in·sti·gate (
n
st-g
t
)
2. To stir up; foment.
It is said that success has many Fathers whilst failure is an orphan – surely no foundling was so swiftly denounced as ‘no son of mine’ than the grandiosely named Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Founded in 2009, with a £2 million pound donation from that well known Labour benefactor, David Potter, it initially attracted support from such trusted journalistic luminaries as Heather Brooke. Sadly, few of them stuck around, leaving those remaining with all the credibility of their initial interest and none of their experienced oversight. Now even those who share the same building are at pains to point out that this physical proximity doesn’t mean it’s anything to do with them….the animated Dr Jean Seaton on Sky news last night, and this morning, the respected Roy Greenslade.
The author of the infamous Newsnight programme which fed the unfortunate Steven Messham to the ravenous hordes in the same way that the sad figure of Karin Ward was used and abused, shares much in common with the ‘embittered nephew’ – Meirion Jones. Both are investigative journalists who had had stories ‘canned’ for lack of corroborative evidence, who suddenly found that in the present fevered atmosphere whereby even the NSPCC is prepared to denounce Jimmy Savile as ‘probably the most prolific offender’ ever, without a shred of tested evidence, they were able to breath fresh life into their favourite conspiracies, without being troubled by experienced hands demanding balanced reporting and fact checking.
Even the mighty New York Times, whose integrity I had respected up til now, has fallen victim to the mob led meme. Last night it published an exclusive with Deborah Cogger, claiming variously that ’the institution was in thrall to Mr. Savile, a wealthy benefactor whose money it depended on and whose picture was prominently displayed on its walls’, and “They pimped us out,” she said of the teachers at Duncroft. The New York Times might not be in a postion to check out the claim that Jimmy Savile once kissed Deborah and once touched her breasts - but how hard could it be to check whether a State run institution could possibly be ‘dependent’ on Savile’s money, or whether there were indeed ‘teachers’ at Duncroft who were in a position to ‘pimp’ anyone out? The mob would cry that these small details are not as important as ‘hearing the voices of the abused’ – I would disagree; these are the checkable details which could give strength to the voices of the abused.
When a journalist is faced with an uncorroborated account labeling someone as a paedophile, especially when part of the story is that they had neither told their parents nor the police – but have touted the story round several media outlets whilst the alleged perpetrator was alive, only to be told that the story was libelous without corroboration or affidavit, ethics alone should question the morality of running with the story merely on the grounds that the alleged abuser was now dead. News-shite Mark ll attempted to circumnavigate this morass, faced with a victim who was naming a ‘very much alive’ alleged paedophile, by saying nudge-nudge, wink, wink, say no more, look on the Internet…main stream media fact checking by relying on Andrew Marr’s pimply bloggers in their mother’s back room? Truly we have fallen down a rabbit hole.
I am indebted to the reader who sent me a link to this blog. I have no idea who the writer is, but he/she does link to sources, and it is a fascinating tale of a previous moral panic with predictable results. At the height of the ‘all Catholic priests are paedophiles’ meme:
In May 2011, RTE, the Irish state broadcaster ran a report on its Prime Time Programme imaginatively entitled Mission To Prey which alleged that Reynolds had raped a girl during his time as a missionary in Kenya, fathered her child and was paying her financial support. Both mother and child were interviewed by the programme.
Reynolds swore that he was innocent, even offering to take a DNA test before the programme aired to demonstrate conclusively that he wasn’t the father of the child concerned but RTE rejected his offer. It had to be true. Reynolds was a Catholic priest, after all and we all know what they get up to once they strip off their cassocks.
Sometime after the programme had aired and the mob had had its fill of denouncing priestly paedophiles two separate and independent DNA tests confirmed that Father Reynolds was not the father of the child but by then the damage had been done. Reynolds had been removed from his home and parish ministry, his name demolished.
RTE broadcast an apology to Father Reynolds – stop me if this is sounding familiar – and Reynolds went on to win an out of court settlement with the broadcaster.
It is worth reading that blog post in full for an excellent analysis of how this could have come about.
One of the difficulties with this story is that whilst we have six unhappy ladies who have spent years trying to get someone to publish their tale, although are somewhat reluctant to speak privately about it to counsellors or family, a curious anomaly, we hear little if nothing from the hundreds of girls who passed through Duncroft and went on to have happy fulfilling lives. Can I just lay down some facts perchance there are some journalists interested in such boring old fashioned artifacts?
The Oxford English Dictionary tells me that the term ‘teen-ager’ was coined by a sociologist in 1921. It didn’t appear in print as ‘teenager’ until 1941, and was not in common usage in the general media until early 1960. To all intents and purposes, that generation, my generation, that reached their teens in the early 60s, were the first British teenagers. That may not mean anything to the wet behind the ears young journos of today, but it does have a profound significance.
Until ‘teenagers’ were acknowledged, you only had ‘children’ and ‘adults’ – those over 21. The key to the door and all that. Children, particularly girls, were subdivided into ‘good girls’ and bad girls’. That is to acknowledge that we were not the first generation to have had sex before marriage, or to have given birth to children before we were 16, or partaken of drugs, or the myriad other ways in which one could become a ‘fallen woman’ – but we WERE the first generation to be given a chance to step back from that ultimate fate of being a ‘fallen woman’, unmanageable, unemployable, fit only for a life of prostitution. It was a time before Social Services, before flats and maintenance for single Mothers, when maternity benefit was acquired on your husband’s National Insurance – no husband, no money; when rooms were advertised for No Irish, No Blacks, and most unthinkable of all – ‘No unmarrieds’. The pill might have been on sale in 1967 – but for married women, you dorks!
Duncroft was that fledgling opportunity, a unique experiment. A halfway house, a stepping stone between the Father who said ‘never darken my doorstep again’ and an adult world that had you ‘pegged’ before you even entered it. Hundreds, not half a dozen, girls took that opportunity. Went on to train as secretaries; married farmers and Doctors, and plumbers, reared three and four children, have homes full of pictures of the grandchildren, sons and daughters in law, positions as school governors, friends and reputations – and they don’t want to find themselves plastered all over the Sun as former residents of Duncroft.
I could weep for the e-mails I have received over the past couple of weeks, and am humbled by the faith shown in my integrity that so many girls have given me their real name. Not because they wish to contact ITN or BBC4, or get a quick quid from ‘Bella’ magazine – but because they are terrified that someone will name them as a former resident of Duncroft. They want me to watch out for any attempt to name them on this blog. They want to stand up for Duncroft, to counter the disgraceful slurs being put about – but not at the cost of their new lives – and who can blame them? I have removed all those e-mails from my computer, and I give them my word that no one will ever prise those names from my lips. No, not even the police. Go on, jail me if you dare!
Those hundreds of girls, including myself, took the opportunity that a more enlightened age granted them, and made the most of it. A mere half dozen failed to climb back up the slippery slope, and have emerged into middle age as embittered women. Those half dozen, with their tawdry tales of ‘Jimmy grabbed my bottom’ have run full tilt into an age of moral panic, unethical journalism, charity empire building, a dying main stream media, and a couple of unsupervised journalists, to take centre stage in a drama that is threatening our entire information source.
Truly a case of the power of the 1% as the Guardianistas would say.
I speak for the 99%.
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
{ 211 comments }
Anna, again you have hit the nail on the head. The fact that things, conditions, attitudes, hysteria, today are so different from our time (my teenage years were the 50s) that the present generation just do not understand or appreciate what we went through to improve our lives. The very idea that we wanted to better ourselves totally escapes them.
Yes, it was a time of turmoil. The country was recovering from a war but we had pride in ourselves. If there was a chance for improvement we took it, I know I did by being the first in my family to go to university and it appears, from what you say, most of the girls at Duncroft did as well. I can only feel pity for those that appear to have rejected that opportunity.
It would appear that personnel responsibility in this day and age is being replaced by a culture of hysteria fostered by the MSM, including the BBC – how have the mighty fallen. I don’t know if this trend can be reversed, but I do know that if it isn’t the the future is going to be very bleak.
I was frequently told that I didn’t know my place. And she was right. I didn’t. A Children’s Home taught me that.
However, I am still battling to get Comments posted on The Mail, with some slight measure of success since I pointed out that they seemed reluctant to post up any dissent. I have now started a Red Arrow Club which I am pleased to say is growing daily on The Mail.
Elena, I joined that club a long time ago. I consider it a badge of honor to be red arrowed for bucking the stupidity of the young. Us old fogies don’t see the world as the me, me, me generation do.
Ivan, I even Red Arrow myself these days. There’s nothing so grand as being in the top ten worst rated when it comes to bad journalism.
However, I do tend to get in the top ten best rated when it comes to Science Articles, probably because I write a load of rubbish that sounds as though I know what I am talking about.
Elena, Ivan,
I also enjoy being red arrowed in the Wail (which never, ever corrects its mistakes) and have moved on to being moderated and my comments removed because of complaints (only one is needed). One must never appear brighter than the Wail readership. For example, to the recent report of the sacked Wiltshire police custody sergeant (the woman and the cell floor case) whom the court instructed the police force to reinstate, in contracts to the bleats of outrage, I posted the comment “At least he didn’t call her a pleb”. It was not published. Perhaps the Wail, in its attempt to grab American readers, doesn’t allow irony, aka “dry English humor”.
Ah, that explains it. I wondered what had happened to some of my comments that I was fortunate enough to get printed in the first place. What constitutes Abuse, I wonder? Being against The Death Penalty seems to be included. And they definitely don’t like Innocent until Proven Guilty.
But in general, The Mail Commentators are a particularly ignorant lot. And don’t you just love it when a Post is accidentally repeat, and one gets Red Arrows and the other gets Green Arrows. I just add the corresponding colour to each of them. This could become a National Sport, especially as the Comments are often more entertaining than the Articles, and certainly no more or less ill informed.
Elena,
I decided to test the Wail’s moderating of anti capital punishment opinions by commenting that capital punishment hadn’t deterred a burglar from cudgelling a policeman to death in 1862. The burglar was subsequently publicly hanged in Suffolk. It couldn’t have been becauses of my second comment which questioned how society had progress in 150 years if present day coppers wear stab vests on duty.
Elena, the mail science section is a laugh in itself. I think they use people that think they know how to set the TV box to record something and call them a science reporter. The number if simple mistakes they make… and they don’t like being told they are wrong but then I’m talking from having a real science degree as well as an engineering one.
IVAN – “The number if simple mistakes they make…”
Go on, I’ll risk it, (I expect the alarms are going to go off like they do on QI), but was that a deliberate mustake…? ;/
Ah, you are clearly a leading climate scientist then. Were you consulted by the BBC at their Global Warming secret conference?
No, they definitely don’t like my opinions on The Man Made Global Warming codswallop. I always get Red Arrowed for those.
Best post of yours I have seen yet, Anna. You are absolutely right that the young journalists of today have no sense of historical perspective whatsoever and that there are probably large numbers of approved school alumni who have led worthy lives who are unwilling to be indentified with their alma mater. Neither Karin Ward nor Steve Messham are very credible witnesses, and while there is probably SOME truth behind their allegations, the subtle details, such as to what extent they were active participants who may have sought out these sexual experiences is long since buried in the past and can never be known.
Sad but possibly true, but not very politically correct I’m afraid.
Actually I have just spent an hour or so looking at the Waterhouse Report on physical and sexual abuse of children in care in North Wales this evening in which Steve Messham appears as “Witness C.” and even at that time the judge found it almost impossible to believe many of his allegations. A couple of passages that I quote below might be of interest.
Assessment of the evidence of witness C
“The difficulties in relation to the evidence of witness C are simpler but more acute. He became involved with drugs at the age of 15 years in 1986: he has been having treatment for his drug dependency since November 1987 but he still uses drugs. He is also an alcoholic now, in his own words, and he told the Tribunal that at the time of the libel trial he was drinking 15 pints daily as well as ingesting speed and morphine, which he takes orally and by injection. In consequence, he suffers from shakes in the morning and also experiences blackouts. He alleges that his memory is nevertheless unaffected but his history and demeanour are such that no jury would be likely to accept his evidence on an important disputed matter without independent evidence to confirm it.”
AND on the man known as Witness B who was not named on Newsnight.
“Cooke denied all the allegations against him made by B and it is clear that there is now a very strong mutual antipathy between them. He said that he himself was sexually abused by adults when he was young and before and after his 1963 conviction; during his second prison term he underwent therapy and has benefited from it. He first met B when the latter was serving in the army cadets but there was no relationship between them. Later on, he and others observed that B would follow people into the King Street lavatories (in Wrexham) and make a bit of a nuisance of himself, usually with older men. This was at a time when B was living at Bryn Estyn. Cooke and two others approached B and told him not to do it. Cooke said that he and B did not speak to each other for a long time after this incident.”
I have just come across a very interesting item, it seems this is not the first time for the BBC, you would have thought they would have learned. I don’t know how to link to it but I found it on Samizdata.net an article from 1999 by Richard Webster concerning a BBC programme called ‘A Place of Safety’
The same failure to check details, I just can’t believe this has not come up in the press yet.
Carol42,
I think the following links to the Richard Webster article “A Place Of Safety”, that you referred to:
http://www.richardwebster.net/whatthebbcdidnottellus.html
If “Jail” is involved: I would be privileged to be Spartacus.
Little point of being free in a world of lies.
It is also interesting to note that in Karin Ward’s autobiography she describes working at a small factory where she is courted by two young men, one from an impoverished and dysfunctional home and the other the son of the boss from a rather well-off family. So there certainly were chances for upward mobility for the girls at Duncroft, if they took them. Unfortunately Ward freely chose the boy from the slum and had sex with him among the rhododendron bushes in Windsor Great Park.
And there you have it. A woman who, presented with a choice, always seems to have made the wrong one.
I haven’t read her book, but was ‘love’ involved in her choice (over cold practicality?). Just askin.
Doubt it. She doesn’t seem to have experienced much love in her life, sadly.
JM & M
What a couple of unbelievably snooty posts! Girls: given the choice between a lad from ‘an impoverished and dysfunctional home’ (which is not his fault) and ‘the son of the boss from a rather well-off family’ (which he did nothing to deserve either), go for the money!
Pragmatic, perhaps. But hardly principled–surely the character of the lads should matter more? And hardly hardly encouraging for lads like me from modest backgrounds in the 60s who were struggling to make their way. Indeed, nor for working class boys today.
Perhaps this matters not at all to either of you.
I can see your point, but I was responding more to Anna’s point that:
“Duncroft was that fledgling opportunity, a unique experiment. A halfway house, a stepping stone between the Father who said ‘never darken my doorstep again’ and an adult world that had you ‘pegged’ before you even entered it. Hundreds, not half a dozen, girls took that opportunity. Went on to train as secretaries; married farmers and Doctors, and plumbers, reared three and four children, have homes full of pictures of the grandchildren, sons and daughters in law, positions as school governors, friends and reputations…”
… to point out that although Karin Ward had an absolutely terrible start in life with the family she was born into, there were also forks in the road where she might have made different decisions and seized different opportunities. What she describes in her book seems to be that she felt greater sympathy for the boy whose dysfunctional family background resembled her own, and shied away from having to deal with the mother of the boss’s son, because she felt socially inadequate. I haven’t tried to find out any details of her life after Duncroft, but I understand she had several children and that some were taken from her and put into care. Perhaps if there had been more support from the mother-in-law angle, since clearly her own mother was a dead loss, her life might have taken a different direction. Obviously other old Duncroftians took different paths.
Just to continue a bit. My point is not to denigrate Karin Ward or Steve Messham, but to point out that if you are going to do a TV or press story about historical allegations of sex abuse involving famous media personalities or politicians, because you believe that you are bringing to light a very serious and little known problem, then you need to produce witnesses who are reliable, credible, and who don’t have axes to grind.
If the best you can do is to produce a witness who has repeatedly been discredited before, like Steve Messham, your cause will be completely undermined.
Surely if there are 400 people now who have made allegations about Savile, there must be some very credible people among that number. I don’t find it hard to believe that Karin Ward probably gave Jimmy Savile a blowjob in the car at Duncroft, but the story about the orgy in the dressing room at the BBC is more problematical, because heterosexual men are mostly pretty reluctant to have sex in front of other men (or half concealed behind a curtain). If that kind of thing really was going on–and maybe it was, but this was long before the days of Internet porn–you would expect other witnesses to be coming forward with similar stories.
Thanks Jonathan, well said. My boyfriend at the time wasn’t from the middle classes either, so I’m sorry if Robb thought that I thought one man is better than another based on his social standing. It has to do with character, and boys who throw you into the bushes, be they lords of the realm or some good-looking yobbo, aren’t showing you any respect.
It appears from a read-through of her book a while back that she felt safe at Duncroft, but she doesn’t seem to have taken much away from her experience. Nowadays, we have so many 12-step groups and other supportive therapies that would have been very useful at Duncroft.
Hi JM
Fair enough. I haven’t read Karin ward’s book. The greater sympathy she felt for the dysfunctional family background seems understandable. One of the current tropes of UK politics that a cabinet of Eton-educated ‘toffs’ has little understanding of the rest of us. Much truth! This can be overcome by education, inquiry, empathy, and imagination. But it takes effort. More difficult in Karin’s position, but not impossible.
My real interest in all this is trying to sort out the truth. More modestly, what is well-evidenced or plausible from axes that are being ground. I flatter myself that I have a good BS filter. There is less here than many places. Which is why I continue to hover!
It would CLEARLY be wrong to comment on Anna’s post about the New York Times – especially today, as things are changing at the top.
\\
Former BBC director general Mark Thompson is due to start his new job as chief executive and president of the New York Times newspaper.
The NYT appointed the 55-year-old in August, saying his experience in global media made him the “ideal candidate”.
Mr Thompson led the BBC from 2004-2012, overseeing the British corporation’s TV, radio and online services.
He starts amid one of the worst crisis in the history of the BBC, which forced his successor George Entwistle to quit.
Mr Entwistle resigned on Saturday after a Newsnight programme report led to a former Tory treasurer being wrongly accused of child abuse.
Mr Thompson himself faces questions over the BBC’s earlier decision to shelve a Newsnight programme about sex abuse claims surrounding the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile.
The programme was axed while Mr Thompson was still in charge.
\\
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20293418
Thor – that is sheer genius, well done for picking up on that…..
On October 24th the NYT’s public editor was questioning Mark Thompson’s suitability for the job due to the Savile/BBC Newsnight shelving on his watch. Now, not only has his up-and-coming new position been confirmed, they publish an ‘exclusive’ (by two of the NYT’s London hacks) with Deborah Cogger containing a load of BS which has now appeared in other newspapers all over the US and, scary – under ‘Information for Practice – New York University’ http://www.nyu.edu/socialwork/wwwrsw/ Un-effing-believable!!!
BTW Anna your NYT link above appears not to be working…
Fortunately, I don’t think the American public knows or cares what this is all about.
I doubt they do but it’s a little worrying that it should be arbitrarily included in a NYU Web whose Mission Statement is: To help social service professionals throughout the world conveniently maintain an awareness of news regarding the profession… As if an NYT article is ‘the Oracle’. I just went to check the link to it and it must have got passed over by newer posts but if you type Deborah Cogger in the Search her photo comes up (Victims Pop-up) but the Permalink in the title fortunately takes you to a different NYT article ‘Embracing Children for Who They Are’, which appears to be unrelated.
Not their finest hour by a long shot.
“the mighty New York Times, whose integrity I had respected up til now”
Don’t respect them too much, they’ve never disowned Walter Duranty.
AND they run stories by some muppet who believes Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare because it is impossible that some horrid little middle class oik from Stratford could write good stuff. It simply has to be someone rich and aristocratic……
And now one of the Muppets, Elmo, is being accused of child abuse. Or at least Kevin Clash, who is the voice of Elmo. Does this ever end???
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231695/Kevin-Clash-Voice-Sesame-Streets-Elmo-accused-having-sexual-relationship-underage-boy.html
Wisdom comes at a price and over time. it is a curious feature of thye modern world that it places so much emphasis on youth and so little on wisdon, experience and perspective.
Also Anna is quite right to point out the danger of wold and outlandish claims being made on the febrile and self serving modern media world.
Well said. There’s a lot of hysteria and sloppy/knee-jerk journalism about. Here’s another bit of common sense from Max Hastings http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/65285bb0-299a-11e2-a5ca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2BwEnm1Bf
If you’ll forgive me for slipping into the vernacular, you go girl – huzzah!
This series has been a bloody tour de force, a punch in the face of the vested interests of the meeja industry – brought low by shoddiness, indolence, assumption, conjecture and just an overall utter contempt for what could be, should be a noble trade. Jeffrey Bernard isn’t just unwell, he’s bloody furious.
Cheers Anna – all power to your stilo.
DtP
Yep, In Anna we trust.
I’m guessing there was another contributor to the perfect storm which brought about the second Newsnight shipwreck. The guy who was made responsible for it when Rippon and the two suits above him were sidelined from the programme was widely criticised six years ago at the time of the Ipswich murders for confusing the notions of the public being interested in something and reporting it being in the public interest. Add that to subbing out the research to a zealot-driven outside organisation and crash, abandon ship!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2 … rview.html
Possibly disturbing news…
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/exclusive-steve-messham-missing-for-eight-hours/
Remember Dr. Kelly?
Was Dr. Kelly a psychiatrist at Duncroft?
Not in my day, and none of the 70s women have mentioned him, so likely not. Most of the psychiatrists, if not all, were associated with Maudesley Hospital and held staff positions there. What is the connection with Dr. Kelly and Steve? I am sorry he went missing, and I hope he is okay.
Dr. Mason and Dr. Liddell and someone called Dr. Swift. You probably remember Pamela Mason. She’s still alive. I think Liddell’s name was Emily. Never saw her, and rarely saw Dr. Mason, though she was my psychiatrist. On a review of my records from Barnardo’s, she was more active in the background than I ever suspected, and she and Margaret Jones overturned a particularly devious plot by my mother and her then-boyfriend to have me committed to a mental hospital. Unfortunately, without realizing it, they were trying to get me into Maudesley, where Pamela Mason was on the staff, and Dr. Warren, who ran Maudesley, was on the Board of Governors for Duncroft. Dr. Mason flat out told them that I was not in need of psychiatric treatment, which might explain why I only saw her maybe twice. She was seeing a great deal more of my parents though! Btw, if you want to send for your records, Barnardo’s is turning them over very quickly now. I had to wait nearly 8 months, now it’s about 2 weeks.
Thank you for that information. What do you know about Dr. Swift?
Little to nothing. I have seen women from the 70s mention him in passing, but he wasn’t there in my day (62-65). I imagine that he might have also been from Maudesley if Dr, Warren remained on the Board of Governors. Did you see him? You should send for your records to get more information. Quite enlightening, some of it!
Thanks for the info. I was there in 1962. Do you have info for obtaining my records? Would be grateful for your help
I saw Dr Swift but don’t remember very much about him. I have just received (last week) my Duncroft records and if you care to give Anna your email address to pass on to me I will send you a copy of the form Barnados require
Sorry to side-track, but do you know whether ‘your’ Dr Warren was Dr Wilfred Warren? I’ve been curious for a while about the name of someone I saw at the Maudsley in ’63 who was also (possibly) involved with the adolescent unit at Bethlem at that time. I know Dr Wilfred Warren worked at the Maudsley and wrote a lot about adolescent psychiatry at around that time, but I haven’t been able to find out much more about him. It seems plausible that he might also have been involved in somewhere like Duncroft.
I’m finding this series of blog posts and comments about Duncroft fascinating and informative – thanks, Anna et al!
Margaret Jones mentioned that a Dr. Warren was on the Board, I believe the Chairman, and that he was the head of Maudsley. I would imagine that Dr. Wilfred Warren would be the psychiatrist in question. He died in 1991. Obviously a highly-respected member of the profession. http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/15/7/458.2.full.pdf http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19660330&id=KIBAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1aMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3697,5492751
Thank you, Mewsical! That obituary is just what I needed, but I didn’t turn it up in my own searches. He’d have been in the right age group in ’63, and would have just become Head of the Children’s Department then. A long-time mystery solved for me!
Unlikely because he was a physicist.
Yes, no need for rocket scientists at Duncroft! But what is his connection with Steve?
Dr. Kelly was ‘disappeared’ shall we say Mewsical, nothing to do with Duncroft. Google him on the .co.uk
I googled Dr. Kelly and was amazed to find the same old suspect!!
“But how did Gilligan know Kelly was the source? Watts didn’t tell him. He says it was a lucky shot in the dark. But there is an alternative theory. Watts revealed Kelly’s name only to her editor, George Entwistle. It is likely that Kelly’s name reached top BBC bosses who needed to prove Kelly had briefed not only Gilligan but several BBC reporters. In turn, Gilligan, I believe, learned Kelly had been Watts’s source. With this, Gilligan had the ammunition he needed to arm David Chidgey at the hearing.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/tom-mangold-shame-made-david-kelly-kill-himself-2058868.html
I think one conspiracy is quite enough for me though…..
Dai B- there’s now a 404 error message on your BBC link! Who is the BBC Exec it refers to ?
Anna- another superlative post; thanks.
Mark Adrian Van Klaveren, who I know nothing of other than remembering the name from that time. Try this unbroken link – I have the page open on my own PC and re-found it this morning.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/12/the_tom_stephens_interview.html
There were 227 comments, the overwhelming majority condemning the decision to “out” the BBC’s informant. Should it indeed have been taken down – I suspect it’s just a fault in my original C&P – this is his self-justification, which I found pretty slimy.
“Last week a BBC News reporter spoke to Tom Stephens in Ipswich. Their 36-minute conversation was recorded but was intended for background and not for broadcast. Following Tom Stephens’ arrest on Monday, we took the decision to transmit the interview on the basis that there had been an exceptional change in circumstances. The anonymity, which Mr Stephens had sought to preserve by making the interview for background only, no longer applied. His name and many other details about him were very much in the public domain.
“We felt there was a compelling public interest in letting the public hear what he had to say. He knew all five of the murdered women, two of them well. He had much to say about the world of drug dealers and financial pressures in which they lived. On balance it seemed to us to be wrong to deny people the opportunity to hear his thoughts on the events of the past few weeks. Of course, we reflected long and hard about the legal and ethical issues this interview raised. We are confident that nothing we have broadcast could prejudice any future trial. We also reached the conclusion that nothing we broadcast could reasonably be expected to impede the ongoing police investigation. A full copy of the interview had been made available to the police.
“Ultimately our judgement was based on what we felt would be right for our audiences – should there be an opportunity to hear the interview or did it remain inappropriate to broadcast something recorded six days earlier on a different basis? In the very rare circumstances of this case, we took the decision to share Tom Stephens’ account. “
“Children, particularly girls, were subdivided into ‘good girls’ and bad girls’. ” In my school only the girls were so categorised, although everyone had doubts about Fotherington Minor. Go on, call me a pedant.
Thank you pedant! One thing you can say about this blog – we have a better standard of sub-editors than most of the outsourced tabloids!!!!
As for Fotherington Minor, it transpired that his mother had been sent the wrong uniform list by the school secretary. It all turned out fine as GS, as he was nicknamed, was awarded colours for the netball VII.
“Those hundreds of girls, including myself, took the opportunity that a more enlightened age granted them, and made the most of it. A mere half dozen failed to climb back up the slippery slope, and have emerged into middle age as embittered women. Those half dozen, with their tawdry tales of ‘Jimmy grabbed my bottom’ have run full tilt into an age of moral panic, unethical journalism, charity empire building, a dying main stream media, and a couple of unsupervised journalists, to take centre stage in a drama that is threatening our entire information source.”
And so say all of us! Thanks, Anna.
Hi Anna
Thank you so much for your articles about Duncroft. A very fair and balanced view. Miles better than anything else I have seen in any form of the media.
I was at Duncroft about the same time as you were 65/66 – need to check my dates. My maiden name was Lxxxxxxx.
I have nothing bad to say about Miss Jones. She did nothing but help me. She allowed me to study A levels by getting me the syllabus and books required and letting me have sole use of a little room near the dining room. She even treated me to my first trip to the theatre – up to town to see Hamlet at the Aldwych. I will never forget that.
When I finally got the chance to pour out a few things to her, she was the first adult to listen carefully and seriously to me – she checked out the facts and made sure I left Duncroft post haste with any help she could get me.
If you get chance to speak to her again, please pass on my warmest regards and thanks.
Duncroft was not a nice place to be, but better than my home and any other option I had. Made tolerable by Miss Jones.
Thank you Sylvia, it is comments such as yours that make it all worthwhile.
Fascinating – my compliments and respects
Why thank you. Love your name, Gildas. Where did the inspiration come from?
I have checked it out and I was there earlier than I thought – certainly there in Oct 1962, I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis (aftermath of the Bay of Pigs) and we were called in to the tv room to watch the news because nuclear war was imminent. Oh happy days.
If in ’62 you were then I was there – I was the first one to Norman Lodge and then out daily to Isleworth Polytechnic and left in ’64. Only on receiving my records last week was I able to get all the exact dates! If Anna doesn’t have the info on who to contact requesting your records, please email her direct and ask her to forward your email to me and I’ll pass on you on the info. BTW Dr. Jenny Graham was the visiting psychologist – a lovely lady she was too!
Then we must know each other. I arrived at the end of October 1962. I missed the Bay of Pigs thing, but certainly remember the Kennedy assassination.
Anna, you are a far better journalist than all the MSM put together, I totally remember being one of the first ‘real teenagers’ great fun it was too! I remember my aunt going to the Family Planning, in the early 60s, after she had her first baby and being asked how often she had sex! said once a week and was told that was far too much, once a month was quite sufficient, todays women wouldn’t believe that. I noticed the Mail just doesn’t publish anything that is against their view very often. Much as I disliked Savile I have yet to see anything proved against him, he openly sort of fondled girls on TV which was not considered abuse then, I agree it is very sad to see middle aged women blaming their unhappy lives on some bad behaviour in the long distant past, just get over it. I can’t understand why so few questions were asked and I think Miss Jones has a good case for a libel claim. Off topic but I see the CRUK are on about the increase in lung cancer in women being due to smoking in the 50s and 60s, shouldn’t we all be dead now?, no other cause was even considered despite the increase in non and never smoking women. I will never give them a penny despite my own cancer, they are just another lobby group now.
Many years ago I looked into the HIV-Aids terror script and found some startling information from the original scientific teams commissioned to get to grips with it.
They concluded that HIV does not exist, that during the 60′s they achieved the creation of cancer in the lab, and swiftly placed it into vaccines.
Never until 20 years ago did we find cancer in children, yet within that 20 years vaccinations have become breakfast and afternoon tea and cancer is killing children.
My own experience came with my father who in the 90′s determined to take medication for his knees. I strongly advised him against it but he went ahead all the same.
Within a few months one of the side effects from the medication turned his stomach fluids acid, to the point he would have to spend at time bent over to expel it. I told him to drink milk, but now under the spell of the doctor he decided to take a second dose of medication to counter the side effects of the initial medication. and on it went.
Next news he had cancer, and I have to say what a terrible disease to have.
He died in 2010.
Another peculiar observation is the fact almost all the 60′s generation males, the real hard men are dead, save for those within the secret societies…
I’m sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense to me! You’re saying ‘they’ apparently created anti-cancer vaccines and have been vaccinating children with these for 20 years and child cancer cases only blossomed as of then? I find this very hard to believe!
Hello Wendy, not anti-cancer vaccines, just vaccines and medication as a whole.
Things are just not right when it comes to children and how the elites are moving against them. For instance :
Lancashire schools prepare for deceased pupils :
https://www.lifeinthemix.info/2011/12/lancashire-schools-preperation-deceased-pupils/
WHO memos 1972 explains how to turn vaccines into a means of killing
https://www.lifeinthemix.info/2011/12/memos-1972-explains-turn-vaccines-means-killing/
Well Belinus, vaccines have been around for a hell of a lot longer than 20 years but I get your general gist with respect to big farma and would personally always go for the weed as opposed to sleeping pills or analgesics.
FDA approval means sweet fa and no drug company is going to sit on a ‘wow’ newbee for 15-20 years to evaluate any long-term side effects so, aside from aspirin (thanks in part to Linus Pauling) it’s generally preferable to root around for natural or home-spun remedies.
However, I suspect the proliferation of cancer in children and the many strange new illnesses that have appeared in the last few decades probably derive from a combination of ‘fast’ and processed foods, excessive hygiene (Dettol wipes for baby’s tray) with infants and small children, the latter not allowing their immune systems to develop normally, along with unnecessary medication for the slightest sniffle.
A tad off the general topic – my apologies!
“Never until 20 years ago did we find cancer in children”
“Never”? So they showed amazing foresight in setting up this hospital in 1944 …
“turned his stomach fluids acid”
Well, stomach fluids are a moderate solution of hydrochloric acid anyway? Do you mean “more acid”.
Interestingly, over-active stomach acidity is correlated with cancer of the esophagus. There is currently an in-depth NHS study (KCL, I believe) to determine whether this is causal, linked by some common cause or merely an interesting statistic.
yes a superb journalist- well written, sensitive with facts and a bloody good read.
We first teenagers were in fact a very powerful group. We had our own money to spend, and we dictated trends accordingly. Without us, there would have been no Jimmy Savile, our parents weren’t interested in him at all, and probably were yelling “Turn that DOWN!!” in many sitting rooms in the UK in his early hey-day. That said, I was more of a Ready, Steady, Go! fan myself. I never liked Savile either, a little too grubby for me, but between him and Benny Hill, who my mother just adored, there you had two men who were on the edge of being like the men in mackintoshes, hiding in the bushes by the footpath coming from the local secondary school and flashing the girls walking home.
I agree that Margaret Jones possibly has a case for libel, but at her age I doubt she would be bothered. This blog more than vindicates her, imo. I’d like to see more Duncroft women such as C G Welburn step forward, too.
Have sex once a month??? Does it get more ridiculous than that?!
So the new shakers and movers in journalism are moving on to their next story already? From a link above:
”Currently in the works: The Carlton Club connection, and one of the biggest high-level paedophile rings ever investigated.”
Thanks for this posting too.
Like a sniper’s bullet, it simply gets to the very heart of the issue.
Bravo, Joe. Well said!
Anna: That extended break in these sceptered isles did you a real power of good, especially that cooked English breakfast at as yet unnamed golf club! You have come back with your talons freshly sharpened and are really ‘producing the goods’!!
What a great pity the BBC cannot find some persons of your calibre to run their news programmes, or indeed, the whole shebang, now that the latest DG has ‘taken one for the team’.
It would have been far cheaper too, in the long run.
Talking of the sceptered Isles, what do you think of this :
https://www.lifeinthemix.info/belinus-great-king-briton/
@ CG – Sonya Maddieson, Senior Archive & Administration Officer, Barnardo’s Making Connections, Tanners Lane, Barkingside, Ilford, Essex IG6 1QG
Tel: 020 8498 7370. Contact details are ONLY for your DUNCROFT file. After the initial contact you will be sent a form to fill in or you can have it emailed to you. Give them a call and tell them you are from Duncroft and want your records. It should be about 200 or so pages, and they should expedite everything for you. You will also get a call from a Social Worker before your file is dispatched and also some follow-up from that same person in case you have questions, etc.
Many thanks indeed for your help. Much appreciated
BBCNews On-line 12-11-12 21:38
\\
Copies of a shelved report into abuse at north Wales care homes in the 1970s and 80s have been found in local council archives.
Flintshire council officials say a search has uncovered the 1996 Jillings report, which remained unpublished.
The document is a key factor in the row over abuse which has engulfed the BBC.
The six north Wales councils are now taking legal advice about whether it can be made available under Freedom of Information legislation.
It was commissioned after claims of widespread abuse in 40 homes.
Initially seven care workers were convicted in 1991 following allegations of historic abuse centring on the Bryn Estyn home in Wrexham.
However as further claims involving many more homes emerged, the former Clwyd County Council commissioned John Jillings to investigate in 1994.
\\
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20302198
Well well.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/11/12/statement-from-bureau-trustees-on-iain-overtons-resignation/
\\Trustees reaffirm The Bureau’s commitment to fact-based, non-sensational investigation in the public interest. Any role by the Bureau or its officers in this story was strictly contrary to the fundamental principles and standards of the Bureau.\\
And still the juggernaut rolls on… Sir Cyril Smith MBE is the latest famous person to have their name dragged through the mud… Again, it appears, the police investigated the claims at the time… No action appears to have been taken, for whatever reason, including the reason, perhaps, that there was no EVIDENCE to support the lurid assertions. Again, it appears, a colourful character who has ‘passed on’ is about to get a public duffing, when they are not in a position to defend their reputation… Wonder who’s next? No doubt the tabloids will drag this out, like they did with the MP’s expenses scandal and the phone hacking scandal.
I can hardly? wait.
‘ Sir Cyril Smith MBE is the latest famous person to have their name dragged through the mud @
It’s not a good time to be a dead ex-MP of Rochdale just now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20272205
Ted Heath next.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/11/12/statement-from-james-lee-chair-of-the-trustees/
Also worth a read
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/nov/11/investigative-journalism-cityuniversity
comment
@ ryeats
11 November 2012 10:34PM
Watching the evening news here in LA, now reporting on the continued tap-dance of resignations at the BBC (guess Entwistle got a nice goodbye gift of $700,000, which appears to be pissing off the UK public, and deservedly so – basically it was a payoff for looking the other way, imo) and I was fascinated to hear that Jimmy Savile was a BBC ‘anchor.’ Hereabouts, that means he read the news on air. Doesn’t ANYBODY in the press/media/etc. care about accuracy even a little bit?? Except at the Raccoon Arms, of course.
I think the word “anchor” is used to translate where the British would use “presenter”. Otherwise it would be “news anchor”. Although he started out as a “disk jockey”, in his later career he would have been called a “presenter”.
That could be where the local news became confused, but they should know more about Savile than to make a major flub like that. So, someone who reads the news on air in England is also called a presenter, or is it a news anchor? I’m trying to think what we’d call him here, probably a ‘host.’
Weapons of MWT revealed: Part Two.
Savile now appears to have been the Director General of the BBC for forty years. I’m surprised he never got the job at the NYT himself!!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/jimmy-savile-created-his-tv-shows-to-gain-access-to-children-8311889.html
The former police detective has been making a follow-up programme to his original ITV1 documentary into allegations that the star sexually abused vulnerable teenage girls. He told the Radio Times: “In the previous programme it was unclear what came first. “But I can very clearly tell you now that he created his television series as a vehicle for his offending. “I believe he engineered his programmes within the BBC and Radio Luxembourg in order to gain access to children. “The classic examples are Top Of The Pops, Savile’s Travels, Jim’ll Fix It – all of them gave him access to young children. That’s why there were so many victims.”
This getting more and more surreal. Savile seems to be turning into a meal ticket for this chap in the same way the North Wales things seems to have become for the inappropriately named Stickler. It’s getting like Elvis and Colonel Parker.
This isn’t going to go away until Mark WT does, seems to me.
ITN calls them “newscasters” and the BBC “newsreaders”. Yes, Alex Trebek is the “host” of Jeopardy!, so Savile probably ought to be called a TV host. In the UK Trebek would probably be a “quizmaster”.
Trebek wouldn’t like that description, I don’t think!
Hi Mewsical
The pay-off is one question. The integrity of Entwhistle is another. He worked for the BBC for 23 years and virtually everyone who worked with him agrees he was a decent, highly creative programme maker. He’s proven a terrible interviewee. Possibly as DG inept. But in my post below (on the Guardian Management Chart) I’ve argued that some of the charges against him re Newsnight/Savile are nonsense.
Witch hunts happen to the mighty, as well as the minor. As has been well demonstrated here, the MSM narrative is always worth questioning.
Thanks for the further info Robb. Wasn’t aware of Entwistle’s background with the Beeb before accepting this position. I really do think that this situation has been exaggerated out of all proportion, but we seem to be ignoring an aspect of all this dubious reportage. Advertisers. Not only do the public contribute with their hard-earned pennies, but advertisers pay huge fees for the privilege of at least having their wares hawked in the papers. This has gotten to have given some of them a tremendous bump, especially as the Merry Holidays are looming.
Hi Mewsical
The reporting is indeed often inaccurate and out of proportion. Advertisers, in my view, have little directly to do with it. At least regarding the news outlets I trust. The BBC has none. It has flayed itself in public as much as the NYT did a few years ago when it was engulfed in scandal.
THAT is a true measure of integrity.
I’m not sure if what the BBC has done is about their integrity, so much as their own political correctness biting them and the entire nation on the backside. Rippon quite properly didn’t run the Duncroft Newsnight because the story wasn’t passing his tests. Annaraccoon’s blog demonstrates in more detail what was wrong. Not least is the evidential fact that whereas the journalistic rule says you need three sources, this old rule makes no allowance for those sources having spent the previous five years colluding on the internet in “secret”.
When itv ran the MWT/Rantzen version it was ripe to have had holes pointed out in its story. No newspaper was interested in doing so because paedo’s sell papers. The BBC having no need to sell itself was the only media organisation that we might have relied on to question the torch and pitchfork bearing masses. It was also the only organisation with any interest in defending against the wild charges primarily given credence to much of the watching celebrity-obsessed public, by the ex-BBC-employee: the weeping Rantzen. However, in some bizarre fit of “OMG! the victims must be heard” paranoia the BBC has allowed the whole media world to run with a story that has only gained credibility by uncontradicted repetition. I don’t see that as Integrity. It is certainly not displaying any integrity to Rippon who remains an outcast, not to any of his immediate superiors who now all look to be out of a job too. Nor is it displaying integrity to a population paying for them to look for some truth in this whole morass of commercial and political muck-raking.
I won’t mention the integrity of a dead man who raised over £40M for charities in his lifeteime, and about whom I have yet to read any truly convincing evidence presented to demonstrate he was any sort of paedophile, although WMT is now about to have another punt by all accounts. This scoundrel of scandal should have been blown out of the water long ago by any proper journalistic work. His presence on the media scene is the biggest condemnation of the BBC I can think of. We might just as well have David Icke back at the BBC.
I would like to say that Fiona Scott Johnson supposedly has a database of all ex Duncroft girls which she updates. A lot of the girls who use aliases are terrified of her – one in fact told me that she was terrified because she (FSJ) knows her address and her relatives and another recently told me she has been on the receiving end of one of Fiona’s threats. I wish these girls had the courage to report her to the police. So Anna if any more of them contact you please encourage them to report FSJ’s abuse!
God, she is evil personified! I thought she had been videoed allegedly burning the database, which she keeps on a memory stick. I do remember informing “Liz Frances” over on FRU that she could burn any old memory stick and say it was the database. These women don’t get it, I guess. How did Fiona get hold of their relatives addresses? And shouldn’t those relatives then complain to the police?
She hasn’t contacted the relatives – its her hold over them – the threat of doing so!
While strolling round the internet I came accross an article by Jim Hyland title “Community Homes with Education – Reformation of the Approved Schools” at the bottom of the page is comment on 29 Jun 2012 by a Sue Melling who went to Duncroft.
http://www.childrenwebmag.com/articles/child-care-history/community-homes-with-education-reformation-of-the-approved-schools
Under a summary of the book ‘The Development of Secure Units in Child Care’ by G J Blumenthal, there is another comment by a Sue Melling regarding her time at Cumberlow Lodge in the early 1970′s.
http://www.childrenwebmag.com/articles/key-child-care-texts/the-development-of-secure-units-in-child-care-by-g-j-blumenthal#comment-20445
—————————
If the Duncroft girls went on mass to Jimmy Savile’s dressing room would they not support each others story as to what events happened, yet in the ITV Exposure and Panorama programmes for each incident there is only one account given. The only allegation I’ve seen supported by others is the story of Charlotte who says she was groped by Savile in a caravan, complained and was dragged out by two staff and put in the isolation unit 2 – 3 days.
Fiona describes being in Jimmy Savile’s in his dressing room and going behind a curtain with him while other Duncroft girls plus 1 or 2 other people were present. It is said Fiona met Gary Glitter at a later recording of Clunk Click but no further details were given, was that the same time as Karin Ward says she saw him in Savile’s dressing having sex with a Duncroft girl with a number of others present?
Roger Ordish producer of Jim’ll Fix It has said Savile was turn up about lunchtime be briefed on the items do the recording about 18:00 and didn’t hang about afterwards, that he wasn’t involved in the overall production he was just the on screen face of the programme. According to Mark William-Thomas in the Radio Times Savile created and ran the shows such Top of The Pops, Clunk Click and Jim’ll Fix It. I would think the executive producers of those and any TV show might have a different story to tell, especially Roger Ordish.
I’m surprised the Radio Times let Mark William-Thomas get away with what he said unchallenged.
Well done Rocky, that is a find of considerable value, and not just for the comments….
As long as we all bear in mind that Fiona Scott-Johnson has notified several people that she is Susan Melling. It appears that Fiona and Mark WT have a lot of explaining to do at this point. A lot. Why did he just take this woman’s word for all this nonsense?? Did he think to administer a lie-detector test to verify these outrageous claims, did he look thoroughly into her background, was he aware that she possessed a database that was not hers, that she had no legal right to, and in fact was likely the property of the Home Office and violates the provisions of the Data Protection Act? There are emails that I have, at the very least, from Fiona wherein she states she will surrender the database, let alone she went to the trouble of videoing herself burning a memory stick which she claims was the database. Why did he take the word of someone who was so unruly at Duncroft that she was subjected to straitjackets, forced injections, padded cells, etc.? Did he examine the false claims she made of having a doctorate and being a professor at Imperial College? Who carried a grudge against a staff member who is the godmother to Fiona’s daughter and destroyed her peace and quiet by telling the press where to locate this staff member? Well, a resounding NO to that, of course. I hope ITV decides to put a hold on his next escapade while the Pollard inquiry gets underway.
Dame Janet Smith DBE is advertising for witnesses to come forward…
http://www.damejanetsmithreview.com/
“The Dame Janet Smith Review was established by the BBC to conduct an impartial, thorough and independent review of the culture and practices of the BBC during the years that Jimmy Savile worked there. The Review will receive evidence from those who may have been the subject of inappropriate sexual conduct by Jimmy Savile on BBC premises or on location for the BBC and from others who may have raised concerns about his conduct with the BBC. It will also examine whether the BBC’s child protection and whistleblowing policies are fit for purpose. The Review is chaired by the former Court of Appeal judge, Dame Janet Smith DBE.”
Mark Thomas…. I remember his 90′s programmes which at the time appeared to be groundbreaking, but then you realise he is only going so far, he never hit what I saw as hiw own, Freemasonry. Perhaps in the early days he was the played, today I believe he is a player. I do hope he comes unstuck.
Melling describes being subjected to “Pindown,” a technique that was only used between 1983 and 1989, and only in Staffordshire. Would those dates/location be “right” for her?
Not unless she also wants to move Duncroft several counties to the north as well, but then nothing would surprise me any longer.
Is Muffin the Mule not in the frame yet?
I thought as much. So many of these questionable testimonies seem to be be constructed out of a mish-mash of things the accuser probably only heard about, and certainly in this particular insiatnce, didn’t fully understand what it actually was. Unfortuantely, it seems that those who should be more forensic about such accounts, are just as ignorant.
One would hope that eventually this whole matter will be the subject of a properly constituted public enquiry, but what place will the 99% of Duncroft girls have in that? It is entirely understandable that – as you say – many are loathe now to acknowledge having been there, because of the warped picture constructed by a disgruntled few, and lapped up by the press. Perhaps the only alternative will be to properly document the myriad factual errors and false claims of the dissenters, and at least enter them into the official record.
I did mention that in passing during the CLR days and of course was subject to the usual “yah boo” insults.
The term “pindown” may only have been used officially in Staffordshire in the ’80s, but similar practices occurred in other institutions and at other times. Someone who had experienced that might use the term for convenience because they heard it used a lot at the time of the Staffordshire enquiry. In the early 60s, I was held in solitary confinement in my nightclothes in a stripped locked room for days at a time for minor disciplinary issues. This was in an adolescent unit, not a children’s home or approved school, but when I read about the use of pindown in Staffordshire, I recognised the similarities, so I do sometimes think of it as “pindown”.
Having said that, I know nothing about Duncroft other than what I’ve read recently, much of it on this blog, but it doesn’t seem as though padded cells, forcible injections and straight jackets were ever a part of the regime there. I’m not defending her version of events, just pointing out that her use of a term not used at that time in that institution is not counter-evidence in itself.
Except that she didn’t say soemthing like, “it was like what became known as ‘Pindown’,” she emphatically states: “I was kept sedated with drugs and I was physically forced on more than one ocassion it was called “Pindown”.” And she says it was Duncroft. If it walks lioke a duck, and quacks like a duck….
It is a terribly complicated field. From my experience of working in psychiatric hospitals and in Juvenile Justice in the United States, I would say that these techniques were taught and used because they were considered to be the least dangerous and least invasive techniques available at the time. In the United States patients were sometimes strapped down to a bed with padded leather straps which people in the UK usually consider abusive, but people in the US at the time regarded as safer than pinning people down or locking them in a single room where they might injure themselves for example by banging head on wall or strangling themselves with items of clothing (leading to removal of clothing–again an undesirable outcome.)
The purpose of giving injections would be to rapidly induce calmness and/or sleep and could not be done without the preapproval of a psychiatrist. Needless to say, there were some who would start fights because they enjoyed being held down and given an injection of a benzodiazepine drug like Ativan.
Why would these physical confrontations occur? Usually because of lack of control on the part of the patient/student. A girl does something bad that cannot be tolerated for the sake of others, for example masturbating in the classroom. She is told to stop. She continues and curses at the teacher. She is told to go to her room. She refuses. A guard or custodial staff is called to escort her to her room. She starts to fight with them, so reinforcements are called in and she is pinned down, given an injection, and placed in her room and on 1:1 observation. Therapeutic treatment team including psychiatrist meets with her the next day to discuss her behaviour.
Where you get into areas of dispute is whether being placed in a room alone or given an injection is a punishment for the girl concerned, or done for protection of other students and staff, and opinions may differ, especially when seen from decades in the future.
How do you ensure a safe working environment for staff when they have to care for volatile and sometimes violent young people with the minimum of restrictive equipment like handcuffs or batons?
Just to make it clear, the institution to which I referred did not have a lot of “volatile and sometimes violent” inmates. I only heard of one incident of inmate-on-inmate violence (throwing hot tea), which had occurred before I arrived. In the 3 months I was there, there was only one situation in which someone needed to be restrained for her own safety and there was no violence or threatening behaviour towards staff. Their version of pindown was definitely punishment/deterrence, applied routinely for minor infringements (like hiding for a short time to avoid being taken for compulsory gym). It was applied retrospectively, not to control an ongoing incident.
Unfortunately you sometimes get situations where certain staff get a kick out of provoking violent situation or acting punitively contrary to established procedures, which sounds like what you are describing. Alternatively, they might just have lost their tempers, perhaps because everyone’s schedule was delayed by looking for the missing girl, or because it entailed more paper work, or staff missing a tea break, or something like that.
When I worked at Juvenile Justice in the US in the 90′s, there were surveillance cameras covering all public areas and classrooms, and management could play back the digital recordings on any particular incident to look for staff malfeasance, so malefactors or those who could not keep their temper were quickly weeded out. Of course this kind of technology was not available in the 60′s and 70′s.
BTW, I’m not suggesting the staff were abusive. The vast majority of them were caring people doing their best to help the girls. That was just the ‘system’ at the time, and they took it for granted there and probably in many other similar places at that time. Attitudes were different then.
You should ask Mewsical about pindown. She not only heavily promoted the idea of “pindown” being used at Duncroft in the 70s on CLR, but also attacked anyone who tried to suggest otherwise. (The fact that she was not even there in the 70s was not, apparently to be regarded as any kind of challenge to her expert status…or else)
Sorry but I am getting a little bit tired of *ALL* the headgames around this issue, including Mewsical’s ongoing, coercive rendition of “The Vicar of Bray”.
Reply to just me and my cat.
Yes, but I doubt the system at the time actually permitted girls to be “held down” as a form of punishment for minor offenses. I’m not sure whether your procedure meant being held down face down or face up, but both types have certain hazards that can even lead to death. For example cessation of breathing when held face down, or choking on vomit when held face up. I was working at psychiatric hospitals in the UK during the 70′s, and that kind of thing was not done as far as I remember.
I would imagine that in approved schools physical punishments would have had to be recorded in a punishment log, or something, so if staff were using pindown as a punishment and NOT recording it, then they WERE abusive.
As I understand it, Pindown in the context of the Staffordshire homes refers to the use of solitary confinement in a very limited environment, not to the kind of physical restraint you describe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pindown
In the hospital (not approved school) to which I referred earlier, all furniture except the bed and wardrobe and all belongings were removed from the young person’s room, and they were only allowed one ‘distraction’ (perhaps a book or paper and pencil) at the discretion of the staff. The rooms weren’t locked, but leaving without permission (or even getting out of bed) would just prolong the punishment period. Any friend caught trying to communicate with the person would also be punished. Provided the patient co-operated, this would only last for a day or a few days, not weeks as sometimes happened in the Staffordshire homes.
If they went en masse to his dressing room whichever member of staff from Duncroft escorted them would have been with them – in fact none of them has said who escorted them on such an eventful day they cannot forget or where she was!
That’s true, but Warren was also a named officer. Have to go look at my file notes to check what his job was. I know he was Mason’s superior at Maudsley, and he was also consulted in my situation. Never met him, of course. Reading his obit. it seems he was involved in quite a few institutions, too many to name.
The Guardian has an interesting BBC ‘Management Structure’ Chart.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/nov/13/bbc-structure-visualised-newsnight#
The most interesting feature re Savile is this: Editor Newsnight–Deputy Head of News–Director BBC News–DG. The path to the top is very short. It is also in line with my earlier post of a BBC culture of ‘referral upwards’ from my day. The quality of the individuals I cannot comment on.
Of more interest is that George Entwhistle–then Head of Vision (essentially Television)–is NOT on this path. He did intersect–horizontally–with Director BBC News, Helen Boaden, on the Management Board, which reported directly to the DG. Mark Thompson, at the time. Boaden appears to have regarded the Savile story of insufficient import to raise with the DG, or even at MB. Although she did give Enstwhistle a brief heads-up at dinner, he said.
Parliament, the press, have characterised this as ‘incurious George’, a dereliction of duty. It was not. If Boaden had thought the story was of much significance, she would have raised it with her seven fellow BBC Management Board members. Then the DG. She didn’t.
It remains to be seen if her judgement was justifiable. But don’t dump it on George!
This to Moor Larkin November 13, 2012 at 21:44
When the NYT screwed up, it published pages of analysis of what had gone wrong. The BBC, too, self-flagellated on Newsnight with Eddie Mair–and has ever since. That is what I meant about integrity. Can’t think of any other organisations which would do so much. Plus I know both have a far better record for honest reporting than most.
For the rest, you are prejudging the outcome. Was Rippon right or wrong to ditch the initial Savile report? Neither you nor I know. We don’t know the full facts. Even when we do we may differ. But we are a long way from that.
Sex charges are amongst the hardest to investigate (and the most likely to raise temperatures). Those involving children or youngsters still harder. Historic ones really stretch the limits of what is humanly do-able. Still we must try. One indication of the great difficulties is the divergent views of two figures I much admire: Richard Webster and Nick Davies. Much in dispute on parts of all this.
I am happy to probe what went right or wrong (hence my post on the Guardian’s BBC chart). But I reserve final judgement. As with another unraveling story–the resignation of Patraeus. Who knows what is coming next?
I think we are probably talking about different things in some ways. The Integrity of the BBC I am talking about is is the integrity of a person/organisation to simply tell the truth as they know it. The Savile controversy goes way beyond just making a bad editorial decision. The charges against the BBC are that they have knowingly colluded for forty years to enable Jimmy to abuse “children”. WMT is now claiming that Savile even created his own TV shows in order to gain access. The BBC is now allowing this madman to say that every person in the BBC for the last forty years was directly involved in procuring children for the satisfaction of this one bogeyman. What exactly would it take for this organisation to stand up for itself, and more importantly for the thousands of it’s past employees who are now being tarred and feathered by association. If the BBC does not have the courage to protest, why should anyone watching imagine there is anything but truth behind WMT’s allegations?
Look what happened when McAlpine stood up to the bullying of the Paedo Hunters. They collapsed like a pack of cards. The BBC even managed to get on the wrong side of that! The BBC seems to have no integrity, because the first attribute required for integrity is belief in oneself.
Belief in oneself, loverly
I simply do not understand this headlong, almost suicidal rush to accuse without any evidence, at the first hint of paedophilia. The only explanation I can offer is that these people are terrified that the same may be thought of them. So it’s okay to do to others so long as no one does to you. “Excuse me, Yer Honour, it wasn’t me because I was the first one to call him a scum bag. No, I haven’t got any proof, but it must be true because everyone says it is.”
So much for modern day justice.
Yes, that is exactly what it is. Many people and organizations are so scared of being seen to sympathize with pedophiles, that they fall over backwards to got to the opposite extreme.
Here is an example. When I worked for Juvenile Justice in the US a Registered Nurse who worked under me was fired after working for the State for about 30 years. She was a very pleasant long-term married woman, a grandmother, a practicing Christian, and very well liked by all. One day she had to give an antibiotic injection to a girl of about 14. This kind of injection was quite painful and an analgesic was also mixed in with the injection. The girl was a little scared and was placed face down on an examination couch in the medical room with her pants lowered to allow the injection to be given in her hip. The procedure was observed by one of the security staff, so there were three people in the room including the patient. After giving the shot, the nurse said “it won’t hurt, but just lie still and I will kiss it better” and then gave an air-kiss a few inches above the girl’s bottom. This was reported to management by the security staff and, to cut a long story short, she was fired for “inappropriate behaviour”.
I spoke on her behalf at her disciplinary hearing, but she was fired anyway. Admittedly she was a little bit silly and did something on the spur of the moment that she regretted later on, but no one remotely believed that she had any kind of lesbian or pedophile tendencies, but equally no one wanted to stand on her side if it might put their own job at risk.
I think it is the same with the whole BBC thing. Newspapers are now reporting that Freddie Starr has been forbidden to be alone with his own children. And what is his crime? That 40 years ago when he was a young man, he MAY have tried to grope 14-year-old Karin Ward in a BBC dressing room.
The world is going insane.
@ Newspapers are now reporting that Freddie Starr has been forbidden to be alone with his own children. And what is his crime? That 40 years ago when he was a young man, he MAY have tried to grope 14-year-old Karin Ward in a BBC dressing room. @
Karin would have been almost 16 at that Clunk Click show. This makes groping no better or worse, but it makes the story presented by the itv suspect. Why are they seeking to present these girls as much younger than they were? Questions that nobody even attempts to ask.
Another interesting question to me was that after Starr initially denied sharing a TV studio with Savile, the archive footage from a very “unknown” BBC show turned up on Channel 4, within about 48 hours. I strongly suspect that footage had already been liberated and was held in wait to see if Starr remembered. When he didn’t, the trap was sprung. Nobody seems interested in how this obscure BBC footage *suddenly* came to light. There has been so much manipulation going on. This even involves “framing” a living person.
I posted this on a different forum the day after Entwistle quit and I’m increasingly confident it’s how things will pan out:
“Predictions: When the dust has settled, the decision by Newsnight to be ultra-cautious with the initial Savile report because some (NOT all) ‘witnesses’ in stories of this sort have historically proved less than reliable will be vindicated. The key mistake will be identified as the showbiz wing going ahead with the hagiography despite what Newsnight knew. This can rightly be laid at the door of Entwistle in his post at that time, although the select committee seemed more intent on beating him up for his efforts as DG which he’d only been for a few weeks. The subsequent hoo-ha over McAlpine will prove to have stemmed from Newsnight being undermined by suspending or sidelining the people whose experience best placed them to make the required editorial calls, and getting into bed with an outside group the (BoIJ) with lower standards of editorial control. All in the best traditions of outsourcing.”
And as already mentioned here, one of the senior execs put in charge of Newsnight ahead of disaster no. 2 seems to have previous for confusing what the public are interested in with what’s in the public interest, dating back to the Ipswich murders in 2006.
I agree that the key mistake was going ahead with the tributes to Jimmy Savile.
Is it going insane or just back to Babylon under commercial statutes, the Codes of Hammurabi….
Modern “Commercial Statute Law” is based on ancient Babylonian codes : the Codes of Hammurabi
Sorry that was supposed to be a link :
https://www.lifeinthemix.info/2012/08/modern-commercial-law-based-ancient-babylonian-codes/
Tangentially interesting: over on the climate controversy blogs there was a debate about whether the BBC conspired to deny air-time to people who disagree with the UEA orthodoxy about climate change and the need for green taxes, windmills etc, rather than reporting the controversy in an informative manner .
Campaigners tried to make the BBC hand over a list of names who had been at a key 2006 meeting. The BBC said it didn’t have to comply with the FOI request. Then it turned out not to matter – an expert searcher found the names on the wayback machine.
http://omnologos.com/why-the-list-of-participants-to-the-bbc-cmep-jan-2006-seminar-is-important/
“In Jan 2006 the BBC held a meeting of “the best scientific experts” to decide BBC policy on climate change reporting
The BBC has been in court blocking FOI attempts to get the list of the 28 attendees, but it’s just been discovered on the wayback machine
It turns out that only 3 were current scientists (all alarmists). The rest were activists or journalists
The BBC sent four low level representatives: Peter Rippon, Steve Mitchell, Helen Boaden, George Enwistle. All have since risen to power.
Those are also the exact four who have thus far resigned this week over the false paedophilia accusations against Lord McAlpine. “
Makes yer think, dunnit.
Hi Woman on a Raft
‘It turns out that only 3 were current scientists (all alarmists). The rest were activists or journalists. The BBC sent four low level representatives…
Makes yer think, dunnit.’
What, exactly? Here is the list of partcipants:
http://omnologos.com/full-list-of-participants-to-the-bbc-cmep-seminar-on-26-january-2006/
Right at the top of the list is Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London. Former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, President of the Royal Society, etc. About as smart and wise a guy as you can get.
Regarding the ‘four low level’ BBC contingent. Sorry to print them all, but this is nonsense. Goodness knows where you source has his head. Or his behind:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures catriona@tightropepictures.com
BBC Television Centre, London (cont)
Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events
Incidentally and as an aside, off-the-wall genuine cures for intractable medical ailments do occasionally occur. The most celebrated case of the last 30 years involves peptic ulcers. They were, it was suggested, caused amongst other things, by ‘stress’.
In the early 1980s a couple of Australians suspected a bacteria, H. pylori, was implicated. One, Barry Marshall, swallowed a culture of it and promptly developed ulcers. Upon taking antibiotics, they equally promptly disappeared. Marshall and his coworker, Robin Warren, duly received the Nobel prize for Medicine in 2005. It is a wonderful, simple, heroic, satisfying story. Most of medicine is not like this.
It is also notable that NO fringe or alternative medicine theories had suggested a bacterial cause for ulcers. Although this was prime territory for ‘alternative’ cures: a persistent, painful medical condition for which ‘conventional’ medicine had no answer. Yet it took ‘ordinary’ medicine–and a couple of extraordinary individuals–to come up with the answer. And then rapidly demonstrate it–to the benefit of all–via regular science.
There are lessons here.
Cider vinegar is also good for reducing cholesterol. http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4923648_apple-cider-vinegar-reduce-cholesterol.html
Cider Apple Vinegar is good for a lot of things.
I bought a bottle recently, but the thought of downing it neat first thing in the a.m. is daunting!
Dilute it by half and half with water. It is actually not unpleasant. One tablespoon of vinegar and the same of water.
That sounds a lot more palatable! Thanks! Does it matter when during the day you take it?
Cider apple vinegar is the worlds best thing for curing warts and verrucas. I spent a year trying to deal with warts on my children. Eventually tried CAV without much hope of success. Within a week they’d gone black and dropped off (the warts that is). Marvellous stuff!
Could this be a cure for recalcitrant children?
Mewsical. If it is going to help cut down on food consumption then first thing in the morning is probably best. Or you could drink half of it in the morning and half of it in the afternoon.
The French eat a lot of pickled gherkins as a before dinner aperitif. There is a dietary point to this.
Wish I’d seen this this morning! Makes me nauseous to take the entire tbsp!
For Brian.
I suspect that The Mail is trying to encourage The American readership, advertising and such. My rather bald comments on The Death Penalty are sometimes printed, but again, herein lies The Red Arrow Club. The Mail sometimes appears to think that Red Arrows are better than a dearth of comments. But my arguements have nothing much to do with innocent people being bumped off, although this is obviously not good. Nope, my arguement is that it is a diabolical thing to do, and it hardly saves any State any money since these convicted offenders are very often in gaol for longer than they would serve before they are bumped off, albeit perhaps in Britain.
PS. The Mail appears to own something like 25% of ITV. Not that I care. I watch Pirate TV. But The Mail is an interested party.
For Jonathan Mason.
I took some stick on various places at the beginning of this debacle simply for asking if anyone had any proof. I very nearly backed off because I am not actually a very brave person, and really have to psych myself up to cope with the inevitable reaction, because if you have any courage at all then you have to be prepared to defend your stance. And then Anna came across yet again. Someone who I admire enormously.
I still refuse to comply with the popular idea that Jimmy Savile was a serial groper, mainly because I still haven’t seen any proof that he was. But I might sue The Odeon in Neasden where I was groped more than once, but sadly, never by anyone famous.
For More Larkin.
Can you or anyone else tell me of any time that anyone was ever seriously damaged by Groping? If so, I must have missed the opportunity of a lifetime.
I was once grope by the mentally retarded son of The Cleaner in my Children’s Home. He looked after The Boiler, and I was down in the basement to see the kittens that our Family cat had just given birth to. I smacked him in the gob and never told anyone because I knew his mother would lose her job. I avoided him like the plague after that. Was I wrong to say nothing?
I have no idea Elena. I was once violently slapped across the face by an aggressive girl at a party, who complained I had dropped food on her friend’s carpet. It hurt and I couldn’t hit back, and I felt somehow humiliated. On the other hand, I picked the food up, and apologised, to make the Harpy go away and leave me alone….
…. Anything for a quiet life….. 
Sometimes things aren’t worth making a fuss about, More Larkin, as I told my children. Although I doubt they took that one on board. Same old same old. And my children have mysteriously missed the point of an easy going Mother. God preserve me from the righteous. But I am not their only parent.
Sometimes little arseholes form their own ideas, and then discard the one person that didn’t demand anything amazing. So be it.
My children have no idea of my past life, and I see no purpose in telling them that I had a really good time in a Children’s Home. God forbid that they might ask what I was doing there, and how their grandfather failed me. What would be the point? They certainly don’t want to know that I was beaten half senseless by their grandfather’s second wife, or that their grandmother died from lack of care. This is just Life for some of us, and probably for Anna Raccoon. We get on with it and do the best we can. And most of us don’t have the time or the patience to worry about who was groping who.
Nowadays? By all means plead ignorance. I mean please do get pissed off because someone groped your bum. When did any of you lose the ability to smack someone in the mouth? But this has to happen when it happens.
No child ever gets coerced or let down in general. It is only ever in particular.
I am having some difficulty with Rochdale at the moment. But I can only wonder what on earth the families of these children were doing. Why were these girls so open to risk? Why did none of their families know what was happening?
I honestly don’t know what these Muslim scum bags were up to, or even if they despise Christian girls, which for all I know, they don’t. But their own women are so sequestered that there will never be a chance in that direction. So they hit on girls who are available because the families of these girls don’t really care. Hit these men in whatever way is possible, but don’t assume that it has anything much to do with Religion. That would be a very bad mistake.
I don’t have a daughter, thank The Lord, much as I would have liked to, but I suspect that I would have turned her into a harridan. And long will be the day before I believe that every girl child is at risk of serious abuse. And certainly not at the hands of some wally in a Shell Suit.
If he didn’t do it again, then you handled it just fine, imo. Dee Cogger, one of the Duncroft girls, did the same thing to Savile, i.e. gave him a good push and told him to leave her alone, at which point he walked away and no more incidents occurred.
Of course I handled it just fine. I was eleven years old at the time. But the point was that I didn’t want his mother to lose her job. And I never put myself in that position ever again. At last not with that damaged boy. Actually, I should have told, but then I presumed that everyone was as tough as me. And since I wasn’t telling anyone about my step mother, then telling anyone about a silly boy who didn’t even frighten me seemed like a bit of a waste of time.
Perhaps some of you don’t really know what goes on with supposedly damaged children. Most of us weren’t actually damaged beyond what was being done to us. And most of us survived. And if the worst that ever happened to us was having our bums groped by Jimmy Savile then we might count ourselves lucky.
which didn’t stop her from selling her story where ever she could 30 years later or involving her daughter in debacle
Oh come now, Moor! We can’t let pesky things like facts get in the way of a good expose!
Interesting blog from another Bryn Estyn boy, but his story about what happened to him there is very different from Steve Messham’s. http://ynysmam.blogspot.co.uk/
Will there be any room for the people who have nothing bad to say about Jimmy Savile?
Don’t bank on it, But if you put hydrogen peroxide in your ears at the first hint of a cold or flu, then you will arrete the symptoms.. Don’t laugh, it actually works. The principal being that all germs or whatever, enter the body through the orifices, although there might be a couple of orifices that we don’t actually want to talk about. These two could be the most dangerous , but there you go. We all know the dangers of those two, so I won’t give you all a lecture on those. Suffice to stick to Ears, Eyes, Nose and Throat.. The Ears lead to all of these. 3% of Hydrogen Peroxide in your Ears will save you from a wealth of misery, and will not harm you in any way. Alternative Medicine rarely does.. It doesn’t always work, but it doesn’t do any great harm.
Ivan, Sorry, I came late to your comment about Science Articles in The Mail. Difficult for me since I mostly have no idea of what I am talking about, beyond common sense, which is sometimes not enough.
I worry that someone might have put in a lot of effort, so sometimes I churn out a load of old rubbish just to let them know that I had noticed what they said.
I did write this amazing post about fresh water pouring into The North Atlantic, that even I knew was a pile of gobbdy gook, but it did sound okay. And then two other posters fell out about what I had said. Ho Ho. So I Green Arrowed the one who agreed with me, and Red Arrowed the one who didn’t.
Actually, in retrospect, my ideas were not all that stupid, But Global Warming or not, is a difficult thing. And while I do not believe that Man is even remotely capable of destroying Planet Earth, I do believe that we should be a trifle more careful, even if only for our own sake.
I don’t actually care about The Human Race because for me The Planet will always be more important. It will be here long after I have gone.
I was once an Air Mechanic. I serviced aeroplanes in days of yore. when Her Majesty’s Royal Navy thought that women were fit for the purpose, but it was never that difficult. You just needed to know nuts and bolts and how to change some component that wasn’t working, or perhaps to know that it wasn’t working. But at the end of every day the life of some arsehole pilot was in your hands. And believe me, there were some arsehole pilots..
“Can you tell me how to start this thing, dear girl?’ “Yer , hit it with a hammer, and get out of the cockpit you bloody idiot. If you can’t start then you shouldn’t be driving it.” Hey Ho, happy days. I personally never lost a pilot. I might have wondered why.
@ just me and my cat
We shouldn’t assume they are all lying any more than we should assume they are all telling the truth.
I agree. If it was also not assumed that they were all guilty just because they were accused, that would be a perfect solution.
I was listening to an American recounting how she “imagined” her father to have abused her when she was a little girl. The saddest part was that when she finally faced it up him, as a grown woman – he ran to her mother and begged her to tell him if was true, because he could no longer trust himself to remember what was truth….. The whole sad tale, told by the girl/woman herself, is about halfway through this rather meandering old radio-show, ironically also from the BBC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0I_7W2Zfwg
I see that Dave Lee Travis who has been accused of groping a woman’s breasts live on the Home Service 40 years ago has been released on bail. This is so crazy. What is there to stop him doing it again?
@ JM – old age and a complete lack of interest? Wow, who knew that bastion of boredom the Home Service nestled such vipers in its … er, nevermind.
I believe Lady Norman was Chairman of the Board, at least in the early-mid ’60s, ergo the Royal visits.
I think he was the President of the Board. That’s ringing a bell.
My understanding is that what is giving cancer a big green light is the consistent attack on the immune systems as opposed to perhaps dishing out cancers, cancer I learned is a sort of fungus, and ever present.
When you consider the fact our salivic (could have invented a new word here) system has its own and separate immune system from the bodies system, then any and all virus that enters through nose, eyes, ears, and mouth is a lesser strength should it enter the body proper.
Vaccines hit direct into the blood stream as such by-pass the saliva immune system and people wonder why they are dangerous.
My four children had none.
Hi belinus
“cancer I learned is a sort of fungus”
This is not simply inaccurate, but utterly ignorant and incoherent. And dangerous. Unless you know something the rest of us don’t. Links would help–which contradict the vast information we have on cancer. I am not holding my breath. I am old enough to have seen scores–hundreds–of cancer ‘cures’ arrive and disappear. Many taking the life-savings with the afflicted with them.
Fungus? Good heavens!
I believe it came through a Dr Blaylock during the 2009 flu panic, but not sure what it is to be honest.
Hi belinus
This is probably he:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Blaylock
“Blaylock has been quoted several times in media outlets regarding his position that MSG is toxic to the brain. He also states that the widely used artificial sweetener aspartame is toxic and may be the cause of multiple sclerosis. He has additionally cautioned against heavy use of the artificial sweetener Splenda (sucralose). These positions are not supported by scientific consensus or regulatory bodies, as extensive studies support the safety of aspartame, sucralose, and MSG…Blaylock has also urged avoidance of the swine flu (H1N1) vaccination, which he claims is more dangerous than the infection itself…Current research indicates that an effective vaccine is a vital tool in protecting the public and that the new H1N1 vaccine is both safe and effective.
Little to suggest he is right. Much to suggest he isn’t. Including those who may have died from refusing the flu vaccine
“Advertisements selling the ‘Blaylock Wellness Report’…contain claims of additional health dangers, including fluoridated drinking water, fluoridated toothpaste, vaccines, dental amalgam, cholesterol drugs, pesticides, and aluminum cookware.
At this point (actually, well before) I conclude he is a nutter. You are free to make up your own mind.
The doctor who claims to have originated the theory about cancer being a fungal disease appears to be Dr. Tullio Simoncini , and he also claims he can cure cancer with sodium bicarbonate. I am sceptical, to say the least.
Hi Rob…I always make up my own mind. I agree with Blaylock on Aspartame as my brother in law is about to pass having suffered from MS for 20 years, the first thing he was told when diagnosed was…keep off the aspartame, MSG and a shed load of other pointless chemical cocktails in the food.
I would disagree profoundly with his take on the H1N1 vaccine, my research over the years has convinced me take nothing unless on the death bed, then it don’t matter anyhow.
Fluoride was used in the gulags and the concentration camps to dumb down the prisoners, so it is definitely a suppressant, proved each time I come down south and attempt to drink your disgusting water. They would not put it in the tea coffee, uk brewed alcohol, and water for nothing. It is a waste product from the production of aluminium.
I lost a couple of fingers some years ago, and off to hospital went I. They operated, put one back on and threw the other. I awoke to a plethora of tubes and boxes and other silly stuff affixed to my person and promptly removed the lot.
This did not go down well with the rather gorgeous nurses who insisted i needed it for pain and other technical nonsense.
i explained that it did not hurt enough to concern me and as such refused to allow it to be replaced and promptly decided it was time to leave.
Between you and me I think they fancied the pants off me and wanted me to stay they said for at least a week….lol.
Anyway, the good doctor horrified but slightly amused at my failure to feel pain, did all he had to so I could leave right away.
Off I went to the pharmacy in house and was given a huge bag of pills which looked nothing like ecstacy, so I threw um.
How the years roll by….
There appears to be some success in this direction, with sodium bicarbonate and cancer. Worth a Google.
Excess stomach acid is a dietary problem. One needs to figure out what is causing it, and then stop eating or drinking it. Indigestion can be cured by either drinking a pint of water, or a small quantity of diluted cider apple vinegar.
hello mi cat, great news you have helped prove I am not as mental as some believe….
Please stay sceptical! Simoncini is a dangerous nutter with convictions for manslaughter and fraud. He has been struck off by the Italian medical authorities and is therefore no longer entitled to call himself ‘Doctor’. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of cancer ever being caused by a fungus (his main claim) and it is physically impossible to alter the body’s pH balance with bicarbonate of soda without causing…ahem…death. Unfortunately I have watched my sister-in-law die of cancer over the last two years and the sadness and worry of that was exacerbated by her family’s inclination to jump on any ‘cure’ they found mentioned on the internet, or in the bloody Daily Mail. I spent far more time than I would like (months in total) checking out many of these ‘cures’ and was utterly horrified by what I found. Fraud, ill people suffering far more pain than they had to, more fraud, greed, dishonesty and yet more awful fraud. You get the picture. More often than I care to remember I was reduced to tears of rage and frustration – and that is not like me, I’m pretty hard-nosed most of the time. Luckily my dear Sister-in-law appreciated my efforts and told the rest of the family she wasn’t having any of it. She died peacefully two months ago, unmolested by bicarbonate of soda, coffee enemas or any other of the nonsenses out there.
Hi Elena ‘andcart
‘Worth a Google.’ Or you could go directly to WikiP ‘Tullio Simoncini’–the sodium bicarbonate guy. No immediate link, but this to filmmaker Massimo Mazzucco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Mazzucco
The New American Century / Il Nuovo Secolo Americano – 2007
“As a follow-up to Global Deceit, The New American Century presents the historical, philosophical, economical and political background — some of which is totally unknown to the public — that lend support to the accusation that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were in fact an inside-job.”
Which we all know! Or this:
Cancer: The Forbidden Cures – 2010
“All the successful cures against cancer discovered in the last 100 years, and the reasons why they were suppressed. Cancer is the only disease that has been defeated dozens of times without anyone knowing it. In the last 100 years, dozens of doctors, scientists, and researchers have developed diverse and effective solutions against cancer only to be thwarted by the political and propaganda power of the drug-dominated medical profession. This is the story of Essiac, Hoxsey, Laetrile, Shark Cartilage, Mistletoe, and Bicarbonate of Soda all put together in a stunning overview that leaves no doubt that inexpensive cures for cancer do exist but are systematically blocked by Big Pharma because they come from nature and cannot be patented.
For balance WikiP adds this:
Some criticism was directed to Mazzucco after his decision, starting September 2008, to publicize an alternative cancer therapy based on Sodium bicarbonate and proposed by Italian ex-doctor Tullio Simoncini. Said therapy is currently unproven, and Simoncini was expelled from the Italian Medical Association after he was tried and found guilty of fraud and manslaughter, since a patient died, allegedly as result of Simoncini’s treatment. Recent studies do show some activity of sodium bicarbonate against cancer in animal models. However, to date no human trials have been undertaken due to physiological implausibility as the human body tightly controls Acid–base_homeostasis.
‘Italy, as is well recognised, has high standards for integrity and truth, in documentaries, as in politics.’ Was it Berlusconi who said that?
I am inclined to agree with your opinion of conventional medical science.
Hi belinus–I’m never quite sure how seriously to take your posts! There are, however, always entertaining.
Anecdotal–personal–experience informs all our lives. It does not always reliably transfer from one life to another. Which is why more objective evidence becomes preferable. Properly conducted medical trials are, if you like, the combined testimony of many lives. Hence likely to be more reliable.
Well Robb like all people you will take what you experience and formulate your conclusions based entirely upon your own psychological conditioning.
I find those who are , let us say apt to tell fibs, will see everyone as a fib teller. Those who lie will see everyone as a liar.
If you believe in the medical world as the saviour then you will without question, see any and all information not sanctioned by the same as false.
Its all in you which you then project onto the canvas we call reality, it is therefore your reality. And who am I to say different.
Energy follows thought and is made manifest before you, I call it the wonder of 13.
Trouble is the corporate academies being forced by the coalition and previously by new labour (camps) have seclusion rooms and such, I fear we are moving in the direction of psychiatric procedures in the schools. That is not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination
This is all way outside my personal (thankfully) or professional background, but in any context or institution it can only be helpful if detail like being confined in a padded room is reported. It can easily and no doubt sometimes accurately be claimed that a detention record has been deleted or falsified, but whether an institution had a “padded cell” or not must be easier to establish? And if of course it didn’t, typical credibility issues arise.
…and lays eggs from time to time, too…..
Why was it wrong to go ahead with the tributes to Jimmy Savile? He raised more money for Charity than any other person ever did, and by his own hard efforts. Running from Exeter to Plymouth was hardly a doddle, and I saw him do that one.
I thought he was an exhibitionist, but you don’t raise 40 Million without pulling a few stunts.
I am really sad by the fact that his family had to remove his headstone, although I do think that something a little less tacky might have been better. But I don’t suppose that he cares.
It will be interesting to see what the benefiting Charities have to say about this. I wonder just how many of them will turn down the money, or return the money they have already had.
What is especially astonishing that an interview he gave in 2006, where he specifically denied he was a “paedophile”, is now spun by the media to make it mean he was confessing to being one. Truly Alice Through the Looking Glass stuff, but probably best not to bring well-known post-modern paedophile Lewis Carroll into the discussion [sigh]
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/unearthed-jimmy-savile-tells-journalist-children-should-be-eaten-at-birth-16229877.html
Just for context this is another actual interview Savile gave as long ago as 2001. The media had been after him for his whole life it seems.
http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/kids-cant-be-kidded-they-smell-the-truth-511693.html
I like his quote towards the end:
“And what, if after Jimmy dies, all these rumours or similar stories form part of his legacy? “Bollix to my legacy. If I’m gone, that’s that.” Yet claims that Jimmy Savile was a necrophiliac or paedophile might even now sour the minds of fans who are children. Or were, when they first heard his name.
“Grown ups can be kidded but as with these people here in the Central Remedial Clinic kids can’t be kidded,” he says. “They smell the truth, they sense it. If any of those stories were true they’d know it. And I have to say that all the things I’ve done in my life including Top of the Pops have got to be worthwhile to allow me to sit here today. And be accepted by these children who have such crosses to bear. In that sense, whatever is said after I’m gone is irrelevant.”
The monies have been distributed and the charities have closed down.
For Me and My Cat.
When I was in my really nice Children’s Home, we had a boy who was seriously disturb, although I never did know why. Probably sexual abuse by his family, in hindsight. But we, the other children, all felt dreadfully sorry for him, and I think that the husband and wife team who looked after us did as well. They were both incredibly patient with him. This wonderful couple were eventually deposed by a Lone Woman Carer because there seems to have been some concern over the husband being in charge of the girl children of this home, although there was certainly never any suggestion that he ever treated any of us less than correctly. And not me or my sister who made up one quarter of us, and we all had a wonderful time. Four girls and four boys, and lots of good family fun.
Anyway, this Lone Woman took over, and my sister and I were sent back “Home” to more familial abuse. but that’s another story.
This poor boy eventually went berserk and wrecked that lovely house, and set fire to some of it, basically because the silly Lone Woman could not control him, and had no idea of how to deal with a seriously disturb boy child. Actually, he should never have been there in the first place because he was too far gone to be recovered by an ordinary family environment and people who cared about him. But I worry about him to this day.
My point is that a lot of really caring husband and wife teams were discarded because there was a male element in the husband that was suspect without a scrap of proof. To attempt to care for emotionally disturbed children without the family element will always be a loser.
For More Larkin.
I had this Psychiartrist for a while, from the Tavistock Clinic. And even at the age of eleven I knew that he was crackers. He tried to put ideas into my head, which I wasn’t having. But I suspect that he wanted me to welch on my parents, and wanted me to say that my father had abused me, which my father never did, but only nearly never did. There was a perchance that I was aware of that never actually happened. But I suspect that my step mother was also aware of this and probably held me responsible for. Dead Mother, Lovely Daddy. Why should the nasty old bitch not have blamed me. She was hardly about to blame the man that she had married, despite being five months pregnant at the time. Poor old her. What a laugh that was.
But you see,, girls of my class never welch on the family no matter how up market we become. That is why The Social Services will never get anywhere with the likes of us We have an inordinate sense of stupidity and honour, We defend the likes of us no matter what. And so do most abused children.
Some of us were fortunately dragged off into Children’s Homes, some of which were better than others. I might have wished for Duncroft. It would have been better than being sent back home and being beaten and living in terror on a daily basis.
There is still ~£4M in his will that he left to his Trust. That is in suspension currently, awaiting the possibility of Damages claims.
That sum was actually quite interesting because he only left £20k to be shared between twenty of his family and friends. There was another £600k in some kind of Trust, presumably for some particular people. Someone elsewhere claimed to know that Jimmy had always kept 10% of Charity raising to cover himself. It struck me that if he did raise £40M then that £4M I mentioned first was Savile ensuring that he rendered unto Caesar, at the end of his days. Strange guy, but maybe not in the way he is being portrayed just now.
Elena will probably know that Jimmy came from a very working class background. In fact in his autobiography he made it plain that he emerged from the criminal classes, when no work was available. I think he’s got a very raw deal from history. Maybe he was flawed, to what degree I cannot know, but some of of what MWT is trying to pin on him should require a lot more back-up than there seems to be..
More Larkin. How very perceptive you are, although I don’t think I have ever hidden the fact that I am bog working class at heart, much as I would prefer not to be. But there you go. I do often pretend to be something else, and with some success. Mainly due to the upper class Scots people who looked after me when I had the good fortune to be placed in a Children’s Home,. But it is ever hard to be neither one or the other, which is what happens when you take a working class girl child out of her environment and offer her something better.
I don’t really know about Jimmy Savile, but if he was half the man that I am then I can only applaud what he did. I never raised a fraction of the money that he raised for Charity. And I am devastated for how badly he is now being treated, without a scrap of fucking proof. If this is what Great Britain has come to then I can only be doubly grateful for the fact that I no longer live there.
There is absolutely nobody as sensible and down to earth as the British “working class.” Without them, there’d be no England, no matter how weird it has become. And I no longer live there either.
Jimmy wasn’t my cup of tea exactly, but his heart seems to have been in the right place, even if his hands weren’t. He was a canny, intelligent person, who saw opportunity and took it. A lot of us did in those days. He didn’t set out wanting to hurt anybody, and he had some personal goal he was striving for. He was a good student of human nature. Bottom line (pun intended) he took everything he knew and he put it to work. I think his motivation was for good ultimately. But he was also flawed. And that goes with being human.
I wouldn’t place too much importance on The British Working Class if I was you. Most of the good ones are fighting tooth and claw to get out, or to be called something else. And then bogged off somewhere else, as both you and I have done. Both children of a bad beginning but both more than capable. Nothing frightfully working class about either of us despite our origins, but it never hurts to remember who we were.
I don’t think that Jimmy Savile cared about who he was. He was light years more clever than the rest of us put together. And oh my goodness me, didn’t he half do well. He did more for basic humanity than the rest of us ever did. And I really don’t care about how many bums he might have groped in passing. He could have groped my bum any day of the week. I am only sorry that he never did.
I am sick to death of hearing about what a bad man he was. He wasn’t a bad man. Okay. Prove me wrong.
you would think , from all we read in the popular media, that Savile somehow mesmerised his audience through the teeve and wasn’t a person who remained in work his entire life because of his talent.
Even his corny clothing is a source of endless attacks as though no-one else in show-biz wears colourful clothing for obvious reasons.
What I find very frightening is that Savile’s family and former friends are being forced to publicly denounce a man they obviously loved for 50/ 60 years, for not to do so would probably earn the wrath of the media. That’s scary.
You make an interesting point. It has always baffled me why any kind of sexual interference below the age of consent is automatically regarded by many people as permanently damaging when clearly there must be all kinds of degrees of early sexual experience from sexual games with older cousins to rape by step-fathers. For example, I haven’t read all of Karin Ward’s books (only the one that relates to Duncroft), but my understanding is that she was repeatedly raped by her stepfather from a young age. One would certainly expect such an experience to be very psychologically disturbing, but how does this rate alongside giving Jimmy Savile a blowjob in his car in exchange for cigarettes and a place on the bus to the BBC studios? From her own account, she passed this off as a very trivial event, and there is no suggestion in anything she wrote that she suffered psychological trauma from this. Nor is it really clear if Savile’s niece was permanently damaged by being groped at the ages of 13 and 16, by her account.
On the other hand, law enforcement simply has to look at it from the point of view of whether laws were broken and whether cases can still be brought or compensation sought, even after decades have passed. The legal point of view may be very different from a common sense point of view.
I worked for a couple of years in a program for sex offenders in the United States and had opportunities to review case notes and offender histories. A large proportion of the offenders were pedophiles and the quality of their offenses certainly seemed much more severe that the kind of thing Savile was accused of, and the witness statements (from child victims, not from adults at a remote distance in time) far more detailed and convincing than anything that has been put in the public arena in media discussions of the Savile case and the North Wales pedophile ring case.
Pedophilia is a very real crime and persistent pedophiles certainly need to be taken out of circulation, but I really wonder whether the Savile case is not a complete red herring, unless there are more witness statements regarding events of a more severe nature that have not yet been revealed to the public.
It might be worth pointing out for those on the wider world web, that part of the perfect storm against Savile was the recent past of the News of the World phone Hacking scandal, and the consequent Leveson report. The British public became incensed by the purported hacking of a murder victim’s phone (a story that later turned out to be skewed by the Guardian anyway). This unrest led to to the Leveson Inquiry. That got grand-standed by the likes of Max Mosley who was offended that his penchant for Nazi sex fantasies in brothels were made public, and Hugh Grant was similarly offended by all the things only Hugh Grant could get up to -, being “outed”. They were both aided and abetted btw, by none other than Paedo-expert-MP Tom Watson (remarkable by his absence from Parliament just now). Anyhow, if you want to know more it’s all on the web.
The point so far as Savile is concerned is that this opportunity to reveal the cuddliest TV bloke from the past as being a closet paedo meant that the press could imply that if Leveson put Celebrites off-limits to their investigative journalism, then such crimes would never be detected again. By murdering Savile’s reputation they put huge pressure on Leveson to leave the Celebrity tittle-tattle market available to them for the future.
The media might otherwise seem mad to the non-British world (if Savile was not so guilty as all that), but there has been a method behind their madness and Savile an important tool in their fight for press freedom.
“Savile’s family and former friends are being forced to publicly denounce a man they obviously loved for 50/ 60 years”
Except perhaps his niece who says he put his hand down her knickers when she was 12, and was told “it’s only Jimmy” when she complained to her grandmother, and that he also assaulted her again when she was 15. Radio 5 live’s interview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20081577
Yes, we only have her word for any of that, but that’s the problem with a lot of this. Lack of evidence is not proof that it did not happen – but equally there is no proof that it did. The niece might have all sorts of reasons for making an untrue claim now, or she might finally be able to say publicly what she has wanted to say for 37 years. We have no way of knowing which. “Innocent until proven guilty” applies to the accusers as well as to the accused. We shouldn’t assume they are all lying any more than we should assume they are all telling the truth.
There’s a case-study about halfway through this radio-show from 2011, by a woman who remembered being abused by her father, but later came to the conclusion that it had never happened, and she explains how she and her father dealt with the chain of events that unfolded:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0I_7W2Zfwg
In that particular case I am not sure how we will know the truth but I found her claim that Granny knew and kept quiet because of the ‘gifts’ that flowed from Savile, an odd claim.
@ haven’t read all of Karin Ward’s books (only the one that relates to Duncroft), but my understanding is that she was repeatedly raped by her stepfather from a young age. @
I copy-pasted the opening chunk of Karin’s first book from Amazon, when it was still available for “preview”. I stopped reading about 6 printed A4 pages in, at the point where a stepfather first assaults her. I think by then she was supposed to be at school for sure. She begins the account at the age of two, and there are whole conversations transcribed between her and her mother, who evidently detests being trapped as a “single mother” and turns that aggression onto the little girl. Whilst the story no doubt holds true for Karin, I’m not sure it could be taken as a documentary of objective facts, and even one or two of her reviews question how she could remember such detailed conversations at such a young age.
To be honest this whole sub-genre of Mis-Lit seems at the root of much of the modern mass-preoccupation with paedophilia in the public’s mind. Some of the comments on Karin’s work at Amazon are disturbing in themselves – things along the lines of “this is the best book I have ever read. I can’t wait for Karin’s next one”.
Yes, the Duncroft years also have detailed reconstructions of many conversations written in a rather flat Enid Blytonesque style, though I don’t think she recounts any conversations with Savile verbatim. [Perhaps it would go like this: "Now then, now then, yoong lady. As it 'appens, you may be woondering what is this 'ere loomp in me pants...!"]
The dialogue is clearly a convenient fiction, though I don’t think Charles Dickens will be losing any sleep over this literary competitor.
Well, her publisher would say that.
The following is from the Author’s notes to Karin’s second book….
As for conversations and the ability to recall them, I would be lying if I claimed to be able to do that. What I can do, however, is recall my feelings and the situations in question. Using my knowledge of the people, the events, the places and my own feelings I can extrapolate a conversation. It is actually a style of writing called ‘Dialogue-led narrative’. There are, of course, certain words and phrases which I do recall with clarity, such as “You’re just trying to draw attention to yourself.”
‘the likes of Max Mosley who was offended that his penchant for Nazi sex fantasies in brothels were made public’
uh uh….you are in danger of doing there exactly what you are concerned that lots of others are doing now, ie making apparantly false allegations, or at least allegations that cannot be substantiated by the facts, or repeating the incorrect allegations of others as a result of being in ignorance of the facts, or, even worse, having fallen into the trap of having believed the tabloids
Perhaps we can help to improve your education? For a tale of reputable reporting standards, outstanding integrity and the best endeavours of Her Majesty’s Press, may I recommend….:
http://heresydungeon.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/secrets-of-chelsea-basement_31.html
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1777.html
(including pearls of wisdom from Lord Justice Eady)
http://heresydungeon.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/everything-ive-learned-about-spanking.html
http://heresydungeon.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/why-privacy-isnt-just-for-rich.html
…..all demonstrating what is provided to us, the public, within the realms of the best of self regulation, as provided under the PCC Editor’s Code of Conduct, that shining star in the firmament, an exemplar for all other professional bodies, and their standards of governance, in this modern world
Bound to be much in what you say but I doubt Leveson is buying it and with today’s Daily Mail ‘investigation’, I feel the good Lord will be even more determined.
@Ho Hum
Yes, I suppose you are right. I am being rather stupid in following an already discredited news media line. I can hardly complain about the approach of the mass media on one story if at the same time I swallow their misconstruction of another story and worse, repeat the misconstruction. Perhaps the host of the Raccoon Arms might edit that ill-advised description within my previous comment. It was unecessary detail anyway to illustrate what I was really taking about, which was the likely motivations of the printed press to “get Savile”. I cannot make the edit for myself unfortunately. I hope my otherwise balanced approach demonstrates I try to post with due consideration to some kind of personal probity. It’s probably time for me to pause, and take a break anyway. What more is there to say. It’s not like I know any more than anyone else anyway.
Many thanks Ho Hum,
Gratefully yours, Moor.
Only read the ‘Secrets of a Chelsea Basement’ so far and found it absolutely hilarious!
Will try to read the others tomorrow.
Great entertainment!!!
You are also in danger of missing the point. Just how many people out there think your background is great entertainment too?
Of course, given that your comment is a trifle ambiguous, if you meant that the comedy was merely that created by Her Majesty’s Press, and its activities, as opposed to the antics of Mr Mosely et al, fair enough, their behaviour was indeed risible. However, I can quite see why Mr Mosely would no more wish to be maligned by them, any more than Lord McAlpine, for the entertainment of any other passing ignoramus
Ho Hum, point not missed at all! I found the linked article, with all its reporting standards and integrity, decidedly more entertaining than I’m sure the original, no doubt sensationalist articles printed in the British press would have been – none of which I have read as I have barely read a British newspaper in 50 years, only recently on-line. The original printed article/s obviously embellished to sell copy to, in the main, a gullible British Public that laps up any story relating to whatsoever public figure being revealed in any act considered reprehensible by said Public.
How Max Mosley or other celebs/quasi-celebs get their rocks off is their business and not the public’s. What I don’t understand is why the law allows newspapers to pay large sums of money to those of low integrity who ‘set people up’ filming/recording them in what are, considered by many, compromising situations – that seems to me a major flaw!
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