The Magna Carta – Walking in King John’s footsteps.
798 years ago today, King John set his seal on the Magna Carta. The contents of that historic document had been bitterly argued over for four days. During those days, as the Barons struggled to wrest the absolute power of a monarch from his grasp and extract the concessions that we refer to today as ‘the rule of law’, the King rested in his hunting lodge, journeying each day to the Runnymede meadows via a specially constructed underground tunnel.
The King was unwilling to be stripped of his sovereign right to chop off your head merely because he thought your eyes were too close together. He needed no permission to prosecute a citizen. It was the Barons who wished to see that sovereign right balanced by rights accorded to the accused:”No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.”
They wanted the protection that we enjoy today – that of being ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in a court of law. They wanted potential accusers to stand in public and state their case, not whisper in the King’s ear. They wanted the opportunity to refute allegations of wrong doing, and to have the two versions adjudicated by the calm and ”lawful judgment of his peers”, not decided by the King and his friends.
In short, that part of the Magna Carta was centred on the rights of the accused. We are in danger of losing those historic rights as our Justice system, which now oversees the power of the Crown to punish citizens, is ever nudged in the direction of achieving a ‘social justice’ on behalf of the victim.
We no longer demand that accusers always ‘stand in public’ and state their case. We allow ‘vulnerable victims’ to remain in the shadows, behind a curtain or via video link. We don’t demand that their accusations are backed by solid evidence, or rather we consider that solid evidence consists of two or more victim’s alleging the same offence has occurred. We don’t demand that the victim is particularly specific in their allegation; we take into account the distress caused to them, the length of time since the offence occurred, and say ‘roughly’ will do.
We say that even if the Crown doesn’t think it possesses sufficient evidence to prosecute, or continue a case, that the ‘victim’ should have the right to review that decision. We encourage the victim to make a statement to the court telling of how much distress the offence has caused them – and that this is taken into account in the ultimate sentence.
We even say that if a man has been acquitted of an offence, the ‘victim’s rights’ demand that he can be prosecuted a second time – so the accused can never have absolute finality in the matter.
Our Justice system is no longer centred on curtailing the power of the Crown to ‘injure in any way’ the ordinary citizen, but to deliver an outcome which is acceptable to the emotional and distressed victim, or those who cry out on his behalf.
Many of these changes have been wrought or are proposed in response to the current exceptional spotlight which is being shone on the emotive subject of child abuse. The subject has largely achieved public prominence in the wake of the ‘Savile’ revelations of alleged wide spread child abuse by the entertainer. The flood of allegations came in the wake of the ‘Exposure’ television programme which reported on the claims of abuse at Savile’s hand made by a small group of girls from an approved school in Surrey.
Girls who truly walked in King John’s footsteps.
The underground tunnel to Runnymede has long been blocked up, though the entrance is still visible. The great Hall where King John dined with his advisors, mulling over the demands for the rights of the accused, a staff meeting room. The chamber where he no doubt tossed and turned in his sleep, now a bedroom in a luxury flat. But Duncroft Hall, King John’s hunting lodge, still exists; it became Duncroft Approved School.
Perhaps it should be a national monument, the place where justice for the accused started – and finished. Happy Birthday to the Magna Carta. 798 years old today – what remains of it.
June 23, 2013 at 17:21
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Terrific stuff, as usual.
Readers might enjoy Winston Churchill’s summary of Magna Carta, in the
preface of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples:
“The Great Charter therefore is not in our sense of the word a legislative
or constitutional instrument. It is an agreed statement of what the law is, as
between the king and his barons; and many of the provisions which seem to us
to be trifling and technical indicate the points at which the king had
encroached on their ancient rights. Perhaps, in their turn, the victorious
barons encroached unduly on the rights of the Crown. No one at the time
regarded the Charter as a final settlement of all outstanding issues, and its
importance lay not in details but in the broad affirmation of the principle
that that there is a law to which the Crown itself is subject. Rex non debet
esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege – the king should not be below man, but
below God and the law. This at least is clear. He has his sphere of action,
within which he is free from human control. If he steps outside it, he must be
brought back. And he will step outside it if, ignoring the advice of his wise
men, he tries to govern through his Household, his favourites, or his
clerks.”
- June 21, 2013 at 01:09
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Clearly SH was ‘bang at it’ or he would not have pleaded guilty… He may be,
literally, a ‘Dirty Old Man’ but I think that he should have got more jug than
15 months.
As to the ultimate achievement of Yewtree, it remains to be seen whether
DLT, Jim Davison, Rolf Harris, Freddie Starr and Co. will be charged, or just
have their good name dragged through the mire of public oppobrium.
Curiously, I read that Hall is (or was) a Director of a company formed by
Estate Agent Owen Oyston, that well known convicted rapist, perhaps the
original intent was to give his company the air of respectability, by
appointing well known celebrities to the board. That one seems to have
backfired.. Apart from Hall another Director of that self same Co.? William
Roache.
How odd….
- June 21, 2013 at 10:43
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@Frankie
Hall pleading guilty is perceived in some quarters as him
just trying to make it all go away. If he did that on legal advice then he
made a big mistake. He certainly is/was not a “dirty old man” because when
at the time when the offences would have been committed he was is in his
male, leonine prime so was a good-looking, attractive man.
The legal system suggests to defendants that if they plead guilty and
save the “victims” the ordeal of testifying, then the courts will go easy on
them. If they see that when they plead guilty and then the courts don’t go
easy on them, they will be much less likely to plead guilty in future, and
so “victims” will suffer more. Paradoxical lines can sometimes meet.
Yewtree is a farce. None of the names you have mentioned had any
relationship to Savile in terms of their allegations. Starr was re-arrested
on some other allegation that has surfaced since. Gary Glitter and he are
certainly innocent of the allegations made last October, because the story
placed them in a TV Studio which was not the one where the relevant shows
were recorded.
- June 21, 2013 at 20:02
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@Moor Larkin: I bow to your superior knowledgeon the subject. Murky
waters, certainly. Let us hope the cops can sort it out, at least as far
as that is possible, given the lengthy passage of time and the evidential
value of the alleged ‘victims’.
In the matter of Stuart Hall, I also think it an extraordinarily
lenient sentence, not just in view of the large number of offences, but in
view of the case of the ‘Abduction’ sex case teacher, Jeremy Forrest who
was found guilty of child abduction and also pleaded guilty to several
specimen charges of having sex with a clearly willing underage schoolgirl,
and earned himself 5 years…
Hall should have got at least the same.
- June 21, 2013 at 20:42
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@Frankie
I am quite bemused by the faith the British have in their
police….
It
is the police who have mostly created this mess with their utterly
worthless operation. Without their involvement it would just have been a
media-driven piece of nonsense. Once they were involved this delusion
that the cops would “get to the truth” took over. A poster on my site
pointed this historical proof just today. It relates to the police
campaign against Dave Jones, the football manager in the Nineties, and a
campaign BY the police it certainly was – to whit:
“I will quote from a section of the David Jones book, ‘No Smoke, No
Fire’. In this case, the CPS got properly humiliated and made the police
rethink their policies.
“…Eventually [the witness] held his hands up to having concocted the
whole story and went on to claim, would you believe, that the police had
told him beforehand what to say. He actually named the person in
question. The court records that person to be Debbie Walsh of the
CPS.
…
We learned later that [the witness] was telling the truth,
for once. He had in fact been coached in his cell beforehand about what
to say in court. How do we know that? Because another barrister
unconnected with our case had heard it taking place and did his
professional duty and went to tell the judge.”
Gosh, Debbie Walsh’s career must have hit the skids, then? Wrong –
they moved her to Counter Terrorism!
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/four_luton_men_jailed_for_preparation_of_terrorist_acts/
We simultaneously have the Hillsborough story branding the police
serial liars and the Savile affair branding them with Godlike powers of
deduction beyond the grave………..
I’m always grateful to see a policeman when I need one, but God save
me from “the police”. It’s all a bit like nurses and NHS Trusts……
- June 20, 2013 at 18:03
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The best-known mention of King John and Duncroft can be found in Jerome K.
Jerome’s “Three Men and a Boat,” as follows:
” Little was in sight to remind us of the nineteenth century; and, as we
looked out upon the river in the morning sunlight, we could almost fancy that
the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous June morning of 1215 had
been drawn aside, and that we, English yeomen’s sons in homespun cloth, with
dirk at belt, were waiting there to witness the writing of that stupendous
page of history, the meaning whereof was to be translated to the common people
some four hundred and odd years later by one Oliver Cromwell, who had deeply
studied it.
It is a fine summer morning – sunny, soft, and still. But through the air
there runs a thrill of coming stir. King John has slept at Duncroft Hall, and
all the day before the little town of Staines has echoed to the clang of armed
men, and the clatter of great horses over its rough stones, and the shouts of
captains, and the grim oaths and surly jests of bearded bowmen, billmen,
pikemen, and strange-speaking foreign spearmen.
Gay-cloaked companies of knights and squires have ridden in, all travel-
stained and dusty. And all the evening long the timid townsmen’s doors have
had to be quick opened to let in rough groups of soldiers, for whom there must
be found both board and lodging, and the best of both, or woe betide the house
and all within; for the sword is judge and jury, plaintiff and executioner, in
these tempestuous times, and pays for what it takes by sparing those from whom
it takes it, if it pleases it to do so.”
We had a dormitory there called King John (as well as Queen Anne,
Wedgewood, and New Dorm). I believe others were added after my time in the new
wing. I was a resident of King John myself. We had a separate washroom area,
which is where the sound of dragging chains could occasionally be heard at
night.
- June 20, 2013 at 02:49
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Karin Ward doesn’t remember much while working on her ‘memoir’, so she went
looking for corroboration, via social networking. From there, they all started
to make things up and fed them to her, in hopes of reaping an unjust reward
for lying. They were dodgy then, they’re dodgy now. End of story. They keep
bleating that the women from the 60s had a different experience, but when I
was at Duncroft there was a field of con artists at work!
- June 19,
2013 at 22:47
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Magna Carta is indeed a double edged sword.
When you study English Law you become aware of the fact the entire
constitutional rights within it end at the freeman, the rest of us dear
norberts are mere serfs.
A serf is one who serves his masters debt, a slave
is one that cannot contract.
The good news comes in the fact we are
governed by consent, as such because of the Parliamentary system we the people
have consented to be governed as though the constitution is inclusive of us,
and so this is the only way in which we consent to be governed, in spite of
any statutes to the contrary.
In shifting from rights under constitution to
commercial rights as ordained by the corporate statute, or to relinquish
constitutional common law the realm that is Great Britain to the corporate
United Kingdom, we thereby consent to lose the rights that protect us from
Babylon and the Hamurabi Code, and become subservient to that which
Christianity held at bay
- June 19, 2013 at 22:13
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I wonder why none of the 60s top group stars have been arrested, they had
girls throwing themselves at them not likely all were over 16 and they have
the money. Could it be because they are still popular?
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June 19, 2013 at 21:22
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Cheers Anna. A rum business indeed.
- June 19, 2013 at 20:13
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Massive big smiley face, and lots of laughing – are we all sure this is not
some long running “you’ve been framed” programme? Un-bloody believeable. Well
done Anna, as always
xxxxx
- June 19, 2013 at 19:32
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The power of Magna Carta ended when the courts decided to dance to the tune
of public opinion and the popular press. The God worship fans of Ike seem like
a flock of sheep without direction. They make ridiculous remarks knowing
little of the law; when some one is arrested they enquire how long a sentence
they will receive, appearing not to understand the difference between arrest,
charge and verdict. Golden balls the bogey man snatcher MWT makes the most
bizarre comments and although an ex copper doesn’t correct his followers on
twitter when they get basic facts on the law wrong.
The police can keep
someone on police bail forever, for the rest of their lives without giving
good reason other than saying our investigation continues. Surely this is in
breach of someone’s civil and human rights – according to Magna Carta – and I
just don’t understand why the whole police bail thing hasn’t been challenged
in the courts. Much seems to be made about Muslim Clerics who cannot not be
extradited to another country as it would breach their human rights, and yet
elderly entertainers where the allegations against them are very flimsy to say
the least are left languishing on police bail for months. I just find it
difficult to believe that someone would leave an allegation rest for 20, 30,
40 years. Surely if the alleged crime wasn’t reported at the time then I would
assume that the alleged ‘victim’ had put the whole matter behind them. Why
would anyone want to rake it all up again after so long? The police say it’s
important to name the alleged perpetrator to encourage ‘others’ to come
forward. Well, they sure have and who knows if they ever met these men? It
seems all one needs is an autograph or a ticket stub from a show from years
ago. The police said that the women who were abused by SH did not know each
other and that there was a pattern to the abuse. How can the police be certain
of that now that we have face book and thousands of networking sites? And to
think I used to laugh my socks off every time Cosmo Small Piece came on
TV!!!
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June 19, 2013 at 21:54
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@Charlotte.
I agree wholeheartedly. As to Mark Williams-Thomas – he
doesn’t actually have much grasp of the law at all. As a novice detective
constable he wouldn’t do. When Stuart Hall was sentenced he immediately
tweeted that the correct sentence was 4 years. A few tweets later and he
announced that he would now read the sentencing report !
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June 20, 2013 at 00:37
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I feel very uncomfortable with the whole Savile investigation. All of
those arrested have been judged on networking sites and in the media. How
can the defendants hope for a fair trial if it should come to that?
Suddenly people who worked at the BBC whether in front or behind the
camera say ‘Oh, yea we knew about Savile and his goings on.’ So why didn’t
they say at the time? The light entertainment industry is a small circle
and everyone knows each other if not personally then by reputation . I
never heard anything about Savile but of course that doesn’t mean he
wasn’t a molester but I think the word would have been out. I certainly
knew who to look out for – the touchers and grabbers because I would have
been given the nod from other girls in the industry and there were only a
couple, and a ‘piss off creep’ sent them packing. Most male entertainers
who had success had women throwing themselves at them. I’ve seen loads of
women at the front lift their tops and flash their tits at the guys while
they were on stage. These women were like bloody stalkers moving from one
show to another in towns miles apart.
What saddens me is that often the
papers put photo’s of the men as they are now and not how they looked back
in the 60′s or 70′s as if to say look at the dirty old man. It’s
manipulative and misrepresented, but above all it wrong.
Was it
necessary for the CPS bloke, Nazire? somebody to give a statement after
the S H case? I can’t say I’ve seen that before.
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June 20, 2013 at 01:48
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my sentiments and when people like Gambicini jump on the bandwagon
and claim “I knew he was a pedo (and into the deceased as well) bur said
nothing because I was a no-body and would have lost my job ” : in other
words he admits he allowed children to be abused for decades because he
wanted to keep a job the correct response from the public and media
should be : “take this man outside and flog him with a horsewhip within
an inch of his life, tar and feather the bastard and send the crashing
bore back tow here he came from”,,,but no, they all say “ohh really. it
must eb true than”. Total madness and they reckon times were bad in the
past !
- June 20, 2013 at 01:53
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Now that Double Jeopardy has been trashed isn’t it time we petitioned
for Mark Williams-Thomas to be re-tried on that blackmail charge
?
Afterall, he has shown over the years since to be loose with the
truth and to manipulate ‘evidence’ to suit a desired outcome.
I think
in the interests of justice, a re-trial should be demanded.
- June 20, 2013 at 13:26
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Good one. But it won’t happen.
But oh, how I would laugh if Mark
Williams Thomas ever gets accused of Sexual Assault. Not entirely
impossible since he does encourage some very peculiar people.
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June 20, 2013 at 16:59
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It looks as if the Duncroft losers are staging a strategic
withdrawal, if this recent post on FRU is to be believed. “No one
posts here we have moved, cos certain old 1960′s pupils contacted the
press, made many false accusations and caused a lot of trouble so we
post in private. If you want to know more then send me a PM and your
identity will be secret like what you post and I will tell you how to
contact us all.” It would, of course, be more accurate to say that
‘certain old 1970s pupils contacted the press, made many false
accusations and caused a lot of trouble.’ No matter – I don’t care
what b.s. these deluded fools discuss in private, just keep it that
way, ladies. And any 1970s women who are not interested in discussing
JS ad nauseam have been deprived of the ability to post anywhere.
Maybe not a bad thing.
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June 20, 2013 at 17:49
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I believe it’s about 13 months, which is what Stuart got. With good
behavior, he may do a couple of months, and then be let quietly out of the
back door of wherever he is.
- June 19, 2013 at 18:41
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Here’s another irony. My great-grandfather (going back enough generations
to coincide with the reign of Charles I) was Sir John Glanville, the Speaker
of the Short Parliament. He went to the Tower for being one of the drafters of
the Bill of Right, which essentially deals with habeas corpus and the divine
right of Kings. Ultimately, Charles lost his head because he refused to yield
to habeas corpus, believing to his last stubborn moments that if you were a
king then you had the same power as God. Hi ho.
And then I end up at Duncroft!
- June 19, 2013 at 18:01
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Looks like this lady has a sense of proportion:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/10045699/Allow-legal-sex-at-13-to-stop-old-men-abuse-persecutions-says-barrister.html
and
a predictable response:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/10047623/Making-sex-legal-at-13-is-pure-lunacy.html
Belle
du Jour’s reference to WT Stead hoping to end child prostitution is incidental
to the main argument. Menarchy has fallen.
- June 19, 2013 at 17:36
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On a not totally unconnected note, today’s decision on the Snatch Landrover
case left me wondering whether the D-Day Landings, which we have been reminded
of recently on the box, should have been cancelled on Health and Safety
grounds.
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June 21, 2013 at 22:07
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Hitler missed a trick there!
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June 19, 2013 at 13:20
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It should not be forgotten that the Lords had King John in a corner of
sorts– back then, if a King wanted to go to war or anything like that, he
needed to levy a tax and raise money, and raise manpower, through the Lords.
If the Lords decided to “go Galt” and told King John to perform an anatomical
improbability, not a whole lot he could have done about it, if they all stuck
together– and why wouldn’t they, since they all benefited. The consent of the
governed is what keeps a Government in power. Obviously, it took many
centuries to evolve the representative democracy of sorts in there today. It
will not take centuries to fall away. What we need is a Bartleby the Scrivener
who will simply look these people in the eye and tell them, when they ask him
to put up with all this nonsense, “I would prefer not to.” Or a Mohandas
Gandhi who tells them “Not at the cost of my personal dignity.” Or, as alluded
to earlier, a John Galt, who will tell them “Your time is up.”
Like Rudyard Kipling’s description, but in a different connection and with
a much different result, march off “like a man in irons who isn’t glad to go…
uncommon stiff and slow.” A work-to-rule-of-law slowdown, if you will. Smile,
shuffle, shuck-and-jive, and tell ‘em, “Sho’ nuff, boss,” and proceed to go at
your own pace anyway. After a while, even the most dim of them will realise
the piss that’s being taken. It worked in the old Soviet Union. And in the
West, having had a tradition of some sort of democratic process and rule of
law still within the memories of some people, we’re unlikely to have the sort
of klepto-plutocratic oligarchy of Russia. At worst, we’d end up with Gilded
Age America, which, for all its faults, at least had some pretensions to being
about fair play for the little guy, openly expressed and acted upon as if it
really existed, by the little guy at any rate.
- June 19, 2013 at 13:04
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I find the justice system deeply perplexing. During this current obsession
with ‘investigating’ elderly male entertainers I heard of one young girl that
was cruelly attacked in her late teens by a vicious sexual predator. She was
so revolted by her treatment at the hands of this powerful man that she rushed
to the police.
When I say rushed to the police I don’t mean that strictly literally of
course, she needed a moment to compose herself of course, plus her birthday
was coming up, so might as well enjoy her 20th birthday, then head down to see
the boys in blue.
But of course if you’re going to pause for one birthday why not another?
Indeed this young woman rushed to the police pausing momentarily to enjoy her
20th, 30th 40th, 50th and indeed her 60th birthday before actually making into
the police station. Where upon of course the full force of the law descended
upon this merciless sexual predator.
One can almost imagine in some bazaar parallel universe where this women
happily tristed with the handsome man ‘off the telly’ and scandalised her
friends with the story for years after, until older and happily married she
forgot all about it. Then over 40 years later noticed two events simultaneous.
The first was that the patio really needed re-doing and a new car really would
be nice because the neighbours have just got one. And secondly a culture of
compensation has arrived alongside a fad to persecute old rich men who used to
be on the Telly.
As an aside I have recently been amusing myself with trying to get my head
around string theory, and particularly enjoying Everett’s many worlds theory.
Which would suggest, if I am understanding it correctly, that somewhere in the
Omniverse that strange parallel universe must exist somewhere, although
nowhere near here obviously.
- June 19, 2013 at 11:32
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I’m not boasting (although it might sound like it) but in the context of
this post, you might find this interesting : http://freespace.virgin.net/c.crane/Suffolk/Suffolk.htm
- June 19, 2013 at 11:42
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Indeed, particularly so since I used to live in both Thetford and Bury St
Edmunds – thank-you!
- June 19, 2013 at 12:53
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Small world. I didn’t know that.
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June 19, 2013 at 11:29
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When I heard on the radio a while back that victims of crime could ask for
a review of sentence……I thought, here goes, no matter what sentence is given
to SH there will be a knee jerk request for a review. Sure enough, a short
time, after the sentence was announced, a request for review had been made.
All so predictable. As if all the trauma for his family, who are are innocent
in this affair, was not enough torture. The disruption to ALL his household
effects due to searches for a crime that should have been reported years
before by the VICTIMS. Almost all relatives of victims who have been sadly
deprived of loved ones by murder or manslaughter would say hanging drawing and
quartering would be more fitting after some gruesome killing crime. Who is
going to do all this reviewing to satisfy the vengeful victims? Other victims
waiting to be confirmed into victimhood will be in an even longer queue for
justice. Don’t forget that a review lightened the sentences of the killers of
Jeremy Bolger due to age related issues. I would love it if SH got a lighter
sentence due to age and health issues. That would really promote a chuckle on
my part.
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June 19, 2013 at 12:24
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@miss mildred.
I have shared the same mischievous hope. One thing that
lent some fuel to this was, I noticed that Barbara Hewson, the unfairly
maligned barrister, tweeted that the judge referring to Victim Impact
Statements in his sentencing was inconsistent with the offence and
sentencing rules applicable to the case – they didn’t have VISs
historically.
On a related note, this case shows the importance to anyone
who might be possibly falsely accused, of instructing a specialist legal
team. My own opinion is that SH’s team including choice of counsel, was not
the ideal one.
- June 19, 2013 at 12:27
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And lo and behold, publicity surrounding the arrest of the Deputy
Speaker Nigel Evans MP, has jogged the memory of three more ‘historic
victims’ who have now bravely come forward, and he has been
re-arrested…
- June 19, 2013 at 12:33
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BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHA. Choke, Cough. Sorry.
- June 19, 2013 at 12:57
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Sometimes the political class reaps for itself what it sows for the
rest of us.
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June 19, 2013 at 15:12
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The most chilling part is the call for historic cases to be tried under
current laws. Who knows what currently legal activities we may have to
answer for in the future.
- June 19, 2013 at 10:30
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It’s seems to have become a delusion of modern democracy that “the people”
have some kind of actual power, perhaps fostered most recently by the rise of
blogging and twittering. “The People” see their jabberings *published* and
they imagine that this will somehow make a difference. In the case of all the
nutters like Icke, “the people” must think that finally their dreams of
freedom have come true. The balance whereby the Press Barons maintained some
kind of balance “for the people” (even when the people detested them for doing
so) seems to have been tweaked into “giving the people what they want”.
The dilemma of democracy always has been that not all of the people want
the same thing all of the time and that anyway, most people want nothing more
than to give all their power away to someone else, supposedly to act on their
behalf – these Barons we call MP’s.
Just as an aside, and from a political perspective, I have been struck by
the way successive Home Secretaries have been publicly approaching the need to
control the internet based on the need to foil “terrorists and paedophiles” –
the strangest pairing I have always thought, but it is a fact that DS Gray,
who leads and has led Operation Yewtree since the start of this strange
affair, is an officer who has spent most of his career involved in
Anti-Terrorism. He would of course be an officer of the King, if we had
one.
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June 19, 2013 at 12:12
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@Moor Larkin
I rather think that Det Superintendent David Gray is a
different David Gray from the one in the counter terrorism unit.
- June 19, 2013 at 15:55
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@Mina Field
You might be right. Gray of the T-branch seems to
disappear off the internet radar after the Olympics, and it may be mere
coincidence that Gray of the P-branch appears just after the Olympics.
There is another David Gray CID who seems to have been up in Scotland in
the past, so maybe he has moved south. As we know from FOI Requests about
MWT, police records are confidential, so less said the better – careless
talk, y’know.
I did find an interesting theory about paedo networks sending terrorist
messages however, which stemmed from a story in News Corpse.
It’s
detailed in this blog:
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/fade-to-black.html?q=gray
“A
link between terrorism plots and hardcore child pornography is becoming
clear after a string of police raids in Britain and across Europe, an
investigation by The Times has discovered. Images of child abuse have been
found during Scotland Yard anti-terrorism swoops and in big inquiries in
Italy and Spain.”
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June 19, 2013 at 21:46
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@Moor Larkin
I know its difficult with a name like David Gray
being not exactly rare, but I myself spent a little time a while ago
researching as far as possible the yewtree Det Supt. David Gray, so can
be fairly confident that I’ve traced the yewtree man through a few
promotions and ‘borough’ jobs.
Here he is when a mere Det
Inspector:-
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/1797293.print/
The scottish one just keeps getting in the way when searching, and
can be disregarded. The anti-terrorism specialist is here:-
http://www.jclec.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=2
Whatever impression Gray is making on us with his yewtree ‘work’
there is no doubting his career and experience. Anyway, I thought his
most recent comment was more than a touch watered down to be honest, and
sounded to me as though he himself has come to being doubtful, at least
as far as Jimmy Savile goes.
- June 20, 2013 at 07:24
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@ Here he is when a mere Det Inspector @
He (whichever) seems only to have been appointed ‘temporary’ DS in
2012: “Temporary Detective Superintendent David Gray, Head,
Paedophile, Intelligence and Tasking, Child Abuse Investigation
Command, Metropolitan Police;”
http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/event.php?eid=427
Spindler had a ten year background in the field of “child abuse”,
of the satanic as well as the internet kind (never caught a physical
one). One of the puzzling things for me was why he was so pushed aside
on Yewtree and Gray given pre-eminence with the NSPCC report. I
rationalised that his terrorism status pushed Gray up a notch in the
eyes of ACPO but his background meant they didn’t want him in the
‘public eye’. I might have been wrong. In that jclec picture I always
guessed he was the guy to the right of the moustachioed chap, so looks
‘young’. My mum always told me that I would know I was old when the
policemen started looking young….
- June 20, 2013 at 10:38
-
@Moor Larkin
Yes, he seems to have had the post of temporary det
supt before being given the substantive title, and this is common in
the police service. In an ‘operation’ as yewtree was laughingly
termed, a det superintendent is generally the appropriate level to
lead it. A chief officer, in this case Spindler, generally gets to be
the spokesperson. Also in this case possibly the joint collaboration
with NSPCC and associated politics would probably have been Spindle’s
province.
- June 20, 2013 at 11:12
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@ substantive title @
Commander sounds so much grander than Temporary Detective
Superintendent, it led this layman to assume Spindler was the man in
charge. I wondered at the time if this power-politics was also what
lay behind the sudden Spindly resignation… a Commander usurped by an
ex-terrorism lecturer…… His bizarre production of that old almanc
thing before flouncing off to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of
Constabulary was a weird conjunction. I’m a Commander! Get me out of
Here! could be a TV Reality show for next year perhaps……
- June 19, 2013 at 10:27
-
When – as the sentence guidelines for the Stuart Hall sham show – the
maximum a non-penetrating groper of the underage would receive if found guilty
of ye olde wandering hands is 20 months, then this charade of placing the
likes of DLT & Jim Davidson on seemingly eternal bail without charge is
the police and CPS having their cake and eat it.
Should I make a claim against them all for “child abuse” as what they are
doing is trying to systematically destroying my childhood memories, and
effectively it “bad”?
- June 19, 2013 at 09:55
-
The whole ‘listen’ to the accuser’s in the yewtree saga appears to be more
of a intimidatory tactic, after all, most of the ‘cases’ so far appear to have
dis – appeared or get dropped because of that old, pain in the arse,
‘insufficient evidence’. So, it takes nerves of steel for any of these men to
go to court and fight back. I hope Mr Roache holds his nerve, so far he has
cast a very dignified presence outside Preston Crown Court. We must be
prepared to take action now to force WHOEVER to stop this lunacy. Someone
mentioned Sally Clark yesterday and I re read her story. A woman convicted of
murdering the 2 children she loved, sent to prison for 3 years, verbally
attacked inside by real criminals. Those were the days when SOME journalists
saw an injustice and did something about it –
START – John Sweeney -wiki
Sweeney spent four years investigating the cases of Sally Clark, Angela
Cannings and Donna Anthony, three women who had been falsely imprisoned for
killing their children. Sweeney’s investigation helped to clear their names,
and led to Sir Roy Meadow, the expert witness whose testimony had proved
decisive in their convictions, being temporarily struck off the General
Medical Council’s medical register. Sweeney received the Paul Foot Award in
2005 in recognition of his work.
- June 19, 2013 at 09:05
-
And let’s not forget that the accused can now change their stories at will,
and are simply commended on “finding the courage to remember more
details”…
Even acquittal leaves a nasty stain – the judge in Andrew Lancel’s case as
good as said “I know you did it, it just couldn’t be proved today.”
The former headmaster of my old school was recently accused of sexual abuse
in the 1950s. One person came forward, then the dominoes began to fall. While
he was no longer teaching when I was a pupil there, he still regularly
attended school functions and remained a high profile figure.
It frightens me that I could easily go to the police and accuse him of
similar impropriety, and my tale would be believed however outlandish it was.
He’s been dead since 2001 so he can’t PROVE his innocence – a requirement
these days it seems. One has but to look at the way the BBC has casually
erased the as-yet uncharged Dave Lee Travis from history for proof of
that.
Inspired writing as always Anna – after years of fence-sitting I’m finding
I *do* have views on the important things after all!
- June 19, 2013 at 09:19
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The accused can change their story? I think you’ll find it is the
‘victims’ who change their story to suit the relevant newspaper – or to
disabuse the defence!
- June 19, 2013 at 09:44
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Whoops, my error – I meant “accusers” – rage at the way things are
turning isn’t always conducive to accurate typing… o_O
-
June 19, 2013 at 17:28
-
Any number of victims may emerge from the woodwork to burrow into
someone, who may not easily be able to defend themselves, on seeing wads
of bank notes floating before their eyes as the prize to be had.
The legal system and public service system plays into this because
their jobs depend on this and it is not yet them who is the accused.
Sick..sick..sick.. because the real victims, either those actually abused
or harmed from false allegations, become pawns in a game.
-
June 19, 2013 at 08:07
-
That’s amazing. Duncroft and The Magna Carta, I mean. I’d laugh
hysterically if I didn’t feel more like bawling.
I see they are at it again
today about “What we have learned from The Jimmy Savile Affair.” My comment
not even posted on this occasion.
In fact, all we have learned from The
Jimmy Savile Affair is that he is dead and can’t defend himself. And don’t go
into the entertainment business, and/or live to be 80.
Okay, who’s going to
be next? There are a lot of candidates out there, and this has got to run and
run. The entertainment value is priceless.
- June 19, 2013 at 08:25
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It is quite extraordinary symmetry isn’t it?
- June 19, 2013 at 11:32
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This could be Karma in an obtuse sort of way. Who’d a thought it when
King John went to Duncroft? Some higher power must have been taking the
piss.
PS. Where on earth do you find this stuff? Or perhaps I should
ask how?
- June 19, 2013 at
11:38
-
Needless to say, I was fully aware of the history of Duncroft Manor
from my time there – but there are copious reports of the history on the
Internet, given that it is the anniversary of the sealing of the Magna
Carta today, you’d think some enterprising journalist might have dug up
the connection by now…..
- June 19, 2013 at 12:31
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No, Darling, they leave that sort of thing to you, and then filch
it later
- June 19, 2013 at 12:37
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Too bloody true!
- June 20, 2013 at 00:48
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Anna. When all of this first reared its head I vaguely remember
Karin Ward saying that she was in a dressing room with JS and
others. What I don’t understand is: Where were the teachers who
must have gone with the girls to the theatre and how come they
were allowed to wander about the theatre alone? – this doesn’t
sound right to me. TV companies at that time even were pretty
strict about outsiders and even entertainers as I remember where
shadowed everywhere by someone with a clipboard and head set.
There was shit going down with bombing at that time with the IRA
so there were security measures in place and of course TV shows
whether in theatres or studios are death traps and rabbit warrens.
Something not quite right if my experience of TV is to go by.
- June 20, 2013 at 09:55
-
that reflects my experience of visiting TV studios many times
: the idea you could wander at random is crazy
- June 20, 2013 at 09:59
-
Philip Schofield expressed such reservations at the
beginning, but soon was knocked into shape and to atone, did
the man-scout interview…..
“Speaking on ITV1′s This Morning, Schofield said: “I know
the layout of those dressing rooms, I know the way a
production team works. I know that you’re seldom ever left
alone in your dressing room, there’s always someone knocking
on the door. “And one of these girls says that it was dozens
of times. So if there was a 14-year-old girl who was abused
dozens of times, what was she doing in his dressing room, and
would no one have known?”
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/fib-fib-fib.html
- June 21, 2013 at 18:47
-
No short sharp shock.
That discredited ex-CEOP Chief, Jim ‘Trust Me I’m A
Policeman’ Gamble, was also ex-Ulster Counter Terror Chief
Jim ‘Trust Me I’m A Policeman’ Gamble.
Plus Ce Change.
- June 19, 2013 at 15:49
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No sign of them picking up that the Savile Allegations are mostly
BS…………
- June 19, 2013 at 15:59
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June 19, 2013 at 17:20
-
Although of course King John affixed his seal upon Magna Carta
because it seemed the wisest thing to do at the time, the Barons being
in a particularly determined frame of mind and possibly not above the
odd bit of regicide. Our merry monarch – in common with most of
today’s politicos, bent with the wind when it suited him because he
subsequently had the then Pope, the inaptly named Innocent III,
declared Magna Carta to be annulled since it contravened what the
church claimed to be God’s law – the divine right of kings and the
almost heretical* section now called clause 61.
So civil war ensued, as John sought to re-assert himself once he
had the backing of Innocent III (not to mention the Papal Mercenaries
and other mercenaries).
So – sneaky, power-crazed, hypocritical, mendacious, treacherous –
yup! He’d have been right at home in today’s Westminster…
- June
25, 2013 at 07:27
-
Anna, I am a bit late to the party (as is fairly usual), but I
thought that Magna Carta was signed beneath the branches of the
Ankerwycke Yew in the priory gardens of Ankerwycke… I looked at a map
of Duncroft Manor, and indeed the yew is on the same side of the
river… as opposed to the Runnymede side, and it is a little closer
than the US memorial… However, it is still two miles up river, across
some fields, and I doubt whether tunnels of that length (fit for
kings) were being built in those days… I suspect that he may have
strolled (or ridden) across the fields to meet his barons.
I have a piece of that tree polished and standing on the floor in
my living room. People often ask me why I keep that “old bit of wood”,
and I launch into my usual rant about the meaning of Magna Carta,
before they fall asleep.
- June 25, 2013 at 07:41
{ 62 comments }