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Previous posts have described how the security services monitored what was happening in north Wales, as well as at other places such as St George's Hospital Medical School and Springfield Hospital, but used their resources to protect Dafydd et al, not their victims. It was obvious to me that 'national security' was being defined in terms of avoiding reputational damage to institutions such as law and medicine, although the corruption was so serious many lives were undoubtedly at risk.
While reading Hugo Young's biography of Thatcher, 'One Of Us', I was reminded of a landmark judgement during that Thatcher years, in which the interests of the Gov't were defined as the interests of 'national security', no matter what the interests of the Gov't was.
In 1984, Clive Ponting, a senior civil servant in the MoD, felt that the deception and misinformation on the part of the Cabinet regarding the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands conflict was so great that he leaked sensitive Gov't documents to Parliament via the Labour MP for Linlithgow, Tam Dalyell. Clive Ponting had witnessed discussions between Michael Heseltine, the then Defence Secretary and Heseltine's officials, who concluded that Parliament should continue to be misled regarding the sinking of the Belgrano.
When Ponting was identified as the source of the leaked documents, he was prosecuted under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act. The presiding judge at Ponting's 1985 trial was Justice McCowan.
Ponting was subsequently acquitted by the jury, despite remarks in McCowan's summing up which, as 'The Daily Telegraph' said in a leading article, 'seemed to lean heavily towards the prosecution case'. Ponting's defence had been that his actions were to save Parliament from being misled and were therefore in the interests of the State (a defence under the Act). McCowan ruled that the interests of the State must mean the interests of the Gov't of the day, to which the Civil Service was bound by a relationship of trust. McCowan's ruling meant that civil servants had no higher duty than their duty to carry out the instructions of Ministers.
So it was Justice McCowan who determined that if the Gov't wished to conceal the crimes of a pan-European sex trafficking ring which was murdering witnesses, that was in the national interest.
Sir Anthony James Denys McCowan (12 January 1928 – 3 July 2003) was a British barrister and judge of the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal. After attending Epsom College, McCowan studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was a member of the University Conservative Association. McCowan was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1951. Sir William Mars-Jones, President of UCNW, 1982-95 and Ronnie Waterhouse's friend, who acted as an umbrella for Dafydd and the trafficking gang for years, was a member of Gray's Inn. After building up a practice in criminal, property and personal injury law, McCowan was made a QC in 1972 and was appointed a judge of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in 1981. In 1989 McCowan became a judge of the Court of Appeal, but only sat for eight years until ill health forced him to retire in 1997.
McCowan was born in Georgetown, Guyana, the son of a magistrate. In 1951 he helped found the Bow Group, the first meeting of which was attended by, among others, William Rees-Mogg, Geoffrey Howe and Norman St John Stevas. Howe worked as a barrister on the corrupt Chester and Wales Circuit and was a lifelong friend of Sir Ronnie Waterhouse. When I worked at St George's Hospital Medical School, a member of staff who was well-acquainted with the gay scene told me that St John Stevas was known to be 'holding spanking parties with little boys' and that 'no-one knows how he is getting away with it'.
McCowan's pupillage was with Stanley Rees, at 1 Crown Office Row. Sir Stanley Rees was born in South Africa. His father was an English doctor of Welsh descent and Rees subsequently read law at University College, Oxford. After taking Silk in 1957, Rees defended in a series of high profile criminal trials at the Old Bailey, including the Brighton police corruption case, at which his client was acquitted. Rees was Recorder of Croydon, 1961-62 and the last Chairman of the East Sussex Quarter Sessions, 1964-71. When Rees was appointed a High Court judge in 1962, he went into the Family Division. His most famous case was the wardship proceedings concerning the three children of the 7th Earl and Countess of Lucan.
In the drawn-out first hearing in 1973, Rees – unimpressed with Lord Lucan's character – gave custody to Lady Lucan, a decision that Lord Lucan's friends later suggested had triggered the events of the following year. Although Lord Lucan had been granted 'reasonable access' to his children, his friend John Aspinall later said that the decision had been a 'terrible blow'.
On the evening of November 7 1974, a year after the custody hearing, Lady Lucan ran into a Belgravia pub with blood on her face, saying that she had just escaped from a murderer. The police later found the body of the family nanny, Sandra Rivett, in a mailbag in the basement of Lady Lucan's house.
Lady Lucan told police that she had gone downstairs to find the nanny when her estranged husband attacked her. When challenged by her, he said that he had mistaken the nanny for her and killed her. A warrant was soon issued for Lord Lucan's arrest and a search was launched along the Sussex coast near Newhaven where it was believed he may have committed suicide; another theory was that he had fled overseas.
A week after Lucan's disappearance, Rees presided at a further hearing concerning the children and after two and a half hours of secret consultation with Lady Lucan, he announced that the children would remain with their mother. Lord Lucan was never seen again.
After being attacked by her husband, Lady Lucan had the misfortune to end up in the hands of St George's Hospital and her sanity was questioned. Lady Lucan always maintained that the various Top Doctors who pronounced on her alleged mental health problems were taking instructions from her husband.
The coroner who presided over the inquest of Sandra Rivett, Dr Paul Knapman, was a St George's graduate himself and in his capacity as the coroner for Westminster presided over some of the highest profile inquests of the 20th century. When I worked in medical research in London I was told quite explicitly that Knapman was corrupt.
Sir Anthony McCowan practised in London and on the South Eastern Circuit. He became leader of the South Eastern Circuit in 1978, having been appointed Deputy Chairman of the East Sussex Quarter Sessions in 1969. McCowan was a member of the Parole Board for England and Wales, 1982-84 and of the Crown Court Rule Committee, 1982-88. In 1986, the year after the Ponting case, McCowan became Presiding Judge of the South Eastern Circuit. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, John Allen owned brothels in Brighton, Sussex, where kids from children's homes in north Wales were trafficked.
On 3 Oct 1989 McCowan was appointed to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and made a Privy Councillor. In 1991 McCowan was made Senior Presiding Judge of England and Wales, a position he held until ill-health forced him to resign in 1995. He resigned from the Bench two years later.
1991 was the year of the Great Cover-Up; the year that I and my two friends who worked in the media and who wanted to make a film about north Wales had our careers ruined (see post 'The Turn Of The Screw'); the year that there were two attempts to have me imprisoned by the paedophiles' friends in north Wales, one of those attempts taking place at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand (see post 'Upper Class Twit Of The Year – Shooting Themselves'); the year that the Somerset contingent who knew what was happening to me in north Wales really began raking in the money (see post 'Upper Class Twit Of The Year – Shooting Themselves'); and the year that Lilibet gave Sir Peter Morrison his knighthood and also handed out honours to a few others who were involved in the Westminster Paedophile Ring.
The Lord Chancellor when McCowan was appointed Senior Presiding Judge of England and Wales was paedophiles' friend Lord James Mackay (see post 'Upper Class Twit Of The Year – Shooting Themselves').
When he was young, Anthony McCowan had briefly featured on Conservative Central Office's list of approved Parliamentary candidates, but soon decided to concentrate on the Bar.
During the 1980s McCowan presided in a number of highly publicised IRA trials. After his promotion to the Court of Appeal, McCowan was one of the judges on the appeal of the Maguire Seven in 1991; the appellants had spent 15 years in prison after being jailed at the Old Bailey for running an IRA bomb factory. Following an 18 day hearing, the judges allowed the appeal on the sole ground that traces of nitroglycerine found on their hands and gloves at their north London home, which formed the basis for their convictions, could have been the result of innocent contamination. They rejected five other grounds of appeal, in particular claims that the prosecution scientists had deliberately withheld relevant evidence.
The miscarriage of justice involving the Macguire Seven was quite extraordinary. There was no evidence against them, they had been horrifically brutalised while in police custody, including Anne McGuire – a middle aged lady who was a member of the local Conservative Club – and her 14 year old son Patrick. After she was released, Anne McGuire gave interviews in which she said that despite the brutality that she had suffered at the hands of the police, she never thought that she would be convicted because the allegations were so ludicrous. As with the Birmingham Six, virtually every professional involved in the Macguire Seven case had lied and lied and lied.
It was Anthony McCowan, in his capacity as Lord Justice McCowan, who in March 1993 rejected the application of the families of six victims of Hillsborough for a judicial review to quash the Hillsborough inquest verdict.
Clive Ponting was not the first civil servant under Thatcher's Gov't to have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. In 1983, Sarah Tisdall, then an FCO clerical officer, leaked British Gov't documents to 'The Guardian' and was subsequently jailed. in 1983. Tisdall anonymously sent 'The Guardian' photocopied documents detailing when American cruise missiles would be arriving in Britain. The documents set out the political tactics that Heseltine, then Defence Secretary, would use to present the matter in the Commons.
There did not appear to be any threat to national security in the revelation but the Gov't nonetheless brought a legal action against 'The Guardian', seeking an order requiring the newspaper to reveal its source. Although 'The Guardian' successfully argued that it was protected by section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 from providing the information, the judgement by Justice Scott was almost immediately overturned. The appeal by the Attorney-General – paedophiles' friend Michael Havers – was on the grounds that although the documents themselves were harmless, a civil servant capable of leaking them might leak other documents which could pose a threat to national security.
'The Guardian' complied with a court order to hand over the documents, which were identified as coming from a FCO photocopying machine. The machine led to Tisdall. In March 1984, Tisdall pleaded guilty to a charge under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. She was sentenced to six months in jail, but was released after four months.
'The Guardian' handed over the documents when the Editor Peter Preston realised that he might go to prison if they did not. So Sarah went to prison instead. There was much criticism of Preston from other journos at the time for failing to protect his source. But then Preston knew what was happening to kids in care and mental health patients in north Wales and he never published a word about it. Furthermore 'The Guardian' was accepting advertising revenue from Social Service Depts which they knew had been infiltrated by paedophiles. See post 'Workers' Play Time'.
The prosecutions of Tisdall and Ponting took place in an atmosphere of paranoia and panic on the part of Thatcher's Gov't re 'national security'.
I cannot help wondering if Thatcher's Gov't were well aware that the wrongdoing of people like Peter Morrison and St John Stevas was so great that they were going into overdrive in order to ensure that it never became public. After all, whilst all this was happening, a bunch of benign students in Bangor had been placed under surveillance by the security services because of the fear that they were going to uncover the enormity of the crimes of Dafydd et al.
Heseltine: we were not terrorists, we were entirely harmless young people, with no money and no access to things like broadsheet editors. What on earth did you think that you were doing you mad old git? All I did was complain about an old pervert and people directly linked to your Gov't tried to kill us and indeed did kill one of us.
My friend Anne Vernon was killed in the spring of 1986. Heseltine did not occupy any Ministerial position at the time of Anne's death, because he had waltzed out of the Cabinet in Jan 1986, over the Westland row, another incident from which someone in Somerset who knew what was going on in north Wales did very well out of (see post 'Those Who Wish To Serve'). Douglas Hurd was Home Secretary when Anne was murdered by the British state. Law-abiding harmless Anne, doing a PhD on noctuid moths, who's mum was a teacher and who's dad was an accountant. Because her closest friend in north Wales had complained about the people running the Westminster Paedophile Ring.
Is it not extraordinary that Thatcher's Gov't set out to kill the young adult children of some solid Tory supporters?? I expect that Thatch thought that we were holding the country to ransom.
After completing my MSc at Hammersmith Hospital/Royal Postgraduate Medical School in June 1987, I spent a few months living with Brown and some others in Leicester. Brown was doing his PhD at the Centre for Mass Communication Research at Leicester University. I have mentioned previously that although Brown was in receipt of an ESRC studentship which covered tuition fees paid to Leicester University, he was given absolutely no facilities or mentoring at all. Not even a desk, although other PhD students were accommodated. So Brown made himself an office in our house and worked from home. The only facilities that Leicester University provided for him were library facilities.
Leicestershire was the location of the paedophile ring which included social worker Frank Beck and Labour MP Greville Janner. Beck had not been jailed when we were living in Leicester and Greville Janner had not yet been investigated by the police, although many complaints had been made about Beck and Janner. As in the case of north Wales, the police, the local authorities, the criminal justice system and the NHS in Leicestershire were fully on board with the gang, as were huge swathes of Leicester University, particularly those members of staff in the medical school, education, law and the social sciences (see posts 'An Expert From England', 'Radical Leicester and Some Other Free Radicals' and 'Gwlad y Menig Gwynion'). Leicester University also had strong links to the BBC/media industry, as a result of the former Principal being the father of David and Richard Attenborough.
Attenborough was also the Patron of the United World Colleges movement, whereby he contributed to the colleges that are part of the organisation. He was a frequent visitor to the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa (UWCSA). The Baroness of Ely is involved with the United World Colleges movement, having attended Atlantic College, one of the United World Colleges, herself.
Attenborough was a longtime advocate of education that does not judge upon colour, race, creed or religion. His attachment to Waterford was his passion for non-racial education, which were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations for directing the film 'Cry Freedom'.
Attenborough founded the Richard Attenborough Arts Centre on the Leicester University campus in 1997, specifically designed to provide access for the disabled, in particular as practitioners.
Richard Attenborough was elected to the post of Chancellor of the University of Sussex in March 1998. He stood down as Chancellor of the University following graduation in July 2008. There now hangs a portrait of him in the newly opened Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts on the university campus.
Attenborough was also head of the consortium Dragon International Film Studios, which was constructing a film and television studio complex in Llanilid, Wales, nicknamed 'Valleywood'.
Now why would Dickie have been taking an interest in poor old Wales just as people began demanding that the criminal investigation into the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal should be re-opened?
In March 2008, the 'Valleywood' project was placed into administration with debts of £15 million and was considered for sale of the assets in 2011.
So which numpty in the Welsh Gov't gave the green light to the nonsense in the first place?
Attenborough had a lifelong ambition to make a film about his hero the political theorist and revolutionary Thomas Paine, whom he called 'one of the finest men that ever lived'. Attenborough said in an interview in 2006 that 'I could understand him. He wrote in simple English. I found all his aspirations – the rights of women, the health service, universal education… Everything you can think of that we want is in Rights of Man or The Age of Reason or Common Sense'.
#Me Too Dickie!!
Sadly Dickie could not secure the funding for his feminist socialist blockbuster. Do you know Dickie, I too have found that if a bit of tenacity, sacrifice and God forbid cash is required for a Cause for the Oppressed, suddenly people become a great deal less enthusiastic.
The website 'A Gift for Dickie' was launched by two filmmakers from Luton in June 2008 with the aim of raising £40m in 400 days to help him make the film, but the target was not met and the money that had been raised was refunded. I would imagine that Dickie was a man who was very hard to buy for, so he probably just used to get socks and underpants for Christmas.
In Dec 2008, Dickie suffered a fall at his home after a stroke and was admitted to St George's Hospital. He'll have been OK there, they weren't going to neglect or abuse Dickie, like Cilla he'll have been useful for PR purposes. In Nov 2009, Dickie held a 'house clearance' sale and flogged off a few Lowries, Nevinsons and Sutherlands at Sotheby's, generating £4.6 million. In Jan 2011, Dickie sold his estate on the Isle of Bute for £1.48 million.
In June 2012, shortly before her 90th birthday, Dickie's wife Sheila Sim entered the professional actors' retirement home Denville Hall, for which she and Dickie had helped raise funds. In Oct 2012, it was announced that Dickie was putting the family home, Old Friars, with its attached offices, Beaver Lodge, which come complete with a sound-proofed cinema in the garden, on the market for £11.5 million.
In Dec 2012, in light of his deteriorating health, Dickie moved into a nursing home in London to be with his wife. Dickie died on 24 August 2014, five days before his 91st birthday.
Lest anyone accuse me of being mean spirited and begrudging Dickie and his wife comfort in their later years, I honestly don't. The reason why I ruthlessly take the piss out of people like Dickie and his extended clan is that they know something about the grim underbelly of the welfare services, yet they knowingly allow themselves to be used as a shameless PR vehicle if anyone dares to say 'Oh Christ, look what happening here'.
After Frank Beck was given five life sentences and a further 24 years in prison in Nov 1991 at Leicester Crown Court for sexual and physical assaults, including rape, against more than one hundred children in his care, there was subsequently outrage in Parliament when Beck gave an interview to a local BBC radio station from inside prison. This was not only considered to have involved a huge misjudgement on the part of the BBC, but it transpired was also against Home Office rules. The BBC was colluding with abuse in high places, as was the Prison Service and the Home Office itself. All three institutions were endemically corrupt and were cravenly following instructions from Gov't, even when those instructions were to conceal VIP traffickers. Justice McCowan had set the precedent. Concealing paedophiles with links to Gov't was now in the interests of national security.
Why was anyone surprised that Greville Janner's mate was allowed to address the nation from his prison cell?
I now realise that Brown and I – at that time with Dafydd and the gang in hot pursuit of us – probably could not have ended up living in a worse place than Leicester, if we were not going to live in north Wales, in the way that I could not have ended up working in a worse place than St George's Hospital Medical School between 1989-91. Since beginning this blog I have been told that traps were laid for both of us to ensure that we ended up living and working on the manors of Dafydd's mates. Dafydd's gang had tentacles across Europe by the late 1980s, but Leicester and St George's were hot spots, along with Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Camden, Richmond-upon-Thames and Brighton.
Brown did his first degree at Aston University which was run by Sir Freddie Crawford, Thatcher's mate who was a Freemason and at the heart of the corruption of civic life in Birmingham. Previous posts have explained how Brown and I were targeted by the gang when we were still undergrads. Brown wanted to do his PhD with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University.
The CCCS was a cool n trendy place, but it was most definitely under fire from Thatcher's Gov't, they hated it because of the perception that it was a colony of leftists. The CCCS was founded in 1964 by Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall was Director, 1968-79. Raymond Williams was also involved with the creation of the CCCS. The CCCS produced some very famous sociologists, such as Angela McRobbie, Paul Gilroy and Paul Willis.
Birmingham University closed the CCCS suddenly in 2002. There was much outrage and it was widely perceived to have been a political move and a backlash against the CCCS as a result of so many of their staff locking horns with the authorities at Birmingham University over the years. However the CCCS did have a track record of a relatively high proportion of PhD students not completing.
The CCCS produced some excellent work, but some of their associates were among those on the left who were colluding with the Westminster Paedophile Ring. Since researching for this blog I have come across quite a few such names linked with the CCCS. It is very sad that everyone on the left talked about bringing down Thatcher, but the thing that would have done that would have been to have exposed Sir Peter Morrison, Norman St John Stevas and other child molesting Tories with Royal connections, but the lefties wouldn't do it because there was the matter of Greville Janner, George Thomas and all those Labour-run Councils who were supplying kids in care to the gangs…
Then there was the gay scene, which no self-respecting leftie could dare reveal overlapped with the rent boy scene, the rent boys coming from the children's homes of north Wales and elsewhere. I have been told that the reason why Dafydd et al became so over-excited about me was that when we were undergrads, Brown and I had been clocked going to a club in Birmingham which had a gender-bending contingent in attendance. We also used to frequent a clothes shop/designers in Birmingham called Kahn and Bell to buy our gear. Kahn and Bell jointly occupied a premises with a vintage clothes shop run by a man called Whiskers – I don't know what his real name was – who was pretty stereotypical, all handle-bar moustache and leather and he used to compere at the gay nightclub Heaven. The shop used to get raided by the corrupt West Midlands Police on a regular basis who would charge in searching for 'drugs', but only ever find a load of young people with interesting hair-styles.
It is quite funny to think of those old fools Gwynne the lobotomist and Dafydd steaming away at the thought of a young woman with coloured hair who dared visit such places – obviously it could only mean that I'd be more than happy to drop my knickers for elderly Top Docs liberally covered in Brylcreem – but I don't think that they should have tried to murder my friends and I when I said no thanks. Indeed I did just say no thanks, a lot of people seem to believe that I must have inflicted a crippling kick to their cerregs. I wish I had, I just thought that they were horrid old perverts trying their luck, I didn't realise that they were running a paedophile gang targeting kids as young as 10.
Brown applied to the CCCS, was interviewed but didn't get the offer of funding. They were very nice about it, wrote him a friendly letter telling him that he had performed very well and that his work was of an excellent standard, but funding was tight and difficult decisions were having to be made. Brown later noted that some much weaker candidates had been offered funding, but he didn't dwell on it. Instead he came to live in our shared house with us on Anglesey, while he built up his publication list and waited for the next round of studentships.
I have been told that the paedophiles' friends were desperate to keep Brown out of the CCCS and to ensure that he ended up instead at the Centre for Mass Communication in Leicester (the only other place which was researching his chosen field), where the plan was to do everything possible to stop him getting a PhD.
When Brown was a student at Aston, he became very friendly with a lecturer called Guy Cumberbatch and began publishing with him. Guy came up to stay with us on Anglesey one summer and at one point Brown lodged with Guy and his wife at their house in Leicester and in return did the housework and baby sitting. Guy had previously worked at the Centre for Mass Communications in Leicester. Guy never discussed Dafydd and the paedophiles with us, but Guy was no fool and he took an interest in the murky underworld of political life. He also personally knew some of the 1980s figures who were loud voices on the morality scene, such as dear old Mary Whitehouse and the Rev Brian Brown (not THE Brown, just a pillock with the same name), as well as a senior policeman in the Obscene Publications division who I think was later accused of corruption. These folk all knew about the organised abuse of young people and were keeping schtum.
Guy particularly hated Freddie Crawford and in the end left Aston for Worcester University.
People have been telling me for ages that Guy was knifing Brown without our knowledge, but I haven't put anything about it on the blog yet, but Brown recently confirmed that yes, Guy had done and said a few things that one would not have expected from a friend and mentor.
I don't know whether Guy was bribed or threatened, but I am told that the rot had begun when Brown was an undergrad. It would also have been crucially important for Dafydd et al to nobble Guy, because Guy's area of research was, in the 1980s, 'video nasties' and the like and research into whether such material really did increase aggression in children who watched it. Guy's research interest was dangerously close to other questionable material – John Allen was producing child porn as well as trafficking children and young people.
Brown's first degree was in psychology and there were close links between the Psychology Dept at Aston and the Psychology Dept at UCNW (Bangor). Margaret Newton at Aston, a dyslexia specialist, was a big mate of Prof Tim Miles, the dyslexia specialist at UCNW. Tim Miles was a lovely old boy, but he must have known about Dafydd and the paedophiles. Dafydd was pulling the strings in the Psychology Dept at UCNW until Prof Fergus Lowe overthrew Dafydd in the late 1980s and then created his own toxic empire based upon lying, cheating and holding everyone who had colluded with Dafydd over a barrel (see post 'Feet In Chains'). Furthermore Tim Miles had built up his reputation as a result of his fieldwork with children on Anglesey in the mid-1960s. Not only had Dafydd conducted 'mental health research' on Anglesey, 1959-62, but Lucille Hughes had been a children's social worker on Anglesey in the 1960s. Tim must have known that Dafydd and Lucille were running that gang, he couldn't possibly have missed it.
One of the mature students on Brown's course at Aston, Diane Underwood, after causing much grief to Brown and others before the end of the course, subsequently rocked up at UCNW, working for Fungus. Diane arrived at UCNW as the war against Brown and me really escalated. Oh and just to let us know that we were surrounded, Diane spotted us on the platform at Bangor Railway Station one day – now that was a coincidence – and made a point of coming up to Brown to make her presence known, but then refused to engage in conversation when I tried to talk to her. Diane now seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet.
Guy Cumberbatch knew about the murder threats that had been made to Brown and Guy knew that the man making them had previously violently assaulted someone. Dr D.G.E. Wood, the corrupt GP who worked in the Student Health Centre at UCNW, knew about the murder threats to Brown, as did Dr Adrian Bell, my tutor in the Dept of Plant Biology. There was no help or advice forthcoming from anyone.
Whether it was Guy who was responsible for Brown being rejected by the CCCS and subsequently ending up being ignored at Leicester University by Guy's former colleagues, I do not know. But a few interesting things went on at the CCCS in those days.
Stuart Hall stood down as Director of the CCCS in 1979 to take up the position of Professor of Sociology at the Open University, but Hall remained a very powerful influence at the CCCS as well as in wider sociology as a whole and on the left.
Hall was born in Jamaica and in 1951 won a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, becoming part of the Windrush generation. Hall continued his studies at Oxford by beginning a PhD but, galvanised particularly by the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary (which saw many thousands of members leave the Communist Party of Great Britain and look for alternatives to previous orthodoxies) and the Suez Crisis, abandoned this in 1957 or 1958 to focus on his political work. In 1957, Hall joined CND and it was on a CND march that he met his future wife, the feminist historian at UCL, Catherine Hall. From 1958 to 1960, Hall worked as a teacher in a London secondary modern school and in adult education.
After working on the 'Universities and Left Review' during his time at Oxford, Hall joined E.P. Thompson, Raymond Williams and others to merge it with 'The New Reasoner', launching the 'New Left Review' in 1960 with Hall as the founding Editor. In 1958, the same group, with the Marxist historian Raphael Samuel, launched the Partisan Coffee House in Soho as a meeting place for left-wingers. Hall left the board of the 'New Left Review' in 1961 or 1962.
E.P. Thompson was one of the radicals who had a second home at Croesor in north Wales, as did Eric Hobsbawm, who was also involved with the Partisan Coffee House. Thompson and Hobsbawm knew about Dafydd and the paedophile gang (see post 'The Village'). Raphael Samuel knew Hobsbawm and Thompson well – Raphael Samuel taught at Ruskin for decades (see post 'A Study In Tyranny'). Matt Arnold, who became the Head of Bryn Estyn in May 1973, taught at Ruskin in the mid-1960s and one of his students was Peter Howarth, to whom Arnold gave a job at Bryn Estyn in Nov 1973. Arnold bagged the job at Bryn Estyn after the previous Head, Peter Burton, his wife had their young son were killed in a car crash. The Deputy Head of Bryn Estyn was killed in the same crash. Peter Burton had only been in post for about a year when he was killed. His predecessor, David Ursell, had been suspended after only four years in post, after a complaint regarding the way in which he enforced discipline. Ursell's predecessor Harold Bennett had retired in 1967 after 26 yrs.
As far as I can see, somebody badly wanted Matt Arnold in post as the Head of Bryn Estyn and that person could have been on manoeuvres by the late 1960s.
In 1969 John Allen established the Bryn Alyn Community.
It was in the latter half of the 1960s that Leo Abse began working towards bringing about what became the Children Act 1975. Abse co-ordinated everything single-handedly, but received assistance from others in ensuring that the legislation was passed, others which included childcare experts such as Dafydd's colleagues and helpful politicians like Jim Callaghan and Dr Death (see post 'Cry, The Beloved Country'). The Children Act 1975 vastly increased the number of children finding themselves in the hands of the paedophiles of north Wales.
To spare the readers of this blog the confusion that I experienced for years, let me explain that when the police and others made comment about paedophiles being 'very clever people' who are working in professional positions 'high up' in society, I think that it was Dafydd and his mates that they were referring to. Police: next time, can you please not use the sort language that one uses if one is addressing primary school pupils? If you had simply mentioned an insane old idiot in north Wales, I would have realised immediately to whom you were referring.
There was abuse at Bryn Estyn before Arnold and Howarth arrived, but once those two took up positions there, business really boomed. Arnold and Howarth had previously worked at Axwell Park Approved School in Gateshead, where there had been complaints of boys being abused.
Scores of Labour and trade union figures passed through Ruskin College, including John Prescott, who was a student there at the same time as Howarth and when Arnold was teaching at Ruskin. For details of Ruskin and those who taught or were students there, see post 'A Study In Tyranny'.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Stuart Hall was closely associated with the journal 'Marxism Today' and in 1995, he was a founding editor of 'Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture'. I can't complain about 'Soundings', they published an article that Brown, I and a colleague at Bangor wrote about the north Wales mental health system.
Hall's political influence extended to the Labour Party and had a profound impact on the Party under both the Windbag and Blair, although Hall was highly critical of New Labour. The Windbag – and his wife – knew all about Dafydd and the gang as well as of course George Thomas and Ron Davies's penchant for moments of madness and looking for badgers. The Windbag had known Tony Francis, Dafydd's partner in crime, when Francis was a student in Cardiff. When Brown applied to the CCCS, the Windbag was the leader of the Labour Party.
Stuart Hall was linked to the Centre for Mass Communication Research in Leicester. Hall first presented his 'encoding and decoding' philosophy in the form of 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse' (1973), a paper he wrote for the Council of Europe Colloquy on 'Training in the Critical Readings of Television Language' organised by the Council & the Centre for Mass Communication Research at Leicester. In 1974 the paper was presented at a symposium on Broadcasters and the Audience in Venice.
There was quite a degree of hostility between broadcasters and media academics and a lot of people in academia grumbled that a few academics such as Guy Cumberbatch and Alastair Hetherington were too close to broadcasters. Hetherington was the son of Hector Hetherington, a professor at University College Cardiff who later became Principal of Glasgow University. Alastair Hetherington served in the Intelligence Corps in WWII and then went into journalism. He was Editor of 'The Guardian' for nearly twenty years and then was appointed as Controller of BBC Scotland.
In 1982 Hetherington was given a Chair by Stirling University. There was much gnashing of teeth and my two friends who's media careers were killed in the early 1990s and who found a gangster after them when they had wanted to make a film about north Wales (see post 'The Turn Of The Screw'), were media students at Stirling at the time. My friends were among those who signed a letter to 'The Scotsman' in protest at Stirling appointing Hetherington – who had until then had no academic background – as a toadying gesture to the rich and famous (see post 'Workers' Play Time'). I have recently found that this did not go unnoticed by those who were protecting national security – my friends were already under surveillance because of their friendship with Brown and me.
At one point, Polly was a fellow traveller with Dr Death.
One of my friends had that Jack McConnell in her bed once – without her permission either (see post 'The Turn Of The Screw'). Now Jack would never have become First Minister of Scotland and then Lord Jack if he had not kept schtum about celebrity paedophiles (see post 'The Most Dangerous Man In The World – The Scottish Play'). You might be friends with Kirsty Wark Jack, but I've got 10,000 documents.
Stuart Hall's colleague Richard Hoggart was the father of Simon Hoggart, the journo and Parliamentary sketch writer who knew about the Westminster Paedophile Ring.
Raymond Williams, another pal of Hall et al, was a Marxist cultural theorist. Williams was Welsh, but investigated his Welsh identity from the perspective of someone who grew up on the Welsh-English border near Abergavenny. Williams was the son of a railway worker in a village where all of the railwaymen voted Labour while the local small farmers mostly voted Liberal. Williams's writings on cultural theory are great, but his novel 'Border Country' sent me into such a sound sleep that I didn't finish it.
When Raymond Williams was at Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and, along with Eric Hobsbawm, Williams was given the task of writing a Communist Party pamphlet about the Russo-Finnish War. Williams became part of the New Left in the 1950s, but by the 1970s he was a member of Plaid, which is why Leanne Wood, who styles herself as a Plaid Marxist, mentions him when she's on 'Any Questions'. Raymond did ignore that paedophile gang though Leanne. But then so did you. When Leanne quoted Raymond Williams on 'Any Questions', she referred to 'a man called Raymond Williams'. Dimbleby elaborated and said 'you mean the sociologist Raymond Williams'. No Dimbleby, he was a cultural theorist. At least Leanne managed to get his gender right. I would have thought that the BBC could have dug up someone who knew who Raymond Williams was.
Williams retired from his post at Cambridge University in 1983 and spent his last years in Saffron Walden.
|Raymond Williams, relaxing in that well-known Welsh working class community of Saffron Walden.
Castle Street contains many historic buildings. It always reminds me of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
Saffron Walden's MP, for its eponymous Westminster constituency, was Sir Alan Haselhurst, 1977-17. It has been considered a safe seat for the Conservative Party since 1922. I know a little bit about Saffron Walden, because one of my house mates from my undergrad days at UCNW came from there. He was one of those who knew what was happening to me at the hands of the Top Docs and he was also a victim of the chaos that rained down upon us in 1983, when the gift from the security services that was Trishles came our way (see posts 'He Got On His Bike And Looked For Work' and 'A Local Boy Made Good?'). My friend from Saffron Walden was driven out of his job with a drug company in 1991!
The security services will have heard all the phone calls that we were making to each other as we were all driven out of our jobs within weeks of each other.
Tony Blair was elected as MP for Sedgefield in June 1983. Sedgefield is a constituency just down the road from the territory of the paedophile gang in the north east, of which Matt Arnold and Peter Howarth were members, until they relocated to Bryn Estyn. During the 1970s and 80s, hundreds of children in care from the north east were sent to children's homes in north Wales (see post 'Another Episode Of Friends…').
Before he became an MP, Blair was a pupil barrister of George Carman QC. Carman knew about Dafydd and the paedophiles and he was retained by Greville Janner and Jimmy Savile, lest he was needed. Cherie also worked in Carman's Chambers.
Ron Davies was elected as the Labour MP for Caerphilly on the same day that Blair won Sedgefield. In 1998, Blair was just about to appoint Ron as First Secretary of the new National Assembly of Wales, but poor old Ron was caught with his trousers down on Clapham Common in the company of Boogie, a male prostitute. Of course, as Rhodri Morgan explained, Rhodri 'didn't know' that Ron had such encounters because Ron cleverly covered his tracks. So carefully that Ron used to go cottaging at Cardiff's most popular tourist attraction (see post 'Cottaging At Castle Gate'):
A popular cottaging location for a potential FM:
In 2007 a collection of Raymond Williams' papers was deposited at Swansea University by his daughter Merryn, herself 'a poet and author'. Merryn's bio on her website tells us: 'I went to grammar school in Hastings in eleven-plus days, studied English at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and got a doctorate for my thesis on Thomas Hardy's novels. After that I taught adult students for the Open University and the W.E.A., living for several years near Cranfield University where my husband worked as a physicist. I am literary adviser to the Wilfred Owen Association, having a great interest in the poets of the First World War.'
There's a down to earth Welsh girl for you!
This is Dai, he holds the Raymond Williams Research Chair in Cultural History at Swansea University. He is – or was – Chair of the Arts Council of Wales, so he decides who gets the dosh:
This is Oily, Dai's offspring:
Oily got his hopes up, but I think they've been dashed now. Oily didn't live in Saffron Walden, Oily lived in Surrey, until he decided that he'd like to be a Cabinet Minister, preferably Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then he remembered his dad and the pits and the NHS and Nye Bevan and Oily moved to Pontypridd.
Oily's dad wrote the 2008 volume, 'Raymond Williams: a Warrior's Tale'.
Warrier???? He pussy-footed around a gang of sex traffickers and lived in Saffron Walden after spending a few decades at Cambridge University.
The Raymond Williams Society was established in 1989 'to support and develop intellectual and political projects in areas broadly connected with Williams's work.' Presumably that includes banging on about peace, socialism and feminism while keeping schtum about a gang of paedophiles who are murdering witnesses. The Raymond Williams Centre for Recovery Research was opened at Nottingham Trent University in 1995. The Raymond Williams Foundation (RWF) supports activities in adult education. A collaborative research project building on Williams's investigation of cultural keywords, called the 'Keywords Project', was established in 2006 and is supported by Jesus College, University of Cambridge and the University of Pittsburgh.
The person who interviewed Brown at CCCS was Professor Michael Green. Brown told me that Michael Green 'came over as a bit of a twit despite the loving obituaries which he inspired', but Brown presumed that he just hadn't hit it off with Green. The other media specialist who was at CCCS when Brown wanted to do a PhD with them was Ann Gray, who ended up with a Chair at Lincoln University.
So after drawing a blank at the CCCS, Brown was offered a studentship at the Centre for Mass Communication Research at Leicester University, which unbeknown to him was at the heart of a load of people concealing the activities of Lord Greville, Frank Beck et al, who had close links to Dafydd and the gang in north Wales.
The Centre for Mass Communication Research was established in 1966 under Prof Jim Halloran's directorship, initially concentrating on delivering PhDs. In 1978 the Social Science Research Council (predecessor of the ESRC) invited Halloran to design and deliver the UK's first Masters Degree in media and communications.
Brown's supervisor at Leicester was Paul Hartmann 'who was affable enough, but we mostly made small talk about his motorbike and building projects he was undertaking around his house, so there wasn't much by way of solid academic advice'. So Brown did it by himself.
The backgrounds of the senior managers at Leicester University when Brown was a PhD student there and an account of an interesting game of musical chairs which took place at the very top of the institution can be read in my post 'Gwlad y Menig Gwynion'.
As for my arrival at St George's in 1989 as a result of an offer of a job opportunity which seemed to be a dream come true but turned out to be a living nightmare (see post 'St George's Hospital Medical School, 1989/1990…'), I have been told that it was all stage-managed as carefully as Brown's eventual arrival at Leicester was. D.G.E. Wood et al in north Wales knew that I was looking for a research post, preferably in the area of fertility studies, which would allow me to complete a PhD at the same time and I responded to an advert in 'New Scientist' placed by St George's offering such an opportunity. Now for the really interesting bit. When I was interviewed, it was for a fixed term contract as a research assistant. St George's then telephoned me that evening, told me that I hadn't got the job that I'd applied for, but I was such a good candidate that they were prepared to create a job for me, a permanent one at that and could I start immediately…
I knew that Prof Oliver Brooke at St George's had been imprisoned for child porn offences in 1986, but I had no idea that he was a key figure in a pan-European paedophile ring containing many professional people, with which Dafydd's gang were directly linked (see post 'The Most Dangerous Man In The World – Part III'). Neither did I realise that many members of Brooke's gang were still working at St George's, Springfield Hospital and in Wandsworth Social Services, that I'd be surrounded by them and that the only reason why I was offered that job was to hound me out of medical research and ensure that I didn't get back in again. After Brooke was jailed, Sir William Asscher was appointed as Dean of St George's. Asscher had spent his whole career in Cardiff, he was a mate of Dafydd et al and he'd concealed their crimes as well as the offending of George Thomas, for years. Asscher was sent to St George's for no other reason than to continue with the cover-up post-Brooke, he kept a home in Glamorgan and moved back there when he retired from St George's. See post 'The White Heat Of This Revolution'.
Here's a man who knew what was going on but who's desire to become PM was greater than his concern for the lives of the witnesses who's corpses were regularly turning up in north Wales:
It was just after I began the job at St George's that Gwynedd Health Authority took me to the High Court in Cardiff in an attempt to obtain an injunction to prevent me even writing to them to pursue my complaints (see post 'Some Big Legal Names Enter The Arena'. The legal advice was given by Andrew Park, the crooked lawyer who was employed by the Welsh Office. The Secretary of State for Wales at the time was Peter Walker.
The barrister who witnessed the extraordinary scenes in Chester Court on the occasion in 1990 when four members of the paedophile gang perjured themselves repeatedly and 14 charges against me had to be thrown out of Court – the barrister herself was deliberately sent to the wrong Court, leaving her no time to prepare my defence – was Suzanne Evans. Suzanne was friendly and courteous towards me, but she knew that four people had lied repeatedly on oath, she knew that the judge – Justice Roch – had simply ignored their perjury AND Suzanne witnessed Roch offer to give the four perjurers more time to rewrite their affidavits. Furthermore Suzanne knew that she had been sent to the wrong Court. I have documents in my possession written by a lawyer employed by Gwynedd County Council which not only make it clear that Gwynedd County Council were told about the change in Court and judge in advance but my team wasn't, but also indicate that the four perjurers from the Arfon Community Mental Health Team had not actually previously seen the affidavits that they had allegedly sworn. See post 'Some Big Legal Names Enter The Arena'.
Suzanne Evans is a graduate of St Anne's College, Oxford and is now working as a Family Law barrister at Oriel Chambers in Liverpool and Preston.
'In the Public Law arena she acts predominantly for parents, appearing in cases involving a wide range of key issues including neglect, addictions, non-accidental injury, domestic violence, mental health etc. In care proceedings she acts for parents, grandparents, Children's Guardians and Local Authorities. In Private Law Children cases Suzanne acts for parents involved in the sometimes complex and distressing process of resolving the arrangements for their children post separation.'
Suzanne, you watched four members of a paedophile ring perjure themselves in an attempt to have me imprisoned and you watched a judge collude with them. Didn't you think that you should have followed this up, rather than just have walked out of the door when 14 allegations against me were demonstrated to be fallacious?
The Home Secretary at the time was David Waddington, the Lord Chancellor was Lord Mackay and the Attorney-General who had authorised the prosecution was Sir Patrick Mayhew.
By the time that I was working at St George's, some of those in Somerset who knew what was happening to me at the hands of Dafydd et al had acquired a great deal of money and a few others had found their careers taking a sudden turn for the better (see posts 'Upper Class Twit Of The Year – Shooting Themselves' and 'Those Who Are Ready To Serve').
I have explained in previous posts how the Somerset contingent suddenly found themselves tripping over aristos with connections to the Gov't. I am trying to work out when the odious David Kirke and the Dangerous Sports Club began to spend their time in the region of the Cottage Inn near Fiddington – it must have been in about late 1985. In Nov 1986, the BBC TV programme 'The Late Late Breakfast Show' which was presented by Noel Edmonds, set up a badly managed stunt involving a bungee jump which resulted in the death of the volunteer, Michael Lush. There was an almighty fuss and I can remember the twat Kirke pompousing away in the media (and in Somerset) explaining how the BBC should have taken advice from him and if they had done that no-one would have died. Two of Kirke's mates from Somerset later succeeded in killing a Bulgarian student by firing him from a medieval catapult in Nov 2002. There was a prosecution for manslaughter in 2004 but the nice lady judge at Bristol directed the jury to acquit the two defendants.
By the time that Michael Lush died, I had heard a great deal about Kirke, he must have been hanging around in Somerset for a year or so by then. So the son of the Governor of the Bank of England and his mates found themselves in close proximity to people who knew me at the end of 1985 or so. I hadn't yet encountered Dafydd by then, but I had encountered D.G.E. Wood, Gwynne the lobotomist and Tony Francis. I had contacted Keith Best, the MP for Anglesey, about the problems that I was having with the north Wales mental health services and he in turn had written to the paedophiles' friend Lord Wyn Roberts. Best and Roberts were Ministers at the Welsh Office and at that time Nicholas Edwards was Secretary of State for Wales (see post 'The Cradle Of Filth' and 'Old Nick Bites The Dust'). Everyone was concealing the trafficking gang.
|The Lord Kingsdown aka Robin Leigh-Pemberton
The Secretary of State for the DHSS at the time was Norman Fowler, who is currently Lord Speaker:
|The Lord Fowler looking rough
The Home Secretary at the time was Douglas Hurd, who assumed that office on 2 Sept 1985. Hurd was the nephew of the botanist Prof Edred Henry Corner, who knew Prof Greig-Smith, of the Plant Biology Dept at UCNW (see post 'Additional Security Meaures'). Greig-Smith was a colleague of scores of people who were concealing the trafficking gang, including Chris Wood, who was the wife of D.G.E. Wood and Ralph Oxley, who's wife Isabel Hargreaves worked as a social worker for Gwynedd Social Services. One member of staff in Plant Biology, Dr John Wilson, was known to be picking up under-aged girls in Bangor for sex and Dr Adrian Bell and his wife Alison were worried that John Wilson was going to get himself arrested and cause a scandal. John's conduct was widely known to staff in the Plant Biology Dept as well as to those in the Zoology Dept. Other people whom I heard directly commenting on it included John Farrar, who many years later became a PVC at Bangor University and his wife Stel. At the time Stel had just finished her PhD, but years later she worked as a lecturer in the Dept of Lifelong Learning, while the Head of Dept was Meri Huws. In the 1980s Meri Huws worked as a community social worker on the Maesgeirchan estate in Bangor, the location of the Ty'r Felin children's home, where the social workers trafficked the children for sex, including to Dolphin Square (see post 'Are You Local?'). David Roberts, a technician who worked in the Zoology Dept, also knew about John pursuing school girls.
By the way, is there anyone else out there who would like to continue passing the tittle tattle on about me which they know damn well was made up by a gang of sex offenders because I had found out some of what they were doing? Stel? Fancy refusing to speak to me at a party again? What about you Meri? Feel like giving me one of your 'you are a piece of shit' looks? I can't ask Fungus because the old bastard's dead, but one day I really must go for an extended tour through Caernarfon and Bangor and watch everybody's expressions now that I've outed the whole bloody lot of you on the internet. Did you really think that I didn't know what at least some of you were colluding with, although it would seem that even more of you were colluding with serious crime that I realised…
Whilst huge swathes of UCNW concealed a trafficking gang, Carlo was the Chancellor. Sir Peter Morrison's sister Dame Mary was Woman-of-the-Bedchamber to Carlo's mum. Then there was Carlo's mate the Duke of Westminster, who was President of the City of Chester Conservative Association, who's members were openly gossiping about their constituency MP Peter Morrison molesting young boys.
Now back in the mid 1980s, not only were some of the zoologists and plant biologists personal friends/relations of the Top Docs and the gang, but even biologists had to ensure that they grovelled with the best to big wigs lest they lost jobs or funding. So let's have a look at some of those to whom the biologists had to toady.
A lot of funding for the research in the natural sciences at UCNW came from NERC, the Natural Environment Research Council. By the mid-1980s, people were getting worried about their ability to extract dosh from NERC, but up until just a few years previously, they didn't have to work very hard for their dosh at all. They would just stick the grant applications in and everyone would be given funding for a few PhD students. The biological sciences at UCNW had established their reputation in the late 1960s as a result of the work of people like Prof Greig-Smith and Prof John Harper and their work was well-supported.
The Chief Exec of NERC, 1965-70, was mathematician and meteorologist Sir Graham Sutton. Sutton was Vice-President of what became Aberystwyth University, 1967-76, when Aber was hosting paedophiles' friends en masse and churning out crooked lawyers who concealed the crimes of paedophile gang. Until the constituent colleges of the University of Wales became independent universities in the own right quite recently, Aber and Bangor were both part of the wider University of Wales. Carlo was Chancellor of the whole of the University and there was a close relationship between Aber and Bangor. Both colleges had Depts of Biological Sciences and Agriculture doing similar things and there was a bit of traffic between those Depts.
The son of one of Dafydd's Angels – one of Dafydd's key henchmen actually – has lectured for years in botany at Aberystwyth University. His sister was a children's social worker who was employed by the Office of the Children's Commissioner for Wales.
Sutton was born in Monmouthshire and was educated at Pontywaun Grammar School, then Aberystwyth University and then at Jesus College, Oxford. The former Principal of Bangor Normal College, the teacher training institution which crawled with paedophiles' friends, is Professor Gareth Roberts, a mathematician who went to Jesus College, Oxford. I think that Professor Roberts also held a senior role in Gwynedd Education Authority at some point in the past and I think that he also worked as a Schools Inspector in Gwynedd. Meri Huws was employed as a lecturer at the Normal College after her stint as a social worker, as was Aled Griffiths. Aled Griffiths aka the Buffet Slayer has a brother, Huw, who was a solicitor in Gwynedd who spent years sitting in Court watching the paedophile gang stitch people up. Aled's sister Gwenan Carrington was the Director of Gwynedd Social Services whilst her staff abused and neglected their clients and Aled's wife Joanna Griffiths fulfilled exactly the same role in Conwy Social Services. Back in the pre-Cambrian, the Buffet Slayer was President of the Students' Union at UCNW.
'We didn't know.'
Oh don't be so bloody ridiculous, you were all working cheek by jowl with that gang of paedophiles.
After a year teaching mathematics at Canton Secondary School, Cardiff, between 1926-28 Sutton was a lecturer at University College, Aberystwyth before joining the Meteorological Office. He was seconded to Shoeburyness to work on the meteorological effects on gunnery practices and then transferred to Porton Down, best known as the Gov't research establishment which among other things researches chemical and biological warfare. By the 1980s the only people who would work at Porton Down were those who would do anything for the comparatively high salaries on offer there.
Whilst working at Porton Down, Sutton was put in charge of the notorious 1942 trial which involved the release of anthrax spores over Gruinard Island as part of a biological warfare project.
When WWII ended, Sutton was made Chief Superintendent of the Radar Research and Development Establishment, Malvern, a position he held until 1947, when he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military College of Science, Wiltshire. Sutton was Director-General of the Meteorological Office, 1953-65 and Vice-President of Aberystwyth University, 1967-76.
A previous post has mentioned that one of the botany students at UCNW, Peter Jackson, who knew what was happening to me at the hands of Dafydd et al landed a plum much sought after job with the RSPB after he graduated. He was an excellent naturalist but I have more recently been told that he was one of many who used his knowledge of what was being concealed in high places to secure his future.
The person who's arm may have needed to be twisted at the time was Ian Prestt, Director General of the RSPB, 1975-91. Ian Prestt died in 1995 and his obituary in the Indie explains that after working as the Assistant Regional Officer (SW England), Nature Conservancy 1956-59, Prestt went to work for the RSPB, 'appointed by the great Max Nicholson, doyen of international conservationists and then Head of the Nature Conservancy, as "his ornithologist"'. Prestt worked at the Monks Wood Experimental Station, teasing out the relationships between ingested chlorinated hydrocarbons and the thin shells of birds' eggs, leading to recognition of the threats to food chains and to humans.
Mary was committed to prison and then released into the 'care' of Dr Dafydd Alun Jones at the North Wales Hospital by one James Blackett-Ord, who enjoyed the title of 'His Honour the Vice-Chancellor of the County of Palatine of Lancaster'. James Blackett-Ord was actually a circuit judge. However his glorious title conferred upon him another role- to exercise general supervision over the conduct of the Chancery Division business in the north of England. The Chancery Division is a Division of the High Court of England and Wales and deals with business law, trust law, probate law, insolvency and land law in relation to issues of equity. So in Mary's case, Blackett-Ord was effectively judging on a case that it was his role to oversee. Conflict of interest anyone? It gets much worse. The Vice-Chancellor of the County of Palatine of Lancaster is appointed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a Ministerial Office of Government appointed by the Queen on the advice of, or by, the Prime Minister. Mary's mother's estate – the original source of the dispute – was administered by the Public Trustee (one of Mary's later legal actions was against the Public Trustee). The Public Trustee is appointed by the Lord Chancellor – as well as Blackett-Ord! There was nothing impartial about this judge. But I haven't finished. The Lord Chancellor was also in charge of the later investigation into Mary's case in 1993 and 1995.
The Lord Chancellor when Mary was unlawfully arrested and imprisoned was Lord Elwyn-Jones, a mate of Sir Ronnie Waterhouse. The Windbag subsequently appointed Lord Elwyn-Jones as Shadow Lord Chancellor.
The Lord Chancellor when Mary's case was 'investigated' was Lord Mackay of Clashfern.
Are we surprised that Mary was ruined?
After Blackett-Ord's time as the Vice-Chancellor of the County of Palatine of Lancaster ended in 1987 (he is described as 'stepping down'), from then on the office was held by a High Court judge of the Chancery Division. Was this perchance related to the shit that hit the fan over Mary's case? Blackett-Ord died a few years ago and his obituaries described him as a 'churchman' and a 'landowner' from Northumberland – they also remarked on how much he enjoyed being the Vice-Chancellor of the County of Palatine of Lancaster. They do not explain why he completely shafted a respectable middle aged woman from north Wales who had been swindled by some local solicitors by having her arrested and then handed her over to man – who's mistress was facilitating a paedophile ring – to be illegally banged up in an asylum for a year.
Blackett-Ord was appointed in 1972 – the year of Mary's mother's death and the original dispute. When Blackett-Ord was appointed, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was either Geoffrey Rippon or John Davies and the Lord Chancellor was Lord Hailsham, Quintin Hogg.
The man who gave Ian Prestt his big break, Edward Max Nicholson, was President of the RSPB, 1980-85.
Max Nicholson was a naturalist and ornithologist who was educated at Sedburgh School and then Hertford College, Oxford. Nicholson was a founder member of the Oxford University Exploration Club.
In 1932 the British Trust for Ornithology was established and Nicholson was the first Treasurer and later Chairman (1947–1949). In 1947–1948, with the then Director General of the UN's scientific and education organisation UNESCO, Julian Huxley, Nicholson was involved in forming the International Union for the Protection of Nature, now the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Some members of Julian Huxley's extended family and associates were friends with Bertrand Russell and the Welsh Bloomsbury set who used to spend their summers at Croesor in north Wales and who knew about Dafydd, Gwynne and their wrongdoing (see post 'The Village').
In 1949 Max Nicholson oversaw Part 3 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, which established the Nature Conservancy (later the Nature Conservancy Council). Nicholson was Director General of the Nature Conservancy, 1952-66. During his leadership, the Conservancy established itself as a research and management body which promoted ecology as having broad relevance and application to land use decision-making and management. Which will be why the weak botanists and zoologists didn't dare upset him and why the tougher ones were able to thrash out dodgy deals with him.
In 1961 Nicholson, together with Sir Peter Scott (see post 'He Got On His Bike And Looked For Work') and others, formed the group that created the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (now the World Wide Fund for Nature), with which Carlo's dad was famously involved for years while he blasted various species to death with a shotgun. It was Max Nicholson who 'was instrumental in directing the Duke of Edinburgh towards conservation. The Duke's involvement with the World Wildlife Fund enabled him to travel the world, virtually as a head of state, allowing him to make valuable contributions without apparently straying into the fray of politics, since, as Nicholson enjoyed pointing out, the politicians of the early 1960s had little conception of environmental issues'.
So Max made friends with Lilibet's husband and ensured that Phil the Greek got a few freebies under the guise of doing something useful.
Nicholson was also a founder of the International Institute for Environment and Development and in 1966 he set up and headed environmental firm Land Use Consultants, (LUC), remaining with them until 1989.
In 1976 Nicholson was an instrumental part of the setting up the Trust for Urban Ecology. In 1978 Nicholson was instrumental in founding the ENDS Report, a highly influential journal for environmental policy specialists. Nicholson helped set up the New Renaissance Group and was a Trustee of Earthwatch Europe.
Nicholson's 1931 essay A National Plan for Britain led to the formation of the think tank Political and Economic Planning, now the Policy Studies Institute.
Max Nicholson joined the civil service in 1940 and during WWII he worked for the Ministry of Shipping, then the Ministry of War Transport and was with Churchill at the post-war peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam. Nicholson was Private Secretary to Mandy's granddad, Herbert Morrison, the Deputy PM, 1945-52. During those years, Herbert doubled up as Lord President of the Council – so he would have been the visitor for the University of Wales…
You kept that quiet Mandy! Here he is, desperately trying to make the Windbag electable:
Max married Mary Crawford in 1932 and they had two children, Piers and Tom. The marriage was dissolved in 1964. Nicholson then married Marie Mauerhofer (known as Toni) in 1965; they had one child, a son, David.
Max Nicholson seemed to have believed that he should rightly have been President of the World. He wrote a number of publications regarding how the planet should be organised and run and when the Callaghan Gov't showed no particular interest in celebrating the Queen's first 25 years on the throne in 1977, Nicholson got together with Charles Wintour, then Editor of the London Evening Standard, and Illtyd Harrington, then the Deputy Leader of the GLC, to promote the celebration of the Silver Jubilee.
Illtyd Harrington knew about Dafydd and the trafficking gang. Illtyd was an ally of Ken Livingstone and served as Deputy Leader of the GLC, 1981–84 and then as Chairman, 1984–85.
Harrington was born in Merthyr Tydfil. His father was an atheist and Communist, who fought against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War and mother, known as Sally, was also an anti-fascist. Harrington was educated at the Roman Catholic Dowlais School before going to Trinity University College, Carmarthen (now part of University of Wales Trinity St David). Illtyd became a friend of Dylan Thomas while he was there.
Harrington gained employment in Brixton, before becoming a geography teacher at Kennington Secondary school. Then he moved on to become Head of English at Daneford School in Bethnal Green. Illtyd's friends in the East End included the Krays.
Harrington was openly gay and lived for fifty years with his partner, Christopher 'Chris' Downes, who worked as a theatrical dresser for Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith. Downes became a Board Director of the National Theatre on the South Bank. Both men were active members of the Board of Trustees of the National Youth Theatre. They shared a house in London and later in Brighton, where they entertained the gliterati. Both were heavily involved as writers and editors of The Camden New Journal and West End Extra. Downes died in 2003.
Harrington's nephew is actor Richard Harrington.
Harrington's political career started with election to the Borough Council in Paddington in 1959 and in 1964, he moved up to the Westminster City Council, where he was leader 1972-4 and the GLC. He represented Brent South in 1973 on the GLC, having been rejected as a potential Parliamentary candidate for Merthyr. He was also Chairman of the GLC's Policy and Resources Committee. During the period he was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Illtyd was a member of Wilson's kitchen cabinet when Labour returned to power in 1974.
Illtyd's wiki entry tells us that 'It was promulgated that he might be offered a peerage, but both MI5 and MI6 were investigating the Cabinet for suspected incidents of Soviet espionage and he was refused'. Well someone with a sense of humour has written that. The Lords is full of people with links to espionage activities but as long as they concealed Dafydd and the paedophiles, they were in. Illtyd concealed Dafydd and the paedophiles as well, so if he was refused a peerage there must have been some other reason.
In 1980, after the leader of the GLC, Sir Reg Goodwin, retired Harrington became Deputy to Andrew McIntosh. The flood of hard left councillors elected in 1981 staged a coup and ousted McIntosh in favour of Red Ken. Ken told Harrington 'Of course I am not going to oust you as Deputy Leader, you are the acceptable face of extremism'.
Illtyd became an adviser to Red Ken when Ken became Mayor in 2001.
Later in life, Illtyd was a regular contributor to Camden New Journal.
The first of Max's thrusts was the Jubilee Walkway, which aimed to knit London more closely together, and in particular to lure the walker from Leicester Square across Lambeth Bridge and on to the South Bank.
Max's second thrust was to knit north London together by the fuller use of Regent's Canal and the Grand Union Canal. The other thrusts involved the cleaning up and development of the Covent Garden area, improvement schemes overseen by the Civic Trust to develop a London-wide heritage and amenity programme, an extensive tree-planting programme and the development of 'meanwhile' use of derelict land, which included the creation of an urban farm at Newham. Nicholson also masterminded the Clean Up London Campaign.
Max 'was against the Establishment', although a 'dedicated monarchist', and predicted that the monarchy would survive the 21st century, because 'any sensible person would realise that the system was patently more honourable than a presidency of ambitious and self-serving politicians'.
The nature loving anarchist who was Max spent most of his time in Chelsea, in the home he had bought when he was still quite young.
In 1982 Max enjoyed a proud moment when he accepted the Gold Medal for the World Wildlife Fund from the Duke of Edinburgh, the man who's work with the WWF was of course as result of the efforts of Max.
Before Anne Vernon was killed, she used to talk about the RSPB as not being an organisation for anyone who was genuinely interested in birding. She maintained that it was run by grandiose people with Royal connections. I think I might know who she was talking about.
Magnus Magnusson was President of the RSPB, 1985-90. Magnus went to Jesus College, Oxford, which educated quite a few paedophiles' friends because it is a college with Welsh connections. Magnusson was a journalist and before he found his true home pompousing on 'Mastermind', he used to present a lot of those TV programmes in the 1970s which investigated ghosts, past lives and other such matters. I watched a programme in which Magnus swore blind that the people whom he was interviewing were presenting evidence that they'd lived before. As is customary, Magnus's guests had all experienced quite eventful previous lives, one of them had even been someone who had been part of the massacre of the Jews in York in 1190. No-one had just worked on a small-holding and done the washing-up for their entire lives.
Magnus also wrote for the 'New Statesman', as did many paedophiles' friends and it was through the small ads in the 'New Statesman' that Brown and I encountered some of the mad people who caused us grief whom I now know were presents from the security services.
Magnus was the founder Chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage upon its inception in 1992. He was Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, 1975-78 and later in 2002 Magnus became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University.
Magnus's daughter Sally and his son Jon work in the media.
None of the Magnussons ever blew the whistle on Jimmy Savile. Sally Magnusson has presented 'Songs of Praise'. As did Aled Jones, the 1980s school boy singing sensation who lived at Llandegfan and was a neighbour of all those Top Doctors and staff at UCNW who were desperately in need of a distraction just when Aled became a superstar overnight because Alison Taylor, Mary Wynch and I would not shut up about the crimes of the Top Docs. Aled went to school with the children of D.G.E. Wood. Aled also went to school with at least five kids whom I know were being abused by those we know and love, but Aled's school didn't give a stuff about them and neither did anyone else.
More recently, Aled has presented 'Cash In The Attic'.
Jesus Christ, he's grabbed a little boy in his pyjamas, the Abominable Snowman must be working for Gwynedd Social Services.
Lord Derek Barber, a civil servant and agriculturalist, was President of the RSPB, 1990-91. Barber was educated at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and served in WWII. He farmed in Gloucestershire before serving in various posts at the MAFF, 1946-72. After that, Barber took various advisory roles on countryside and agricultural matters, including to the Gov't and BBC. Derek Barber will have been networked into the landowning paedophiles' friends, such as Lord Kenyon and the Duke of Westminster.
Barber was also President of the Gloucestershire Naturalists' Society; President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England; President of the British Pig Association; and a Vice-President of the Nature in Art Trust.
Barber picked up his peerage in Aug 1992, four months after the five witnesses to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal were killed by the firebomb in Brighton (see post 'The Silence Of The Welsh Lambs').
Barber sat as a crossbencher in the Lords.
The CEO of the RSPB, 1991-98, was Barbara Young aka Baroness Young of Old Scone. The Baroness of Old Scone is one of the breed of Labour peers who just go through life clocking up public appointments, anything will do, they're not fussy, but the appointments do of course always include a few which involve keeping the lid on the barrel of crap which is the NHS.
Lady Old Scone is currently Chair of the Woodland Trust. She was the Chief Exec of Diabetes UK, 2010-15 and before that she was involved in the establishment of the CQC, Chairing that organisation between 2008-10. Lady Old Scone was Chief Exec of the Environment Agency, 2000-08 and other posts she has held include: Chair of English Nature; Vice Chairman of the BBC; Board member of AWG plc; and posts in a number of local health authorities, including Parkside Health Authority. In 2010 Barbara Young was appointed Chancellor of Cranfield University and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017.
One other person to whom biologists will have grovelled is Professor Peter Bridgewater, an Australian conservationist, who was Chief Scientist of the Nature Conservancy Council, 1989–90. Peter Bridgewater was also Chief Executive of the Australian Nature Conservation Agency and Director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, 1990–97 and Secretary of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme and Director of its Division of Ecological Sciences 1999–03. Subsequently Bridgewater was Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on the Protection of Wetlands of International Importance and from 2007 he has been Chairman of the UK's statutory Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Among many international appointments, Bridgewater was Chair of the International Whaling Commission, 1995-97.
Another name from the past who knew some of what was happening in Bangor was Dr Dorian Moss. Dorian was a statistician who worked at the Institute for Terrestrial Ecology in Bangor in the 1980s. He was a member of Bangor Bird Group and knew Anne well. Anne had spent a summer working at the ITE with Dorian. After the gang killed Anne, it was Dorian's wife who came over to help sort Anne's things out…
There are bombs going off everywhere at the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. More patients have died unnecessarily and yet more notices have been issued by coroners with a view to 'preventing further deaths'. Yet another damning report has been compiled re the mental health services in north Wales and Donna Ockenden, an independent investigator, appeared on camera saying that this cannot go on, the Board cannot simply continue to produce action plan after action plan after action plan, with no improvement in 'services'.
Nothing will change. No-one in north Wales knows how to provide a mental health service, they never did know how to do that. They weren't providing a mental health service, what they were doing was running a paedophile ring. Everyone knew it and everyone allowed it to continue. Patients' complaints were ignored as were deaths, inspections were conducted by the paedophiles' friends and subsequently described the traffickers as kind, compassionate and excellent. Research was faked and trumpeted as world leading by both Westminster and the Welsh Gov't. The people at the Betsi are the very same people who ran that paedophile ring 20 yrs ago.
There is no mental health service in north Wales and very little NHS per se. The reason why people are finally squealing is that the situation is now so bad that better off people are dying as well. When it was just the dispossessed nobody minded. Now no-one is safe. It's what happens when a cartel of Top Doctors are allowed to kill people who dare complain.
Everyone needs to stop the endless reports and reviews, the meaningless historical enquiries led by the paedophiles' friends which are going to bring 'closure', the vacuous #Me Tooing and the promises to give Wales a 'feminist Gov't' and they need to arrest those doctors who colluded with each other to refuse all care and treatment to anyone who complained. They also need to arrest the Health Ministers who were told repeatedly what those doctors were doing yet refused to act – Jane Hutt, Brian Gibbons, Edwina Hart, Lesley Griffiths and Mark Drakeford. People died. It was quite deliberate.
One person who might like to give evidence is Dr Gruff Penrhyn Jones, formerly of Waunfawr Surgery. Gruff was much more pleasant than his dysfunctional colleagues, but he knew what they were doing. For a period of years, Gruff knew that I was unlawfully refused all treatment by every single doctor in north Wales. There is at least one other patient living in Gwynedd who was in exactly the same position. Gruff looked on but did not act. But then no-one did. Gruff's dad was a Top Doctor in north Wales and Gruff knew about Dafydd and the paedophiles. Gruff spent part of his career in Sweden and his son is in the Swedish police force. The last that I heard was that Gruff had left the UK, I think to live in Sweden. Gruff is not the only witness who emigrated, Dr Richard Tranter of the Hergest Unit and a number of his colleagues did as well.
The Top Docs watched an international paedophile ring in operation for years, said nothing and when Operation Pallial was launched they emigrated. Of course there is no mental health service in north Wales, how could there possibly be?


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Congressman Xavier Becerra, one of 12 appointed to the Congressional Super Committee on deficit reduction, said he believes every avenue to solving the debt problem should be on the table.
The committee, appointed earlier this month, is tasked with cutting more than $1 trillion from the national budget.
Becerra said all avenues to reducing the debt need to be debated and nothing should be off the table at the beginning of the process.
U.S. & World
He used the example of social security as something that he doesn't want to see cut, but should at least be considered.
"Let me fight, on principle, for those things that I believe in," he said of how he believes the process should take place.
Extending the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire, is one of the key decisions the super committee will have to discuss.
Becerra said he believes the tax cuts should be allowed to expire and the rate returned to the prior level because it was a driving force of the current deficit.
"If you take the Bush tax cuts off the table, you are essentially saying the main driver of these deficits that we have shouldn't be considered, that would be wrong," he said.
Becerra said that while Republicans want to extent the tax cuts, doing so doesn't make fiscal sense.
"They haven't worked for the first 10 years, why would you extend them and cost the budget some $3 trillion for the 10 years?"

subset: commoncrawl


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It's art, myth and archeology, it's visually stunning and you can reach back through the millennia and immerse yourself in its marks and contours. South Africa's rock art represents one of the world's oldest and most continuous artistic and religious traditions. Found on rock faces all over the country, these ancient paintings are a window into a historic culture and its thoughts and beliefs. In the Cederberg range alone, 250km north of Cape Town, there are some 2500 rock art sites, estimated to be between one and eight thousand years old.
The paintings are the work of the first South Africans, hunter-gatherers known as San or Bushmen, the direct descendants of some of the earliest Homo sapiens who lived in the Western Cape 150,000 years ago. Now almost extinct, their culture clings on tenuously in tiny pockets of Namibia, northern South Africa and Botswana.
If you're looking to dig deeper, the easy-going Sevilla Trail gives you the opportunity to take in ten rock art sites along a stunning 4km route. The animals that once grazed and preyed in the fynbos (literally "fine bush'') vegetation of the mountainous Cederberg are among the major subjects of the finely realized rock art paintings, which also include abstract images and monsters as well as depictions of people and therianthropes – half-human, half-animal figures. You'll see beautifully observed elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, oryx, snakes and birds, accurately portrayed in sinuous outline or solid bodies of colour – often earthy whites, reds and ochres. Frequently quite small, they're dotted all over rock surfaces, sometimes painted one over the other to create a rich patina.
Archeologists now regard many of the images as metaphors for religious experiences, one of the most important of which is the healing trance dance, still practised by the few surviving Bushman communities. The rock faces can be seen as portals between the human and spiritual world: when we gaze at Bushman rock art we are gazing into the house of the spirits.
You don't need to book to walk the trail, but you do need a permit, which can be obtained from Traveller's Rest Farm (www.travellersrest.co.za), which also has accommodation and lays on horse trails.
For hundreds more ultimate travel experiences, get Rough Guides' Make The Most Of Your Time On Earth
Top image © wcpmedia/Shutterstock


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Search results
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Interviewed by:
David DeVorkin
Interview date:
Saturday, 18 August 1979
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Childhood; early interest in science (astronomy). Member of Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1928. Special student at University of California at Berkeley, 1931, with Donald H. Menzel's help. Regular student from 1932; comments on teachers and fellow students at Berkeley Student Observatory. Summer assistantship at Lick Observatory (Nicholas Mayall, Arthur B. Wyse), life at Lick Observatory.


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Top 50 is 19 DR, 30 JKR and 1 CLS right now. My shard is brutal.
There are quite a few more DRs still not there simply because they belong to people who are not rushing to gear the team, like me. Eventually, they will get there.
Sounds like my shard. Maybe we're in the same.
Top 20 is mostly DR and outside that is JKR.
I'm still taking 1st with JKR, but having to climb from 50.
JKR can mark anyone and bypass taunt. Go after DR's money maker in Basitlla shan fallen. Once she's gone, that group loses a ton of potency. It's still dangerous, but - not as without her.thewhitegift wrote: »How do u beat DR with JKR? Like seriously, and i'm not talkin bout the talzin zombie variant either. Is there a way?
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Treadwell Brothers Set To Fight One Another At MFC 37
By Maximum Fighting Championship (via press release)
The Maximum Fighting Championship is thrilled to announce that for the first time in the history of any major mixed martial arts promotion, two brothers will fight each other in a professional bout.
Thomas and Mike Treadwell, who are not only siblings but also live together, will battle in a heavyweight matchup on the undercard of MFC 37: True Grit taking place live at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, on Friday, May 10.
"Absolutely, undeniably, one of the craziest and most anticipated fights in MFC history," said Mark Pavelich, Owner/President of the Maximum Fighting Championship.
"Who hasn't wondered what it would be like to watch two brothers fight? I remember from my own childhood, the most violent fights I was ever involved in myself were against my brother. We'd practically tear the house down because I was the younger brother out to prove myself against the older brother.
"I have a distinct feeling Treadwell vs. Treadwell will have that 'Prove who's really the toughest' mentality and be a spectacularly wild fight."
Long-time fans of MMA, this will be the pro debut for both brothers who share a condo in Edmonton, Alberta.
"We're taking brotherhood to the next level," said Mike Treadwell, 30, who previously served in the Canadian Armed Forces and has a background in security.
"This is something we're excited about, and I think people are going to be very excited to see," added Thomas Treadwell, a 20-year-old speciality mechanic.
While there are several significant brother combinations in mixed martial arts including Rodrigo and Rogerio Noguiera, Frank and Ken Shamrock, and Nick and Nate Diaz, plus former MFC welterweight champ Pat Healy and his twin Ryan, a brother versus brother showdown hasn't happened until now. Once again, the MFC is making history.
"It doesn't matter the names of the competitors – brothers are fighting, that's all it will take to get people excited," noted Mike.
The level of interest from friends and colleagues has overshadowed the small wave of negative feedback the brothers have received from certain family members, though another brother, Russ, will corner Thomas.
"Dad was angry and thinks we're idiots. Mom knows but we don't talk about it with her. Everyone else seems supportive," said Thomas.
"The moment I mentioned to just a handful of people that this fight was going to take place, their reaction was pure fascination and then instantly it turned to a state of unbridled enthusiasm to see it for themselves," offered Pavelich.


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LITTLE ROCK — One in 65 Arkansas children has been identified as having autism, according to a report released Thursday.
LITTLE ROCK — One in 65 Arkansas children has been identified as having autism, according to a report released Thursday.
The report by the Arkansas Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Program of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences provides the first Arkansas numbers since a 2002 count, according to a UAMS news release. The 2002 count estimated that one in 145 Arkansas children were identified with autism.
The numbers are part of national data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday that was gathered from the national ADDM network, the release states.
The AR ADDM data found that boys are four times more likely to be identified with autism than girls. Also, white children are more likely to be identified with autism than black or Hispanic children, and 23 percent of children identified with autism had not yet been classified as having it by a community health care or education provider.
"With statewide data, we can compare how common ASD (austism spectrum disorder) is in different groups of children in different areas of the state," said Eldon G. Schulz, M.D., principal investigator for the study and Rockefeller Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics in the UAMS College of Medicine. "AR ADDM will be able to identify underrepresented or underserved groups. We hope to guide service providers in directing efforts to connect with these kids."
UAMS pediatricians treat children with ASD at the UAMS Dennis Developmental Center.
The state estimate is based on information collected from health and special education records of children who were 8 years old and living in Arkansas in 2010. The Arkansas monitoring program, in collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Health, is one of only two sites in the ADDM Network to track autism in an entire state and the only site that continues to do so, the release states.


text: The Staggers 29 January 2013 Why the Tories' dream of a majority could finally end today The likely defeat of the boundary changes by Labour and the Lib Dems means the Tories will need a lead of seven points to win a majority in 2015. Sign UpGet the New Statesman's Morning Call email. Sign-up Update: MPs have voted in favour of delaying the boundary changes to 2018 by 334 to 292. Labour, the Lib Dems, the nationalist parties and at least four Conservatives (David Davis, Philip Davies, Richard Shepherd and John Baron) voted in favour of the rebel amendment. Barring any last-minute upset, the Conservatives' proposed boundary changes will finally receive their last rites in the Commons this afternoon. MPs will vote on a Labour amendment to delay the reforms until 2018 and, without the support of the Lib Dems, who will fulfil their pledge to oppose the changes in revenge for the abandonment of House of Lords reform, there is no hope of the Tories preventing defeat. In addition to Labour and the Lib Dems, at least two Conservative MPs - Glyn Davies and Philip Davies - are likely to rebel, with David Davis also considering voting against the changes (an assortment of rebels that suggests the whips should also keep a close eye on David Davies). Thus, even if the Tories succeed in winning the support of the eight DUP MPs (the SNP is expected to abstain), they will be well short of the numbers needed to save the reforms. As David Cameron's official spokesman delicately put it yesterday, "clearly, from the Prime Minister's perspective, the arithmetic looks pretty difficult". The defeat of the changes means it will be all but impossible for the Conservatives to win a majority in 2015. Under the existing boundaries, and assuming a Lib Dem vote of around 15 per cent, the Tories require a lead of seven points to win an overall majority, compared to a lead of four points under the new boundaries. Labour, by contrast, needs a lead of just one point to win a majority under the current system, compared to a lead of three points under the new boundaries. The party's advantage is partly due to differential constituency sizes, a factor that the boundary changes, which would have fixed constituency sizes at plus or minus five per cent of 76,000 voters, were designed to mitigate. Since Labour tends to perform best in smaller, urban seats, while the Tories perform best in larger, rural seats, it takes an average of 33,470 votes to elect a Labour MP, compared to an average of 35,030 to elect a Conservative one (and 119,944 to elect a Lib Dem, which is why they bang on about electoral reform). But even with the boundary changes, Miliband's party would still have enjoyed a significant advantage over its opponents. This is because the the electoral bias towards Labour owes more to differential turnout (fewer people tend to vote in Labour constituencies) and regional factors (the Tory vote is poorly distributed) than it does to unequal constituencies. As a report by the University of Plymouth concluded: "The geography of each party's support base is much more important, so changes in the redistribution procedure are unlikely to have a substantial impact and remove the significant disadvantage currently suffered by the Conservative Party." By 2015, as the Tories struggle to even remain the single largest party (something that will require a lead of four points), the more reflective Conservative MPs might ask themselves whether it was worth sacrificing the boundary changes for the sake of preventing an elected House of Lords. When I interviewed former Conservative education secretary Kenneth Baker earlier this month, he told me that he regarded Cameron's failure to secure the boundary changes as his "biggest mistake". ConservativeHome editor Tim Montgomerie has described the defeat of the reforms as the Tories' "worst single electoral setback since Black Wednesday". Note the date - 29 January 2013 - it may well be remembered as the day that the Tories' hopes of outright victory in 2015 finally ended. › Why I don't agree with trigger warnings Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers will vote against each other for the first time since the coalition was formed when parliament votes on the boundary changes later today. Photograph: Getty Images. George Eaton is senior online editor of the New Statesman. Subscribe For daily analysis & more political coverage from Westminster and beyond subscribe for just £1 per month!


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Flights to Russia with Qatar Airways
Russia is the world's largest country, spanning nine time zones and sharing land borders with no fewer than 14 countries. With such an expansive land, Russia is naturally incredibly diverse on multiple levels. Travel to Russia with Qatar Airways and find a heady mix of adventure, history and sophistication that will keep you company for years to come.
The great historic cities of St Petersburg and Moscow immediately come to mind when Russia is mentioned. The cities paramount role in shaping world history left it with a number of significant attractions that continue to draw visitors from around the world. Pay a visit to the Kremlin, Red Square and the iconic domes of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, or Catherine's Palace in St Petersburg and see for yourself the magnificence of such buildings. While in you are visiting St Petersburg, don't miss the chance to visit the splendid Peterhof Fountains and the surrounding parks at the Peterhof Palace.
Against a backdrop of the canals and museums of St Petersburg and the grand historic monuments of Moscow sit plentiful restaurants and cafés. Russian cuisine is worth exploring in some depth. It consists of numerous delicacies such as Schi (Sauerkraut soup) and Okroshka (fermented rye). Beef Stroganoff is always a favourite while Pelmeni are truly delicious dumplings stuffed with mushrooms.
Great literature has come out of this enormous country too, including Tolstoy's War and Peace, or the grace and beauty of Swan Lake. Russia has also contributed hugely to the arts, and this is most evident in a city like Moscow. The Bolshoi, Mikhailovski and Mariinsky theatres put on daily shows, and the Bolshoi Ballet is world famous. However, don't neglect the numerous circus acts, operas and innumerable other entertainment options on offer. The big cities are also excellent for their shopping, with some of the most exclusive names from the fashion and design worlds based here.


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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
More cartoons
Two more of the choicest cartoons I'm sending to the New Yorker. The first one seems to be more of National Lampoon or MAD cartoon to me, but hey, they published Charles Addams, why not me?
God, my handwriting tilts.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Hey yeah, cartoons!
For my rather late New Year's resolution, I've committed to doing five of these a week and sending them off to the New Yorker until they get sick of me and publish one. Based on precedent, this could take two years, but I plan on giving up and winning the lottery way before then.
Friday, January 15, 2010
I got a feeling...
The next few years are either going to be very good or very bad. Either way, I hope they don't get started without me.
And while I'm making predictions, polka dots will be in this year, the Black Eyed Peas will break up, and Christianity will be replaced by Thelemism as the major world religion. Put your stocks in dairy products, and beware of pale men with missing eyes.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Bloody Frenzy
It is a known fact that if a Republican smells blood, it will instinctively start biting. A number of Republicans in place will start a feeding frenzy, in which they will bite anything to their left, including themselves.
Those not in the water have little to worry about.
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