firm representing her, Thompsons, has more than 1000 sexual abuse survivors on its files.
The inquiry has been suspended amid the pandemic, but the woman has launched legal action seeking an apology and damages for the lack of care she claims she received in the junior school.
She added: “I remember tickles, being lifted from the water, having my ears nibbled. I hated it all.”
It is understood the teacher was banned from entering the pool after a colleague heard pupils talking about swimming lessons.
The colleague reported the member of staff to school management.
The former pupil added: “Next time we had swimming, he was furious, shouting that because of us he could not even enter his own pool.
“But he still had power over us. Before he was banned, he had worked out ways to touch us without being seen. It was frightening and humiliating.”
Laura Connor, head of Thompsons’ historic abuse unit, said: “What our client experienced while a child at Fettes is the stuff of nightmares. The effects of the abuse still live with her today and I am determined that Fettes will be held accountable for the appalling conduct of their employee.”
Years after the alleged abuse, the school reported the matter to police following complaints from parents.
A spokesperson for Fettes said: “The college co-operated fully with the police investigation in 1998. As was widely reported at the time, the case did not proceed.
QC John Watt facing child sex abuse charges to be extradited
August 24 2020
A Scottish lawyer is set to be extradited from America to face charges of child sexual abuse.
John Watt, QC, a former prosecutor, is accused of sexual assaults on four children in the 1970s and 1980s.
One of them is Susie Henderson, now 53, whose claims of a paedophile ring in the Scottish legal establishment led to a six-year police investigation. Among those she accused of sexual offences against children was Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, QC, the late Tory MP.
Mr Watt, 70, could be in Scotland by October after a US judge approved his removal despite his claims that his extradition should be stopped for “humanitarian” reasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A federal court judge in Oklahoma rejected the request from Mr Watt, who faces one charge of rape and four charges of lewd and libidinous practices. Mr Watt has not yet entered a plea in relation to the charges.
His case will now go before Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, who will have 60 days to approve extradition, which in most cases is a formality.
Mr Watt could file a writ of habeas corpus, a legal action which could delay the extradition. He was arrested at his home in Oklahoma on July 8 and has been held in custody since.
He appeared at federal court in Muskogee in a prison-issue top and trousers for a 20-minute hearing last week. The judge signed an order stating that the extradition should go ahead. He disregarded Mr Watt’s coronavirus plea as it was not among the extradition criteria.
The Police Scotland investigation started when Ms Henderson made allegations against some of the country’s leading lawyers. She said that her late father, Robert Henderson, QC, had repeatedly raped her and made similar allegations about a number of his friends.
Steve Bannon Indicted for Alleged Fraud and Money Laundering with Trump Border Wall Scheme
Bannon is the sixth person from the inner circle of Trump’s 2016 campaign to be criminally charged by the Trump-era Justice Department.
Steve Bannon, the chief executive officer of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York. Bannon, who also served as chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president, is accused, with three others, of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was arrested by agents with the U.S. Postal Service and was expected to appear in court Thursday.
Prosecutors say Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors with We Build the Wall, a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $25 million amid promises to erect a barrier on the southern border. The campaign initially announced a $1 billion goal. According to We Build the Wall’s website, a number of high-profile figures in Trump’s orbit have sat on the group’s board, including anti-immigration activist Kris Kobach, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, baseball player turned right-wing blowhard Curt Schilling, former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke, and anti-immigration zealot Tom Tancredo.
A former butler to dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein spoke to a French news channel and said that Epstein courted some famous guests at his Paris apartment, including former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon,Prince Andrew and Bill and Melinda Gates.
The butler, identified by France Info only as Gabriel, said he “served crowned heads, diplomats, businessmen and politicians,” some of whom we just named above.
According to Gabriel, Bannon visited Epstein in Paris in the fall of 2018. This is what article, which was in French, said:
High-flying Paul Randle worked on security for the Royal family, saw action in Afghanistan, and was commended by Nato for his service. A judge described him as a “shameless paedophile“.
14 AUG 2020
A former RAF serviceman with a distinguished career in uniform has been exposed as a “shameless paedophile” addicted to looking at pictures of child abuse.
Paul Randle was found with more than 2,000 indecent images, some showing a newborn baby being sexually abused.
Swansea Crown Court heard there were another 118,000 pictures and videos on his computers which police had not examined or categorised.
Tom Scapens, prosecuting, said Randle was arrested after police raided his Ammanford house on the morning of November 6 last year.
Officers seized a number of devices including a Samsung tablet from the property, and a subsequent forensic examination found more than 2,000 indecent images of children – from categories A, the most serious kind, as well as B and C – along with software for accessing the dark web, open links to known paedophile sites, and a link to an online photo storage facility.
The prosecutor said among the images found was one of a naked newborn baby being sexually abused by a woman.
Another 118,000 images were located on various devices but not examined.
Officers also found 50-year-old Randle had been involved in extensive online chats about the sexual abuse of children using a number of platforms including Skype and Kik.
In his police interviews the defendant denied downloading indecent images, saying much of the computer equipment had been bought second hand. He said he had spent more than 20 years with the RAF police working IT, counter-intelligence, and security.
Randle later claimed to have been trying to expose paedophiles online, then said the images were part of his work, and then changed his story yet again to claim he was being blackmailed.
Randle, of Saron Road, Ammanford, had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children and three counts of distributing indecent images when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
The court heard he has no previous convictions.
Nicholas Wragg, for Randle, said his client had been working with a therapist since his arrest and was making a “dedicated effort” to address the issues he had.
He said Newport-born Randle had applied to join Gwent Police as a young man – but was rejected for being “a fraction too short” – and instead joined the Royal Air Force.
The barrister said during his career with the RAF he had worked in counter-intelligence, in security for the Royal family, had served in conflict zones including Afghanistan and Iraq – where he had conducted armed patrols, come under fire, and seen children blow-up by roadside bombs – and been commended by NATO.
He said: “The defendant says he is haunted by his past but does not talk about it.”
Mr Wragg added that there was nothing to indicate the 118,000 images not checked by police were indecent, and said they could merely be normal family snapshots and the like.
Judge Geraint Walters said some of the images the defendant had downloaded were “among the most appalling imaginable”.
He said it was “beyond the comprehension of human beings” how someone could get sexual gratification from looking at pictures of newborn babies being abused, and he described Randle as a “shameless paedophile who is addicted to child pornography”.
Giving the defendant a one-third discount for his guilty pleas the judge sentenced him to a total of two years and four months in prison. Randle will serve up to a half of that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
The defendant will be on the sex offenders register for the next 10 years, and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time to control his access to the internet.
Essex police officers face action after investigator finds ‘inexcusable’ failures in paedophile ring case
10 August 2020
An investigation into a historic paedophile ring with Havering links is set to be reopened for the third time in five years, after a report found a series of failures by Essex Police.
The force’s Professional Standards Department (PSD) was asked to investigate after a victim of the ring made a lengthy complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over the way his case had been handled.
The year-long review of Essex Police’s behaviour concluded just in time for the final episode of Archant’s true crime podcast – Unfinished: Shoebury’s Lost Boys – which has been examining failures in successive police investigations into the so-called “Shoebury Sex Ring”.
Essex PSD upheld nine of the man’s 15 complaints and three officers now face management action.
PSD’s findings included:
The Essex PSD report, sparked by an IOPC complaint, was received just as the final episode of the Unfinished Shoebury podcast was being prepared. The episode had to be rewritten and re-recorded to incorporate the breaking news. Picture: Charles Thomson.
-The force gave a historic paedophile ring investigation to an inexperienced officer, who was then not properly supervised.
-There were “inexcusable” delays in the man’s case – with more than a year elapsing between him coming forward and police completing his interview.
-The man’s allegations against a retired police officer, who he was able to identify, were never logged as a crime and lines of enquiry about him were never investigated.
-This was despite the fact that a year earlier, unbeknownst to the complainant, another male had made similar allegations to another organisation about the same retired officer.
-The man’s allegations against other abusers were also not properly investigated.
In 1989, Southend children’s charities discovered dozens of local children had been groomed and abused. Charity workers have come forward in recent years to say there were suspicious failures in the police investigation.
Children were transported to addresses along the Thames corridor to be abused – including a property in Havering where they were filmed and photographed.
But the two ringleaders – Dennis King and Brian Tanner, both now dead – were given extremely generous plea bargains at the last minute and no other abusers were pursued.
Last year, Essex newspaper the Yellow Advertiser revealed King had been a registered police informant.
The man behind the complaint was approached by police in 2017 as part of a reinvestigation of the case. His name appeared in documents compiled by Social Services in 1990/91 as a suspected victim. It is believed he was named to professionals by other victims.
He initially declined to co-operate but changed his mind in October 2017, when he learned the case was being closed down without any charges.
After he agreed to co-operate in October, no police officers contacted him until two months later, after he rang police to ask what was going on. The PSD investigator said they were never given any explanation by police as to why he had not been contacted.
His case was then handed to a Pc who told him it was her first case since joining the child abuse team.
The investigator’s report stated: “There is no rationale as to why this was not allocated to a more experienced officer. This is clearly a complicated investigation… This is an organised abuse allegation involving multiple suspects and victims.”
He was not given his first on-camera interview until July 2018 and follow-ups were spaced weeks apart, the longest gap being more than 40 days.
The final interview concluded in November 2018. Days later, Dennis King died. The case had been dragged out for so long that the prime suspect could not now be questioned.
In the report, the investigator wrote: “This is an unjustified amount of time, which the investigating officer believes may be due to the lack of a supervisor’s footprint, and the investigation was allowed to slip.”
They continued: “There are many enquiries that have not been completed. These enquiries may have uncovered new witnesses, who may have been willing to give evidence to the police.
“His mother was not spoken to. His medical records were not obtained, despite having a signed consent form. Social Service records were not obtained. He was not taken on a drive around to identify addresses.
“No attempts seem to have been made to locate the people he talks about in interview, whether they may be suspects, victims or witnesses.”
As a result, the case has been referred for reinvestigation by Operation Quest, a taskforce set up to handle complex, historic cases.
The PSD report is included in the final episode of Unfinished, which was released on Friday.
The eight-episode series included interviews with whistleblowers and victims, telling the story of how the ring was uncovered, what went wrong in the police investigation and how the case came to be reopened more than 25 years later.
Search for victims of multi-millionaire paedophile priest believed to have abused children in Wales
Victims of Michael Studdert could be able to claim against his estate after a judge said he was ‘satisfied Studdert had committed historic sexual assault in England and Wales’
Aug 1, 2020
Michael Studdert
Authorities are searching for victims of a multi-millionaire paedophile priest who may be entitled to part of his estate.
Former Anglican minister Michael Studdert is believed to have abused children in Wales, England, Poland, Denmark, and Italy.
Studdert, who died aged 78 in August 2017, was convicted on three occasions of various charges relating to the possession, importing, making or distribution of indecent images of children between 1988 and 2006.
His £4.7m estate – most of which he left to a charity he set up to support families of clergy of the Church of England – cannot be spent while potential victims are found, the High Court has ruled.
A judge has also ordered the executors of Studdert’s estate to set up a website to try and find those who may have been abused by him.
He was jailed alongside Paedophile Information Exchange founder Thomas O’Carroll in December 2006 after more than 100,000 indecent images were found at his home in Surrey.
Studdert was banned from exercising any priestly function within the Church of England for the rest of his life shortly after that conviction.
He is not known to have ever been convicted of the sexual assault of a child but a judge has said he is “satisfied Studdert had committed historic sexual assault in England and Wales” as well as in Poland, Denmark and Italy.
Evidence compiled by a firm of solicitors appointed to manage his £4.7m estate found Studdert was “likely” to have had sexual contact with children in Poland, where he had “strong connections”, and had also travelled with O’Carroll “extensively” in eastern Europe.
The executors also received two letters sent to Studdert after his death by disgraced former Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning, who is currently “serving a 13-year sentence for sexual offences committed against boys” and “has a history of sexual offences committed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia”.
Studdert left most of his millions to the EAC Educational Trust, a registered charity he set up in 1985 to “relieve poverty and to advance education for the benefit of the public and particularly amongst the families of clergy of the Church of England, single-parent families, and other poor families”.
But his executors applied to the High Court “because they were rightly concerned that the estate might be subject to claims from survivors of historic abuse”, Chief Master Marsh said in a ruling on Friday.
Following a series of hearings between January 2019 and this April the court found “there is a real prospect that the deceased may have committed historic sexual assault both within the jurisdiction of England and Wales and outside the said jurisdiction in eastern Europe and in particular within Poland”.
The court also found that these historic assaults “may have given rise to personal injury claims against the deceased and hence his estate” although “no claims have been intimated and the (executors) are not aware of the identity of any possible claimants”.
Chief Master Marsh previously ordered the executors to pay the “relatively small” amounts Studdert had left to his “Polish friends” and also to contact the police and the Church of England to find out if they had any further information about potential abuse by Studdert.
By April the judge said he was “satisfied Studdert had committed historic sexual assault” in England and Wales and Poland, Denmark and Italy, and ordered Studdert’s executors not to distribute any of the rest of his estate.
He also ordered them to “create dedicated websites” in English, Polish, Danish and Italian with details of Studdert’s date of death and criminal convictions as well as advertising the website on Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia.
The judge concluded: “It remains to be seen what emerges from the steps that are taken by the (executors).
“It is clear, however, that a complete bar on the distribution of the estate should not remain in place indefinitely.”
Chief Master Marsh added: “Consideration may be given to setting up a compensation scheme if one is warranted.”
Inquiry Chair, Prof Alexis Jay, says it is “hard to avoid the conclusion” that the most vulnerable children in residential care were never a priority of #LambethCouncil or of a succession of directors of social services over decades. Ms Hudson: “I think that’s absolutely clear”
PAEDO PROMISE
New BBC boss Tim Davie reassures paedophile Jonathan King they still play his music
21 Jul 2020
NEW BBC boss Tim Davie has written a bizarre letter to paedophile Jonathan King to reassure him the corporation still plays his music.
The Beeb’s next Director- General, who takes over in September, tells him: “There is no ban on your music being played or you appearing on the BBC.
“The use of any material will be judged on a case-by-case basis by our editorial teams. Best wishes, Tim Davie.”
Pop mogul King sold an estimated 40million records using various names and discovered the rock group Genesis before he was convicted of sex assaults on five boys aged 14 and 15 in the 1980s.
He is currently Chief Executive Officer of BBC Studios.
A BBC Studios spokesman said: “The BBC receives hundreds of letters every day and we always respond to them.
“The BBC’s policy has always been that we don’t ban individuals but make judgements about content on a case by case basis; and anyone watching and listening, will know that those judgements have clearly been in one direction – no one should expect any change on that. This is simply a statement of the BBC’s long term position.”
During his time as acting director-general Davie oversaw the investigations into BBC management and conduct following revelations the broadcaster had known about sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile and then made false accusations against Alistair McAlpine.[5]
He was Director-General Mark Thompson’s first senior external appointment.
Davie is Chairman of Comic Relief, Trustee of the Tate and the Royal Television Society (Patron is Prince Charles), and in 2018 was appointed as Chairman of the Creative Industries Council.[21][22][23]
BBC chief Tim Davie defends failure to sack executives over Savile scandal
Tim Davie, the head of the BBC, has defended its failure to dismiss a single executive over the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal, saying: “Success for me is not necessarily how many people I dismiss.”
Senior council figures ‘lobbied for convicted paedophile to be allowed to foster’, inquiry hears
JULY 8, 2020
Senior figures at Lambeth Council lobbied for a convicted paedophile to be allowed to foster children in an angry showdown with a neighbouring local authority, an inquiry has heard.
Care home boss John Carroll’s bid to foster two boys in the late 1980s was blocked when Southwark Council discovered he had been convicted of sexually abusing a child in the past.
Southwark had been asked to provide an independent assessment of Carroll’s application to Lambeth Council, and was told not to be “too rigorous” as he was already in a trusted position running a care home.
Clive Walsh, a senior officer in social services at Southwark who blocked the fostering bid, told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday he also made a recommendation that Carroll should no longer run a children’s home in Lambeth.
He was called to a showdown meeting between Lambeth and Southwark, and said an official who had overseen a discplinary hearing involving Carroll was “angry” that he had interfered in the council’s business.
“As it related to my decision, the preference was that that be overturned by instruction to me from Southwark, and that was clearly their preference”, he said.
“Their demand was that the record of my view of the inappropriateness of Mr Carroll working as a head of home be expunged from the record.”
He said Southwark politicians at the meeting were initial sympathetic to the view that “Lambeth’s business was Lambeth’s business”, until they realised that Carroll had committed a serious sexual offence against a child.
“They then became angry”, he told the inquiry. “They were outraged that there was a man running a children’s home in Lambeth who had a conviction as an adult for sexually assaulting a younger – a significantly younger – child.
“They were very angry about that, and they were also angry about the failure to disclose that to us.”
Mr Walsh insisted that Lady Janet Boateng, the former chair of Lambeth social services, was at the showdown meeting – believed to be in 1987.
However she told the inquiry yesterday she had left the council in 1986 and it was “absurd” to suggest she would have been involved in the application.
Carroll was later sacked for fiddling his expenses, and was jailed in 1998 for a slew of child sex offences.
Jeffrey Epstein victims cheer arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell
July 2, 2020
Jeffrey Epstein’s reputed longtime madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been arrested by federal authorities and is in the custody of federal authorities. She was detained at 8:30 Thursday morning in a residence in the small town of Bradford, New Hampshire.
The British socialite allegedly helped procure girls for the financier, who died in August 2019 in a jail cell after being arrested himself a month earlier on federal charges of sex trafficking.
Maxwell has been charged with four counts of sex trafficking a minor and two counts of perjury, according to the federal indictment.
The charges involve three girls who were under the age of 18 when Maxwell allegedly recruited them to engage in sexual acts with Epstein from the years of 1994 through 1997. According to the charges, Maxwell “groomed” the three girls for Epstein and, in one case, took part in the sexual activity. The girls were allegedly abused at multiple locations, including Epstein’s New York mansion, his estate in Palm Beach, his ranch in New Mexico and Maxwell’s personal residence in London.
“Maxwell’s presence as an adult woman helped put the victims at ease as Maxwell and Epstein intended,” said Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney, in announcing the charges against Maxwell at a Thursday news conference.
Speaking about the perjury charges brought against Maxwell, based on statements Maxwell made in 2016 in a civil suit brought by one of Epstein and Maxwell’s alleged victims, Strauss said, “Maxwell lied because the truth, as alleged, was almost unspeakable.”
Federal prosecutors asked that Maxwell be held without bail, saying she “poses an extreme risk of flight.”
“Maxwell has three passports, large sums of money, extensive international connections, and absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence,” prosecutors wrote in a filing Thursday.Maxwell made an appearance by video before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Johnstone in New Hampshire Thursday afternoon and is being transferred by the U.S. Marshals Service to New York, where she will face a hearing on the government’s request to deny her bail.
Before the call started, a woman with her British accent could be heard sobbing on the line saying, “I don’t understand, I don’t understand.”
“Maxwell has three passports, large sums of money, extensive international connections, and absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence,” prosecutors wrote in a filing Thursday.
Maxwell made an appearance by video before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Johnstone in New Hampshire Thursday afternoon and is being transferred by the U.S. Marshals Service to New York, where she will face a hearing on the government’s request to deny her bail.
Before the call started, a woman with her British accent could be heard sobbing on the line saying, “I don’t understand, I don’t understand.”
Maxwell is the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell, who himself died under mysterious circumstances in 1991.
Maxwell’s whereabouts have been a subject of much interest since the new charges were filed against Epstein. Her lawyer claimed last year that Maxwell’s e-mail server had been hacked.
At times she appeared to play a cat-and-mouse game with the public, such as when she was photographed at a Los Angeles area In-N-Out Burger sitting at a table while holding a spy book — a photo published in the New York Post last August.
Rumors have linked both Maxwell and Epstein to intelligence agencies.
Federal authorities were monitoring Maxwell’s movements throughout the course of the investigation, said William Sweeney, the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office.
“We had been discretely keeping tabs on Maxwell’s whereabouts as we worked this investigation and more recently we learned that she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago,” Sweeney said.
Lawyers representing alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell said that their clients were relieved to see the charges.
“Today is a long time coming for many victims,” said Bradley Edwards, an attorney who represents more than 20 alleged victims. “I have talked with many of my clients this morning who are relieved that justice is being served. They are so thankful for the dedicated work of the New York prosecutors.”
Spencer Kuvin, an attorney representing a number of other alleged victims, said his clients hope the charges against Maxwell are the first of many against other Epstein associates alleged to have taken part in the sexual abuse of underage women.“With the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, this welcomed news will hopefully be the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of this horrific crimes,” Kuvin said in a statement.
One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, stated in a defamation suit against Maxwell that Maxwell had recruited her in 2000 to be a personal masseuse for Epstein. Maxwell had seen Giuffre around the time of Giuffre’s 17th birthday reading at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, where Giuffre had been working at the time as a spa assistant, Giuffre said.
Giuffre said in court documents that she had been directed by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with a number of prominent men, including Prince Andrew, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and Hyatt Hotels magnate Tom Pritzker, among others. The men have denied her accusations. The suit was settled in 2017. Dershowitz and Giuffre, meantime, have sued each other for defamation.Epstein’s many prominent friends over the years have included President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Giuffre said she was not directed to have sex with either of those men and had no knowledge of them having sex with any of the other girls allegedly recruited by Epstein and Maxwell.
Strauss said Thursday that the investigation into Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators is ongoing and encouraged anyone who believes they were victimized or has information about abuse to come forward.
She didn’t rule out trying to seek cooperation from Maxwell, despite the perjury charges.
David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, said that Maxwell could be looking at 10 to 20 years in federal prison, adding the fact that federal prosecutors are seeking her cooperation suggests there could be high-profile targets on their radar.
“They will use all of this to pressure her into cooperating against other known and unknown conspirators,’’ said Weinstein who is now in private practice. “Those co-conspirators would have to be high-profile individuals to warrant accepting her cooperation.’’
The fact that the case is being handled by the office’s public corruption unit, which typically handles investigations into misdeeds by public officials, has raised questions among some legal observers about the scope of the current federal investigation.
“If I was Alexander Acosta today, I would be having a very lousy weekend,’’ said Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director.
“This case is not over. I’ve supervised these kinds of cases in big cities and I’ve never seen public corruption prosecutors involved and if they are still in it, there is a reason for it.’’
Acosta, who resigned last year shortly after Epstein’s arrest, would be someone that public corruption prosecutors would be looking at, he said.
“Because of the lenient posture that Acosta took with Epstein, it begs the question as to why he chose to go lightly on Epstein, and that question, and at what level and for whom he was doing this for — is likely the subject matter of investigation.’’
Lambeth child abuse inquiry: Paedophiles ‘filmed attacks at town hall’
Politicians ‘traded children for abuse’ in council scandal
7/1/2020
Prominent politicians and businessmen in Lambeth are accused of trading children for sexual abuse and filming some of the attacks in the town hall, an inquiry has heard.
Lawyers for victims of the Lambeth child sexual abuse scandal say paedophiles “infiltrated” the borough’s children’s homes in the Sixties and senior figures including councillors and police officers “turned a blind eye”.
Barrister Iain O’Donnell told the inquiry yesterday victims believed Lambeth was “corrupt to its core” and accused the council of being “nothing less than grossly negligent”.
He said: “You will hear allegations of the deliberate withholding of documentary evidence from police and inquiries, of other interference into investigations of complaints of sexual abuse from children in Lambeth’s care.”
He added that “of all the investigations heard by this inquiry this is the one where senior authority figures appear to have colluded to ensure that paedophiles were not investigated. As a result of which children continued to be sexually abused rather than protected.”
Stephen Simblet, representing a group of victims, said claims will be made that children were filmed while being abused, and were used as currency. “There are allegations that council contractors had corrupt relationships with council officers, of secret societies, secret paedophile rings, the production and distribution of filmed sexual assaults on Lambeth children in care, with some … being filmed in council buildings, even it being said the town hall,” he said
“These were said to involve prominent politicians, councillors, businessmen and police officers. Sometimes trafficking children from Lambeth care homes and they were also used in blackmail to secure contracts and influence.”
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, headed by Professor Alexis Jay OBE, will hear how care home boss John Carroll was a convicted paedophile who was allowed to continue working with children and was later jailed for 10 years for a litany of sexual abuse.
Aswini Weereratne, representing ex- Lambeth councillor Anna Tapsell, said claims will be heard that a Scotland Yard detective was sacked while investigating Carroll, which some believe part of a cover-up. Samantha Leek, for the Met, said the officer had made “unfounded allegations”. The inquiry continues.
Ms Langdale QC explains that the cases will illustrate why the investigation of Lambeth matters. She states: “It would be an injustice to treat this investigation as though it is somehow of historical significance.
“The cases we will examine continue to affect adults now, and it is the culture which allowed this state of affairs to exist over such a long period of time that must be scrutinised
George Carey: Former archbishop suspended over abuse inquiry
June 16 2020
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has had his permission to officiate as a priest revoked.
There are no claims of abuse against him, and in a statement he said he was “dismayed” by the revocation.
Mr Smyth was accused of attacking boys whom he had met at a Dorset Christian camp in the 1970s and 1980s.
The independent inquiry was launched into the Church’s handling of allegations against Mr Smyth, a barrister who died aged 77 last year.
Permission to Officiate (PTO) is required for any Church of England priest to preach or minister.
In a statement Lord Carey said: “I am bewildered and dismayed to receive the news a short time ago that due to ‘concerns’ being raised during the review of John Smyth QC I have had my PTO revoked.
“I have been given no information on the nature of these ‘concerns’ and have no memory of meeting Mr Smyth.”
Lord Carey previously had his PTO revoked after a damning independent report found he had “colluded [with the convicted abuser Peter Ball] rather than seeking to help those harmed”.
He was later granted a PTO by the diocese in 2018, allowing him to preach at the church where he worships, conditional on no further concerns coming to light.
A spokesman for the diocese said: “A planned independent review into the Church of England’s handling of allegations against the late John Smyth QC is currently under way.
“In the course of that review, new information has come to light regarding Lord Carey, which has been passed to the National Safeguarding Team for immediate attention as per the agreed terms of reference set for the review.”
Lord Carey’s PTO has been withdrawn while the matter is being investigated and he is unauthorised to “undertake any form of ministry in the Diocese until further notice.”
The spokesman added: “However, for the avoidance of doubt, we wish to make clear that the new information received relates only to the review currently underway, and that there has not been an allegation of abuse made against Lord Carey.”
“Lord Janner’s daughter has been accused at a public inquiry of misusing her position as a rabbi to discredit child abuse allegations against her father. Rabbi Janner-Klausner’s campaign has made some of her congregation feel they would be unable to report their own experiences”
Harvard Gave Jeffrey Epstein His Own Office on Campus
5/2/2020
A new report published this week details the extensive ties between Harvard University and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who mysteriously died in a Manhattan prison last fall. Harvard reportedly gave Epstein his own office on campus in exchange for almost $10 million in donations he gifted to the university between 1998 and 2007.
According to a report by the Boston Globe, Harvard University gave Jeffrey Epstein an office on campus that he continued to visit after he was convicted of underage sex crimes in 2008. In fact, Epstein reportedly visited the campus more than 40 times after been released from jail in 2010. The office was reportedly equipped with Epstein’s personal keepsakes and a dedicated Harvard phone line.
Breitbart News reported in September 2019 that Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow said that the Ivy League institution feels “regret” accepting nearly $10 million in gifts from Jeffrey Epstein. The university blocked Epstein from donating in 2008 when Epstein was convicted on child sex charges.
However, individual professors at Harvard continued to solicit private donations from Epstein after 2008. Martin Nowak, Director of Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, used a $6.5 million donation from Epstein in 2003 to establish the program. Nowak reportedly rewarded Epstein with private office space on campus for his donation.
The controversy surrounding Epstein forced Bacow to address these private gifts in a letter to the Harvard community. “The report issued today describes principled decision-making but also reveals institutional and individual shortcomings that must be addressed — not only for the sake of the University but also in recognition of the courageous individuals who sought to bring Epstein to justice,” Bacow wrote.
Harvard announced on Friday that Nowak has been placed on paid administrative leave for a potential violation of the university’s grant funding policies.
Claudine Gay, Harvard’s dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, argued that faculty at elite universities should be held to a high moral standard. “We are reminded on a near daily basis what a privilege it is to be a member of this academic community,” Gay wrote. “With that privilege comes a responsibility to hold one another accountable and to make sure, as an institution, we align our practices with the highest ethical standards.”
Breitbart News reported in September 2019 that the Director of MIT’s Media Lab was forced to step down over his ties to Epstein. The decision came after the New Yorker published a report revealing Epstein’s extensive financial ties to the MIT program.
Harvard got $9.1 million from Jeffrey Epstein. Belatedly, it gave $200,000 to charity.
May 01, 2020
Harvard University joined its cross-town rival MIT in belatedly acknowledging deeper-than-disclosed, extensive ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
In a letter to alumni on Friday, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow detailed an internal review of the Ivy League school’s relationship with the late Epstein, concluding that the $9.1 million in gifts he gave directly came to a halt following his sex-crimes conviction in 2008. His relationship with the school continued, however, with gifts through surrogates and more than 40 visits to a program that he had given money to before his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
He even maintained until 2017 what came to be “Jeffrey’s Office” on campus.
“The report issued today describes principled decision-making but also reveals institutional and individual shortcomings that must be addressed — not only for the sake of the university but also in recognition of the courageous individuals who sought to bring Epstein to justice,” Bacow said in concluding his letter to alumni.
Harvard launched an internal review last Sept. 12, barely a month after Epstein’s reported death by suicide on Aug. 10 in the Metropolitan Correctional Center amid circumstances still under investigation. At the time of Harvard’s review, the university had already determined he had given $9.1 million between 1998 and 2008. The giving ended when he was convicted of sex crimes and given a remarkably lax deal that became the basis for the Miami Herald’s Perversion of Justice series in November 2018 and later led to the resignation of Alexander Acosta, the Trump administration’s labor secretary who was a South Florida federal prosecutor involved in the deal.The revelations by Harvard follow a similar mea culpa by MIT earlier this year. MIT released a report on Jan. 10, spelling out nine visits to the campus by Epstein and donations of $850,000, many of which occurred when Epstein was already a notorious Level Three sex offender. For both elite schools, a relationship with Epstein has proven a profound embarrassment.
Results of the deeper Harvard review released Friday — led by Vice President and General Counsel Diane Lopez and covering more than 250,000 pages of documents — show that school administrators became aware of Epstein’s predatory sexual behavior only after his 2008 conviction.
“During the years before Epstein’s criminal activity became known to the public, various Harvard faculty and administrators pursued donations from him, knowing he was a wealthy individual interested in science and philanthropy,” Lopez wrote. “Some members of the Harvard community continued their relationships with Epstein even after his conviction, but these relationships in and of themselves did not violate Harvard policies.”
But in 2008, Harvard’s new president, Drew G. Faust, had to weigh a gift from Epstein. She learned of the allegations against him and ruled against any more gifts from the financier. In 2013, several faculty members sought to overturn that, requesting reconsideration by the then-dean of faculty of arts and sciences, Michael D. Smith. He too said no.
Presumably looking to restore his tattered reputation, Epstein persistently stayed involved with the prestigious higher-learning institution. Two faculty members, the Lopez report concluded, continued to receive funding from donors they were introduced to by Epstein, although the money was not apparently from him.
“Our review did not reveal information that would establish anything to the contrary. Nevertheless, development officers at Harvard knew about Epstein’s continued involvement in encouraging others to donate to Harvard and did not take steps to discourage these efforts despite knowing that gifts would not be welcome from him,” Lopez wrote Friday. “No one violated any Harvard policy in this regard, as there is none; a matter we recommend be rectified.”
Then there is the matter of repeated visits by Epstein to campus to visit the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Evolutionary dynamics involves study of the principles of mathematics that researchers think guided evolution, and Epstein initially funded the program in 2003 with his biggest gift — $6.5 million.
“Epstein maintained a relationship with the director of the PED, Professor Martin Nowak, over the next 15 years, including after Epstein’s release from prison,” Lopez wrote. “While we have not been able to determine the precise number of campus visits, we understand that Epstein visited the offices of PED in Harvard Square more than 40 times between 2010 and 2018.”
There was no evidence Epstein interacted with undergraduate students, she said, and the financier appeared to use the visits to speak to academics in the Cambridge area, covering both Harvard and MIT.
Lopez added that “aspects of his relationship to the PED, such as his access to the program’s offices, treatment on the PED’s website and interactions concerning one grant application do implicate Harvard policies and our findings and recommendations address these issues.”
Her comments, which accompanied the president’s letter to alumni, don’t do justice to what was actually in her 27-page report. For example, it detailed how Epstein retained a visitors keycard until at least 2017, and his own office, a premium in the cutthroat world of academics.
“But others who worked at PED, where office space was often scarce, generally did not view it as interchangeable with other offices, and believed it was reserved for Epstein’s use when he came. (Epstein did in fact use the office when he visited.) Until 2017, PED maintained a Harvard telephone line in that office identified as Epstein’s.”
The report recommended the school consider disciplinary action against Nowak, alleging he effectively allowed Epstein to launder his dirty image.
“When Professor Nowak agreed to devote a page of PED’s website to Epstein, and agreed to link Epstein’s own websites (containing false claims about Epstein’s donations to Harvard) to the PED website, it appears that Professor Nowak failed adequately to consider Harvard’s interest in seeing that its name is well used,” the report said..
Epstein’s rise from a poor kid in the New York suburbs to a high-flying financier with an estate valued at more than half a billion dollars at the time of his death is a story full of holes yet to be filled in. He never finished college and enjoyed none of the trappings associated with arriving at an Ivy League school. All that adds to the intrigue on how a college dropout later in life became a visiting fellow at Harvard, something Lopez addressed in more detail as well.
This screenshot of an internal investigation by Harvard University into its ties to Jeffrey Epstein describes how the disgraced financier maintained an office there long after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
The position then and now is one of an independent research and registered through Harvard’s Graduate School of the Arts and Science as a graduate research student. Lopez said Epstein’s name was submitted by Dr. Stephen Kosslyn, who between 1998 and 2002 had received $200,000 in donations for his work and did not disclose it in the submission for Epstein to become a visiting fellow. The timeline of the fellowship overlaps with the timeline of Epstein’s eventual arrest and conviction — the first complaint to child sex abuse coming to Palm Beach police in late 2005 and investigation that dragged into a June 2007 indictment.
“After reviewing these records, we conclude, and no one argues to the contrary, that Epstein lacked the academic qualifications Visiting Fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue,” Lopez wrote. “Epstein’s application was, nevertheless, approved, having been supported by a department chair.”
As a visiting fellow, Epstein paid the necessary tuition and showed up for registration, but Lopez said he appeared to do little coursework. Epstein applied to be readmitted for the 2006-2007 academic year and was renewed but withdrew from that appointment later following his indictment.
Harvard said Friday it had donated nearly $201,000 of unused Epstein donation money to two Boston-area charities that combat sex trafficking.
Children subjected to ‘extreme violence and sadism’ during decades of hidden abuse in detention centres, inquiry finds
Children faced repercussions for reporting abuse while perpetrators ‘acted with impunity’ in 1970s and 1980s, report says
23 Apr 2020
Children detained for minor misdemeanours were subjected to “extreme violence and sadism” over decades of hidden abuse, a report has revealed.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found that some victims tried to kill themselves in youth detention centres, while the perpetrators “acted with impunity”.
A report released on Thursday said the abuse left survivors with a “life sentence” of mental health issues and struggles with substance abuse and unemployment.
IICSA’s Truth Project heard evidence from the 1950s to the modern day, but the majority of people who said they were sexually abused by staff members were detained in the 1970s and 1980s.
Numerous men who were jailed as children during the period previously told The Independentof beatings, humiliation and sexual assault, with one man comparing his experience to a “sadistic, brutal concentration camp”.
He was unmasked by The Telegraph last year and since then his victims have come forward on condition of anonymity to speak out about how the former vicar of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, south-west London, left them feeling “like a neglected and abused dog”.
They claim they were subjected to repeated sexually inappropriate comments and questions about masturbation, naked massages, beatings on their bare backsides, ice baths, bullying, intimidation and psychological manipulation over a number of years.
A complaint had been lodged against Mr Fletcher under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) in 2017. Only now has it finally been processed.
It can now be revealed that the former vicar has had his name added to the ‘Lambeth List’, also known as ‘the Archbishops’ List’.
The list records information on activities of alleged wrongdoing for “all clerks in Holy Orders” and is kept in Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby. It has never been published.
Church authorities have concluded, however, that Rev’d Fletcher has the right to keep his Holy Orders and still be referred to as ‘Rev’d Fletcher’ despite his inclusion on the list, but he is not allowed to minister within the Church of England.
This is despite him admitting to administering massages and beatings as part of “lighthearted forefeits” in a bid to maintain “healthy and holy living”.
Responding to the long-awaited results of the CDM, one of Rev’d Fletcher’s alleged victims said that the punishment is “a small step in the right direction that Jonathan Fletcher has at long last admitted to offences that have attracted a 10-year penalty”.
However, he criticised this as “a deal done behind closed doors, without due reference to victims and survivors, allowing Fletcher to retain (and continue to misuse) a prestigious title for a job he neither has nor is fit for”.
“A cultural change is needed where wrongdoing in public ministry is brought into broad daylight and dealt with in such a way that all might see justice has been served and those who have suffered are given hope, help and healing,” he added.
The former vicar has previously told The Telegraph that he is “deeply, deeply sorry for the people I’ve harmed” but has denied allegations that he humiliated people and made derogatory comments about their appearances.
Rev’d Fletcher has also said that massages and beatings were consensual and that he never gave ice baths, but did “very, very, very rarely” give “a cold bath”.
“Anything that happened was totally consensual and non-sexual,” he added. “The punishments were a) consensual, and b) mutual.”
In 2017, the Bishop of Southwark stripped the Rev’d Fletcher of his Permission to Officiate (PTO). Yet he continued to hold religious ceremonies.
Not only did he preside at communion administering the elements to two people at their bedside, he also led a committal during a cremation.
The CDM process was introduced in 2003 and is supposed to deal “efficiently and fairly with formal complaints of serious misconduct against members of the clergy”, however the system is currently under review after coming under criticism for “operating largely in the dark”.
The Telegraph understands that Rev’d Fletcher’s CDM was concluded in March. As part of this, he agreed with the Bishop of Southwark to a “10-year prohibition as a penalty by consent” and his name has been added to the ‘Archbishops’ List’.
However this means that Rev’d Fletcher still has his Holy Orders and is a Rev’d, but he is not allowed to minister within the Church of England.
Responding to the conclusion of his CDM, Rev’d Fletcher told The Telegraph: “I have apologised unreservedly to anybody I have hurt and I don’t know what else to say… I have done exactly what the Diocese have asked me to do.”
A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Southwark confirmed that following a complaint made under the CDM the Rev’d Jonathan Fletcher accepted a penalty by consent of prohibition from ministry for 10 years.
She added: “This means that his name is added to the Archbishop’s List which includes details of those who are not allowed to minister within the Church of England. After the period of prohibition, there is no automatic return to ministry.’
George Pell faces fresh child abuse allegations from new accuser just days after cardinal’s convictions were quashed by the High Court and he said he ‘wouldn’t be entirely surprised’ if police came after him again
George Pell reportedly under investigation over allegations by new accuser
He was released from prison just last week after child sex convictions quashed
New accusations – which police have not contacted Pell about – date to 1970s
Man who now works in a professional role understood to have made accusation
Archbishop Wesolowski found dead. He had more than 100,000 child abuse images.
@InquiryCSA
A public hearing into the investigation into institutional responses to allegations of Child Sexual Abuse involving the late Lord Janner of Braunstone Q.C, will be held later this year for three weeks.
Cardinal George Pell freed from prison after High Court overturns sex abuse conviction
The High Court “…did not ask whether Pell committed the offences. It asked whether…the Victorian Court of Appeal… made an error about the nature of the correct legal principles, or their application.”
Bill Gates’ Microsoft Cancel Marina Abramovic Campaign After People Flood Video Calling Her Out As a Satanist
Apr 15 2020
Bosses at Microsoft decided to scrap a new commercial featuring artist Marina Abramovic after conspiracy theories suggested she was affiliated with Satanism.
Abramovic had been featured in the advertisement for a Microsoft headset called the Hololens 2, which allows the user to see digital imagery with the outside world, where she discussed her new mixed reality project and interviewed the CEO of Christie’s auction house.
However, the clip was met with backlash, amassing 24,000 dislikes amid an online outcry over alleged Satanism.
we need to talk about why this unelected, unaccountable billionaire is ALLOWED to be the WHOs second biggest donor, and whether that brings at best, a conflict of interest, at worse, corruption and a leading of the priorities of the WHO & other global agencies
Why is a personality disordered software nerd with a eugenicist father, who hangs out with eugenicist paedophiles, telling us what to do? Why are governments paying him any attention?
@_whitneywebb
Hey guys, billionaire Bill Gates just wants you to stay healthy, it’s not like he also pours tons of money into injectable biometric ID systems and super creepy global surveillance systems…….oooo wait
Bill Gates REFUSES to reveal why he flew on Lolita Express with Jeffrey Epstein four years AFTER his release from prison while the billionaire was still chairman of Microsoft
Bill Gates and his spokespeople refuse to explain why he flew from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach on March 1, 2013 with Jeffrey Epstein
Epstein told people in the past that he was a financial adviser to Gates, who was still the chairman of Microsoft at the time
A rep for Gates’ humanitarian foundation denied that Epstein ever worked for billionaire founder of Microsoft, but would not comment on the 2013 flight
Gates’ spokesperson also stated that there were no financial or charitable ties between the two men
Epstein had just been released from prison four years prior after pleading guilty to two counts of soliciting a minor
Dean Koontz – The Eyes of darkness. Published 1981
#Vaccines, for #BillGates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including #Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vac ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control over global health policy—the spear tip of corporate neo-imperialism.
Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems fueled by a messianic conviction that he is ordained to save the world with technology and a god-like willingness to experiment with the lives of lesser humans.
Promising to eradicate Polio with $1.2 billion, Gates took control of India ‘s National Advisory Board (NAB) and mandated 50 polio vaccines (up from 5) to every child before age 5. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017.
In 2017, the Indian Government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates and his cronies from the NAB. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously. In 2017, the World Health Organization reluctantly admitted that the global polio explosion is predominantly vaccine strain, meaning it is coming from Gates’ Vaccine Program.The most frightening epidemics in Congo, the Philippines, and Afghanistan are all linked to Gates’ vaccines. By 2018, ¾ of global polio cases were from Gates’ vaccines.
In 2014, the #GatesFoundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by GSK and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a trial of a GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,049 children.
During Gates 2002 MenAfriVac Campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Between 50-500 children developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for drug makers”
Nelson Mandela’s former Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philantropic practices as “ruthless” and “immoral”.
In 2010, Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO promising to reduce population, in part, through new vaccines. A month later Gates told a Ted Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population”. In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a phony “tetanus” vaccine campaign.
Independent labs found the sterility formula in every vaccine tested.
After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade.
Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines.
A 2017 study (Morgensen et.Al.2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP is killing more African than the disease it pretends to prevent. Vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of unvaccinated children.
Gates and the WHO refused to recall the lethal vaccine which WHO forces upon millions of African children annually.
Global public health advocates around the world accuse Gates of – hijacking WHO’s agenda away from the projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases; clean water, hygiene, nutrition and economic development.
They say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal fetish – that good health only comes in a syringe.
In addition to using his philanthropy to control WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and PATH, Gates funds private pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines, and a massive network of pharmaceutical industry front groups that broadcast deceptive propaganda, develop fraudulent studies, conduct surveillance and psychological operations against vaccine hesitancy and use Gates’ power and money to silence dissent and coerce compliance.
In this recent nonstop Pharmedia appearances, Gates appears gleeful that the Covid-19 crisis will give him the opportunity to force his third-world vaccine programs on American children.
Oxford academic Peter J King jailed for child abuse images
19 March 2020
An Oxford University academic found with 3,000 child abuse images compared himself to “someone who starts a sticker collection and wants the whole set”, a court heard.
Philosophy lecturer Peter J King, 63, taught at several Oxford colleges from the 1980s until last month.
Girls as young as five were pictured in the indecent images found on his computer equipment.
He was jailed for seven months at Oxford Crown Court.
The court heard King was cautioned in 2008 after police found child abuse images on his equipment.
King, of Churchill, near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, claimed he used them as research for a paper later published on the ethics of child pornography.
He was then arrested at his home in August 2018, where police found indecent images and also discovered that he had visited a Russian file-sharing website.
James Mulholland, representing King, said the defendant had admitted an “addiction or compulsion” to “repeatedly but intermittently” look at indecent images of children.
‘Rather late’
King most recently taught students at Pembroke College, Oxford.
It said it had suspended him on 19 February, when he informed them he was due to appear in court the next day.
King had admitted three counts of making indecent images of a child and another of possessing prohibited images of a child.
Judge Maria Lamb said two “no comment” interviews with police in 2018 and 2019 appeared to show King had accepted his guilt “rather late”.
She said he had compared having the pictures to a “sticker collection” to a probation officer who was preparing his pre-sentence report.
As well as the prison sentence, King will be subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years.
Paula Appiah, from the CPS, said: “King held an esteemed position at a prestigious university, but his actions fell far short of the law.
CURRICULUM VITÆ PETER J. KING Address: Pembroke College, Oxford OX1 1DW, U.K. Telephone: (01608-) 659174 e-mail: peter.king@philosophy.ox.ac.uk Date of Birth: 27 iii 56 Place of Birth: Boston, Lincolnshire Nationality: English Marital status: Single Academic qualifications: B.A. (1st hons) Humanities (Middx) B.Phil. (Oxon.) D.Phil. (Oxon.) Formal Teaching Posts 2007 to present College Lecturer: St Edmund Hall, Oxford 2003 to present College Lecturer: Pembroke College, Oxford 1999 to present Course Tutor: University of Georgia at Athens, Oxford programme 1998–2003 Part-time Lecturer: University of Reading 1992–2003 Visiting Lecturer: the University of North London 2000–2001 College Lecturer: Christ Church and Somerville College, Oxford 1998–1999 College Lecturer: Brasenose College, Oxford 1994–1996 College Lecturer: St Hilda’s College, Oxford 1993–1994 College Lecturer: St Anne’s College, Oxford 1991 College Lecturer: New College, Oxford 1989–1991 Course Tutor (Certificate & Diploma in Philosophy): University of London Extra-Mural Department 1989–1990 College Lecturer and Organising Tutor in Philosophy: St Edmund Hall, Oxford (I have also taught on a casual basis for all the Oxford Colleges, for King’s College and Birkbeck College, London, and for the Sarah Lawrence Oxford programme.) Teaching experience Philosophers Topics Aristotle (Ethics: in translation) African Philosophy*† Descartes Epistemology Hume* Ethics (incl. practical ethics)* Leibniz (incl. Leibniz–Clarke correspondence) Formal logic Locke Metaphysics* Malebranche Philosophy of logic* Mill Philosophy of mind Plato (Euthyphro, Meno, Theætetus, & Republic: in Philosophy of parapsychology * translation) Philosophy of religion*† Spinoza Philosophy of science* (Philosophy of physics; Science & the human viewpoint [incl. social science]; (Undergraduate tutorials & seminars, plus: Philosophy of biology) *lectures Political Philosophy* †graduate teaching.) Realism, anti-realism, & idealism* PUBLICATIONS AND RESEARCH Publications: Books & Papers P One Hundred Philosophers (Barron’s, Apple, ABC 2004; foreign-language editions, 2005) • ‘Lycan on Lewis and Meinong’ (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, XCIII, 2; 1993) • ‘Other times’ (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 73; 1995) • ‘The problem of evil’ (Philosophical Writings, 9; 1998) • ‘Hereafter, in a later world than this’ (Sorites, 10; 1999) • ‘Parapsychology without the ‘para’ (or the psychology)’ (Think, 3; 2003) • ‘One man’s meat is another man’s person’ (in Mind and Its Place in the World, edd Alexander Batthyany & Avshalom Elitzur; Ontos Verlag, 2006) • ‘Petitionary prayer’ (Richmond Journal of Philosophy, 12; 2006) • ‘The ontological argument’ (Richmond Journal of Philosophy, 14; 2007) • ‘No plaything’ (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 11, 3; 2008) Publications: Short Articles • ‘Against tolerance’ (Philosophy Now, 11; 1995) • ‘R.M. Hare’ (Encarta Encyclopædia 1998) • ‘Mediæval philosophy’ (Encarta Encyclopædia 1998) • ‘Evil’ (Encyclopædia of Anthropology; SAGE Publications, 2006) • ‘Gods’ (Encyclopædia of Anthropology; SAGE Publications, 2006) • ‘Time’ (Encyclopædia of Anthropology; SAGE Publications, 2006) • ‘God and time’ (Encyclopædia of Time; SAGE Publications, 2009) • ‘Evil and time’ (Encyclopædia of Time; SAGE Publications, 2009) • ‘Theodicy’ (Encyclopædia of Time; SAGE Publications, 2009) • ‘Philosophy in the modern world’ (UNESCO Courier 2007) Publications: Reviews • African Philosophy: The Essential Readings, ed. Serequeberhan (Philosophical Books) • Classical Indian Philosophy, J.N. Mohanty (Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus Philosophiques) • Faith in Theory and Practice, edd Elizabeth S. Radcliffe and Carol J. White (Philosophical Books) • Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals, Frans de Waal (Human Nature Review) • Metaphysics, Peter van Inwagen (International Journal of Philosophical Studies) • The Problem of Pornography, Susan M. Easton (Philosophy Today) • Readings in African Philosophy, ed. Safro Kwame (Canadian Philosophical Review) • Scepticism: Inter-Disciplinary Approaches (Philosophical Books) • The Uses of Philosophy, Mary Warnock (Mind) • What Spacetime Explains, Graham Nerlich (Canadian Philosophical Review) Work in progress or with editors P An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion — A set of dialogues (three of which – ‘The problem of evil’, ‘Petitionary prayer’, and ‘The ontological argument’ – have been published separately, see above). With Macmillan’s readers. • ‘Heaven’s first law’ — I look at the notion, central to most design arguments for the existence of god, that it is surprising that the world be ordered. [I read a version of this paper to the Joseph Butler Society, University of Oxford, in Trinity Term 1995.] • ‘The truth of the imagination’ — I discuss and defend Descartes’ rule that whatever can be clearly and distinctly perceived is certain. In doing so, I discuss the connection between conceivability and possibility, and develop a notion of conceiving that is strong enough to rule out the conception of the logically impossible while still serving Descartes’ purpose. • ‘And they that dwell therein: worlds, properties, and god’ — An examination of Alvin Plantinga’s use of world-indexed properties in his version of the ontological argument and in his discussion of the problem of evil. • ‘The probability of order’ — I argue that the claim underpinning most modern versions of the design argument for the existence of god – that the fact that the universe is ordered is surprising – is false, and that order is not only to be expected but is a necessary feature of the world. • ‘Hume, miracles, and the paranormal’ — I examine the way in which Hume’s argument against belief in miracles has been used against belief in the paranormal, argue that such a use is flawed, and then show that this flaw also applies to Hume’s own use. Memberships and Editorships Associate Editor of Sorites (from December 1996). Member of the Humanist Philosophers’ Group (from 2002). Referee for Philosophical Writings (from 2004). Member of the Society of Authors (from 2006). Member of Editorial Board for the SAGE Encyclopædia of Time (2006) Other details D.Phil thesis title: The Ontology of Possible Worlds. B.Phil. papers taken: The Rationalists; Philosophical Logic; The Philosophy of Science; thesis title: The Ontology of Possible Worlds. Secretary of the Ockham Society 1989–1990 Member of the London University Panel For Extra-Mural Studies 1988–1991 Member of the Oxford University Graduate Joint Consultative Committee for Philosophy 1988–1990 Captain of Brasenose College Bridge Team 1985–1989 President of Brasenose Hulme Common Room 1984–1985 Secretary of Brasenose Hulme Common Room 1986–1987 Secretary of the Brasenose College Philosophy Society 1984–1985 Member of the Executive Committee of the Oxford University Graduate Representative Council 1983–1984 Received Edna Fuller Memorial Prize 1983 Middlesex Polytechnic Student Representative 1982–1983 Founder-President of the Middlesex Polytechnic Philosophy Society 1981–1983 Other interests I maintain my own World-Wide Web site, primarily concerned with Philosophy on the Internet, though offering a wide variety of other material, serious and recreational. With Andrea Christofidou I translate Modern Greek poetry into English, especially that of K.P. Kavafis and K.G. Karyotakis. I occasionally publish poetry and translations in journals and anthologies. I have performed with Akouste! — a small group of musicians, performing music from many times and cultures, as well as my own compositions. We also did work in (mostly primary) schools. I’ve also played and performed with the Oxford Gamelan.
Kincora files destroyed as institutional abuse inquiry was set in motion
Mar 20, 2020
Files relating to the Kincora Boys’ Home were destroyed between 2010 and 2015, the Northern Ireland Office has said.
Six files relating to the east Belfast boys’ home that were created between 1981 and 1983 were disposed of.
The NIO confirmed the details in documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Lawyers acting for former Kincora resident Richard Kerr, who is suing police and a number of government bodies over claims he was abused at Kincora and other institutions, say there “must be an explanation” – or victims of abuse will continue to doubt the state.
Kincora Boys’ Home was subject to investigation by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) between May and July 2016.
The HIA Inquiry was announced in 2010, and was legislated for the following year, with its terms agreed in 2012. The inquiry began its work in 2014.
In a statement KRW Law said: “It is unclear why the NIO would have files destroyed which would have been subject to scrutiny by the HIA.”
According to information shared by the NIO in response to the FoI request, which was submitted by historian and biographer Andrew Lownie, three files relating to Kincora were destroyed between October and December 2010.
December 2010 was the month in which the HIA was announced following the publication of the Ryan Commission Report into historic institutional sexual abuse in the Irish Republic in 2009. It was the publication of the Ryan Report that prompted politicians at Stormont to announce the HIA.
Information shared in response to Mr Lownie’s FoI request revealed files were also destroyed in August 2014, June 2015 and October 2015 as the HIA was conducting its investigations.
The files all relate to Kincora and include the Terry Report, a report compiled by Sir George Terry, Chief Constable of Sussex to Sir John Hermon, Chief Constable of the RUC.
The Terry Report was available to the HIA through RUC records.
Kevin Winters, senior partner at KRW Law, said: “There remain far too many questions around The Kincora Boys’ Home. Our client Richard Kerr is seeking information by way of a civil action.
“It now transpires that documents – including the Terry Report – were destroyed by the British Government even as the HIA was being established and working.
“There must be an explanation for this. Otherwise, victims of abuse in Northern Ireland will continue to doubt the integrity of state agencies in confronting this particular aspect of the Legacy of the Past.”
A UK Government spokesperson said: “The NIO handles its records in line with guidance from the National Archive.
“Records are only destroyed in line with this guidance, generally because they consist of publicly available information such as press cuttings, or they are duplicate copies of records available elsewhere in the public domain.”
Last September this newspaper reported how 19 files on the Kincora scandal had been “closed” to the public.
In one case, the order remains in place until 2085 at the earliest. Around a dozen more of the files are closed – either fully or partially – until the mid-2060s and beyond.
Others which were scheduled to be declassified in recent years remain at least partly shut.
The department responsible for the records said they contained “sensitive personal data”.
The Kincora scandal shocked Northern Ireland when it emerged in 1980.
At least 29 boys were sexually abused at the care home.
Three senior staff members – William McGrath, Joseph Mains and William Semple – were jailed in 1981 for the abuse. However, claims persist of a cover-up.
Child sex abuser given ‘preferential treatment’, says damning report
14 Mar 2020
Inquiry criticises top civil servant and courtier over slowness to act and lag in response to victim
A top civil servant and a senior member of the royal household have both been criticised in an official report examining attempts by a victim of child sex abuse to have his abuser stripped of an honour.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse recently found that Hubert Chesshyre – an acclaimed heraldry expert and a member of the Queen’s household – had been shown “preferential or exceptional treatment … because of their status and contacts, regardless of the known involvement of child victims”. Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith enjoyed similar leniency.
Chesshyre was made Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 2014, the year before he was charged and tried on a charge of sexual offences against a child.
He was by then suffering from dementia and found unfit to plead, but at a trial of the facts a jury agreed unanimously that he had committed two specimen counts of indecent assault against a child. A third charge was ordered to lie on file. Because Chesshyre had been found unfit to plead, no conviction ensued and he was granted an absolute discharge.
In October 2015, the victim, who provided a detailed witness statement to the inquiry about how Chesshyre groomed and abused him between the ages of 12 and 16, approached the honours and appointments secretariat at the Cabinet Office to ask how his honour could be rescinded.
He was told to contact Sir Alan Reid, keeper of the privy purse, as a CVO is the personal gift of the sovereign. But Reid, who has now retired, said that because Chesshyre was given an absolute discharge, “it would be wrong to submit a recommendation to the Queen”. Documents handed to the inquiry by Sir Jonathan Stephens, a senior civil servant who chairs the honours forfeiture committee, reveal that Reid received help in drafting his response from Thomas Woodcock, who is the Garter Principal King of Arms, the senior officer of the College of Arms, of which Chesshyre was a member for 40 years.
Reid asked Woodcock for some “suitable wording” to use in his response to the victim. On 4 November 2015, Woodcock wrote back to Reid enclosing a copy of a letter from Chesshyre’s solicitors containing their advice on the outcome of the trial of the facts. Reid thanked Woodcock “for providing the precise wording which I can use to answer [the victim’s] letter, and I have written to him today to this effect”. The inquiry judged that Reid’s response was “flawed and not impartial”.
A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said it did not comment on individual members of staff. “During an earlier review on the case, based on the facts that were presented, forfeiture was not recommended,” she said. “After this initial decision, we reviewed our processes, and changes were made to reflect lessons learned.”
After an intervention from the victim’s MP, Jim Dowd, the forfeiture committee recommended the Queen approve the removal of the honour. But the victim did not learn of this until five months after the decision. Stephens explained to the inquiry that this was because the forfeiture committee was considering “representations and new information provided to it by Chesshyre’s brother on his behalf”. The inquiry said that it was “regrettable that the Cabinet Office did not write to the victim during this period, at least to inform him that the process remained ongoing”.
The committee took the almost unprecedented decision not to publish the forfeiture in official journal of record the London Gazette. Stephens told the inquiry “that this was a reflection of how the case had been handled and, to a lesser degree, in light of Mr Chesshyre’s ill-health”.
The inquiry said neither reason was satisfactory. It also noted that Stephens had acknowledged that the failure to publish confirmation of the forfeiture had made it difficult for the victim to bring Chesshyre’s abuse to the attention of prestigious organisations of which he continued to be a member. “Most of those organisations have chosen not to cease their association with Chesshyre,” the inquiry said.
Chesshyre’s victim told the Observer: “I think that it is important that the IICSA has been able to consider evidence of the ways in which Mr Chesshyre used his position within the royal household to enable grooming and abuse. In light of the inquiry’s finding that there was not ‘a satisfactory explanation as to why an exception was made to the usual rule that forfeitures are published’, will the forfeiture now be published in the London Gazette?”
A government spokesman said: “The forfeiture process is confidential and it would be inappropriate to comment on individual cases.”
The former Eton College teacher, 48, charged with sexually assaulting three boys after being dismissed from the more than £40,000-a-year school attended by Boris Johnson
Matthew Mowbray, 48, was dismissed from leading public school in Berkshire
He appeared at Slough Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday charged with 11 offences
Former teacher also accused of voyeurism and three counts of indecent photos
Mowbray was granted bail and will appear at Reading Crown Court on March
6 March 2020
Matthew Mowbray, a senior Eton master, has been charged with sexual assault against three pupils. The 48-year-old Geography teacher will face trial next month.
He was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault in May last year and suspended from his job while police trawled through his computer and cameras. He has since been dismissed from his post.
The South African-born teacher appeared before Slough magistrates on Tuesday charged with 11 offences, including seven counts of sexual assault relating to three victims.
He is also charged with three counts of making indecent photographs or images of children, some of which are in the most serious category, and one count of voyeurism.
Judge Heather Norton yesterday lifted reporting restrictions on identifying Mowbray. He will face trial next month, according to a letter from Eton headmaster Simon Henderson to parents.
The college has deleted all mention of Mowbray from its website.
Mowbray, who lives in the village of Locks Heath near Southampton, was granted bail and will next appear at Reading Crown Court for a hearing on March 31.
Mr Mowbray has also been charged with three offences of making indecent photographs, or pseudo-photographs, of a child and one of voyeurism.
The long-serving teacher, who is married, appeared at Slough magistrates’ court on Tuesday. He was granted bail and the case has been sent to the crown court, where a hearing will be held next month.
Magistrates imposed reporting restrictions to prevent his identification and other details but these were successfully challenged by The Times. Eton, which charges £42,000 a year, did not request the restrictions.
The prospect of a trial could be hugely damaging for the reputation of the school, renowned for educating 20 prime ministers, including Boris Johnson and David Cameron. Prince William, Prince Harry and some foreign royal children have attended the school, as well as leading figures in the world of business and the media.
Mr Mowbray was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on May 17 last year. He was suspended from the school on the day of his arrest and has now been dismissed. Simon Henderson, the headmaster, has invited parents to several emergency meetings.
He said in a letter that he understood news of the charges was “desperately difficult to process”.
“I appreciate that many of you were very close to Mr Mowbray. I know that you and your sons will be shocked and upset by this news and we wish to do all we can to support you,” he said.
The 1,300 boys at the school have been told of the charges. Mr Henderson told parents to encourage their sons to talk and, if they wanted to go home, to feel free to collect them.
Eton has engaged counselling through the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, the child sexual abuse charity, to offer support to boys and staff. It has also arranged a dedicated NSPCC helpline.
One parent said: “I feel very sorry for the school but it has been as open as it can be so there is no sense of us being kept in the dark.”
The school is also contacting former pupils and their parents. Eton issued a statement confirming the charges.
It said: “As a result of information passed by the school to the local authority designated officer and to the police, a member of staff was arrested in May, 2019, suspended from work and subsequently dismissed. He has been charged with a number of criminal offences and given the ongoing proceedings, we cannot comment further.”
Housemaster Matt Mowbray, celebrated Eton photographer, showed a series of images of boys in his House in which he seeks to capture both their characters and their interests. A visit to The Charteris Rooms to look at four modern Leavers’ ..
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has today announced that the public hearing into institutional responses to allegations of child sexual abuse involving the late Lord Janner of Braunstone QC will commence on 12 October 2020.
Issues relating to the anonymity of a witness mean that much of the hearing will be held in closed session.
Eton teacher (Matthew Mowbray) accused of sexual assault and making indecent photographs of children
The married teacher at the £40,000-a-year Eton near Windsor, whose former pupils include Prince William, Prince Harry and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, appeared in court this week
5 Mar 2020
A senior master at Eton has been charged with sexual assault, voyeurism and making indecent photographs of children.
The married teacher at the £40,000-a-year private school near Windsor was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault in May last year.
He was suspended from his role on the day of his arrest and has since been dismissed, Mail Online reports.
Former pupils at the prestigious school include Prince William, Prince Harry and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The master is charged seven counts of sexual assault relating to three victims, three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of voyeurism.
Simon Henderson, Eton headmaster, sent a letter to parents of boys at the school stating the teacher will face trial next month.
Radio 1 DJ found with 500 child abuse images on his yacht
26 Feb 2020
Michael Willis aka DJ Steve Mireke, has been jailed for 18 months
A former BBC Radio 1 DJ has been jailed after police found 500 child abuse images on a yacht that he lived on. Michael Willis, 74, who went by the stage name Steve Merike , was jailed for 18 months for the stash of abusive images kept on a computer, laptop and memory stick. It is his second conviction for the possession of indecent images of children. They were discovered during a police raid on his boat at Plymouth Yacht Haven in 2017, the Plymouth Herald reports. Willis was a BBC Radio 1 DJ in the 1970s before working at Radio Trent in the 1980s. He was previously handed a suspended sentence at Leicester Crown Court in 2015 after admitting nine counts of downloading indecent images and videos of children between 2006 and 2013.
Jurors heard he was in possession of those images while standing as a parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems in Loughborough at the 2010 general election. The former DJ denied possession of 238 of the most serious Category A indecent images of children, showing them being sexually abused by adults. He also denied having 226 Category B images on his computer. Willis pleaded guilty to having 10 pictures in the least severe class, Category C, on a memory stick. Giving evidence at Plymouth Crown Court, he said he found some of the more severe images ‘absolutely disgusting’ and claimed he had no idea how they appeared on his laptop, desk top and memory stick. He claimed some of the images had appeared because his computer had been hacked. Jurors dismissed his claims and found him guilty by unanimous verdict after a two-day trial. Judge James Townsend sentenced him to an 18 month prison term.
Star solicitor helped VIP avoid paedophilia prosecution
26 February 2020
Prominent defence solicitor Sir David Napley played a role in helping a public figure escape prosecution for paedophilia offences in the 1970s, it emerged today. In a vignette of a bygone age of deference, a report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse reveals how Napley was able to go directly to the director of public prosecutors on behalf of his client, a diplomat who was a member of the discredited Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
Sir David Napley, founder of London firm Kingsley Napley, was one of the most celebrated legal figures of the 1970s, acting in cases including the Thorpe trial and the Steve Biko inquest. He served as Law Society president from 1976 to 1977. In 1978, he acted for Sir Peter Hayman, a high-ranking diplomat and MI6 officer who was arrested after his briefcase containing child sexual images was found on a bus.
According to the inquiry report, Sir David contacted the police to ask who was dealing with Hayman’s case at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The officer knew it was a solicitor named Jeremy Naunton, but ‘did not wish to land Mr Naunton with a call from Sir David Napley and so he told Sir David he would find out and get back to him’. To that, Sir David replied: ‘Don’t bother. I’ll talk to Hetherington’.
Sir Thomas Hetherington was director of public prosecutions at the time. A decision was subsequently taken only to caution Hayman.
Today’s report … describes the Hayman case as ‘the best example’ of a culture of deference existing in the 1970s. ‘There is no question but that Hayman was the beneficiary of preferential, differential and unduly deferential treatment as a person of public prominence.’
“The political establishment in Westminster repeatedly failed to deal with allegations of child sexual abuse, covering up claims & protecting high-profile MPs including Sir Cyril Smith & Sir Peter Morrison, the damning report says.”
Yet, the Dailymail headline says this?
£118m child sex abuse inquiry finds no evidence of Westminster paedophile network at the heart of government despite Tom Watson’s 2012 claims from Nick the Fantasist
@InquiryCSA
Our WestminsterReportfinds clear evidence of deference towards people of public prominence by parties, police and prosecutors for many years
A culture was fostered which prioritised political status over safeguarding for too long.
In 1973, the Cabinet Office informed MI5 of rumours that Christopher Chataway engaged in Sexual activities with children.
Sir Chris Chataway (centre), Sir Roger Bannister (left) and Chris Brasher (right) come together 40 years after Bannister became the first to break the four-minute mile, Chataway and Brasher acting as his pacemakers that day in 1954. Chataway died Sunday aged 82.
Chris Chataway supported his friend Chris Brasher when he established the London Marathon and was President of the Commonwealth Games Council for England, 1990-09. He was knighted in 1995 for services to aviation.
Christopher Chataway knew Roger Bannister, the Top Doctor famous for running the first sub-four minute miles and one of the many who helped keep the lid on Dafydd’s activities.
Sir Christopher Chataway, was known as an athlete and TV broadcaster as well as a Tory politician. Chataway was born in Chelsea and spent his childhood in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan; his father was a member of the Sudan Political Service. Chataway was educated at Sherborne School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a successful long-distance runner.
After leaving university, Chataway took an executive job with Guinness. It was Chataway who suggested to Sir Hugh Beaver of Guinness – who came up with the idea for the Guinness Book of Records – that his old university friends Norris and Ross McWhirter should be Editors.
After competing in the 1956 Olympics, Chataway retired from international athletics.
It wasn’t long after leaving Oxford that Chataway decided to aim for a political career and he thought that a suitable job in TV might help.
In Aug 1955 Chataway secured a job with ITN. Chataway and Robin Day were ITN’s first two newscasters. Robin Day was a good friend of Ronnie Waterhouse and it is Waterhouse who is credited with being responsible for Day’s TV broadcasting career.
After six months, when loss-making ITV cut back on its news output, Chataway switched to the BBC and was for three and a half years one of ‘Panorama’s’ team of reporters. Christopher Chataway was the ‘Panorama’ journo who took part in an experiment which involved Chataway taking psychedelics and then being filmed. Ronnie Waterhouse was one of those who raised concerns that the allegations of abuse by former kids in care in north Wales could not be believed because the people making the allegations had been involved in the drug scene.
Chataway had been elected as a Tory to the London County Council in 1958 in Lewisham North and was then selected to stand for Parliament in the same seat. Chataway was the Tory MP for Lewisham North, 1959-66. He served as a PPS before being appointed as a junior Education Minister in Macmillan’s Gov’t in July 1962. In 1966 Chataway lost his seat.
Operation Ore Part 2: The Bryn Alyn Scandal and the Abuse of Care Homes by an Elite Paedophile Ring.
In the early 90’s, Scallywag magazine’s Angus James published the shocking revelations that the magazine was in possession of documentary evidence implicating Lord McAlpine, Derek Laud and Alan Beck, all prominent government members, of underage sex with young boys, specifically involving the abuse of children in the care of state care homes. The homes, collectively termed the ‘Bryn Alyn’ network, operated underage brothels out of care homes in Wrexham, Holyhead, Gwynedd, Shropshire and London and were accused of crimes with boys as young as 4 being used for prostitution. Turning over in excess of £12m a year, the homes were taking around £1,000 – 1,200 a week in public money, much of which went missing (440,000 alone in one month in 1987, according to Supt. Ackerly who was heading up the investigation) this money was spent on luxury apartments and flats in London and elsewhere.
At the time of the Scallywag article, a suspect only named as Mr. X was on trial for heading the paedophile ring. Mr. X was linked to Mcalpine, Lord Kenyon, Wyn Roberts MP, Adam Mars-Jones (son of Justice Jones) and 6 police officers, one of which being “prominent Freemason” and former supt. Gordon Angelsea, all of whom were charged with raping a minor.Angelsea went on to sue Private Eye for the allegations, but they were reported in the Independent, HTV and the Observer. Scallywag notes, even in the early 90’s, that:
“No one has dared mention the name of Lord Mcalpine in connection with sex with an underage boy, even though there is in existence a sworn affidavit from the victim and a sworn police statement, and despite the fact that the police in the case against Mr X seem to take the victim seriously enough to use him as a chief witness for the prosecution”
Angus Young, Scallywag Magazine
Mr X, up until 1989 had operated with impunity and the Bryn Alyn network seemed to be immune from prosecution. The physical abuse at the homes in north Wales had been covered up by the police and despite the rumours ‘gushing’ out of these homes, rumours that the investigation showed the police were fully aware of, nothing was done to investigate them. The 146 allegations spanning a decade that came out of one home in Clwyd alone, caused Malcolm King, chairman of Clwyd’s social services at the time, to label it “the biggest failure to protect children in the history of Britain”.
A former North Wales Police Authority Chairman claimed his call for an enquiry 6 years before the scandal were stifled, the Welsh coordinator for the National Association of Young People in Care, Alex Saddington, was beaten and had chemicals sprayed in his eyes, a local BBC journalist working on the case was burgled and in a shadowy prediction of modern times the most public of the abused boys, Steven Messham and Mark Humphries, were subject to intimidation and Messham in particular, was beaten up on more than one occasion. The allegations centred mostly on the aforementioned ‘prominent freemason’ George Angelsea and Mr X, and the investigation ended with Mr X prosecuted on 10 counts of sexual abuse.
The files on Angelsea, and 5 other officers under suspicion, Sgt Mike Roach, Sgt Geraint Morgan, PC David Rogers, PC Peter Sharman and DC Gary Probert, were sent to the Crown Prosecution service. Their answer? As printed in Scallywag: “It is not in the pubic interest to prosecute these police officers” All of them were ‘early retired’, with commutations and pensions of course. It is worth noting that Angus Jones pointed out all of them were active freemasons, with the prominence of Angelsea being alluded to many times.
In a strange twist, the tale of Mr X turned out to be decades older than first thought. His empire of child pornography and prostitution was run in a business-like fashion, his favourites being lavished with gifts and shopped around his brothels in London for his VIP clientele. Former Big Brother contestant Derek Laud was shown to be one of the men setting up private viewings of Mr X’s material in Winchester St., Pimlico. Under the nickname ‘Golly’, Laud had accompanied Michael Portillo and his wife with his boyfriend Michael Brown MP on their holidays, and as the nephew of Lord Pitt, Laud had reached such political heights as being the “black face pictured at the window” whist Thatcher was peeping through the curtains on the day she quit, as Angus Young puts it.
He was alleged to have introduced the young Justin Fashanu to the seedier side of Westminster, before Fashanu began denying his own testimony in the scandal following the death of MP Steven Milligan, of which he claimed to have knowledge. Laud had holidayed with Peter Lilley,Chris Chataway and Jeffrey Archer, and was seen in fashionable spots entertaining people with known ties to Royalty. Laud appeared to be active in the paedophile network due to his ties to the infamous Dolphin square restaurant, where the Portillo’s dined frequently and which for a time, was under scrutiny by HM customs in relation to ‘intercepted paedophile material’.
John Gorst MP, who supported George Ward throughout the Grunwick strike has an interesting background
John Gorst involved with radio: – He was secretary of the Local Radio Association – a pressure group
In 1972 Wilfred Proudfoot forced through, with John Gorst and Ray Mawby, an amendment preventing London’s news radio station from supplying stations elsewhere. The trio also managed to bar newspapers from taking a stake in their local station, only for the sponsoring minister, Chris Chataway, to overrule them, saying that otherwise papers’ advertising revenues would be threatened.
The death on Sunday of Sir Chris Chataway at the age of 82 will bring sadness around the world because of the impact he had on athletics – and beyond.
European Athletics joins so many in passing its condolences on to Chataway’s family and friends at this sad time.
And as Sebastian Coe, the double Olympic 1500m champion, said: “He was a ‘Renaissance Man’ and although his international career was relatively short, he packed an enormous amount in it.
Bannister led the tributes to Chataway, telling the BBC: “He was gallant to the end. Our friendship dated back over more than half a century.
In 1995 he was knighted for his services to aviation, four years after becoming chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority.
But athletics was always in his blood and his enthusiasm showed at the Great North Run a few years ago, when he ran the race deep into his 70s.
Named in documents found by an MI5 witness relating to child abuse:
Maurice Oldfield
Peter Hayman
Tom Driberg
Peter Morrison
Leon Brittan (an MP associate rumour)
Christopher Chataway
Charles Irving
Anthony Lambton
Colin Peters
William van Staubenzee
Janner inquiry stalled by last-minute anonymity request
Feb 21, 2020
Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse was due to hear evidence but one witness didn’t want to be named, so hearing can no longer be public
In the wake of the Jimmy Savile revelations, the Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the file on Janner and finally decided to charge him with 22 counts of sexual assault in 2015, when he had advanced dementia. He died later that year. A civil case was also later avoided.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) had been due to hear evidence from alleged victims – their last chance to do so – but this week one witness claimed their legal right to complete anonymity, meaning the hearing can no longer be held in public. It has now adjourned proceedings.
Chris Jacobs, a lawyer representing the alleged victims, said they had “been involved in this process for a number of years and are entitled to a legitimate expectation that the investigation will proceed”.
He added: “Aside from the trauma and distress that such a decision would visit on my clients… the waste of public funds in stopping their process now would be substantial and disproportionate.”
Brian Altman QC, a lawyer working for the inquiry, said the witness’s request for full anonymity “will have a major impact on how much of any hearings in this investigation can take place in public”.
If the process continued to hear evidence on matters relating police and prosecutors’ response to allegations, he said “a very substantial part of it would have to be held in closed session”. Only “peripheral issues” could be heard in public.
He added that there were no good options, because discontinuing the process “would have a devastating effect” on the alleged victims “and would mean that important matters of public concern remain un-investigated by this Inquiry”.
A barrister representing Janner’s family said their father was “a law-abiding person,” adding: “The inability to report on the evidence that lies at the heart of this case undermines its fairness and any investigations can only be advanced at a disproportionate case.”
He added that reputations were being “interfered with, as is the grief and family name of his children,” before arguing that the public interest in continuing “is sorely diminished because there can be no public enquiry into the central allegations”.
Margaret Thatcher knighted Scottish Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn despite warning he ‘attacked Fife schoolgirl’
20 Feb 2020
MARGARET Thatcher knighted a Scottish MP despite a warning that he had attacked a schoolgirl.
Nicholas Fairbairn was made a sir by the then-PM in 1988 – weeks after the Tory chief received a letter from the girl’s mother detailing the assault in Fife.
The QC, who had been solicitor-general for Scotland, was knighted in recognition of his “political service” to the nation.
But it has been revealed that Thatcher had been contacted by the mum shortly before his award with the claim that Fairbairn had physically – but not sexually – attacked her daughter.
In a letter sent directly to the PM, it was written that the drunken MP had hit the schoolgirl “across the face and chest” near his home at Fordell Castle in 1986 – with witnesses confirming the attack.
The mum, a life-long Tory voter, also claimed a local police sergeant feared arresting Fairbairn would damage his career.
The letter was submitted to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which is chaired by Edinburgh academic Alexis Jay.
Jay is set to publish her findings next week. According to The Times, the previously unseen letter from June 1988 was held in a government chief whip’s file entitled “MP’s unparliamentary conduct”.
The letter, sent after the mum found out Fairbairn was to be honoured, details the attack.
It reads: “Mr Fairbairn approached her, shouted and repeatedly swore at her and struck her across the face and chest.
““The police were called and they interviewed six witnesses who confirmed her story.
““The sergeant from Dalgety Bay station would not go to Mr Fairbairn’s home on the Saturday evening. He said he preferred to wait until the Sunday when Mr Fairbairn would have sobered up.
“The sergeant said he did not want to remain a ‘tea boy’ for the rest of his working life.
“Since the announcement of the Queen’s Birthday Honours List I feel I must write to ask you why Fairbairn should get away with assault and then receive a knighthood.
“Mr Fairbairn approached her, shouted and repeatedly swore at her and struck her across the face and chest.”
Letter from Scottish mother to Margaret Thatcher
“We are now wondering if there is one law for MPs and another for members of the public.”
Thatcher’s principal private secretary replied to the mother, claiming the attack was not for the consideration of the PM.
It read: “The prime minister’s practice is not to comment on names which appear in the honours lists.
“As regards the allegations made in your letter, these are not matters for the prime minister.”
Fairbairn was an MP for Kinross and Western Perthshire from 1974-1983, when the constituency was abolished.
He then served the new Perth and Kinross constituency until his death in 1995, aged 61.
She shared the Any Questions? panel with the Tory MP and, in an interview with Channel 4 News, said: “I suddenly realised, that he had his hand up my crotch. I was so furious, but also scared.
“If I said what I would say to him two or three years later; ‘if you do that again I will tell Jonathan Dimbleby [the show’s host] that I can’t answer any questions until Sir Nicholas takes his hand out of my crotch.’
“I didn’t say it, but I always wished I had done.”
The Scottish Sun Online has approached the Conservatives for comment.
Liberal Democrats ‘to expel ex-leader David Steel’ over his failure to pass on suspicions about paedophile MP Cyril Smith
Lord Steel set to be first politician expelled by national child sex abuse inquiry
19 Feb 2020
Former Liberal leader Lord Steel faces expulsion from his party over his failure to pass on his suspicions about paedophile MP Cyril Smith.
He is set to be the first politician singled out for censure by the national child sex abuse inquiry, it was reported last night.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is set to publish its conclusions next week.
Last night the Liberal Democrats declined to comment – but it is understood a committee of senior MPs and peers is being convened to discuss Lord Steel’s future.
Close colleagues, including former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Campbell, are considering quitting if Lord Steel is expelled.
The inquiry will also criticise Lord Steel for his decision to recommend Smith for a knighthood.
Smith, who died in 2010, is accused of sexually abusing scores of boys. He was never charged in his lifetime.
The report is understood, according to sources close to the inquiry, to be highly critical of his failure to notify authorities after an admission by Smith that claims about him in Private Eye magazine were true.
Under questioning, Lord Steel told IICSA of a conversation he had with Smith in 1979, in which the then MP admitted his behaviour was investigated a decade earlier.
The Private Eye article accused Smith of spanking boys and conducting intimate ‘medical examinations’ at a Rochdale hostel, but Smith had insisted police took no further action.
Lord Steel told IICSA last March that he ‘assumed’ Smith had actually committed the offences.
Bernard Kerik accepted a “loan” of $250k from Israel billionaire when meeting with Israel to discuss counter-terrorism 2 weeks before 9/11. And he was the police commissioner that oversaw 9/11, was pardoned today.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who rose to national fame in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was later sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to felony charges including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.
The White House announced Tuesday that Trump had granted a full pardon to Kerik, as well as a commutation for disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Today Trump has granted clemency or pardoned 11 people all convicted of corruption. But the one that bothers me the most is Kerik.
He accepted a $250,000 interest-free “loan” from Israeli billionaire Eitan Wertheimer and failed to report it. Kerik first met the billionaire, whose vast holdings include major defense contractors, when Kerik took a four-day trip to Israel less than two weeks before September 11, 2001 to discuss counter-terrorism with Israeli officials.
Giuliani had appointed Kerik the 40th Police Commissioner of New York City on August 21, 2000 and oversaw 9/11 and made it to the WTC three minutes after the first plane hit.
After 16 months of working under Giuliani he left his position when Giuliani’s term ended December 2001.
Women’s wear mogul Peter Nygard accused as vile sexual predator, hosted ‘pamper parties’ to rape and abuse aspiring models and underage girls, according to Manhattan lawsuit
Feb 13, 2020
Peter Nygard seen at Fame and Philanthropy’s Celebrates the 86th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2, 2014 at The Vineyard Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, CA.
Rags-to-riches garment business legend Peter Nygard was accused of sex trafficking paid underage “girlfriends” to both satisfy his perverse sexual peccadilloes and lure new victims to drug-fueled “pamper parties” at his beachfront Bahamas home, a stunning new lawsuit alleged Thursday.
The Manhattan Federal Court filing claimed the 76-year-old Nygard raped seven teenage girls, ages 14 to 16, at his private Nygard Cay getaway in the Bahamas — with some of the terrified teens drugged before they were sexually assaulted.
Among the guests at Nygard’s luxury property over the years was Prince Andrew, who came under scrutiny for his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein before the accused sex fiend committed suicide last year.
Nygard, 76, amassed a decades-old database of more than 7,500 women and underaged girls, dating back to 1987 and maintained by the Nygard Companies’ IT department, according to the class action suit that identified 10 “Jane Does” as plaintiffs.
The victims were often recruited through regular company events known as “pamper parties,” where women promised interviews for high-end modeling jobs were instead used for sex at wild parties featuring cocaine and alcohol inside the Bahamas residence, the federal court paperwork charged.
“Nygard used his considerable influence in the fashion industry, his power through corruption of officials, and a network of company employees under his direction to groom and entice underage girls and women,” the lawsuit alleged.
“Nygard would use means of alcohol, drugs, force fraud and/or other forms of coercion to engage in commercial sex acts with these children and women … in many cases, with knowledge that they were less than eighteen years old.”
An email to Nygard’s business for comment on the salacious allegations was not returned Thursday.
Two years ago, the company — with its Times Square global headquarters — marked its 50th anniversary, the culmination of its founder’s unlikely ascension from Finnish immigrant to worldwide success and head of his eponymous clothing empire. The self-made man, who borrowed $8,000 to launch his women’s clothing business, once lived in a Manhattan apartment near his flagship Midtown store.
A Daily News reporter was escorted from the building after asking about Nygard and the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, some of the girlfriends were placed on the Nygard Companies payroll and paid monthly for “modeling and promotional services” rather than their duties as full-time sex workers.
Designer Peter Nygard arrives for Norby Walters’ 24nd Annual Night Of 100 Stars Oscar Viewing Gala held at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2014. It’s unknown if the unidentified women pictured with Nygard here are part of the lawsuit.
Nygard, known for a flowing mane of hair spilling down to his shoulders and a buff physique belying his age, launched his business in 1968. He has steered clear of the Bahamas property since he was sentenced last year to 90 days in jail and a $150,000 in fines for alleged environmental violations at Nygard Cay.
Back in 1987, Nygard designed and built the luxurious property that, according to the lawsuit, was turned into a den of torture where underaged girls were routinely assaulted.
The new lawsuit alleged that local Bahamian police were paid by Nygard to harass or threaten any sexual abuse victims considering legal action against their accused tormentor.
“Due to his power and influence in the Bahamas and worldwide, Nygard’s victims reasonably believe that he can have them killed if they pursue their claims,” the lawsuit alleged.
“…been a part of what was essentially a “sex trafficking ring”.
‘The prince and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson stayed at Nygard Cay, near Nassau, with daughters Beatrice and Eugenie (pictured with Nygard)’
ROYAL LINK
Prince Andrew’s visit to second tycoon facing child rape claims as fashion boss Peter Nygard accused of abusing 10 teens
14 Feb 2020
PRINCE Andrew visited a billionaire tycoon accused of raping 10 teens at a Bahamas mansion.
Peter Nygard, 77, is the second of the Duke’s associates to be accused of sex offences, following his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Fashion mogul Nygard is alleged to have invited ten girls to his lavish estate under the guise that he would help them with their modelling careers.
Prince Andrew reportedly stayed with Nygard’s mansion in the Bahamas with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in 2000.
A lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York claimed that Nygard plied his subjects with alcohol and drugs before they were violently assaulted, raped and sodomised.
Nygard, worth a reported £1.3bn and runs women’s clothing company Nygard International, has strongly denied the allegations.
There is no suggestion he knew of Nygard’s alleged criminality.
In the case against Nygard, the teenagers, some as young as 14, launched a class action lawsuit in Manhattan – claiming to have been a part of what was essentially a “sex trafficking ring”.
The suit alleges the girls would be entertained at so-called “pamper parties” where Nygard would have bartenders at his Mayan-themed vacation home spike their drinks with Rohypnol.
The lawsuit details how one of the victims who was 15-years-old at the time had been taken to Lyford Cay, Nygard’s estate.
During the evening, Nygard allegedly tried to anally sodomise her before raping her and then asking her to defecate and urinate in his mouth in a bizarre sexual fetish known as Coprophilia.
Another of complainants tells how her encounter with Nygard began with him showing her pornography.
ROYAL LINK
Nygard then asked her to use a sex toy on him and when it ended, he raped her “causing her extraordinary trauma and pain”.
A press release about the lawsuit stated: “This horrific episode is just one of many like it detailed in the complaint against Nygard and his business entities by 10 brave women.
“The class action lawsuit accuses Nygard of sex trafficking and rape – all financed and facilitated by his family of corporations and their employees.”
Ten women in total, now aged between 18 to 36, have detailed their alleged encounters.
Nine of the women are from the Bahamas while one is from the US, although none have had their names revealed in the suit.
Three of the women were 14-years-old at the time of the alleged rapes which took place between 2008 and 2015, while three others were 15.
Phillip Schofield came out to the British nation saying that he is gay. Schofield, 57, has been married for 27 years and has two children. The presenter interviewing him said that it was important to make clear that his hand wasn’t forced in coming out. In other cases of British celebrities coming out as gay that isn’t even mentioned.
Questions began to rise after this coming out, like from Joan Collins who asked the question why now? The days have been going by and the information coming out points to a sinister reality behind this.
Schofield appears to have first met Matthew McGreevy back when he was 10-years-old at the 2 faced theater academy. The former is a patron of the theater company and suspiciously shut down their website.
At the age of 15 Phillip Schofield followed the 15-year-old McGreevy on Twitter. In McGreevy’s bio it says “A 15 year old cheeky chap , performer and twin :).” To this very day Schofield follows this account of Matthew McGreevy.
In 2015 the two were spotted out on some kind of date at a restaurant after many years of what strongly appears to be grooming.
One of Britain’s top paparazzis George Bamby-Salvador on Facebook posted some very powerful claims against the host. He said that Matthew McGreevy had a deal in place with the Sunday papers to sell his story so he could tell what happened to him at the hands of Schofield. This paparazzi has worked for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 in his career.
According to a show insider, Matthew McGreevy was furious that Phillip Schofield “f*cked him over” and that he was going to go to the press to tell what happened to him.
There are many crucial questions that need to be answered as this information comes out. Phillip Schofield lied about when he first met Matthew McGreevy. Why did Phillip Schofield lie about something that the powers that be want us to believe is innocent? They met when he was 10-years-old at the 2 faced theater academy and that group deleted its website after that picture came out. Why did they do that if? What else were they hiding? Who there benefits from that? Phillip Schofield followed Matthew McGreevy on Twitter when he was 15. Why did Phillip Schofield follow 15-year-old Matthew McGreevy on Twitter espeically if he didn’t know him? Those two were out on a date. What was going on there? If all these people like George Bamby-Salvador, Perez Hilton, Joan Collins and others who either hint that something sinister is happening are lying wouldn’t you think Phillip Schofield would sue them? Libel laws in Britian are much tougher than in America. Probably the most important question in this is, where on earth is Matthew McGreevy? Is he alive or dead, safe or in danger, in the UK or elsewhere, and what does he have to say about all of this?
Why did Phillip Schofield follow a 15-year-old boy on Twitter when he was 48? Why did Schofield later invite him to the ITV studios? Why did he (Matthew Mcgreevy) later get a job working for ITV?
Phillip Schofield surprises charity with £20,000 donation
A HENLEY charity has received a surprise £20,000 donation thanks to Chris Evans and Phillip Schofield.
The Chiltern Centre, which offers support to young adults with learning or physical disabilities, only learned about the money when the donation was made on live television.
Schofield, who lives in Fawley, was interviewing Evans on ITV’s This Morning show about Carfest, an annual family music and motoring festival that was founded by the radio presenter in 2011 and raises funds for children’s charities.
Evans revealed he had two cheques for £20,000 each from the funds raised at the event, which he was giving to Schofield and his co-presenter Holly Willoughy to donate to the charities of their choice.
Schofield chose the Chiltern Centre, of which he has been patron since 2009. Later, he posted on Instagram, where he has 2.6 million followers, said: “Thank you, Chris Evans and Carfest, for the £20,000 you have so generously donated to the Chiltern Centre.
Carfest, which is held in Cheshire and Hampshire, gave half of the money it raised this year, to the BBC’s Children in Need appeal, while the other beneficiaries included the Teenage Cancer Trust, the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity and the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
Willoughby chose to donate her £20,000 to Short Lives, a children’s charity of which she has been patron since 2008.
McAlpine agrees settlement with ITV | Financial Times
Nov 22, 2012 – “ITV and Phillip Schofield apologise unreservedly to Lord Alistair McAlpine, have agreed the terms of a statement to be made in open court and have .
Masons from Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire raised over £42,000 at the Chiltern Centre Diamond Jubilee Family Day at Fawley Hill, near Henley, in Oxfordshire. Held at the Fawley Hill Railway and Museum, thanks to the generosity of Sir William and Lady McAlpine, the event was in aid of the Chiltern Centre for Disabled Children, which has lost significant government funding.
Chiltern Centre Chair of Trustees, Paul Barrett, said the day ‘exceeded expectations with more than 3,000 people attending’. The masonic team was led by John Clark (Buckinghamshire), Roger Hampshire (Oxfordshire) and Gerry Hann (Berkshire)
Phillip Schofield’s daughter Ruby Schofield: charity work
Ruby Schofield has also been involved in charity work over the years, raising £15,000 for Teenage Cancer Trust as well as volunteering at The Chiltern Centre – a charity for disabled children
Not much chance of avoiding his fans last week, when Phillip Schofield took a short holiday on Cunard’s newest cruise ship, Queen Elizabeth (above),which was making its maiden round-Britain voyage.
Back on our TV screens last week after a summer break, he was soon off again, travelling to Liverpool to board the ship, sailing to Dublin for a taste of the black stuff and then on to Cork where he disembarked to fly home.
While on board, he shaved and put on a smart jacket and crisp white shirt to be shown around the bridge by Captain Chris Wells (below).
^ So Phillip Schofield was also on the maiden cruise in 2011, as was Savile
Savile following on 4 people on twitter – Phillip Schofield, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, Chris Moyles
Savile sailed with Cunard on a number of occasions. Notably, he travelled onboard the Queen Elizabeth on its first voyage around Britain in September 2011, the month before he died, and attended the ceremony when the Queen named the ship in 2010.
In January 2011, when plans were made for the memorial tribute, a Cunard spokeswoman described Savile as “a true friend of Cunard,” according to the BBC.
Savile enjoyed complimentary cruises onboard both Cunard and P&O Cruises for many years. It has been claimed he was kicked off P&O’s Canberra in Gibraltar by the captain who heard claims he abused a 14-year-old girl, according to a report in the Mirror.
Hiding in plain sight: Well, for a start there was Paul Trotter who slipped through Cunard’s oh so strict vetting procedure to become a pianist and youth counsellor, supervising kids in the on-board children’s PlayZone. But there were more …
The BBC on Thursday appointed Royal Opera House chief Tony Hall as Entwistle’s replacement,charged with pulling the broadcaster out of crisis in the wake of the McAlpine row and a separate child sex scandal over its late star Jimmy Savile.
Allegations that Savile abused hundreds of children over four decades have sparked three internal BBC probes and a major police investigation.
Four days earlier, the BBC had broadcast an investigation wrongly implicating him in allegations of child sex abuse at a Welsh children’s home in the 1970s.
While the report by the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme “Newsnight” did not identify McAlpine, he was widely named on social networking sites.
The botched report forced BBC director-general George Entwistle to resign on November 10 and the BBC has paid out $295,056 in damages to McAlpine.
The BBC on Thursday appointed Royal Opera House chief Tony Hall as Entwistle’s replacement, charged with pulling the broadcaster out of crisis in the wake of the McAlpine row and a separate child sex scandal over its late star Jimmy Savile.
Allegations that Savile abused hundreds of children over four decades have sparked three internal BBC probes and a major police investigation.
When Boris resigned as MP for Henley in 2008, having been elected Mayor of London, the Tory hierarchy apparently made it clear elder Johnsons need not apply. I was not deterred.
When, a few months later, the Wycombe seat became free, I started sniffing around – and found myself plunged into a Conservative controversy.
To explain: Sir William McAlpine, president of the Wycombe Conservatives, and his wife Judy had invited potential candidates to drinks at their house, including me. When I arrived, Judy was on the phone and clearly in the middle of a row with Central Office.
‘If I believe members of the local association should be offered an informal drink with potential candidates, I will invite them,’ she was saying. The drinks went ahead. But the following Tuesday, Bill McAlpine rang me:
‘Central Office has cancelled the selection process.’ He sounded furious.
Judy later explained. ‘A young man began screaming at me that he must speak to Sir William, saying they must STOP the selection process immediately.’
Judy later sent me a copy of the letter she had written to David Cameron. As Private Eye used to put it, ‘Phew, what a scorcher!’ Realistically, Wycombe was probably my last best chance to catch the eye of the selectors.
Mr Cameron, who did not look at the list, said he was “worried” that speculation about unproven allegations could lead to a “witch-hunt particularly against people who are gay” and advised anyone with evidence of abuse should go to the police.
After the show, Mr Schofield was forced to apologise amid suggestions that the names on the card could be seen by viewers because of a “misjudged camera angle”.
The TV presenter insisted he had not been accusing anyone of anything and “it is essential that it is understood that I would never be part of any kind of witch-hunt”.
Asked about the exchange on Friday during a visit to Cumbria, Mr Cameron said it was “not sensible nor right to hand over a piece of paper with a few names you have just quickly scrubbed off the internet.
“Effectively you are casting aspersions about lots of people without any evidence…I don’t think it was the right approach and I am sure that ITV agree with that.
“I don’t want to get into a great shouting match with anybody but I don’t think it is the right way to approach this extremely serious matter.”
‘No evidence’
In other reaction, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said “it was a pretty rum piece of journalism” and “a very curious thing for the producers to allow to happen”.
Speaking on BBC London 94.9, he said the presenter had produced a list “without any real substantiation or proper journalistic efforts to get to the bottom of whatever allegations were made about the individuals who might have been named on that bit of paper.”
Mr Cameron, a former senior executive with ITV company Carlton, had behaved in “a very dignified way and dealt with it very calmly”, Mr Johnson added.
Gay rights campaigners have criticised Mr Cameron’s use of language during the interview.
“There is no reason why he should link the current scandals with gay people or warn of an anti-gay witch-hunt,” long-standing campaigner Peter Tatchell said.
Boris Johnson commenting on the Phillip Schofield’s child abuse list
…Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley Johnson attended the funeral of Sir William McAlpine, brother of Alistair McAlpine.
Boris Johnson was MP for Henley-on-Thames – where the Chiltern Centre is located and where William McAlpine had a home.
McAlpine family’s Fawley Hill residence near Henley-on-Thames
……………..
British commercial television network ITV on Thursday said it had paid out $199,362 to a senior politician who was wrongly linked to child sex abuse by one of its programmes and the BBC.
ITV apologised “unreservedly” to Lord Alistair McAlpine, who is at the centre of a row that felled the BBC’s director-general, and said they had agreed to pay his legal costs on top of the $199,362 settlement.
The presenter of chat show “This Morning”, Phillip Schofield, had ambushed Prime Minister David Cameron earlier this month with a list of Conservative politicians that were being named in Internet gossip as paedophiles.
Lawyers for McAlpine, who was Conservative treasurer under former premier Margaret Thatcher, said the stunt sparked an avalanche of libellous Internet posts falsely linking him to paedophilia in the wake of a BBC report that did the same.
Four days earlier, the BBC had broadcast an investigation wrongly implicating him in allegations of child sex abuse at a Welsh children’s home in the 1970s.
While the report by the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme “Newsnight” did not identify McAlpine, he was widely named on social networking sites.
The botched report forced BBC director-general George Entwistle to resign on November 10 and the BBC has paid out $295,056 in damages to McAlpine.
ITV said in a statement: “ITV and Phillip Schofield have now reached agreement with Lord McAlpine to settle his libel claim, made in relation to the This Morning programme broadcast on 8 November 2012.
“ITV and Phillip Schofield apologise unreservedly to Lord McAlpine, have agreed the terms of a statement to be made in open court, and have agreed to pay him damages of $199,362 and his legal costs.”
The BBC on Thursday appointed Royal Opera House chief Tony Hall as Entwistle’s replacement, charged with pulling the broadcaster out of crisis in the wake of the McAlpine row and a separate child sex scandal over its late star Jimmy Savile.
Allegations that Savile abused hundreds of children over four decades have sparked three internal BBC probes and a major police investigation.
A man has been charged with further non-recent sex offences against children during his time as a choirmaster in West Sussex.
Mark Burgess, who lives in Portsmouth, was initially charged on 3 February this year with 58 counts of offences including indecent assault, gross indecency with a child, inciting sexual activity with a child, and sexual touching.
This week (April 27th – 30th), detectives from Hampshire Constabulary’s Operation Marmion team charged him with a further 15 offences against an additional two victims, bringing the total up to 73 offences.
The offences relate to 13 children in total, who were under the age of 16, during Burgess’s time as a choirmaster for the All Saints church choir in Portsmouth, and Westbourne Choir in West Sussex between 1975 and 2009.
Mr Burgess was bailed to appear at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court on 23 July.
A former choirmaster has been charged with dozens of sex offences against children in Hampshire and West Sussex.
Mark Burgess, 66, from Hilsea, Portsmouth, is accused of abusing 11 children under the age of 16 between 1976 and 2009.
He faces 58 counts relating to his time as choirmaster at All Saints’ Church in Portsmouth and Westbourne Choir, near Emsworth, Hampshire Constabulary said.
Charges include indecent assault and gross indecency.
He will appear before Portsmouth magistrates on 3 March.
Detectives from Hampshire Constabulary’s Operation Marmion team have charged a man with non-recent sex offences against children
5 Feb 2020
In 1971 Burgess won a place at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied organ with the world famous teacher Nicholas Danby. He was the first organ student at St Paul’s Cathedral, London and helped out in his third year alongside Christopher Dearnley, gaining FRCO in later years.
For many years Mark has been involved with RSCM local events and nationally-run residential courses and has worked with Gerald Knight and Martin How and latterly John Wardle.
He has been Director of Music at many local schools and was DoM at All Saints Portsea for 21 years and then at Westbourne Parish Church for 16 years.
Currently Mark plays for St Colman’s Cosham and is DoM at St Agatha’s church whilst currently being an assistant at St John’s Cathedral. He also directs the Portsmouth Chorus formerly the Portsmouth Glee Club.
Former Southampton Football Coach Convicted of Non-recent Child Sex Abuse
May 23, 2019
A former Southampton youth football coach who abused young boys for a quarter of a century between 1971 and 1996 has today (Thursday 23 May) been convicted.
Robert ‘Bob’ Higgins, 66, was branded a ‘predatory paedophile’ in court as he faced 51 counts of indecent assault relating to 24 boys, most of whom were youth football players at the time of the offences.
Today, Higgins was convicted of 45 offences following a trial by jury.
Higgins had already been convicted of indecently assaulting another boy at a previous trial which began in May 2018.
Detectives from Hampshire Constabulary’s Operation Marmion team, who specialise in investigating non-recent child sex abuse, first started making enquiries in November 2016.
What followed was a lengthy and complex investigation spanning two trials which has now concluded with today’s verdicts.
Mark Burgess – Musical director – Portsmouth Chorus
Musical Director
MARK BURGESS
GGSM(lond) FRCO(CHM) FTCL LRAM ARCM(perf) PGCE
Mark was born in 1953 in Rustington East Sussex, at a nursing home in a village which has the name of a very well known hymn tune composed by C. H. H. Parry. Adopted and educated at Portsmouth Technical high school, his main influence was Reginald Wassell. His first organ teacher was Ernie Hines and then Russell Shepherd at St Mark’s North End. In 1971 he won a place at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied organ with the world famous teacher Nicholas Danby. He was the first organ student at St Paul’s Cathedral, London and helped out in his third year alongside Christopher Dearnley, gaining FRCO in later years.
For many years Mark has been involved with RSCM local events and nationally-run residential courses and has worked with Gerald Knight and Martin How and latterly John Wardle. He has been Director of Music at many local schools and was DoM at All Saints Portsea for 21 years and then at Westbourne Parish Church for 16 years.
Currently Mark plays for St Colman’s Cosham and is DoM at St Agatha’s church whilst currently being an assistant at St John’s Cathedral. He also directs the Portsmouth Chorus formerly the Portsmouth Glee Club.
Christopher Dearnley, who has died in Australia aged 70, served the cause of cathedral music in two hemispheres with great distinction for half a century. As organist and director of music at St Paul’s cathedral from 1968-90, he masterminded the music for many state occasions: the thanksgiving service for the Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977, the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981 and the Falklands war thanksgiving service in 1982.
Dearnley and his wife emigrated to Australia in 1990, ostensibly to live quieter lives as naturists (nudists)
Jonathan Clayton: Primary school supply teacher guilty of sexual abuse
4 February 2020
Jonathan Clayton carried out sexual assaults on primary school pupils as young as seven
A primary school supply teacher has been convicted of sexually assaulting six pupils at his place of work.
Jonathan Clayton, 27, from Stockton, was found guilty of 13 sex assault charges on girls aged between seven and 11 in North Yorkshire.
He had faced a similar allegation involving a pupil at a previous school he was teaching at in 2017, although charges were dropped.
He was remanded in custody for sentence at Teesside Crown Court on 26 February.
Clayton had said there was nothing sexual about his behaviour but admitted he hugged children, helped them get dressed – even though they were old enough to dress themselves – and let them sit on his knee.
‘Suitable to work’
The head of the school told the court they had no idea about the original claims in 2017.
Supply teacher firm Vision for Education said information about the first allegation was “withheld” and claimed that the first school, where Clayton worked between 2016 to 2017, recommended him.
A spokeswoman said: “In this instance, all of the statutory checks relating to the candidate were clear but information relating to the previous allegations was withheld from us and, instead, the school where the first allegations were made expressly confirmed that the candidate was suitable to work with children and that they would recommend the candidate for employment.”
The spokeswoman added they suspended Clayton immediately after they were informed about the latest accusations, made at the second school last year.
Richard Crane, Durham County Council’s head of education and skills, said that after the first allegation was made “appropriate steps were taken by the school and relevant agencies were informed”.
Det Con Gillian Gowling from North Yorkshire Police said: “Clayton had abused the trust of young girls in his care and took advantage of his position as their primary school teacher.”
Judge Howard Crowson remanded Clayton in custody 26 after learning he had tried to find work in China after he was barred from working in the UK following the latest allegations.
David Mitchell, with the London mayor Sadiq Khan, is taking one of the most influential roles in the capital’s Jewish community
Rabbi accused of bullying gets senior job at synagogue
January 13 2020
David Mitchell, 40, will become senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue, which describes itself as “the UK’s flagship Reform Synagogue” when Baroness Neuberger steps down in March. The role is one of the most influential in the community. Members of the congregation include the historians Sir Simon Schama and Simon Sebag-Montefiore, the actress Maureen Lipman and Marie van der Zyl, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
The appointment has concerned former staff who complained in 2016 that Mr Mitchell, who ran the synagogue’s education department, bullied staff, reduced colleagues to tears, used obscene language and made derogatory comments about colleagues.
His promotion to senior rabbi has created tension in the Jewish community. The issue made the front page of The Jewish Chronicle and was debated on social media. The synagogue’s management board met last week to discuss the situation.
The Charity Commission has demanded to know why the synagogue, which is a registered charity, did not tell it about the allegations against Mr Mitchell. A spokeswoman for the commission said: “We would expect trustees to report allegations of this nature to us. We are assessing the issues and will make contact with the trustees imminently.”
Senior community figures told The Times that although the allegations dated from 2016 they continued to have concerns about Mr Mitchell’s suitability to lead the congregation.
Rabbi David Mitchell has been suspended by West London Synagogue “Allegations from former staff include hearing him joking and laughing about seeing kids’ genitalia and running programmes with young people unsupervised with the intent of getting them into their ‘dark place'”
Leading Reform rabbi accused of bullying and inappropriate behaviour is set to become the shul’s senior rabbi
@JamesRusbridger
“One employee said examples of inappropriate, unprofessional behaviour included hearing Rabbi Mitchell make references to ‘kike cock’, ‘lesbian cock doctor’ and ‘eating muff’ in a professional environment.” “Westminster child protection services has investigated Rabbi Mitchell.”
The charity’s annual fundraiser, the Butterfly Ball, is attended by many celebrities famously devoted to children. Butterfly Ball guests have included Esther Rantzen, Simon Cowell, Lionel Blair, Max Clifford, Elton John, and the Duchess of York, all doing their bit for children.
Michael Barrymore documentary: ‘Arrogance’ of discredited pathologist who missed evidence in Stuart Lubbock’s death
6 FEB 2020
Dr Michael Heath’s post-mortem after the death of Stuart Lubbock in Michael Barrymore’s swimming pool may have played a part in hampering the police’s murder investigation
Dr Michael Heath, pictured in 2002, was the first expert to examine Stuart’s body. He was later criticised by a government disciplinary panel for his involvement in a separate investigation
A report by a since-discredited pathologist who was the first to examine Stuart Lubbock’s body may have played a part in hampering the police investigation into what happened at Michael Barrymore’s £2million Essex home.
Dr Michael Heath, a Home Office pathologist, conducted the first autopsy after Stuart, 31, was pronounced dead in hospital on March 31, 2001 – hours after he was found unconscious in Barrymore’s swimming pool.
But the experienced medical expert missed evidence that other pathologists have said could indicate Stuart was asphyxiated during an all-night party, just hours after meeting Barrymore at a nightclub.
Initially, police believed Stuart had accidentally drowned in the pool without the eight other guests at the party noticing.
But Dr Heath failed to note evidence that that could suggest a darker theory.
It was only when three other pathologists challenged Dr Heath’s findings that clues were finally picked up.
But that came weeks after Stuart’s death, meaning police didn’t return to Barrymore’s property for a thorough search for a long time.
During the delay, two pieces of evidence are believed to have gone missing.
A pool thermometer that had been lying on the side of Barrymore’s hot tub vanished, as did a broken shed handle – and police told a press conference one or both of the items could have been used to sexually assault the victim.
The delay prompted an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation off the back of 36 complaints by Stuart’s father Terry Lubbock. The IPCC upheld six of them in 2009, including that the force missed evidence, and failed to ensure crucial forensic tests were completed until six years after the death.
Other evidence on Stuart’s body were not connected to the sexual assault theory by Dr Heath.
Marks on the victim’s forehead known as petechiae – small haemorrhages from the bursting of blood capillaries – weren’t noted by Dr Heath, but were picked up by the three other experts.
In their reports, they said the marks could be a sign of asphyxia, possibly as a result of having an arm clamped around his throat during a violent attack.
The Lubbock family’s barrister, Matthew Gowen, said in 2002 that the police investigation could have gone a different way entirely had all the facts been presented at the initial autopsy.
Dr Heath continued to stand by his findings in the wake of the other three pathologist reports, telling The Independent On Sunday in 2002: “It is not unusual for pathologists to disagree with one another. It happens all the time, but it is only in high-profile cases that it is noticed. It would be wrong for me to say that Mr Lubbock died from asphyxiation because he didn’t.”
During cross-examination at the five-day inquest, Dr Heath said he saw no sign of the petechiae and told the coroner the likelihood was that Stuart had drowned.
The coroner recorded an open verdict but criticised the fact she had not got the full story.
Michael Barrymore pool death cop says victim ‘WAS raped and murdered’ as fresh investigation launched
2 Feb 2020
DCI Jennings told Channel 4: “I believe very much that Stuart Lubbock was raped and murdered that night.”
An inquiry was launched into the original investigation in 2007 by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and confirmed police permission was given to tidy up some of the house.
DCI Jennings said: “After we’d managed to photograph the scene, items have gone missing and we’ve never seized them.”
MISSING ITEMS
He said he believes the missing items – a handle from a cupboard and a pool thermometer – could have been taken to hide evidence.
A postmortem revealed Lubbock suffered severe internal injuries.
The cause of death was never established, and a coroner recorded an open verdict following four conflicting pathologist’s reports.
Barrymore invited Lubbock back to his home for a private party after meeting him at the Millennium Nightclub in March 2001.
Barrymore was arrested on suspicion of rape and serious sexual assault in 2007 along with two others, but he was never charged.
Trump impeachment defense lawyers Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz share disturbing problem
While the president still stands accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women, two of his lawyers are embroiled in their own sexual misconduct and assault scandals.
Jan. 23, 2020
There’s been a lot of talk about President Donald Trump’s choice of Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr as lawyers participating in his Senate impeachment trial defense. Most of this has rightly focused on the arguments both men presented at President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1999, which stand in almost laughable contradiction to the arguments they now seek to present. But when these two hired guns are examined alongside their latest famous client, another more troubling thread emerges, one that has been all too common for those in Trump’s orbit. These guys really don’t like women.
While the president still stands accused of sexual misconduct, including rape, by more than 20 women, both of these lawyers are deeply embroiled in their own sexual misconduct and assault scandals.
Dershowitz’s involvement with Epstein goes considerably further. Not only did Dershowitz help negotiate the part of the plea deal that granted total immunity for named Epstein co-conspirators and unnamed “potential co-conspirators,” but the lawyer himself stands accused of participating in the abuse, a charge he vehemently denies.
Here’s some of what we know about Dershowitz. Although Dershowitz prides himself on being a tenacious defender of civil liberties and a staunch advocate of everyone’s constitutional right to a defense, he has a long record of defending a certain type of client: prominent men accused of committing violence against women. He chose to help O.J. Simpson when the former NFL star was accused of murdering his wife; he crafted a defense for Jeffrey MacDonald, the former Green Beret doctor convicted of killing his wife and two daughters; he led the appeal for British socialite Claus von Bulow, who was accused of attempting to murder his wife; and he represented boxer Mike Tyson, who had been convicted of raping an 18-year-old Miss Black America contestant. He also joined the team defending former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein from a civil suit (that case has reached a tentative settlement).
There’s nothing wrong with a constitutional lawyer coming to the aid of well-known men accused of horrible crimes; everyone deserves the best defense possible. But Dershowitz has also admitted to getting massages at Epstein’s home — going so far as to note he kept on his underwear — hardly standard lawyer/client behavior, and certainly not the kind of high-minded ideals to which our system aspires.
Many of the most disturbing things about Dershowitz are things he himself has said. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed on May 7, 1997, titled, “Statutory Rape Is an Outdated Concept,” Dershowitz challenged the laws that criminalize sex with underage girls. In that piece, the former Harvard University law professor argues that the age of consent “certainly should not be as high 17 or 16. Reasonable people can disagree over whether it should be as low as 14.”
The prominent professor’s views on statutory rape and the age of consent become even more creepy when viewed through the lens of his most current personal predicament. In 2014, Virginia Roberts Guiffre, an alleged underage victim of Jeffrey Epstein, said in her court filing that Epstein let his friends borrow her for sex — friends including Dershowitz. Dershowitz denies the allegations and calls Epstein’s victim a liar. After Guiffre sued Dershowitz for defamation, the lawyer filed a countersuit against his accuser.
Some of Dershowitz’s views, while no less disturbing, are of a more typical attempted woman-shaming variety. In his defense of Tyson, Dershowitz attacked the victim by asserting she was a “sexually active young woman” who “hung out in nightclubs.” Dershowitz also seems to hold the view that women should be blamed for prostitution. In a 1985 article in the Gainesville Sun of Florida, Dershowitz proposed that a john “who occasionally seeks to taste the forbidden fruit of sex for hire” should not be arrested.
It would seem Starr holds similarly eyebrow-raising views on sex crimes and punishment. The former Clinton independent counsel was fired from his job as president of Baylor University in 2016 in the wake of accusations he ignored sexual assault issues on campus.
“It seems very clear that he governed over a policy that was, at best, indifferent to what was happening to Baylor women,” a lawyer representing 15 women in an ongoing case against Baylor recently told NPR.
The Baylor scandal began after one of the Division I school’s football players was convicted of rape. (In July, an appeals court ordered a new trial.) During the trial it was revealed that while Baylor investigated the allegations against the player, the university took no punitive action against him. After the conviction, numerous female students came forward with additional sexual assault allegations and additional convictions eventually followed. An investigation by an outside law firm found a “fundamental failure” in the university’s handling of sexual assault cases under Starr.
There have been many lawsuits against Baylor from women who said their allegations of assault by football players were mishandled or ignored. During one such case, lawyers alleged that Starr and other university officials helped a student they knew to be accused of sexual harassment. The university eventually settled with several accusers.
There is also the matter of Starr’s most famous case, the Clinton impeachment. Many found the Starr Report, with its detailed descriptions of sex acts, perhaps needlessly prurient. In a 2018 Vanity Fair essay, Monica Lewinsky described meeting with Starr. “His demeanor, almost pastoral, was somewhere between avuncular and creepy. He kept touching my arm and elbow, which made me uncomfortable.” Lewinsky could have been speaking for many when she weighed in on Starr’s appointment last week on Twitter.
What does all this have to do with Trump? Depending on who’s counting, about two dozen women accuse the president of sexual assault or misconduct from the 1980s through the 2000s. Many of these alleged victims have provided detailed accounts, corroborating records and evidence that they shared about the nonconsensual encounters with others. Trump categorically denies each of these accusations, as he does the stories of infidelity with and hush money payments to an adult film actress and a Playboy centerfold model. But we need only listen to the president’s own words for the most revealing insight into how Trump views and treats women, from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape to his Howard Stern appearance, when he talked about getting away with “inspecting” beauty pageant contestants.
In a new book, “A Very Stable Genius,” written by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, Trump is described as “verbally and emotionally abusive” toward then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. According to the book, the president mocked Nielsen’s height and believed “she was not physically intimidating.”
Robert Porter, who served as White House staff secretary for over a year, resigned amid allegations of domestic abuse by both his former wives. These allegations were no secret to the White House. Porter’s security clearance was delayed because the FBI shared the claims with decision-makers at the White House.
And who was sitting behind Starr in one of the clips now circulating from his Clinton impeachment testimony? None other than Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee whose confirmation amid sexual misconduct allegations remains an unhealed wound.
There is a theorem that “creeps of a feather flock together.” But there’s more to it than the affinity bad men share for each other. The commonality between Trump’s approach to life and the posture of the people he’s selected to defend him echoes the “Access Hollywood” tape: “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”
Except now they — Trump, Starr and Dershowitz — are trying to collectively assault us all by defiling our Constitution. That should have every one of us, men and women alike, equally outraged.
Two former staff members at St Paul’s school still being investigated over historic sexual abuse
Jan 17 2020
Two former staff members at St Paul’s school are still being investigated over historic sexual abuse.
The Met Police on Thursday (January 16) confirmed that “on October 23 2017, police received an allegation of non-recent sexual abuse said to have taken place in the Barnes area between 2000 and 2002.”
Later, on February 15, 2018, they received an allegation of “non-recent sexual abuse said to have taken place in the Barnes area between 1988 and 1989.”
Officers from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime Command are investigating
They said they were “aware” of the Serious Case Review report published by Kingston and Richmond Local Safeguarding Children Board, but due to ongoing investigations they were not in a position to comment further.
This week (January 13) a review was published into systemic abuse over five decades at St Paul’s School in Barnes that demanded the school make an “unambiguous statement” that it accepts full responsibility for the abuse experienced by pupils at the school.
In recent years, five former staff have been convicted of sexual offences, while one former staff member stood trial and was found not guilty.
But how was it uncovered and who was convicted?
2014
Analysis by The Times newspaper showed that teachers at 130 independent schools had been implicated in sex crimes against hundreds of children.
This prompted ex-pupils and survivors to contact the newspaper and the police to tell their stories, resulting in arrests.
The police launched a criminal inquiry into decades of alleged sexual abuse at St Paul’s School and Colet’s Court (a junior division of St Paul’s Preparatory School), principally focussing on the period between the 1960s and 1990s.
A former head of history at St Paul’s received a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, for possessing indecent images of boys.
Alan Doggett, director of music at Colet Court, is named as a teacher accused of historic sexual abuse. It is revealed he was allowed to resign from the school after suspected serial abuse of a young pupil was exposed, but was then allowed to teach at the City of London School. He died by suicide in 1978 shortly after being charged with indecently assaulting a boy at another school.
It is revealed that another teacher, Paul Topham, was said to have committed offences against a boy in the late 1960s and was part of an inquiry held in 2000. However, he denied any impropriety and was not prosecuted. He died in 2012 aged 80.
2015
An ex-Classics teacher was given a four-month sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting possession of thousands of indecent images of boys on his school computer.
Operation Winthorpe, which was was initially run by the Metropolitan police’s child abuse unit, becomes part of Operation Winter Key.
This is led by Detective Superintendent Ang Scott, of Scotland Yard’s homicide and major crime command.
2016
Former PE teacher, Michael Ellis, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for indecently assaulting two teenage boys.
David Sansom-Mallett received 14 years and nine months in jail for a catalogue of abuse at Colet Court.
Another teacher who was accused of buggery and indecent assaults involving three boys was formally found not guilty after the Crown offered no evidence against him.
Court orders prevented reporting of their convictions until 2017, at the end of Patrick Marshall’s trial.
2017
Geography teacher and rowing coach Patrick Marshall is jailed for 18 years at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of 24 counts of indecent assault on 10 former pupils at St Paul’s and another school during the 1970s and 80s.
A serious case review into decades of alleged abuse is commissioned by Richmond Safeguarding Children Board.
2018
The serious case review notes that a science teacher who had previously taught at the school for 17 years was arrested in the Thames Valley Police area. He was tracked by the police having ‘sexualised’ online communication with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.
2020
The serious case review is published and demands the school make an “unambiguous statement” that it accepts full responsibility for the abuse experienced by pupils at the school.
By this point, 16 teachers alleged to have abused boys are deceased.
The report makes 28 recommendations to improve safeguarding of children, nine of which related specifically to the school.
A spokesperson from St Paul’s School, said the school accepts its recommendations.
They add: “We accept full responsibility for the past abuse experienced by pupils at the school and have previously apologised to survivors and our wider school community. Today, we repeat that apology unreservedly to those who have come forward and to those who have not felt able to. Our modern safeguarding regime is of a very high standard and we are determined to ensure, through continuous improvement of practice, that we never forget the lessons of our past.”
Dead cat strategy, or Deadcatting, refers to the introduction of a dramatic, shocking, or sensationalist topic to divert discourse away from a more damaging topic.[1][2]
The strategy, or at least the “dead cat” metaphor to describe it, is particularly associated with Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby.[3][4]
Friendship with Prince Charles made paedophile bishop Peter Ball ‘impregnable’
BBC2 documentary shows how establishment figures rallied round cleric
14 JAN 2020
The disgraced paedophile bishop Peter Ball made himself apparently “impregnable” by cultivating friendships with Prince Charles and other senior establishment figures who later rushed to support him when he was accused of sexual abuse, according to a BBC documentary.
Ball, the former bishop of both Lewes and Gloucester who died last year, boasted of his role as “counsellor to royalty”, Cliff James, one of his victims, says in the programme. He cultivated friendships with Margaret Thatcher, peers of the realm, senior judges and headmasters of leading public schools.
The former bishop was investigated by police in the early 1990s, which resulted in a police caution. In 2015, he was convicted of sexual offences against 17 teenagers and young men and jailed for 32 months. He was released in February 2017 after serving half his sentence.
The second episode of the BBC’s two-part documentary, to be broadcast on Tuesday evening, draws on the testimonies of survivors and material and evidence given to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), which conducted a case study into how the Church of England handled allegations against Ball.
James said Ball boasted of his connections. “He kept mentioning his friendship with Prince Charles in a flippant way, [as] anyone would talk about a friend – but he’s talking about Prince Charles,” he said.
“Here he was having a friendship with someone as low down as me … The next minute he’s dropping into the conversation, ‘oh, he’s counsellor to royalty’. It just reinforced his specialness and the idea he was impregnable.”
The family of Neil Todd, who made the first allegation of abuse in 1993 and killed himself in 2012, said he had been portrayed as a liar and a “mischief-maker” by Ball’s friends in high places.
At a hearing last year, the independent inquiry heard how members of the establishment, including the heir to the throne, the then archbishop of Canterbury and a senior member of the judiciary, rallied to support Ball.
“The story of Peter Ball is the story of the establishment at work in modern times,” William Chapman, representing survivors, told the inquiry. “It is the story of how the establishment minimised the nature of Peter Ball’s misdeeds … and silenced and harassed those who tried to complain.”
Prince Charles told Ball in a letter in February 1995, two years after the bishop had accepted the police caution, which was read to the inquiry: “I wish I could do more. I feel so desperately strongly about the monstrous wrongs that have been done to you and the way you have been treated.”
Charles later arranged for the Duchy of Cornwall to buy a house to be rented by Ball and his identical twin, Michael, also a bishop.
In a six-page statement to the inquiry, Charles said he had been deceived over a long period of time “about the true nature” of Ball’s activities, but denied he had sought to influence the outcome of police investigations. He said he was unsure whether he was told about Ball’s caution until 2009.
In its report published last year, the IICSA concluded that the church had put its own reputation above the needs of victims of sexual abuse, and that Charles and other members of the establishment were misguided in their expressions of support for Ball.
Review reveals scale of abuse scandal at London private school
More than 80 complaints made against 32 members of staff at St Paul’s school in Barnes
13 Jan 2020
An inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse at a leading private school for boys has revealed that more than 80 complaints have been made by former pupils against 32 members of staff covering a period spanning six decades.
An independent serious case review was set up almost three years ago to look into a proliferating number of abuse allegations at St Paul’s school in Barnes, south-west London, after five former members of staff were convicted of sexual offences.
The findings of the review, published on Monday, reveal for the first time the full scale of the allegations. In total, 59 former pupils or their families were interviewed as part of the inquiry and a number of new claims have been passed on to the police for investigation.
The majority of complaints date from the 1960s to the 1990s, but some of the staff implicated were working at the school up until 2017. While the review focused on St Paul’s, its 28 recommendations are intended to inform practice more broadly and address what it describes as gaps in the national safeguarding system.
“St Paul’s is unlikely to be different from many other institutions of its time,” the report states. “We should not judge response of the school in the past by today’s standards, but equally we should not forget that for some ex-pupils, the abuse that took place affected their school life and has continued to haunt them through adulthood.”
St Paul’s is one of the most high-profile independent schools in the country and has been attended by the likes of the former chancellor George Osborne, the fertility expert Robert Winston, the foreign correspondent John Simpson and the historian Dan Snow. Termly fees are £8,636 and boarding costs £12,997.
According to the 112-page review, at times sexual abuse appears to have been “known and tolerated by staff” at the school. The report includes details of allegations from the 1960s of boys being made to swim naked in the school pool and pupils having to remove their trousers for private caning.
The regime was described as “sadistic” and “brutal”, with physical violence when boys were struggling academically. Pupils were most at risk of sexual abuse from teachers who were friendly and seen as “cool” and who portrayed themselves as the “good guy”. One convicted abuser socialised with the rowing team in the pub; another invited boys for sherry in his study on Sundays.
The report describes grooming behaviours and “blurred boundaries” in the 1970s and 80s, with teachers buying alcohol for pupils and inviting them to their homes. One former pupil who was abused over an 18-month period said: “Once you have been groomed, when the individual strikes it is too late to get away either physically or emotionally.”
Ex-pupils told the inquiry there was a protective culture among staff and a fear that if you spoke out it would be held against you. One parent went further, saying that speaking out was impossible if you wanted to remain at the school.
The report details further physical violence in the 80s and 90s, including a teacher dragging a pupil around the classroom and throwing him out of the door and another dangling boys out of windows by their ankles.
Questions were also raised in the review about the rigorousness of recruitment practices at the school. One member of the PE team was found during the course of police investigations to have a previous conviction for gross indecency against a 15-year-old boy.
The report also details some of the consequences of the abuse. One pupil who was emotionally abused and humiliated between 2003 and 2005 experienced mental ill-health as an adult and killed himself while at university.
Since 2000 there have been four allegations of sexual abuse. Pupils and parents have become increasingly confident about speaking about abuse and the school has become increasingly aware of its responsibilities.
“We accept full responsibility for the past abuse experienced by pupils at the school and have previously apologised to survivors and our wider school community,” a spokesman for St Paul’s said.
“Today we repeat that apology unreservedly to those who have come forward and to those who have not felt able to. Our modern safeguarding regime is of a very high standard and we are determined to ensure, through continuous improvement of practice, that we never forget the lessons of our past.”
Chris Robson, the chair of the Richmond safeguarding children’s board, said: “I am grateful to the independent reviewers, professionals that worked with them and most importantly those who contributed, often giving very personal and difficult accounts. Through this process we have been able to understand what happened, why it happened and what it means for safeguarding practice going forward.”
Police won’t say where Prince Andrew’s guards were on night he’s accused of sex with teen
Jan 14 2020
EXCLUSIVE: The Met Police have come under fire after refusing to reveal where the royal’s protection team was on the day Virginia Giuffre – who was trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – claimed to have had sex with Andrew when she was 17. The Duke of York said he was at Pizza Express in Woking.
Police have come under fire for refusing to release details about Prince Andrew’s bodyguards’ movements on the night he allegedly had sex with a teenage girl.
Prince Andrew infamously claimed he was at Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, on March 10, 2001 – the day he’s accused of having sex with Virginia Roberts, now Virginia Giuffre, in London.
Virginia, who was 17 at the time, says she was trafficked by the prince’s paedophile billionaire pal, Jeffrey Epstein.
Mirror Online submitted a Freedom of Information Act request asking for details of his police bodyguards’ movements on that day – but the Met has knocked it back, claiming the information could put national security at risk and aid criminals.
“In my opinion the police are keen not to risk embarrassing the royals and are misusing legitimate exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to let themselves off the hook”?
And he continued: “The police are tasked with protecting the royals from physical harm, not from legitimate inquiry, criminal investigation or embarrassment.
“I hope this decision will be challenged as far it needs to go.”
BBC to air two-part documentary about Bishop Ball’s abuse
A NEW BBC documentary detailing the case of the serial abuser Peter Ball, a former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, and the decades-long battle of survivors to bring him to justice, is to be screened next week.
Ball was sentenced in 2015 to 32 months in prison for a series of offences, including misconduct in public office and indecent assault, more than 20 years after the first allegations against him were made (News, 7 October 2015). He served 16 months of his sentence. Further charges were allowed to lie on file. He died last year aged 87 (News, 24 June).
The two-part programme, Exposed: The Church’s dark secret, is to air on BBC2 on Monday and Tuesday nights after the watershed. It is expected to include testimonies from victims, police, and church officers, as well as dramatic reconstructions.
Darren Kemp, the programme’s executive producer, said on Friday: “Exposed: The Church’s darkest secret details the years of abuse faced by teenagers and young people at the hands of Peter Ball, and their campaign for justice, told primarily through the honest, unflinching testimony from survivors of his abuse, some of which is previously unheard.
“We wanted to make the programme to allow survivors to have a platform to tell their stories. We gained so much insight from them, not least about how systemic the abuse truly was and the long-lasting impact it still has on people to this day.”
The first hour-long episode will cover the Ball’s rise in the Church, his character, and how his power and influence allowed him to abuse young men unchallenged.
The second episode will focus on the battle survivors had to expose Ball. One of the stories will be that of the late Neil Todd. His disclosure of allegations against Ball in 1992 eventually led to the Bishop’s first arrest in 1992. Ball accepted a police caution and resigned. Mr Todd had been repeatedly abused by Ball during the 1980s and ’90s, and later took his own life.
It is understood that the C of E’s National Safeguarding Team has offered support to survivors and worked with the producers of the programme. A statement on Tuesday said: “We have supported a number of people, at their request, who have given interviews to the programme, but no official comment has been requested from the Church.”
The statement goes on to describe Ball’s actions as “a grievous abuse of trust”, and points out that the Archbishop of Canterbury had commissioned a review by Dame Moira Gibb into the Church’s handling of the case.
The documentary is expected to be heavily influenced by the Gibb report, An Abuse of Faith, which was published in 2017, and detailed the events and circumstances that eventually led to Ball’s imprisonment (News, 30 June 2017). The report strongly criticised the conduct of senior church leaders, including a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, for failing to respond to repeated expressions of concern and allegations against Ball.
The case was also the subject of a public hearing carried out by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in July 2018. The Inquiry, which has been investigating the extent to which the Anglican Church failed to protect children from sexual abuse, is due to produce its final report in the summer (News, 19 July 2018).
Twitter accused of aiding child abuse by allowing ‘explosion’ of online paedophile communities
9 Jan 2020
Twitter has been accused of aiding child abuse by allowing paedophiles to openly organise and form associations on its service.
The social network lets users discuss their “attraction towards minors” and talk about child abuse as a phenomenon as long as they do not “promote or glorify” actual child abuse “in any way”.
The result has been to create an online home for self-declared “non-offending” paedophiles, who often call themselves “minor-attracted persons” (MAPs) and declare their “age of attraction” in their user profiles.
‘Wicked’ ex-care home boss John Allen jailed over further historical child sex offences
The 78-year-old, already serving a life sentence sentence, has been convicted of eight further offences against boys
8 Jan 2020
Allen ran several Bryn Alyn community children’s homes based in the Wrexham area denied all 16 charges of indecent assault, two of illegal sex acts and two of trying to carry out other illegal sexual acts.
The jury found guilty him guilty of seven counts of indecent assault and one of a serious sexual offence against children who at the time had been placed in his care.
Letter sent to @JustinWelby@HowardDellar about secretive masonic-style clubs connected to @churchofengland and whether they should have register of members & interests. Also sent to @churchstate and all bishops in House of Lords. Emails redacted.
MI5/Cabinet Office material related to Straubenzee – former President of Nobody’s which dines @lambethpalace and hosts congratulatory speeches during the mint thins. One of the most exclusive and powerful dinner clubs in Britain.
Straubenzee in Nobody’s. Sir Michael Havers also member. As Attorney General, he made sure the Hughes Inquiry into Kincora had a ludicrously restricted TOR. Armstrong received the MI5 files and passed them to Thatcher. All 3 men were Nobody’s.
…David Greenwood’s chronicle of the Peter Ball affair in a privately published book,Basically Innocent. This appeared a day or two before Christmas. It contains a factual and yet horrifying account of Ball’s abuses and the subsequent establishment cover-up of his behaviour. Then on the 27th/28th came the extensive further Telegraph coverage of the Jonathan Fletcher affair. The newspaper and the journalist Gabriella Swerling have evidently been working hard on the story since they published their first exposé about Fletcher back in June. What they have produced is fascinating, not merely for the details of alleged abuses, but for the way that the paper has made many connections between individuals and institutions.
The stories about Ball and Fletcher have proved to be as much about institutional behaviour and misbehaviour as that of individuals. Each man offended in the context of having a senior institutional role. In neither case did the institutions involved seems capable of checking the behaviour of their senior representatives. Nor did they show much remorse after the nefarious deeds had been exposed. These institutional failures will probably be what is remembered by history. Individuals have been seriously harmed, not only by the actions of evil men, but by the subsequent failure of institutions that should have protected them and helped them to heal.
…the deceitful tricks used by Ball’s allies to harass and undermine those who accused him of wrongdoing. The then Bishop of Chichester, Dr Eric Kemp, oversaw a policy of non-cooperation and obstruction of the police in their legitimate enquiries. Questions of truth and falsehood and good and bad seemed not to play any part in his calculations. All that seemed to matter was a determination to protect ‘one of us’, Peter Ball, together with the good name of the institution that he had done so much to dishonour. Obstructing the pursuit of justice by a considerable number of distinguished Ball supporters is a key part of the Greenwood account.
…consistent pattern of spiritually exploitative manipulative behaviour that seemed designed merely to satisfy the narcissistic and sexual needs of the abuser. But, once again the story is remarkable, not just for these actions but for the way that countless other people have been involved as bystanders or protectors. Back in October I wrote a blog piece http://survivingchurch.org/2019/10/03/the-jonathan-fletcher-story-continues/ on Fletcher commenting on the fact that no fresh news since the Telegraph stories of June had emerged into the public domain on the scandal. That said to me that large numbers of people in the Iwerne/ReNew/Church Society group had been ordered to keep quiet on the topic.
As far as I can determine, almost everybody in the ReNew/REFORM/Iwerne network knew Fletcher and this is particularly true of the leaders in that group. The leaders cannot have been ignorant of Fletcher’s style of ministry and his reputation for spiritually abusive behaviour. If they were surprised at the revelations and the 2017 withdrawal of his Permission to Officiate, why has there been no protestation to this effect? It was also extraordinary that an individual with a very high profile should suddenly almost disappear from any mention on the net. Someone with the authority to do so must have spent hours searching for online references to Fletcher and removing them one by one.
That piece of work has now been rendered void by the Telegraph reporting. The publicity machines at both Church House and wherever the centre of ReNew is to be found will be working very hard this week-end to try and undo the enormous damage to the reputation of the Church that has been incurred by the Telegraph stories.
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is officially dissolved tomorrow. It was launched 27 years ago, claiming that adults disclosing child sexual abuse were suffering from a “syndrome” of vivid false memories of abuse.
No such “syndrome” exists – it is, ironically enough, a false syndrome. The organization arose to contest law reform in the United States that expanded opportunities for sexual abuse survivors to pursue civil or criminal charges, and then quickly spread to other countries.
@jennykitzinger published a fantastic book in 2004 examining media sympathy and journalistic advocacy for the “false memory” movement throughout the 1990s.
Almost every CSA survivor that I’ve ever interviewed has discussed the destructive impact of widespread media coverage of “false memories” on their lives.
Abusive minister writing intimidating letters to victims telling them he is ‘praying for them’, it is revealed
CBE for Stephen Slack, recently-retired Chief Legal Advisor to the Church of England. In 2007 Slack advised bishops “not to apologise too fully to sex abuse victims”.
Jonathan Fletcher: son of a cabinet minister, village vicar, ‘gifted preacher’ and ‘acquaintance’ of abusive QC
Details have emerged of the allegations against the Revd Jonathan Fletcher, who was Minister of Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon, from 1982 to 2012, and an influential figure among Evangelicals in the Church of England.
EDUCATION AND ESTABLISHMENT
Born in 1942 to Lord Eric Fletcher, a Labour politician who served in Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s first government, Jonathan Fletcher was well-accustomed to mixing with the upper echelons of society.
However it was not just the political elite which was familiar to Mr Fletcher, he was also revered
for his ferocious intelligence, “magnetic” personality and charisma. Such attributes were bolstered by his prestigious education at Repton School, which was also attended by Roald Dahl, and which has current annual boarding fees of around £35,000. All this, combined with his enthusiasm in mentoring young trainee ministers, ensured his reputation as a “gifted preacher”.
As a young man, Mr Fletcher went on to study at Hertford College at the University of Oxford where he received a BA in 1966. He later returned to the university to continue his studies at Wycliffe Hall, an Anglican theological training college.
In subsequent years he would serve in a governor-like role on the council for Wycliffe Hall, helping to ensure it ran smoothly in selecting staff and managing budgets. Until 2013 he was a director of Stowe School, a selective independent school with more than a dozen boarding houses.
Following his graduation, Fletcher continued to mix in privileged circles throughout his adult life. In 1983 he became a member of ‘Nobody’s Friends’ – the High Church private dining club for senior clerical and lay leaders which meets at Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The club was founded in 1800 and over the years its membership has been comprised of many bishops, archbishops, headmasters of top schools, church lawyers, Tory peers, Admiralty and judicial figures as well as leaders of the House of Lords.
Peter Ball with Prince Charles in 1992. The former Bishop’s victims, many of them teenage boys, described approaching him for spiritual guidance and being asked to strip naked, take cold showers while he watched, masturbate him, submit to beatings, or sleep naked with him.
His victims, many of them teenage boys, described approaching him for spiritual guidance and being asked to strip naked, take cold showers while he watched, masturbate him, submit to beatings, or sleep naked with him.
Last year the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) turned its attention to the diocese of Chichester, where abuse had been widespread. Due to the disgraced bishop’s influential and powerful connections, Ball’s case has been accused of being dealt special treatment and required the presence of multiple witnesses to answer the charge of a cover-up at the IICSA hearings.
Fletcher was the vicar at Emmanuel church in Wimbledon, southwest London, for 30 years from 1982 until 2012, which is where current allegations of spiritual abuse were levelled against him.
Prior to that he had also ministered at other high-profile churches including St Helens Bishopsgate and at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Cambridge, which is more commonly known as The Round Church and is the city’s second oldest building. Today, as when Rev’d Fletcher served there, it is a church that attracts many young students.
However, Fletcher also held a myriad of other responsibilities and links in conservative evangelical circles in the UK, such as that with the Iwerne camps (the ministry of which was taken over, in 1997, by its successor organisation ‘The Titus Trust’).
Mr Fletcher attended the camps from the age of 14, in 1956 – and went on to become a regular speaker and dorm leader. Iwerne was led by his brother David, who was also the minister of St. Ebbes’ Church, Oxford.
One of the most powerful conservative groups within the Church of England is ‘ReNew’ – the brainchild of Rev. William Taylor of St. Helens, Bishopsgate.
ReNew grew out of a merger of ‘Church Society’ and ‘Reform’
The former society is an evangelical Anglican organisation aiming “to reform and renew the Church of England in biblical faith” and regularly published materials promoting Mr Fletcher’s vision for the Church. The latter held Mr Fletcher as a trustee and senior leader.
Mr Fletcher was also a co-founder of the Proclamation Trust, a charity which has trained many ministers now serving within the Church and has hosted lectures and apprenticeships for students. The former vicar often had the young apprentices living with him while serving at his church.
The conservative movement has led the opposition to the ministry of women and homosexuals within the Church. For decades, Mr Fletcher has been at the heart of its senior leadership.
Yet it is the Iwerne Christian summer camps where it is claimed that he first met some of his alleged victims. Both Fletcher brothers were well known to participants and would regularly frequent the religious camps.
ALLEGED LINKS TO SMYTH
Jonathan Smyth QC was chair of the Iwerne Trust, which ran the summer camps, during the 1970s and 80s. Smyth was later accused of subjecting young boys to vicious sadomasochistic beatings. However, he died of a heart attack aged 77 in August 2018.
The part-time judge and Church of England lay reader was due to be extradited to the UK from his home in Cape Town to be interviewed by Hampshire police about the allegations that he had administered beatings to boys at his home. The force opened an investigation in 2017 into the claims following an exposé by Channel 4 News.
The Iwerne Trust invited boys and young men from public schools and top universities to attend holiday camps, which aimed to ensure that future generations of the establishment were committed Christians.
A then unpublished report commissioned by the Iwerne Trust in 1982 described Smyth’s “horrific” beatings of teenage boys. However, even then, he was not reported to the police. The report was commissioned by Jonathan Fletcher’s brother, Rev’d David Fletcher.
It was not until 2017 when the allegations of abuse emerged.
Smyth later relocated to Cape Town. Six months before his death, he was removed as a leader of his local church following claims of inappropriate behaviour and a “heavy-handed style of leadership”.
After the allegations against Smyth emerged, at the time, the Archbishop said he had been “completely unaware” of any abuse by Smyth when he worked at the camps, and that he first knew of the allegations in 2013.
He recalled Smyth as “a charming, delightful, very clever, brilliant speaker”, but said he “wasn’t in his inner circle”. He also issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the Church of England, admitting that it had “failed terribly” to tackle institutional abuse.
Another abuser at the Iwerne camps is known to have been the deceased Simon Doggart. He went on to be headmaster of Caldicott preparatory school in Buckinghamshire. Mr Fletcher attended his funeral.
THE JONATHAN FLETCHER SCANDAL
This summer The Telegraph unmasked Jonathan Fletcher as the leading Church minister who had been banned from preaching following allegations of abuse.
In 2017 he was stripped of his Church preaching powers by the Bishop of Southwark after complaints were made to Emmanuel Church. Rev’d Vaughan Roberts, director of the Proclamation Trust, responded by sharing some information about Mr Fletcher’s activities, at the organisation’s annual conference for ministers. Mr Roberts was himself a leader on the Iwerne/Titus Trust camps, and leads the church previously run by Rev’d David Fletcher.
However despite having his permission to officiate (PTO) – a Church licence to practice – revoked two-years-ago, this newspaper revealed that Mr Fletcher had continued to travel around the world giving sermons.
He had repeatedly flouted his preaching ban to speak around the world and travelled throughout the UK, Europe and New Zealand giving talks.
Southwark Diocese confirmed that the allegations centred around a “risk of him behaving towards vulnerable adults who may be seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful”.
Yet now he faces allegations of “similarities” with this acquaintance; not only did he abuse his position of trust, but also engaged in beatings and spiritual abuse.
Mr Fletcher retired as a minister before allegations were lodged against him five years later, triggering a police investigation.
Since complaints were made in 2017, the Church has received further allegations against Mr Fletcher in September 2018. Again officers concluded that a police investigation was not required.
After the allegations emerged, Mr Fletcher was asked and agreed to withdraw from all aspects of his ministry and urged to not attend his former church.
Today The Telegraph has published the first interviews with his alleged victims who claim they were subjected to repeated sexually inappropriate comments and questions about masturbation, intimate massages, beatings, ice baths, bullying and intimidation over a number of years. Mr Fletcher has said he is “deeply, deeply sorry for anybody that I have hurt or harmed in any way,” adding that “anything that happened was totally consensual and non-sexual”
INDEPENDENT REVIEW
Earlier this month, Thirtyone: eight, the UK’s only independent Christian safeguarding charity, announced a review concerning Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church.
The church commissioned the independent project, which is expected to report findings by May 2020.
“The review will enable the voices of those impacted by the behaviour of Jonathan Fletcher to be expressed, heard and considered alongside other contextual information and concerns from other relevant sources,” a spokesman said.
After the allegations against Mr Fletcher emerged this summer, the church asked victims to come forward and share their testimonies. It is understood that these will now be passed to the charity for inclusion in its review. It is expected to be published by May 2020.
‘Victims’ of Church of England preacher reveal allegations of naked beatings, ice baths and massages
26 Dec 2019
One of the Church of England’s leading evangelical figures could face a criminal investigation, as victims of his abuse spoke out for the first time about being subjected to naked ice baths, beatings and massages.
Rev Jonathan Fletcher, 77, was banned from preaching after it emerged that he had “spiritually abused” vulnerable adults at the London church where he used to minister, the Daily Telegraph revealed in June.
Now five alleged victims – all men who wish to remain anonymous – have come forwards to detail the spiritual, psychological and physical abuse they claim to have suffered.
A number of Mr Fletcher’s alleged victims are also seeking legal advice to explore grounds for a criminal investigation amid claims that Mr Fletcher abused his power.
This is the same charge faced by the late disgraced bishop Peter Ball – a friend of Prince Charles who was jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing 18 young men over three decades. He admitted charges of indecent assault and misconduct in a public office.
Fletcher was a leading evangelical figurehead within the Church of England as well as vicar of Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon, south-west London, from 1982 until his retirement in 2012.
Despite being stripped of his Church powers by the Bishop of Southwark in 2017 after allegations against him emerged, the former vicar repeatedly flouted the ban and travelled throughout the UK, Europe and New Zealand giving talks.
Mr Fletcher has since admitted to subjecting a prayer group to naked beatings as “light-hearted forfeits” if they failed to maintain “healthy and holy living”.
Victims have now told The Telegraph they were subjected to repeated sexually inappropriate comments and questions about masturbation, intimate massages, beatings, ice baths, bullying and intimidation over a number of years.
Some claimed they were beaten in what was referred to as “six of the best with a gym shoe on a bare backside”. Mr Fletcher also allegedly asked to be beaten in mutual punishment for watching pornography or masturbating.
He allegedly told one victim: ‘I’m afraid I have not fulfilled promises [about not masturbating] weeks ago, it happened on this occasion,’ before asking to be beaten.
All alleged victims told The Telegraph that despite reporting their concerns to Emmanuel Church, where he was something of a “benign dictator”, their concerns were neither taken seriously nor acted upon.
The five men described their former vicar as “charming” and a “magnetic” “gifted preacher” “with a good sense of humour”.
Yet they also believe he was “manipulative and controlling” and sat “as judge, jury and executioner on whether you were fit for ministry” – a combination of characteristics which resulted in, they allege, an abuse of his power.
Some of the five men also claimed that Fletcher performed oil-based naked or partially-clothed massages on them – or requested them to massage him – and insisted that they join him in a naked sauna which made them feel “uncomfortable”.
They also alleged that he would “humiliate” and make derogatory comments about peoples’ bodies, and that staff meetings at Emmauel Church were intimidating and “laden with homoerotic” nicknames for the former vicar.
One man said that the former minister’s actions left him “feeling dirty, ashamed” and “mistrustful” of others.
Another said the abuse left him feeling like “a neglected and abused dog”. “The bullying and damage it did to my confidence was the hardest part,” another added.
“While you’re there you see the influence and the power Jonathan has and he has all his connections, up and down the country…
“We don’t feel that we can go anywhere, basically,” he added. “There’s no one high up that we trust, basically…
“We desperately want the truth to be told. We want the truth to come out so that victims can feel free to tell their story as well.”
Another added: “As much as we don’t want to wash our dirty laundry in public, sometimes it is necessary to speak openly about wrongdoing in order to comfort victims in their distress and to encourage others to come forward so that the full extent of what’s happened can be addressed.”
The claims surrounding Fletcher have previously triggered a police investigation, but the Diocese of Southwark said that officers concluded there were no grounds for further action.
One alleged victim said last night: “There should be a criminal investigation into not only Jonathan’s activities but also how witnesses have been silenced.”
Richard Scorer, specialist abuse lawyer at Slater & Gordon, who acts for many victims of abuse by clergy, as well as one alleged victim of Mr Fletcher, said: “Fletcher’s behaviour over many years has been profoundly abusive and harmful.
“I believe that those who have been harmed by him are likely to have legal claims against the church which harboured and promoted him. I urge all who have been affected to come forward and tell their stories including to the review process”.
A spokeswoman for Emmanuel Church said that it has commissioned an independent review concerning Fletcher and the church to be undertaken by the safeguarding organisation, .
Alleged victims are being encouraged to participate in the review, and the findings are expected to be published by May.
“The review will enable the voices of those impacted by Jonathan Fletcher to be expressed, heard and considered alongside other contextual information and concerns from other relevant sources,” the spokeswoman added.
Fletcher denied allegations that he humiliated people and made derogatory comments about their appearances.
However he said that massages and beatings were consensual and that he never gave ice baths, but did “very, very, very rarely” give “a cold bath”. “Anything that happened was totally consensual and non-sexual,” he added. “The punishments were a) consensual, and b) mutual.”
Jonathan Fletcher Timeline
1956: Fletcher attends his first Iwerne Christian summer camp, aged 14
1968: Fletcher’s brother, Rev David Fletcher, takes over leadership of the Iwerne camps
1968-72: Fletcher becomes curate at Christ Church, Enfield
1972-76: Fletcher becomes Curate at the Round Church, Cambridge
1974: John Smyth QC began chairing the Iwerne Trust
1976: Fletcher left the Round Church for St. Helens, Bishopsgate
1982: The Ruston Report written by David Fletcher reveals Smyth’s abuse. This was an internal report circulated among Iwerne Trustees.
1982: Fletcher and Smyth spoke together on a Iwerne camp
1982: Fletcher becomes vicar of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon
1983: Fletcher elected to Nobody’s Friends, a private dining club at Lambeth Palace
1984: Smyth moves to Zimbabwe
1997: Iwerne Trust becomes Titus Trust. Rev David Fletcher becomes its trustee.
2002: Smyth moves to South Africa
2012: Fletcher retires as vicar of Emmanuel Church
October 2015: Peter Ball, the disgraced former Anglican bishop who was sent to prison for sexual offences against 18 young men, was jailed. He served 16 months of his 32 month sentence. He is the first cleric to be convicted of misconduct in public office and indecent assault.
February 2017: Fletcher stripped of his Permission to Officiate (PTO). Channel 4 reveals abuse by Smyth.
August 2018: Smyth dies
June 2019: The Telegraph unmasks Fletcher as the leading Church of England preacher stripped of his PTO amid allegations that he spiritually abused vulnerable adults
December 2019: The independent Christian charity, Thirtyone:eight, is commissioned by Emmanuel Church to undertake an independent lessons learnt review concerning Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church. The findings will be published by May 2020.
Fifth coach accused of child sex abuse at Celtic Boys Club
Dec 23, 2019
A fifth coach at Celtic FC’s feeder club has been accused of child sex abuse, The Times can disclose.
Four senior figures at Celtic Boys Club have been convicted of molesting dozens of young players over four decades.
Now Lyness Malley, a former coach and official with the boys’ club, has been accused of repeatedly abusing a young player at Barrowfield, a Glasgow training ground owned by the senior club.
Mr Malley, 81, strongly denies the claims, insisting that they are malicious and motivated by a desire for revenge after he dropped his accuser from his team. He accepted that he had regularly massaged the thighs of his players with oil but said there was no sexual motivation behind it. He said that he had never touched boys inappropriately.
Civil action is being prepared against Celtic FC over its alleged failure to protect the boy from abuse, said to have taken place in 1969 and 1970.
A number of further court summonses are due to be served against Celtic FC by Thompsons solicitors, which is representing about 20 abuse survivors, early next year.
Mr Malley, who served over decades as a coach, treasurer and minutes secretary with the boys’ club, was interviewed by police in connection with the allegations but the case did not proceed because of a lack of corroboration — an essential requirement in Scots law.
Thompsons alleges that Celtic FC failed to carry out “suitable and sufficient checks” on youth coaches and did not monitor them appropriately.
While expressing “regret and sorrow” for the victims, Celtic FC has refused to accept responsibility for abuse, where found, within the boys’ club — insisting it was an entirely separate organisation.
Mr Malley said he had always acted appropriately with the children. “I’m not that type of person,” he told The Times. “I have done nothing wrong.”
Mr Malley, who also held a senior position with the Scottish Youth Club Association, added that he had no memory of his accuser.
In February Frank Cairney, 83, former manager of the boys’ club, was convicted of sexually abusing young footballers and was jailed. He had his sentence reduced last month.
In May Jim McCafferty, 73, a former Celtic FC kit man and boys’ club coach, admitted 12 child sexual abuse charges and was jailed for six years.
Last year Gerald King, 66, one-time chairman of the boys’ club was convicted of abusing four boys and a girl. Jim Torbett, 71, who helped to found it, was jailed for six years.
Mr Malley, who was involved with the feeder club from 1969 until the late 1980s, said he had no inkling that systematic abuse had been taking place.
Thompsons solicitors urged abuse victims to come forward. Celtic FC did not respond to a request for comment.
Clare Bronfman, Nxivm financier, has sentencing postponed
December 19, 2019
A Brooklyn federal judge informed Seagram heiress and Nxivm financier Clare Bronfman Thursday that he’s considering giving her more prison time than recommended under federal guidelines — and postponed her scheduled Jan. 8 sentencing date.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis on Thursday pushed Bronfman’s sentencing date to Feb. 14 after informing her attorneys that he might put her behind bars for longer than the recommended 21 to 27 months.
Bronfman pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to harbor immigrants for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification.
Garaufis did not provide an explanation as to why he is considering a harsher sentence for Bronfman, although he has discretion under the law to give her up to 25 years in prison.
Her attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
She did not testify against Raniere, who will face a minimum of 15 years in prison when he appears for sentencing on Jan. 17, 2020.
Raniere co-founded Nxivm in the 1990s as a self-help organization. But in 2015, he formed DOS, a secret society within the group intended to exalt Raniere’s teachings — and to provide him with sex slaves.
On Thursday, prosecutors from the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn requested that victims be allowed to provide impact statements during sentencing proceedings for Raniere, Bronfman, Nxivm bookkeeper Kathy Russell and Nxivm members Allison Mack — the former “Smallville” actress — Lauren Salzman and Nancy Salzman.
Bronfman, 40, is the youngest daughter of Seagram liquor chairman and billionaire Edgar Bronfman Sr.
Clare Bronfman, who never earned a high-school degree, had a previous career as an elite equestrian show jumper and is partial owner of an island in Fiji.
She and her sister, Sara, fell in with Raniere — who went by the moniker “Vanguard” within the organization — through the group’s “Executive Success Program” workshops.
Clare Bronfman eventually used her family fortune to bankroll the group, prosecutors alleged, and aided Raniere by paying off his credit-card debt and helping him get an illegal immigrant into the US.
All defendants except Raniere have consented to allowing the victims to address the court without disclosing their identities.
Raniere’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request to comment on why he has objected to the request.
Filed under cults , nxivm , sentencing , sexual abuse
Controversial barrister suspended for two years over ‘obscene’ tweets
Barbara Hewson banned from practice over foul-mouthed social media posts
A controversial barrister has been suspended for two years for “obscene” and “abusive” language on social media.
Barbara Hewson, formerly of 1 Gray’s Inn Square, was found by a disciplinary tribunal to have breached professional misconduct rules in her tweeting and blogging.
A Bar Standards Board (BSB) spokesperson said that the decision “demonstrates the serious consequences that can arise from such offensive and abusive behaviour online”.
Hewson, a civil liberties and public law specialist, has long courted controversy with her views on child sexual abuse and confrontational manner in expressing them. In a 2013 blog post, she called the Operation Yewtree investigation into historic sex offences “a far graver threat to society than anything Jimmy Savile ever did”.
Hewson has engaged in a particularly heated online dispute with family barrister Sarah Phillimore, initially about child protection issues but which quickly turned personal. Phillimore went to the police in 2017 and lodged several complaints with the BSB.
Phillimore has said that Hewson’s past behaviour included telling her “fuck off” and calling her a “nasty C**t” and “continually making references to my daughter when she knows full well that her tweets are ‘liked’ and ‘retweeted’ by at least one convicted and unrepentant paedophile”.
The BSB has not published any details of what exactly led to the suspension, referring only to “a series of tweets between 2017 and 2019” and a recent blog post. These, it said, were:
“Seriously offensive, abusive and publicly disparaging towards another barrister, including some which were directed at that barrister’s competence and reputation; obscene or seriously offensive in terms of the language used; and disparaging of the BSB’s regulatory process thereby undermining public trust and confidence in that process and thus in the profession.”
Phillimore tweeted: “I hope she uses the time to reflect and can return to practice and do some good. She’s done precious little these last four years”.
A BSB spokesperson said:
“As the tribunal found, and Ms Hewson accepted, a barrister’s actions on social media can diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in individual barristers and the profession. The tribunal’s decision to suspend her from practice for two years demonstrates the serious consequences that can arise from such offensive and abusive behaviour online.”
Barbara Hewson was today sentenced to a 2-year suspension based on only a fraction of the accusations made against her. Had @barstandards taken into account her evil treatment of the family of Katrice Lee, I’m sure it would have been disbarment.
Hewson and @barstandards contained and reduced this to what they could sell to the public as a spat between two barristers whilst at the same time providing her and her counsel with a platform to disparage and slander those who she has has traduced over the years.
“…are you the Barbara Hewson that’s stated that CSA survivors are “mucho whingers”??
Barbara Hewson: that I have done honey
12 Dec 2019
“Barbara Hewson has been suspended from practice for two years. Her tweets & blog were found to be seriously offensive, abusive & publicly disparaging towards another barrister, obscene or seriously offensive in terms of the language used, and disparaging of the BSB’s processes”.
Tribunal chairman says thatBarbara Hewson’s online comments about a 14-year-old girl [Sarah Phillimore’s daughter] was “an extremely worrying aspect of this case.”
He adds: “There has been no satisfactory explanation.”
Tribunal chairman puts it to Barbara Hewson’s counsel that her tweets about a 14-year-old girl would inevitably have triggered fear in the girl.
Barrister Barbara Hewson ordered to be suspended from practice for two years
18 Dec 2019
Barrister Barbara Hewson was ordered to be suspended from practice for two years by an independent disciplinary tribunal at a hearing which concluded on 18 December, following charges of professional misconduct brought by the Bar Standards Board (BSB).
The tribunal’s decision comes after Ms Hewson posted a series of tweets between 2017 and 2019, and after she published a blog in 2019, which were:
seriously offensive, abusive and publicly disparaging towards another barrister, including some which were directed at that barrister’s competence and reputation;
obscene or seriously offensive in terms of the language used; and
disparaging of the BSB’s regulatory process thereby undermining public trust and confidence in that process and thus in the profession.
Commenting on the order to suspend, a BSB spokesperson said:
“As the Tribunal found, and Ms Hewson accepted, a barrister’s actions on social media can diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in individual barristers and the profession. The tribunal’s decision to suspend her from practice for two years demonstrates the serious consequences that can arise from such offensive and abusive behaviour online.”
The tribunal’s decision is open to appeal.
About Barbara Hewson
Barbara Hewson was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Middle Temple in November 1985.
Sir Ron Brierley reportedly arrested at Sydney airport, charged with possession of child pornography
17 December 2019
Sir Ron Brierley in 1998, left, and in 1988, right.
One of New Zealand’s wealthiest and most respected businessmen, Sir Ron Brierley, has reportedly been arrested at Sydney Airport and charged with possession of child pornography.
The 82 year old corporate raider – who founded R A Brierley Investments, New Zealand’s largest listed company until the 1987 crash – has sat on numerous company boards in his home country, in Australia and the UK.
When in Sydney, he resides in Australia’s most expensive street, Point Piper’s Wolseley Road.
According to NSW Police, detectives from Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command commenced an investigation into the possession of child abuse material in the local area in August.
Laptop searched
On Tuesday, an 82 year old was stopped by Australian Border Force officers at Mascot airport about 6.30 am while trying to board a plane for Fiji, police said.
“The man’s carry-on luggage was searched before the contents of his laptop and electronic storage devices were reviewed, which are alleged to have contained large amounts of child abuse material,” the police statement said.
“The Point Piper man was taken to Mascot Police Station and charged with six counts of possess child abuse material.”
Abuse headteacher left estate to ex-council leader and priest to clear his name after death
16 December 2019
A paedophile headmaster gave half his estate to an ex-leader of Islington Council in the hope it could be used to clear his name, the Gazette can reveal.
Derek Slade died in March 2016 while serving a 21-year sentence at Norwich Prison for the physical and sexual abuse of boys.
Slade admitted to more than 50 charges including sexual assault, beatings and child pornography at private schools in Norfolk and Suffolk, between 1978 and 1983, at Ipswich Crown Court in February 2010.
Derek Sawyer, a former Islington Council leader and Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency agent until March 2010, had helped set up one of the schools with Slade.
Slade later led Sawyer to believe that he had assumed a new identity legitimately. Mr Sawyer later helped Slade find work in schools abroad under his new identity, after Slade’s earlier conviction for physically assaulting boys in 1986.
After the 2010 conviction, Mr Sawyer said in 2011 that the pair had had only “intermittent” contact over 40 years and he had been “taken in and used”.
Islington Council leader, Derek Sawyer, and then-chair of social services Sandy Marks at a 1993 press conference on the first report into child abuse in the Islington’s care homes. Picture: Evening Standard
Documents that have now been seen by the Gazette show he inherited half the convicted paedophile’s money, possessions and belongings after he died.
When asked for comment, Derek Sawyer told the Gazette: “I have always made it clear that I utterly condemn Derek Slade’s behaviour and the crimes for which he was convicted, which I find abhorrent.
“I had no involvement with the drawing up of the will. I had not seen it before Slade’s death and did not know its contents. The will was handed to a firm of solicitors to deal with.”
Most of the money went towards legal costs, Mr Sawyer said – and, as Slade had instructed, looking into the possibility of an appeal.
The two executors in Slade’s willwere Mr Sawyer, whose signature is on the 2012 document, and the Rev Robin Sanders, a former deputy head at the Suffolk boarding school who went on to become a Catholic priest.
A 2012 report by the Prison Ombudsman into Slade’s death noted that one of them, described as a “friend” named as Slade’s next of kin, also regularly visited him in prison.
The Rev Sanders confirmed this was him. In 2010, he said, “I was very shocked by what was revealed about Mr Slade, condemn utterly his behaviour and deplore what his victims suffered.”
But he added: “Especially in view of the long time he faced in prison I did not consider it right to break contact with him.”
In his hand-written will, Slade had written: “Whereas my blood and familial relatives have renounced contact and ties with me… I hereby instruct my executors to ensure that none of my relatives benefit in any way whatsoever from my estate.”
He asked them to sell his house in Burton-on-Trent, with leftover cash to be used to try to clear his name. The property sold for £95,000 in late 2017.
Slade wrote: “…if my appeal to have some of my convictions quashed have not been completed successfully… the monies shall be utilised to pursue my case”.
The paedophile asked to be cremated and for his ashes to be scattered in international waters.
He also directed for £1,000 to be given to an organisation only named as “the 1996 Society” and be spent within 12 months “solely for good living”.
When asked what this referred to, Mr Sawyer said: “The 1996 Society does not exist.”
Derek Sawyer, now 70, was the leader of Islington Council between 1992 and 1994, when inquiries into the child sex abuse scandal at Islington’s care homes were first taking place.
He went on to become chairman of the London Courts Board and was a founding member of Islington’s local policing board, a trustee of charity Crime Concern and director of youth offending charity Catch-22.
He also set up a book publishing company with Slade, Oriflamme Publishing Limited, which is still operating from Mr Sawyer’s house in Finsbury Park.
It is understood that despite still co-owning the company, Mr Sawyer is not profiting from it and Slade did not receive royalties in prison.
Mr Sawyer also wrote a job reference for Slade under his false name, Edward Marsh, which helped him gain a senior position at a school in Swaziland.
Dr Liz Davies, who heads the 200-strong Islington Survivors’ Network, said she had contacted Islington Council’s head of safeguarding and local authority designated officer with concerns about Mr Sawyer and Slade’s relationship in 2016.
She said: “ISN raised the issue when we became aware of the reference. They had sight of this but there was no interest whatsoever.”
Boris Johnson parties with girlfriend Carrie Symonds as he celebrates historic election victory alongside A-list celebrities Mick Jagger, Anna Friel, Princess Beatrice… and even ex-PM David Cameron and wife Samantha
14 December 2019
The Prime Minister, 55, walked side by side with his 31-year-old girlfriend as he arrived at a private London residence for a Christmas party held by Russian tycoon and owner of the Evening Standard Evgeny Lebedev.
Wearing the same suit he was seen in while addressing the country from the steps of 10 Downing Street, Mr Johnson was joined by a host of other famous faces including Sir Bob Geldof, David Hasselhoff and Jemima Goldsmith.
Last night’s London party was packed with notable guests from the worlds of showbusiness and politics including actress Sadie Frost, model Lily Cole and journalist Rachel Johnson, the PM’s sister – who yesterday admitted to never having met Ms Symonds.
Princess Beatrice and her husband to be Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi were also at the event, along with Princess Eugenie
Former Labour MP Peter Mandelson who masterminded Tony Blair’s landslide election win in 1997, was also there
Last night’s star-studded Christmas party line-up included: Daisy Lowe, Matt Smith, Jemima Goldsmith and Sadie Frost with boyfriend Darren Strowger, Anna Friel, artist Tracey Emin,and author and comedian David Walliams, Lord Freddie Windsor and wife Sophie Winkleman attended the Christmas party, along with model Lily Cole, comedian Eddie Izzard, who joined Labour candidates on the campaign trail during the election campaign,
Hang on, isn’t that guest speaker at Arcuri’s InnoTech Summit with BoJo our dear friend Alexander ‘Lord’ Carlile? The man who rushed to the defence of the paedophile Greville Janner and shared an office with Cyril Smith?
Paul Boateng with Michael Jackson (in Epstein’s black book), Mossad’s Uri Geller, Greville Janner and David Blaine (in Epstein’s black book)
Fraudster Gerald Ronson and his wife Gail had several listings in Epstein’s black book, although Gail denies having met him. Gerald – VP of NSPCC and friend of Greville Janner – is related to Leon Brittan of Barnes Common and Malcolm Cash-for-Access Rifkind of Dunblane.
One family Together charity
UK
Honorary Patrons:
Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks,
Lord Janner of Braunstone,
Professor Alan Dershowitz (Epstein friend and alleged abuser)
Patrons
Dame Gail & Gerald Ronson (in Epstein’s black book)
Following the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal, Barrister Barbara Hewson has suggested lowering the age of consent to 13 and waiving anonymity for complainants in an effort to stop the “persecution of old men” in a May 8th article for the online publication Spiked.
Barrister son Daniel Janner
@Barbara Hewson pleased to be following your important tweets. Daniel Janner
Daniel Janner: Looking forward to Boris splaffing IICSA up the wall.
Boris Johnson has said that spending police budgets on historical child abuse is “spaffing money up the wall”.
@SusanShooter
Anyone who can use the term for “ejaculating up” in the same sentence as Child Sexual Abuse has no morality or decency. Obviously they have never listened to – & heard – a survivor who, as a child, was raped by a man. Or if they have, they live in sympathy with the man
Boris Johnson has said that spending police budgets on historical child abuse is “spaffing money up the wall”.
Silver spoon: The power and privilege of Britain’s private schools
@jebrittan2
On Johnsons’ education at Pederasty Towers “It was a textbook case of a child who had been ruptured from her family, neglected and all the rest of it… [but] we rationalise it by saying ‘it never did me any harm’ – right until we actually decide it did.”
We tumbled to it quite late that actually we’d been in an institution that was rife with abuse,” says Rachel Johnson. “We’d normalised it in our heads for so long.”
Johnson, a journalist and author, daughter of a politician and an artist, and younger sister of the UK foreign secretary Boris, went (for complicated and eccentric Johnson-family reasons) to a boys’ prep school, Ashdown, the same as her brother.
Downside boarding school monk ‘ignored abuse of pupil’
12 December 2019
A former pupil of a catholic boarding school said the “terrible” bullying he suffered from other pupils was ignored by a monk at the nearby abbey.
Downside School in Stratton-on-the-Fosse in Somerset was until recently closely affiliated with Downside Abbey, and some of the teachers were monks.
The ex-pupil, identified only as Jason, said the monk failed to protect him from the mental and physical “abuse”.
Downside apologised for the past and said it was committed to safeguarding.
The abuse took place within the past 30 years.
‘Zero friends’
The abbey said Jason’s allegations were taken seriously and that staff did address any risk to children.
Jason said: “I was subject to a game called the jungle game where they would tie you [up]. Someone would shout the name of an animal, eg an elephant, they would punch you as hard as an elephant on your chest.”
“[The monk] saw nine times out of 10 what I was going through. He would never help, would never talk to me.
“No-one I could go to for help. I had zero friends.
“To me the safeguarding protection of a child under him never existed in my time at the school but I wasn’t going to let him win.”
‘Very concerning’
The BBC wanted to name the monk, who remained at the abbey, but the abbey fought hard to prevent this.
Jason said he thought the monk should have been removed straight away to protect other children.
Child protection consultant Joanna Nicolas said regulation of private schools was “not nearly as strict or rigorous as that which regulates the state sector and that is very concerning”.
“Ultimately, it’s the responsibility of the school to take action,” she said.
“What we know, with independent schools is you have a much greater consideration of reputation.
“You also have many parents who are extremely powerful individuals and wealthy individuals and all of that affects our response to protecting those children, which it absolutely shouldn’t.”
‘Predatory’ ex-care home boss John Allen found guilty of more child sex offences
10 DEC 2019
The offences were said to have taken place in North Wales care homes between 1976 and 1984, and the court heard one of the complainants died of a drug overdose in 2016.
Allen was managing director of Bryn Alyn Community Care Homes, which operated 11 facilities for boys in the Wrexham area between 1968 and 1990.
In Prince Andrew Scandal, Prince Charles Emerges as Monarch-in-Waiting
After a public-relations debacle stirred questions about the role of Queen Elizabeth II, the Prince of Wales is asserting a newfound authority in British royal affairs.
In an editorial under the headline “Shadow King,” the Times argued that the monarchy “needs a firmer grip at the center.” “This can only come from Prince Charles,” it said. “Although he has faced his own set of scandals, he has already taken on a greater role and can do more, in effect acting as king-in-waiting.”
“They’ve moved swiftly to sort it out in the coldblooded and ruthless way they have,” Mr. Low said.
“The monarchy is beyond reproach,” said Mr. Johnson, who has faced questions about his own peccadilloes.
In a frank interview, the model-turned-entrepreneur says their relationship continued after he stepped down as mayor of London and became a cabinet minister – and that they were in touch as recently as July.
Ms Arcuri also comes closer than before to confirming a sexual relationship, saying it is always the woman who is criticised “when you have an affair with an older man”.
The revelation that the relationship continued until 2016 is significant because the prime minister has to provide a timeline of his contact with Ms Arcuri.
An inquiry into whether rules were broken because it amounted to a conflict of interest – after she received £126,000 of public money – appears to have been delayed until after the general election, prompting anger.
Ms Arcuri, 34, speaking to The Times, said the pair would recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, together “like a weird sense of foreplay”. It begins: “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.”
She revealed she visited Mr Johnson’s family home while he was married to his ex-wife, Marina Wheeler, saying: “I admire Marina. I don’t know how she put up with it for as long as she did.
“But from my understanding they were two separate people living in a house. Whatever was between them had long gone and it wasn’t because of me.
“It wasn’t that I was putting him in a position where it’s either me or her, because I recognised he had a family, a life.”
The pair met in 2011, when Ms Arcuri says she joked with him that David Cameron, then prime minister, was stealing a march by making technology announcements affecting London.
I didn’t know the extent of the competitiveness between a boy named Boris and a boy named Dave,” she told The Times.
When, in 2012, Mr Johnson asked how they could keep in touch, Ms Arcuri says she said: “Why don’t you just call me?” He later sent her a text saying, “Boris calling Jennifer.”
She said: “A friend said, ‘You can’t have Boris on your phone. Call him Alex the Great.’ I didn’t even know then his name was Alexander.”
During their first encounter alone, in a hotel bar, he asked her: “Were you a model? You are absolutely beautiful. I can see you being a model and actress.”
She said: “He had complimented me but it was not sleazy in any way,” adding: “I knew where he was going with wanting to pursue me. I am not stupid.
“People had mentioned he wants to sleep with you and I said, ‘No, he doesn’t. He is just so enthralled with my mind.’”
Mountbatten book author seeks more transparency over child sex allegations
November 28 2019
The author of a book on Lord Mountbatten has hit out at the secrecy that continues to surround allegations about the murdered royal and child sex abuse at a time when the public is demanding greater openness over such claims.
Andrew Lownie lashed out at both the British and Irish states for refusing to publish files which he claims tell the truth about the exploitation of young, vulnerable boys in Kincora House by the powerful and mighty in society in the 1970s.
He contrasted demands for transparency and the public interest in recent allegations about Prince Andrew and the wall of official silence that surrounds persistent claims about Mountbatten.
He said: “Why do we never hear the same demands for disclosure about the cover-up of Lord Mountbatten’s death and the involvement of the state in suppressing the trafficking and sexual exploitation of young boys from London and Kincora House?”
Earlier this year Mr Lownie published a best-selling book on Lord Mountbatten in which he interviewed several men who claimed to have been trafficked from Belfast – including from Kincora House – as young boys to the royal’s Classiebawn Castle in Co Sligo in August 1977.
So far the Garda has refused to disclose its traffic logs for Northern Ireland-registered cars visiting Classiebawn on the grounds such files remain part of an active murder investigation.
Mr Lownie had wanted access to the files so that he could pursue enquiries into the alleged trafficking of boys to provide sexual services to Mountbatten in the 1970s while on his annual August holiday.
Mr Lownie said that his request refers only to the month of August 1977, a year when it is already publicly acknowledged that there was no murder attempt on Lord Mountbatten, who was killed by an IRA bomb on his boat in August 1979.
The royal was killed along with Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old helping crew the boat; Nicholas Knatchbull (14), Mountbatten’s grandson, and Dorothy Brabourne, Nicholas’s grandmother.
Prince Andrew has stood down from all public duties after he was criticised for showing little sympathy with the victims of the late Jeffrey Epstein and no remorse for his friendship with the disgraced US financier in a major TV interview.
Virginia Giuffre, an alleged Epstein victim, claims that she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions, including when she was 17 – allegations he strenuously denies.
Mr Lownie said the duke’s recent retirement from public life in the wake of the scandal has been described as “an event unprecedented in modern times”.
He added: “Yet Mountbatten and many, many others in Northern Ireland and the UK in the past had sex with young boys and girls going right back to the 1970s and earlier. That was all swept under the carpet while the rich and powerful sheltered under the protection of the state.
“Surely the Mountbatten affair should be ruled by exactly the same decisions on disclosure?”
Mr Lownie warned that there must be deep concerns about the real reason Lord Mountbatten was killed in 1979.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for outgoing Secretary of State Julian Smith to question the official secrecy and non-disclosure of all the files, not just those on the trafficking of young boys in Northern Ireland, but the very detailed and specific intelligence files held by both British and Irish states,” he said.
Many of the State’s Kincora files will not be published until January 1, 2085 at the earliest. That is despite the fact that allegations about Kincora and the abuse and trafficking of young boys were first known to the intelligence services in 1967.
Colin Wallace, the Co Antrim-born former Army intelligence officer in Northern Ireland until 1975, also believes that it is time for the state to come clean.
He said: “Given the fact that the British intelligence services were well aware of what was going on in Kincora, there are major questions to be asked over why there were no prosecutions.
“Lord Mountbatten’s homosexuality and his penchant for sex with underage boys was an open secret at the same time.
“And when you take in the fact that the IRA was heavily infiltrated by the state well before 1978, is it not odd that the attack on Mountbatten, which was sanctioned by the Army Council under the leadership of Martin McGuinness as chief of staff, was not known to them?”
No mention in article that Prince Andrew attended Gordonstoun as well:
In September 1973, Prince Andrew entered Gordonstoun, in northern Scotland, which his father and elder brother had also attended.[8] While there, he spent six months—from January to June 1977—participating in an exchange programme to Lakefield College School in Canada.[7][9] He left Gordonstoun in July two years later.
Society of Antiquaries in turmoil after vote to back sex abuser
Educational charity’s leaders dismayed after bid to expel Hubert Chesshyre is defeated
Hubert Chesshyre was found by a court to have committed abuse of a minor over three years in the 1990s.
23 Nov 2019
One of the country’s most venerable educational charities faces a backlash after it declined to sever its links with a sex abuser, a decision that has bewildered his victim.
It has emerged that, following a vote, the Society of Antiquaries, which describes itself as “Britain’s oldest learned society concerned with the study and understanding of the material past”, is to allow Hubert Chesshyre to remain a fellow.
The move has dismayed the society’s council, which said the decision showed it needed to modernise.
The Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard evidence that in 2015 Chesshyre was found to have sexually abused a teenage chorister over the course of three years in the 1990s. Earlier this year the Observer reported the revelation had put pressure on several renowned institutions with links to Chesshyre to sever their ties with him. These included the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, whose trustees promptly removed him as vice-president.
But others, including the Society of Antiquaries, have stood by him.
Chesshyre, an expert on heraldry and genealogy who held a number of senior positions within the royal household, was subject to a “trial of facts”, which are held when the accused is deemed unfit to plead. Such trials do not result in a criminal conviction but the jury can find whether a person committed the acts of which they have been accused.
The court recognised Chesshyre had suffered a stroke and it was also suggested that he had dementia. As a result, despite being found to have committed the abuse, he was given an absolute discharge.
Following the finding, the Honours and Appointments Secretariat – which is overseen by the Cabinet Office – recommended forfeiture of his honours as a result of the IICSA’s revelation. But a majority of the society’s fellows who were present for the vote backed him.
Chesshyre’s victim, who has remained anonymous, told the Observer: “Following the Jimmy Savile revelations, and scandals involving public figures that came to light, organisations have quickly distanced themselves from people tainted by even a suggestion of wrongdoing.
“I therefore find it baffling that the fellows voted by a substantial majority to continue the fellowship of somebody who was found to have committed these acts. It makes me wonder whether Britain’s establishment has really learned anything at all.”
In a statement the society, which was founded in 1707, confirmed its fellows had considered a resolution from its council to remove Chesshyre from the fellowship. It noted that in “March 2019 the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse published proceedings confirming Chesshyre was found to have committed two acts of gross indecency with a male minor” and said this had prompted a number of fellows to write to the society, a registered charity which received a royal charter in 1751, requesting Chesshyre’s removal.
It said the council “regrets that a majority of those present did not see fit to support the resolution” and said it would “consider further the implications of fellows’ decision to reject the resolution to remove Mr Chesshyre and recognises this case has shown the need to modernise the society’s statutes and governance procedures.”
The society said it would “continue to fulfil its charitable objectives, including by encouraging young people to become involved in its activities, in environments that are safe for them.” But it conceded that the scandal around Chesshyre made this remit more difficult, adding: “This makes the acts which Mr Chesshyre was found by the court to have committed particularly harmful.”
Dog walker finds dossier of paedophiles and victims ‘dumped by police officer by public skip’
Sergeant Martin Skirving-Chehab facing misconduct hearing following watchdog investigation
21 Nov 2019
A dog walker found pages of a dossier detailing at least 15 different criminal cases in a street in Hartlepool in June.
“I saw the pages with ‘sex offender’ on and then a police logo and traced them back to an overflowing skip where this blue book was lying on the ground,” the man told The Sun.
“I looked inside and there were all these details. I was shocked.”
The documents contained the names, addresses, bank details and family information on convicted sex offenders, as well as details of victims who are granted lifetime anonymity under the law.
Cleveland Police launched an investigation into the “clearly unacceptable” discovery and contacted the people named.
“We carried out the investigation concerning the removal and disposal of sensitive material from police premises,” an IOPC spokesperson said.
“The material, relating
to investigations of a highly sensitive nature dating back to 2016, was found near a skip in Hartlepool by a member of the public in June 2018.
“The member of the public contacted a national newspaper and a reporter handed the materials to Cleveland Police, who referred this matter to us for consideration.”
The IOPC said evidence suggested Sergeant Martin Skirving-Chehab had been in possession of the documents.
“We found he may have breached the police standards of professional behaviour and concluded that he had a case to answer for gross misconduct,” a statement added.
The force disciplinary hearing is due to start on Monday and is expected to last four days.
Garda rejects Kincora probe author’s request for Mountbatten files
Nov 13 2019
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has refused an author’s request to view Garda security logs of Northern Ireland-registered cars which travelled between Belfast and Classiebawn Castle in Co Sligo, the late Earl Mountbatten’s summer home.
Andrew Lownie, author of The Mountbattens: Their Lives And Loves, has told the Belfast Telegraph that Mr Harris, a former senior PSNI officer and liaison with MI5, had declined to disclose the intelligence.
Lownie had wanted access to the files so that he could pursue his inquiries into the alleged trafficking of boys from London and Belfast, especially from Kincora House, to provide sexual services to Lord Mountbatten in the 1970s when on his annual August holiday.
Earlier this year Lownie revealed recently-released FBI files, which alleged it had information that Lord Mountbatten was a paedophile with a taste for young boys.
Last night Lownie told the Belfast Telegraph that he had written to ask for the Garda logs relating to the period 1969-78 to be released.
Labour’s Keith Vaz, who was suspended from the Commons after he was found to have “expressed willingness” to purchase cocaine for others, will not be standing for re-election.
Mr Vaz, who has been MP for Leicester East for 32 years, said in a statement he was retiring from Parliament.
He said it had been “an honour and a privilege” to serve his constituency.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he had “made a substantial and significant contribution to public life”.
But the federal court has now dismissed his case against the attorney general.
Fr Alexander, who featured in a BBC Scotland investigation, denies the allegations.
The 13-page federal court ruling includes a summary of the charges the ex-monk faces.
It is alleged that between 1970 and 1976 he “engaged in acts of physical and sexual abuse” against six complainants, aged between 11 and 15.
The Crown Office launched extradition proceedings against Fr Alexander in December 2016 but since then he has contested the move on health grounds.
A letter from his solicitors in November 2017 stated that he suffers from “several chronic and ongoing health problems” and that travel to the UK “presents a real risk of serious injury and further significant ongoing deterioration of Mr Alexander’s health, including death.”
Fr Alexander, who turns 84 next month, was arrested in Sydney almost three years ago and has been in custody ever since.
It is understood he has 28 days to appeal the federal court’s decision.
The Crown Office said extradition proceedings are “ongoing”.
Timeline
July 2013: BBC airs Sins of Our Fathers, revealing decades of sexual and physical abuse at the Fort Augustus Abbey School and Carlkemp preparatory school, and confronts Fr Alexander in Sydney
March 2019: The attorney general of Australia determines that Fr Alexander be surrendered to the UK. Fr Alexander seeks a judicial review
November 2019: The federal court of Australia dismisses Fr Alexander’s application for a judicial review.
Run by Catholic Benedictine monks, Fort Augustus Abbey school in the Highlands closed its doors to the public in 1993.
Allegations of decades of child sexual and physical abuse at the exclusive boarding school were finally made public by BBC Scotland Investigations Correspondent Mark Daly in June 2013.
He spoke to former pupils who claimed they were abused by monks or teaching staff over five decades.
Many of those then reported their allegations to the police, sparking a major historical abuse police inquiry.
Fury as decision on police inquiry into PM shelved until after election
Labour ‘shocked’ as police watchdog freezes investigation into Jennifer Arcuri scandal
9 Nov 2019
The scandal over Boris Johnson’s friendship with technology entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri was reignited on Saturday after the Observer revealed that the independent police watchdog has delayed its announcement on whether the PM should face an investigation into possible criminal misconduct until after the election.
The decision prompted fury from Westminster politicians and London assembly members who said it appeared that a ruling had been “suppressed” in order to protect Johnson from potentially damaging headlines at a crucial stage of the election campaign.
In a private meeting held before parliament was dissolved last week, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) officials agreed not to announce whether they were going to investigate “possible criminality” over allegations about a conflict of interest in Johnson’s dealings while mayor of London with US businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri until after the election.
Sources close to the IOPC investigation said the watchdog was on the verge of announcing its decision on whether it was proceeding with a criminal investigation.
The IOPC was tasked by the Greater London Authority with assessing whether criminal charges should be brought because of the then-mayor’s responsibility for London’s policing.
It is alleged Arcuri received favourable treatment due to her friendship with Johnson, including receiving large sums of public money for her technology firms.
The offence of misconduct in public office carries a maximum term of life imprisonment. Johnson has denied any impropriety.
The Roman Catholic Church will oppose calls for priests to break the seal of the confessional to report admissions of child abuse, a public inquiry was told yesterday.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said the church could not accept any recommendation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to require priests to disclose matters admitted to them during the sacrament.
Cardinal Nichols said that maintaining the confidentiality of the confessional was “an essential part of the exercise of priesthood”.
Former prestigious boarding school housemaster sentenced for child sex offences
The historic assaults took place at Westminster Cathedral Choir School in central London
4 NOV 2019
A former housemaster at a prestigious Catholic boarding school “stole the innocence” of two underage boys, a court has heard.
David Lowe, 66, abused the boys, aged eight and 10 respectively, as part of a series of attacks which he carried out in the 70s and 80s.
Southwark Crown Court heard on Monday that the historic assaults took place atWestminster Cathedral Choir School, in Victoria, central London, where Lowe was working as a music teacher.
Lowe was jailed for 10 years in 2015 after he was found guilty of multiple counts of sexually assaulting pupils and appeared at Southwark via videolink from HMP Ashfield, near Bristol.
The attacks took place at both Westminster Cathedral Choir School and the Benedictine monk-run Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire between 1978 and 1982.
Labour MP Keith Vaz facing six-month Commons suspension
28 Oct 2019
Labour MP Keith Vaz is facing suspension from the Commons for six months after he was found to have “expressed willingness” to purchase cocaine for others.
Recommending suspension, the Commons Standards Committee said the finding represented a “very serious breach” of the House code of conduct for MPs.
It said that by failing to co-operate fully with the Commons inquiry process, Mr Vaz had shown “disrespect for the House’s standards system” and caused “significant damage” to the reputation and integrity of the Commons as a whole.
Children abused for decades at ‘sadistic’ London school, inquiry finds
IICSA report lays bare culture of cover-up and denial that facilitated 30 years of abuse
24 Oct 2019
Senior figures at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s school carried out abuse, the report found.
A “sadistic and predatory” atmosphere and a culture of cover-up and denial in a Catholic school allowed sexual abusers to commit crimes against children for decades, an independent inquiry has found.
Senior figures at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s school in west London, part of the English Benedictine Congregation, were perpetrators of abuse over a 30-year period. Staff members failed to raise concerns because of a “mafia-like” atmosphere and the fear of losing their jobs.
This is part of the English Benedictine Congregation case study and is within the wider investigation into the Roman Catholic Church. The report contains an update of the Ampleforth and Downside case studies, also part of the English Benedictine Congregation.
During five days of public hearings in February 2019, the Inquiry heard evidence from those who had been sexually abused as children at St Benedict’s School.
The report describes the atmosphere at St Benedict’s as sadistic and predatory with a culture of excessive corporal punishment. In many cases, physical abuse was used as a platform for sexual gratification and a means by which to instigate sexual abuse.
The report considers the evidence heard by the Inquiry of extensive sexual abuse against children in Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School and highlights the flawed responses to allegations, from both the Church and external institutions.
It considers how very senior figures at the school or abbey were perpetrators of abuse, with staff members warned to say nothing, leaving victims feeling they had nowhere to turn.
This led to a culture of abuse spanning over 30 years. Since 2003, four members of staff connected to St Benedict’s have been convicted of multiple offences for the sexual abuse of over 20 children. Another teacher was convicted of offences relating to the possession of indecent images of children in 2016. The total scale of abuse can never be known, but it is likely to be much greater.
“I often wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t been abused … I feel like I am still in a black hole and just can’t climb out of it. I don’t think I can ever put down in words fully what [Soper] has done to me. He has damaged me for life and I am afraid that that damage will never go away.” – RC-A622, Pen Portraits, page 8
The Inquiry received evidence of at least 18 further allegations against the men convicted and eight other monks and teachers. This ranged from corporal punishment to grooming, fondling of genitalia, masturbation, and oral and anal rape.
The report found that whilst there were significant opportunities to stop abusers in the school, these were not acted upon. Instead, a culture of cover-up and denial at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s meant the abuse went on for decades.
The leadership failure of Abbot Martin Shipperlee is also highlighted in the report. It found serious shortcomings in his response to allegations and handling of child protection concerns, concluding that any action he did take was often inadequate and ill-judged.
During the Inquiry’s investigation into Ealing Abbey, Abbot Shipperlee resigned. He told the press:
“As the IICSA hearings have shown, there has been a series of serious failings in safeguarding and some of those failings have been mine. Much has been achieved to correct this in recent years and I have confidence in the present structures and policies. However this does not take away from the seriousness of what went before. In order for the Abbey to look forward with confidence new leadership is now needed and so I have resigned as Abbot so that this may be possible.” (Page 14)
The responses of external institutions are described as defective, resulting in children being left at risk of abuse or further abuse.
The Chair and Panel conclude that it remains to be seen whether Ealing Abbey proves itself capable of ensuring proper safeguarding of children at risk in future.
The report’s publication comes before the Inquiry’s final public hearing into the Roman Catholic Church, which will begin on the 28 October and will run for two weeks.
“For years, a culture of cover-up and denial meant children at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School suffered appalling sexual and physical abuse.
“A reluctance to properly respond to safeguarding concerns meant significant opportunities to stop abusers were missed. When action was taken, the responses of senior staff, headmasters and external institutions were often poorly judged or flawed. As a result, children were left at risk of abuse which could have been stopped decades earlier.”
A particularly startling aspect of the sexual abuse perpetrated at the school was that very senior figures at the school or Abbey were abusers. David Pearce was the head of the junior school and then bursar; Laurence Soper was head of the middle school, bursar, Prior then Abbot. This created particular problems for those who wished to report sexual abuse – not only the victims, but also others, such as members of staff who heard rumours or observed behaviour that caused concern. Reporting such matters was therefore made more difficult by the seniority of those against whom the complaint would have been made. Staff members have described the atmosphere as feeling “like the mafia” and chose not to risk their jobs.[3]
Pearce was a serial abuser of boys. At least 14 pupils have complained to the statutory authorities of being sexually abused by him. Their allegations span a 32-year period from 1976 to 2008. In October 2009, Pearce was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment (reduced to five years on appeal in May 2010) for various sexual offences against five of these pupils. That was not the end of the matter, however, and in 2011 Pearce faced a further trial relating to indecent assaults against another pupil but was acquitted. In relation to the eight other boys, there was either no complaint made to the police or a decision made by the police/Crown Prosecution Service not to proceed.
It appears that many in the school and Abbey – teachers and monks alike – were aware of Pearce’s behaviour but were seemingly powerless to do anything about it. Gossip amongst the boys and staff was rife and complaints, including from parents, failed to trigger any action by the school or, in the rare event that information was communicated externally, by the statutory authorities. Staff were afraid that by speaking up they would lose their jobs. Pearce may well have been emboldened by this inertia as his abuse became less secretive, filming the boys at the swimming pool, lining them up naked and committing sexual assaults with apparent impunity. Unsurprisingly, Pearce was protected by Soper, but other Abbots and headmasters throughout this period also failed to act to protect children under their care.
Soper is known to have abused at least 10 children at St Benedict’s between 1972 and 1983, including multiple rapes. Many of the assaults were committed during acts of corporal punishment apparently inflicted on the slightest of pretexts. Soper’s predilection for caning boys was well known amongst the boys and staff at the school. He was told to stop by a previous headmaster at some point in the late 1970s or early 1980s. This had no effect, and he continued to cane and sexually assault boys on many occasions.
His campaign of sexual abuse was allowed to continue because of the inaction of those who had the power to do something to stop it or bring him to justice. By 2002 – two years after he had resigned as Abbot – Soper had been appointed general treasurer for the International Benedictine Conference in Rome, residing in Sant’Anselmo. Whilst on police bail in 2011, he left Sant’Anselmo, purportedly returning to London. He absconded and a European Arrest Warrant was issued. Some five years later he was located in Kosovo and extradited. In 2017, he was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment – over 40 years had elapsed since his offending began.
The role of Abbots
There were significant opportunities to stop abusers in the school which were not acted upon. When Abbot Martin Shipperlee took over as Abbot from Soper in 2000, many were hopeful that a “new broom”[4] had arrived. Indeed, some improvements to child protection were made. He commissioned a number of independent reports from experts.
David Tregaskis, a clinical criminologist with extensive experience of providing risk assessments, provided a report about the risk Pearce posed to children. He concluded that there was a “major concern” and “clear boundaries” should be placed upon him.[5] Although restrictions were placed upon Pearce, they were not monitored properly. In 2006, the sexual abuse committed by Pearce was established in a civil trial brought by one of his victims. Mr Justice Field said he found Pearce’s account “extremely unconvincing”[6] and the allegations were found proven. There were no changes to the restrictions already placed upon Pearce, although there could have been no doubt about the risk he posed. In the same year as the civil trial, Pearce started to sexually abuse a 16-year-old boy who was working in the monastery.
There were also limitations to the advice Abbot Shipperlee received from the Diocese of Westminster Child Protection Team. In particular, the advice provided in respect of imposing restrictions upon Pearce and others failed to give any guidance on how compliance with those restrictions should be enforced and monitored. The Child Protection Officer failed to keep the risk posed by Pearce and the restrictions in place under review, particularly following the successful civil claim. Pearce should have been required to leave Ealing Abbey – particularly given its proximity to the school.
When Pearce was convicted in 2009, Abbot Shipperlee commissioned a further review by Philip Wright, the safeguarding coordinator for the diocese of Brighton and Arundel and John Nixson, an independent child protection specialist. Despite the mounting child protection concerns against Soper and another monk, the review was confined to Pearce. There was no consideration of the underlying material. The whole exercise was limited to two days’ work. John Nixson in his written evidence to the Inquiry stated: “with the benefit of further reflection, it is now evident to me that Abbot Martin presented the existing concerns and findings about individual members of the religious community in a minimal manner”.[7]
The Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation in the period from 2001 to 2017, Dom Richard Yeo, did not significantly contribute to the response of Ealing Abbey to the allegations of child sexual abuse made in that period. During his 2007 Visitation he did not inquire into the restrictions upon Pearce and gave no consideration to issues of risk management. In his report to the monastic community, there was no express recognition of the fact that the judge in the civil proceedings in 2006 had found Pearce to be an unconvincing witness. He conceded that, in retrospect:
“I should probably have suggested at the 2007 Visitation that it was too serious a risk to allow … Pearce to continue to live in the monastery”.[8]
Throughout this time, public pressure was mounting. A series of articles appeared in The Times, the Charity Commission published a critical report, public disquiet gained momentum through Jonathan West’s blog, the Independent Schools Inspectorate had published a follow-up report which was critical of Trustees, and the Minister of State for Schools was seeking “assurance that all ISI’s recommendations will be implemented”.[9]
In the light of these pressures, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC was commissioned in 2010 to prepare a report. Abbot Shipperlee submitted five principles for reform which Lord Carlile accepted. He firmly stated, however, that reforms could not take place under the auspices of a single trust and recommended the creation of two separate charitable trusts – in effect separating the school from the Abbey. St Benedict’s School became truly independent of Ealing Abbey on 1 September 2012.
During the Inquiry’s investigation into Ealing Abbey, Abbot Shipperlee resigned. He admitted to the Inquiry “as has been serially revealed, my administration of safeguarding is of insufficient standard”.[10]
The role of headmasters
Headmasters as well as Abbots played a significant role in managing child protection issues. Christopher Cleugh, during his time as headmaster of the school between 2002 and 2016, repeatedly minimised questions of child sexual abuse to teachers and to external institutions and parents, to the point of materially misrepresenting significant facts. Although he told the Independent Schools Inspectorate that one of the monks had been charged with an assault on a pupil doing work experience in the monastery, he did not tell them that Pearce had been under restrictions at the time, nor did he tell them about the successful civil action against Pearce. He did not address safeguarding issues openly and proactively; when answers were given, he was defensive. One former teacher, Peter Halsall, said the previous culture of cover-up and denial at the school was “followed … by passing the buck”.[11]
Andrew Johnson, who was appointed headmaster in 2016, described a number of improvements to safeguarding, including record-keeping and vetting, compulsory reporting to Ealing Social Services, safeguarding training for staff, information for students and parents, and the operation of the safeguarding sub-committee. He also outlined that he had commissioned an audit report from Philip Threlfall, an independent safeguarding consultant, who concluded that the school was committed to safeguarding and that the “right things are in place”.[12] In order for these changes to have a long-term impact, it will now be for those in responsibility at the school to remain vigilant so as to ensure that safeguarding remains a priority.
The role of external agencies
The Metropolitan Police made mistakes in how some of the early allegations against Pearce and Soper were investigated. For example, in 2001, one of the victims told the police that Pearce had forcibly grabbed his trousers and pants and looked down into his pants, and that Pearce had put his hands down the swimming trunks of another boy, “for a couple of seconds having a feel around”.[13] In July 2002, the police decided to take that case no further, the investigating officer concluding “I have been unable to find evidence of any criminal offences”.[14] This approach was unreasonable. Commander Neil Jerome, in his evidence to us, agreed. There were also failures in respect of the investigation into the allegations against Pearce in respect of another boy, including a failure to provide all relevant information to the Crown Prosecution Service when a prosecution decision was sought.
The Crown Prosecution Service shares some responsibility for the fact that neither Pearce nor Soper were prosecuted in 2004, when serious allegations were made by two victims against them. It was not until 2009 and 2017 that Pearce and Soper were convicted of the abuse. In the Crown Prosecution Service decision regarding one victim’s allegations against Pearce, the reviewing lawyer wrongly adopted a requirement for corroboration. Likewise, in the decision concerning another victim’s allegations against Soper, the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer took the view that a victim’s word against a perpetrator was insufficient to found a prosecution instead of considering whether the victim’s account could be supported by other evidence or whether Soper’s account could be undermined.
There were also deficiencies in the consideration of the situation at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School by those external bodies charged with regulating the management of charities (the Charity Commission) and inspecting independent schools (the Independent Schools Inspectorate). The Charity Commission was undertaking a statutory inquiry into Ealing Abbey’s handling of Pearce at the very time when he was committing further child sexual abuse. The Commission’s conclusion at the time, that appropriate steps were being taken, was based on assurances given by Ealing Abbey, which were not scrutinised or tested. Likewise, the Independent Schools Inspectorate oversaw an inspection in 2009 which concluded that the child protection policy was compliant with statutory guidance, and that an independent review into Pearce’s offending had been conducted and its advice fully implemented: both conclusions were wrong. The 2009 report was withdrawn in April 2010 and an unannounced, non-routine further inspection was carried out, resulting in a critical report of August 2010. But for the fact that members of the public drew the deficiencies of the 2009 report to the Commission’s attention, there may have been no such rectification of the position.
It is notable that in 2010 the Department for Education did not have the statutory power to enforce a recommendation made by the Independent Schools Inspectorate to the effect that monks who had been the subject of allegations should not reside at Ealing Abbey. As a result, the Minister for Schools wrote to the Charity Commission in October 2010 to see if the Charity Commission might be able to use its powers to enforce compliance in this regard. The position is now different. From January 2015 changes to the statutory standards by which independent schools are judged have rectified this gap in the Department’s powers.
The role of the Holy See
Prior to the hearing, the Inquiry sought a witness statement and documentation from the Holy See, initially through a voluntary request to its diplomatic representative in the United Kingdom, the Apostolic Nuncio, who is covered by diplomatic immunity. The request included asking what steps were taken after Soper’s disappearance that might have assisted in locating him. The Holy See has confirmed that it does not intend to provide a witness statement but has provided some documentation which is being reviewed and may be considered further, if necessary, during the hearings we are holding in October and November 2019. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/publications/investigation/english-benedictine-congregation-ealing-abbey/part-1-ealing-abbey-and-st-benedicts-school/executive-summary
@MaristShame
Why would Scots Marists take a boy to Sligo ..why Sligo ?
Sligo – where paedophile Mountbatten had a holiday home.
IRA bombing that killed Lord Mountbatten and Sligo teen Paul Maxwell
Paul Maxwell was a student of Portora School at the time of his death.
Inquiry heard boy, seven, died at Catholic-run school in Largs
A BOY aged seven died at St Columba’s College in Largsafter being on the receiving end of a ‘vicious beating’, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has heard.
The horrifying incident is said to have taken place in 1980 at the Catholic-run school in the north side of Largs.
The inquiry in Edinburgh was told that Aldo Moroni was punished for taking too long to use the toilet.
A former pupil, only named as Edward, said that the boy died after a beating by religious brother called Brother Germanus – real name David McKell.
The 64-year-old revealed to the inquiry that he was at the school in the 1960s and said he was sexually abused on dozens of occasions.
In 2014, Edward’s nephew, also a former pupil, told him he was at St Columba’s when Aldo had been ‘killed’, telling him: ‘It haunts me to this day.’
Edward said: “Aldo Moroni was getting a vicious beating on the landing outside the toilet for supposedly being in the toilet too long.
“My nephew said there was screaming and holy murder going on; it got worse, and the next thing we knew, there was an ambulance there, and then we were at a funeral in Dunoon – Aldo was dead’.
The family relative of Edward’s drew a link between the beating happening and the death according to Edward’s testimony, senior counsel Colin McAulay QC stated.
Children were informed at the time that Aldo had suffered a heart attack, the inquiry was told.
Edward described how he had feelings of cowardice for not reporting McKell years before Aldo’s death, saying: “I thought, could I have stopped that boy from being killed?”
As an adult, Edward told the Marist Brothers, who ran the college, about the abuse, but claimed the order had told him not to inform police.
He told the inquiry he was only seven when McKell targeted him on about ‘two dozen’ occasions.
He recalled being hauled out of bed in the middle of the night and ordered to climb up to a loft to retrieve a bag.
McKell would then tell him he was ‘dirty’ and instruct him to take off his pyjamas, and get into a bath before sexually abusing him – then hitting him if he reacted.
Labelling the boarding school a ‘cesspit’, Edward said he had attempted to run away from the school in the mid-60s.
During the torment, Edward said: “I was crying and you would get an extra slap for crying.
‘I would describe myself as being zombified… I wasn’t able to speak.’
McKell would injure him so hard that when he struck his head his nose would bleed, and would then take him back to his bed.
Edward told the hearing that McKell broke the news that his brother had died in 1965, saying: ‘Your brother had gone to heaven.’
Edward described the brothers at the school as ‘godlike’, and said McKell told him: ‘If you ever utter a word of our little secret, you will never see him (Edward’s brother) again.’
As an adult, Edward said he had contacted the Maris Brothers telling them about his experiences. McKell died in 1998.
Despite assurances given at the meeting that the matter would be passed on police, they were never told.
Prince Andrew faces questions over £57 million fortune and lavish lifestyle as it’s revealed he’s third richest royal
20 Oct 2019
PRINCE Andrew is facing questions about his luxurious lifestyle after his staggering £57million fortune was revealed.
Norman Baker, a former Lib Dem MP, is demanding answers as to how the Duke of York was able to rake in huge sums of cash to build an astonishing private wealth which makes him the third richest royal.
Baker, who has written a book scrutinising the royal family’s private wealth, found that only the Queen (on £1.6billion) and Prince Charles (£100million) are richer than Prince Andrew.
Now Baker has urgent questions as to how the second son of Queen Elizabeth made so much money.
Baker wrote in the Mail on Sunday: “Unless he has come up trumps in the National Lottery, he is clearly gathering in significant sums that we do not know about.
“People do not generally hand over large sums to other people out of the goodness of their heart.
“They generally want something in return.
“We are entitled to be told where Andrew’s hidden wealth has come from, and what he has given in return.”
Baker concluded his article saying that he thinks the Duke of York should be removed from all royal duties and become a private citizen if he doesn’t disclose where his wealth has come from.
FLASH PRINCE
Prince Andrew, who is known to have made extravagant luxury purchases, retired from the Armed Forces in 2001.
He was then immediately handed the job of UK Special Representative for Trade and Investment.
But instead of being diplomatic, Baker claims a former royal aide alleged that Prince Andrew’s approach to the job was “the worst combination of arrogance and stupidity”.
Every year, he is given a tax-free payment from the Queen of £249,000 to fund his private office and he reportedly receives an additional £20,000 naval pension.
But his spendthrift splurging suggests he has much more cash than that, with Baker citing a £13million Swiss ski chalet that Prince Andrew bought with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in 2014.
Baker also claims the Duke was spending £7.5million refurbishing Royal Lodge, his home in Windsor Great Park, at the same time.
And the ex-MP additionally pointed out that, in early 2015, Andrew was apparently spotted wearing a £12,000 18-carat gold Apple Watch.
How Jeffrey Epstein ‘set up meeting between ‘Petie’ Mandelson and US billionaire banker from his prison cell’
Channel 4 Dispatches will claim Prince Andrew met Epstein ‘at least ten times’
Peter Mandelson ‘asked Jeffrey Epstein to set up meeting’ with JP Morgan chair
Mr Mandelson was de facto Deputy Prime Minister to PM Gordon Brown in 2009
20 October 2019
Peter Mandelson phoned Jeffrey Epstein to seek a personal favour while the disgraced US financier was serving a sentence for child sex offences, according to a TV documentary.
As de facto Deputy Prime Minister to Gordon Brown in 2009, Lord Mandelson asked Epstein – who was then on day release – to arrange a meeting with a billionaire New York banker.
Channel 4’s Dispatches allege Epstein agreed instantly. A friend of Epstein said the financier ‘sorted’ a meeting between Lord Mandelson – whom he called ‘Petie’ – and Jamie Dimon, the billionaire chairman of US investment bank JP Morgan.
Lord Mandelson asked Epstein – who was then on day release – to arrange a meeting with a billionaire New York banker. Channel 4’s Dispatches allege Epstein agreed instantly
At the time, Epstein, who killed himself in August, was serving an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to procuring a 14-year-old girl for prostitution.
The financier’s friend, who requested anonymity, said: ‘I was astonished that a British Cabinet Minister… probably the most powerful man other than the Prime Minister, was calling Jeffrey in jail to make an appointment… with a very powerful banker in New York.’
In 2005 Lord Mandelson was photographed shopping with Epstein in the US Virgin Islands.
He also featured in the financier’s ‘little black book’ of contacts encompassing every sphere of influence, from politics to royalty.
Lord Mandelson’s entry included ten numbers, including home numbers and mobile details for his partner.
The friend, who has never spoken before, said the exchange with the politician ‘demonstrated that as far as Jeffrey was concerned… life was carrying on as if nothing had happened’.
Asked if the phone call had worked, the friend replied: ‘Yep, it was sorted out.’
He added: ‘You don’t call Peter Mandelson ‘Petie’ if you’re not a close friend.’
Lawyers for Lord Mandelson said he ‘has no recollection of a telephone conversation with Mr Epstein in January 2009… in which he allegedly requested Mr Epstein set up a meeting with Jamie Dimon’.
They added: ‘Our client would have no need to make such a request… As Business Secretary… he met or talked on the phone to bank CEOs on a regular basis, including Mr Dimon.’
Court documents show Epstein unsuccessfully applied to a judge in late 2009 to leave his Florida home, where he was under house arrest, for a meeting in New York with an unnamed British Minister to discuss British universities.
The Minister was described as an ‘under-secretary to the Prime Minister of Great Britain’.
Lord Mandelson has denied being the Minister and his spokesman said he was in London during those dates.
In The Prince And The Paedophile, to be broadcast at 10pm tomorrow, Dispatches also explores Epstein’s friendship with Prince Andrew and claims the men met at least ten times.
Buckingham Palace has said ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue’.
Lawyers for Lord Mandelson said he ‘has no recollection of a telephone conversation with Mr Epstein in January 2009… in which he allegedly requested Mr Epstein set up a meeting with Jamie Dimon’. Mr Dimon is pictured above
Medomsley Detention Centre scandal: National child abuse inquiry set to drop investigation into crimes at County Durham youth facility
The chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) says it is ‘neither proportionate nor necessary’ to include Medomsley
17 OCT 2019
So far More than 1,800 men have now come forward to police to make allegations they were either physically or sexually abused while being held at the County Durham youth facility during the 1970s and 1980s.
Five former employees have now been jailed after being convicted of their roles in the abuse, following an investigation by Durham Constabulary, and two more men were summonsed to court last month.
Medomsley had been named as one of the institutions that would be looked at as part of IICSA’s investigation into the abuse of Children in Custodial Investigations (CICI).
IICSA’s decision has angered campaigners and victims who have been fighting for answers.
The decision has angered victims and campaigners who have been fighting for answers.
And Jonny Hall, a consultant for local legal firm, Ben Hoare Bell, which represents a large number of former Medomsley trainees, said the firm had written to Prof Jay about the decision.
Claim ‘gang of criminals’ prostituted children at Fermanagh care home
October 10 2019
A gang of criminals allegedly drugged and prostituted children from a Co Fermanagh home, it has been alleged.
The allegations are the latest claims from Impartial Reporter journalist Rodney Edwards’ investigation into sexual abuse in the Fermanagh area.
Criminals allegedly prostituted teenagers from a children’s home in Killadeas almost 20 years go.
The paper claims that the children were taken to other parts of Northern Ireland where they were drugged and repeatedly raped.
Brindley House was a home catering for young people with emotional and psychological needs.
It opened in 2000 despite protests from local residents and closed just six years later.
The home was managed by private company Care (NI) Ltd.
According to “well-placed sources” staff members who tried to intervene to stop the abuse where threatened by the criminals involved.
The Western Health and Social Services Board said the home was closed as it was “no longer commercially viable to continue operations”.
An alleged victim of the abuse spoke to the Impartial Reporter and said that she and up to 12 other young girls were raped by up to 13 men.
She said that the authorities knew about the abuse “but were too scared to do anything because of the men involved”.
Laura (not her real name) said she was 13 when the abuse began.
“It was child prostitution. You were being prostituted out,” she said.
“You were in a relationship with this person who’s portraying to be this person, but you were being prostituted out to all their friends and all their contacts….at 13.”
Laura said she was prepared to speak with specialist detectives investigating historical child sex abuse cases in Fermanagh.
She had been called in by police for an interview in connection with the abuse at the time, but opted out of pursuing it due to fears for her safety.
Paula Kane, owner of the now defunct Care (NI) Ltd. told the Impartial Reporter that “every single incident of concern and of a child protection nature was recorded and reported to the Western Board”.
“We had no power to investigate,” she said.
The company reported their concerns to the Children’s Commissioner after being unsatisfied with the response to the issues at Brindley House.
Ms Kane said staff “went over and above the call of duty and some of the staff even put themselves at huge risk while trying to protect the children”.
A Department of Health spokesman said that the issues at Brindley House were brought to the department’s attention by the NI Children’s Commissioner in March 2005.
The spokesman said an inspection of child protection services was initiated by the department in early 2006.
Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People Koulla Yiasouma said the Children’s Commissioner became aware of potential breaches in child protection procedures at Brindley House in 2005.
She said the issues were raised with the relevant authorities and that the Commissioner was “assured by the Department of Health, social services and public safety that they would take the appropriate action”.
A PSNI spokeswoman said that in early 2007 detectives launched an investigation into the allegations of organised child abuse at the former Brindley House children’s home between 2000 and 2005.
She said that in 2008 a number of properties were searched and 11 people were arrested in counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh and interviewed for child abuse offences, as part of a long and protracted investigation.
A “comprehensive file” was prepared and submitted to the Public Prosecution Service who concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
The PSNI spokeswoman said if anyone had a complaint about actions of police during the investigation they could contact the Police Ombudsman’s office.
The company was jointly established by brother and sister, Dr Edna McVeigh and Mrs Darine Donnelly, a social worker. Mrs Kane, their sister has managed a 4-unit home for children since 1995.
Professor Enda McVeigh, a leading specialist in fertility treatment
The company was jointly established by brother and sister, Dr Enda McVeigh and Mrs Darine Donnelly, a social worker.
1983-1988, Undergraduate at Queen’s University, Belfast. 1994-1997, Research Fellow to Professor Lord Robert Winston at the Hammersmith Hospital, London.
I was an undergraduate at Queen’s University Belfast. After obtaining my MRCOG I joined the Reproductive Medicine Team at Imperial College London. I came to Oxford in 1997 as a Sub-Specialist trainee in Reproductive Medicine and upon completion joined the academic staff of NDOG as a Senior Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Reproductive Medicine and Surgery. From 1999 until 2012 I was Director of the Sub-Specialist training program in Reproductive Medicine in Oxford. I was Medical Director and Lead Consultant in the Oxford Fertility Unit from 1999 until 2012. In 2011 I initiated and was one of the Foundering Partners of an IVF clinic network (Reproductive Partnership) which is now the largest in the UK. Working with Stephen Kennedy I facilitated the development of the now very successful MSC course in Reproductive Medicine which is closely linked to the IVF facility. From 1999 building on collaboration with Leuven University I developed the Endometriosis surgical service in Oxford to eventually become a national referral centre. I was appointed Associated Professor in 2014.
Other activities have included:
1997-2000: USAID / WHO Women and Children programme in Ukraine and Russia.
After general training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology Professor McVeigh spent three years as a clinical Research Fellow with Professor Lord Winston at the Hammersmith Hospital in London. His clinical research at the time was around the effect of Stress on Fertility.
After this research post Professor McVeigh completed the Sub Speciality Training program in Reproductive Medicine in Oxford and on completion was appointed to staff at University of Oxford.
As a Senior Fellow in the University Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology he developed and lead on the surgical endometriosis service and was also Medical Directors and Person Responsible for the IVF centre (Oxford Fertility Unit).
Professor McVeigh has been a Director of The Fertility Partnerships (the largest IVF group in the UK) and been CEO of IVI UK.
Professor McVeigh specialises in Reproductive Endocrinology, Infertility, assisted conception and fertility preservation.
In a debate in the House of Lords on Thursday, Lord Dale Campbell-Savours said the Inquiry continuing a dedicated investigative strand into Lord Janner, when he was not able to answer any claims against him, was an “affront to natural justice.”
Campbell-Savours: My noble friend Lord Winston drew our attention to false memory. He will probably know about the British False Memory Society; I hope that it can pick up his comments in our debate and perhaps make direct contact with him.
During the debate, the Conservative Peer Lord Finkelstein said it was “very odd one” that the Inquiry would have a dedicated strand investigating Lord Janner.
Dr Sally Baker on Lord Winston – high profile fertility expert:
Robert Winston is a Fellow of the RSA and a member of the Garrick, the MCC and the Athenaeum. Savile was a member of the Athenaeum and Dafydd’s umbrella’s Sir Ronnie Waterhouse and Sir William Mars-Jones were members of the Garrick.
The UK’s most high profile fertility expert, Lord Robert Winston, was a friend and colleague of Geoffrey Chamberlain…
Lord Bob is media friendly but Lord Bob knew about the trafficking gang that was being facilitated by Prof Geoffrey Chamberlain et al at St George’s and the rest of the wrongdoing by Chamberlain et al
…some of what I knew about about Lord Bob’s colleagues, including the sex with research assistants in the lab during working hours, the constant sexual harassment of other staff, the research fraud and the colluding with Dafydd and associated trafficking gangs…
Associate Professor, Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
About
Professor McVeigh’s research has been mostly based in reproductive medicine and endometriosis. His current areas of interest are in ovarian tissue cryopreservation for pre-pubertal and adolescent girls.
He was formerly medical director and lead consultant in the Oxford Fertility Unit and is one of the founding partners of the IVF clinic network Reproductive Partnership, the largest such network in the UK. He has also served as a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)’s Appeal Committee.
Controversial: Gynaecologist and adviser Enda McVeigh, above left, at the IVF clinic in Shanghai, which he has visited several times
Fertility doctor paid £630,000 to treat his own NHS backlog sets up clinic… in China
30th January 2011
An eminent fertility doctor whose private company was paid £630,000 to treat a backlog of his own NHS patients is at the centre of a fresh row over his role with a controversial Chinese IVF clinic.
Gynaecologist and government adviser Enda McVeigh, of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, has regularly travelled to Shanghai over the past 12 months to help set up the state-of-the-art unit 6,000 miles away.
The four trips, each lasting a fortnight, took place despite objections by a hospital director, who argued that Mr McVeigh’s visits would take him away from NHS patients.
Since last April, Mr McVeigh and his colleague Timothy Child have between them spent almost three months visiting the Tongji Reproductive Medicine Center, which offers fertility treatments that are beyond the reach of all but the elite in China.
A single cycle of IVF costs almost £3,000 – more than the average annual salary and 50 per cent more expensive than other Chinese clinics.
Economic growth in the vast nation – particularly in Shanghai – means demand for IVF is now booming despite China’s one-child policy. However, the issue of fertility treatment has proved controversial in the staunchly traditional country.
Last week, a reporter from this newspaper visited the clinic, where the walls were lined with -photographs of Oxford’s historic city centre. Dr Ji Yazhong, the clinic’s leading fertility expert, said: ‘Mr McVeigh brought the pictures for us when he came in October.’
Dr Ji said Mr McVeigh or members of his team came to the clinic ‘regularly’ and added that the progress of every patient was supervised by Mr McVeigh or his colleagues via video conferences.
Aside from IVF, other treatments offered include artificial insemination, which costs 8,000 yuan (£770) per course, again significantly higher than many other private clinics in the country.
Enda McVeigh
Mr McVeigh also features prominently on the website of a rival Chinese fertility chain, the Congramaria Hospital Group.
When Mr McVeigh first informed John Radcliffe Hospital about plans for the trips, then clinical director Dr Anne Edwards told her superiors she feared the regular absences would delay patient care and drive up waiting lists.
However, the trips were sanctioned by Stephen Kennedy, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the hospital.
Companies House documents reveal that Mr Kennedy is a former business partner of Mr McVeigh. And Mr Kennedy’s position is funded by the Oxford Fertility Unit (OFU), which is run by Mr McVeigh and Mr Child.
One leading doctor said: ‘Dr Edwards did express concern to her line manager that these trips to China would cause waiting lists to grow. Later on, when there was a backlog of hundreds of patients, she suggested that throwing taxpayer cash at the problem was not the right way to go. But managers went along with it. It’s yet another example of a huge conflict of interests.’
The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this month that John Radcliffe Hospital paid the OFU £629,030 to clear the backlog in November and December. A number of those patients were due to be treated by Mr McVeigh and Mr Child. The deal was approved by Mr Kennedy.
The money paid for 25 consultant gynaecologists and anaesthetists to carry out the procedures during their non-NHS time.
Enquiries by this newspaper have established that senior anaesthetists at John Radcliffe Hospital complained about the quality of the anaesthetists contracted.
In a letter to medical director Professor Edward Baker dated November 11, 2010, Dr Jane -Quinlan, chairman of the hospital’s Department of Anaesthetics, labelled the decision to take on ‘locum anaesthetists who fulfil none of the Trust’s clinical governance measures’ as ‘bizarre’.
Another consultant anaesthetist, Dr Nicholas Crabtree, warned in a letter to Ashok Handa, clinical director of theatres, anaesthetics and clinical care, dated December 17, 2010, of the ‘significant potential’ for patients ‘to suffer harm’.
Russell Howard-Tricker jailed for 14 years for abusing two teenage boys
4 Oct 2019
Pervert former teacher jailed for 14 years for abusing two teenage boys
A PERVERT former teacher and Scout master has been jailed for 14 years for abusing two teenage boys.
Russell Howard-Tricker, 77, groomed and abused a boy for several years when he worked as a teacher at Colchester school in the 1960s.
He also took pictures of a teenager he knew through the scouts naked in a caravan in St Osyth and abused him during the same time period.
Howard-Tricker, of no fixed abode in the UK, admitted two counts of indecent assault but was convicted of two more and committing buggery after a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Judge Christopher Morgan said the offences would have been treated as rape if they happened today before jailing the paedophile.
“In both cases you have contributed significantly to the difficulties they have experienced during the course of their lives as teenagers and throughout their adult life.”
Speaking after the hearing, the first victim said: “I was groomed and sexually abused from the age of 13.
“In the years since, I have felt shame, self-doubt, isolation and depression.
“I was encouraged by seeing other cases in the media to finally face up to getting the help I needed, and from that came a successful prosecution.
“This has given me a sense of closure.
“I am grateful that a dangerous paedophile has been prevented from harming others in the way he harmed me.”
The second victim became dependent on alcohol and suffered depression after being abused by Howard-Tricker.
He said: “I would drink up to ten pints a day at the worst points and my dependency went on for decades.
“It led to me getting a drink drive conviction, to losing my job after that, to eventually my first wife leaving me.
“I felt degraded by what Tricker did to me and felt I could never tell anyone so I just locked all my feelings away.”
During the police investigation, officers found out Howard-Tricker was living in Prague.
He was arrested at Birmingham Airport on December 21, 2018 and later charged.
Investigating officer DC Rachel Evemy, of the North Child Abuse Investigation Team, said: “I want to commend the victims for their bravery in coming forward after suffering the trauma of Howard-Tricker’s abuse all those decades ago.
“He was someone they trusted and who had a duty of care for them, and he abused that trust in the most horrendous way.
“This case highlights the long lasting impact that child sexual abuse has on its survivors.
“But it also shows how justice can still be achieved and I hope today’s sentence will help his victims move forward.
“I urge anyone who has been sexually abused to please report it, no matter how long ago it took place.
“We will take your report seriously, investigate and help ensure you receive the right support.
A former pupil at Chetham’s School of Music has described being sexually assaulted by her violin tutor, Chris Ling, at the age of 15.
The abuse started during a half-term course while all the other pupils were out, the witness told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
Former Chetham’s head teacher John Vallins said he was unaware of concerns about Ling’s conduct at the time.
Ling’s abuse emerged in 1990 after he left the school, the inquiry heard.
The former pupil, known as A2, said Chris Ling told her to keep the abuse a secret.
He told her she would have no chance of succeeding as a soloist if she disclosed to anyone what had happened, said the witness who gave evidence anonymously.
Chetham’s School in Manchester is one of the UK’s leading music schools.
The witness said the first sexual assault took place during the autumn half-term in 1989 when Ling organised a special course for pupils in a house in Manchester.
She said he assaulted her again at Easter in 1990 before he left his job at the end of the summer term, taking some pupils with him.
She said she felt “devastated” at not being among them.
“He had brainwashed us into thinking he was our only means of success,” she told the inquiry.
Police interview
Later that year, evidence began to emerge of sexual assaults by Ling on up to 12 other female pupils which led to a police investigation.
A2 told the inquiry the school gave her very little support when she was interviewed by police and failed to tell her parents what was going on.
Her new violin teacher was a man who had a reputation for having affairs with pupils and when he made inappropriate comments and stood too close to her during lessons, she complained but the school failed to support her, A2 told the inquiry.
Ling’s abuse “affected me emotionally and physically”, she told the inquiry.
“I’ve not played classical music since leaving there.
“I find it hard to listen to and I’ve burned most of my music.
“It has had an effect on my relationships.
“I seem to attract father-figure type men who end up having control issues over me and I end up becoming withdrawn and detached… my marriage has broken down.”
‘Very violent’
Another former pupil, referred to as A1, described a violent sexual assault by Ling when she was staying overnight at his home after a concert.
“It was very violent… I couldn’t breathe,” she told the inquiry.
She said Ling had spent months grooming her ahead of the initial assault.
The abuse occurred again on several occasions and she was one of the pupils Ling took with him to the US where she had a “horrible” time, she told the inquiry.
When she returned to the school a few months later, she was interviewed by police but, otherwise, pupils were told not to mention Ling.
“The silence just made it so much worse,” A1 told the inquiry.
She said the abuse left her “generally hostile and wary towards males” and believes the competitive culture within schools like Chetham’s can allow sexual predators to thrive.
Mr Vallins, head teacher of Chetham’s from 1974 to 1992, said he personally had no part in appointing Ling who was hired directly by the music department.
He said he was unaware of extra-curricular courses run by Ling.
He told the inquiry that at the time the school had no written child protection policies: “It was a different world then to the world we live in now. It would be wrong to think that Chetham’s, in not having those practices, was unusual.”
He added: “It would be idle of me to deny that it is evident from the subject of this inquiry that there were bad things happening which I did not know about, and I should have done, and I can’t say how bitterly I regret that.”
The inquiry heard that seven individuals have been either convicted, were likely to have been convicted if alive, or have admitted to sexual relationships with pupils while Mr Vallins was head teacher.
A former pupil, Ian Pace, told the inquiry the music department run by Michael Brewer, and the academic part of the school were completely separate.
“It was almost like two schools and the teachers didn’t really talk to each other either,” Mr Pace told the inquiry.
He said there should be an official regulatory body specifically for music education.
The evidence is part of the residential schools phase of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, one of 14 separate investigations it is holding.
Ling moved to the US in the 1990s where he ran a talent agency. He shot himself dead in 2015 after police arrived at his home to arrest him for extradition to the UK. Greater Manchester Police had been planning to charge him with 77 offences.
This hearing will examine child sexual abuse in residential music and special schools, as well as institutional responses and safeguarding procedures.
Children in residential special schools are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse as a result of their isolation from their families and carers, as well as the involvement of staff in their personal care.
Witnesses in this first phase of the investigation include victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in residential schools, teachers and safeguarding experts.
The first week will focus on residential music schools, with Chetham’s School of Music, Wells Cathedral School, Yehudi Menuhin School and Purcell School set to be examined.
The Inquiry chose to investigate these schools because of the issues arising from their specialist nature, including one-to-one tuition, an intimate atmosphere and an imbalance of power in teacher/pupil relationships.
Residential special schools will be examined in the second week of the hearing, including Appletree School, Southlands School, Stony Dean, Stanbridge Earls and Royal School Manchester.
The Inquiry chose to focus on these schools because the children who attend them are among the most vulnerable in our society and the Inquiry seeks to examine if more action is needed to safeguard them.
On the first day, a written narrative of child sexual abuse at eight institutionswhich have since closed will be submitted. This document, referred to as the closed schools narrative, includes accounts from 50 victims and survivors and will provide a historical background to child sexual abuse and institutional failures across the school sector.
The hearing will take place from 10am to 4.15pm at the Inquiry’s hearing centre, 18 Pocock Street, London SE1 0BW.
The timetable for the first week is available on the Inquiry’s website here.
Public hearings are streamed ‘live’ (subject to a three minute delay) on the Inquiry’s YouTube channel and website www.iicsa.org.uk/live. The transcripts will be available on the website a few hours after the end of each hearing day.
American model Jennifer Arcuri ‘told friends she was having a sexual affair with Boris Johnson’:
US journalist David Enrich said he spoke to friends who confirmed the affair
29 September 2019
Among those who she confided in were university classmates and a Conservative Party activist who said: ‘She told me they were sleeping together,’ according to the Sunday Times.
The paper claimed she told four friends that the pair had been engaged in an affair during his time in City Hall.
David Enrich, the financial editor of the New York Times, said that Ms Arcuri had confided to close university peers she was sleeping with Mr Johnson.
He said: ‘Two friends from her business class said they had been told by Arcuri that she was sleeping with Boris.’
In 2013, Mr Enrich spoke to the businesswoman and several of her tight-knit friendship group for an article he was writing.
Referring to notes which he has kept from those conversations, he alleges that Ms Arcuri said that Mr Johnson warned her to steer clear of speaking to the press.
And Mr Enrich said that her classmates at London’s Hult International Business School repeatedly stated that the entrepreneur had confided to them of her affair with Mr Johnson.
His account was said by the Sunday Times to corroborate that of other sources who had spoken to Ms Arcuri.
His reports are backed up by the account of a Conservative Party activist who alleges that Ms Arcuri told him during the 2015 general election campaign of her sexual relationship with the now Premier.
Former chief of Army communications at Mar-a-Lago gets probation for lying during child pornography investigation
28 Sept 2019
President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida,
A US serviceman who oversaw Army communications at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida was sentenced to three years of probation for lying during a child pornography investigation, according to court documents.
Richard Ciccarella told federal agents that he was the “Non-commissioned Officer in Charge” of White House communications at Mar-a-Lago, the documents state.
He headed the Army’s communication detail at the resort from August 2017 to March 2018, The Palm Beach Post reported.
In July, about two months after his arrest, Ciccarella pleaded guilty to making a false statement to a federal agent during the child pornography investigation.
He had uploaded photos of a female relative to a Russian website under the username RICH25N and also saved images in other folders accessible online, the documents state.
In one of his folders, Ciccarella posted a photograph of a young relative wearing only underwear and standing next to a Christmas tree, with the comment: “Dirty comment’s welcome,” according to the documents.
While the photos didn’t constitute child pornography, his lies were troubling, Assistant US Attorney Gregory Schiller said, according to the newspaper.
When asked by federal agents, Ciccarella denied ever using the Yahoo email that was connected to that username.
He admitted to posting photos of the girl online but said people began posting comments on the pictures of which he did not approve, the documents state.
Authorities tracked down the username’s IP address to Ciccarella’s home.
A previous iPhone that agents seized from the residence showed a history of visiting the Russian website and Ciccarella admitted to agents that he lied about the email address because he was scared, according to court documents.
As part of his probation, a federal judge ruled Ciccarella not be allowed unsupervised personal, mail, telephone or computer contact with children under 18, including the alleged victim, and that he participates in a sex offender treatment program.
CNN has reached out to Ciccarella ‘s attorney for comment. According to The Palm Beach Post, Ciccarella is now stationed in Virginia.
Boris Johnson’s friendship with businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri ‘was open secret among staff’
27 Sept 2019
Boris Johnson’s close friendship with a Californian entrepreneur helped by London’s tourism and promotions agency was an “open secret” among its staff, the Standard has been told.
Former officials at the agency, London & Partners (L&P), recalled how Jennifer Arcuri was given places on foreign trade trips led by Mr Johnson in his time as mayor despite her companies being regarded as “not credible” by some at the time.
Referring to Ms Arcuri, 34, a former model, another ex-staffer said: “I don’t think that anybody ever said that Boris was seeing her but it was an open secret that they were close.” Investigations have been launched by Mayor Sadiq Khan and the London Assembly into public funds given to Ms Arcuri’s firms and places she was granted on foreign trade trips.
The Standard understands the investigations are likely to focus on a L&P-run trip made by Mr Johnson to Tel Aviv in November 2015. Ms Arcuri was initially told by L&P she “did not qualify” for it but officials were later “advised by Arcuri that she had secured permission from a mayoral adviser to attend”, according to L&P.
Ms Arcuri’s firm The Innotech Network, founded in February 2013, first received funding from L&P that year with £10,000 in sponsorship for a conference at the World Islamic Economic Forum. It also received £1,500 for an event in 2014. L&P says it has “no evidence” of Mr Johnson being involved in either decision.
Ms Arcuri was among delegates taken on mayoral trips to Malaysia in November 2014 and to New York in February 2015. L&P said Innotech, a financial technology firm, was declined a place on the Malaysia trip “as it did not meet the criteria” of the trip, which focused on “creative technology”.
She applied again with another of her firms, Playbox, and was accepted. L&P said it had “no evidence” of Mr Johnson’s involvement in the decision to accept Playbox onto the mission. Playbox was dissolved in February 2016.
Ms Arcuri was told she “did not qualify” for the New York trip but L&P records “show that a senior mayoral adviser did confirm to [L&P] that she should be allowed to attend some events in New York” as she was already planning to be in the city. No financial support was given.
The Standard was told that L&P staff were aware Ms Arcuri was “connected” to Mr Johnson. On at least one occasion, she was granted a place following a request from the mayor’s office after initially being rejected by L&P.
One L&P source claimed: “It was an open secret she got to come because she was close with Boris.” Mr Johnson will comply with a London Assembly order to explain his links to Ms Arcuri but says his former colleagues are “barking up the wrong tree”. Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly had previously hinted the Prime Minister could refuse to give evidence to City Hall regarding allegations he favoured his friend for business grants and trade missions while mayor. Mr Johnson has since said:“I will co-operate with my old friends on the Assembly. But on this particular matter, I think they are barking up the wrong tree.”
Ms Arcuri studied law at Columbia University in New York in 2001 and has a number of degrees including in musical theatre. She also has an MBA in investments and securities, according to her online profile.
She began her career as an on-air radio personality for Radio DJ Razzle Dazz, part of the Walt Disney company, and spent more than 10 years on the show.
In 2008, she produced the short film La Valise, part of the short film showcase at the Cannes Film Festival.
She moved to the UK in 2011, and prior to that worked in digital technology and film production in California.
Ms Arcuri founded Innotech to run events, networking and start-up funding for technology.
London & Partners last night said it would be inappropriate to comment on the latest allegations. Allen Simpson, its director of strategy and corporate affairs, said the agency had “tightened rules relating to procurement. We are confident in these controls and in our team.”
Ms Arcuri told the Sunday Times after it first reported claims: “Any grants received by my companies and any trade mission I joined were purely in respect of my role as a legitimate businesswoman.”She did not comment on the nature of her relationship with Mr Johnson.
Scientology policy enabled years of child sexual abuse, lawsuit says
September 19, 2019
In the third lawsuit filed against the Church of Scientology and its leader, David Miscavige, in three months, a 25-year-old woman alleges she was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child in Scientology’s care, including at the church’s Clearwater Academy.
On top of the abuse, the lawsuit explains how church officials allegedly knew it was occurring and did nothing to stop it or alert law enforcement, actions rooted in policy written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
When the woman spoke of her alleged abuse after leaving Scientology in 2018, the church deployed a campaign of harassment against her, a tactic also based on Hubbard’s Fair Game policy aimed to destroy those labeled as enemies.
According to the complaint filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Wednesday, Scientology operatives cut the brake lines on the woman’s car, vandalized her property, followed and surveilled her, and harassed her with hundreds of spam calls.
The woman is referred to in the complaint only as Jane Doe for fear of more retaliation by the church.The lawsuit names Miscavige, Scientology’s Flag Service Organization, its Religious Technology Center, Church of Scientology International and Clearwater Academy as defendants against allegations from sexual battery to racketeering and negligence.
With no criminal charges brought upon Scientology despite years of allegations of criminal activity, a team of a dozen victims’ rights attorneys are using civil court to expose the church’s alleged institutional abuses. The team, which filed its first complaint in June, includes a constitutional scholar and a lawyer who successfully prosecuted Bill Cosby on sexual assault charges.
“Scientology may be a religious organization, and they can believe whatever they want to believe, but they can’t do whatever they want to do,” the team’s lead attorney, Brian Kent, told the Tampa Bay Times on Thursday. “They will be subject to the law just as any other organization would be subject to the law.”
Scientology spokespeople Ben Shaw and Karin Pouw did not respond to a request for comment.
The first time Doe was sexually abused in Scientology’s care, the lawsuit states, was during her two kindergarten years at Clearwater Academy on Drew Street in downtown Clearwater.
The lawsuit states that on multiple occasions an employee: forced Jane Doe and other young girls to perform sexual acts on each other; masturbated in front of and ejaculated on Doe; and, on at least one occasion, forced his penis into her mouth.
Doe reported this to adults at the school, but no action was taken to remove the employee or stop the abuse, according to the lawsuit.
The only answer to crimes committed by church members, including sexual assault, is Hubbard’s policy and technology, not law enforcement or the courts, the lawsuit states.
Hubbard’s policies, rolled out following the formation of the Church of Scientology in 1953, teach it is a “high crime” to report a Scientologist to law enforcement. Phones within certain church facilities are incapable of dialing 911, according to the lawsuit.
At age 11, Doe was sent by Scientology to live in Caracas, Venezuela without her parents. The next year she was assaulted by the son of a high-ranking Scientologist at the Caracas Org, a church facility, according to the complaint.
Doe immediately disclosed the assault to her auditor, a person who conducts spiritual counseling sessions. Instead of reporting the assault to law enforcement, the lawsuit alleges church officials “sentenced” Doe to three months of physical labor and issued her a “non-enturbulation” order, which warned she was at risk of losing standing in the church for “bringing in” the sexual assault.
“One who suffers sexual abuse, whether an adult or a child, is assumed to have done something to incite or invite such abuse,” as the lawsuit describes Scientology practices.
After her labor sentence, she was sent back to Clearwater at age 14 to join the Sea Org, the church’s clergy-like workforce where members sign billion-year contracts and work an average of 100 hours a week for little to no wages.
Sea Org children are separated from their parents and assigned a guardian. Doe’s guardian, then a 24-year old woman, “groomed Jane Doe to enter into a sexual relationship with her,” according to the lawsuit.
As a child, Doe could not understand the consequences of her actions and could not consent to a sexual relationship, the lawsuit states. The complaint states church officials should have known the guardian was abusing and prevented the abuse from occurring. But they did not.
Once she escaped Scientology in 2018, Jane Doe was stalked, harassed and followed by church officials – tactics that “went beyond all bounds of decency and the conduct was shocking, atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
The lawsuit stresses the alleged culpability of Miscavige, Scientology’s leader who took over the organization following Hubbard’s death in 1986.
It describes the Sea Org structure as a human trafficking scheme that benefits Miscavige financially.
Church officials “have made billions off the backs of men, women and children who are trafficked and forced to work 100 hour weeks for far below the minimum wage with little to no free time or vacation under the threat of severe punishment for failure to perform their work duties,” the lawsuit states.
The complaint alleges child Sea Org members like Doe have their food rationed and are subjected to hard labor like asbestos removal and construction. Children are deprived of proper education. And any child or adult who flees or speaks negatively about the church is subject to shunning by parents, relatives and friends through Scientology’s disconnection policy.
“Personal freedoms are restricted, families are separated, and severe punishments are utilized to maintain complete control over the forced workers, including children, in the Sea Org,” the lawsuit states.
Along with Miscavige’s and the church’s liability for Doe’s abuse, the lawsuit states Clearwater Academy failed in its legal duty to protect students.
The legal team’s first lawsuit filed in June on behalf of another Jane Doe accuses the church of: child abuse related to auditing, where children are interrogated for hours about sexual questions; human trafficking the woman was a part of in the Sea Org; and Fair Game tactics she endured after escaping, including, the church publishing “a hate website” falsely stating she was an alcoholic dismissed from the sect for promiscuity.
The second lawsuit was filed in August against Scientology, Miscavige and actor Danny Masterson on behalf of four women who allege they were raped by Masterson, a parishioner. After they reported the rapes to Los Angeles Police in 2016 and 2017, the lawsuit states Scientology unleashed a campaign of terror to intimidate the accusers.
Kent said he expects his team to file “numerous” complaints this year against Scientology relating to alleged victims of child abuse, human trafficking and harassment.
“Obviously this is a very secretive organization that has policies that you are not to speak publicly about any of the abuses that are occurring,” Kent told the Times. “We want transparency and we want to expose the abuses that are happening.”
We know what happened in Kincora boys’ home and we want the files open, insists victim
A man who was abused at a notorious boys’ home in east Belfast has said the victims have every right to see secret files on Kincora rather than endure “the hell of not knowing” what’s in them.
Ron Graham (61) was speaking after this newspaper revealed that documents linked to the child sex abuse scandal will remain locked away in Northern Ireland’s official archive for decades to come.
At least 19 files directly related to the home are “closed” to the public, and in one case the order remains in place until 2085 at the earliest.
Around a dozen more of the files are closed – either fully or partially – until the mid-2060s and beyond.
The department responsible for the records said they contained “sensitive personal data” and couldn’t be opened in order to protect victims’ personal details and comply with data protection legislation.
But that’s an “excuse” Mr Graham last night said he “flatly rejects”.
“Of course it’s sensitive material – we’re the victims, we lived through this – but we’re entitled to see those files,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.
Claims have persisted that senior politicians, civil servants and businessmen were complicit in a paedophile ring that operated at the home in the 1970s and that the security services were aware of it.
Mr Graham spent almost a year at the infamous boys’ home after being taken into care when his teachers realised his father had been beating him. But what happened to him in Kincora turned out to be even worse.
Having given evidence at the trial of paedophile William McGrath, a former housemaster at Kincora who was subsequently jailed for four years, Mr Graham said “at the very least” he is “entitled to see the files” after all this time.
“Seeing what’s in these files could no be worse than what I or anyone else lived through in Kincora,” he said.
“What McGrath did to me was unspeakable.
“I still have mental health problems because of it. He’s dead now but I’m still living through the hell of not knowing what’s in those secret documents.
“Questions have to be asked about why it went on for so long, and who covered it up. I think these files would open up an awful lot of history.”
He added: “Making them public won’t upset Kincora victims. Every victim I’ve talked to has said they want to see the files. For the last two days it’s all we’ve been talking about.”
The Kincora scandal shocked Northern Ireland to its core in 1980 when it emerged that at least 29 boys were sexually abused at the care home.
Three senior staff members – McGrath, Joseph Mains and William Semple – were jailed in 1981 for the abuse.
Mr Graham, a member of the group Savia (Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse), said he’s been campaigning “for nearly 10 years now” but he revealed that up until recently he was unaware of the actual number of files in existence.
“We’ve always tried to get the files, we’ve known about them – but this is the first time we’ve known how many files there are,” he said.
“They say they’re protecting the victims by not making the files public, but that’s nonsense. We know better than anyone what happened in there. We want the files open. We want to see what they say.
“I don’t see any reason to keep them closed. At the very least they should let a judge decide because this is about us, the victims, and we have every right to see them.”
Two private inquiries instigated by the then Secretary of State Jim Prior failed to provide adequate answers for victims, nor did a report published in 2017 by retired judge Sir Anthony Hart, as part of a public inquiry into historical sex abuse in Northern Ireland.
But Bangor-based Mr Graham said that, having been let down countless times in the past, he will now be pursuing the matter in the near future with Secretary of State Justin Smith.
“I won’t rest until I get proper answers,” he said.
“All we want is closure so that we can move on.
“We didn’t get it in the Hart report or in the previous inquiries so I’ll be speaking to Mr Smith when I meet him with Savia in two weeks’ time and I’ll be asking for his help.”
Solicitor Claire McKeegan from Phoenix Law, who represents the majority of the survivors of Kincora, including Mr Graham, said that with secrecy comes suspicion.
“Kincora has for decades been surrounded in controversy and allegations of the most grave and alarming nature,” she said.
“The deliberate suppression of documents by the Government which could shed light on what went on only adds to the ongoing suspicions long held by survivors about who knew what and when.”
Doug Beattie called for immediate action, saying the Kincora files “should be open for scrutiny now”.
The Ulster Unionist MLA added: “There should be no hiding place for those who abused children, or anyone else, regardless of who they are.”
Secret Kincora scandal file will not be released for 66 years
‘The suspicion is they are hiding something’ – secret Kincora Boys’ Home documents to stay locked up for another 66 years
Sept 16 2019
Highly-sensitive documents on the Kincora Boys’ Home scandal will remain locked away in Northern Ireland’s official archive for decades to come.
At least 19 files directly related to the notorious east Belfast care home are “closed” to the public.
In one case, the order remains in place until 2085 at the earliest. Around a dozen more of the files are closed – either fully or partially – until the mid-2060s and beyond.
Others which were scheduled to be declassified in recent years remain at least partly shut.
The department responsible for the records said they contained “sensitive personal data” and could not be opened in order to protect victims’ personal details and to comply with data protection legislation.
On Friday the Belfast Telegraph reported that confidential Government files on Kincora held in Dublin, that were due to be released this summer, have been kept under wraps yet again.
The secrecy in Belfast has prompted Andrew Lownie, the author of a royal biography on the Mountbattens, to write to Garda Commissioner Drew Harris. He wants access to Irish files on Lord Mountbatten that could shed light on abuse at Kincora.
Mr Lownie has uncovered evidence linking Mountbatten to the abuse of children from the Kincora boys’ home in Belfast, while a secret FBI dossier uncovered by Lownie in the course of his research indicates that Mountbatten’s sexual activities were known by the authorities.
The book, ‘The Mountbattens: their Lives and Loves’, contains interviews with two unnamed men who describe being brought from Kincora in the summer of 1977 to Mullaghmore, where Mountbatten was on holiday at his Co Sligo holiday residence, Classiebawn Castle.
The interviewees, who were 16 at the time, both claim they were then abused by the earl.
The Kincora files had been due to be made public under the 20-year disclosure rule but Mr Lownie has been told they “need to be reviewed” before that is likely.
However, Ulster Unionist MLA Mike Nesbitt said the secrecy would only lead to more questions.
“The suspicion is they are hiding something. Is that legitimate? We can’t make that judgment when we don’t know what is in there,” he said.
The Kincora scandal shocked Ireland when it emerged in 1980.
At least 29 boys were sexually abused at the care home.
Three senior staff members – William McGrath, Joseph Mains and William Semple – were jailed in 1981 for the abuse.
However, allegations have persisted of a cover-up by MI5, which was rumoured to be protecting high-ranking paedophiles in the military, Civil Service and politics. It was claimed the RUC had been informed of the abuse years earlier, but failed to act.
A “private inquiry” was set up in 1982 by the then Secretary of State Jim Prior to investigate the scandal, but it fell apart after three members resigned, claiming the RUC hadn’t carried out an effective probe.
Mr Prior established another inquiry under Judge William Hughes, but most of his recommendations were about the operation of children’s homes and care for young people generally.
In 2017 retired judge Anthony Hart published a report after a long-running inquiry into historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland. His report dismissed claims that senior figures were complicit in a paedophile ring, and that the UK security services knew what was going on.
However, questions have been raised over the inaccessibility of many official papers. The papers are held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), the region’s official archive.
Files on Kincora were conspicuously absent when government papers from 1982 were declassified in December 2012.
A list of closed files held by PRONI show at least 19 are directly linked to Kincora.
Four, which were listed for review in 2013, remain closed. Three more are listed for review between 2020 and 2026. The other 12 have review dates ranging from 2067 to 2085, meaning they are not due to be declassified until these dates at the earliest.
In some cases part of the file has been made public, with its other contents redacted, or blanked out.
The file closed until 2085 contains “transcripts of proceedings of (the) committee of inquiry into children’s homes and hostels”, and “evidence of witnesses”. Two other files, closed until 2080, contain similar material.
Mr Nesbitt said he was “surprised and concerned” by the revelation. He said one option was to open the files to independent scrutiny.
“If you lock away files for that length of time then people will think there is something really serious to hide,” he added. “A compromise position might be to allow a senior, respected figure like a retired High Court judge – someone who knows what they are doing – to inspect the files and make a general statement, at least to dispel any suspicion.”
Alliance leader Naomi Long said Kincora’s victims deserved answers. She said: “This lack of transparency and repeated refusal to open the files relating to this case fuels the perception there was, at best, more knowledge of what was happening at Kincora Boys’ Home at the time than has been admitted, and, at worst, Government cover-up of or collusion in the abuse itself.
“These papers need to be released so that abuse can be investigated properly and in a way which will bring truth and justice to the victims and survivors of Kincora.”
PRONI falls under the remit of the Department for Communities. A spokesperson said: “The files are closed because they contain sensitive personal data. It is an extended closure period to protect the names and other personal details of victims and to comply with data protection legislation.”
Murdered journalist Lyra McKee wrote a book about the 1981 murder of MP Robert Bradford.
Angels With Blue Faces follows an investigation by Ms McKee into the murder of the Ulster Unionist MP, and examines speculation that he had been about to expose details of people involved with the abuse of children at the east Belfast boys’ home Kincora.
Ms McKee was was shot dead by dissident republicans in April, just weeks before her book was due to be published.
Trauma expert Dr JACQUI DILLON reports how she was intimidated and had her Twitter account suspended for raising questions about ‘minor-attracted persons’ amid a worrying trend of dangerous child abusers becoming organised online
CURRENTLY, there is a growing movement to rebrand paedophilia — a word which in itself is problematic — although it is currently synonymous with people who sexually abuse children.
As a survivor of organised childhood sexual exploitation (CSE), I can attest that the sexual abuse of children is the antithesis of love, unlike the denotion of the etymology of the word.
Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to legitimise paedophilia. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), was a British-based pro-paedophile activist group, founded in 1974.
The group campaigned for the age of consent to be lowered to the age of four, while receiving significant funding from the Home Office and was affiliated with the National Council for Civil Liberties.
Such groups still exist internationally. In a letter to the Guardian in 1997, Peter Tatchell stated that friends as young as nine had sexual experiences which gave them “great joy.”
Tatchell inferred that while he was unable to condone paedophilia, he claimed that not all sex involving children was “unwanted, abusive or harmful.”
The current attempts to legitimise paedophilia have become apparent on Twitter, with a growing number of people describing themselves as “Maps,” an acronym for “minor-attracted person,” a term used by individuals who are sexually attracted to those below the age of consent, including: nepiophilia or infantophilia (attraction to babies and toddlers); paedophilia (attraction to pre-pubescent children); hebephilia (attraction to pubescent children/early adolescents); and ephebophilia (attraction to late adolescents).
Twitter currently has a policy which explicitly states that “discussions related to child exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction to minors are permitted, provided they don’t glorify CSE in any way.”
This change in policy was achieved by a renowned expert in the treatment of paedophilia and “Map” advocate lobbying Twitter’s director of trust and safety, stating that it would “help reduce the stigma associated with pedophilia [sic].”
Anyone who is 13 or older can access Twitter where they are now exposed to content where adults openly discuss their attractions to children with impunity.
I began disseminating this information on Twitter and questioning the motivations of “Maps” and their advocates.
I have been trolled on numerous occasions, including a time when Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aslo known as Tommy Robinson) and his followers Twitter mobbed me and told me that I deserved to be gang raped because I objected to their cynical hijacking of CSE for their fascist agenda.
They dismissed the fact that the perpetrators who abused me were all white and British, displayed zero interest in CSE perpetrated by white offenders, who are by far the vast majority of all sexual offenders, or expressed outrage at such offences being committed within their own ranks.
However, my experiences with the lengths that “Maps” are willing to go to is on another level.
I have been viciously and relentlessly trolled for weeks, an obsessive and libellous blog, clearly written by a highly disturbed individual, has been circulated about me, attempting to discredit me.
I have been bombarded with Photoshopped images of my face grafted onto graphic, pornographic images. And other things I will not share due to safety issues.
I have been advised by those speaking from personal experience that “Maps” have a history of doxxing people and their children. And worse.
Consequently, a group of “Maps” mass reported me to Twitter for objecting to their attempts to normalise their predilections and their attempts to legitimise sexual attraction to children as being innate and immutable, which based on current research is highly contestable.
For example, many advocate adding a P to LGBT. Naturally, many of us within the LGBT community find this idea abhorrent.
“Maps” and their professional allies advocate child sex dolls, arguing that there is no evidence that they increase the likelihood of offending.
Equally, there is no evidence that they reduce the risk of offending — a child sex doll is just another form of objectifying a child for sexual gratification.
I was then notified by Twitter that my account had been permanently suspended for “abuse and harassment.” Despite appealing my permanent suspension it was upheld.
It was only when I and others directly lobbied the vice-president of Twitter Europe, stating that my suspension was a travesty that suddenly, without explanation, my suspension was lifted.
Clearly Twitter, with its vast profits, needs to employ people to monitor activity on its platform rather than relying on algorithms to maintain safety and integrity.
Crucially, it urgently needs to review its CSE policy which is currently not fit for purpose.
As soon as my permanent suspension was lifted, I was flooded with new reports from Twitter.
Those who had conspired to get my account suspended, openly gloating about it when they thought they had succeeded, were the same people scrutinising my timeline on @jacquidillon @beckrdalliance, an alliance I founded for survivors of CSE, looking for tweets to report.
Again, they openly discussed their intention to silence me. For the first time ever, I locked both accounts over the summer break.
Professor Jennifer Freyd coined the acronym “Darvo” to describe a set of tactics perpetrators often employ to avoid being held accountable for their actions.
Perpetrators frequently Deny their behaviour, Attack the individual who is holding them to account and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender, so that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the victim into the alleged perpetrator.
The behaviour of these “Maps” is entirely consistent with perpetrator behaviour.
There is a small but significant number of people who want to sexually abuse children. Bearing in mind that one perpetrator can wreak havoc on numerous children’s lives, as a society, we have to address this unpalatable truth in order to stop the epidemic of child abuse and its devastating consequences.
However, constructing one’s identity around a predilection to sexually abusing children, creating a community with a dubious agenda, rather than seeking help in more appropriate settings, is highly suspect.
The notion of “non-offending” offers little reassurance. Child abusers are notoriously deceitful. Perhaps the opportunity to access a child has not yet arisen or they have simply not been detected.
Therefore anyone with an unhealthy interest in children must be deemed a risk to children. Additionally, this distinction between contact and non-contact is meaningless in a space where identities and claims cannot be verified.
I have been sent evidence that some of the most vociferous “Maps” have committed extremely serious crimes against children and are currently grooming children.
Authorities have been notified.These people are organised, using multiple identities, groups, platforms and are linked internationally. Their methods are insidious yet blatant — hidden in plain sight.
As a survivor of CSE who is directly challenging “Maps,” I am seen as a real and present threat.
One of the things that I have learned through surviving the horrors of my childhood is that is essential to defy such intimidation tactics.
I have always been outspoken. It is an entirely strategic position I take as a working-class woman, survivor and activist.
As the great Audre Lorde said: “Your silence will not protect you.” I refuse to be silenced by a group of paedophiles ever again. I look forward to making my Twitter account public again today.
Jimmy Savile was allowed to roam freely around the boys’ dormitories of a Catholic school at the centre of child abuse allegations, an inquiry was told.
12 Sept 2019
The DJ, television presenter and paedophile is said to have driven to Fort Augustus Abbey School in his Rolls-Royce on several occasions.
Children at the boarding school on the banks of Loch Ness felt “uncomfortable” around him and were not told why he was there.
Details of Savile’s visits emerged at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which heard separate claims that a child was raped by monks who had drugged him. In a written statement, a man given the pseudonym “Rory” said that his brother “Doug”, who was born in 1951 but has since died, told him that Savile was given access to the school in the 1960s when he was a DJ with Radio Luxembourg. He said that no one knew why he kept coming to the school.
“Savile would park his Rolls-Royce car outside the school. Doug said Savile was allowed to roam freely at the school, even the boys’ dormitories,” the statement said. “Doug said the boys didn’t like Savile. Even although he was a big star, they felt uncomfortable.”Savile was photographed at the school in 1970 and later bought a cottage at Glencoe in the Highlands.
The statement claimed that Doug had told his brother he was sexually assaulted by a staff member at the school while in the sick bay.
Earlier in the hearing Hugh Kennedy, 56, who was at Fort Augustus between 1974 and 1976, said that a monk sexually abused him in a yoga class before apologising.
Mr Kennedy said that when he reported the attack his story was dismissed. He later learnt that the monk was sent to Australia for a retreat to “cleanse him of his sin”.
The former pupil said he was then abused by a teacher who took children to a cottage where he showed them photographs of naked boys, some of whom he recognised as fellow pupils. He claimed he was sexually assaulted and ordered to strip for pictures.
Another witness, using the name James, who was born in 1956, said he was abused by Fort Augustus monks on a visit from another Catholic school. He said that he was locked in a room and raped by two monks. He believes that they drugged him.
The school was closed in 1993 and the last monks left in 1998.
This document was written by Keith Hose, and sets out the Paedophile Information Exchange’s proposals for changes to the law on sex offences involving children. It was sent to the Home Office, and also sold at the Campaign for Homosexual Equality’s conferences.
This document would have been read by members of all organistaions that were affiliated to PIE, including the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL). This means that Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey, Patricia Hewitt, Henry Hodge and others at the NCCL would have been fully aware of PIE’s evil intentions, and chose to affiliate themselves with them anyway.
It’s essentially a paedophile’s charter, taking the police out of the equation and allowing paedophiles to abuse children as young as 4 years old, unless the abuse “resulted in clinically demonstrable mental or physical harm”.
Apologists for paedophiles: How Labour Deputy Harriet Harman, her shadow minister husband and former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt were all linked to a group lobbying for the right to have sex with children
Magpie magazine distributed in the late Seventies to members of PIE
PIE is Paedophile Information Exchange – the name of a far-Left lobby group
Called for legalisation of child sex and age of consent to be lowered to four
Emerged this week Labour government of the time may helped finance the organisation and The Magpie
Home Office now ordered a ‘thorough, independent investigation’ into claims
Hewitt, Harman and husband Dromey encountered the PIE as young officials in the National Council for Civil Liberties
Abuse survivors blocked from school records for 100 years
9 Aug 2019
Boys were sent to Forde Park School by the courts and social services until it closed in 1985
Survivors of abuse at a former approved school have demanded to know why records are missing from its archives or have been marked as secret.
Victims of violence and sex attacks at Forde Park School, Newton Abbot, Devon say the lack of access is obstructing their campaign for justice.
They are querying why information is being kept secret for up to 100 years.
It comes as claims have resurfaced about paedophiles at the school and dubious medical treatment of pupils.
Eight men were convicted of crimes at the school committed in the 1960s and 1970s, after a major police inquiry was launched by Devon and Cornwall Police in 1999.
Members of a survivors’ group have also found documents at the Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter are restricted or missing, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service .
South West Heritage Trust said an individual can request access to their own records through a subject access request, in the case of county council owned records.
It said it followed guidance from the National Archives for third party access to documents, which withholds records that contain personal information on living people which may cause distress or harm.
A spokesman for the survivors’ group said: “They have got something in those files that they don’t want us, or anybody else, to find.”
“We can only think that these restrictions have been put on for so long because they don’t even want our children investigating what happened to us.”
One survivor said he was regularly picked up from the school in an expensive car with a staff member and taken to the woods where he was sexually assaulted by several different men.
He said he was regularly drugged and given electric shock therapy while at the school.
The approved school was run by the Home Office before it was taken over by Devon County Council in 1973, when it became a community home for education.
Former pupils have given evidence about the aftermath of their cases to the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse.
The hearings were told survivors felt let down and abandoned by the civil legal system which handled compensation claims at the time.
It also heard investigations at Forde Park by the Home Office and police in 1958 and again by police in 1976 resulted in no action.
The inquiry is expected to issue its report on its investigation into accountability and reparations in the summer.
Retired school choirmaster jailed for 12 years for sexual abuse of pupils
27 August 2019
A retired school choirmaster who sexually abused boys in the 1970s has been jailed for 12 years.
Kenneth Francis, 72, denied 17 offences but a jury found him guilty of all counts after a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.
The court heard that he assaulted four boys, all under the age of 16, who were pupils at a school in the Chelmsford area.
Jailing him on Tuesday, Judge David Turner QC said: “Behind the facade of competency, respectability and uprightness you hid a dark paedophile inclination which was to blight the life of those boys and leave a profound legacy of psychological damage.”
The attacks happened at the school and at Francis’s then home in Borehamwood between 1972 and 1979, with Francis giving alcohol to some of his victims.
His offending came to light in 2017 when one of his victims reported that Francis had sexually assaulted him.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, one man said he “resented” being at the school.
Another said he felt he was “betraying” his parents by not telling them what had happened and “only managed to tell them a few years prior to their deaths”.
Jacqueline Carey, mitigating, said Francis touched boys’ genitals and told one of them “This is our secret”.
She said Francis later moved to Jersey and for “30 years or the best part thereof he was a highly regarded man”, adding that there was an “absence of offending” for this period.
She said he lived with his husband in Japan but that there was “great uncertainty about whether he will be able to return” following his conviction.
He has no living relatives, she added.
Francis, of Akasaka in Tokyo, was convicted of 15 counts of indecent assault and two counts of committing an act of gross indecency.
He was jailed for 12 years and will serve half in custody and the rest on licence.
He must also sign the Sex Offenders Register for life and was made subject of a 12-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order, banning him from contact with any boy under 16.
New book links Lord Mountbatten to sex abuse at Kincora boys’ home
26 August, 2019
A NEW book on Lord Louis Mountbatten claims he was involved in the abuse of two teenage boys at Kincora boys’ home in Belfast in the 1970s.
Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the death of the earl who died when the IRA blew up his fishing boat off the coast of Mullaghmore in Co Sligo on August 27, 1979.
The Mountbattens, written by Andrew Lownie, includes interviews with two unnamed men who describe being brought from the home in summer 1977 to Mullaghmore where Lord Mountbatten was on holiday.
The men, who were both 16 at the time, claim they were abused by the earl, an uncle of Prince Philip, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
One of them, known as Seán, recalls being driven from Kincora to the earl’s castle in Sligo where he was abused by a man.
He said he did not recognise him as Lord Mountbatten until he saw a report on the TV news two years later that the earl had been killed.
The second interviewee, referred to as Amal, claims to have met Lord Mountbatten four times that summer on day trips from the home in Belfast.
He said each encounter lasted about an hour and took place in a suite in an hotel by Mullaghmore harbour.
“He was very polite, very nice,” Amal is quoted a saying. “I knew he was someone important. He told me he liked dark-skinned people, especially Sri Lankan people as they were very friendly and good-looking.”
He also claimed that several other boys were brought to Mountbatten on other occasions.
This is not the first time Lord Mountbatten has been linked to Kincora. In 1990, writer Robin Bryans reported that the earl, Anthony Blunt and others were part of an old-boy network that held gay orgies in country houses on both sides of the border and at the boys’ home.
Two years ago, a Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry concluded that abuse at the home was limited to three staff members and there was no collusion by the state or intelligence services in covering it up.
A KINCORA BOY ABUSED BY MOUNTBATTEN COMMITTED SUICIDE A FEW MONTHS LATER
18 Aug 2019
By Joseph de Burca
It has long been rumoured that Lord Louis Mountbatten was a paedophile. A book due to go on sale next week has dug up impressive new evidence confirming what Irish sources have known for decades about his sexual predilections. So impressive is the new evidence that mainstream media outlets such as The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times and The Sun are covering the story. The book contains sensational new information about Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast. Curiously, while the British media is happy to report on Mountbatten’s abuse of boys generally, the sections in the book about Kincora are being ignored.
Joseph Mains, the Warden of Kincora Boys’ Home. Mains trafficked Kincora boys to Lord Louis Mountbatten at Classiebawn Castle, Co. Sligo in the Republic of Ireland.
The book is called, The Mountbattens: their Lives & Loves, by Andrew Lownie. The author is a respected and serious historian who was once a Conservative Party Westminster election candidate. He is still friendly with many Tory MPs including one recently retired Cabinet minister.
Lownie is also author of a book on Guy Burgess entitled Stalin’s Englishman which had many interesting Irish angles to it.
Lownie relies on declassified FBI files which reveal that Lord Mountbatten “was a homosexual with a lust for young boys”. The FBI dossier was compiled by American agents during WWII and the Suez Crisis. The Americans began compiling the Mountbatten file in February 1944, shortly after Mountbatten became Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia. They kept adding to it over the next three decades.
The FBI interviewed Elizabeth de la Poer Beresford, Baroness Decies, who knew about Mountbatten’s predilections. According to the FBI file: “She states that in these circles Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife are considered persons of extremely low morals”. Also that he “was known to be a homosexual with a perversion for young boys”. Her opinion of him was that he was “an unfit man to direct any sort of military operations because of this condition”. She stated further that “his wife Lady Mountbatten was considered equally erratic”.
The entries on the file by the Baroness were signed by EE Conroy, Head of the New York field office, who wrote that she “appears to have no special motive in making the above statements”.
Agents opened more files on Mountbatten after World War II when he became NATO commander of allied forces in the Mediterranean, then admiral of the fleet, and later chief of the defence staff.
The FBI has long been known to keep compromising material on high-profile figures, most famously Martin Luther King.
THE EVIDENCE OF RON PERKS
The book also describes how Mountbatten’s former chauffeur Ron Perks often drove him to “an upmarket gay brothel used by senior naval officers” called the Red House near Rabat in Malta.
THE PROVISIONAL IRA WAS AWARE MOUNTBATTEN WAS A PAEDOPHILE
The Provisional IRA knew that Mountbatten was a paedophile. A plot was hatched to kill him in 1975 but it did not proceed. According to an IRA intelligence officer active at the time, “It was a better plan” than the one which went ahead in 1979. The earlier plot had been to shoot the Royal in his car when he emerged from his castle at Classiebawn, County Sligo. According to the IRA source, it would have avoided civilian casualties.
Although the IRA was aware of his paedophilia that was not the reason they chose to target him on either occasion.
JOSEPH MAINS, THE MAN WHO TRAFFICKED BOYS TO CLASSIEBAWN
The man responsible for trafficking the boys to Classiebawn was Joseph Mains, the Warden of Kincora. Two of the boys referred to in the book did not wish for their names to appear in print in connection with Mountbatten and Lownie has respected this. A third boy died in November 1977 and is also not named. Village is fully aware of all of their names and will respect the desire of the two living boys to remain anonymous. Village is also aware of some additional information which does not appear in the book. The most significant additional piece of information is about the boy who committed suicide. His name was Stephen Waring.
Mountbatten abused these boys during his summer vacations at Classiebawn in August of 1977. Mountbatten always visited his castle there in August. Stephen Waring was in Kincora at the time. He committed suicide within a few months of the visit to Co. Sligo. He had escaped from Kincora and made it as far as Liverpool where he was captured and put back on the Belfast-Liverpool Monarch Ferry from which he plunged into the sea in November of 1977. Waring had been put in a part of the ship which should have prevented him from gaining access to the part of the ship from where he plunged to his death. A witness – a British solider – was reputed to have said that he was very drunk at the time of his fall. His body was never recovered. No autopsy has ever taken place.
The abuse involving these two boys by Mountbatten took place in a building adjacent to Classiebawn Castle.
The boys knew they were being taken to the Republic of Ireland because Mains, who was sitting in the front of the vehicle, turned around and told them that they had crossed the Border.
While the mainstream British media is happy to report on the FBI files and the Ron Perk’s revelations, and much more besides, they have completely ignored the revelations on Kincora in the book. Equally, they have ignored the story of yet another boy who was ensnared in the wider Anglo-Irish Vice Ring of which Kincora was a part.
The section on Kincora refers to the former resident who is alive as ‘Sean. As Lownie describes it, he ‘was 16 years old when he says he was driven from the Kincora Boys Home in Belfast to Classiebawn in the summer of 1977. As the men who had brought them waited outside, ‘Sean’ remembers being taken into a darkened room where he was joined by: a man who undressed me and then gave me oral sex. I was there about an hour. He spoke quietly and tried to make me feel comfortable. He was one of those men who wanted attention, wanted you to chase him . . . I think he felt some shame. He said very sadly, ‘I hate these feelings.’ He seemed a sad and lonely person. I think the darkened room was all about denial . . . He grabbed my hand and put it on his chest . . . I only recognised who he was when I saw on the news that Lord Mountbatten had been killed’.
The other boy was 16. His name has been withheld. Lownie calls him as ‘Amal’ and describes how he ‘remembers being brought to Mullaghmore during the summer of 1977. ‘Amal’ says he met Mountbatten four times that summer on a day trip from Belfast. Each time the encounter, lasting an hour, took place in a suite at a hotel by the harbour about 15 minutes from Classiebawn. ‘Amal’ remembered: He was very polite, very nice. I knew he was someone important. He asked if I wanted a drink or candy. He told me he liked dark-skinned people especially Sri Lankan people as they were very friendly and very good-looking. I remember he admired my smooth skin. We gave each other oral sex in a 69 position. He was very tender and I felt comfortable about it. It seemed very natural. I know that several other boys from Kincora were brought to him on other occasions.
While the other boy was taken to Belfast and may indeed have visited Kincora, and certainly mixed with at least one Kincora boy, he was not a resident – certainly not a long term one – at the home.
If Garda Intelligence, led by Larry Wren knew anything about Mountbatten’s predilections, he did nothing to thwart it.
STEVEN WARING’S TRIPS TO THE UK
The abuse Waring suffered in Co. Sligo was not the only abuse he suffered that summer. Village first reported the details of this trip in February 2018. The core parts of the story are repeated hereunder.
During the summer of 1977, Richard Kerr, another resident at Kincora, was summoned by Joe Mains and was told that Joss Cardwell, a senior figure in the vice ring, had called and wanted him and Waring to proceed down to Belfast Harbour.
Cardwell was Chairman of Belfast Corporation Welfare Committee and in overall charge of Kincora and other homes such as Williamson House in Belfast. He was also a key figure in the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. The boys knew exactly what Cardwell’s ominous edict entailed for them: they would be going to England to be sexually abused. On this trip, Kerr would be delivered into the grubby hands of a TV star in London.
Joss Cardwell
Kerr knew Caldwell as ‘Joseph’ Cardwell recalls how he wore a ‘funny’ hat and drove a blue minivan which he used to take boys out of Kincora. Some of these trips terminated at the Adelphi Hotel in Portrush where the boys were abused.
Stephen Waring and Richard Kerr boarded the ferry to Liverpool. In Liverpool they were met by Michael ‘A’. Kerr was familiar with him from Manchester where he had been abused at the Rembrandt Hotel. Michael ‘A’ was in the company of a man called Derek.
The group headed to a premises in Liverpool near Lime Street train station. By now it was well into the morning of the following day. The boys were ushered down a flight of steps into a basement with mattresses strewn across its floor. Approximately five others boys were being held. They were aged between 11 and 13. Kerr and Waring were kept with them for three or four hours.
Later that morning, Michael ‘A’ and Steven ‘J’ brought the two Kincora boys to the train station. The other – younger – boys did not travel with them.
Steven ‘J’ served the vice ring in a number of ways, one of which was to take salacious photographs of the boys ensnared in the vice-ring. Stephen ‘J’ also knew Joe Mains and Eric Witchell, he paedophile who ran Williamson House. Witchell was the first member of the A-IVR to have abused Kerr – while he was only 8 at Williamson House. During the 1970s Witchell resided in both Liverpool and Belfast. Witchell was later put in charge of Williamson House where Kerr resided before being sent to Kincora in 1975.
Witchell and Cardwell supplied boys from Williamson House to abusers favoured by the vice ring. Kerr was one of these boys. Village has the names of others. Some of them went on to commit suicide. (Steven Waring was not at Williamson House. These suicides of boys from Williamson House are not to be confused with his death.)
Richard Kerr
On this trip, Kerr and Waring reached Manchester with their two escorts, alighting and switching to another train. They were confined inside a first-class compartment on the final leg of the journey – which would take them to London – and were abused by Michael ‘A’ and Steven ‘J’ en route. The abuse was perpetrated in a clandestine manner and was manual.
After they reached London, the boys were separated and Kerr was brought to the Wimpy Bar in Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly was notorious for the presence of so-called Dilly boys, unfortunate urchins who had been groomed, bullied and manipulated into becoming male prostitutes. Kerr was escorted to the upstairs floor of the Wimpy Bar and placed behind a table. There were two men inside the Wimpy Bar who were running the Dilly Boys at the time. Kerr recalls that one of them was the late Jack Murry, a well-dressed Englishman Englishman who smoked cigars and wore glasses. He does not know who the second man was.
Later, Kerr was ordered to go back downstairs and delivered to a TV star who was waiting outside for him. The man, who was much taller than Kerr, beckoned him to follow and walked approximately two feet ahead of Kerr in case anyone saw them together.
Kerr and the TV star walked up to a very well known street. The man opened a door on street level with a key. The door led immediately to a flight of stairs. He was brought upstairs. The man had a small room on the left-hand side of the stairs. It was sparsely furnished. Kerr was then abused in a degrading manner.
The adult gave Kerr £20 and he was then ushered downstairs, put back on the street and told to find his own way back to the Wimpy Bar.
What the adult did not realise was that Kerr was seething with resentment at the men who abused him and had perfected the practice of memorising detail about his abusers. He sometimes even managed to take photographs away with him as proof of their identity. Some of the photographs were of cars with their registration plates clearly visible and are now in the possession of Village. On this occasion, although the room was barely lived in, he managed to remove an item which he has described to Village.
Kerr later recognised the man from a guest appearance on the then hugely popular ‘Minder’ TV show, one of the actor’s numerous TV appearances in hugely successful BBC and ITV programmes, some of which were made for children. Richard Kerr does not wish to reveal the identity of the TV star at this point in time.
On another trip Kerr and Waring were taken to the South of England where another TV star – a household name far better known than even Jimmy Saville at the time – came into the room and chose Waring and took him away. Waring came back downcast and dejected and did not speak about what had happened. This was the characteristic way he behaved after being abused.
THE UDA AND KINCORA
The IRA was not the only paramilitary organisation which knew about the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring of which Kincora was a part. The UDA had the home under surveillance. Please see ‘Her Majesty’s Hatchetman’ for a detailed analysis of this at: https://villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2019/02/her-majestys-hat…-of-pat-finucane/ .)
As best Village can tell, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in London has not displayed any interest in Lord Mountbatten, Eric Witchell or the Irish part of the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. While the notorious fraud Carl Beech has been granted rights at the inquiry, Richard Kerr has not.
Most notorious horrific paedophile in recent British history ? Best friend: Prince Charles.
Most notorious paedophile in recent US history ? Best friend: Prince Andrew
Monarchists argue that this family are role models. C’mon UK, grow up & get rid of this tarnished circus
‘PERV’ DOSSIER
Prince Charles’ mentor Lord Mountbatten was ‘a homosexual with a perversion for young boys’, FBI files claim
18 Aug 2019
NEWLY unearthed FBI files describe Prince Charles’s mentor, Lord Mountbatten, as “a homosexual with a perversion for young boys”.
The 75-year-old secret dossier was obtained by British historian Andrew Lownie, using freedom of information laws.
Prince Charles and Lord Mountbatten visit Nepal to attend the coronation of King Birendra in 1975
Quotes from the files are included in his new biography of Mountbatten – Prince Philip’s uncle – and his wife Edwina.
The US dossier sheds further light on the sex life of Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, and his wife. An aristocratic source close to the couple, interviewed by the FBI in the 1940s, described them as “persons of extremely low morals”.
Another source in the FBI files claimed that Mountbatten’s private life made him “an unfit man to direct any sort of military operations.”
Mr Lownie believes US spies began compiling intelligence on Mountbatten’s private life after he was made supreme allied commander of Southeast Asia during the Second World War.
It’s not known if the material was passed to the British government.
The book, The Mountbattens – Their Lives and Loves by Andrew Lownie – will be published on August 22.
Much of Mountbatten’s FBI file remains closed. Further US intelligence files were added after the war as Mountbatten became NATO commander of allied forces in the Mediterranean, then admiral of the fleet, and later chief of the defence staff.
One file dated April-July 1956 was destroyed in May 2017, shortly after Lownie requested the records.
The most intriguing of the documents is from May 1968, when a renowned FBI agent by the name of John Grombach discusses “a number of reports pertaining to the alleged homosexuality of Anthony Eden, Earl Mountbatten and (the diplomat) Anthony Nutting”.
Not surprisingly for a man of royal birth with film-star looks, Mountbatten cultivated a large group of gay friends, including Noel Coward, Terence Rattigan, Ivor Novello and Tom Driberg, who gave him the moniker “Mountbottom”.
The book contains an interview with a man who was Mountbatten’s lover throughout the 1970s, an unnamed neighbour then in his 20s.
In the new book, to be published on Thursday, Anthony Daly, a rent boy to the rich and famous during the 1970s, who had a close relationship with Driberg, claims: “Tom said Mountbatten had something of a fetish for uniforms — handsome young men in military uniforms (with high boots) and beautiful boys in school uniform.”
Met Police decided not to conduct full investigation into court claims of sex trafficking of girl in Prince Andrew photo
The Met Police decided not to conduct a ‘full investigation’ into allegations a 17 year old girl was trafficked as part of Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘sex ring.’
Channel 4 News can reveal that the Metropolitan Police began a review of “available evidence” in 2015 after receiving a complaint over claims in court papers that a girl was “forced to have sex with Prince Andrew”.
Channel 4 News also understands that lawyers for Virginia Roberts independently contacted the Metropolitan Police in 2016.
The Metropolitan Police said it “reviewed the available evidence” and decided that the matter “would not progress to a full investigation”.
It is not clear what constituted the available evidence.
The Met Police has refused to answer detailed questions about the allegations and whether they ever spoke to Epstein, his friend Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew or anyone from the Royal Household.
Prince Andrew has always denied “any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts”.
Tonight, lawyers for Virginia Roberts told Channel 4 News she is “hopeful” that “the London authorities will view the abuse she suffered while in London … as a serious investigative matter.”
In U.S court documents released last week, Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, alleges that she was one of many girls and young women that were part of a sex trafficking network run by disgraced financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell earlier this month.
In the court documents, Ms Roberts alleges that in 2001, aged 17, she was trafficked to the UK by Mr Epstein, accompanied by Ghislaine Maxwell, during which time she was “forced to have sexual relations with a member of the British Royal Family, Prince Andrew.”
A photo from early 2001, taken in a house believed to be that of Ghislane Maxwell, shows Prince Andrew with his arm around the bare waist of Virginia Roberts. Ms Maxwell is in the background of the photo.
These court documents contain various historical allegations made by Virginia Roberts, who says that she was subjected to repeated sexual abuse, sex trafficking and exploitation by Mr Epstein and his ‘sexual abuse ring’ from 1999 until 2002.
There is no suggestions that Prince Andrew was aware of any of Jeffrey Epstein’s activities.
A complaint to the police regarding the alleged sexual trafficking to the UK of Ms Roberts was received in 2015 from an unconnected third party.
Channel 4 News asked the Metropolitan Police a series of questions about Virginia Robert’s account of what she says happened to her at Maxwell’s London residence in early 2001.
The Met told Channel 4 News: “[We] can confirm that the Metropolitan Police Service [MPS] received an allegation of non-recent trafficking for sexual exploitation.
“The MPS reviewed the available evidence and the decision was made that this would not progress to a full investigation. As such, the matter was closed.”
There are of course several reasons why a full investigation would not be launched, but they have not made clear why further action was not taken on this matter.
Lawyers for Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, told Channel 4 News: “Virginia Giuffre has been and remains hopeful that, given all the factual evidence that is now in the public domain, the London authorities will view the abuse she suffered while in London … as a serious investigative matter and they would be prepared to prosecute and hold those responsible accountable — regardless of status or power.”
In a court application filed in 2014 Virginia Giuffre alleged that she was forced to have sexual relations in three places when she was under 18.
The court ruled that “lurid” details in her application were “unnecessary” in determining if she could join the action. It ruled the details around sexual activities concerning Prince Andrew were “immaterial and impertinent” to the application, and should be stricken.
Allegations
Ghislaine Maxwell has previously denied any wrongdoing – including the allegations now in the public domain from court filings in the United States.
Buckingham Palace released a statement in relation to these allegations on behalf of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
“This relates to proceedings in the United States, to which The Duke of York is not a party. Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.”
“It is emphatically denied that The Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.”
An independent review is to be carried out into the Church of England’s handling of allegations against the John Smyth QC.
Smyth, who died last year at the age of 77, was accused of severely beating boys at his home in Winchester who had been groomed at Iwerne camps.
The holiday camps were designed to instil an evangelical ethos into young Christians with the aim of raising up future leaders in the Church of England.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby worked as a dormitory officer at the camps as a young man but has said he did not know of Smyth’s abuse. He is expected to give evidence during the review.
The allegations against Smyth were publicly exposed in February 2017 following a Channel 4 News investigation.
Mr Smyth was first confronted about the allegations in 1982 after an internal report commissioned by Rev Mark Ruston and Rev David Fletcher. The report was not passed on to the police.
Mr Smyth then left England for Zimbabwe and had been in the process of being extradited back to the UK at the time of his death.
Fletcher and his brother Jonathan were both part of the Iwerne leadership. Earlier this year, it emerged that Jonathan Fletcher had been barred from preaching by the Church of England as a result of accusations that he had engaged in “physical discipline” that amounted to spiritual abuse.
The allegations were passed on to the police who did not take any further action and in a statement, Fletcher denied any wrongdoing.
The independent review is to be overseen by Keith Makin, a former director of social services, and will consider the response of the Church of England to the allegations.
In addition to considering the actions of officials within the Church of England, it will also hear testimonies of those who have come forward to say they are victims of Smyth.
Commenting on the review, the Church of England’s lead safeguarding bishop, Peter Hancock said: “I know for survivors of John Smyth this review into the Church’s response – and the response of others – is vital to them.
“It was their bravery in coming forward that finally brought the abuse perpetrated by Smyth to the attention of the police and wider Church.
“We commend their actions and I pray that with cooperation from the other organisations the review will be comprehensive and that lessons will be learnt both by the Church and all those involved. We recognise that the process of a review can be a very difficult one, and our thoughts remain with the victims and survivors of John Smyth.
“We remain aware that there are others who were victims of Smyth that have not come forward to the Church and we urge them to make contact if they would like support.”
Child sex abuse police to learn whether they will face criminal charges after 3 year inquiry
The Independent Office for Police Conduct carried out the inquiry
15 Aug 2019
An official watchdog has concluded its three-year investigation into the police’s historic handling of child sexual abuse allegations against the late Leicester Labour politician Greville Janner.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has told LeicestershireLive it is now preparing to hand its findings to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
It is understood up to 12 individuals of various ranks, who have since retired from Leicestershire Police, have been investigated by the IOPC.
Once its findings have been handed over, the CPS will decide whether any of the ex-officers should face criminal charges.
The IOPC’s findings released so far mirror those of former High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques, who carried out an official review of the case.
In January 2016, Sir Richard said three chances to put the politician on trial for alleged child abuse were missed because of mistakes by Leicestershire Police or the CPS in 1991, 2000 and 2006.
The CPS had wanted to charge the Labour peer with child sexual offences in 2015 but did not do so because of his deteriorating physical and mental health.
Lord Janner’s family has repeatedly asserted none of the allegations are true.
The Government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is due to hold a three-week hearing into the case next year.
It has been asked to look at whether efforts to try the former Labour MP for alleged child abuse when he was alive and well were “hindered or prevented” by public authorities.
Seven organisations, including Leicestershire Police, Leicestershire County Council and the Labour Party, will be asked to give accounts of what they knew of Lord Janner’s alleged sexual interest in young boys.
The hearing is expected to take testimonies from up to 33 men, many of them former children’s home residents, of alleged abuse at the hands of the politician.
The Janner investigation is one of a number of strands of the IICSA’s inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse by significant public figures, including those within children’s homes and the Catholic and Anglican churches and in the Houses of Parliament.
An IOPC spokesman said: “We have completed our investigation report into the manner in which Leicestershire Police dealt with allegations of child sexual abuse against former MP Greville Janner between 1990 and 2007.
“We are making decisions as to whether any of the individuals we investigated should be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service, to consider any potential criminal offences.
“We have updated the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, (IICSA), as to the current position.
“None of the individuals we investigated are serving police officers.”
The IOPC was formerly known as the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Both knew what their ‘other halves’ were doing with minors Both linked to Street Child
(Fergie founded it, Ghislaine’s spokesman supports it)
Both linked to Cantor Fitzgerald
Both linked to Stowe School
STOWE SCHOOL Linked to Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Ferguson, 9/11, Carl Beech, Harvey Proctor, Lord McAlpine, Richard Branson, Michael Grade, John Sainsbury, Sir Peter Hayman, John Henniker-Major WADDESDON MANOR & ASCOTT HOUSE Rothschilds CLIVEDEN Astors
LORD JOHN HENNIKER-MAJOR attended Stowe and was governor of Stowe 1982-1990
LORD JOHN HENNIKER-MAJORprovided a sanctuary on his Thornham Magna estate to Peter Righton, who supplied boys to paedophile VIPs at DOLPHIN SQUARE etc. In 1992 Righton rented a cottage on Henniker’s estate. Righton had already been charged with having obscene images of kids.
Above, we see Ghislaine Maxwell at the 2003 summer ball at STOWE SCHOOL.
It was called the La Dolce Vita party, and its ostensible purpose was to fund-raise for the CANTOR FITZGERALD FUND.
CANTOR FITZGERALD is financial services firm which does an awful lot for ‘charity’.
Cantor Fitzgerald sponsored summer parties at Stowe School in 2002, 2003, and 2004 (there may have been other Cantor Fitzgerald-linked ‘charity’ parties at Stowe School in other years, too).
“During 9/11, Cantor Fitzgerald occupied the 101st to the 105th floors of One World Trade Center.”
Lutnick and Trump
Cantor Fitzgerald (BGC Partners) is 60% owned by its CEO, HOWARD LUTNICK, a Jewish American billionaire.
“Howard Lutnick did not lose his life on Sept. 11, 2001 because he took his son to school.”
Jeffrey Epstein lived at 9 East 71st Street in New York City.
Howard Lutnick lived at 11 East 71st Street in New York City.
“An investigation found that Epstein’s history at the address is entangled with the adjacent property, 11 E. 71st St., now home to billionaire Howard Lutnick.”
Amaitis and Charles, just after 9 11.
LEE AMAITIS was formerly the head of Cantor Fitzgerald’s London office.
Amaitis is the founder, president and chief executive officer of CG Technology, a gambling subsidiary based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Stowe School’s headmaster, Dr Anthony Wallersteiner, is a Trustee of ‘Children in Crisis’.
CHILDREN IN CRISIS WAS FOUNDED BY SARAH, DUCHESS OF YORK.
SARAH FERGUSON, who married Prince Andrew, with DR WALLERSTEINER, at STOWE SCHOOL
Sarah, Duchess of York, and her daughters have supported the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund in the past, which distributes money to ‘victims of terrorism, emergencies and natural disasters’.
Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew also have personal links to Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.
Stowe School – A pupil said of Stowe: “There was a game known as the Temple Challenge, where couples would compete to have sex at all of the 40 tiny neo-classical buildings in the school’s 750 acres.” ‘Pupils had competition to have sex everywhere’
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Mossad father, Robert Maxwell, was the MP for Stowe, where Stowe School is located.
Could there be links –
Stowe School, Cantor Fitzgerald, Ghislaine and Robert Maxwell.
An ‘Israel/Mossad sponsored’ international child trafficking empire.
9/11 and the subsequent reordering of the Middle East.
A pupil said of Stowe: “There was a game known as the Temple Challenge, where couples would compete to have sex at all of the 40 tiny neo-classical buildings in the school’s 750 acres.” ‘Pupils had competition to have sex everywhere’
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Mossad father, Robert Maxwell, was the MP for Stowe, where Stowe School is located.
Could there be links –
Stowe School, Cantor Fitzgerald, Ghislaine and Robert Maxwell.
An ‘Israel/Mossad sponsored’ international child trafficking empire.
9/11 and the subsequent reordering of the Middle East.
Stowe School spawned Richard Branson, Peter Hayman, John Henniker-Major, Charles Manners, Alistair McAlpine and John Sainsbury.
A Stowe director: Ethne Bannister, the cousin of Roger Bannister whose son Clive is on Epstein’s list.
Ethne’s son Nicholas, a banker like Clive, moved out of the Twin Towers shortly before 9/11 … and wasn’t the only one with links to Stowe!
Jonathan James Molyneux Fletcher, a Stowe School director, is the brother of David Fletcher, head of Iwerne camps and Titus Trust Trustee, which spawned John Smyth QC. J Fletcher was a frequent visitor at Iwerne, along with Archbishop Justin Welby.
Ghislaine Maxwell attends the “LaDolce Vita” party in aid of the “Cantor Fitzgerald Fund” held at the notorious Stowe School
Cantor Fitzgerald of 9/11 Twin Towers
Sarah Ferguson and 9/11...
Sarah Ferguson had offices on the 101st Fl of the Twin Towers, as did Cantor Fitzgerald…
SARAH Ferguson has revealed her Chances for Children’s mascot, a doll named Little Red, was miraculously found at ground zero following the horrific 9/11 catastrophe that shook America in 2001.
The Duchess of York said the item was discovered by a volunteer, Brian Van Flandern, who found the rag doll amongst the rubble following the September 11 terror attacks that killed 2, 996 people.
Little Red was in charity’s office located on the 101st floor of the World Trade Centre’s North Tower,when a group of extremists hijacked and crashed two planes into the twin towers during the 9/11 attacks.
Sarah told the BBC: “Because our office is on the 101st floor, Little Red always sat on the window looking over New York and over the United States as I imagine she did because she is a little red rag doll, standing at about 12 inches.
“On the day of the terrible disaster, she was found in the rubble by a fireman who put her in his helmet and carried her out.
AND
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson was in New York City on September 11, 2001. She was in NBC studios being interviewed by Matt Lauer when the first plane hit. Lauer later recalled he was told by his director that a plane had just hit the WTC, and they would be cutting away from the interview with Ferguson. Ferguson’s charity, “Chances for Children,” was located on the 101st floor of 1 World Trade Center. She was scheduled to be in the building with the charity but she was running late. None of the charity’s employees were trapped in the building, but nearly 700 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm providing free office space to the duchess’ charity, were killed in the aftermath of the attack.
Stowe School spawned Richard Branson, Peter Hayman, John Henniker-Major, Charles Manners, Alistair McAlpine and John Sainsbury.
A Stowe director: Ethne Bannister, the cousin of Roger Bannister whose son Clive is on Epstein’s list.
Ethne’s son Nicholas, a banker like Clive, moved out of the Twin Towers shortly before 9/11 … and wasn’t the only one with links to Stowe!
Ghislaine Maxwell attends the “LaDolce Vita” party in aid of the “Cantor Fitzgerald Fund” held at the notorious Stowe School
Cantor Fitzgerald of 9/11 Twin Towers
Sarah Ferguson and 9/11...
Sarah Ferguson had offices on the 101st Fl of the Twin Towers, as did Cantor Fitzgerald…
SARAH Ferguson has revealed her Chances for Children’s mascot, a doll named Little Red, was miraculously found at ground zero following the horrific 9/11 catastrophe that shook America in 2001.
The Duchess of York said the item was discovered by a volunteer, Brian Van Flandern, who found the rag doll amongst the rubble following the September 11 terror attacks that killed 2, 996 people.
Little Red was in charity’s office located on the 101st floor of the World Trade Centre’s North Tower,when a group of extremists hijacked and crashed two planes into the twin towers during the 9/11 attacks.
Sarah told the BBC: “Because our office is on the 101st floor, Little Red always sat on the window looking over New York and over the United States as I imagine she did because she is a little red rag doll, standing at about 12 inches.
“On the day of the terrible disaster, she was found in the rubble by a fireman who put her in his helmet and carried her out.
AND
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson was in New York City on September 11, 2001. She was in NBC studios being interviewed by Matt Lauer when the first plane hit. Lauer later recalled he was told by his director that a plane had just hit the WTC, and they would be cutting away from the interview with Ferguson. Ferguson’s charity, “Chances for Children,” was located on the 101st floor of 1 World Trade Center. She was scheduled to be in the building with the charity but she was running late. None of the charity’s employees were trapped in the building, but nearly 700 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm providing free office space to the duchess’ charity, were killed in the aftermath of the attack.
Danish PM apologises for historical abuse in children’s homes
13 Aug 2019
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has officially said sorry to hundreds of victims of historical abuse in state-run homes.
From 1945-76, children were sexually abused, beaten and drugged, an inquiry into what happened at the homes found.
The abuse took place across Denmark and campaigners have for years appealed to the state to accept it was at fault.
Details about the homes first hit the headlines in 2005, when a Danish TV documentary featured shocking allegations of abuse and mistreatment from victims of the state-run Godhavn Boys’ Home, in north-eastern Denmark.
The documentary also uncovered evidence that a psychiatrist had tested drugs on some of the children. Bjorn Elmquist, then an MP who had already been working on the abuse cases, said the drug LSD had been used to counter bed-wetting, leading to many of the children later becoming drug addicts.
Soon after the programme, the National Association of the Godhavn’s Boys was formed and an independent inquiry was conducted in 2010.
The report, published in 2011, investigated allegations of abuse and neglect at 19 homes for both boys and girls, interviewing children, staff and state inspectors.
Despite its limited scope, it documented “alarming physical, sexual and psychological abuse” and researchers found blood traces on a gymnastic horse, indicating children had been beaten on it.
Mr Elmquist, now a lawyer, said many of the victims felt great shame over what had happened. “Some of them contacted me and begged me not to have their names mentioned publicly.”
He spoke of boys working in fields who were punished by adults using metal tools and of the overweight master at Godhavn having his own special form of punishment. “He pushed them with his big stomach and they fell down the staircase. He put them on a sofa and sat on top of them and jumped on them,” he told the BBC.
Arne Roel Jorgensen found out three years ago that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of what had happened to him so many years ago.
“Many of us have had failed marriages and we didn’t learn how to act in society because nobody told us. I’m 68 now and definitely still living with the effects.”
Nobody was ever prosecuted for what took place at the homes and successive governments decided the case was too old to be pursued
Princes William and Harry may have visited paedo billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion when they were children, court documents suggest
12 Aug 2019
During testimony relating to “celebrities” he had personally met while working for Epstein, Mr Alessi reeled off a list of names, but no other context was given in the court papers.
His full quote said: “I then listed Senator Mitchell, Prince Andrew, Princess Sarah Ferguson, Miss Yugoslavia, Miss Germany, Alan Dershowitz, Princess Diana’s secretary with her children, Mr Trump, Mr Robert Kennedy Jr, Frederik Fekkai, and a couple Noble prize winners as celebrities that I had seen while working for Mr Epstein.”
A dozen FBI agents raid Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Pedophile Island’
12 Aug 2019
Many members of the community believe that Epstein hid young girls he allegedly enslaved in underground rooms below the temple and other parts of the island.
New York Times: “The medical examiner is confident the cause of death [of Jeffrey Epstein] is suicide by hanging, but she wants more information from law enforcement before releasing her determination, a city official said”
Alan Dershowitz with O J Simpson
Dr Michael Baden worked with Jeffrey Epstein client Alan Dershowitz on the O J Simpson trial.
Epstein’s lawyers hired Dr Michael Baden to observe the autopsy. Dr Michael baden was part of OJ Simpson’s “Dream Team” which included Jeffrey Epstein client, Alan Dershowitz
Dr Michael Baden – a key defense expert in O.J. Simpson’s double-murder trial
But Simpson was unlike other defendants. He was rich. And he began using some of his resources to hire the best legal defense team ever assembled in the United States—a group with so many legal stars that the news media dubbed in the “Dream Team.” The new lead counsel, Robert Shapiro, and his colleagues, Johnnie Cochran, F Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, and several others, quickly realized the role that forensic evidence would play in the case, and they in turn brought in several of the nation’s premier forensic expert to assist in the defense. They included: Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, two New York-based lawyers specializing in DNA; Dr. Michael Baden of New York, regarded as the top pathologist and medical examiner
Jeffrey Epstein Documents: ‘Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening Allegedly Received Foot Massage From 16-Year-Old Girl
At this point, it is not clear if this alleged massage is the extent of Groening’s interactions with Epstein. In a sworn affidavit, Juan P. Alessi, an employee at Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, says that he was asked earlier by an attorney about Groening, however his answer to that question remains behind sealed court records.
Royals rally round Prince Andrew as he is joined at church by The Queen, Charles and Beatrice a day after his past came back to haunt him with suicide of billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
The Queen sat next to her son on their way to church on the grounds of Balmoral this morning, as Prince Andrew faces renewed scrutiny over his friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein who was found dead in his jail cell yesterday.
The Prince shared a car with his mother and daughter, Princess Beatrice, to Kirk on the Scottish estate this morning, while Charles and Camilla drove themselves.
Epstein was accused of arranging to have sex with dozens of underage girls at his residences in New York and Florida, but had denied two counts of sex trafficking.
His body was discovered at 6.30am US time yesterday at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan, hours after a court in New York released 2,000 pages of previously sealed legal documents.
One document repeated the allegation, which the Prince has always denied, that Andrew had sex with a 17 year old girl.
As the FBI launched an investigation into Epstein’s death, it emerged that:
A legal source said: ‘Ghislaine is the key to all this now that Epstein will no longer face justice himself. The victims deserve answers and she was the person closest to Epstein.
‘Far from being the end to Prince Andrew’s problems, Epstein’s suicide could put him under renewed scrutiny because of his close friendship with Ghislaine.’
I have direct experience of providing medical care to prison inmates held on suicide watch. The inmates are monitored on videotape and have each 15 minutes one-to-one check is documented. It’s virtually *impossible* for inmates on suicide watch to successfully achieve a suicide.
The death of Jeffrey Epstein is awfully convenient for a lot of awfully important people in high places.
@ciabaudo
Isn’t it telling that even Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide watch guard looked the other way at just the right moment ….?
The Bureau of Prisons is part of DOJ. This should prompt an immediate and comprehensive DOJ Inspector General investigation to determine who is responsible for Epstein’s death.
So let’s have a look who is in charge over there …
4:48am PDT – July 9th, 2019 epstein – The Washington Times
Attorney General William P. Barr will not recuse himself from new charges filed against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York, a senior Justice Department said Tuesday.
Jeffrey Epstein was hired as a teacher at exclusive prep school Dalton, despite not having a college degree. The headmaster following Donald Barr at Dalton was accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.
People involved with Dalton School… @morphonios
While #Epstein was teaching at Dalton, Donald Barr’s son, William was working for the CIA. William later served as GHW Bush’s Attorney General during the CIA Iran-Contra Affair & refused to allow the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate. #Trump brought Barr back as AG.
Donald Barr gave his resignation in February but he did not leave until June 7th, which was after Epstein had been hired. See the NYT archive to confirm:
William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney serving as the 85th United States Attorney General in the Donald Trump administration since February 14, 2019. He also served as the 77th Attorney General from 1991 to 1993, in the George H. W. Bush administration.
In 1992, Barr launched a surveillance program to gather records of innocent Americans’ international phone calls.[41] The DOJ Inspector General concluded that this program was launched without a review of the legality of the program.[41] According to USA Today, the program “provided a blueprint for far broader phone-data surveillance the government launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”[41]
Iran-Contra
In late 1992, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, who had been chosen to investigate the Iran–Contra affair, found documents in the possession of Reagan’s former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, which Walsh said was “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”[42][43] Weinberger was set to stand trial on felony charges on January 5, 1993.[42][44] His “indictment said Mr. Weinberger’s notes contradicted Mr. Bush’s assertions that he had only a fragmentary knowledge of the arms secretly sold to Iran in 1985 and 1986 in exchange for American hostages in Lebanon.”[44][43][45] According to Walsh, then-president Bush might have been called as a witness.[46]
On December 24, 1992, during his final month in office, Bush, on the advice of Barr, pardoned Weinberger,[10][47] along with five other administration officials who had been found guilty on charges relating to the Iran–Contra affair.[10][48][49][42] Barr was consulted extensively regarding the pardons, and especially advocated for pardoning Weinberger.[50]
Walsh complained about the move insinuating that Bush on Barr’s advice had used the pardons to avoid testifying and stating that: “The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.”[51] In 2003, he wrote an account of the investigation in his book, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.
Because of this and Barr’s unwillingness to appoint an independent counsel to look into a second scandal known as Iraqgate, New York Times writer William Safire began to refer to Barr as “Coverup-General Barr.”[52] Barr, however, responded that he believed Bush had made the right decision regarding that and he felt people in the case had been treated unfairly.[53] Barr said that Walsh was a “head-hunter” who “had completely lost perspective.”[54]
Bronfman/ALEC/Barr
Former headmaster of Dalton accused of sexually assaulting teen student
June 7, 2018
The headmaster of an elite Upper East Side private school sexually assaulted a disadvantaged teen for months when he took her into his home to help out with his new baby, an explosive new lawsuit charges.
The victim, identified as J.S., was 14 years old when Gardner Dunnan, the long-time head of the Dalton School, allegedly preyed upon her at his Manhattan apartment and in his New Jersey summer home.
The alleged attacks happened in 1986 when J.S. was living at Dunnan’s family’s Upper East Side home while attending the tony school tuition-free — in exchange for her working as a “family helper.”
She accuses Dalton of turning a blind eye to Dunnan’s alleged behavior, saying the school ” should have been aware that Dunnan was likely to engage in sexual misconduct or other harmful behavior.”
Dunnan was forced to resign from Dalton in 1997 — after his affair with a married female teacher at the school was exposed. He served as headmaster at the East 89th Street school for 23 years. (Since 1974)
Bill Barr also published a sci-fi novel about sex slavery before he allegedly hired Epstein at the Dalton School. Another weird coincidence…
Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide overnight in his Lower Manhattan jail cell – the federal lockup where he had been held pending trial on federal sex trafficking charges, three law enforcement officials told @ABC News.
Virginia Giuffre claimed in a 2016 deposition that Ghislaine Maxwell directed her to have sex with former Gov. Bill Richardson, Britain’s Prince Andrew, wealthy financier Glenn Dubin, former senator George Mitchell, modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, and “another prince”
2007
Bolomberg: George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai’s ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.
The DLA Piper law firm did legal and lobbying work on the case, which alleged that Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al- Maktoum and another official used children kidnapped from other countries to ride as jockeys in camel races. The firm lobbied federal agencies, members of the U.S. House and about two dozen Senate offices, including those of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2006 and 2007, according to Justice Department foreign-agent disclosures.
Mitchell, 75, who isn’t a registered lobbyist, didn’t lobby either on this issue or for Dubai generally. DLA Piper partner Bill Minor said in an e-mail that Mitchell, a former Democratic senator from Maine, mainly focused on growth and management at the firm of almost 4,000 attorneys and 65 offices worldwide, and high-profile projects such as an investigation of steroid use in Major League Baseball.
Mitchell’s firm had extensive lobbying clients and offices in the Middle East ranging from the leader of Dubai to a Kuwait construction firm contracting in Iraq. The firm also has offices in Egypt, Oman, Qatar and Abu Dhabi and has an affiliation with a law firm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mitchell traveled to Dubai and spoke to the press there about the issue.
Suit Thrown Out
The camel-jockey suit was thrown out after the U.S. Justice Department notified a Miami federal judge that it planned to intervene and argue that al-Maktoum was immune from the suit as a foreign leader.
@morphonios
Epstein Maxwell connections to the 8 member Israeli Genie Oil board of directors. Newly unsealed court docs now implicate former Gov. Bill Richardson (board member #4 – he is accused of having sex w/Virginia Roberts).
Second Girl testifies to sex with Prince Andrew
Ms. Sjoberg also testified about sexual acts that occurred with her, Prince Andrew, and
Ms. Giuffre, when she and Defendant were staying at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion
It is an undisputed fact that Rinaldo Rizzo testified that Defendant took the passport of a 15-year-old Swedish girl and threatened her when she refused to have sex with Epstein.
Ghislaine took my passport. And I said threatened, she says yes, I was threatened by Ghislaine not to discuss this
Ghislaine lied about being on Lolita Express flights and denied that she appeared on Epsteins flight logs
But It is an undisputed fact that Pilot David Rodgers testified that he flew Defendant and Ms. Giuffre at least 23 times on Epstein’s jet, the “Lolita Express” and that “GM” on the flight logs Stands for Ghislaine Maxwell.
Juan Alessi, Alfredo Rodriguez and Joanna Sjoberg, have
testified that she was Epstein’s procuress.
Maxwell was at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion in 2004 and 2005, incidentally a time period she has denied being around the house in her deposition
Book receipts included SM 101: A Realistic Introduction, Wiseman, Jay;
SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude – Principles, Skills and Tools by Guy
Baldwin; and
Training with Miss Abernathy: A Workbook for Erotic Slaves and Their Owners
It is undisputed fact that the FBI report and the Churcher emails reference Ms. Giuffre’s accounts of sexual activity with Prince Andrew that she made in 2011, contrary to #Maxwells argument that Ms. Giuffre never made such claims until 2014.
Virginia Giuffre told the FBI in 2011 that she had sex with Prince Andrew
In Palm Beach butler’s, Alfredo Rodriguez’s testimony he stated that he personally saw photos of naked children on Ghislaines computer. See
McCawley Dec. at Exhibit 21, Rodriguez Dep. Tr. at 150:10-17; 306:1-306:24.
Jeffrey Epstein: large tranche of files released in Ghislaine Maxwell lawsuit
Files made public in case of British socialite may contain extra details of allegations against Epstein and his political connections
9 Aug 2019
Ghislaine Maxwell was alleged to have recruited Virginia Giuffre to work as a masseuse for Jeffrey Epstein when the latter was 15.
A large tranche out of 2,000 pages of potentially explosive documents in a lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell – the British socialite and daughter of former media tycoon Robert Maxwell accused of acting as a recruiter of girls and women for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein – have been made public.
Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s many accusers, filed a Manhattan federal court lawsuit against Maxwell in 2015, alleging defamation. Giuffre, née Roberts, claimed Maxwell defamed her by calling her a liar over her allegations against Maxwell and Epstein.
Giuffre has alleged that Maxwell recruited her to work as a masseuse for Epstein when she was 15 and had been working as a locker-room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Giuffre had previously alleged that Epstein, who had political connections, forced her into sexual encounters with Prince Andrew. Buckingham Palace has vehemently denied Giuffre’s allegations. In 2015 it released a statement saying: “The allegations made are false and without any foundation.”
Maxwell and Giuffre settled the lawsuit in 2017 but scores of case documents – which many speculate may contain additional details of allegations against Epstein and his political connections – had remained under seal until a federal appeals court ordered their release.
The release of these documents comes in the wake of Epstein’s arrest last month on sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy charges for alleged sexual abuse of underage girls between 2002 and 2005, at his homes in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida. The Manhattan US attorney’s office, which is pursuing this case, alleges some of Epstein’s victims were just 14 years old.
Epstein, a financier whose net worth is now thought to be some $560m, also associated with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.
Trump, who was pictured partying with Epstein and women in the 1990s, has recently attempted to distance himself from the financier.
In the wake of Epstein’s arrest last month, Trump told reporters he “knew [Epstein], like everybody in Palm Beach knew him”, but added: “I had a falling out with him. I haven’t spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
However, in a 2002 profile of Epstein from New York magazine, Trump was quoted as saying: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Clinton also distanced himself from Epstein in a statement issued by his press secretary, saying he had “not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade” and “knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he had been recently charged in New York”.
Giuffre has also claimed Epstein forced her to have sex with the prominent US lawyer and law professor Alan Dershowitz, who defended Epstein in his 2008 abuse case, in which he secured a plea deal. Dershowitz has repeatedly denied the claims and called for the court documents in the Maxwell case to be released, saying he is confident they would clear his name.
After Epstein’s first appearance in court in New York following his arrestlast month, Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, issued a statement from her client, saying it was time for Epstein “and those who participated in these sex crimes to be brought to justice”.
Fermanagh child abuse: Four women claim ex-principal abused them
8 August 2019
John McElholm died in 1995
A former school principal in County Fermanagh sexually abused several young girls more than 30 years ago, it has been alleged.
Four women have told the Impartial Reporter newspaper they were attacked by John McElholm, a former principal of St Paul’s Primary School in Irvinestown, who died in 1995.
Mr McElholm was also a former chairman of the Fermanagh GAA county board.
The alleged victims said others knew the abuse was happening.
It is the latest report into historic sexual abuse in County Fermanagh carried by the newspaper in the past several months.
The Impartial Reporter’s Rodney Edwards told BBC Radio Ulster that Mr McElholm was “a highly respected member of the community”.
“For years he allegedly preyed on children by summoning them to his office, closing the blinds and sexually abusing them before sending them back to class,” he said.
“I have been investigating allegations surrounding McElholm for months now.
“The most striking is the amount of people say they knew or had heard rumours about what was going on.
“It was very much an open secret in Irvinestown but why was he allowed to get away with it?” he said.
Mr Edwards was contacted by four of his alleged victims.
‘Pillar of the community’
“They don’t know each other but their stories are similar,” he said.
The newspaper carries testimony from four woman who alleged they were sexually assaulted as children and a man who said he witnessed an attack by Mr McElholm.
One woman told the Impartial Reporter that she was in primary four when the abuse started and that it continued for four years.
She said she “thought no one would believe me as he was a pillar of the community”.
Mr McElholm was also the chairman of the Irish National Teachers Organisation and president of local St Vincent de Paul for a time, the Impartial Reporter reported.
‘Takes allegations seriously’
“By many accounts he was adored and respected by many,” said Mr Edwards.
“For the alleged victims, and for others, it is vital that someone confirms what was known back then and by whom,” he added.
The paper reports that the Public Prosecution Service are interviewing his alleged victims.
The Clogher diocese said it had never been made aware of any allegations against Mr McElholm.
The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) was established after the alleged abuse took place as and therefore has no records available.
The PSNI told the paper that it does not comment on the detail of specific cases but that it “takes every allegation of child sexual abuse seriously whether it happened recently or many years ago”.
“The public protection branch continue to offer to meet with any victim of historical sexual abuse whether or not previously reported,” it added.
Police Commissioner says ministers should fund a national inquiry to look into remaining sexual assault allegations against former prime minister and Wiltshire resident Sir Edward Heath.
Angus Macpherson, police and crime commissioner for Swindon and Wiltshire, claims a statutory inquiry is the only way accusations against the Salisbury politician could be pursued.
His comments followed the conviction of former Swindon hospital manager Carl Beech, who claimed he had been sexually abused as a child by a Westminster paedophile ring made up of entertainers, army chiefs and MPs – including Sir Edward Heath.
The police commissioner was speaking after a jury found 51-year-old Beech guilty on 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud.
The former Great Western Hospital worker had initially approached the Wiltshire force in 2012, telling detectives of abuse he claimed to have suffered at the hands of Jimmy Savile and heads of the army. Wiltshire Police took no further action.
Two years later, Beech met detectives working for the Metropolitan Police and levelled accusations against Sir Edward Heath, former home secretary Lord Brittan and two former heads of the armed forces.
Mr Macpherson said: “As I have made clear, a further local review will not have the powers needed to deliver what Sir Edward Heath’s family and friends demand. It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to set the terms of reference for any review as we would, effectively, be marking our own homework.”
“A sharply-focused statutory inquiry, with powers to question witnesses and scrutinise documents, can now be the only way the small number of remaining allegations against Sir Edward can be discounted or given credence.”
“Only the government can initiate that inquiry and provide those individuals who made the allegations with closure, while also answering the calls of Sir Edward’s family and friends who seek to clear his name.”
“I have pressed successive Home Secretaries on this and believe the government should act without further delay.”
In a statement, Wiltshire Police this week said detectives on its Operation Conifer probe – a national investigation launched in 2015 into allegations of historical sex abuse allegations made against Heath – had never spoken to Beech. Instead, the man’s claims were passed to the force by the Met.
“During the investigation, the specific allegations from Carl Beech were considered, by the senior investigating officer in Op Conifer, to have undermining evidence and a decision was taken at the time that we would not pursue further inquiries into the allegations made by Beech,” a spokeswoman said.
Op Conifer was subject to criticism, with Lincoln Seligman, Sir Edward Heath’s godson, saying ahead of a report published in 2017 that it would contain “more innuendo than facts”.
A number of reviews of the operation have since found it was following correct procedures
A Home Office spokesman said there were no grounds to justify a review.
“After careful consideration, the Home Secretary has concluded that the handling of this investigation remains a matter for the local Police and Crime Commissioner, and that there are no grounds to justify a review or intervention by the Government,” he said.
Chelmsford choirmaster Kenneth Francis guilty of abusing choirboys
A former boarding school choirmaster has been found guilty of abusing four boys.
Kenneth Francis, 72, assaulted the choristers while a teacher at Widford Lodge Boarding School in Chelmsford in the 1970s.
Francis, of Pepys Court, Cambridge, was found guilty of 15 counts of indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency after a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.
He will be sentenced on 27 August.
He was on trial alongside Malcolm Archer, of North Wootton, Somerset, who was cleared of two counts of indecent assault.
The 67-year-old was suspended as director of chapel music at Winchester College late in 2017 and subsequently left the school.
Abuser ‘rated performance’
Francis assaulted boys who were members of the school choir between 1972 and 1979.
He had kissed pupils during one-to-one lessons before touching their genitals, the court heard.
One of Francis’s victims said during the trial that he had been abused beneath the school stage then given reward stars by the choirmaster, which he told police were “for my performance under the stage”.
One of the men abused by Francis said it had taken many years for him to speak about what had happened.
“The psychological scarring is something that I have had to struggle with growing up, but it never heals,” he said.
“You just learn to live with it, as a dark part of yourself that you try to keep hidden away.
Further to my previous blog about the rather colourful life of Harvey Proctor, I felt compelled to blog an update following a number of matters that came out of the Carl Beech trial – matters that the mainstream media have chosen not to follow up. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why. Whatever your feelings towards Carl, it is important for the law to be seen to be fair – as the scales of justice signify.
In his book ‘Credible and True‘, Proctor expressed his thanks to a number of journalists that were applying pressure on Carl, which never sat easily with me because there seemed to be a concerted effort by a select few ‘journalists’ to discredit Carl whilst a police investigation was ongoing. It then goes without saying that the very same journalists have since written pieces following the conclusion of the trial that aren’t objective in the slightest and have failed to report all the facts, particularly the information which follows.
MARK WATTS’ STATEMENTThis update refers to information that Mark Watts (who attended each day of the trial) had issued in his statement following the conclusion of the trial.DAMNING EVIDENCE AGAINST PROCTORI want to look at the elements of Mark’s statement one by one – Elements that the mainstream media have oddly chosen to ignore. Proctor is currently doing the rounds and talking to anyone that will listen, but not one single interviewer has asked about the following evidence:
The court heard on June 21 (without the jury) that before Harvey Proctor pleaded guilty in 1987 to four counts of gross indecency with two [underage] men aged 17 and 20, police had gathered witness statements that tended to show a sexual interest of the then MP in “young boys.”
As was noted in court, no prosecution was pursued in relation to this specific material.
So, when Proctor was arrested and charged with indecency against two males (one of whom was just 16 at the time), the police discovered he had a penchant for “young boys” but this element of the inquiry was not pursued.
David Napley was representing Proctor in court at that time – the Tory go-to man. Is this another example of deference shown to those in positions of public prominence, as we have been shown throughout the Westminster strand of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse?
A CHILD’S BLOOD-STAINED UNDERWEAR AND SCHOOL UNIFORM
The court also heard that ‘Operation Midland’, when searching Harvey Proctor’s home in 2015, seized “a school uniform with a child’s underwear” – for a child of 13 to 14 – that was “blood stained”, and that Proctor – who was not arrested – refused to provide a blood sample.
Martin Allen
One of the allegations Carl made was that Proctor was involved in the murder of a boy whom he believed to be Martin Allen. Martin disappeared on his way home from school on 5th November 1979 wearing his school uniform. This begs the question – did Op Midland share this find with Op Malswick – the operation set up to investigate Martin’s disappearance? If so, did they extract any forensic evidence from the blood and check it against Martin’s brother? Even more basic – why didn’t they inform Kevin of this find and show a photograph of the uniform to Kevin so that he could either identify or dismiss it as that belonging to Martin? Kevin says he heard nothing whatsoever from Malswick for over a year, and only then was he allowed to see 12 witness statements.
Martin’s uniform looked like this:
DUKE OF RUTLAND – BELVOIR ESTATE
It’s also interesting to note that Proctor’s home that was searched was actually a grace and favour home on the Belvoir estate, given to him by the Duke and Duchess of Rutland in return for his work showing round groups of visitors – including school children.
That aside, even more interestingly, the Duke was connected rather bizarrely to the 1987 case of indecency against Proctor. Someone tried to blackmail Robert Maxwell in an attempt to gag him from exposing anything further about Proctor. A mysterious well-spoken man phoned Maxwell insisting that The People STOP printing stories about Proctor, otherwise some rather compromising details of an alleged relationship between Maxwell’s daughter Ghislaine, and the Duke of Rutland would surface. Rather than succumb to the threats, Maxwell splashed it across the front page instead.
GHISLAINE – A FAMILIAR NAME
Yes, Ghislaine Maxwell. Yes, THAT Ghislaine Maxwell. Ghislaine Maxwell, close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, the procurer of girls for the rich and famous, convicted paedophile and yet again, centre of another media storm after previously surpressed records regarding his farce of a prison sentence was successfully challenged in court.
Jeffrey Epstein – for those living in a cave – was convicted in 2008 of paedophilia. A number of women came forward to allege that they were trafficked as teenagers as playthings for the rich and famous. Epstein is extremely well connected, counting Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson as close associates, and his little black book (that I intend to cover in a separate blog post at some point in the future) was full of the most intriguing names. Two of those names included the Duke and Duchess of Rutland.
So, my question is – did the blood-stained underwear and uniform found in Proctor’s home on the Belvoir estate belong to a boy or a girl? If it’s a boy’s uniform, then the questions I’ve highlighted above need answering. If it’s a girl’s uniform, then maybe those investigating the Epstein case may want to look a little further afield, especially in light of the next item found.
THE NOTEPAD
In addition, police seized a “notepad relating to child abuse” entitled ‘Bizarre Sex’.
Why were the contents of this not allowed to be submitted as evidence in this trial?
SEXUAL SADIST
Moreover, defence counsel told the court, evidence in both police investigations showed “someone who enjoys inflicting pain for sexual pleasure.”
We know this to be true from the 1987 trial. Journalist, Annette Witheridge, managed to obtain Proctor’s ‘torture gym’.
INDECENT PHOTOGRAPHS
Also seized in the property search, the court heard, were restraints, straps, whip, crop, cane and “indecent photographs” (there was no indication as to the seriousness of the images, and the court assumed that they were legal.)
So not only were restraints found (aside from the ones seized in 1987 that Annette Witheridge had hold of), but indecent photographs were also found. The Sunday People discovered evidence that Proctor took indecent pictures of the boys he procured for sexual kicks. Proctor liked to photograph them after he had beaten them. At first he tried to deny this but when presented with a photograph which was clearly taken in his flat in Fulham, he couldn’t deny it any longer. Terry Dwyer/Allen gave an interview to The Sunday People in which he confirmed that Proctor took photographs of ‘naked boys.’
Again, as was noted in court, no action was taken. Indeed police returned all of the seized items. The judge blocked cross-examination of Proctor – and refused a disclosure order – on any of this.
The only thing I have to say on this is to state the obvious – it was not a fair trial. The court had already decided that the items seized from Proctor’s home were legal (despite no further evidence or cross examination), and so the outcome seemed predetermined. Even more worrying is the fact that all these items were returned to Proctor by police. I’d be intrigued to know who gave the order for that to happen.
AFTER DARK
Weirdly, the full episode of ‘After Dark‘ that had been uploaded on to YouTube that featured Proctor has suddenly disappeared. Why? For those that haven’t seen it, someone has helpfully uploaded the important elements of Proctor’s contribution – namely surprise/horror to discover that his nemisis, the journalist Annette Witheridge, had hold of Harvey’s torture chamber.
So, taking all this new information into account let’s look at some of the timeline of the stuff Proctor failed to include in his book ‘Credible and True.’
1982 – Proctor meets Terry Dwyer/Allen at a Tory cocktail party and they embark on a two year relationship.
June 1986 – Proctor’s close friend and former private secretary to Enoch Powell, Jonathan Peter Denby, is involved in a police ambush alongside two Irish men and goes on the run for a year. Stories begin to surface about his possible involvement in paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland which was dismissed by Denby’s uncle, President of the Law Society – Sir Richard Denby. Proctor was due to meet Denby later that day and was the first person Denby contacted via telephone after he disappeared.
June 1986 – Proctor is found to be living with an 18-year old male, despite the age of consent being 21 at that time and his conviction.
1986 – The Sunday People begin publishing details of Proctor’s sexual proclivities involving the purchase of youngsters (aka ‘rent boys’) from his former boyfriend, Terry Allen. Allen would procure young runaways and sell them for sex whilst running the Lord Fox ‘Agency’. Proctor would meet middlemen at places like Earls Court Station to collect a ‘rent boy’.
December 1986 – The Sunday People published a front page splash exposing a blackmail attept concerning Ghislaine Maxwell and the Duke of Rutland if they continued to print stories about Proctor.
1987 – Proctor was allegedly found with a naked young Arab boy in his hotel room whilst on holiday with Terry Woods in Agadir, Morocco.
February 1987 – Proctor’s partner, Terry Woods, was found in his underwear outside Proctor’s flat in Fulham.
March 1987 – Following a five month investigation, the Metropolitan Police collate a dossier of evidence against Proctor, including a number of witness statements from ‘rent boys’, and decide to arrest Proctor.
March 1987 – Terry Woods arrested at airport whilst boarding a flight to the US in connection with allegations of Proctor’s use of ‘rent boys’.
April 1987 – Crime Squad officers arrest Terry Dwyer/Allen following a raid at his second home in Hull, where they found straps attached to a sofa, whips and other paraphenalia.
May 1987 – A newspaper report suggested that civil servant,Paul Sturgess, had been taking youngsters into the Commons to meet Proctor, sparking a security alert.
May 1987 – Proctor flatly denied all allegations against him. He quits as MP for Billericay days later.
May 1987 – Proctor pleads guilty in court for underage indecency as is fined just under £1,500.
May 1987 – Both The Bognor Cane Company and Janus Magazine announce they will club together to pay Proctor’s fine.
1987 – Proctor allows two males to stay at his Fulham flat. Apparently, they attack Proctor, beating him unconcious with an ashtray and a hammer and threaten him. Proctor decided not to report the incident to police due to his recent trial for underage sex.
September 1987 – Private Eye claim that Proctor was seen in Tunisia ‘exploring woodland with young urchins’ and also bought them a meal in his hotel.
March 1988 – Following his capture, Proctor’s close friend Jonathan Peter Denby was on trial for the police ambush.
June 1988 – Proctor appears on After Dark.
1988 – Owned by Patsy Puddles, Proctor opens a shirt shop in Richmond, funded by a number of big names from the Conservative party.
July 1992 – Proctor is yet again ‘attacked’ by two young males in his shirt shop in Richmond in an apparent ‘homophobic’ attack whilst in the company of Neil and Christine Hamilton.
2000 – Proctor’s shops are forced into compulsory liquidation.
2014 – Photographs emerge online of Proctor leading groups of young school children around Belvoir castle.
2014 – Proctor is accused of being part of a ‘Westminster paedophile ring’ and alleged to have murdered a school boy – later identified as possibly being Martin Allen.
2015 – During a search of his home, police find blood-stained school uniform and underwear, as well as whips, restraints, canes etc and a notebook on child abuse entitled ‘Bizarre Sex’.
2019 – The judge rules that none of the above evidence seized from Proctor’s home can be disclosed to the jury in the trial of Carl Beech. The mainstream media fail to report it also.
And finally…
I understand Proctor appeared on a BBC Victoria Derbyshire show and remarked how BBC Panorama had helped to discredit Carl, before then accusing the BBC of bias by not allowing him to speak.
This is the same Proctor who calls for anonymity for those accused of crimes until they are charged, but who took it upon himself to name a number of suspects in the investigation during a rather distasteful public speech at St Ermin’s. Those suspects had – up until that point – remained anonymous.
Prosecutors have 1 million pages of evidence against Jeffrey Epstein, his lawyer revealed in court Monday — without shedding any new light on the jailhouse incident that left the convicted pedophile with bruises on his neck.
No marks were visible on Epstein’s neck, and he never appeared to be in pain during the 15-minute hearing in Manhattan federal court.
The judge overseeing the case tentatively scheduled Epstein’s trial for June 2020 after a prosecutor said the child sex-trafficking charges against him should be resolved as “swiftly as possible.”
“We don’t think any delay in this is in the public interest,” Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe said.
Epstein’s trial is expected to last four to six weeks, and the defense will have all the prosecution’s evidence against the multimillionaire financier by Oct. 31, she said.
Defense lawyer Martin Weinberg objected to starting the trial before September 2020, saying, “We need time to review a million pages of discovery.”
But Judge Richard Berman said he was blocking out time in June 2020 on the presumption that the defense would be ready by then.
Weinberg didn’t make any mention of the July 23 incident in which law enforcement sources have said Epstein, 66, was found sprawled on the floor of his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he’s being held without bail.
Weinberg declined to answer questions about the incident outside court.
Epstein, who wore dark blue jail scrubs over a brown T-shirt, didn’t speak during the hearing.
He’s pleaded not guilty to accusations he sexually abused dozens of underage girls — some as young as 14 — in his Upper East Side townhouse and his waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005.
Berman set a Sept. 13 deadline for defense motions in the case, and Weinberg said he planned to seek dismissal of a conspiracy charge on grounds of double jeopardy tied to allegations that underpinned a non-prosecution agreement that Epstein struck in 2008 with then-Miami US Attorney Alex Acosta.
That deal was exposed last year in an award-winning series of stories by the Miami Herald, and controversy that erupted following Epstein’s July 6 arrest forced Acosta to resign as President Trump’s labor secretary.
Messages left for Jeffrey Epstein ‘suggested his friend might be procuring two 8-year-old girls for the pedophile to sexually abuse’ state court docs filed by victims’ lawyer
A message pad taken from Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion in 2005 reveals calls from Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and visits from Tom Ford
Many of the messages are from Jean-Luc Brunnel, a model agent who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by multiple women
There is one that appears to reference underage girls, another noting how much an 18-year-old woman ‘loves Jeffrey’
‘He has a teacher for you to teach you how to speak Russian. She is 2 x 8 years old… Lessons are free and you can have 1st today if call me back,’ reads one
‘This message reasonably suggested… that Brunel might have been procuring two eight-year-old girls for Epstein to sexually abuse,’ stated one court filing
31 July 2019
Messages that were left for Jeffrey Epstein around the time the Palm Beach Police first began investigating the pedophile in 2005 offer a rare glimpse into his juxtaposed worlds.
There are calls from former members of the Royal Family, details about and conic designer’s weekend visit to his Palm Beach mansion, and multiple messages from his close friend Jean-Luc Brunel.
There is one that appears to reference underage girls, another noting how much an 18-year-old woman ‘loves Jeffrey’ and another in which Brunell relays one doctor’s professional opinion on how best to treat a sexually transmitted disease.
These messages were all obtained by DailyMail.com after filing an FOIA request for Palm Beach records related to Epstein’s legal battles in the decade since he left prison.
The message pad was first obtained by police during their search of Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion in October of 2005, shortly after they were tipped off to the fact that the pedophile knew he was being investigated by police.
A message from Ghislaine Maxwell in August of that year reveals that Epstein and his age-appropriate companion were hosting Tom Ford in Palm Beach.
‘She let [Epstein’s pilot] Larry go,’ reads the note
Esptein is then told to contact Maxwell to let her know if she should just pick the designer up in the helicopter, which she was licensed to fly.
In January, a message states that ‘HRH Duchess of York’ aka ‘Sarah (Fergie)’ is ‘expecting your call.’
There are also messages from his good friend Leslie Wexner about business matters, and former Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman calls to ask what the best time would be for him to visit would be during a trip to Palm Beach.
here are also seven messages from David Copperfield or his assistant.
‘Magic David called,’ reads one note.
‘It’s jackpot,’ says another message.
These all stand in stark contrast to the frequent messages left by Brunnell.
At 8:08 am on the morning of April 1, Brunnel called Epstein and left a message, which was relayed to Epstein via a note that read: ‘He has a teacher for you to teach you how to speak Russian. She is 2 x 8 years old not blonde. Lessons are free and you can have 1st today if call me back.’
Brunnel then followed up again at 8:31am and 9:04am, asking that Epstein get in touch.
Bradley Edwards, the lawyer for a number of Epstein victims including Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts) included those three messages as evidence after Epstein filed a civil suit against him.
‘In light of these circumstances of the case, this message reasonably suggested to Edwards that Brunel might have been procuring two eight-year-old girls for Epstein to sexually abuse,’ stated one court filing submitted by Edwards and his lawyer.
‘According to widely circulated press reports reviewed by Edwards, Brunel is in his sixties and has a reputation throughout the world (and especially in the modeling industry) as a cocaine addict that has for years molested children through modeling agencies while acting as their agent — conduct that has been the subject of critical reports, books, several news articles, and a 60 Minutes documentary on Brunel’s sexual exploitation of underage models.’
That legal battle waged on for years before finally ending in December, when Epstein settled with Edwards and publicly apologized after the lawyer counter sued for defamation.
Damning sex abuse report says children were failed despite ‘decades of evidence’
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse says there are still weaknesses
31 JUL 2019
A major inquiry into the abuse of children in care has said that that both the city and county council failed to stop what was taking place despite “decades of evidence”.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has today (Wednesday, July 31) published its report into historical abuse in residential and foster care across Nottinghamshire.
It concluded that the sexual abuse of children was widespread during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and that victims were failed by Nottingham City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, and Nottinghamshire Police.
The abuse included repeated rapes and sexual assaults.
Professor Alexis Jay, Chair of the Inquiry, said: “For decades, children who were in the care of the Nottinghamshire councils suffered appalling sexual and physical abuse, inflicted by those who should have nurtured and protected them.
“Those responsible for overseeing the care of children failed to question the extent of sexual abuse or what action was being taken.
“Despite decades of evidence and many reviews showing what needed to change, neither of the councils learnt from their mistakes, meaning that more children suffered unnecessarily. We hope this report and recommendations can help ensure it never happens again.”
The report stated that the 350 people who gave evidence of abuse to IICSA – which is also looking at areas like the Roman Catholic Church and Westminster – was largest number of specific allegations of child sexual abuse in a single investigation that the inquiry has considered to date.
But the actual number of victims locally is “likely to be considerably higher”, the report says.
The inquiry said both councils had failed in their statutory duty to protect children in care from sexual abuse, while police did not treat allegations seriously enough.
It also said there continues to be weaknesses in foster care at both councils; and still no process for the regular reporting of child sexual abuse allegations or the action taken in response.
And IICSA said “more needs to be done to provide support and counselling for those who have suffered sexual abuse in care.”
From the late 1970s to this year, 16 staff have been convicted of sexual abuse of children in residential care, while 10 foster carers have been convicted of sexual abuse of their foster children.
Three weeks of hearings took place in October, taking evidence from survivors of abuse, police, council officers, councillors, former children’s homes staff and managers, and the CPS.
The hearings looked at three key areas: Beechwood children’s home in Mapperley, foster care, and harmful sexual behaviour between children in care. The report decided that:
* At Beechwood, staff were threatening and violent, physical abuse was commonplace and children were frightened. Sexualised behaviour by staff was tolerated or overlooked, allowing abusers to thrive. The home should have been shut before it finally closed in 2006.
* In foster care, there was too much willingness on the part of council staff to take the side of the foster carers and to disbelieve the child. Sexual abuse was compounded by poor decison-making in cases where children had revealed what had happened to them – some known perpetrators were allowed to remain as foster carers and then went on to abuse children again.
* Neither of the councils have a satisfactory approach to addressing the issue of harmful sexual behaviour between children in care.
The report has made two recommendations around assessments of the potential risks posed by residential staff and foster carers, and the evaluation of practices concerning harmful sexual behaviour between children.
‘HRH Duchess of York is expecting your call’: Note recording a phone message from Sarah Ferguson to Jeffrey Epstein is discovered among police records along with message from another caller about ‘underage girls’
Notepad taken from Jeffrey Epstein’s Miami mansion by police in 2005 as they investigated him for sex crimes details his callers
Include the likes of magician David Copperfield and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell
One says that ‘HRH Duchess of York Sarah (Fergie) … is expecting your call’
Epstein was a close friend of Sarah Ferguson’s husband Prince Andrew, the Queen’s son, and she once borrowed money from the paedophile
The messages were taken before Epstein was convicted
31 July 2019
A note about a message from the Duchess of York has been unearthed in a pad seized by police from the Miami mansion of newly-accused paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The note, penned by an unknown hand on January 25, 2005, at 7.15pm, is from ‘HRH Duchess of York Sarah (Fergie)’ and says ‘she is expecting your call’.
Sarah Ferguson’s former husband Prince Andrew was a close friend of Epstein and was once accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing an underage girl – claims Buckingham Palace has denied and have since been struck from the record.
The note was among dozens of messages left for the billionaire financier from the likes of magician David Copperfield, close friend Jean-Luc Brunel, and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who dated Epstein and was part of his inner circle for decades.
It was revealed in 2011 that Andrew had arranged for Epstein to pay the Duchess £15,000 to help clear a £78,000 debt she owed to her former personal assistant, Johnny O’Sullivan. It is unclear when this payment was made.
The Duchess subsequently apologised, saying: ‘I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me.
‘I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgement on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say.
‘Whenever I can, I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.’
In 2005, when the note was penned, the Duchess and Prince Andrew were divorced and living separately.
Epstein used to be close friends with Prince Andrew. Andrew’s name was mentioned in a 2015 lawsuit when some of Epstein’s victims challenged a plea deal.
The court filing alleged that Epstein forced Virginia Giuffre – who was then known as Roberts – ‘to have sexual relations’ on three separate occasions with ‘a member of the British Royal Family, Prince Andrew (a/k/a Duke of York)’. She is thought to have been 17 at the time.
The claim was categorically denied and a judge subsequently struck it from the record.
The notes, including the one the one referencing the Duchess, were in a pad that police took from Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion in 2005 when they first began investigating him for sex crimes, and were obtained by the Dailymail.com under FOIA law.
There is one that appears to reference underage girls, another noting how much an 18-year-old woman ‘loves Jeffrey’ and another in which Brunel relays a doctor’s professional opinion on how best to treat a sexually transmitted disease.
Many of the messages are from Jean-Luc Brunel (above), a model agent who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by multiple women
The notes were unveiled as Epstein sits in jail charged with operating a sex trafficking ring in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005 which involved the abuse of dozens of underage girls.
Other messages in Epstein’s notepad include one from Brunel which lawyers subsequently argued could have showed him procuring two eight-year-old girls for Epstein to abuse.
At 8:08 am on the morning of April 1, Brunel called Epstein and left a message, which was relayed to Epstein via a note that read: ‘He has a teacher for you to teach you how to speak Russian. She is 2 x 8 years old not blonde. Lessons are free and you can have 1st today if call me back.’
Brunel then followed up again at 8:31am and 9:04am, asking that Epstein get in touch.
Bradley Edwards, the lawyer for a number of Epstein victims including Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts) included those three messages as evidence after Epstein filed a civil suit against him.
‘In light of these circumstances of the case, this message reasonably suggested to Edwards that Brunel might have been procuring two eight-year-old girls for Epstein to sexually abuse,’ stated one court filing submitted by Edwards and his lawyer.
‘According to widely circulated press reports reviewed by Edwards, Brunel is in his sixties and has a reputation throughout the world (and especially in the modeling industry) as a cocaine addict that has for years molested children through modeling agencies while acting as their agent — conduct that has been the subject of critical reports, books, several news articles, and a 60 Minutes documentary on Brunel’s sexual exploitation of underage models.’
That legal battle waged on for years before finally ending in December, when Epstein settled with Edwards and publicly apologized after the lawyer counter sued for defamation.
Other messages in the pad include one from Ghislaine Maxwell in August 2005 that says that Epstein and his age-appropriate companion were hosting Tom Ford in Palm Beach.
‘She let [Epstein’s pilot] Larry go,’ reads the note
Esptein is then told to contact Maxwell to let her know if she should just pick the designer up in the helicopter, which she was licensed to fly.
There are also messages from his good friend Leslie Wexner about business matters, and former Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman calls to ask what the best time would be for him to visit would be during a trip to Palm Beach.
None of those people have been implicated in any way in Epstein’s scandals, and are believed to have been caught completely off guard when they learned about his predatory habits.
There are also seven messages from David Copperfield or his assistant.
‘Magic David called,’ reads one note.
‘It’s jackpot,’ says another message.
These all stand in stark contrast to the frequent messages left by Brunel.
Geelong College pays $1 million to sexual assault victim
30 July 2019
A 63-year-old man abused by a teacher at Geelong College more than 50 years ago has received a $1 million settlement from the exclusive school just hours before the matter was due to reach court.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he was repeatedly abused in his first year at the boarding school by housemaster Colin McPherson at the Newtown campus in 1968.
Geelong College.
In 1996 he told the school, which is now affiliated with the Uniting Church, of his sexual abuse at the hands of McPherson but was told by then principal Pauline Turner that the college would not accept any liability.
The school never referred the allegations to police, but in 2004 agreed to pay for 10 counselling sessions on the conditions the victim sign a confidentiality agreement and waive his common law rights.
After years of denials, lawyers for Geelong College made the offer about two hours before the Supreme Court trial was to begin on Monday.
The man, who now lives in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, said he felt immense relief after 50 years of torment.
“I hope my case gives strength for other victims as this was the sole reason I kept fighting for justice. It feels fantastic to have stood up for myself after being pushed around and silenced for so many years,” he said.
He urged other victims of abuse at the school to “push hard” for justice.
On Tuesday afternoon, Geelong College confirmed the case had been settled. Principal Dr Peter Miller acknowledged the suffering of former students.
“The college is truly sorry for any harm to former students. Today, we are committed to doing what we can to support survivors and to ensure such incidents do not happen again,” Dr Miller said.
The settlement on Monday is expected to trigger further legal claims from victims of sexual assault at the school that date back to the 1960s and involve up to five former teachers.
McPherson was eventually convicted of child sex offences in Queensland and has since died.
Lawyer Mark Magazanik from Rightside Legal said the school should “hang its head in shame” after coercing his client to accept a deal in 2004 that was “improper, illegal and would not hold up in court”.
“And the price tag for Geelong College’s disgraceful failures is over $1 million,” Mr Magazanik said.
He said the school knew it had paedophiles on staff, and in one case, was told that a teacher was a paedophile before it hired him.
Last week, the school notified current and former students that it had joined the National Redress Scheme, which gives sexual abuse victims access to compensation of up to $150,000.
“We have written to the college community on a number of occasions throughout this period to raise awareness of this important issue, to apologise publicly to those who have been harmed, and to demonstrate a willingness to support survivors towards redress, in all its forms,” the school wrote on July 26.
“Some matters have not been resolved using this approach. This means we are expecting a small number of cases to escalate to the court system in the coming weeks and months.”
Former Geelong College employees have previously been convicted over historic child sexual abuse during their time at the prestigious school, including ex-teachers Colin McPherson and Jeremy Longley in the 1960s and 1970s.
Feds probe socialite’s mysterious ocean ‘charity’ over links to Jeffrey Epstein
July 27, 2019
Ghislaine Maxwell at the Rita Hayworth Gala at the Waldorf for the Alzheimer’s Association in 2010.
A mysterious do-nothing charity founded by Jeffrey Epstein’s socialite gal pal is being investigated by the FBI for possible links to the convicted pedophile, The Post has learned.
The TerraMar Project was incorporated in London and Delaware in 2012, purportedly to raise awareness of environmental and other issues facing the oceans, and exclusively funded by hundreds of thousands in loans by heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, public filings show.
Maxwell, 57, the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell, has been accused by three women of procuring girls to work as sex slaves for convicted pedophile Epstein, according to court filings. Two of the women said both Maxwell and Epstein sexually assaulted them. She has not been charged with a crime.
Maxwell was listed as president of TerraMar, and her Upper East Side home was its official office. She pumped $283,429 into it between 2012 and 2017. In that time, the so-called charity gave out a total of $874 in grants.
Between 2002 and 2005, Epstein used his private jets — dubbed the “Lolita Express” — to shuttle girls for sex between his estates in New York, Palm Beach, Fla., and the Virgin Islands, according to prosecutors.
One girl, aged 19 at the time — whose name appears on the manifests of two Epstein flights in February 2005 from JFK Airport to Columbus, Ohio, and Palm Beach — became a member of the founding board of directors of the Maxwell charity seven years later.
She also lived in a three-bedroom, $430,000 home in Teaneck, NJ, that is linked in public documents to Maxwell, although neighbors told The Post they never saw Maxwell at the property.
he Post is withholding her name. It is not known what she was doing on those Epstein flights. She did not return calls for comment.
An FBI source would not say if the charity probe is focused on the question of whether it served as a slush fund to pay hush money to Epstein’s young victims.
Members of TerraMar’s blue-ribbon board included Westchester businessman and UN official Amir Dossal, “Dead Poets Society” producer Steven Haft, and Calvo-Platero, Maxwell’s best friend from Oxford.
Ariadne Calvo-Platero
Katie Vaughan-Edwards and Ariadne Calvo-Platero, Maxwell’s socialite friends from London, were also listed in the original incorporation documents.
Multiple calls and e-mails to the charity’s past and current board members were not returned.
Larry Coben, a NYC-based founding director, told The Post he couldn’t remember being connected to the charity and hung up the phone.
Jeffrey Pagliuca, a Colorado-based criminal defense lawyer who is representing Maxwell, did not return The Post’s calls and e-mails.
After The Post began making inquiries this month, the charity blocked its public website and made it password-accessible. Last week, the home page included this message: “The TerraMar Project is sad to announce that it will cease operations.” No reason was given.
The nonprofit’s latest federal tax filings show only $583 in total contributions in 2017 and expenses of $18,462. They also show the charity owes Maxwell $549,093 in loan repayments.
Epstein, 66, was arrested this month for allegedly sexually abusing “dozens” of minor girls.
Former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine and his family have numerous listings in Epstein’s book. Hezza was one of several MPs who helped Harvey Proctor set up his shirt shop. He also gave porn collector Patrick Rock, Cameron’s close aide, his first break in politics.
Alexandra Williams, an art dealer, is Heseltine’s daughter – curiously, all contact numbers are blacked out in her case. Her father resigned as deputy to Thatcher in the wake of the Westland affair.
Epstein Visited Bill Clinton’s White House At Least Four Times: Report
24 July 2019
Accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein visited the White House during former President Bill Clinton’s administration at least four times, the Daily Beast reported Wednesday.
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman who has been described as his “madam,” attended a Bill and Hillary Clinton-hosted donors’ reception in the White House in September 1993 after he donated $10,000 to the White House Historical Association that same month, according to documents from the Clinton Presidential Library obtained by the Daily Beast.
A former executive vice president of the White House Historical Association, Bernard Meyer, sent a letter to Epstein in October 1993 thanking him for the donation, which he said would be put toward refurbishing the Oval Office and areas of the Executive Residence.
Epstein also met Clinton aide Mark Middleton at least three times in the White House around 1993 and 1994, the Daily Beast reported, citing an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation.
The revelation that Epstein’s relationship with Bill Clinton began in the early 1990s casts doubt on the narrative put forth by the former president that their relationship began after he left the White House.
The former president said he “knew nothing” of the financier’s “terrible crimes” in a statement in July after authorities arrested and charged Epstein with sex trafficking.
Bill Clinton acknowledged in the statement that he had taken multiple trips on Epstein’s airplane in 2002 and 2003 for work related to the Clinton Foundation, but he neglected to acknowledge Epstein’s visits to the White House during his time in office.
Epstein said he helped conceive an arm of the Clinton Foundation in a 2007 letter to federal prosecutors designed to boost his public image during the plea negotiations that ultimately led to his highly criticized 2008 sweetheart deal where he served 13 months in prison for pleading guilty to soliciting an underage girl for sex.
“She told me that I couldn’t just leave,” Tai told the New York Post a woman resembling Epstein’s alleged madam Maxwell told her as she was leaving his house. “She said that this man is important, that he is a friend of President Clinton.”
Archbishop tried to discredit BBC film on church links to abuse
Cardinal Vincent Nichols filed formal complaint over 2003 programme, documents show
24 July 2019
The most senior Catholic leader in England and Wales went to extraordinary lengths to try to discredit a BBC documentary on child sexual abuse and its cover-up by the church, the Guardian can disclose.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, publicly accused the BBC of bias and malice before the documentary was aired in 2003. Documents seen by the Guardian show he also lobbied the BBC’s director of news, wrote to all priests in his archdiocese urging them not to speak to BBC journalists, and lodged a formal complaint against the programme’s makers.
The BBC’s programme complaints unit (PCU) rejected the complaint, and the BBC governors’ programme complaints committee dismissed his appeal against that decision. Nichols refused to apologise to the programme-makers.
Last month the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) criticised Nichols for putting the church’s reputation before the welfare of abuse survivors. In a report, IICSA said Nichols’s response to the BBC programme was “misplaced and missed the point”.
The documentary, part of the investigative series Kenyon Confronts on BBC One, included interviews with survivors who claimed the church covered up cases of sexual abuse. It tracked down Father James Robinson, a Catholic priest who fled to the US after being accused of sexual abuse and who received financial support from the Catholic archdiocese of Birmingham for seven years before he was extradited, convicted and jailed.
At the time of the documentary, Nichols was archbishop of Birmingham and chair of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults.
At a press conference before the programme was broadcast, Nichols accused the BBC of “using the licence fee to pay unscrupulous reporters trying to recirculate old news and to broadcast programmes that are biased and hostile”.
He added: “That this programme has been allowed to progress this far shows either malice towards the church or a total lack of judgment or of managerial responsibility.” He demanded the BBC justify the renewal of the licence fee.
While the documentary was being made, Nichols wrote to priests in his archdiocese urging them not to speak to BBC reporters working on it. “If you are approached please remember you are not advised to be cooperative. You may, quite properly, refuse to take part in any questioning or interview. This is my advice,” he wrote.
Before broadcast, Nichols wrote to Richard Sambrook, then the BBC’s director of news, saying a re-examination of historic sexual abuse cases was not in the public interest. He claimed reporters had telephoned a priest at 2am, acted discourteously and inconsiderately to a priest who had just undergone major surgery, and “cornered” a priest in a residential care home to question him.
Sambrook told the Guardian: “My recollection of the difficult meeting and correspondence with Cardinal Nichols is that he was entirely focused on trying to discredit the BBC’s journalism in the hope of diverting criticism of the church. Fortunately the BBC’s journalism was sufficiently robust to see off such attempts. He showed little interest in wider questions about uncovering abuse or the welfare of the survivors.”
After the programme was broadcast on 15 October 2003, Nichols lodged a formal complaint with the PCU, claiming BBC reporters used underhand methods to gain access to elderly and infirm priests.
The PCU rejected Nichols’ complaint, saying there were no grounds for his claim that the Kenyon Confronts team behaved inappropriately. It said the investigation was “conducted properly and in line with BBC producers’ guidelines” and there was no evidence of serious breaches of editorial standards.
Some of the 11 sworn witness statements from nuns and priests provided by Nichols to the PCU contradicted his allegations that reporters had not properly identified themselves. Evidence from recordings of some encounters also showed his claims to be false.
Nichols claimed one priest had been left distressed by a visit from two members of the Kenyon Confronts team, who were alleged to be hectoring and intimidating. However, the priest’s statement said the pair were “well-mannered, polite and had respect for my office, although I was glad when I had finished speaking to them. They were not unpleasant or malicious in the way they spoke to me.”
Nichols appealed to the BBC governors’ programme complaints committee against the PCU’s adjudication, and in May 2005 the committee rejected the appeal.
After the decision, Paul Kenyon, the programme’s presenter, and Paul Woolwich, its executive producer, wrote to Nichols saying the archbishop had tarnished the reputation of those who worked on the documentary. “We believe an apology to set the record straight would now be appropriate.”
Nichols replied: “I see no need for me to offer an apology.”
Last month IICSA said Nichols’ response to the programme should have focused on “recognising the harm caused to the complainants and victims. Instead, [it] led many to think that the church was still more concerned with protecting itself than the protection of children.”
In a statement to the Guardian, Nichols apologised for at the time failing to sufficiently acknowledge two positive elements of the programme: giving a platform to abuse survivors and locating Fr Robinson.
He pointed out he had offered to give a live interview to the BBC at the time of the broadcast. Woolwich said it had not been possible to broadcast a live interview immediately after the broadcast of a pre-recorded programme, and Nichols had rejected an offer to appear live on Newsnight the same night or the Today programme the following morning.
Nichols’s statement said: “I was annoyed at the approach of the programme-makers who gave a slanted presentation of the real problems we were seeking to address … I accept that my frustration at the approach of the programme-makers led me not to give sufficient attention to the suffering of the victims of abuse perpetrated by the priest in question, although I had already met with all but one of them.
“A more thorough listening to the experiences of victims and survivors has now become central to the church’s approach and we will continue to adjust our work in safeguarding in light of this victim-centred approach.”
The articles about #CarlBeech today may lead people to think the VIP Westminster pedo ring didn’t exist. But where were the news organisations when this was happening at Iicsa in March? DCI Howard Groves and many other senior police officers stating they were told to cover it up
This absurd outcome was a foregone conclusion from the moment the security services realised these true allegations could no longer be completely ‘shut down’ absent a suitable show trial, scapegoat, and accompanying targeted propaganda exercise.
Staggeringly prejudicial reporting of the trial and Carl Beech’s allegations by the spook-infested corporate media had the intended effect.
Week after week, in article after miserable article, the corporate media demonised Carl Beech and sanctified the ‘real’ accused: Harvey Proctor, Lord Bramall, the late Greville Janner and the late Edward Heath, etc.
Those establishment figures were consistently portrayed by the newspapers and broadcasters as ‘distinguished public servants’; as ‘noble gentlemen’; as ‘elderly victims’ ‘crying out for justice’, etc. etc.
Perhaps it’s because he works for (crime) bosses Rebekah Brooks, John Witherow, & Rupert Murdoch that David Aaronovitch propagates quite as he does.
Maybe it’s just co-incidence that he consistently pushes the same views as Rupert Murdoch.
Or could it be that Aaronovitch is a gun for hire who long ago gave up the right to deviate from the family line?
Today’s opinion piece in The Times is singularly one-sided.
Aaronovitch refers to Proctor as a “former Tory MP who bravely went public about the allegations made against him” .
But makes no mention of the fact that uber racist Proctor admitted to beating up under age rent boys. That’s why he is a former Tory MP. Proctor also boasted of holidaying in Tunisia – notorious for the availability of young boys for sex.
Aaronovitch clearly doesn’t care about the suffering of the Child Sexual Abuse survivors whose information was contained in the missing Dickinson files.
He doesn’t mention Dolphin Square or Elm Guest House which is in Zac Goldsmith’s constituency which might explain why he has a more informed view on the matter.
Keith Vaz of course worked at Richmond Council while the alleged Elm Guest House incidents were reputed to have taken place. He shut down an investigation into Keith Janner in the early 90s and was head of the Home Affairs Select Committee when Mark Sedwill answered, on behalf of Theresa May, the questions that needed to be asked about what happened to the files that were given to Brittan.
Sedwill’s comments were openly indifferent as to what had happened to the files. He said he didn’t suspect foul play. Very different to how he behaved when he arranged for Gavin Williamson to be sacked for supposedly leaking the government’s Huawei stance to the Telegraph.
Aaronovitch never mentioned Cyril Smith or David Steel’s reluctance to kick him out of the party for being a paedophile. The Aaronovitch view, like Boris Johnson, appears to be that money spent on investigating Child Sexual Abuse is money spaffed up a wall.
Does he suppose we all believe Savile acted alone? Savile, who was well connected, close to the Tory Party, and a Special Friend of Israel, like Daddy Murdoch.
Though Aaronovitch has a go at the BBC for broadcasting Beech’s allegations, no mention is made of the Head of News at that time.
It was none other than James Harding, the former editor of . . . The Times.
I smell a stitch-up.
Pick an obviously disturbed individual. Give them lots of attention. Then reveal they are lying. And everyone can forget about the original large scale, systemic establishment paedophilia. The Catholic Church have been doing this for hundreds of years. It isn’t new.
It looks to me as though the police co-operated with Murdoch and other agencies to allow a “witch-hunt” to take place to then let it die down.
Jonathan King, the pop svengali who was done for paedophilia, is having a field day. Tweeting away. His bail by the way was put up by Simon Cowell. He is spoken highly of by Rod Liddle.
The Beech case, which should never have got to court, is being used to discredit real victims. And police and health spending cuts today mean that real victims of paedophila often never get justice.
But no worries for Aaronovitch and Tom Watson. Not their problem.
But what about Jeffrey Epstein? Things get interesting there. Robert Maxwell’s daughter Ghislaine is close to him. Prince Andrew. Trump. God knows who else. Looks like establishment paedophilia again.
They have lots of secrets. And they’re starting to come out. Everyone seems to be blackmailing each other. Things could get interesting.
Roy Cohn (see previous post) worked for Murdoch. And Trump. He died of AIDS in 1986. But they’re both still around. And it looks like they use the same methods. Jared Kushner’s dad does too.
If that means paedophilia, prostitutes, honey traps, kompromat, then that is what it is.
Old school.
And if that is what was used by the Brits in Ireland and elsewhere, then that too.
You can’t change the past. Or the bad habits of today if they’re proven to work.
But for now, we’re being told that all the allegations are false.
Yes, Beech’s allegations may be false.
But that doesn’t mean all these people are innocent.
Ministers should fund a national inquiry to look into remaining sexual assault allegations against former PM Sir Edward Heath, a police commissioner says
His comment followed the conviction of Carl Beech, the serial accuser turned Accused
24 July 2019
Police Commissioner says ministers should fund a national inquiry to look into remaining sexual assault allegations against former prime minister and Wiltshire resident Sir Edward Heath.
Angus Macpherson, police and crime commissioner for Swindon and Wiltshire, claims a statutory inquiry is the only way accusations against the Salisbury politician could be pursued.
His comments followed the conviction of former Swindon hospital manager Carl Beech, who claimed he had been sexually abused as a child by a Westminster paedophile ring made up of entertainers, army chiefs and MPs – including Sir Edward Heath.
The police commissioner was speaking a day after a jury found 51-year-old Beech guilty on 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud.
The former Great Western Hospital worker had initially approached the Wiltshire force in 2012, telling detectives of abuse he claimed to have suffered at the hands of Jimmy Savile and heads of the army. Wiltshire Police took no further action.
Two years later, Beech met detectives working for the Metropolitan Police and levelled accusations against Sir Edward Heath, former home secretary Lord Brittan and two former heads of the armed forces.
Mr Macpherson said: “As I have made clear, a further local review will not have the powers needed to deliver what Sir Edward Heath’s family and friends demand. It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to set the terms of reference for any review as we would, effectively, be marking our own homework.”
Reports of child abuse are shaped by media hypocrisy
Spy Peter Hayman escaped justice
Peter Bornshin suffered sexual abuse while in the care of social services in the early 1980s. He was tormented by his experiences at the Grafton Close Children’s Home, west London.
Richmond Council paid Peter compensation for the abuse.
John Singmore, the deputy manager of Grafton Close, abused him.
He died awaiting trial for the abuse, facing a conspiracy to commit buggery charge, which was linked to taking children to Elm Guest House. His friend, Father Tony McSweeney, was jailed for three years.
The police, politicians, prime ministers and the security services all covered up child abuse by Cyril Smith MP, Peter Morrison MP, the senior spy Peter Hayman and others.
All of this was being investigated before Carl Beech made his false allegations of a Westminster child abuse ring that he was found guilty of making up this week.
The newspapers that put the story of Beech on the front pages have constantly ignored real stories of abuse. They have ignored the genuine evidence of state cover-ups given at the ongoing institutional child abuse inquiry.
Historical child abuse cases are complex. But the verdict in the Beech case should not be used to create a climate that will stop other abuse victims coming forward.
During the search of Harvey Proctor’s house on the estate of Belvoir… “… police seized a ‘notepad relating to child abuse’ entitled: Bizarre Sex…” Why aren’t the MSM reporting this stuff? It’s disgusting.
@JamesRusbridger
“DC Danny Chatfield formally seized the whips, restraints, cane and ‘NOTEPAD RELATING TO CHILD ABUSE’, titled ‘Bizarre Sex’, from Harvey Proctor’s property “But judge Sir James Goss did NOT recall DC Chatfield to seek more information about the seizures”
“Harvey Proctor beat ‘young men or boys’ and took photographs of their injuries, according to court submissions. “Another witness told police that he discovered a big envelope of pictures of boys aged 11-19 ‘including lots of kids ABOUT 11-12 YEARS OLD'”
The court also heard that “Operation Midland”, when searching Harvey Proctor’s home in 2015, seized “a school uniform with a child’s underwear” – for a child of 13 to 14 – that was blood stained”, and that Proctor refused to provide a blood sample.
@ ciabaudo
So Harvey Proctor who had a stash of paraphernalia including whips, straps, blood-stained underwear and a notepads entitled ‘Bizarrre sex’ at his Belvoir estate home was allowed by the Duke to take young children on tours of the castle?
Proctor giving tours to school children at Belvoir Castle
Astonishing threats have been made to publisher Robert Maxwell following exposure of “Whacko” Harvey Proctor. I will produce a story about Ghislaine and Lord Granby (aka the Duke of Rutland) with incriminating pictures of them in compromising positions
@DogWaggedByTail
Keith Harvey Proctor – friend of Peter Jonathan Denby’s (friend and aide to Enoch Powell)
Harvey Proctor lived and worked at the Duke of Rutland’s castle. He was the Duke’s personal secretary
Mr Proctor, 68, works for the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and lives in a house within the 16,000-acre grounds of their home Belvoir Castle, in Leicestershire near Grantham.
Mr Proctor, whose home is being searched by police officers, said he knew nothing about a VIP paedophile ring alleged to have existed at Westminster during the 1970s and 1980s
A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed that “officers from Operation Midland are carrying out a search of an address in Grantham in connection with their inquiries”.
The Rutlands have a long relationship with Harvey Proctor. The Duke was both the subject of blackmail and gave Whacko work and a flat at Belvoir Castle. The ‘Nick’ trial utterly exposed Harvey Proctor, buddy of Jonathan Denby whose cousin Barbara Hewson attended proceedings.
Witness statements show Proctor’s sexual interest in young boys … No prosecution was pursued … A school uniform with a child’s underwear stained in blood … Refusal to provide blood sample … Someone who enjoy inflicting pain for sexual pleasure …
Restraints, straps, whip, crop, cane … Indecent photographs … Notepad entitled ‘Bizarre sex’ …No action taken … Cross-examination of Proctor blocked … ARE YOU GETTING THE MESSAGE YET?
@Zoompad
Loud and clear, and it is screaming COVER UP
Epstein was hired at age 20 by Headmaster Donald Barr in 1973. Donald Barr is the father of Attorney General William Barr, who just had Epstein arrested.
Around the years of Mr. Epstein’s tenure, records show the student roster included Prudence Murdoch, the daughter of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch;
Epstein, from Brooklyn, was just 21 when he joined the faculty at Dalton, arriving without a college degree. The school’s student newspaper reported in September 1974 that he was starting that year as a math and physics teacher.
While #Epstein was teaching at Dalton, Donald Barr’s son, William was working for the CIA. William later served as GHW Bush’s Attorney General during the CIA Iran-Contra Affair & refused to allow the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate. #Trump brought Barr back as AG.
Donald Barr gave his resignation in February but he did not leave until June 7th, which was after Epstein had been hired. See the NYT archive to confirm: https://nyti.ms/2Y3S0Qz
Donald Barr’s son William Barr would intersect with Epstein’s orbit while serving as a counsel at Kirkland and Ellis in 2009. The law firm secured Epstein his obscenely lenient 2007 non-prosecution deal, which the Justice Department is now reviewing. In July, Barr the son refused to recuse himself from the ongoing Epstein investigation.
William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney serving as the 85th United States Attorney General in the Donald Trump administration since February 14, 2019. He also served as the 77th Attorney General from 1991 to 1993, in the George H. W. Bush administration.
In 1992, Barr launched a surveillance program to gather records of innocent Americans’ international phone calls.[41] The DOJ Inspector General concluded that this program was launched without a review of the legality of the program.[41] According to USA Today, the program “provided a blueprint for far broader phone-data surveillance the government launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”[41]
Iran-Contra
In late 1992, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, who had been chosen to investigate the Iran–Contra affair, found documents in the possession of Reagan’s former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, which Walsh said was “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”[42][43] Weinberger was set to stand trial on felony charges on January 5, 1993.[42][44] His “indictment said Mr. Weinberger’s notes contradicted Mr. Bush’s assertions that he had only a fragmentary knowledge of the arms secretly sold to Iran in 1985 and 1986 in exchange for American hostages in Lebanon.”[44][43][45] According to Walsh, then-president Bush might have been called as a witness.[46]
On December 24, 1992, during his final month in office, Bush, on the advice of Barr, pardoned Weinberger,[10][47] along with five other administration officials who had been found guilty on charges relating to the Iran–Contra affair.[10][48][49][42] Barr was consulted extensively regarding the pardons, and especially advocated for pardoning Weinberger.[50]
Walsh complained about the move insinuating that Bush on Barr’s advice had used the pardons to avoid testifying and stating that: “The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.”[51] In 2003, he wrote an account of the investigation in his book, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.
Because of this and Barr’s unwillingness to appoint an independent counsel to look into a second scandal known as Iraqgate, New York Times writer William Safire began to refer to Barr as “Coverup-General Barr.”[52] Barr, however, responded that he believed Bush had made the right decision regarding that and he felt people in the case had been treated unfairly.[53] Barr said that Walsh was a “head-hunter” who “had completely lost perspective.”[54]
Bronfman/ALEC/Barr
Former headmaster of Dalton accused of sexually assaulting teen student
June 7, 2018
The headmaster of an elite Upper East Side private school sexually assaulted a disadvantaged teen for months when he took her into his home to help out with his new baby, an explosive new lawsuit charges.
The victim, identified as J.S., was 14 years old when Gardner Dunnan, the long-time head of the Dalton School, allegedly preyed upon her at his Manhattan apartment and in his New Jersey summer home.
The alleged attacks happened in 1986 when J.S. was living at Dunnan’s family’s Upper East Side home while attending the tony school tuition-free — in exchange for her working as a “family helper.”
She accuses Dalton of turning a blind eye to Dunnan’s alleged behavior, saying the school ” should have been aware that Dunnan was likely to engage in sexual misconduct or other harmful behavior.”
Dunnan was forced to resign from Dalton in 1997 — after his affair with a married female teacher at the school was exposed. He served as headmaster at the East 89th Street school for 23 years. (Since 1974)
One girl who was trafficked by Epstein at age 14 said, “I was still wearing my braces.” She was not a woman at 14 and had no comprehension of what Epstein was after. She thought these were “nice people” inviting her to a party where other kids would be. Instead, she has had years of difficulty and depression ever since Jerry Epstein and company came along and sexually assaulted her.
I so hope to hear that Ghislaine Maxwell does not skate away without consequences. She certainly seems to have loved her pimpstress work alongside Epstein, for years and years. It has been her lifework, just as Keith Raniere has been Clare Bronfman’s lifework.
The Meaning of Life: Monty Python’s John Cleese and his child psychoanalyst wife Alyce Faye Eichelberger, now divorced, appear on Epstein’s list. Faye studied under Anna Freud, Sigmund’s youngest child, and has strong ties to the Hampstead clinic and the Esalen cult.
When Alyce came to England with her children, she had nothing. She studied psychotherapy at the Tavistock clinic under Anna Freud’s instruction and lived in a third-floor council flat in North London. She met Cleese when they both attended a party in London.
Upon graduating from law school, Hillary Rodham took a post-graduate year of study on children, exploring issues of early childhood development, child abuse, and medical-related matters. She also worked as a research assistant to the center’s director, Dr. Al Solnit and one of her professors Joe Goldstein for their book, co-authored with Anna Freud, entitled Beyond the Best Interests of the Child.
Alyce Cleese – After divorcing Dave Eichelberger (with whom she had two sons), she met actor John Cleese in 1990 and they married in 1992. They divorced in 2008, though details of the divorce settlement only became public knowledge in August 2009.[4]
Fiona Sara Shackleton, Baroness Shackleton of BelgraviaLVO (néeCharkham; born 26 May 1956)[1] is an English solicitor and politician, who has represented members of the British royal family and celebrities, including Sir Paul McCartney and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her charm and resoluteness earned her the nickname “Steel Magnolia”.[2]
Born Fiona Sara Charkham in London, she is the daughter of Jonathan Charkham, an economist and adviser to The Bank of England, and Moira Elizabeth Frances Salmon, daughter of Barnett Alfred and Molly Salmon.[3] Her mother’s family, the Salmon family, were co-owners of the J. Lyons & Co. cornerhouse empire.[4]
Shackleton qualified as a solicitor in 1980, and by 1986 she had become a partner at Farrer and Co, the firm of solicitors employed by the British royal family.
Shackleton joined Payne Hicks Beach in 2001 as a partner. Shackleton is reputed to have fallen out of royal favour in the aftermath of the Paul Burrell affair and the suggestions of a cover-up over allegations of a homosexual rape within the royal household put Shackleton, in her own words, “under pressure for a solution to be reached more speedily than I was able to achieve”. She was criticised in the Peat Report on the proceedings.[2][9]
Shackleton is married to Ian, who runs a business called The Chatham Archive & Document Storage Company, and who is related to Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Jeremy Hunt’s campaign manager is in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book
Perhaps most significantly of all, just across the border in Shropshire, the Ludlow MP Philip Dunne is managing Mr Hunt’s campaign.
I have rarely come across anyone as decent, honourable & competent as @dunne4ludlow. His wisdom and friendship have been invaluable to me @DHSCgovuk. We will miss him but no doubt he will continue to make huge contributions to public life.
He has been a farmer since 1987, at his family’s farm just over the county boundary in Herefordshire, at Leintwardine near Ludlow, and was elected in 2001 as a councillor on the South Shropshire District Council, of which he was the Conservative leader in 2003–2005.
He was also secretary of the Ludlow Conservative Association for a year in 2001. Since 2005 Dunne has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ludlow.
In July 2016, he was appointed as Minister for State for Health.[2] In Prime Minister Theresa May‘s January 2018 reshuffle, he was dismissed from his ministerial post. Before losing his post, Dunne was accused of belittling the winter NHS bed crisis by suggesting unwell people in accident and emergency departments of hospitals without beds could instead use seats.[3][4]
Conservative leadership election 2005
Just before the Conservative leadership election of 2005, he balloted his constituents about whom he should vote for in the contest. After this ballot Dunne announced that he would be supporting David Cameron; he was also Chairman of Cameron’s campaign in Shropshire.
Philip Dunne was appointed as an unpaid assistant government whip in the House of Commons.[5] In September 2012, he was appointed Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology with responsibility for defence procurement and defence exports.[6] In this role, he was the minister responsible for, and one of the backers of, the bill which became the Defence Reform Act 2014.[7]He was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in the 2019 New Years Honours List
@JamesRusbridger
So there it is.
Margaret Hodge Nepotism on Islington Council
The Smith Institute funded by Geoffrey Robinson
Dolphin Square & paedo parties
Lucrative deals with Robert Maxwell
A socialite daughter who (allegedly) procures girls for rape
The Social Market Foundation & Lord Janner’s No. 1 Fan
Geoffrey Robinson funds “The Smith Institute”, which earlier this year appointed Margaret Hodge’s son-in-law, Joe Caluori, to the senior post of Deputy Director.
When he isn’t working for Geoffrey Robinson, Margaret Hodge’s son-in-law, Joe, is also a Labour Councillor on London’s notorious Islington Borough Council.
Indeed, it was only in order to take the job with Geoffrey Robinson’s “Smith Institute” that Joe Caluori resigned from his position as Islington’s “Cabinet Member for Children and Families”.
But not to worry — Caluori won’t forget the children, for whom he has already done so much while at Islington.
According to Caluori’s profile on “The Smith Institute” website:
“Joe’s policy interests include … child criminal exploitation”.
Geoffrey Robinson — a close friend of Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair with links to the Maxwells, British Intelligence and Dolphin Square — doubtless shares Joe Caluori’s altruistic interest in “child criminal exploitation”.
This shared concern for “child criminal exploitation” could explain why Caluori was hired by his “Smith Institute”.
Jeffrey Epstein continued to socialize with Elon Musk, Bill Gates and other elites even after being a registered sex offender
“It’s Going to Be Staggering, the Amount of Names”: As the Jeffrey Epstein Case Grows More Grotesque, Manhattan and DC Brace for Impact
17 July 2019
The Jeffrey Epstein case is an asteroid poised to strike the elite world in which he moved. No one can yet say precisely how large it is. But as the number of women who’ve accused the financier (at least, that’s what he claimed to be) of sexual assault grows to grotesque levels—there are said to be more than 50 women who are potential victims—a wave of panic is rippling through Manhattan, DC, and Palm Beach, as Epstein’s former friends and associates rush to distance themselves, while gossiping about who might be ensnared. Donald Trump’s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, architect of the original 2007 non-prosecution agreement that let Epstein off with a wrist slap, has already been forced to resign.
The questions about Epstein are metastasizing much faster than they can be answered: Who knew what about Epstein’s alleged abuse? How, and from whom, did Epstein get his supposed $500 million fortune? Why did Acosta grant Epstein an outrageously lenient non-prosecution agreement? (And what does it mean that Acosta was reportedly told Epstein “belonged to intelligence”?) But among the most pressing queries is which other famous people might be exposed for committing sex crimes. “There were other business associates of Mr. Epstein’s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Courtney Wild, one of the Epstein accusers who gave emotional testimony at Epstein’s bail hearing. “In due time the names are going to start coming out.” (Attorneys for Epstein did not respond to a request for comment.)
Likely within days, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will release almost 2,000 pages of documents that could reveal sexual abuse by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders,” according to the three-judge panel’s ruling. The documents were filed during a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former Mar-a-Lago locker-room attendant, against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. “Nobody who was around Epstein a lot is going to have an easy time now. It’s all going to come out,” said Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies. Another person involved with litigation against Epstein told me: “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It’s going to be contagion numbers.”
Epstein remained a fixture in elite circles even after he was a registered sex offender. A few years ago, for example, he was a guest at a dinner in Palo Alto hosted by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman for the MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden. At the dinner, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. (“Mark met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner honoring scientists that was not organized by Epstein,” Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBolt told me. “Mark did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner.”)
In an email, Elon Musk responded: “I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so, Epstein is obviously a creep and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine. Several years ago, I was at his house in Manhattan for about 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon with Talulah [Riley], as she was curious about meeting this strange person for a novel she was writing. We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird art. He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.”
One source who’s done business with Epstein told me that Epstein’s 21,000-square-foot townhouse on East 71st Street welcomed a steady stream of the Davos crowd in the past decade. The source said Bill Gates, Larry Summers, and Steve Bannon visited the house, which has been called one of the largest private residences in Manhattan. “Jeffrey collected people. That’s what he did,” the source said. Gates and Summers did not respond to requests for comment.
Thus far, the name most publicly associated with Epstein’s alleged crimes is famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who’s been waging a public battle with David Boies for years. In April, Boies’s client Giuffre sued Dershowitz for defamation after Dershowitz called her a liar (a strategy similar to that of seven of Bill Cosby’s accusers). In the days since the FBI arrested Epstein at Teterboro Airport a week and a half ago, Dershowitz has been going on television and dialing up friends and reporters to profess his innocence and label Giuffre and Boies liars. “I want everything to come out! I’m not afraid of anything because I did nothing wrong,” Dershowitz told me on the afternoon of July 15.
He called me a minute after I had emailed him for comment. He said he’d been friends with Epstein since 1996, when they were introduced at a party on Martha’s Vineyard by Lynn Forester de Rothschild. “She begged me to meet him. She told me, ‘here’s this smart academic.’” A few days later, Epstein invited Dershowitz to Les Wexner’s 59th birthday party at Wexner’s mansion in New Albany, Ohio. “It’s a tradition that Jeff invited the smartest person he met that year. He told them I was the smartest.” They remained close for years. Dershowitz strenuously denied ever participating in Epstein’s underage sex ring and said he’d only been in Epstein’s presence with his wife. “I got one massage!” he told me. “It was from a 50-year-old Russian woman named Olga. And I kept my shorts on. I didn’t even like it. I’m not a massage guy.”
Dershowitz said he secretly (and legally) tape-recorded settlement conversations with Boies and that the phone calls capture Boies admitting that Giuffre’s allegations aren’t true. “Boies is a bad person,” he told me.
“I never said that,” Boies responded when I asked about Dershowitz’s version of the phone calls. “What Alan does is he plays a second or two out of context; he never lets anybody listen to the whole thing.” Boies also dismissed Dershowitz’s claim that he never met Giuffre at Epstein’s house. According to Boies, Epstein’s former employees said in sworn depositions that they saw Dershowitz at the house multiple times without his wife. “This Olga woman doesn’t exist. Epstein’s barely kept women around who were over 25. It’s a figment of Alan’s imagination,” Boies said.
On Wall Street, Epstein is a subject of mystery—and fear. “I knew Jeff. He came across as very smart, very sophisticated,” one hedge fund manager told me. “He always had a good read on people. But manipulative people are good at that.” Another person who’s been in meetings with Epstein told me: “He’s very clever.”
How Epstein obtained his fortune is a matter of feverish speculation. His claim to a billionaire-only client list now seems laughable to the bankers I spoke with. One Wall Street source with direct knowledge of Epstein’s business said one source of Epstein’s income was providing “tax advice and estate planning” to rich clients, like Apollo Global Management founder Leon Black, presumably because Epstein had experience with offshore funds after basing his office in the Virgin Islands. In 2015 Black made a $10 million donation to Epstein’s foundation. (Black declined to comment.)
In the absence of much other information, the reigning theory on Wall Street currently is that Epstein’s activities with women and girls were central to the building of his fortune, and his relations with some of his investors essentially amounted to blackmail.
Similarly, DC is on edge. “Epstein bragged about his contacts in Washington,” Boies said. Reporters are likely to dig into why the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Epstein and kept the deal secret from his victims. One theory circulating among prominent Republicans is that Epstein was a Mossad agent. Another is that the George W. Bush White House directed Acosta not to prosecute Epstein to protect Prince Andrew on behalf of the British government, then the U.S.’s closest ally in the Iraq war. “The royal family did everything they could to try and discredit the Prince Andrew stuff,” Boies told me. “When we tried to follow up with anything, we were stonewalled. We wanted to interview him, they were unwilling to do anything.” (Prince Andrew could not be reached for comment).
Of course, the two Epstein friends that people are most curious about are Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, both of whom have denied anything untoward. During the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton’s campaign consulted Bill’s post–White House Secret Service logs because they were worried Trump would bring up Bill’s close association with Epstein and wanted to get ahead of the story, a source told me.
For those in Epstein’s orbit, the stakes of exposure are bound to get higher as more and more women come forward. Every day seems to bring new horrors about Epstein’s alleged depravity. At a press conference on Tuesday, Courtney Wild’s lawyer Brad Edwards said that after interviewing dozens of Epstein’s accusers, it appeared Epstein spent almost all of his time abusing underage girls. “It was his full-time job,” Edwards said. “We have not found anyone who has provided information about a legitimate business he was engaged [in].”
Epstein built home, courtyard, runway & hangar on Zorro Ranch that he bought from the family of the late New Mexico governor Bruce King (BK) BK’s son, Gary King, was NM’s attny general 2007-15 & received (& later returned) $50,000 in donations from Epstein or firms linked to him
Chelmsford choirmaster ‘gave stars to pupil he abused’
16 July 2019
Malcolm Archer
A choirmaster gave reward stars to a pupil who he abused, a court has heard.
Kenneth Francis, 72, is accused of indecent assaults on four boys while he was a teacher at Widford Lodge Boarding School in Chelmsford in the 1970s.
One boy said he was abused beneath the school stage then rewarded with eight stars, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.
Mr Francis is on trial alongside 67-year-old Malcolm Archer, of North Wootton, Somerset, who denies two counts of indecent assault.
Mr Francis, of Pepys Court, Cambridge, has pleaded not guilty to 15 counts of indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency.
The allegations relate to boys who were members of the school choir between 1972 and 1979, the court heard.
Despite being told he was unsuitable to work in any cathedral, Malcolm Archer went on to serve at Wells Cathedral.
Banished organist rises again
13 May 2004
To many in the Church of England, it will be seen as a comeback of miraculous dimensions. Fourteen years ago, Malcolm Archer was thrown out of his job as a provincial organist, and Anglican leaders were told the brilliant musician was unsuitable to work in any cathedral.
Today I can reveal Archer, 52, has been chosen for the most senior position outside the clergy that the Church has to offer – director of music at St Paul’s Cathedral.
What makes his appointment all the more intriguing is that the cleric who forced him out of his job as organist of Bristol Cathedral remains an influential – and controversial – figure in the Church. For Archer’s detractor is none other than Dr Wesley Carr, the Dean of Westminster and the man who officiated at Princess Diana’s funeral.
In 1990, Dr Carr was dean of Bristol Cathedral when Mr Archer was obliged to resign amid confusing circumstances.
Subsequently, Dr Carr sent a letter to the deans of all English cathedrals advising them that the organist should not be hired. Last night, one eminent churchman, a former dean of Guildford in Surrey, told me: ‘I remember it. I threw it in the wastepaper basket.’
Inside the Church, Dr Carr rejoices in the nickname of ‘the sacking dean’.
Shortly after Diana’s death, he was at the centre of a furious row that threatened to tear Westminster Abbey apart after he sacked the choirmaster who arranged the music for the funeral.
He was branded a bully after firing all the Abbey’s tour guides aged over 75. And he was criticised for sanctioning the sale of chairs used at Diana’s funeral.
Despite losing his job at Bristol, Malcolm Archer, a father of two, continued in the music world, moving to Clifton College, the boys’ school.
He has been organist and master of choristers at Wells Cathedral, Somerset, for eight years.
Last night, the man who headhunted him, St Paul’s Dean John Moses, described him as an outstanding candidate. Asked about Mr Archer’s departure from Bristol, he said: ‘I should point out that lots of things are said but he (Archer) found employment directly afterwards.’
In a further twist, some are wondering if the appointment has helped settle another old score. During the 1980s, Dr Carr and Dr Moses worked together at Chelmsford Cathedral, Essex.
‘They didn’t get on at all,’ I am told. Dr Moses diplomatically tells me: ‘We were colleagues, and you get on better with some colleagues than others.’
Dr Archer’s wife, Alison, said: ‘I am aware that there was some dispute between my husband and Wesley Carr, but I don’t know the details. It was before my time. We’ve only been married for ten years.’ Dr Carr was unavailable for comment.
THREE headteachers of £33,000-a-year private school failed to act over pervert teacher now jailed for videoing 130 children with secret cameras even though he was found tied to chair half-naked several times
Jonathan Thomson-Glover was a teacher for 31 years at Clifton College
He was jailed last year after admitting filming 130 children over 16 years
New report reveals three headteachers ignored parents’ complaints
Parents complained as early as 1998 about ‘unsuitable rewards’ including beer, pizza and computer games nights held at German teacher’s home
16 August 2016
A court heard he hid cameras at different places around the school and was found with 2,500 hours of video and 1,400 indecent images on 330 tapes.
In July he had six months added to Thomson-Glover’s sentence after he admitted a string of further sex offences against children while he was teaching in Winchester.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of gross indecency involving a boy under 14 and one count of inciting a boy under 14 to commit a grossly indecent act.
The abuse took place at some point between 1987 and 1992, probably when the boys were about 12-years-old.
Former headteachers Andrew Hugh Monro, Stephen Spurr and Mark Moore were called to give evidence.
Despite several complaints, little was done by former headteachers Andrew Hugh Monro, Stephen Spurr and Mark Moore
In summer 1999, a cleaner and a young student reported that the housemaster had been found taped to a chair at the college half-naked.
A few months later, he was found taped to a chair again in just his underwear by a teacher who told headmaster Mr Munro, it was reported.
In September 2000, then head teacher Mr Spurr launched an enquiry after reports Thomson-Glover was again tied to a chair as a prank but told him “whatever happened don’t do it again”.
In another incident, a deputy head of pastoral care raised concerns about Thomson-Glover’s activities to head teacher Mr Moore, but was told the matter was ‘dealt with’.
Israeli politician says he’ll cut financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein
July 15, 2019
An Israeli politician attempting to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and under fire for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein — says his lawyers are working to cut his financial links to the rich pedophile.
Ehud Barak, the country’s former prime minister who is running against Netanyahu in September, used several million dollars of Epstein’s money to finance a security company, according to Haaretz.
Barak also is a personal friend of Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting a young woman for sex in Florida in 2008 and now faces a slew of new sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan.
Barak defended his actions during a TV interview Saturday, saying of Epstein, “He’d served his sentence for soliciting prostitution — the indictment didn’t say she was a minor,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
In the Florida case, a plea deal allowed Epstein to escape federal charges at the time, in exchange for him pleading guilty to a single count of soliciting prostitution from girls as young as 14.
Barak said his lawyers are working to sever financial ties with the accused billionaire, the Jerusalem Post said.
The NEXIVM connection has to do with Epstein’s Island and Necker Island owned by Richard Branson.
Richard Branson was made aware that some of the islands in the British Virgin Islands were for sale in 1978. Branson soon after went to the British Virgin Islands for a holiday to investigate the prospective real estate. On first observing the islands, he envisioned using them to put up rock stars for his record label. Upon arrival, they were given a luxury villa and travelled around islands for sale by helicopter. The final island he saw was Necker Island, and after climbing the hill and being stunned by the view and wildlife, decided to purchase the island.
Branson,
English business magnate, investor, author and philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group, which controls more than 400 companies.
The terrifying sex-slaver NXIVM cult held seminars on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in hope of ‘recruiting him into the organisation.
Sir Richard says he does not remember them. Appears he has the Same problem top officials in the FBI and DOJ have had about Their criminal behavior and concealing crimes
Prior to overseeing the Islington Child Abuse Scandal, Margaret Hodge worked at Unilever as an economist (1966-1973).
Unilever is also closely associated with the late prolific paedophile Leon Brittan and Leon’s corrupt cousin, Malcolm Rifkind. Unilever is additionally associated with Conservative Zionist (Friends of Israel) Anne Widdecombe, who, interestingly, worked for Unilever at around the same time as Dame Margaret (1973-1975 in Widdecombe’s case).
At Unilever, cousins Leon Brittan and Malcolm Rifkind ‘took turns’ as non executive directors: serving, in the case of Brittan, from May 2004 (or 2000: sources differ) to May 2010; and in Rifkind’s case from May 2010 until April 2015.
Unilever sponsors the annual One Young World summit for children’s causes – whose regular speakers include Bob Geldof, Sir Richard Branson and Lord Michael Hastings.
1. What do you enjoy about the UK and what was it that made you move here?
What made me move here is a strange story, I lived in the United States and Richard Branson asked me if I could fly with him on the inauguration of Virgin Atlantic over 20 years ago, and next to me sat Sir Clement Freud, who was then a member of parliament.
I happen to be related to Sigmund Freud myself, my mother is a Freud and my name in my British passport is Uri Geller Freud, and I invited Clement to my home in Conneticut and he somehow managed to convince us that England is a much more civilised country than the US. My kids were small then and I said maybe it’s about time we moved, and that’s why we moved here.
Virgin entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson has criticised Portuguese police for “overstepping the mark” by accusing Madeleine McCann’s parents of involvement in her disappearance.
The British billionaire, who has already donated £100,000 to help fund Gerry and Kate McCann’s legal team, accused the local press to of making unsubstantiated claims against the couple.
Inside Madeleine McCann’s parents’ bizarre relationship with paedophile Clement Freud
Richard Branson was born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School. It was here that he began to set up Student Magazine when he was just 16. By 17 he’d also set up Student Advisory Centre, which was a charity to help young people.
Richard Branson convicted of distributing indecent literature
P MILNE and P THOMPSON reported for distributing indecent literature: R C N BRANSON…
P MILNE and P THOMPSON reported for distributing indecent literature: R C N BRANSON (Richard Branson), director of the Advisory Centre and editor of Student magazine, convicted and fined under Section 3 of the Indecent Advertisements Act 1889.
A Northern Ireland woman who was befriended by Sir Jimmy Savile has said she is shocked and disgusted by claims that he was a predatory sex abuser.
Mrs Craig, who befriended Savile through her work with the Disabled Police Officers’ Association of Northern Ireland (DPOA), said: “I find it quite unbelievable — this is definitely not the man that I knew.”
Rosemary Craig, a “great friend” of the presenter, described the allegations as unbelievable and not in keeping with the man she knew.
Her husband, an ex-RUC officer, was severely injured after being shot by the IRA. She has done a lot of work with the DPOA.
“I wrote a letter to Jimmy Savile and he immediately responded. He sent me the money to fly over with a disabled officer and got him a new lightweight wheelchair. He put me on to Richard Branson who brought a Virgin aeroplane into Northern Ireland and took 375 disabled officers, their helpers and families to Florida for a holiday. All down to Jimmy Savile.”
Duke of Gloucester (his father director of Fairbridge Trust where child abuse was rampant) with Jimmy Savile
Queen’s Club has around 4,500 members. They include the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, actors Joseph Fiennes and Damian Lewis, Hollywood star Charlton Heston and singer Elaine Paige.
The club also has a large number of City professionals and international business people, including Richard Branson and George Soros.
In 2002, Prince Charles first gave Camila Batmanghelidjh, CEO of the former charity Kids Company, the idea of considering the impact of child abuse on children’s brain development. He presented her with 25 clinical papers on the topic. From that moment I was suspicious because the idea was so wide as to include the impact of all kinds of trauma making any research very confused in aim. Also, the method of research was to scan the brains of ‘troubled teenagers’ which seemed to be more about a social control agenda. I had already detected mixed messages about the aims of this children’s charity (Evening Standard: 11.09.2009).
Camila Batmanghelidjh attend the private view of the Kids Company’s ‘Holding Up Childhood’ exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts on December 16, 2013 in London, England.
Her supporters include Sir Richard Branson, Trudie Styler (Mrs Sting), Cherie Blair and Samantha Cameron
Kids Company founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, says ‘malicious’ child abuse claims led to closure
Potted history of Richard Branson’s career: tax evasion on direct mail record sales, suppliers left with bad debts that bankrupted them, businesses sold hastily to mugs who then had to produce commerce from chaos, persistent lies about overcrowding on his trains, a dead pilot after the failure of Virgin Galactic – and a purchase of online banking services fronted by underpaid Geordies taking earache 24/7 from customers fed up of mad organisational structures.
His rewards for this cacophony of crap: a knighthood, £5.2 billion of personal wealth, and a tropical island all to himself.
Sir Richard Branson was also intrested in the 11 year old Mariora Goschen
Who’s that girl?
The 40th anniversary of Virgin Records – our first four albums, including a certain Tubular Bells, were released on May 25th 1973. So what better time to find the original Virgin logo model?
Roger Dean created the original Virgin artwork in 1970, which over the years has developed into one of the most recognisable logos in the world.
The model in the image appeared again and again as the logo evolved, starting off in our mail order record service when I was 20 years old. It was still present when we launched Virgin Records in 1973.
News Roundup: Dream comes true.
The Times (London, England), 1988 March 12A boy’s dream of creating a computer game have come true with the help of Mr Richard Branson, the millionaire, and Jimmy Savile, host of the Jim’ll Fix It television programme. Andrew Collet…
Savile, Geldof and Branson
“Mr. Allan Roberts (Bootle)
Is the Minister aware that his Government are turning tragedy into farce? They have handed over their responsibility for foreign aid to Bob Geldof and cut foreign aid dramatically. They have handed over part of their responsibility for the National Health Service to Jimmy Savile, and are handing local responsibility for collecting refuse to Mr. Branson to cut the money needed for street cleaning. May we have an assurance that the Government do not intend to hand over responsibility for law and order to Perry Mason, to Kojak or to Boy George?”
Left: Artist Marina Abramović and Debbie Harry. Right: Jeffrey Deitch, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. (All photos: Linda Yablonsky)
Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in Stanley, N.M. is shown Monday, July 8, 2019. Epstein is entangled in two legal fights that span the East Coast, challenging his underage sexual abuse victims in a Florida court hours after he was indicted on sex trafficking charges in a separate case in New York.
Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case draws his New Mexico ranch into investigation
14 JULY 2019
A Balderas spokesman confirmed his office had interviewed possible victims of Epstein who visited the ranch, the AP reported. The office has not said how many accusers were interviews or elaborated on what they say took place at the property.
A sprawling desert ranch south of Santa Fe is tied to a New Mexico state attorney general investigation targeting financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to reports.
News of the probe comes as Epstein, a 66-year-old registered sex offender in Florida and New York, faces new charges of sex trafficking underage girls in an indictment Manhattan federal prosecutors obtained last week.
Also drawing scrutiny is a New Mexico law that allowed Epstein to avoid having to register as a sex offender in the state.
“New Mexico continues to lag behind the rest of the country in strengthening outdated and weak laws that fail to protect our children from abuse,” New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas told The Associated Press in an emailed statement. “This is a huge black eye for our state.”
In a 2015 court filing in Florida, a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Epstein said she had been abused at several locations, including the New Mexico property, according to the AP.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution under an agreement that required him to spend 13 months in jail and register as a sex offender. The agreement has been widely criticized for secretly ending a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls at the time that could have landed him behind bars for life.
Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said Friday he’s stepping down amid the tumult over his handling of the 2008 deal with Epstein. Acosta was the U.S. attorney in Miami when he oversaw the non-prosecution agreement.
Epstein purchased Zorro Ranch from the family of former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King years ago.
Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said Friday he’s stepping down amid the tumult over his handling of the 2008 deal with Epstein. Acosta was the U.S. attorney in Miami when he oversaw the non-prosecution agreement.
Epstein purchased Zorro Ranch from the family of former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King years ago.
Fancy a cuppa, Love? Andrew’s twilight visit to Courtney Love.
And did you notice the little arrow in Courtney Love’s entry pointing to Dana? Well, that is Dana Giacchetto, an investor in Digital Entertainment Network, the company in the Bryan Singer lawsuits, where Singer and other investors were charged with molesting underage boys.
Jeffrey A. Sachs was a close associate of Dana Giacchetto and, alongside Nicole Junkermann, is the second person linked to Epstein who has ties with healthcare consultancies.
Jeffrey A. Sachs was a close associate of Dana Giacchetto and, alongside Nicole Junkermann, is the second person linked to Epstein who has ties with healthcare consultancies.
Prince Andrew’s ‘party with paedo pal Jeffrey Epstein’ just after his jail release
Woody Allen also reportedly attended the dinner at billionaire Epstein’s New York mansion where the Duke of York was ‘guest of honour’
12 JUL 2019
Prince Andrew partied with paedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein just after his release from jail.
A guest said Epstein called him Andy and “wanted to make clear that while he was a guest of honour, he was a regular guest”.
Woody Allen also attended the dinner at billionaire Epstein’s £62million New York mansion, sources claimed.
It took place in 2010, after financier Epstein was released from a 13-month sentence for soliciting girls as young as 14 for sex.
One guest said those there included US TV hosts Katie Couric, Charlie Rose and George Stephanopoulos.
Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of disgraced former Mirror owner Robert Maxwell, was also there.
A source told the Daily Beast website: “Epstein and Andrew were not there to begin with, then the doors were flung open, and they made their entrance.
The source said Epstein called the prince “Andy” and was “clearly confident” in his company.
“He wanted to show how comfortable he was in his presence, and make clear that while he was a guest of honour, he was a regular, routine and repeat guest,” they added.
“Epstein, Andrew, and Ghislaine were a trio, a party within the party, the insiders among the other guests.”
Another attendee said: “There were a lot of ugly old men, with Prince Andrew in the middle of it all. We left pretty quickly.”
Epstein, who was last week charged with underage sex trafficking offences, was reportedly introduced to the prince in the 1990s by Ghislaine Maxwell.
At the time she was the American’s girlfriend.
The party came two months after the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton.
Sources said the main topic of conversation was the upcoming wedding of the future Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
It is claimed Couric told Prince Andrew she would be broadcasting live from outside Westminster Abbey during the ceremony and asked: “If I mail your BlackBerry, will you give me the details on what is happening inside?”
It came in the same month a photo was taken of Andrew deep in conversation with Epstein in Central Park.
The picture was published the following February and made headlines around the world, with questions raised over the prince’s judgement.
A spokesman for Buckingham Palace last night said that Andrew, who had previously holidayed with Epstein in Thailand and invited him for stays at Windsor Castle and the Queen’s country reside
Trump and Epstein were the only attendees at a “party” where 28 girls attended. 28 girls were someone’s daughters.
It was supposed to be an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald J. Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla. But other than the two dozen or so women flown in to provide the entertainment, the only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
The year was 1992 and the event was a “calendar girl” competition, something that George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise, had organized at Mr. Trump’s request.
“I arranged to have some contestants fly in,” Mr. Houraney recalled in an interview on Monday. “At the very first party, I said, ‘Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.’ It was him and Epstein.”
Jeffrey Epstein’s lair: On the roof sits #Moloch the owl, the Canaanite god of child sacrifice. Island workers say the walls were built #soundproof. An engineer says an external #locking#bar “appears intended to lock people in”
rosecutors unsealed an indictment against Jeffrey Epstein on Monday. The court accused Epstein of sexually abusing dozens of young girls for years at one of the biggest mansions in Manhattan, paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter and hundreds more if they could recruit other victims.
The case is making headlines because the Clintons partied with Epstein on his now famous “Orgy Island”.
In a statement this past week, former President Bill Clinton admitted to taking a total of four trips on Epstein’s airplane and also admitted to visiting Epstein’s apartment in New York. This has already been debunked as a lie y reporter Conchita Sarnoff. The former President flew 27 times to Orgy Island and most every time his flights carried under age girls!
We reported in 2016 before the election that Bill Clinton took numerous trips on Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ to Epstein’s private “Orgy Island” where underage girls as young as 14 were prostituted for Epstein’s rich and famous clients like Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Prince Andrew.
Clinton’s claim that his Secret Service were with him during every trip is bogus because according to reports he simply ditched his security detail in order to stealth travel with Epstein.
Also, Bill Clinton could not have flown with Epstein to perform work for the Clinton Foundation in 2002, as he claimed, because the Foundation was not authorized for foreign work at that time and the former President was not an officer, trustee or employee of the Foundation at that time.
The Clintons are notorious for criminal actions and lying about these actions but what the hell is going on with Epstein and why were they with him?
Per a cursory review of his island in the Caribbean, one object sticks out. A temple of sorts built on the southern part of the island.
There are some uncorroborated stories that the temple has multiple levels below it. What it was used for is unknown.
The fact that the structure looks like a temple obviously sheds some light but why the odd statues? Really, what the hell was going on here?
Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Private ‘Pedophile Island’
July 10, 2019
Epstein’s Little St. James Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands
A common mistake when referring to the lavish holdings of convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein: He has not one but two private islands in the Caribbean. About a mile southeast of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands lies the 75-acre Little St. James, which Epstein bought through an LLC in 1998 for $7.95 million. He later added the 165-acre Great St. James Island for the reported price of $18 million in 2016. Below is everything we know about the islands, from their disturbing nicknames, to the alleged crimes that occurred there, to the mysterious temple on Great St. James.
The alleged crimes
Alleged victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre claimed in a 2015 lawsuit that she was a “sex slave” for Epstein, and that she was abused in his homes in New York, New Mexico, Florida, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where she was allegedly forced into “an orgy with numerous other under-aged girls.” She also states that she “was forced to have sexual relations with [Prince Andrew] when she was a minor” at Epstein’s Little St. James estate.
Additionally, the islands would be the likely site of any possible financial crimes related to the criminal investigation run by the Southern District of New York’s Public Corruption Unit, as Epstein ran his mysterious offshore business, the Financial Trust Company, from there.
What is on the islands?
Located between St. Thomas and St. John, as of 2008 Little St. James Island featured a staff of 70, five buildings, and a “flamingo-stocked lagoon.” When Epstein first bought it, he stripped the native vegetation, adorned it with palm trees, and placed two giant flags on both ends of the island. Epstein’s residence on the island is a stone mansion with cream-colored walls and a turquoise roof.
Before he (kind 0f) went to prison, Epstein commissioned a renovation of Little St. James. Per the Times: “The villa will occupy the island’s promontory, which offers views of the Atlantic on one side and the Caribbean on the other. It will have a separate library to house Mr. Epstein’s 90,000 volumes, a Japanese bathhouse and what he calls a ‘Ziegfeld’ movie theater.”
The larger, more recently purchased Great St. James Island is currently — and illegally — under construction. In December 2018, the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources issued a stop-work order to Epstein for not adhering to environmental regulations. Not letting the law get in the way, the New York Postreports, “there has been unauthorized work on the island since the stop work order was issued.” The plan for the complex includes an amphitheater and an “underwater office and pool,” according to the Virgin Islands Daily News.
What’s that about a temple?
On a hill on the southwest point of Little St. James Island, there is a temple painted with blue and white stripes and topped with a golden dome. As Business Insider describes it: “The front is flanked by statues painted in gold; one of them appears to be the trident-wielding Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, while two others look like birds perched on the corners of the roof. It is surrounded by a line of palm trees and a terrace with a labyrinth motif. Finally, the exterior seems to incorporate an optical illusion, to create the impression that the exterior windows and door are set within carved flanges.”
According to island workers who spoke with the Associated Press, the building may have been designed as a music studio, outfitted with a grand piano and acoustic walls. (Epstein is a classically trained pianist.)
Business Insider also contacted engineer and contractor James Both, who noticed a few suspicious details about the temple. “It’s styled like what you might see on a castle, with what appears to be a reinforcing lock bar across the face,” he said. “What makes it peculiar is that if you wanted to keep people out, the bar would be placed inside the building, [but the] locking bar appears to be placed on the outside … as if it were intended to lock people in.” From this perspective, sound-dampening walls sound much more suspicious.
The nicknames
Epstein called the islands “Little St. Jeff” and “Big St. Jeff,” though others haven’t been as solipsistic — or generous. “Everybody called it ‘Pedophile Island,’” St. Thomas boat operator Kevin Goodrich told the AP. “It’s our dark corner.” Other names have included “Orgy Island” and “Island of Sin.”
Don’t try to snorkel there
According to the Associated Press, when guides took scuba divers to spots near the coast of Little St. James, “security guards would walk to the water’s edge.” In a similar spirit, when Epstein bought Great St. James, he shut down Christmas Cove, where locals and tourists would order pizza and have it delivered by boat.
Evangelical minister Jonathan Fletcher ‘gave prayer group naked beatings as light-hearted forfeits’
12 July 2019
An evangelical minister has admitted subjecting a prayer group to naked beatings as “light-hearted forfeits” if they failed to maintain “healthy and holy living”.
The Rev Jonathan Fletcher, 76, was unmasked by The Telegraph last month as the leading Church of England evangelical minister who has been banned from preaching after “spiritually abusing” vulnerable adults.
However further details about the nature of his abuse – specifically “physical discipline” – have since emerged. Mr Fletcher administered physical beatings on men’s naked backsides, gave naked one-to-one massages, withheld chocolate from victims and subjected them to cold baths, it is claimed.
The beatings are allegedly reminiscent of the beatings to which John Smyth QC subjected his young victims. The barrister, who died aged 77 last year, was accused of sadomasochistic assaults on boys in the 1970s and 1980s at Iwerne Christian holiday camps. Mr Fletcher, whose brother David ran the camps, has previously said he knew Smyth as an “acquaintance”.
Mr Fletcher, a former trustee of Reform, a conservative movement which has led the opposition to the ministry of women and homosexuals within the Church, has now admitted that the beatings took place, but described them as “light-hearted forfeits” in a “system of mutual encouragement”.
In response to the latest claims, he told The Telegraph: “I’m reading Psalm 38 [the topic of which is God’s displeasure at sin] daily, making deep repentance and I’m very, very upset if I’ve hurt anybody.”
He refused to elaborate and instead directed contact to the Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas.
Massage quid pro quo
In a statement which has been released by the Bishop, Mr Fletcher described the “light-hearted forfeits” to which he subjected young men.
“These included going without chocolate, cold baths and school-type gym shoe punishments,” Mr Fletcher writes.
“Although at the time we definitely did not think we were doing anything wrong, I’ve seen since that it could have caused much harm both to individuals and to the reputation of conservative evangelicalism for which I am profoundly sorry.”
He acknowledges that he enjoys and benefits from massage, and regularly hires professionals to do it. “However, if I can avoid the cost by finding a male friend to administer, and in return receive, massage, I do.
“These sessions categorically do not have erotic or sexual overtones and I have never coerced or intended to coerce anyone into an arrangement. If any have felt pressurised by me to do this, I apologise.”
He accepts that it was “unwise” to involve anyone to whom he was ministering, and apologises “if any have felt pressurised by me to do this”.
After The Telegraph first revealed allegations of Mr Fletcher’s abuse, the Proclamation Trust, an organisation of evangelical Christians, arranged a meeting at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at Westminster Chapel in London where Sarah Hall, Emmanuel Church’s safeguarding officer and women’s worker, read a statement detailing the nature of his abuse.
Discipline and discipling
She said that “concrete allegations” had been made about conduct involving Mr Fletcher as well as other men from late September 2018 and a small number of these allegations were made of “the practice of physical discipline in the context of discipling relationships”.
“One example of this involved men hitting each other on their naked backsides with a trainer for failing to meet personal targets.
“This took place over a period of time; it happened infrequently; the number of hits was small; and we do not believe any physical injuries were sustained, though it has been described as very painful. I am sorry to be specific but I don’t want you to speculate as to what sort of behaviour I include in ‘physical discipline’.”
The statement continued: “Further disclosures since March 2019 have largely related to a different practice of one-to-one massage, ranging from partially clothed massage to massage where both men are said to have been fully naked throughout and to have taken turns to massage each other. Again, this conduct seems to have become a regular part of the relationship between Jonathan and certain men over a period of time.”
Southwark Diocese had confirmed last month that the allegations surrounding Mr Fletcher centred around a “risk of him behaving towards vulnerable adults who may be seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful”. Sources said the allegations were of “spiritual abuse” and not physical or sexual.
The claims surrounding Mr Fletcher – son of Lord Eric Fletcher who was a minister in Harold Wilson’s government – triggered a police investigation, but the Diocese said that the police concluded that there were no grounds for further action.
The exact details of the allegations were not disclosed last month but sources said “there was no evidence from the assessment that Jonathan Fletcher posed a significant sexual or physical risk to children”.
Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon, south-west London, where Mr Fletcher retired as a minister in 2012, last month issued an “unreserved apology to all those affected by these unacceptable behaviours” and the Bishop of Southwark stripped him of his Permission to Officiate in 2017 – a ban which he has repeatedly flounced to preach around the world.
The Church has established a website, entitled Walkingwith.uk, for “those who need support because of the activities of Jonathan Fletcher”
This article about Jeffrey Epstein which makes reference to Ghislaine Maxwell and a ‘prime minister’ has prompted me to bring together the various names from Epstein’s little black book featured in various tweets on CSA into a single thread. Here goes:
Jeffrey Epstein court files unsealed: Allegations of sex abuse by politicians, executives, presidents and a prime minister contained in documents from accused child rapist’s civil case
2,000 pages of records related to a civil case filed against Jeffrey Epstein over a decade ago were ordered unsealed on Wednesday
These file could detail how Epstein and his accused accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly trafficked underage girls
New allegations of sexual abuse by ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents’ are also in the docs
There are allegations about ‘a well-known prime minister and other world leaders’ as well
In 1986, The People ran a story about an attempt to pressure Robert Maxwell into halting its coverage of the Harvey Proctor scandal. A sinister caller threatened otherwise to reveal a relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and the now 11th Duke of Rutland.
If the number of entries in Jeffrey Epstein’s phone book is any indication as to the status of a politician, Peter Mandelson, with no fewer than 10 numbers, must have made it to the very top of the greasy pole. Was he on speed dial?
Anthony Royle was MP for Richmond in Surrey, the home of Britain’s infamous Elm Guest House child brothel until the year after it was raised by Met police. His daughter Lucinda features in Epstein’s telephone book ... https://twitter.com/ciabaudo/status/1132604291854798848?s=19…
MP Shaun Woodward, who married into the Sainsbury dynasty, and his wife Camilla both appeared in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book. Shaun sheepishly teamed up with Esther Rantzen of ChildLine, who jumped into bed with paedophile Nicholas Fairbairn.
Climate denier, paedophile apologist and Thatcher minister Nigel Lawson’s son Dominic’s wife Rosa Monckton also graced Epstein’s list. Nigel’s daughter Nigella was for many years girlfriend of Harvey ‘Spanker’ Proctor’s IICSA QC Geoffrey Robertson.
Dominic Lawson: I stayed at Epstein’s so don’t hound Andrew
Prince Andrew has been damned for his choice of friends, but he is blessed in his enemies, like Labour MP Chris Bryant
2011
I suppose, before I am outed by the Mirror as a paedophile at one remove, I had better confess all. In January 1999 we enjoyed a brief family holiday at Epstein’s now notorious Florida home. My wife had known Epstein since the mid-1980s; when she told him in the winter of 1998 that our younger child had been most unwell for a long period, he said that what she needed was some sunshine and insisted we stay at his Palm Beach home.
The place was empty, apart from us and the housekeeper; but, yes, I did notice a photograph in it of Epstein and his then girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell with Prince Andrew.
The actor Nigel Havers is the son of Michael Havers. His step-daughter is Clare Bronfman, heavily implicated in the NIXVM cult. Her brother Edgar Jr. appears on Epstein’s list. Edgar Sr. was director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
Michael Jackson also features in Epstein’s little black book. Almost certainly a paedophile, he was welcomed with open arms to Westminster by Greville Janner, who should have stood trial for buggery, and Paul Boateng of Angel Rd. fame.
Prince Andre’w ex-wife and friend of Jeffrey Epstein…
Sir Anthony Bamford, Tory donor, friend of Blair, BigEars and Hague, and JCB boss, also loaned money to Jeffrey Archer, one of Harvey Proctor’s shirt shop donors. He is one of several on the list with links to children’s charities.
Next up: Churchill grandson and Serco CEO Rupert Soames, brother of Wardrobe-with-Little-Key Nicholas Soames, a Harvey Proctor supporter. Nicholas warned Lady Diana to stop meddling in a controversy over landmines. He and Boateng are directors at Aegis.
Fraudster Gerald Ronson and his wife Gail had several listings in Epstein’s black book, although Gail denies having met him. Gerald – VP of NSPCC and friend of Greville Janner – is related to Leon Brittan of Barnes Common and Malcolm Cash-for-Access Rifkind of Dunblane.
Ronald Perelman is a Trump friend and the ex-husband of Ellen Barkin who just today claimed Ghislaine Maxwell is Epstein’s pimp. More recently, Ellen was all set to marry @InquiryCSA‘s disgraced lawyer Ben Emmerson, colleague of Amal Clooney.
Milly Soames is good friends with Alice Prochaska, mother of Elisabeth Prochaska, deputy to Ben Emmerson, lead barrister at the @InquiryCSA child abuse inquiry and erstwhile hubby-to-be of Ms. Barkin, who both quit the inquiry under a shroud of mystery.
A gaggle of giggles: David Blaine, magician, Epstein contact and friend of Uri Geller, was present at the Palace of Westminster when Greville Janner, Peter Bottomley and Paul Boateng welcomed Michael Jackson to the mother of parliaments.
One party organised by Ghislaine for Epstein at his New York house in the early 2000s was reportedly attended by Donald Trump, Google founder Sergey Brin, disgraced British Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson and David Blaine who ‘amused a group of barely clad models with card tricks’.
She attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and has been friends with Donald Trump since the 1980s.
It’s believed she was pictured in public in October 2016 at VIP talk for Women’s Brain Health Initiative in New York.
His victims were as young as 14, according to prosecutors.
Giuffre claimed that Epstein had introduced her to Prince Andrew, now 59, and persuaded her to have sex with him three times. She claimed to have been paid $10,000 by Epstein as a ‘reward’ for this.
A judge later threw out her allegations against Prince Andrew and ordered them to be struck from the record of her claim against Epstein.
She spent a lot of time in the city, and worked as the director of Oxford United Football Club while her father was the proprietor.
During her twenties she was well-known in London’s social scene and founded the Kit Kat Club, which purported to be an alternative to the old-school-tie network for high-powered women.
She then worked for her father’s newspaper, The European.
Ghislaine Maxwell – her father Robert was a director of AGB Research together with Michael Havers, brother of the Sloshed Butler, and Ronald Waterhouse’s buddy Peter Cooper?
William van Straubenzee
Partner, Deputy Chairman
Willie is the Deputy Chairman and a founding member of James Hambro & Partners, instrumental in establishing the investment process that has underpinned our progress and success. After graduating from Oxford, and a short stint in the shipbroking industry, he joined Morgan Grenfell as analyst, portfolio manager and ultimately director of the Investment Division. He has been closely involved in private wealth and charity investment management for over 35 years as well as being a Trustee of St Dunstans (now Blind Veterans UK) and the Special Boat Service Association.
The Epstein Associate Nobody’s Talking About: The IDF-Linked Bond Girl Infiltrating the UK NHS
FIFA Corruption, the Panama Papers, the Mossad, and Nicole Junkermann
I have a story to tell you. A story that causes my heart to pound and my blood pressure to rise as I type each and every word. A true story of a woman of great wealth and power, who rode on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” private jet on several occasions. She appears to be a German-born Israeli state intelligence operative based in London. An ex-model whose name appeared in the Panama Papers from the Mossack Fonseca leaks and who became embroiled in a FIFA corruption scandal with Sepp Blatter and his family. She is perhaps the closest example that you could possibly find to a real-life “Bond Girl.” Yet, she is almost completely unknown to the majority of us.
This lady has recently infiltrated the NHS through the UK Department of Health and Social Care with the help of Matt Hancock MP, and her presence signifies a major threat to the data security of every citizen of the United Kingdom. Every single piece of data about you, your health issues, your blood type, the model of the wireless pacemaker keeping you alive, every detail of every embarrassing medical problem in the hands of the Israeli state apparatus and potentially sold off to the highest bidder. You may think that this doesn’t concern you. Why would you need to worry about a foreign far-right government which has been proven to meddle in the affairs of our country? Your data would be useless to them, surely? But that’s not the world we live in anymore. Big data is the modern gold rush. The psychologists and marketing agents have mastered how to make you buy things; the next step is for them to successfully master making you do things, and for that kind of control over people, they need everybody’s data.
When I was first researching the Jeffrey Epstein case, I trawled through every piece of official documentation that was available. I knew what I was looking for and how very dangerous it was. I had begun attempting to identify state assets through their movements, actions, associations, and by good old fashioned detective work. I was interested in identifying any MI5 or MI6 agents, Israeli Mossad, CIA, or any other part of a nation states spying apparatus. It’s possibly one of the most dangerous hobbies on earth, spy hunting, and if I’m honest, I’m not even sure why I’m doing it. Regardless, Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart deal was probably what they would give to a foreign intelligence operative. Epstein was a perfect place to begin fishing for potential spooks.
Once I find somebody who I suspect of being involved in espionage, I will track down all existing information on that individual and build the story of their lives as best as I can. I learn every known habit they have and instead of immediately writing an article about them, I just continue to note their activities with interest. I have been watching many potential state actors for a fair few years. I’ve also missed out on breaking a few good stories by waiting for too long. But I don’t want to simply show you the past as much as I want to show you the present, and even possibly, the future.
Investigation Manifest
In the Epstein case, one of the best pieces of evidence which was available to researchers was the flight manifest for his child trafficking molestation machine. There were many coded initials and a few famous names noted in the official documentation. As you probably already know, Bill Clinton and his Secret Service agents had ridden the infamous “Lolita Express” on many occasions. Naomi Campbell, Kevin Spacey, Alan Dershowitz and Chris Tucker also flew on the plane with the billionaire sex offender.
We all build up recognisable patterns of behaviour over time. When you investigate someone, you usually start by identifying these patterns and then looking for any divergences from the anticipated outcomes. In Epstein’s planes flight manifest, a pattern which was visible from the information available is how he would use his private jet. He would use the plane for two main reasons. Most commonly he would fly himself and a number of his entourage to a destination, or alternatively he would fly people to meet him. The rarest occurrence was when Epstein would fly without any of his usual entourage and just one other passenger. There was only one name that jumped out from the flight manifest as a good example of when Epstein alternated from his routine. His second meeting with Nicole Junkermann.
As of 2019, Nicole Junkermann’s current business portfolio is very impressive. She’s often described as an ex-model, entrepreneur and investor, but Ms. Junkermann is much more than just what you see at first glance. Born in Dusseldorf, Germany on 27th April 1975, Nicole Junkermann studied Business Administration at the International University of Monaco, and then went onto study Management Development at the prestigious Harvard Business School in the United States. Amongst her many talents she is multilingual and can speak German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. In 1998, after graduating from the University of Monaco, she co-founded “Winamax,” which was an early online gaming platform that existed before online gaming regulation became a priority for the authorities. Winamax was sold in 2001 and Junkermann would go on to invest in a recently created media rights company called “Infront Sports and Media AG,” where she would soon serve as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors.
The then President and Chief Executive at Infront Sports and Media, Phillipe Blatter.
In 2002, Junkermann acquired the rights for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany with her relatively new company Infront Sports and Media. The company was best known at this time for its president and chief executive, Philippe Blatter, the nephew of Sepp Blatter, the then president of FIFA. This overt nepotistic corruption left Junkermann’s Infront Sports and Media as the company to market the TV rights to major FIFA tournaments. It went on to acquire the rights to all of FIFA’s World Cups, and even though this deal was watered down in 2006, in 2011 FIFA again gave Infront permission to sell the TV rights, in the Asian markets, for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
During her time at Infront Sports and Media, Junkermann would be caught flying on Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” on three occasions. The first flight recorded, on 22nd March 2002, she would share with Epstein, Sean Koo, and one other passenger, but it’s her second trip which really stands out. On Saturday 31st August 2002, Jeffrey Epstein and Nicole Junkermann would fly from Paris Le Bourget Airport to Birmingham Airport, in the UK, alone. They would return to Paris, via the same route, on Monday 2nd September 2002. For Jeffrey Epstein to fly without any of his normally present entourage is very unusual. So what was happening that weekend? I’ve done a lot of research on these dates, but as of yet, I do not have any answers.
At that time, Junkermann was 27 years old, so it’s very unlikely that they were dating, as everyone knows Jeffrey Epstein isn’t interested in fully sexually developed adults. Finding this anomaly on Epstein’s plane manifest encouraged me to look deeper into the life of Nicole Junkermann, and amongst other things, whether or not she had any links to a state intelligence agency. Were Junkermann and Epstein meeting alone for innocent reasons? Even though Junkerman had made many investments already, she might have been trying to get more funds from an eager investor like Epstein. How Epstein originally accrued his billions is still quite a murky subject in itself.
Whatever the reason for these two incredibly rich people being together, this meeting was a very private one. Junkermann had also just completed Harvard University’s Program for Management Development, and Jeffrey Epstein had a high-profile relationship with Harvard which, in 2003, led to him donating $30,000,000.00 to the Ivy League college. Was Epstein using the famous American college to recruit for his own businesses or other interests?
More Epstein later, but firstly, continuing with Junkermann’s career, in 2005 she founded a private equity fund focused on media and sports investments in Asia and Europe called “United in Sports” and managed to raised €242.2 million for the venture in 2007. Her other project, Infront Sports and Media, was ultimately sold to a European private equity firm, Bridgepoint, for €600 million in 2011. In that year Nicole Junkermann had officially become one of the hottest investors in the world. Since her very first acquisitions which I’ve already referred to, Junkermann has invested in or purchased: Shanghai Really Sports, Ziggurat, Thousand-Child, Aloha, Jobbio, Emoticast, Elvie, Auctionata, Coindrum, Spoon Guru, Optiopay, Grabyo, Magnum Global Ventures, Songza, tausendkind, Revolut, Sentient Technologies, Here be Dragons, Soundtrack Your Brand, Groq, Catapult, Delivery Club, Relate IQ, DollarShaveClub, Bruhouse Brewery, Cage Warriors, Eagle Alpha, Gokixx, Rebuy.de, Travelbird, Healthtech Digital, OWKIN, Reporty Homeland Security, and Carbyne911. The latter four of these companies are of significant interest.
The Israeli Intelligence Connection
The link between Nicole Junkermann, the Israeli state intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Force is not a tenuous one. The ominously named “Reporty Homeland Security” was the first incarnation of what is now called “Carbyne911” and is referred to as simply “Carbyne.” Described as a “global leader in public safety technology,” Carbyne is a call handling platform app that allows you to, amongst other things, stream any ongoing emergency directly to the responding emergency services. It claims, in the information section of a promotional video on YouTube entitled “Nicole Junkermann presents Carbyne,” that it will:
“provide a plug and play solution that allows 911 callers to connect their smartphone features to the emergency operator so that the operator can make a better assessment of the emergency. Location data, audio, camera and video access can be shared, providing the operator with greater detail on the situation. The use of Carbyne’s solution will allow emergency management teams to better triage their cases and improve the utilization of downstream emergency services.”
They promise to combine the use of personal data, location data, live video, data from surrounding wearable tech, and even information from parked smart cars, to deliver more information to the emergency services who should be responding. They can pinpoint your location, even indoors, to within three feet, and they claim that they can even collect data from dropped calls. However, they fail to mention how they’ll get the permission to use such masses of available data. Who are these angels behind this revolutionary technology which aims to get between a victim and the emergency services?
One of the directors of Carbyne is Nicole Junkermann. The chairman of the board of directors is Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime Minister of Israel, the 14th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, former Minister of Defense and former Head of Military Intelligence for Israel. Ehud Barak has had a long history as one of the more public faces of Israeli covert operations. Before he was Prime Minister, Ehud Barak was a big name in the IDF. Through the 1970’s, he led many operations including famously disguising himself as a woman to kill members of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation). Ehud Barak has already been linked with Epstein, and Benjamin Netanyahu has helped to highlight those links for his own political gain.
Another of Carbyne’s directors and board members is Brigadier Pinchas Buchris, the former Deputy Commander of an elite IDF operations unit and former Commander of the IDF 8200 Cyber Intelligence Unit. Amir Elichai is the Founder and CEO of Carbyne, he is also a former Israeli Army officer who served in various positions in the special elite forces and the intelligence corps. Alex Dizengof is Carbyne’s Co-Founder & CTO. He’s described as a Software Architect and Algorithms Developer. Dizengof had previously developed machine learning algorithms for robots and mobile platforms, as well as cyber security software for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
These people have always been serious Israeli State assets and it would be naive to think anything has changed. It seems that Nicole Junkermann has some serious partners, and it makes me wonder whether or not Jeffrey Epstein’s original meeting with the then recently graduated Junkermann was as a recruiter for the Mossad.
Junkermann’s infiltration of the UK NHS and its Big Data
The only tiny picture of the Healthtech Advisory Board from .gov
I watched Nicole Junkermann carefully as she was buying up many start-up tech firms and at the end of 2018 my worst possible fear was realised. Matt Hancock, Member of Parliament for West Suffolk and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the UK, appointed Nicole Junkermann to the Healthtech Advisory Board. For the vast majority of people living in the United Kingdom, the NHS is an institution which we cherish and adore. Many of us will protect the National Health Service with our lives because that’s what it has done for us in our darkest days.
The Healthtech Advisory Board is described as a collection of clinicians, academics, and IT experts. The official government website says “the board will look at how the NHS can harness the potential of technology and create a culture of innovation, with the aim of improving patient outcomes and reducing the workload on NHS staff.” It fails to mention why it requires an Israeli intelligence linked venture capitalist who has been involved in multiple scandals. Their first official meeting took place on 19th November 2018—see Appendix I for the other members of the Healthtech Advisory Board.
The two members which are of note relating to this story are Nicole Junkermann and Parker Moss, the latter happening to be the Chief Business Officer at OWKIN, which is one of the many companies in Junkermann’s vast portfolio. OWKIN is an AI startup that uses machine learning to augment medical and biology research. On its own, the company would probably be a perfect fit for the future of the NHS, but because of its connection to Nicole Junkermann and Israeli intelligence, OWKIN should be seen as too much of a risk to the data protection for NHS users.
NJF Holdings website announces NHS big data win
On June 16th 2019, Nicole Junkerman’s NJF holdings website issued an article under the title “London Hospital’s Could Offer Patient Data to Google-backed AI Startup in a Bid to Develop Better Drugs.” It was exactly as I had expected. The convoluted title was celebrating the fact that OWKIN had already been promised NHS patient data, and they’re already confidently announcing it to their investors, and their other associates. We need to call for Matt Hancock to remove Nicole Junkermann from the Healthtech Advisory Board as of immediate effect, and we should have an inquiry into how NHS data can be protected from hostile foreign intelligence agencies.
Junkermann and Epstein – Conclusions
I believe that the future unsealing of previously hidden evidence will confirm that Jeffrey Epstein had been working for multiple intelligence agencies. But he is most likely to have been recruited by the Israeli state. Junkermann has managed to avoid her connections with Epstein being out in the open, until now. But she is skilled at controlling her public profile. Nicole Junkermann has become more powerful over the past eight years, and I have seen negative information relating to her previous scandals being removed from the search results. Go check yourself. Type in Nicole Junkermann on Google search and go through all the articles which appear. They are overwhelmingly positive, or simply relate to one of her businesses, and this is very different to what you would have found only a few years ago. When I first started investigating Nicole Junkermann, there were many negative articles which have all but vanished. I’m not even sure that this story will survive.
So, I ask you all to share this and publish it on your blogs and websites, and to bring the name Nicole Junkermann into the public eye.
Also, if I disappear anytime soon, remember. It was probably the Mossad.
Appendix I
The other Healthtech Advisory Board members include Rachel Dunscombe, who was the CEO of the NHS Digital Academy and Director for Digital for Salford Royal NHS Group, but since being appointed to the Healthtech Advisory Board, she has also joined KLAS Arch Collaborative as their Global (non-US) Leader and Senior Tech Evangelist. Manoj Badale OBE who is described as a Digital Venture Builder and has business ties with the Murdoch family. David Gann CBE Vice President of Innovation at Imperial College London. Sir Mark Walport, an English medical scientist and former Chief Government Scientific Advisor to the UK Conservative Governments from 2013 until 2017. Nicola Blackwood the Baroness of North Oxford and a member of the House of Lords. Roger Taylor, who is Chair of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. Jeni Tennison OBE, Chief Executive Officer at the Open Data Institute and lead developer for legistlation.gov.uk. Dan Sheldon, who is Head of Well Digital. Daniel Korski CBE, former Advisor to David Cameron and Hamid Karzai’s governments—and is someone who deserves their own article. Michelle Brennan, President of Johnson and Johnson, one of the pharmaceutical heavyweights.
New victims come forward as Epstein asks to be released from jail to his Manhattan mansion
July 11 2019
At least a dozen new victims have come forward to claim they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein even as the multimillionaire money manager tries to convince a federal judge to allow him to await a sex trafficking trial from the comfort of the same $77 million Manhattan mansion where he’s accused of luring teenage girls into unwanted sex acts.
Following Epstein’s arrest Saturday in New Jersey, four women have reached out to New York lawyer David Boies, and at least 10 other women have approached other lawyers who have represented dozens of Epstein’s alleged victims in the past.
Jack Scarola, a Palm Beach attorney, said at least five women, all of whom were minors at the time of their alleged encounters with Epstein, have reached out to either him or Fort Lauderdale lawyer Brad Edwards.
“The people we are speaking to are underage victims in Florida and in New York. They are not individuals whose claims have previously been part of any law enforcement investigation,’’ Scarola said.
The new accusers are surfacing as Epstein’s attorneys argue their client is being tried on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges that for the most part were resolved years ago in Palm Beach. His legal team filed a motion Thursday for pre-trial release arguing that Epstein has maintained a “spotless” record since prosecutors in South Florida set aside a federal sex trafficking investigation a decade ago and allowed him to plead guilty to lesser state charges.
Epstein’s attorneys want Senior U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman to free Epstein from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan and allow him to await trial from the $77 million Upper East Side mansion where prosecutors say he abused dozens of girls from 2002 through 2005.
Epstein, ahead of a Monday bond hearing, has offered to waive extradition rights and put up his Manhattan home and private jet as collateral. He also said he would consent to GPS monitoring, ground his jet, “demobilize” all his cars in New York and have trustees live in his home. And his brother, Mark Epstein, offered to put up his West Palm Beach home.
But New York prosecutors — who say they found “an extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially nude young women and girls” while executing a search warrant at his Manhattan residence last weekend — have already argued that he’s likely to either flee the country or add to what they say are dozens of victims as young as 14 from New York to Palm Beach.
“I don’t care if he gives up his license and his jet, he still has the wherewithal to take off any time,” said Spencer Kuvin, a Palm Beach attorney who represents three Epstein accusers. “Think about it — if he was a plumber in Queens, do you think the judge would say ‘Yeah, let’s give him an ankle bracelet and send him home?’ ’’
The hearing over whether to release Epstein, 66, will be the first in what should be a lengthy and highly watched trial.
Prosecutors say they have information that Epstein recruited and paid dozens of underage girls in the early 2000s to give him massages that became sexual assaults in his Manhattan and Palm Beach homes. The Miami Herald’s investigative series last November, Perversion of Justice, detailed how Epstein allegedly paid girls more if they recruited other girls to come to his homes, creating a sexual pyramid scheme.
But Epstein’s attorneys argued in their motion Thursday that Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was attempting to illegally and unconstitutionally prosecute their client over 14-year-old allegations that have already been resolved in South Florida.
Epstein signed a non-prosecution agreement a dozen years ago with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida after federal agents identified three dozen girls who were allegedly victimized by Epstein at his mansion in Palm Beach. He was allowed to plead guilty to two lesser prostitution-related charges and serve 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, during which his valet picked him up six days a week and drove him to his West Palm Beach office for work release. He registered as a sex offender and paid restitution to the identified victims, but avoided a prepared 53-page federal indictment.
“The [non-prosecution agreement] immunized Mr. Epstein from five distinct potential federal charges that may have been committed by Epstein … from in or around 2001 through in or around 2007,” Epstein’s attorneys wrote Thursday.
They said language in the agreement — signed into place under President Donald Trump’s current labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, when he was U.S. attorney for Southern Florida — clarifies that the terms of the deal apply “globally” to a yearlong federal investigation in South Florida, and therefore prevents federal prosecutors in New York from pursuing the same allegations.
Prosecutors haven’t responded in writing to the motion, at least not yet. But U.S. Attorney Berman, who has no relation to the judge, already argued in a letter to the magistrate who oversaw Epstein’s arraignment this week that New York case law has already deemed that his office is not bound by the terms of the South Florida agreement.
“It is well settled in the Second Circuit that ‘a plea agreement in one U.S. Attorney’s office does not, unless otherwise stated bind another,’ ” Berman wrote Monday, adding that the agreement expressly states that it pertains exclusively to prosecutors in South Florida.
Prosecutors and victims’ lawyers also believe that, given Epstein’s previous effort to intimidate victims and their families, it’s critical that the judge keep him behind bars and not grant him bail. He is facing up to 45 years in prison.
During the 2006-2007 probe in South Florida, federal agents considered charging Epstein with witness tampering because he used some of his employees to try to intimidate victims so that they wouldn’t cooperate with police, court records reviewed by the Herald show.
In one instance, a victim’s father told Palm Beach police that he had been followed by someone and forced off the road. He wrote down the car’s license plate number and police traced it to a private investigation company that had been hired by Epstein’s legal team, the police report about the incident said.
Epstein’s investigators also followed the then-Palm Beach police chief, Michael Reiter, and the lead detective in the case, Joe Recarey. Recarey said he was so concerned about the aggressive tactics Epstein was using that he would often switch vehicles in an attempt to throw them off.
“At some point it became like a cat-and-mouse game. I would stop at a red light and go. I knew they were there, and they knew I knew they were there. I was concerned about my kids because I didn’t know if it was someone that they hired just out of prison that would hurt me or my family,’’ Recarey told the Herald as part of its series on the case.
Recarey, who died shortly after he was interviewed by the Herald, said the victims, who were as young as 13, were scared to death of Epstein, and even more so because of the private investigators and defense lawyers who dug into every dark corner of their lives, and the lives of their brothers, sisters, parents and boyfriends.
“Jeffrey Epstein presents a very significant flight risk and I think that his proven pattern of intimidation of witnesses in the past is a strong indication there is reason to fear he would engage in the same kind of conduct again, particularly since he is facing now what amounts to life in prison,’’ Scarola said.
Scarola, though, thinks victims may have been comforted by the public appeal issued Monday by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, asking for more victims and witnesses to come forward (1-800-CALL-FBI). It’s not clear how many, if any, have responded to his plea, but Scarola said the message was clear that victims would be treated better in New York than they were in South Florida, where Epstein’s plea deal with federal prosecutors was kept secret from his victims.
A Miami federal judge recently ruled that prosecutors broke a law to protect victims’ rights in not alerting them to Epstein’s plea deal.
“I believe that there was a fairly effective message that was delivered by New York authorities that victims need not fear that they will be treated in the same way that victims had been treated in South Florida,’’ Scarola said.
Still, Kuvin, the Palm Beach attorney, said his clients are not convinced that New York federal prosecutors will be able to make their case against Epstein stick. One of them is cooperating with SDNY, he said, but the others are skeptical.
“They are ecstatic that he [Epstein] has been arrested but skeptical that anything is going to happen because of what they’ve been through before. They are thinking ‘prove it, I won’t believe it until I see it.’ ’’ Kuvin said.
#Acosta’s stance: It was a different world 11 years ago, so I had to give Epstein a sweetheart deal for trafficking kids. People now care about that kind of thing. Sidenote: He tried to cut the budget for preventing human trafficking by nearly 80 percent.
After giving Epstein “deal of a lifetime,” Alex Acosta tried to slash anti-trafficking program
Years after Epstein’s remarkably light sentence, Acosta sought to slash federal funds to fight sex trafficking
JEFFREY EPSTEIN oversaw donations of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to: 1. TONY BLAIR’s ‘Faith Foundation’ 2. CHARLES BRONFMAN’s ‘Birthright Israel Foundation’ The hugs sums were paid by the Black Family Foundation of which Epstein was a director!
Leon Black kept Jeffrey Epstein as charity director after plea deal
“You’d think if you ran a $200 billion firm you’d distance yourself” from a known sex predator like Epstein, a source close to Black told The Post, noting that Apollo is among the largest and most profitable private equity shops in the world.
When Epstein was a director, the Black Family Foundation donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
Millions also were donated to the MoMA.
Other common recipients included the tony Trinity School in Manhattan and Charles Bronfman’s Birthright Israel Foundation.
The Wellcome Trust is a research charity based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health.
Eliza has always been interested in science, particularly biology, and is intrigued by many aspects of the Trust. The work at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute holds particular appeal as she is “fascinated by genetics” and currently sits on the Board of Directors.
Alongside her Governor role, she is vice chairman of the council of Imperial College London and an advisory board member for the Centre for Security and Resilience Studies, University College London.
She is a crossbench life peer in the House of Lords and patron of a “very rewarding and successful small charity” called Street Kids International.
Former Canadian UN worker and renowned humanitarian sentenced in Nepal for raping boys
Peter Dalglish – founder of Street Kids International
Dalglish, an attorney from Ontario, founded Street Kids International in the 1980s
Ex-spy boss grilled about Tory MP who escaped investigations into child sex abuse
4 Mar 2019
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller is expected to appear before the child abuse public inquiry next week about her contact with Sir Peter Morrison, a close aide to Margaret Thatcher
MI5: Thatcher shielded Sir Peter Morrison after child abuse claims. Margaret Thatcher personally protected a senior Conservative MP who was under suspicion of abusing children, according to MI5 files disclosed to a public inquiry.
Lord Beaumont Of Whitley (nee: Rev. Timothy Beaumont) Chairman Of The Liberal Party.
NEW YORK CITY, NY – MARCH 13: (L-R) Ghislaine Maxwell, Ariadne Calvo-Platero (daughter of Lord Beaumont) and Lucinda Lawrence attend Hamish Bowles, Ghislaine Maxwell and Lillian von Stauffenberg dinner for ALLEGRA HICKS at Home of Ghislaine Maxwell on March 13, 2007 in New York City
Ariadne Calvo-Platero- Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Founding Partner at Family Central Consultants
Founding Partner
Company NameFamily Central Consultants
Dates Employed Sep 2014 – Present
Employment Duration4 yrs 11 mos
LocationNew York City
Family Central Consultants help families through difficult transitions. We provide support and adviceto families at a critical juncture when facing medical, mental health, educational challenges or majorlife transitions. We assist families in navigating a myriad of issues and available resources. Wecollaborate with our families to develop a plan of action and provide ongoing support. Our goal is tominimize stress and anxiety for our families faced with daunting or unfamiliar challenges, and to maximize solutions.
Ariadne Platero
Ariadne Platero is a family therapist and consultant, and licensed social worker having earned her MSW from Hunter College School of Social Work with a concentration in children, youth and families.
Ariadne trained in both an early childhood setting and the Juilliard School. She received her specialized training in family therapy at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, working with couples and families in crisis.
As a result of Ariadne’s work with families faced with challenges, she has experienced first-hand the transformative effects of a collaborative and supportive team approach and the importance of focusing on a family’s dynamics.
Ariadne is on the Steering Committee of the Women’s Health Symposium, Co-chair of the Advocacy Council of the Citizens Committee for Children, Vice-president and Trustee of The Train Foundation and a member of the National Association of Social Workers.
She earned her undergraduate degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and had early careers in finance and journalism both in London and New York. She has three children, college age and beyond.
Lord Beaumont – links to the royal family, Paedophile Information Exchange’s Peter Righton, John D Stamford and Spartacus, Jeremy Thorpe, Antony Grey, Albany Trust, Eton Mission, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein
Despite her seedy adventures with Jeffrey Epstein, most of Ghislaine’s friends are very loyal — notably her best friend from Oxford, Ariadne Calvo-Platero, daughter of the peer Lord Beaumont.
Liberal and Green politician, Anglican clergyman, advocate for lowering the age of consent to 14, legalising incest and contributor to a ‘pornographic magazine’.
The full original article from The Times 22nd January 1976 is below .
Who Really Wants A Change In The Age Of Consent ? – by Ronald Butt
Students of the working of our representative democracy should savour the appointment by the Home Secretary of a body called the Policy Advisory Committee which is to advise the Criminal Law Revision Committee in reviewing the law on sexual offences. They should particularly ponder the brief which this group of people little known to the public (with one or two exceptions) has been given. Mr Jenkins has made the first reference to it the question of the age of consent.
How did it come about that Mr Roy Jenkins decided to set this inquiry going in the first place, and under what sort of prompting? Who chooses its subjects and, in particular, who chose this first subject?
Lord Carr, the last Conservative Home Secretary, made it unambiguously clear that the age of consent was not in question. Why does Mr Jenkins differ in thinking that it may be? Should he not have made his full reasons and thinking public?
Is a wave of insanity sweeping the public, particularly parents, that the age of consent which protects young girls from exploitation is too high at 16? Is there public indignation at the lack of equal opportunities for homosexuals because of the “discrepancy” (as one civil servant urbanely put it) between the higher age of consent that relates to them and the legal age for heterosexual relations?
Or has the public seen the light being held up by the lobby of the child-molesters, who are now euphemistically called paedophiles? Is the nation urging the Government to heed the call of the pressure group calling itself the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which is campaigning for the removal from the statute book of the ”unjust laws” which “define mutual end loving relationships as assaults”?
Is Mr Roy Jenkins perhaps impressed by the attention given to this movement by Mind Out, (the journal of the National Association for Mental Health), which recently listed PIE as one of the “organizations to write to” for sexual minorities, and printed the plea of a “paedophile”: “Society makes it almost impossible for our relationships to exist… We are warm and gentle people. What has to change is attitudes to children’s sexuality and parents’ attitudes to their children.” (Mind Outwhich quoted this from a “two-day workshop”, did, it is true, record the opposing view that children “could be” harmed and, most bizarre of all, it cited as an argument against the claims of the paedophiles, that they might well cease to be attractive to a paedophile, once they reached a certain age, and their incomprehension as to why could affect later relationships”.)
Sick though society may now be, I do not notice any demand for any of these things from the public hypnotised into silence though it tends to be by any self-appointed ”expert” who stands up to testify, as though to a revealed and absolute truth, that even the most unspeakable beastliness is therapeutically ”good ” for somebody. So what is it all about? What has happened that the Home Secretary feels a need to respond to?
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is not invariably a fallacy, and when one thing follows another there may be cause and effect. The only explanation that I can suggest for Mr Jenkins’s decision is a willingness (and the views of certain Home Office officials in this as in other matters are not to be disregarded) to heed the pressure groups campaigning in these fields. Their activities reached their apogee with the report more than a year ago of the working party of the Sexual Law Reform Society, whose members included that exemplar of moral thinking, Lord Beaumont of Whitley.
Among other recommendations of the Sexual Law Reform Society’s working party was the reduction of the age of consent for girls and boys to 14, legalizing incest for people over 14, “notwithstanding the strong but irrational revulsion that may be felt against it” and the legalization of brothels.
No doubt incest too will eventually be in the Criminal Law Revision Committee’s brief, and that of its policy advisory committee. Fortunately, the CLRC is a responsible body, and more fortunately still its chairman, Lord Edmund-Davies is also chairing the work of the Policy Advisory Committee.
It is important for the politicians who represent the people to be vigilant in face of the subtlety with which the law can be changed, and the standards of a growing generation manipulated, by the activities of self-styled experts. The fact that the House of Lords last week devoted some seven hours to discussing sex education in schools-which is in many ways the other side of the coin being studied in the Home Office- is a sign that the politicians themselves are increasingly aware of the problem.
As Lady Elles expressed it in a brilliantly documented speech which opened the debate, what is called sex education differs from other subjects in that it may determine the immediate and future behaviour of children and change the whole climate of society. There was a remarkable consensus among the majority of those who spoke about the need to teach it in a moral context, and about the reasons for fear that this is often not done.
Significantly, the only peer with a sharply different approach was Lord Beaumont, who wanted the teaching of sexual mechanics to be considered as a completely separate subject from moral teaching, which he regarded as teaching children to make their own moral judgments. Since Lord Beaumont is a contributor to a pornographic magazine, we might not take his views on moral education too seriously. But what he is saying is precisely what is happening in too many cases.
Children are often given the facts about contraception in a way which could suggest to some of them that it would not be unreasonable, if they chose, to make use of it. There is also the practice of teaching contraception in terms of girls and boys rather than men and women.
Lady Elles was surely right to argue that parents should be told how the subject is taught and allowed to withdraw their children if they disapprove. The danger is that we shall first allow children’s behaviour to be changed by the assumptions that are communicated to them as a captive impressionable audience and then change the law on the grounds that it does not fit the facts of behaviour. The Government, which provides grants for the sex education work of the Family Planning Association, a body much criticized in the debate, also has a responsibility. Where there is public money, there must be political responsibility.
Spychiatric Struggles Righton’s attempt to gain control over Albany Trust’s counselling files 1. May 1971: In which Righton & Cordell establish ACCESS with Dr Robert Chtham (aka Ronald Seth – of potential interest to MI5) named on a draft trust deed and plan to takeover Albany Trust’s counselling casework files 2. July 1971: In which…
For the first three years, Beaumont kept his hand in as a cleric by holding an honorary curacy at St Stephen’s, Rochester Row, at the same time entertaining on a lavish scale at his home in Green Street. The guests on one occasion included Princess Margaret, whose husband’s cousin, Mary Rose Wauchope, Beaumont had married in 1955.
He kept a diary of his own, and although intending publication himself, it was typical of his spontaneous generosity that he made it available to Michael Bloch when he was researching a biography of Jeremy Thorpe. He continued to champion minority interests, taking on the chairmanship of the Albany Trust in 1969-71. He helped the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (then called Exit) over a difficult period by becoming chairman for a year in 1980.
While still a wealthy man, Tim Beaumont moved from Green Street to an unlovely 20th-century house on Hampstead Heath equipped with a ballroom, and then at one point to an elegant 18th-century house in Hampstead Square, formerly occupied by Norman St John Stevas.
As Beaumont had held various Liberal party organisation posts, from joint treasurer (1962-63) on, Jeremy Thorpe, who had been his contemporary at Oxford, made Beaumont one of the party’s first life peers in 1967, and he became spokesman on education, Northern Ireland and the arts.
He was on the executive of the Sexual Law Reform Society
The Liberal Cook-Book, is the litery dish edited and partly written by Lord (Tim) Beaumont of Whitley. The Liberal peer and the founder of the Beaumont Society for transvestites, is an accomplished cook. Or should be by now after cooking for eight months for his family; his wife has been studying for a diploma in the decorative arts.
Other contributors to the cook-book are Lord Byers and Jeremy Thorpe (who has offered a recipe called ‘Camembert Ice’. Among liberal party supporters offering culinary delights are Derek Nimmo, Flora Robson and Clement Freud.
Despite her seedy adventures with Jeffrey Epstein, most of Ghislaine’s friends are very loyal — notably her best friend from Oxford, Ariadne Calvo-Platero, daughter of the peer Lord Beaumont.
Yet while some women are drawn to Ghislaine and find her ‘enormous fun’, others say she is intimidating.
‘Masculine and aggressive,’ said one. ‘Profoundly unsettling and rather overpowering,’ said another, who has known her on the party circuit for 20 years.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that the doted-on daughter of a world-class bully, with several brothers, should seem to be more of a man’s woman.
One male acquaintance enthuses, however, that ‘she’s intelligent, highly energetic, very intriguing, funny, sexy and uninhibited. She’s mischievous. A firecracker’.
For now, Ghislaine is single again. And amid the latest scandal, the question remains: why would an attractive, dynamic woman debase herself for a man like Jeffrey Epstein, and fix him up with young girls, without a trace of compassion for them?
‘You must understand that Ghislaine moves in circles where it would be better to be like Martha Stewart [America’s own domestic goddess, who was jailed for share-dealing offences], go to jail and come out with money and be a somebody, than live a boring life in Brooklyn — which would be like a death sentence for her,’ says a New York acquaintance.
Robert Maxwell was a man with formidable personal magnetism, once described as ‘part magic, part monster’. Perhaps that’s Ghislaine, too.
As her friend says: ‘She’s never escaped her father’s shadow. And like him she’s all about money; and like him, she’ll stop at nothing to make sure she has it.’
Lord Beaumont, UK Liberal Party, Kevin MacNamara, UK Labour Party, and Johns Biggs-Davison, UK Conservative Party, (left to right) leave the Maze Prison, Lisburn, N Ireland, after a fact-finding visit
Inside BOSS South Africa’s secret police
Clement Freud / Lord Beaumont
Kemp also had a dossier on Liberal MP Clement Freud, but, again, I know nothing about the man and never gathered information about him for BOSS. There was also a bulky file on the Liberal peer Lord Beaumont of Whitley, but during the …
Hanging out at the Garrick was certainly good for name-dropping purposes. Ronnie mentioned in his book that he found himself dining next to Kingsley Amis. The one who wrote ‘The Old Devils’… In May 1990, Ronnie attended a particularly big knees-up at the Garrick held for paedophiles’ friends Geoffrey and Elspeth Howe. The Commons speaker Bernard Weatherill attended and the booze up was presided over by Ronnie’s Cambridge friend Lord Jenkin of Roding aka Patrick Jenkin.
Ronnie’s Cambridge buddy Peter Cooper was there.
Peter Cooper was someone who nearly came a cropper on life’s journey. Cooper had been ‘personal assistant’ to Sir Edward Hulton and Lord Tim Beaumont, but he then rashly ‘joined Sir Bernard Audley who established the market research company AGB Research plc’.
AGB Research was acquired by Robert Maxwell and as with anything acquired by Cap’n Bob there was not a happy ending.
George Milford Haven – his great-grandfather is pervert Louis Mountbatten
Canadian national sentenced to nine years imprisonment on paedophilia charges
8 July 2019
Peter Dalglish, a high-profile Canadian humanitarian was convicted of victimising two young boys
Peter John Dalglish, the Canadian humanitarian, has been sentenced to nine years in prison by the Kavre District Court on paedophilia charges. The court also ordered Dalglish to pay Rs 500,000 each to two boys he victimised.
A single bench of district judge Arjun Adhikari issued the verdict on Monday. The district court sentenced Dalglish to a nine-year jail term for abusing a boy identified by a code number 295 and seven years for another boy code numbered 294. The convict received a nine-year jail term as it was a single case involving two victims.
Dalglish, who appeared in court in a red cap and a brown t-shirt, appeared tense. He refused to admit to any wrongdoing and said that he was working for the welfare of people across the world. He instead blamed the Nepal Police for false charges.
A team from the Nepal Police’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) had arrested Dalglish from his residence in Mandan Deupur, Kavre, on April 7, 2018. Two boys, then aged 12 and 14, had been rescued from Dalglish’s residence. One of the boys was the son of Dalglish’s domestic help.
Dalglish is a high-profile humanitarian, who served as country representative of UN Habitat-Afghanistan, and is also a member of the Order of Canada. He had founded Street Kids International to work for conflict victims and street children. In 2002, he had also worked in Nepal as Chief Technical Advisor under the UN Child Labour Programme.
Peter Dalglish who runs Street Kids International, of which Manningham-Buller was a patron, has since been convicted of child sex assault in Nepal.
@lbcbreaking
US Federal prosecutors have announced sex trafficking and conspiracy charges against wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. Court documents show Epstein is charged with creating and maintaining a network that allowed him to sexually exploit and abuse dozens of underage girls.
Longtime friend of Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton is charged with sex trafficking.
@frankrichny
We need a full investigation into why and how Trump’s Secretary of Labor protected a pedophilic rapist, and why Trump put him in his cabinet.
We speak with Vicky Ward, an investigative journalist who profiled Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair in 2003 in a piece headlined “The Talented Mr. Epstein.” The magazine’s editor at the time, Graydon Carter, cut out the testimonies of two young women Epstein allegedly molested who had spoken to Ward on the record. Ward later wrote about the incident for The Daily Beast in an article headlined “I Tried to Warn You About Sleazy Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.”
…
AMY GOODMAN: So, that is very significant, because you were pregnant at the time you were doing this piece.
VICKY WARD: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe what happened to you when you wrote this piece? You spoke to Jeffrey Epstein.
VICKY WARD: Oh, multiple times, multiple times. He wheeled out, you know, all these important bankers and academics and financiers to talk to me. And he would call me all the time, but he would threaten me. He would talk, and then he would say, “You know, Vicky, if I don’t like this piece, you know, something is going to happen to your unborn children.” You know, and that way, he would sort of say it, you know, lightly, but I went to the magazine’s general counsel at the time.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you actually put security on them in the NICU, in the—
VICKY WARD: When they came early, he had asked me what hospital they were going to be born at. So I actually did put security on them. They were born two months prematurely.
Federal and NYC authorities using a crow bar to pry open the door to Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan on Saturday.
8 July 2019
Jeffrey Epstein face 45 years in prison if convicted on a count of sex trafficking of minors and a count conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors.
He is accused of offering dozens of underage girls money for massages and then sexually assaulting the minors
Epstein, 66, is currently being detained at the Metropolitan Correction Center in downtown Manhattan
The plea deal Epstein agreed to back in 2008 saved him from having to register as a sex offender in 31 of 50 states
This week, 2,000 pages of records that could reveal how he and his accused accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly trafficked underage girls were unsealed
Among the crimes it investigates are ‘bribery, embezzlement, and frauds committed against local, state, and federal government agencies,’ but no mention of sex trafficking.
Epstein’s first court appearance will come less than 48 hours after he was taken into custody by federal agents at Teterboro Airport.
It all happened just before 5pm on Saturday, when Epstein reentered the country for the first time since June 16, when he took off from the same airport bound for Paris.
Prior to that trip, Epstein had been crisscrossing the US as he moved between his properties in New York City, Palm Beach, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands.
Epstein’s arrest comes in the wake of a three-part expose in the Miami Herald detailing his settlements with victims and sweetheart plea deal.
he documents that will be unsealed are from a defamation case that was settled after Epstein entered a guilty plea guilty to a single charge of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution.
Records in the defamation case contained descriptions of sexual abuse by Epstein along with new allegations of sexual abuse by ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders.’
The appeals court found that the judge in the case did seal a number of documents without a justifiable reason when ordering the release.
Epstein’s lawyers will first get a chance to appeal, and after those legal proceedings play out the documents will start being prepared by the court for release.
A federal judge ruled earlier this year that then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta violated the rights of Epstein’s alleged victims when they neglected to notify them that they were no longer pursuing federal charges.
That was another part of the deal, which in addition to allowing Epstein to have work release and live in a low-security facility also agreed to drop a federal probe into the millionaire moneyman.
Now Acosta – who is the current Secretary of Labor and had been mentioned as a possible candidate for attorney general – and others are again coming under fire for allegedly catering to the man who donated millions to the Clintons and hosted President Trump at his Manhattan townhouse while keeping his victims in the dark.
‘They were cutting a plea deal. It wasn’t a prosecution,’ said attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represented the 14-year-old girl who alerted police.
‘They had a grab bag of 40 girls to choose from.’
There is good reason to believe that if the prosecutors had exposed their dealings to scrutiny by Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and other victims, they would not have reached such a sweetheart plea deal,’ the motion reads.
‘Despite the fact that this case has been in litigation for more than seven years, spanning several hundred pleadings, the government does not write even a single sentence explaining why it entered into an NPA (non-prosecution agreement) with a sex offender who had committed hundreds of federal sex offenses against young girls.’
The motion also says that the deal Epstein received is ‘one of the most extraordinarily lenient plea arrangements in American history’.
Epstein settled both of these suits back in December before the victims would be able to testify in court.
At Epstein’s party In 1994 Trump “ raped a 13-yr-old girl -in what was a “savage sexual attack,” according to 2016 lawsuit filed by “Jane Doe” corroborated by witness who claimed to have watched as the child performed sexual acts on Trump & Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein Arrested for Sex Trafficking of Minors
Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on Saturday and will appear in New York court on Monday to be charged with sex trafficking, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
6 July 2019
Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. Saturday’s arrest by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.
For more than a decade, Epstein’s alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on his alleged sex crimes, the hedge-funder has managed to avoid any meaningful jail time, let alone federal charges.
The new indictment—which, according to two sources, will be unsealed Monday in Manhattan federal court—will reportedly allege that Epstein sexually exploited dozens of underage girls in a now-familiar scheme: paying them cash for “massages” and then molesting or sexually abusing them in his Upper East Side mansion or his palatial residence in Palm Beach. Epstein will be charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors—which could put him away for a maximum of 45 years. The case is being handled by the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York, with assistance from the district’s human-trafficking officials and the FBI.
Several of the billionaire’s employees and associates allegedly recruited the girls for Epstein’s abuse, and some victims eventually became recruiters themselves, according to law enforcement. The girls were as young as 14, and Epstein knew they were underage, according to details of the arrest and indictment shared by two officials.
Epstein’s attorney Martin Weinberg declined to comment when reached by The Daily Beast on Saturday night. The SDNY also declined to comment.
“It’s been a long time coming—it’s been too long coming,” said attorney David Boies, who represents Epstein accusers Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Sarah Ransome. “It is an important step towards getting justice for the many victims of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise.
“We hope that prosecutors will not stop with Mr. Epstein because there were many other people who participated with him and made the sex trafficking possible,” he told The Daily Beast.
In an era where #MeToo has toppled powerful men, Epstein’s name was largely absent from the national conversation, until the Miami Heraldpublished a three-part series on how his wealth, power and influence shielded him from federal prosecution. For years, The Daily Beast has reported on Epstein’s alleged abuse, and his easy jail sentence and soft treatment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which ultimately scrapped a 53-page indictment against Epstein. An earlier version of Epstein’s plea deal included a 10-year federal sentence—before his star-studded lawyers threatened to go to trial in a case prosecutors feared was unwinnable, in part because Epstein’s team dredged up dirt on the victims, including social media posts indicating drug use.
Meanwhile, the financier flitted among his homes in Palm Beach, New York City, and the Virgin Islands, as well as his secluded Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, transporting young women on his private jet to facilitate the sexual abuse that’s gone unchecked by authorities, his alleged victims say.
In an announcement planned for Monday the FBI is expected to provide a number for other victims to contact the SDNY.
Ex-butler to Queen Elizabeth II jailed for sexually assaulting young boy
July 5, 2019
A former butler to Queen Elizabeth II has been jailed for sexually assaulting a young boy.
Andrew Lightwood, 57 — who worked for the UK’s royal household at Buckingham Palace for six years — exposed himself to the boy and put his hands down the child’s pants and molested him, Cardiff Crown Court heard, according to Wales Online.
“To the outside world, you were an upstanding moral person, but that hid a dark reality,” Judge Niclas Parry told the former butler of the February attack in Wales.
“You abused him for your own sexual gratification.”
Lightwood was jailed for 28 months after admitting engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child and assaulting a boy by sexual touching. He was also forced to have a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years, during which he will also have to register as a sex offender, according to the report.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, says the attack lasted more than eight minutes and he only got away by pretending he needed to use the bathroom, the hearing heard.
His mother said in a victim impact statement that he now cannot sleep and gets “angry and frustrated,” according to the report.
“What [Lightwood] did to him will stay with him for the rest of his life,” stated the mother, who called police as soon as her son told her what happened.
“I want my old son back.”
Defense attorney Andrew Evans told the court that Lightwood “understands the impact of his behavior on his victim.”
Lightwood was a butler for both the Queen and Princess Anne between 1978 and 1984, according to Wales Online, with prosecutor Nigel Fryer saying he “was seen as an extremely respectable, upstanding member of society” before the attack was exposed.
A former royal butler who admitted sexually abusing young boys took one of his victims for tea with the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, according to sources.
Oct 2008
Paul Kidd introduced the youngster to the royal as a “friend” during a Christmas party at Clarence House – but in reality he had been assaulting the boy since the age of 14.
Kidd, 55, of Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, was senior footman to Queen Elizabeth from 1979 to 1984 and previously worked as a royal butler to the Queen from 1977.
He pleaded guilty to a string of historic sexual offences, a number of which were committed when he was a royal servant.
The offences were committed between 1974 and 1977, 1981 and 1983 – when he was in the employ of the Queen Mother – and 2005 to 2008.
Andrew Lightwood was at Buckingham Palace at the same time as royal chauffeur Alwyn Stockdale who died at 81 after admitting abusing a boy.
Queen’s former driver admits to sexually abusing two young boys in the 1970s – including one in his Buckingham Palace quarters – but dies before he can be charged
Alwyn Stockdale assaulted the lad in the Royal Household quarters at Buckingham Palace Mews
A CHAUFFEUR to the Queen sexually abused a boy at his Buckingham Palace quarters.
Alwyn Stockdale also sexually assaulted a second young boy at a relative’s home. One lad was ten, the other under 14.
Stockdale, who worked for the Queen from 1972 until 1992, abused the lads in the 1970s — including one in his Royal Household quarters at Buckingham Palace.
He later had a cottage on the Windsor estate.
‘There are questions over why it took so long for police to identify and get round to questioning Stockdale.
Stockdale is believed to have lived in Royal Household quarters at Buckingham Palace Mews while serving as a chauffeur to the Queen
‘Given his age, it was a race against time to bring him to justice.
‘But like Jimmy Savile and the MP Cyril Smith, he died before that could happen.’
The Metropolitan Police said it is aware of the report, but was unable to comment at that time.
Butler, Royal Household, Buckingham Palace 1978-1984.
House Manager, Bel Air / Beverly Hills 1985 -1998.
Butler / House Manager, Scottish Highlands Castle. House Manager to HNW person London, 2000 – 2006.
Estate Manager to HNW person, private estate in South of England,
2008 – 2013.
Personal Assistant, House Manager
Company NameHNW Private
Dates Employed 2015 – Present
Employment Duration4 yrs
Location Oxford / London
Andrew Lightwood – butler to Mrs Conrad Black
@JamesFourM
Whatever you do today, don’t ask Conrad Black why he’s in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book. Definitely don’t ask Donald Trump if that’s why he pardoned Conrad Black yesterday either. They’d really hate that.
…………….
The Sunday Times
October 29, 2006
The fast lady
She employed 17 butlers and installed a $250,000 lavatory in their private jet. But, says Tom Bower, Barbara Amiel neglected to check if her new husband Conrad Black actually had all the money she was spending
No expense was spared for Conrad Blackąs annual company dinner at Spencer House, the 18th-century palace in St Jamesąs. More than Ł1m was spent for all the directors of Hollinger, his American corporation, to fly to London on Concorde, to be met by chauffeurs and accommodated in Park Lane hotels.
On Black’s insistence Max Hastings, editor of The Daily Telegraph, was ordered to abandon his holiday and fly by helicopter to London to address the 200 guests, among them Margaret Thatcher.
Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amieląs life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called bizarre. Each recruit
was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof.
Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,instructed Lightwood solemnly, because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.
His face would crack into a smile. Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.˛
Amieląs eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present.
Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to łthe penny
test. A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined.Andrew! she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion,łthe towels are in the wrong place!
Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in
London to rectify the error.
You f****** pillock!˛ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her Daily Mail before it was delivered to her.
In July 1992, she married Conrad Black (who was granted, in 2001, a life peerage as Lord Black of Crossharbour), a Canadian mining and media baron. Black renounced his Canadian citizenship to accept the peerage. He was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007. Amiel stood by her husband throughout the lengthy trial and afterwards. Lord Black received a full pardon from US President Donald Trump on 15 May 2019.[5]
OLD BOYS: The Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada College
Dick Howard personally embodied the complexity, paradox and powerful mythology of Upper Canada College. His legacy is subtle and profound: Thousands of impressionable pre-adolescent boys — including men as diverse in politics and temperament as Conrad Black, Michael Ignatieff, Ted Rogers, Peter Dalglish, John Bosley, Stephen Clarkson, John Eaton, Rob Prichard, John Godfrey, and Avi Lewis — passed under Dick’s tutelage as prep master, housemaster and headmaster from 1943 to 1986
Silence from Hunt’s former department over sexual abuse inquiry evidence
4 July 2019
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has refused to say if it kept its promise to pass evidence about a former senior civil servant – twice arrested over unconnected rape allegations – to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
The promise was made in 2014 after concerns were raised that the civil servant, Brian McGinnis, who has also been linked publicly to the Jimmy Savile scandal, may have helped stop MPs tightening laws protecting disabled people from sexual abuse in the 1980s.
DHSC’s failure to say whether it kept its promise to investigate the concerns and pass them to the inquiry will raise concerns of a cover-up, at a time when Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary in 2014, is fighting to become the next Tory leader and prime minister.
McGinnis has always claimed to be innocent of the rape allegations and insists that he is a lifelong “celibate”.
Five years ago, Disability News Service approached what was then the Department of Health (DH, pictured) to ask it to look into concerns that McGinnis may have played a key role in dismissing calls in the mid-1980s for a review of the law on sexuality and people with learning difficulties and mental health conditions.
McGinnis had been named weeks earlier in 2014 in a report into the activities of the disgraced TV presenter Jimmy Savile at Broadmoor hospital, as he was the senior civil servant in charge of mental health in the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) in 1986, shortly before Savile was appointed to a new board to run the hospital.
The report mentioned that McGinnis had “since been the subject of two allegations that have been made public”, which “arose in the course of his voluntary sector work with disturbed and abused children, and both cases were dropped without charge”.
Those allegations, always denied by McGinnis, were made public in a news story written by DNS editor John Pring in Disability Now magazine in 2006.
In 1985, the year before McGinnis left DHSS, MPs on the Commons social services committee had called for an “independent expert review of law and practice on sexuality and contraception in relation to mentally disabled people”.
But DHSS dismissed the idea in its response to the committee’s report, warning that “a major review might simply attract unwelcome, unhealthy and wholly disproportionate media interest without achieving any helpful consensus”.
It is believed that this statement could have come from McGinnis.
The review never took place, and law reform that would make it easier to secure convictions for rape and indecent assault of people with learning difficulties and mental health conditions was delayed until 2003, when a new act introduced fresh offences and tougher sentences.
DNS was led to believe five years ago by DH that any material it held on McGinnis that related to the DHSS response to the social services committee would be passed to the child abuse inquiry that had recently been launched by the Home Office, and that DH was examining its archives to check whether McGinnis influenced the DHSS response.
It later confirmed that it was investigating whether McGinnis may have helped to block tougher sexual abuse legislation.
A DH spokesperson said in August 2014: “We are taking this issue very seriously and investigating whether there is any relevant material held on file.”
Last month, on 6 June, DNS attempted to confirm whether DHSC did indeed pass any material to the independent inquiry, which is being led by Professor Alexis Jay.
A DHSC press officer originally said that it was “taking a bit more time than anticipated” to produce a response, before apologising again for the delay six days later, and then finally advising DNS to submit a freedom of information request instead.
DHSC has declined to comment further on the delay.
A spokesperson for the inquiry said yesterday (Wednesday): “The inquiry cannot comment on whether it has or has not received evidence from a particular individual or organisation outside its public hearings.”
Jeremy Hunt’s campaign team has also failed to respond to a request to comment.
McGinnis, who became a special advisor for Mencap after leaving the civil service, has never been convicted, or even charged, with any offence.
But he has been arrested twice over unconnected rape allegations, one of which involved a child with learning difficulties at the notorious Betts Way respite home in Bromley, Kent, in the mid-1990s.
The arrests came in March 2001 and August 2005 and both resulted in McGinnis, who is now in his early 80s and is believed to live in Shirley, Croydon, being released without charge.
He has always denied the allegations.
Until the allegations about his behaviour were publicised in 2006, he was an influential figure in the disability world, with links to a string of charities, learning difficulty organisations and his local church in Shirley.
Following his first arrest, Bromley council advised its staff to “disassociate” McGinnis “with anything related to children with learning difficulties and council services”.
Croydon council later told church authorities that McGinnis “should be suspended from duties that involved him working with children”, after being informed by Bromley council about the 2005 arrest. He had at the time been working with a children’s church group.
Billionaire sex offender Epstein once claimed he co-founded Clinton Foundation
6 July 2019
Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton’s controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, FoxNews.com has learned.
The 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in a sex ringbased in Palm Beach, Fla., and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed “Orgy Island.” Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.
The hedge fund magnate’s true role in creating the foundation could not be confirmed. Whether Epstein was an actual founder of the foundation or exaggerated his role in a phony effort to appear altruistic is not clear.
Epstein is not cited in official paperwork filed by the Clinton Global Initiative as a founder or director. Neither The Clinton Foundation nor Dershowitz responded to FoxNews.com’s inquiry as to the extent of Epstein’s involvement. FoxNews.com first reported that flight logs show the former president flew on Epstein’s private plane dozens of times. But Clinton has publicly credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now counselor and director of the foundation, as conceiving of the idea.
The foundation has raised hundreds of millions of dollars, ostensibly for charitable works in places such as Haiti and Africa. But questions have arisen about how much of the donations actually went to aiding the poor, and critics have accused the Clintons of using it as a slush fund.
Dershowitz v. Boies: Jeffrey Epstein case unleashes war between two legal Goliaths
July 05, 2019
It’s a high-stakes war between two of the country’s most powerful lawyers. Their feud, simmering for years, involves accusations of extortion, surreptitious recordings, unethical conduct and underage sex trafficking.
Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz has filed four bar complaints in three states — all of which have been dismissed — in a quest to disqualify lawyer David Boies and one of his partners who represent a woman accusing Dershowitz of sexually abusing her when she was underage, newly filed court records show.
The pugnacious Dershowitz, 80, and the equally zealous Boies, 78, have been sparring for decades. In recent years, both have suffered damage to their storied legacies, making this latest clash between the two legal titans one of the most important of their half-century careers.
Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and one of the nation’s most iconic civil libertarians, has defended such notorious clients as Claus von Bulow, Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson. But after four decades of legal accolades, he is now facing a sex scandal and is forced to clear his own name at a time when he’s being confronted by a barrage of attacks on social media as one of the most fervent legal defenders of President Donald Trump.
Boies has embraced high-profile liberal causes and made history with landmark court cases: He represented Al Gore in the Florida recount dispute in the 2000 election, which he lost; successfully defended press freedom in a lawsuit involving “60 Minutes”; and in 2013 secured a Supreme Court victory overturning a California ban on same-sex marriage.
But Boies’ image has also been tarnished in recent years by his aggressive, and often ruthless, representation of controversial clients such as Hollywood film mogul and accused sex predator Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Holmes, founder of a blood-testing company that allegedly defrauded investors and clients.
Dershowitz’s bar complaints — disclosed here for the first time — provide a window into the behind-the-scenes legal drama between two of the world’s most brilliant lawyers. It also reveals new details about an explosive sex trafficking case involving Dershowitz’s former client, Jeffrey Epstein, a New York multimillionaire who, according to investigators, molested more than three dozen girls in Palm Beach in the years 1999 to 2006.
Dershowitz’s bar complaints against Boies are mentioned in a 36-page filing in federal court in New York Wednesday, as part of a federal civil defamation suit lodged in April against Dershowitz by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Giuffre, now 35, has claimed that when she was a minor she was directed to have sex with Dershowitz by Epstein, whom Dershowitz staunchly defended.
Dershowitz has repeatedly denied that he had sex with Giuffre — or anyone other than his wife — and in June filed a motion to disqualify Boies and his firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, from representing Giuffre in her defamation case. The firm has been representing Giuffre pro bono since 2014.
On Wednesday, BSF partner Joshua Schiller, son of founding partner Jonathan Schiller, filed papers in federal court in the Southern District of New York opposing the motion to dismiss the firm. The filing includes affidavits by five lawyers who say that Dershowitz either lied or distorted communications he had with them or with Boies involving the Giuffre case.
The attorneys, most of them current or former BSF partners, submitted the statements in connection with bar complaints filed by Dershowitz. The complaints, filed between 2015 and 2017, include: one in New York against Boies; one in Washington, D.C., against one of Boies’ partners, Sigrid McCawley; and two in Florida — one against Boies and another against McCawley, who represents Giuffre.
Dershowitz, in a statement to the Miami Herald, asserts that the lawyers’ affidavits are suspect since most of the attorneys are either members of Boies’ firm or beholden to Boies.
“All the lawyers who have filed accusatory affidavits are Boies partners, former partners [who] depend on Boies referrals, or co-counsel with Boies who share contingency fees. None is in any way independent,’’ Dershowitz said in an email Thursday.
Among the affidavits is one filed by Stanley Pottinger, a former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights who is now a principal in Edwards Pottinger, a firm in New York and Fort Lauderdale that specializes in sex abuse cases involving women and children.
Jeffrey Epstein court files unsealed: Allegations of sex abuse by politicians, executives, presidents and a prime minister contained in documents from accused child rapist’s civil case
2,000 pages of records related to a civil case filed against Jeffrey Epstein over a decade ago were ordered unsealed on Wednesday
These file could detail how Epstein and his accused accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly trafficked underage girls
New allegations of sexual abuse by ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents’ are also in the docs
There are allegations about ‘a well-known prime minister and other world leaders’ as well
4 July 2019
A federal appeals court has ordered the unsealing of nearly 2,000 pages of records related to a civil case that could reveal how Jeffrey Epstein and his accused accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly trafficked underage girls.
The documents that will be unsealed are from a defamation case that was settled after Epstein entered a guilty plea guilty to a single charge of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution.
Records in the defamation case contained descriptions of sexual abuse by Epstein along with new allegations of sexual abuse by ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders.’
The appeals court found that the judge in the case did seal a number of documents without a justifiable reason when ordering the release.
Epstein’s lawyers will first get a chance to appeal, and after those legal proceedings play out the documents will start being prepared by the court for release.
Under fire: New allegations of sexual abuse by ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents’ are also in the docs (President Trump above with the man who gave Epstein his sweetheart deal, Alex Acosta)
The plea deal Epstein agreed to back in 2008 saved the accused child rapist from having to register as a sex offender in 31 of 50 states.
In a deal unknown to the victim or her lawyer,the minor Epstein admitted to soliciting for prostitution was not the 14-year-old girl who first reported the millionaire money manager, but rather another girl, 16, whose age was left blank on court documents.
That victim’s age means that Epstein did not have to register as a sex offender in states like New Mexico, where he owns a 7,600-acre property called Zorro Ranch, and allows him to be classified as a low risk offender in the US Virgin Islands, which is currently his primary residence.
A federal judge ruled earlier this year that then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta violated the rights of Epstein’s alleged victims when they neglected to notify them that they were no longer pursuing federal charges.
That was another part of the deal, which in addition to allowing Epstein to have work release and live in a low-security facility also agreed to drop a federal probe into the millionaire moneyman.
Now Acosta – who is currently the Secretary of Labor and had been mentioned as a possible candidate for attorney general – and others are again coming under fire for allegedly catering to the man who donated millions to the Clintons and hosted President Trump at his Manhattan townhouse while keeping his victims in the dark.
‘They were cutting a plea deal. It wasn’t a prosecution,’ said attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represented the 14-year-old girl who alerted police.
‘They had a grab bag of 40 girls to choose from.’
He then revealed that he and his client believed they had been the victim referenced in the plea deal.
‘It’s unbelievably upsetting,’ said Kuvin.
‘The rug has been swiped out from under the one girl who was brave enough to come forward and break this thing.’
Questions about Epstein’s deal started to surface after a series of lawsuits were filed by two of his alleged victims.
The women, identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, claim in court papers that they were unaware of the secret deal being made between the defense team and prosecutors back in 2007 that guaranteed federal charges would not be brought against Epstein, 63, which could have resulted in a lengthy prison sentence for the millionaire.
They filed their lawsuit a few months after Epstein received his lenient sentence in 2008, with their lawyers saying the U.S. Attorney’s Office violated the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act by not speaking with Epstein’s victims about the details of his plea agreement.
The two victims who filed the suit were 13 and 14 at the time of the abuse.
This filing contained more than 140 exhibits including emails between Epstein’s defense team, the U.S. Attorney’s office and former State Attorney Barry Krischer, which lawyers believe clearly show that victims were being left in the dark.
Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, who filed on behalf of the women, previously stated that they hoped U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra would not force the case to go to trial but rather given what they believe is overwhelming evidence rule in the favor of the two victims.
‘There is good reason to believe that if the prosecutors had exposed their dealings to scrutiny by Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and other victims, they would not have reached such a sweetheart plea deal,’ the motion reads.
‘Despite the fact that this case has been in litigation for more than seven years, spanning several hundred pleadings, the government does not write even a single sentence explaining why it entered into an NPA (non-prosecution agreement) with a sex offender who had committed hundreds of federal sex offenses against young girls.’
The motion also says that the deal Epstein received is ‘one of the most extraordinarily lenient plea arrangements in American history’.
Epstein settled both of these suits back in December before the victims would be able to testify in court.
Police in Palm Beach turned over the information they had gathered on Epstein’s victims to federal authorities in November 2006 after investigating the case for roughly a year following an initial call in March 2005 from a woman who claimed her daughter, 14, had been paid $300 to give Epstein a massage in just her underwear.
Local authorities also filed a probable cause affidavit in May 2006 saying they believed there was enough evidence to charge Epstein with four counts of unlawful sex with minors and one count of molestation.
In the end, these charges were taken to a grand jury despite the recommendation of police, who came back with just one charge against Epstein – felony solicitation of prostitution.
On June 30, 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a single state charge of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, and ultimately served just 13 months of his 18-month sentence.
That time was served not in a prison, but rather the Palm Beach Stockade, which is a local detention center.
Epstein was also allowed to leave six days a week to go work out of his West Palm Beach office during his time behind bars.
After his release he did have to register as a sex offender.
Bishop of Chester accepts he failed to pass on vicar’s ‘child abuse confession’ letter to church safeguarding adviser or police
THE Bishop of Chester has accepted he made a “misjudgement” when he allowed a vicar to continue working despite having read a letter from him alluding to child abuse.
Dr Peter Forster had not commented on his involvement in the Charles Dickenson case until he gave evidence under oath at the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) on Wednesday (July 3).
He accepted that he was the only one to have read the letter in 2009 and failed to pass it on to the police or even to the Diocese of Chester safeguarding adviser.
The Standard and its sister paper the Warrington Guardian were first to lift the lid on the Dickenson case earlier this year, covering his sentencing hearings at Chester and then Liverpool Crown Court.
Now 89, the former vicar at Christ Church in Latchford, Warrington, was jailed for 27 months after pleading guilty to eight counts of sexual assault.
The inquiry heard he had written the letter – previously referred to as a “confession” in court – to accompany his application for a renewal of his PTO (Permission to Officiate) 10 years ago.
All clergy must fill out a confidential disclosure form with their application and one question asks: ‘Has there ever been an allegation that your conduct has caused significant harm to a child?’.
Dickenson ticked the ‘yes’ box and wrote a letter of explanation, parts of which were read out at the inquiry.
In it he said he had received a complaint from a boy’s father in 1974, which he disclosed to the then Bishop of Chester, Victor Whitsey.
Police never became involved and Whitsey – himself now known to be a child abuser – chose to simply move Dickenson to another parish.
In his letter, Dickenson wrote: “He made me make a solemn promise that I would never again interfere with any youngster.”
It was put to Bishop Forster that the tone of the letter “intimates it was truthful” and there was “enough there to raise a concern that this had not been dealt with properly in 1974”.
The bishop, who had gone on to approve Dickenson’s PTO, replied: “I made a judgement that I accept was a misjudgement, that the ongoing risk from Dickenson was very small.”
He added: “Since his conviction the publicity has been very extensive and no hint of impropriety has emerged. It seems his assurance that he would not do this again was borne out.”
Asked again why he had allowed Dickenson to continue working having read the letter, the bishop replied: “I took a view. I’m perfectly prepared to accept that that was a misjudgement. I accept that it wasn’t handled properly at the time.”
He also accepted that there was nothing to prevent him from passing the information to the police in 2009.
“That could have been done, yes,” he told the inquiry.
Things had changed in the past 10 years and now a referral to the police on such matters would happen “automatically”, he said.
Bishop Forster was also grilled on his actions surrounding two other child sex abuse cases.
The first involved Wallasey vicar Rev Ian Hughes, who was jailed for a year in 2014 after he admitted downloading 8,000 indecent images of children.
The inquiry heard that Bishop Forster took immediate action to suspend Hughes following his arrest but post-conviction had consulted with the Church of England’s President of Tribunals on whether to impose a 20-year ban, rather than a lifelong one.
He referred to the seductive nature of the internet, and stressed Hughes was young at 46 and had an exemplary record within the church.
“I knew him well,” Bishop Forster said. “I think he got drawn into a very sick and unsatisfactory situation.”
However, he stressed he had simply been following procedure by consulting with the President of Tribunals and a 20-year-ban would in no way guarantee a return once it had been served.
Risk assessments would be carried out and safeguarding procedures and training in general were far more rigorous these days.
The bishop was also asked about a reported disclosure to him in 2002 of inappropriate behaviour by the late Bishop Victor Whitsey.
He said he did not recall the conversation but believed it may have involved an allegation that Whitsey put his arm around someone.
“He had a reputation of odd behaviour in general,” Bishop Forster told the inquiry. “If someone said something odd about Victor Whitsey it probably wouldn’t have registered, partly because he was somebody who was known to behave in slightly odd ways.”
Cheshire Police began an investigation in 2016 after a church safeguarding adviser in Chester passed on details of alleged abuse by Whitsey.
A year later detectives revealed that they would have spoken to him in relation to 10 of the witness allegations if he had been alive.
Opening of Epstein Sex Case Files May Fuel Acosta Criticism
Posted July 3, 2019,
Some sealed documents related to the teen sex trafficking case against hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein will be opened, following a July 3 decision by a federal appeals court in New York.
The move comes amid growing criticism of a plea deal that allowed the well-connected financier to avoid conviction on the most serious charges stemming from an alleged teen sex trafficking ring that he ran out of his South Florida home. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who was the lead prosecutor in the case, has faced calls to resign and a new Justice Department inquiry since the Miami Herald detailed the case and the plea deal in a November report.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered a federal judge to open documents filed in connection with a defamation lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre alleges Maxwell and Epstein recruited her into a forced sex ring at Epstein’s home in Florida when Giuffre was a minor.
The documents could shed new light on the details of Epstein’s alleged trafficking ring. That could ramp up the criticism of Acosta, who a group of House Democrats and some progressive groups have urged to resign over the plea deal.
The court issued “a cautionary note” in granting the Herald’s request to unseal some of the documents.
“Materials submitted by parties to a court should be understood for what they are,” Second Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes wrote for the court. “They do not reflect the court’s own findings. Rather, they are prepared by parties seeking to advance their own interests in an adversarial process.”
Epstein was accused of using employees to bring local teen girls to his home for sex and paying victims to recruit new victims. His alleged victims were as young as 13 years old at the time. Epstein eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of soliciting a prostitute and served 13 months in a state prison.
The Second Circuit order unseals documents filed in connection with a summary judgment motion in the Giuffre case, which was eventually settled. The court also ordered a judge to individually review other sealed documents to determine whether they should also be opened.
Legal Battles Continue
A federal judge in Miami ruled Feb. 21 that Acosta and the other prosecutors violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by landing Epstein’s plea agreement without telling the alleged victims. The prosecutors also “misled” the victims to believe that Epstein may still be prosecuted in federal court, Judge Kenneth Marra said.
Marra has yet to decide on a remedy for the alleged victims.
Acosta recently told two separate congressional panels that he stepped in to pursue federal charges against Epstein after a Florida grand jury recommended no prison time for state charges. He also said Epstein’s lawyers unsuccessfully asked Justice Department officials to tell his team to back off.
“This matter was appealed all the way up to the deputy attorney general’s office,” Acosta said in response to questioning at a May 1 House hearing. “Not because we weren’t doing enough but because the contention was that we were too aggressive.”
Acosta’s supporters point out that the plea deal forced Epstein to compensate victims and register as a sex offender. They also say that some victims refused to cooperate with prosecutors, who had a tough time supporting federal instead of state charges by showing that the alleged crime happened across state lines.
Epstein’s all-star legal defense team included Harvard University professor Alan Dershowitz, former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, and famed criminal defense attorney Roy Black. Jay Lefkowitz, who previously worked with Acosta at Kirkland and Ellis, also was part of the team.
An Epstein accuser in a related lawsuit in New York claims Dershowitz participated in the sex ring, a claim Dershowitz denies. He’s among a group that has asked a court to unseal documents in that case.
An appeals court seemed poised to unseal Jeffrey Epstein records. So where are they?
July 02, 2019
Three months have passed since a judicial panel in New York heard arguments to unseal documents that could reveal whether federal prosecutors covered up evidence that New York financier Jeffrey Epstein and others were running an underage sex trafficking operation.
In March, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit seemed poised to release some documents in the case. The records involve Epstein’s one-time partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been accused of helping him recruit and sexually exploit girls and young women in various locations around the United States and abroad in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The appeals panel gave all parties in the case until March 29 to file additional pleadings. Several challenges were subsequently filed, but the court has yet to make a final ruling.
The Miami Herald — one of the intervenors in the case — has submitted a letter to the court urging the judges to follow through on the case in the wake of a controversial Justice Department decision last week. In a 35-page motion, filed June 24, federal prosecutors in Georgia declared that they would not set aside Epstein’s federal non-prosecution agreement.The Georgia decision dealt another blow to Epstein’s victims who have been fighting for a decade to have the deal thrown out and to pressure the Justice Department to prosecute the 66-year-old multimillionaire on sex trafficking charges. It also means that the Justice Department has no intention of allowing Epstein’s victims and the public to examine the facts of Epstein’s case and reach their own conclusions, the Herald argues in the letter.
In February, a federal judge in Florida, Kenneth A. Marra, ruled in the victims’ favor, saying that the government violated the Crime Victims’ Right Act when it failed to inform Epstein’s victims that prosecutors had secretly disposed of the case.
Marra ordered the government and attorneys for the victims to come up with remedies to address the federal violation.
U.S. Attorney Byung Pak responded last week, saying that Epstein’s victims are free to express their displeasure about what prosecutors did, but they have no right under the law to demand anything from the government — not even an apology.
Sanford L. Bohrer, the Miami Herald’s attorney, said that Pak’s decision highlights the pressing need for the New York appeals court to expedite unsealing the documents in Maxwell’s case.
That case is a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed against Maxwell, the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell. Maxwell, now 57 and an environmentalist, has been accused of assisting Epstein in the trafficking of underage girls and young women to powerful and wealthy politicians, lawyers, scientists and businessmen.
She has denied the allegations and has never been charged with any crimes.
The Herald’s lawyer contends that the Justice Department’s decision last week shows that the government continues to evade public accountability and, therefore, it’s more urgent than ever that the Maxwell case be made public.
“[Pak’s] submission makes clear that access to the documents that [the Herald and other parties] seek in [the Maxwell] matter remains an issue of critical public concern,” Bohrer wrote in a letter to Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, clerk of the court for the appeals panel. He said the government “essentially argues that Epstein’s victims are not entitled to any meaningful redress, including partial rescission, declaratory relief and specific injunctive relief requested.’’
Once a friend of presidents, the ultra-rich and the elite of Wall Street’s bankers — plus a major benefactor to Harvard University — Jeffrey Epstein handled portfolios estimated to be worth over $15 billion. Then he became ensnared in a scandal involving the sexual abuse of underage girls. He is seen here, pre-scandal, at left, in conversation with Alan Dershowitz, one of America’s best-known legal experts and a Harvard Law professor emeritus, at a Cambridge event. Dershowitz became a key member of Epstein’s legal team.
In 2008, the FBI had identified nearly three dozen underage victims who were allegedly lured to Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach under the pretext that he would pay them for massages. The girls, mostly 13 to 16 years old, were groomed by Epstein and others who worked for him to engage in sex acts with him and others, the evidence showed.
In November, the Miami Herald published an investigation that examined how then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta negotiated a secret non-prosecution agreement that resulted in Epstein receiving an extraordinarily light sentence.
Acosta, who is now President Donald Trump’s labor secretary, ensured that the agreement was sealed so that no one — not even the victims — would know the scope of Epstein’s crimes or who was involved. Epstein’s lawyers worked together with prosecutors to limit public scrutiny of the case, and arranged for Epstein to quietly plead guilty to lesser charges in state court, the Herald series revealed.
The handling of the case is now under investigation by the Department of Justice.
As part of the Herald’s series, the newspaper went to court in 2018 to unseal the Maxwell case, which was settled in 2017. A contingent of other media companies, a conservative social media blogger and Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, are also seeking to have the Maxwell case made public.The defamation case was filed against Maxwell by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claims she was recruited by Maxwell when she was 16 and working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lavish country club in Palm Beach. In court papers, she claimed that Epstein and Maxwell directed her to have sex with public figures. In a sworn affidavit, she has named Prince Andrew and Dershowitz as among those she had sex with when she was underage. Both the prince and the famed lawyer have denied her claims.
Dershowitz wants the Maxwell case made public because he says that the documents will exonerate him. Also party to the appeal is social media blogger Michael Cernovich.
Based on the court filings, the case is believed to contain a range of evidence, including testimony from other possible underage victims who were trafficked. All parties in the case, including the Herald, have agreed to redact the names of minors and other details that would identify victims.
Maxwell is the sole party fighting to keep the entire record sealed. Two other currently unidentified people, labeling themselves as John Does, have filed legal briefs in an attempt to conceal personal information that could connect them to the alleged underage sex trafficking operation.
Epstein, who was not party to the Maxwell suit, has denied that he ran a sex trafficking operation, and his attorneys say that the number of victims involved has been “vastly exaggerated’’ by the media.
Lest anyone think the Church of England has changed, this is the current Bishop of Chester- unable to say whether possession of 8000 images of child sexual abuse should disqualify a cleric from ministry
@InquiryCSA
Ms McNeill asks whether someone who was in possession of 8,000 images of child sexual abuse could ever be a person appropriate to be in public ministry within the Church of England.
Dr Forster: “That’s a matter for the ministry division to consider.”
Anglican Hearing
THE former Bishop of Blackburn has been criticised in an inquiry report into child sexual abuse in his former diocese.
The Right Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn from 2004 to 2012, has been held to account by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse over his time as Archdeacon of Lewes, in the Diocese of Chichester.
The Rev Robert Coles admitted the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage altar server in the 1980s to Bishop Nicholas and a fellow clergyman, the inquiry was told.
But despite Coles confessing to sexual activity with the 15 or 16-year-old boy at his home, neither Bishop Nicholas nor his colleague disclosed this information to police, following the former’s arrest in 1997.
Coles, who was a parish priest across the southern diocese, faced no criminal action at the time.
But an investigation was relaunched in 2012 and he was later convicted on two separate occasions of serious sexual offences involving young boys and given substantial jail sentences.
Referring to the 1997 disclosures, Prof Alexis Jay, the inquiry’s chairman, said in a final report: “Archdeacon Reade declined to report a serious indecent to the police, yet repeatedly sought to justify this failure on the basis that ‘he had not raped the boy’.
“Coles should have been reported to the police and subject to disciplinary action or a risk assessment.”
The inquiry heard that Coles sexually groomed a child in 2007-08. He was officially retired but still continued to officiate.
Mr Reade was also found to have defended another minister, Rev Roy Cotton, who had a past conviction for indecent exposure involving a boy in a church organ loft in the 1950s.
Cotton, an ‘Anglo-Catholic’ was supposed to only be allowed to celebrate Mass at his retirement home but officiated in public several times when children were present, the inquiry report disclosed.
He was investigated twice over allegations that he abused boys in the 70s and 80s, with another disgraced minister. Three victims came forward to make accusations. No criminal action was taken but Sussex Police’s inquiry was found to be ‘inadequate’. Cotton, who was the subject of later church and judicial inquiries, died in September 2006.
Prof Jay, referring to Cotton’s case, added: “This was a clear example of the diocese failing to prioritise its responsibilities for children and young people.
“Its concerns seem to have been led by pastoral concerns for Cotton, rather than the danger he posed to children.”
The current Bishop of Blackburn, the Right Rev Julian Henderson, this week wrote to all clergy in the diocese, calling on them to learn lessons from the inquiry’s findings.
Mr Reade was Archdeacon of Lewes before being appointed Bishop of Blackburn in 2004. He retired in 2012.
The child sex abuse inquiry was prompted by revelations that no fewer than 20 individuals with connections to Chichester Diocese had been convicted of sexual offending against children, including Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Lewes and later Bishop of Gloucester, over the past 50 years.
In her findings, Prof Jay said: “The Church must take action to ensure that this catalogue of errors does not occur again.”
Hubert Brasier, Theresa May’s father joined the priests at the Community of the Resurrection Seminary School in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.In years to come the Community of the Resurrection would become known for the systematic sexual abuse of children at the seminary by the Italian Verona brothers, who were rampant sex offenders in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Peter Ball was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 for offences dating back to the 1970s against 18 young men at his home in East Sussex.
Rev Nicholas Reade: Charity:
From 2013 the patron of Caring and Sharing is the Rt. Rev’d Nicholas Reade. former Bishop of Blackburn.
2015
Bishop Peter Ball – President
Rev Nicholas Reade – Patron
Caring and Sharing East Sussex
The Caring and Sharing scheme was founded in 1982 by the then-Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball. Its members seek to ‘Live more simply, that others may simply live.’
The scheme is based on two ideas: firstly, that by making a small sacrifice in their day-to-day lives, members can assert their independence from material values; secondly, that the savings from this small sacrifice can provide the basic needs of life for others in poorer countries. The sacrifice members make need not be a major one, as its regularity enables it to grow in value over time. (As an example, the unit cost of one digestive biscuit is a few pence; but 5p per day amounts to more than 18 per year, which can make a significant difference to a person’s life in Tanzania.) Sums like this, given regularly by many Carers, enable the organisation to send approximately 100,000 each year to its chosen projects.
The Revd Jonathan Fletcher, in a 2016 video made by Moore College, Sydney
DETAILS have emerged of the allegations against the Revd Jonathan Fletcher, who was Minister of Emmanuel Ridgway Proprietary Chapel, in Wimbledon, from 1982 to 2012, and an influential figure among Evangelicals in the Church of England.
The allegations involve physical beatings, reminiscent of the beatings administered by John Smyth (News, 13 April 2017; 1 March). Mr Fletcher has admitted that the beatings took place, but on Friday described them as “light-hearted forfeits” in a “system of mutual encouragement”.
Southwark diocese said last week (News, 28 June) that it had removed Mr Fletcher’s Permission to Officiate (PTO) in 2017, after an independent safeguarding assessment had concluded that, while there was “no criminal case to answer”, nor any evidence that he posed “a significant sexual or physical risk to children . . . there was a risk of him behaving towards vulnerable adults who may be seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful”.
At a meeting of the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at Westminster Chapel, London, on Thursday, organised by the Proclamation Trust, a statement was read out by the safeguarding officer and women’s worker at Emmanuel, Sarah Hall.
It said: “Starting in late September 2018, concrete allegations have been made about conduct involving Jonathan and other men. I am not going to say how many disclosures, let alone who made them.
“In late 2018, a small number of allegations were made of the practice of physical discipline in the context of discipling relationships. One example of this involved men hitting each other on their naked backsides with a trainer for failing to meet personal targets.
“This took place over a period of time; it happened infrequently; the number of hits was small; and we do not believe any physical injuries were sustained, though it has been described as very painful. I am sorry to be specific but I don’t want you to speculate as to what sort of behaviour I include in ‘physical discipline’.”
The statement continued: “Further disclosures since March 2019 have largely related to a different practice of one-to-one massage, ranging from partially clothed massage to massage where both men are said to have been fully naked throughout and to have taken turns to massage each other. Again, this conduct seems to have become a regular part of the relationship between Jonathan and certain men over a period of time.”
Andrew Wales QC then explained why the allegations had been taken seriously. He said: “In 2017, Southwark diocese commissioned an independent safeguarding assessment of Mr Fletcher, which “concluded that, whilst there was no evidence of any significant sexual or physical risk to children, there was a risk of Jonathan behaving towards vulnerable adults seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful. The diocese made formal contact with Jonathan to explain this.”
Mr Wales went on to cite other factors which supported “taking the allegations seriously”. They included: “The number of disclosures received”; “their consistent nature, where, for the most part, each person was unaware of what anyone else had disclosed”; and “the identity of those making disclosures, whose testimonies we consider reliable”.
A final factor cited by Mr Wales was that “Jonathan has recently acknowledged involvement in activities of the sort described. He did so only this week to [the Revd] William Taylor [Rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate]; and he’s done so to other senior leaders as well.”
Mr Wales went on to say that “all these factors, taken together, led Emmanuel to take the allegations very seriously, even though — and I stress this — nothing criminal or to do with children has been alleged.”
The Rector of St Ebbe’s, Oxford, the Revd Vaughan Roberts, who is director of the Proclamation Trust, said of Mr Fletcher: “Sadly, it seems that he has not yet accepted the seriousness of the situation, despite the efforts of a number of senior Evangelical leaders, who have sought to engage with him, both face to face and in writing.”
After the Church Times contacted him on Friday, Mr Fletcher declined to comment directly, but released a statement via the Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas. Bishop Thomas stated: “The fact that I am forwarding this to you does not represent any agreement by me to its contents, any endorsement of it, nor any acceptance that it adequately describes the conduct engaged in. I remain deeply distressed and concerned both about the seriousness of the issues and the effects on victims.”
In his statement, however, Mr Fletcher maintained that the punishments, administered in a long-standing prayer group, were “light-hearted forfeits” if members failed to hit targets of “healthy and holy living”.
“These included going without chocolate, cold baths and school-type gym shoe punishments,” Mr Fletcher writes. “Although at the time we definitely did not think we were doing anything wrong, I’ve seen since that it could have caused much harm both to individuals and to the reputation of conservative evangelicalism for which I am profoundly sorry.”
He acknowledges that he enjoys and benefits from massage, and regularly hires professionals to do it. “However, if I can avoid the cost by finding a male friend to administer, and in return receive, massage, I do.
“These sessions categorically do not have erotic or sexual overtones and I have never coerced or intended to coerce anyone into an arrangement. If any have felt pressurised by me to do this, I apologise.”
He accepts that it was “unwise” to involve anyone to whom he was ministering, and apologises “if any have felt pressurised by me to do this”.
He ends by confirming that he no longer engages in public ministry.
Emmanuel Church has set up a website for “those who need support because of the activities of Jonathan Fletcher”: walkingwith.uk.
The Revd Jonathan Fletcher’s statement in full:
”As part of a long-standing prayer group, I have in the past been involved in a system of mutual encouragement whereby we set ourselves targets in healthy and holy living and then imposed what I thought of as light-hearted forfeits if we failed.
“These included going without chocolate, cold baths and school-type gym shoe punishments. Although at the time we definitely did not think we were doing anything wrong, I’ve seen since that it could have caused much harm both to individuals and to the reputation of conservative evangelicalism for which I am profoundly sorry. Needless to say, this activity has now stopped.
“In addition, a number of people are reporting that I have had naked massages with them. I enjoy massage and benefit from it. To that end I regularly have it professionally administered. However, if I can avoid the cost by finding a male friend to administer, and in return receive, massage, I do.
“These sessions categorically do not have erotic or sexual overtones and I have never coerced or intended to coerce anyone into an arrangement. If any have felt pressurised by me to do this, I apologise.
“Again, I realise that in the position I have held in the past as an incumbent, it was unwise of me to involve anyone to whom I was also ministering and I apologise for doing so.
“I confirm that I no longer engage in public ministry.”
The Internet is a great provider of information. Of course, there are to be found in it lies, rumours and falsehoods. We trust, however, that a reasonably discerning person can detect ‘fake news’ and not fall into the trap of repeating unsubstantiated information. But there is another sort of truth that can be found from scrutinising the net. An individual can pick up information from a variety of separate sources but be able to suggest how these fragments of information are connected. None of the fragments of information I tell below stand as complete stories. However, when they are linked together, they seem to tell a complete story, one that does little credit to the Church of England or its breakaway sections represented by GAFCON and AMiE.
The first section is a statement by Bishop Andy Lines, the clergyman appointed by the breakaway Anglican American group ACNA to act as a missionary bishop for Europe. He is also closely linked to AMiE the group that brings together parishes that have opted out of the Anglican Communion. He recently announced to this group that he was withdrawing from active ministry for a few months, having been a victim of ‘spiritual manipulation’. This highly unusual and unexpected announcement has obviously led to speculation. Who was doing the abusing? Who, in short, had the authority over this powerful figure in the Anglican breakaway world to be able to be able to create what appears to be a major crisis for a respected figure? The only clue we get is from the description of the abuser. Andy speaks of a ‘betrayal of trust by a mentor’. No names are given but looking at Andy’s formation and links over many years with Emmanuel Church Wimbledon, we have to suggest that the Vicar, Jonathan Fletcher, a close friend and teacher, fills the description. It was also Jonathan that was present at some kind of ceremony of commissioning Andy in Emmanuel following a consecration service in the States. Jonathan had been Vicar of Emmanuel Church for 30 years. He was thus a major figure in Andy’s life and in conservative Anglicanism generally. Everyone in that world seems to know him or comes in some way into his orbit of his influence. This Wimbledon church seems to be a kind of central hub for the entire conservative evangelical network within Anglicanism. It is still a centre of great importance, along with such centres as St Helen’s Bishopsgate and St Ebbes in Oxford…
…the publication of a photo showing a programme from one of the Iwerne public school summer camps dating back to 1982. This showed John Smyth as a speaker on the same day as Jonathan Fletcher. These two men obviously knew each other well. Clearly also the networks of people who supported the Iwerne camps and their work were well known in Emmanuel circles. It is hard or impossible to imagine that Jonathan Fletcher was left in the dark about John Smyth’s crimes and the reasons for his sudden departure for Africa. This Iwerne/Emmanuel nexus would have had enormous power and influence. We should not underestimate how much power seems to have accrued personally to Jonathan Fletcher as the man in charge of Emmanuel and a key player in Iwerne circles. Any suggestion of wrongdoing by this superstar of the evangelical universe is highly embarrassing, not to say highly destructive, to the wider evangelical world. Jonathan’s power reached out not only to those who were personally caught up by his charisma but he had institutional power, wielded through his participation in committees and other structures of influence. John Smyth’s crimes have already cast one heavy pall over the legacy of Iwerne and the hundreds who passed their formative years within its orbit. Silence on the part of those who knew about Smyth’s crimes has made the eventual effect of discovery far more serious and painful. A similar silence protecting Jonathan over the same period of years has also been allowed to exist. Whatever Jonathan is or is not guilty of, the silence maintained by many who knew allegations against him has made a bad situation far worse.
A final fragment of this complex story is the suggestion online that Jonathan Fletcher has been a member since 1983 of the exclusive dining club, Nobody’s Friends. This club which emerged into public awareness during the IICSA hearings in March last year has a membership group of 60, all elected by the club itself.
Each of the members is chosen from either the church, politics or one of the other distinguished professions. Jonathan’s place among this elite group is no doubt in part the result of being born into a family of eminent politicians, his father having served a member of Harold Wilson’s cabinet. But apart from this family background, someone in the church must have seen him to be an important up and coming church person. Thus, in his 40s, he was honoured to sit among Deans, Bishops, and the like, not to mention the crème de la crème of the political establishment. Perhaps as importantly there was another group represented in the club, public-school headmasters, the supporters of Iwerne camps.
Mention of this dining club, Nobody’s Friends, links us back to the establishment network that played an important part in the Peter Ball story. We catch a glimpse of a well-connected group of people who were able to pull many strings, partly because of whom they knew. Jonathan Fletcher was right there in the middle of it all. In other words, like Peter Ball, he knew and was known by enormous numbers of movers and shakers in British society. Also, as with Peter Ball, if the accusations of ‘spiritual manipulation’ are true, then many people would have been affected. Peter Ball’s world was the high church networks so well represented in the Chichester diocese. Jonathan Fletcher’s world is the evangelical nexus represented by the conservative parishes of REFORM. Here we find considerable wealth, privilege and power. Jonathan’s potential capacity to do good and provide a positive influence was enormous. Equally his ability to create harm was extensive. The story, as we have it, is in fragments but we are hinting that the joined-up version we have now points sadly to the latter scenario. As with Peter Ball’s story, the discrediting of an admired hero in an institution goes far further than simply among those who knew the hero directly. It spreads out to many others who expected the highest standards of their leaders.
In 2018 the club was subject of a question in the IICSA hearing into abuse in the Church of England. Lord Lloyd had sent a letter of influence in the Peter Ball case to Archbishop Carey prefaced with the phrase “May I presume on a brief acquaintanceship at dinners of Nobody’s Friends?”[17] When asked about the club in his evidence to the Inquiry, Lord Lloyd described Nobody’s Friends as “simply a club, half consisting of the clergy, members of the clergy, and half consisting of members of the laity, which dine together probably twice a year, very often in Lambeth Palace.”
The IICSA counsel pointed out that the Daily Mail had once described it as “centred on a strong core of bishops, ex-Tory ministers and former military top brass, a highly secretive, all-male group representing Britain’s most entrenched professions and institutions.” Lord Lloyd replied, “That’s a typical Daily Mail description of something they don’t particularly like, but I can assure you that Nobody’s Friends is a perfectly ordinary dining club…” The same article that IICSA drew upon in the hearing indicated that Prime Minister Tony Blair had been keen to join the club in 2003.[18][19][20]
Stephen Parsons commented in an influential blog, following the IICSA hearing, that the forum Nobody’s Friends provided for influence in the Peter Ball case suggested a “toxic masculinity” in the Church of England. He went on to say:
A men-only dining club that meets regularly at Lambeth Palace, known as Nobody’s Friends, appears to be a gathering for socially very well-connected Anglicans. Although originally high church in its origins, the club provides an opportunity for a privileged church group to network and sometimes lobby those in authority in the Church …… The Nobody’s Friends dining group has been described as ‘private’ rather than a secret group, but it still represents an exclusive world of male privilege within the heart of the Anglican establishment. When Bishop John Bickersteth once revealed that his appointment to Bath and Wells followed his being ‘spotted’ at a Nobody’s dinner, we began to get the feeling that the values of our church may incline towards corporate and institutional interests rather than a personal morality based on the Sermon on the Mount.[21]
So did West Yorkshire Police do surveillance on a house in Westmoreland Street, Skipton, Yorks. In the early 60s, where they observed male visitors? Two of the guests are alleged to have been Cyril Smith and Ian Brady …
@IanKerr
Sutlcliffe and Savile
Who was pulling strings in Her Majesty’s prison system for Brady ?
Savile was friends with killers Sutliff and Ian Brady
Moors murders: Jimmy Savile part of ‘paedo ring with Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’
DISGRACED radio DJ Jimmy Savile has been accused of buying indecent photographs of children from evil killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley
Savile – who died in 2011 at the age of 84 – never faced trial for his crimes as one of Britain’s worst ever sex offenders.
Before their arrest in 1965, Savile ran the BBC studios from Manchester’s Dickenson Road – where Top of the Pops was filmed – and has been accused of meeting with Brady and Hindley to buy indecent images of children.
How Moors murderer Brady had access to vulnerable teens in jail
26 June 2019
Moors Murderer Ian Brady was able to mix with vulnerable borstal boys in Wormwood Scrubs prison for more than five years, newly released Home Office files reveal. Even after one young prisoner alleged that Brady had had sex with him, no action was taken for several months, the BBC’s Sanchia Berg reports.
For decades he was Britain’s most notorious murderer.
Ian Brady and his girlfriend Myra Hindley tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered children in the mid-1960s and buried some of the bodies on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester.
Following his conviction in 1966, Brady was initially held at Durham prison. He was then sent to Parkhurst, and transferred in 1974 to Wormwood Scrubs in London.
Placed in the segregation unit, used for prisoners likely to be attacked, he began a hunger strike in the summer of 1975, demanding to be moved and allowed to associate with other prisoners.
As he lost weight, he was moved to the prison hospital. He was allowed to stay there even after he began eating again, in a room on the Mental Observation Landing, known as G2.
At this time, boys from Feltham Borstal would be sent to Wormwood Scrubs hospital if they were suffering from mental health problems. They could be as young as 15 – a similar age to some of Brady’s victims.
As early as 1976, the prison’s principal medical officer had spotted the problem.
“He takes an unusual interest in any adolescent inmate who may be located on the landing and his influence in such a situation is certainly not a wholesome one,” he wrote in a report dated 2 September.
The staff had had to move boys off the landing to get them away from him, he added.
But despite numerous objections made by staff and others over the years, arguing that Brady should be moved, he stayed on the Mental Observation Landing, and his privileges steadily increased.
Brady was allowed to watch television with other patients and given duties that enabled him to move beyond the landing, cleaning toilets and showers.
He lost his job in autumn 1981, after a young person reported that Brady had had sex with him, and he was moved back to Parkhurst the following year.
Lord Longford lobbied a series of ministers on Brady’s behalf
How was it possible for a prisoner like Brady to be given such treatment?
Part of it has to do with his personality – he was often described as manipulative and arrogant by prison staff. For years he campaigned, complained and threatened in order to get his way. It usually failed, but occasionally it worked.
Brady also benefited from support from the penal reformer, Lord Longford, a former Labour cabinet minister. The Home Office papers reveal how Longford lobbied ministers, including the home secretary, on Brady’s behalf.
When Brady first arrived at Durham on 6 May 1966 he was described as “a fairly tall person with a tendency to break into a cold smile without apparent reason… Quite unemotional.”
He succeeded in getting a degree of special treatment. He persuaded the prison’s welfare officer to get him homoerotic novels, as well as the works of Machiavelli – the Italian Renaissance writer who described how a ruler could maintain his grip on power by unscrupulous means. He was also given private tutoring in German by academics from Durham University – until the prison education service was asked to pay for it.
But Brady didn’t achieve his main aim at that time, which was to see Myra Hindley for “conjugal” visits. She was in Holloway prison, over 250 miles away. In protest, Brady isolated himself and refused to associate with other prisoners. He even asked for dark glasses and ear plugs so he could shut out the world entirely. In 1969, 1970, 1971 he went on hunger strike. None of it worked.
After Myra Hindley stopped writing to Brady, he changed his campaign. Instead, he started lobbying to get to Broadmoor, the secure hospital. Doctors were reluctant. They considered him a psychopath, who would not benefit from treatment.
It was at this time, 1971, that Brady enlisted Lord Longford’s help – but the peer couldn’t persuade politicians to move him.
Four years later, Brady began a new hunger strike at Wormwood Scrubs. Once moved to the prison hospital he allowed himself to be “artificially fed” even though his “hunger strike” formally continued.
He told Lord Longford in September 1975 that he found conditions in the prison “more pleasant and civilised” than in the segregation unit, and on 16 December Longford met Home Secretary Roy Jenkins to relay Brady’s request to stay there.
Jenkins responded that “Brady could be assured that he would stay in the prison hospital for as long as he needed to for his health.”
Ten days later, according to the prison records, Ian Brady ended his hunger strike.
Peter Meakings, now in his 80s, was an assistant governor at Wormwood Scrubs at the time. The files show he supervised several of Lord Longford’s visits to Ian Brady.
On 12 April 1976 the visit began with Lord Longford “apologising for forgetting to bring cigarettes”. “I remember Brady was really angry about that” says Meakings. Brady preferred the French brand, Gauloises, which could be hard to get hold of.
In his note, Peter Meakings wrote that Brady made “frequent acrimonious comments about the Home Office ” and “various offensive remarks concerning individual prison staff”. He remembered that Brady seemed very much in charge – telling Longford what to do, and being very curt and abrupt with him.
Peter Meakings says he always kept his distance from Ian Brady, even if the prisoner tried to be friendly. “One of the children he murdered was the same age as my son at the time. I would get an odd feeling, a kind of shiver down my spine, when I was in the room with him.”
By September 1976 Brady’s health had recovered. In fact he was slightly overweight, as the prison’s principal medical officer (PMO) observed. But he stayed in the hospital.
The Moors murders
Brady and Hindley were jailed for life in 1966 for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17; Brady was also convicted of killing 12-year-old John Kilbride
It was not until 1987 that they finally admitted the murders of two more children, Keith Bennett, 12, and 16-year-old Pauline Reade
Keith Bennett’s body has never been found – his mother’s pleas to the murderers to disclose the location were in vain
In December 1977, a new acting PMO wrote to the prison governor saying Brady should be returned to segregation.
Brady wrote to Lord Longford to complain, saying how grateful he had been for the chance to show his “progress”, and how much he valued being given “a modest opportunity to integrate in a constructive community of staff I have the highest respect for”.
It seems to have worked. Brady stayed on the hospital wing.
In March 1978, the prison’s senior medical officer (SMO) expressed concerns about Brady’s presence in the prison hospital and his contacts with vulnerable prisoners.
“I deplore his association with young borstal trainees and adult mentally ill patients,” the SMO wrote.
“There is little change in his hard remorseless egotistical attitude. He is one of the few men to whom I would attach the label ‘evil’.”
But the SMO concluded that there was no way of segregating them, given the “therapeutic milieu”.
Members of the prison’s Board of Visitors were the next to object to Brady’s “privileged” treatment, in mid-1978. But the Wormwood Scrubs medical officers told them it was the “best solution to an impossible problem”.
The board was unimpressed and said it would make a formal complaint. This led to an exchange between the prison’s PMO and the deputy director of the Prison Services Department.
“If he is sent back to the segregation unit he will go on hunger strike and we shall be back to where we were several years ago,” the PMO wrote in a letter dated 5 June 1978.
He said he was not too worried about Brady’s position “except for one aspect of it and that is his having access to young inmates”. He went on: “A malicious newspaper could make great play of it.”
In August 1979, the hospital’s SMO wanted to discharge Brady. He wrote to the director of prison medical services: “Into ward G2 are admitted both boys and men who are mentally ill. Is it proper to have Brady in with them?”
The SMO agreed Brady might try “blackmail” once again, by going on hunger strike. “But then I would deal with him as I would any other inmate – in the proper ethical medical manner.”
The file doesn’t include the director of prison medical services’ response.
But five months later, he wrote to the prison’s PMO. Boys at Feltham Borstal had been talking about Brady, he said, and wanted to know why Brady had access to “those of tender years”.
The PMO wrote back, a fortnight later, with a rather impatient tone.
“This is an old one. We have been over it many times. Under the present circumstances it would be impossible to prevent borstal trainees who are admitted to G2 from coming into contact with Brady.”
He added, harshly: “For what it is worth, I doubt if Brady has any effect whatsoever on ‘those of tender years’.”
That confidence was misplaced. A year later, in February 1981, the file shows the PMO was visited by a young prisoner from the landing where Brady lived.
“He was in a very agitated state,” runs the PMO’s letter to the governor. Another prisoner “wanted to have homosexual relations with him” and knew that Brady had had sex with him “some months ago”.
The young man was terrified of what this prisoner might do if he refused – and asked to be moved. He was.
“I am most concerned about Brady,” says the PMO’s letter. “I never have been happy about locating disturbed boys or young men on the landing. Brady has shown rather too much interest in them in the past.”
Knowing the prison layout, Peter Meakings can see how Brady might have been able to have sex with another inmate.
“As the landing cleaner, Brady wouldn’t just have had free run of the passageway outside the rooms, where there were officers supervising, he would also have had access to the toilets,” he says. There were no toilets inside the cells then. Showers were also separately located.
Even this incident didn’t lead to Brady’s instant removal from the Mental Observation Landing – he was still there in August, months later. The files do indicate he had lost his job as a landing cleaner by November 1981. Brady complained about this to Lord Longford – who, as before, contacted the Home Office to intervene on his behalf.
This time, there was no private meeting with the home secretary, just a short note from Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Lord Belstead. He wrote: “I am satisfied that there were good reasons for the decision to remove Mr Brady from his job, and I see no reason to intervene in this matter.”
In March 1982 Brady was transferred to Parkhurst, and from there he was later moved to Ashworth secure hospital, where he died in 2017.
Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, says that the high-profile support Ian Brady enjoyed contributed to an “extraordinary set of circumstances”. However, she adds: “What happened, and what he did in prisons, I think, is not extraordinary. Actually, I think it happens and has happened every day for years, and is still happening.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “There have been huge changes in the criminal justice system in the last 40 years and allegations of sexual assault are taken extremely seriously and reported to the police. Boys under 18 are placed together in youth custody and those aged between 18-21 are held either in young offender institutions with their own age group, or in designated cells or wings in the adult prison estate. We are conducting a review into safeguarding in the youth estate to further improve the welfare of those in our care.”
Pervert MP Cyril Smith was pals with satanic child sex monster
Victim Michael Roberts reveals his devil-worshipping stepdad Michael Horgan organised abuse
3 SEP 2014
Paedophile MP Cyril Smith was in league with another appalling child sex abuser who set up satanic rituals and raped children as young as TWO, the Sunday People has discovered.
Victim Michael Roberts, 40, today bravely puts aside his right to anonymity to tell for the first time how he was only six when he was sexually abused by 29-stone politician Smith.
And shockingly he has revealed his devil-worshipping stepdad Michael Horgan organised the horrendous ordeal. Horgan made a deal with the man who went on to be knighted after years as a respected Member of Parliament.
Michael claims Smith, who was also a close pal of Jimmy Savile, told him he had been “a naughty boy” before forcing him to take part in a perverted spanking and groping ritual.
Now studying for a counselling qualification, Michael fought back tears as he recalled: “I was frightened of him because of his size. But by then I was getting abused by so many people I’d just got used to it.”
Horgan, who has also used the name Shaun O’Donnell, became known as the High Priest of Satan.
Devil worshipper: Pervert Michael Horgan organised abuse
He was jailed for 10 years and placed on the sex offenders’ register after he was found guilty of six sex abuse charges in 1992. Smith died in 2010 aged 82.
The twisted pair are believed to have bonded initially over their mutual love for Elvis Presley before finding they also shared a sexual interest in children.
Abusing the young and vulnerable became an obsession.
Horgan organised a series of satanic-themed orgies for like-minded paedos.
In one of them he raped little Michael and an even younger female child before watching on as others did the same.
The monster, whose youngest victim was only two, also hung up his stepson and the girl on hooks.
In further horrendous episodes he stripped the children naked, blindfolded them and tied them to a cross next to a black magic altar so that his “disciples” could use them for sex.
The abuses were often filmed to be gloated over later.
Horgan also forced the children to carry out disgusting sex acts on other kids, including their friends and each other.
He organised outdoor “parties” for these activities on Saddleworth Moor, where child killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley had buried their victims.
Youngsters from two to 13 were drugged, tortured and sexually abused during the satanic “ceremonies”.
The shock revelation over the satanist and MP’s friendship raises questions over any role Smith and Jimmy Savile may have played in Horgan’s paedo ring.
Horgan was also pals with Raymond Hewlett, the child rapist questioned in relation to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Michael added: “Michael Horgan used to take me out to ‘visit’ people regularly. It didn’t seem that far away. It didn’t take us long to get there. We went there in a taxi. Just me and Michael Horgan.
“I can’t remember where it was, just that it was a long row of houses and that it wasn’t far from where we lived in Rochdale.”
Michael says the visit had obviously been set up beforehand as local MP Smith greeted him by his first name when he walked in the room.
He added: “We went into the house. He was a big fat guy. They (Horgan and Cyril) were talking between themselves. It looked like it had been pre-planned because he (Cyril) said, ‘Hello, Michael.’ Then he said I had been ‘naughty’ and that he had to spank me three times.
“He spanked my bum three times and then he touched me up. He touched my private parts.
“It didn’t last five minutes because my stepdad was stood there and said, ‘You’ve got to go,’ and that was it.
“That was the end of it. For some reason, all of a sudden, we had to get back. I don’t know why.”
Smith, elected to Parliament in 1972, first rose to national prominence when he awarded his mother Eva the title of First Lady of Rochdale after he became the town’s mayor in 1966.
He lived with her in her small terraced house in the Lancashire town until her death in 1994.
Never married, Smith’s later years were dogged by rumours about his sexuality and allegations of child abuse.
According to police records, prosecutors were given evidence about him in 1970, 1998 and 1999 but charges were never brought.
He was finally exposed as a paedophile in November last year. The Crown Prosecution Service admitted he should have been charged.
One of his victims claimed he was sexually abused in a room in the Houses Parliament as MPs walked past.
Michael said: “I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it come on the news. I went into shock when I saw him.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, it has finally come out. At the time he abused me I didn’t know who he was. In my mind I called him the fat man.
“It wasn’t until years later that I realised he was an MP. I remember being there and being spanked and that it stung, like when someone slaps you.
“I smelt a funny smell off him. A musty smell and there was a musty smell in the house as well.
“I remember a brownish coffee table in the room and that’s about it.”
The twisted child killer, Ian Brady, wanted the fifth movement of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique played at his funeral – a piece that the composer envisaged as a ‘witches sabbath’, where hideous monsters gathered to laugh at a burial.
ROY JENKINS was the Home Secretary who allowed Ian Brady to move to the hospital wing of Wormwood Scrubs, where he had access to youngsters and where many complaints and concerns were made about him. Lord Longford always smoothed the waters.
Home Sec, Roy Jenkins, with the allegations, it has been reported. But Lord Stonham, the Home Office Minister at the time, responded nine days later saying: “careful inquiries had been made” and there was “nothing to substantiate” the claims.
…a private member’s bill thanks to the efforts of two ministers who, though they had become thoroughly heterosexual, had enjoyed homosexual adventures as Oxford undergraduates: the home secretary, Roy Jenkins, who had been in love with his future cabinet colleague Tony Crosland; and the leader of the House of Commons, Richard Crossman, who had had an affair with the poet WH Auden.
Tony Crosland had concealed the abuse of Dafydd’s mates Matt Arnold and Peter Howarth in the mid 1960s when Arnold and Howarth worked at Axwell Park Approved School in Gateshead. The man who told Crosland that a barrel of crap needed covering up was Ernest Armstrong, who later became the Labour MP for North West Durham, 1964-87. Ernest was most helpful to Miranda when Miranda wanted to bag a Labour seat in the north east. Ernest’s daughter Hilary succeeded his seat, 1987-2010 and was a member of Miranda’s inner circle.
Detectives investigating allegations of historical child sexual abuse have uncovered compelling evidence that a paedophile ring operated among senior Scottish lawyers in the 1970s.
The majority of the suspects, including Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, QC, the former solicitor-general, are dead, but extradition proceedings have begun to have a retired QC who lives abroad brought to Scotland to face charges.
Further allegations against two very senior retired lawyers who are still alive have been left on file by police so that they can be reopened should other victims emerge to corroborate the claims.
A five-year investigation by Police Scotland was begun in 2014 when Susan Henderson, 52, daughter of the late Robert Henderson, QC, told police that she had been repeatedly raped by her father, a flamboyant figure regarded as Scotland’s top QC in the late 1970s and 1980s, and a number of his friends in the legal profession, when she was aged three to 12. She has waived her right to anonymity.
Five of the men are dead. As well as Sir Nicholas, who died aged 61 in 1995, and her father, who died in 2012 at 75, Ms Henderson says she was abused by Sheriff Andrew Lothian, QC, and the advocates Raymond Fraser and Lawrence Nisbet.
Sir Nicholas was a Tory MP for Kinross & Western Perthshire. Later, as Scotland’s second most senior prosecutor, he would have taken decisions on the prosecution of other sex offenders.
Mr Lothian, who died aged 74 in July 2016, quit his post after it emerged that he was using prostitutes at an Edinburgh sauna. He was an alcoholic and was exposed as a wife-beater in 2001. Despite testimony from his wife, Harriet, and their children, the Crown refused to prosecute him.
He continued to work as a judge, including dealing with other domestic abusers and sex offenders, until he was disgraced by the sauna revelations and forced to quit towards the end of 2008.
Mr Fraser, also an alcoholic, died of cancer aged 55 in 2002. He was disciplined numerous times by the Faculty of Advocates for his conduct, which included being charged with shoplifting.
Mr Nisbet, a noted hedonist, had a heart attack and died at 45 in 1993.
Two detectives visited Ms Henderson at her home in the north of Scotland last week to brief her on the outcome of their investigation. They reassured her that had the five dead men been alive they would have been charged.
Evidence against them included information from other sources that corroborated her claims. This has been underlined by a decision by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) to make the maximum award of £22,000 to Ms Henderson as a victim of sexual crimes.
Ms Henderson, a carer and mother of one, said last night: “It is an enormous relief to know that my story has been placed under rigorous scrutiny and I have been believed. The award by CICA is important because it emphasises that I have been telling the truth for years, but I am still looking for justice.”
She said she was glad that the police intended to pursue one of her alleged abusers, even though he lived abroad.
She added that she was disappointed the two other men who were alive were not being pursued but hoped that other victims would come forward.
The Crown Office confirmed that the case against one man was active but declined to comment further.
@minoguetomPerhaps Esther thought Niki (Fairbairn) was above suspicion as he & Henderson were members of the elite<sic> Speculative Society of Edinburgh whose members include Prince Philip & all our top judges such as Lord Cullen. See: https://www.tomminogue.com/tom/?page_id=636…Times reports that a Scots lawyer is being sought for extradition into allegations of child abuse made by Susan Henderson, daughter of Robert Henderson QC, who together with Nicholas Fairbairn QC and Sheriff Andrew Lothian were cited along with two others of abusing Susan when she was a child. All three were members of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh. Another two lawyers were named in the article. All are deceased.It seems as if the movers and shakers of our society are allowed to abuse with impunity in their lifetime and only come under scrutiny when they are dead for some years. A bit like Savile, et al. LINKhttps://www.tomminogue.com/tom/?page_id=587Lord Robertson, a self-confessed Freemasonic member of Edinburgh’s sinister “Speculative Society” lodge, who enjoyed a peculiarly close personal relationship with Thomas Hamilton, the mass murderer of abused children in Dunblane, failed to sue the Sunday Herald for libel and promptly disappeared from public life.Police records revealed that Robertson had helped expedite the process by which the Manchurian Candidate, Hamilton, already a convicted child molester with known affiliations to the British elite, was able to obtain gun licenses.Roberston worked in collusion with Michael Forsyth (Secretary of State for Scotland), a fellow “Speculative Freemason” and Robert Bell, an associate of Malcolm Rifkind (British Foreign Secretary). Robertson, at the behest of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, had a vested interest in ‘wasting’ children who were beginning to talk.http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=12346
@MinogueTom
New name for list of “Untouchables” Lawrence Nisbet who featured in Magic Circle. Adv for Clarke in HMA v Duncan
Five of the men are dead. As well as Sir Nicholas, who died aged 61 in 1995, and her father, who died in 2012 at 75, Ms Henderson says she was abused by Sheriff Andrew Lothian, QC, and the advocates Raymond Fraser and Lawrence Nisbet.
Raymond Morris Fraser accused of child abuse by Robert Henderson’s daughter – was a good friend of the Duke of Hamilton. He got married at the Duke’s home.
The Duke and The Queen entering the Scottish Parliament on the occasion of the state opening, 9th October 2004
Queen Elizabeth was close to the Duke of Hamilton
He was the Queen’s official representative in Scotland
The heir to the Hamilton titles is the eldest son, Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale, who was born in 1978.
The Crown of Scotland is carried by The Duke of Hamilton – Rebecca Scott’s cousin
Alexander Douglas-Hamilton is the cousin of Rebecca Scott, the daughter of the former IICSA Inquiry head, Lowell Goddard
Through her marriage to Sir Johnny Scott, the current head of the Home Office‘s ‘independent’ inquiry into child abuse, Judge Lowell Goddard, has links with Camilla and Prince Charles
Mr Henderson is often chosen to defend colleagues who fall on the wrong side of the law. He represented lawyer James McIntyre, who admitted unlawful possession of guns in 1997, and flamboyant QC Raymond Fraser when he admitted stealing a hat and cravat from Jenners in Edinburgh.
Raymond Morris Fraser was born out of time, a throwback to the days when legal dandies swaggered around Scotland.
It is no coincidence that he once lived in the former home of Lord Cockburn, the 19th century judge, whose circuit travels were as legendary for boozing as they were for legal achievements.
The son of a butcher, when he came to the Bar in 1971 with an honours law degree from Edinburgh University in his waistcoat, he was immediately seduced by the lifestyle of some of his peers.
He was taken under the wing of the late Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, then one of the most successful QCs in the country, whose flamboyancy in both courtroom and dress style was to have a massive impact on Fraser.
He followed him into politics, standing for the Tories in 1974 against Jo Grimond in Orkney and Shetland. He failed to win many votes.
Undaunted, he got in tow with Lionel Daiches, QC, the leading criminal advocate of his time, renowned for his colourful court pleading. Fraser soaked up the approach.
Daiches had worked long and hard to reach the top, but Fraser wasn’t prepared to wait for fame.
In 1976, he flew to Angola to offer his services to 13 British mercenaries on trial for alleged atrocities.
He wasn’t allowed to represent the men at their sham hearing, but did manage to speak to some of them and stayed on as an observer.
Cruel wags back home joked that Fraser was the only advocate who had managed to get his clients shot.
Fraser was now a name, however, and solicitors anxious to get the best representation for clients queued up to obtain his services.
Though a brilliant lawyer, with the potential to reach the top of the legal tree, he became a caricature of himself. He threw lavish parties for friends. Like Fairbairn, he became a bon viveur and wit – but without the financial clout to sustain it.
He got hold of an old Mercedes car which fellow advocates immediately nicknamed the “Hitler mobile” and Fraser even bought a long leather coat to enhance the image.
Living well beyond his means, when he started on the downward spiral, he did so in spectacular style.
He moved out of Bonaly Tower – Lord Cockburn’s former home – and threw a final party lasting for two days. Unfortunately, his friend and fellow advocate Laurence Nisbet, who had been at the binge, died shortly after it ended.
At a legal dinner in the grandiose setting of the Signet Library in Edinburgh, Fraser plunged 30ft over a banister into the well below. He suffered only minor bruising.
He took everyone by surprise in 1993 when he married divorcee Larch Cullen at Lennoxlove Estate in East Lothian, the home of his friend, the Duke of Hamilton.
The reception was held at Powderhall Stadium – Edinburgh’s greyhound track. Guests were asked to chip in pounds 10 a head.
The marriage went to the dogs after only a year. Larch later claimed that his drinking had turned him into an embarrassment.
When he represented the Duke of Hamilton on a drink driving charge, Fraser bizarrely told reporters that his name was Raymond Carruthers-Fraser.
He was later suspended by the Faculty of Advocates for three months for sending a bill for pounds 1500 to the Duke after telling him he would represent him for nothing.
Months later, Fraser was back in the same court, but this time in the dock, when he admitted a drink driving offence and was fined pounds 2000 and banned for seven years.
That resulted in another suspension as well as a severe reprimand.
Yesterday, in a suit and smart overcoat Fraser wandered his local streets in Newington, Edinburgh. He sported a nasty looking gash above his left eye, possibly the result of a fall.
Yet he seemed in good spirits as he set off from the ground floor flat he shares with friend Elizabeth Orr.
He said: “I’ve got nothing to say at the moment. I don’t want to talk.”
But his latest folly is likely to prove the final straw for the Faculty, who will consider striking off the man who seems to have been born 200 years too late.
Clarissa Dickson, pictured below with good friend and colleague Sir Johnny Scott, father of Rebecca Scott and ex-husband of former IICSA chair Lowell Goddard, was also close to the Duke of Hamilton, a close friend of alleged paedophile Raymond Morris Fraser QC.
Clarissa Dickson-Wright’s father was a physician who treated the Queen Mother, but at home he was viciously cruel to mother and daughter. Here she teams up with Johnny Scott, mate of Prince Charles, to visit the Denbyesque town of Grange-over-Sands:
One of (Robert/Bob) Henderson’s most vocal supporters was Lord McCluskey, a leading judge who also jumped to the defence of the convicted paedophile Jim Torbett of Celtic FC. Both were directors at Fairbridge in Scotland, a charity for vulnerable young people.
But McCluskey and Torbett weren’t the only Fairbridge directors of interest. A certain Commander Charles Howeson, charged with buggery but convicted for abusing eight young men, was also on the board.
Ironically, Howeson’s barrister was Daniel Janner QC. (son of Greville Janner MP, also accused of abuse)
Daniel Janner: “Looking forward to Boris spllaffing IICSA up the wall.
Daniel Janner’s father Greville Janner:
Lord Janner case: ‘Enough evidence for arrest in 1990s’
The former police officer who led an investigation in the 1990s into abuse allegations involving Lord Janner has told the BBC there was enough evidence to arrest him.
However, former Det Insp Kelvyn Ashby said the decision to arrest the Labour peer in 1991 was “taken out of our hands”.
McCluskey of Fettesgate was also patron of the Scottish Refugee Council, where Chris Jay was director from 1995 until 1998. This brings us to the current IICSA chair Alexis Jay, who is Chris Jay’s wife.
Janey Buchan was a Strathclyde Councillor, 1974-79. So she will have known about the abuse of kids in care and the chaos in Strathclyde Regional Authority – which many years ago employed Chris Jay as Deputy Director of Social Work.
Chris then employed his much younger newly qualified partner Alexis, who is now Professor Alexis Jay and currently presiding over the imploding IICSA (Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse)
Chris Jay wasn’t a common or garden social worker. Chris was a very senior social worker – he was Deputy Head of Social Work for the former Strathclyde Regional Authority, then the biggest authority in the UK.
Alexis shares her talents with the Third Sector as well – she is a Trustee of the Royal Voluntary Service, of which HM the Queen is Patron and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is President
But Henderson’s record of senior legal figures supposedly compromised by their homosexuality never truly existed. It was a classic poker player’s bluff – an attempt to convince potential opponents he held a stronger hand than he really did. And it worked. Henderson died at 75 in 2012 with his reputation largely intact.
Retired judge Lord McCluskey was among those to write a glowing tribute to him in the national Press. Henderson the smooth, impeccably attired defence counsel never did move from the well of the court to the part of the room where he truly belonged – the dock, to stand trial.
The paedophile Fairbairn was Honorary vice chairman of the Scottish Minorities Group set up by PIE founder Ian Dunn, a man with links to IICSA-disgraced David Steel and Leon Brittan cousin Malcolm Rifkind of Dunblane fame.
Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, left, and Dr Alistair Smith
THE two top Scots Tories from Margaret Thatcher’s Government are linked to an alleged child abuse ring.
Former Kinross and Western Perthshire MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn and former party Scottish chairman Dr Alistair Smith were named as suspects in the historic abuse of underage boys.
Last night, Labour justice spokesman Graeme Pearson said a public inquiry “cannot afford to leave any stone unturned and it must have the confidence of the victims”.
Senior officials in Thatcher’s Government were alleged to have attended private sex parties with underage boys and visited a notorious guesthouse.
A former Conservative activist – claimed Dr Smith, who died in July 2012, had arranged for rent boys to have sex with Cabinet members.
Anthony, 52, said he was used to procure boys as young as 15, who indulged in alcohol and cocaine before having sex with politicians at party conferences in Blackpool and Brighton in the 80s.
He said: “Dr Smith, who I looked up to at the time and was the most important Tory in Scotland, told me to go and fetch some ‘entertainment’, which was code for young boys.
“It was the norm and an open secret that these older members of the Tory Party, like Dr Alistair Smith, paid for young men to join them at sex parties.
QC, advocate, born March 8 1911; died November 11 1999
Lionel Daiches, who has died aged 88, was for many years one of the leading defence counsel at the Scottish bar and (with the late Nicholas Fairbairn) the most flamboyant, bringing a theatrical flair to his natural eloquence.
He became a QC in 1956, after a distinguished war career where, as well as soldiering, he fought cases in courts martial, enabling him to develop his dramatic as well as legal gifts, and to use his easy wit to confuse and undermine the opposition.
The elder of the two brilliant sons of Salis Daiches, chief rabbi of Scotland and a famous Edinburgh character, he was educated at George Watson’s School and Edinburgh University. His brother, the eminent academic and literary critic David Daiches
The Nimmo Smith/Friel findings concluded that this conspiracy DID NOT exist. Their report accused police officers involved of being homophobic and lawyerphobic and that their prejudice clouded their understanding of the facts.
The Who’s Who Superstar Legal Witness List
“David Blair-Wilson holds the photographs for when he needs them or when Stephen needs them to pull a favour.” – Magic Circle Witness
Many senior members of Scotland’s current Legal Establishment were cited as witnesses:
Douglas ALLAN , Sheriff
David BLAIR-WILSON, Solicitor
Edward BOWEN Q C
Douglas BROWN, Assistant Solicitor
David BURNS QC
Alastair CAMPBELL, Advocate
Isabel CLARK, Procurator Fiscal
The Honourable Lord CLYDE
Stephen CONROY
Frank CROWE, Procurator Fiscal, Kirkcaldy, formerly Assistant Solicitor,
Leslie CUMMING , Chief Accountant, The Law Society of Scotland
Thomas DAWSON QC, Solicitor General for Scotland
Leeona DORRIAN , Advocate
Brian DOUGLAS, Advocate
Kevin DRUMMOND QC
Gordon ELLIS, Depute Clerk of Justiciary
Mark FITZPATRICK, Advocate
Hugh FOLEY, Principal Clerk of Session and Justiciary
The Right Honourable the Lord FRASER OF CARMYLLIE QC
Brian GILL Q C , Keeper of the Advocates’ Library
William GILLON , formerly Depute Clerk o f Justiciary
Richard GODDEN , Solicitor, Edinburgh
Robert HENDERSON QC
William HIDDLESTON, formerly Detective Chief Superintendent
The Right Honourable Lord HOPE, Lord President of the Court of Session
Alan J O H N S T O N QC, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates
Richard KEEN , Advocate
Robert LEES, Regional Procurator Fiscal, Lothian and Borders
Gordon Mc BAIN , Solicitor, Edinburgh
Paul McBRIDE, Advocate
The Right Honourable Lord McCLUSKEY OF CHURCHHILL
Norman McFADYEN, Assistant Solicitor, Fraud U n i t , Crown Office
Kenneth MACIVER, Assistant Procurator Fiscal, Edinburgh
Elish McPHILOMY, Senior Legal Assistant, Crown Office
Iain McSPORRAN, Procurator Fiscal Depute, Edinburgh
Maria MAGUIRE, Advocate
Elaine MATTHEWS
Hugh MATTHEWS QC
The Honourable Lord MILLIGAN
John MITCHELL Q C
James MUIR , Solicitor, Shorts
John MURRAY Q C
Neil MURRAY QC Lawrence NISBET, Advocate
Derek OGG, Advocate
Charles ORR, Sergeant
Roger ORR, Chief Inspector
The Honourable Lord PENROSE
Richard PRENTICE, Assistant Chief Constable, Lothian and Borders Police
James REILLY, Advocate
The Right Honourable Malcolm R I F K I ND QC M P
The Right Honourable the Lord RODGER OF EARLSFERRY Q C , Lord
Advocate, formerly Solicitor General for Scotland
Linda RUXTON , Assistant Procurator Fiscal, Glasgow
John SIMPSON, Advocate
The Honourable Lord SUTHERLAND, Senator of the College of Justice
Sir William SUTHERLAND, Chief Constable, Lothian and Borders Police
Colin TUCKER
Peter WATSON , Solicitor, Glasgow
John WATT Q C
Thomas WELSH, Advocate
Robert BLACK: murder of Susan Claire MAXWELL (age 11), Caroline HOGG (age 5), Sarah Jane HARPER (age 10), preventing their burial and kidnapping of [Name withheld] (age 15) between 30 July 1982 and 24 April 1988. Convicted
Note:
The naming of a defendant within this catalogue does not imply guilt.
Debauchery, drugs, champagne parties and the legal elite behind a sinister child sex ring
As third lawyer is linked to sex probe, a shocking picture emerges of a depraved network of abusers at the heart of Scottish society…
Scottish Daily Mail
By Emma Cowing
Dark dandy: Sir Nicholas Fairbairn has been accused of sexual abuse Bacchanalian:In January 1993, Raymond Fraser hosted a wild party at Bonaly TowerPerpetrators and victim: Robert Henderson, Lawrence Nisbet and Henderson’s daughter Susie
ONE cold Edinburgh night in January 1993, a dapper QC named Lawrence Nisbet attended a party at the lavish home of fellow silk and well-known bon viveur raymond Morris Fraser. Fraser was moving out of the capital’s grand Bonaly Tower, once home to the legendary 19th century judge and drinker Lord Cockburn – and a party of bacchanalian proportions was thrown to mark the occasion. A bath, guarded by a fierce-looking stuffed crocodile, was filled with ice and champagne.
Edinburgh’s legal elite – judges, QCs and advocates – mingled and caroused. As well as Nisbet, a high-flying pillar of the city’s legal establishment, they would have included robert Henderson, the dazzlingly brilliant QC, and Nicholas Fairbairn, the flamboyant MP and one-time favourite of Margaret Thatcher.
The timing was intriguing. Later that month, William Nimmo-Smith, another QC who later became Lord Nimmo-Smith, was due to publish his report into an alleged ‘magic circle’ of judges, sheriffs and advocates who, it had been suggested, were conspiring to ensure that homosexual criminals were given soft-touch treatment by the courts.
There had been allegations of senior judges in this magic circle being blackmailed by rent boys. Documents relating to the case had been stolen from Lothian and Borders Police’s Fettes headquarters the previous summer. It was the talk of the town.
None of that seemed to matter, though, to the guests at Bonaly Tower. Instead, they drank and partied away the hours. The binge lasted two days.
Shortly afterwards, Nisbet, aged only 45, was dead. The cause was recorded as chronic alcoholism, although the obituaries of the day discreetly said he had died of a heart attack.
This week, more than 20 years on, allegations have emerged that Nisbet abused a six-year-old child. They came after a man who had known Nisbet in the 1980s contacted the Scottish Daily Mail to say he believed the lawyer was a child molester.
Upon being told of the accusations, Nisbet’s horrified former wife Susan said: ‘It makes me want to throw up.’
That Nisbet lived a life of excess is not in doubt. The legal pack he ran with – which included Henderson and former Solicitor General Fairbairn – were prodigious drinkers and debaters, leading lights of the Edinburgh legal establishment who were well known in the 1970s and 1980s for playing as hard as they worked. They knew each other both inside and out of the courtroom, were as used to sparring across the floor of the court as the end of the bar and prided themselves as the sharpest legal minds of their generation.
Now, the dark underbelly of the murky world these men inhabited is slowly coming to light. Last year, Henderson’s daughter Susie gave a shocking interview to the Mail in which she claimed she had been raped by Fairbairn at the age of four. She also accused her father of repeatedly raping and abusing her, often at lavish, private house parties held in their smart Edinburgh home.
During that interview, Miss Henderson gave the Mail the names of six other senior members of the Scottish legal profession, two of whom are still alive, who either abused her or were aware of the abuse. One of those names was Lawrence Nisbet.
Since then, a major police investigation into her allegations has been launched. A second victim came forward late last year. The inquiry has now been widened to include the latest allegations against Nisbet, which involve a third victim. Decades later, what is emerging, piece by horrifying piece, is evidence not so much of a magic circle, but a paedophile ring. FAIRBAIRN, Henderson’s best friend, was a self-styled eccentric who dressed in blue baronial tartan adorned with two miniature ( working) silver revolvers, which he would load with blanks and fire when drunk. The man who had been a trusted member of Mrs Thatcher’s inner circle ( he once informed her that he had ‘always fancied’ her, to which she responded: ‘Quite right Nicholas, you have very good taste’) was well-known for his excess.
As Solicitor General, he apparently insisted on having colour copies made of the goriest crime scene photographs – particularly of horrifically butchered women. He would then pass these around with the brandy and cigars at dinner parties at Fordell Castle, the crumbling pile in Fife he had restored, and where he lived with his longsuffering wife Lady Sam.
Last year, documents revealed Fairbairn had attended the notorious Elm Guest House in London, a haunt for paedophiles in the early 1980s where youngsters from children’s homes were allegedly sexually assaulted by highprofile visitors. The papers said ‘Fairburn’ had ‘used boys in sauna’ and photos had been taken of him – as well as former Liberal MP Cyril Smith – at the guest house. Police have confirmed that Smith, a known paedophile, was a regular visitor to the address.
It was during raucous parties at Henderson’s house in Heriot row that his daughter says she was abused, not just by her father, but by his friends.
‘My father had parties where I had to dance for people,’ she said. ‘He’d then put me in a bedroom. People came in. There was drugs, lots of drink. My dad used to give me drink.’
It was during one of these horrific encounters that Miss Henderson was raped by Fairbairn. She was only four years old. ‘The house was five floors and the top floor was where the guests used to stay. I was in bed in the guest room with Fairbairn and another guy.’
This week, further evidence of the set’s sordid lifestyle emerged when a retired police detective revealed that Henderson and Nisbet were interviewed by police investigating the disappearance of six-year- old Caroline Hogg because of their connection with a known paedophile.
While there was never any question either man had a connection to the girl’s disappearance, it shines a further light on their antics. The paedophile, who has not been named, used the pair as an alibi when questioned by detectives, saying all three had been at a brothel at the time the little girl – who
was murdered by serial killer Robert Black – disappeared.
Miss Henderson said she remembered her father flashing around a business card for an Edinburgh brothel.
Nisbet, for all his seedy side, was a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Edinburgh establishment. An Edinburgh University graduate, he was called to the Scottish Bar in 1972, where he formed a partnership with Lionel Daiches, a distinguished and flamboyant QC who was often compared to his friend Fairbairn.
Daiches had returned to the Bar after being forced to resign as a sheriff in the mid-1960s when he was caught drink- driving and a friendly judge dismissed the case rather than take away his licence.
Nisbet was often Daiches’ junior in High Court trials and the two were drinking buddies.
Professionally, Nisbet was perhaps best known for interrupting his Italian holiday in 1982 to try to free Scottish nanny Carole Compton, who had been accused of witchcraft.
She had been working as a live-in nanny i n Italy, but the f amily claimed that, after she moved in, strange things started occurring in the house. A fire burned through a mattress and small religious statues were found broken on the floor. After a fire consumed a three-yearold’s cot, the family called the police and accused Miss Compton of arson and attempted murder.
She claimed she had no idea what was happening and maintained her innocence. She was held for 16 months without trial, until Nisbet intervened, saying that ‘if it wasn’t for the satanic obsession of the Italians, she would have been out by now’. She was eventually freed.
Nisbet married twice. He divorced first wife Anne in 1985, after less than six years of marriage.
In 1990 he married Susan Ridings, who was also divorced. He had no children.
BY the time Nisbet died, his group’s glory days were over. Fairbairn – who after being removed as Solicitor General took to complaining, and drinking, copiously, in the House of Commons bars – died two years later of cirrhosis of the liver. Lady Thatcher read the eulogy at his funeral.
Four years later, when anonymous allegations about his abuse of Miss Henderson, then known as Julie X, emerged, senior Tories, including Sir Malcolm Rifkind, rallied to his defence.
Henderson – a QC so brilliant that Lord McCluskey once said of him: ‘It was a joy when Bob walked into court and announced he was appearing as counsel f or the defence. The lights seemed to shine a little brighter.’ – died in relative obscurity in France in 2012.
He had left Edinburgh in some disgrace after being charged in 1999 for non-payment of VAT. Miss Henderson says that after the first Julie X allegations against Fairbairn and her father (then unnamed) emerged in 2000, he threatened her, saying he could ‘put her in the ground’.
Fraser, host of the infamous party and another of Daiches’ prodigies, also came to an unhappy end. His drinking became increasingly heavy and at a legal dinner in the Signet Library he fell 30ft over a banister.
He was suspended three times by the Faculty of Advocates for misdemeanours such as being drunk in court – one client watched in horror as he attempted to tender a guilty plea, only to have to inform the clearly inebriated Fraser that he wished to plead not guilty.
Fraser saw out his final years in poverty, living in a B&B, his name appearing only briefly in the headlines when he was charged for stealing silk cravats, a tie and a hat from Edinburgh store Jenners. He died in 2002.
Nisbet never lived to see the publication of the Nimmo-Smith report into the magic circle affair, in which his name was mentioned. It was published on the day of his funeral.
Some of those involved, including Henderson, went straight from the cemetery to the press conference at which it was declared there was no evidence of a conspiracy.
Perhaps not. But more than 20 years on, it would appear it was something much darker, and more dangerous, which bonded this group of powerful men together.
Robert Henderson QC and Lawrence Nisbet provided an alibi for a paedophile who was questioned about the Caroline Hogg murder. They said all three were at a brothel.
Former IICSA head Fiona Woolf links to the Magic Circle via Colin Tucker of Laughing Duck
@MinogueTom
3 of 5 abusing lawyers named RH, NF & AL were Speculative Society of Edinburgh extraordinary members. Nimmo Smith (also Spec) gave this lot a clean bill of health in Magic Circle Inquiry! https://www.tomminogue.com/tom/?page_id=587… Brave girl Susan H, as is H. Lothian both couldn’t get MSM cover.
Five of the men are dead. As well as Sir Nicholas, who died aged 61 in 1995, and her father, who died in 2012 at 75, Ms Henderson says she was abused by Sheriff Andrew Lothian, QC, and the advocates Raymond Fraser and Lawrence Nisbet.
Raymond Morris Fraser – friend of the Duke of Hamilton
Raymond Morris Fraser was born out of time, a throwback to the days when legal dandies swaggered around Scotland.
It is no coincidence that he once lived in the former home of Lord Cockburn, the 19th century judge, whose circuit travels were as legendary for boozing as they were for legal achievements.
The son of a butcher, when he came to the Bar in 1971 with an honours law degree from Edinburgh University in his waistcoat, he was immediately seduced by the lifestyle of some of his peers.
He was taken under the wing of the late Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, then one of the most successful QCs in the country, whose flamboyancy in both courtroom and dress style was to have a massive impact on Fraser.He followed him into politics, standing for the Tories in 1974 against Jo Grimond in Orkney and Shetland. He failed to win many votes.
Undaunted, he got in tow with Lionel Daiches, QC, the leading criminal advocate of his time, renowned for his colourful court pleading. Fraser soaked up the approach.
Daiches had worked long and hard to reach the top, but Fraser wasn’t prepared to wait for fame.
In 1976, he flew to Angola to offer his services to 13 British mercenaries on trial for alleged atrocities.
He wasn’t allowed to represent the men at their sham hearing, but did manage to speak to some of them and stayed on as an observer.
Cruel wags back home joked that Fraser was the only advocate who had managed to get his clients shot.
Fraser was now a name, however, and solicitors anxious to get the best representation for clients queued up to obtain his services.
Though a brilliant lawyer, with the potential to reach the top of the legal tree, he became a caricature of himself. He threw lavish parties for friends. Like Fairbairn, he became a bon viveur and wit – but without the financial clout to sustain it.
He got hold of an old Mercedes car which fellow advocates immediately nicknamed the “Hitler mobile” and Fraser even bought a long leather coat to enhance the image.
Living well beyond his means, when he started on the downward spiral, he did so in spectacular style.
He moved out of Bonaly Tower – Lord Cockburn’s former home – and threw a final party lasting for two days. Unfortunately, his friend and fellow advocate Laurence Nisbet, who had been at the binge, died shortly after it ended.
At a legal dinner in the grandiose setting of the Signet Library in Edinburgh, Fraser plunged 30ft over a banister into the well below. He suffered only minor bruising.
He took everyone by surprise in 1993 when he married divorcee Larch Cullen at Lennoxlove Estate in East Lothian, the home of his friend, the Duke of Hamilton.
The reception was held at Powderhall Stadium – Edinburgh’s greyhound track. Guests were asked to chip in pounds 10 a head.
The marriage went to the dogs after only a year. Larch later claimed that his drinking had turned him into an embarrassment.
When he represented the Duke of Hamilton on a drink driving charge, Fraser bizarrely told reporters that his name was Raymond Carruthers-Fraser.
He was later suspended by the Faculty of Advocates for three months for sending a bill for pounds 1500 to the Duke after telling him he would represent him for nothing.
Months later, Fraser was back in the same court, but this time in the dock, when he admitted a drink driving offence and was fined pounds 2000 and banned for seven years.
That resulted in another suspension as well as a severe reprimand.
Yesterday, in a suit and smart overcoat Fraser wandered his local streets in Newington, Edinburgh. He sported a nasty looking gash above his left eye, possibly the result of a fall.
Yet he seemed in good spirits as he set off from the ground floor flat he shares with friend Elizabeth Orr.
He said: “I’ve got nothing to say at the moment. I don’t want to talk.”
But his latest folly is likely to prove the final straw for the Faculty, who will consider striking off the man who seems to have been born 200 years too late.
Eight-year road ban for duke: Peer is spared jail after fifth drink-drive offence
18 June 1993
THE DUKE of Hamilton, Scotland’s premier peer, was banned from driving for eight years yesterday after being convicted of his fifth drink-driving offence, writes James Cusick.
The duke, who is also the Hereditary Keeper of the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, was three times over the legal drink-driving alcohol limit when he evaded police in a car chase, at speeds of up to 95 mph, on 20 December last year.
Police said lives had been in danger as the 54-year-old duke sped through villages during the chase around Haddington. He accelerated through police road blocks, eventually crashing into a road sign at high speed.
In court, Raymond Fraser, for the duke, said: ‘It is perhaps difficult for people who work hard and play hard not to do things to excess.’
Police knew Enniskillen businessmen met for sex at Council toilets where alleged child abuse took place
POLICE in Enniskillen were informed of inappropriate sexual activity in public toilets at Nugent’s Entry during the 90s involving local businessmen and mounted a surveillance operation but nobody was ever arrested or prosecuted, The Impartial Reporter has learned.
A business owner claims observing highly regarded men and even young boys frequent the Council-run toilets at least twice a week and recalls contacting the RUC on at least three occasions after growing concerned about the ages of those using the public amenities.
“I saw the same faces again and again, I recognised four of the businessmen. When I saw parents waiting at the top of the entry on high street and their children running down to use the toilets I was concerned in case they walked in on something. I phoned the police three times and they took it seriously once.
“Nobody was ever charged or anything,” said the source.
The claim comes months after a man broke his silence to allege that he was sexually abused by businessmen in the toilets when he was a schoolboy and one week after Fermanagh and Omagh District Council said it “did not hold any record” of reports of child sex abuse at the facility.
Two police sources have also alleged that officers launched a surveillance operation on the men entering and leaving the toilets and took photographs of them for two weeks. The former officers, both of whom served in the RUC, have contacted this newspaper to claim the operation was carried out in the late 90s [possibly 1996/`97] on the toilets after suspicions that married men were meeting up for sex during the day.
“There was a circle cut in the side of the cubicle and one of them used to stick their penis through and get the other to touch them,” said a source.
“Two officers [provides their names] worked on it and photographs were taken. People in business were involved, not just your average man on the street. Word spread that they were being watched,” he said.
Police knew what was going on but evidence was hard to obtain with the concern over a breach of privacy, said the source.
A second source said: “The men were approached and told to stop what they were doing, none of them were prosecuted. It was thought to have been a homosexual ring.”
Meanwhile the business owner claims the men, whose names have been given to this newspaper, were usually seen on Friday and Saturday afternoons for up to four hours.
“It was a regular thing, it wasn’t just me, we could all see it. A businessman beside me noticed it too. You kept thinking ‘that doesn’t seem right’. It went on for months and months. There was one man who stood beside where Benetton was previously with a view to the entry. He stood in that doorway all afternoon to see who was going down, then he’d go down.
“I can’t say what was going on but they were definitely in there for long periods of times. There was one young boy, I think he was at the Tech. Once he arrived that was when you could see all the activity taking place, one man after another into the toilets. It was all definitely organised.”
Messages written in speech bubbles were etched on the walls and indicated appointments and times.
“The messages said ‘I will meet you here next week, same time,’ another said ‘I’ll meet you at 3.30pm, or whatever. That was every Friday afternoon — every Friday afternoon.”
After contacting police twice and nothing being done, the business owner made another phone call back in the 90s and within half an hour officers arrived at the toilets.
“They entered the toilets and pulled out six men. One of the men was in his 80s, he was a very old gentleman,” said the source.
Immediately after police had apprehended the men an officer walked into the business owner’s property and in front of the individuals requested a statement.
“I had already told them on the phone that I did not want to get involved. I said I was doing my public duty. The next day he came back to say just to update you ‘we are not pressing charges, there won’t be a case, we couldn’t prove anything because there were six men behind three cubicle doors.”
The business owner always thought the toilets were a meeting place for homosexuals then three months ago a man claimed he had been abused in the cubicles when he was a schoolboy as part of a suspected paedophile ring.
“The assault happened in the toilet, in the cubicle and I came outside and I was actually physically sick on the floor. I wasn’t really sure what had just happened to me, I was 12 so I wasn’t really that aware of things,” he told this newspaper.
“That has shocked me,” said the business owner. “I thought it was just homosexual men, everyone knew that’s where they went. It is really upsetting to think that was going on in there. This is why I reported it to police because I was afraid that something like that was happening. It is sickening, it is awful. I know it was a different time, I think people were naïve. But this was the job of the police, to protect children.”
A retired bishop who was jailed for a string of sexual offences against teenagers and young men has died.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said Peter Ball “was able to sexually abuse vulnerable teenagers and young men for decades”.
He was jailed in 2015 after being found guilty of misconduct in public office and indecent assaults.
The Church of England confirmed Ball’s death and offered “prayers and thoughts” for “everyone affected”.
Bishop Peter Hancock, the Church’s safeguarding lead, said: “We have been made aware of the death of Peter Ball and our prayers and thoughts are with everyone affected by this news.”
Ball, of Langport in Somerset, was Bishop of Lewes between 1977 and 1992 and Bishop of Gloucester from 1992 until he resigned the following year.
After his trial at the Old Bailey he was sentenced to 32 months for offences against 18 teenagers and men between the 1970s and the 1990s.
POLICE investigating claims of a child abuse ring led by Bay City Rollers manager Tam Paton have made an arrest, it can be revealed. Detectives have been carrying out a long-running investigation into the actions of the late pop Svengali and those around him from the 1970s to the 1990s.
22 JUNE 2019
Officers swooped on the 77-year-old suspect last month and he has since been charged in connection with “non-recent sexual offences”. The Police Scotland probe has been carried out alongside the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, chaired by judge Lady Smith. Several men who claim to have been abused at Paton’s Edinburgh home when they were teenage boys in care are understood to have spoken to the inquiry.
Last night, one survivor – who cannot be named for legal reasons – said: “The police came to my door and said they had made an arrest.
“They said the charges are relating to the parties held at Paton’s house.
“I wasn’t expecting it at all as I was interviewed by the police ages and ages ago.
“I believe it has all come about as a result of the historic abuse inquiry.”
Paton, who weighed 25 stone when he died in 2009, was jailed in 1982 for gross indecency with 16 and 17-year-old youths.
It was an open secret in Edinburgh for many years that vulnerable teenagers and runaways were invited back to Paton’s home for drugs and sex parties.
However, he always defended his controversial lifestyle and claimed he was unfairly targeted for being openly gay.
In 1990, a 16-year-old boy from a care home was held at a flat owned by Paton in the New Town and raped repeatedly over several days.
This led to the Operation Planet scandal, where charges against a number of unidentified high-profile individuals were mysteriously dropped.
Five years ago, shortly after the truth emerged about Jimmy Savile, this newspaper was the first to question why Paton’s alleged crimes had apparently been ignored for so long.
At the time, Edinburgh University child sex abuse expert Dr Sarah Nelson said she had encountered many “damaged young men” who had been used by Paton and his group.
She said: “I have heard long-standing claims that very vulnerable boys and young men were not only sexually abused by Tam Paton but also that there was a paedophile ring in existence.”
Author Simon Spence uncovered links between Paton and an Edinburgh institution known as the Ponton House Lads’ Home in his 2016 book When the Screaming Stops: The Dark History of the Bay City Rollers.
Last year, he told the Scottish Sunday Express: “I interviewed over 100 people, including quite a few individuals who talked about how they were groomed and abused by Paton when they were as young as 13.”
Mr Spence was among those who urged Lady Smith and her team to look into the links between Paton and Nazareth House orphanage in Lasswade, Midlothian.
However, it is understood that most of the claims relate to council-run children’s homes in Edinburgh, which are still to be examined by the inquiry.
Last night, a Police Scotland spokesman said: “A 77-year-old man was charged on May 17, 2019 in connection with non-recent sexual offences and a report has been submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.”
FREE PRESS: The Mail assign 6 journalists the job of discrediting the witnesses to a domestic disturbance at the home of Boris Johnson. This should tell you all you need to know.
@ciabaudo
This is precisely what happened to CSA victims of VIP paedophiles
During Boris Johnson’s long tenure as Mayor of London, Tory stalwart David Russell Walters worked in the mayor’s office as Special Assistant for Education. Was Johnson unaware that such a key aide was reportedly linked to child pornography?
“Surely it can’t be true that Russell Walters, formerly employed to run the Scottish CCO … recently had his house raided by the police. And what did they allegedly find? Reams of child pornography.”
[Scallywag magazine, issue 24, 1994]
If the allegation is true, didn’t Boris Johnson as mayor have a duty to recommend Walters’ dismissal? And why was Walters appointed to such a sensitive post in the first place, given the man’s career history as an organiser of VIP sex parties?
What did Boris Johnson know about Walters’ past, and what did he do about it?
BIGGEST EVER FILTHY-RICH ORGY: WPC COPS OFF.. Royal firearms officer caught romping among 300 VIPs on giant bed at pounds 15m mansion.
MAR 20 2005
PRINCE Andrew’s female bodyguard has been caught having sex on film at Britain’s biggest VIP orgy.
Firearms cop Sarah Cox was snapped romping at the sex party alongside 300 other depraved swingers.
After tearing off her clothes, WPC Cox – who also guards PM Tony Blair at Chequers – and her cop boyfriend plunged into the orgy on a 20ft by 14 ft steel-reinforced bed.
Fever Club orgy bosses put Cox, 26, and PC Bernard Bourdillon, 36, in charge of security at the pounds 150-a- couple party in a pounds 15million London mansion.
But the police couple are regular swingers too – and as the night wore on THEY threw off their clothes and joined the throng of writhing bodies.
Thames Valley Police chiefs will be horrified by their antics and the couple – who boasted about borrowing police metal detectors to search guests – could face disciplinary action.
Only Britain’s elite, including aristocrats, politicians, civil servants and lawyers, are allowed to join the secret society, which met for its first orgy of 2005 last Saturday night.
Rich brokers from City institutions Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutschebank and Commerzbank indulged in a free-for-all with scientists, lawyers, corporate directors, a TV presenter, fashion models and an Olympic athlete.
In an undercover operation, Sunday Mirror investigators posing as security men looked on as a mass of naked men and women romped on a pink satin-covered bed in the main candle-lit “playroom”. Another 11 couples were having sex on marble-topped gilt tables, and on the floor two women were fondling each other while performing sex acts on FIVE men.
The night of debauchery began at 9pm. Guests arrived in a fleet of limousines and stepped on to a purple carpet across the pavement outside the 24-bedroom former ambassadorial residence opposite BBC Radio One’s offices in London’s Portland Place. One Italian heiress was dressed in a pounds 4,000 Dolce & Gabbana gown.
They were greeted by the party’s organisers – the men behind Fever Parties are property tycoon Jonathan Friedman, 41, and married right-wing anti-Europe politician David Russell Walters, 44.
The pair use professional events organiser Emma Sayles, 26, to front their organisation. Her father is a Cambridge-educated former Welsh Guards’ officer.
For security reasons members were ticked off a photographic guest list to make sure that there were no impostors.
Then they were searched by off-duty Thames Valley firearms cops Cox and Bourdillon using handheld metal detectors.
Their job was to take mobile phones and cameras from guests.
Dark-haired bisexual Cox wore a tight-fitting, short flower print dress and Bourdillon wore beige chinos and a blue shirt. “A couple of people got stroppy,” said Bourdillon, an armed police constable based at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. “But once we explained the need to do it they were like, ‘Oh, all right then’.”
Asked if he had found any illegal substances, Bourdillon said: “The only thing I’ve found is four Viagra. They were confiscated.”
Cox, a PC based in Windsor, Berkshire – near where Prince Andrew lives – added: “That’s our big worry. If we found anything we’d have to confiscate it because of our jobs.” Later our investigators found evidence of drugs, smuggled in by guests, in the venue’s toilets.
The party’s floor manager was also offered a powdered cocktail called Magic by a guest – a combination of pure ecstasy and speed.
In the lobby the guests were greeted by a tanned semi-naked harpist wearing a white basque and lacy stockings who later joined the sex party during her break.
The immaculately-groomed guests were then led through to a cocktail reception where they chatted politely. Celebrity DJ Dan Lywood, former boyfriend of Zoe Ball, played dance music. Beautiful guests had flown in from New York, Paris, Italy, Germany and Holland especially for the party.
At about 10.30pm the first couple followed a trail of red rose petals up the sweeping stone staircase, through oak-panelled doors into the main playroom. The woman, a marketing executive with blonde bobbed hair, stripped off to reveal a G-string and began having sex with her partner, a city banker.
A second couple played with a sex toy while being watched by a group of women. After about half-an-hour there were 60 people having sex on the vast bed, reinforced with steel plates to bear the weight.
The room, decorated by film set designers for pounds 7,000, was candlelit. Classical music played in the background. Around the bed three couples were having sex against radiators and two women fondled each other while performing sex acts on several men.
One fashion model having sex with a lawyer groaned in ecstasy. Another man fed her grapes from a cut-glass bowl, Belgian chocolates and Laurent Perrier champagne straight from the bottle while fondling her breasts.
The owner of the pounds 15million mansion, toff Edward Davenport, was filmed kissing and fondling a woman on the bed.
Davenport, a property developer who is worth pounds 133million, also has residences in Monte Carlo, Mayfair and the West Country.
He made a fortune organising debauched Gatecrasher Balls for public school teenagers in the 1980s but was later jailed for VAT fraud on tickets.
After finishing their security duties Cox and Bourdillon came upstairs. Cox took off her dress to reveal a large, tribal-style tattoo across her back and an expensive black thong and bra.
Sunday Mirror investigators saw Cox perform oral sex on Bourdillon in front of 100 naked guests while sitting on the edge of the bed. They then jumped on top to have sex with each other.
Cox later came out of the playroom wearing only a black choker and her underwear and danced provocatively with Bourdillon in the cocktail lounge.
She told our investigators: “I work as one of Prince Andrew’s protection officers. It’s a good laugh. I know he gets quite a bit of stick in the Press but he’s actually an alright bloke. He’s not so aloof with people once he gets to know them. He calls me by my first name. I work in firearms, I’m trained in that. I just have to accompany him with other protection officers whenever he’s being driven about.”
Talking about using police equipment to carry out searches at the orgy, she added: “We used the equipment from the station. There’s no problem with it because they’re not supposed to be in use.
“Next time I’ll bring some evidence bags. I could have used them to put people’s belongings in.”
Cox revealed that she is bisexual. She said: “I’m in a committed relationship so these events are good for me because it allows me to explore my sexuality.
“It can be a bit uncomfortable if I’m with Dillan (the name she uses for Bourdillon) and I see someone I fancy but who he doesn’t like because I can’t always go with them, so I just have to go, ‘Aww’.”
Bourdillon said: “We’ve been doing it for a couple of years.
“We weren’t going to work here tonight because we weren’t sure if one of us was going to be on a shift.
“It turned out all right though and Johnny (Friedman) phoned us begging to help out. We don’t mind doing it as a favour. We get in for free and have a few drinks.
“It’s the first time we’ve done an event as big as this.”
Referring to the metal detectors, Bourdillon said: “We’ve brought them from the station. There’s no problem because there are lots of them up there so even if something happens tonight they won’t be missed.”
Later he denied taking them from any police station, saying they were from “central stores”.
“No one else at the station knows that we go to parties like this.
“I don’t really mind but I don’t want them to because all they will do is take the Mick.
“I’m not really comfortable here. It’s too formal. There’s too many people.”
After deciding that was enough, they dressed, had a couple more drinks, then left.
Last night Bourdillon confirmed he and Cox had been at the party, but denied they’d been moonlighting as they were not paid.
“I certainly haven’t done anything illegal or against any codes of conduct,” he said. “We were there as a favour to friends.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Police officers must inform their chief officer if they wish to pursue outside business interests for gain, be it financial or otherwise.
“It is then down to the chief officer to give permission.
“It would be inappropriate to use police equipment in non- police matters.”
Fever owner David Russell Walters told our investigator: “We asked them (Cox and Bourdillon) to frisk people down. We didn’t pay them because they are clients of ours.
“We took it that they would come and do that a for a few hours and they would be free to enjoy the rest of the party .
“They got free entry in exchange.”
Edward Davenport said: “I was there a little bit. I am not a swinger.
“I am used to quite wild parties. But I didn’t get involved.
“I’m not embarrassed about it. They had a good-looking crowd there. Mostly models.”
graham.johnson@mgn.co.uk
CAPTION(S):
PC Bourdillon searched guests; COP ON THE NIGHT; WPC Sarah Cox stripped to bra and thong; & HER YESTERDAY; She and policeman partner deny being paid; pounds 15m mansion hosted the orgy; 1.28 last Sunday morning.. nude and semi-naked revellers writhe on the huge orgy bed – the gun cops had sex here too
33 Portland Place: halfway between Jimmy Savile’s flat and BBC/33 Portland Place: scene of sinister parties
Quote:
“In the new film Sleeping Beauty, Emily Browning portrays a student who stumbles into a shadowy sexual hinterland of rich people with gorgeous houses, who are happy to pay for extraordinary sensual experiences. While this might seem the stuff of fantasy, it is not so far removed from the lotus eating that occurred until recently at 33 Portland Place, a dilapidated 22,000sq ft Robert Adam mansion south of Regent’s Park.
33 Portland Place was the elegant backdrop for the Killing Kittens parties,licentious events attended by carefully selected members. Evenings would begin with up to 200 members arriving in masks…
The owner of Killing Kittens is good friends with Kate Middleton. The Middleton family are involved in the kinky party business – see previous posts re: Kate’s uncle Gary Goldsmith, her brother James, and the very questionable finances of her parents’ “party” business.
Emma Sayles: Killing Kittens owner & friend to Kate Middleton
Quote:
SHOCK! Kate Middleton’s former rowing partner runs Killing Kittens raunchy sex party business
Emma Sayle set up Killing Kittens in 2005
Killing Kittens parties
Sayle hosts some of her sex parties 33 Portland Place, Marylebone, London, where The King’s Speech was filmed
33 Portland Place: halfway between JIMMY SAVILE’S flat and BBC
Jonathan Fletcher is brother of David Fletcher, head of Iwerne camps and Titus Trust Trustee. JF was a frequent visitor at Iwerne, along with @justinwelby
Minister ‘spiritually abused’ the vulnerable
Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon
21 June 2019
One of the Church of England’s leading evangelical figures was banned from preaching after “spiritually abusing” vulnerable adults, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
The Rev Jonathan Fletcher, 76, was stripped of his Church powers by the Bishop of Southwark in 2017 following complaints made to the London church where he used to minister.
However, Mr Fletcher, the former trustee of Reform – the conservative movement that has led the opposition to the ministry of women and homosexuals in the Church – continued to preach around the world.
West Yorkshire child sex abuse inquiry police arrest 44
21 June 2019
Detectives investigating claims of historical child sex grooming have arrested 44 people.
Four women complained of being abused between 1995 and 2005 when they were aged between 12 and 16.
During the course of an investigation police said they had arrested dozens of people across Bradford, Leeds, Kirklees and other areas of the country.
Those arrested within the past two weeks include 36 men and three women. Five other men were arrested earlier.
West Yorkshire Police, who are dealing with the allegations, said those arrested ranged in age from 39 to 81.
All of the 44 people questioned have been released under investigation.
In a statement police said the allegations of sexual abuse centred around the time the women were children in the Dewsbury and Batley areas of Kirklees.
Det Insp Seth Robinson said: “We hope that these recent arrests reassure our local communities that we are wholly committed to tackling child sexual exploitation in Kirklees, both current and non-recent.
“Child sexual abuse and exploitation is an abhorrent and heinous crime and one which affects some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
“We would urge anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse, whether recent or historical, to report it to the police.
“Please be assured that you will be listened to, taken seriously and supported by professionals with experience of dealing with these kind of offences.”
So why did Bramall make a claim under caution which could so easily be refuted by a quick Google search? And why did the Met not query this? And why would Bramall be so at pains to distance himself from Greville Janner?
1966 Bramall and Janner’s Frank Beck both in Borneo and Bramall on Lord Mountbatten’s staff from 1963.
Frank Beck always claimed that he had carried the can for a number of other people, including one Greville Janner.
Beck was found dead in prison in May 1994 before he could do anymore mouthing off, what with all those criminal investigations in Leicester, north Wales, Islington, Lambeth…
2 RGJ Air Platoon. In the 60s infantry battalions in Borneo had an aviation platoon, with the helicopters piloted by officers from the battalion. Bramall is stood at the end of the table.
1942 Jul 19 Frank Beck Born [56] in Salisbury, the son of a train driver and the youngest of five children [more info]
Beck was raised in Thornton Heath, South London.[56]
Left secondary modern school without any qualifications.[56]
1956-1959 Beck then spent three years working on a farm before suddenly announcing that he was joining the Royal Marines. [56] [8.16]
1959 -1969 Beck spent nine years as a marine, serving in Borneo and Aden and attaining the rank of sergeant. Emerging with an honourable discharge and campaign medals, Beck apparently turned down officer training and chose instead to train as a social worker. [56] [8.16]
1966 Beck & Bramall in Borneo (Bramall Lord Mountbatten’s staff from 1963)
Bramall in Dispatches Borneo 1966 [HT @CassandraCogno]
When the Indie reported on the paedophile gangs operating within prisons, David Ramsbotham was HMI Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales. Ramsbotham was in post 1995-01.
David Ramsbotham was the son of a clergyman, John Ramsbotham, who became the Bishop of Wakefield, retiring in 1967. John Ramsbotham is one of the generation of senior clergyman whom we now know colluded with a massive child abuse problem within the Church of England.
David Ramsbotham was educated at Haileybury and the Imperial Service College. Ramsbotham entered the Army to do National Service and was commissioned into the Royal Artillary in 1953. After National Service, he retained a TA commission and then completed a degree at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
In 1958 Ramsbotham was appointed to a regular Army commission. He served in Borneo during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation, Dec 1965-66. By 1971 Ramsbotham had achieved the rank of Lt Col and from 1970-73 he served as Military Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff, Sir (Later Lord) Field Marshal Michael Carver.
Ramsbotham commanded a battalion of the Royal Green Jackets in N Ireland from 1974-75. By the end of 1978, Ramsbotham had achieved the rank of Brigadier and served again in N Ireland, commanding a brigade based in Belfast from June 1978 and was appointed CBE for his service there in the operational honours of Oct 1980.
David Ramsbotham will know a great deal about shoot to kill, the torture and sometimes murder of suspects, the law breaking that was associated with internment, the miscarriages of justice in N Ireland, the internal wars between different factions of the security services and of course the identity of those who were abusing boys at the Kincora Boys Home, as well as about the activities of the paedophile child psychiatrist who was linked to Kincora, Dr Morris Fraser, who was afforded complete protection by the British establishment.
Lyra McKee’s book on the assassination of Robert Bradford MP is to be released within a matter of weeks.
The book will explore the deeply sinister links between the slaying of Bradford and the Kincora Boys Home scandal.
@RolandMcVeigh1
Lyra McKee’s forthcoming book may raise questions of the State-sponsored assassination of a sitting Westminster MP by an MI5 agent inside the Provisional IRA? | Village Magazine
@ciabaudo
The Tory yeomanry …
…there is a connection between the NXIVM sex trafficking cult and ‘The Institute for Jewish Policy Research’ in the UK.
‘The Institute for Jewish Policy Research’s’ past directors include:
-1- The late Edgar Miles Bronfman Sr.
His daughter, Clare Bronfman, was arrested in respect of involvement with the NXIVM cult.
And his son, Edgar Bronfman Jr., was listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called black book of contacts.
-2- Lord Greville Janner, the ‘allegedly child-raping’ British peer who evaded justice.
-3- Daniel Finkelstein, the associate editor of Rupert Murdoch’s ‘Times’ newspaper (previously its executive editor). Mr Finkelstein claimed on Twitter that Greville Janner, the serial paedophile (see above), would have made an excellent leader of the British Labour party.
-4- Rabbi Julia Neuberger. Rabbi Neuberger is the sister of former UK Supreme Court president Lord David Neuberger, the eminent judge who advocated censorship of social media to suppress references to VIP paedophiles.
-5- Lord Jacob Rothschild
I wonder what is the nature of these so-called ‘Jewish policies’ that the ‘Institute for Jewish Policy Research’ spends its millions on ‘researching’?
Mr. Raniere set up a harem of sexual “slaves” who were branded with his initials and kept in line by blackmail.
19 June 2019
Keith Raniere, 58, co-founded Nxivm in the 1990s as a self-help organization based near Albany. A prosecutor told jurors that he was “a crime boss with no limits and no checks on his power.”
He was a con man who stole money and created a harem of sexual “slaves,” branded with his initials and kept in line with blackmail, prosecutors said. But he claimed he was only helping his followers reach personal fulfillment by breaking down emotional barriers.
On Wednesday, jurors in Federal District Court in Brooklyn sided with prosecutors. They found Keith Raniere, the leader of the cultlike group near Albany known as Nxivm, guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking, ending a six-week trial that exposed the sordid inner workings of the organization.
Mr. Raniere attracted high-profile followers, among them the “Smallville” actress Allison Mack and Clare Bronfman, a heiress to the Seagram liquor fortune, who helped finance its activities.
The jury deliberated less than half a day before finding Mr. Raniere, 58, guilty of all seven counts against him. The defendant, wearing a maroon sweater with dark brown elbow patches, was impassive as the verdict was read. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced on Sept. 25.
Minutes later, Ms. Oxenberg thanked federal investigators. “They saved my daughter, they saved so many other women,” she said.
Outside the courthouse, elated ex-Nxivm members celebrated and cheered Richard P. Donoghue, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, as he addressed reporters.
“Raniere, who portrayed himself as a savant and a genius, was in fact a master manipulator,” Mr. Donoghue said. “His crimes, and the crimes of his co-conspirators, ruined marriages, careers, fortunes and lives.”
One of Mr. Raniere’s lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, said he planned to appeal the verdict. “It was very obvious the jury had strong negative feelings about Keith and about certain aspects of his lifestyle,” Mr. Agnifilo said, adding, “Not everything that’s offensive translates to a crime.”
Much of the trial focused on a secret sorority within Nxivm called The Vow or D.O.S., in which women were branded, asked to adhere to starvation diets and assigned to have sex with Mr. Raniere.
As proof of their commitment to his teachings, the women handed over nude photographs and signed letters containing embarrassing secrets, which were then used to compel them to follow orders, prosecutors said.
“With his inner circle, he was the ruler in his universe,” a prosecutor, Moira Penza, told jurors during her closing statement. “A crime boss with no limits and no checks on his power.”
Mr. Agnifilo countered by telling jurors that although Mr. Raniere was involved in sexual activities that might seem “repulsive, disgusting and offensive,” that did not make him a criminal.
“You might find a lot of things about him distasteful,” Mr. Agnifilo said. “But most of them aren’t part of the charges.”
Mr. Raniere was convicted of a raft of crimes including, racketeering, sex trafficking, conspiracy, forced labor, identity theft, sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. Five women with senior roles in the group, including Ms. Mack and Ms. Bronfman, pleaded guilty to various crimes before trial.
Beyond exploiting women for sex, prosecutors said, Mr. Raniere charged more than $100,000 to the credit card of a senior Nxivm member after her death and wrote checks totaling more than $300,000 on her bank account, Ms. Penza said.
The trial was conducted under the sort of security that is usually associated with terrorists and drug lords. The jurors, whose names were withheld, were brought to and from court in vans driven by United States marshals. Many of the witnesses were identified only by their first name.
The evidence included seized documents, email messages, audio recordings and testimony from more than a dozen people, including women who had been former “slaves.”
The proceedings offered a chilling and sometimes surreal glimpse of daily life inside the highly secretive group, where Mr. Raniere was revered and appeared to exercise broad power.
Nxivm members thronged to late-night volleyball games in which he was a participant, eager to catch a glimpse of him and pay their respects. His birthday, in late August, was marked by several days of celebration called V-Week at a rustic retreat near Lake George in upstate New York.
High-ranking members of Mr. Raniere’s organization hacked into computer accounts and paid private investigators in an effort to obtain personal information on perceived enemies including Senator Chuck Schumer and the liquor magnate Edgar Bronfman Sr., whose two daughters became members of Nxivm, evidence showed.
Sometimes, witnesses said, Mr. Raniere retaliated against people who displeased him. One woman, identified in court only as Daniela, testified that all six members of her family moved to New York State from Mexico to become part of the group. Before long, she said, Mr. Raniere started sexual relationships with her, her older sister, Marianna, and her underage sister, Camila.
But when she told Mr. Raniere that she was attracted to another man, he directed that she be confined inside a room for nearly two years, convincing her family that she needed to be punished because she was “prideful.” In the end, her father and another Nxivm member drove her to the Mexican border.
Mr. Raniere co-founded Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ee-um) with Nancy Salzman in the 1990s as a self-help organization, offering courses with names like Rules and Rituals, Civilization and Human Pain. More than 16,000 eventually took the group’s classes in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
In many of the courses, men were presented as resolute “protectors” while women were described as self-absorbed and narcissistic.
Witnesses described Mr. Raniere’s views of women as deeply misogynistic. Although he had simultaneous sexual relationships with up to a dozen women within Nxivm, those women were told they could only have sex with him.
He demanded that some women starve themselves to attain the physique he found most appealing and sometimes grunted like a pig when women went to eat, according to testimony.
“I really felt like I started to hate the fact that I was a woman,” said one witness, identified as Sylvie, who joined Nxivm when she was a teenager and became a member of D.O.S.
In 2015, Mr. Raniere created D.O.S. — an acronym for a Latin phrase that roughly translates to “Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions” — as part of what prosecutors said was a scheme to provide him with a flow of submissive women.
He recruited eight women as “first-line masters,” including Ms. Mack, the actress, and considered them his “slaves,” witnesses said. Each of the eight then recruited her own slaves and those, in turn, recruited others.
The first-line members held frequent meetings inside a “sorority house,” disrobing to take naked group pictures, according to testimony. There were plans to build a “dungeon” that would include a cage in which someone who was willing to “surrender,” in the interest of personal growth, might be locked for hours or days or longer.
In one recorded conversation with Ms. Mack, Mr. Raniere meticulously planned branding ceremonies to resemble a “sacrifice,” asking at one point, “Do you think the person who is being branded should be completely nude?”
As part of the ritual, she was asked to kneel and say, “Master, please brand me. It would be an honor, an honor I want to wear the rest of my life.” Then she said she was held down while another woman used a cauterizing pen to etch Mr. Raniere’s initials near her pelvis.
“It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced,” she said.
Ms. Salzman said the women in D.O.S. were subjected to sadistic punishments, including being whipped with a leather strap or being asked to stand barefoot in the snow.
Another former D.O.S. member, identified only as Nicole, described how Mr. Raniere took her to a house, told her to disrobe, blindfolded her then tied her down to a table. He then walked around the table asking her questions about her sexual history while another person performed oral sex on her, she said.
When news reports about women in D.O.S. being branded appeared in late 2017, Mr. Raniere went to Mexico himself, stopped using his phone and switched email accounts, prosecutors said.
Ms. Salzman said he then summoned his first-line masters to a gated community near Puerto Vallarta for a “recommitment ceremony” that she believed was to include group sex.
Instead, the Mexican police knocked on the door in March 2018 with a warrant for Mr. Raniere because he had been charged with sex trafficking in the United States.
Ms. Salzman was with Mr. Raniere in a bedroom. She said he hid in a closet and sent her to negotiate with officers through a closed door. The police kicked the door down and entered with drawn guns.
More than a year later, on the witness stand, Ms. Salzman recalled that she was puzzled by Mr. Raniere’s decision to hide since it contradicted his teachings about the roles of men and women.
“I could not make sense of how that could even be in any universe where he was who I believed he was,” she said.
Christ’s Hospital School chaplain jailed over vile abuse of nine pupils across three decades
Gary Dobbie was found guilty last month of four counts of indecent assault against a boy between 1986 and 1991
12 JUN 2019
The chaplain of a top private school has been jailed for 12 years for abusing nine pupils across three decades.
Gary Dobbie was found guilty last month of four counts of indecent assault against a boy between 1986 and 1991, having already been convicted last year of abusing eight other pupils.
The 67-year-old was a teacher and chaplain at Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, West Sussex when the assaults took place.
He was sentenced at Hove Crown Court on Wednesday to 12 years in jail for all 19 offences, a court official said.
He is one of five ex-teachers convicted after police investigated complaints spanning 30 years by 22 of the school’s former students.
For the latest on trials and court cases from across Birmingham and the West Midlands, join BirminghamLive’s Court Facebook group .
Following the sentencing current headmaster Simon Reid said: “It is hard to find the right words to express the depth of our sadness and dismay, as a school community, at the dreadfulness of this situation.
“We are deeply sorry that the school failed to protect the victims of these offences and those others who were entrusted to our care during what should have been happy and settled years.
“Our apology to them is heartfelt and we hope that this conviction, the culmination of what must have been a very difficult experience in the criminal justice process, will bring some measure of comfort.
“The school today is a very different place, one in which the safety, happiness and wellbeing of our pupils is at the centre of all we do.
“Close links with local statutory agencies help ensure that our practices and decision-making are compliant, effective and open.”
In the latest trial, Dobbie’s victim told jurors it was “habitual” for him to be groped during night visits to his on-site lodgings while he was given wine and once fed smoked oysters.
Dobbie preferred to smoke cigars but would buy Turkish cigarettes for his pupil and also assaulted the boy during two school trips, at one point drunkenly lunging at him in a violent and sexual manner.
Describing him as “a very civilised man” who loved indulging in the grandeur of high church traditions, the man said the whole school would attend Dobbie’s services in the chapel four or five times a week.
He told how visiting Dobbie was an “escape” from being bullied.
But he was shown little sympathy and instead groped under his school shirt while they sat alone on a sofa.
The married father, who still battles with urges to suppress the traumatic memories, said when he confided in a fellow teacher at the school he was told to “get over it and move on”.
Dobbie was arrested while teaching at independent Shrewsbury School, Shropshire, where he worked after leaving Christ’s Hospital. He then moved to France after living in Hereford.
He was found guilty last year of 15 charges detailing multiple offences against six boys and two girls as young as 12 between 1998 and 2001.
He had denied 12 counts of indecently assaulting four boys and two girls, attempting to indecently assault a boy and two counts of indecency with a child.
Sports coach Ajaz Karim, was jailed in August for 10 years after assaulting six girls between 1985 and 1993.
In July, James Husband, also known by his middle name of Andrew, was jailed for 17 years for raping and indecently assaulting a girl as young as 14 between 1990 and 1994.
Peter Webb and Peter Burr admitted indecently assaulting pupils at the school between the 1960s and 1980s and were also jailed.
Christ’s Hospital is one of the oldest boarding schools in the country, dating back to the 16th century, and the Queen is a patron.
Pupils still wear a Tudor-style uniform of a long blue coat and high yellow socks with boarders charged fees of up to £31,500 a year.
Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sir Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb, are counted among its famous alumni.
Football coach Bob Higgins jailed for 24 years for abusing trainees
12 June 2019
A former youth football coach has been jailed for 24 years and three months for abusing young players.
Bob Higgins sexually touched and groped 24 victims, most of them trainees at Southampton FC and Peterborough United.
In May, Higgins, 66, was found guilty at a retrial of 45 counts of indecent assault between 1971 and 1996. He was convicted of another count last year.
Judge Peter Crabtree called Higgins a “predatory, cunning” serial sex abuser who “carefully groomed” the teenagers.
Higgins’ victims told Winchester Crown Court of suicidal thoughts and relationship problems later in life.
An emotional statement, read by Dean Radford on behalf of the victims on the steps of the court, said Higgins’ “arrogance was his downfall”.
“You can call us brave, you can call us courageous – we were not – we were the unlucky ones for falling into the entrapment of Higgins’s manipulative, deceitful and sexual behaviour,” it said.
During Higgins’ trial, prosecutors told the court he was “idolised” by trainees, who viewed him as a mentor and father figure.
Victims said they were abused during post-exercise soapy massages, in Higgins’ car while he played love songs on the stereo and at his home where he cuddled with boys on his sofa.
‘Severe psychological harm’
Judge Crabtree said Higgins had shown “not one jot of remorse”.
“They believed you held the key to their futures,” he told the defendant.
“You normalised cuddling and stroking, which paved the way for more intimate abuse.
“For many the impact extended to their performance on the field or to turning their backs on a football career. Some of them suffered severe psychological harm.”
Higgins made no reaction as the sentence was passed.
The allegations arose after the NSPCC set up a dedicated helpline for people who had encountered childhood abuse within football.
It was launched after a number of former footballers, including Billy Seymour, spoke on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme in November 2016.
On Tuesday, his mother Jean read his victim impact statement, written before his death, to the court.
Addressed to Higgins, it said: “I am sick to my stomach of giving you any more thought. I have been a broken man. You have debilitated my whole life.
“The mist is clearing. I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
“I will beat the hating of you in my soul. This is closure. Goodbye, Bob Higgins.”
Mr Radford had given evidence as a character witness because Higgins was found not guilty of abusing him at a separate trial in the early 1990s.
Reading the victims’ statement, he said: “There were so many warning signs out there but no-one would listen – that let this monster walk free and carry on abusing.
“We believe that many people must have known what was going on, the truth will come out in the end.
“Today is not just about us complainants and witnesses who have suffered through this nightmare, it’s the wives, girlfriends, sons and daughters who have suffered with us.”
He also paid tribute to their “dear friend” Billy Seymour.
“We did it Billy – just like you said we would, you can now rest in peace.”
‘Further allegations’
Det Ch Insp David Brown, of Hampshire Constabulary, said the conviction was “testament to the bravery of those who came forward to give evidence”.
“There can be no understanding of the damage that individual has caused to the lives of the people who stood with us through the criminal trial”.
He said the force was “assessing a number of reports” of further allegations against Higgins.
Southampton FC offered an “unreserved apology” to his victims last week.
In a statement, the club said it recognised boys under its care “suffered exposure to abuse when they should have received protection from any form of harm”.
During his time as a coach, Bob Higgins worked with young footballers who would go on to become national heroes and household names.
But others were not so fortunate.
Some were haunted by their ordeals, and gave up on football entirely.
Such was Higgins’s hold over those he abused, many felt unable to say anything, even to close family members, for up to 30 years.
Order of Canada recipient Peter Dalglish found guilty of child sex assault in Nepal
11 June 2019
An Order of Canada recipient has been found guilty of sexually assaulting children in Nepal after a police investigation and trial his lawyers describe as a travesty of justice.
Sentencing for Peter Dalglish, expected in about two weeks, could see the well-known aid worker jailed for as long as 13 years.
“This has been like watching a wrongful conviction unfold in real time,” Dalglish’s Canadian lawyer, Nader Hasan, said in an interview Tuesday. “We have deep concerns about the process here, both from the perspective of procedural fairness of the court proceedings as well as certain tactics taken by the police and the state.”
The judge, who rendered his verdict late Monday, has yet to release his reasons for the guilty finding. Dalglish, 62, has denied any wrongdoing.
Originally from London, Ont., Dalglish has spent years working around the globe. Nepalese police arrested him in the early hours of April 8 last year in a raid on the mountain home he had built in the village of Kartike east of the capital of Kathmandu. Police alleged he had raped two Nepalese boys aged 11 and 14, who were with him.
Pushkar Karki, chief of the Central Investigation Bureau, said at the time Dalglish lured children from poor families with promises of education, jobs and trips, and then sexually abused them. Karki said other foreign men in Nepal had also been arrested on suspicion of pedophilia.
“There have been some instances where they were found working with charities,” Karki told the New York Times. “Our laws aren’t as strict as in foreign countries, and there is no social scrutiny like in developed countries.”
“There ought to have been reasonable doubt,” Hasan said. “The police intimidation tactics and the police bribes and the police threats ought to have been insurmountable evidence of not just not guilty, but of actual innocence.”
Hasan said the Nepalese legal system, which operates largely in secrecy, bears little resemblance to anything in Canada _ or many other countries. Among other problems, courts do not record proceedings or produce transcripts, leading to confusion about what witnesses actually said.
His lawyers say in one incident, a witness helpful to the defence was testifying when the judge excused himself from the courtroom to go eat dinner. They say he told parties to carry on without him and that he would catch up with the court clerk afterwards.
Hasan said Dalglish’s family — his ex-wife and daughter live in the Netherlands and his brothers in Ontario — as well as friends have been standing by him. In addition, he has strong support in Nepal, where two young men he had previously mentored have been visiting him twice daily in prison in Dhulikhel near Kathmandu to take him food.
“Obviously, (it) was emotionally devastating for him –as it would be for anyone, particularly someone who is innocent,” Hasan said of the guilty finding. “But he’s a remarkably resilient human being and it’s helpful that he has a very strong support system. That helps him stay positive.”
Dalglish, who had spent years doing humanitarian work in Nepal, co-founded a Canadian charity called Street Kids International in the late 1980s. He has worked for several humanitarian agencies, including UN Habitat in Afghanistan and the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response in Liberia. He was named a member of the Order of Canada in late 2016.
In a statement emailed to Global News, Hasan said Dalglish’s family, friends and supporters were “deeply troubled” by Monday’s verdict and remain “steadfastly convinced of Peter’s innocence.”
“The local legal team in Nepal did not merely raise a reasonable doubt; they demonstrated that Peter was factually innocent,” the statement reads.
Hasan said they remain “optimistic” that Dalglish will be exonerated by Nepal’s appellate courts.
I am also intending to write a report on the time Peter Dalglish worked with Ethiopian vulnerable children during the infamous famine of 1984. I am reaching out to the publicist of Bob Geldof, who funded most of his activities for comment. If anyone has any info, please DM me.
8 May 1986
Bernard Doherty – Geldof’s publicist. Bernard Doherty was a publicist for David Bowie and Peter McCartney
CV 1996: Co-founder and CEO, LD Communications 1989: Director, Laister Dickson PR 1985: Head of comms, Band Aid/Live Aid 1981: Head of music division, Rogers & Cowan PR 1979: Press and promotions manager, Hannibal Records 1974: Tour manager and promotions, Jo Lustig Management 1972: Artist and repertoire assistant, Island Records
The head of LD Communications masterminded the publicity for Live8. Doherty’s reputation rests with his associations with The Brits, The Rolling Stones and Tina Turner. Keeping a coterie of loyal cronies, he can share gossip, safe in the knowledge he will never be betrayed and his clients will never hear. At least that was the theory until the 3am Girls stitched him up over some off-the-record remarks about Mick Jagger. Big-names are thin on the ground but he’s still first on the list for any major event.
Oxfam failed to act on reports its workers were raping girls as young as 12, damning report concludes
Senior staff failed to alert law enforcement to allegations aid workers were having sex with minors, a damning Charity Commission report concludes
11 June 2019
Oxfam failed to act on reports children were being sexually abused by its workers in Haiti in 2011, according to a major Charity Commission inquiry which concluded the allegations were “not taken seriously enough”.
A report by the Charity Commission into Oxfam GB, undertaken in response to revelations last year of sexual exploitation by its aid workers, concludes the safety of potential victims took “second place”.
It discloses a series of emails received by the NGO in 2011 alleging some workers were having sex with women and girls, including minors, in refugee camps after their homes were destroyed by the earthquake which devastated the country in 2010.
Oxfam suspected the emails were not genuine, and did not raise them with local police.
In one case, two emails dated 18 July 2011 and 20 August 2011 – both said to be from a 13-year-old Haitian girl – alleged she and a 12-year-old friend had suffered physical abuse and other misconduct at the hands of Oxfam staff.
The emails stated the girls had been engaging in prostitution and the author had been “beaten and used by two men who I know work for you”. It continued: “They also have a boss who works for you and I have not met, but my young friend. She is 12. Has had sex with him.”
The inquiry established that the emails were not raised with any law enforcement at the time and former trustees said they were not made aware of them.
Taking into consideration the “seriousness of the allegations” made in the emails, as well as the “clear risks to the safety and security of those minors” if they were true, the Commission said Oxfam “should have tried harder” and taken more steps at the time to identify the source of the concerns and follow up the allegations.
“Oxfam GB should not have taken the risk with the safety of minors. It should have reported the possibility of two girls being at risk to the local law enforcement authorities … The risk to and impact on the victims appeared to take second place and was not taken seriously enough,” it said.
The Charity Commission said that given the period of time that had passed, it would not be possible to conclude with sufficient certainty whether minors were involved or at risk.
But it raised concerns that Oxfam’s handling of these matters was influenced by a “desire to protection the charity’s reputation and to protect donor and stakeholder relationships”.
Oxfam’s chief executive in 2011 has accepted publicly that further steps could have been taken to determine whether minors were involved in the original allegations.
The findings come nearly a year after it emerged that senior aid workers working for Oxfam had used prostitutes in Haiti. Four members of staff were subsequently dismissed and three, including the country director, resigned.
The report also found that incidents in Haiti in 2011 were “not one-off” and examples of poor conduct by staff and behavioural issues dated back to June 2010.
It said failure to consistently hold people to account for poor behaviour and to ensure robust and consistent action was taken in practice had resulted in a “culture of tolerance of poor behaviour” which “likely resulted in putting victims off speaking up”.
“The risk to, and impact on, the victims appeared to take second place at times and was not taken seriously enough; victims, whistleblowers and those staff who tried to raised concerns were let down,” stated the report.
While the inquiry notes that the NGO has since made “significant progress” in improving weaknesses in its safeguarding, it said “significant further cultural and systematic change” was required to address the issues fully.
In light of the findings, the Charity Commission has exercised its legal powers and issued an official warning to Oxfam on the grounds that there has been some areas of mismanagement in relation to Haiti and its safeguarding governance prior to 2018.
Chair of trustees Caroline Thomson said Oxfam was “deeply sorry for its failure to prevent sexual abuse by its former staff in Haiti” and that it accepted it should have improved its safeguarding “further and faster”.
“What happened in Haiti was shameful and we are deeply sorry. It was a terrible abuse of power, and an affront to the values that Oxfam holds dear,” she said.
“The Commission’s findings are very uncomfortable for Oxfam GB but we accept them. We now know that the 2011 investigation and reporting of what happened in Haiti was flawed; more should have been done to establish whether minors were involved.”
The international development secretary, Rory Stewart, said: “The revelations of last year were horrifying and shone a light on fundamental problems. The Department for International Development [DFID] agrees that we must always put people first.
“DFID has driven reform and our priority remains delivering for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, while keeping people safe from harm.
“Oxfam is an important British institution that saves lives in some of the world’s toughest places. This is a long-term process, in which there are no easy answers or room for complacency. We will be working closely with both Oxfam and the Charity Commission in the coming weeks.”
Former Celtic chairman claims ‘no knowledge’ of his business links to Boys’ Club sex beast Jim Torbett
Kevin Kelly denies he was a director of the Trophy Centre which was the firm run by convicted paedophile Torbett..
10 JUN 2019
Former Celtic chairman Kevin Kelly has claimed ignorance of his business links with Celtic Boys’ Club beast Jim Torbett.
And Kelly, who was vice-chairman of the club when it investigated and then cleared boys’ club “leaders” of any wrongdoing – and was also president of the boys’ club – has told the Daily Record he has “no knowledge of the past”.
Speaking for the first time since the abuse scandal emerged, he said he had no idea that beasts Torbett and Frank Cairney were preying on children over decades on his watch.
The Daily Record revealed last month details of a 1986 probe by the Celtic FC board into allegations of boys being taken to weekend tournaments that did not exist, boys being taken out socially and boys being late home from training.
It appeared to be at odds with Celtic’s claim that the boys’ club was “entirely separate” from Celtic FC and that the club had first learned of allegations against boys’ club predators in the 1990s.
Four paedophiles linked to the boys’ club have been convicted of preying on children in recent months.
At the time of the 1986 probe Kelly, now 81, was vice-chairman of Celtic FC, president of Celtic Boys’ Club and worked for Torbett at his Trophy Centre business.
When we visited Kelly at his home, he was reluctant to discuss the abuse scandal. Asked about the 1986 probe, he said: “I’ve nothing to say about that.
“The club are looking into all these things, so I’m quite happy about that.
“No, sorry about that. As I say I’m quite happy with what’s gone to the police and everything.”
We put it to Kelly the 1986 probe by Celtic FC had cleared Torbett and Cairney of any wrongdoing and that Celtic FC had then endorsed the pair by branding the claims as “scurrilous” and saying they should be “buried once and for all”.
Many of Torbett’s victims were abused after he had been cleared by Celtic FC. Kelly said: “I’m quite happy for the club to do whatever they have to do. Those who committed crimes are in jail and that’s where they should be. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
When we asked about his directorship of the Trophy Centre – Torbett’s company – he said: “I wasn’t a director.”
We put it to him that he has a legal listing as a director of the company.
He said: “Look, I’ve no knowledge of the past, I’m sorry about that.”
Asked if he had knowledge at the time of what was going on, Kelly said: “Not at all, I’d never have joined it if I knew that.
“A lot of it is conjecture and it’s taken the police a long time, and I’ve been told by the police to stick by my statement and not to talk to anyone else until it is all resolved.”
Records show Kelly became a director of the Trophy Centre in October 1989. Torbett was first convicted of sexually abusing three boys in 1998 and jailed for two years.
But Kelly remained a director of the Trophy Centre until 2005.
Boys’ club founder Torbett was jailed in November for six years, former general manager Cairney was jailed in January for four years, fellow boys’ club coach and Celtic FC man Jim McCafferty, 73, was jailed for six years and nine months, while former chairman Gerald King was convicted of preying on children at a Glasgow school, but avoided jail.
Records also show that Kelly and Torbett were the sole directors of a now dissolved company – Panrole Ltd – set up in April 1991.
Helene Gray, 71, who’s son Andrew was a victim of Torbett at Celtic Boys’ Club, said: “There are many who held authority who continue to deny and deflect from what my son and many other young boys suffered whilst in their care at Celtic Boys Club. Their silence and denial is sickening.”
Andrew died after an accident on holiday aged 41. His testimony helped convict Torbett.
A PETITION calling for a public inquiry into historical child abuse on Caldey Island has been launched.
The change.org online petition, created by Lynwen Evans, from Mydroilin, states: “Children have been historically sexually abused on Caldey Island. When the abused later spoke out they faced nothing but judgement and dismissal. Let us pressurise the Government to investigate this abuse, so that these victims can have some closure and to stop the abuse of our children.”
It appears Kotik was never questioned by police, who were not informed of allegations against him until 2014.
In 2017 it came to light that the island had a long history of child sexual abuse after six women received compensation from Caldey Abbey in an out-of-court settlement.
Twenty-one victims have come forward to Dyfed-Powys Police, with cases going back to the 1960s.
It has come to light that the abbey was told by a victim about the abuse in the 1980s but did not report it until 2014.
Instead the abbot at the time, Robert O’Brian, asked the victim for forgiveness.
ITV Wales asked the current abbot, Brother Daniel van Santvoort for his response to the latest evidence that Kevin O’Connell was also abused on the island. Despite contacting the Brother several times, he never responded.
The Diocese of Menevia in Swansea was contacted as it has been advising the Abbey on their safeguarding policies and practices for the last 18 months.
The Bishop Tom Burns said: “the Abbey has insisted on retaining its oversight of any specific cases, past, present, or in the future.”
Lynwen, in her petition, adds: “Kevin O’Connell was one of the abused, coming to terms with it 18 months ago was when he confided in his wife of 30 years.
“He came out publicly on an emotional Welsh TV Program called Byd ar Bedwar, where he was taken back to Caldey Island to face his demons.
“The Guardian News Paper states that six other victims had been paid for their silence… Why?
“Kevin is determined that this abuse of trust is not to happen anymore and wants an investigation as to why this has been covered up for all these years.
“An investigation started 29 years ago, but nothing has come of it… We want as many signatures as possible to force the Government to continue with this investigation, and not let it be swept under the carpet for another 29 years.”
Mr Sharp urged inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith, to piece together the “jigsaw” of victims’ accounts and called for a “national discussion” on the subject.
The 60-year-old, who has waived his right to anonymity, was put into care after his mother died when he was aged one.
Tied up
He stayed in several institutions before going to the Catholic-run care home in Fife.
He told how he was groomed by one of the religious brothers, who would tell him he loved him, which “no-one had ever done” before.
The inquiry heard the then-12-year-old was later raped.
Most of the abuse was said to have taken place in the shower rooms, where the witness would be made to stand in the dark through the night as a punishment.
One attack came after he had asked about the whereabouts of a friend who had disappeared. It was later discovered the boy had taken his own life.
Mr Sharp said he was taken to the shower room by a drunken religious brother, tied-up and gagged.
The witness claimed he was hung by a cord, threatened with murder if he spoke out and was then raped.
He added: “It was from that day everything I did was under his complete and utter control.”
The inquiry heard “two or three” boys were trafficked around Scotland and Ireland at a time to be used in drink-fuelled sex parties, which he described as “satanic”.
One occasion in Ireland was said to have involved 10 men taking turns to rape the boys.
It was heard priests were among those involved and incidents took place over the duration of his time at St Ninian’s, which was run by religious order the Christian Brothers.
He left the home aged 16 without “any memory other than continually being abused”.
Drug addiction
It was then that he found out he had a family, but he did not settle and became dependent on drugs and alcohol.
He said he struggled with a “£100-a-day” habit for up to 25 years and attempted to kill himself on numerous occasions.
Mr Sharp was married for five weeks during this period, until his wife died of natural causes.
This led to him having a “breakdown” and he was taken into hospital care, where he found religion and decided to “turn his life around”.
The inquiry, before Lady Smith, continues on Tuesday.
They claimed Government inspectors should have acted to remove the victims. Records showed instances of abuse were recorded at St Ninian’s De La Salle List D school at Gartmore as long ago as 1963.
Hundreds came forward in response to the Sunday Mail’s award-winning campaign for justice for the “lost boys”. Police reported dozens more but the Crown charged only Benedict, teacher Charles McKenna, 83, and nightwatchman Jimmy McKinstry, 70, who were all sentenced to two years in jailAlthough there was enough evidence to charge seven others, the Crown Office failed to act and alleged victims are pressing ahead with a judicial review.
Two of the seven men still had contact with children.
Alan Draper, chairman of abuse campaign group INCAS said: “It is clear that abuse was covered up by all those involved
CAMPAIGNERS yesterday demanded new probes into all the Scottish schools run by De La Salle monks.
Lawyers for three men who face sentencing tomorrow after being convicted of abuse at one school claim victims had not come forward from any other institution run by the monks.
But we can reveal dozens of alleged victims claimed to have been abused at other De La Salle schools – although prosecutors refused to take their alleged abusers to court.
Emil Szula, 51, of Glasgow, was abused while a pupil at St Ninian’s school in Gartmore, Stirlingshire.
He said: “I’d give evidence in court about being assaulted.
“But the man who raped me repeatedly when I was a frightened little boy is still walking free.
“I have been told by the Procurator Fiscal’s office that they haven’t decided whether they will proceed with charges against this evil beast.”
Three former members of staff at the school – former monk Michael Murphy, 69; teacher Charles McKenna, 81; and nightwatchman James McKinstrey,
– were found guilty of 10 charges of abusing and torturing pupils at St Ninian’s last month.
A FORMER woodwork teacher who abused youngsters in his care walked free from court yesterday.
Appeal judges slashed the two-year jail term imposed on Charles McKenna, 89, by half and declared that, because of the usual rules on early release, the six months he had served was enough.
In 2003, McKenna, of Stirling, was found guilty of indecent assault and lewd conduct involving vulnerable pupils at St Ninian’s List D School in the late 1970s.
The school on the Gartmore Estate, near Stirling, was run by the de la Salle teaching order and took in boys who had committed petty offences, or who were thought to be in need of care, until it closed its doors in 1982.
McKenna’s trial heard he fondled three pupils at the school.
He was freed on bail on January 23, 2004, after appealing his conviction.
In June his appeal was thrown out.
Yesterday at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, McKenna’s counsel, Andrew Brown argued the two-year sentence was too harsh.
He also pointed out that another member of school staff, Michael Murphy, had his two-year sentence for assaults on pupils reduced to one year.
Brown also told the court that McKenna was suffering from prostate cancer and other health problems.
Lord Osborne, who took yesterday’s hearing with Lord Eassie, said, in light of what had happened since 2003, the two-year term could be seen as excessive.
He said the sentence should be cut to a year, adding: “McKenna will not require to return to custody since he has, in effect, served that sentence.”
June 2003
ABUSE TEACHER LIED TO GET JOB AT KIDS CHARITY; THE DE LA SALLE SCANDAL
A TEACHER at the heart of a school sex abuse ring lied his way into a leading children’s charity.
Predatory paedophile Charles McKenna “befriended” an eight-year-old boy after being taken on by the respected Aberlour Child Care Trust.
But the 82-year-old was banned when the trust was alerted by police investigating the abuse of boys at a List D school.
McKenna – nicknamed Lurch by boys he abused – was one of three staff found guilty at the High Court earlier this month of torturing, sexually abusing and assaulting pupils at St Ninian’s School run by De La Salle monks in Gartmore, Stirlingshire.
He was taken on by the Aberlour Trust after answering a newspaper advert looking for volunteers to become mentors to vulnerable children.
The former teacher hoped to use his charity work to show how trustworthy he was around children to help deflect a sickening catalogue of sex abuse charges.
He said he had been vetted and cleared and had spent years as a “father figure” to a child he first met when the boy was just eight. McKenna said: “I built up a father/son relationship with the boy.”
But he was stopped from seeing the boy when Central Scotland Police told him he was under investigation for sex abuse dating back to the mid- 1960s when he was teaching at St Ninian’s.
McKenna said: “The boy was told I couldn’t be his friend anymore.”
The Aberlour Child Care Trust deals with children with learning disabilities, disruptive youngsters and families torn apart by drugs and alcohol.
Last night, their Chief Executive Romy Langeland told of the charity’s horror when they discovered the truth about McKenna, who was exposed by a Sunday Mail investigation into De La Salle schools.
Ms Langeland said: “We were shocked. The problem is that these men don’t look any different from any other. People think you should be able to tell but you can’t.
“We did put him through the full vetting procedure with Scottish Criminal Records Office background checks but nothing showed. We’ve since reviewed our procedures.”
She said as soon as the police investigation emerged, the charity took immediate action to isolate McKenna.
She said: “We ensured there was no possibility of him having any further contact with the boy he befriended.
“We also took strenuous steps to investigate and there were no indications anything untoward happened in relation to the child.
“One of the best ways to protect a child is to make sure they know they can come forward with anything they feel uncomfortable about.”
The children’s charity – the biggest of its kind in Scotland – runs dozens of highly respected projects across the country providing lifelines for vulnerable families and teenagers.
Last night, child abuse campaigner Sandra Brown, of the Moira Anderson Foundation, spoke in support of Aberlour.
She said: “Regrettably, children’s charities are targeted by paedophiles to get access to vulnerable children and their families. Not only does it give them the opportunity to groom victims, it gives them access to the child protection information they often use within their sick `industry’.
“This may also have been a cynical attempt to create an alibi for past behaviour.
“The tragic consequences of incidents like this are that they discredit hardworking organisations and may cause an undeserved public backlash.”
McKenna, who will now be on the sex offenders register for the rest of his life, had applied to the charity to be a volunteer, claiming “retired life was passing me by”.
He’d seen an advert for Aberlour in a free newspaper and was accepted to befriend a vulnerable boy. McKenna had contact with the youngster for several years.
But at the end of 2000, the allegations about McKenna’s involvement in sex abuse dating back to his years as woodwork teacher at St Ninian’s came to light. He was ordered to have no further contact with the boy or his family.
McKenna, of Colquhoun Street, Stirling, had laughed off suggestions he was an evil sexual predator, describing one trembling witness as a “nice little actor”.
But the smirk was wiped off his face when he was found guilty of three child abuse charges.
His fellow-accused were also found guilty of a sickening catalogue of abuse.
Retired De La Salle monk Michael Murphy, 69, known as Brother Benedict, was found guilty of 10 charges of torture, assault, forcing children to eat their own vomit, breaking a boy’s arm and a shameful list of sadistic assaults on vulnerable children.
Nightwatchman Jimmy McKinstrey, 70, of Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, was convicted of four sexual abuse charges, despite defence protests that he was mentally retarded.
McKinstrey callously attempted to infiltrate an abuse survivors support group only months before his court appearance, claiming he’d been a victim of abuse in a Catholic home. He left when his motives were questioned.
Michael Murphy, 71, a monk known as Brother Benedict, was found guilty of ten charges of torture, assault, forcing children to eat their own vomit, breaking a boy’s arm and a list of sadistic assaults on vulnerable children.
Jimmy McKinstrey, 71, a nightwatchman of Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, was convicted of four sexual abuse charges, while Charles McKenna, 84, a teacher from Stirling, was found guilty of three offences. All three were sentenced to two years in jail.
A man convicted of sexually abusing boys during the 1970s and 1980s at a school run by monks was jailed for two years yesterday.
Charles McKenna, 83, a former woodwork teacher, was one of three men convicted of abusing boys at St Ninian’s List D school in Stirlingshire, a residential facility for troubled boys.
Sentencing McKenna in the High Court in Forfar, Lord Carloway told him that despite the offences being historic he had still abused the boys while in a position of trust.
McKenna, a former woodwork teacher, who was found guilty of three charges of sexual abuse, had consistently denied the charges against him despite a series of allegations from witnesses.
Frances Hughes, defending, told the court: “The charges are all historic in nature stretching back from 1976 to 1981 at the latest.”
McKenna, a Second World War veteran from Stirling, had, with the exception of the court case, led a “largely useful life” and had been praised by some staff and pupils at his former school for his guidance over the years.
However, Ms Hughes added that, since the closure of the school, McKenna’s life had become “largely solitary”. “He appears to have few friends and even fewer interests in life” she said.
Lord Carloway rejected a request to consider probation, telling McKenna that it was “in the public interest” to impose a custodial sentence.
On Monday, Michael Murphy, 69, of Liss, Hampshire, who was known as Brother Benedict, was sentenced in the High Court in Edinburgh, to two years in prison after being found guilty of physically abusing boys at the school.
James McKinstrey, 70, of Port of Menteith, Stirling, a former night-watchman at the school, was found guilty of four sex abuse charges and sentenced to two years.
The inquiry was told in October that more than 360 people have made complaints of physical and sexual abuse at orphanages run by Quarriers, Barnardo’s and the Aberlour Child Care Trust.
Aberlour Orphanage, the Princess Margaret Nursery and Aberlour’s Children Home in Keith will all be scrutinised as part of the inquiry.
1907 – 1953 the royal visits
With the Royal Residence of Balmoral relatively close by, Aberlour orphanage received a number of Royal visits. In 1907 Edward VII visits the orphanage followed by Edward VIII and Queen Mary in 1922. Years later, in 1953 Princess Margaret opens the Princess Margaret Residential Nursery School, an extension of the orphanage at the Dowans.
I would like to know that there has been a thorough investigation into whether there was a paedophile ring in operation on the Isle of Man during the 1970s. Clearly the manager of the
1465 children’s home was sexually abusing the children. We now know that the vicar of St Ninian’s, who the children went to on a Sunday from the children’s home, has been convicted for child abuse. We saw in the Isle of Man newspapers recently that a headmaster at Murray’s Road School … I cannot remember the details, but the newspaper article I read connected the headmaster of Murray’s Road School with child sexual abuse and the children at the Children’s
1470 Centre were sent to Murray’s Road School. So you have got a vicar, you have got a manager of a children’s home and you have got a headmaster: how many other people were involved with abusing children during the 1970s?
We know – well, I know from having spoken to interviewees who were at the children’s home in the 1970s – that children were abused when they went on holiday to the UK under
1475 Mr Marshall, so did this extend out into a UK-wide ring?
My name is Dave Sharp and I am a survivor and a campaigner of historical child abuse.Just after I was born my mother died and I was put into the care of the Catholic church where I spent the first 16 years of my life. I was moved about a lot from home to home and even to this day I cannot seem to get hold of my records to finally be able to know where I actually was.
What I do know is that I was in Nazareth House Kilmarnock and also Nazareth house in Bonnyrigg and at the age of 10 I ended up in St Ninians in Fife which was run by the Catholic order the Irish Christian Brothers.
Almost from the day I arrived I started being abused…
Lord Janner, haranguing a group of ex-care children, Broadoak School, Weston! Me nearest to camera at front!
This photo shows me and other ex care home children meeting Lord Janner, which was the prize for writing an essay on our care home experiences. I am slumped, sitting on a desk. Before he would start talking, Janner made the boys unstitch the school badges from their blazers so
I am the girl with long hair and short skirt, sitting on the desk nearest to the camera. Meeting Janner was the prize for writing an essay on our experiences in care. First, Janner made the boys unstitch the school badges from their school blazers so the school couldn’t be traced in any photos that were taken.
Then Janner talked for hours, asking us to repeat any unkind words used against us, names he would constantly throw at us to undermine us. He then took us aside individually and abused some of us. Afterwards I stitched badges on.
…no one could locate the school in any photos. He asked us to repeat cruel names we had been called but kept on using these names against us until we lost all confidence. He saw some of us individually and abused some of us.
The male teacher seen in this photo knew Janner from his time working in Leicester and had set up this meeting. We were told to wear clothes that we might have worn in care, but I seemed to be the only one so scruffily dressed! After the one to one sessions, I was made to sew badges back on for the boys, through my tears
@InquiryCSA I was told by police from Operation Hydrant that I would be eligible for core participant staus if I wanted to attend the inquiry. My mental health is too precarious for me to do that. Just examine what I have told you. There are 13 children in the photo with Janner.
I wonder how many survived?
The awful truth is the Janner attack at Broadoak school was, and probably still is, so dangerous to the school’s reputation that it will always be covered up. If it ever hit the press, who would ever send their child there?
………………………..
Jill Dando attended Broad Oak school in the 1980s. In her youth, she wrote a letter to Jim’ll Fix It.
Home Office ‘tells Met Police it will fund hunt for Madeleine McCann for another year’ in investigation that has already cost nearly £12million
Detectives have been given another year’s worth of funding into disappearance
Over £11.75million has been spent on the UK inquiry since it launched in 2013
New probe was launched after official Portuguese investigation was closed
5 June 2019
The Home Office has given the Metropolitan Police enough funding to investigate missing toddler Madeleine McCann’s disappearance for another year, sources claim.
Detectives asked for more money to investigate the three-year-old’s disappearance in March.
More than £11.75million has already been spent on trying to find the toddler since she went missing from her parents’ holiday apartment in Portugal on May 3 2007.
But today Sky sources claimed police have been given the green light to spend even more public money on the probe, which began in 2013 after the Portuguese inquiry was closed.
At the end of 2018 her parents Kate and Gerry McCann, both 50, from Rothley, Leicestershire, vowed never to give up hope of finding their daughter in an emotional online message.
The family’s spokesman said in a statement: ‘Kate and Gerry are extremely grateful to the Metropolitan Police for making a new funding application and whilst they know it is not guaranteed they are hoping it will be approved.
‘It shows that officers are still doing everything they can to get a resolution after all this time. And it gives them hope that one day they may finally find out what happened to their daughter.
‘It gives them belief there is still work left to be done.’
£12m of our taxes have already been spent searching for Maddie. What is so special about this case? The #McCanns left THREE toddlers home alone. If they had been working class parents, and not doctors, they would have been prosecuted for child neglect.
Three sex abuse victims name same businessman
Two men have broken their silence to claim they were sexually abused by the same Enniskillen businessman in a suspected paedophile ring over 30 years ago.
The latest revelations about Fermanagh’s dark past comes as the Police Service of Northern Ireland confirms it is now reviewing 19 historic sex abuse cases in Fermanagh. Seven of these cases relate to suspected child abuser and former Ulsterbus driver David Sullivan. It follows a long-running investigation by this newspaper that is set to continue in the coming weeks.
In today’s Impartial Reporter, two men, both of whom came forward separately, claim the now retired businessman sexually abused them while a third alleged victim has claimed the same businessman was in a house moments before he was drugged and raped by Sullivan.
The alleged abuser who two alleged victims say knew Sullivan still lives in Fermanagh, is well known in the business community and held significant positions of trust in the past.
None of the alleged victims know each other; one is based in Belfast, the other in England, and the third still lives in the county. They are from different backgrounds and would have never met.
Paul (not his real name) claims he was first sexually abused on the Ulsterbus Sullivan used to drive to and from local schools when he was 11 years old. He is the second alleged victim of sex abuse on board Sullivan’s Ulsterbus to come forward.Translink has previously declined to comment due to the ongoing police investigation.
“The last drop off was in Hillview, I was the last one on the bus. He pulled over there. He was going on about how he was into model aeroplanes and model cars, and all the rest. He touched me then he made a joke about it. That was it. He parked the bus and went into his house.”
Paul, who is now 40, had first met Sullivan while out fishing at a jetty near Cornagrade.
“It was right where the police station is. He told me he remembered bringing me to Castle Archdale on the school bus. He came back with a Tab cola and a packet of crisps,” recalled Paul.
Sullivan befriended Paul’s mother who was in the same mobility club as him. He recalls him telling his mother he had work for him to do such as painting and gardening.
“He’d say ‘have a wee beer’ when I was 12, 13. It started from there. He was touching me, watching pornographic videos, taking his thing out and masturbating in front of me and other young boys. I would be there for 10 minutes on my own, he’d go off and he’d bring other adult men over. I wasn’t there for that, I was there for the money.” He recalls first meeting the Enniskillen businessman at Sullivan’s house in Lisbellaw.
“I recognised him from my mother bringing me into his business. He was constantly staring down between my legs. He was a creep. We were sitting there and the beer came out, before I knew it he was over to me and opened my belt, put his hands down my trousers and grabbed my privates.”
He claims there were two other adults in the room and four children from Tamalght, Lisbellaw and Coleshill who he claims were abused at the same time.
Paul was given alcohol by Sullivan after being asked over to paint his mother’s skirting boards in her home in Enniskillen when she was away. A short while later he woke up to find the Enniskillen businessman sexually abusing him as Sullivan sat watching from another room.
On another occasion he was abused by Sullivan in his car and claims the abuse also took place across the Border in counties Leitrim and Monaghan.
He believes Sullivan had managed to ‘groom’ the police, too. “I got stopped by police driving a car at a checkpoint in Enniskillen when I was 15, Sullivan came up behind in another car, a red polo. He flashed the lights at me as if to say ‘don’t worry’. He stuck his head out of the window and the cop said ‘OK, go on ahead’. “The cop actually tapped on the top of Sullivan’s car as he drove by,” said Paul.
Now he intends to speak to police. “I think that Enniskillen businessman should be brought before the courts before it is too late to give people a peace of mind. I will absolutely go to the police now,” he told this newspaper.
Chris (not his real name) was 15 when he was first sexually abused by Sullivan after thumbing for a lift near Maguiresbridge.
“It was Spring, Summer and I was looking for a lift to Lisbellaw. It was quite busy, a lot of cars went by, then this man stopped. I recognised him from driving the school bus.
“He started driving and said to me, ‘What’s a good looking fella like you out thumbing for?’ and within minutes he started rubbing my leg, then he put his hand up further and asked me to show him my penis. I said no, I told him he was making me feel uncomfortable. Then he said he would take his out. He kept grabbing me. I was shaking,” recalled Chris, who is now 47. After arriving in Lisbellaw, Chris managed to get away from Sullivan. Several months later he would meet the alleged child abuser again.
He was in a pub in Lisbellaw with his friends when he spotted Sullivan. He froze as the former youth club leader summoned him outside. “He wanted to explain what had happened in the car the last time he saw me. He told me to go to his house which was a few yards away,” he said.
When Chris walked into the front door of the house another man whom he believes was the same Enniskillen businessman was sitting on a seat drinking and smoking cigarettes. “Sullivan asked me if I wanted a drink. I said no and sat down on the settee. Then he said ‘I am sorry about the other time’. He said ‘I want to see all that you’ve got’ and as he said that the other man went out of the room. I was left alone with Sullivan.”
After accepting a cup of tea Chris said he felt himself “getting drowsy” and believes Sullivan may have “put something in my drink”.
“I got drowsy all of a sudden and he started fondling me. Then he raped me, it was horrible, it lasted 10 or 15 minutes. I was screaming and roaring, I just wanted someone to help me but nobody heard me. The other man could have been there too, for all I know.”
He never went to police at the time but will now make a formal statement.
A third victim was 13 or 14 when he was allegedly abused by the Enniskillen businessman in toilets at Nugent’s Entry in the town, around 1988. “I don’t remember what I was wearing but he started touching me while pleasuring himself. I recognised him from a business my mother used to bring me into. I used to get angry at her for taking me there.”
He too intends to report this man’s name to police.
Speaking yesterday (Wednesday) Detective Chief Superintendent Paula Hilman said: “The enquiry into historical sexual abuse in Fermanagh is currently reviewing 19 cases dating back to 1963. Seven of these cases relate to David Sullivan.
“We are taking all of these reports very seriously and I would encourage anyone who has been a victim to please come forward and speak with us. Please be assured that we will make it as easy as possible for you. You do not have to come to a police station. You can report directly to the police via 101 or through a dedicated email address at historicalabuse@psni.pnn.police.uk and we will arrange to meet at a time and place that best suits you. Please don’t suffer in silence, come and speak to us,” she told this newspaper.
Half of all top IRA men ‘worked for security services’
Half of all senior IRA members in the Troubles were working for intelligence services, a secret dossier of evidence into the murder of two RUC men has claimed.
The remarkable document has laid bare a startling series of claims about the infiltration of both the police and terror groups during the ‘Dirty War’.
It claims the IRA ran agents in the RUC and also that Dundalk Garda station was regarded by British intelligence as “a nest of vipers”, with at least two officers actively assisting the Provos.
The information is contained in a secret 24-page document in the name of Ian Hurst — a British intelligence whistleblower — which has been seen by the Belfast Telegraph.
The sensational claims are due to be made to Justice Peter Smithwick’s Dublin tribunal of inquiry into the murder of two senior RUC officers in 1989.
The victims, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan, died in a hail of IRA gunfire as they crossed the border following an intelligence exchange with the Garda in Dundalk.
The dossier also claims:
The shadowy Force Research Unit (FRU) had a file on suspected rogue gardai prepared to pass information to the IRA and act as its agents. MI5 also had a network of agents with the Garda.
The IRA had a network of informants in public agencies such as social security offices and vehicle licensing departments.
One in four IRA members was an agent, rising to one in two among senior members.
Martin McGuinness was involved in all strategic military decisions taken by the IRA.
At the centre of the web of intrigue sat the IRA’s head of internal security, the agent known as Stakeknife, who took information from rogue gardai while himself working for British intelligence.
Perhaps the most shocking claim is that a rogue Garda Sergeant leaked intelligence to Stakeknife. Stakeknife has been identified as Freddie Scappaticci, a veteran Belfast republican.
Scappaticci has strongly denied working for British intelligence and said he had cut his links with the IRA in 1990. He is legally represented at the Smitwick Tribunal and is now considering giving evidence in person.
Last night Mr Hurst refused to comment on the document.
He said: “I believe that this was made public to mess me about. I cannot comment on it because of an injunction preventing me from giving details of my career in special forces.”
Mr Hurst worked in military intelligence between 1981 and 1990, spending most of that time in the FRU, responsible for handling agents and informants in Irish paramilitary groups. The injunction has been varied to allow him to give evidence to Smithwick in Dublin.
However tribunal lawyers are insisting that he give his testimony in closed session, something he suspects is part of a deal with the British authorities to limit potentially embarrassing disclosures.
One of the alleged rogue officers in Dundalk has already been indentified. Owen Corrigan, a detective sergeant, was named by Jeffrey Donaldson under Parliamentary privilege. Mr Corrigan, now retired, has always denied the allegation and appeared at the tribunal to reject them. He is one of three gardai, two based in Dundalk and one in Donegal, named in the document.
In the document Mr Hurst says “the fact that a Garda was passing information to the IRA did not bother me anymore or any less than in the same way members of the RUC/UDR/BA (British Army) occasionally passed information to the IRA and regularly to members of various loyalist paramilitaries.”
Mr Hurst assisted John Stevens’ inquiry into security force collusion with terrorists in Northern Ireland.
The document states Lord Stevens told him that of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested, only three were not security force agents, and some worked for several agencies.
Background
The Smithwick Tribunal is examining claims that members of the Irish police or other employees of the Irish State colluded in the murders of the two most senior RUC officers to die in the Troubles. Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Supt Robert Buchanan were shot dead while returning from a meeting at Dundalk Garda station in the Republic. The tribunal has so far heard evidence from a number of witnesses, some of whom have alleged that members of the Garda passed information to the IRA.
A MAN FROM THE DARK CORNER OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Doubts about Ian Hurst’s reliability were dispelled after I published stories based on his information back in 1999.
The first, an unlikely sounding tale claiming military intelligence had doctored bullets used to shoot Gerry Adams, was immediately confirmed by the Defence Advisory Committee. After that he was arrested, and I was questioned under caution.
For a time I gave him the pseudonym Martin Ingram to obscure his identity, but now that alias has been dropped.
He was the first member of the Force Research Unit (FRU) — the dark corner of military intelligence which ran agents in terrorist groups — to speak publicly.
He had two tours of duty in Northern Ireland. Between 1982 and 1990 he was in Londonderry handling agents like Frank Hegarty, an IRA quartermaster later murdered for betraying a cache of Libyan weapons, and Willie Carlin, who got out just ahead of the execution squad.
A second tour was in Enniskillen between 1990 and 1991. There he met his wife, from a Donegal republican family. That affected his vetting and he bought himself out of the Army in 2003.
Penetration of the Provisionals
Mr Hurst was responsible for handling agents in the IRA and for a time had enhanced access to other agents’ reports, though not their names, on military intelligence computers. He has painted a picture of an organisation penetrated at almost every level and with its head of security, Stakeknife, working for the other side. The document says: “As a rough guide you should expect one in four PIRA volunteers to be agents of one agency or another.” Lord Stevens (above), the former Met chief, is quoted as
saying that only three out of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested in a collusion probe in Northern Ireland were not working for either the RUC, MI5 or the Army. The document claims that Hurst secretly taped a conversation with RAF Air Vice Marshal Andrew Vallance, who was quoted as telling him that the most sensitive matter was the identity of Stakeknife and his role as a British agent.
IRA agents within the Garda
The document claims that the FRU had a file on suspected rogue gardai prepared to pass information to the IRA and act as its agents. It names three people who were allegedly on the list, two in Dundalk and one in Donegal. It quotes Basil Walsh, a senior Garda officer who Mr Hurst met in 1999, as saying he was aware of one named Garda who worked for the IRA. Mr Walsh allegedly told him “that every time something was done to try and eradicate the mess something happened to intervene”. The document also claims MI5 had a network of agents with the Garda. MP Jeffrey Donaldson has named retired detective sergeant Owen Corrigan under Parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons in April 2000, as being a “rogue garda”. Mr Corrigan denies all allegations of collusion. Last week former agent Kevin Fulton claimed Corrigan was passing information to the IRA and was regarded as a “friend” of the group
Role of McGuinness in the IRA
MR Hurst once backed claims that Martin McGuinness reported to MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency. This was based on a document passed to him, and accepted by him in good faith, after he left the Army but which appears to have been a forgery. The document does not repeat that claim but it does put Mr McGuinness in a central role in the IRA. It states the IRA’s “security unit came under the operational command of Northern Command” and adds “the person in charge of that unit throughout the entire Troubles was PIRA member Mr James Martin McGuinness”. It accuses McGuinness of being “directly involved in matters of life and death for persons rightly or indeed wrongly suspected of informing on PIRA members. Mr McGuinness was also a key player in the long-term strategic strategies used by PIRA”. McGuinness has always denied such a leading role and stated that he left the IRA in the early 1970s.
Republican intelligence gathering
It is claimed that the IRA had a network of informants in public agencies such as social security offices and vehicle licensing, North and South. This echoes claims by Martin McGartland , a former RUC agent in the IRA. One section of the document reads: “PIRA was extensively penetrated at all levels, most sources of the information to PIRA were readily identified (by military intelligence) but seldom compromised.” To back up its claims that the intelligence services turned a blind eye to IRA intelligence sources, it claims that in the early 1990s a FRU agent was targeted by the IRA with the help of a social security employee who is still working in the same office. It claims that the IRA could informally “obtain information from driver licensing, social security, councils, utilities far quicker than the FRU”, especially in cross-border areas where red tape was involved in working through the RUC and Garda.
Stakeknife, the Army’s key agent
Stakeknife was a key military intelligence agent within the IRA, a man with a hotline of his own which gave him direct contact with dedicated handlers in an office known as the ‘rat hole’. When he called, he identified himself with a code number, but Mr Hurst learned his true identify by chance while manning the phone. Stakeknife had been caught drink-driving and gave uniformed police the hotline number in an effort to extricate himself. Hurst vouched for him, and it has been claimed that Stakeknife was Freddie Scappaticci, though Mr Scappaticci strongly denies this. The document expands on Stakeknife’s role as head of the IRA internal security. It claims he controlled IRA agents in the Garda. The most corrosive suggestion which Justice Peter Smithwick will have to consider is that officers Breen and Buchanan were allowed to die rather than risk compromising the Army’s most important agent in Ireland.
The web of collusion and spies
MR Hurst has frequently claimed some members of the RUC, UDR and Army colluded with terror groups. The statement portrays a wilderness of mirrors in which every organisation has the other penetrated to some degree and “all sources have a shelf life”. It talks of British agents in the Garda, Garda agents in Northern Ireland, IRA agents in the RUC and Garda and RUC agents in the IRA. It states “the fact that a Garda was passing information to the IRA did not bother me any more or any less than in the same way members of the RUC/UDR/BA (British Army) passed information to the IRA and members of various loyalist paramilitaries. It was a matter for HQNI and the RUC and way above my pay grade … in other words it was a strategic and not a tactical problem”. It concludes that none of this “registered massively on the Richter scale, it was just a fact of life, indeed it was well within the rules of our game!”
The document states Lord Stevens told him that of 210 terrorist suspects he arrested, only three were not security force agents, and some worked for several agencies – a proxy war fought in NI by shadowy competing westminster groups
Jimmy Savile was a guest of Celtic in 1987 and was hailed as a “staunch supporter”, only months after a club dismissed allegations of widespread abuse as “scurrilous”.
My office has received several letters from constituents calling for a public inquiry into Celtic boys club. We are looking at the matter very carefully. This story would appear to strengthen the case for a full inquiry
Cathedral music director Scott Farrell admits child sex offences
29 May 2019
A former cathedral music director has admitted child sex offences.
William Scott Farrell, 48, who worked at Rochester and Ely Cathedrals, showed children pornography in his flat before carrying out sexual acts, said police.
Farrell, of Wouldham, near Rochester, admitted three counts of gross indecency with a boy under 16, two counts of voyeurism and one count of taking indecent images of a child.
He was bailed and is due to be sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court.
The counts of gross indecency, which relate to three different victims, all happened in Ely, Cambridgeshire, where Farrell was assistant organist.
The remaining three offences were committed during Farrell’s time at Rochester, where he was director of music.
‘Great bravery’ of victims
Police began to investigate Farrell after receiving reports in November 2017.
It was alleged Farrell befriended children under his supervision at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire between 1999 and 2001.
Farrell was arrested and suspended from his role at Rochester Cathedral during investigations.
Devices were seized from his house which showed voyeuristic images and videos believed to have been shot on hidden cameras in bathrooms and bedrooms, some at his flat and others at different homes.
Police also found 135 category C indecent images – category A being the most severe – which Farrell had taken himself.
Det Con Claire Bamford, from Cambridgeshire Police’s Child Abuse Investigation and Safeguarding Unit, said the victims showed “great bravery in speaking out about the abuse they suffered at the hands of Farrell”.
In a statement, The Dean of Rochester Cathedral, Rev Canon Philip Hesketh said: “We are truly sorry to these victims for what has happened and for what they have experienced.”
He said a review would “examine the circumstances” of how the church responded to the offences.
SEOs: Dr Colin Parsons MBE, Bill Thomas General Secretary: Paul Melville Academic Registrar: Dr Kevin Morgan Bursar: Derek Matthews Patrons: Dame Dr Evelyn Glennie CH DBE, Revd Canon Beaumont Brandie MBE, Prof Dr Ian Tracey, Dr Carol Williams, Dr Kemp English, Scott Farrell, Donald MacKenzie, Elizabeth Stratford, Andrew Whelan, Peter Wright
Malcolm Archer (Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College), an honoury fellow of the NMSM for many years, also became a patron of the School.
Having been Principal of the School since its inception, in 2004 Professor Dr Colin Parsons retired from the post to allow ‘new blood’ to bring in new skills and experiences. Dr Stephen Oxley took over as head of the NMSM in 2006, establishing a new ‘layer’ of Advisory Executive Management. He brought in two new patrons – Lord Warleigh of Devon, Sir David Lumsden. Malcolm Archer (Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College), an honoury fellow of the NMSM for many years, also became a patron of the School.
In April 2008, David Smalley took over the position of Principal and Dr Carol Williams (USA) and Donald MacKenzie (London) were appointed as patrons. Following a postal ballot, the School decided not to pursue QCA status as members wished it to remain independent and be able to offer its specialised academic assessments.
In December 2009, the NMSM opted to modernise its structure, and Prof Dr Ian Tracey (Livepool Cathedral) became the School’s new President.
In 2013, Dr Carol Williams took over as School President, and in 2016, Malcolm Archer became the School’s new President
Convicted paedophile Scott Farrell is an alumnus of Dover Grammar School for Boys as is convicted paedophile Stephen Madge
In the mid-Eighties, Stephen Madge, who attended Dover Grammar, became Director of Music at St.Martin’s School, Northwood, where he also taught geography. https://contactout.com/Stephen-Madge-76498937…
The charity Madge worked for is Janmarek Music Foundation, now disbanded:
Stephen Madge who repeatedly abused teenage boy while involved in charity project jailed
MAY 7 2019
A paedophile who repeatedly abused a child while involved in a charity project more than 20 years ago has been jailed.
Stephen Madge, from Sevenoaks, was convicted of six counts of indecent assault at Maidstone Crown Court after targeting a teenage boy during the 1990s.
Allegations of abuse were first made to Kent Police in November 2014, when it was reported that Madge, 62, had been responsible for multiple offences during his charity work.
He was said to have developed an obsession with the victim, who he came into contact with in 1993 and repeatedly abused him throughout the year.
Officers arrested him at his home in Bradbourne Vale Road, Sevenoaks, in May 2015 and despite denials of any wrongdoing Madge was charged with six counts of indecent assault.
He pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial, where a jury unanimously found Madge guilty on all counts.
He was today sentenced to six years imprisonment, with an extended licence period of a further year.
Madge was also made subject of a sexual harm prevention order and added to the sex offenders register, both for indefinite terms.
Stephen Madge, a conductor of St Andrews Cantata based in Hever & founder of now disbanded charity Janmarek Foundation which he set up to invite choirs from Poland and also offer scholarships, jailed for 6 years for abusing teenage boy in 1990s: http://bit.ly/2DWWbGJ
Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette – Thursday 22 May 1986
Jeremy Hanley, MP for Richmond and Barnes whose son is at St Martin’s Prep School in Moor Park Road, Northwood, is to host a fund-raising reception at the House of Commons
for 200 school parents.
(paedophile) headmmasterJohn Mash
April 5 2016
John Mash, former headmaster of St Martin’s Preparatory School in Northwood, has avoided imprisonment despite admitting 7 counts of indecent assault on boys under 14.
Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette – Wednesday 15 April 1987
Angry parents hit out at the sentence passed on a teacher convicted of indecently assaulting a Northwood schoolboy. Stephen Madge, a former master at a fee-paying school in Northwood was released from prison on a two-year probation order with a condition that he undergoes psychiatric treatment….
Scott Farrell (Director of Music)
Educated at Dover Grammar School for Boys, Scott Farrell took up the organ at the age of thirteen & by the age of sixteen had passed his Associateship of the Royal College of Organists. In 1989 Scott went up to Royal Holloway, University of London as Organ Scholar to read music. He then pursued post-graduate studies at the Institute of Education, University of London combining this with the post of Assistant Organist at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge.
In 1993, Scott took up the post of Assistant Director of Music at St Edmundsbury Cathedral & then in 1999 moved to Ely Cathedral as assistant to Paul Trepte. Whilst here, he undertook tours radio broadcasts and recordings with the choir alongside concert platform performances with the Britten Sinfonia & as Musical Director of Ely Choral Society.
In 2002, the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas, Newcastle upon Tyne claimed Scott’s services as Organist & Master of the Music. It was here that Scott formed a strong relationship with Regent Records, releasing three discs with the Cathedral Choir & a solo organ disc, Vol VIII in Regent’s The English Cathedral Series to critical acclaim (“Nimble playing from Scott Farrell” BBC Radio 3 Record Review). Scott built the reputation of the choir such that they were invited back to the Radio 3 Choral Evensong schedule as well as to perform regularly with the Royal Northern Sinfonia alongside guest appearances with the Mediaeval Baebes & Fine Arts Brass.
In 2008 a new chapter opened as Scott moved to Rochester, the second most ancient Cathedral in England, founded in 604 AD, where he was responsible for all music in the Cathedral until 2018. Under Scott’s leadership, the choir were regular broadcasters on BBC Radio 2, 3 & 4, as well as Classic FM & appearances on television.
The choir released five discs, including three for Regent Records, including Sing Alleluia, Christmas from Rochester and A Year at Rochester, as well as The Rochester Mass with the James Taylor Quartet; a true crossover between the worlds of cathedral music & acid jazz.
Under his direction, the choir toured widely including participating in the Victoria International Arts Festival in Malta three times. They were also invited to the Internationale Chorbiennale, Aachen, Germany to sing in performances of Britten’s War Requiem and enjoyed three Christmas tours to Germany & Holland.
Recent concerts saw the choir join forces with English Touring Opera, London Concertante, The King’s Singers, The Sixteen and, most unusually, the James Taylor Quartet in the Queen Elizabeth Hall & Ronnie Scott’s, the world-famous Jazz Club.
As a solo organist, Scott has recorded discs on the organs at St Edmundsbury, Ely, Newcastle and Rochester. Solo recitals have taken Scott to Sweden, Malta and also Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Temple Church, and the Cathedrals of Liverpool, Canterbury, Chichester and St. Paul’s amongst others.
In October 2017, Scott was awarded an Associateship of the Royal School of Church Music in acknowledgement of his work in cathedral music as well as for the RSCM.
19th August, 1988 at 5 pm – Evensong in St. Paul”s Cathedral
At the organ was 17 year old Scott Farrell who has now played in Westminster Abbey, York Minster and St. Paul’s, with Canterbury to follow in October.
27th October in the Cathedral Church of Christ, Canterbury.
The organist was Scott Farrell of the sixth form who excelled himself and after service played a voluntary that suggested he was reluctant to leave such a splendid instrument.
Scott Farrell.A.R.C.O. (1982-89) who, under Adrian Boynton’s training and direction, has played on the organs of all the cathedrals the choir has visited, has gained an organ scholarship for a Bachelor of Music course at The Royal Holloway and Bedford New College in Egham. Surrey.
Ave verum Mozart Prelude and Fugue in G Major J S Bach Missa brevis Pancti Joannis Haydn Introduction and Passacaglia Regcr Mass in G Major Schubert
by the choir of Dover Grammar School for Boys with Scott Farrell, Old Pharosian, at the organ: and with Treble, Tenor and Bass soloists from Canterbury Cathedral, most memorably the treble voice of Benjamin Warn, aged 13.
This concert took place in the lovely Norman church at St Margaret’s at Cliffe on 17th July at 8 pm Conductor: Richard Davies the school’s master of music.
Scott Farrell showed his expertise on the quite excellent organ at St Margaret’s.
Choristers from Dover were among those who attended the wedding at Milton Keynes of Adrian Boynton, former Director of Music at our school. Adrian married Jillian Britton at the Milton Keynes City Church of Christ the Cornerstone, where he is in charge of the music, and she is a member of the choir. Members of the Dover Chamber Choir, representatives from the Dover Operatic and Dramatic Society and some of the local soloists went to the wedding.
Adrian composed much of the music for the ceremony, including the introit as the bride arrived, an anthem and a choral piece, and he conducted some of the music. Also taking his turn at conducting was SCOTT FARRELL (1982-89) who is now assistant director of music at Ely Cathedral.
MR. STEPHEN MADGE is a MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT from SEVENOAKS KENT. This person was born in March 1957, which was over 62 years ago. MR. STEPHEN MADGE is BRITISH and resident in ENGLAND. This company officer is, or was, associated with at least 2 company roles.
Their most recent appointment, in our records, was to ENGAGING WITH BUSINESS LIMITED on 2013-08-19.
Former Cripps learning and development manager jailed for historic indecent assaults against teenage boy
Law firm ‘horrified’ to learn about Stephen Madge’s conviction
A former learning and development manager at recently-merged Cripps Pemberton Greenish (CPG) has been sentenced this week after being found guilty of six counts of indecent assault against a teenage boy.
Stephen Madge, who worked for CPG as an external consultant from January 2016 until April 2019, was sentenced yesterday at Maidstone Crown Court to six years in prison, with an extended licence period of a further year.
As reported by Kent Online, the allegations, first made to the Kent Police in November 2014, concerned abuse by Madge of a teenage boy while involved in a charity project during the 1990s.
Following the allegations, Madge — who according to his LinkedIn page (seemingly now deactivated, though Legal Cheek has retained screenshots) has worked for Holman Fenwick Willan (now HFW), Squire Sanders (now Squire Patton Boggs) and RPC — was arrested in May 2015 at his home in Sevenoaks and was charged with six counts of indecent assault. He was subsequently found guilty on all counts.
In addition to the sentence of six years in prison, Madge, aged 62, has been made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and has been added to the sex offenders register, both for indefinite terms.
Responding to the news, Gavin Tyler, managing partner at CPG, told Legal Cheek:
“We were horrified to learn about Stephen Madge’s conviction, and his sentencing [yesterday], for such shocking offences. Our knowledge of Mr Madge was in his capacity as a respected legal education and training specialist, used by many law firms besides ourselves. He worked for us as an external consultant from January 2016 to April 2019. We did not know about his offending, the charge and his conviction until after his contract ended.”
Stephen Madge (attended Dover Grammar 1968-76)
1979
At Oxford on 2 February K. H. R. met David Sheasby (Geography), Andrew Sims (Geology), Marcus Longley (History) and Stephen Madge (Geography). Stephen is training a choir at Oriel and achieving very high standards.
Stephen Madge (1968-76) is moving in September to St. Martin’s School, Northwood as Director of Music. He will also teach geography throughout the school.
under the direction of Stephen Madge asisted by Julian Poore and Jeremy Banks on trumpet.
1985:
Stephen Madge is Director of Music at St. Martin’s School, Northwood. Over a hundred boys are learning to play instruments and the choir has sung Evensong in Norwich Cathedral.
Head of St Martin’s School, Northwood, avoids Jail for Sexual Abuse
April 5 2016
John Mash, former headmaster of St Martin’s Preparatory School in Northwood, has avoided imprisonment despite admitting 7 counts of indecent assault on boys under 14.
The 79 year old was appointed headmaster of the boarding school in or around 1980. He used his position to sexually abuse young boys in his care. Mash would enter the dormitories at night and sexually abuse the young boys whilst they were in their beds. The headmaster preyed upon young boys who had been sent to the boarding school by their parents for an enriching education. Instead, they were abused by Mash for his own desire.
Mash received a sentence of 2 years imprisonment suspended for 2 years and a 2 year supervision order. He was also sentenced to 1 year in prison, suspended for 2 years, at Isleworth Crown Court on 1 April 2016. He is also required to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years.
The police commended the 4 survivors for their courage in coming forward. The school had over 200 pupils at the time that Mash worked there. It has been commented upon that Mash may have abused more than the 4 individuals who have bravely spoken out against him.
Barrister misled court to block abuse trial, claims Tory MP
Cheryl Gillan alleges QC failed to disclose evidence to judge, blocking prosecution
22 May 2019
A former cabinet minister has accused a barrister of deceiving a court to successfully block the prosecution of a headmaster who had been accused of sexually abusing five boys.
In a debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the Conservative MP Cheryl Gillan alleged that the QC, Andrew Bright, “gravely” misled the court while he was representing the headmaster.
Gillan alleged that the QC failed to disclose evidence to a judge who ruled that the headmaster, Peter Wright, would not be prosecuted for the offences.
The MP alleged that had this “hidden” evidence been disclosed, it would probably have undermined the attempt to have prosecution blocked.
A decade later, Wright was convicted in a related case of abusing five other boys while he was headmaster of Caldicott prep school in Buckinghamshire and jailed for eight years.
The allegation against Bright was made by Gillan in parliament, which means she is protected from being sued.
Bright now sits as a judge at St Albans. A spokesman for the judiciary said: “The Solicitors Regulation Authority conducted an independent investigation and rejected the complaint that the court had been misled. It maintained that conclusion after a review.”
Gillan, the MP for Chesham and Amersham, also alleged that a series of authorities – including the attorney general’s department, the crown prosecution service and legal regulators – did nothing to correct the failure to disclose the evidence.
The MP, who was secretary of state for Wales in David Cameron’s government, highlighted the case of Wright, who was the headmaster of Caldicott between 1968 and 1993.
He and three other members of staff have been convicted of sexually abusing boys at the fee-paying school in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 2003, prosecutors prepared to bring Wright to court on 16 charges of sexually abusing boys at the school between 1964 and 1970 while he was a teacher and then headmaster.
Before the case came to trial, lawyers for Wright, then 73, submitted an application to block the prosecution on the grounds that he would not get a fair trial as the allegations were three decades old. In legal terms, this is called a stay of indictment.
On Wednesday, Gillan alleged that Wright’s lawyers misled the judge at Aylesbury crown court, Roger Connor, by failing to disclose relevant information.
“The information could have meant that Connor could probably have considered the stay of indictment not at all justified,” she claimed.
She alleged that Wright’s lawyers had corresponded with the school about obtaining lists of former boys who could be called as witnesses for him. She alleged that his lawyers had “acted improperly” when they told the judge that these lists could not be obtained from the school.
Jonathan Fletcher is brother of David Fletcher, head of Iwerne camps and Titus Trust Trustee. JF was a frequent visitor at Iwerne, along with @justinwelby
Pupils at Caldicott School, Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire suffered child sexual abuse over a number of years and a number of abusers. It is now a charity [4], as are many “public” schools. It is not known what the status of the school was when child sexual abuse offences were being committed by its teachers and covered up by the school.
Known abusers so far were
Peter Roland Wright, former Caldicott pupil [23], was finally charged and convicted in 2014. Previous attempts to indict him failed in 2003 due a Judge deciding it was too great a the length of time since offences and the defendants health. A stay on that indictment meant he only faced charges from new victims who came forward. He was sentenced to 8 years. He was tried with offences from 1964-1970 [3]. Victims were mainly 11-13 years old [3]. He was at the school from 1952 -1993, the last 25 years as Headmaster. Wright, and when Headmaster covered up Marton Carsons abuse [1] See also Court Appeal Roland Peter Wright 5 August 2014 Court of Appeal[3] Peter Wright still lived at a cottage overlooking the school after he retired, before his recent vacation in prison.
Peter Roland Wright – Serial Child Abuser
Hugh Edward Henry admitted 13 counts [3] including two counts of incitement to gross indecency and eleven counts of indecent assault [9][12]. He is thought to have been at Caldicott between 1958-1963 and offences on one boy were from 1962-63 [12]. He committed some of his offences at his bedsit and on a school skiing trip with Peter Wright. He was also charged with offences at Gayhurst School, Gerrards Cross. Little else is known of his offending, where else he worked and any other possible offences. He killed himself by walking in front of a train before sentencing. [12]
John Addrison, another former Caldicott pupil [34], was charged in 2012 with offences at Caldicott between Jan and July 1978 and at Moor Park School, Ludlow between 1985 and 1988 and sentenced to roughly 5 years. It is also not clear what he did straight after leaving Caldicott; when he started at Moor Park school or what he did after being dismissed from Moor Park School in 1988, although he was teaching in 2010 [2]. It is not known if he committed further offences after 1988. Also see Government UK National College for Teaching and Leadership Mr John Addrison: Professional Conduct Panel outcome Panel decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education [2] pdf download, and reproduced in Appendix 1 below
Martin Carson, a science teacher, was found to be committing child sexual abuse offences at Caldicot in 1973, but it was covered up by the school and he received just a 5 year ban from teaching [6]. Carson was charged with two charges of buggery, eight charges of indecent assault and one count of possessing indecent photographs. He pleaded guilty in 2003 and was sentenced to just 2 years in prison. Details are lacking of offences, when employed at Caldicott. Carson resumed his career in 1980 at prep school in Eastbourne where he was appointed Head of Pastoral care [38] and he taught at Harrodian School, Bath, at the time of the video Chosen in 2008. It is not known if the committed further offences at these school or elsewhere [6].
David Keith Geddes, another teacher, was acquitted of offences between 1975-77 after a retrial [14][28]
George Hill Peter Wrights deputy in the 1970s killed himself which probably saved him from facing charges [33]
There is a good summary of legal outcomes on the Mandate Now website [28]The Caldicott Trials and Outcomes [28] where there is also a video interview of Tom Perry with Jon Snow.
the boarding school that British politician Nick Clegg attended as a child; Caldicott School
Quote:
Caldicott Preparatory School became a charitable trust in 1968 under the Headmaster at the time Peter Wright.
Today there are around 250 boys. The present headmaster, Simon Doggart, was appointed in 1998; he came from Eton College where he taught history and was master-in-charge of cricket. He is a member of IAPS and the school’s governors include past parents, old boys and headmasters of public schools.
According to the school’s website, many pupils at Caldicott subsequently “win” places at major independent schools, such as Eton College, Harrow School, Winchester College, Marlborough College, Wellington College, Haileybury College and Radley College.
On 30 September 2008 the school was the subject of a feature documentary, Chosen, transmitted on More4 as part of the “True Stories” strand, about the sexual abuse that went on at the school during the late 1960s and early 1970s.[2] The headmaster Peter Wright was active in this, as well as a number of other teachers, targeting boys good at sports and, to a lesser extent, in the choir. In The Guardian published on the same day, a former parent alleged that Lord Justice Scott Baker former Chairman of the Board of Governors, and Simon Doggart the current headmaster, mishandled a case of alleged sexual abuse of their son by a teacher in the early 2000s.[3] Martin Carson was dismissed for sexual abuse of a pupil in 1972, and went on to teach at the Harrodian School. He was subsequently prosecuted and found guilty of indecent assault and possessing indecent images of children in 2003.[4]link
Caldicott Summer Fete
The Headmaster, Simon Doggart finished off the fete with a very popular raffle.
Thank you to everyone for coming along and supporting the school fete. It was a great success and all the money raised by the boys will go to The Prince’s Trust.
Caldicott…under the current headmaster Simon Doggart, another incident of alleged child sexual abuse was reported in the late 2000s. The headmaster and the chairman of the board of governors, Lord Justice Scott Baker, suspended the teacher (who did not return) but failed to report the incident to the police or social services, contrary to the school’s written policy on this matter.
Another victim, Andy Morse, described how, to continue the beatings, Mr Smyth recruited boys from among victims to take over while he watched. These were often more brutal than Smyth’s attacks. Mr Morse named Simon Doggart as one of these substitutes. “The strokes he gave me were probably the equivalent of three of John’s. Simon was completely brainwashed. I think even then I sensed that it wasn’t my friend beating me: it was actually John Smyth beating me, using my friend to carry out his abuse.”
Another victim spoke of Doggart’s strokes as “far, far worse than Smyth. There was no discussion, no emotion, I recall, just a fit sportsman using all his force.”
The alleged beatings took place in a shed, equipped, Mr Morse said, with dressings to be applied after the beatings. “John Smyth had every single bandage, dressing, iodine, anything that had been invented, but even though he had all that equipment and, I would call it, paraphernalia, we were bleeding everywhere. Even with these dressings on, wearing these adult nappies, we bled all over his house. . .”.
The beatings stopped in 1982, when Mr Morse tried to take his own life.
One survivor who has come forward is the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson (News, 10 February), who described the beatings as “abuse perpetrated by a misguided, manipulative, and dangerous man.
Review to begin into alleged sexual abuse by late Bishop of Chester Victor Whitsey
22 May 2019
AN inquiry into reports of sexual abuse by a former Chester bishop will begin imminently – two years after it was first promised.
The Church of England has today (Wednesday, May 22) disclosed details of a ‘learning lessons case review’ into the actions of the late Hubert Victor Whitsey.
Cheshire Police began an investigation in 2016 after a church safeguarding adviser in Chester passed on details of alleged abuse by Whitsey.
A year later detectives revealed that they would have spoken to him in relation to 10 of the witness allegations if he had been alive.
Whitsey died in 1987.
The review will be carried out by His Honour Judge David Pearl, an independent reviewer commissioned by the Church’s National Safeguarding Team (NST).
Documents outlining its ‘terms of reference’, shared with this newspaper by the Diocese of Chester, reveal it intended to cover a timespan of alleged abuse from 1974 to 1982.
However, specialist abuse lawyer Richard Scorer, who represents nine of Whitsey’s alleged victims, said the abuse began earlier and he had requested to have the timeframe extended to 1966.
He told The Standard today: “I welcome the fact that the review has been announced. It is important that the reviewer leaves no stone unturned in investigating what was known within the church, by whom and at what point in time.
“These issues have to flushed out and the reviewer needs to be determined and forceful in his pursuit of answers to these questions.”
Mr Scorer had previously been critical of the way the Church and the Diocese of Chester had handled the Whitsey case, alleging a cover-up had taken place.
His suspicions were reaffirmed earlier this year when it emerged the Diocese had missed two opportunities to report paedophile Warrington vicar Charles Gordon Dickenson who was jailed in March.
A separate NST review is expected to begin shortly to investigate these failings and to determine whether the current bishop of Chester, Dr Peter Forster, was aware of any cover-up.
Mr Scorer, who works for Slater & Gordon, said at the time: “The church cannot be relied on to police itself – we urgently need all these instances of possible cover-up to be investigated independently, and until that happens victims will have no confidence that the church is serious about rooting out abuse.”
A Church spokesman has since apologised for the delay in starting the review into the Whitsey case.
He said: “We apologise for the length of time this has taken to sort and for any distress this may have caused survivors.
“A separate ‘lessons learnt review’ will be carried out into the case of the Revd Dickenson.”
The terms of reference for the Whitsey review state that a total of 19 people have come forward with allegations of abuse by the late bishop.
Outlining its remit, the document states: “This review (“the Review”) will allow those individuals who have indicated that they have sustained harm at the hands of Hubert Victor Whitsey or another Church body or officer to describe their experiences.
“The Review will identity both good practice and failings in the Church of England’s handling of the allegations relating to Hubert Victor Whitsey, including its safeguarding practice, in order that the Church of England can take steps to enhance and improve its response to allegations of abuse and, thereby, ensure a safer environment for all.”
It will focus on two questions: what the Church of England knew about alleged abuse perpetrated by Whitsey and what the Church of England’s response was to those allegations.
The reviewer will investigate whether any further abuse could have been prevented and will pledge to be “transparent and open” about information collected, the document states.
The news comes as the Church faces continued scrutiny over its safeguarding processes in the wake of the Dickenson case – first reported by The Standard and sister paper the Warrington Guardian – and the BBC Panorama investigations team which broadcast a programme on church-related abuse last month.
Gazette was correct about ex-mayor’s pro-paedophile past, top lawyer concludes
07 November 2018
A top barrister has confirmed former Islington councillor Sandy Marks’ past links to a pro-paedophile campaign group.
An independent review by Sarah Morgan QC, published on Wednesday, vindicates the Gazette’s revelations about Sandy Marks’ past links to radical campaign group Fallen Angels – whose publication 18 months ago triggered the lawyer’s probe.
It also confirms Ms Marks and then-colleagues at Islington would have been aware of allegations about the abuse of children in the care system before the horrific scandal emerged in 1992.
But it stops short of suggesting an inquiry into the abuse be re-opened, and asserts that Ms Marks’ involvement with campaign group Fallen Angels had “no impact” on her later oversight of children’s services.
Ms Morgan’s 127-page paper comes at the end of a review spanning eight months and involving thousands of pages of documents, as well as interviews with victims and survivors, with Ms Marks herself, and with the Gazette staff who originally worked on the story in May 2017.
It will make disappointing reading for the Islington Survivors Network (ISN), which is led by social worker Dr Liz Davies – the original whistleblower into physical and sexual abuse taking place across Islington’s children’s homes in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The group hoped it would recommend the 1995 White Report into the scandal be reopened, as they believe it failed to uncover evidence of organised abuse rather than simply the poor management and negligence it did find.
In the report, Ms Morgan says Ms Marks’ work as chair of the social services committee, which covered children’s services, was likely not affected by her past involvement with Fallen Angels, a radical pro-paedophile activist group.
But she admits it doesn’t “sit easily” that “someone could be associated with an organisation so malign and yet, in the years following that association, it had no detectable impact on her conduct of a role in a public office which included the oversight of the welfare of children in care”.
Former Islington council leader Margaret Hodge said: ‘If Sandy Marks did hold those views, I was not aware of them.’
‘If Sandy Marks did hold those views, I was not aware of them’.
Social worker Dr Liz Davies, the original whistleblower on the scandal, tried to alert senior Islington officers and councillors – including then leader Mrs Hodge – to fears a paedophile sex ring was operating in the borough.
“Sandy Marks was at the centre of the council throughout this time,” said Dr Davies.
“This new information about her and our research about PIE and its widespread connections in Islington emphasise the importance of a police-led investigation, because many of those who held pro-paedophile views remain within professional systems and still have influence.”
No senior Islington councillors or officers were ever held accountable for the decades of abuse that went on in the council’s kids’ homes.
After 1995, Ms Marks’ career went from strength to strength.
She took up a role at the National Children’s Bureau and became mayor of Islington in 1996.
Today, she is a noted disabilities campaigner within the borough.
DRAFT AIM OF BURBIDGE & RIGHTON’S JOINT COUNCIL FOR GAY TEENAGERS, 25 NOVEMBER 1978
Burbidge kept Nettie Pollard (PIE member #70) in the loop on how he and (Peter) Righton were progressing with establishing the National Joint Council for Gay Teenagers. Copies of JCGT minutes in archive are addressed to Nettie in Burbidge’s handwriting.
During this period Burbidge was also active in lobbying for the legal defence of PIE by meeting with Dutch youth parliamentary people (as introduced by the British Youth Council), at Burbidge’s Department of Environment offices to discuss options to report back to CAPM.
A number of the invitees to the Council’s Gay Groups Meeting were of the same view as the Fallen Angels, the pro-paedophile rights groups Councillor Sandy Marks had been involved approximately 18 months before becoming elected – that paedophile rights to liberation such as the abolition of the age of consent – should be campaigned for within the mainstream gay rights movement.
CAPM’s third meeting was attended by (Lord Justice) Adrian Fulford, (Islington Chair of Social Services Committee) Sandy Marks, and two PIE members and NCCL Gay Rights Committee members Nettie Pollard and Tom O’Carroll. As Burbidge was already keeping Pollard appraised of how far progress was being made in pushing his pro-paedophile rights agenda in the gay youth movement, particularly in Islington, it is unsurprising he would document his attempts to network on behalf of CAPM.
Keith Veness recruited Sandy Marks to the Labour party in 1975 and is currently campaigning for her suspension to be lifted following Morgan QC’s Review determining Marks was more likely than not a Fallen Angel and involved with Conspiracy Against Public Morals, campaigning for PIE
Hailed as a PIE supporter by PIE chairman Steven Adrian Smith, Eric Presland, was invited to the meeting by Cllr Bob Crossman and met with Cllr Sandy Marks and Cllr Keith Veness. Veness, who was soon to become Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral agent for the next 9 or so years, has since defended Sandy Marks’ various denials of her involvement with Fallen Angels and following her suspension has demanded her reinstatement to Islington North Constituency Labour Party.
REVEALED: We Found Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s Secret Charity
Through a shadowy private foundation, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has continued to shell out cash to celebrities, elite universities—and an all-girls school.
04.16.19
Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have stopped trumpeting his million-dollar donations to charities in light of accusations he molested dozens of underage girls. But he continues to quietly distribute his wealth—including to the nonprofits of Deepak Chopra, Elton John and a doctor linked to President Trump—through a shadowy private foundation called “Gratitude America, Ltd.,” The Daily Beast has learned.
Gratitude America, Ltd. was launched in 2012 to back “organizations around the world that seek to celebrate the United States of America and the American Ideals,” the group stated in its application for tax-exempt status. Those ideals, the nonprofit added, include “liberty, equality, democracy, individualism, unity, and diversity.” At the time, Epstein was three years out of jail, but disturbing allegations from his alleged victims, including one who claimed Epstein kept her as a “sex slave” for his famous friends, continued to hound him.
Epstein apparently needed some favorable news to change the narrative and embarked on a public relations crusade that depicted him as a renowned “science philanthropist,” rather than a convicted sex offender.
Not to be confused with GratitudeAmerica, Inc., a Florida nonprofit for veterans, Epstein’s latest private foundation doesn’t appear to have a website or online presence. The only traces of the group lie in tax returns, a fundraising site for multiple sclerosis, and a book of abstracts from a 2017 academic conference in California.
In 2016 and 2017, Gratitude America Ltd. funded an all-girls school in Manhattan, a youth tennis program, cancer charities, Harvard’s famous theater troupe, posh New York arts societies at Lincoln Center and the Met, and a nonprofit linked to the wife of a former Harvard president who flew on Epstein’s private jet, dubbed the “Lolita Express” by the press.
Indeed, a review of tax returns reveals Epstein’s foundation donated at least $1.84 million to host of causes, including $15,000 to the Hewitt School, the elite private girls school on the Upper East Side; $30,000 to the O’Gorman Garden, a Harlem preschool; and $25,000 to the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland.
Gratitude America’s biggest donations included a $375,000 payout to the International Peace Institute Inc., a New York think tank staffed by former United Nations officials and run by Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen, and $225,000 to the Melanoma Research Alliance—both of which Epsteinboasted of supporting financially in years past.
As The Daily Beast previously reported, Epstein once cultivated a web presence that portrayed a multi-hyphenate superhero: an “armistice activist” with the peace institute; one of the largest funders of scientists around the world” who helped to curb ivory poaching; and an “education activist” who delivered the Virgin Islands its first Head Start program.
Yet the 66-year-old financier’s philanthropy has failed to repair his reputation.
In the early Aughts, Epstein was known to rub elbows with the likes of Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Woody Allen and Kevin Spacey. His enigmatic rise from Dalton physics teacher to “international moneyman of mystery” who palled around with Prince Andrew and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was chronicled by the tabloids and New York magazine and Vanity Fair, which in 2003 reported, “Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women—lots of them, mostly young.”
“He’s reckless, and he’s gotten more so,” one former business associate told Vanity Fair of Epstein, who owns mansions in Palm Beach, Florida and Manhattan’s Upper East Side, along with a ranch in New Mexico. “Money does that to you. He’s breaking the oath he made to himself—that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media.”
Trump, too, once alluded to Epstein’s penchant for younger women. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
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Jacob Rees-Mogg says Grenfell victims lacked ‘common sense’ for staying put
5 Nov 2019
Jacob Rees-Mogg has been slammed for suggesting the people who died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy because they listened to the fire brigade’s orders lacked ‘common sense’. The Tory MP told LBC host Nick Ferrari that the victims would have survived if they’d just ignored what they were told. He added that he himself would have left the building as ‘it just seems the common sense thing to do’. A damning report released last week by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who is leading the Grenfell Inquiry, found ‘many more’ lives could have been saved if the London Fire Brigade (LFB) had abandoned its ‘stay put’ policy sooner.
‘Decency gone!’ May accused of cronyism as Tory row erupts over peerage for Gavin Barwell
THERESA MAY has sparked fury among eurosceptics in the Conservative Party after it emerged her chief of staff Gavin Barwell is set to be appointed as a peer in the House of Lords.
Gavin Barwell, former housing minister and prime minister’s chief of staff
PM’s chief of staff did not act on multiple warnings about fire safety in months before Grenfell, new letters show
13/06/19
Theresa May’s chief of staff was sent multiple, clear warnings to review fire safety rules in the months leading up to Grenfell, but failed to reply to letters or meet with the MPs raising concerns, new documents obtained by Inside Housing reveal.
Gavin Barwell, who was housing minister in 2016 and 2017, received seven letters from the group of MPs responsible for scrutinising fire safety rules between September 2016 and May 2017 – with the last landing just 26 days before the fire at Grenfell Tower.
The letters warned of the risk of a deadly fire and called for a promised review of building regulations and fire safety to be carried out to prevent it.
But Mr Barwell sent just three short replies during this period and became so bad at replying that the group resorted to sending their letters by recorded delivery.
Ministers had previously been warned that if a tower block fire occurred “where the matters raised here were found to be contributory to the outcome, then the group would be bound to bring this to others’ attention.”
Inside Housing understands a total of 21 letters calling for change were sent to ministers Eric Pickles, James Wharton, Stephen Williams and Mr Barwell by the group between 2014 and 2017. Mr Barwell was made Theresa May’s chief of staff after losing his seat as an MP in 2017.
BBC Panorama has previously reported these ministers were contacted by the group – but the new documents reveal the extent of the warnings missed.
The letters particularly push for a review of the requirement that the external surfaces of buildings have a ‘Class 0’ fire safety rating. Grenfell Tower was eventually clad with a material certified to Class 0.
They also called on ministers to reconsider the decision not to make retrofitting sprinklers mandatory for high-rises, given new costing analysis showed it had become much cheaper.
But ministers refused to listen to these warnings, with Mr Wharton at one stage citing the government’s desire to “reduce the burden of red tape” in his refusal to act.
In September 2014, then-minister Stephen Williams responded to a string of letters to tell the group he had “neither seen nor heard anything that would suggest consideration of these specific potential changes is urgent” and said he was “not willing to disrupt the work of this department by asking that these matters be brought forward”.
The group’s chair, Sir David Amess MP, responded on 28 October, writing that he was “at a loss to understand how you had concluded that credible and independent evidence which had life safety implications was not considered to be urgent”.
He added: “As a consequence, the group wishes to point out to you that should a major fire tragedy with loss of life occur between now and 2017 in, for example, a residential care facility or a purpose-built block of flats, where the matters raised here were found to be contributory to the outcome, then the group would be bound to bring this to others’ attention.”
Grenfell Tower failed two safety inspections in months before fire, ‘smoking gun’ documents reveal
‘The deadline date of the work they were meant to complete was May 2017, one month before the fatal fire’
9 Aug 2018
Grenfell Tower failed at least two fire safety inspections in the months before a blaze tore through it, but the organisation managing the building did not act on either of the warnings, a number of unpublished documents have reportedly revealed.
A “fire deficiency notice” from the then London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), delivered eight months before the fire, and a separate independent Fire Risk Assessment, dated June 2016, both identified multiple failures, ITV News reported.
Each warning called on the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) to move quickly, with the planning authority stipulating that action must be taken by May 2017, one month before the fire tore through it.
The report is the first to highlight official warnings, although it emerged in the fire’s immediate aftermath that residents had been telling the council and the building’s management the high-rise was unsafe for years.
Labour MP for Tottenham David Lammy, whose friend Khadija Saye died in the tower, called the documents a “smoking gun” and reiterated his call for for individuals to be held responsible for the disaster.
Scotland Yard is considering whether offences including corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter and breaches of the Health and Safety Act have been committed.
The notice from the LFEPA found problems with fire doors, including some that did not fit or close properly and inadequate precautions to stop fire and smoke from spreading
Meanwhile, the inspection report by an independent assessor listed 43 “high risk” safety issues, as well as problems with doors and air vents. A number of residents of Grenfell Tower attempted to flee the flames, only to succumb to toxic black smoke that filled the tower block’s single staircase.
Experts told a public inquiry into the disaster in June there wa a “culture of non-compliance” at Grenfell Tower and a system for extracting smoke from lobby areas on each floor did not work. Fire doors are a key part of containing a fire.
The KCTMO was dissolved following the fire, but the owner of Grenfell Tower, Kensington and Chelsea council said in a statement: “This will be a matter for the public inquiry, and to comment further could risk prejudicing the ongoing police investigation. We do not want to do or say anything that could obstruct the course of justice, because justice is what our residents want the most.
“Our first thoughts and our last thoughts will always be with those that lost their lives in the Grenfell Tragedy. We have been clear that we want the whole unvarnished truth and we will do all we can to assist, no matter what the consequences are for the council.”
It emerged in March the doors that built to last 30 minutes failed in 15 minutes during the fire. Tests on a range of fire doors by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the market have since found five different brands are unsafe.
Mr Lammy said in statement posted on Twitter: “The uncovering of official warnings from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority about fire risks at Grenfell are a smoking gun. The deadline date of the work they were meant to complete was May 2017, one month before the fatal fire.”
Grenfell police carry out three interviews under caution
Met considers whether offences including corporate manslaughter were committed
18 July 2018
Detectives investigating the Grenfell Tower fire have conducted three interviews under caution over potential offences relating to the disaster – including manslaughter.
“The police investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire has moved to a new phase with a planned programme of interviews under caution,” Scotland Yard said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that more interviews would take place in the coming weeks.
The interviews, carried out since late June, came as detectives investigated possible charges of gross negligence manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and breaches of the Health and Safety Act relating to the fire last summer that killed 72 people.
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan police said the force would not confirm whether three separate suspects had been interviewed, or whether the same suspect had been interviewed more than once.
No one has been arrested for offences relating to the fire itself, though individuals who allegedly falsely claimed to have lived in the tower to receive compensation have been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
Yvette Williams from the campaign group Justice4Grenfell said she welcomed the development in the investigation.
But she added: “It’s unfortunate that it’s taken months after it happened, because if it had been somebody responsible like a member of the public, they would have been called in in June last year.
“But we do look forward to the police doing a thorough investigation and that they are already thinking ahead in terms of gross manslaughter charges can only be a positive thing.”
Officers have spent the last year scouring the tower for forensic evidence and plan to hand back control of the building to Kensington and Chelsea council in early August.
Commander Stuart Cundy said: “The handover of Grenfell Tower by the police will only occur once we are entirely confident that all police work has been completed at the tower and handing the tower over to the responsible body will have no bearing on the ongoing criminal investigation.
“The concerns of the bereaved, survivors and residents as well as the wider community will be central to how the handover takes place. We recognise this will be a significant milestone and one that is bound to stir a range of emotions for all those affected by this tragedy.”
Grenfell Tower insulation ‘never passed fire safety test’
21 May 2018
The insulation that burned out of control on Grenfell Tower had never passed the required safety test and should never have been on the building, a BBC investigation has discovered.
Panorama understands the manufacturer, Celotex, used extra fire retardant in the product that qualified for the safety certificate.
A more flammable version was then sold for public use, the programme believes.
Celotex said it is co-operating with the police investigation and inquiry.
The company said it could not comment further but wished to express its deepest sympathies to everyone who was and remains affected by the fire. But it has not denied any of Panorama’s allegations.
Panorama also accused Celotex of mis-selling the insulation with misleading marketing.
The programme has been advised that the way Celotex tested and sold the insulation could amount to corporate manslaughter.
Megan Markle’s wedding dress cost the taxpayer £300,000. It would’ve cost £220,000 extra to clad Grenfell Tower in non-combustible material.
Grenfell locals are demanding to know the whereabouts of an ex-councillor
March 15th, 2018
Protesters disrupted a Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) council meeting on 7 March. And a poster was held up demanding the whereabouts of an ex-councillor responsible for the tower’s refurbishment. But plans for new houses in Norfolk hint at what he’s been up to.
Where’s Rock?
Rock Feilding-Mellen oversaw Grenfell Tower’s refurbishments, including the flammable cladding believed to have accelerated the fire’s spread. Documents suggest the decision to use cheaper but more flammable cladding was made to satisfy the councillor and the planner. But on 24 June 2017, the Mirrorreported he “fled his home” following backlash from residents who were angry at his role in the fire.
Six days later, on 30 June 2017, Feilding-Mellen resigned from his £48,000 a year [pdf, p2] council position. He has since left the public eye. And this led one person at RBKC’s recent full council meeting to hold up a poster featuring Feilding-Mellen’s face and the question, “Where?”:
#RBKC full Council meeting tonight. Protesters wave signs asking where is Cllr Rock Feilding-Mellen (yet another no show since July last year) & demanding commissioners be brought in as former Leader Paget-Brown speaks. Paget-Brown still a councillor, still getting paid #grenfell
Directorship
Socially Conscious Capital (SCC) is a property development firm listing Feilding-Mellen as its director. In 2017, The Timesreported [paywall] that he is also the company’s majority owner. The developer designs and develops housing estates with “distinctive character”. And it claims to base its work on a principle of “responsibility” by:
Genuinely listening to local residents. Awareness of the sensitivities of the site and its surroundings. Becoming a real part of the community.
Racecourse Plantation is a proposed housing development located on the edge of Norwich, Norfolk. Designs were submitted in 2011, 2013 and 2016. Each was rejected by the local authority. The plan has faced controversy because of its location inside woodland that Norfolk Wildlife Trust describes as a “key biodiversity asset” for the city.
The 2016 proposal was rejected by local authority Broadland District Council in June 2017 for a number of ecological reasons including the size of woodland that would be removed. But Friends of Thorpe Woodlands, a group of locals opposed to the plans, were worried SCC would appeal.
These fears came true when SCC appealed [pdf] in October 2017. The appeal claims [pdf, p12] that “all of the reasons from the Council and Consultees are unwarranted or unfounded”. But Friends of Thorpe Woodlands says this shows SCC “are not interested in the views of local people or their councillors”. The appeal is due to be heard in May this year.
SCC claimed that more than 70 people support its 2016 proposal. In 2013, 2,440 letters of opposition were made to the local authority, alongside statements from conservation charities. These included the RSPB, Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Natural England. And now, the local opposition group is asking the public to “make a big difference” by sending letters of opposition to the latest appeal.
Continuing to profit
A 450-house estate is being built by SCC in the village of Longniddry, Scotland. Approval was granted in August 2017 despite similar long-running opposition by local residents.
Grenfell Action Group had written a number of posts about Feilding-Mellen and Socially Conscious Capital. The group, made up of local residents, had blogged about the tower’s safety risks for months before the fire. And in a post on 6 March 2017, it said:
Given the record of Feilding-Mellen’s ‘Socially Conscious Capital’… one has to seriously question whether this man can be trusted with the ecological and environmental protections to which the RBKC Council is supposedly committed and whether he is fit to manage the so-called ‘regeneration’ of the social housing estates of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Despite SCC’s claims of responsibility, impacts on local residents and ecology appear to mean very little. And its director continues to profit from housing development as hundreds remain homeless after the Grenfell Tower fire. This lack of accountability cannot continue.
The Canary repeatedly contacted Socially Conscious Capital for comment but received no response by the time of publication.
Profits up. Rydon investor disclosures indicate the company anticipates no downside at all from the fire, apparently believing that the lawsuits will come to nothing.
Grenfell MP says the inquiry into the fire which killed 72 is ‘beginning to look like a stitch up’
2 MAR 2018
The Grenfell Tower public inquiry is beginning to look like a stitch-up, Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad has said.
The MP made the claim because she and other Labour members of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council have not been granted core participant status in the investigation headed by Sir Martin Moore-Bick.
Labour councillors have complained there is a “clear conflict of interest” if they are represented at the inquiry by lawyers acting for the Tory-run authority.
Asked if she thought the inquiry was a “stitch-up” because of this, Ms Dent Coad said: “It’s beginning to look like that. We are feeling marginalised and neutralised. That’s not good.
“I really object to being represented by the lawyers of a discredited organisation which is under criminal investigation.”
Labour leader on the council Robert Atkinson said: “We will be witnesses for the prosecution. We will be hostile witnesses. And yet we are being forced to share council representation for the defence.”
Mr Atkinson said that if Labour had the same representation at the inquiry as the rest of the council “there will be guilt by association”.
Councillor Pat Mason said the inquiry had “less and less credibility on the ground”, adding: “We don’t believe the inquiry is credible either. We don’t believe that it’s a fair process. If you are excluding people and using obscure rules in the Public Inquiry Act to block out evidence, then you are not going to get all the evidence.”
John Cooper QC, who is representing the Labour group on the council, said core participant status would mean having full disclosure and being able to question witnesses.
Mr Cooper said: “If we do not get core participation status in this inquiry, then I’m very convinced at the moment justice will not be done.”
The public inquiry into the tragedy which claimed 72 lives last June has proved controversial.
More than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling on Prime Minister Theresa May to take action to build public trust in the probe.
Grenfell – inquiry has HIRED KPMG as its adviser despite the accountancy firm earning millions of pounds auditing three of the main players being investigated over the tragic blaze and its aftermath. STUPID & UNBELIEVABLE DECISION number ?????????????
Questions over KPMG role in Grenfell Tower probe
Jan 4 2018
The Grenfell Tower inquiry has hired KPMG as its adviser despite the accountancy firm earning millions of pounds auditing three of the main players being investigated over the tragic blaze and its aftermath.
KPMG has lucrative and long-standing relationships as auditor to Rydon — the main contractor in charge of the refurbishment widely blamed for the fire’s spread — Celotex, the maker of the insulation which police said failed safety tests, and the much-criticised Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
News that the inquiry is paying a firm so closely linked to the organisations under scrutiny is bound to anger survivors and victims’ families. They have already voiced concerns that the investigation is lacking in diverse voices.
KPMG was hired by the Cabinet Office to help plan the inquiry and monitor its progress.
The three-month, £200,000 contract (recently extended to February) was awarded in a fast-track process with no other bidders considered.
Expelling a Lab Councillor from the board of KCTMO for speaking to journalists is not exactly a great message to send out on transparency as the Grenfell inquiry starts.. What exactly are they trying to cover up and who are they trying to frighten/silence?
London Tory council to charge tower block residents £4,000 to fit sprinklers
Leaseholders hit out at Wandsworth bills for post-Grenfell fire safety measures
11 November 2017
Independent report: response to Grenfell ‘disjointed and rudderless’
06/11/17
The council’s response to the Grenfell Tower disaster was “disjointed and seemingly rudderless” and it failed to engage with tenants before and after the fire, a damning independent report has said.
Grenfell: report criticised ‘inadequate’ management 12 years before fire
Highly critical independent report into emergency lighting system at tower made public after long campaign by residents
A negligent approach to residents’ safety by the body responsible for managing Grenfell Tower was highlighted in a highly critical independent report 12 years before the fire, according to a document that has finally been made public after a protracted campaign by residents.
The report, compiled by Capita Symonds, suggested that torches with rechargeable batteries should be installed in every flat, wired to the mains to recharge, so that residents could use torches to escape. Neither Kensington and Chelsea council nor Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) would say whether the recommendation was followed, but residents say the torches were never installed.
The independent report into problems with the emergency lighting system at the tower was commissioned by the KCTMO in 2005 after two-thirds of the tower’s emergency lighting units failed a routine inspection.
It criticised the KCTMO and the contractor responsible for the block’s fire escape lighting, documenting “inadequate management”, “inadequate installation standards”, a “failure to acknowledge the importance of undertaking urgent remedial works” and a “lack of communication” between the block’s management and residents.
Khalid Ahmed, who escaped from the eighth floor, said not all the stairwell lights were working on the night of the fire. Other residents’ accounts suggest darkness compounded by thick smoke made escape difficult.
Francis O’Connor, the co-author of the Grenfell Action Group blog, which repeatedly warned of fire safety issues before the fire in June, said the problems identified in this report indicated “that a culture of complacency, negligence and incompetence was rife within the TMO and was not confined to fire safety issues. Complaints from tenants were legion.”
He said he was shocked to read the report, which provided the “most authoritative and comprehensive forensic evidence I had seen of how pervasive the maladministration was at the TMO”.
The report noted that because the tower’s emergency staircase had no natural light, the emergency lighting system was vital. It criticised the KCTMO for failing to prepare risk assessments that recognised that “residents and members of the public were continuously at risk” when the lighting system was defective.
The KCTMO’s response to the ongoing problem with the broken system “unfortunately did not reflect any urgency”, the report stated.
The document is significant because it provides an independent third-party assessment of management failures by KCTMO, which residents claim were problematic in 2005 and still ongoing in 2017.
The campaign to have it released also reveals a longstanding refusal by the KCTMO to make public documents concerning their management of the tower. It states that as a private organisation, it is not obliged to make information public.
Campaigners are angry that the KCTMO, which was the country’s largest tenant management organisation, looking after all of Kensington and Chelsea’s social housing stock – 10,000 properties – should have been able to shield itself from public scrutiny. Repeated requests from residents to see minutes of meetings where plans for the tower’s refurbishment were discussed were rejected.
O’Connor, who until 2013 lived on the Lancaster West estate, which encompasses Grenfell, and continues to co-author the Grenfell Action Group blog, first made a formal request for the lighting report the day after the fire. His request was refused by the TMO, then granted in principle on appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, then appealed by the KCTMO on the grounds that it was not subject to the FoI rules, a decision later upheld by the ICO. He only received it at the end of October after turning to an official at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, who released it under freedom of information legislation.
O’Connor points out that the KCTMO’s insistence that it was not required to release information meant that he and fellow Grenfell Action Group campaigners were unable to scrutinise minutes of critical meetings where plans for the refurbishment of the block were discussed.
A request to see minutes of one refurbishment meeting was rejected in 2014. The meeting would have “contained references to the decision to replace the approved cladding and insulation with cheaper alternatives. This would have caused us to research the qualities of the alternative products and to discover that they were highly flammable and highly toxic when burning,” O’Connor said. “We would have raised hell about this, and who knows what the outcome of that hellraising might have been? This bitter truth is hard to live with.”
The KCTMO’s contract to manage social housing in the borough was terminated last month. Kensington and Chelsea council said: “This is a matter for the public inquiry and for the TMO. The council has recently taken responsibility for the Lancaster West estate following the Grenfell fire.
“We are working with residents and independent experts to ensure that we are making necessary improvements, and that all homes are safe and secure.”
A KCTMO spokesperson said: “Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation is a private company limited by guarantee and is therefore not a body which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.”
In Britain, the BBC said it had seen documents that show the Duchy of Lancaster, which provides the Queen with an income, had invested £10 million ($13.1 million) into funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
The documents have not been reviewed by CNN.
The Queen has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the investments are potentially embarrassing for a royal family that closely guards its reputation.
“We operate a number of investments and a few of these are with overseas funds. All of our investments are fully audited and legitimate,” the Duchy of Lancaster said in a statement.
The Duchy added that the Queen, who is officially exempt from U.K. tax laws, “voluntarily pays tax” on income she receives from the estate.
The £519 million ($680 million) Duchy, which provides the Queen with an income to cover official expenses, says it invests primarily in commercial, agricultural and residential properties.
In the most recent fiscal year, the Duchy generated £19.2 million ($25 million) in net income according to its website.
One of the Duchy’s offshore investments has generated some controversy.
The BBC reported that the Duchy invested $7.5 million in Dover Street VI Cayman Fund LP in 2005. The fund, which invested in medical and tech companies, later put money into U.K. retailer BrightHouse.
The Duchy said its investment in the company is worth £3,208 ($4,200).
BrightHouse, which gave customers credit so they could buy its home furniture and appliances, was later forced to compensate consumers after the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority found it was not a responsible lender.
“We sincerely apologize to those customers who were affected,” the company said in October. “We’re absolutely determined that this doesn’t happen again and have made significant improvements over the last 18 months.”
The Duchy said in a statement that the investment in BrightHouse was made “through a third party,” and equates to just 0.0006% of the Duchy’s value.
The ICIJ noted in its report that “there are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts,” and it was not suggesting that any people or companies it named either broke the law or acted improperly.
David Pitt Watson, an executive fellow at the London Business School who focuses on responsible investments, said he “very much” doubts that the Queen knew where her money was invested.
Instead, she’s like “so many others who have a pension, or an investment account,” he said. “We just don’t know what is being done with it.”
The Paradise Papers reporting is similar to the Panama Papers, which in 2016 exposed cases involving celebrities and business executives who reportedly moved large chunks of their wealth into offshore tax havens.
The new project, which is based on more than 13.4 million documents dated from 1950 to 2016, covers a large number of global corporations and prominent people and their use of offshore accounts.
Lost revenue in offshore tax havens is costing over £100bn a year – enough to eliminate extreme global poverty twice over.
Theresa May says no Government cash for sprinklers in tower blocks despite promises made after Grenfell
18 Oct 2017
‘How safe would she feel living on the 20th floor in my constituency with one staircase and no sprinklers?’ Prime Minister asked
Theresa May has confirmed there will be no Government cash to fit sprinklers in tower blocks, triggering accusations she has broken a promise made after the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
It is “up to the council to make decisions”, the Prime Minister told MPs – amid a growing furore over the multi-million pound bills that town halls face.
Nottingham, Croydon and Wandsworth have all had multi-million pound requests turned – even after being advised to carry out works by their local fire brigades.
Nevertheless, until now, ministers had said they would consider help “where works are essential”, even as they resisted applications.
However, during Prime Minister’s Questions, Ms May gave a firm no after a plea for assistance from a Labour MP in Nottingham
Kensington and Chelsea council terminates contract with Grenfell Tower landlord
28 Sept 2017
Body ‘no longer has the trust of residents,’ says deputy council leader
The decision came on the same day it emerged that at least 18 children died in the fire, many of whom were siblings.
The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) manages 9,760 homes in the borough, including the Lancaster West Estate, of which Grenfell is part.
Grenfell Tower Survivors Accuse Authorities Of ‘Serious Concerted Cover-Up’ 100 Days After Tragedy
22/09/2017
Death toll debate rages on.
Grenfell Inquiry: Experts Fear ‘Broken’ Fire Safety Laws Put Millions At Risk
One hundred days has done nothing to quell the anger felt by Grenfell Tower survivors who on Friday accused authorities of being engaged in a “serious, concerted cover-up” over the death toll.
As residents prepared to mark the milestone with a candle lit gathering this afternoon, the group fighting for their rights, Justice4Grenfell, issued a strongly worded statement taking aim at authorities for “doing everything in their power to downplay the scale of the disaster and to dehumanise the victims and the survivors”.
One day in… and Grenfell judge sparks ‘respect’ row
Discontent had begun brewing when the retired judge rejected calls for residents to be included as one of his team of assessors, telling the hearing it would ‘risk undermining my impartiality’.
…survivors branded the process a ‘whitewash’ and some stormed out of a community building near the tower in north Kensington, where the opening address was being live-streamed.
It should not have required a calamity like Grenfell for people to start calling foul on this re-engineering of the city’s demography. Long before the country found itself discussing Grenfell’s dereliction — and of the contemptuous council response to a catastrophe of its own making, and the continuing imbroglio over the rehousing of survivors despite their borough’s surfeit of empty homes— the ramifications of London’s trajectory should have been the animating subject of its politics for the last decade.
Names of wealthy empty-home owners in Grenfell borough revealed
Kensington and Chelsea council list shows foreign royalty, financiers and offshore firms leaving London properties vacant
Duke’s Lodge mansion block, which used to house 26 flats, is owned by an offshore firm that is part of Christian Candy’s luxury property business
1 August 2017
Owners of the 1,652 properties listed as unoccupied by Kensington and Chelsea council include a Ukrainian billionaire fighting extradition to the US, a former mayor of New York, a high-profile luxury property developer and a senior television executive.
They include the distinctive former Brompton Road tube station building, once used as a top secret command centre for Winston Churchill, but which has been vacant since it was bought for £53m by the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash in 2014.
The list of owners of vacant properties includes the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who bought a seven-bedroom grade II*-listed mansion for £16m in 2015. Once home to the writer George Eliot, it boasts a baroque ceiling mural of Venus by James Thornhill, who painted the interior of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.
The names were revealed in a list that appears to have been accidentally sent by the council to multiple recipients, including the Guardian, and details the council tax information of the vacant homes and their 1,197 owners.
More than a third of the vacant homes (603) are recorded as having been empty for more than two years, with the owners paying a 50% premium on their council tax. A further 1,010 are classified as unoccupied and substantially unfurnished, while the other 39 have been unoccupied for less than a year, with building work in progress.
Some of the luxury properties identified as long-term empty are just a few hundred metres from the charred remains of Grenfell Tower, where at least 80 people died in June. Of the survivors only 12 households have been re-accommodated, with dozens still in temporary housing.
Other unoccupied properties are owned by offshore companies, including Dukes Lodge London Ltd, part of Christian Candy’s luxury property business, which is listed as owning 26 homes in a 1930s mansion block valued at £85m in 2015; and Smech Properties Ltd, owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai.
Some of the information in the council’s records appeared to be wrong.
“There is a clear public interest in better understanding the issue of empty homes in London’s over-heated property market, why they are being bought and left empty, and where the money is coming from.”
An additional council tax payment, worth 50% of the normal rate, is levied on homes left empty for more than two years. But for most properties this amounts to an extra few hundred pounds a year, and no more than £1,500, according to the council data, despite some of the properties being worth tens of millions of pounds.
Anna Powell-Smith, of Who Owns England, who analysed the data, said: “This is about our broken housing system. Many of these people are leaving their homes empty because they don’t need the rent, and in that situation we could reasonably ask them to contribute more. But we can only have a proper debate about fair levels of council tax with full transparent data on ownership and housing use.”
There are 64 homes listed as vacant in Notting Dale, the ward where Grenfell Tower stood. Of those, six are recorded as having been vacant for more than two years, and the remainder fall in the category of unoccupied and substantially unfurnished.
The ward listed as having the highest number of long-term empty properties is Brompton and Hans Town, the area around Sloane Street, whose local councillors include the former council leader Nicholas Paget-Brown, who resigned after the Grenfell disaster. The ward has 100 homes listed as empty for more than two years and another 128 recorded as unoccupied and substantially unfurnished.
To date, Kensington and Chelsea has made 169 offers of accommodation to the survivors of Grenfell, 46 of which have been accepted. Only twelve households have so far been rehoused.
The actions of Kensington and Chelsea Council are to be considered in the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry, the government has announced.
The inquiry will also look at the adequacy of regulations, the tower’s recent refurbishment, and the response of authorities in the aftermath.
The judge heading the inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, previously said its scope could be much more limited.
Broader questions on social housing will not be in its terms of reference.
At least 80 people are thought to have died in the fire in North Kensington, west London, on 14 June.
Justice ‘vital’
Sir Martin suggested in a letter that wider consideration of social housing policy should not be included, despite the protestation of survivors.
The full terms of reference for the public inquiry, which have been accepted in full by the prime minister, are:
The cause and spread of the fire
The design, construction and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower
The scope and adequacy of the relevant regulations relating to high-rise buildings
Whether the relevant legislation and guidance were complied with in the case of Grenfell Tower
The actions of the local authority and other bodies before the tragedy
The response of the London Fire Brigade to the fire and the response of central and local government in the aftermath
Sir Martin had faced calls to step down as head of the Grenfell Tower inquiry
Residents and campaigners previously called for Sir Martin to resign from the inquiry, with the area’s MP, Emma Dent Coad, saying those affected needed “somebody we can trust”.
Shadow housing minister John Healey tweeted: “Deeply unsatisfactory for PM to set Grenfell Inquiry terms of ref to exclude housing policy failings – closing off criticism of govt policy.”
David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham whose friend was among the dead, said he was “deeply disappointed” that the “narrow” terms of reference did not include the provision and management of social housing in the UK.
The inquiry has now officially begun and will hold its first hearing on 14 September, with an initial report by Easter.
Judge decided ‘after careful reflection’ not to include questions on broader social housing policy in Grenfell Inquiry
27 July 2017
David Lammy@DavidLammy
28 July 2017
Jail anyone found guilty of causing Grenfell Tower blaze, say survivors
Grenfell survivors and relatives of victims today welcomed a corporate manslaughter investigation but called for jail sentences for anyone found guilty of causing the blaze
Campaigners have urged police to also consider gross negligence manslaughter charges against individuals, which can carry prison sentences if convicted. The maximum sentence for corporate manslaughter is a fine.
“We want to see individuals who took the decisions which led to so many dying to face justice. We want individuals in the dock and for them to go to prison.”
Yvette Williams, of the Justice 4 Grenfell campaign group, said: “We welcome that there is enough information and evidence to go down the corporate prosecution route.
“However, what we would like to see running alongside that is individuals being prosecuted. We want individuals named and prosecuted.”
The Metropolitan Police said its letter to those affected outlining the investigation was “simply an update” and “should not be taken to conclude that the identified offences and organisations are the only offences, organisations or individuals that are being investigated”.
A statement circulated to those involved said an “initial assessment” of seized material and witness statements had allowed police to conclude that each organisation may have committed the offence.
Both organisations will be questioned under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.
“We have seized a huge amount of material and taken a large number of witness statements,” the letter to those affected by the disaster said.
“After an initial assessment of that information, the officer leading the investigation has today notified Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Kensington and Chelsea TMO that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that each organisation may have committed the offence of corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.
“In due course, a senior representative fo each corporation will be formally interviewed by police in relation to the potential offence.”
It was unclear which senior figures will be interviewed by police and the legislation does not allow for the arrest of any individual.
A Met Police spokesperson told The Independent: This is a complex and far reaching investigation that by its very nature will take a considerable time to complete.
“As is routine, we will not give a running commentary on this investigation.”
Samia Badani, residents association chair for Bramley House – a block that overlooks the tower – told The Independent the move was a positive step forward for the community.
“I’m very pleased, I think over the years we have had a very good relationship with local police and the relationship with the council is the opposite,” she said.
“We are so bruised in the community that we needed some reassurances so it’s a step forward.”
It comes after a number of stakeholders from both RBKC and the TMO resigned in the wake of the tragedy over accusations they ignored a catalogue of warnings over fire safety.
RBKC chief executive Nicholas Holgate was the first to step down in the aftermath over the borough’s handling of the fire.
“Despite my wish to have continued, in very challenging circumstances, to lead on the executive responsibilities of the council, I have decided that it is better to step down from my role, once an appropriate successor has been appointed,” he said in a statement on 21 June.
A week later, TMO leader Robert Black stepped aside to “concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry”, followed by RBKC leader Nick Paget-Brown and deputy leader Rock Feilding-Mellen just hours later.
Council leader Elizabeth Campbell said she would fully support the Met’s investigation.
“Our residents deserve answers about the Grenfell Tower fire and the police investigation will provide these. We fully support the Metropolitan Police investigation and we will cooperate in every way we can,” she said.
“It would not be appropriate to comment further on matters subject to the police investigation.”
The news comes after family and friends of five of those killed in the blaze, including two child victims, gathered to remember their loved ones.
The lives of artist Khadija Saye, her mother Mary Mendy, Berkti Haftom and her 12-year-old son Beruk, as well as five-year-old Isaac Paulos were being celebrated at the ecumenical service in St Helen’s Church.
The service opened with a recording of Michael Jackson’s “Heal The World”, and the Gospel For Grenfell choir later sang a number of well-known songs including “Something Inside So Strong”.
Ms Saye’s cousin Adelaide Mendy recalled the fear and panic on the night of the fire, and her desperate hope that her relatives would not be caught up in it.
She told those gathered: “I felt an excruciating and an almost unbearable pain. I felt powerless at the thought that there was nothing else that I could’ve done.”
There has been a good deal of controversy lately over the proposed public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire which claimed an as yet undetermined number of lives and left many hundreds more homeless and traumatised. The controversy began with the appointment, despite widespread resistance in the Lancaster West community, of a retired judge, Martin Moore-Bick as head of the inquiry, an establishment figure whose previous actions revealed him to be seriously lacking in the empathy necessary to earn the trust of the local community.
The Moore-Bick controversy was further fed by statements he made (reported in the Independent on 29th June) that the inquiry would be “…limited to the problems surrounding the start of the fire and its rapid development in order to make recommendations about how this sort of thing can be prevented in future.” Judge Moore-Bick added that he was aware that local residents were demanding much wider terms of reference and expressed doubts that the the planned inquiry could satisfy those demands.
The controversy deepened with the appointment of a new panel of technical experts to advise the government on fire safety issues. Half of the members of this panel are tainted by their links to a company called BRE Ltd which, for many years, has been paid by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to provide advice on fire safety. The Building Research Establishment Ltd (BRE) was formerly a British Government research body, but was privatised in 1997. It appears that BRE Global has since been paid at least £250,000 by the DCLG for fire safety advice.
Dr Peter Bonfield, Chief Executive of BRE Global, will sit on the expert panel alongside Sir Ken Knight, who is a trustee of BRE’s charitable parent company, the BRE Trust. According to Sky News and the Mail online BRE raised concerns in April 2016 that the use of combustible cladding on buildings was increasing, but they considered the current regulations to be adequate.
We wanted to see this report for ourselves so we searched for it and found it online. The report was in two parts, the second more technical part of which described only limited controlled testing of single components of a cladding system but not of the entire system. Not exactly the rigorous and fully comprehensive testing one might expect given the risks involved in the widespread use of highly combustible cladding systems. The conclusions were presented in part 1 of the report and stated that:
“There is currently no evidence to suggest that the current recommendations, to limit vertical fire spread up the exterior of high-rise buildings, are failing in their purpose.”
However, to our great surprise, while searching for the 2016 BRE report, we stumbled upon another much earlier report, also commissioned from BRE by the Blair government in 1999/2000. The conclusions of that report were as follows:
Clearly the advice to government from BRE Ltd in 2016 had changed markedly from that offered in 2000, perhaps because the ‘worst case scenario’ had failed to materialise by that time, but as the whole world now knows, it did materialise, just a year later on 14th June 2017, in the worst fire disaster to strike the UK in living memory, with an undetermined number of fatalities, widely believed in the community to be in excess of 100 souls.
Alternatively, this latest BRE guidance may have been designed to accommodate a notorious policy of the current government commonly referred to as the ‘Bonfire of the Regulations’ – a policy of deliberate widespread deregulation designed to cut costs for business and industry regardless of its negative impact on public health and safety.
As reported in the Guardian on 14th June:
“A 2015 survey by the Fire Sector Federation, a forum for fire and rescue organisations, found that 92% of its members believed the UK Building Regulations were ‘long overdue an overhaul’, claiming that they do not reflect today’s design and construction methods and that research underpinning the guidance is out of date.”
The coroner in the Lakanal House case in 2009, in which six people died, including three children, also called for a thorough review as the evidence pointed to a risk of further deaths in the future unless changes were made, with about 4,000 tower blocks in the UK remaining subject to outdated regulations.
It seems from the above that BRE Ltd have been too closely associated with central government, both Labour and Tory, for far too long while calls from other interested parties for reform of the building regulationse have been ignored. Indeed BRE clearly became part of the problem, rather than the solution, when they declared in 2016 that the regulations were fit for purpose.
In our opinion BRE are not fit to advise the government on fire safety issues and neither Peter Bonfield, the CEO of BRE Ltd, nor Ken Knight of the BRE Trust, should have been appointed to the technical panel convened after the Grenfell Tower fire. Perhaps the Fire Sector Federation, which appears to have far more integrity, might be willing to volunteer some of its more highly experienced members to sit on the new panel. We believe the Lancaster West community would be more inclined to trust a reformed panel to provide the kind of competent technical advice that is so urgently needed.
Tower block owners can conceal failed safety tests
29 July 2017
The government revealed that 82 buildings used the same cladding and insulation as Grenfell Tower
Residents of dozens of unsafe tower blocks could be kept in the dark about failed fire safety tests because commercial interests mean that housing associations will not be forced to reveal which buildings are dangerous.
The government revealed yesterday that 82 buildings had been found to use the same combination of cladding and insulation as Grenfell Tower, which failed the fire safety test used under present guidelines.
The latest tests were more rigorous than those carried out previously, looking at the whole system rather than just cladding, which has been widely blamed for spreading the fire that killed at least 80 people. Cladding panels on 149 tower blocks had already been found to be combustible.
A review of building regulations and fire safety was launched…
Firefighters speak for the first time about the Grenfell Tower blaze in documentary
In one of the richest boroughs in the country, in one of the richest countries in the world – children, fathers and grandmothers were crammed into a death trap.
Britain remains a country that murders its poor.When four separate government ministers are warned that Grenfell and other high rises are a serious fire risk, then an inferno isn’t unfortunate. It is inevitable.
What happened wasn’t a “terrible tragedy” or some other studio-sofa platitude:it was social murder.
A fire science expert says the company testing cladding and insulation after the Grenfell Tower fire has a conflict of interest.
18 July 2017
The company testing cladding and insulation for the Government after the Grenfell Tower fire has a conflict of interest and is not neutral, according to a respected academic.
Professor Richard Hull, a chemistry and fire science expert from the University of Central Lancashire, has accused the Building Research Establishment (BRE) of having an “unhealthy” mixture of commercial and advisory roles.
He made the claim after Sky News established that the BRE wrote a report saying there was no case for regulating toxic smoke from plastic insulation, at the same time as being paid by plastic insulation companies.
Sky News revealed last month that the insulation on Grenfell Tower gave off deadly hydrogen cyanide gas, and at least three victims had been treated for cyanide poisoning.
There are currently no regulations on the volume of smoke produced by insulation or the danger it can pose.
BRE was recruited by the European Commission “to evaluate the need to regulate… on the toxicity of smoke produced by construction products in fires”.
Its final draft report says “there would be limited benefits” from any new regulations, which could “increase costs”.
It concludes that its study found no agreed case for regulating toxic smoke, which could “potentially remove some products from the market”.
BRE, a UK charity with a £48m turnover, is paid for fire testing by some of the biggest foam insulation manufacturers.
Jolyon Maugham QC said BRE trustee Sir Ken Knight and chief executive Peter Bonfield were “tainted by association” through their links to advice given to ministers last year that combustible material on tower blocks was acceptable because building controls were “adequate”.
The head of the Fire Protection Association, Jonathan O’Neill, told Sky News that the improved standards address shortcomings in the statutory regulations that Grenfell Tower relied on.
“You’ve let the dead down, now you want to come for the living?” Grenfell Tower victims call for council leader to stand down, minutes after she took up the position
HRH Crafty Muvva@craftymuvva
Well, well, well.. New leader of RBKC council was warned of a potential disaster whilst councillor & rolled her eyes in response.#Grenfell
Truth Miner@truth_miner
New @RBKC leader Elizabeth Campbell was a member of the Kirkhope Commission. for #Grenfell
Police considering manslaughter charges over Grenfell Tower fire
The investigation
This is one of the largest and most complex investigations that the Metropolitan police has ever undertaken. There are currently over 250 specialist investigators working on all aspects of this investigation. It will establish how the fire started and the speed and spread that it took hold of that building.
There are two points of priority for me: the speed that it spread through the building but also the internal safety aspects of that building. On the first point: we are examining with experts the aluminium cladding and the insulation behind the cladding; how the tiles were fixed to the building; and how it was installed.
Cladding failed test
Preliminary tests on the insulation samples collected from
Grenfell Tower show that they combusted soon after the test started. The initial test on the cladding tiles also failed the safety tests. Such are our safety concerns on the outcome of those tests, we have shared our data with the department of communities and local government, and we have ensured that that information data has been shared with every council.
Every organisation involved in refurbishment being investigated
In terms of seizing relevant material from a number of organisations I can confirm that that has already started.
If I find out that individuals or organisations have committed offences then I must be in a position to prosecute without prejudice to any proceedings. We are looking at every criminal offence from manslaughter onwards. We are looking at every health and safety and fire safety offences and we are reviewing every company at the moment involved in the building and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower.
We are not raiding. We have seized documents.
Here’s audio of the Scotland Yard press conference on the Grenfell Tower fire.
Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell replies to X-rated PORN tweets showing clips of graphic sex scenes
Married father-of-three Mr Barwell responded to the explicit tweet “in error”, a Downing Street source says
14 FEB 2018
Prime Minister Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell “regrets” replying to a tweet that showed three porn videos with graphic sex scenes, a source says.
Married father-of-three Mr Barwell responded to the X-rated tweet “in error” at 9.21pm on Monday, a Downing Street source said.
The source said the tweet appeared in the former MP’s timeline and he “regrets the embarrassment this his caused”.
One of the videos features a sex scene with “two schoolgirls” and their “mum”. The clips on the thread were from porn websites called Illustrated Interracial, Blacked and Moms Lick Teens.
Mr Barwell’s reply – which didn’t have any text other than Twitter handles – was still on his account on Wednesday morning, but it was deleted shortly after it was discovered by journalists.
A Downing Street source said: “Gavin Barwell replied to this tweet, which was in his timeline, in error. He has deleted the reply and regrets the embarrassment this has caused.”
Mr Barwell, 46, a former Croydon Central MP who lost his seat in the 2017 general election, has a verified Twitter account with more than 22,000 followers.
The videos that he responded to were posted on Twitter in March last year by an account called Twinkystar.
The Twitter accounts quoted in the reply from his account also contained X-rated content.
Mr Barwell’s tweet was first reported by the website Guido Fawkes, which claimed that the reply was sent from an Android mobile phone.
It was unclear whether it was a personal or work phone.
Mirror Online has contacted Mr Barwell and the Prime Minister’s office for comment.
The reply was discovered amid a sleaze scandal at Westminster and claims that computers were used to access pornography.
In 2013, Mr Barwell, then a Tory MP, accused Labour of putting an “Arab dating” ad on a press release he read online.
But he was left red-faced when it was explained to him Google ads are based on the user’s “interests”.
He spotted the link next to a schools announcement put out on Twitter, and tweeted back: “I know you are short of cash but having an invitation to ‘date Arab girls’ at the top of your press release?”
Labour’s press team replied: “Oh dear.” It then posted a link to a Google Adsense help page.
The page stated: “In addition to seeing ads based on your interests, you may also see ads based on the types of sites you visit.”
Hard-hitting report calls for transparent investigation among the ‘links in the chain of culpability’, as it alleges a cover-up has already begun
Gavin Barwell: has questions to answer over the Grenfell Tower
Gavin Barwell, who until last month was the Conservative MP for Croydon Central, should be arrested immediately and his documents and computer records from his time as housing minister seized and investigated for any evidence of a role in the Grenfell Tower fire.
And “where necessary”, a hard-hitting report published today states, Barwell should be “put on trial in a criminal court”.
ASH – Architects for Social Housing – has campaigned long and hard against the social cleansing of council estates in Southwark, Lambeth and across the country. Today, they published their report, The Truth About Grenfell Tower, which includes a list of around 60 politicians, civil servants, local authority officials and private contractors and consultants, who it believes should be thoroughly and transparently investigated, or the country risks another disaster with another high death toll.
Barwell was housing minister for a year, during which time he gave an undertaking to “look at” recommendations from a coroner’s inquest, after a previous tower block fire in London, which in 2011 said that the retro-fitting of sprinklers in all tall residential towers could save lives. Barwell never did get round to acting on the sprinkler recommendation.
Despite such failure, since losing his parliamentary seat at the General Election Barwell has been handed another political job, as the chief of staff to the interim Prime Minister.
Now, his name is on the ASH arrest list, together with a predecessor as housing minister, Brandon Lewis, plus Eric Pickles, the former local government secretary, and three directors of Rydon, the company responsible for the cladding work conducted at Grenfell Tower, as well as Richard Blakeway, formerly the deputy mayor for housing under Boris Johnson, and most of the members of the housing committee at Kensington and Chelsea over the past six years.
ASH is particularly concerned that the public inquiry ordered by the government into the Grenfell tragedy will only serve as a cover-up operation. “The first thing the announcement of a public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire has done… is to have removed all transparency and accountability for the investigation from public scrutiny and placed it in the hands of the very people who are responsible for this crime.”
Grenfell Tower in Kensington. ASH suggests a cover-up has already begun
ASH says that the cover-up has already begun. “As we have indicated throughout this report, much of the information gathered here is no longer available on the websites of the private companies and public bodies involved. The same chain of corruption that led to hundreds of residents burning to death because rich people didn’t want to acknowledge their existence is being repeated in the chain of secrecy that will… absolve the links in that chain of all responsibility for those deaths.”
They draw a comparison with the inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster; it took more than a quarter of a century before those responsible for the 96 deaths at a football match in Sheffield were charged with their crimes.
“We believe that one of the ways we can honour the memory of the dead is to identify and change the system that caused their deaths. If we don’t, this will not be the last loss of life we see on London’s council estates,” ASH warns.
Like many of the Grenfell survivors, ASH wants a coroner’s inquest, as happened after the Lakanal fire in Southwark.
“It seems that, whether by public inquiry or coroner’s inquest, the truth about Grenfell Tower is unlikely to be revealed soon, if ever,” ASH states in its conclusions.
“While the public inquiry to which the public is barred deliberates on what terms of reference it feels inclined to investigate, now might be the time to set up a ‘People’s Inquiry’ in order to address in public the question so many people are demanding be answered: who is responsible for the Grenfell Tower fire?”
Warnings about the risks and dangers of a fire in Grenfell Tower, from residents, the parliamentary fire advisory group and the London Fire Brigade have all “fallen on the deaf ears of politicians and civil servants who have shown neither morality nor responsibility, each and every one of whom should be investigated and questioned about their role in this disaster”.
The ASH report is particularly damning of the regeneration policies of many local authorities – Labour as well as Tory – and how such policies tend to see private contractors constantly seeking to drive down costs in search of ever greater profit margins, all the while potentially compromising on safety measures. In the case of Grenfell Tower, that regeneration policy took on a particularly perverse form: “The appearance of the tower from the outside that had been identified as artificially depressing the potential residual land values in the area received nearly £8.7million for a face lift.”
What they call “the links in the chain of culpability” lead all the way to the Department of Communities and Local Government, where Barwell worked as housing minister.
ASH accuses the DCLG and its ministers of placing “the deregulation of fire safety standards – which in their eyes represented an unnecessary obstacle to the profits to be made from the UK housing boom – above the safety of residents”.
ASH describes this as “systemic corruption that threatens the homes and lives of hundreds of thousands of estate residents across the UK”, and they call for “every individual culpable in this lethal chain of greed and criminal negligence should be arrested, tried and, if found guilty, sentenced – rather than, as is currently happening, being allowed to resign on a severance package”, as has already happened at Kensington and Chelsea.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick will head the inquiry. Pic: Pegasus Scholarship Trust
Sir Martin Moore-Bick is a father of four who has held several high-profile positions over a career spanning five decades
Born in December 1946 and educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar in 1969.
Sir Martin began his legal career specialising in commercial contracts and went on to be appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1986.
He sat as a Deputy High Court judge before he was appointed to the High Court in October 1995.
The father-of-four had served in the Commercial Court of the High Court before he joined the Court of Appeal in April 2005.
There, he was an adviser to two Lord Chancellors: Lord Falconer and Jack Straw.
Sir Martin has handled prominent cases in the past – one of which saw him rule on a challenge brought by the family of Mark Duggan over police procedures following fatal shootings by officers.
He most recently held the title of Lord Justice of Appeal, retiring last December.
May picks controversial judge for Grenfell inquiry The Times 29-06-17, p1
Grenfell Tower inquiry judge has controversial history in housing cases
Former court of appeal judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, 70, chosen to preside over public inquiry into tower block fire
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a judge accused of supporting the social cleansing of London, to head inquiry into the GrenfellTower fire.
Among his more controversial cases was a decision allowing Westminster council to rehouse a tenant 50 miles away in Milton Keynes. It was later overturned by the supreme court.
The former senior judge has in the past been praised by the justice minister, Dominic Raab.
There were reports that there had been a delay in announcing his appointment because of concerns in Downing Street over his record on the bench.
Some would say it’s almost as if they’ve gone out of their way to appoint the most unsuitable person for the job.
Rhianydd@dryducks
Just as she did as Home Sec with the CSAinquiry – how many times does she get it wrong!? Must be deliberate, wants to scupper inquiry!
This is about something much, much bigger… And the reason for this is that it’s the government which is allowed to set the terms of the inquiry.
It is the government which is allowed to vet the chair of the inquiry.
We don’t allow defendants in a criminal trial to determine which charges they’re going to be tried on. We don’t allow them to vet the judge.
The government should have no role whatsoever in these decisions, because basically it is then being asked to judge its own failures. And that, it will never do.
The crack team tasked with ripping up public protections
… what happened at Grenfell Tower as “mass murder”, caused by stripping away “public protections, which prevent lots of people from being incinerated”.
And he says there are journalists, organisations, and government officials whose job it is to strip them away. Monbiot points to those sitting on the Red Tape Initiative (RTI) project as an example. This is a cross-party group with considerable Tory influence and dubious conflicts of interest:
Sir Oliver Letwin, Conservative MP who set up the RTI.
Charles Moore, former editor of The Telegraph and former chair of Policy Exchange. Also Letwin’s best man.
Archie Norman, former Conservative MP and co-founder of Policy Exchange.
Greg Clark, Conservative MP, Business Secretary and former Communities Secretary.
Michael Gove sat on the panel prior to becoming Secretary of State for the Environment. And he was the first chairman ofPolicy Exchange.
Residents of #GrenfellTower chose fire-resistant cladding during the initial stages. An alternative was fitted instead. WHY! @RBKC?
Grenfell cladding boss is a government adviser
01 July 2017
A senior executive from the company that made the insulation boards fitted to Grenfell Tower is an adviser to the government on building regulations.
Mark Allen, technical director of Saint Gobain UK, which makes Celotex insulation, is on the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC), which advises Sajid Javid, the communities and local government secretary.
Scotland Yard said last week that its investigation into the fire, which claimed at least 80 lives, had found that the Celotex RS 5000 insulation boards fitted in a large refurbishment project had proved highly flammable. Although classified as “low risk” in terms of fire, police said “the insulation samples collected from Grenfell Tower combusted soon after the test started”.
Don’t tell anyone about the fire risks: Safety consultant hired to inspect Grenfell Tower urged council to hide failings – and he’s an ex-firefighter
Carl Stokes was paid £250,000 to inspect Grenfell Tower for any risks of fire
But former Oxfordshire Fire Service worker plotted with council to hide failings
Fire safety expert Arnold Tarling said attitude of Stokes ‘absolutely stinks’
2 July 2017
Carl Stokes, the fire consultant paid £250,000 to inspect Grenfell Tower
The fire risk assessor responsible for Grenfell Tower conspired with council housing chiefs to hide safety failings at the building in which at least 80 people died, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Fire consultant Carl Stokes, who was paid £250,000 to inspect the high-rise block, plotted with Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) to hide the failings from both residents and London Fire Brigade.
Remarkably, his advice not to disclose life-threatening fire risks was backed by housing chiefs, who were looking to avoid safety improvements which they considered unnecessary.
The Mail on Sunday has obtained a copy of a Fire Risk Assessment for Grenfell Tower, submitted by Mr Stokes to KCTMO in November 2012, in which he advises officials to exploit a legal loophole.
Under the heading ‘Legal Statement’, he wrote: ‘You do not have to give a copy of your fire risk assessment to anybody, not even the fire authority, if you do give them a copy this could be used against you at a later date.’
Mr Stokes, who served for many years with Oxfordshire Fire Service, then explained that withholding his report from London Fire Brigade was important because they ‘have the power to undertake an audit of the fire risk assessment to determine if it is suitable and sufficient or not’.
Remarkably, his advice not to disclose life-threatening fire risks was backed by housing chiefs, who were looking to avoid safety improvements which they considered unnecessary.
The Mail on Sunday has obtained a copy of a Fire Risk Assessment for Grenfell Tower, submitted by Mr Stokes to KCTMO in November 2012, in which he advises officials to exploit a legal loophole.
Under the heading ‘Legal Statement’, he wrote: ‘You do not have to give a copy of your fire risk assessment to anybody, not even the fire authority, if you do give them a copy this could be used against you at a later date.’
Mr Stokes, who served for many years with Oxfordshire Fire Service, then explained that withholding his report from London Fire Brigade was important because they ‘have the power to undertake an audit of the fire risk assessment to determine if it is suitable and sufficient or not’.
Mr Stokes was recommended to KCTMO directors by housing official Janice Wray as “willing to challenge the fire brigade on our behalf if he considered their [safety] requirements to be excessive.”
Mr Stokes is the director and sole shareholder of C S Stokes and Associates Ltd.
The TMO’s clerk of works will sign off Rydon’s work
Grenfell Tower The external cladding and window frames were passed on 15 May by the Council’s building control officer.
Grenfell Tower Tony Batty & Jon White monitored progress & ensured quality of work
The Government was told last year by its own fire investigators that tower blocks were covered in flammable material
June 26 2017
The Government was told last year by its own fire investigators that tower blocks were covered in flammable material – but were also told building regulations were “adequate”.
The advice was given by the same fire risk experts who are currently testing the cladding on 600 tower blocks – and so far failing every one of them.
The reports were sent to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in April 2016 by BRE Global, formerly the Government’s Building Research Establishment, which went on to reassure ministers that building controls, which BRE has influenced since 1948, were “adequate”.
The documents seen by Sky News show that in last year’s study of tower block fire safety it concluded: “With the exception of one or two unfortunate cases, there is currently no evidence from BRE Global’s fire investigations for DCLG to suggest that current building regulation recommendations, to limit vertical fire spread up the exterior of high rise buildings, are failing in their purpose.”
The documents go on to warn of “an increase in the volume of potential combustible materials being applied. A number of significant fires… have demonstrated the potential risks”.
BRE is now being paid to test cladding being removed from high rise buildings across the country in response to the Grenfell Tower disaster, in which 79 people are thought to have died after fire spread rapidly up cladding containing combustible insulation and plastic panels.
BRE has been paid by DCLG since at least 2007 to “investigate issues that may have implications for building regulations”.
Last week, DCLG said councils and housing associations must “immediately” take action if they have tower blocks with flammable polyethelyne (PE) panelling like that used on Grenfell Tower, which is “unlikely to be compliant with the requirements of the current Building Regulations”.
Grenfell Tower was done without a Full Plans approval but was certified under Building Notice. Huge difference in scrutiny involved
CORRUPTION
‘One tower, 16 failed council inspections – then 79 died’
Grenfell Tower: 16 council inspections failed to stop use of flammable cladding
Exclusive: Officials tasked with enforcing strict fire regulations didn’t prevent use of material effectively banned on tall buildings
Four ministers were warned about tower block fire risks
Four separate government ministers were warned that fire regulations were not keeping people safe, in letters that have subsequently been seen by the BBC.
In the leaked letters, experts warn that those living in tower blocks like Grenfell Tower were “at risk”.
At least 79 people are dead or missing presumed dead after the fire at the London high-rise last week.
The department that received the letters said work to improve regulation and safety had already been under way.
Leaked letters
The letters show experts have been worried about fire safety in tower blocks for years.
Following a fatal fire in Lakanal House in south London in 2009, a series of recommendations were made to keep people safe.
They were ignored. The government promised a review of fire regulations in 2013, but it still has not happened.
BBC One’s Panorama has obtained a dozen letters sent by the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group.
Informed by experts, it warned the government it “could not afford to wait for another tragedy”.
Four ministers – all from the Department for Communities and Local Government – received letters but did not strengthen the regulations.
Ronnie King, a former chief fire officer who sits on the group, says the government has ignored repeated warnings about tower block safety.
“We have spent four years saying ‘Listen, we have got the evidence, we’ve provided you with the evidence, there is clear public opinion towards this, you ought to move on this’,” said Mr King.
The government department promised a review in 2013, but it was soon delayed.
In March 2014, the parliamentary group wrote: “Surely… when you already have credible evidence to justify updating… the guidance… which will lead to saving of lives, you don’t need to wait another three years in addition to the two already spent since the research findings were updated, in order to take action?
“As there are estimated to be another 4,000 older tower blocks in the UK, without automatic sprinkler protection, can we really afford to wait for another tragedy to occur before we amend this weakness?”
After further correspondence, Liberal Democrat MP Steven Williams – who was then a minister in the department – replied: “I have neither seen nor heard anything that would suggest that consideration of these specific potential changes is urgent and I am not willing to disrupt the work of this department by asking that these matters are brought forward.”
The group replied to say they “were at a loss to understand, how you had concluded that credible and independent evidence, which had life safety implications, was NOT considered to be urgent”.
“As a consequence the group wishes to point out to you that should a major fire tragedy, with loss of life, occur between now and 2017 in, for example, a residential care facility or a purpose built block of flats, where the matters which had been raised here, were found to be contributory to the outcome, then the group would be bound to bring this to others’ attention.”
The letters were written before the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower.
One went to the-then Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles, who received a letter about fire regulations from the parliamentary group in February 2014.
He had also been asked to look at fire safety in February 2013 and March 2013 by two separate coroners, investigating two tower block fires.
In December 2015, the all-party group wrote to Conservative MP James Wharton, another minister in the department at the time, and warned about the risk of fires spreading on the outside of buildings with cladding.
“Today’s buildings have a much higher content of readily available combustible material. Examples are timber and polystyrene mixes in structure, cladding and insulation.
“This fire hazard results in many fires because adequate recommendations to developers simply do not exist. There is little or no requirement to mitigate external fire spread.”
The last of the four ministers in the department to receive a letter was Gavin Barwell, who has since moved on to become Theresa May’s top aide. He received his letter from the parliamentary group in September last year.
In November, Mr Barwell replied to say his department had been looking at the regulations, and would make a statement “in due course”.
In April this year, Mr Barwell wrote to say he did “acknowledge that producing a statement on building regulations has taken longer than I had envisaged”.
The fire safety group pointed out that it had been “given a similar response by three successive ministers since 2010” and it “is now time to listen to what the Fire Sector is saying”.
The government has said there is still no timetable for a review.
The Department for Communities and Local Government said that a police investigation into the Grenfell Fire is already under way “but it will be some time before it is fully understood how the fire started or why it took hold in the way it did.”
In a statement, it added: “The government has acted to improve fire regulation and safety, including the recommendations made by the Coroner following the Lakanal House Fire.
“The final recommendation concerned simplification of fire safety guidance, and this work was under way, with a consultation due to be published this summer.
“Fire safety requirements are complex issues and our priority has been that we have high standards. A great deal of work has been completed, including commissioning and undertaking research to support the planned consultation. Clearly, in light of this tragic event, we need to reflect on whether this consultation is the correct next step to take. We will confirm our approach shortly.”
In a separate development, Panorama has discovered that firefighters put out the first fire at Grenfell Tower.
They were called to a fridge fire, and within minutes told residents the fire was out in the flat.
The crew was leaving the building when firefighters outside spotted flames rising up the side of the building.
The Fire Brigades Union say firefighters were left facing an unprecedented fire, and officers broke their own safety protocol to rescue people.
Grenfell Tower victims ‘poisoned by cyanide released by burning insulation boards used for cladding’
Three of those injured in the fire are known to have been treated with an antidote for hydrogen cyanide poisoning and fire toxicity experts say the thermal lining was an ‘accident waiting to happen’
Fire toxicity experts claim their positioning – between the new cladding facade and the existing ‘70s brickwork of the building – meant every flat could have been filled with enough gas to kill those inside.
Professor Hull, who co-authored a peer-reviewed study in 2011 which established that PIR was the most toxic six insulation materials added: “It’s been an accident waiting to happen and unfortunately we’ve got to the stage now where the accident has happened and we’re standing here saying ‘I told you so’.
“It would have been much better if people had listened to us earlier on when we published the report.”
The insulation board was manufactured by Celotex, who say if fitted correctly it meets regulations for use on buildings above 18m (59ft) tall.
Rydon, the company behind the controversial refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, is about to get a £65million construction contract in west London.
According to industry publication Construction News, the contractor has been approved by Ealing Council’s cabinet as the development partner for the regeneration of High Line Estates in the borough.
Ealing is the neighbouring borough to Kensington and Chelsea, where Grenfell Tower near Latimer Road tragically went up in flames.
The lucrative deal will see the contractor finance, develop and submit a planning application for the new development, which will be situated just miles from where last week’s atrocity unfolded.
They will then demolish the area’s existing estate, before replacing it with mixed-tenure housing. The majority of homes in the development will apparently be ‘affordable’.
Rydon was the main contractor on the Grenfell Tower works that were completed last summer, at a cost of £8.7million.
One of the main changes to the building involved the addition of external cladding, which it has been claimed caused the fire to spread much quicker than it would have otherwise.
At least 79 people have been confirmed dead after the tragedy last week, but police warn that the death toll is set to rise.
Rydon has since insisted all of its work on Grenfell Tower met the required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards.
Ealing Council added that although Rydon had been chosen as its preferred partner for the development of the estate, they hadn’t yet signed a deal.
A spokesperson for Ealing Council told Metro.co.uk: ‘The High Lane estate scheme is in a very early stage. All designs will be fully consulted on with residents and partners and will meet all fire safety standards.
‘The current outdated housing blocks will be replaced by new mixed-tenure blocks that meet all modern fire safety standards. There can be no comparison made with the construction methods or materials at Grenfell Tower.’
ben goldacreVerified account@bengoldacre
One thing conspicuously missing: TV footage of police carrying boxes of documents and computers out of Grenfell’s management offices…
I am truly staggered by the lack of competent response to Grenfell, inadequate immediate support..
For victims, a PM so afraid to meet the public that there is no public reassurance, and a fair impression that accountability is lacking
It struck me as odd that the police ruled out arson very early on, before they had made any other official comment on almost any aspect of this fire. Also that the guy with the allegedly faulty fridge was identified so quickly. Perhaps the authorities want to reassure people… or perhaps something more sinister is going on.
Can you clarify if the #GrenfellTower residents/supporters are subject to undercover police surveillance?
Dear @metpoliceuk@SadiqKhan
Can you clarify whether or not #GrenfellTower families/supporters are under covert police surveillance ?
Did undercover police target Grenfell residents who raised fears about safety?
June 18
Spycops have a long and baneful history of infiltrating health and safety groups.
AMID the protests and non-stop press coverage of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, there are some big questions that are still to be asked.
Specifically: were undercover police infiltrating the Grenfell Action Group? Do the names of the residents who warned about the safety deficiencies at Grenfell Tower (or other council housing projects) appear on the Met Police’s domestic extremism database?
To many, this may seem an odd question, but to community and trade union activists who have campaigned on safety issues for decades, being ignored by those in authority while at the same time being victimised and spied on by them is par for the course.
Last year the High Court heard how a corporate spy called Rob Moore posed as a journalist to infiltrate various anti-asbestos groups and spy on campaigners, including relatives of those who had died from the deadly fibres.
Construction workers who raised concerns about safety on building sites have been repeatedly dismissed, kept under surveillance and blacklisted by multinational companies who saw them as a threat to their profits.
Blacklist files record such activities as workers organising a petition on social housing, participating in the Construction Safety Campaign or complaining about the unsafe electrical equipment and disposal of asbestos.
But it was not only big business that targeted those who raised safety concerns: the police were implicated too.
The Special Demonstration Squad, National Public Order Intelligence Unit and the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit all spied on activists who were vocal on health and safety issues.
The undercover police officer Mark Jenner posed as a carpenter while infiltrating a campaign by building workers to reduce deaths on building sites and targeted the well-respected London Hazards Centre.
Activists who campaigned on safety issues have found themselves placed on the Met’s domestic extremism database and a “two-way exchange of information” existed between the police and the blacklisting companies.
Following disclosure at the Pitchford public inquiry, it is now known that around 250 undercover officers have infiltrated more than 1,000 campaign groups since the late 1960s.
This included not just trade unions but environmental campaigns, anti-racist groups, peace activists and even the grieving parents of murder victims.
Progressive housing campaigns and squatters’ rights groups have been kept under surveillance by these political policing units too.
In the overwhelming number of cases, those spied upon have committed no crime. The purpose of the state intrusion into their lives was not to detect criminality but to keep tabs on anyone considered a troublemaker.
Often that simply meant participating in a perfectly lawful campaign that asked difficult questions — the very same questions about how the rich get rich at the expense of working-class communities that the whole of the country is now asking in the wake of Grenfell.
In many cases the undercover police are accused of acting as agents provocateurs or deliberately disrupting and destabilising the campaigns they targeted.
The Grenfell Action Group is part of a wider coalition of community groups called the Radical Housing Network, which has campaigned for many years against gentrification and the underfunding of working-class housing stock.
Repeated attempts by the Grenfell Action Group to alert those in authority to serious risks fell upon deaf ears.
But have these housing activists, who have been proved right in such a catastrophic and tragic manner, been targeted by undercover spycops?
Because of the police refusal to answer any questions about the operation of their political undercover police officers, I do not know the answer to that question. But given what we know about how these anti-democratic units operate, it’s one worth asking.
If this turns out to be true, then why are the resources of the British state being used to spy on perfectly legal residents’ groups with genuine concerns rather than investigate the real criminals?
How many lives might have been saved if the police had investigated the legitimate concerns raised by activists rather than continuing to spy on them?
To answer these questions might pose real difficulties for Theresa May and the entire British secret state apparatus.
Tottenham MP David Lammy has sensibly called for all the documents relating to the Grenfell Tower refurbishment to be seized by the Met Police to stop potential evidence being destroyed.
I just hope documents don’t get accidently shredded by the Met themselves.
Kensington & Chelsea Tory leader walks out of council meeting after judge orders it can’t be held in private without media
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
By cancelling council meeting, Paget-Brown stuck two fingers up to Grenfell survivors and undermined judges ruling that press should attend.
GrenfellTower council meeting decends in to chaos. Council leader scraps meeting due to media presence.
Tom London@TomLondon6
How can Paget-Brown still be in post? How can anyone trust him? Grenfell survivors barred from council meeting
Judge orders council to allow media into Grenfell Tower meeting
Court overturns Kensington and Chelsea council’s attempt to hold meeting in private, after challenge from Guardian and other media
A judge has ordered a London council to lift a ban on the media reporting on the first meeting of councillors to discuss the Grenfell Tower disaster, after a legal challenge by the Guardian and other media groups.
Downing Street had expressed concern after survivors of the fire and members of the media were barred from the Kensington and Chelsea council cabinet meeting on Thursday evening which was to hear a report about the blaze.
The council had opted to hold a private cabinet meeting to hear an oral report about the fire, citing the potential for disorder, and previous threats against staff. Such meetings are usually open to the public.
However, a court application by the Guardian and five other media groups saw the high court order the council to admit members of the media with press cards.
Downing Street had said it wanted all parties involved in the fire aftermath “to be as open and transparent as possible, both with residents and the wider public, to ensure full confidence in the response effort”.
A spokeswoman said: “We would encourage everyone involved to respect this wherever possible.”
Labour’s Andrew Gwynne, the shadow communities secretary, had also urged the council to reconsider. “In order to deliver a response that survivors, residents and the wider public can trust, there is no room for anything less than complete transparency,” he said.
The decision to bar survivors and the wider public from the meeting followed protests two days after the fire, in which at least 79 people died, when angry residents stormed the town hall.
The council said the decision to exclude the public was made in accordance with its own standing orders “which are confirmed in common law”.
A notice of the private meeting on the Grenfell Tower fire. Photograph: Kensington and Chelsea council
The council has come under intense criticism for its response to the disaster, with many residents claiming they were left to fend for themselves.
In a separate development, the organisation which manages Grenfell Tower in west London announced it had agreed its chief executive would “step aside” so he can “concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry”.
A statement from the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) confirmed Robert Black’s position, two days after retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick was appointed to lead the public inquiry into the deaths of at least 80 people.
“…perceived failings”. Incredible… Don’t worry Nick, your Tory mates from Bow Group will assist.
#DontLetTheDoorHitYourArseOnTheWayOut
Dave Russell@daverussell
How can a inquiry be INDEPENDENT Judge is appointed by Mrs May! What is the terms of reference? To absolve Tories at any cost.
Madeleine Noor Baker@MadNBaker
No 10 have said “we wish the residents to be consulted on the terms of reference of the inquiry” – then 2 days later publish unconsulted TOR
Journalists barred from first Kensington Council meeting since Grenfell
29 Jun 2017
Journalists have been barred from tonight’s meeting of Kensington Council’s cabinet – the first to be held since the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea says tonight’s meeting will be held entirely in private session, putting the decision down to the “risk of disruption.”
The council has cited an incident on Friday 16 June, two days after the fatal fire, which saw survivors and other residents attempt to enter Kensington Town Hall before returning to a demonstration outside, as an example of the supposed risk.
At least 80 people are now known to have died in the blaze, although a final figure may not be produced until 2018.
A notice of meeting on the council’s website reads: “Please note this meeting will be held entirely in private session, pursuant to Standing Order 31.01*, in the light of the risk of disruption (as witnessed on Friday 16 June) and consequently security and public safety concerns.
“As such it will be open only to cabinet members, support officers and invited guests (if any). The public minutes of this meeting will be published, in due course, on the council website.”
The Standing Order referred to states that under common law and statute, the chairman of the meeting, who in this case is council leader Nicholas Paget-Brown, has the power to exclude the public if he or she is of the opinion that there shall be a disruption to the business.
The fire is listed as the only item of business other than apologies for absence and declarations of interest.
Following the decision, local news website Get West London offered to live stream the meeting via its Facebook page, but has yet to hear back from the council.
In a piece on the decision, content editor Charlotte Neal wrote: “We understand that the lack of distinction between public and press in the order and zero evidence that one of our reporters would disrupt proceedings, coupled with the undeniable public interest of the meeting, gives the council not even a matchstick sized legal leg to stand on. If the ban remains, the press could likely demand a (costly) judicial review.
“Head of governance services at the council, Robert Sheppard, responsible for giving advice to the cabinet, told Get West London ‘council lawyers are satisfied on the legal basis’ and that the press is welcome to challenge it. When asked if we could speak to the council’s lawyers, he redirected us to the press office.
“If the council’s not going to let the public into the meeting, once again insulting their capability to handle themselves, at least let “the eyes and ears of the public” do what it does best and report on the damn thing. We repeat, these people deserve at worst the whole truth.
“We stress, the press are the eyes and ears of the public; we’re not here to play lip service to the council and publish its carefully crafted ‘available shared content’ – where’s the accountability in that?”
The site will be live blogging from outside the meeting this evening.
Séamus Dooley, NUJ acting general secretary, said: “We are deeply disturbed at the news that the Kensington and Chelsea council cabinet meeting tonight will be held in private. The ban on media attendance should be lifted immediately and we call on all council members to ensure that this matter of the utmost public interest is discussed in public.
“The horrific fire is a matter of grave public interest. The public has a right to know if public policy failures contributed to this disaster. There is no justification for behind closed doors discussions. This can only contribute to further alienation of residents who feel their voice has not been listened to.
“Members of the public, especially those affected by the fire, and broader public must have their rights respected. The right to freedom of expression includes the right to information. Ultimately elected representatives make decisions on behalf of their constituents and the local community.
“Decisions of the council should be open to scrutiny and conveyed to the public via the independent media. Secrecy is the default position of those who seek to avoid accountability for their actions and on this occasion there is no room for anything less than complete transparency.”
The council declined to comment further when contacted by HTFP.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released its long-awaited report on the collapse of World Trade 7 following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Our take-home message today is that the reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery,” NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder told journalists at this morning’s press conference in Gaithersburg, Md. “WTC 7 collapsed because of fires fueled by office furnishings.It did not collapse from explosives or from diesel fuel fires.”
“Where was this when people were screaming at windows?” New Grenfell Tower fire engine with 137ft ladder explained
Residents ask on Facebook why a fire service appliance with much longer reach than those which initially responded to the devastating blaze can be seen at the scene ‘only now’?
…someone trapped high up in the building – desperately waving for help from a window.
In other images shot that morning, it’s clear firefighters on the ground – who rushed to the scene just six minutes after the first 999 call – had ladders which couldn’t reach anywhere near that high.
The frustration for those who were first on the scene is unimaginable.
Residents were told to stay in their flats – advised before that night as the protocol to follow in case of fire and, it’s been claimed, by operators when they dialled 999.
At the time it was said – although not confirmed – London Fire Service appliances only had ladders which could reach as high as the 12th floor of what’s described as a 24-storey building.
But residents have reacted with shock and consternation when crews in a fire appliance extended a ladder at the scene yesterday which clearly reached much higher.
Some four to five days after the blaze, the appliance with the longer ladder is being used to search the site for the bodies of victims trapped in the blaze high up.
A spokesman for Surrey Fire & Rescue confirmed to MirrorOnline that they were called at 6.50am on Wednesday morning – some six hours after the blaze started at around 12.50am.
He said he was unable to say how long it took for the for the Aerial Ladder Platform to arrive at the scene, travelling from Leatherhead.
Its Surrey-based crew – five men on the appliance in rotation – have been working round the clock to support their London colleagues at the scene ever since.
The question remains why London Fire Brigade don’t own one – especially with such a concentration of high rises in the capital.
Questions over whether they had access to the best resources available are a matter that the public inquiry MUST look into.
A teacher who says she witnessed some of her students run back in to the burning Grenfell Tower block to try and help a friend has expressed her anger that “nothing was done” to help.
“The army barracks are in Knightsbridge, why did the army not come? Are we not good enough?”
@theresa_may – why was the army not sent in immediately to help people of #Grenfell ?
Grenfell fire: Theresa May attacked by fire safety expert for not treating disaster as national emergency
24 June 2017
‘This is turning into a PR disaster for the local authorities,’ says Stephen Mackensie
A fire safety expert has criticised Theresa May for not convening a Cobra meeting to support local authorities in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Stephen MacKenzie said he thought Camden council “had done the sensible thing” by evacuating hundreds of people from five tower blocks.
But he told Sky Newshe was “at a loss as to why Theresa May has not convened Cobra over this to actually get emergency arrangements, led by central government, to support the local authorities and to give the residents the necessity reassurance and address this issue.
“This is turning into a PR disaster for the local authorities,” he said, adding that a group of fire experts should be convened “urgently” over the weekend together with private and social housing to find solutions to the issue.
Fears grow over ’15 tots from same nursery missing’ in Grenfell Tower fire
A childcare worker at Grenfell Nursery reportedly told a relative ‘at least 15 of the children aged between six months and four-years-old were still missing last night’
The childcare centre, based on the ground floor of the building, is reportedly said to be ‘preparing for the worst’.
Authorities are yet to issue a list of the missing more than 72 hours after the disaster.
The Daily Star reports that Ish Murray’s pregnant sister works at Grenfell Nursery and has told him ‘at least 15 of the children aged between six months and four-years-old were still missing last night’.
The 35-year-old told the paper: “Lots of kids live in the block with their parents.
“My sister told me that 15 are missing.”
The information is yet to be officially verified.
Nursery manager Shirley Sylvester has confirmed that young children are missing but hasn’t publicly stated a number to the media.
“Lots of children who go here live in the block,” she said.
“We are not coping very well to be honest. They are our local families”.
‘She will be missed by us all forever’: Family pay heart-wrenching tribute to ‘loving mother and partner’ Berkti Hafton, 29, killed in Grenfell Tower fire
Tories Who Voted Against Making Rented Properties ‘Fit’ for Human Habitation
David Cameron, Chris Grayling, Dominic Grieve, Nick Hurd, Julian Lewis, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Whittingdale to name a few
The bosses of the company that installed Grenfell Tower’s allegedly deadly cladding were accused by HMRC of pumping £2.5million into tax avoidance schemes.
A spokeswoman for the mayor of London has told the Guardian that the British Red Cross is now leading the volunteer effort on the ground around Grenfall Tower. A spokeswoman for the Red Cross, however, said she was not aware of the news.
How many people lived in Grenfell? How many people got out and are accounted for? How many are still missing?
Where are the survivors?!
“We are sending boxes and food… to who? None of the people I grew up with, I can’t find anyone! Where are they?” asks a distressed resident on PressTv. Haven’t most residents in that building died? We don’t even know how many people were in that building! It could easily be 440-660 people assuming 2-3 persons per 220 bedrooms (Claire OT- tweeter user on my network). Those on the missing list have not been checked against the bodies lying in the body bags in the tents! (Jane interviewed by Ashish Joshi -Sky News) Who is identifying the dead? When will the relatives, if they have survived be contacted? When will these people who government failed to give dignity in life, allow them dignity in death? Why is the media not asking these questions repeatedly until we find the answers?
No one has communicated! No one has owned the aftermath of the tragedy! No one has even apologised! No one has resigned. Pages have been removed from Council websites. Why are they all in hiding &/or being non-transparent? Is this seen as a price perhaps worth paying .. the eye-sore… the expendables.. the inevitable casualties of their greed, selfish life styles and corruption? How did we get to a situation when ordinary law abiding citizens who have lost loved ones, family and friends, neighbours felt the need to storm the council offices?
Surely the number of bodies found in the building is known, even if they haven’t been identified. So what’s the body count?
Heroic Grenfell Tower firefighters gagged from talking about horrors amid fears death toll could rise above 100
The order from bosses has been revealed by several Fire Brigade sources who grimly insisted the official figure of 80 dead will soar
1 JUL 2017
Heroic firefighters have been gagged from talking about the full horror at Grenfell Tower amid fears the true death toll will top 100.
The order from bosses has been revealed by several Fire Brigade sources who grimly insisted the official figure of 80 dead will soar.
They spoke as authorities were accused of masking the total of those who perished in the inferno.
One firefighter, who did not want to be named, told the Sunday Mirror: “We’ve been told by our management don’t speak, ideally. The coroner has said it could obstruct the investigation. I don’t know how it can – what’s happened has happened, but that’s what we’re being told.”
A union rep for the Fire Brigades Union said: “We know the death toll will be higher than the official figure – and we’re not talking about one or two higher. There’s a strong possibility we are talking about three figures.”
17 days after the fire we have no list of survivors, the police have said we will have to wait until the end of the year for numbers.
“It’s causing huge anxiety for people who want closure as they wait for news of their loved-ones and it feeds deep mistrust amongst the victims and survivors themselves.
Police say the final Grenfell Tower death toll won’t be known until next year
Jun. 28, 2017
The final death toll of the Grenfell Tower disaster will not be known until next year, the Metropolitan Police has said.
At least 80 people are now known to have died in the catastrophic blaze on June 14. This has risen from 79, with the latest victim being identified as five-year-old boy Isaac Paulous.
But a final figure will not become clear until 2018.
Officers said they believe the majority of those who died came from 23 flats in the upper half of the building, which had a total of 129 apartments. Police have yet to make contact with anybody from the 23 flats, leading them to believe there were no survivors. They were distributed between the 11th and 23rd floors.
Officers have contacted at least one survivor in each of the other 106 flats.
Fiona McCormack, a detective chief superintendent orientating the investigation, said a conclusive death toll will be available “only after we have completed the search and recovery operation, which will take until the end of the year.”
McCormack said officers have now been in every single flat, and on the building’s roof.”
The man, Sir Ken Knight, overseeing the Grenfell fire panel advised ministers to cut fire funding by £200m
The Queen awarded Sir Ken the Queens’ Fire Service Medal in 1991 and the CBE in 2001. He was appointed as Her Majesty’s Representative Deputy Lieutenant for Richmond upon Thames in 2007. Sir Ken was Knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the fire and rescue service.
Fire safety independent panel chair advised against retrofitting sprinklers and authored report advocating £200m fire service cuts
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II glances over to her husband Prince Philip beside Fire Commissioner Sir Ken Knight during a visit to Millwall Fire Station in London’s Docklands, 16 February 2007. The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh received a briefing on operations and watched participants in the ‘LIFE Program‘. The program is an intensive course in which young people learn firefighting skills alongside real firefighters. The youngsters are aged between 13-18.
Sir Ken Knight will now advise the Government on its response to the Grenfell Tower fire
Sir Ken Knight will head the group which has been appointed to “advise on any immediate measures that can be put in place to make buildings safe.”
But in his report the Lakanal House fire in Camberwell, which killed three women and three children in 2009, the former London fire commissioner wrote: “It is not considered as practical or economically viable to make a requirement for the retrospective fitting of fire suppression systems to all current high-rise residential buildings.
Sir Ken was also the author of a 2013 report which recommended £200m worth of cuts to the fire service, according to the Political Scrapbook website.
panel he now heads, will be made up of building and fire safety experts, including the chief executive of the Building Research Establishment, Peter Bonfield, the chairman of the National Fire Chiefs Council, Roy Wilsher, and president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Amanda Clack.
They are due to have their first meeting this week.
Mahboubeh Jamalvatan is still troubled by what she saw on night of fire and unsettled by the protracted dislocation that has followed.
She is finding it hard to sleep or eat because she is still so troubled by what she saw. “What bothers me a lot is it was mainly children and women who died, because the men were out. I saw them with my eyes, the people behind the windows, the children. Downstairs, people were screaming ‘come down’ but they couldn’t, they were trapped there. The police were asking us to move back but I could see the faces at the windows as the fire was spreading around the building,” she says. “I think about it all the time.”
She told the police she was surprised by how few firefighters she saw to begin with. In her statement she said she was concerned that the fire brigade were slow to appreciate the seriousness of the fire. “They thought they could handle it,” she says, speaking with the help of an interpreter. She was also disturbed by the difficulty fire teams seemed to have in getting to the building. “The way that the building was designed, there wasn’t full access around it, there was no access for the fire engines to get there,” she said. Residents had lodged formal complaints over several years about the difficulty of emergency access to the building.
Grenfell Tower residents offered rooms – in ‘carbon copy’ hotel. With cladding
Government staff have been drafted in to bolster the official response to the Grenfell Tower disaster in west London.
The move follows widespread criticism of the local council’s performance.
Residents condemned the relief effort as “absolute chaos” and complained that Kensington and Chelsea Council had provided little support or information.
Councils across London are now involved in the operation, with humanitarian assistance being provided by the west London borough of Ealing.
its almost like they are doing everything they can to force riots on the streets! maybe to make examples when they TRY to crack down on it!
Police say 58 people are now ‘assumed to be dead’ in the Grenfell Tower inferno as fire investigators use dogs to continue their grim hunt for bodies
Commander Cundy said police had received more than 6,000 calls and that the search is set to take weeks or ‘longer’.
He said that the force has confirmed 30 people are dead and has established that another 28 are missing. He added that he has to ‘assume’ these people had died.
The commander stressed that this information was based only on the number of people they believe were in the tower when it caught fire in the early hours of Wednesday morning and the actual loss may be greater.
Firefighters have said they believe no one on the top floors of the building survived.
In March 2013, Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced that the Metropolitan Police were to set up a new base in Westfield Shopping Centre following the closure of Shepherd’s Bush Police Station front counter. In his Police and Crime Plan, designed to save £500 million by 2015, some 2,600 officers were to be redeployed in Safer Neighbourhood Teams across the Met – including 92 more in the borough taking the total up to 139.
Last year was a bumper year for Rydon, which saw profits leap nearly 40% to £10.3m and a payout of £8.4m to shareholders.
Tory donor owned stake in refurb company accused of using cheap cladding on Grenfell Tower
Coller Capital – founded by Tory donor Jeremy Coller – owned a fifth of Rydon Construction, via a partnership based offshore in Jersey
A Tory donor’s private equity firm was a big investor in the construction company accused of saving £5,000 with cheaper, more flammable cladding at Grenfell Tower .
Mayfair-based Coller Capital owned a fifth of Rydon Construction, via a partnership based offshore in Jersey, when the work started on the £8.6 million refurbishment at the block in 2014.
Coller boss and founder Jeremy Coller donated £15,000 to the Tory party in July 2015.
Omnis, which supplied Reynobond panels for the project, confirmed it sold the version that cost £2 a square metre less than the more fire–resistant option.
It is just this type of choice that was covered by Part B of the review of fire regulations Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell promised the Commons in October.
Coller, who had no operational control, bought a stake in Rydon in 2010 as part of a £332 million deal with Lloyds.
It became the major 70% partner in Jersey-based Cavendish Square Partners, which in turn owned a 30% stake in Rydon Holdings, the parent firm of Rydon Construction. Last year Rydon’s profits leapt nearly 40% to £10.3million and £8.4million went to shareholders, says CorporateWatch. Rydon bought back shares owned by Cavendish for £6.2million in December 2015.
It is believed more than £4 million of this went to Coller Capital.
Jeremy Coller is a British financial executive. He is CEO and CIO of Coller Capital, a British private equity firm.
For 20 years, Jeremy Coller has played a key role in the evolution of the secondary market for private equity. He founded Coller Capital, a secondaries firm, in 1990, and has appeared in media lists of the most influential people in private equity.[1] In 2008, the Daily Telegraph of London listed him as number 21 in a list of the most powerful people in British hedge funds, private equity and fund management.[2]
Jeremy’s early career was spent as Head of Research at Fidelity International and as a sector fund manager at ICI Pension Plan, where he was an early investor in Dayton Carr’s Venture Capital Fund of America, an early secondaries firm.
As well as being Chairman of the Jeremy Coller Foundation, his vehicle for philanthropic activities, he sits on the Boards of the Coller Institute for Private Equity at London Business School and the Coller Institute for Venture at Tel Aviv University.
He is a member of the Advisory Council of The Elders.
In 1995, the firm created a US secondaries fund, and in 1996 it bought all Rothschild Inc’s 12-year-old venture assets in the first secondaries direct deal – in which a fund buys a portfolio of stakes in companies.
Britons invest in Rawabi, Palestinian city of dreams
…the project, whose initial funding came from Mr Masri and the Qatari government, is attracting high-profile Jewish investors. These include America’s Michael Steinhardt, George Soros, and the British businessman Jeremy Coller.
The rock star Pete Townshend was cautioned by police and placed on the sex offenders register for five years following his admission that he accessed child pornography on the internet.
Townshend, 57, received the caution at Kingston police station in south-west London for “accessing a website containing child abuse images”.
He was arrested in January as part of Operation Ore, the largest investigation into child pornography in the UK. He admitted using his credit card to access images but claimed they were for “research” for a book.
“People who pay to access these sites are injecting cash into a criminal and manipulative industry that sexually exploits and seriously damages children.”
The children’s charity NCH said Townshend’s crime was “not a small matter”.
Theresa May’s priorities. 15m trip to see fire chiefs, not residents then to Savoy for Champagne & dinner with donors!
#DayOfRage#ToriesOut
On same day homeless survivors of Grenfell were stopped from claiming emergency payments.May’s smoozing with millionaires at Tory fundraiser
Eva Nova@jammyspoonsTheresa May responded quicker & more compassionately to Tory MPs who lost their seats than she did to #Grenfell victims.
Mr Malky@MrMalky
Quick rustle me up some survivors for a tea party at Downing St
17 June 2017May hand picking #GrenfellTowerFire to visit her in PRIVATE at Downing Street.
Theresa May meets Grenfell Tower fire victims at Downing Street as protests over handling of tragedy continue
The PM invite residents to No 10 following her disastrous visit to a local church in Kensington which prompted a huge protest
Mrs May returned to the site of the blaze in North Kensington on Friday where she met with community leaders organising the relief effort at a local church.
But shortly before 5pm, while the MP was inside the St Clements Church in Notting Hill, a group of protesters arrived shouting “shame on you” and “coward”.
The council allegedly opted for cheaper cladding on the outside of the building – reportedly to make the 1970s block look nicer for its wealthier neighbours – instead of a non-flammable mineral based variant which only cost £2 more per panel.
A short while later, Mrs May reportedly fled from a side door
The handful of residents walked into No 10 as protesters shouted “May Out” from the gates.
Fire station shut by Boris Johnson to be turned into luxury flats by company run by Tory donor
Thursday 22 June
One of 10 fire stations shut by Boris Johnson while he was Mayor of London is to be converted into luxury flats – by a company whose directors include a Tory donor.
Belsize fire station, which was closed in 2014 after 100 years of service to the local community, will be turned into 16 apartments, the Camden New Journal have reported.
Vulcan Property Ltd, which bought the grade II listed building from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) for £7.8 million, was given planning permission for the flats this week.
Scrapbook has found that Electoral Commission records show one of the company’s three directors, William Richard Woodward-Fisher, made a £2000 donation to a Conservative association in 2005.
Camden Council’s planning committee gave the scheme the go ahead this week, but at a previous meeting local councillor Flick Rea said: “It is patently clear that we did actually need this fire station.”
Firefighters at the station rescued a man from a fire in a block of flats on the same morning that the station was closed.
Last year a house just a 20 second drive away from the station was destroyed by a blaze. The owner of the house told the Camden New Journal: “If Belsize was open, the response time would have been quicker. There is not even a conversation about that. It’s a 20-second drive away…I want to praise the firefighters but criticise the politicians that closed Belsize.”
And the closure of the fire station was blamed for the death of a pensioner who died after jumping from his burning flat. Here’s the ITV news report from the time…
The fact that two flats in the new development are allocated for social housing will be of little comfort to those paying the price for Johnson’s closures.
Especially given that Tory supporters are now profiting as a consequence of his deadly cuts…
We’ve been investigating the evidence about the Grenfell fire. And what we’ve found is numbing.
On 23 June, the police announced that they were considering charges of “manslaughter, as well as criminal offences and breaches of legislation and regulations” over the Grenfell Tower fire. And they issued a statement confirming that both the cladding and insulation installed at Grenfell have failed safety tests. Investigators are now trying to establish whether those materials were used illegally.
The Canary has been examining available and leaked documents relating to the Grenfell refurbishment. And the results are numbing.
Crime scenes
The day after the Grenfell fire, the Metropolitan Police Service announced it had begun a criminal investigation into the causes of the tragedy. This meant that the tower block and the premises of all parties connected to its refurbishment are now crime scenes. Since that announcement, many have been pushing for strident action.
MP David Lammy, for example, had asked Prime Minister Theresa May for an update on the criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire in a House of Commons session. She was not able to oblige him. He demanded that all relevant documents relating to the refurbishment be seized; and that corporate manslaughter charges be considered.
He said: “Most people see this as a crime and they know that rich and powerful organisations get away with crime”.
And in an open letter to the Prime Minister, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan stressed:
I would seek an assurance that if the Inquiry or police investigation finds any individual or organisation to have been negligent in their duties, then they will be prosecuted. This issue is not limited to the type of cladding fitted; the material it is attached to and how this has been achieved are also critical factors.
The key players
By all accounts, the cladding used during the refurbishment is likely to be key to the investigation.
A planning application [pdf] for the Grenfell Tower refurbishment project was made in October 2012. In that application, there appears to be no mention of the type of cladding eventually used, just “zinc rainscreen cladding“. This may be significant. Planning permission was granted in January 2014. And in the decision document [pdf p2, point 3], it was a requirement that “Materials to be used on the external faces of the building” be approved by the Local Planning Authority.
There were a number of key players involved in the project:
And it was installed by Harley Curtain Wall (now Harley Facades).
The wrong cladding?
In Arconic’s Reynobond PE brochure [pdf], a diagram clearly shows that panels with a fire retardant core, which applies only to the Reynobond FR model, can be used for buildings up to 30 metres tall. And above that, the A2 (non-combustible) model should only be used:
Indeed, the Building Control Alliance 2014 recommendations agree; and they are quoted on the Omnis Exteriors website:
Where the building exceeds 18m in height, the BCA recommends…the use of materials of limited combustibility for all elements of the cladding system both above and below 18m.
However, Grenfell Tower is over 60 metres tall and only Reynobond PE (the combustible variety) was installed.
Costs
So why was Reynobond PE chosen instead of Reynobond FR? Simple: Omnis director John Cowley toldThe Guardian that the product is £2 cheaper per square metre than the fire-resistant variety. But costs should not have been a factor, as Kensington & Chelsea Council holds reserves of £274m.
The view of the Grenfell Action Group (GAG) on this aspect is unequivocal:
The cladding on Grenfell Tower was intended to pimp it up so that it wouldn’t spoil the image of creeping gentrification that the Council are intent on creating, here and throughout the rest of North Kensington.
Omnis director John Cowley toldThe Guardian: “We supplied components for a system created by the design and build team on that project.” The company put a more detailed statement on its website.
Is the cladding banned?
Cowley, who is also the managing director of CEP Architectural Facades, which produced rainscreen panels and windows for Grenfell Tower, is clear on this:
Reynobond PE is not banned in the UK. Current building regulations allow its use in both low-rise and high-rise structures. The key question now is whether the overall design of the building’s complete exterior was properly tested and subsequently signed off by the relevant authorities including the fire officer, building compliance officer and architect before commencement of the project.
Chancellor Philip Hammond, however, said the cladding (Reynobond PE) on the building was illegal in the UK. And the Department for Communities and Local Government later clarified:
Cladding using a composite aluminium panel with a polythene core should not be used for cladding on a building taller than 18 metres.
But in Germany, construction companies are banned from using Reynobond PE on towers more than 22 metres high. And in the US, the product is banned above 15 metres. Britain’s Fire Protection Association now wants the government to make it a statutory requirement for local authorities and companies to use only fire-retardant material, such as Reynobond FR.
What do the building regulations say?
The potential for fire to break out of a multi-storey building and rapidly spread up external cladding is addressed in Part B (last updated in 2006) of the building regulations:
The external envelope of a building should not provide a medium for fire spread if it is likely to be a risk to health and safety. The use of combustible materials in the cladding system and extensive cavities may present such a risk in tall buildings.
Limited combustibility can be demonstrated by testing a cladding system as a whole and by satisfying the performance requirements set out in BR 135 Fire Performance of external thermal insulation for walls of multi-storey buildings. This would allow the inclusion of firebreaks within the cladding. However, contractors are provided some leeway in that, under Appendix A of the Building Regulations 2010 fire safety document [pdf], only the outward-facing surface needs to be fire-resistant.
Or as fire expert Arnold Tarling dramatically commented:
Since the Grenfell fire cladding installer Harley Facades (formerly Harley Curtain Wall) has removed details from its website of its work on Grenfell Tower “as a mark of respect” (though an archived copy of that page has been recovered).
Interestingly, according [paywall] to The Times, in 2016 a Harley customer tried to claim £428,000 for disputed work undertaken by Harley Curtain Wall. The company then went into liquidation. However, Harley’s owner Ron Bailey was allowed to purchase his old business for just under £25,000, even though it owed creditors £1.18m and was being pursued by HMRC for tax avoidance.
Harley said that the panels it supplied were a ‘commonly used product’ in the refurbishment industry. ‘We will fully support and co-operate with the investigations into this fire,’ Ray Bailey, 58, its managing director, said. ‘At this time, we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding.’
Other considerations
There were other factors that could have contributed to the Grenfell tragedy.
And a major fire incident caused by faulty wiring was narrowly averted, providing further warnings.
The KCTMO was repeatedly warned about fire dangers in tower blocks, but did nothing. Residents also raised concerns about the gas pipes in the main stairwell, as it appears they were not boxed in with “fire-rated” protection. And there were four years of warnings over fire hazards by the Grenfell Action Group (GAG). But these were also ignored. Indeed, in 2013 the council threatened legal action against GAG.
We understand the growing demand for answers. Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) continues to play an important role in gathering all relevant information that will enable us to assist fully with investigations.
At present, however, our focus remains firmly supporting our residents, staff and local agencies throughout this incredibly distressing time.
The government’s role
A dozen letters by the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, warning that the government “could not afford to wait for another tragedy”, were leaked to BBC Panorama. They were sent to four ministers with the Department for Communities and Local Government. One of the recommendations was that sprinkler systems should be installed in 4,000 blocks of flats. But according to a leaked letter [pdf], nothing further was done about that. The ministers who were warned of fire dangers included: then Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles, Conservative MP James Wharton, Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams, and Conservative MP Gavin Barwell (now Theresa May’s Chief of Staff).
Barwell promised a review into safety in 2016. And he was warned again about fire safety in March 2017. A review was eventually announced. But nothing was done, and the review was kicked into the long grass.
Other sites
Immediate action is now needed to identify which other properties have been clad with Reynobond PE. A cursory search of the Omnis Exteriors website shows that two properties – Granville Road and City West (Manchester) – were clad with Reynobond, though it is unclear which kind. Other cladding projects carried out by Harley may also have been clad with Reynobond.
And there could be more properties – not just high-rise flats – that are clad in Reynobond PE by other contractors. Indeed, already seven high-rise blocks, including three in Plymouth and one in Tottenham, have been identified. And a further nine high-rise blocks in Salford are currently under investigation.
Meanwhile, cladding installed on tower blocks on the Chalcots Estate, Camden, is currently being replaced after tests were carried out. Camden Council stated that the cladding was “not to the standard” expected. As with the Grenfell site, the main contractors were Rydon and Harley. The council is now seeking legal advice.
Truth comes out
Regardless of the ambiguities in the building regulations, the guidance from the product manufacturer should have raised questions about the choice of cladding.
We believe the dangers of cladding must have been known by the Council and TMO technical staff involved in planning the Grenfell Tower ‘improvement works’ and by the contractor Rydon and sub-contractor who carried out the works and seems to have opted for cheaper highly flammable cladding.
Rydon insists it met “all required building control, fire regulation and health and safety standards”.
Everyone who signed off the project has questions to answer.
When the truth comes out about this tragedy, we may find there is blood on the hands of a number of organisations. It is my grave concern that the families of Grenfell Tower will not get justice if documents are being quietly destroyed and shredded, and emails are being deleted.
Hopefully, further evidence will be found to explain more fully why the fire happened; and why so many people tragically lost their lives.
Grenfell Tower gas pipes left exposed, despite fire safety expert’s orders
June 28 2017
Council expert said pipes serving flats must be protected with fire-retardant boxing but, by time of fire, two-thirds were still bare
Dozens of exposed gas pipes in Grenfell Tower that caused residents to fear for their safety were left bare despite a council safety expert ordering them to be protected by fire-retardant boxing.
The National Grid agreed to protect the pipes serving individual flats, which had been installed over the winter, but had only added a third of the boxing by the time the deadly blaze killed at least 79 people.
In March, three months before the blaze, residents told the London fire brigade (LFB) that people living in the 24-storey tower were so scared by the pipes “that they are having a panic attack”.
They requested an urgent safety report to show the building is “safe from fire hazard”, according to correspondence seen by the Guardian.
A fire safety consultant for Kensington and Chelsea council, which owns the tower, had approved the location of new gas risers and pipes in landings and stairways, but only if they were clad in “fire-rated” boxing, according to an email to leaseholders from Sacha Jevans, director of operations at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation.
Jevans said that the National Grid assured the council on 27 March that the pipes would be protected, but two-thirds of the lateral pipes were still exposed when the disaster happened on 14 June.
The works were originally undertaken by the National Grid’s gas distribution arm following a leak. In March, the firm was sold to investors, including the Qatari government, and renamed Cadent Gas.
Go ahead and do a search for the terms: “Boris Johnson” “Rydon Construction”
That’s the company that refurbished #GrenfellTower
Regeneration Case Studies
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Rydon, in a collaboration agreement with Family Mosaic, successfully led a two stage bid through the HCA’s Delivery Partner Panel Framework and submitted the full planning application for the redevelopment of the former Queen Elizabeth Hospital, located on Hackney Road in Tower Hamlets.
With the plans now approved by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, Rydon will design and build the new development of 188 new homes, 38% of which will be affordable (43% by habitable room), for rent or for purchase through shared ownership. The remainder are available for private sale through Mettle & Poise.
The hospital site comprises a decommissioned children’s hospital and associated accommodation for nurses, which closed in 1996 and has remained empty ever since. The site is located in close proximity to two conservation areas and it is directly adjacent to the London Borough of Hackney, as well as Hackney City Farm and several Grade II listed properties.
All homes will be compliant with the London Housing Design Guide, developed by the Mayor of London, and Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4. 30% of the homes will be designed as family accommodation and 10% wheelchair adaptable.
Work on this major redevelopment is expected to be completed by 2017.
Boris Johnson faces questions over his fire brigade cuts following Grenfell Tower blaze
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson faces questions over his decision to slash London’s fire service while being the Mayor of London.
Johnson presided over the closure of 10 fire stations and the removal of 27 fire engines, despite previously promising not to remove them.
There are fears that many more tower blocks in London could be vulnerable to the type of blaze seen at the Grenfell tower.
Johnson repeatedly denied he had any plans to cut fire engines or fire stations, telling the London Assembly in 2010 that there were “no plans” to remove engines. Pressed on the issue, he said in a filmed meeting that “I don’t want to get rid of them. What’s the problem?”
When confronted by his opponents on the London Assembly about the broken promise in 2013, Johnson told Labour’s Andrew Dismore to “get stuffed.”
David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson are well-known former members of the exclusive society – the Bullingdon Club – …tales of Bullingdon debauchery and a rumour about an initiation ritual in which new members burnt a £50 note in front of a homeless person
Tory council leader reaches an all-time low and blames residents for the Grenfell fire [VIDEO]
It’s difficult to see how the Tories could sink much lower in their response to the Grenfell Tower disaster. The top of government failed to act on a safety review. The landlord ignored tenants’ warnings. Theresa May couldn’t even bring herself to meet residents. And now, the Conservative leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, Nick Paget-Brown, has managed to hit a new low, blaming residents for a sprinkler system not being installed.
The leader of Kensington and Chelsea offered to resign after the council was heavily criticised for its response to the Grenfell Tower disaster, the Standard has been told.
The town hall is also at the centre of a police investigation into the devastating inferno which is feared to have claimed the lives of at least 79 people.
Nicholas Paget-Brown is believed to have offered his resignation at a meeting of the council cabinet yesterday but it was unanimously rejected by fellow councillors.
Kensington council leader refuses to say if he will resign over Grenfell Tower fire, insisting response was ‘effective’
Nick Paget-Brown is told some people view Kensington and Chelsea as a ‘rich borough, represented by rich people who don’t care about the poor, have contempt for poor people’
The leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council has refused to say whether he will resign amid criticism of the local authority’s response to the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Nicholas Paget-Brown, a Conservative, also insisted there had been an “effective” relief effort to help those made homeless by the fire which swept through the block of flats, killing at least 58 people.
He made the claim despite Theresa May saying the “support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information … was not good enough” and criticism from Jeremy Corbyn that the “wealthiest borough in the country” appeared to lack the necessary resources to deal with the crisis.
Kensington and Chelsea Council has faced criticism over its decision to build up a reserve fund of £274m. The shadow Communities Secretary, Andrew Gwynne, told The Independentthe council needed to “immediately explain itself” over why the funds were not used to ensure safe housing.
But Mr Paget-Brown told World at One that this money was used to “invest in new facilities” in the area, such as a new academy for local children, new leisure centres and upgraded housing
Grenfell figures reveal social housing shortage amid glut of empty luxury property
Kensington housing crisis revealed by Grenfell fire deaths
THE WEALTHY BOROUGH of Kensington and Chelsea, where the disastrous Grenfell Tower fire disaster took place, represents the extreme segregation of UK housing policy, according to new figures released by researchers.
There are 1,399 vacant dwellings are in the borough according to Kensington and Chelsea council research, with many properties linked to offshore tax haven ownership – the mechanism of the property speculation industry.
While many of these buildings have been left empty, accruing value for their corporate owners, the public housing stock has been left to deteriorate or be sold off. Ben Kentish, journalist at the Independent, said: “Kensington and Chelsea Council cares so much about social homes that it’s built just 10 – yes 10 – of them in the last 28 years.
“To those saying there’s no room to build, in the same period private property developers built 4060 homes in the borough. The council built 10.”
Yet despite being one of the wealthiest areas in the world, the council has been unable to confirm that surviving victims of the Grenfell Tower fire will be rehoused locally.
“Residents and tenant’s groups had been warning of the possibility of such a tragedy for years, but it appears that not only were these warnings ignored, but steps were taken to actively silence the tenants calling for action regarding the safety of the building.
“Housing is a human right and last night’s tragic event further highlights the need for housing to be run for the benefit of all, rather than for private profit. We call for tenants to no longer be silenced and to be actively involved in decisions about the safety and maintenance of their homes.”
The UK has some of the highest levels of hunger and deprivationamong the world’s richest nations. One in three children in the country is in what Unicef calls “multi-dimensional poverty”: that’s deprivation in housing but also in clothes, social activities and food. This is the reality told by countless organisations on the ground: social workers, nurses, welfare rights advisers and debt charities.
Austerity is more than simply citizens in hardship: it’s the wilful abandonment of the government’s duty to help. Kensington and Chelsea council – the Conservative council responsible for Grenfell – for its part is sitting on £274m in reserves, according to the latest accounts.
While poor children in the borough fell below the breadline – and Grenfell residents slept in a tower without sprinklers – the council handed £100 council tax rebates to millionaires.
Rock Feilding-Mellen, Cabinet Member for Housing and deputy leader of Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council
Tory councillor for Housing in Kensington & Chelsea + private property developer Rock Fielding-Mellen is where the buck stops with Grenfell Tower. He ignored complaints and cut corners when signing off the redevelopment. He has personal interests in gentrifying the borough.
For some years, he and his two partners have struggled to make a go of pretentiously named development company, Socially Conscious Capital.
Though it pretends to be something ethical it is, by any other name, a developer.
It has just two failing projects: Longniddry, East Lothian Racecourse Plantations
The Socially Conscious Capital website spouts a lot of nonsense about ‘working with the community’.
Sadly, it seems not to be working. Read the waffle HERE Longniddy is owned by Rocky’s stepfather, the affable and kind-hearted Earl of Wemyss & March, so you would think getting the yokels to ‘engage’ with Rocky would be a cinch….not so!
With one voice they told Rocky they needed him like a hole in the head telling him to take himself back south.
Local reports suggest that Rocky flew into a major tantrum.
So what about Racecourse Plantations?
Sadly, Rocky seems again to have evoked the wrath of the local bumpkins. Though not mentioned on the website, it seems his attempt to build 390 socially conscious housing units on ancient woodlands got kicked into touch.
You can read about it HERE
So not much of a record for persuading local and yokels to take him seriously!
And this leads us on to the PROBLEM.
Rocky has Borough responsibility for housing and regeneration.
There are two solid reasons why he is ill-equipped for the role.
1. He pisses off those he is supposed to be persuading by constantly losing his temper when thwarted or challenged
2. His private business track record to date is risible.
Oddly, the website says this about Rocky’s local government expertise. Frankly, he should not be mixing up his roles in this way: it looks as if he is using his council job to aid his private business. Political: local planning authorities – who set the planning policies and ultimately make the decisions – are political organisations. It’s therefore necessary to understand the local political climate when putting together a proposal. Rock Feilding-Mellen, who has over eight years’ experience as a local government Councillor, applies his knowledge of local politics to guiding the planning strategy for our sites.
A casual read suggests Rocky’s local government housing experience is an advantage…
Based on the record, not for Socially Conscious Capital……
It is the belief of many in our community that Cllr Rock Feilding-Mellen may be inappropriately using his position of power on the Council for his personal benefit. In the Grenfell Action Group we share those concerns. We believe that Cllr Feilding-Mellen had prior knowledge of the detail of the Council’s forward planning for the regeneration of the Latimer area, and we believe his decision to purchase his current residence in Bramley Road may have been made in anticipation of the likely increase in the value of that property as a direct consequence of the Council’s regeneration policy, over which he now exercises considerable power and influence as Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and Regeneration.
We believe that the the purchase price of the property bought by Cllr Feilding-Mellen would have reflected the fact that this area of North Kensington has long suffered from under-investment and, as a result, house prices at the time of his decision to buy would have been considerably lower than in other more affluent areas of the borough. We therefore believe that Cllr Feilding-Mellen has a strong personal motive to push forward with plans for the regeneration of the social housing estates that surround his property, as the ‘gentrification’ of the area will inevitably lead to a steep rise in property prices, and a significant increase in the value of his own property.
We do not believe that Cllr Feilding-Mellen will be incentivised to properly consider the objections of local residents of social housing estates who oppose plans to demolish their homes and we believe that he has a direct and significant conflict of interest as he seeks to apply RBKC legislation that would see the destruction of the social housing estates surrounding his property, the displacement of working class communities resulting from the increased ‘gentrification’ of the area, and a consequent significant increase in the value of his own property in Bramley Road.
We also have concerns about the several small companies declared by Cllr Feilding-Mellen on the RBKC register of members interests. Two of these companies are registered at his address in Bramley Road. Neither appears to be profitable or to be engaged in any actual business worthy of note. One of the companies in question, VIMV2 LLP, has existed as a small company for several years but appears never to have declared a profit, and despite having assets of nearly £6million, it appears currently to be £122,000 in the red. The very existence of these companies therefore raises questions as to their possible purpose. Might they exist primarily in anticipation of emerging opportunities for property speculation in the Latimer area, or perhaps in other parts of the borough, the redevelopment of which Cllr Feilding-Mellen will oversee as Cabinet Member for Housing Property and Regeneration? We simply don’t know, but we believe we have a right to be concerned, and to raise those concerns with the Council.
We believe that residents are entitled to be reassured by RBKC that Cllr Feilding-Mellen will be recused from any decision making process involving housing regeneration from which he stands to profit personally. We are also seeking reassurances that neither he nor the companies in which he has an interest will be permitted to buy or sell property in areas of the Royal Borough subject to regeneration or likely to become so.
On 23rd March we made a formal complaint to the RBKC Chief Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, LeVerne Parker, requesting that the issues detailed above be investigated as a matter of urgency and seeking reassurances that Cllr Feilding-Mellen’s personal and business interests would not be allowed to influence decisions concerning plans to ‘regenerate’ RBKC social housing estates. We received the following initial response from Ms Parker;
“I acknowledge receipt of your complaint of today’s date.
Although your complaint does not expressly refer to it being a complaint alleging that Cllr Feilding-Mellen has breached the Members’ Code of Conduct, as your complaint is about an elected councillor, I will deal with it as such and I attach a copy of the Council’s procedures for dealing with code of conduct complaints.
As the first step I am required to consider whether your complaint merits formal investigation and the attached document sets out the criteria I will take into account in coming to my decision. I will also consult the Independent Person and the Chairman of the Audit and Transparency Committee.
I will advise you of my decision on or before 3 May 2016 but, if you have any queries in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Londoner’s Diary: K&C’s deputy Rock Feilding-Mellen avoids bash at his family estate
Kensington and Chelsea council deputy avoids step-sister’s aristo party
KENSINGTON and Chelsea council’s Rock Feilding-Mellen has made one correct call since the Grenfell Tower fire. He decided not to head to his family home, Stanway House in Gloucestershire, for a wild weekend of partying with the aristo-boho set.
Feilding-Mellen is deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for housing, property and regeneration, with a brief covering the Grenfell Tower but he’s also part of a social set a world apart.
This weekend was the 30th birthday of his step-sister Mary Charteris, model and member of the band The Big Pink with her husband Robbie Furze, held at Stanway.
Party time: birthday girl Mary Charteris and friends. @georgianahuddart
He had been expected to go home at the weekend to party but, after Wednesday, he told his friends that is just wouldn’t be right. One friend tells us he was “shattered” by what happened.
It would have made “bad optics”, as they say, had Rocky been seen knocking back champagne with his family and friends. Those who did go to Mary’s party included Cara Delevingne, actor Jaime Winstone and aristos including Scarlett Spencer-Churchill.
A dawn walk, with CaraDelevingne in yellow. @felixradford
There is a video online of Cara driving to Gloucestershire in a Range Rover. Pictures of the all-night garden party appeared on Instagram this weekend.
The morning after. @jonte0
Rocky’s mother Amanda is married to James Charteris, the Earl of Wemyss and March. Mary is the daughter of James from his first marriage to Catherine Guinness. Stanway is the family house, set in 5,000 acres with a 300ft single jet fountain, the tallest gravity fountain in the world.
A rather different sort of estate to those in North Kensington.
The crackpot countess (who drills holes in her head to get high) using £550,000 of YOUR cash to prove magic mushrooms are healthy
Countess of Wemyss and March – aka ‘Lady Mindbender’ – is best known for her belief in the health benefits of magic mushrooms
She set up Beckley foundation in 1998 to campaign for legalisation of drugs
On committee is Prof David Nutt, who was sacked as Government’s drug tsar in 2009 for claiming Ecstasy was less dangerous than horse riding
Eccentricity seems to run in the family.
Amanda’s father, an art and antiques-loving country squire called Basil, married his own cousin, Peggy. Together, they inherited Beckley from his parents. And into this rose pink home in January 1943, Amanda was born.
Old Etonian and Oxford graduate, Joe Mellen — who also swore by trepanning, and he became Amanda’s next lover, as well as father of her two sons Rock and Cosmo.
Wemyss, an Oxford don who once taught Bill Clinton, was known for hosting amazing parties at Stanway, his Jacobean stately home in Gloucestershire, which made boho-aristo groupies like Mick Jagger go weak at the knees.
There were plenty with his first wife Catherine Guinness and he continued the pattern with his new countess. The most memorable of these parties took place last year when Neidpath’s bombshell daughter Mary Charteris, married a pop musician called Robbie Furze.
The event, described as ‘the maddest wedding of the year’, was attended by Jerry Hall and her daughter Georgia May Jagger, and the supermodel Delevingne sisters. The bride wore a very revealing dress; the ring bearer was a dog.
Yet despite this decadence, since setting up her foundation she has travelled the world enlisting the support of presidents, made depositions to the House of Lords, and collected big-name scientists around her.
Even proof that this theory was bunkum hasn’t put Amanda or her circle off — hence the £550,000 grant to investigate magic mushrooms.
It is clear, too, that her interest in drugs has been handed down the generations. In 2011, Amanda’s younger son Cosmo, 28, made a film, Breaking The Taboo, which was financed by Sam Branson, son of Richard, and argues that criminalisation of drugs isn’t working.
Nor was the family’s fervent belief in the legalisation of drugs dented by a tragic reminder of the dangers of drugs that came in 2004.
Robert Hesketh, who Catherine Guinness had married after her divorce from Lord Neidpath, died at the age of 48, with a cocktail of alcohol, heroin and cocaine in his blood.
Nothing, not even tragedy, could put off the Countess of Wemyss from espousing the benefits of illegal substances and mind-bending mushrooms.
Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, is an English artist, scientist, and drug policy reformer. In 1998, she founded the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust that promotes a rational, evidence-based approach to global drug policy policies and initiates, directs and supports pioneering neuroscientific and clinical research into the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain and cognition. The central aims of her research are to investigate new avenues of treatment for mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and addiction, as well as to explore methods of enhancing well-being and creativity.
London fire: It could take two years to rehouse Grenfell Tower victims, councillor says
The deputy leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, Rock Feilding-Mellen has admitted to the BBC that it could take up to two years to rehouse all the victims of Grenfell Tower.
Mr Feilding-Mellen said the first priority was to get the families out of hotels and into temporary accommodation before trying to find them a more permanent home.
The council said it had provided hotel accommodation for all those families that had lived in Grenfell Tower that had contacted it.
RBKC switched insurance providers about three months before the fire
Zurich had been charging an annual premium of £680,000 according to The Times
Anthony John Wixted@TrojanManifesto
Are you suggesting the Swiss company Zurich might have pulled out of the deal due to safety fears???
Truthseeker1@thewakeupcall09
It believe it was due to the type of policy that they covered, whereby Zurich did not.
How many other local council buildings in the uk are insured by Protector Forsikring???
Zurich Insurance Group employ some of the best researchers in the world…
..and if we found out so much about Grenfell Tower within 24 hours then ZIG knew it months ago…
Am I right in assuming that Protector Forsikring wont have to pay a penny because landlords,contractors and councils acted negligently???
ZED 🤐@ZedTrafficker
The Council changed their Insurance – Set to gain the biggest payout of £1 Billion
And *uck all mention of Grenfell Tower in the queens speech…. Forgotten already
SilverLining@Ev3ryCloud
Said it all before, it covers re-housing & council will be profiteers, not the residents. More than shocking!
#Justice4Grenfell
Norwegian insurer Protector Forsikring initially revealed that last week’s Grenfell Tower fire could lead to an insurance bill of more than £25 million – but now the total payout is estimated to be as high as £1 billion.
This could be Europe’s single biggest building insurance payout, according to a report by Sputnik. It said The Times estimated the total bill, with eventual cost depending on the number of fatalities, the price of demolishing and rebuilding the property, and the litigation.
Protector Forsikring’s chief executive Sverre Bjerkeli previously said the firm expects its Munich Re-handled reinsurance program to pick up “almost the entire cost” from the blaze. According to a Reuters report, the Norwegian insurer, which has a presence in Manchester, wrote the policy for the Grenfell Tower for about £20 million.
Kensington and Chelsea Council, which owns the freehold of the tower, reportedly switched insurance providers about three months before the fire that the Metropolitan Police said has left 79 people missing as of June 19.
Swiss company Zurich was named as the original insurer of Grenfell Tower, with Kensington and other boroughs picking Protector Forsikring supposedly to save money. The Norwegian firm was said to be charging a much lower annual premium, according to Sputnik.
Meanwhile, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) is being blamed for having used cladding with a polyethylene core – a factor cited in the spread of flames.
KCTMO, which managed the Grenfell Tower on behalf of the local government, allegedly ignored fire safety concerns raised by residents and experts as early as 2004.
Swiss company Zurich was named as the original insurer of Grenfell Tower, with Kensington and other boroughs picking Protector Forsikring supposedly to save money. The Norwegian firm was said to be charging a much lower annual premium, according to Sputnik.
Larry Silverstein/Zurich : in a crowning touch of irony, Zurich American Insurance Companies, one of the insurers that fought Silverstein tooth-and-nail over his 9/11 claims, wound up taking three floors at 4 WTC this August.
Silverstein angled for an even larger payout from the insurance companies but was unsuccessful. It is known that the insurers conducted their own investigations of the culprits behind 9/11, which may have yielded different conclusions than those reached by the U.S. 9/11 Commission.
Amid renewed public interest in determining the identities of all the culprits behind the 9/11 attacks, comes word that a second executive with one of the World Trade Center’s insurers has died from “suicide.”
Zurich Insurance Group’s former CEO Martin Senn was reported to have shot himself at his vacation home near Davos in Switzerland. No suicide note was found by police. Senn resigned as CEO of the insurance giant last December after the company experienced losses from the still-unexplained large explosions in Tianjin, China, last August.
In August 2013, Zurich Insurance’s then-chief financial officer, Pierre Wauthier, was found hanging at his home in Walchwil, in the canton of Zug, Switzerland, not far from Zurich. Wauthier previously worked for JPMorgan Chase. Police said the hanging “pointed to” a suicide. The insurance company conducted an investigation and determined that Wauthier was not suffering from stress as Swiss police contended.
In January 2014, Tim Dickenson, the communications director for Swiss Re, another World Trade Center insurer, died from unexplained causes in London. Swiss Re was one of the firms that experienced suspicious put options on its stock prior to 9/11 and which went toe-to-toe with World Trade Center lessee Larry Silverstein on settling insurance claims. Swiss Re, like Zurich Insurance, conducted its own investigation of 9/11 and both companies indicated that Silverstein was using the attacks and destruction of the WTC to bilk the insurance companies and make a handsome profit.
Hearing that Grenfell Tower survivors not wanting to be rehoused elsewhere eg in Preston (over 200 miles away) are being threatened
with being declared “intentionally homeless”, which in reality means the council won’t help them get rehoused. Absolutely despicable.
Intentionally homeless = the council does not have legal duty to rehouse you. How can your home burning down = intentionally homeless
Andrea Davison@beforethestars
That was always the Tory rich intention get them out of prime land and put in Tory voters
Kabir Ali CTA@KabirAli_KBR
Social cleansing of London been happening for a while now. It’s now under the spotlight due to Grenfell. Community means nothing to Tories
Scott Nelson@SocialistVoice
London is being socially cleansed of working class people to make way for the likes of the toffee-nosed snobs in Kensington#GrenfellTower
TM@cedawnow
Has Jeremy Corbyn struck a Faustian pact with Labour’s gentrification-happy local councillors?
In his conference speech in Liverpool, the Labour leader railed against the housing crisis. “Look what’s happening to housing under the Tories… council homes are sold off without being replaced,” he said. But weirdly, he didn’t find time in his speech to criticise Labour councils such as Lambeth, Hackney and Southwark for doing just that.
Quite the opposite. In a gambit aimed at stopping his party’s desperate civil war, he said: “Across the country, Labour councils are putting Labour values into action, in a way that makes a real difference to millions of people, despite cynical government funding cuts that have hit Labour councils five times as hard as Tory-run areas. It is a proud Labour record, and each and every Labour councillor deserves our heartfelt thanks for the work they do.”
The Grenfell Action Group has repeatedly accused the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea of despising the unemployed and the low-paid as an underclass which it would rather see removed completely from the Rotten Borough. The above press statement from Kensington and Chelsea Council may well be the first concrete evidence that our accusations have been well founded, and it confirms that ‘social cleansing’ is now an active policy which will soon be implemented by the Neo-Con Monsters in Hornton Street.
Back in early 2013 the Hornet”s Nest website revealed that Derek Myers (RBKC Chief Executive at the time) and Laura Johnson (Director of Housing) had been meeting with senior Councillors and Officers from Peterborough Borough Council to explore the possibility of RBKC shipping homeless families from the RBKC waiting list out to Peterborough.
This shameful plan involved RBKC buying land to build ‘barracks for the poor’ in Peterborough to which RBKC could move anyone on their housing register to a ‘Cockell New Town’ in Cambridgeshire.
At the time, these discussions apparently failed, partly due, no doubt, to the storm of adverse publicity created when the Hornet, and the Peterborough local press, both blew the whistle on it. However it has now become clear that RBKC have since continued to actively pursue this approach to solving the local social housing ‘problem’, and have now implemented the first stage of what is effectively a ‘social cleansing’ policy. This brings the nightmare scenario of largescale ‘social cleansing’ a step closer to reality.
The latest RBKC plan to use Council funds to purchase property outside London is evidence that ‘social cleansing’ is an active policy of RBKC and that our Councillors have a will to displace the poor and vulnerable out of the Rotten Borough to make way for spiv property developers and ‘buy to leave’ speculators. The references in the press release to ‘temporary accomodation’ are, of course, effectively meaningless as the Council has no intention of ever increasing the stock of social rented housing.
So far they have only allocated £10 million for this nefarious scheme, which appears to be targetted at homeless families on the housing waiting list. We all know, and the Council admits, that such a meagre budget will buy only a very limited number of properties, so we must assume that this is just a pilot scheme which is likely to be expanded if it proves successful from the perspective of the councillors and council officers responsible. We should also be mindful that what they now represent as an opportunity to house those in greatest need, may well be expanded to later include those targetted for decanting to make way for the mass regeneration projects that we now know are in the pipeline.
We have already seen social cleansing in operation elsewhere in London, notably in Brent, Southwark. Hackney, and Haringey. Make no mistake, your home and your tenancy are no longer safe, and we advise all social housing tenants, in this most rotten of boroughs, to treat all statements, reassurances or promises made by councillors or officers of RBKC with extreme caution. We call on all social housing residents to wake up to the likely implications of this new policy. Spread the word to your neighbours. There is no time to waste and we need to start organising and taking action now to protect our homes, our communities and our tenancies.
N.B. This story has been picked up by the Guardian this weekend in an article that indicts both RBKC and Westminster, which has implemented a virtually identical ‘social cleansing’ policy. Read more here:
Group of victims, residents, community leaders and volunteers has criticised the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation.
June 18 2017
Residents who met the Prime Minister in Downing Street following the Grenfell Tower fire have criticised estate managers of the building as having been “invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy”.
“With the exception of very few junior officers, the estate managers have been invisible in the aftermath of the tragedy.”
The group, which spent two-and-a-half hours with Mrs May on Friday and Saturday, hit out at the “longstanding neglect” of council buildings in the area.
This letter sent by Kensington and Chelsea’s council leader, Nick Paget-Brown, to residents in 2014 will absolutely infuriate you.
James O’Brien was absolutely horrified at the discovery of a letter sent by Kensington and Chelsea’s Tory Council Leader, Nick Paget-Brown in 2014 to rich local residents.
On his LBC show, James shared with his listeners the letter sent by Mr Paget-Brown, to residents living in the borough where the Grenfell Tower took place.
He said: “OK are you ready for this? In 2014, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea council, Nicholas Paget-Brown, wrote to all residents to pay their council tax in full.
“I think everybody in Kensington and Chelsea are going to be in the top band, aren’t they, for council tax nationally speaking? I can’t imagine there are many properties in that area that don’t fall into the top council tax band, so low is it, it has never been raised since it was introduced.
“Anyone who had paid their council tax in full, I think in the top band, received a letter from the leader of the Kensington and Chelsea council explaining that they would all receive, you might want to sit down for this…I suspect this letter dropped through the letter boxes of Kensington and Chelsea residents, residents of the richest borough in the country, the richest residents, of the richest country, received this letter at about the time catastrophic cladding was being attached to the side of a tower block.”
The letter said that theses residents would receive a one-off payment of £100 to be deducted from their council tax bill.
James went on: “The bonus was due to the council’s ‘careful management of its finances’ over the years. This, while…catastrophic cladding was being stuck to the side of the building in order to save five grand. Wow.”
THERESA May has ordered a full public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster as the Government vowed that “no stone will be left unturned” to get to the truth about what happened.
Dame Alun Roberts@ciabaudo
Is ‘No stone will be left unturned’ secret code for ‘Let the coverup begin’?
Grenfell Towers
Rachael@Rachael_Swindon
This afternoon Theresa May is making time to meet with the DUP. She didn’t have time for the residents of #GrenfellTower though. Disgusted.
David Lammy@DavidLammy
Joel Benjamin@Gian_TCatt
Appears #GrenfellTower residents complained TIMBER battens were used to fix cladding to the building exterior. Who inspected the works..?!
CharlieBoab@VanCharleston
Will there be a 27 year #GrenfellTower cover up “advanced in the committee rooms of the Hse of Commons & the press rooms of 10 Downing St?”
Dame Alun Roberts
Glad to see so many people on social media researching background to London fire. I do not trust public inquiries by the likes of PM May.
If CSA inquiry is anything to go by, inquiry is just another word for slow, gradual coverup.
Vicount Ian Kerr CGC@IanKerr
Chilcot….Taylor Report…Lord Saville and Bloody Sunday.
The Royal Borough will be granted Core Participant Status, and we know what that means.
The Grenfell Tower residents saw this tragedy coming, but were repeatedly ignored. Was it because they were poor?
June 14 2017
In a frighteningly prescient post titled Playing With Fire, the Grenfell residents’ association wrote in 2016 that ‘a serious fire in the tower block’ with a catastrophic loss of life would be the only way they could bring the company managing the building ‘to justice’
The Grenfell Action Group was formed in 2010 to oppose the KALC project and defend the rights of the residents of Lancaster West Estate, a sprawling inner-city housing estate of nearly a thousand dwellings, mostly working class, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic.
History – From Core Strategy to Kensington Academy
The people of Lancaster West stood to lose a great deal to this massive over-development at the heart of our estate, not least the well-loved and well-used open-space of Lancaster Green, the defence and protection of which was one of our primary aims.
Chapter 23 of the Core Strategy deals with the site allocation for the Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre development (Policy CA 4). The site is comprised of two land parcels, the first of which already hosts the Kensington Leisure Centre. This area is earmarked in the Core Strategy for a rebuilt or redeveloped leisure centre on the same footprint, more or less, as the existing structure. The second adjoining land parcel is earmarked for a new secondary school, the proposed Kensington Aldridge Academy.
The Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre (KALC) project was destined to become one of the biggest and most ambitious development projects sponsored by Kensington and Chelsea Council in recent times. An application for planning permission was submitted in May 2012 and was duly approved. Demolition and excavation to prepare the site for development began as soon as planning permission was granted.
Lancaster Green. Approximately 40% of the proposed academy site was composed of open green space which included footpaths, grassed areas, flowering shrubs, and a significant number of mature trees. Lancaster Green, as it was called, had been designated, for a number of years, as one of the Council’s local parks. It was listed as a park on the Council’s website and was marked as a park by an official Council signnpost. It was listed in the Council’s ‘Open Space Audit’ (2004), as the ‘Grenfell Tower Amenity Space’ (4350 sq metres), and was listed in the ‘Parks Strategy’ (2010) as the ‘Lancaster West Secondary Park’.
Although managed by the Council’s Parks Department the legal status of Lancaster Green was actually more complicated than this would suggest. A Title Review of the proposed KALC site, carried out by the Council’s Legal Services Department in June 2010, revealed that both Lancaster Green and the Grenfell Tower Playground area were covered by the same title deed as the adjoining part of Lancaster West Estate, and therefore properly belonged to Lancaster West Estate, rather than the Sports Centre. This was a clear indication that both Lancaster Green and the playground area were originally created as essential amenity space for Lancaster West residents. These amenity spaces were particularly important to Grenfell Tower residents, who have no balconies or private amenity space, and whose public areas receive no natural light. It is noteworthy also that Lancaster West Estate is generally deficient in playspace, and the open space in the western part of the proposed KALC site, including the sports pitches, had always served to mitigate that deficiency.
The flammable cladding encasing the exterior of Grenfell Tower played a major part in spreading and accelerating what began as a single dwelling fire with such rapidity that the entire interior of the 24 storey building became a raging inferno in less than an hour. It is incumbent on us also to state our firmly held belief that the cladding in question was not introduced for the benefit of the residents of Grenfell Tower but because Kensington and Chelsea Council had redeveloped the surounding area, building another of their flagship academy schools right next to Grenfell Tower, and a new sports and leisure centre next to that.
The cladding on Grenfell Tower was intended to pimp it up so that it wouldn’t spoil the image of creeping gentrification that the Council are intent on creating, here and throughout the rest of North Kensington.
One of Grenfell’s Tower’s two escape routes was blocked up because of academy
Residents of the Grenfell Tower area have alleged that one of Grenfell Tower’s two escape routes had been permanently closed after the construction of the Kensington Aldridge Academy. The academy, which opened in the autumn of 2014, is currently closed because of its proximity to the scene of Wednesday’s terrible fire.
Local people told the SKWAWKBOX on Sunday that there were two exits from the block, but that one had been shut up – and that older residents of the Tower may have died because they went to the blocked exit in the confusion of the blaze, instead of the one that remained usable.
Residents of the area also alleged that the academy has the same type of exterior cladding that was used on Grenfell Tower and that the decision to use it on the high-rise may have been driven by a desire to bring the appearance of the tower block more into line with that of the new academy.
The cladding on the academy can be seen in the image below:
There appears to be no ill-will or blame toward the academy on the part of local residents and indeed staff from the school, which remains closed, have been participating in the relief effort. However, there is considerably anger about the planning decisions that led to it being sited so close to Grenfell Tower and to the closure of the exit.
One resident told this blog,
How can you put a building so close that you have to close one of only two ways out? It’s bad enough that there was only one staircase for 600 people in that building, but closing one of the exit doors as well? They were treated like cattle.
Some of the older people still got confused and tried to use the old door sometimes. Can you imagine if that happened on Wednesday?
If the assertions of local people are correct, they must raise serious concerns about the council’s planning decisions and their contribution to last Wednesday’s terrible events.
Leaving school at 16 with a handful of O-levels, Aldridge got a job in the post room at his local county council.
Sir Rod Aldridge speaking at the Topping Out
Kensington Aldridge Academy Reaches Major Milestone
28 January 2014
Bouygues UK celebrated the construction of the Kensington Aldridge Academy in west London reaching its highest point recently, with an official “Topping out” ceremony.
The event was attended by Chairman of the Academy’s lead sponsor the Aldridge Foundation, Sir Rod Aldridge, the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Councillor Charles Williams, and Leader of the Council, Councillor Nicholas Paget-Brown.
The government’s controversial academy programme is not universally welcomed by parents concerned that their children’s education is being transferred from state to philanthropist.
As a public figure associated with the Labour government – he retired after negative publicity surrounding a £1m loan he made to the party, and chairs a youth volunteering programme launched by Gordon Brown
Education Portslade county school for boys; qualified as a chartered public accountant, 1970
Career 2006-present: founder and chair, the Aldridge Foundation; 1984-July 2006: founder and chair, The Capita Group plc; 1974-84: technical director, Chartered Institute of Public Finance; 1972-74: assistant treasurer, Crawley council; 1969-72: senior accountant, Brighton council; 1963-69: postboy and then junior posts in payroll section and audit department, East Sussex county council
Public life Chair of dance working group, Department of Health; youth volunteering charity, v; The Lowry and User Voice
Interests Family, golf, Sussex county cricket club, Chelsea FC and Brighton and Hove Albion FC
Capita is the biggest contractor of government services. It collects television licence fees and council tax payments, and runs depart- ments, divisions and government programmes.
It runs the Criminal Records Bureau and, last autumn, schools stayed shut as it tried to work through every school employee in the country to see whether they had any criminal record.
‘Our contract was with the Home Office. The procedure was agreed, and that’s what we were doing. The education minister decided we had to do a full check on teachers. Nobody discussed that with us. I’m not even sure they discussed it with the Home Office.’
Labour donor landed role as adviser to Brown thanks to ‘dirty secret’
3 November 2006
Mr Aldridge: boss of Capita, which has been awarded billions of pounds of public sector contracts under Labour
A millionaire businessman who secretly loaned £1 million to the Labour Party was recruited to head a flagship Government project by one of his own companies.
Official documents show civil servants regarded the process used for the appointment of Rod Aldridge as head of a £150 million youth community service scheme as a ‘dirty secret’.
After inquiries were made about it, one emailed another warning: ‘Our dirty secret is out – would you like to deal?’
The documents, released under freedom of information laws, reveal that recruitment firm Veredus was used to find a chairman for a flagship body implementing the recommendations of the Russell Commission, set up by Gordon Brown to bring about a revolution in youth volunteering.
Mr Aldridge – boss of technology firm Capita, the parent company of Veredus – was eventually appointed to the prestigious post.
He has since taken up a job as head of a new charity called V, which is managing the volunteering scheme.
Though the position is unpaid, it holds huge prestige as one of Mr Brown’s pet projects.
Last night the Conservatives expressed astonishment at the revelations about his appointment and said they would be demanding an official inquiry.
They demanded to know whether ministers had played any part in the process.
Tory frontbencher Chris Grayling, whose questions prompted the release of the documents, said: ‘I shall be writing to the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office asking for an investigation.
‘It seems extraordinary that a recruitment company would nominate its own group chairman to a position as politically sensitive as this.
‘Inevitably, people will be suspicious. This is someone who is a major financial supporter of the Labour Party, who’s clearly close to senior Labour figures.
Capita has won a number of Whitehall contracts despite being fined millions for several high-profile blunders.
Following the disastrous launch of the Criminal Records Bureau in 2002, it was fined almost £2million for its failings in providing criminal checks on people working with the vulnerable.
Rod Aldridge said the loan had been ‘in good faith’
The chairman of outsourcing firm Capita is stepping down over “spurious” claims his £1m loan to Labour resulted in the group getting government contracts.
An influential Commons committee has also launched an inquiry into funding.
The constitutional affairs committee will interview Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, on his role in persuading Labour backers to make loans.
Lord Levy will also be questioned by the public administration committee.
Tony Blair has denied suggestions that he nominated wealthy supporters for peerages in return for Labour Party loans.
Rod Aldridge, one of 12 donors who lent the party almost £14m
Firm that said put money in Iceland: How 250 councils paid to be steered to financial disaster
10 October 2008
A single firm of consultants gave financial advice to more than 250 public authorities – many of which have lost tens of millions in the Iceland banking scandal.Sector Treasury Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of Capita, the controversial ‘outsourcing’ company which has ballooned into a multi-billion-pound concern under Labour.
It is now known to have been a key player in the decisions taken by scores of publicly funded bodies over where to place the vast funds at their disposal each year.
Controversial: Capita chief Paul Pindar, left, and his predecessor Rod Aldridge, who had to quit
The firm failed to comment when asked if it had been receiving commission from any financial institutions as a result of its dealings with local authorities.
However, town hall sources confirmed that STS was being paid a ‘retainer’ by councils for its advice on where to place their money.
STS is called in because many local authority finance directors are baffled by the world money markets and do not feel confident about where they should place the cash they receive each year from Whitehall and council tax payers.
Aldridge is a patron and, former trustee of the Prince’s Trust and is currently Chairman of theAldridge Foundation, an educational charity which sponsors academy schools in England and champions entrepreneurial education.
He is also a member of the Prince’s Charities Council at the invitation of the HRH Prince of Wales, a patron of the Prince’s Trust, Non-executive Director of Equiniti, a Director of Cornerstone and a Director of Constellation Healthcare Technologies.
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge attending the opening ceremony of another Aldridge Foundation academy in 2011. “
In July 2006, Sir Rod retired as Executive Chairman of Capita to establish the Aldridge Foundation to focus on his charitable activities involving educational underachievement and social exclusion of young people. He also is the Chairman of the Lowry, the award winning arts and entertainment venue in Salford, near Manchester which is the home of the L.S Lowry painting collection.
He was awarded a knighthood in the Queen ’s 2011 New Year Honours list on New Year’s Eve, in recognition of his services to young people in his capacity as Chairman of The Aldridge Foundation and for the other work that he has undertaken in this field including being a Patron and a former Trustee of the Princes Trust , the charity established by HRH Prince of Wales.
Aldridge Foundation academies have been in the news. In the last few months the head of one of their academies has been suspended and forced out alongside reports of poor inspection grades and financial problems.
This time last year, the Aldridge Foundation was in the news, too, when 1,600 residents of Darwen signed a petition asking for parents, pupils and staff to be given a choice over who should run the proposed Darwen Vale Academy. They didn’t want the Aldridge Foundation foisted on them as the sponsor.
Parents and staff in Darwen had some knowledge of the Aldridge Foundation since it already ran another school in the town – the Darwen Aldridge Community Academy (DACA). Coincidentally, this academy had been rumoured to have had a part in the resignation of Aldridge Foundation’s founder, Rod Aldridge, as Chairman of Capita in 2006 after it was revealed that he had secretly lent the Labour Party £1 million. Capita was adamant that he had not been pressured to leave but reports, at the time, suggested several shareholders were growing increasingly concerned over Aldridge’s £2m donation to Tony Blair’s academies and his appointment, two months after the loan was made – to head a £150m youth volunteering network in late 2005.
In 2006, The Daily Telegraph reported that with Aldridge as Chair, Capita secured £2.6bn of business between 1997, when Labour came to power, and 2006. This included contracts to privatise IT for the Department of Work and Pensions and the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the administration of driving licences. Capita secured a £120m deal to work on behalf of the Department for Trade & Industry over injury claims from coal miners and a contract for the British Waterways’ pension scheme. But Capita’s privatisation was not without criticism. The cost of their work for the Criminal Records Bureau mushroomed from £250m to £400m. Capita was fined £3.7m following problems with the launch of London’s congestion charge and £300,000 for inadequate internal fraud controls. But despite these criticisms The Guardian could report in 2010 that Capita had made Rod Aldridge a fortune worth £110m.
In this interview, Sir Rod and Lady Aldridge open their home to our readers to give an in-depth look into their days of leisure, and of course, give us an overview of their most precious work at the Aldridge Foundation.
Capita also runs the Congestion Charging Scheme and collects the BBC’s licence fee.
Aldridgre sold £7.64 million of shares, much of which he is understood to be using to complete a divorce settlement from his wife Jacqui. Despite this sale, Mr Aldridge retained shares worth £60 million. He was awarded the OBE in 1994, and is a trustee of the Prince’s Trust.
What’s really strange in reading so many of these reports and minutes is that there never seems to be any conflict between TMO and RBKC.
All of the accounts of TMO’s work in the community and engagement with residents are glowing. This is strange.
THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA
HOUSING AND PROPERTY SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
7 NOVEMBER 2013
REPORT BY THE DIRECTOR OF HOUSING AND TOWN CLERK AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FINANCE
MID YEAR REVIEW ON TMO PERFORMANCE AGREEMENT 2013/14
The purpose of this report is to present details of the Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) performance from April to September 2013 against the Performance Agreement
…there is a rumour going around that the TMO are favouring the views of some Grenfell Tower householders while excluding the legitimate views of others. We know that some householders have been contacted by the TMO (some of whom are not even in the UK) while many other residents of Grenfell Tower have not seen hide nor hair of the TMO for months, and certainly have not been asked to contribute their views. We believe that this favouritism of certain vested interests by the TMO is completely unjust and that all residents who live in Grenfell Tower are entitled to be consulted and not just the ones that the TMO find amenable (for whatever twisted reasons).
What we do know for sure, is that Claire Williams and Peter Maddision from the TMO have no intention of recognising residents of Grenfell Tower who have come together to form any kind of “collective representation”. It seems that we will get what the TMO will allow us, and only what the TMO will allow us. Shame on them!
THE OLD TMO MANTRA OF ‘DIVIDE AND RULE’ STILL HOLDS TRUE AND GRENFELL TOWER RESIDENTS’ VIEWS COUNT FOR NOTHING. WE DEMAND REAL CONSULTATION AND TO BE GIVEN PROPER INFORMATION BY THE TMO THAT KEEPS US FULLY AND APPROPRIATELY INFORMED ABOUT THE GRENFELL TOWER WORKS AND THE FUTURE OF OUR HOMES.
The landlord of Grenfell Tower had already been given legal warnings over fire safety in two other tower blocks
The landlord in charge of Grenfell Tower, where a fire broke out in the early hours on Tuesday 14 June, had been issued legal warnings over fire safety in two other tower blocks prior to the blaze that engulfed the West London property.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) is the landlord of Grenfell Tower. The 24-storey tower block with 120 flats was reported to be on fire at 12.54am on Tuesday 14 June. At the time of publishing, 50 people had been taken to hospital and six people had been confirmed dead.
Previous history
But this is not the first fire in a KCTMO-managed tower block. Because the London Fire Brigade (LFB) had previously issued it with two legal enforcement notices over fire safety, as a result of another fire.
In October 2015, a fire broke out in Adair Tower and 50 people had to be rescued from their flats. As a result, LFB issued an enforcement notice not only on Adair Tower but on the neighbouring Hazelwood Tower. And it shows a catalogue of failings.
Theresa May’s new Police and Fire Minister, Nick Hurd, was among the 72 Tory MPs – who are also residential landlords – that voted against a motion to make homes “fit for human habitation.”
Fire Minister was among 72 Tory landlords who voted against making homes “fit for human habitation”
“It is like you have got a high-rise building and you are encasing it in kerosene,” said Edwin Galea, director of the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich. “It is insanity, pure and simple.”
Such a runaway blaze appears to have been precisely what happened at Grenfell Tower. The flames engulfed the building in a matter of minutes, moving from the outside inward and emitting a dark smoke characteristic of burning insulation.
Recriminations over the failure to prevent the disaster and the sluggish response have contributed to a political crisis for Prime Minister Theresa May, whose Conservative Party lost its majority in a parliamentary election six days before the fire.
If Britain had already banned the material that appears to have spread the fire — as the ministers asserted on Sunday — that would move responsibility for the disaster away from the government and point instead to possible crimes by the tower’s owners and their contractors.
The use of the material is a sensitive issue for the British government because the United States and other countries years ago banned its application in tall buildings on the grounds that it was a fire hazard. In recent years, a series of highly publicized blazes in the United Arab Emirates and Australia has called attention to the problem and spurred more countries to adopt similar restrictions.
Not So Strong@StrongerStabler
Gavin Barwell, sat on High Rise Fire Safety Report, yet May still trusts himto be Chief of Staff. Blood on his hands
Jo Maugham QC
“Seven years later… a… review… had not even begun.” Are the lives of poor people just expendable?
Not So Strong@StrongerStabler
Philip Hammond on Marr claiming sprinklers in high-rises aren’t a necessity.
2013 coroner’s report said ALL needed them.
Susanna Reid @susannareid100
Chancellor Phillip Hammond says wait for expert advice on fitting sprinklers. Coroner has already made recommendation
Last year’s Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill, proposed by Labour, which may have stopped the Grenfell Tower inferno had the government voted for it. But Tory MPs voted it down, 72 of whom were landlordswho would have been out of pocket through all the extra nanny state interference.
One of them, Philip Davies, argued it would put “a huge burden on landlords” who are “an easy target for the Left in this country”. They certainly are now, Phil. But not for the Right, who believe landlords (in many cases them) should be free to make as much rent as they want without being bogged down by all that expensive red tape.
Not that the Right is totally against state intervention in housing. Ask Jacob Rees-Mogg ’s in-laws, whose ancestral pile, the 365-room Wentworth Woodhouse, was given a £7.6million restoration grant last year. The same Rees-Mogg who repeatedly voted for the Bedroom Tax, which punished people with one extra room.
Philip Hammond’s commitmentin this week’s Autumn Statement to spend £7.6m on restoring Wentworth Woodhouse, England’s largest private home, also had a little-known beneficiary: the house happens to be ancestral home of the mother-in-law of Jacob Rees-Mogg (a recent report of his net worth being up to £150m), the Conservative MP who is among the chancellor’s noisiest critics.
Mr Rees-Mogg said he had no involvement in the campaign to save Wentworth Woodhouse. But after hearing the Autumn Statement in which the funding was announced, he for once dropped his criticism of Mr Hammond and described his overall budget as “excellent”.
“I liked the fact that there was only one gimmick. The fact that the gimmick was Wentworth Woodhouse I liked more,” said the backbencher, one of whose children has Wentworth as a middle name.
The Fitzwilliams moved out in 1946 and the house was put into a family trust. Lady Juliet Tadgell, the only child of the earl and now Mr Rees-Mogg’s mother-in-law, inherited the family fortune but not the home. She is one of the trustees of the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust,
Located in south Yorkshire, Wentworth Woodhouse is not very well known, reflecting its limited opening to the public as well as its unglamorous location near the M1, among the area’s former mines.
Emma Dent Coad visits the Grenfell Tower area with Jeremy Corbyn AP
A row has broken out between Labour’s new Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad and her Conservative predecessor over the Grenfell Tower fire.
Ms Dent Coad, below, has accused Tory-led Kensington and Chelsea council of failures that led to the blaze, claiming “poor-quality materials and construction standards have played a part in this hideous and unforgivable event”.
But as a councillor she was on Kensington and Chelsea’s housing scrutiny committee, which oversees “community safety issues”, until May 2014.
A 2014/15 report, in which she is named, says the committee scrutinised work on Grenfell Tower.
Nicholas Holgate has been appointed as the interim joint chief executive of Hammersmith & Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Currently Town Clerk and Executive Director of Finance at the Royal Borough, Holgate will take up the Bi-borough reins in November.
Since joining Kensington and Chelsea, Nicholas’ responsibilities have grown steadily. As well as finance he is today in overall charge of property, including housing and planning; IT and communications.
Before 2008, Holgate held a number of senior posts at HM Treasury before becoming Chief Operating Officer at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Cllr Nicholas Botterill, Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, said: “Derek Myers is a very tough act to follow and, while we are sad to see him go, we know that Nicholas Holgate is also excellent and inspirational, and will lead from the front with real strength. We look forward to him taking up the role very soon.”
John Whittingdale & Nicholas Holgate (Chief Executive of RBKC) both worked for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Nicholas Holgate Chief Executive of RBKC council on social engineering in 2003 (the Child Trust Fund )
Chairman: Your consultation document received a leader in the Sunday Times, describing it as “a half-baked piece of social engineering that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds, stack up countless more civil service jobs to administer and then achieve little”. How did you achieve that kind of headline?
Civil servants charged with designing the controversial scheme admitted to MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that it would benefit middle class parents far more than the Government’s target of low income groups.
They also accepted that the fund could count against a series of existing state benefits.
A new face has joined Kensington and Chelsea Council fresh from a stint with the government.
1 OCT 2013
Nicholas Holgate is joining the council after working as chief operating officer at the department for culture, media and sport. He has become the new executive director for finance, information systems and property for the Royal Borough.
He said: “It will be great to contribute to the work of such a vibrant organisation and as I live in Olympia, the borough affects my quality of life outside the office too. I am absolutely thrilled.”
A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Mr Holgate is also a former director of welfare reform at the Treasury, which he first joined in 1984.
The leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, Cllr Merrick Cockell, welcomed the appointment.
Often known as the Chief Executive in other councils, the Town Clerk is the chief officer of the Council responsible for the delivery of services to residents. He will also act as the borough’s finance director, ensuring the effective management of Council resources. In addition he advises the Mayor at Council meetings.
A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Nicholas Holgate has worked in local government since 2008 when he joined the Royal Borough as Executive Director for Finance, Information Systems and Property. He has also served for 11 months as interim joint chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham.
A career public servant, he started out as an Administration Trainee in HM Treasury in 1984. He was Director of Welfare Reform over 2001-2004 and then Chief Operating Officer at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport until 2008.
THE EMBATTLED chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea Council has resigned after they were slammed over their response to the Grenfell Tower inferno.
Nicholas Holgate was asked for a resignation by communities secretary Sajid Javid
Kensington council boasted Grenfell Tower’s fire safety standards were exemplary – and should be extended to all other major works.
Locals then branded the initial relief effort as “absolute chaos”.
Since the devastating fire, residents left homeless were forced to stay in hotels and B&Bs.
Gavin Barwell was appointed Theresa May’s chief of staff on Saturday, after losing his seat in the election
Rabih Chaaban@ChaabanRabih
How can it be democratic?? Gavin Barwell failed be get elected still appointed by Theresa May as chief of staff – overseeing elected MPs!
Theresa May’s chief of staff ‘sat on’ report warning high-rise blocks like Grenfell Tower were vulnerable to fire
Theresa May’s new chief of staff was one of a series of housing ministers who “sat on” a report warning high-rise blocks like Grenfell Tower were vulnerable to fire for four years.
A former Chief Fire Officer and secretary of a parliamentary group on fire safety today revealed successive ministers had had damning evidence on their desks since 2013 and nothing had happened.
And the Labour MP who chairs the group said ministers had “sat on” the recommendations for almost four years.
Gavin Barwell, who was housing minister until losing his seat in last week’s election, promised to review part B of the Building Regulations 2010, which relate to fire safety, but the review never materialised.
Revealed: the tower block fire warnings that ministers ignored
Fire chief tells of repeated rebuffs by ministers as Theresa May admits Grenfell victims were let down
17 June 2017
Krishnan Guru-MurthyVerified account@krishgm
This is the man who was in charge of housing. He was rejected by voters last week and hired by Theresa May as Chief of Staff
As public outrage mounted and political pressure grew on Theresa May over the tragedy, former chief fire officer Ronnie King – who is secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety – said urgent requests for meetings with ministers and action to tighten rules were stonewalled.
King also revealed that ministers had failed to insist that life-saving sprinkler systems were mandatory in the design of new schools in England, despite clear recommendations in reports commissioned by the government itself, which advocated their use.
His criticism came as the prime minister admitted on Saturday that although the emergency services had been “heroic”, support for families of Grenfell Tower victims who needed help after the fire “was not good enough”.
He said that requests for meetings with former housing minister Gavin Barwell, now Theresa May’s chief of staff, were turned down. King said: “We have had replies, but the replies were to the effect that you have met my predecessor [the previous Tory housing minister James Wharton] and there were a number of matters that we are looking at and we are still looking at it.
“They are politicians and I am a professional fire adviser. I understand the difficulties they have with this,” King said. But he repeated: “They always seem to need a significant loss of life before things are changed.”
Reports into a previous fire at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London in 2009, in which six people died, and a subsequent coroner’s report led to urgent calls from the fire sector for action. But seven years later those calls had still not been acted on and a long-awaited review of building and safety regulations had not even begun. In October last year Barwell answered a parliamentary question from the Labour MP Steven McCabe about the review timetable.
Barwell replied saying: “We have not set out any formal plans to review the building regulations as a whole, but we have publicly committed ourselves to reviewing part B [the regulations governing fire safety] following the Lakanal House fire.”
Another leading expert, David Sibert, fire safety officer to the Fire Brigades Union, who was told he would sit on the review, confirmed to the Observer that he had yet to be invited to contribute to it. It is believed that at most only a limited start was made and then abandoned as civil servants were directed on to other matters, notably the need to secure Brexit.
Last week Barwell declined to comment on when the review would be ready. Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Brinton, who also sits on the all-party group, said: “We could have had new regulations ready to go last year as the refurbishment work on Grenfell Tower was completed.”
On Monday MPs from Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Lib Dems and the SNP will turn up the pressure on government by asking urgent parliamentary questions to establish what work, if any, has been done on the review.
With the crisis threatening May’s already shaky hold on Downing Street, concerns about fire safety were widening to include regulations governing building of schools, student accommodation and care homes. King said: “The Department for Education have their own strict guidance for schools. Last July they issued their amended document as a final draft. Previously they said automatic fire sprinklers would be installed in all new schools except for a very few low-risk schools. They then issued revised guidance, which said that because of XYZ they are removing the requirement for sprinklers in all new schools.”
The Department for Education said that fire safety in schools was paramount but suggested sprinklers were not mandatory in all buildings. “All schools, like other public buildings, must adhere to stringent fire-safety legislation,” a spokeswoman said.
David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, who knew one of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, demanded that the police seize all documents from relevant parties that could help explain its causes and assist the criminal investigations. He said: “The prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law. We need urgent action now to make sure all records and documents relating to the refurbishment and management of Grenfell Tower are protected.”
On Saturday police said that at least 58 people were missing and presumed to have died in the tragedy, and that the figure might increase. The latest official total includes the 30 who are already confirmed to have died in the fire. Commander Stuart Cundy said that the “significant” recovery operation might take weeks to complete. “As soon as we can, we will locate and recover loved ones,” he said.
Grenfell Tower residents had little to smile about when disgruntled leaseholders and tenants met with our local MP, Victoria Borwick, along with Peter Maddison and Sacha Jevans from the TMO, in the Community Rooms at Lancaster West Estate on the morning of 14th December.
We believe that Lady Borwick left the meeting in no doubt that a great injustice and trauma has been inflicted on this community as a result of the appalling management of the Improvement Works and we must now trust that she will keep her word by supporting residents in their call for an independent investigation into Mr Maddison, Claire Williams and others at the TMO.
Bearing in mind that Grenfell Tower is only the first of a number of tower blocks in North Kensington facing refurbishment it would be wise of RBKC to support Lady Borwick and local residents in their call for an independent investigation. There is much to learn from this sordid affair. The Council should have no reason to oppose such an inquiry and Grenfell Tower residents have much to gain and everything to lose if this call for an independent investigation of the TMO is not forthcoming!
The guest list for the Conservatives; premier political dinner last week which gives a fascinating snapshot of the movers and shakers getting ready for their turn to influence Downing Street
Tories BOW to wealthy antiques dealers and DROP ban on elephant ivory in manifesto:
Lady Victoria Borwick is related by marriage to the notorious McAlpine family.
Her husband’s uncle is Alistair McAlpine, alleged child abuser.
Lord “Jamie” Borwick – nephew of Lord Alistair McAlpine
Victoria’s husband, Geoffrey Robert James Borwick, 5th Baron Borwick aka “Jamie”, is the son of Hon. Patricia Garnett McAlpine – Patricia’s brother is Alistair McAlpine
Lady Victoria Borwick is MP for Kensington and Chelsea, preceded by Malcolm Rifkind who is a cousin of alleged child abuser, former Tory Cabinet minister, Leon Brittan.
Tories BOW to wealthy antiques dealers and DROP ban on elephant ivory in manifesto
Under David Cameron the Conservatives had pledged – along with other UK political parties – to put into place a ban on ivory trading. This follows bans by China, the US and other important ivory trading countries to end domestic trades in ivory by the end of 2017.
But there is no mention of the ban in Theresa May’s Tory 2017 manifesto. Sneakily, the Tories have decided to DROP their previous commitment to introducing a total ban on ivory trade in Britain. This comes after heavy pressure from wealthy antiques traders who have been lobbying Teresa May hard to drop the ban on ivory.
She worked in senior management for P&O and DMG World Media (Daily Mail and General Trust plc) before becoming the Conservative Party’s fundraising director.[2]
The Busy Borwicks
Son of Kensington MP Lady Borwick’s curious connections to the people who ensured both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump revealed
A director of a multitude of companies, in spite of being just 29 years old, “new media expert” Thomas Borwick – whose mother was forced to apologise “after using City Hall resources to promote her husband’s [now defunct] electric vehicle business” in 2009– it now transpires, was not only Vote Leave’s chief technology officer but previously worked with SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ. Borwick currently touts himself to his 202 followers on Twitter as the founder of a political canvasing consultancy named Kan.to, an organisation that he boldy claims “will out-organise, out-plan, out-leaflet, out-twitter, out-work and out-vote all of its opponents”.
Mercer, one of the owners of the far-right Breitbart News Network as well as being a major shareholder in Cambridge Analytica, is a man whose “sinister” connections to both Trump and Nigel Farage have rightly been widely criticised. On that basis, that the son of fervent Brexiteer Lady Borwick – a woman whose constituents voted 69% to ‘Remain’ and whose domain was home to a greater proportion of EU nationals than any other London borough in 2016 – has links to this billionaire and his activities should only encourage the voters of Kensington to ditch her and her out-of-touch party.
Son of Tory MP beaten unconscious outside Leicester Square KFC by 3 women
He said: ‘At some point they started pushing and shoving – three at that stage, of which only two were particularly aggressive. I couldn’t hypothecate (?) or guess what was on their minds. At some point my food and drink spilled and was taken from me.
‘The rest of my friends quickly came outside. From our group absolutely all of them did nothing aggressive to the ladies, but they continued to react though and many of my friends were attacked.
The computer app writer was queuing with friends when they became embroiled in a row with the women over space.
‘Tom was among a group of six friends on a night out in London,’ said Lady Borwick, who was previously Boris Johnson’s deputy.
Revealed: The ‘triple dipper’ Conservative MP who is paid nearly £100,000 a year for three elected jobs
Victoria Borwick, the (former) MP for Kensington, is paid an extra £30,000 a year as both a councillor at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and member of the London Assembly
Mrs Borwick, 59, whose application to replace Sir Malcolm Rifkind in the seat was personally backed by London Mayor Boris Johnson, defended her decision.
She can use the title “Lady” because she is married to Lord Borwick, a hereditary peer who has sat in the House of Lords since 2013. The couple live in a £6.6million home in Chelsea and have four children.
Mrs Borwick’s predecessor as MP for Kensington Sir Malcolm Rifkind had complained that it was “unrealistic” to live on £60,000 shortly before quitting after being caught in a cash for access investigation by The Daily Telegraph in February.
She paid tribute to Sir Malcolm Rifkind, saying: “Many people will be sad to see someone so distinguished leave. They are very grateful for all that he did in services to our country and also to Kensington. I have big shoes to fill.”
“The Tories got rid of one Rifkind (Cash for Access) and now replaced him with ‘Madam Rifkind’, who thinks it is perfectly reasonable to use these jobs to rake in as much money as possible.”
Role reversal? Could this be the first time a young East Ender gets to look down on a Victoria Lady?
Since the Tories headed up the Coalition after the 2010 General Election, they have been making cuts in public spending and presiding over austerity measures which have made life harder for ordinary Eastenders. Government attacks such as the bedroom tax and welfare benefit tax have left many East End families only able to buy the cheapest, unhealthiest food – or forced them to supplement their own buying with trips to the food bank.
Against this backdrop, Lady Borwick, aka Assembly Member Victoria Lorne Peta Borwick, a Deputy Mayor of London,deigned to drop into Tower Hamlets last week to claim the credit for Tower Hamlets’ work in promoting good health in its schools (that’s the schools which Lady Borwick’s party is trying to dismantle).
2007:
Trump crony Rudy Giuliaini drew inspiration from Winston Churchill in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack on New York, he revealed.
Mr Giuliani cited the alliance between Churchill and Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Tony Blair and George W Bush as evidence of the powerful bond between Britain and the US. He would make it his mission as President to strengthen the relationship further.
The lunch was attended by about 100 wealthy Americans and dozens of London-based US correspondents.
Conservative mayoral contender Victoria Borwick, who has pledged to introduce Giuliani-style zero tolerance policing, was the only senior Tory present at the lunch at the Hyde Park Mandarin hotel.
“He is a brilliant political leader,” she said.
Mr Giuliani is due to meet Margaret Thatcher tonight at the same hotel before delivering his keynote speech on his manifesto for a 2008 Republican presidential victory.
Back in 1984, Giuliani was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. During that time, allegations began to surface about physical and sexual abuse perpetrated on children at the day care center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Giuliani knew there were multiple children being abused. And yet he did not indict anyone. Not receiving justice from Giuliani, the parents pursued civil action. The government ended up paying 11 victims $2.7 million, but protected its image, thanks to Rudy.
Lady Borwick, a Tory councillor in Kensington & Chelsea, spent eleven years as Director of the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair and a further period of time assisting with the International Fine Art Fair in New York. What better experience could there be to prepare one to understand the problems of the East End?
Geoffrey Robert James “Jamie” Borwick, 5th Baron Borwick] (born 1955) is a British businessman, hereditary peer and member of the House of Lords. Chief Executive of Manganese Bronze Holdings PLC, known for the manufacture of the London Taxi, from 1987 to 2001 and then Chairman until 2003.
Lady Emily@Pushingtheboat
Family history of selling your soul to the devil in the name of personal gain and greed. My, my.
From Domestic Servants to Prime Minister: Theresa May’s Family Fortunes
Theresa May became British Prime Minister on Wednesday 13th July, 2016. Interestingly, this piece by family history expert Roy Stockdill was written back in in 2013. His opening paragraph looks rather prophetic now…
From Convent School to Councillor
“Politics and power often run in families and dynasties, but I could find nothing in the ancestry of Theresa May to suggest that she would become the most powerful female politician in Britain as Home Secretary. Seen by some as a possible successor to David Cameron as Tory leader, she has said she wanted to be an MP ever since she was 12 years old, an ambition in which she was encouraged by her mother.
Her father however, was an Anglican clergyman and kept his political views to himself. Some of Cameron’s Cabinet are regarded as ‘posh’ and ‘old school tie’. But there was no silver spoon for Theresa May. After education at a state primary school, convent girls’ school and a state comprehensive, she read geography at Oxford University, graduating in 1977, became a London borough Councillor and got into Parliament for Maidenhead after twice losing in Labour seats.
Grandmothers in Domestic Service
In researching her family background, I discovered that both of Theresa May’s grandmothers were in domestic service as young women and that she had a great-grandfather who was a butler – so her roots are very much downstairs rather than upstairs. She was born Theresa Mary Brasier on 1 October 1956 in Eastbourne, Sussex, where her father, the Rev Hubert Brasier, was chaplain to a Church of England hospital.
Her mother was the exotically-named Zaidee Mary Brasier, formerly Barnes. The name Zaidee is of Middle East origins. The Home Secretary lost both parents just a few years after leaving university and marrying her husband, Philip May, in 1980. The Rev Hubert Brasier, who became vicar of two Oxfordshire parishes, was killed in a car crash in 1981 and his wife Zaidee Brasier, born in 1928, died the following year, aged only 54.
Theresa May’s parents married at St Giles’ Parish Church, Reading, Berkshire, on 16 June 1955, Hubert Brasier being then 37, a bachelor and a Clerk in Holy Orders, his address being the Chaplain’s House, All Saints Hospital, Eastbourne. Zaidee Mary Barnes was 26, a spinster, of 156, Southampton Street, Reading. The bridegroom’s father was Tom Brasier, deceased, and the bride’s father was Reginald James Barnes, traveller.
Grandparents in the 1911 Census
Hubert Brasier was born on 20 August 1917 at 61 Clonmore Street, Southfields, Wandsworth, London, son of Tom Brasier, then a clerk, and Amy Margaret Brasier, formerly Patterson. They were the paternal grandparents of Theresa May and their marriage certificate shows they were married at The Independent Chapel, West Street, Fareham, Hampshire, on 25 September 1909.
The week saw one of the worst urban disasters in recent history, as runaway fires consumed a low-income high-rise council estate in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea. So far, police have confirmed 17 dead and have indicated that they expect to find many more fatalities.
As the old adage goes, there are no natural disasters, only human ones.
But this horrific scene in west London symbolises much more than simple negligence. The image of a Wicker Man comes to mind.
Were low-income residents sacrificed at the altar of austerity, greed and corporate privatisation?
As North Kensington’s towering inferno continues to smoulder into the early morning, circumstantial evidence is beginning to emerge showing how Conservative MPs sidelined legislation that would have required higher safety standards. According to reports, a group of Tory MPs have consistently voted against tenants’ rights including voting down Labour’s amendment to the recent Housing and Planning Bill which would have required landlords to make their homes “fit for habitation.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the 72 Tory MPs who killed the legislation also just happened to be commercial landlords themselves.
To add insult to injury, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson during his tenure as Mayor of London instituted cuts that have stripped London of 7,000 of its firefighters in the last five years, with numerous Fire Station closures and other cuts to frontline emergency services.
So how did Grenfell Tower turn into a death trap for so many ? The organisation responsible for maintenance and safety at the social housing block is the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO). But the organisation’s name is deceptive – far from being a tenant-run company, the ‘TMO’ is actually a private company – an aloof ivory tower that sits far above the actual residents, and who ‘manage’ 10,000 properties… with handsome salaries and fees for selected executives and contractors. Although Grenfell Tower is owned by the Borough Council of Kensington and Chelsea, the management of the tower block is subcontracted out to the TMO.
Critics of the public-private partnership, or PPP, management hand-off claim that the quasi-privatised TMO arrangement is rife with corruption, including sweetheart deals to contractors. It also enables connected board members to fleece poor residents while taking home enormous sums of money for doing little if anything for it. Last year, the KCTMO was paid £11million ($14 million) in taxpayer money to manage Grenfell Tower. According to the Mail Online, four senior members of TMO took £650,000 between them last year. And that’s not all:
“There are also claims that there was no central sprinkler system – or it was also not working properly during the fire. Others have claimed that the new cladding encasing the block added during last year’s £10million refurbishment by Rydon Construction caught alight ‘like a matchstick’.” This [petroleum-based, flammable plastic] exterior cladding was apparently added to the building to improve the view and cosmetic appearance of the tower when seen from a new development or private luxury flats in the locality.
Apparently, this was all part of a “regeneration project” which was said to be completed last year on only one building: Grenfell Tower.
It gets worse. According resident advocacy blog Bella Caledonia:
Resident Darren Cullen said on Twitter: “Any attempt to depoliticise an event like this is a political act in itself.”
Despite numerous warnings by the residents of Grenfell Tower, local action groups believe that the TMO did not take any significant action to rectify fundamental health and safety flaws.
Reporter Holly Baxter of the London Independent detailed how a series of prophetic warnings posted by the residents’ advocacy group were routinely ignored:
“The Grenfell Action Group residents’ association had consistently warned about the possibility of such a tragedy; this morning, they updated their website with a post which reads: “Regular readers of this blog will know that we have posted numerous warnings in recent years about the very poor fire safety standards at Grenfell Tower and elsewhere in RBKC [the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea]. ALL OUR WARNINGS FELL ON DEAF EARS and we predicted that a catastrophe like this was inevitable and just a matter of time.”
“Links to their earlier posts prove it: in 2013 they warned that shutting down the block’s car park would mean just one narrow, restricted road for emergency vehicle access, something which eyewitnesses reported slowed down the fire engine response this morning; the same year, they wrote a long post about continuous electrical surges which had been causing fire hazards in the building (“decisive action was only taken yesterday after highly distressed residents descended en masse on the estate office to demand help and assistance. They had woken to find smoke issuing from various electrical appliances in their homes, including the light fixtures, and descended in panic to the estate office to demand help”) ; and in November 2016, their frustration about what they called inadequate fire escapes culminated in a frighteningly prescient post titled Playing With Fire: “The Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring to an end the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders… It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block… is the most likely reason those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out and brought to justice”.
But the Tories can’t take all the credit. It’s been said by some party grandees (not to mention Margret Thatcher herself) that the Thatcher Era’s greatest achievement was New Labour and Tony Blair – both of whom helped to push Thatcher’s mass-privatisation agenda over the goal line. Blair’s corporatist trojan horse was camouflaged under the heading of a ‘New Deal for Communities,’ along with the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit nested within the Department for Communities and Local Government and fueled by millions of pounds in “regeneration grants” from the EU – supposedly designed to lift-up some of the England’s most deprived neighbourhoods, which instead paved the way for a bold social engineering project which led to the mass-gentrification of low income areas across the UK, where massive profits were booked on the back of privatising council properties, taking advantage of an over-inflated housing market. It was during this period that PPP takeovers like the TMO took hold of large sectors of Britain’s social housing.
See more TMO scandals at Not TMO, and this open letter to the Hackney TMO here.
Does someone want to reduce the number of Labour voters in Kensington?
While leader of Westminster City Council Dame Shirley Porter oversaw the “homes for votes” scandal
“The Grenfell Action Group believes that there are striking similarities between the current ‘regeneration’ policies … and those that landed Dame Shirley in so much trouble in the late 1980’s.”
“For a start, the intended ‘regeneration’ policies are targeted at Wards that are currently represented (some marginally) by Labour Councillors, particularly St Charles and Notting Barns.
“The inevitable result of ‘regenerating’ working class housing estates involves replacing tenanted properties with so-called ‘affordable’ housing (ie affordable only to middle class home buyers).
“One inevitable outcome of this process will be to skew the demographics of North Kensington with a predictable swing to the Tories.”
Before becoming chief executive of the group, Gordon was chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea TMO. He has more than 30 years experience in the housing sector. As the senior director responsible for service improvement in his last two organisations he led them to three star status. As chairman of the London Almo group and chair of the London Almo Procurement Network, Gordon pioneered collective procurement and partnering contracts as one of the trailblazer consortia. Gordon was the founding chairman of the National Federation of Almos.
All connected to GLA & LGA as i’ve said before… Tory Gov has much to answer too... #ACCOUNTABLE
13 Nov 2014
Big questions for Boris over billion dollar property deal
Boris Johnson is under fire over his handling of a £1bn deal for a Chinese firm to redevelop a huge site on London’s historic Royal Albert Dock.
his follows an investigation by Channel 4 News into the track record in China of the firm which won the contract – ABP – and into whether ABP were given favourable treatment during the tender process.
There are also questions over donations to the Conservative Party from an Anglo-Chinese businesswoman who acted as adviser to ABP.
Sir Alistair Graham, a former chairman of the government’s Committee on Standards in Public Life, suggested to Channel 4 News there should be an independent investigation into the tendering process for the development, which will take place on publicly-owned land.
“It has the smell of a semi-corrupt arrangement, doesn’t it?” he told Channel 4 News:
“If, in fact, somebody is going through a sham process to ensure that someone they want to be successful in the process, but it’s not a level playing field for UK companies, and there have been some financial transactions of an intimate nature then that smells to me of a semi corrupt arrangement.”
In May 2013 the Greater London Authority granted Advanced Business Park – known as ABP – the tender to develop the 35-acre site at the Royal Albert Dock, a derelict site opposite London’s City Airport. The development was hailed by Boris Johnson as “a beacon for investors”, and ABP hope that the site will become an important forum for scores of Chinese firms operating in Britain. The project will include 3.2 million square feet of office space, leisure facilities, and 845 residential flats. It is thought to be China’s largest property investment in the UK.
ABP’s human rights record
Our film raises serious concerns about ABP’s human rights record in China. We discovered that ABP, and their partners in Chinese local government, were involved in the forced removal of some residents from their homes at the site of their one completed development in Beijing. We have obtained amateur video footage, shot by a resident, of demolition teams tearing down a family’s home with all their possessions inside, on Christmas Day 2010. The family also say they were denied fair compensation for losing their home. We have substantial legal paperwork detailing their efforts to secure proper compensation in the Chinese courts.
Boris Johnson confirmed to me in an interview for Channel 4 News that neither he, nor the Greater London Authority (which Johnson runs), assessed ABP’s human rights record in China as part of the evaluation process.
Johnson also said ABP’s human rights record in China “wasn’t relevant to the tendering process.” But the Mayor promised to “look at” any new information.
British fire protection specialist Arnold Tarling isn’t wondering what caused the fire to spread so quickly in London’s Grenfell Tower early Wednesday. He’s certain the recently added exterior cladding system is to blame.
For years, the associate director of London-based Hindwoods Chartered Surveyors has been calling for improved fire safety regulations in the country.
Tarling said he burst into tears when he first heard from a fellow fire expert that the highrise was on fire.
Following is an edited transcript of an interview with him Thursday by CBC executive producer Tracy Seeley.
Q: In your opinion, what happened?
There was an initial source of fire. That cause is entirely irrelevant to what happened later. What happened is the fire got out of a flat, maybe from an open window or through a broken window from the heat. And then it started heating the panelling and the insulation above. That then set a chain reaction in which the panel started to burn.
The panels being aluminium, melt at 600 degrees [Celsius] or thereabouts. But the fire brigade cannot put out any of the fires behind these panels, because there’s metal there. You also have a wind tunnel effect sucking the flames up the wind tunnel, up between the insulation and the external cladding, melting the solid polyethylene above, and continuing the fire right up the height of the building.”
The cladding system is combined polyaluminum sheets with a filler of polyethylene. And that is what has caused the problems, because the polyethylene melts at a very low temperature and it catches fire. It is basically like a candle which is sandwiched between two sheets of metal.
We have seen those fires before. There was one in 2014 in Melbourne, Australia, but those didn’t enter the flats, because I understand the flats were sprinklered. In Britain, we didn’t have these flats sprinklered, and therefore the fire was able to enter the flats quite rapidly.
Q: What does this say about these modern methods of construction that could be potentially so dangerous?
What it actually says is that the building regulations we have in this country are not fit for … this form of cladding. All that you require to meet the standards is that the outside surface shouldn’t allow the spread of flames. What is going on behind the metal or the other surface is entirely irrelevant to building regulations. You could put expanded polystyrene in there, or anything else that burns.
Q: The construction company has said it followed regulations.
I have seen nothing yet that the architect or the contractor or the supply of materials breached the building regulations. The horrendous fact is that in 2014 I did a talk to the British Standard Institute at one of their fire conferences. And I said this will happen in this country. There will be multiple fatalities as a result if these cladding systems are not changed.
Q: How do you feel?
To be honest I burst into tears. This tragedy is totally avoidable. I would say it is wicked that these people have had to die. When I got a phone call from another expert at quarter to four in the morning, I went downstairs turned on the television and burst into tears. My wife came down thinking my mother had died.
It is terrible what has happened. It needn’t have happened. And the people responsible are either the politicians or their advisers. It need never have happened.
Q: What do you expect will happen?
Well, on the scale of what has happened in previous years where we’ve had inquests where it has been said we should have sprinklers in respective buildings and fitted retrospectively, what do I expect of government? Nothing! Nothing’s been done. Nothing’s been acted upon.
Time and again they said lessons will be learned. If I hear another politician say lessons will be learnt, I will scream. It is just soundbites. It’s just meaningless, just saying lessons will be learned when they’ve never been learned from the past.
Four managers at company paid £11million by taxpayers to manage inferno tower block shared more than £650,000 pay last year
Grenfell Tower in London is owned by Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council
In 1996, tenant firm KCTMO took over the management of the block of flats
They gave a £10m refurbishment contract to a third body – Rydon Construction
KCTMO has been accused of ignoring warning signs regarding fire safety at flats
Four most senior members of KCTMO earned £650,000 between them last year
hey are the four most senior members of KCTMO and according to papers seen by MailOnline, they earned £650,000 between them last year.
Robert Black (left) who is Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation’s Chief Executive and in charge of the management of Grenfell Tower and Andrew Goldman from Rydon Construction who appeared on TV this morning admitting he did not know the exact details of the materials used in the revamp of the block of flats
Sacha Jevans, who is Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation’s Director of Operations
Barbara Matthews (centre) is the Executive Director of Financial Services and ICT, Yvonne Birch (left) is the Executive Director of People and Performance and Nicholas Holgate (right) who is Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council’s Chief Executive
Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, Chief Executive Nicholas Holgate
Residents say they told former KCMOT worker ^ Siobhan Rumble of their safety concerns, but claim their warnings were overlooked in the building that is ownedby Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council
Tony Redpath, Amanda Gill, Laura Johnson & Jonathan Bore all NEED TO RESIGN from RBKC
Scott Nelson@SocialistVoice
WATCH: The 1984 documentary that predicted a disaster like Grenfell Tower
And from a fictional tv series…
Predictive programming?
Grenfell Tower disaster parallels in House of Cards, 1993.
Originally broadcast on December 12th 1993, these edited excerpts from the BBC’s ‘House of Cards’ are incredibly prescient, in light of the events of last Tuesday. The obvious satirical commentary of the show highlights the withering opportunism of governments and media alike to jump on such stories. The points are made in general, but I found the arguments around social injustice, and the nature of the cause of the tragedy – a gas explosion in a run-down tower block – particularly chilling. Especially uncanny are the details of the degraded state of public housing, and even the specific points that a small fire on the fourth floor began the blaze, and the death toll being 72 (an estimated figure of around 70 from the fire service yesterday was given in relation to Grenfell).
I am simply struck by how a 25-year old show can so closely resemble today’s reality, with seemingly so few of the issues having been addressed in the interim.
The Grenfell Tower fire was the end result of a disdainful housing policy
The people who lived in Grenfell Tower should be writing this article. But those who died cannot tell their stories, and those who survived are still dealing with their trauma. The residents had tried for so many years but were silenced by a system that prevented them from being heard. The most persistent were threatened with legal action for defamation which had the effect of discrediting their claims of neglect and mismanagement. It’s only now that people are listening – when it’s too late.
I worked with a group of residents living in Grenfell Tower through my involvement with the Radical Housing Network, a network of housing campaigns across London. The first meeting of tenants in early 2015 was attended by around 100 residents. Each spoke of the historical neglect of the building, of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) failing to undertake basic but vital maintenance or improvements. Residents recounted incidents such as disturbing power surges in which appliances “blew up”.
I’d been asked to help the residents organise and campaign on the specific issue of a major refurbishment of the building being undertaken by a private contractor. The residents – mainly social tenants but also people renting from private landlords in flats previously purchased under right-to-buy – represented a typical slice of working-class urban London. They were ethnically diverse, and many had brought their children with them to the meeting. Their unequivocal message was one of a failure by KCTMO and the private contractor to respond to their concerns, let alone take any action about them.
This disdain for residents did not surprise me. It was the same story across many of the campaigns I’d worked on: one where private contractors and developers worked with local councils to “regenerate” estates, while systematically ignoring the views and needs of residents.
The recent history of social housing is one of contempt for council tenants and denigration of council housing. The scale of the tragedy at Grenfell is singular, but the underlying causes of the fire are deeply economic and political. This approach to and accompanying narrative about social housing dates back to the 1980s. It is still driving processes of urban gentrification across London.
Since Margaret Thatcher introduced right-to-buy in 1980, neoliberalism has come to dominate all aspects of economic and social policy. Council housing and its tenants have been undermined and sidelined. Council homes, reduced in number by over 2m, are available only to the most economically dispossessed in society. The Thatcher revolution, continued by New Labour, required that the state and public sector be reduced as much as possible. Regulation and “red tape” were enemies of entrepreneurialism. They were characterised as intrusive and undesirable, while the private sector was hailed as the epitome of efficiency and responsiveness.
In the council housing sector, these changes came together in a drive towards removing housing from local government ownership and control. Council housing was handed over to newly created quasi-private bodies, such as arms-length management organisations and tenant management organisations, or transferred en masse to housing associations. This was justified by claims that management of social housing would improve, bureaucracy would be done away with, and responsiveness to tenants would increase.
Regeneration projects are now invariably delivered through hugely complicated public-private partnerships, with little government funding. Instead, in exchange for their work, private developers receive highly lucrative long-term contracts, such as PFI, and valuable land on which to build homes for private sale. Local government has become distanced from housing provision, central government funding for social housing has been reduced, and the involvement of powerful private companies has increased. As this has happened lines of accountability have become blurred, and social housing tenants have become a “necessary evil”, tolerated by the private sector only because they allow lucrative private market housing to be built.
The consequences of these shifts, and of the accompanying decades of disinvestment in housing policy, are now being seen across London. It is not simply the Dickensian levels of inequality we see in the city on a daily basis, or even the atrocity of the Grenfell fire. It is also the way in which tenants of social housing are treated as problems to be managed, with no voice and little respect. The experience of the Grenfell Action Group is not that of an outlier or a cock-up. It is symptomatic of these gradual and systematic changes in the social housing sector, and in society more broadly, over the past 35 years.
Grenfell was a preventable, political tragedy, about which ordinary people have been warning for years. The tragedy happened because ideology and the bottom line have come to matter more than people’s lives. If anything positive is to come of this disaster, it must be that we start to value council housing again – and the people who live in it.
The residents of Grenfell Tower in west London had repeatedly warned of the potentially devastating effects of a fire before last week’s blaze. At the time of writing 79 people were dead or missing, presumed dead, as a result of the disaster. The exact cause of the fire at the 24-storey building in north Kensington, which had only recently undergone an £8.6 million refurbishment by Studio E Architects, remains unknown. Much more evidence will be needed before fingers can be pointed and, of course, there may have been multiple causes. Even so, the new cladding on this 1974 concrete block has already become a major focus of attention after eyewitnesses said the fire spread up the building’s exterior with alarming rapidity. Here are five key questions which will need to be answered.
1. What cladding product was specified on Grenfell Tower and was it legal for tall buildings?
One of the main aims of the refurbishment was to improve the building’s thermal performance through new external cladding. In its designs, Studio E Architects, working with contractor Rydon, specified a cassette-type insulation system comprising Celotex FR5000 insulation board attached to a timber backing. The drawings also specified a Reynobond aluminium composite material (ACM) rainscreen panel to be installed 50mm in front of the insulation. The lightweight Reynobond panel comes with either a polyethylene core or a slightly more expensive, honeycombed mineral core, which is more fire-resistant.
According to a report in The Guardian, at Grenfell, the construction team used the cheaper panels. These are prohibited on high-rise buildings in the USA and – according to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) – also breach the UK’s Building Regulations 2010, which restrict their use on buildings over 18m tall.
Earlier this week chancellor Philip Hammond said a criminal investigation would be launched to investigate these possible breaches – in particular discrepancies with Part B (fire safety) Volume 2, Paragraphs 12.5-12.9, which state that cladding and insulation on buildings over 18m tall should be of limited combustibility. This is defined further in Table A7.
2. If this cladding method breached the regs, why was it used at Grenfell Tower?
Source: Harley Facades
This will be a key question for the Met’s criminal investigation and the public inquiry but, at the time of writing on Monday (19 June), Kensington and Chelsea Council remained unwilling or unable to answer basic questions put to its press office five days previously, including if and when Studio E’s project was granted Building Regulations approval and when exactly Grenfell Tower last had a fire risk assessment.
What is known is that fire experts have long claimed that Part B is inadequate and open to exploitation. The document has not been properly reviewed since 2006 and, in 2015, a survey by the Fire Sector Federation, which represents fire and rescue organisations, found that 92 per cent of its members believed that the regulations were ‘long overdue an overhaul’.
In the UK, products are tested on an individual basis, rather than in combination with other building components. This contrasts with the testing regime in the Middle East. Following a series of serious fires in high-rise buildings there linked to the use of panels containing polyethylene – the same cladding material apparently fitted at Grenfell Tower – the UAE banned the material and ruled that components must be fire-tested alongside other components.
Konstantinos Tsavdaridis, associate professor of structural engineering at the University of Leeds, told The Times that the UK needed to adopt such a system, adding: ‘You may have very good material indeed. But if you install it as part of a system with gaps and voids, the smoke and the heat can pass through and create a chimney effect, funnelling flames to the floors above. That’s what happened at Grenfell Tower.’
The role of procurement and whether value engineering was at play will also be in the spotlight, as will the government’s war on red tape and so-called ‘health and safety culture’ and whether this drive helped allow rules to be broken or bent. After speaking to affected residents last Sunday, London mayor Sadiq Khan said: ‘To those who think rules, regulations, health and safety investment, are a bad thing, I say come to Grenfell Tower, come and meet the wonderful people I have met and remember those who have lost their life in a preventable accident that didn’t need to happen.
‘The tragedy we have seen is the consequence of mistakes and neglect from politicians, from the council, and the government.’
3. Could the declining role of architects have played a part in this tragedy?
The answer to this will of course depend on the exact cause of the fire and thus on the outcomes of the public inquiry. However, there is a suspicion that there is no longer a single competent professional such as an architect or engineer who has responsibility for specifying materials and – alongside the building control and fire officers – ensuring such materials, or a safe and legal alternative, are used and correctly installed.
Instead, the argument goes, responsibility for risk has been spread around to the point where no-one knows where responsibility lies. In a recent opinion piece for The Guardian in response to the Grenfell Tower fire, architect Deon Lombard – a former project director at tp bennett who has worked on major refurbishment projects and on residential towers – wrote: ‘In the past, architects have specified construction materials and have then been in a position to ensure that the specified materials were used. This is increasingly not the case as performance specifications enable alternative materials to be used, often selected by the developer, contractor or subcontractors.
‘With architects now seldom having the authority to insist on specific products being used, there is a tendency to go for cheaper materials, without necessarily understanding the impact or knock-on effect.’
RIBA Council member George Oldham – Newcastle upon Tyne’s city architect from 1979 till 1990 – told the AJ that ‘something has been lost’ in the move away from filling such positions, pointing out that his role had involved a wide range of responsibilities, including fire risk and maintenance of buildings.
He said: ‘There has been a shift from public sector control of the design and building process to something which is more or less a free-for-all.’
Statement from Studio E
We are deeply shocked and distressed over news of the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower.
Our thoughts are with those that have been affected by this tragic incident, together with all of their relatives and friends.
Given the ongoing nature of the incident it would be inappropriate for us to comment or speculate further at this stage. We will be available to assist the relevant authorities as and when we are required.
According to the DCLG, there are 4,000 similar residential tower blocks in the UK – many of them owned by local authorities.
Councils around the country including London boroughs, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester are urgently carrying out fire safety checks while tower block residents in four major Scottish cities – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee – were quickly reassured by the authorities that the cladding believed to have been used at Grenfell Tower had not been used on their buildings.
In addition, at least one architecture practice is internally reviewing its designs for tower blocks and the building materials used.
Simon Bayliss, managing partner at HTA, said: ‘We’ve set up a technical group across our various architecture studios and different teams, so we can represent all of the buildings we have built recently or are currently building.
‘We will be looking into the implications of the detailing, the packages we’ve prepared, our role on the projects, and preparing ourselves to work with the clients and the contractors should they need any assistance.’
Bayliss, who lived in a 20-storey tower block for eight years, said that HTA had yet to establish whether any of its schemes used the same cladding as Grenfell Tower.
He pointed out that a 2012 fire at a HTA-designed 22-storey tower block in the Chalcots Estate, north London, which had used aluminium cladding, had not spread to other floors.
‘We need to look at every single one individually and make sure that the right things were done,’ he said.
Prior to the Grenfell Tower fire, safety checks on tower blocks appear to have been in decline.
According to figures published in last weekend’s Sunday People, fire safety checks at tower blocks and commercial buildings fell 25 per cent in the five years from 2011 to 2016, from 84,575 to 63,201. Worryingly, the cladding used in Grenfell Tower is not restricted to residential buildings either. The Times reported that £553 million of public sector money has been spent fitting buildings with similar external cladding, including schools, hospitals and leisure centres.
5. What needs to be done immediately to make sure post-war, high-rise residential blocks are safe?
Among the most extreme solutions is give up on these buildings and to simply flatten them. Writing in last weekend’s Observer, mayor Khan wrote: ‘It may well be the defining outcome of this tragedy that the worst mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s are systematically torn down.’
Others have suggested less drastic measures, including the retrofitting of sprinklers to all high-rise residential blocks, a recommendation made in 2012 by the coroner at the Shirley Towers inquest.
At present, only towers built in England since 2007 and above 30m high have to have sprinklers fitted. Their effectiveness was praised in 2015 by a spokesman for the Chief Fire Officers Association, who maintained that no-one had died in any fire in the UK in a building with a ‘properly installed sprinkler system working the way it’s meant to’.
However, others point out that it will take months to fit sprinklers to all vulnerable towers and call for far more urgent action.
Leading architect Rab Bennetts said: ‘We cannot wait. We need to get moving on several thousand towers. The government needs to ensure there are fire extinguishers and smoke alarms on every level, they need to make sure fire doors work properly and the seals are good and they need to ensure that flammable clutter and rubbish isn’t left around on landings.
‘There are thousands of people in these blocks and they need everything done fast to ensure they’re ok.’
Timeline
April 1991 Cladding cited as a key factor in a fire at Knowsley Heights, Liverpool
June 1999 One person dies in a tower block fire in Garnock Court in Irvine, Scotland. The cladding is cited as a factor
2005 Scotland requires sprinklers in all new-build tower blocks above18m
2006 The government insists on sprinklers in new-build tower blocks of flats higher than 30m
July 2009 Six people die in a fire in Lakanal House, south London. The coroner says that the Building Regulations should ‘provide clear guidance’ with regard to the ‘external fire spread’ on buildings
April 2010 Two firemen are killed fighting a fire in Shirley Towers, Southampton
November 2010 Fifty-eight people die in a fire in a 28-storey block of flats in Shanghai. External insulating material is cited as a possible cause
2012 Shirley Towers inquest. Coroner recommends sprinklers should be fitted to existing residential tower blocks
March 2013 Lakanal House inquest recommends retrofitting sprinklers to existing tower blocks
January 2014 Planning permission is granted for the £10 million refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, including new external cladding. Completed in 2016
December 2015 Cladding is cited as a cause for the spread of a fire at the 63-storey Address Hotel in Dubai
January 2016 Legislation introduced in Wales requires sprinklers in every new home
November 2016 Grenfell Action Group warns that the block’s manager KCTMO is ‘playing with fire’ and ‘only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord’
14 June 2017 Fire breaks out on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower
GRENFELL TOWER – THE BRUTAL ILLUSTRATION OF INEQUALITY
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC)
One of the first people to put their face in front of the media was Nicholas Paget-Brown, leader of the Tory-run council. Mr Paget-Brown is an interesting man – he used to be involved in the Tory think-tank Bow Group, so is clearly well-connected in Tory circles. He offered his resignation but the council cabinet unanimously declined to accept it.
The housing stock in the borough is run by Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO) – which is basically the council giving itself another name. It was KCTMO (yes, the council) who employed the services of the contractors to undertake a £10m regeneration of Grenfell Tower.
Survivors and locals keep repeating that they almost feel that it could be an intentional action as they believe the council are in the process of social cleansing an area that could potentially make them a lot of money. I won’t speculate on whether this is true or not.
Arconic: Designed Reynobond PC used in the plastic cladding. Despite selling fire retardant cladding for just £2 more per piece, the council chose the cheaper option.
The questions that need answering
Why was such a huge amount of taxpayers money spent on superficial cosmetic work when essential safety work was required but neglected?
Why were residents concerns continually ignored and, worse still, threatened with legal action by the council solicitor?
Why was the cladding used despite recommendations by it’s manufacturer that it NOT be used on buildings taller than 10m?
Is it true that there used to be a sprinkler system within the tower block in the seventies?
Why were the council offices closed all this weekend (directly after the fire) despite the plight of those who have lost everything?
Why can the government pledge nearly £400m to refurbish Buckingham Palace (even though the Queen doesn’t live there any more) but pledge £5m for many people who have lost the only homes they had and all their possessions.
Why did the stairwell fill with smoke?
Why did RBKC not contact the British Red Cross until Friday afternoon to ask for their assistance on the ground? It seems that despite the devastation and carnage that unfolded in front of their eyes, they still continued to ignore the residents until they couldn’t do so any longer.
How can your surplus stand at such a huge figure yet housing such as Grenfell be so lacking in basic safety measures?
How can you justify spending out on making paving stones ‘less slippery’ using new equipment and extra manpower in the richer areas, yet seemed to adverse to spending money where it NEEDED spending? That is the public purse!
Why are your wages so extortionately high? What justification is there for them – it can’t be because of added responsibility of the position as you’ve shown no responsibility whatsoever!
Legal Aid
The council were alerted numerous times by residents and the Grenfell Action Group (GAG) of potential safety risks. Not only did the council ignore them, they even went so far as to silence them by issuing a solicitor’s letter!
In 2013, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling made cuts to the legal aid budget, the result of which meant that most ordinary folk cannot access legal aid any more because they simply can’t afford it. So even when the GAG (the abbreviation isn’t lost on me) knew the council were breaching safety with inadequate alarm systems and evacuation procedure, there was little they could do because they couldn’t afford to! This highlights the very issue of inequality in this country. The Tories have slowly chipped away at the rights of the masses until voices can no longer be heard. The latest idea of scrapping the Human Rights Act and policing the internet more heavily just adds to this.
So who’s to blame?
Without knowing the reasons why the fire started (maybe a power surge caused the fridge to ignite) it’s impossible to say. However, one this is almost certain – the cladding used on the tower exacerbated a fire that London Fire Service say, they did extinguish. So, who is responsible for the cladding?
It’s not the manufacturers – they simply fulfilled an order – although that particular cladding should now be banned.
It’s not the builders who were simply following orders to fit it.
So who made the decision to use that particular cladding? Who proposed it, who checked it, was it assessed against other options and who rubber-stamped it?
Who is the person at RBKC in charge of health and safety within social housing? Why was there no proper evacuation procedure in place? Why did it take for numerous complaints from residents to even get simply signage?
Who is the person who should have been coordinating and assisting all those affected by the fire but who has been nowhere to be seen?
Who has been making the most appalling decisions since the fire occurred?
Oh, and I haven’t forgotten you Mr Barwell…
Lastly, why did the then Minister for Housing, Gavin Barwell, sit on a report that had urgent recommendations on tower block fire safety to prevent this very thing from happening? Is he going to be held accountable? He’s just been promoted by Theresa May.
Why did 71 Tory landlords vote against the bill to make rental properties fit for human habitation – including Police and Fire Minister, Nick Hurd!
All those extortionately paid staff at RBKC and in the government are a shocking example of all that is wrong in our society. They lack any decency.
And all those unpaid volunteers who stopped to help due to simple common decency and compassion are a shining example of all that is good.
Grenfell: Exploitable Flaws Found In Building Control
According to the Fire Sector Federation, the Building Control Alliance is a “unique industry group made up of representatives from all the organisations directly involved in building control in England and Wales.”
Though its own website is currently not available, the organisation is described as comprising “the organisations supporting the many thousands of building control professionals – the Chartered Institute of Building, the Chartered Association of Building Engineers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors – and the professional associations promoting public and private sector building control, Local Authority Building Control and the Association of Consultant Approved Inspectors.”
The BCA, the Fire Sector Federation says, is the only place where all these “voices and competing interests” come together as one.
It appears to be a lobby group which has issued guidance and presentations, seen this morning, highlighting an exploitable loophole in the fire compliance regulations relating to the use of external cladding on buildings over eighteen metres in height.
Why did it take so long to get an aerial platform to the tower block? BBC Newsnight investigates
A series of failings that hampered the efforts of firefighters to tackle the Grenfell Tower fire and rescue the building’s residents have been identified by a BBC investigation.
Crews cited low water pressure, radio problems and equipment that was either lacking or did not arrive before the fire on 14 June got out of control.
Newsnight has learned a high ladder did not arrive for more than 30 minutes.
The London Fire Brigade says it has changed its procedures since the fire.
A high ladder will now automatically be sent to a fire in a tower.
An independent fire expert said having the high ladder, which is also known as an “aerial”, available earlier would have given firefighters a better chance of stopping the blaze when it jumped from a fourth floor flat in the tower block and began to race up the side of the building.
More than 200 firefighters and 40 fire engines were involved in battling the blaze that engulfed the block in North Kensington, west London.
About 300 people are believed to have lived in Grenfell Tower and most got out on their own.
The fire brigade rescued 65 people.
Firefighters have been told not to talk to the media but Newsnight obtained a copy of the “incident mobilisation list”, the document which details every appliance dispatched to the incident.
The programme was also sent anonymous accounts from a number of men and women involved in the operation.
The mobilisation list revealed that the 30m (100ft) aerial, which could reach the 10th floor of Grenfell Tower, was not dispatched until 01:19 BST, 24 minutes after the first crews were sent to fight what had started as a fridge fire on the fourth floor.
The aerial did not arrive until 01:32 BST, by which time the fire had raced up the building’s cladding.
The list entry A213 shows the ladder did not arrive until 32 minutes after the first crews
Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said: “I have spoken to aerial appliance operators in London… who attended that incident, who think that having that on the first attendance might have made a difference, because it allows you to operate a very powerful water tower from outside the building onto the building.”
A London Fire Brigade (LFB) spokesman confirmed the so-called “pre-determined attendance” for a tower fire – the list of appliances which are automatically dispatched – has been changed from four engines to five engines plus an aerial.
The spokesman said: “An ‘interim’ change to pre-determined attendance for high rise buildings was introduced in direct response to the government’s action to address concerns of cladding on buildings.
“The Brigade’s pre-determined attendance to high rise buildings had already been increased in June 2015 from three fire engines to four as part of our ongoing review of high rise firefighting.
“It is important to understand that fires in high rise buildings are nearly always dealt with internally, not usually needing an aerial appliance.
“The fundamental issue of high rise safety remains that buildings are maintained to stop fires spreading.”
The spokesman added: “The Brigade has a fleet of specialist aerial firefighting appliances and these attend a variety of incidents across the capital.”
‘Helmet-meltingly hot’
Newsnight’s investigation also heard that firefighters had struggled with water pressure problems and the fire service had to call Thames Water to ask the company to increase pressure in the area.
One firefighter said: “The fire floors we went in were helmet-meltingly hot… when we were clearing flats, it was a case of a quick look and closing doors because the water pressure wasn’t up to firefighting.”
A Thames Water spokesman said: “We’ve been supporting the emergency services’ response in every way possible… any suggestion there was low pressure or that Thames Water did not supply enough water to fire services during this appalling tragedy is categorically false.”
Firefighters also described problems with radio reception inside the building and said they lacked enough of the “extended duration” breathing apparatus they needed, especially when reaching the higher floors of the building.
All fire engines have basic breathing apparatus that provides firefighters with oxygen for around 30 minutes.
The extended duration apparatus enables them to breathe for a theoretical 45 minutes – but working in dense smoke and intense heat 20 stories up uses up the oxygen more quickly.
The LFB said all of its rescue units carry extended duration apparatus and “all of the fire brigade’s rescue units attended the incident”.
Inquiry into response
The LFB said the police investigation into the fire would examine the brigade’s response “including all of the issues Newsnight has raised”.
Questions have also been raised about why a 42m firefighting platform had to be called in from Surrey to fight the fire at Grenfell – itself 67m high – because the LFB does not have one of its own.
The LFB spokesman said it had never responded to a fire on the scale of Grenfell Tower before.
He said: “The commissioner has made clear her intention to fully review the brigade’s resources and seek funding for any additional requirements.”
We recently received the correspondence below from the Secretary of the Warwick Road Estate Leaseholders’ Association (WRELA). We hope it will be of interest to our readers:
Some of you will already be aware that our estate is under threat of regeneration by RBKC and that we have lived with this threat hanging over our heads for over 4 years now (we first received the letter making the announcement on March 18th 2013).
It is very clear that RBKC are intent on redeveloping our estate and that they will soon opt for the most radical of the options on the table: namely, completely demolishing the 2 parts of the estate, Broadwood Terrace (with 24 units) and Chesterton Square (with 92).
We formed our Leaseholders’ Association in 2015 to counter this threat (and last year, we also formed a sister organisation and resident association, WRERA).
Recently, RBKC published its draft Leaseholder Policy (which is now out for a 10 week consultation ending on 7th June).
This is a very poor & cynical document, which ensures that any resident leaseholder hoping to return to the regenerated site (akin to a “right of return” for secure tenants) will be unable financially to do so, given all the caveats attached to their shared equity offer.
We are of the opinion that any leaseholder subject to an involuntary and forced sale under a compulsory purchase order (or the threat of one) should be able to return to the regenerated site, no worse off than they were before.
Unfortunately, the lease terms of such a deal are not equivalent to the pre-existing leases that are being unilaterally torn up and violated, and would mean in practice that leaseholders would be very much worse off, having far more onerous terms and losing rights and freedoms they currently enjoy.
I appreciate many readers of this piece may be tenants rather than leaseholders, and you may feel that this does not concern you. But I would disagree as this is about establishing precedents by RBKC in how it deals with all its residents on those estates it chooses to “regenerate” and the issues at stake are universal ones that revolve around power, and authority, and legitimacy, and concern issues of fairness, rights and decency.
One would like to think that these are qualities those in power in RBKC would also respect and aspire to; unfortunately, it isn’t always evident. And in this case, quite the reverse is true.
Please find below a letter written by our Chair, Behzad Seyf to the Leader and Deputy-Leader of RBKC and the Councillors in our borough.
The context within which the fate of the Warwick Road Estate will be decided – and the reason why we have chosen to subtitle this piece ‘The Last Castle’ – is the scorched earth redevelopment of most of the surrounding area that has completely designed out social housing and provided instead an excess of exclusive luxury homes for the very wealthy.
This all began with the redevelopment of the old Charles House site several years ago, on the corner of Warwick Road and Kensington High Street. The result was the construction, by St Edward Ltd (part of the Berkeley Group) of a complex of seven luxury apartment buildings, complete with fitness studios, swimming pool, sauna, steam rooms, treatment rooms, gym, private cinema, secure underground parking and 24 hour concierge services.
The same developers then spread their tentacles along the west side of Warwick Road. The result was the ‘Kensington Row’ development, a massive extension of the St Charles House complex, offering ‘a world of opulence and privilege’ in luxury apartments priced from £1.5 million to £8.5 million. Given its proximity to the Charles House/Kensington Row complex the destruction of the Warwick Road Estate is almost certainly designed to facilitate yet more of this obscenely opulent and exclusive luxury accommodation.
This orgy of redevelopment, in the Warwick Road area and beyond, whether still underway or already complete, is remarkable on two counts, firstly for the sheer massive scale of it, and secondly for the fact that it is all high end and obscenely opulent luxury housing. This is not ‘Regeneration’ in any meaningful humanistic sense. On the contrary it is ‘Social Cleansing’ pure and simple, with all of the worst negative connotations that phrase conjures up in the darker recesses of the human mind.
So far in North Kensington we’ve seen nothing on the scale of what has befallen the Warwick Road/Earls Court area, but make no mistake, a similar apocalypse is planned here too. The big question is whether the social housing estates here will be replaced by the extreme opulence of the Warwick Road area, which seems unlikely, or whether they will be replaced by the so-called ‘mixed communities’ of private, intermediate and ‘affordable’ housing we have all heard of so often. The answer to this question is unknown.
However, we do know that the Wornington Green Estate has already been transformed into a soulless gulag, famously exposed and condemned by Emma Dent Coad for the appallingly shoddy quality of workmanship both during and after its construction. The so-called ‘regeneration’ of North Kensington has only just begun and local residents, whether leaseholders or tenants, would be well advised to remember Hervé’s warning above, which we have paraphrased again below, because it is well worthy of repeating:
Many readers of this piece may be tenants rather than leaseholders, and may feel that the plight of Warwick Road Estate leaseholders does not concern you. But I would disagree as this is about establishing precedents by RBKC in how it deals with all its residents on those estates it chooses to “regenerate” and the issues at stake are universal ones that revolve around power, authority and legitimacy, and concern issues of fairness, rights and decency. One would like to think that these are qualities those in power would also respect and aspire to. Unfortunately quite the reverse is true.
The Tories proved themselves tonight to be without honour, courage or integrity. They will regret this vile betrayal of good men and women
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Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons – supporters
Dr Michael Heath, pictured in 2002, was the first expert to examine Stuart’s body. He was later criticised by a government disciplinary panel for his involvement in a separate investigation
‘PERV’ DOSSIER
DAMNING EVIDENCE AGAINST PROCTORI want to look at the elements of Mark’s statement one by one – Elements that the mainstream media have oddly chosen to ignore. Proctor is currently doing the rounds and talking to anyone that will listen, but not one single interviewer has asked about the following evidence:
Jeremy Hunt
Lord Beaumont, UK Liberal Party, Kevin MacNamara, UK Labour Party, and Johns Biggs-Davison, UK Conservative Party, (left to right) leave the Maze Prison, Lisburn, N Ireland, after a fact-finding visit
2 RGJ Air Platoon. In the 60s infantry battalions in Borneo had an aviation platoon, with the helicopters piloted by officers from the battalion. Bramall is stood at the end of the table.
Scott Farrell
Peter Roland Wright – Serial Child Abuser
34-42 Cleveland Street,London,W1T 4JE
Warnings about the risks and dangers of a fire in Grenfell Tower, from residents, the parliamentary fire advisory group and the London Fire Brigade have all “fallen on the deaf ears of politicians and civil servants who have shown neither morality nor responsibility, each and every one of whom should be investigated and questioned about their role in this disaster”.
goodnessandharmony 
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