Not Even Whispered It Softly?
“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence”. Leonardo da Vinci.
Post-Leveson, the Dead Tree Press has been keen to show that, unregulated, they can expose much wrong doing in our world that could protect us from evil. The departed Jimmy Savile has been the poster child for this movement. His name attached to unsubstantiated facts used to drive business to the failing web sites of the previously all powerful news conglomerates. The airwaves are full of elderly journalists telling us that they ‘knew all along’ but were too frightened of his ‘power’ to say anything. So many fearless journalists, so much fear!
What they mean, of course, is that their editors wouldn’t publish unsubstantiated gossip, for fear of getting sued by the irate subject.
Paul Connew of the Daily Mirror is fond of retelling the story of how he was approached by two girls from Duncroft with the tale of the horrendous abuse they had allegedly suffered at the hands of Jimmy Savile. He couldn’t publish it – because the girls refused to sign an affidavit exonerating the Daily Mirror if they were required to substantiate the story. It, apparently, didn’t occur to him to run the story without naming anyone, nor campaign for an inquiry into abuse at an unnamed children’s home, nor walk into his local police station and place the information there, nor accompany the girls and support them whilst they did just that, nor anything actually; just wait until the man was dead and he could get a ‘good story that any journalist would want’ – free from fear of libel, and the need to substantiate the story.
There was a newspaper, or rather magazine, that was famous for being fearless. It was Private Eye magazine, presided over by Richard Ingrams. They took on the mighty and powerful, and were frequently sued – Jimmy Goldsmith comes to mind. Journalists would give them tit bits of stories that their papers wouldn’t run, and Private Eye thrived on publishing them. I am forced to believe that not one journalist ever took his concern regarding Jimmy Savile to Private Eye – for they never so much as hinted of concern regarding him until he was dead, in fact he featured on their front cover. Either that, or they were more frightened of Jimmy Savile than they were of Jimmy Goldsmith, which I do find hard to believe.
Journalists who have worked under Richard Ingrams at Private Eye and The Oldie described him as “brilliant”, “extraordinarily brave”, “reckless” and “kind” after he announced his retirement on Friday. He is on the record as saying that he never suppressed any stories about Jimmy Savile.
In what turned out to be Ingrams’ last Oldie editorial he paid tribute to freelance journalist Miles Goslett who brought in what was arguably one of the 22-year-old magazine’s greatest stories – the BBC’s cover up of the Jimmy Savile scandal, for which it jointly won scoop of the year at last year’s London Press Club awards.
So, the BBC is ‘guilty’ of covering up something that even the fearless Private Eye knew nothing of?
What of the BBC journalists who ‘knew’ of Savile’s alleged offending? Probably the most famous is David Icke. Sports commentator turned Lizard spotter. Now David is a ‘proper’ journalist – started life on the old Leicester Mercury, where he shared a desk with Tom O’ Carroll of Paedophile Information Exchange fame. David is fearless and brave – doesn’t mind accusing the Duke of Edinburgh of murder, or Ted Heath of illegal homosexual activity. Surely David Icke would have been exposing this alleged wrong doing so ‘widely known’ in journalistic sources?
Erm, in the interests of research, I have painstakingly ploughed through all 300+ articles David Icke has written about Savile – not even confining my search to ‘Jimmy Savile’ – and the only time the word Savile has flowed from his keyboard, before the lurid Exposure programme, was in respect of a 23 year old graffiti artist called Paul Savile, and a murder suspect wearing a Savile Row suit. Once the programme had been broadcast, Icke was straight out of the blocks with a deluge of ‘I was right about Savile after all, I’ve been telling people he was a paedophile for years’ articles.
Who on earth had he been telling? Not his own readers, that is for sure. Surely the Police or Childline was who he should have been telling – but no evidence that he did that either. His old colleagues at the BBC maybe?
Today we learn of another alleged paedophile ring. Colet Court and its ‘senior’ version St. Paul’s School – two of the most prestigious, and expensive, establishments for nurturing the future opinion makers and shakers. For 50 years anything up to 18 teachers are alleged to have hideously used and abused their pupils, which we are helpfully told include George Osborne and Dominic Grieve. The dark hint on the Icke site is that this is how they have managed to ‘get away with it for years’ – it is those top Tory toffs again – protecting paedophiles! Obviously they must have known what was going on, it just wasn’t possible in a school with 18 teachers allegedly fondling and buggering pupils with gay abandon. The victims might not have had the courage to come forward to the police, but it is inconceivable that other pupils wouldn’t have been aware that there were ‘dark’ goings on (dark is the new fashionable word in these matters) therefore those who became ‘top Tory toffs’ must have known and were complicit by their silence…let loose the political hounds!
Did all those silent Colet and St Paul’s ex-pupils become top Tory toffs? Not a bit of it. Some of them became left-wing firebrands. BBC journalists even. BBC investigative journalists. BBC investigative journalists with a penchant for publishing stories regarding child abuse. Still we never heard a word of this suspected abuse. Amazing. They must have been busy on other programmes eh?
Perhaps there was an element of not wanting to reveal their own highly privileged background – it is so much easier to rant about privilege and corruption amongst those who have had an elite education from a perceived image of ‘son of the welsh valleys made good’. Do meet another recipient of the elite education provided by Colet Court and St Paul’s throughout the years allegedly presided over by paedophiles – Meirion Jones. The fearless investigator of historic sex abuse allegedly carried out by dead celebrities at his aunt’s school.
Just lurve that t-shirt Meirion – have you still got it?
Today there is a cross-party call for a National Inquiry similar to the Royal Commission in Australia, to investigate historic child sex abuse. It is an excellent idea. I suggest they start by demanding mandatory reporting by anyone who is approached with a tale of historic sex abuse. Not just the authority figures who could conceivably be sued – anyone. Especially journalists. Because if they are to be believed, there has been an evil conspiracy of silence regarding historic sex abuse, not by top Tory toffs, but by journalists hanging onto the story ‘any journalist would want’ until the alleged perpetrator is dead.
It’s called putting the children first – not your career.
In other news, a cash starved child protection division in Peterborough was too late to save little Amina Agboola from her ‘known to be violent’ new ‘step-dad’ – 19 year old Dean Harris.
And Operation Yewtree costs have now topped £3,000,000.
Decent?
Honest?
Truthful?
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 9:00 am -
Liar Liar. Let’s hope his bum catches fire.
- Jonathan
June 4, 2014 at 9:40 am -
Yes it is scary that, even now, no publication or hack dares to present questions about verification. Nobody seems puzzled why the explosion of allegations and claims haven’t included any groupies from rock bands. I’ve come to the conclusion that we were all imagining that 60s/70s/80s insanity. I assume such things as fans and groupies no longer exist. One Direction? Justin Bieber? Robbie Williams? The beauty of the new technology means no personal or physical contact, I suppose. They never meet, let alone seduce, their fans. At least we can all sleep tight in our beds knowing that the Meirions and MWT’s of this world behaved impeccably in their youth, and that no nasty skeletons will emerge to ensnare them in unpleasant scandals like poor Waxie Maxie suffered.
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 9:51 am -
@One Direction
Who would not want to protect children? Who would want to be seen standing in the way of legislation claiming to be battling against Paedophilia. I would not want to, but where are the children? There are none. This matter is all about older women. Strangely enough, this scandal has already caused a sea-change in Rock ‘n’ Roll:
” ‘Harry is a bit like a kid in a sweetshop. He’s 18, rich, famous, good-looking and single. And he’s really, really interested in girls. And by girls, I do mean older women.’ A management company source told me: ‘Harry is a handsome bloke, who is mature for his age, and there are a lot of older women out there who find him attractive. He is delighted that they do. ‘He is a normal 18-year-old, and what happens happens. We expect it to happen.’ ”
Yes, having sex with women old enough to be your mum is all part of the New Decency!! How refreshing, and very handy for all those older women out there too. The antithesis of such a situation for a young female popstar is quite different it seems, because older men will naturally not want to touch them with a barge-pole for fear of being labelled a paedophile, whilst the young women will be afraid to go for the young guys in case they too face an historic sexual abuse claim in thirty years time – so the net result seems to be no sex for young women – an interesting result of the 21st Century version of feminism. No sex please, we’re still British.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/take-it-or-levitt.html- suffolkgirl
June 4, 2014 at 11:12 am -
Ha ha! It’s nice of you to worry about Harry Styles’ sex life,but his definition of older woman seems to be ‘ incredibly fit and in her twenties’. Not quite the same as yours or mine,perhaps!
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 11:33 am -
further excerpt from the link….. “he One Direction boys are subjected to an almost incessant stream of indecent proposals. Band member Liam Payne, 19, complained recently: ‘The mums are fearless. They will grab and pinch and it gets quite tricky.’ Niall Horan, also 19, added: ‘One mum was with her daughter, but whispered to me: “If you are looking for an older woman, then just give me a shout.”’
- Moor Larkin
- suffolkgirl
- Gil
June 24, 2014 at 9:47 pm -
“Nobody seems puzzled why the explosion of allegations and claims haven’t included any groupies from rock bands.”
Here’s someone who is puzzled by that:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity-interviews/magician-paul-daniels-jimmy-savile-2255289Perhaps it’s because the accusations are based more on the idea of the person, i.e. a Savile-type entertainer, rather than on what actually happened.
- Moor Larkin
- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 10:26 am -
We have no reason to believe that Paul Connew is lying about being approached in 1994 by people making allegations. However one might think there would be some sort of paper trail in existence – computers were in use routinely in in the media even then – and email, even the web was already in existence. And of course Connew was the editor, so presumably there was some feeder mechanism and delegation from more junior reporters. And what of the legal advice – if the affidavits were in issue then clearly there was alot going on. But lots of allegations were made about children’s homes at that time – including about ‘names’ – so again – we have no reason to disbelieve – but still it’s strange that not one iotaof evidence has been proffered.
More anecdotally, on a par with Icke , Valerie Sinason, the doyen of MPD psychotherapists and ‘satanic abuse’ entrepreneur claims to have been told and reported Satanic abuse by JS from patients at around the same time. She told the Daily Express this after the 2012 allegations. Now Valerie managed to get hold of some money from the Department of Health at this time to do research using her inimitable ‘forensic psychotherapeutic’ approach (cross reference ‘forensic astrology’) . She worked with Clive Driscoll of the Met. Together they amassed 32 case histories and the report – intended to rebut the official research dismissing claims by Professor Jean la Fontaine – was much trailed and prayed for in the evangelical Christian press.Eventually a Department of Health spokesperson said it would not be published and that it was, in terms, a ‘waste of money’. I have previously made FOI requests for this document but neither the Department of Health nor the Department of Education (which took over some functions) could find trace of it.
But one might think that if VS had been told about JS at that time his name a) might have been included in the research and b) that DI Driscoll might have alerted his colleagues in the Met so as to properly investigate. But apparently nothing was recorded according to the inspectorate report that examined prior police reports about JS.
So is this evidence of more spooky ‘cover-ups’ or have some of these advocate-claimants themselves fallen prey to ‘false memory syndrome’?
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 10:33 am -
@Margaret Jervis
The most intriguing thing about Connew’s story for me was it carries eerie resemblances to the eventual stories told to police in 2007. Same people perhaps?
One curious thing about Connew’s story is that he seems to be describing “two women” who share the same attributes as those behind both the 2007 police investigation of Savile and the 2012 itv Exposure show. Looking back to 1994, Connew describes the events thus: a relative of a woman in her mid-30’s, makes the initial approach to the newspaper. The woman in question was alleged to have been abused at a certain “childrens home”, when she was aged 14 to 15. Connew then says the Mirror tracked down another woman (the only person the first woman had kept track of). He goes on to say that the motivation of the first family stemmed from the fact that Jimmy Savile was “in the news” at the time. (This might relate to when he received his Kinghthood). Connew also says that “one of the women had drug problems” and so the newspaper lawyers were aware that this would hinder her making her a good impression in court, should a libel case be pursued by Savile. This story seems to bear a basic structural similarity to the story explored by the Levitt Report, in which a series of events between a Ms.B and a Ms.C are discussed
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/hitching-ride.html- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 10:56 am -
@moor V strange – does not appear that there are two children’s homes for girls in the frame at this time. But do we have anything in the Levitt report or elsewhere about the women having reported this to the Mirror? anything in MWT’s painstaking research, or Meirion’s? Did meirion and MWT and the ‘victims’ rush to support Connew when he splurged this in the media – yes! It was us! yes we tried to get a voice at the time – and not for money! The refused affadivits – do echo the refused police statements. Though of course if there wwere to have been a libel case, and the Mirror had won the affadavits woudld have done for compo too. But why go to the Mirror if you don’t want money? Plenty of bit payouts at the time? why not go to the police? And in fact why didn’t Connew suggest going to the police since this is the best guard against libel never mind something called the ‘public interest’. Could old newspaper editos also be subject to the ‘Savile memory syndrome’?
I was wondering too about the difference in the story told by psychiatric nurse Naomi Stanley in the press in October 2012 and on Panorama just recently – but that’s another story. But does anyone know if her ‘victim’ has come forward? Or is it a free variable waiting to be instantiated by a.n. Other ? Still wondering about the victims trapped in the NSPCC lift being sweettalked by JS in the 70s and ‘blackmailed’ by lollipops- they haven’t given any anecdotal reports of this distressing and dangerous incident – though it must be on their health and safety records. What – no names of ‘victims’ recorded?
- rabbitaway
June 4, 2014 at 5:06 pm -
Connew said the paper would have lost a defamation trial with Savile partly because the two victims who came to him, from Duncroft school, did not want to be named.
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 7:13 pm -
It was confirmed as Duncroft back in 1994 then? That had passed me by.
How does this fit with Alsion Levitt’s report wherein she talks about how these folks had not been in any contact with one another in 30 years then? “It seems that there is no question of collusion between Ms B and Ms C; there is no suggestion that they have even seen one another since they left Duncroft in the late 1970s.”
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/hitching-ride.htmlMy guesswork back in that February blog was right on the button……
So far as I can tell, no investigative journalist has looked to see if the women being discussed by Connew (from 1994) are in fact the same women who were involved in the police investigation into Savile, in 2007. One part of the Levitt Report is pertinent in this regard:….This is all so bent, these law givers are crooked.
- Moor Larkin
- Margaret Jervis
- Moor Larkin
- suffolkgirl
June 4, 2014 at 10:54 am -
Absolutely, spot on,great article etc etc.
The other thing about the latest spate of Savile stories to enrage me is the way the solicitors for the claimants were being interviewed on the radio this morning as if they were impartial commenters, rather than representing clients with as yet untested claims. I think Anna has mentioned this before,but it’s still outrageous, and I say that as someone who is not in the Savile camp at all.
innocence.
- suffolkgirl
June 4, 2014 at 10:58 am -
For accuracy this morning’s stories were about Rochdale, but it’s the same deal.
- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 11:10 am -
@suffokgirl Indeed . Dux and Collins are on Slater and Gordon incentive schemes through share ownership. S&G the world’s first legal PLC leading the way in ‘entrepreneurial litigation’ saw a big rise in shareprice prior to the mass takeovers in the UK – but the shares have dipped sharply of late. Still trending on the ‘who wants to be a trillionare’ stakes but maybe investors know otherwise? http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SGH:AU
S &G BTW started out as union lawyers representing the little guy – made a fortune on asbestosis claims (these are also retro – but with physical evidence and real disease) – would think the asbestosis cash cow is in decline so maybe virtual reality can make up for the deficit?They are also implicated in a court case concerning union corruption in Au involving former prime minister Julia Gilliard’s ex partner union boss Bruce Wilson. Gilliard was a lawyer at S&G at the time and represented the union probono in setting up a disputed fund.
As always – follow the buck!
- erichardcastle
June 5, 2014 at 2:32 am -
The case against Julia Gillard was part of a right wing conspiracy to bring her down with Rupert Murdoch’s sticky fingers all over it.
It has been driven by an ex-Slater & Gordon partner now living in the USA who was a prolific supporter of Gillard’s rivals. He has now gone to ground and News Corp pulled their heads in after heavy legal threats. It will be exposed soon for what it isAnecdotally there is an intense dislike in Australia for Slater & Gordon amongst old style traditional but powerful law firms who believe that S&L will bring them all into disrepute.
- Margaret Jervis
June 5, 2014 at 7:46 am -
Thanks Eric. S&G in the news here today over retro thalidomide claims for people not originally compensated – follows similar in Au. It is said there may be only 50 potential claimants in the UK – but was are the parameters? Firstly people who may not have been sufficiently affect ed to qualify first off – minor impairments but then people with some sort of impairment where there is no evidence of link to thalidomide or prescription. So do S&G expect the claims to significantly increase on the basis of possible effect, possible link, possible taking of thalidomide? And I wonder what the ‘effects’ might include ?
- John Graham
June 7, 2014 at 7:13 am -
The Case against Julia Gillard is not a right wing conspiracy. It is being investigated by the Victorian Police (for about twelve months now). There is compelling evidence that she had indeed broken the law with her dealings with here then boy friend. It will all come out during the new Royal Commission hearing into union corruption staring next week. Should be very interesting!
- John Graham
June 7, 2014 at 7:14 am -
John Graham June 7, 2014 at 7:13 am
The Case against Julia Gillard is not a right wing conspiracy. It is being investigated by the Victorian Police (for about twelve months now). There is compelling evidence that she had indeed broken the law with her dealings with here then boy friend. It will all come out during the new Royal Commission hearing into union corruption staring next week. Should be very interesting!
- Margaret Jervis
- erichardcastle
- Margaret Jervis
- Joe Public
June 4, 2014 at 11:04 am -
Thanks for this further episode of investigative journalism.
As far as the Savile allegations are concerned, you have the tenacity of a pitbull with lockjaw.
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 11:31 am -
@Joe Public
The only other choice is to choke on the lies.
- Moor Larkin
- Rightwinggit
June 4, 2014 at 11:27 am -
Saint Pauls?
As in Harriet (PIE) Harmen?
Oh, and it’s Leonardo DA Vinci. (One of my heroes).
- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 11:49 am -
That’s was the girls school. Enforced segregation was apparently rife.
- Margaret Jervis
- Daisy Ray
June 4, 2014 at 12:19 pm -
Ta,I was trying to remember the name of the Mirror hack who so signally failed to expose Savile. I recall when the scandal broke he appeared on a TV panel with some hapless sucker from Panorama and berated him for not going to the police. It really didn’t make sense.
Surely the word ‘powerful’ summons up at least a Berlusconi or a DSK, not a gurning DJ or a superannuated sports commentator. It strikes me that the problem with media coverage of Savile is that it’s often dreamed up by people who weren’t even conceived in the 70s. Our current reverence for pop culture has obscured the virulent hostility with which it was once regarded by anyone over 30. And we’ve forgotten the popular horror with which paedophilia always evoked (see press coverage of PIE). To the tabloids and the police (who gleefully busted Mick Jagger for possessing travel sickness pills) a child molesting pop-picker would have been all their Christmases come at once. I doubt his tea and biscuits with his local police force would have availed him much – can you imagine the Met letting a bunch of whippet-fanciers tell them who to arrest?- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 12:44 pm -
@Daisy Ray Yes the ‘power’ is indeed ineffable. See this interview with Simon Hattenstone of the Guardian in 2000 where he explains being a ‘self-punter’ -‘ no management, no agent, no secretary, no nothing’. http://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,178381,00.html
Yet somehow he was ‘protected’ in covering-up decades of heinous crimes? Not sure if even ‘the highest in the land’ could stage manage the ‘cover-up’ ‘protection’ of that kind of maverick. And of course there would be paper trail…Has there been an MI5 investigation of a JS ‘cover-up’ yet? Nothing in wikileaks ?
The media must realise this saga is absurd, as must the BBC and how many others? But it’s just too big to call – no-one wants to say that the Emperor has No Clothes – for fear of their of exposing their own naked ambitions.
- Chris
June 4, 2014 at 2:02 pm -
Great article Anna – I wish everyone could read it, and will do my best to distribute and promote.
This comment by ‘Daisy Ray’ is as good as the article, and something I will be quoting. I find this descent into mindless hysteria quite overwhelming.
- Margaret Jervis
- GildasTheMonk
June 4, 2014 at 1:10 pm -
General hysteria
- rabbitaway
June 4, 2014 at 2:41 pm -
Just finished ten hours working on this !
http://rabbitaway.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-power-to-abuse-us-all.html- Atticus Flinch
June 4, 2014 at 3:08 pm -
I watched. Allegation and desired conclusion dressed as fact. Unsatisfactory in many ways, not least when it comes from lawyers who have a vested interest in litigation
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 3:14 pm -
The images didn’t even match the words. Footage of Jimmy giving chaste pursed lip kisses to fans was accompanied by some stupid chunnering on about “French Kissing”. Not merely unsatisfactory, but rather incompetent propaganda. The BBC have still not released the 1989 Broadmoor documentary they showed snippets from, no doubt because it reveals Jim to be a caring man, trying to undo what was probably a thuggish “Prison Officer” environment.
- rabbitaway
June 4, 2014 at 3:44 pm -
Yep and that twat in the tee shirt is tweeting about the fact that JS was in that meeting at Highgrove. The one in which HRH and JS allegedly tried to reverse some hospital officials decision to close emergency services. Merryann says he had little to do with this program Erm !
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 3:49 pm -
It’s difficult to see what programmes he has done. Just another one of those 8,000 journalists Rupert told us work for the benighted organisation… doing what? I’m a big fan of Adam Curtis but have to wonder what the hell he does for his BBC salary… or are they all self-employed these days anyway and so get nowt…. in which case how does someone like Curtis make a living at all, because he doesn’t seem to do much else…. for such a talented man.
- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 3:59 pm -
You can learn how he does it from the man himself – Our Man in Montenegro!
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/birn-summer-school/birn-summer-school-2014-agenda
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 4:14 pm -
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/birn-summer-school/birn-summer-school-2014-agenda
“Cross boarder investigation in the Balkans – Lawrence Marzouk, BIRN editor”Is this a new Public School scandal in the offing?……..
- Margaret Jervis
June 4, 2014 at 4:28 pm -
Must be the LGBT diversity angle.
- Margaret Jervis
- Moor Larkin
- Margaret Jervis
- Moor Larkin
- rabbitaway
- Moor Larkin
- Carol42
June 4, 2014 at 8:44 pm -
Fantastic work, hope the truth comes out one day or not even the dead are safe. Thanks to Anna and a few others at least some of us know what is really going on, I for one have pointed many people to this blog.
- Atticus Flinch
- rabbitaway
June 4, 2014 at 3:11 pm -
Great love that tee rific T Shirt !
- johnd2008
June 4, 2014 at 6:55 pm -
I heard an item on the radio news the other day that suggested that Saville had been molesting a 2 year old child. Really? This sort of behaviour just does not fit with everything else he has allegedly done.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone could carry out the alleged offences on the industrial scale and over the period of time without someone ,somewhere crying foul.- Duncan Disorderly
June 4, 2014 at 8:15 pm -
Nobody would not be able to remember being molested at that age; therefore there would have to be some other form of evidence of abuse. I’m sure it exists…
- Lucozade
June 4, 2014 at 9:58 pm -
Duncan Disorderly,
Re: “I’m sure it exists…”
I’m not, lol…
- Moor Larkin
June 4, 2014 at 11:20 pm -
I’ve got a vague memory that the Broadmoor staff would bring their children into the grounds for a sort of staff day (fete?). I think there was one Savile tale at the beginning about how they would have a bonniest baby competition or somehting similar, and Jimmy would be the judge. I daresay it emanates from that event, but it’s obviously some new crap they’ve come up with.
This Daily Mail article from 2008 has a fantastic concluding section.
“Every patient in Broadmoor has a story. From Chalk Pit Murderer Thomas Ley – who tortured and murdered the man he suspected to be his wife’s lover – to Antony Baekeland, great-grandson of the founder of Bakelite, who murdered his mother before ordering a Chinese takeaway. She was alleged to have coerced her homosexual son into sexual intercourse after a succession of prostitutes had failed to inspire him. He was released after eight years at Broadmoor, only to stab his grandmother in New York City. He was institutionalised again, before, in 1981, being found suffocated with a plastic bag. Broadmoor Special Hospital is no longer called an asylum for the criminally insane. The hospital, very well run and providing the finest psychiatric care, has nevertheless recently had to upgrade its security. Razor wire has been strung around the perimeter. Healthcare may improve, but human nature, in the last resort, remains as ungovernable as ever.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088801/Broadmoor-hospital-finally-gives-secrets.html- Jonathan Mason
June 5, 2014 at 4:52 pm -
Broadmoor was a certainly a name that struck terror into all who heard it at the time. Perhaps the vaguest suggestion of Dartmoor in the name, the home of Dartmoor Prison and the setting for the Hound of the Baskervilles had something to do with it, as well as the whole idea that the personal was criminally insane. However I remember that even in the mental hospitals of Yorkshire, if a patient arrived who had been at Broadmoor, he was regarded with fear and trepidation, even the skinny little lisping homosexual who had poisoned his mother.
- Jonathan Mason
- Moor Larkin
- Lucozade
- Ho Hum
June 4, 2014 at 10:53 pm -
So, are the authorities now going to prosecute whoever then maybe would have, or even must have, aided and abetted him?
On reflection, that was a spectacularly stupid question……
- Duncan Disorderly
- Stonyhurst Boy
June 5, 2014 at 2:38 pm -
An earlier operation, Operation Whiting, ruined the lives of several of my former teachers at Stonyhurst.
I remember the day the news broke: my family and I had converged in Letchworth for the funeral of a family friend and on the way my sister had been phoned as her youngest was at the school then. Pater the details were made public http://goo.gl/UWh8Ne and the teacher named had been a hugely good influence and role model for hundreds of boys.
Lancashire Police went on to widen the investigation and in the end 8 or 9 cases were brought. As this later article reports, http://goo.gl/wy2NY8 the only conviction was swiftly overturned on appeal, and other trials collapsed. It had been a fishing operation and the bait had been taken several times. The alleged offences were minor and historic, the witnesses who were cross examined were found wanting and others withdrew their evidence before trial. The central premise of Operation Whiting, that there was a a ring of child abusers who passed boys around, turned out to have never been more than a figment in the imagination of an ambitious investigating officer.
The end result was the ending of several noble teaching careers, the forced eviction of those whose homes were owned by the school and years where the school existed under a cloud. But it seems that the authorities are made bolder by such shameful episodes, not meeker.
- Jonathan Mason
June 5, 2014 at 4:23 pm -
Letchworth! The name alone conjures up visions of busty maidens in gymslips.
Letchworth was of course the home of the Socialist Summer schools held in the 1930s, occasioning local resident Old Etonian George Orwell to complain about fat bald-headed men in shorts on the local buses.
The allegations about Stonyhurst seem to have been minor, and that seems to be a problem with many of the historical cases. In the Travis trial even the two unresolved charges seem to be so minor as to hardly be worth bringing to court, and in a notorious ongoing trial, the name of which I shall not mention for fear of prejudicing the jury, the majority of the charges simply seem to be a form a mudslinging rather than serious criminal charges.
I suspect that every all-boys boarding prep school and public school including Orwell and Cameron’s alma mater saw some kind of sexual incorrectess at some time. If the current trial is anything to go by, even remarking in the changing rooms that a young cricketer now needed a box and jockstrap might be legally lay a retired teacher open to charges of what Orwell called “crimethink or even “facecrime”.
Orwell’s definition : “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.”
- Jonathan Mason
June 5, 2014 at 4:26 pm -
In fact I believe Max Clifford may now be doing time for “facecrime”.
- Peter Raite
June 26, 2014 at 12:31 pm -
I’m not sure if I have the strength to go through all of the NHS hospital released today, but it’s notable that the first one I looked at – in the city of my birth (i.e. De La Pole Hospital, Hull) – reaches the conclusion that the only two reports of JS’s activities there actually related to a single “incident,” but that when traced, the supposed victim, “vehemently denies that any incident took place involving JS.” In fact, she said that while, “JS has visited the ward,” she had been on, “he was accompanied during his visit and would not have had any opportunity to have done anything untoward whilst on the ward.”
I wonder if anyone can be bothered to tabulate the actual detail in all the reports..?
- Peter Raite
June 26, 2014 at 1:07 pm -
Looking at a couple of others, there seems to be a pattern that if documentary evidence is available, it invariably casts doubt on the allegations. Whereas if there is no documentary evidence, the reports conclude that because the witnesses seem credible, the incidents probably did take place. Oh dear….
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