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Tuesday 23 June 2015

CAN ANYONE IN THE UK REALLY GET JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY??????


 By Ken Cook

In 2009 I wrote a book which I called 'Justice Denied' which I had to self publish in 2010. Now the thing is why did I feel I had to write this book? The answer is simple; because since 1990 I had first my business, then my life, systematically trashed by a government department. So what is new about that, you may ask? Well this department was the very department we are told does everything it can to help people who create Intellectual Property-to protect that. Yet with me, they over 20 years, systematically helped a crook steal my I/P and in doing that, that meant it slowly strangled my business until I had to close it down and having a heart attack through the stress, also helped in that decision.

As it was a long process which included 6 Tribunal hearings and one County Court case, spread over all of those 20 years, the fine details are too long to detail them in a short story. So I will just have to keep the details short and list just enough for you to get the gist of it all. I am an engineer and have designed a number of products during my working life. In 1985 I designed a copy of the iconic classic racing sportscar, the AC Cobra. As only about 1500 were built the originals fetched megabucks to buy, even millions if they had racing history. So people like me got into making copies which used modern mechanics that could be taken off a wrecked Jaguar and put onto the specially designed chassis, plus a fibreglass body. Like with all products I gave it the Trade Mark name of 'Viper'.

All went well with sales until in 1990 as Chrysler brought out a car they made, in the States and they also called 'Viper' That was OK by me as I thought they would never sell them in the UK. I was wrong as in 1990 they applied to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to register my Trade Mark, Viper.
I immediately put in an opposition. Years later in 1996 I won my case  but never realised that from then on life would never be the same, because my London agent had, as soon as he realised in 1991 he could start a scam. What he did, was he went to Chrysler behind my back and told them he owned it, but would sell it to them for £1/2M !

After I won in 1996 against Chrysler and had it registered in my name, you would have thought that would be the end of his scam, but no, because from 2002 onwards the IPO went into a mode of helping him to trash my registration until in 2002 they took my registration off me and gave it to him!! I had to fight him from 2002 right up to 2010 through 6 different IPO Tribunal hearings and lost all of them but one. The one I won in 1998 which said he had no rights to it, you would have thought would have ended my battles, no such luck. For the IPO then went on to ignore that ruling and set in motion more hearings during which they systematically trashed my all my rights and eventually told me that they were taking off me- 'as if I had never ever been awarded it in the first place'!!

As I have said, the whole course of events is too complicated to go into in detail here but it is all in my book. (download off my blog) Now after their perverse ruling in 2010, I compiled a dossier to take to the Police. For in all those hearings and a court hearing in 2000, this ex agent of mine committed no less than just over 200 cases of perjury (lying) and 5 cases of submitting forged documents. These are CRIMINAL ACTS, so what did my illustrious 'crimestoppers' who call themselves Dorset Police, actually do? Well they first went running to their fellow 'civil servants' the IPO, who despite my asking them to investigate all those acts of perjury during their hearings- did absolutely nothing. So they fed to Police with a litany of lies re what constitutes perjury ( the forgery was conveniently forgotten about) and no doubt what they thought about me as I had told them what I thought about them and civil servants do not like that!!.

So the police came back to me in a manner that that in effect was treating me like a 'criminal'  saying that these acts were a civil matter! (since when have criminal acts been 'civil matters'?) I should be the one to take him to court. They spoke to me like I was a criminal myself, wasting their time trying to use them so I could sue the IPO. They said they knew all about me as they had read my blog. They were very aggressive but then when aren't they, the useless entities and one wonders why we have police these days as they are refusing to act more and more and to such an extent that now they are really superfluous. I've always said that all coppers are thick as one would have to be thick to want to be one!! Any intelligence person would go into something better.

Now in 2008 I had started to write a blog about how the IPO were treating me and breaking the law and so on. They had told the police about that blog (I am raging mad) and so as far as the police were concerned it seemed as I was now an 'enemy of the State' and was to be treated as such hereonin. So since then this is what I have become and  because I was so appalled at my treatment,I reported them to the IPCC, getting like all others....NOWHERE!!. So I started to include all their antics against me from then on, in my blog.

Had I been a rich person I could have taken on a good lawyer and stopped the IPO in their tracks way back. Problem is that I was not and even though my business in 1990 was going great, the actions of the IPO and my ex agent put a stop to that and that meant I never was able to get together enough money to sue the IPO or anyone else. NOW THAT IS THE NUB THINGS BECAUSE NOW IN THE UK, NO ONE GETS JUSTICE....EXCEPT THE RICH!! I borrowed money to fight the last IPO battle in 2010 and still lost and my lawyer then said he could not believe how the IPO had treated me and the only way I could get justice was to take it out of their biased hands and to the HIGH COURT. Of course this would cost me many tens of thousands and take years, even if I'd got the money. So once again 'Justice Denied'.

Now you would think that would be it, but no, because now I have had since 2010, had my local police on my back because they have obviously decided that they DO NOT BELEIVE IN FREE SPEECH. Thus my blog, even though it has only chronicled their illegal actions against me: has no doubt enraged them, so I have had to suffer since 2010:-
Their initial refusal to investigate perjury and forgery.
In 2012 I was knocked from my motorbike by a motorist who failed to give way on a mini- -roundabout. The investigating officer committed an act that perverted the course of justice by altering a witness statement to read 'I was at fault' and not, not at fault. My complaint to the IPCC was refused acceptance!
In 2013 I druggy broke into 6 lock-ups at my block of flats and did £8K's worth of damage and the worst to my garage. Because it was me that reported this, they did nothing, even tho' I saw him.
In 2014 I local yob who had a criminal record  accused me of scratching a car. Even though there was no evidence, they still charged me and kept crucial documentary evidence from my lawyer.  After a wait of 16 months I was found not guilty (as there was absolutely no evidence) yet why did the police do this? Well its obvious-they wanted to stick the boot into me, come what may.

So what will their next attempt to boot me for exposing them on my blog?? My reporting them again to the IPCC will no doubt enrage them further as is my attempt through the courts to force them to release to me the 'INTELLIGENCE REPORTS' I know they have on me and held since 2010. My case is ongoing and probably will get nowhere for the courts and Judges are all in on this
blatant case of 'DENYING JUSTICE' to the peasants, so as to keep us in our place. IT IS MY CONTENTION THAT THE ESTABLISHMENT REFUSE TO CONTROL THE POLICE JUST IN CASE WE THE PEASANTS RISE UP ONE DAY. No other explanation as to how the police get away with it all. 

KEN COOK. 2015. BOURNEMOUTH.




Monday 22 June 2015

Westminster paedophile's named and suspects


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For decades elite child rapists and murderers  have been above the law  in the UK. Many like Janner QC and Leon Brittan QC actually made the laws  for others to follow,   Leon Brittan QC  died, saving the failed UK State the problem of finding yet another excuse not to charge him. Meanwhile Greville Janner QC  is very much alive but the State  rallied the forces of darkness and so he cannot be charged on err well  compassionate ground.

If you look at the list  below it is glaringly  obvious that the main perpetrators are Members of Parliament and Legal Professionals mostly.  With the highest accolade having been awarded to  the barristers that of Queens Council.   The other common denominator is that so many have been favoured with Honours from the Queen.

  1. Anthony Atkinson MP outed by his son
  2. Aitken Johnathan MP  LE CERCLE , Arms to IRAQ
  3. Amery Julian member LE CERCLE (BCCI)
  4. Robert Banks, former MP
  5. Barber Anthony Heaths chancellor of the exchequer
  6. Brook Peter SIR
  7. Beck Alan, University of Kent
  8. Bottomley  Peter SIR MP
  9. Bottomley  Virginia MP  former Minister
  10. Boothby MP
  11. Boyston  Rhodes MP
  12. Edwin Bramall, Baron Bramall, former head of the British Army
  13. Leon Brittan QC  Barrister Peer
  14. Ron Brown MP
  15. Michael Brown, broadcaster and former MP
  16. Heseltine Michael  LORD (Arms to Iraq)
  17. Ian Cameron  MI5  Covered up Kincora
  18. Peter Campbell MONDAY CLUB 
  19. Kenneth Clarke MP
  20. Clarke Alan MP SIR LE CERCLE, Arms to Iraq 
  21. Alistair Cooke, BARON Lexdon, Peer
  22. Michael Colvin
  23. Crook MP MONDAY CLUB
  24. Percy Craddock M16 friend of Janner and Howe LE CERCLE
  25. Edwina Currie, MP  former Minister
  26. Driberg Tom MP
  27. Nicholas Fairbank M P Thatchers PPS
  28. Fahy Peter SIR  Police 
  29. Michael Forsyth MP
  30. Fulford Adrian Barrister QC APPEAL COURT JUDGE SIR 
  31. Gerry Felicity Barrister QC  sex specialist and cover-up specialist 
  32. Ian Greer, former parliamentary lobbyist
  33. Michael Gove MP
  34. William Hague, Minister MP LE CERCLE 
  35. Hamilton Ian MP
  36. Hamilton Archi MP
  37. Hanley Michael SIR director general MI5
  38. Hayman Peter SIR convicted child abuse images MI6
  39. Harriet Harman, QC MP
  40. Patricia Hewitt, former Minister
  41. Hogg Quinten MP Lord High Chancellor  BARRON QC
  42. Margaret (Lady) Hodge MP
  43. Howard Michael LE CERCLE
  44. Greville Janner QC, Baron Janner of Braunstone, Peer
  45. Lamont Norman Lord  LE CERCLE
  46. Derek Laud, lobbyist
  47. Sir Edward Leigh MP LE CERCLE
  48. Dr Julian Lewis MP LE CERCLE
  49. Peter Lilley MP
  50. Peter Mandelson,  Baron Mandelson, Peer
  51. John Major MP (Prime Minister and lover of Edwina Currie)
  52. McAlpine  Alistair  LORD Conservative treasurer Peer
  53. Louis Minster
  54. Alan Milburn, MP former Minister
  55. Montagu Victor MP MONDAY CLUB
  56. Peter Morrison MP Thatchers PPS and PIE
  57. David Nicholson, former MP
  58. Peter Peers Barrister QC
  59. Colin Peters Barrister and Civil Servant
  60. Michael Portillo, MP broadcaster and former Minister
  61. James Prior MP
  62. Enoch Powell MP
  63. Harding Keith Watchmaker PIE friend of Brittan, Cyril Smith and Thorpe 
  64. Harvey Proctor, former MP
  65. Anna Racoon  ex Civil servant  who failed Law school alias Susanne Nundy alias Susanne Cameron-Blackie
  66. Rock Patrick  Camerons Office arrested for child abuse images 
  67. Wyn Roberts MP Conservative
  68. Raison Timothy MP
  69. George Robertson MP Labour
  70. David Rose Daily Mail journalist  spent decades debunking child abuse friend of s Susanne Nundy alias Susanne Cameron-Blackie  alias Anna Racoon
  71. Nick Ross, BBC presenter
  72. Jimmy Savile Sir, BBC entertainer friend of Thatcher, Hauge, The Royals
  73. Gillian Shephard, MP Baroness Shephard, Peer
  74. Skelhorn Robert Barrister QC director of public prosecutions blocked prosecution of Cyril Smith
  75. David Steel, MP  Baron Steel, Peer
  76. Jack Straw MP Home Secretary
  77. Sir Cyril Smith MP Prolific pedophile
  78. Thatcher Margaret Prime Minister protected numerous pedophiles from prosecution
  79. Jeremy Thorpe MP Liberal
  80. Norman Tebbitt, Baron Tebbitt, Peer
  81. Lord Tenby & son
  82. Cecil Trelett
  83. Keith Vaz MP  Barrister and friend of Janner MP QC
  84. John Whittingdale MP
  85. Straubenzee William MP, Sir. Gvt Minister 
  86. Ronald Waterhouse QC, Sir  Headed North Wales Child abuse inquiry Cover-up Friend of Greville Janner and Percy Craddock
  87. William Whitelaw MP Home Secretary



Please add your own names in the comment section.
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Thursday 18 June 2015

Debate about Crown Prosecution refusal to charge serial pedophile Janner



A Lord a QC, a Member of Parliament  a very rich and powerful man  and a serial pedophile protected all his life by a corrupt Prosecution Service  a corrupt Police Force and a corrupt State.

UK Parliament to hold debate on why Serial pedophile Janner is not to be prosecuted!

Business Questions 18th June 2015
transcript Hansard
 
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab): (On Director of Public Prosecutions and Lord Janner)
The whole House will be aware of the recent decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions not to prosecute Lord Janner for alleged child abuse owing to his apparent ill health. May we have a debate on this decision, and will the Leader of the House offer any advice on why Lord Janner can retain his seat in the other place, writing laws, when he is apparently unable to face the law himself?
This immensely sensitive issue is part of a much broader sensitive issue. I commend the hon. Gentleman for his work in this regard; he has done as much as anyone to bring this matter of great national concern to the fore. There has been a lot of debate and controversy about the decision that has been taken, and there will be an Adjournment debate next week in which Members will have the chance to raise concerns and issues about the Crown Prosecution Service. I am sure that the messages from that debate will be listened to very carefully.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): (on ease children in care go missing)
May we have a debate about looked-after children going missing from care? A concerning report from the London Assembly this week highlighted the fact that in Enfield 199 children have gone missing from care in the past five years, 109 of them for more than 24 hours. That puts those vulnerable children at risk of abuse, exploitation and radicalisation.
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which links very much to the one made a moment ago by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). The disappearance of children from care can lead to all kinds of adverse consequences. I have talked to some of the victims of the sex abuse gangs, and one of the most striking things was the way in which in many parts of this country young people were able to walk into and out of care easily, without proper monitoring and without supervision. That simply should not happen, and every local authority has a duty of care to young people to ensure that they are not wandering the streets at night and cannot be preyed upon by gangs.
 
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab): ( On latest FOI reported sexual offences against children by police)
The NSPCC’s very disturbing report this week showed that there were an additional 8,500 recorded sexual offences against children to April 2014, yet prosecutions are actually falling. Following that, may we please have a debate in Government time to find out what is happening in this very important area?

This is an enormously important issue. I suspect that a significant part of the increase is because—in an entirely welcome way—more victims feel able to come forward to report crimes that would otherwise go unnoticed and unreported. That is good. It is of course of enormous importance that all authorities involved do everything they can to bring to justice the perpetrators of those crimes. Justice questions is on Tuesday next week, and I hope that the hon. Lady will raise the matter directly with my colleague the Secretary of State.

Monday 15 June 2015

The unfolding scandal of the Westminster paedophiles

Paedo Files: a look at the UK Establishment child abuse network
by Tim Wilkinson

1: Conserving the Conservatives On 24 October 2012, the Labour MP Tom Watson asked Prime Minister David Cameron about a paedophile ring centred on the Prime Minister's office at Number 10 Downing Street.  Visibly discomfited, Cameron first affected not to know which former prime minister Watson might be referring to, then issued a bland assurance that the matter would be looked into. The allegations to which Watson referred do not fall in any grey area. They involve coercive, forcible and sadistic sexual abuse of unambiguously underage children trafficked from children's homes around the UK. The accused are not social outsiders or ordinary families who might find themselves railroaded or caught up in some witch-hunt; quite the opposite. Among those under suspicion are judges, civil servants, right-wing politicians, foreign and domestic diplomats, and other official VIPs. Police, judges, politicians, officials and security agencies appear to have been involved in the cover-up. There is little appetite for any rigourous inquisition: working police officers fear for their jobs and the media are complicit, gagged or scared of libel actions. This is no spurious moral panic drummed up by a hostile press on the word of gold-diggers, cranks or fantasists. It is a serious matter, and those seeking to investigate face an uphill struggle. Cameron himself had in 2002 sat on a Parliamentary committee investigating supposedly over-zealous investigations into child abuse. Journalist David Rose,had volunteered to that inquiry: ‘I think one idea which I would like very much to plant in the minds of the committee is this: in none of these cases, in no example of these 90-odd investigations has a so-called paedophile ring ever come to light. There were no paedophile rings in care homes and similar institutions in this country.’1  Cameron later took up this point, referring back to Rose. In a line of questioning addressed to senior police officer Terence Grange, he raised the incongruous question: ‘Can you confirm whether or not you have unearthed any evidence of a paedophile ring during these investigations? It was put to us by the Observer journalist [Rose] who did the Panorama programme that no-one had found a paedophile ring in their investigations.’2 Grange responded: ‘I think that is true. The paedophile ring is probably a media hype, if I may say so. The forces were actually investigating allegations of physical or sexual abuse made by individuals, and it spread. No-one has raised the issue with me that they have found a paedophile ring, and I am defining a paedophile ring as a group of people who work in one place or, the suggestion was last year, move from place to place conducting their sexual abuses. I do not think anyone has found that and I doubt that it existed.’ The definition of ‘paedophile ring’ here is an odd one, since most of the outstanding allegations involve children being taken out of children’s homes to be abused elsewhere. Grange, now dead, subsequently resigned his post while under investigation for failing to investigate a judge accused


1   Rose later spread some of the Iraq War propaganda and then tried to rehabilitate himself with an article in the New Statesman openly admitting that he had for years been open to ‘manipulation’ by security and spy agencies. See

2    of child abuse. Cameron then asked the panel of police witnesses another loaded and leading question: ‘Last week we had the solicitors who were involved in one set of compensation cases, and they referred to the Paedophile Information Exchange, and they said they thought there was evidence of a paedophile ring. Do the police experts we have here all share that view that no ring has been uncovered?’ One officer replied: ‘Certainly during our inquiries, which have been going on for over eight years now, we have never actually found evidence to show networking between offenders.’ This and the reply from Grange make it clear that the focus, as with so many other investigations, was on low-level employees, and not on police or senior child protection officials like Peter Righton, who was a prolific child abuser and founding member of the Paedophile Information Exchange. Given that such higher-level involvement was never properly investigated, it is no surprise that 'networking’ between lowlevel offenders was not discovered. The Home Affairs Committee investigation and report helped to cement the idea that paedophile rings were a matter of ill-informed popular hysteria. This assumption is one of the most powerful deterrents to serious consideration of these matters among influential sections of the public. It both reinforces and appeals to the supercilious anti-populism of the comfortable classes. Slick, cultish, pseudo-left website Spiked exemplifies this attitude.3 The Spiked orthodoxy finds ‘moral panics’, ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘anti-science attitudes’ wherever criticism of the rich and powerful is voiced. Most of the claque of regular Spiked contributors have no credentials beyond the vicious circle of mutual support they provide one another, amplified by an echo-chamber of proliferating think-tanks, 

3  Not to be confused with another ‘Spiked’, the short-lived successor to the scurrilous 1990s UK magazine Scallywag, which first aired some aspects of the current scandal.
publications and discussion groups. Barbara Hewson is an exception. A member of the Bar, her word carries some independent weight. She has produced a number of Spiked articles on the topic of child abuse. One specimen, ‘Abuse inquiry: built on conspiracy theories?’ will provide a useful foil for discussion.4 There Hewson exemplifies the dismissive attitude Spiked takes to these allegations: ‘The myth of powerful, protected perverts has been around for decades.’
The old ‘old news’ gambit Gossip, and indeed clear evidence of serious child abuse among politicians and the establishment in general has indeed been ‘around for decades’. The former Conservative MP Edwina Currie mentions in her memoirs that Peter Morrison, a fellow Conservative MP and aide to Thatcher, was a ‘noted pederast with a taste for young boys’. She adds that he confessed as much to another senior Conservative MP, Norman Tebbit, and wonders why the Thatcher government would take such a risk. Tebbit, asked whether there was a political cover-up of such matters, replied: ‘I think there may well have been. It was almost unconscious. It was the thing that people did.’ He explained: ‘At that time I think most people would have thought that the establishment, the system, was to be protected and if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system.’ Currie has more recently explained in this connection that such matters were met with a ‘culture of sniggering, of giggling and of nudge-nudge, wink-wink’. None of this was discussed in public while Morrison was alive, and he is not necessarily involved in the unambiguous forms of organised child rape that are at the top and centre of this re-emerging scandal. Currie has stated that Morrison’s actions, while certainly illegal at the time, may not have involved children under 16. But who knows? Certainly not the members of the 4  Spiked, 16 July 2014 at
Conservative Party who were so conspicuously incurious about the exact nature of his activities. It is unlikely that politicians would have spoken so freely about Morrison if he were alive or if it were thought likely that investigators might link his personal life with an organised paedophile ring. Still, in the light of this kind of remark, Hewson’s assumption that nothing of concern happened is clearly unwarranted. That is what the current patchwork of disconnected inquiries and police operations is supposed to be investigating. The fact that investigations thus far have at every turn been hampered, overruled, disbanded, censored, smeared is no argument for continuing to ignore these matters – and in any case that is no longer possible. Mutterings about Jimmy Savile, were around for decades, too. Savile’s hobnobbing with royals and his relationship with Margaret Thatcher during her premiership would undoubtedly have meant he was subjected to scrutiny by the Security Service, and that his activities are likely to have been known to them. To award him a knighthood, Thatcher indeed had to overrule ordinary civil servants who objected, perhaps too delicately, that his lifestyle made him an unsuitable candidate. Liberal MP Cyril Smith has – posthumously, like Savile – been exposed as a prolific and sadistic child abuser; and he too was able to keep a lid on his behaviour for decades. Also ‘around for decades’ are the revelations of Colin Wallace, an impeccable witness who, at very considerable cost to himself, brought to light sexual abuse in the Kincora boy’s home in Northern Ireland, involving politicians and protected by the Security Service. Thanks to Wallace, these events received some limited exposure; but while no-one seriously contests them, their implications are not discussed in polite society. It appears that Knox Cunningham, aide to Conservative ex-PM Harold Macmillan, was among a number of well-connected visitors to the home, and that some children were trafficked as far afield as Brighton in the South of England to be abused. Other homes in Northern Ireland, housing children under the age of 16, and other politicians and senior Establishment
figures have been implicated. Wallace has offered to tell all if granted legal authority to do so.


5 Both he and others state that blackmail was part of the purpose of facilitating the abuse.
Your secret is safe with us This is a key issue: it is clear that security services have been heavily involved in these events, and it is equally clear that child sexual abuse is very useful to those who, like them, are in the blackmail business. One obvious example is that of party whips. In 1995, Tim Fortescue, recalling his career as Conservative MP and whip, reported that a member of his party who faced ‘a scandal involving small boys’ would ask the party whips to help hush it up. As Fortescue put it, ‘we would do everything we can because..…if we could get a chap out of trouble then he will do as we ask forever more.’ Others have reported that the Heath government was more pro-active, keeping a ‘dirt book’ of MPs’ indiscretions which could be used to exert pressure. Another intriguing instance in which child abuse blackmail has been suggested relates to the recent inquiry headed by a senior judge from Northern Ireland, Brian Hutton. The inquiry was supposed to investigate the death of David Kelly, a government scientist who leaked details about the falsification of intelligence relating to Iraqi WMD, but whose death ended up being used instead as a vehicle for the Blair government to attack the BBC, who had reported the leak. Among the documents posted on the inquiry’s website was a bizarre and cryptic document concerning child abuse, the presence of which has never been officially explained or even mentioned. In his book about Kelly’s death, Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker refers to rumours about the document: ‘One, actually repeated to me in all seriousness by a very senior BBC executive, was that a leading figure in the Hutton inquiry process was known by the

5   Wallace has been given permission to talk. See .
government to have had a paedophile past in a part of the United Kingdom well away from London. Was the inclusion of this particular document a way of reminding him to “do his duty”?’
Who's panicking? Evidence from Wallace is not easily dismissed as so-called ‘conspiracy theory’, despite Hewson’s portrayal of the affair as a populist ‘moral panic’. There are other highly credible witnesses and investigators who stand to gain nothing from speaking out. One example, whose case has been raised in Parliament to deafening silence, is Stuart Syvret. Syvret was a longserving member of the government of the small island of Jersey, the independent ‘Peculiar of the Crown’ and playground for rich tax-dodgers. He attempted to publicise allegations of abuse and surrounding corruption. No libel proceedings were ever brought. Instead Google closed down his blog at the request of the Jersey authorities and Syvret was prosecuted and imprisoned under a bizarre construal of Jersey’s data protection law. Another Jersey Senator was forced to resign when it was revealed that he had advised Syvret to commit suicide. Others report that they have been obstructed by police, prosecutors and other powerful persons, and in some cases explicitly threatened. For example, child protection officer Chris Fay, who attempted to take statements from children in connection with the exclusive Elm Guest House child brothel, reports that his house was shot at in his absence, and that he was threatened at gunpoint by officers of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch – a unit with national reach which liaises with the Security Service. Ten days after he raised the issue in the House, Tom Watson MP himself reported ‘warnings from people who should know that my personal safety is imperilled if I dig any deeper’. It is undoubtedly true that in this kind of situation there is a general risk of false accusations and overzealous police action. But the public response to the Savile revelations, and
the consequent opening of the floodgates, has not had such a character. If anything, the general public seems numbed and rather baffled by what is going on. Of course, if asked, members of the public will express an entirely appropriate disgust at the abuses described. Some feel strongly enough to type out a tweet on their smartphone. But there is little sign that the madness of crowds is driving anything here. There is certainly an increased level of activity by police investigating sexual crimes among the general public and among showbiz celebrities. Thousands of people have been raided for viewing ‘indecent images of children’ on their computers. A succession of ageing celebrities have been investigated for, and some convicted of, child sex abuse.  Attention has returned to child abuse in Rotherham and some gruesome allegations have emerged of street-level sexual abuse there. But none of this is being driven by populist sentiment. If anything it is a topdown process, and ultimately the police, press and government are reacting to the inescapable facts of the situation. The revelations about Savile and Smith, and the willingness of two Labour MPs to say the hitherto unsayable, has generated an imperative for action which has a logic of its own. Some of this may amount to displacement activity; some, even, to deliberate misdirection. Something must be done, but there is considerable flexibility as to exactly what that ‘something’ might be. There is always a danger in such circumstances that the innocent may be falsely convicted, or relatively minor offences exaggerated – especially among those who must rely on the rapidly dwindling resources of the Legal Aid Board. But there is another risk: that all this busy activity, for all that much of it is no doubt necessary and long overdue, distracts us from the most serious and most difficult cases of all. Distinctions are becoming subtly blurred: isolated cases of the rape of adults, or of apparently consensual sex with those close to the age of consent, or involving relatively mild forms of sexual touching are all being lumped together in a way which may tend to distract from the core allegations of organised trafficking of young children for the purposes of sexual abuse, including violent and sadistic rape and torture. The Conservative Prime Minister disgracefully warned of a ‘gay witch-hunt’: it seems that conflating homosexuality with child abuse is a price worth paying in the effort to smear investigators as homophobes.

Web of intrigue The genuinely powerful have, unsurprisingly, not been subject to police questioning over child abuse allegations – at least not so far as Britain’s opaque censorship apparatus of Dnotices and super-injunctions allows us to discover. Both corporate and citizen media have been reticent following the unbelievably inept failed exposé by the BBC’s Newsnight of an unnamed person who was revealed to be long-suspected abuser, the baron Alistair McAlpine. In a convoluted and never adequately explained mix-up, the key witness appeared to have been mistaken as to the full name of his abuser, and rapidly issued a retraction before going to ground. McAlpine died soon afterwards, but had time to issue a carefully worded and superficially watertight rebuttal, accompanied by numerous threats and claims for libel against Twitter users, one of which he took to trial and won, and a libel claim against the BBC (who had not even named him) which the abject corporation settled for £185,000. This was unexpected, since McAlpine had refrained from suing Scallywag magazine for making similar lurid allegations in 1994, though the magazine was prominent enough to be considered worth suing by Conservative Prime Minister John Major when it alleged he was having an affair (we now know that they were right about an affair, but misinformed about the identity of his paramour). In this case, though, Alistair McAlpine seemed sure of his ground. As a result of this strange affair, a chilling effect was exerted on the Twittersphere, the press and broadcast media, while an increasingly cowed BBC descended into yet another spectacular and abject bout of self-flagellation. It is ironic that these events, in their effects at any rate, should mirror so closely the straw-man tactic that McAlpine himself had advocated in his book The New Machiavelli, praised by Margaret Thatcher as a ‘shrewd commentary on Machiavelli’s timeless principles of skulduggery’: ‘First, create a situation where you are wrongly accused. Then, at a convenient moment, arrange for the false accusation to be shown to be false beyond all doubt. Those who have made accusations against both the company and its management become discredited. Further accusations will then be treated with great suspicion.’ 6 It is notable, too, that there seems to have been no investigation into who the mysterious abuser, if not Alistair McAlpine, might have been. The evidence leads almost ineluctably to the late Alfred ‘Jimmy’ McAlpine, a cousin of Alistair. But the Establishment cannot allow this very obvious angle to be pursued in public. The jealously-guarded official line has always been that no powerful persons have ever been involved in abuse of ‘children in care’; such abuse has always been presented as limited to staff members operating in isolation. The bizarre figure of Jimmy Savile is supposedly an anomalous exception, and the right-wing press has sought to blame his decades-long impunity solely on the National Health Service and the BBC – both, conveniently enough, much-loved public sector institutions, and as such prime targets for attack by the Right. Yet the cat remains out of the bag. The available information all points to the existence of a powerful and wellprotected paedophile network in the UK which preyed on the most vulnerable children in society. It is clear that some in the Conservative Party are deeply concerned about the allegations. Simon Danczuk, one of the two Labour MPs who have been instrumental in bringing awareness of these matters out of the shadows, reports that the day before he was due to give evidence on the matter he was accosted by a Conservative MP who had never spoken to him before.


6  London: Wiley, new edition, 1999, p. 176.
‘He warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the next day before the Home Affairs Select Committee when I’d be answering questions on child abuse. “I hear you’re about to challenge Lord Brittan about when he knew about child sex abuse,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a wise move”, he advised me. “It was all put to bed a long time ago.” He warned me I could even be responsible for his death. We looked at each other in silence for a second. I knew straight away he wasn’t telling me this out of concern for the man’s welfare. There was no compassion in his voice.’ The question of whether such activities continue remains almost entirely unasked. It is seemingly supposed that the demise of the Conservative government of the 80s and 90s saw an end to them.    Nonetheless, thanks to Labour politicians, the current resurgence of interest in a previously slow-burning scandal of organised child abuse at the very top of the British Establishment is finally getting the public and – to some extent – official attention it merits. A bewildering array of inquiries and police operations has been sparked, but the Conservative-led UK government resisted calls for an overarching public inquiry into the affair. Initially it announced a grudgingly-convened inquiry into the general issue of institutional failures to protect children. This was a carefully chosen brief, but if sufficient scrutiny is applied, it could have been forced to address, at least nominally, the central allegations of organised abuse in high places. The first choice as chair was the baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. She found herself in a conflict of interest (it was clear that the investigation would be called upon to inquire into the actions of her deceased brother), and when the public and press proved persistent in their challenges, she had to go. The inquiry was then to have been chaired by Fiona Woolf, a ranking member of the Establishment by virtue of her position as Lord Mayor of the confusingly-named City of London, the enclave of transnational bankers that lurks, like
some godless Vatican, in the centre of London. But her friendly relationship with the former Conservative Home Secretary and European Commissioner, the late Leon Brittan, who plays a part of unknown scope in the allegations to be investigated, gave rise to a conflict of interest. Woolf was a neighbour of Brittan and his wife, whom she sponsored for a charity ‘fun run’ with a friendly ‘good luck’ message. She had been a colleague of each of the Brittans in a number of capacities, official and honorary. Pressure on Woolf mounted and eventually the Prime Minister stated that she had his ‘full confidence’. Experience suggested that once it is found necessary to assert this a resignation would not be far behind. So it proved and she duly resigned at the end of October 2014. A third chair was appointed, New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard, and a new inquiry began with these terms of reference: ‘To consider the extent to which State and non-State institutions have failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation; to consider the extent to which those failings have since been addressed; to identify further action needed to address any failings identified; and to publish a report with recommendations.’ The new inquiry, ‘will be a statutory inquiry established under the 2005 Inquiries Act. Unlike the previous panel inquiry it will have powers to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence by institutions and individuals. Justice Goddard and her legal advisers will be able to review open and classified sources. This new inquiry will therefore have all the powers it needs to penetrate deeply into the institutions that have failed children in the past, and to identify those institutions that are reportedly continuing to fail children today.’


 7 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord 7  
Bates) told the House of Lords: ‘There are, however, good reasons for confining the inquiry’s scope to England and Wales. The Hart inquiry in Northern Ireland8 and the Oldham inquiry in Jersey are already underway, while the Scottish Government have announced their own inquiry into child abuse, but I shall discuss this with the new chairman. In the event that the geographical scope remains the same .......I wish once more to reassure the House that the Official Secrets Act will not be a bar to giving evidence to this inquiry.’ 9 The mainland UK inquiry led by Lowell Goddard will say Kincora et al is the purview of the Hart inquiry in Northern Ireland inquiry.10  But that inquiry will not have the same powers as that on the mainland UK – its remit to compel the appearance of people and documents extends only to Northern Ireland – and thus the state’s attempt to conceal the Northern Ireland events continues.11 And it remains to be seen if  ‘State and non-State institutions’ in the terms of reference will extend to businesses such as the Elm House Guesthouse and informal networks.
2: Conflicts of interest In recent decades commercial influence has seeped into every area of public life, eroding the significance of the crucial concept of conflict of interest. Politicians, civil servants and influential advisors move unimpeded through the ‘revolving door’ between industry and officialdom, or operate on both sides at once. Journalists routinely provide plugs and recommendations in exchange for money or other benefits. The bar for establishing a conflict has, where possible, been raised so as to require proven bias. Since neither the person 8   9   10  And events of Jersey will left to the Oldham inquiry. See . 11  See subject to the conflict nor their colleagues are likely explicitly to accept that actual bias is in the offing, we increasingly hear that a conflict of interest is merely ‘apparent’, and thus may be ignored. The great and the good close ranks to salute the unquestionable integrity of such ‘eminent’ characters, while media commentators mostly prefer not to rock the boat. So it was with Butler-Sloss and Woolf. Barrister Barbara Hewson’s article, cited above, refers dismissively to Woolf’s ‘alleged’ conflict of interest. Hewson did not deny that Woolf is on friendly terms with the Brittans. To speak of an ‘alleged’ or ‘apparent’ conflict of interest, then, is absurd. Conflict of interest is a procedural concept: it does not depend on demonstrating any actually operative bias. In fact it is precisely to avoid the difficulty and embarrassment involved in anticipating or proving corruption or subconscious prejudice that the concept has come to play the role it does. The legal maxim that no-one may judge his own case does not amount to the assertion that all judges are corrupt: it recognises that there is always some potential for illicit bias in the exercise of official duties, and simply seeks to avoid situations in which such bias may arise or appear to arise. To identify whether a person is subject to a conflict of interest, we compare two things: the potential influence of their professional decisions and actions, and the range of their interests. If the two overlap, there is a conflict of interest. Interests are defined on an objective basis, informed by a general understanding of human behaviour. Such interests include the possibility of financial gain, and, as in these cases, the avoidance of potential damage to the reputation of a family member or friend.
Conflict of opinion While dismissive of Butler-Sloss’s and Woolf’s conflicts of interest, Hewson did suggest that her ideological opponent the National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), ‘which’, she said, was ‘effectively leading the first investigation’, was far more ‘conflicted’ than Butler Sloss. Because the NSPCC campaigns on issues relating to child
welfare, it too – or rather its head, Peter Wanless – is ‘conflicted’ in dealing with one of the many disconnected inquiries into these issues. Even allowing that Wanless is anything more than a careerist ‘safe pair of hands’, this accusation is doubly inapt. When an official inquiry is made into the powerful and wellconnected, the primary risk is of a false negative, rather than a false positive. A quietist chairperson can exclude or ignore testimony; an overzealous one is not able to conjure extra evidence out of thin air. An unjustified positive finding would be very hard to put forward. Extraordinary scrutiny would be applied; grounds would have to be given; a heavy burden of proof would be imposed. By contrast, common sense and experience both tell us that a report may exonerate the powerful in spite of the evidence actually heard. No matter how loud and welljustified, cries of ‘whitewash’ do not form part of the official record. More importantly, a normative belief is not an interest. Hewson did not make this clear, but she was not here talking about a conflict of interest, but instead the murkier issue of apparent bias. She did not make clear what stance espoused by Wanless might have tended to disqualify him from chairing the inquiry. Presumably the idea is not just that ‘balance’ requires that we find someone neutral between the interests of vulnerable children and those who seek to dominate and abuse them.
The interest of justice The appeal to personal opinion as a disqualifying factor was notably on show in 1999, for example, when a panel in the highest public British court, then known as the Law Lords, adjudged another of their number, Leonard Hoffmann, to be subject to a conflict of interest in finding that Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile, should be extradited. The finding was based on Hoffman’s connections to Amnesty International. While the panel accepted that there was no precedent for treating such connections as a disqualifying
‘interest’, they decided, with little substantive argumentation, to treat them as such. The panel was thus able to disqualify Hoffman automatically, without having to make and substantiate an accusation of illicit bias. One of their number, Brian Hutton, nominally joined the unanimous concurrence with the panel’s leading judgement, but was willing to go further. Rather than discreetly nodding in the direction of a fictional objective interest, he preferred to enunciate a more sweeping doctrine: ‘I am of the opinion that there could be cases where the interest of the judge in the subject matter of the proceedings arising from his strong commitment to some cause or belief or his association with a person or body involved in the proceedings could shake public confidence in the administration of justice as much as a shareholding (which might be small) in a public company involved in the litigation.’ The only point of introducing the phrase here italicised is to assert that Hoffman’s opinions about justice and international law could be treated as an automatically disqualifying ‘interest’. Hutton’s statements to this effect did not however form the basis of the panel’s judgement, and are at the very least eccentric by the usual standards of natural justice. This is perhaps even clearer when one recalls that the opinion in question was that, in the words of the Nuremberg tribunal: ‘The principle of international law which, under certain circumstances, protects the representatives of a state cannot be applied to acts condemned as criminal by international law.’  There is another notable case in which conflict of interest principles have been artificially tightened, against the prevailing trend towards laxity. In 1996, the Belgian investigating judge Jean-Marc Connerotte was removed from an investigation into the Marc Dutroux affair.
Prejudiced against murder? Dutroux was found to have a well-designed secret dungeon in his basement, in which he had held captive two abducted children whose bodies he buried at another of his properties. An accomplice reported that the girls had been kidnapped to order. The investigation led to a businessman and regular face at sex parties, Jean Michel Nihoul. A witness, Regina Louf, implicated Dutroux and Nihoul in organised sadistic child abuse involving blackmail and large sums of money. She gave detailed and checkable testimony to police describing the involvement of judges, a prominent banker and a top politician. The case featured threats to judges, witnesses dropping like flies, grotesque smear campaigns against witnesses and the removal of investigators. Nihoul openly boasted to journalists that he was ‘the monster of Belgium’ but had impunity because he had information on too many politicians and other prominent figures. Dutroux himself claimed that highly-placed individuals were complicit in his crimes. Connerotte was the only judge who made much progress in investigating the matter. He was removed when he was found to have a conflict of interest on the grounds that he had attended a fund-raising dinner in support of known victims’ families. Sympathising with the families of children known to have died does not, of course, imply any prejudice as to the question of who killed them. Apparently such sympathy was enough to generate a ‘conflict of interest’. With Connerotte gone, the investigation stalled. Two years later, in 1998, a government inquiry announced that Dutroux had no accomplices in high places. The case was paralysed for another six years before Dutroux was eventually brought to trial in the matter, along with three other accused, including Nihoul, who alone escaped conviction when the jury were unable to reach a verdict on the evidence made available. In stark contrast to these instances, Woolf’s and ButlerSloss’s conflicts of interest were initially indulged by the authorities and supporters such as Hewson. The natural assumption is that the authorities were seeking someone who will be predisposed to find that the allegations are without substance.

Get-out clause There is also a further possibility, which has no doubt occurred to others besides myself. In the Pinochet case, the lead opinion blandly explained: ‘It appears that neither Senator Pinochet nor (save to a very limited extent) his legal advisers were aware of any connection between Lord Hoffmann and AI [Amnesty International] until after the judgment was given on 25 November. Two members of the legal team recalled that they had heard rumours that Lord Hoffmann’s wife was connected with AI in some way. During the Newsnight programme on television on 25 November, an allegation to that effect was made by a speaker in Chile.... On 7 December a man anonymously telephoned Senator Pinochet’s solicitors alleging that Lord Hoffmann was a Director of the Amnesty International Charitable Trust....Senator Pinochet’s solicitors informed the Home Secretary of these allegations. On 8 December they received a letter from the solicitors acting for AI dated 7 December....Mr. Alun Jones Q.C. for the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] does not contend that either Senator Pinochet or his legal advisors had any knowledge of Lord Hoffmann’s position as a Director of AICL until receipt of that letter.’ The conflict of interest in the child abuse case has been widely noted. Simon Danczuk, one of the two Labour MPs responsible for bringing this matter to public attention, was ‘dismayed’ by the discovery of Woolf’s conflict, stating that it rendered her position ‘untenable’. He reluctantly capitulated in the face of government intransigence, unwilling to countenance the further delay involved in waiting for the government to choose yet another candidate – with no guarantee that they would not try the same thing. He remarked: ‘I’m beginning to wonder if [Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May] doesn’t want this inquiry to ever really see the light of day.’ Danczuk was too polite to say so, but quite apart from
the formal conflict of interest, Woolf was inevitably and incorrigibly biased. This is not a spurious ‘bias’ imputed on the basis of principled beliefs or opinion. Quite the opposite: it is the Establishment sense of merited privilege, shorn of all vestige of responsibility by the Thatcherite right. It is exactly the attitude that has led Conservative politicians to close ranks thus far. It is the same sense of entitlement that ends with high-level child-abusers casually playing power games with the bodies and minds of defenceless children.

3: Nothing to Be Done In part 2 I referred to the arguments of the barrister Barbara Hewson. Hewson has another argument, which would bypass all talk of conflict of interest. The inquiry, even were it properly run, would not matter, since it would have little hope of discovering the facts. This is a counsel not so much of despair as of indifference: Hewson, preoccupied as she is with the Spiked doctrine of ‘moral panic’, has already rejected the allegations, as we will see.
Unreliable witnesses Drawing on her background in the document-heavy field of commercial law, Hewson makes the remarkable claim that witness testimony is worthless. If accepted by the criminal courts, this principle would surely reduce the conviction rate to a very low order. The claim is based on a judge’s observation that in commercial disputes, little is to be gained from an attempt to evaluate contested and biased recollections of the fine detail of unminuted negotiations, and that in such circumstances it is preferable to cut the Gordian knot of oral contract and rely on documents (underwritten, of course, by testimony as to their provenance). This kind of consideration does not apply in the criminal field of offences against the person, in which crossexamination is more likely to find inconsistencies, a far wider range of corroborating evidence is generally available, the events being recalled are considerably more memorable and less open to interpretation than some oral representation made in the course of business. Criminal courts do not, except in the case of white-collar offences, generally rely heavily on documents. Hewson is correct to point out that documents in these cases tend to disappear or to be confiscated or shredded. That is certainly a problem so far as some aspects of these cases are concerned. However, dossiers directly relating to sexual abuse are likely to contain written testimony, in some cases at second hand. These can be extremely useful as leads in an investigation, and – notably – as evidence that claims were made at an earlier time rather than recently concocted, as in the case of some of Colin Wallace’s allegations. But they would not normally be admitted as evidence in a criminal trial. The underlying reasons for this are that their provenance may not be clear, and – crucially – their content cannot be subjected to cross-examination. While the degradation of evidence over time is undoubtedly a problem, especially when there is any kind of cover-up, Hewson’s particular argument therefore seems misplaced.
Destroyed files Hewson’s general stance, too, is misguided. An inquiry into those who are in a position to destroy evidence must take account of their power. Time and again, we find whistleblowers’ credible testimony officially rejected because relevant records that might corroborate it are missing. To take one obvious example: when the Brazilian Jean-Charles De Menezes was shot by heavily armed specialist officers on a London Underground railway carriage in 2005, the Metropolitan police reported a fortuitous absence of CCTV coverage. There was apparently no proper investigation into this claim and how such a total blackout could have occurred, and as a result the police were able to force though their own version of events.

In such cases, lack of evidence is often more a pretext for quietism than a genuinely insurmountable impasse. To follow Hewson’s lead in using civil litigation as a model, one might reflect on the legal maxim omnia praesumuntur contra spoliatorem – literally ‘all things are presumed against the destroyer of evidence’. When evidence is missing, we should not simply hand the benefit of the doubt to the person or body who disposed of it. To do so is not only to ignore an important piece of circumstantial evidence, but to follow a policy which rewards cover-ups. Inferences based on apparent motive should not, especially in a fact-seeking inquiry, be ignored: if someone appears to have tried to cover up, that is prima facie evidence that they thought they had something to cover up. Even more obviously, the exact circumstances in which evidence is spoilt must be inquired into thoroughly, rather than disregarded as a fait accompli and an evidential dead end. The issue of spoliation came to the fore in 1996, when Clwyd County Council recalled all publicly held copies of the ‘Jillings report’ into child abuse in North Wales children’s homes. The council’s insurer, then administered by Zurich Mutual, had threatened to void the council’s cover on the grounds that describing the abuse would be a ‘a hostage to fortune’ and tantamount to admitting liability. Reporters saw extracts at the time, one of which disclosed that the same insurer had previously brought similar pressure to bear. As the Independent newspaper reported: ‘...fears by the Municipal Mutual of victims launching legal actions helped to ensure that a full report of an earlier investigation into the abuse was never seen by elected councillors, and was confined to a very small group of senior social services personnel.’ Very soon after, Clwyd Council itself was destroyed, split into three smaller councils. Hewson’s self-fulfilling pessimism about destroyed records does not apply in this case: not all copies of the Jillings Report were in fact destroyed, and a very heavily redacted copy was recently released following a Freedom of Information request.

Dodgy dossier? Hewson is unconcerned about spoliation in the case of the Conservative Leon Brittan. As Home Secretary in 1983, he was handed a file of papers by another Conservative MP, Geoffrey Dickens, an outsider in the party viewed as something of an eccentric. That file, relating to child abuse allegations, is now missing. Stressing the very slightly unconventional aspects of Dickens’s character, Hewson hints that his information may have been pure fantasy. In fact the most eccentric of Dickens’s qualities appears to have been his willingness to violate group norms and blow the whistle, as when he asked in the Commons why former high-ranking diplomat and reputed MI6 officer Peter Hayman, a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) who had been found to have been in possession of child porn, had escaped prosecution and publicity. Hewson is dismissive: ‘Dickens unfortunately did not keep back-up copies of his fascinating files. Their disappearance has been given a sinister spin, though it is far from clear why the Home Office should have been expected to copy and archive Dickens’ papers for him.’ In fact, Dickens did keep a copy at his family home. Since he reported that his constituency home and London flat were both broken into by someone not looking for valuables, it is perhaps unsurprising that the file should have been destroyed after Dickens died in 1995, apparently at the behest of his wife who considered it too sensitive to keep in the house. The ‘sinister spin’ Hewson refers to was perhaps exemplified by the ex-Director of Public Prosecutions, Kenneth Macdonald, who described the disappearance as ‘alarming’ and called for an inquiry. Hewson does not relate that on his third attempt at recalling the story, Brittan accepted that he had written to Dickens assuring him that ‘I am now able to tell you that, in general terms, the view of the Director of Public Prosecutions is that two of the letters you forwarded could form the basis for inquiries by the police and they are now being passed to the appropriate authorities.’ No further information about those police inquiries has, to my knowledge, come to light. In view of all this, we may certainly agree that disappearing documents are a problem – especially, as noted previously, where there is a cover-up in place. But a sensible approach to such destruction of evidence is to dig deeper, and to make ‘spoliation inferences’ where the facts justify them. An over-reliance on documentary exhibits as the gold standard of evidence not only tends to produce false negatives when spoliation has occurred – it can also give rise to false positives. Words on paper have an almost mystical authority for those who seek comfortable certainties – historians find them especially convenient – but a piece of paper cannot be cross-examined. Where there are any grounds for doubt, a document’s provenance, integrity and authorship must be subjected to rigourous forensic examination before its content may be relied upon as fact. Hewson suggests that eyewitness testimony is almost worthless by comparison to documentary exhibits, because it is a potentially inaccurate record, subject to falsification and degradation over time. But she then goes on to dismiss the possibility of using documents in this case, because they have ‘disappeared’! She is wrong on both counts. Not only are there many credible witnesses, not limited to supposed victims of abuse, making consistent, long-standing allegations capable of corroboration, but not all documents have disappeared; and of those that have, the circumstances of their disappearance can help to establish a cover-up and thus complicity.

Is the ‘myth’ true? Hewson, though, does not countenance even the possibility of a cover-up, since it seems she has already decided that there is nothing to cover up. Her article’s subtitle reads: ‘The myth of powerful, protected perverts has been around for decades’.

And ‘myth’ here clearly means something entirely untrue. In the text of her article, Hewson asks, rhetorically: ‘All of this sounds shocking, but is it true?’ Rather than address this issue in any direct way, though, she prefers to take a innuendo-laden detour through the cherry orchard of social history: ‘This latest panic rehashes specific aspects of the moral panics that swept Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in which Dickens was a major player. As Professor Philip Jenkins shows in Intimate Enemies (1992), exposure of spies like the homosexual Anthony Blunt helped shape a popular image of upper-class perverts [sic] from public schools, where homosexuality was rampant, and whose colleagues concealed their activities. Jenkins called this a powerful weapon in populist rhetoric, used to attack the ruling elite. MPs from Jeremy Thorpe to Harvey Proctor were accused of deviant sexuality [sic] and criminal activity.’ No doubt some people regard anything that might be used to attack the ruling class as ipso facto beyond the pale. The question, though, remains: are they true? Hewson seeks to elicit a blanket, if implicit, ‘no’. But the handful of sneers and smears she offers could deflect only the most incurious and ignorant of readers. Since Hewson brings him up via Jenkins’ plausible-sounding but ultimately irrelevant musings, it is worth noting that it now appears that Anthony Blunt was himself involved in paedophiliac activities connected to the wider network or networks now under investigation, and that he may have been blackmailed on that basis. The ‘latest panic’, as Hewson chooses to frame it, is not, as she suggests, a ‘rehash’. It is unfinished business, which the Conservative Home Secretary has been forced to reopen by the objective facts of the situation, as brought into the open by Labour politicians. The Conservative establishment will try to sweep the central issue under the carpet, but there will be no hiding the elephant-sized lump it makes.
Unknown knowns The internet is awash with relevant material. Predictably, there is a quantity of anti-gay and hyper-conspiratorial ranting. There also appear to be planted smears (for example, a heavily distorted account of a cancelled police investigation into reports of abuse and the discovery of human remains at a children’s home at Haut-de-la-Garenne) and the odd strawman hoax (a probable instance being certain claims made against Conservative ex-Chancellor Kenneth Clarke), aimed at muddying the waters and discrediting well-founded claims. But none of this can now entirely drown out the trickle of credible accounts of abuse and cover-up, including numerous news stories from mainstream media, notably the Mirror newspaper and Exaro news website, amply supplemented by blogs such as ‘Spotlight On Abuse’, ‘the Needle’ and ‘Desiring Progress’. Still, none of this is enough to bring a full appreciation of the known facts and their clear implications to critical mass among the general public, or to convince those in the chattering class who are too comfortable, too fearful or too corrupt to face the unfolding truth. Will ‘child abuse fatigue’ kick in? Will the cumulative effect of a few high-profile retractions and one or two spectacularly failed investigations combine to slow what at present seems an unstoppable momentum? Will tame inquiries tactfully avert their eyes from members of the elite and from the security and secret services? Quite possibly. If so, though, this will join the list of unknown knowns, facts tacitly and imperfectly understood, which assert themselves as a sense of distrust, sometimes diffuse but always corrosive, in British society. Paedophile panics may well have happened in the past – claims of widespread ritual satanic abuse based on dubiously ‘recovered’ memories would appear to have had this character. But witch-hunts literal or metaphorical tend to arise as the misdirected expression of other anxieties, and are always directed at the relatively powerless. When the officially unarticulated but deeply unsettling facts are real instances of organised child abuse, and the suspected culprits are untouchable, who knows how the resulting societal angst will manifest itself? The British working class is already groaning under the strain of punitive and politically-motivated ‘austerity’ measures. Rioting has flared up across England. The Scots, understandably, have come close to secession from the UK. Mistrust is rife, and multiplied by increasingly desperate infighting between factions of the ruling elite, all seeking to distract from their own misdeeds by exposing those of others. The City of London, under fire as never before, appears to have mounted a diversionary attack on politicians by releasing the shabby details of their expenses claims. The politicians capitalised on the ‘phone hacking’ scandal to attack the press. The Conservative press attempted a stunningly audacious pre-emptive counterattack on Labour politicians by spuriously accusing them of having supported the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange in the 70s. As a result of all this, the public is beginning to get a sense, albeit hazy and misdirected, of pervasive corruption throughout the ruling institutions of British society. The Conservative government is falling back on the ‘security’ agenda, trying desperately to convince a jaded British public that the civil wars in Iraq and Syria somehow pose a threat to Britain. They hope to rekindle the patriotic fervour of the Falklands war to rescue them, just as in 1983, from the electoral effect of brutal laissez-faire policies. But all they are doing is exacerbating the deep unease in British society.

 A lid may yet be kept on the establishment child abuse network long enough for attention to wane, but public disquiet will continue to simmer underneath. The ultimate beneficiaries of such pent-up anxiety are, perversely, likely to be the proponents of far-right ideology, in particular the fauxpopulists of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) whose purposely ill-defined position is tailor-made to capitalise on ill-defined grievances. Amid all this mistrust and doubt, the Conservative Party may yet slip through seemingly unscathed. If so, the stench
will linger in the air at Westminster for years to come.

 Author’s note: This article is a snapshot of a work in progress. The sheer volume of material available means many aspects of the story, in particular recent developments, could not be covered.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Is Lord Hutton the Judge who covered up State involvement in the murder of Dr Kelly a paedophile ?

Is Lord (Brian) Hutton a paedophile?

Below is the text of a letter sent to the Child Abuse Inquiry today by email relating to long-standing allegations that Lord (Brian) Hutton is a paedophile.

Some months ago I had written to both the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

Each of the PSNI and the HIAI has indicated they will investigate.



6th June 2015

Child Abuse Inquiry
[By email]

Dear Sir/Madam,
Is Lord (Brian) Hutton a paedophile?
I am writing to ask that the Child Abuse Inquiry conduct an investigation of the retired Law Lord, Lord (Brian) Hutton.
The allegations of which I am aware are to the effect that Lord Hutton was a paedophile in Northern Ireland.
In that context I enclose copies of my letter of 5th November 2014 to Chief Constable Hamilton of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and my letter of the same date to Sir Anthony Hart of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry which explain the background, as I understand it.
You will see from those letters that the allegations of paedophilia relating to Lord Hutton trace back to a former senior BBC executive and were extant at least as far back as 2007.
As stated in my letters I considered it best that any attempt to trace the source of the allegations regarding Lord Hutton to their source should be carried out by PSNI and/or HIAI.
I received acknowledgements from both the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.
Paedophile activities on the mainland?
The allegations which I reported to PSNI/HIAI relate to alleged paedophile activity by Lord Hutton in Northern Ireland.
Given that Lord Hutton was resident in Great Britain while a student at Oxford and, I assume,  for at least some of the time following his appointment as a Law Lord the possibility exists that he was active as a paedophile within the geographical scope of the Child Abuse Inquiry.
Suspected perversion of the course of justice
In addition, I am concerned that Lord Hutton’s (alleged) paedophilia may have contributed to grave and very possibly deliberate failures in the Hutton Inquiry.
I became aware of the allegations of paedophilia regarding Lord Hutton only shortly before I wrote in November 2014 to Chief Constable Hamilton and Sir Anthony Hart.
However, long before that I had reached the conclusion that Lord Hutton had perverted the course of justice with respect to the subject matter of the Hutton Inquiry, including concealment of the true facts relating to the suspicious death of Dr. David Kelly in July 2003.
See, for example, my blog post of 30th March 2011 here:
Today I would have a different emphasis regarding the evidence suggesting that Lord Hutton perverted the course of justice.
It remains my view that the Hutton Inquiry was not merely a whitewash but was also a fraud.
I believe that Lord Hutton perverted the course of justice in perpetrating that fraud on the British public.
Others party to perverting course of justice
I believe that other public officials were party to the perceived perversion of the course of justice with respect to the death of Dr. Kelly, both during the Hutton Inquiry and subsequently.
I will briefly list them here:
  1. Former Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page, who gave false evidence to the Hutton Inquiry about fingerprint evidence
  2. Chief officers of Thames Valley Police in 2010 – Sara Thornton (now Chair of the National Police Chiefs Council), Francis Habgood (now Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police) and Helen Ball (now a Deputy Assistant Commissioner with the Metropolitan Police Service).
  3. Dominic Grieve QC MP, former Attorney General
  4. Kevin McGinty, former legal adviser to the Attorney General (now Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service)
Given the uncertainty as to whether the Child Abuse Inquiry will wish to follow up Lord Hutton’s alleged paedophile activity into the area of suspected perversion of the course of justice I do not elaborate here on the perceived criminal misconduct by Dominic Grieve and others.
Police Investigation Required
I believe that a thorough Police investigation is required of the conduct of the individuals listed above, whether or not the perceived misconduct is or is not related to Lord Hutton’s (alleged) paedophilia.
Please advise whether or not the Police team supporting the Child Abuse Inquiry will or will not look at the perceived criminal misconduct of Mr. Grieve and the others listed above.
If the Police team do not wish to investigate these serious matters I anticipate I will make a separate report of suspected crime to the relevant Police forces.
Making a statement
I am willing to make a statement to the Police regarding the matters raised in this letter. I am willing to do so, given reasonable notice, at a Police station convenient to my home.
I have a considerable volume of documentation to support my suspicions regarding Mr. Grieve, Mr. McGinty and others which will take a little time to collate in preparation for any interview by the Police.
In this context I have no objection to your sharing my contact information with the Police team associated with the Child Abuse Inquiry.
Distribution
This letter is a public document.
I am placing a copy on my UK Child Abuse Inquiry blog here:
Actions requested of you
I ask that you promptly acknowledge receipt of this letter and provide me with an appropriate reference number.
I ask you to give careful consideration as to whether the Child Abuse Inquiry should investigate Lord Hutton with respect to possible child abuse in Great Britain.
You will, no doubt, wish to liaise with the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry with respect to their investigations into the allegations relating to Lord Hutton’s activities in Northern Ireland.
Please confirm that the Child Abuse Inquiry will do so.
I also ask that you make clear whether the Police team will investigate the perceived perversion of the course of justice by Lord Hutton as well as that by Dominic Grieve and others.
Yours sincerely


(Dr) Andrew Watt
Enc.
Letter of 5th November 2014 to Hart Inquiry
Letter of 5th November 2014 to PSNI