The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[Magda Hassan]

Yep, my exact thoughts on this too. Excellent timing to detract public attention away from the real story of power paedos. The lengths they will go to, simply to avoid the truth coming out and damning them all.

After all it is 600 of them caught! 600! What's a couple of dead MP's hey? Nothing to worry about. It is all under control.

[David Guyatt]

Good luck with getting that amnesty. So many police are paedophiles anyway, I just can't see it happening. Plus whoever is ultimately chosen to head the new cover-up-cum-whitewash-cum-lead-you-up-the-garden-path "inquiry", the last thing they're going to do is decree an amnesty. Goodness grief.

This is Blighty after all, where buggering young boys starts at public school and is institutionalized after that. By the time the soon to be leaders of the future get to university, boys bottoms are daily fare. It's all up hill from there.

Cyril Smith: 'evidence of sex abuse' was overruled CPS report shows

Detective told chief constable in 1970 there was prima facie evidence of guilt but DPP advised against prosecution

• Rajeev Syal
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 July 2014 20.53 BST
  

Newly released documents on Cyril Smith, above, indicate another cover-up, claims Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex

A senior detective investigating sex abuse claims against Cyril Smith told the force there was prima facie evidence of the late MP's guilt in 1970 but this claim was overruled, newly released documents show.
The detective's report in 1970 to the chief constable of Lancashire said the Liberal MP would have been "at the mercy of a competent counsel".
The 14-page report also revealed "veiled threats" from a friend of Smith, thought to be a fellow senior Liberal. The director of public prosecution later advised against prosecuting. Smith died in 2010 aged 82.
The documents were released on Wednesday night by the Crown Prosecution Service following a ruling by the information rights tribunal.
Simon Danczuk, the Rochdale Labour MP, who first named Smith as a child abuser, said that the documents were another indication of the cover-up that had protected Smith from being disclosed as a paedophile.
"This shows that police officers were certain of his guilt," Danczuk said. "If they had been allowed to do their job they would have saved many more boys from being abused. We know that Cyril went on to abuse many more boys at Knowl View residential school, Elm guest house, and other places, during the 70s and 80s."
The detective, whose name has been redacted from the report, was investigating allegations of sex abuse from eight young boys, six of whom who had been at the privately run Cambridge House care home in Rochdale. The home closed in 1965.
Smith was interviewed by the detective superintendent, who reported to the former chief constable William Palfrey that it seemed "impossible to excuse [Smith's] conduct".
The officer wrote: "Over a considerable period of time, while sheltering beneath a veneer of responsibility, he has used his unique position to indulge in a series of indecent episodes with young boys towards whom he had a special responsibility."
He said Smith was "most unimpressive during my interview with him … he had difficulty in articulating and even the stock replies he proffered could only be obtained after repeated promptings from his solicitor".
He added: "Were he ever to be placed in the witness box, he would be at the mercy of any competent counsel … prima facie, he appears guilty of numerous offences of indecent assault."
The officer also interviewed a magistrate who told him that in his "personal opinion" he "sincerely hoped that this matter was not prosecuted before the court". The Guardian understands that the magistrate was a prominent Liberal. "In my opinion, as a justice of the peace, it is not court worthy," he told the officer.
Separately, it was claimed on Wednesday that former police officers should be given amnesty to allow them to speak without fear about what they knew of paedophile networks operating in Westminster 30 years ago,
Chris Hobbs, a special branch officer who spent 32 years with the Metropolitan police, said retired colleagues should be given protection to encourage them to reveal what they had learned, and that many would be carefully considering the consequences of speaking out on what they knew of the allegations.
Hobbs told Sky News it was clear that quite a few officers, from the rank of commissioner and chief constable to detective level, would know something about allegations of child abuse among politicians three decades ago. An amnesty would be the only way to encourage former officers to come forward and speak out, he said.
Hobbs said: "I think it would help it would help set officers' minds at rest if there was some form of protection there for them, that they weren't suddenly going to subject to the criminal investigations for possibly just doing what they were told.
"I suspect there will be a substantial number of police officers, not huge numbers, but a substantial number, that will know something and will be thinking to themselves, 'shall I come forward, dare I risk it, or, if I keep my head down, will the storm pass me by?'"

[David Guyatt]

from the Needle:

BBC Radio, 15th July 2014 r Liz Davies and David Tombs.

A very interesting interview with David Tombs is followed by an extraordinary interview with Dr Liz Davies in which she reveals a great deal more than you might of been aware of before.

This is a must listen' interview.

<font color="#333333"><span style="font-family: Georgia">

[R.K. Locke]

Bill Maloney and Chris Fay are apparently in the process of setting up a "People's Enquiry".

[David Guyatt]

Bill Maloney and Chris Fay are apparently in the process of setting up a "People's Enquiry".

An interesting thought. The problem will be how they obtain evidence - other than eye witness testimony. It could prove counter productive I suppose, but let's wait and see.

[Magda Hassan]

Did Jimmy fix it for Jill? I could never buy the Serbian hit man story.

EXCLUSIVE: Tragic Jill Dando probed BBC PAEDO ring

MURDERED TV presenter Jill Dando tried to expose a paedophile ring involving "big-name" BBC stars, a former colleague has claimed.
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By Don Hale/Published 20th July 2014
TRAGEDY: Jill Dando told bosses about claims of sexual abuse [BBC]

According to the retired BBC worker, the Crimewatch host was told that DJs, stars and corporation staff were involved in organised abuse.
But when she tried to get bosses to investigate the alleged ring and other abuse complaints inside the BBC "no one wanted to know", the former friend said.
Undeterred, Jill is said to have then raised the claims with senior management in the mid-1990s but no investigation took place.
The TV host was shot dead a few years later on the doorstep of her London home. The 37-year-old's murder remains unsolved.
Her ex-colleague, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "I don't recall the names of all the stars now and don't really want to implicate anyone but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.
"I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.
"Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some fellow female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted.
"Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye."

"There seemed to be a policy of turning a blind eye"
Source

The source told how female colleagues went to Jill, who was then one of the best-known faces on TV.
She said: "I think it was in the mid 1990s, Jill was working on almost everything then including Crimewatch and Holiday.
"She was seen as the face of the BBC and a magnet for women with problems.
"She compiled a file of complaints but she was not really an investigative journalist, just a presenter.
"She passed the information to someone else and they gave it back. No one wanted to know.
"I do remember that she gave a file to senior management. I don't think she heard any more.
"Other women who complained told Jill they didn't want to risk their careers by making official statements against individuals as they would lose their jobs and that bosses seemed to ignore it.
"We all decided the best way was to keep our heads down and to always try to go somewhere with a colleague."
The BBC said it would look into the allegations but added: "We have not seen anything to substantiate these claims." Presenters Liz Kershaw and Miriam O'Reilly have both made allegations of sexual harassment at the BBC.
After Jimmy Savile was exposed as a paedophile and serial sex attacker in 2012, fellow BBC presenter Sally Jones spoke of how he had tried to grope her in a lift.
She confi ded in Jill after the attack, adding that the Crimewatch host said "she had had to fend off plenty of unwelcome advances herself".
Sally said Jill told her Savile was "just a dirty old perv".
Jill was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham in 1999.
Barry George was found guilty of her murder in 2001 but his conviction was quashed in 2008.
Jill joined a campaign to help children spot paedophiles the year before she died.

[David Guyatt]

From The Needle:

Beware The Backlash: The Media And The Politics Of Paedophila

I won't stoop to counter the slurs and smears cast upon Tim Tate in the last couple of days.
I'll just give him a voice.
I can only hope that those with ears to listen pay heed. Certainly anyone who really cares about this issue should.
BEWARE THE BACKLASH: THE MEDIA AND THE POLITICS OF PAEDOPHILIA
By Tim Tate

"We are at a vital crossroads.
The coming weeks and months will determine the course of how paedophilia is investigated and how children can be protected from those who seek sexually to abuse them.
For the first time in a generation the public is being relentlessly bombarded with stories alleging the existence of VIP paedophile rings, cover-ups (both governmental and institutional) and accounts of men and women of the abuse they suffered as children.
This very public pressure both in the mainstream press and in social media has forced the government to announce official enquiries into historic abuse and how the problem is presently dealt with.
We have been here before. And there are lessons which need to be heeded from past experience.
I have spent a quarter of a century making documentaries and writing books about the sexual abuse of children. It has not been easy. Not for the obvious reason that this is a miserable subject which inevitably leaves its mark, but for the less-recognised problem that our society has, in general, a preference for turning its eyes from the problem and when unable to do so all too frequently seeks a way to believe that accounts of child sexual abuse are in some way made up, exaggerated or maliciously prompted by outsiders.
Cast your mind back across those 25 years. Cleveland, Nottingham, Rochdale each began in a blitz of screaming headlines about the appalling abuse of children, and collapsed under a sustained and vicious backlash (often by those newspapers which had so willingly published the original stories) suggesting that the abuse was a "myth" or a "moral panic".
And in this noise of claim, counter-claim and recrimination, children's voices get drowned out. Worse, the comfort and promise of being protected is reneged on: the adult world rights itself and once again allows the needs of victims to be swept back under the carpet.
And there is a consistent factor in this: lazy, shoddy and cynical journalism.
We tend to be complacent about the role of the press and the media in this country. We somehow allow ourselves to believe that it is not terribly important. But it is.
How (and whether) the public gets to know about abuse is entirely dependent on the behaviour of the media. If Cleveland being a glaring example the newspapers and television collectively decide that the much-hyped allegations of abuse were untrue, that is exactly what the public will be led to believe. The fact again, see Cleveland that the evidence shows the complete opposite is neither here nor there: that traditional media mantra "never let the truth get in the way of a good story" is all-powerful.
Nor is it only the public which can be misled: the lessons of the past show that the police, the social services departments, the courts and the judiciary are equally pushed by the press to a (pre-)fabricated conclusion. In Cleveland, for example, one judge sitting in a case to determine the fate of a child whose social services record showed ample evidence of risk, announced that he could not help but be influenced by what he read in the press. Hardly surprising, then, that courts across the region simply stopped working and the children's protection was left to ad-hoc deals worked out between opposing barristers.
For Cleveland read Nottingham, read Rochdale. In each case it proved easier to shoot the messengers whether social workers, paediatricians or the children themselves than face up to the painful truth. And what made it easier ? Shoddy, lazy, cynical journalism.
I have been one of those working sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes in the press or via television news to build up the head of pressure which has forced this government to hold new enquiries. Others have done as much and more. All of us have patiently and carefully sought out witnesses, sources and those with a story which needs to be heard. We have then done that old-fashioned thing: sought confirmatory evidence or where appropriate evidence which undermines or disproves what we have been told. No supporting evidence ? Then no publication.
But there are others who as in previous times don't bother. To them, it's open season a rolling news story that obviates the need for careful journalism. Social media blogs, and Twitter accounts carelessly publish rumour as fact and half-facts as gospel truth.
But it's not just the outer reaches of the democratised public discourse.
Exaro News run by a rag-tag collection of soi-disant ¬investigative journalists has promoted itself ceaselessly as the main source of truth about historic sexual abuse. Its editor is interviewed repeatedly on national television and quoted in mainstream newspapers.
Unfortunately, Exaro is also one of the most prominent offenders in publishing and then hyping inaccurate and over-sensational stories. Its story this weekend about the audio tape it acquired of a conversation between a former customs officer and a journalist [transcript published elsewhere on this blog] makes claims and deductions about a former government minister that are to my certain knowledge simply false. Worse, they obscure the real evidence which indicate that the man needs to be properly investigated.
Why does this matter ? Because these over-hyped, inaccurate and sensational stories will if history repeats itself (and it will) cause a vicious backlash which will put back child protection (and the investigation of paedophilia) for years to come.
We can't afford this. We must not allow it to happen. No government ever wants the truth about child sexual abuse to be uncovered: if the scale and impact of it are fully realised vast sums of new public money will have to be devoted to combatting it.
This is the politics of paedophilia. And my lot my brothers in this vital trade of journalism play with it like a careless infant with a cheap toy. That is irresponsible. And it's plain wrong."

I've always found Exaro to be at the spearpoint of outing paedophilia - but what do I know really?

[Magda Hassan]

What next for the Inquiry into Organised Child Abuse?

Since Butler-Sloss stepped down, all has gone rather quiet and the media has moved on to other stories. This can only be a temporarily lull and we can rely on the fact that there will be activity behind the scenes in the search for a replacement chair. It is a positive sign that we have learnt, for instance, that no chair will be appointed without consultation with the 7 MP's who put the case to Theresa May for an Inquiry into Organised Child Abuse. Both the person of the chair and the remit of the inquiry are crucial to establishing the truth. Too many Inquiries have focussed on the performance of professionals and child protection arrangements and have avoided questions about whether or not children and adults were abused and whether or not the perpetrators had been brought to justice. It is also essential to include scrutiny of the role of the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts as final arbiters of decision-making. Already, we have learnt that it is not the intention of this Inquiry to consider individual cases. This is a seriously negative message to give to victims who were about to come forward with their specific accounts and this decision must be challenged. It is vastly different from the suggestion by the 7 MPs about what the Inquiry needed to address.
Experience of the inquiry process itself tells us that it rarely achieves justice for victims. It is a tried & tested instrument to allay public disquiet and has been likened to trying to learn about health via a visit to the mortuary. Some people do benefit mainly those who service the process and help to maintain the status quo. For example, several of the barristers in the Cleveland inquiry such as the counsel to the Inquiry, Matthew Thorpe and Sally Cahill who represented Cleveland police, have gone on to become high court judges.
We do support the need for an Inquiry to investigate the many cover-ups at all levels and to examine and expose the way in which child sexual abuse became embedded within political systems. However, we also know that it is essential to establish a multi- agency investigation team to ensure that evidence which suggests that current children are at risk leads to action to protect those children and to prosecute and convict the perpetrators. This team must be established in parallel to the Inquiry and be kept fully informed at every step of the process.

Heather Bacon (Former Consultant Psychologist, North Tees Health Authority. Witness to the Cleveland Inquiry)
Sue Richardson (Former Child Abuse Consultant, Cleveland Social Services Department. Witness to the Cleveland Inquiry)
Marjorie Orr (Accuracy About Abuse)
http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/20...ild-abuse/

[Magda Hassan]

Jill Dando murder witness comes forward to claim detectives IGNORED his evidence

• Jul 21, 2013 00:01
  
• By Nick Owens
  

Barry Lindsey says he was driving past the Crimewatch presenter's home when he saw her looking terrified as her killer confronted her

A vital witness believed to be the last person to see Jill Dando alive moments before her doorstep murder has come forward to claim that detectives IGNORED his evidence.
Barry Lindsey today reveals he was driving past the Crimewatch presenter's home when he saw her looking terrified as her killer confronted her.
He considered intervening because she seemed so frightened, and hit his brakes. But he drove on only to hear the shot that killed her as he turned out of her road.
But when Mr Lindsey distressed by what had happened gave police a detailed description of the man Jill, 37, had been arguing with, he says they brushed it aside because they were obsessed with nailing Barry George, later wrongly convicted of her 1999 murder.
Mr Lindsey, now a 61-year-old grandfather, says: "I told officers they needed to find a man with olive skin, dark hair and who looked like he was of Mediterranean origin.
"But straight off, they said, We are looking at a local guy over this murder. He is called Barry George'. They asked if I knew him and described what he looked like. But I told them, That's not the man I saw I am 100 per cent sure of it'.
"As soon as those words left my mouth I felt like the police didn't want to listen any more. The way they acted really took me by surprise."
After giving the officers a statement, Mr Lindsey never heard from the police again. Weeks later they arrested their prime suspect. Mr George, 53, was convicted of Jill's murder and served eight years before being freed on appeal.

Philip Coburn
Witness: Eye-witness Barry In an exclusive Sunday Mirror interview last week, he told how the turmoil of the case had
left his life in tatters. And after reading the
emotional account, Mr Lindsey decided to end his years of silence over a day he says will
haunt him forever. Yesterday he revisited the spot where the TV star was killed and relived what happened. It is the first time he has been back since the shooting on April 26, 1999.
That morning the father of five was driving down Gowan Avenue in Fulham, South West London, in a green Toyota car. The retired print worker, who lived locally, was heading to Wimbledon to drop off the vehicle for a friend.
He says: "As I was driving along I glanced to my left and saw a woman arguing with a man.
"I hit the brakes, stopped in the middle of the road and looked through the back window. I will never forget the look on her face. It was one of absolute terror her face had gone as white as the coat she was wearing.
"I considered getting out of the car but something in my head said, don't do it Barry'. A few years before, I had got involved in a domestic in the street and ended up in a fight with the man *involved. I wound up in court. I didn't want that to happen again.
"I looked one final time and saw her standing with her back to her front door. He was in front of her with his back to the road. I could see he had dark hair and looked Mediterranean."

PA
Day of death: Jill on CCTV Mr Lindsey drove on. Then, as he turned left out of Gowan Avenue, he heard a gunshot.
"It could not have been anything else," he says. "It was louder than a firework or a car backfiring. Instinctively, my foot hit the accelerator and I drove forward as fast as I could."
The incident preyed on his mind for the rest of the day.
"When I got home that night, I flicked on the TV and saw the story about Jill Dando. I don't watch TV that often so I had no idea who she was. But straight away I said to my wife, I saw that woman today'. As I looked at the picture of her on the screen my blood ran cold."
A retired printer, Mr Lindsey contacted a journalist he knew who was *reporting on the case to reveal what he had seen. A short time later he was visited at home by two detectives investigating the Dando murder.
"I told the officers everything I had seen," he says. "Within a few minutes they mentioned the name Barry George to me.
"They said he was a local guy who they were looking at in connection with the murder. I had seen pictures of him in the newspapers and told the officer there was no way that was the person I saw. For a start Barry George looked two stone heavier than the man I saw that morning."
Officers then took Mr Lindsey to the murder scene where he repeated his account. "They kept asking again and again about Barry George," he says. "They seemed frustrated when I said they needed to be looking for someone else."
Mr Lindsey was surprised he never heard from police again. And it is even more surprising given the account provided by one witness at Barry George's first trial. Helen Scott told the Old Bailey she noticed a man also of *Mediterranean appearance with slightly olive skin, looking down towards Gowan Avenue the night before Jill died. It raises the possibility that she saw the same man described by Mr Lindsey hanging around Jill Dando's home ahead of the murder.
Mr Lindsey says: "I expected the police to at least call back to take a second statement after Barry George was arrested. But I heard nothing.
"Eventually Barry George was charged and one TV news report even mentioned a man in a Range Rover who had seen an altercation on the morning she died. Presumably they were referring to me, but I never heard from the police again so I can't say for sure. In the end I did start to question myself and what I might have seen that day. But deep down I knew what I saw."
Mr Lindsey, who now lives in Woodford Green, East London, says he is ready to give police a new statement over the murder. "I'd be prepared to meet the police tomorrow," he insisted.
"I don't know what they could now do with my information but I can't see how it would harm their chances of *finding the person who killed that poor woman.
"It is such a tragic waste of a life. And it is really sad that Barry George has also ended up having his own life torn apart."
In his first interview for five years last week, Mr George says police targeted him for the murder because his life was "disposable".
Even when he was cleared at a 2008 retrial, he claims he was followed by officers around the clock and stopped and searched dozens of times before fleeing to Ireland with his sister in fear that he would be "fitted up" again.
He told us: "I hope it's in my lifetime that the real killer is caught. Although I never met Jill Dando she was an innocent woman who was murdered and no person with any conscience could stand there and say they felt no compassion for her and her family."
Despite a £587,000 forensic review, Scotland Yard did not find any new leads and the officers stopped investigating.
Mr George said: "The real killer is out there somewhere and the police aren't looking for him. They needed someone to plug a hole and I was it. They victimised me and my life was disposable."
Eye-witness Mr Lindsey also wants to see justice done and the killer caught.
He says: "I can't help thinking that if the police had listened and looked at other suspects beyond Barry George then Jill Dando's killer may now be in prison. They were clearly under pressure to get a result quickly because she was such a high profile victim. It was clear when I gave my statement that the officers had an idea in their mind of who they thought was responsible.
"I'm not saying what I told that day could have cracked the case but it might have helped lead officers in the right direction.
"I'd be happy to help them in the future in any way I can because I just want the person who did this brought to book."
A spokesman for the Met said yesterday: "The case remains unsolved. As with all unsolved cases any evidence which we are presented with will be thoroughly examined by officers."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jil...es-2071046

[Magda Hassan]

It is good news that someone from MI5 has broken ranks and come forth. I hope there will be other too.

Kincora abuse investigation stopped by MI5 says ex-army officer

The Kincora Boys' Home in east Belfast was at the centre of a child abuse scandal in the 1980s
Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

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A former army intelligence officer has said he was ordered to stop investigating allegations of child sexual abuse at a boys' home in the 1970s.
Brian Gemmell said a senior MI5 officer told him to stop looking into claims of abuse at Kincora Boys' Home in east Belfast.
He said he presented a report on the allegations to the officer in 1975.
In 1981, three senior care staff at the home were jailed for abusing 11 boys.
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Brian Gemmell has called for a new investigation, as Chris Buckler reports

It has been claimed that people of the "highest profile" were connected to abuse at the home.

Mr Gemmell, who worked as an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, has called for a fresh investigation into the home.

He has previously spoken anonymously about his investigations into Kincora, but said he had decided to go public because he feels the allegations need to be investigated again.

The former intelligence officer said that he learned details of what was happening inside the home while gathering information about loyalists.
He said he was told he was running two agents who had close links to Kincora.

'Hostile' However, after presenting his report to a senior MI5 officer, Mr Gemmell said, he was told to cease his investigation.

He said: "I was summoned to go and see him. I went up thinking he was going to be pleased with me.

"He bawled me out. He was rude and offensive and hostile.

"He told me not just to stop any investigation into Kincora, but to drop Royal Flush [an agent he was running]."
Mr Gemmell said Kincora should be investigated again but said "there is not a lot of hope" that it will happen.
"I think there's more hope than there has been in the past. Although there's not a lot, there is more than in the past."

Earlier this month, another former Army officer, Colin Wallace, said any new investigation of Kincora must have access to information from intelligence agencies.

Mr Wallace said he received intelligence in 1973 to say that boys were being abused, but claims some of his superiors refused to pass on the information.