All Coppers Are Bastards
Billy Bunter and Simple Simon in their current guises as backbench nonentities desperate to make their mediocre mark can barely contain their excitement, queuing-up to get their ugly mugs on news bulletins by the broadcaster that compares a bullish Friend of David to the most successful charity fundraiser in living memory. Why? Because Scotland Yard is again playing the guilty pupil standing in front of the whole school, reluctantly owning up to past indiscretions in anticipation of six-of-the-best. Not that anyone outside of the Westminster conspiracy factory is remotely surprised or shocked by this confession; the Met, like its South Yorkshire branch, spends approximately half of its working life apologising for something it did or didn’t do years ago. It’s like discovering an MP has been caught cooking the books or has his hand in the till – is there anyone left in this country who could find such news revelatory anymore? So, the Conservative Party Chairman had a second job when he declared he didn’t? Tell us something we don’t know. It’d be more of a shock to learn he hadn’t lied after all.
This latest ‘I’ve been a naughty boy’ missive from Scotland Yard relates to turning a blind eye to and (on the odd occasion) apparently endorsing the sexual abuse of children over a period naturally beginning in the year that opened the decade in which our kiddies were enticed through the gates of hell en masse, 1970. There has been a cover-up by all accounts, one inevitably involving a deceased Honourable Member (though from which party, I wonder?). Oh, joy of joys! Nothing excites quite like a cover-up. Blame it all on JFK, or more accurately, those who fudged the issue of who blew his head off in 1963. Conflicting accounts and a collective refusal to accept the uncomfortable truth that one screwed-up individual could rob the free world of its charismatic leader helped found an industry that has flourished in the half-century since explosive events on Deely Plaza.
‘The public may be shocked by what could emerge’, claimed a Survivors’ Spokesman following the announcement by the Met yesterday. ‘It will make the Profumo Affair look like a picnic in the park.’ Ah, yes – Profumo, the pioneering scandal that had it all: MPs and Peers, pimps with friends in high places, common whores, Russian spies, the revelation that the social betters of the plebs were sexual deviants; oh, and it brought down an ailing Prime Minister who went on to live for another twenty-odd years! The Great British benchmark indeed – and one that occurred the same year as the Kennedy assassination; it seems Philip Larkin was right to call 1963 Annus Mirabilis.
In one respect, where finding out politicians could lie through their teeth whilst feathering their own nest was once shocking to the public, it is now second nature to mistrust them, with instant recourse to suspicion and doubt even when the suspect is innocent. After JFK, MLK, Bobby Kennedy and Vietnam, for example, Watergate was the final straw for most Americans, a scandal so seismic in its impact that virtually every scandal great and small since has had the ‘gate’ suffix attached to it. But as Nixon fell on his sword, he had inadvertently sown the seeds of something that would only require advancements in technology to take it to the next level.
The invention of the internet for the conspiracy theorist was like the invention of the strap-on dildo for lesbians with a closet penis fetish. In the last ten years, the world-wide web has facilitated such an astronomical increase in the conspiracy industry that the belief everything we’ve been told by the evil powers-that-be has been a carefully orchestrated lie concocted to conceal the truth is more widespread than ever before. And one can be sure that if the truth is out there, it’s more terrible than anyone could possibly conceive in their most fevered imagination. In short, it’s even better.
‘We’re on the cusp of finding out what went on in the 70s and 80s’ said Simple Simon yesterday as Mrs Simon was no doubt coping with ripping her family apart by taking another scented mammary selfie to flog for a tenner. The man who had been present during the unveiling of a plaque praising Cyril Smith without once voicing the rumours that had encircled the beached whale of Rochdale for decades has hitched a ride on the conspiracy industry’s latest battle bus and is clearly enjoying the attention. The IPCC is now in receipt of fourteen cases of corruption passed onto them by the Met, something that is Manna from Heaven to the likes of Simple Simon in that this is no ordinary case of police corruption of the kind that sent the likes of the Yard’s Commander Wally Virgo to prison in the 70s. Old-school villains such as Soho porn barons don’t even get a look in. Like ex-Richardson Gang henchmen, they’re loveable rogues now; they even make movies about them that celebrate their roguishness.
No, this IPCC investigation adheres to a very modern agenda and contains all the requisite modern ingredients for a scandal soufflé – crooked coppers covering-up the truth by hindering and halting investigations to save the skins of senior politicians and prevent the prosecution of paedophile rings involving MPs and Peers (not that lot again!), celebrities and sinister Masonic sex pests. And it’s ‘historic’ as well – ‘high level corruption of the most serious nature’. One former policeman claims he was removed from his post when he announced his intention to investigate the cases that have now been handed to the police watchdog. What more could the conspiracy industry wish for?
Salivating survivors and one-trick pony politicians want this inquiry; but more than that, they want their accusations to be vindicated, and the only way that can happen is for concrete evidence to emerge that will prove children were sexually abused. If the conclusion of the inquiry finds there are no grounds for any of the accusations, the interested parties will not be happy. Liz ‘Quack-Quack-Oops’ Dux and Mark ‘Paedo-finder’ Williams-Thomas will be airing their outrage on Twitter within seconds of the verdict; their slavish online disciples will be demanding an inquiry into the inquiry; the comfy sofas of daytime TV will be drenched in the collective tears of victims; tabloids will cry ‘whitewash’ while the broadsheets pick out the splinters from their backsides; whoever is heading the minority government when the inquiry ends will join the chorus in the hope that it wins him favour with the electorate. Everyone with half-a-brain can be Mystic Meg these days.
The fact is all those with a vested interest in the outcome of this investigation want children to have been sexually abused – whether politician, law-firm, survivor, failed policeman-turned-moral crusader, and online conspiracy theorist; it’s the only outcome acceptable to them, whether truth or lie. Of course, the truth as the inquiry finds it will indeed be declared a lie if it doesn’t match their expectations. And if they get their wish, there’ll still be yet another scandal waiting in the wings that involves children, even if those children passed puberty forty years ago. How awful it would be to discover no innocents were seduced and sodomised. What would that do for the credibility of the crusaders?
So here’s to a guilty verdict; here’s to raiding the retirement homes; here’s to trial and sentencing; here’s to righting wrongs and rewriting history; here’s to lawsuits and here’s to the confirmation that everyone in a position of power is covering-up the kind of depravity that excites and energises the vampires that have drained this country of its dignity. Good night, all.
Petunia Winegum
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March 17, 2015 at 9:43 am -
What a great job ACPO are doing.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) brings together the expertise and experience of chief police officers from the United Kingdom, providing a professional forum to share ideas and best practice, co-ordinate resources and help deliver effective policing which keeps the public safe.
Latest News
Chief officers welcome the announcement that Judge Justice Pitchford will lead an inquiry into undercover policing
The inquiry will help us with the work that is already underway to make sure that the unacceptable behaviour of some officers in the past never happens again.New detailed rape statistics will help chiefs and PCCs analyse how rape is tackled in their force
The Rape Monitoring Group (RMG), has today published 42 local digests bringing together for the first time published data on rape from the Home Office, Office for National Statistics, Crown Prosecution Service and Ministry of JusticePolice working with partners to prevent vulnerable people being placed in custody
A report published today by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has found that children, people who are mentally unwell and other vulnerable members of society are being locked in cells and sometimes unnecessarily criminalised because police custody is being used as a substitute for social and health care
http://www.acpo.police.uk/
Check out the kiddie-porn on the left margin just now -
March 17, 2015 at 9:51 am -
It’s a scandal that the bloody police used to rely on “evidence” to prosecute people, and also that they relied on “the official secrets act” to protect national security at the height of the ‘cold war’ threat.
There might as well have been a nuclear strike as I feel like I’m in ‘Survivors’ (the 1975 BBC series that is, not the present-day Armageddon fanatasists who are destroying what is left of our liberty)
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March 18, 2015 at 6:56 am -
You’re mixing your Survivors up.
The 1970’s TV series by Terry Nation was about a biological weapon accidentally unleashed by a Chinese scientist which essentially created a strain of flue that killed > 99% of the population.
Today’s bullshit feels more like Wilfred Greatorex’s ’77/’78 classic “1990” staring Edward Woodward.
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March 18, 2015 at 10:35 am -
Having seen a couple of episodes of 1990, it always seemed like a worked-up right-winger’s totalitarian nightmare. Now I’m not so sure…
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March 17, 2015 at 10:14 am -
I’ve responded to a Twitter posting by Russell Brand, who has asserted that “You are being governed by people whose heroes covered up child abuse. One acting PM abused children in No.10″. He doesn’t mention names, but I’m sure everyone who comes to this site knows who he is talking about. I’ve responded by asking ‘proof?’
Does anyone on this site know about any allegations against this former Prime Minister, and whether anyone credible (the last words it seems one should use to describe Michael Shrimpton, or David Icke), has evidence?
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March 17, 2015 at 10:28 am -
Daily Mail claimed to know all about his secrets.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2770089/Ted-Heath-s-young-oriental-companion-gay-friend-claims-ex-MP-hid-true-sexuality-entire-life.html -
March 17, 2015 at 10:32 am -
The PM in question was a bachelor resident of No.10 (Shock! Horror!), something that led to predictable rumours at the time; back then, he was regarded as ‘queer’, but that’s no longer defamatory enough, so the current sexual bogeyman label has been posthumously attached to him. I expected better from Brand than to leap on this latest seaborne bandwagon, but there you go…
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March 17, 2015 at 12:37 pm -
You really expected better from Brand..? Really?!?
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March 17, 2015 at 10:02 pm -
You mean you are the last person on the planet who doesn’t know that Heath collected little boys from Haut de la Garenne in Jersey, used them as ‘crew’ on his yacht, took them out to sea, buggered them, slit their throats and chucked them overboard?
Where have you been?That’s been Ickean gospel for over two years now. The odd thing about Brand is that he felt he had to up the ante and place the dastardly deed actually in No 10.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:30 pm -
I must say that I have become one of those willing to condemn on mere hearsay, never having actually met the bloke.
Here goes:-
Brand is an utter pillock!
There. Done it.
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March 18, 2015 at 7:58 am -
* That’s been Ickean gospel for over two years now *
Bit late to the party ilovethebbc. Icke wrote about Ted in his 1998 book, which makes it nigh on twenty years. He has since said he wrote about Jimmy Savile but in fact David never mentioned Jimmy ever, until a day or two after Jimmy was dead and Ickey read a blog by someone called T.Stokes (who the internet say is also dead now).
In fact the entire idiotic meme, “Oh, he never sued me so it must be true” was created on the back of Ickey’s story about Ted.
From tiny minds do great social movements grow.-
March 18, 2015 at 9:48 am -
And didn’t the Ickettes adamantly claim as fact that Jimmy Savile was transporting and delivering children to Heath and other in a nationwide operation? But the evidence of hundreds of people contained in the Operation Yewtree report was that Jimmy Savile didn’t take any children in his car anywhere.
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March 21, 2015 at 10:13 am -
My bad. I never read Icke’s book, preferring to waste my time pulling the legs off spiders.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:39 am -
I expected better from Brand than to leap on this latest seaborne bandwagon, but there you go…
Hmmm You must be an incurable optimist to expect anything good from Brand:)
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March 17, 2015 at 12:11 pm -
What is it about Brand? Other than being an absolute tosser.
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March 17, 2015 at 12:15 pm -
BBC3 perhaps.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04v2zrg
Having come to their attention as a bad boy, after discussing shagging some old geezers Grand-daughter on the wireless, he then became the voice of the yoof. That’s the modern BBC for you. Not so much Auntie Beeb as Uncle Ernie.-
March 17, 2015 at 12:31 pm -
The oddest thing to me is that nobody ever seems to dig of clips of his TV work from before he suddenly morphed into his own “oo-er, missus, look at my dinkle!” parody. The contrast would be strikingly hilarious.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:56 pm -
It just seemed a too-obvious bandwagon for him to leap on to me; I wouldn’t have thought he’d have relished sharing a bed with the likes of Icke, but life is full of surprises.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:00 pm -
Certainly no problem in sharing a couch with him!
http://www.oneballmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BEyvYIUCIAAhBe2.jpg_large.jpg
“One day, son, all this will be yours…”
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March 17, 2015 at 10:50 am -
Oh, a round on the House for everyone to celebrate Petunia’s ‘coming of age’.
Magnificent young whippersnapper, just magnificent!
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March 17, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
I’m still on the Wagen so make mine a Latte, please…and if Pet puts chocolate sprinkles on it AGAIN I shall have to report her to the Food Police (there is NO safe level of Chocolate).
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March 17, 2015 at 12:36 pm -
Bags I the Dwarfs sprinkles!
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March 17, 2015 at 12:43 pm -
“Bags I the Dwarfs sprinkles!”
On your pint?! I know the Raccon Arms has relocated to the depths of rural Eastangliashire but, really, ‘standards’ can be maintained. Next you’ll be clamoring for deep-fried Curly Wurlys as bar food.
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March 17, 2015 at 12:48 pm -
“Next you’ll be clamoring for deep-fried Curly Wurlys as bar food.”
What, you mean they’re not?
Actually, like you, I would be having a (large) coffee as there are just too many tossers on the roads at present.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:58 pm -
Mine’s a double scotch!
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March 17, 2015 at 9:26 pm -
Salmond and Sturgeon?
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March 17, 2015 at 10:52 am -
On the subject of Heath, can some one explain why the mainstream media hasn’t dealt with this allegation if only for the sake of quashing the hysteria. After all, bearing in mind the cases of Nigel Evans and Paul Gambaccini, it’s hardly as if innocent people have been ruined by false sex abuse allegations.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:25 am -
Because David Cameron very early on explained that we mustn’t have a gay witch-hunt I imagine.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:52 am -
If the internet had been invented 60 or more years ago, I guess that the term paedophile would have been substituted by homosexual. Anyone old enough to remember when homosexuality was viewed in the way that paedophilia is now might be wondering how long it will be before “paedo rights” becomes an issue, when it will be claimed that it’s not unnatural it’s just the way they were born. And will it be argued that it should be illegal to discriminate against paedophiles because of their sexuality? Of course the paedophile community will have to come up with a nice, friendly sounding name for themselves as did the homosexual community when they adopted the term “gay”. Any suggestions? And when paedophillia becomes just as accepted as homsexuality who will “they” go after next, the zoophillia community maybe? Allegations such as “I remember that Tony Blair, he used to have sheep taken to number ten by that well known animal procurer Johnny Morris, but it was all covered up by that bent Chief Inspector Flying Fox of the Yard” will be common place.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:33 pm -
Rubbish! They were ewes! Nothing queer about Blair…
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March 17, 2015 at 10:53 am -
Brilliant piece, Petunia! The saddest part of it is when you stated, quite correctly, about those who actually WANT children to have been abused. That sums the outlook of these Vultures up perfectly.
Having BEEN a teenager in the 70s, I realize just how LUCKY I was to SURVIVE at all, my friends also. HOW did we ever get to lead ‘ordinary’ lives back then, when all around us, children and young women were being abused EN MASSE, EVERYWHERE, at EVERY level.
Why, ’tis obviously a MIRACLE I’m still here!
Even more of a miracle that I know no-one who was sexually abused, nor who looks back upon these times with anything other than very happy memories of a sublimly happy time, when it was GREAT to be alive, when men and women were allowed to touch each other without it being a crime…and when we just went “Oy, Cheeky! Stop that!” when it was needed…
It seems a strong case of 1984itis to me, in that those who control The Past, control The Future..and WHAT a Future they are building! A very RICH one for themselves, whilst a very paranoid one for everyone else.
Create the panic, then offer yourselves up as The Solution to The Panic, at a mere £3,000 to £8,000 an HOUR and BINGO!!
Anyways ups, I’m off to order me some scented photos of The Narcissist Queen so I can work out just how she’s managed to take hundreds, nay, possibly thousands, of photos of her cleavage, by erm…accident. I wonder if she met her Prince via that dating site ‘Liars R Us’, that I heard about recently? ;0)
And yes, wasn’t it strange to see him clapping his little hands together with glee, as the plaque to Monsieur Cyril was unveiled. Perhaps it was the thought of all the £money he might be able to make in the future?
As to the Met Police, I spoke to an officer from there not that long ago…and he told me how utterly demoralized so many officers feel now, that many are leaving, how they have trouble recruiting new officers. They feel they can’t do anything right, in the past, or in the present.
Some of the ‘Carry On’ films are on over this weekend, so no doubt The Feminists will be watching, horrified, in their thongs and cleavage outfits…
Perhaps it’s time for a NEW Carry on film….’Carry On Deceiving’…with a cast of our favourite deceivers? :0)
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March 17, 2015 at 11:04 am -
As an unabused, white, male, married, monogamous, un-divorced heterosexual, I fear I’m developing the symptoms of minority-paranoia.
To whom do I apply for compensation?
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March 17, 2015 at 12:33 pm -
Technically, if you have more than one variable, pretty much everyone’s in a minority.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:33 am -
I’m sure if the Salem witch accusers, Matthew Hopkins and Joseph McCarthy had been alive today – with the internet, Twitter, desperate 24 hour news stations and venal politicians who would smear anyone to obtain credibility and political advantage – even they would be amazed at the moral panic that can be generated by a small number of people with an axe to grind and an advantage to gain. When a slimeball like Tom Watson pontificates about moral righteousness you know something stinks; and it isn’t just the local decayed corpses of Cyril Smith et al that have been exhumed by the likes of Simon Danczuk and the pompous prigs at Exaro with their twitter fans and true believers in the media (Sky’s Tom Parmenter scores highly in this regard as do the hacks at the Mirror and People who love to burnish their anti-Tory and, especially, anti-Thatcher credentials ).
Last night’s Newsnight exclusive (anonymous source of course) wheeled on dear old ex DCI Clive “I caught Stephen Lawrence’s murderers you know” Driscoll to give it some credence by saying the story was credible (he also thinks that reports of Britain being infested by baby eating Satanists are credible so possibly his judgment isn’t that good…). Exaro have been boasting that they brought about the IPCC complaints mentioned yesterday by infiltrating an ex-police members’ only message board somewhere on the net and encouraging the malcontents contained within to complain about the alleged cover-ups that they were winging about anonymously online – whether they stand up to proper scrutiny remains to be seen but of course the media can’t wait for little things like investigations and evidence; in their eyes (and those of Watson, Danczuk and Mann) accusation = immediate guilt (a bit like the dog that MUST have been poisoned at Crufts last week only for the evidence and investigation to show that it wasn’t – needless to say the media didn’t give the truth as much publicity as the accusation.-
March 17, 2015 at 11:37 am -
Is that the “Surrey Constabulary Blog” that has it’s website based in Singapore and seems to have all started over a beef about pensions?
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March 17, 2015 at 11:45 am -
No, it seems to be a Met one for ex-officers; the comments were prompted, amazingly, by a discussion about the truth of convicted money-lauderer Chris Fay’s Elm House “list” , the Dickens dossier and freemasonry seems to have morphed into what each ex-copper had heard (usually as “whispers”) before turning into a “my cover-up is bigger than your cover-up” willy-waving contest.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:50 am -
All coppers are not bastards but some of them are idiots…
Operation Newgreen:
“Two former West Yorkshire officers and a relative of a West Yorkshire officer came forward stating that they had been aware of concerns regarding Savile’s contact with young girls.” As the national lead for the investigation in to Savile’s offending, the MPS (Operation Yewtree) has received information from retired police officers and their families relating to Savile. One retired WYP officer provided a number of different pieces of information relating to Savile.In particular, the officer described how whilst on duty, Savile was seen jogging in Roundhay Park. The officer said “hello” but he did not respond as he seemed to be angry. A short time later the officer spoke to a female who the officer believed worked in the café in Roundhay Park and appeared upset. She stated that Savile was a “horrible man” and she wished he would not come in to the café… Both the owners and the females have said that not only did Savile attend the café on a regular basis, but that they became good friends with Savile. All have independently stated that at no time was Savile ever inappropriate towards them, in either words or actions. Savile took the females to London for the filming of Top of the Pops and also Jim’ll Fix It.They describe him being like an uncle and acting like a gentleman. The only instance of police attendance at the café that the owner could recall was one occasion where a female officer attended to speak to them about a customer having been short changed. Savile was present in the rear of the shop having a coffee with the staff. The police officer gave advice in relation to the customer and left.
The review team has also spoken to 21 former colleagues of the officer. None have any recollection of the incident involving Savile and the female at the café. All the additional pieces of information that the officer provided, which mainly related to colleagues having possible knowledge of Savile, have been extensively investigated. None of the officer’s former colleagues have any knowledge of Savile’s offending prior to the broadcast of the ‘Exposure’ documentary.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/evidence-evidence-everywhere-but-not.htmlThat last sentence would be the cue for exaro’s claims of a cover-up.
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March 17, 2015 at 1:10 pm -
There was an interview with Ester Rantzen on Satursday afternoon, on’t wireless.
She was talking about Childline, and the subjext of Saville came up. She was sked how children had called childline to complain about Jimmy Saville – her response was that there was no record of any calls at all. The interviewer said this showed clearly just how powerful JS was, and how children would not be believed, even on Childline.
To her credit, Ester grunted a sort of yes to this line of argument, but didnt sound very convincing. The interviewer made a few further attenpts but then I missed the rest of the programme.
That reminds me, I must get the glaziers in and collect the remains of the radio from the garden.
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March 17, 2015 at 1:28 pm -
The credulous and non-questioning nature of the media is one of the most infuriating components in all this. Every accusation is taken as true, every “survivor” must be believed, every two-bit huckster with a tale to tell is given valuable airtime without any contradiction. Lord McAlpine was fortunate to still be alive when Newsnight made it’s veiled paedo accusations against him as he was able to fight back and make everyone back down; had he been dead I’m sure it would now be commonly accepted by the usual suspects in all this that he was a historical paedophile with links to some sort of powerful VIP ring – the same fate that has now befallen Cyril Smith, Leon Brittan and, no doubt, others yet to be named who are no longer around to defend themselves.
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March 17, 2015 at 1:59 pm -
It was a Facebook forum (see photos) although Exaro turned-up the mystery-dial by saying they would not be naming it:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vip-paedophile-networks-shut-down-4807293My guess is that the forum was seeded with Fay’s claims by an associate of Fay & then the resulting discussion was ‘passed back’ to Exaro by the self-same seeder:
https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/why-police-whistleblowers-will-be-crucial-to-getting-to-the-truth-of-historic-child-sex-abuse/#comment-15414An example of the seriousness with which we might want to take Exaro’s claim of being “investigative journalists”:
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5434/police-discuss-submitting-statements-on-paedophile-cover-upHere we have ‘Matthew’ (ex-Met sergeant with 33-years service) making the claim that the child allegedly run-over by the ‘gang’ (as described by ‘Nick’) was… well, he names him, but I will not. Despite his 33 years of service his arithmetic is appalling, as the murder to which he refers took place four-years after the alleged running-over. Fair enough, we might think; it is, after all, just an online gossip-board. But why does no one point out this fairly pertinent fact to him? And if not the other forum-members, why not Exaro?
It’s true that if you piece the various articles together – and they are fond of unnecessarily spreading a story over several pages – you can plainly see that this particular claim is impossible. But I find Exaro’s unqualified inclusion of it as inexcusable. There will undoubtedly be people out there who really don’t need their private grief over horrific events wrongly hitched to this particluar wagon. (I’m loathe to mention this, but MWT has tweeted that this particluar angle is nonsense.)
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March 17, 2015 at 2:15 pm -
I note that Operation Ore is also referenced as some sort of high-level cover-up for VIP paedophiles as opposed to what it actually was – a complete bodge job by Jim Gamble and friends that led to innocent people being accused of accessing child pornography; no wonder it was “covered-up” – if the sheer incompetence of it had all come out the police would have been a laughing stock.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:18 pm -
“The participants in the two discussions are mostly former Met officers. One exception identifies himself as having worked for “UK gov”, and said that he signed the Official Secrets Act.”
Don’t you just love the way they invoke the OSA to make it all sound more cloak-and-dagger. The mundane reality is that signing the OSA was pretty standard for civil servants in the 1980s. I did a year with the Department of Transport back then, at just about the lowest grade possible, and even I had to sign it!
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March 17, 2015 at 2:20 pm -
Oh, and Exaro obviously think they’re smart and everyone else is stupid, as if disabling right-click on their website is going to prevent copying-and-pasting their text.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:33 pm -
The clamour to have the threat of prosecution for breaching the OSA lifted (for ‘whistleblowers’) seems justified, although I personally have a hard time comprehending how anyone would allow said act to silence credible accusations about such serious matters (up to and including sexual torture & murder of children).
We are asked to bear in mind the risk to careers & pensions… I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Quit the damned job! Move to another country! But do whatever it takes to make the truth known.
All coppers are bastards? Of course not. But if such serious claims are proven it would suggest that a fair percentage of them are/were molsusc-men, slithering invertebrates as disgusting in their way as the perpetrators of those alleged crimes.-
March 17, 2015 at 2:37 pm -
Comnsidering the misconduct/criminality coppers seem to regularly walk away from with their big fat pensions intact, it seems even less credible.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:40 pm -
It’s also interesting to note that Exaro peppers its “reporting” with references to successful operations that led to multiple but unspecified arrests and convictions, as if such positive results validated other supposedly similar crimes being successfully covered up.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
It’s also worth noting that Exaro have a very chummy relationship with chief “Maggie covered up for the nonces” cheerleader Tom Watson – even letting him have cosy little chats with Dolphin Square “Nick” and 1960’s Brittan rape accuser “Jane”. Watson, you will unsurprised to hear, thinks that both witnesses are credible and truthful – there’s a surprise….
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March 17, 2015 at 4:53 pm -
You still do sign official secrets act in civil service
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March 17, 2015 at 11:38 pm -
We are all actually subject to the official secrets act; I believe the signature merely acknowledges that one has been given a copy of it and/or had its implications and ramifications explained.
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March 17, 2015 at 8:41 pm -
So Chris Fay was one of a network of men who abused vulnerable people but he knew nothing about the scam and his fans calmly accepted what he said, didn’t dig further and decided to make no further comment on the matter…sounds remarkably like a cover up.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:51 am -
You shouldn’t laugh at this, it won’t be quite so funny when they arrest half the police force, the local roundtable and your family doctor.
Moderator: Two sentences removed from this post on the grounds that they comprise a personal insult towards another poster.
My research on this matter has been postponed for a few months but when I get round to it I will do so without her help, which will probably be a bonus.
Meanwhile check out this bloke: http://wideshut.co.uk/
an excellent analysis of the background to the Hampstead nonsense.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:08 pm -
I merely pointed out that an unnamed individual refused to phone me in case I obtained her phone number. That is an insult?
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March 17, 2015 at 4:11 pm -
No you said more than that. Now you can rest on your laurels safe in the knowledge you actually managed to get moderated on what must be one of the most liberal going blogs around. Quite an achievement.
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March 17, 2015 at 5:03 pm -
No, you referred to her as ‘paranoid’ for not giving you her phone number. Given your behaviour on here, it would seem to be a sensible act on her part.
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March 17, 2015 at 5:08 pm -
I told her she could phone me using 141; she said I could still find her number. And do what with it? This reminds me of Larry O’Hara who bought a couple of my publications in the 90s sending me postal orders in case I passed his banking details to my masters in MI5. I mean, seriously. As I said, I will be doing that research without her. There is something else I have to do first though, nothing controversial but it’s been on the backburner for a long time, and it will take me a little while.
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March 17, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
“It’s like discovering an MP has been caught cooking the books or has his hand in the till”: I don’t see how you can complain of that – just a couple of days ago you were boasting that your father taught you to steal.
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March 17, 2015 at 12:27 pm -
I hope that any police officer who is guilty of covering up child abuse is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.This casts a shadow over all us decent ones.
I think though because of the powerful figures involved the inquiry will be a complete whitewash. -
March 17, 2015 at 12:43 pm -
March 17, 2015 at 1:38 pm -
1. I have no doubt that the police in the 70s and 80s could be paid or instructed to back off an investigation.
2. I have very little doubt that Cyril Smith was indeed a dirty bastard, and the police could well have been instructed to stop investigating him.Beyond that, I really don’t know what will come of this. Is there anything concrete in these allegations?
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March 17, 2015 at 2:31 pm -
The police in 2012-ish can be made to do what they’re told, as witnessed by Operation Yewtree.
I’d be more convinced about Cyril if he hadn’t been so goddamed huge and northern-like. Made him stick out like a sore thumb in any crowd and yet nobody but scallywag ever saw him. He may of course have been gay and found it difficult to find a partner without paying them.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:11 pm -
I think we discussed this before Moor, re Savile. Wherever he was, he was noticed. Exactly the same with Cyril. Those form the core of memories, which later can be embellished either by avarice or a psychological need to be a “victim”. You have the place, the occasion etched into memory, then you find out he was a dirty old man and even the slightest contact becomes traumatic in the “victim’s” mind.
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March 17, 2015 at 1:44 pm -
There’s someone on twitter who is twittering that Margaret Thatcher’s father was a paedo and that she was married to a paedo….all reported as absolute fact. You know you have to believe what he’s saying, otherwise you yourself will be labelled as a paedo! Meanwhile, the real victims of Muslim grooming gangs hardly get a mention….
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March 17, 2015 at 1:56 pm -
Apart from in the reporting of the gang members getting banged up, of course.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:36 pm -
Before the 1987 general election, he said, he gave the story to a friendly Daily Mirror journalist, who then declined to alert his newsdesk, fearing the wrath of owner Robert Maxwell, should it create too much controversy. The story remained a secret until it appeared in Punch last week [1997], although he had tried to persuade the magazine to publish it before this year’s election. Lady Thatcher’s office said that the former Prime Minister had no comment.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/sting-in-tale_2.html?showComment=1426602109716-
March 18, 2015 at 9:12 am -
The same tactics “developed” to spread panics –satanic/Savile etc” are now at work against the HOC–and Police elements not aligned with the femmis. It will lead to large swathes of male MPs smeared by accusation or guilt by association–ie having” known and done nothing” . It will leave feminist–ie leftist elements in a much stronger position. Not for nothing has ugly hag May been “positioning” herself with tough-talking plans for tinpot snooping and enhanced control. She fancies herself as Thatcher 2 and this is her chance.
It is all as big a pile of bollocks as the Savile/satanic allegations but the groundwork has been done. It will fly.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:24 pm -
I’m going to get myself in hot water, but I think there is something in this. From what i have seen, heard and read there is a prima facie case that “coppers” investigating allegations against Cyril Smith were told to drop it or else, and that the spooks threatened the police with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Also, that the spooks removed files which were pertinent to the investigation. I am much more inclined to take the view that the Westminster Powers That Be decided that potential damage to the reputation of political classes as a whole more than outweighed the interests of justice when a few undesirable “low lifes” were involved than to believe that Jimmy Savile roamed the country as a serial and serious offender. Just my gut instinct. I will keep an open mind on this one, and firmly put my tin hat on!
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March 17, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
The file reveals that the 29-stone politician was accused of eight counts of sex abuse, including six offences at a care home he set up in his Rochdale constituency.
The case has strong parallels with that of former BBC DJ and abuser Jimmy Savile, who was allowed access to patients at Broadmoor, Stoke Mandeville and Leeds General Infirmary.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418254/MI5-Special-Branch-covered-Cyril-Smiths-abuse-boys-Police-dossier-handed-prosecutors-1970-went-missing-decades.htmlSecond paragraph screws it for me. Cyril was formally outed by Liz McKean… another authoritative voice…
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March 17, 2015 at 2:38 pm -
I think there is a lot to this point of view; the idea that covering up the misdemeanours of one politician would, to the authorities at the time, not make a whole lot of difference in the scheme of things. It certainly makes more sense to me to that Cyril Smith may well have been some sort of lone wolf paedophile using rent boys rather than being part of some vast murderous conspiracy involving most of the upper echelons of society. The problem is that the possibly real concerns of if how and why Smith’s misdeeds were covered up are going to swamped by a miasma of conspiracy theories, fake accusations and testimony, hysteria and biased reporting where what may be genuine cases of abuse are lost in a avalanche of attention-seekers and compensation junkies.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
Peter Righton. Established “paedophiles” in the State care Industry. Gay witch hunt. Do the math.
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March 17, 2015 at 2:52 pm -
It’s also fair to mention that esteemed newspaper editor Don “Bakewell Tart” Hale claims to have known about Cyril Smith (not that he ever published anything about it) thanks to a dossier (another one!) handed to him by Barbara Castle (who like many others is now deceased so unable to corroborate Deadly Don’s story) until he too was raided by Special Branch who nabbed said dossier. As Special Branch seem to have spent most of the 70s and 80s racing round the country pinching paedo dossiers and swearing people to silence I’m amazed that they had time for those other little tasks like tracing terrorists…
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March 17, 2015 at 3:06 pm -
I can see Smith as a perpetrator – my instinct from everything I have seen, heard and red is that he was. I am also at the moment inclined to be open to the view that the security service covered this up – for whatever reason. What I am much less inclined to accept is conspiracy theories with a web of secret figures at the heart of government.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:07 pm -
Read. (red face)!
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March 17, 2015 at 3:10 pm -
Why would the security services concern themselves with protecting the Mayor of Rochdale?
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March 17, 2015 at 3:37 pm -
Cyril Smith also doesn’t fit the ‘establishment’ criteria for protection – he was (yet another) blunt Northerner from relatively humble stock (certainly in comparison to other MPs) so I’m overly convinced by the “protecting their own” angle (the same claptrap is wheeled out for certain DJs & entertainers too)
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March 17, 2015 at 4:20 pm -
“I can see Smith as a perpetrator – my instinct from everything I have seen, heard and red is that he was”
I agree…on gut feeling alone and having skimmed the Eye/RAP articles. The allegations detail a type of sexual abuse and an abuser of the time that I have encountered elsewhere. However I also note that one of the alligators sounded like he was giving ‘evidence’ before Yewtree….so perhaps the compo-rot set in a lot earlier than I thought.
As to the whole ‘cover up’ though that sounds a bit tin-foil-lizard-man to me.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:43 pm -
On BBC radio tonight he had dropped the claim he was forced to hand over the documents and forbidden to publish because he had been served with a ‘D-Notice’. Possibly because several people have pointed out to him that as a newspaper editor he should have known that they are entirely voluntary.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:56 pm -
Well, he was just an ex-footballer holding the fort at the free newspaper to which Barbara Castle MEP delivered her dossier when the D-notice was delivered, so maybe he was still learning the ropes:
“Thanks to the D-notice, Hale never made further inquiries or made public the contents of the dossier. Castle went to her grave in 2002 with its contents still secret.”How he has managed to dine out on his ‘great triumph’ for so long is a miracle:
https://web.archive.org/web/20061022081608/http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/news/26.htmlThe list of 14 inquiries into investigations about allegations might have a few people shifting uneasily in their seats… and the bullshitters can take their place at the head of the queue.
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March 18, 2015 at 8:02 am -
* How he has managed to dine out on his ‘great triumph’ for so long is a miracle *
Many of the kiddy-fiddler fantasists have been dining out on their 9ever-changeable) stories for many many years.
Fleet Street has consistently been paying for the meals…
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March 17, 2015 at 2:51 pm -
It would be interesting to hear from Private Eye who were “the one national paper with enough courage to carry the story”.
Here we have what they call their ‘Cyril Smith Archive’. It consists of two articles from the Rochdale Alternative Press & a single article of their own. All are from, er, 1979:-
March 17, 2015 at 2:58 pm -
I see that Sky have wheeled on an ex-detective who investigated Cyril Smith in 1969 and says that the enquiry was blocked by senior officers; he believes it is because it would “brought down the government of the time”. Surely in 1969 Cyril Smith was an obscure local politician (it’s three years before he became an MP) – how on earth could he have brought down Harold Wilson’s government – more hyperbole from the media!!
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March 17, 2015 at 3:04 pm -
March 17, 2015 at 3:09 pm -
You are right – in 1969 he was the Mayor of Rochdale, about as obscure as it got in 1969…
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March 17, 2015 at 3:17 pm -
In fact, Smith wasn’t even a Liberal in 1969 – he’d been Labour until 1966 (he left after some falling out over council house rents – very municipal!) and sat as an independent until 1970 when he joined the Liberal Party. Also he’d been Mayor in 1966, so at the time of the 1969 investigation he was a partyless ex-mayor with about as much political clout as a deflated balloon and yet we’re led to believe that senior police were pulling strings in some sort of conspiracy to cover up for him ? Sounds very strange to me …
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March 17, 2015 at 3:43 pm -
Although it came a good few years later, Smith was said to be a good friend of ‘God’s cop’, James Anderton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_AndertonOn a crackpots’ forum I raised this point with a woman who had personally witnessed in her own home (with her otherhalf, a copper) Smith’s “wandering hands” around boys; Smith was ejected by her hubby. She is active on Twitter & forums, etc., and I believe made a formal complaint (in 2012!):
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/cyril-smith-eyewitness-account/It turned out that she also knew James Anderton. I suggested that she contact him to see what on earth he made of his pal’s alleged behaviour, given his resolutely anti-gay, pro-castration viewpoint! I don’t think she replied. Very strange…
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March 17, 2015 at 10:38 pm -
Ah yes, I know of her, originally noticed her on the anti McCann forums. She’s been flogging that story for a long while. Currently claims there is a gagging order on her.
She has twitter mates who say things like: ” The Athenaeum and The Groucho Club are two well respected child rapist Gentleman’s clubs in London”
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March 17, 2015 at 11:48 pm -
“…the view that the Westminster Powers That Be decided that potential damage to the reputation of political classes as a whole more than outweighed the interests of justice when a few undesirable “low lifes” were involved…”
Likewise, I hold the Westminster élite in such regard that without specifying individual acts, I truly believe that on the whole, there are no depths to which they would not sink (and probably have sunk) and no limit to the contempt with which they view us members of the hoi-polloi.
That may or may not make me a conspiracy theorist – I’m not commenting on specific individual allegations – but the collective morality of the denizens of the Palace of Westminster is far lower than that of Mr Capone’s mob.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:02 pm -
Something is bothering me – the original allegations against Smith were said to have taken place pre-1968.
Pre-1967, Homosexuality was illegal. Since it was illegal – there was no ‘age of consent’, therefore no reason for anyone who was homosexual to concern themselves with the age of the boy, what they were doing was against the law regardless of age.
The original complaint was of ‘spanking’. Whilst it is an ‘assault’, since it was commonplace as a means of discipline, Police officers at the time would have routinely spanked their own children, and would have been spanked themselves – it simply wouldn’t have been considered a ‘sexual assault’.
The other route to prosecution of Smith would have been to consider the spanking as ‘homosexuality’. I can’t see that there would have been much appetite for a prosecution of an MP – or anyone else for that matter – based on an example of ‘spanking’ as being homosexuality.
Much later, Harvey Proctor (1980) was convicted of ‘spanking’ – but after an ‘age of consent’ had been established. So there was an appetite for prosecuting MPs for such offences – but only when the law had been laid down.
Perhaps the problem with Smith was not so much an exciting ‘conspiracy to protect’, but an awareness that the law wasn’t available, and once it was – Bingo, Proctor was convicted.
Is it possible that if the ‘1968’ complainant hd come forward again in 1980, then Smith might have been charged, and we would have been spared more rumours of a cover-up.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:17 pm -
At a time when coporal punishment was so widespread and socially-condoned, few would automatically interpret spanking as something sexual. As far as I remember, it only began to be defined as such by the anti-CP lobby in the late-1970s/ealrly-1980s (cf the David Leland TV play Birth of a Nation). These days it would be hard persuading many people that any form of CP is not merely a cover for sadistic sexual urges, while – paradoxically – consensual BDSM is positively mainstream.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:06 pm -
To be fair, the infamous ‘Schoolkids’ issue of ‘Oz’ magazine in 1970 featured a crude cartoon of a teacher poised to spank a bare-bottomed boy, cane in one hand and erect penis in the other.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:26 pm -
True. I forgot about that one. I would think, though, that that sort of thing has to be taken with a pinch of salt, as even back then kids who were caught bang to rights were still apt to think their punishment was too harsh, and so “must” be motivated by something else, even if was just a “grudge” on the part of whichever teacher it was.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:29 pm -
“The Crown Prosecution Service revealed he had been investigated in 1970, 1988 and 1999 while Greater Manchester Police admitted there had been ‘overwhelming evidence’ that he abused boys both physically and sexually.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2984529/Cabinet-office-child-abuse-cover-MoS-beats-attempt-No10-gag-VIP-file-shows-Thatcher-knew-paedophile-MP-Cyril-Smith.htmlIt’s quite a confused article from the Mail. Deliberately so, I imagine!
While they claim that Thatcher “knew about paedophile MP Cyril Smith” it might be more correct to say that she knew about the ‘allegations’:“Margaret Thatcher was personally told [in 1988] that police had investigated claims that Smith indecently assaulted teenage boys in the 1960s.”
Fair enough, but the article goes on to state that:
“A senior Whitehall mandarin took the ‘exceptional’ step of contacting the country’s top prosecutor and police to find out why Smith was never charged with abusing boys at a hostel he helped run.” (I wonder if this is what led to the 1988 investigation mentioned above).If we are pre-disposed to believe in an all-encompassing cover-up we will read the article as being proof that “Maggie KNEW & did NOTHING!!!”. Another explanation might simply be that she didn’t think a man’s progress should be halted by unprosecuted 20-year old claims.
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March 17, 2015 at 3:36 pm -
“Another explanation might simply be that she didn’t think a man’s progress should be halted by unprosecuted 20-year old claims.”
Particularly not when the allegations amounted to spanking!
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March 17, 2015 at 3:50 pm -
They wanted Maggie not knight Savile because Jimmy wasn’t married and had recently sold his shagging stories to The Sun….
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March 17, 2015 at 3:41 pm -
“A second note to the Prime Minister, dated May 1988, admitted the committee had ‘some hesitation’ about the award but concluded: ‘So far as we believe and have been able to ascertain, his past history or general character does not, in all the circumstances, render him unsuitable’.”
Gosh! That sounds as if they’re saying that the allegations didn’t hold up on the evidence available at the time….
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March 17, 2015 at 3:38 pm -
“The original complaint was of ‘spanking’. Whilst it is an ‘assault’, since it was commonplace as a means of discipline, Police officers at the time would have routinely spanked their own children, and would have been spanked themselves – it simply wouldn’t have been considered a ‘sexual assault’.
Seeing as birching had only come off the statute books some 5 years before (1962 for Prisons), I’d think any lad of 15 complaining about being mildly hand-spanked for theft instead of being arrested would have been told by the coppers to think himself grateful and to hold his peace.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:06 pm -
Indeed. We know the DPP did review some of the Smith allegations and concluded there was no case to answer (something they may well have been incorrect on). However, in doing so we know no frighteners were applied to the cops >at this time<.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:25 pm -
I’m afraid that ordinary members of the public going about their business are fairly unlikely to come across the police frequently enough to know what to do when the law of averages (no pun intended) puts them – eventually – in contact. Mostly, I guess, the police reflect the society they are drawn from, and that must mean that the majority are fair-minded and go about their business conducting themselves fully in accordance with the law and recognising that the majority of the public are the same. So all coppers aren’t bastards.
Then again, the police force is sufficiently large to contain its share of overly officious jobsworths, and people who one wouldn’t want to meet on a regular basis. More to the point, there are police officers who aren’t afraid to mishandle folk in their custody, and aren’t averse to fitting people up: it isn’t therefore beyond credibility that they manufacture evidence, ‘lose’ evidence, or are just too stupid to see the wood for the trees. Some police officers are tempted by the offer of bribes, no doubt, and others act from political or personal motives, including racism. The work of the police brings them into contact with criminals as well as the general public, and sometimes they begin to view everyone as ‘perps’.
Nowhere is this more true than in the case of traffic police. In four decades of driving I’ve come across them on four occasions, and each time – so this is 100% of a small sample – their conduct was not above reproach. In the first case, when I was a teenager, they fabricated the evidence against me. In the second case, they drove an unmarked car so provocatively that I thought I was dealing with crooks (accelerating to overtake, and then braking with the handbrake in front of me until I was provoked to try to get away). In the third case they had covered a speed limit sign so that 50 yards later I was driving 5mph over the speed limit, and in the fourth case they lied about where I was clocked (again 5mph ‘over’, but I was actually in the next zone up, and thus was driving 5mph inside the speed limit!) But, they make a point of having a second copper to back them up, and you need to be both rich and tough to fight that. But, they have quotas to fill, and fill them they must.
Let us all be grateful that they don’t have quotas for paedophile disk-jockeys and MPs, or perhaps they do!
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March 17, 2015 at 4:29 pm -
So the police who are pursuing the celebrities are investigating whether they didn’t take claims seriously in the past? It sounds as if the answer to that could be used to justify expanding the Yewtree model. Which would confirm the recent announcement that “everybody is fair game”.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:30 pm -
* Mostly, I guess, the police reflect the society they are drawn from *
Just now, that is a worry.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:46 pm -
It’s a not uncommon complaint in London at Met officers that an unacceptably high percentage do not live even somewhere in Greater London, let alone the boroughs they actually work in. It used to be the case that an officer moving out to Essex or Kent was merely a sign of advancing through the ranks, rather than a starting position when joining.
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March 17, 2015 at 4:47 pm -
“… complaint in London that amongst Met officers an unacceptably high percentage…”
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March 17, 2015 at 6:17 pm -
I had 6 of the best when I was about 9. Didn’t do me any harm. How about this for the Smith cover-up, allegations were made against him, shown to be false or at least questionable, and the plods concerned were told not to bother themselves with it when the same nonsense resurfaced?
Having said that I’m quite prepared to concede he may have physically or even sexually abused boys here and there, but sex parties with or without ritual murders? Include me out!
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March 18, 2015 at 9:22 am -
Exactly so. This nonsense now seems to resemble the kind of mad rumours that circulated in the Middle Ages about Jews stealing babies and eating them or throwing them down the town well.
It is despair inducing to think how much technical progress mankind has made and how little the light of reason or even common sense shines within so many people.
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March 17, 2015 at 6:20 pm -
I was inclined to believe the Cyril Smith allegations as they have been around so long. However I didn’t realise how obscure he was at the time and now can’t see why he would be protected. It also makes sense that some of the allegations would not have been taken that seriously at the time. I will be surprised if anything concrete comes out iof all the enquiries, a colossal waste of time and money. Still JS has been declared guilty without any proof so I expect all the safely dead will too.
Anna, I saw your tweet, is it true about Colin, Captain Ranty? I have been unable to find confirmation. His last email was so despairing it’s heartbreaking.-
March 17, 2015 at 7:40 pm -
Carol, there was a Tweet today from his sister, thanking everyone for their condolences – so I guess it is true, but don’t have any further details.
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March 17, 2015 at 7:57 pm -
Could you forward to to me? I don’t know his sister’s name, I looked at both sons but couldn’t see anything on there. It is very sad, I had been trying to convince him that bad as it was it would pass, everything does eventually. He just said he didn’t know who he was any more I guess it was all too much though he had been going to some very promising interviews so I thought he would make it. Still hard to believe, thanks for letting me know.
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March 17, 2015 at 8:39 pm -
https://twitter.com/AllcockLynne
is the link that Joolz posted, which I assume is from Capt’ Sis?
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March 17, 2015 at 8:56 pm -
Thanks for that. I am very sad to see it confirmed, must have been not long after his last email, just wish I could have helped more.
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March 17, 2015 at 7:53 pm -
I had the impression Billy Bunter had retreated into the background somewhat of late (he gave an interview to the Guardian a few months ago and seemed to be talking down some of the wilder claims if anything), with John Mann coming to the fore as the new Paedofinder General with his claims that 25 current or former Parliamentarians are implicated. The vagueness of the assertion (over what time period? 20 years? 50? 500? How many alive? How many dead? What % of the 25 committed acts that were criminal offensives in an earlier, less enlightened era, but would not be so today?) makes it impossible to even form an educated guess as to whether there is any substance in the claims, or to form a judgement as to whether parliamentary paedos are indeed ‘protected by the system’. Tweeters have asked why he can’t name these people as he is protected by parliamentary privilege. Seemingly he is now saying police have asked that he not do so, presumably because they are hopeful of pressing charges in some cases. Fair enough.
As for Danzcuk, I must say I have had a fair degree of admiration/trust in what he is doing, but his choice of marital partner does seem to raise doubts as to his human judgement. Seemingly it emerged that the older brother (not the one she is implicating in noncing her, at a time when he himself was just a nipper) was previously estranged from the rest of the family after a brou-hah in which Karen was again centrally involved. How these claims will resolve themselves is anyone’s guess. The whole thing reads like a bad soap story line to me, but what do I know.
Incidentally, I noticed the blogger Gojam recently tweeted this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
Monty Python sketch, is he trying to tell us that he is sceptical of some of the wilder allegations?
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March 17, 2015 at 10:12 pm -
Yes, he is. He is not the only one of the ‘researchers’ convinced that the wilder stories have been deliberately promoted to discredit ALL of them.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:26 pm -
Er, one of the principle promoters of wild stories believes that the wild stories have been deliberately promoted to… etc.? I agree!
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March 17, 2015 at 10:47 pm -
Isn’t it strange that Watson, Danczuk and Mann the only ones making themselves busy over these revelations ? All the comment comes from these three – no other Labour MPs using the opportunity to stick the boot into the evil child-killing Tories…. Mann also claims to have reported the Lambeth claims to the police years ago but nothing was done by the fuzz – however Mann then seems to have not done anything himself (even whilst a friendly Labour government was in power) until resurrecting them last year in the full glare of publicity. He also claims the mysterious VIP paedo ring killed two Lambeth council employees including an unnamed caretaker – surely not the same caretaker who helped the police video Cyril Smith making his Lambeth visits ?
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March 18, 2015 at 12:02 am -
^ Well, ‘friendly Labour government’ being New Labour/Blairite, so possibly Mann was traditional Labour and didn’t trust the Blairites much more than the Tories?
There is a case to be made that some of these people knew what was happening, and were sickened by it, but were too junior to do anything about it, and opted to bide their time until they were senior or experienced enough to be in a position to effect change for the better.
Granted, there’s also a case to be made that politicians are opportunistic sensors of what way the public/media vines, by nature.
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March 17, 2015 at 11:07 pm -
Dan Chuck was quoting a Spitting Image Show as evidence in Parliament.
“… it is clear that there was a culture of acceptance of child sex abuse by the powerful and well-connected. Amazingly, that attitude seems to have been well known at the time. Indeed, I was recently shown an episode of “Spitting Image” that was produced and aired in June 1987. The sketch mocks Conservative youth unemployment policy by joking that the Government had been very good at “getting to grips with youngsters” through their “rent boy scheme” The joke was on the Conservative policy, but it was also on the boys who were raped and abused by politicians.”
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/secret-seven-politics-of-paedophilia.html
Knobhead of the first order of the garter. -
March 18, 2015 at 12:57 am -
Danczuk’s wife is a nutter and the obvious inspiration for this madness. If he had anything concrete he would have put it in the public domain yonks ago. Will read his book in due course. Bet it’s all talk.
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March 18, 2015 at 8:04 am -
Any reasonably good-looking young woman who would marry a bald, nondescript, plainly not-very-good-at-his job geezer 16 years her senior obviously has issues.
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March 18, 2015 at 2:11 pm -
You just have to spoil everybody’s dreams/hopes!
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March 17, 2015 at 9:14 pm -
Regarding the latest claims made on Newsnight, it was stated in 1980 or 1981 with the help of a caretaker a video camera was installed at a flat to carry out surveillance I wondered if cameras were that sophisticated and reliable 35 years ago.
This was all hush, hush and a caretaker helped install the video camera, no doubt an embedded MI5 officer.
I note in these stories there has to be a man of mystery and evidence disappearing, in this case a ‘senior police officer’ who the investigating officers had never met before who at an angry meeting demanded the officers hand over all their evidence. But would the threat of the Official Secrets Act stop angry officers tucking away some of their evidence rather than hand it all over.
The police carried a 3 month investigation involving long stints of surveillance at a block of rundown flats with prominent people coming & going along with young boys and no tenants were aware, only the caretaker? If Smith was arrested in Streatham and transported to Cannon Row would that involve Lambeth, Streatham & West End police and gossip in the canteen…”ooh you’d never believed I had in the back of my black maria last night.
Although presented as police in the plural had made claims of a cover up, the reporter on Newsnight relies on just one former policeman…”Our source won’t go on camera, he has given his account through an intermediary to reduce the risk of being identified.” does that mean the has never met his source and does know who it is?
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March 17, 2015 at 10:40 pm -
Although presented as police in the plural had made claims of a cover up, the reporter on Newsnight relies on just one former policeman…”Our source won’t go on camera, he has given his account through an intermediary to reduce the risk of being identified.” does that mean the has never met his source and does know who it is?
John Mann seems to have been putting feelers out on Twitter in November.
https://twitter.com/johnmannmp/status/538636377681035264
“the Labour MPs John Mann, Tom Watson and Simon Danczuck said they had spoken to officers who had expressed fears of a coverup and wanted further legal reassurance before going public…”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/17/police-told-drop-child-abuse-case-against-cyril-smith-whistleblower
That article doesn’t say who Newsnight’s sources were either. If they haven’t checked that their sources are who they claim to be or worked on the cases they claim to have worked on, it could be yet more myth-making to keep the compo mill turning. -
March 18, 2015 at 9:06 am -
At the time that these alleged events were meant to be going on I worked at the station that then covered Dolphin Square. The mid to late 70’s and early 1980’s was a time of intense PIRA activity and as Dolphin Square was used by many senior government figures as well as senior civil servants/senior military officers the premises were visited regularly by local uniformed police as well as the Diplomatic Protection Group because a lot of potential PIRA targets lived there.
All I can say is that I have no recollection of any calls to noisy parties etc. at Dolphin Square and as Rocky Racoon says it stretches credibility a bit to suggest no other residents were aware of the comings and goings. I will wait and see what happens, although after a period of nearly 40 years I am reasonably sure that there will be little of evidential value that emerges.
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March 17, 2015 at 9:45 pm -
“it was stated in 1980 or 1981 with the help of a caretaker a video camera was installed at a flat to carry out surveillance I wondered if cameras were that sophisticated and reliable 35 years ago.”
A quick skim of a couple of articles on the history of video recording says this story is somewhat unlikely. The first video camcorders weren’t released until 1982/3 and were big shoulder-mounted affairs that used cassettes. There were video cameras before that, but they were lumbering tripod-mounted devices used for film and TV work. There were of course tiny 35mm spy cameras well before then and by the 1970s they could be remotely operated. But hidden video surveillance in 1981? Science fiction.
Quite an interesting article on the history of spy photography here. If hidden video surveillance had been technically possibly in 1980, the intelligence agencies would certainly have used it – but they didn’t.-
March 17, 2015 at 10:09 pm -
I’ve been saying this about cameras for some time. It’s also alleged police had undercover video of visitors to Elm GH among other places. It has never seemed likely to me because of the dates involved. Smacks of someone retrofitting stories.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:33 pm -
http://www.rewindmuseum.com/vintagecamera.htm
Cameras were around, but were hideously expensive, and of limited performance. Tube cameras needed the subject to be lit up like a Christmas tree to get decent pictures. There were also limitations on the actual recording. You could have VHS level quality with someone changing tapes ever three hours (busy caretaker!), or broadcast quality changing them every hour, tops.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:36 pm -
Before VHS and Beta, Sony U-Matic was the standard video cassette format:
http://www.rewindmuseum.com/umatic.htm
This is the type of VCR you’ll see in 1970s films and TV programmes hooked up to CCTV systems, which were invariably b/w.
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March 17, 2015 at 10:41 pm -
Not to mention a two-way radio hidden in a fake plastercast!
(Obviously they didn’t want to call attention to themselves by popping it in a suitcase; a suitcase in a “boy brothel”? Please!).
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March 17, 2015 at 10:10 pm -
That Steineck ABC Wrist Watch Camera from the ’40s is a beauty! “Although this was not a watch, and it really was not disguised…”!
Taking the judge & jury along would have had less chance of being noticed by the target!
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March 18, 2015 at 8:52 am -
Happened to look at episode five of Nathan Barley last night. It could be roughly summarised as ‘My uncle had sex with me when I was eight … but I didn’t have an uncle’. Hilarious satire from ten years back (from the same Chris Morris who made the famous Brass Eye Paedogedon episode). We will be as likely to see anything like it on our screens in the years ahead as Iranian TV viewers being treated to poledancing gays.
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March 18, 2015 at 11:35 am -
Isn’t that the one with the “underage models” who really aren’t underage at all?
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March 18, 2015 at 11:39 am -
Yes. It is very well done.
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March 18, 2015 at 10:11 am -
On Newsnight last night it was claimed Cyril Smith had been videoed by police approaching under age boys on the platforms at Euston Station in the early 1980’s, which they proved by showing a 1989 picture of Cyril Smith at Euston publicising new electronic ticket barriers by attempting to squeeze through them.
MP Simon Danczuk claimed Cyril Smith was in a Transport Police training video that was shown to police officers to learn how paedophiles affectively groomed boys. “He was filmed here at Euston approaching boys and grooming them, trying to appeal to them…the beginning of the 1980’s this video was being shown to officers to enable them to understand how paedophiles operated and they used Cyril Smith as a case study in that video.”
Again I’m left wondering if the technology was that capable and whether they asked Smith to wear a microphone so they could hear what he was saying.
But here’s the curious thing over in Lambeth burly angry hardened were being threatened with a piece of paper to silence them whilst across town a video of Cyril Smith grooming under age boys was being shown to all and sundry?
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March 18, 2015 at 10:22 am -
Perhaps they’re confusing Cyril with the Bishop of Medway as written about by none other than Polly Toynbee.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/man-of-people.html -
March 18, 2015 at 11:39 am -
The idea that Smith could appear in a video being used for such purposes and it not being widely known and reported at the time is about as ludicrous as the idea that talking to someone newly-met at a railway station now counts as “grooming.”
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March 18, 2015 at 11:43 am -
Bet you can’t “prove” it though…
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March 18, 2015 at 11:46 am -
This is an incredible claim!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILZkbpStgoU&feature=youtu.beThe notion that the enormous & easily identifiable Smith was trying to pick up children at Euston Station, that it was all recorded on CCTV, and that later they decided to use this footage as a case study in a training video… just incredible! Was the cover-up so all encompassing that they didn’t even have to worry about disseminating documentary proof of his activities far & wide?!?
Surely there must be a copy somewhere… surely.
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March 18, 2015 at 12:25 pm -
Nobody will ever find of a copy of that which never existed, and in itself that will be “proof” of how pervasive the conspiracy is!
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March 18, 2015 at 12:44 pm -
I briefly considered contacting this group to see if anyone remembered the unforgettable video:
http://www.btphg.org.uk/Then I came to my senses, having already spent too much time chasing ghosts. If it exists it could have been found (by Danczuk or BBC/Newsnight) and they could have done so PRIOR to transmission. Danczuk has previous when it comes to false claims, claims that once ‘out there’ are impossible to stamp-out. (The Tory minister “stepping out of the shadows” to threaten him regularly appears in comments as ‘something the media should be investigating’, despite the fact that it simply did not happen).
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March 18, 2015 at 2:15 pm -
I too cannot believe if this ‘training video’ ever existed that it wouldn’t have surfaced somewhere, especially Youtube. I’ve seen police training videos from the 70s on there, showing how to trail a suspect by car. That such a high-profile and recognisable character as Cyril Smith participated in something along these lines makes a mockery of the video’s supposed purpose. Had he wandered through a station, he’d have been instantly surrounded by people. Remember, fatties were quite rare back then.
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March 19, 2015 at 4:42 pm -
Sod it, I changed my mind.
I have contacted both BTPHG to call it to their attention, and Newsnight to ask what efforts were made to corroborate Danczuk’s incredible claim. Doubt there will be any response, but if there is I shall update here.-
March 19, 2015 at 4:58 pm -
FOI?
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March 19, 2015 at 5:24 pm -
No, I emailed Newsnight as per instructions on their site. The automated reply I received suggested that anyone expecting a reply should use the complaints procedure. So rather than sit around waiting for another reply which may never have arrived, I did just that.
BBC Complaints – Case number CAS-3221181-XTQP7K
YOUR COMPLAINT:Complaint Summary: Unlikely claim accepted unchallenged by presenter.
Full Complaint: Dear Newsnight, I have some concerns about your recent report by Nick Hopkins of 17th March which can be seen here: http://t.co/TpJiZrnNbn The notion that CCTV recordings of Cyril Smith approaching & “grooming” children were made by the police at Euston Station, and that these recordings were later incorporated into a British Transport Police training-video (about the dangers of such activity) seems incredibly far-fetched. The un-corroborated word of Simon Danczuk MP is the only evidence offered to back up the remarkable claim, although a publicity-shot of Smith at a later date is conflated in a somewhat confusing manner. Danczuk has previously made claims which later turned out to be completely false. For example, he specifically accused an un-named ‘Tory Minister’ of “stepping out of the shadows” to threaten him over mentioning Leon Brittan’s name (in The Daily Mail). It was a lie. On Channel 4 News he was rightly challenged about this incredible claim & his sweating, nervous performance is what I would have expected to see on Newsnight were he to have been asked to evidence his latest assertion. Bearing all this in mind, could you please explain what steps were made by the BBC’s flagship news programme to verify Danczuk’s claim prior to broadcast? Specifically, a training-video from the 1980s really shouldn’t be that difficult to track down, should it ever have existed. Were any efforts made to locate it, and if so with what result?
I shan’t hold out much hope but you never know.
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March 19, 2015 at 5:27 pm -
Worth a try.
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March 20, 2015 at 9:46 am -
The webmaster of the British Transport Police History Group has been kind enough to respond.
He was unaware of said video and having spoken to collegues it would seem the same goes for them too.Come on, Newsnight/BBC – let’s see what efforts you made to check this story before transmission!
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March 21, 2015 at 10:26 am -
Well done Bandini. I was entirely unaware of this claim until now. It’s preposterous – his huge bulk, his well known face and figure, the lack of suitable undercover recording equipment, the sheer impossibility of such footage being used as training material while Smith was in the Commons and NO ONE said ANYTHING. I feel like I’m living in a Chris Morris sketch, perpetually.
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March 28, 2015 at 11:10 am -
A non-update from the BBC received yesterday:
“This is to let you know that we have referred your complaint to the relevant staff but that it may take longer than 10 working days to reply. We therefore ask you not to contact us further in the meantime.”
When Newsnight editor Ian Katz (former Guardian deputy editor) poached Nick Hopkins (from The Guardian) to be Newsnight’s “investigations correspondent” he stated that: “… his byline is a guarantee that you can believe everything that appears underneath it.”
Everything? Really?!? We shall see…
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April 15, 2015 at 2:35 pm -
Still waiting patiently for an adequate response from the BBC to my original complaint of 19th March, but Danczuk in his role as a Daily Mail columnist has spiced up his insane tale with more dubious rubbish:
The notion that a ” hundred or so officers” were present at the incredible screening of the video should certainly make it easily verifiable that the event really did, as claimed, occur. Come on BBC, let’s be ‘aving you! Maybe they could speak to ‘Karl’ like Danczuk did. Er, or did he?
Because there is a very irate woman out there – the source of the story that carries Danczuk’s name (and which mentions ‘his’ book over half a dozen times). I’ve mentioned this individual in the past with reference to her Cyril Smith claims; she is “Julie, a widow in her 60s”.
She took to Twitter to lambast Danczuk, and with good reason. Because it is hard to square the following from Danczuk…
“As we sat taking tea in a hotel bar in Manchester…”
“What she revealed to me…”
“‘We wouldn’t take a penny,’ she told me…”… with the fact that she has not, in fact, ever met him!
Oh dear. What does she say about the matter?
“This article is a disgrace Simon. You embellished and fabricated to sell your serial!”
“I’ve never met @SimonDanczuk, nor drunk tea with him ; the 14 yr old did NOT shout out, the activists did NOT look perplexed”
“SD kills a truthful story stone-dead when he gets involved for money!”
“Did you see this over-embellished, super-garnished story?”
“No response from Simon – a text from MB asking me to delete my Tweets!”Just in case she decides to pay heed to Danczuk’s sidekick, Matthew Baker, I have saved some of them here:
http://oi58.tinypic.com/2cs887s.jpg
http://oi58.tinypic.com/m9lg8h.jpg
http://oi57.tinypic.com/5owg9z.jpg -
April 21, 2015 at 12:52 pm -
Still awaiting a response from BBC I’ve given them the following nudge today:
Dear BBC,
I originally contacted you on the 19th of March 2015. A full calendar month has now passed, and an adequate response has yet to be received. Further to my original complaint I offer you some further information which, I believe, further highlights two points:
1) the untrustworthiness of the interviewee, Simon Danczuk MP, and
2) the journalist’s mistake in accepting, apparently, a ludicrous claim made by Danczuk, without even questioning the liklihood of its truthfulness or attempting to corroborate the tale.Firstly, I contacted the British Transport Police History Group. Their website can be seen here: http://www.btphg.org.uk/
As it was claimed in the Newsnight report that said police had been in some way involved in the production & presentation of a ‘training video’ which used the alleged antics of the humungous Cyril Smith as a case study, an organization which seeks to catalogue & preserve for all time all TP-related material seemed like a good place to start. I was unsurprised to hear that no word of CS had ever reached them (neither the head of the site nor his collegues upon broaching the subject).Further, Danczuk recently penned an article in The Daily Mail with more detail: around a 100 police were present at the video-screening, said the alleged source, ‘Karl’. As I am running out of ‘remaining characters’ I will direct you to the following site: https://annaraccoon.com/2015/03/17/all-coppers-are-bastards/#comment-106755
Please read & respond. -
April 24, 2015 at 11:35 am -
Unsatisfactory response received 22nd April which focuses on matters other than failure to follow good journalistic practice (corroboration, fact-checking, giving the other side an opportunity to respond, etc.).
I’ll be contacting them again to point this out:Thank you for contacting us about ‘Newsnight’, broadcast on BBC Two on 17 March.
I apologise for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and I’m sorry you’ve had to wait on this occasion.
I understand you had concerns about the accuracy of the report about Cyril Smith.
The picture of Cyril Smith at Euston station that was featured, was accompanied with the script; ‘Here he is at Euston station, checking out the new automated ticket gates in 1989. It was not his first appearance on camera there according to new claims’. We don’t believe therefore that this conflated this image with the claims that he had been filmed there previously nor would have confused viewers.
The report went on to say; ‘Police had previously filmed him on the station’s platform approaching under-age boys. So says the man who has done most to unearth Smith’s offending’.
It was therefore made clear that these were allegations being made by Simon Danczuk based on his information through his investigations into Cyril Smith.
We appreciate that you are skeptical of the accuracy of these claims and your complaint was included in our overnight report of audience feedback which is sent to the programme’s production team as well as senior editorial staff in BBC News.
Thank you again for contacting us with your concerns.
Kind regards
Terry Hughes -
April 24, 2015 at 12:06 pm -
@Bandini
Your perseverance seems to reveal that of the three standards, Legal. Honest. Truthful. the only one that is of concern to the 21st century journalist is Legal. The rest of it is of no interest to them. -
April 24, 2015 at 12:24 pm -
Think I doubled up on “truth” and missed out “decent”… No place for decency I guess…
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April 24, 2015 at 7:20 pm -
Moor, no, absolutely NO place for decency – it’d get in the way of the broadbrush smearing of entire departments, organisations, husbands, sons & fathers up and down the land!
It’s really frustrating being limited by the ‘webform’. I’m hoping to be freed of those shackels if it gets escalated to “stage 2″ of “the proceedure”. Until then, it’s in for a penny, in for something-less-than-a-pound – I had to whittle it back to the bare-bones, even snipping bloody full-stops! Grrr…
In response to reply received from Terry Hughes 22nd April.
Dear BBC, I fear that you have misunderstood the nature of my complaint, and shall now try to make myself clearer.
Firstly, I shall quickly respond to Mr Hughes who focused on conflation & accuracy (not my principle concerns):1) Conflation. In the script he quotes Mr Hughes neglected to include the preceeding sentence: “But his behaviour seems to have been SO well known to the police that he even appeared in their training videos [plural]. Here he is at Euston… … it wasn’t his first appearance…”
The conflation is of a real event (photograph) with an IMAGINARY one (video).2) Accuracy. As BBC Editorial Guidlines make clear, it is possible to accurately report an untruthful claim.
However, my complaint is that the unchallenged interview with Danczuk allowed smears to be made against many with no right-of-reply: Euston staff, BTP, the police, all of whom stand accused of witnessing Smith offend in a case study of a paedophile. Like all tall-tales, this one has since grown: there were “100 or so” officers on a CID training-course who are now similarly “guilty” according to a totally false story given wings by Hopkins’ failure to abide by 1.2.2. of the Guidelines: there was NO ‘sound evidence’ & it was NOT ‘thollroughly tested’. If it had been, the item would not have been transmitted.
Hopkins & Ian Katz – as editor – have fallen well below acceptable journalistic standards here. I expect this to be addressed. -
May 12, 2015 at 12:23 pm -
Bit of a non-update – although I’ve clambered up the procedural stairway to ‘level 1b’! Vertiginous views from here! Received 10th May:
“Thank you for taking time to contact us again recently. We had referred your complaint to the relevant staff and are normally able to investigate and reply to most complaints at this stage (which is stage 1b of the complaints process) within 20 working days of receipt, or around four weeks. However this is to inform you that we believe it may now take longer than 20 working days before you receive our reply.
We apologise for this and have brought the matter to the attention of the relevant staff again. The delay in answering may be due to their unavailability or other production commitments…”
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May 12, 2015 at 12:38 pm -
It all seems very reminiscent of the “What do They Know” website… I would think an awful lot of time and money could be saved by that website simply pumping out a machine-generated answer to any question about what do they know? It would simply be, “More than you do, now fuck off.”
Good to observe such British grit and determination though…
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May 12, 2015 at 1:05 pm -
Leave me with my fantasy, Moor, please!
[Production staff “invited” to explore “exciting new avenues of employment”, etc.!]This fell into my inbox yesterday & reminded me of why it seems important:
“The party should reject for leader representatives of their authoritarian control-freak wing, such as Yvette Cooper, and could do worse than give prominent positions to Tom Watson and Simon Danczuk, most immensely respectable MPs who have done invaluable campaigning work on the issue of VIP abuse of children…”
Jesus Christ, “immensely respectable”?!? Aaaargh…
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March 18, 2015 at 11:12 am -
Obviously the DPP was lower down the food chain than Smith, otherwise his arrest for kerb crawling would never have come to light.
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March 18, 2015 at 11:37 am -
March 18, 2015 at 11:43 am -
Perhaps we should compile a list of “Establishment figures” caught in flagrante? There must be more than enough to dash the idea that such things can be covered up by “powerful forces.”
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March 18, 2015 at 11:52 am -
Squidgygate is all that needs to be said. How the Press learned Hacking in one easy lesson.
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March 18, 2015 at 12:38 pm -
Except that and Camillagate weren’t the voicemail hack we have grown to know an love, but rather recordings of live conversations.
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March 18, 2015 at 12:30 pm -
A wee bit off topic, perhaps, but this caught my eye:
A police spokesman said: ”Durham Constabulary is aware this investigation has resulted in considerable rumour and speculation, much of it on social media and in relation to the (alleged) victim. This has caused distress to the (alleged) victim and her family and is very unhelpful while we still have a number of actions to carry out as part of our inquiries.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11478718/Teenager-at-centre-of-Adam-Johnson-underage-sex-allegations-distressed-by-social-media-speculation.htmlThe “alleged” seem to be Telegraph additions, as the Durham plod’s press-release does not mention this important fact; for them, she simply is ‘the victim’.
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March 18, 2015 at 1:28 pm -
All I KNOW is that SOME coppers are bastards. In the early sixties a young midwife friend was murdered by her 40 year old police sergeant lover. He had a wife and 3 children. Their affair had lasted 4 years. He shot her parents too at her their house in East Ham. He seriously wounded her mother and winged her dad. They had split after every one who knew her persuaded her it was over. He was violently jealous of her but still clinging round his family. How the police could have such a sicko in their midst for so many years and promote him to sergeant beats me. Ever since then I have not had complete trust in the police. There are bad people in all professions. Nursing and doctors like Dr Swan, who I worked with. Doling out drugs in the east end and put in prison. Someone else who was plainly barking mad, who killed a friend’s baby at birth and left it on a bombsite in Manchester, wrapped in her own plastic mac. The jealous lover and the baby killer were both sentenced to death but did not hang. She had not survived her probationer time as a nurse as she was so blatantly bad, as was Swan. I suspect the police sergeant was viewed by colleagues as a bit of an oddity too, but tolerated.
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March 19, 2015 at 2:17 am -
It’s incredible to think that Simon Danczuk MP was only elected to Parliament in 2010. In just a few years he’s sussed-it-all-out better than anyone else … ever (with the possible exception of Tom “My experience of uncovering massive establishment conspiracies …” Watson MP). With a little help from the guiding voices of a bunch of people on Twitter, battling against evil, of course. Smartest MP ever? Or the dumbest?
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March 19, 2015 at 9:58 am -
Evil genius, or wilfully credulous. TYough choice.
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March 19, 2015 at 12:21 pm -
Aye, elected to Parliament in May 2010, and applauding vigourously at the unveiling of Smith’s blue plaque in October 2011, as pointed out by a Rochdale Alternative Press reporter in the Guardian yesterday!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5iL2dDSyl0
Despite absolutely everyone knowing about Smith – allegedly – no word ever reached Danczuk’s ear during those 18-months. To be fair, he was probably too busy ignoring those ‘grooming gangs’.
What an utter shit!
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March 19, 2015 at 12:37 pm -
It’s noticeable in today’s news that Childline never had a single call about Savile as just sworn on oath by Esther. Shy Keenan, who says she told Esther was a big pal of Jim Gamble at CEOP’s but apparently never thought to tell him. This whole daft Moral panic becomes more absurd by the day. Seems quite likely a nonentity called Mellor will go down in order to save all their faces and allow the ‘papers to mythologise about persecuted victims. Napac also never took a single call about Savile or Smith. Absurd to the nth degree.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3001146/Childline-founder-says-WASN-T-told-Savile-abuse-1986.html-
March 19, 2015 at 12:59 pm -
Rantzen essentially painted herself into a corner by jumping on the “we all heard rumours” bandwagon previously. As has been noted before, if anyone was in a position to challenge alleged abusers who were, “too rich or too powerful,” whose currency was certainly leagues higher than the likes of Savile and Gadd at the BBC. That’s Life after all, was intrumental in bringing PIE to the attention of a much wider audience than were aware of it previously.
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March 19, 2015 at 1:08 pm -
NAPAC always seemed a little strange in that as an organisation aimed at helping adults their main service – a telephone ‘helpline’ – only functioned during office-hours.
I see that they have now expanded their opening-hours a bit, but you’re still out of luck if you get home from work on a Friday and need someone to listen. (They used to pass you over to either NSPCC or Childline outside of this timetable, can’t remember which, but that seems to have vanished from their site.)-
March 19, 2015 at 1:14 pm -
Probably only needed to be open when the lawyers were at work too…
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March 19, 2015 at 1:36 pm -
The short-list of corporate sponsors is illuminating: solicitors, web designer & ad agency:
‘Cogent Elliott was one of the earliest advertising agencies in the UK and in recent years designed promotional materials for NAPAC including the Jimmy Saville revelations, with the slogan “Silence fixed it for Jimmy”.’
Back to Smith: there is a decent review of Danczuk’s book from someone with local connections here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10796249/Smile-for-the-Camera-The-Double-Life-of-Cyril-Smith-by-Simon-Danczuk-and-Matthew-Baker-review.html“Danczuk and Baker have re-created a world of grizzled policemen in bars, paraphrasing unrecorded interviews, while shadowy paedophile networks enjoy the protection of the security services. They provide no footnotes, garble chronology…”
At least as far as those earlier allegations are concerned it seems to pour cold water over claims of a high-level ‘cover up’, and also mentions the different era in which they occurred (as regarding corporal punishment, as mentioned by commentators above).
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March 19, 2015 at 1:42 pm -
“My grandmother immediately took against him. She was the owner of the Carlton dance hall, and when she entertained the council she noted Smith’s greedy attack on her buffet.”
That’s the most brilliant bait and switch I’ve seen in a long time!
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March 19, 2015 at 1:57 pm -
If, as the book review, seems to suggest, the only pressure on the police with regard to the 1969 investigation into Smith’s activities came from the local Labour MP in a “put-up-or-shut-up” sort of way how does this square with the (mostly anonymous) ex-coppers popping up on TV (mostly on Sky) with dark mutterings of unknown senior Met officers closing down their investigations? Do the media do any sort of quality control over these people before they put them in front of the camera? As for Simon “I always had my doubts about Cyril” Danczuk laughing and applauding at the unveiling of the blue plaque to Cyril Smith on Rochdale Town Hall in 2011 – what a chancer!!
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March 19, 2015 at 2:17 pm -
It’s funny that what in all probably were instances of, “we’ve looked at the evidence, and it’s not convincing or conclusive,” have now mutated into, “the investigations were halted by ‘powerful forces’ and covered-up.”
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March 19, 2015 at 2:19 pm -
… the powerful forces being the Director of Public Prosecutions Office and Starmer demonstrates that the power is enormous.
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March 19, 2015 at 2:24 pm -
I concur; rather than tough it out by saying “We didn’t do anything at the time because the evidence/witnesses/complainants’ testimony didn’t amount to much” it’s easier – in the current climate – to blame it on nebulous dark conspiracies, thereby shifting the blame onto unknown powerful individuals and away from their own possible investigate shortcomings of the past.
I didn’t realise, until I read the book review, that ex-Co-Op head honcho the Rev Paul Flowers AKA The Crystal Methodist also had the finger pointed at him in regard to Rochdale shenanigans – strange how that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned much recently by the Three Amigos in their voluminous media and Twitter outpourings…
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March 19, 2015 at 7:09 am -
This looks like the sort of CCTV Camera that would have been around in the 1980’s.
https://youtu.be/mNbuABjqXe4?t=25s
Note the sophisticated lens, with fixed focus and no zoom. Would it be wrong to think CCTV camera’s in the early 1980’s had a fixed position and no remote control to change the camera angle. That the camera’s offered a wide view of a concourse for crowd control rather than picking out individuals.
And despite D-Notices, the threat of the Official Secrets Act the Transport Police were a law unto themselves showing groups of passing police videos clearly showing Cyril Smith grooming under age boys at Euston Station. Any reports of any Transport Police or station staff dying in mysterious circumstances and of course it will be deemed ‘mysterious’ how those tapes got ‘lost’ rather than just old rubbish that was cluttering up shelves and binned.
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March 19, 2015 at 6:13 pm -
Looking through the media coverage of all this (another Cyril Smith “revelation” via Simon Danczuk today – Smith being arrested with a car boot full of child porn in Northamptonshire but after one phone call he was free and the porn disappeared) it seems that any critical faculties they may have had about checking the evidence before printing or broadcasting the claims have gone out of the window. The current narrative involves conspiracies, cover-ups and VIP paedophile rings so any titbit of info (however wild and spurious) that backs this up is gleefully disseminated whilst anything that counters it is ignored.
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.
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March 19, 2015 at 6:35 pm -
Maybe this explains why he is in media-mouthpiece overdrive at the moment:
House of Commons Committee on Standards – Simon Danczuk – Published 18th March 2015“Conclusion
33) The breaches identified in the course of my investigation are more extensive
than those raised in the original complaint from Mr Turner-Mitchell. Since I
began my investigation Mr Danczuk has continued to make late registrations,
which with closer attention might have been avoided. As I have explained above, I
am able to rectify failures to register interests, without a formal memorandum to
the Committee, where the interest is minor or the failure inadvertent. However,
the number of late registrations and the sums involved meant that this was not
appropriate in this case, even though Mr Danczuk has acknowledged, and
apologised for, his breaches of the rules. I am also not confident that he has taken
the necessary remedial steps. It is for this reason that with regret I am bringing an
otherwise straightforward matter to the attention of the Committee. I have also
asked the Registrar, if Mr Danczuk is re-elected, to report to me in October 2015
on his registration practices.”http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmstandards/1135/1135.pdf
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March 19, 2015 at 6:47 pm -
Obviously part of the sinister establishment plot to silence Danczuk’s attempts to investigate the Great Paedo Conspiracy – either that or his organisational skills with money are about as robust as most of his allegations. No wonder his business went into liquidation ….
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April 16, 2015 at 9:03 am -
‘Danczuk only sneaked in by a couple of votes last time so he is scared… He is desperate for votes… In a last-ditch attempt to keep his seat this year, he did what any sensible politician would do when surrounded by people with loyalty to a country other than the one which pays their benefits. He raised the Pakistani flag outside the town hall. Upside down.’
We mustn’t forget that Simon Danczuk has made mistakes outside Rochdale Town Hall before, such as in October 2011 when he was filmed wildly applauding the unveiling of a blue plaque to Cyril Smith. In November 2012 in a speech in the House of Commons, he changed his tune and denounced Cyril as a child abuser.
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/sun-shafts-simple-simon.html
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March 19, 2015 at 7:55 pm -
He even made the Guardian:
wish someone would pay me 20 grand for saying unpleasant things against dead men.
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March 19, 2015 at 11:08 pm -
It all sounds a bit, “I’m making too much money – it’s so confusing!”
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March 20, 2015 at 11:39 am -
What a wonderful result Anna. As you say the response will be muted. Even scooped under the mat of moral panic. and toeing the panic line. I should think JS could have reduced his earnings by scampering around in marathons fund raising. I does not seem to me that the BBC paid him megabucks, as they do some of the rackety creeps they employ these days. Rantzen says no Savile calls to Childline….now that is really weird. How he managed to do all the actions alleged in such diverse places beats me, without one single child splitting on him. Thanks for the link to the Moral Panic reseachers. Who will no doubt be dubbed apologists for something or other.
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April 16, 2015 at 2:43 am -
Are the BBC planning to run a story prior to the election?
It appears that Aunties’s Journalists are out in force contacting people who they think may know the identity of the mysterious ‘Nick’ in order to corroborate his story about his time at Dolphin Square.
I am not going to give the Journalists name, but from this message that was sent out, it makes it clear that they have not got a bloody clue and are looking to add some flesh to the story.
“You may be able to help me further. We have been investigating the allegations of a man who has the cover name ‘Nick’ for about five months. We haven’t published very much but what we have put out is best seen here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30052726
The allegations are pretty dramatic and we are seeking to corroborate them so if you do know people who were caught up in this scene between around 1979 and 1984 I’d be very keen to speak to them. Also if they know the ‘Michael’ on Sky News, again, keen to make contact.
We don’t need anyone to go on the record or be interviewed. We are investigating the facts and that’s the priority at the moment.
Hope you can help.”
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April 16, 2015 at 9:07 am
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