Calling All Survivors
It’s not been a great couple of weeks for Britain’s premier police force. Having to apologise for not passing on their concerns to the parents of the three runaway schoolgirls in front of a Parliamentary Select Committee headed by holier-than-thou Keith Vaz – a man whose shady exit from government a decade or so ago should have resulted in a similarly close encounter with the men from the Met (albeit with tables turned) – must have been a humbling exercise; and now it seems they are so desperate to justify the expense of an investigation prompted by the avaricious imagination of various interested parties that they are having to advertise for victims to come forward. Sorry, is this the service set up by Sir Robert Peel to enforce law and order or one of those despicable professional ambulance-chasing companies encouraging the compensation nation to sue their employers every time they inhale a work colleague’s fart? Makes one wonder how they define their current role and how far they’ve deviated from their initial aim.
It’s worth remembering that the introduction of the Metropolitan Police Force in 1829 was vehemently opposed by many; the prevailing opposition opined that such a notion went against ancient English ideas of liberty and freedom, that the government installing what was perceived as their own private army, answerable only to the Home Secretary, would be an outrageous curtailment of an Englishman’s rights. Recent events, in which precious resources have been diverted into heavy-handed and highly publicised Judge Dredd-style raids on the homes of elderly entertainers and distinguished war veterans, appear to vindicate the initial fears of what a police force would represent – even if it took almost 200 years to get here. The Met’s pioneering predecessors, the Bow Street Runners, had essentially been the bounty-hunting branch of the legal profession, formed by London’s then-Chief Magistrate, novelist Henry Fielding, to round-up runaway villains; their formation was intended to end the dubious careers of the thief-takers who had unofficially done the same job for an extortionate fee. The Runners were not there to patrol the streets in search of law-breaking or to quell civil disturbances; they were too small in number for that, and the army were generally called out in the case of the latter, anyway.
However, the infamous Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which the local cavalry charged a political rally in Manchester, killing fifteen and injuring an estimated 400-700 others, exposed the limitations of soldiers in maintaining law and order. Something clearly had to be done. Perhaps Peel’s attempts to alleviate public disquiet over the formation of the Met when a loose collective of beadles, constables and justice of the peace’s had previously held the powers of arrest was behind his canny decisions to limit sergeant as the only rank in the new police force that had an equivalent in the army and to not arm them with rifles. As the role-model of the Met was gradually replicated across the country, it eventually became difficult to envisage how the British people had managed for so many centuries without a police force. But we did.
The news that so few ‘survivors’ of child sexual abuse with tangible evidence to back-up their claims are helping the police with their inquiries that the police need to publicly trawl for them comes as something of a surprise to those of us who assumed everyone whose childhood took place in the 60s or 70s was present at a necrophiliac paedophile gang-bang with the usual suspects either at BBC TV Centre or Dolphin Square. It’s not uncommon for the boys in blue to ‘advertise’ when a particularly perplexing crime has occurred or simply one in which the ability to charge the known perpetrators requires the intervention of witnesses to secure a prosecution; ‘Crimewatch’ has always relied upon public assistance, as did ‘Police 5’, with the recently departed Shaw Taylor advising viewers to keep ‘em peeled. But the manner of the request issued on Friday seemed especially unsettling in what it said about police priorities. This is not the police asking for witnesses of a recorded crime to come forward to enable detectives to complete their case; this is the police sending a signal to every fantasist straight out of therapy that their confused belief they were a victim of a celebrity rape counts as proof of a crime. And the consequence will be more high-profile raids and arrests resulting in months on bail without the guarantee of even being charged, not to mention the possibility of further show-trials in which the damage done by the amateur psychologist industry will be laid bare yet again.
I for one am slightly confused if this request relates to the Theresa May-sponsored inquiry yet to find a chairman that will satisfy the professional victims’ lobby or if it relates to the recent resurgence of accusations against Cyril Smith and the fourteen aborted investigations passed on to the IPCC last week. Perhaps too many inquiries spoil the broth, but the amount of unsubstantiated (not to say unchallenged) accusations currently being aired in the media by public figures who should know better highlights the wafer-thin texture of the foundations this current batch of proposed inquiries are built upon. So, the man whose fame rested solely on the fact that he was extremely overweight, who was mayor of an obscure northern town at a time when he was allegedly being protected by MI5 (not the most exciting case in George Smiley’s CV), would have had the ‘power’ to bring down a Labour government he had no connection with had his so-called crimes been exposed? Pull the other one!
The latest claims that Smith was the star of a police training video showing how paedophiles ensnare vulnerable youngsters at London railway stations – a video of which nobody bar Simple Simon seems to have heard, one that has never surfaced on You Tube or any other online facilitator of vintage footage – were broadcast by the BBC as though they were fact. As far as I’m aware, the police have yet to confirm or deny the existence of this training video, but no doubt they can always fall back on their legal inability to comment on an ongoing case as a means of avoiding that tricky one.
Instead, the blatantly threadbare nature of the actual evidence the police have to work with has forced them into adopting the tactics of their law-firm friends and the Clown Prosecution Service by asking if anyone out there was sexually abused by a household name back in that retrospectively wicked decade that dare not speak its name. Well, that won’t provoke any response, will it? If anyone short of a bob or two who has been paying attention to the news over the past couple of years has learnt anything as a consequence of recent events it is that there’s gold in them thar dead or dying famous faces. As if the reprehensible actions of those with a vested financial interest in the witch-hunt haven’t been appalling enough since 2012, the worrying development that the police are now shameless enough to go public about the morally questionable tactics they were secretly employing when a case was being built against the likes of William Roache is either an indication of desperation or the final confirmation that anyone can end up behind bars if enough donkeys respond to the dangling carrot that has been passed around like the proverbial parcel.
Like our landlady, I am reluctant to keep returning to this bloody subject; but every week seems to throw up another head-shaking element to the story that it would feel like a cop-out not to address it. For the police to inadvertently own up to the flimsy basis of the evidence available to them in order to progress with an investigation an incestuous coalition has thrust upon them is a sorry state of affairs indeed, and one that casts even further doubt as to its validity. At one time, innocent Irishmen were imprisoned because the pressure to finger someone for a horrible crime was overwhelming; now a different series of pressures are being applied to the police force that will result in further unwarranted imprisonments, not because the recipients of this ‘justice’ have the wrong accent, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time – at least according to those who have bravely come forward.
Well, were you sexually abused as a child? Dial 999 and claim your cash prize today! Terms and conditions apply.
Petunia Winegum
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March 23, 2015 at 9:39 am -
The problem for the credulous is that once they have acted upon a lie they are forced to live it.
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March 23, 2015 at 9:59 am -
Two thoughts to another stunningly well written and eminently quotable post from the pen of Pet: Firstly Robert Peel would be ringing for his man servant to bring the Smelling Salts if he could see what has become of the Police…and I don’t just mean the Ladies in combat trousers and male Officers without serious beards. Secondly I have always felt that instead of National Service it would be a good idea for every young man to have to serve 2 years in the Police fulltime (or ten as a Special) and that in a community away from their place of residence. Crazy idea I know…
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March 23, 2015 at 10:42 am -
And if they did spend any time in the plod force they might write a book such as this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wasting-Police-Time-Crazy-World/dp/0955285410
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March 23, 2015 at 1:18 pm -
National Police Service, eh? I’d like it to be a properly debated subject for discussion by our lords and masters! I think there is much merit in the idea!
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March 23, 2015 at 10:30 am -
Something just doesn’t ‘smell right’ about all this. I heard a radio interview with a senior detective who was appealing for other witnesses to events previously described by ‘Nick’ to come forward. When asked whether the police had other information, he stone-walled; that may be the ‘correct’ by-the-book answer, but when cases have arisen in the past requiring the police to appeal for more information, they usually say something like, “We’re collating evidence and building a picture of what happened, but we still have gaps in the information and need anybody who has information to come forward” or some such form of words. The inpression I gained from this interview is that the police have only one witness, and are deperately trying to find anything that might corroborate his statement. I also got the impression, possibly wrongly, that so far, despite a lot of effort, they haven’t come up with anything.
On the Cyril Smith thing, he was a ‘big’ political figure back in the day, in the sense that he was one of the media’s favourite go-to’s for a rent-a-quote. Whether he really had any real political power beyond some popularity is debateable, and why ‘the establishment’ would subvert the law on his behalf to cover up serious wrong-doing (if he was guilty of any) is rather hard to understand at present. Perhaps there is more yet to come to light.
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March 24, 2015 at 10:29 am -
Watching that myself I came to the same conclusion, which was that there still is only one vict..erm survivor who has come forward, which they were extremely loathe to admit.
I see the usual Exaro obsessed hysterics on Twitter are baying for the blood of the BBC once more this morning, this time over this proposed Panorama programme, which Exaro and certain other players who make a living from peddling dubious story after dubious story have got their knickers in a twist about.
As more unfolds the funnier and more apt this particular clip becomes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUkt59vY1Q
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March 23, 2015 at 10:31 am -
And they then wonder why things like this happen.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3006894/The-yummy-mummy-satanic-sex-cult-smears-terrorised-swish-suburb-Yoga-teacher-forced-children-make-false-abuse-allegations-against-teachers-priests-father.html
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March 23, 2015 at 10:43 am -
It seems I need to sharpen up by commenting skills, Chris. But glad you spotted that one too.
Most disturbing is, “At morning service at the church attached to Christ Church primary school yesterday, parishioners were confronted by a group of between 20 and 30 of Draper’s supporters, who hurled abuse at them and held up their mobile phones to film them as they arrived.”
If it carries on like this, god help us.
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March 23, 2015 at 10:57 am -
You’s have thought the instigators name might have been a clue: Abraham Christie…. …. Jesus H.
Also of note that the “real” father is in showbiz perhaps. Hollywood even!
But the most telling remark: “Today, her children are in the care of social services and she has fled abroad.”
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March 23, 2015 at 11:28 am -
“The yummy mummy, a ‘satanic sex cult’ and the smears that terrorised a very swish London suburb”
A classic headline. Truly, to think I had missed this lunacy!
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March 23, 2015 at 10:38 am -
Thank you, Pet. I guess it must get a bit dull for you going over the same ground, but I can’t help feeling this is an important subject. It all looks to be getting out of hand.
The Mirror actually ran mugshots to help out anyone who’s not sure which dead establishment figure molested them.
“Connected: The Westminster paedophiles” No ‘alledged’. Well, they’re dead, so they can’t sue…but just a nod to the idea of justice is beyond the Mirror?But the Mail has come up with a story about a woman who has torn Hampstead apart with allegations of abuse…apparently, “the claims might seem outlandish today” – the claims seem to be very much to be expected in the current climate.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3006894/The-yummy-mummy-satanic-sex-cult-smears-terrorised-swish-suburb-Yoga-teacher-forced-children-make-false-abuse-allegations-against-teachers-priests-father.html-
March 23, 2015 at 10:59 am -
Head. Wall. Bangin’ in many cases however.
“Sabine K McNeill, London, United Kingdom, about an hour ago
Before Jimmy Savile nobody knew and talked about paedophilia. Before these ‘whistleblower kids’ and now the Pauffley judgment in their case, nobody knew or talked about satanism. Live and learn – thanks to the internet, above all else.”-
March 23, 2015 at 11:36 am -
From the Mail story:
“Behind them is a deeply disturbing story that almost defies belief: one that, apart from anything else, demonstrates the chilling speed at which malicious gossip and unfounded allegations about anyone, anywhere — however innocent — can spread online, masquerading as the truth.”
They don’t do irony. do they?
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March 23, 2015 at 12:42 pm -
I’ve searched out a little more on this story, and now realise – we’re just not ready for the internet, are we?
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March 23, 2015 at 12:56 pm -
“we” might be. The dolts at the top of our social tree most certainly are not.
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March 23, 2015 at 11:28 am -
What it needs is for one of these accused celebrities to really fight back. The Freddie Starr v Karin Ward libel trial is reported as coming to court in June or July. I will be following proceedings with interest. The outcome will no doubt be quite significant.
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March 23, 2015 at 11:46 am -
Unfortunately, these things can easily get messy, and ‘vindictive celebrity’ vs ‘pathetic downtrodden waif’ doesn’t necessarily play well.
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March 23, 2015 at 11:53 am -
Maybe Freddie can persuade David Bowie to testify he never met her either, seeing as he claimed to have spent a delightful hour with the thin white duke as well. goes to credibility yer ‘onour…
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March 23, 2015 at 11:54 am -
“she” not “he”….. hee hee….
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March 23, 2015 at 11:36 am -
It would be surprising that the police would use video footage of a man attempting to tempt a child away in an effort to molest it, if that man was not later convicted in court for the act in question. If the video was for training purposes, presumably they would want to be sure that the man was attempting to do just that?
Also, how good would the resolution of the video be, given it came from the 70s or 80s? Sounds like bollocks.
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March 23, 2015 at 12:07 pm -
* It would be surprising that the police would use video footage of a man attempting to tempt a child away in an effort to molest it, if that man was not later convicted in court for the act in question. *
You still don’t seem to grasp that complete lunatics are driving this process.
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March 23, 2015 at 1:51 pm -
I’m not altogether clear who is driving this process. There seem to be two or three Parliamentarians slinging rumour and accusation around, but unless they have far more solid evidence than they’ve implied, even Metropolitan Plod wouldn’t be jumping through hoops like they are. At least one of those Parliamentarians (Tom Watson) has a long history of employing political smear tactics, and being closely associated with people like Damien McBride, Derek Draper, Charlie Whelan and other rather discredited Labour figures. I can’t see Plod entertaining his political manouverings, frankly. There may be more merit in the theory that the CPS has become rather out of control, and is focusing rather too much on sex crimes at the expense of other forms of crime. That, however, might just be down to an over-correction of emphasis after long criticism of ineffectuality in prosecuting sex crimes.
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March 23, 2015 at 2:31 pm -
The police certainly do the CPS’s bidding. That is self-evident. ACPO would be the missing link – the private company that dictates police policy – a Quango by any other name.
If you take giles2008’s link into account, it’s not hard to join a few dots and realise how Bureaucracies go mad. That might be a story as old as Rome itself. The glory that was Rome was followed by the Dark Ages was it not.
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March 23, 2015 at 4:42 pm -
I’m not that surprised by giles2008’s link. Reading the synopsis of PC Copperfield’s book, that’s pretty much how working in any large organisation, especially a very heirarchical civil-serviced based one, feels like. Having been in that position, you sometimes wonder if things get done despite the management, not because of it.
The ACPO thought is a fair one, though. It’s not very accountable to the public. Despite the heaps of ordure thrown upon the idea, I quite like the concept of elected Police Commissioners, simply because the ARE accountable through the ballot box; shame more people can’t be bothered to vote. If you want it to be your police force, make it your police force; you can’t whinge if you take no interest.
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March 23, 2015 at 6:28 pm -
I don’t think that there is anyone particularly running things as far as the current paedogeddon is concerned; just disparate individuals and groups taking advantage of the situation for their own purposes. For people like Watson, Mann and Danczuk it gives them a stick to beat the evil Tories with; the police and CPS can attempt to recover some ground following their lamentable failure to investigate grooming gangs in various towns for which they were roundly condemned; the lawyers make money out of it; the “survivors” get people listening to their stories (however ludicrous and unlikely) and maybe some cash too; and the people like Mark Williams Thomas and Exaro get a higher media profile and maybe some shiny Press Awards they can boast about. Everyone’s a winner – unless you’re one of those accused of course …..
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March 24, 2015 at 12:43 am -
A head of steam has been worked up over 30 years of Paedo, Paedo, Paedo propaganda. It was started by Radfems but now the celeb-freaks and attention-seeking nutters are being overtaken by cashseekers. And, increasingly, the “Madness of Crowds” type phenomina. Like the wild rumours and dancing crazes of the Middle Ages. The femmis for certain want in on a HOC anti-male witch-hunt but this bandwagon is picking up speed and craziness on a mad downhill run. Which hopefully will end in a crash before too many more lives are ruined.
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March 23, 2015 at 12:33 pm -
“Britain’s premier police force”: in what sense?
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March 23, 2015 at 12:40 pm -
In the sense that it was the FIRST police force.
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March 23, 2015 at 12:54 pm -
Premiere then… perhaps?…
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March 23, 2015 at 2:26 pm -
You say premiere, I say premier, let’s call the whole thing off…
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March 23, 2015 at 2:32 pm -
I’m clearly not in your league…
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March 23, 2015 at 6:05 pm -
Few are….
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March 23, 2015 at 6:18 pm -
I’m not having a bad season, when all’s said and done – currently chasing a Champion’s League spot, but a long way to go before I can match your trophy cabinet, ma’am…
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March 23, 2015 at 7:17 pm -
You have not only taken reassuring possession of the AR torch but you are holding it aloft in your own right if you ask me .. which you didn’t.
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March 23, 2015 at 7:39 pm -
If I had asked you, I couldn’t have wished for a nicer reply!
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March 23, 2015 at 8:49 pm -
Hold it high and run with it for as long and as far as you can. You are doing a fantastic job.
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March 23, 2015 at 10:42 pm -
Of course it bloody wasn’t. Google on the Glasgow police.
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March 23, 2015 at 11:33 pm -
The Met were the first recognisable modern police force rather than the virtual watchmen that constituted Glasgow’s earlier equivalent. I would’ve included a more detailed description and gone into more depth, but the fact is one only has so much space in which to make a point. Not that I would expect you to appreciate this as the majority of comments you deign to make on here are seemingly intended to point out everything wrong in everything I write with every post. I honestly don’t know why I’ve never thought of sending you each article before I post it so you can mark it in the manner of a teacher. Whenever your name appears, I brace myself and wonder which perceived fault dearieme is going to pick at today, and you never disappoint. I’m not paranoid; I only have to look back at all the comments you’ve made ever since I took over the main writing duties. It’s really rather tiresome, boring and predictable and my lip is beginning to hurt from all the times I’ve bitten it. But such is the nature of the beast. I was warned in advance, so I can’t complain.
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March 24, 2015 at 8:59 pm -
You were wrong. If you were a man you’d admit it.
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March 24, 2015 at 9:18 pm -
March 24, 2015 at 9:56 pm -
If he were a man he wouldnae call hisself Petunia…
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March 23, 2015 at 12:34 pm -
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ex-cop-claims-royal-paedophile-ring-5379159
Presumably there’s no overlap here with a Daily Mail report ( “The problem of police corruption has been tackled spasmodically ever since the Sixties. In the Seventies, the Commissioner Sir Robert Mark conducted an enormous purge of corrupt officers. More than 475 left the Met. Since then, however, very few have been forced out. Blind eyes have been turned to gross wrongdoing. As a result, corrupt practices returned, ranging from officers receiving bungs from criminals, planting evidence and stitching people up or stealing cash or drugs.”) or a CNN report (“In the 1960s, specialist units like the Flying Squad, that tackled armed robbery, and the Vice Squad became influential — units with great autonomy and to some critics too little scrutiny. For some officers, the temptation to cut corners, tampering with evidence, taking bribes from underworld figures, became irresistible.”).-
March 23, 2015 at 12:46 pm -
Have you ever seen the superb 1978 BBC mini-series, ‘Law and Order’? The police tactics of the time are portrayed in chilling clarity, whereby a known villain is ‘fitted up’ for something he didn’t do simply because he’s a villain and the police need someone to send down. Whilst it could be seen as a harrowing period piece, one can’t help but wonder how much has changed.
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March 23, 2015 at 1:03 pm -
The BBC pinko bastards
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March 23, 2015 at 3:39 pm -
A somewhat later take on the same phenomena, The Black and Blue Lamp had one copper ruefully observing that he knew a suspect was telling the truth on account of having beaten confessions out of a lot of innocent people over the years….
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March 23, 2015 at 6:22 pm -
The current paedo hysteria, with VIP rings and compliant police turning a blind eye (and even joining in) seems to have moved beyond G F Newman’s bent copper scribblings and firmly into the Red Riding world of David Peace…
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March 23, 2015 at 12:54 pm -
“this is the police sending a signal to every fantasist straight out of therapy that their confused belief they were a victim of a celebrity rape”
Mind you Celebrity Rape by Glam Rocker might explain all those ‘alien abductions’ mightn’t it? I mean, teenage fans, in the dark of a car park at a rock festival…
All together now: “Theres a StaAAARMaaan waiting in the skieEes…Hes told us not to *blow *it….Let the children lose it.”
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March 23, 2015 at 1:17 pm -
No, I haven’t seen that. It sounds as if it could do with being repeated!
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March 23, 2015 at 2:27 pm -
I know it’s available on DVD, but I saw it when BBC4 repeated it about five years back. Well worth seeing.
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March 23, 2015 at 3:41 pm -
One of the more surprising DVD releases of the last few years. There was such a huge amount of reaction against it by the Police Federation and the Prison Officers’ Association when it first went out that it was assumed it would remain forever more buried from public sight.
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March 23, 2015 at 6:23 pm -
£6.38 from Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/lulre5x
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March 23, 2015 at 3:11 pm -
Breaking News – despite having never worked on Derek Chinnery-era Radio One, or ever having presented Top Of The Pop, The Met have just announced “Dr” Neil Fox is the next Rolf Harris
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11490093/DJ-Neil-Fox-charged-over-child-sex-assaults.html-
March 23, 2015 at 3:42 pm -
Crab DNA? There’s no evidence for it, but it is a scientific fact.
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March 23, 2015 at 3:57 pm -
Let them eat Cake.
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March 23, 2015 at 4:04 pm -
Not BBC, but neither ‘cool’ currency or ‘hard’ currency (just another working oik, not of a worth as a ‘brand’).
Coming soon: “It Was Alright In The 90s” as Channel 4 revise all their televisual output of that decade as the nation’s police forces appeal for women to come forward if they were felt-up in the ‘unenlightened’ “Loaded Magazine” era, before Tony Blair & New Labour introduced ‘morality’ to the neanderthal nation ?
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March 23, 2015 at 4:27 pm -
Maybe it’s all a terrible cock-up.
http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1854214.ece/alternates/s615/Dr-Liam-Fox-with-former-Prime-Minister-Baroness-Thatcher.jpg-
March 23, 2015 at 4:41 pm -
I’m not unconvinced that Charlie Brooker & Chris Morris are not both modern day Nostradamus – but, as we’ve seen with the original Yewtree targets, I’m also not unconvinced *the media* take their (unprofitable) targets of ridicule and turn them into real hate figures, making The Day Today and Paedogeddon become everyday reality.
And, as a breed, “Chris Morris Fans” seem an astonishingly dour, politically-correct lot which is irony it itself – but their modern-day hand-wringing on Twitter mirrors the middle-class “punks” of 35 years ago http://retardedkingdom.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-auntie-fascists.html
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March 23, 2015 at 4:07 pm -
Well, were you sexually abused as a child? Dial 999 and claim your cash prize today! Terms and conditions apply.
But Terms and Conditions don’t seem to apply, unless they are of the “any old guff will do” variety…
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March 23, 2015 at 5:01 pm -
Press 1. Sodomy
Press 2. In appropriate touching
Press 3. I didn’t like the look of him
Press 4. He showed me his winkle
Press 5. I think it happened
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March 23, 2015 at 4:22 pm -
“Having to apologise for not passing on their concerns to the parents of the three runaway schoolgirls in front of a Parliamentary Select Committee headed by holier-than-thou Keith Vaz – a man whose shady exit from government a decade or so ago should have resulted in a similarly close encounter with the men from the Met (albeit with tables turned)…”
Thank you, Petunia, you have saved my Monday and raised a smile after a hard day. Can there be anything more vomit inducing than the human oil-slick that is the The Vaz? The Zeppelin of Pomposity, and worse!
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March 23, 2015 at 4:40 pm -
March 23, 2015 at 4:47 pm -
“Can there be anything more vomit inducing than the human oil-slick that is the The Vaz?”
Shame we can’t ‘frack’ him. He’d probably yield a particularly slithery grade of lubricating oil.
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March 23, 2015 at 5:05 pm -
If he was in a boat and sunk it would be the Exon Vazdez
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March 23, 2015 at 6:06 pm -
” The Zeppelin of Pomposity, and worse!”
Which is why the excuse ‘it was paid to my wife’ is now known, in the legal profession, as the Vaz Deferens Defense….
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March 23, 2015 at 6:18 pm -
The interview with DAC Rodhouse was a very peculiar one. He only mentioned one person that they had been “working with” (presumably Dolphin Square “Nick”) who he stated was a credible witness (not victim) which is a bit of a row-back from “Nick’s” testimony being previously stated as credible and true by Det Supt McDonald in December. Why no mention of Exaro’s other star witness “Darren” who gave lurid details about the various rooms in use at Dolphin Square and even a slice of Grand Guignol with murder of a Downs Syndrome man on a country estate by Peter Righton and others? Talking of Exaro, most of their recent stories have included pleas for witnesses and victims to come forward which may mean that, despite their sanctimoniously pompous pronouncements, they aren’t getting as much info as they may want to substantiate and prolong their paedo tales.
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March 24, 2015 at 10:34 am -
Probably because, whilst they have stated that at least “Nick” does have credibility, “Darren” , depsite how much Exaro plug his stories, has been thoroughly dismissed by them as not possessing even a shred of it.
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March 23, 2015 at 6:23 pm -
Sad that not one serious journalist is taking up the obvious flaws in all this nonsense except maybe David Rose and I think he is being silenced . They must be well aware but choose not to go public. No trust in police, politicians, media and definitely not the CPS, hardly seems worth even voting any more.
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March 23, 2015 at 6:54 pm -
It’s definitely worth voting, even if it’s about choosing the least worst option rather than the best one.
I’m also inclined to the view that the politicians are not really any better or worse than they’ve always been, but the reporting of current affairs is far worse. It’s all about soundbites, interrupting as often as possible, and contrived arguments with most weight given to mud-slinging and trivia. The reporting of events and summarising of considered debate seems to have been completely lost, as has any attempt to expand soundbites with measured argument. Most broadcasting of politics is best ignored these days, I feel.
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March 23, 2015 at 7:02 pm -
I like Andrew Neil but that’s about the only programme I watch now, I used to be a real politics junkie and watched everything, but that was when interviewers were more interested in what the politicians had to say than in interrupting and advancing themselves. I have mostly lost interest now.
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March 23, 2015 at 11:12 pm -
I for one am slightly confused if this request relates to the Theresa May-sponsored inquiry yet to find a chairman that will satisfy the professional victims’ lobby…
I’m slightly confused too, didn’t Lowell Goddard get the job, or is the ‘satisfy the professional victim’ bit the key?
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March 24, 2015 at 8:56 am -
How rude and boorish are some of these interviewers. Talking over the top of interviewees and experts. Asking complex catch out questions and insisting they are answered with the answer they are fishing for. There is no promotion of respect hardly at all. Only harsh criticism and making a fuss over any controversial words. If I hear the word racist once more I shall scream. Can’t be bothered with all the nonsense going on in the media. I think there are a lot of scores being settled and the public has to bear the fall out from it all.
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March 24, 2015 at 5:17 pm -
This piece contains a wonderful example of how tales grow in the telling. When the Cyril Smith scandal ‘broke’, someone mentioned (to Private Eye, I think) that a police trainer lecturing officers on the prosecution of sex crimes mentioned Smith as an example of an offender who had got away with it. That sounds perfectly possible – police often feel frustrated by the CPS. But run the story through the rumour mill a few times and now we have Smith captured in the act on CCTV!
In fact, the whole Smith story is a rolling stone that has gathered much moss. The Cambridge House allegations have long been in the public domain (as with Sir Peter Hayman, it’s puzzling to be told that something’s been covered up when you’ve known about it for years). Even Simon Danczuk’s book didn’t garner much notice. It was a while after its publication that the Mail, enthused by the possibility of putting the words ‘paedophile’ and ‘Nick Clegg’ in the same sentence, ran some extracts and it all took off.
The Cambridge House allegations seem to me at least plausible (of course, we don’t know how they would have stood up in court). But every sex offender now undergoes the process of Savilisation. So furtive Cyril with his ‘medicals’ has now been elevated into SuperNonce, buggering his way across Britain with total abandon. -
March 25, 2015 at 12:14 am -
I now have a wonderful mental image of ball-shaped Cyril Smith rolling down a Rochdale hill, gathering moss, and being whipped like a top by a following procession of enraged young boys. I hope this doesn’t permeate my dreams.
It was mentioned recently that the blogger ‘Gojam’ appeared to be rowing back from the wilder stuff and he certainly is. I profess myself heartened that a few have become alarmed at the seemingly never ending stream of increasingly outrageous claims. As it would seem quite a few ‘whistleblowers’ took their stories straight to him, this can only mean he found them unimpressive.
Meanwhile, Exaro get snappier and bitchier with every tweet. They’re rattled. Good. -
March 26, 2015 at 8:50 am -
Moor Larkin,
Re: “Head. Wall. Bangin’ in many cases however.
“Sabine K McNeill, London, United Kingdom, about an hour ago
Before Jimmy Savile nobody knew and talked about paedophilia. Before these ‘whistleblower kids’ and now the Pauffley judgment in their case, nobody knew or talked about satanism. Live and learn – thanks to the internet, above all else.” ”“Before Jimmy Savile nobody knew and talked about paedophilia” – of course not… :/
“Before these ‘whistleblower kids’ and now the Pauffley judgment in their case, nobody knew or talked about satanism” – because the satanic panic in America where day care nursery workers were jailed for years and the incidents in Orkney and Cleveland never happened? She’s probably not as naive as she makes out, just trying to promote the internet as a way of spreading nonsense to a wider audience, but she is still very naive to think that we are naive enough not to see through most of her comment…
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March 26, 2015 at 9:15 am -
Moor Larkin,
I actually found this response to the comment more annoying:
“Carlos Malleum, Hexham, United Kingdom, about 3 days ago”
“There’s a fine line. *SAVILLE WAS AFTER A PROLONGED POLICE INVESTIGATION*. This is just mom justice and has no place in our society. Cast your mind back to the terrible destruction caused by the Orkney sex abuse trials when social workers convinced themselves of satanic child abuse in several families. The devastating consequences of these utterly false allegations ruined lives. If and when they catch this woman she needs to go down for a long time.”
“Saville was after a prolonged police investigation” – err no it wasn’t, some of the individual care homes, hospitals and perhaps some other police forces dealing with odd random complaints might have investigated accusations (and not been able to find much evidence for the claims at best), but Operation Yewtree, who were tasked with dealing with the complaints about Jimmy Savile (complaints that where overwhelmingly encouraged and sought after by the media), never investigated any of them, they just took note of them and tried to present them to the public as if they were some how established facts.
You’ve done infinitely more investigating than them and found some extremely interesting information, imagine what they’d have found if they’d bothered to look into this properly and impartially?
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