*Exclusive* – Mandatory Reporting and Meirion Jones.
Meirion Jones has long been an advocate of ‘Mandatory Reporting’ – a system of criminal sanctions for those who have care of children but have failed to report allegations of abuse made to them regarding those children. He frequently takes MPs to task if he thinks they are not doing sufficient to bring this law into being.
@SarahChampionMP Are you pushing mandatory reporting or do you think OK for covering up child abuse not to be crime? @mandatenow#Savile
— Meirion Jones (@MeirionTweets) January 14, 2015
Do you see the subtle assumption at play there? – without ‘Mandatory Reporting’, the assumption is that a child WILL have reported abuse in the past, and the carer WILL have ‘covered it up’. It completely discounts the possibility, and I put it no higher than that, that a) such abuse genuinely occurred, and b) that it was reported. It leaves a carer, perhaps 30 years later, being criminally sanctioned for having ‘failed to report’ a crime he may have known nothing about, simply because there was no report in the day book – yet a jury have accepted that abuse did occur and the child, now middle aged, claims to have reported it to Mr ‘X’.
It is the ultimate Christmas gift to those who run legal firms specialising in bringing claims for compensation against institutions.
Interestingly, there has never been any question of ‘Mandatory Reporting’ applying to the now legion of journalists who claim retrospectively to have known ‘irrefutably’ that Savile was a predatory paedophile – but were unable to stop him ‘because of the libel laws’. The idea of accompanying their supposed ‘credible sources’ to the local police station and ensuring that their claims were investigated, as any decent human being would have done, never seemed to have occurred to them, once the ‘story that every journalist would want’ had been spiked…
Meirion’s source for his Newsnight documentary that was never shown due to lack of credible evidence, centred round Karin Ward, a girl who had been at Duncroft in 1974. Karin and the other girls that were sent in Meirion’s direction, were marshalled by another girl who had been at the school in 1978, and bolstered by a forged letter claiming that Savile would have been prosecuted but was ‘too old and infirm’. Their paths had never crossed in person, only on the Internet. The ‘2007’ police investigation into Savile’s presence at Duncroft showed one remarkable fact – that not one girl had ever claimed to have reported Savile to any of the staff. Nor was ‘Clunk-click’ ever mentioned to them. That was why the Police had never interviewed any of the staff, nor were they aware of the events in 1974 regarding the origins of Savile’s connection with the school.
Which made Meirion’s desire to muddy the waters and make it appear as though – had the staff reported these ‘dreadful allegations’ – then Savile ‘could have been stopped’ all the more intriguing to me. For I was aware that the Head of the staff, the person most likely to have been criminally sanctioned, was none other than Meirion’s Aunt. Ms Margaret Jones.
After many months of lengthy investigation, police visits to the home of this 94 year old lasting for hours on end, the usual papers and mementoes of her long career removed for forensic examination, questioning which included allegations made to them ‘by BBC journalists’ regarding the innuendo laden ‘she likes a drink’ – turning the christmas sherry into something that sounded as though it might include alcoholism! and ‘she invited him to stay the night with her, you know’ – turning Savile’s stay in Janet Therobold’s empty staff quarters the other side of the school block, several secure key locks away from the girls, the night before the Fete he had agreed to open the following day, into something that sounded like an invitation from a ‘cougar’ female!
I can’t imagine (yes, I can!) who those ‘BBC journalists’ could have been who gave that evidence to Operation Outreach, nor where they might have gained such scurrilous gossip but eventually the Police discovered that claims of having ‘told the staff’ had only emerged in time to catch the ‘Mandatory Reporting’ campaign, and all the staff were cleared of any complicity or knowledge. Sadly too late to put Ruth Cole, the equally elderly deputy headmistress’, mind at rest. She died a few days before the final Police decision.
They were not the only staff at risk of criminal sanctions – there were many other staff on the premises that would have been targeted by the Mandatory Reporting. One of whom I had no knowledge of, since he had commenced work there after my time, when the school leaving age was raised to 16 and the ‘school’ element of Duncroft was made full time. He was the History teacher in the 1970s.
‘Jones the History’ – or ‘Mr’ Jones as the girls would have had to refer to him. A distinguished lecturer in Local Government, he had been drafted in to help fulfil Ms Jones’ dream of giving the girls the best ‘second chance’ at education that she could possibly muster.
I heard rumours that there might be a family connection between Mr Jones the History teacher, and Ms Jones the head mistress, but aware that she had once had twin brothers, I thought perhaps this was the twin who had died tragically early?
Not a bit of it. This Mr Jones was none other than the Mr Jones who had once had carnal knowledge of Meirion’s beloved ‘Mumsy’, the Mother he was so close to that he only deigned to marry recently – in late middle age.
Mr Jones the History Teacher was none other than Meirion’s Father. A fact that Meirion could not fail to be aware of. The man who went to work every day to pay for young Meirion’s school fees at Colet Court and its ‘senior’ version St. Paul’s School – two of the most prestigious, and expensive, establishments for nurturing the future opinion makers and shakers. Strangely, both those schools have been beset by allegations of paedophile gangs at large. (The gangs must have been at work during the period Meirion was suspended for ‘hooliganism’ for Meirion has never attempted to make programmes about those schools….)
Meirion’s desire to force the BBC to carry a programme on the flimsiest of evidence that would ruin the life’s work of both his Aunt and his Father, and make it appear that his Grand-mother lived in a den of iniquity (Duncroft was her home as well) is beginning to make Lizzie Borden look like a competent family relationship advisor.
Did he tell the BBC of these other family connections? We should be told.
Legal?
Decent?
Honest?
Truthful?
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September 16, 2015 at 9:12 am -
That is a gem, Anna!
What a plonker. I think it was all part of an elaborate smoke screen to give him cover to elope with MWT… a British Thelma and Louise, perhaps?
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September 16, 2015 at 9:19 am -
September 16, 2015 at 11:24 am -
I’m happy to provide directions to the nearest cliff…
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September 16, 2015 at 9:26 am -
* … Mr Jones who had once had carnal knowledge of Meirion’s beloved ‘Mumsy’, the Mother he was so close to that he only deigned to marry recently – in late middle age. -*
Meirion married his own mother?
I think we should be told.-
September 16, 2015 at 9:27 am -
Ha! No he married Kate, the long suffering mother of his daughter.
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September 16, 2015 at 9:35 am -
Meirion’s father was Meirion’s wife’s boyfriend before Meirion?
I’m really struggling to keep up here aren’t I.-
September 16, 2015 at 9:36 am -
Yes. You are. See me after school.
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September 16, 2015 at 9:41 am -
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
I must learn to pay attention and master my subject
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September 16, 2015 at 9:44 am -
As Merion said…”It was a very strange place…filled with all sorts of people, very very strange….everything about that place seemed very odd to me.”
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September 16, 2015 at 9:48 am -
Hmmm, my Aunt, my Father, my Grandmother….
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September 16, 2015 at 10:40 am -
Wales is the land of my fathers but do they keep a welcome in the tales?
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September 16, 2015 at 9:54 am -
Another great blog Anna.
“Interestingly, there has never been any question of ‘Mandatory Reporting’ applying to the now legion of journalists who claim retrospectively to have known ‘irrefutably’ that Savile was a predatory paedophile”
Also to be added to that list should be Esther Rantzen and a host of other BBC employees who claimed to be “in the know”.
I got shot down a bit the other day for suggesting that there should be a five year limit on bringing charges of sexual abuse. At the time, I was thinking more about those who have brought claims that they were abused when they were in their middle teens and older. Of course I wasn’t suggesting that an abused four year old would be confident of bringing a claim before their 9th birthday, and I agree that some other limitation should apply in those cases. I also suggested that false claimants should be named, another idea that was pooh-poohed. However, I do think such persons should have their names added to a register along the same lines as convicted sexual offenders.
That Merion Jones does seem to be a very strange individual. I wonder if there might not be a bit of “he protesteth too much” involved?
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September 16, 2015 at 10:12 am -
Alex, mandatory reporting seems a very silly idea born of the need to have a rule for everything. I fear setting time limits is not much better. If corroborative evidence was required and accusers’ anonymity removed, the Law could get on with doing what it’s good at, and I suspect this whole furore would die down.
MWT has always protested too much. I think May was just besotted with him. Poor fool.
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September 16, 2015 at 10:24 am -
It has been debated endlessly in NSW & Victoria with the result that social workers are saying it will simply add to their burden of already trying to investigate over 100,000 suspected child abuse claims each year in each state, of which they are lucky if a quarter get looked at.
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September 16, 2015 at 2:09 pm -
“such persons should have their names added to a register along the same lines as convicted sexual offenders.”
It seems to me that making false claims of abuse is a form of sexual offence.
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September 16, 2015 at 10:15 am -
Last night I watched an interview (Newsnight) with Paul Gambaccini. I think he suggested that the current harassing of celebrities is as a direct consequence of the the police failure to pursue Saville. Is he implying that he knew something about Saville? Is he implying that Saville was guilty of something? If so, would ‘Mandatory Reporting’ allow the police to reinvestigate him for non disclosure?
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September 16, 2015 at 10:22 am -
Paul said he knew Jimmy screwed dead bodies so perhaps Mandatory reporting should include the deceased as well.
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September 16, 2015 at 10:27 am -
Quite. The man is a twat.
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September 16, 2015 at 11:44 pm -
Please can you refrain from such language, I find it offensive, and shows limited intellect.
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September 17, 2015 at 6:01 am -
Anna’s pub: Anna’s rules.
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September 17, 2015 at 8:04 am -
Yes I agree, people with limited intellect seem to be pushing their views on everything these days.
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September 16, 2015 at 10:20 am -
Thanks for the update as Mr Meirion Jones has blocked me on twitter.
I suppose the only person who would avoid charges under Mandatory reporting would be Dan “the man who knew him best” Davies who said after Jimmy died that he “had a heart of gold”. Obviously oblivious to Jimmy’s claimed offending. -
September 16, 2015 at 11:07 am -
You could have knocked me down with a feather. If this wasnt so serious, it would be hillarious
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September 16, 2015 at 11:12 am -
Aye oop! Meirion’s awake….
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September 16, 2015 at 12:02 pm -
He must be going easy… or is “eccentric” now an insult to match “apologist” and “denialist”. Jimmy himself was a ‘Great British Eccentric” was he not….
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September 16, 2015 at 11:13 am -
I expect he wears a camera on his bicycle helmet. In which case perhaps some kind motorist will soon run him over.
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September 16, 2015 at 11:20 am -
I am a mandatory reporter in the state of Florida. Our law does not work in the way described above. It is the vagaries of the UK legal system that are the problem. Also the law does not apply here to journalists. They are supposed to write about what they know, or if the information is too libelous to publish, then advise informants to go to law enforcement.
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September 16, 2015 at 11:25 am -
Anyway, there was nothing to report on Savile that is in the public arena except the grope session with the underage “Susan” that may have already crossed boundaries before Savile realized she was out of play.
I recently watched the Theroux documentary on Savile. Ugh, the elderly Savile was obnoxious.
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September 16, 2015 at 1:48 pm -
I’ve watched the Theroux documentary again recently, and am struck by what a lovely portrait it is. Not particularly flattering, but nonetheless endearing in its own way. Obnoxious…yes, kind of. Probably less obnoxious than he might have been thirty years earlier, I guess. I think Theroux has a real knack for getting something from people, and it’s genuinely interesting, if not essential, viewing.
I had no particular affection for Savile at all before this thing kicked off. But the more I read and hear, the more respect I have for the man. And all the bullshit, the patter, the talk of his ‘policy’ for this and that, the turns of phrase, are utterly familiar from people I knew in my youth. The persona is not particularly endearing, but there’s a real heart there.
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September 16, 2015 at 11:31 am -
What an interesting article!
Are we ever likely to hear an answer to the question: “Did he tell the BBC of these other family connections?”In an email (referring to the claims within that blasted “web memoir”) sent to Peter Rippon & Liz McKean, October 2011, Meirion states that:
“…the Head in this was my aunt. My folks suspected at the time this was going on.”He doesn’t seem to mention that one of his ‘folks’ had also been employed at Duncroft, though. Later, in an email to Stephen Mitchell & Helen Boaden, Rippon states that:
“Meirion Jones spotted the story from an anonymous blog of a woman from Duncroft soon after his death.
He was keen to pursue because he had a family connection with Duncroft. An Aunt had been the head there.”Again, no mention of the paternal link; I was a late-comer to dissecting Savile but I’m sure others will be aware of whether or not he did disclose this.
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September 16, 2015 at 11:47 am -
September 16, 2015 at 11:59 am -
In his evidence to the Pollard Inquiry he only mentions his aunt.
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September 16, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
@Rocky
He does mention his Granny lived with his aunt, which rather makes the absence of daddy a slum-dunk.
As Conan Doyle might have it, The Dog that Didn’t Bark.He also says he visited Duncroft between 1960 and 1970, which makes me think he never did meet Jimmy there and is just a fucking liar.
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September 16, 2015 at 2:37 pm -
Beg pardon. I’m an idiot. he says he visited between 1960 and 1970 but then much more frequently between 1970 and 1976.
My bad.
Boy, this guy makes me cross. -
September 16, 2015 at 2:57 pm -
You might note that between 1960 and 1970 he was between 3 and 13 years old, so might not have had an ‘adult’ view on the advisability of visitors even if he had seen him, which he wouldn’t have done since he wasn’t there…..
It was 1975 when Meirion left school and he still had his teenage years to go at Cardiff Uni.
Susan describes Savile getting a message that a teenage Meirion was in his grandmother’s house in the grounds and desperate to meet Jimmy in the main house, which would have to be when Meirion was either 16 or 17 – probably desperate for an autograph. Susan was rather pissed off at Savile being summoned in this way.-
September 19, 2015 at 9:59 am -
Here is a very small odd thing.
I was in Duncroft for 4 months in 1972, admittedly through the summer (when things were not in a normal pattern) and admittedly in a rather detached way…but gossip is a high speed sport and I heard a lot of it…but not a word about a nephew, visiting or not, and it is both the kind of thing that was gossiped about and the kind of thing that would have caught my attention.
Also, just for the record, I was the first year for whom the school leaving age was 16, and I was 14 at the time. I caught the last 3 or 4 weeks of the school term and left at the start of the september term. I never heard tell of a male history teacher, in fact it would be my distinct recall that the absence of even a single male member of staff had a dramatic effect on the behaviour of all present, and it wasn’t good, which has informed my opinion of single gender groups ever since, so it seems logical to assume Jones began there in September of ’72 or ’73 when the raised leaving age would be making an actual difference? Is it possible that, for some reason, at least for a while Meirion did not visit at all until his father was there?
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September 19, 2015 at 10:31 am -
Meirion definitely visited there before ’72. It is the source of my long standing grudge against him….
Mrs O’Sullivan had bought us a copy of ‘It’s a Hard Days Night’ and we were in the Senior common room about to hear this wondrous thing, when Meirion was shown in to ‘sit with us and listen to the record’ (he being about 7 or 8 at the time). Sadly Meiron was the possessor of a large bogey hanging from his nostril, so I was despatched to fetch him a suitable handkerchief – and missed hearing the Beatles opus magnum…..
You are one of the few people who would fully appreciate the depth of my angst in the direction of that snivelling snotty nosed kid…-
September 19, 2015 at 11:55 am -
September 20, 2015 at 2:33 am -
:o)
So, perhaps he was not around for a while…between about ’66 (pulling that out of thin air, but why not? Everybody else does.) and ’73 ? Would that work?
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September 16, 2015 at 1:26 pm -
Update: Merion during the Pollard Inquiry (Page 338) did mention his parents but not whether his father taught at the school.
After being asked if he considered interviewing his aunt and whether she was interviewable Merion was then asked if he formed a judgement whether his aunt knew what Jimmy Savile was doing at Duncroft…
“No, I mean, I think my feeling is that she was like a lot of other people…who were swept along by his celebrity and glamour and all this, and partly by the fact that everyone else accepted him as okay….(next 3 lines redacted).
You know, at the same time I’m aware that my parents were there saying “This isn’t right”. So some people were able to see that, and they were saying (3 lines redacted). That’s how I put it.”-
September 16, 2015 at 2:12 pm -
“You know, at the same time I’m aware that my parents were there saying “This isn’t right”.”
I wonder if this is a deliberately slippery form of words. Most people would think in context that “there” wasn’t to be taken as meaning literally there full-time, given that Jones hadn’t given any indication that his father worked at Duncroft or that his parents were anything other than occasional visitors. However if later questioned into a corner he could say “Look I said they were there!”
It’s also very possible that the parents felt that “This isn’t right” without any real suspicion of impropriety. Many people of an older generation in the 1970s would have thought that schoolgirls having any contact with a DJ in a school setting just “isn’t right”, however innocent. A classical music figure fine, but that ghastly downmarket trashy pop!
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September 16, 2015 at 2:29 pm -
I think he’d be pushing his luck a little, JohnS, trying to pass-off “my parents were there” as in any way analogous to “my father was actually employed there”, but I see your point.
It wouldn’t really explain his failure to declare the familial employment-link, though, if that is indeed what he did; Peter Rippon, for example, would surely have felt a little hoodwinked if he later discovered that Jones hadn’t thought to mention the fact.
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September 16, 2015 at 2:20 pm -
There is a ditty about the peoples of the four nations that runs thus:
The Welsh pray on their knees on a Sunday,
And on their neighbours for the rest of the week.The Scots take what is rightfully theirs,
And anything else they can lay hands on.The Irish don’t know what they want,
But they’ll fight anybody to get it.The English claim to be a self-made race,
Thus relieving the Almightly of a terrible responsibility.At least it’s equally rude about everybody, so I’ll not have to answer any charges of racism! However, the thing about the Welsh is interesting; there is something in the Welsh character – not quite sure why – that leads some of them to be very quick to take offence and to harbour grudges long and deep, sometimes for quite trivial sleights. Feuding among themselves was something of a feature of Welsh affairs even as they tried to defend Wales from English incursions, and there’s a parochialism in modern Welsh politics that is often counter-productive.
Could it be that Meirion harboured a grudge for some minor perceived family sleight, and that the whole ‘revenge’ blew up far more than he’d anticipated? Or is he really so warped that he’d try to have his aunt arrested, charged and possibly imprisoned?
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September 16, 2015 at 3:29 pm -
Meirion’s mother and his aunt have not spoken for many years and indeed Margaret always said Meirion’s mother was jealous of her job at Duncroft and its celebrity visitors. She was headmistress of a grammar school in Surrey. However, I believe she often visited Duncroft, presumably when she took Meirion there when he was younger.
Strange that Fiona’s husband was a Jones – makes one wonder!
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September 19, 2015 at 10:01 am -
A curious thing, I first heard that in Duncroft from a girl called Janice…with a degree of reference to Maggie Jones :o)
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September 16, 2015 at 4:54 pm -
beginning to make Lizzie Borden look like a competent family relationship advisor.
Meirion Jones took an allegation
and gave his Aunt 40 writs.
When he saw what he had done,
he gave his Dad 41.No, I know it doesn’t scan , but then again, nothing in this whole tale of courageous journalistic endeavour does…
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September 16, 2015 at 5:59 pm -
Germany has closed her borders, you know.
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September 16, 2015 at 6:06 pm -
Wow. Just wow.
The untold Duncroft story. -
September 16, 2015 at 6:36 pm -
I am utterly lost, certainly sounds as though Merion Jones carries some strange grudge against his family.. You really couldn’t make this stuff up! I also watch the Gambucini interview, I was quite sympathetic until he started on Savile. If he and all the others ‘knew’ so much why didn’t they report it? Nothing about the whole story hangs together.
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September 16, 2015 at 9:05 pm -
Anna,
I have found reading these posts extremely interesting. They give a lot of insider information against which to measure other versions of events. This is a serious comment: I know that girls at Dunscroft had high IQ’s, and that a lot of the commentators on here are very intelligent. I am not stupid myself, but when people use “insider language” and “insider jokes” I get a bit lost, as my IQ is much more modest.. I really want to understand what the comment below means. What exactly is being said about Merion’s father and mother (at least that is what I assume is meant)? Is it that they had sex long before marriage? Also, what was the status of their relationship when Merion’s father taught history at Dunscroft? Were they in/out of a relationship then?
* … Mr Jones who had once had carnal knowledge of Meirion’s beloved ‘Mumsy’, the Mother he was so close to that he only deigned to marry recently – in late middle age. -*
It would also help me if you could give the full names of all the family members mentioned: Merion’s mother, father, aunt, grandmother etc, then when “people in the know” mention them by their first names, there can be no mistake about who they mean.
Thank you.-
September 16, 2015 at 10:01 pm -
It won’t help you to know that they were all known to us as either Mr or Mrs Jones, will it? Apart from the Headmistress who was Ms Jones….in fact since Meirion (or Master Jones) got married, there is yet another Mrs Jones….
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September 19, 2015 at 10:08 am -
Ms Jones??? *MS* Jones???
WASH OUT YOUR MOUTH.
It was always a very firm MISS Jones to her face…and Maggie behind her back. In fact I recall my mother saying relatively recently that if anyone was a “Miss” rather than a “Ms” it was Maggie Jones. :o)
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September 17, 2015 at 12:18 am -
Is this the sort of thing they mean by a witch-hunt?
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September 17, 2015 at 9:31 am -
Is the picture actually of Kenny Everett? Or do all weirdos look the same?
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September 17, 2015 at 11:53 pm -
I have to note that the entire time I was on Careleavers, and I think Ellen can bear me out on this, nobody ever mentioned a History teacher called Jones. Odd. They did however go on and on about a Spanish teacher (male) called Mr. Nieto, who apparently had a bad case of wandering hands, but was never reported because his attentions, I assume, were welcome.
Miss Jones (headmistress) told me that Meirion was all agog to meet Savile, and that she, Miss Jones, had a photograph of them both at a fete at Duncroft. This could have been the one Savile came to in the summer of 1974, not long after his first visit in May of that year. Mrs. Jones – mother of Miss Jones and this elusive History teacher brother – was living at the school at the time.
Jones family grudge? Yes, over some real estate. Being Welsh (on my Dad’s side) I can attest that there is extraordinary amount of ridiculous grudge-holding that goes on in families, at least in my experience. But I don’t think that’s necessarily exclusive to Welsh people!
I’ve been gratified to learn the depths of deception Fiona stooped to. She wasn’t at Duncroft when Jimmy was visiting, at least not with Susan, and not with Karin Ward. Probably didn’t show up until 76, and he was gone, to all intents and purposes, by then.
And Karin Ward, btw, was a hideous little bully, according to information I received lately.
This whole tale takes the most extraordinary twists and turns. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, this sort of information comes out.
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September 18, 2015 at 8:57 am -
That dad was a history man only makes the whole thing more hilariously apposite.
“Most people then on campus knew a Howard Kirk. He was the easy-going left-wing lecturer from the Swinging Sixties who had seen it happen, seen it fail, and had to live through what came next: the Sagging Seventies. Always radical, always seductive, always seducing, he was eternally on the side of the students against the fascistic institution that paid his salary, and always against those who were over thirty, even if he was himself 35.”
http://malcolmbradbury.com/fiction_the_history_man.html
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September 19, 2015 at 5:37 pm -
Just for the record, when I was there, Oct. 62 to August 64, with a brief recall in 65 (July-August) for a couple of months, Miss Jones was generally known as Jonesy. As far as her being ‘swept away’ by Savile’s celebrity status, she was dreadfully uninterested in any of that. I think she found him mostly annoying, but admits he was very knowledgeable about law and order, and they had some interesting discussions about that. Otherwise, she could take him or leave him, preference for the latter. She can still do a good impression of Savile, according to Russell Myers of the Sunday Mail, who interviewed her for the second time. Mrs. Jones thoroughly disliked him, and when he went to kiss her hand, she jumped backwards, saying “Get away from me!!” Now, that being the case, you’d think she would at least address those issues with her daughter and, presumably, her son, the mystery History teacher. But, it is remarkable that this is first mention of him.
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September 20, 2015 at 1:28 am -
I think I got my attendance dates wrong. Oct. 62 but must’ve been gone by early 64 – February I think. I was working for Laurence Harvey at his offices on Park Lane, and Walter Shenson, producer of Hard Day’s Night, was a couple of doors down. I kept looking out the door, to see if any Beatles were hanging about in the hallway! The best I could do was see Lennon and Cynthia standing outside the Dorchester.
The album came out in June 64.
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September 26, 2015 at 9:52 am -
Meiron Jones made it to the front page of The Sun this week who repeated his claim made in July that executives at the BBC had called him a traitor. This time though a particular executive was named, who it was reported Merion had been told by another person had said Merion was a traitor.
Meiron’s evidence to Pollard… (Nov 2012)
“I’m already talking about it with Mark Williams-Thomas and Liz MacKean as a Newsnight from July. (2011)We might already have had a phone conversation. I mean, certainly obviously he would have been aware. We’d discussed this in depth in July when we were at Interpol.”
Mark William-Thomas (Statement: Oct 3 2012)
“Approximately 12 months ago I presented a report on TV about child protection and as a result of this programme I was contacted by a person who asked me if I had ever had any information or concerns about Jimmy Savile in regards to child abuse. I have worked in the area of major crime and child protection for over 20 years so I get to hear a lot of information. I had heard rumours but up till then that is all I had heard. At this stage he was still alive and even though the person who wanted to talk to me had information about someone who claimed to have been abused by Savile, I was sceptical, because for all the years Savile had been alive, no newspaper or journalist had ever found evidence to support claims of child abuse.
Sadly by the time I got to speak to this person Savile had died. I was also aware that a BBC Newsnight programme was looking into allegations of child abuse but no programme was broadcast for editorial reasons.”
Was there someone else making enquiries other than Merion Jones, or is someone telling porkies? Because if at it seems Merion Jones made contact before the other person then Mr William-Thomas would have been fully aware of claims about Jimmy Savile. strangely Mr William-Thomas makes no mention of his £500 involvement with the Newsnight investigation.
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September 26, 2015 at 9:59 am -
So, tugging all those dots into line: “MWT told Mei that a geezer at the BBC had told him that Mei was a traitor.”
It doesn’t take many people to make a conspiracy fly does it…
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September 26, 2015 at 12:44 pm -
Jimmy Tarbuck was the subject of a police investigation, separate to Operation Yewtree, relating to allegations of historical sexual abuse. Mr Tarbuck said on television the main one was from a woman who claimed in 1964 she went to Wood Lane, London (BBC Television Centre) where at Top of The Pops Jimmy invited her along with his 4 road managers to his dressing room where he asked her to do certain things.
Jimmy asked the police if they had they checked it out the woman’s story, the police told him they had looked into it and he was on TOTP’s in 1964 at Wood Lane. Jimmy pointed out that in 1964 was made in Manchester not London.
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