It is easy to wonder ‘What is the purpose of Parliament’ these days, when all they seem to do is conduct a childish haranguing match over the dispatch box. John Hemming MP has today reminded us that the whole purpose of Parliament was to be able to redress the grievances of individual citizens when all other routes have failed them.

John Hemming, ever a supporter of those whose voice has been silenced by an array of legal means, has used his parliamentary privilege once again to throw light on a bizarre case of cyber bullying.  Yesterday afternoon he presented a petition to Parliament which, although not read out on the floor of Parliament, has now been reported by Hansard; thus allowing us to discuss the case, in so far as it is so reported.

Regular readers will be aware that my first experience of the Blogosphere was as a moderator on a busy news site at the time that Madeline McCann went missing. I quickly formed the opinion, which has remained unshakeable to this day, that many of those who gathered on the various forums which sprung up to discuss the case, had done so because their interest was in discussing paedophilia rather than any concern for Madeleine’s fate. The case allowed them to discuss their various fantasies under the guise of ‘imagining’ what might have happened to Madeleine. That there are still many such devious individuals around on the Internet is the subject of much hand wringing in the media, nowhere more so than in the US.

The case which John Hemming has shone a light on by way of petition, concerns a blog site to discuss the American ‘goth’ rock group Evanescence, from ex-US President Bill Clinton’s home town of Little Rock, Arkansas. A British member of that site became concerned that the site was hosting material of a potentially criminal nature, including drug offences and the far more serious one of attempting ‘to procure the suicide of a teenage girl’. The response of the site to requests to remove the material was to hire the glossy celebrity London law firm of Schillings, who in turn produced a contract which allegedly prevented the petitioner from reporting the offences, and further, required that the petitioner ‘interfere’ with other potential witnesses.

Incensed, the petitioner investigated further and discovered another site, run by (now) former employees of the rock group leader, Amy Lee, were publishing material including:

‘a story about sexual offences against a physically disabled male minor and cartoons with pre-teens in lawful poses but with sexualised captions, including sexual activity with animals and one caption regarding a toddler consuming human faeces. […] and further that the Petitioner also has grounds to reasonably suspect the persons concerned of also circulating illegal child pornography including photographs.’

Not surprisingly, he was alarmed that such people should have ready access as ‘moderators’ on a web site to young children who were fans of the rock group. Despite regular correspondence with those responsible for the web site, the material has not been removed,  and last November three MPs placed an Early Day Motion before Parliament in obscure terms requesting that this British citizen be allowed to report the alleged criminal offences. To date, Schillings, acting on behalf of Amy Lee and her manager Andrew Lurie of 110 Management, have not acquiesced.

Hence the bizarre petition attached to the Family Justice (Transparency, Accountability and Cost of Living) Bill, presented to Parliament yesterday. It will be of particular interest to US readers from that land of freedom of expression, perhaps unused to finding that they have access to information via the country more usually known as ‘Libel Control Central’!

Parliamentary privilege has been put to some strange uses before, perhaps none more so than to permit a British citizen to report potential offences against children in the US.

Well done John Hemming!

*Do please retweet to any American acquaintances!

Stephanie July 24, 2012 at 07:08

Anyone who believes this is an idiot. EvThreads is a CLEAN site and Amy Lee
is no liar. She is one of the kindest people on this planet and has saved
countless lives with her music alone, including my own. Why isnt anyone asking
about the creep EvThreads user that got banned from the site who is likly the
reason behind all this? Do any of you know about that? Youre just feeding off
all the bad things Amy has supposedly done which are all lies and rumors. She
is a big sister, there is no way in hell she would be involved in the cover up
of child porn. Everytime Evanescence drops a new album theres a new lawsuit
about something because it gets peoples attention. Have any of you ever been
abused? Do you know what these men were like she accused of sexual harrasment?
Do you know what its like to be a female fronting a rock band? I have been an
EvThreads user since 2007 and if any bad content is posted on the site it is
removed instantly and the user banned for life. So go on, read your crap and
believe what you want. But just know that if it wasnt for this women,
countless souls would have left this earth a long time ago and a lot of girls
wouldnt have realized that Britney Spears isnt actually a good role model.
There are no kids in danger here. This whole thing is beyond insane.

Pompey Cowboy
July 19, 2012 at 19:33

Got to say I’m no Lawyer, but at work we have special “whistleblower” lines
and we are protected if we make allegations which we genuinely beleive
in.
Personally if I was exposing a paedo and some hot shot lawyer’s
threatened me I’d go tell them to F*ck themselves– if I really beleived they
were engaged in paedophile activities. I’d post their letters on facebook etc,
make sure some went abroad outside british jurisdiction an obviously to my
MP
Some laywers are really good people, but others are ……….

Sabine K
McNeill July 19, 2012 at 07:33

Dear Anna

Thank you very much for reporting on this indeed bizarre incident. I am
just busy updating the website of a whistleblower who wants to expose
everything he knows about paedophilia in Ammanford in South Wales: http://www.peterbellett.wordpress.com/ And I got alerted to
your article because of my alert re John Hemming MP. For he is the ONLY MP we
can count on in the extraordinary number of cases where Social Services and
SECRET family courts snatch children, supposedly in their interest.

John Hemming has over 1,600 cases on file. I myself have details about some
20 or so and submitted nine to the Education Select Committee. The worst of
all child snatching cases is a Nigerian couple whose SEVEN children were taken
by Haringey Council – starting without any paper work whatsoever, mounting one
crime after another to cover up, leading to hand picking the jury and the
judge not disclosing that he is an ordained priest, while the parents are an
Evangelical Bishop and Apostle – in prison since November 2011…

I wear injunctions from three local councils ‘with pride’ and threats of
imprisonment and set the site to private. The scandal is sooo embarrassing
that I can only hope the blogosphere WILL make the difference required. For
nobody can do it on their own. Not even John Hemming MP and Christopher Booker
who writes about it in The Telegraph…

With sighs (and hopes),
Sabine
http://victims-unite.net/child-snatching/

Researcher July 18, 2012 at 23:41

Amy Lee is well known for her litigiousness. This is a link to her lawsuit
against her former manager Dennis Rider : http://cdn.digitalcity.com/ch_tmz/051207amylee2.pdf

As you can see she made sex allegations against the manager. And her former
boyfriend Ben Moody. And later against her next boyfriend Shawn Morgan. She
gets abused a lot. Or she is a malicious liar.

How those guys must be laughing now. Dennis Rider owes Sam Smith and John
Hemming MP a beer.

Learn July 18, 2012 at 18:34

Fairly obviously the petitioner is our friend Sam Smith a well known and
kindly McKenzie Friend – https://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/court-of-protection-another-one-bites-the-dust/

And why should he be admonished? If these people are idiots whose
wrongdoing only extends to admitting to illegal drug use and (legal) cartoons
about children being molested they still brought the investigation on
themselves. In any case the point here is that thanks to Amy Lee and her
lawyers, the suspects have had nearly a year to wipe their hard drives.

Drug abuse is less serious than paedopholia but it is still a crime and
marijuana use in the young has been linked to Schizophrenia in later life.
This vacuous ‘Rock’ ‘Star’ should be dropped by her label.

JuliaM July 18,
2012 at 20:51

Good god, if every label dropped every artist who dabbled in drugs,
what’d that leave us? Cliff Richard?

Engineer
July 18, 2012 at 21:17

The Brighouse and Raistrick Brass Band. Unless you count beer as a
drug, in which case they’re out, too.

gladiolys July 19, 2012 at 00:26

I was only suggesting admonishment should the allegations prove malicious
or without any foundation. I had no previous knowledge of Sam Smith’s
previous experience and would not randomly make any accusation. It’s just
that this case is baffling. Surely the lawyers have a duty of care to any
child where there is an allegation of abuse? So how can they draw up a
contract to prevent notification to the authorities?

JuliaM July
19, 2012 at 04:57

Lawyers have no ‘duty of care’ to children to report abuse (or
suspected abuse), at least, not one enshrined in law or policy such as
that laid on doctors or teachers. They may have guidelines about reporting
crimes but a lot of that which is mentioned in the article is a very grey
area indeed, isn’t it?

gladiolys
July 19, 2012 at 08:27

Yes, it is. Which is why someone should look at it to say whether the
petitioner has a point, these people have questions to answer – or
not.

JuliaM July 18,
2012 at 18:13

I’m not entirely sure about this one – the ‘concerns’ of the complainant
seem so vague and, well, you see…

“including drug offences”

“cartoons with pre-teens in lawful poses but with sexualised
captions”

Are we sure the complainant isn’t just a vexatious one who doesn’t like
smutty talk and references to smoking reefers, and wants to get the site
owners SWATed?

gladiolys July 18, 2012 at 18:19

I agree Julia… but then there’s: “the Petitioner also has grounds to
reasonably suspect the persons concerned of also circulating illegal child
pornography including photographs.” That suggests at least an initial
investigation and if it’s fruitbattery, an admonition for the
petitioner?

JuliaM July
18, 2012 at 20:54

The SS had ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect this woman of child
abuse:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2174774/Natalie-Tung-My-children-taken-away-months-burst-nappy-scalded-daughters-leg.html

Turned out to be a load of spherical objects, of course, but are they
admonished? Does she get an apology, or compensation? If she did, would it
make up for it?

Sometimes, the process is the punishment, and sometimes the
complainant knows this only too well!

gladiolys
July 19, 2012 at 00:20

So surely the argument is that malicious accusations need to be
prosecuted? Perverting the course of justice? I know, I know, a waste of
time, a waste of money but if children are to be protected, where do we
draw the line?

Learn
July 19, 2012 at 11:04

Gladiolys read the material. In fact, it does not matter if these
people are innocent of the more serious allegations. If you had
bothered to read the documentation so kindly linked by Anna you would
see that John Hemming and Sam Smith gave Amy Lee many opportunities to
deal with this quietly. First they sent private letters, then there
was an obscurantist Early Day Motion. Only after all this failed did
they kick it into high gear.

Even if these people are guilty of nothing more than the legal
stories and cartoons, the fact remains that those materials are still
paedophile. The fact that they are technically legal is does not mean
that I would be sending my kids to a slumber party with them any time
soon. Anyone who posts stories and cartoons about paedophilia on a
website used by 13 year olds deserves their collar felt!

It is clear that even if John and Sam are mistaken about the
illegal material they did the right thing in a responsible way as you
might expect. And how could *anyone* fall out with Sam Smith? He’s
like a cuddly, ineffectual santa claus – except in Court. I am
unsurprised by Amy Lee’s previous legal troubles.

alan July 18, 2012 at 15:21

Erm, I’m not a lawyer, but isnt conspiracy law much tougher over in the US?

If a UK lawyer helped to cover up a crime in the US would that make the UK
lawyer criminally liable in the US? Does a UK lawyer have the same legal
protections as a US lawyer when representing a US client?

Bill
Sticker July 18, 2012 at 15:44

A UK lawyer arrested and extradited for an injunction forbidding the
reporting of crime? Now there’s a thought. That plot may well thicken.

BTW; Anna. It’s ‘hand wringing’ not ‘ringing’. A bit pedantic I know,
perhaps even archaic, but I know you’re a stickler for these things.

Anna
Raccoon July 18, 2012 at 16:09

Thanks Bill, didn’t notice that! Trouble is, when you proof read
yourself, your brain reads what it meant to say!

Sam Smith July 18, 2012 at 13:29

Hey,

Perhaps it would help everyone if I posted a link to the previous Early Day
Motion on this issue?

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2010-12/2394

– Sam

David July 18, 2012 at 10:22

This story makes no sense at all.

You say Schillings cannot “produced” a contract. They may have drafted one,
but they cannot have compelled anyone to agree to it.

Is the story then that someone (in England) agreed to a contract whcih
purports to prevent them from reporting criminality? If so, then they should
seek legal advice as to whether it is enforceable. It very likely isn’t.

Hemming is a complete knob-end. This sounds like more trumped-up
self-promotion.

Anna
Raccoon July 18, 2012 at 10:29

You will appreciate my title of ‘Bizarre uses for Parliament’, then?

JuliaM July 18,
2012 at 18:10

Hemming might well be ‘a complete knob end’ (he is, after all, a
politician, and one with a decidedly odd home life) but he’s no friend of
the state in the form of the SS and for that, we should all be thankful…

gladiolys July 18, 2012 at 09:44

I am really confused. How can a British law firm stop a British resident
reporting a potential offences on (I presume) a US-hosted website to US
authorities? Would this not have to be enforced in the courts? Our courts?
Would that be recognised by US courts? You say: “London law firm of
Schillings, who in turn produced a contract which allegedly prevented the
petitioner from reporting the offences”… does this mean the petitioner agreed
to the contract? And where do CEOPS come into this? If a British person
reported this to a British online child protection organisation, would they
not be required to investigate?

Anna
Raccoon July 18, 2012 at 09:50

I believe that the petitioner did agree to the contract, although not
understanding that this would prevent him from reporting the offence. Note,
I believe. I am being very careful with this one, for Schillings are going
to be less than pleased with the subsequent publicity!

gladiolys
July 18, 2012 at 10:00

Thank you. Would that contract even be enforceable? There is so much
about this that seems so ridiculously illogical and immoral that I cannot
believe it is true, and that I am being totally thick and missing
something.

Anna
Raccoon July 18, 2012 at
10:02

Have you followed the link to the petition?

gladiolys
July 18, 2012 at 10:11

I have now, but it has not added anything to your own summary. It
would appear, therefore, that this case is thoroughly illogical and
immoral (in preventing a possible investigation into online child
exploitation). I hope I have avoided any libel there.

Single Acts of
Tyranny July 19, 2012 at 10:21

Anna, my legal studies mostly related to land law, but what contract
work I did suggested that a contract to engage in an unlawful activity,
like say, oh for example, interefering with a witness, was not
enforceable.

Ted Treen July 18, 2012 at 09:18

And no doubt Schillings will think it an absolute travesty that the legal
profession – at least in the UK – are held in esteem at roughly the same level
as the esteem in which (most) politicians and investment bankers are held.

And no doubt they care not a jot, and give not a fig.