Illustration from the incomparable Nick Dewar RIP February 2010.

We have imported many trends from America; none so misunderstood as the ‘Free Speech’ trumps all other rights. I would hazard a guess that ‘free speech’ is probably the most quoted phrase in the blogosphere.

‘Speech’ is the power of oral communication. Oral. By mouth. Yet it is freely translated as the right to imprint the Blogosphere with a permanent written record of your thoughts.

The main stream media are terrified of the Blogosphere, they see their advertisers leaking away by the day, and the only way they can keep up their viewing figures is by implanting their ‘news’ with words that are commonly searched for on-line. Wikileaks. Angelina Jolie. Madeleine McCann. Cheryl Cole. Gordon Brown. Banker’s Bonus. Newsrooms are driven by the need to find stories to fit round these keywords. Editors no longer look at the world news and make a professional judgement as to the order of the news. They peer at keywords. Consult SEO experts.

Thus they have found themselves consumed, the past few days, chasing stories concerning the murder of Joanna Yeates. Just Joanna Yeates. The ‘keyword’ Joanna Yeates. Not the other two dozen unsolved murders in the same area.

Having selected a suitable corpse – not quite the pulling power of a dead Princess, nor the winsomeness of a missing Madeleine, but blonde and young, (looking promising),  they still need a reason to insert those other SEO magic words.

In order of importance, these appear to be ‘paedophile’, ‘religious’, ‘weird’, ‘gay’, pornography, anything French related, private education, and the highly suspect Lib-Dems.

In the rush for ‘keyword Bingo’, the Daily Mail achieved high scores.

Paedophilia:

A teacher who used to live in Joanna Yeates flat was jailed for sexually abusing a pupil there. Stephen Johnson taught French at Clifton College where murder suspect Jefferies also worked.

Religion:

Mr Jefferies was four years ago appointed the chairman of the Bath and Avon Prayer Book Society, which promotes the continued use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Weird:

So liberally sprinkled around that it is impossible to isolate specific uses.

Gay:

‘He was a very private individual. He was notorious for his odd hairstyle, it was often poetically long, and definitely had a blue tinge.

‘Mr Jefferies was also famous for his utter dislike of sports. At boarding schools everyone has to chip in and teachers would often referee rugby or football matches, but not him.

‘Mr Jefferies was a bachelor, he never spoke about girls and I never saw him with any, but likewise there was no suggestion he was homosexual as people have suggested.’ (‘People’ -  including the Daily Mail!)

Pornography:

Ticked that one with earlier reference to Stephen Johnson, who used to show pornography to the boys at the college……

French related:

Got that one with the earlier gratuitous reference to Stephen Johnson – French teacher natch.

Private Education:

Clifton College…can’t believe our luck. This SEO business is a doddle.

Lib-Dems:

Line them up on the bar lads, I’m there. Got it.

‘Campaigning for the Liberal Democrats’.

Does it matter if the Daily Mail – why single them out? – and every other national newspaper – is playing an incautious game of ‘round the rules of contempt of Court we go’?

Yes, it does.

Ironically, if the police have sufficient evidence to charge Mr Jefferies (currently released on bail with no charges) with any crime, he will then enjoy greater protection from the rush to sully his reputation by innuendo and association. Whilst completely innocent in legal terms he is at the mercy of every SEO expert in every newspaper office.

Following their example, the on-line world of dubious forums has burst into life once more. The ghouls who delight in tormenting the families of the deceased, the missing, the raped, and the sexually exploited are competing with each other to come up with the most outlandish theories; half digested innuendo from the newspaper files is rehashed as fact. Photographs photoshopped.

The armchair Agatha Christie’s who were growing bored with discussing the finer details of Hollie Greig’s alleged sexual history, or debating their unshakeable belief that the McCann’s murdered Madeleine, or whether Stuart Lubbock was drugged before or after he was anally raped, or Lee Balkwell really died in a cement mixer – have found a new lease of life.

They have the family of Joanna Yeates to torment. Just one of two dozen people murdered in the area, but the one selected by the main stream media for their infotainment.

And all the innuendo, all the gossip, all the revolting suggestions, all the ‘facts’ and the ‘troof’ will be left on-line for future generations to discover when they Google Chris Jefferies name.

Even if he turns out to be totally innocent.

The right to ‘Free Speech’ has become the right for every nonentity to leave a written record of their every obscene thought for all eternity. They can no longer wait for a man to be found guilty, this is the age of instant gratification.

And premature articulation of lurid slurs.

Premature Articulation. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Good Lord – there are some interesting candidates standing for election in the Cambridge area alongside Old Holborn.

One who particularly raised my eyebrows is Helene Davies-Green who is standing for UKIP in South Cambridgeshire.

Possibly, no probably, no, emphatically, not a name that would be instantly familiar to you – unless you had taken a close interest in the Madeleine McCann case.

Her description in the list of candidates maintained by the local newspaper wouldn’t alarm the horses, but for those who have followed the McCann case closely, it is a name redolent of behaviour unbecoming a future legislator.

Helene Davies-Green, 62, is a married mother-of-three who lives in Bar Hill. She also has three stepsons. She was educated at Exeter College of Art, works as a clinical coder at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, and has served on Bar Hill parish council. Her interests range from field mycology and fell-walking to litter picking and motorcycling. She said: “Public money should be properly accounted for, and all political decisions should be made in public, unlike those of the EU Commission. As an MP, I would always be answerable to my constituents.” She added her Christian faith would influence her decisions.

A little background on Helene Davies-Green for you.

She and her husband Granville form part of the grandly named ‘Madeleine Foundation’ alongside failed solicitor Anthony Bennett. A man who was himself once briefly, very, very briefly, well actually just three whole days, listed on the Electoral Commission’s web site as leader of Veritas. He has in the past been a member of the Labour Party and UKIP as well as the aforementioned Veritas. In addition to his variable commitment to an assortment of political parties, he has also pursued a number of private prosecutions.

Well known for his homophobic stance, which he relates to his strong ‘Christian faith’ – indeed he was barred from holding  office in the UKIP party after he circulated a pamphlet labelling the prophet Muhammad a paedophile, he went on to take a strong interest in the Michael Barrymore/Stuart Lubbock  case. He brought an unsuccessful prosecution against Michael Barrymore  and wrote a book claiming that Lubbock had died as a result of a violent attack of a homosexual nature which Barrymore had concealed.

Whether he left the Labour Party, and later UKIP, voluntarily or not is not known, but he then emerged as a founder member of Veritas with the strangely hued Robert Kilroy-silk, but his past association with Ian Anderson, ex-chairman of the National Front came back to haunt him.

Bennett then went on to latch onto the Madeleine McCann case, and unsuccessfully tried to bring a private prosecution – once again – against the parents in the English courts. It was ruled that the courts had no jurisdiction to hear his case.

Helene Davies-Green and her husband Grenville have been two of his staunchest supporters. This photograph of her, Grenville and Debbie Butler was taken when they stopped for refreshments after an arduous day at Oxford University when they tried  to disturb a lecture given by Clarence Mitshell, part of the Conservative Party’s campaign team. Presumably donations to their foudnation didn’t run to anything more than dinner at a burgher bar.

An earlier staunch supporter, Debbie Butler, fled the organisation amid claims that Bennett had not accounted for donations correctly. The claims and counterclaims have occupied an inordinate amount of police time between Essex Police and Kent Police, and are still not fully resolved.

Debbie Butler, in turn, fell out with the organisation after some particularly lurid stories appeared in the National newspapers labelling her a stalker after she and her cohorts – Bennett, and the two Davies-Green’s took it upon themselves to push leaflets through the letter boxes of the McCann’s neighbours in Rothley publicising their foundations views that Madeleine was not abducted and that her parents were to blame for her ‘death’.

Curiously, Ms Davies’Green’s candidacy listing states ‘litter picking’ as one of her hobbies. Litter dropping might have been more representative.

A UKIP spokesman, quoted in the Sun newspaper, said last night: “Whilst having every sympathy with the McCanns and their predicament, UKIP believes in the freedom of speech.”

We all believe in freedom of speech, but not in freedom of libellous speech, a view obviously shared by Mssrs Carter-Ruck who have been in regular communication with the grandiose ‘Madeleine Foundation’ on this very matter, binding the foundation, of which Ms Davies-Green is a committee member not to further publicise their libellous claims.

The Sun newspaper goes on to describe Ms Davies-Green as a ‘folk-singer’ – it sounds positively cuddly, doesn’t it?

Let’s try a folk-singer who has strong links to homophobic men with strong links to ex-members of the National Front. Not nearly so cuddly is it?

I was amused to find this question on Ms Davies-Green’s election web site.

Question … ‘What are your views on harassing the parents of a missing child? Would you support a law that makes that illegal? ‘

said … ‘Dear Ms Island I believe the present legislation with regard to harassment is adequate. If, however, you have any specific proposals for amendments to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 or to any other Act of Parliament, please let me know. After the election, you could also submit any such proposals to your local MP. By the way, are you in South Cambridgeshire?

Nice swerve Ms Davies-Green, but I suspect that is not the last you will have heard of that question.

Joining the dots… is a post from: Anna Raccoon

The indigestion suffered after Lord Mandelson has been dinning and whining (sic) with the rich and famous is widespread, and not confined to just those round the table.

The latest bout has enveloped the music industry, after Mandelon’s cosy ‘Port-side’ chat with multi-millionaire David Geffen resulted in Mandelson suddenly reversing Government policy and announcing that he was considering plans to block Internet access for persistent file-sharers.

Following yet another late night chat over the Port bottle, albeit not ‘in port’ this time, with Lucian Grainge, chairman of Universal Music Group, his resolve to protect the established copyright holders seemed complete, and Treasury Minister Stephen Timms was soon singing from the same hymn sheet.

Mandelson’s proposal in the Police, Crime and Private Security Bill could potentially conflict with a European Parliament ruling in May prohibiting European Union governments from cutting off a user’s Internet connection without a court order. A final version of that measure must still be negotiated with the European Council.

Voila! In the last few days they have produced their trump card, watch the magician pull the rabbit out of his hat children!

Child abuse investigators plan to focus efforts on the use of peer to peer networks to distribute images, following a “wholesale move” in sex offenders’ online behaviour .

The “vast majority” of paedophile activity online now takes place on public and private P2P platforms rather than commercial criminal websites, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) said today.

“Our focus must now be on tackling this as a priority,” the agency said in its annual report.

The Independent on Sunday carried a report of a leaked Home Office letter “drawing up plans for what, in effect, would be the first form of state intervention in Britain in relation to the Internet.

It will be done in the name of ‘must protect the children’, but no doubt will carry statutory instruments allowing Ministers to vary the Act to protect the powerful media lobby of copyright holders.

Those nasty paedophiles must be stopped, even if we take a hammer to crack down on the unwitting parent whose child has downloaded an illegal copy of Arctic Monkeys and finds his Internet access, and possibly his ability to work, cut off as a result.

Is there no activity that cannot have potential child abuse bandied about as an excuse for banning it?

No doubt Madeleine McCann will make a belated entry into this discussion of the financial interests of the incumbent analogue publishers,  she seems to get everywhere else – except home.

‘Ere we go……. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Nothing exercises the Libertarian sense of impending moral outrage so much as those two little words ‘Free Speech’. It is said by some to be the very definition of Libertarianism.

I consider myself to be a Libertarian; I believe that I possess a free will and that I should be free to do whatever I wish with my person and my property without state intervention, and I extend to others the same ability to do as they wish with their persons and their property.

However, there are some who would describe themselves as Libertarian who maintain that it is an ideological freedom of thought and speech which means that they can say whatever they want, wherever they want, about whomever they want. Indeed, I am oft amused by a pair of camp hysterics who whinny piteously whenever my name is mentioned, so offended are they by my refusal to abide by ‘their‘ rules of Libertarianism – surely an oxymoron, but one that they are happy to expound on to anyone silly enough to listen to them, the end result of which is an increase in visitors to my blog every time they sound off,  so I shan’t complain!

Free Speech is rather like Free Love, a utopian ideal that is fine for the hale and hearty, but has a nasty tendancy to damage the frail and the feeble at its outer edges. One only has to bring rape, incest or paedophilia into the equation to realise that Free Love must actually have limits, and those limits are the points at which either other people become damaged or become involved not of their free will.   So it is with Free Speech.

Dick Puddlecote invoked the memory of Amaral’s Video on the McCann saga, and suggested that the Italian legislation proposed would mean that the ‘blogosphere would cease to be able to provide a small guy with the means to highlight corruption/hypocrisy/mendacity and any other wrongdoing, by someone who has a bigger bank account and/or a decent solicitor’ . Well I disagree Dick – it would mean that he would have to apologise after 48 hours if he had got his facts wrong/was not able to prove his facts, not that he would be silenced in the first place.

I see no reason why I should not be expected to issue an apology or even a retraction if I have got something wrong nor any reason, more importantly, why I should expect to be some sort of ‘sacred cow’ that is allowed to say or do anything I like simply because this is the blogosphere.

I don’t demand the ability to hurt others as the price of my Libertarianism.

(Some of your knees must be tired jerking at this point – would you like a short rest whilst I digress?)

Dick brought up the McCann saga, so having just achieved 14 days without nicotine, I’m just mad enough now to howl at the moon or even brook discussion of the affair once more, despite having sworn never to do so again.

In the last few days, a motley gang of exponents of Free Speech, having tired of talking amongst themselves (and this group expressly excludes anybody who doesn’t believe that Madeleine McCann died in apartment 5a and that her parents are culpable in some way – so much for free speech!) has broken free of the blogosphere, and under cover of darkness, sloped off to the one place that you might have thought better informed on the Madeleine saga than anywhere else – and under the pretext of ‘enlightening’ those who might disagree with them, have been posting leaflets listing the reasons why they believe the parents culpable, to all their neighbours in the small village of Rothley.

That is stalking dangerously close to vigilantism, or the free speech version of rape.

Amaral’s video listed the various avenues which had been explored by the police and showed some of the evidence they had discovered – evidence that was not sufficient to charge the parents with any crime. I see no reason why that should not be discussed. I see no reason why the case should not be discussed. But I can see a million reasons why people who have decided that they are more swayed by the ‘insufficient evidence’ than the parent’s protestations of innocence, should be prevented from provocatively scurrying round the neighbours, in the twilight, delivering written ‘proof’ of the parents guilt – to the parents of the McCann twin’s school friends.

That is where an absolute defence of free speech can lead – and is why I cannot support it. The vulnerable have to have some protection from the harm that words can do.

OK, Knees, by the right, Quick Jerk……..

Libertarianism and the Doctrine of Free Speech. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Facts by themselves can often feed the flame of Maddie-ness, is a post from: Anna Raccoon

John Ozimek in The Register has an exclusive interview today with Jim Bates, the man firmly in the sights of  Operation Ore Ire. I am reproducing it in full here for the benefit of those who won’t be reading the ‘other side’ of the story in their daily newspapers.

There are those who say (generally from behind usernames and with language so foul that I am forced to moderate their comments) that any attempt to insist on the rule of law where paedophilia – or ‘kiddy fiddlers’, as they insist on describing them, is concerned is ‘supporting child abuse’, ‘encouraging child abuse’. I have found comments on the Internet demanding that ‘I be burned at the stake, in public’.

Let me make something very clear. I do not support paedophilia. I do not support racism. I do support the rule of law, I do support the right of democratically elected representatives to take their place in whatever parliament they are elected to. Knee jerk emotive campaigning against political parties, or against whatever ‘panicomonium’ the government are currently filling the heads of the population with is a recipe for anarchy – and anarchy protects no-one.

What follows is from John Ozimek’s article.

Jim Bates, once recognised as one of the country’s leading computer forensic experts, has made the extraordinary claim that senior police officers in Avon & Somerset and in the Met’s Child Exploitation Online Protection Team (CEOP) have deliberately stirred up and misled public opinion, in an effort to distract attention from a scandal that could soon engulf them.

In a statement to the Reg Bates says that he is now going public unwillingly, but that the level of misinformation being fed to the national media by Avon & Somerset Chief Constable Colin Port is so significant that he has little option but to provide some balance.

The current controversy hinges on the status of hard copy images and hard drives seized by Avon and Somerset Police in September 2008: last month a court ruled that the seizure had been illegal, and that the material should be returned, in part to Jim Bates, in part to independent experts.

This was followed by some very high profile media comment by the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, to the effect that he would rather go to prison than hand the material over.

Bates now claims that he is “aware (and will prove) that those images had been “exhaustively” examined (unlawfully) by Avon and Somerset police in September 2008 and were identified as being within active and archived case”.

Therefore, he goes on, Mr Port has either been “seriously misled by his own officers”, or presented a misleading and “emotive story for public consumption”.

Bates speculates that a number of elements are finally coming together. First, he observes that preliminary investigation of the drives relating to the case that sparked this train of events provided evidence that might have secured an acquittal: police actions (including their decision to apply for a warrant to a magistrate rather than a judge) disrupted his ability to present that evidence.

He also believes that these events finally link to fall-out from Operation Ore – perhaps the largest single operation by police against collectors of child porn in the UK – just as the likelihood of a class action against the police in respect of Ore cases nears the appeal courts. His view is that the investigation was hopelessly compromised by the presence of credit card fraud, and that a high proportion of the convictions were unduly influenced by a police tendency to interpret the evidence to fit their preconceptions.

Bates told us:

I also feel that the recent support for [Colin Port’s] position offered by Jim Gamble of CEOP is extremely interesting given that Mr Gamble headed the Operation ORE enquiry and has more to lose than most when the appalling shambles is eventually exposed.

He concludes:

The relevant facts will be presented to Senior Judges at the High Court during the contempt proceedings scheduled for 16th June. Their decision is what counts, not the unsupported, misleading, inaccurate and emotive utterances of an embattled Senior Police officer.

The Register has asked the relevant police organisations for comment. Avon & Somerset have declined. A spokeswoman for CEOP stated that the allegations of credit card fraud were not new.

CEOP also provided the following statement:

Within the UK we put child welfare first. We are duty-bound to establish an investigation where there is an indication that children may have suffered abuse.

During the course of Operation Ore, more than 130 children have been safeguarded and over 2,500 perpetrators held to account. 700 people have been cautioned, meaning that they have accepted their guilt and are now on the sex offenders register.

Assessments came to the UK, cases were analysed and then passed to the local police force. Further assessments were then carried out as to the veracity of the information. Where there were reasonable grounds to suspect an individual, an independent assessment was carried out. Where there was evidence found to say that a person had visited an adult site no further action was taken.

Death rattles from the ongoing Colin Port saga….. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

They say if you stand still in Piccadilly Circus for long enough, eventually everyone in the world will pass by. Rummaging in the murky depths of ‘Operation Ore’ is beginning to acquire the same quality.

I wrote on Tuesday of the Chief Constable who was preparing to defy the writ of the High Court in the matter of returning the property of one Jim Bates. I note that the BBC have now removed the page that I linked to which I found alarming in its description of Jim Bates as a ‘fake expert’. In the light of the news last night of an accepted 2,000 children being the subject of abuse in Ireland, I have most productively overturned a few more stones in those hills.

The postulate that ‘children must be protected from the dangers of paedophilia’ is a self evident truism that is driving an entire industry, and allowing some remarkable players to apparently ride a moral ‘high horse’ over the rule of law.

I have neither sympathy nor support for child abusers, nor for the industry of paedophiliac pornography. However, I do not believe that the crime of child abuse is more important than the rule of law. That said, let us take a look at some of the facts lurking under these stones.

There is no ‘university of investigation into paedophilia’. No accredited qualifications. The authority of Colin Port, and Jim Gamble of  CEOP, moral and legal,  lies purely within the rule of law – as Police Officers, although a connection with Ireland would appear to be a useful item on a CV. Curiously, both were Police Officers working in Northern Ireland, indeed Jim Gamble is believed to hail from a village just a dozen miles south of the home town of one Gerry McCann, who is fast becoming another self styled expert in paedophilia. Jim Bates is not a policeman, and his accreditation as an ‘expert’ is dependent on the opinion of the presiding judge in any case – and no-one else [2009] EWHC 942 (Admin).

Jim Gamble spent twenty five years in the police force there, rising to become head of the Northern Ireland anti-terrorist intelligence unit. Colin Port, whilst deputy Chief Constable of Norfolk, was the officer in charge of the investigation into the murder of Rosemary Nelson, who had complained before her death of being threatened by RU officers. Even more curiously, the Chief Constable of Norfolk at the time was Carole Howlett, who was also the spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police on Operation Ore, and later for the private ACPO organisation, a forerunner of CEOP, later to become Jim Gamble’s ‘platform’ in the ‘business’ of child abuse and on-line pornography.

Since Operation Ore was launched on the basis of 7200 names provided to the British Police as subscribers to a US based Pornography ring, Avon and Somerset police alone had over 200 names in their area. UK police have arrested almost 4000 of those named,  and searched over 4283 homes, a more diligent response than that of any other world police force. There have been some 1500 person charged. That still leaves a considerable number on a list of ‘suspects’.  Philip Lyons, a senior commons Clerk was one of those arrested and charged. There has been repeated and apparently well informed speculation that Senior Ministers, some with close connections to Ireland appeared on the list. A the time of writing, the Sunday Times is believed to have a copy of this list, but to be unwilling to publish it. In the 19th of January edition of The Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay sensationally reported that senior members of Tony Blair’s government were being investigated for paedophilia and the “enjoyment” of child-sex pornography. That edition has now been removed from the archives. Duncan Campbell exposed the unfairness of the investigation – highlighting the fact that many thousands of the names, whilst genuine people, had had their card details obtained by fraud, and they were not the people who had accessed the illegal sites. Some 31 people are believed to have committed suicide as a result of being named  – often by very senior Police Officers, in this operation. There has been considerable disquiet by many that Leicestershire Police saw fit to apply to the court in Portugal not to reveal the names of suspected British paedophiles believed to be living or at least visiting Portugal, during the investigation of the McCann case. There has been further disquiet at the involvement of senior politicians, including Gordon Brown, in the case, and in the appointment of a government media spokesman to act as general factotum to the couple, a position he still holds to this day some 2 years later, although it is unclear who pays his salary now.

Jim Bates ‘who is regarded in many ways to be the founding father of computer forensics in this country’ [2009] EWHC 942 (Admin) was the defence expert witness who ultimately exposed the shoddy nature of the British end of Operation Ore, by examining the logs of the US based web site, and showing that many thousands of the names on the UK list were there as a result of proven fraud. His computers were seized three days before he was due to appear as a defence witness in the trial of Graeme Harris. Since Graeme Harris was deprived of the use of his ‘expert witness’ by the actions of Avon and Somerset police in illegally searching Bates’ house and removing hard drives – which contained material integral to Graeme Harris’s case, and which, note,  were obtained under Police supervision at the headquarters of the Avon and Somerset High Tech Unit, (not from some late night ‘surfing’ expedition!), there would appear to be at least a question mark over the validity of Graeme Harris’s trial. A matter which I am sure his defence team are looking into following the Judicial Review of the Bates case. Following the Judicial Review of Jim Bates’ case, Colin Port declared that he was prepared to defy the High Court and not hand property back to Mr Bates as directed.

The news from Ireland concerning the 2,000 children accepted as being sexually and physically abused is desperately sad; it is an emotive subject and one that many would prefer to avoid – all the more reason for absolute transparency as to the background of those involved in the fight against child abuse, and for a total adherence to the rule of law, to remove any suspicion that anyone is above the law, or indeed, below the radar of the law.

The privatisation of ACPO and indeed of its sub division CEOP has caused additional disquiet, I note also speculation regarding the freedom of information request which disclosed that £90,000 of public money was paid by Chief Constable Colin Port to lawyers Carter Ruck in an attempt to stop Bristol’s TV and Radio stations reporting on the IBM/Southwest One contract in which he and his wife had a direct interest. His wife Sue Barnes has been paid £200,000 in salary and fees alone as part of the deal. This followed BBC Crime Correspondent Steve Brodie’s reporting of allegations of corruption which were made by Ian Liddell-Grainger MP in the House of Commons under parliamentary privilege.

We mustn’t allow the present level of interest in the misdeeds of our rampant executive to blind us to equally serious events in other areas, unreported as they are by a national media which maintained a discreet silence on the level of corruption in our Houses Of Parliament until Damian McBride was removed from a position of power over them – thanks to blogger Guido Fawkes.

There be ‘Ore’ in them thar Irish Hills. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

It is said of the Law that it is the glue which holds the fabric of society together – if that is so, we are in danger of unravelling fast.

The High Court appears to be losing – or rather ‘relinquishing’ – its authority. If the High Court doesn’t stamp its foot and cry ‘contempt of court’ when its authority is challenged by iconic figures in society, we cannot be surprised that lesser mortals have no respect for the law.

One of the most serious charges laid at the door of the Speaker of our House of Commons is that he ignored the order from the High Court to publish MPs expenses.

Today we hear of a Chief Constable, no less, who is also ignoring the writ of the High Court.

Colin Port, Chief Constable of Somerset and Avon Police, says “he is prepared to go to jail rather than return suspected child pornography”. That statement is worthy of closer inspection. The story appears on the BBC web site. It is ‘linked’ to an earlier story described as  ‘fake child porn expert sentenced’.

The casual reader must surely gain the impression that somewhere we have a man who falsely claimed to be an expert in child porn but in fact was revealed to be a common or garden (and thus despicable) viewer of child porn who was trying to reclaim his property consisting of sickening images.

Terence Bates, the ‘expert’ in question, is acknowledged on the BBC site as being an ‘electronics expert’, however he did lie about having a degree on his CV. Lying about a degree didn’t result in Derek Draper being described as a ‘fake web master’, nor was Jeffrey Archer ever described as being a ‘fake MP’.  Mr Bates – who must surely have celebrated the day he stopped being Master Bates – has spent many years delving into the murky depths of on-line pornography including that involving children. He was called as an expert witness in the case of Brian Stevens, the Soham murders detective cleared of child pornography offences, it was not suggested that Bates’ evidence had adversely affected the outcome of any trial. An alert Prosecution lawyer had merely managed to discredit him regarding his degree status.

Fast forward a year, and Somerset and Avon police seize 87 hard drives – including one belonging to Mr Bates – whilst investigating a suspected paedophile conspiracy. Before they had time to examine those hard drives and discover whether or not they did contain child pornography, or indeed anything more reprehensible than a grocery shopping list, the High Court ruled that the Police had exceeded their authority and that those hard drives should be returned, unexamined.

Thus we arrive at the position today whereby Colin Port, the Chief Constable, has decided that they probably ‘do’ contain child pornography, and he is ‘probably’, socially and morally, right to retain them and defy the High Court – and the BBC have seen fit to ensure that Mr Bates is seen as ‘probably’ part of a paedophile conspiracy.

Trial by Internet is becoming increasingly fashionable. We have a situation in Portugal where a Policeman –   Gonçalo Amaral -  investigating a crime,  is described as ‘defaming the reputation’ of witnesses who declined to answer his questions or return to his jurisdiction and risk arrest, and the BBC happily and almost gleefully, report that the McCann’s – two individuals who bizarrely appear happier to imagine that their daughter is alive and in the hands of a paedophile gang rather than mercifully dead – are suing him for suggesting that they may have been complicit in her disappearance; conversely, the BBC is happily reporting, almost gleefully, that a Chief Constable  in the UK who had the chance to investigate a crime, no absconding witnesses, no political interference, considers that paedophilia is such a heinous act that due process can be dispensed with and he can take punitive action against individuals that he only ‘suspects’ may have been complicit in a crime.

When we have a Speaker of the House of Commons who is prepared to defy the law, it ill behoves us to seek to impose our brand of democracy on other countries.

When we have a Chief Constable who is prepared to defy the law, it ill behoves us to speak ill of the judiciary in other countries.

Terence Bates may well be a master pornographer – if he is, it is for the Judiciary to decide, on the evidence.

Here be Anarchy, if we are not careful.

First the Speaker, now the Chief Constable……. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

The less than transparent Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has published its SOCA Annual Report 2008/09 (.pdf) (72 pages)

Telephone intercept intelligence and communications data played a role in all significant SOCA operations, and in many where SOCA provided support to other agencies’ criminal justice casework. This was notably the case with police forces throughout England and Wales, for whom SOCA continued to provide telephone interception services.

In 2008/09 SOCA produced 182 assessments and reports for law enforcement, government and others. Those issued were designed to inform policy makers and provide support for operational activity where timeliness and relevance were critical.

The assessments are generally listed by Category – i.e. Class ‘A’ drugs, and then Title.

In 19 cases the title is listed as ‘confidential’ – we only know that it concerned, for instance, immigration.

One assessment of particular interest, however, contains no category, so we have no idea whether it concerns drugs, human trafficking, or child exploitation. but it does list its Title.

The Threat to SOCA from Private Investigators and Others Seeking Unauthorised Access to Information October 2008

Unfortunately, SOCA is exempt from the list of Public Authorities which have to comply with Freedom of Information Act Requests.

If you have a copy of this report – please send it to me.

If you are an MP and want some good publicity for a change, please access a copy, I shall be happy to oblige!

Watching us, watching them……. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Last night, Michael Gove apologised for what he saw as ‘errors and mistakes’, he acknowledged that a £500 hotel bill ‘was excessive’ and a ‘misjudgement’. There will be some who say he is exonerated, he has apologised, he is ‘one of the good guys’.

I believe that there is a far more crucial charge to be leveled against him than a few ‘errors and mistakes’ at the taxpayer’s expense. He is guilty of a betrayal of the trust placed in him as the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, a role for which he is paid by the taxpayer.

We look to our MPs to speak for us, to have a voice where we have none. That is their primary duty, and should be their first consideration. Other occupations, in Michael Gove’s  case, that of journalist and on-line pundit, should take a back seat.

We have (perhaps had) in this country, a child who has become a metaphor for every vulnerable child, a child who encapsulates everything that a spokesman for children should have at the forefront of their mind. A child that the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families should indubitably, incontrovertibly, irredeemably, be championing the vulnerability of and supporting the cause of.

That child is Madeleine McCann.

Those of us who have followed the case of Madeleine McCann on a European level, have become used to the discrepancy between the version of events peddled in the UK media, and the undisputed facts available from the Portuguese Authorities. We understand the difficulties faced by journalists under the UK’s draconian libel laws, we understand too that economic considerations play a part in the coverage of the McCann case.

Michael Gove is first and foremost a parliamentarian, with the absolute privilege of speech that permits. It is a gross betrayal of that trust that he seeks to swim with the common herd of journalists, and sanctify the behaviour of the McCann parents. It is a gross betrayal of trust that he fills his column inches  – and thus his pockets – with hand wringing anguish on behalf of the parents, and fails to speak up for the child.

Why had I chosen to support this cause, at this time, in this way? A huge part of it is simple identification with the McCanns. Madeleine’s fourth birthday fell in the same week as my daughter’s. Her father’s background has similarities with my own. The photographs of Madeleine look uncannily like our own little girl. […] Trying to imagine what the McCann family must be facing is at once, totally, instantly, possible and terrifyingly, unfathomably, distant. I have found it almost impossible to read, or watch, any of the news coverage because once my mind starts to reflect on what the family are facing the enormity of it all is too much to take.

He seeks to reinforce the innocence of the parents with the authority of the church:

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, reminded us that Kate and Gerry McCann weren’t just probably innocent. They are totally innocent. And they will be until the situation ever arises that they have been tried, and found guilty, in a forum better designed to arrive at the truth than the media. One thing is certain: they have lost a daughter and their daily suffering must be torture.

When he should be standing up in parliament and speaking for Madeleine by saying these words that no UK journalist dare utter:

The last people to see her alive were her parents who left her and her siblings unattended in an unsecured apartment.

Her parents refused to answer the questions put to them by the Portuguese Police. Her parents and their colleagues declined to return to Portugal for a reconstruction of the crime arranged by the Portuguese Police.

Her parents declined to request that the Portuguese Police continue the investigation.

Until such time as her parents remedy these failures, there should be no more hand wringing articles in the UK press sympathising with their ‘pain’. There should be no more maudlin ‘mockumentaries’ seeking to answer the case for the defence of the parents via the air waves.

That is what a parliamentarian is for, Mr Gove, and you are betraying the trust we all place in you, you are particularly betraying the trust of a vulnerable child. Now go and do your job.

Let me remind you of your own words:

In a landscape shaped by moral relativism, in which it is impossible for authority to make judgments lest it be thought pious, hypocritical or harsh, we provide no consistent standard by which we expect people to live […] But what future are we building for the next generation when there are so many parents now, whatever their age, who never really grow up?

Michael Gove has an e-mail address: GOVEM@parliament.uk

H e works for you. You pay him.

Ask him!

Michael Gove – A Betrayal of Trust. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

More from the McCann’s – the family that craves privacy from the media, and finds themselves unable to return to Portugal for the Police reconstruction – this is the reconstruction that they ‘approved’ of – as made by themselves and supervised by their media representative.

The trial by internet continues……

The McCann Documentary. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

The famous Oprah Winfrey interview and documentary regarding Madeleine’s disappearance.

So far unavailable in the UK. In English with Portuguese subtitles, since this was only shown outside the US on Portuguese TV.

The sound quality is diabolical! Sorry about that, but out of my control!

Chanel 4 are showing their own version of the McCann story tonight at 9pm.

The documentary made by Goncal Amaral, the Portuguese policeman in charge of the investigation, which is not available in the UK is still available on my site here

Edited to add:

Why is nothing ever simple with the McCanns?
Why when they are asked ‘and did you see the children’ – why do they have to ‘split the answer up’ – ‘yes, the twins were sleeping, and Madeleine was lying just as I left her’, why the earlier reference to her ‘lying in the recovery position’, why always the slightly odd turns of phrase that can be taken in different ways?
Why do they still go on about dinning ’50 yards, or 25 yards, or ‘within eyesight’ that night, and carefully omit to say that the earlier in the week they were dinning at the Millennium restaurant – a brisk 20 minutes walk away.
Why, two years later are they still going on about ‘borders not being closed’, even if they were the only people in Europe who did not know that night that there were no borders, they have surely had it pointed out to them a million times since.
Why, when asked to comment on the closure of the Portuguese investigation do they say ‘how upsetting’ that was – they had the opportunity to keep the investigation open, it was closed because they refused to answer the police questions when interviewed, and declined to take part in the police reconstruction, although they didn’t refuse – it was left to the Tapas 9 not to be available. They knew perfectly well, still know, that the investigation could have stayed open, if they had co-operated.
Why can’t Gerry McCann say ‘I want to believe, or I need to believe, that Madeleine is still alive.
Why does he keep saying ‘there’s no evidence that she has come to any harm’ -with that heavy Glaswegian emphasis on ‘evidence’.

Why does he have to make it so damn hard to stay neutral as to whether they are telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Why do I feel that neutrality slipping away every time he opens his mouth?

What is it about the man?

Oprah Winfrey interview with the McCann’s. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

In May 2007, along with several thousand other people, I was invited to join in the search for young Madeleine McCann.

The past two years has been an extraordinary journey, largely conducted on-line, with the occasional physical foray to Prai da Luz. I have learnt a great deal, of human beings, and human responses, to extraordinary situations.

I have learnt nothing of the fate of young Madeleine.

There are as many speculative theories as there are communities engaged in debating them. Passions are intense, and oft times vitriolic.

It has become the ‘Darwinian’ debate of our times. Those who engage in it risk ridicule, social exclusion, and worse. Daring to challenge orthodox social beliefs can be a lonely occupation, and there are behemoth social beliefs aplenty in the McCann debate. It is a proxy war for many things that we are scared to debate openly.

Are foreigners trustworthy? Should Britain pull up the drawbridge and leave the EU? You think that has nothing to do with the MCann’s? Try suggesting that the Portuguese Police are a professional force and should be left  to conduct their investigation in peace, and you will soon find yourself submerged in in a deluge of xenophobic comment regarding sardine munching wine swilling incompetent foreigners who should leave it to the British police. We fear the level of immigration in the UK, it is considered impolite to refer to foreigners in our midst – yet perfectly acceptable to hold the most outrageous views on ‘foreigners’ beyond our shores. We use the McCann’s to verbalise our fears.

Is the state too powerful? Should government interfere less in our lives? You think that question has nothing to do with the McCann’s? Try discussing the media coverage of the McCannn case. You will soon hear verbalised the fears of media manipulation, the conspiracy theories to ‘hide the truth’, the involvement of government media manipulators. We use the McCann’s to verbalise our fears.

Should the government or the judiciary hold the power of life or death over us by withholding medical treatment from us? You think that question has nothing to do with the McCann’s?  Try bringing up the theories of the Portuguese Police that Madeleine died in that apartment, you will soon be told that they are Doctors, and thus could not possibly do anything to harm their children, or by implication, anyone else. We need to believe that Doctors cannot be harbingers of harm, despite the evidence of Dr Shipman, or perhaps because of it. We use the McCann’s to verbalise our fears.

You believe that money is a goal in itself to be ruthlessly pursued  or a community good that should be shared? I can tell you where you stand by your response to the controversial ‘fund’ set up in her name, whether that state organ the Leicestershire Police should be encouraging people onto a web site selling goods to swell the fund, or whether you believe in the name of charity that we should all contribute something to ‘help find that little girl’.

You think the class war is over, that equality has been successfully implanted in the UK? Try commenting on the fact that their obvious negligence in leaving their children unattended in unfamiliar surroundings should be investigated, you will be embroiled in competing arguments ranging from the defensive media articles – ‘we have all done it’ to ‘they’d be locked up by now if they came from a council house estate’. We all know in our hearts that the ‘class war’ is far from over, we carry in our DNA a secret set of codes to help us portray where we, and other,  stand in that hierarchy; your views on the McCann’s ‘negligence’ pigeon hole you as neatly as anything else.

You believe that free speech is one of the basic tenets of the British ‘democracy’?  Be sure to establish that you are addressing a like minded audience – for if you are not, you will find yourself howled down by raucous cries of ‘pitchforker’, ‘witch burner’, ‘fascist’. If you voice the wrong opinion in an internet forum, you may well find that others will devote their lives to finding out ‘who’ you are, ‘where’ you are, and publicising those facts so that you can be hounded into silence. If you voice the wrong opinion in print, you may well find yourself on the receiving end of a letter from Mssrs. Carter-Ruck. The McCann’s have become the front line in the battle to ensure/suppress free speech.

So what of Madeleine on this the second anniversary of her disappearance? of her physical well being or presence, we know nothing, but she is with us in spirit, for the ‘defective’ investigation into her fate, or the ‘defective’ response of her parents, both before and after the night of 3rd May, has become a metaphor for the many ills in our society that we fear to face.

Madeleine is the name of political debate today.

Watching the Defectives. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Tonight, I feel as angry as any of you do, on hearing the news that the man convicted of killing Baby Peter Connolly has also been convicted of raping a two year old girl.

I am glad that I feel angry. It is a good sign, it means that I am finally recovering from the emotional numbness brought on by working on the ‘front line’ with similar families. I wasn’t a Social Worker, but I spent my working life amongst the same depravity that they face daily.

A part of me can rage at the TV, at the society that produces such animals, that employs such ‘useless’ social workers – but a part of me also feels sympathy for the social workers involved. I am not about to defend their actions, they were wrong, but I do not condemn the individuals concerned, I condemn utterly the conditions under which they operate.

When you spend your working day amongst people at the very bottom end of society, when you trail from one sickening household to another, from one amoral life story to another, from one interwoven, interbred, incestuous household to another, abused, assaulted, insulted, unsupported, you do, inevitably, become a ‘different’ person to the rest of society.

It happens to Police Officers, it happens to Child Protection experts, it happens to Community Mental Health workers. Frankly, if it didn’t, they would become in need of help themselves.

If you haven’t worked amongst families who exist on the fringes of society, it is difficult to conceive of the depth of depravity they can sink to, not for nothing are they known as sink estates.

I have worked with families where a man has raped his paralysed brother’s daughter in front of him, he was unable, incapable, of helping her, and the rest of his family joined in setting fire to the house where she and her Mother had fled to – because they had gone to the police. ‘Society’ in the form of the Criminal Injuries Board, had awarded her £12,000 in compensation, the maximum available at the time, money which had quickly been whittled down just providing the basic necessities of her new life. Had she fled to the home of someone known to have a conviction for sexual offences, would I have said anything?

I have to say, the answer is No.

First and foremost, because under the terms of my contract, I would have been prevented from telling anyone that I had discovered that – although the law is changing on that front. Secondly, I would have judged that the danger she and her daughter might have been in, in the future, were ‘possible’ dangers – and the danger she was in at that moment was very real and present, and one for which there were no funds available, no facilities with places empty, in short, nothing that could be offered to her.

It is all too easy to sit in front of your computer and rant that such men should be castrated, (I would agree with you – but the law does not allow for it), that the social worker involved should be pilloried, ( I would not agree with you), that someone should ‘pay’ for this – but the truth is that it is only society which is to blame.

Society which sat round its scrubbed pine tables, over a supper of lasagna and red wine, and decided that the old mental hospitals, where the inadequate as well as the insane could live out a controlled life in safety, were ‘inhumane’ and should be closed; who decided that the human rights act and data protection laws were what society should have; who decided that schools should no longer be allowed to instill discipline in pupils – in short who took away the entire framework which used to govern communities and provide some safeguards – and then employed police officers and social workers to clean up the resulting mess and ensure that it did not burst out into your streets or from your tv screens.

Along the way you decided that Police Officers should come straight from university through Bramshill, Social Workers should get a degree, and turn overnight from middle class university material, into the sort of people who could make proper judgment calls on lives of which they had no prior experience. Lives so convoluted and complicated and inter related- and generally chemically enhanced –  that it requires the judgment of Solomon to sort out.

You don’t get the judgment of Solomon from someone who is overworked, with a horrendous case load of problems that have no solution, You get mistakes, and bad calls. You get a gradual immunity as to what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’.

If you want to rant and rail against someone, rant and rail against the people whose ideology has left an entire generation of feral individuals to amuse themselves day in day out, on a pittance of an income, with no hope, no reason to to take pride in their lives, no ability to take care of themselves.

Don’t take it out on the people you appointed to the hopeless task of making sure that the feral inhabitants of the swamp don’t offend your sensibilities.

The pedants will be out in force tonight, telling us what ‘should’ be done in such situations, with their unlimited ‘arm-chair’ budgets, their illegal knee-jerk solutions, their pious belief that if only ‘someone’ had done their job properly, this would never have happened.

Try keeping the lid on the ‘swamp’ in the real world of budgetary restraints, the Human Rights Act, Citizens Charters, Data Protection Laws. You will soon understand what a miracle it is that seven years elapsed between Victoria Climbie and Baby P.

Ask yourself too, whilst you are clucking your disapproval of the adults around Baby P, and the two year old girl who was raped, why the media are so content to justify a platoon of Doctors leaving their young children unattended whilst they went out drinking – and thus setting an example to the inhabitants of the swamp that it is OK to neglect your children, even if one disappears, so long as you are middle class professionals.

Paedophiles and pedants. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Censored in the UK – the documentary made by the policeman in charge of the McCann investigation.

The documentary they didn’t want you to see……. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

There has long been speculation regarding the high level of support the McCanns received from within the government when their daughter Madeleine disappeared. It has been defended as ‘normal government support’ for a family in distress – but was it government support or Labour Party support?

The recent revelations of a high level ‘dirty tricks campaign’ within Downing Street has thrown new focus on the connections between government press officers and  campaigns to ‘pervert the truth’ and implant false perceptions in the public domain.

One of the most discussed facets of the McCann saga has been the appointment of Clarence Mitchell, previously head of the government media monitoring unit, to act as family spokesman and general factotum of the McCann family.

Clarence Mitchell would certainly have worked closely with Damian McBride, the now disgraced political advisor revealed to be the author of scurilous rumours regarding the opposition Conservative Party.

 A Plymouth web site has uncovered an intreiguing coincidence potentially linking the Downing Street ‘dirty tricks department’ and the McCann saga.

On the same day that McBride was sending his ill fated e-mails to Derek Draper, many miles away, another smear campaign was underway. Plymouth Labour Councillor Bill Stevens was writing on Draper’s Labourlist  web site attempting to smear the reputation of Conservative Councillor Steve Rickets, by linking him to an incident which the McCann’s reportedly found ‘very distressing’.

Councillor Bill Stevens, who speaks for Labour on Governance issues, tells us that “Plymouth Councillor Steven Ricketts is closely linked to the main perpetrators”

The article has been withdrawn today, but excerpts from it can be seen here. 

Was the appearence of that story orchestrated by Damien McBride?

The entire affair is beginning to resemble the film popular in the nineties – ‘Six Degrees of Separation’.

Lord Mandelson, close friend of Derek Draper, web master to Labourlist, close friend of Damian McBride, head of government ‘dirty tricks department’, colleague of Clarence Mitchell, purveyor of the McCann version of events, to Gerry McCann, COMARE colleague of John McCann, brother to the Labour Prime Minister, supporter of the McCann’s search for Madeleine in Morocco, holiday resort of Lord Mandelson, can I stop now?  Would you care to continue playing this game on your own whilst I travel back to France?

McBride, McCann, McSpin and McSmear is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Gonçalo Amaral’s Documentary is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Ben Goldacre drew my attention to several articles on the responsibility the media must take for increasing aberrant behaviour by their very reporting of it. He was talking in particular of suicide, following the death of Sylvia Platt’s son.

Details matter, as ever. Overdoses increased by 17% in the week after a prominent overdose on Casualty (watched by 22% of the population at the time), and paracetamol overdoses went up by more than others. In 1998 the Hong Kong media reported heavily on a case of carbon monoxide poisoning by a very specific method, using a charcoal burner. In the 10 months preceding the reports, there had been no such suicides. In November there were 3; then in December there were 10; and over the next year there were 40.

The copy-cat effect of media reporting has been adequately demonstrated in the case of Shannon Mathews. Karen Mathews is believed to have been influenced, not only by the McCann family saga, but also by the Channel 4 series Shameless depicting a dysfunctional family who staged the fake kidnap of the youngest son in an attempt to obtain a £500,000 ransom, which was  screened in the month before Shannon vanished.

This week it has been announced that the McCanns and Chanel 4 will join forces to produce, not a genuine work of fiction, which could be damaging enough, but a work purporting to be fact – a documentary – detailing the method by which they allege their daughter was abducted from Portugal.

This is wrong on several levels.

All commercial media has one main objective : to raise revenue through advertising.  The broadcast media rely on on audience numbers which are difficult to assess. So, programmes are broadcast which are more likely to ensure a large audience. The media themselves advertise forthcoming programmes to ensure large audiences. This enables them to charge higher advertising rates during and close to the relevant programme.

That is their ‘private interest’ – however, there is a larger ‘public interest’ which should be taken into account. The public interest is not best served by detailed examination of how a crime which could result in great distress to a young child ‘could be’ committed.

If, and hopefully when, the true facts of the crime are known, then there is an argument in favour of responsible reporting of the resulting court case;  lurid speculation of the facts ‘as believed’ by the last people to see Madeleine McCann alive fulfill none of these criteria.

The Portuguese Police made available many opportunities for a reconstruction of the crime to take place last year, with the genuine parties invited to take part. Those people, including the parents, declined to take part, for reasons best known to themselves. That they are now prepared, for the reported sum of £10,000, to take part in a work of fiction by a commercial television company made in order to raise the advertising revenue of Chanel 4, is woefully irresponsible and misguided on the part of Chanel 4. It is difficult to see how this programme will comply with section 5 of the Ofcom code of Practice and I suspect can only lead to further demands for increased control over their output.

It has been reported that the young girl being used to portray Madeleine McCann is the daughter of Father Hubbard, the Anglican Priest closely involved in the McCann saga. Given that there is no evidence, beyond the suspicion of one member of the McCann’s party that she ‘may’ have seen something that ‘could’ have been a young child being carried home, which ‘may’ have been something more suspicious, it is difficult to justify the inclusion of this young girl in the filming. A young actress could have been used, but to sanction the inclusion of a young girl to illustrate the way in which someone she was closely associated with disappeared, never to be seen again, borders on the horrific. Little surprise that she was reportedly so upset during the filming that filming had to be stopped to console her. Is Chanel 4 not aware of section 1.27 of the Ofcom code?

In case Chanel 4 have lost their copy of the code, I reproduce the most salient section here.

3.1 Material likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or to lead to disorder must not be included in television or radio services.

3.2 Descriptions or demonstrations of criminal techniques which contain essential details which could enable the commission of crime must not be broadcast unless editorially justified.

There is adequate evidence that this sort of programme can incite similar crimes. Given that there was sufficient opportunity to carry out a reconstrcution of this crime last year under the controlled and essentially ‘private’ conditions by the Portuguese Police, there is no editorial justification for making this programme in the manner suggested.

Responsible Reportage, Myths and Mythology. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Blogs are an important editorial innovation that must be embraced by the news industry, according to Guardian Unlimited‘s assistant editor Neil McIntosh.

I assume he meant that the news industry needs to catch up with the fast paced world of the blogosphere, where news is often read and dissected on line several days before the main stream media catch on.

They can scarcely have been more behind the times than today, when Henry Deedes who is now the Editor of the Independent’s effort at blogging, managed to run a story that was a magnificent eight months behind the blogosphere. The Old Man would turn in his grave.

The story originated in PR Week, on 18th July 2008, and I tipped off Anorak (with my old ‘Carmen’ hat on) the same morning.  Anorak ran the story the same day.  18th July 2008.

Today, 8 months later, Henry finally gets to the finishing line. No wonder the dead tree press and its blogging efforts are dying on their feet.

Henry Deedes – running to catch up…….. is a post from: Anna Raccoon

Many readers have turned away from newspapers towards the Internet, the Internet in turn has spawned a reversal of the accepted procedure whereby news filtered from those in the centre of power outwards to the oppressed masses - the news has started coming inwards to the main stream media; independent bloggers reporting on items of local interest to them – student Paul Saville was complaining to fellow Bristol students on-line of his ironical arrest for chalking

“Liberty: the right to question. The right to ask: ‘Are we free?”‘

on a pavement – comments alluding to this blog made their way into the comments section of mainstream bloggers and from there were picked up by journalists in the National Press.

The Dan Hannan phenomenon has been a classic example of news heading ‘inwards’, taking some three days before the main stream media acknowledged  an event that was widely known on the Internet.

The Madeleine McCann saga spawned a plethora of web sites united in their disgust that one or other theory which might have been investigated by serious journalists were being ignored by the main stream media – a situation rendered all the more severe after the McCann’s negotiated an out of court settlement from a newspaper for alleged libel that the newspaper was unwilling, possibly for financial reasons, to substantiate.

The case was probably the first and most prolific example of citizen journalism in Europe as posters with a multitude of tentative connections with her family or the fishing village from where she disappeared added their mote of knowledge to a collective pool, from where it was picked over by main stream media. Sadly most of those web sites have imploded under the weight of individual egos, turning the blogs into treacherous alleyways where rival gangs hurl abuse.  Where journalists might have picked up and developed original lines of enquiry, they are now more likely to find posters picking over the identity, and alleged misdeeds,  of fellow posters, than original theories on the facts behind Madeleine’s disappearance.

The economic crises has compounded the difficulties faced by investigative journalists – the draconian UK libel laws with risk free legal counsel, and advertising revenue seeping away into the ethernet - combining in a received wisdom that investigative journalism is dead, and that paid journalists are nothing more than ghost writers for celebrity press releases.

Not true, investigative journalists are still alive and well, merely searching for a source of revenue. The big newspapers can no longer afford them, the public have never paid for ‘news’ as such - they have paid for ‘paper entertainment’ and much of that subsidised by advertising – and the public are not willing to pay, per view, or any other way, for hard news.

Yesterday The Huffington Post announced an innovative way of breaking this log jam – The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. It is being funded by The Huffington Post and The Atlantic Philanthropies, and will be headed by Nick Penniman, founder of The American News Project, which will be merged with the Investigative Fund.

The Investigative Fund, headquartered in Washington, DC, will produce a broad range of investigative journalism created by both staff reporters and freelance writers, with a focus on working with the many experienced reporters and writers impacted by the economic contraction. Pieces will range from long-form investigations to short breaking news stories and will be presented in a variety of media, including text, audio and video, and will be free for any media outlet to publish simultaneously. The Investigative Fund will have an initial budget of $1.75 million.

By engaging The Huffington Post’s growing audience, along with the growing audience of other online news outlets, the Huffington Post ‘Investigative Fund’ will also provide a higher profile for the work of existing investigative reporting outfits with which it will partner, including Spot.US, The Center for Public Integrity, The Institute for Justice and Journalism, The Center for Investigative Reporting, and The European Fund for Investigative Journalism; additionally, the Investigative Fund will work closely with Eyes & Ears, HuffPost’s citizen journalism project, harnessing the power of Huff’s community of engaged readers to yield research, insights, and information.

The venture is reminiscent of ProPublica, a nonprofit independent newsroom funded by The Sandler Foundation and headed by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, with a $10 million budget. The inclusion of the European Fund for Investigative Journalism holds out some hope that this bright new world might have some impact in Europe.

This is a project fully deserving of public funding – perhaps a portion of the BBC’s bloated licence fee would be appropriate – along with a suitable guarantee of independence.

Hat tip to Jay Rosen – and I recommend reading his excellent  ‘Rosen’s Flying Seminar In The Future of News‘

Hold the presses – investigative journalism is not dead! is a post from: Anna Raccoon