text:
I mentioned in a previous post that when I was young I was keen on a comic called 'Bunty' which was substantially composed of stories of girls in boarding schools tackling serious organised crime. Along the top of the pages featuring the crime-cracking school girls were words of advice to the readers which frequently included 'Remember girls – never get into a car with a stranger!'. The 'Bunty' readers were sadly never warned against people traffickers who doubled up as Top Doctors, but then the criminals in 'Bunty', as with the criminals in Enid Blyton stories, were always a bit working class. The likes of Professor Oliver Brooke or his lawyers never got a look in.
Sadly, girls growing up in the 1970s were expected to graduate from 'Bunty' to a sickening publication called 'Jackie', which was the best-selling teenaged girls' magazine at the time. I spent my teenage years sneering at 'Jackie' and I was lucky enough to have a close friend who also found 'Jackie' deeply vomit-inducing, with its advice on shaving one's legs and armpits and reminding one that the most important thing in the world was gaining the approval of a 14 year old boy. My mate and I would sit in the classroom at school in the morning just before formal lessons began on the day that the latest issue of 'Jackie' would be available and just about every other girl in the room would have their nose stuck in 'Jackie'. Years later I read Angela McRobbie's work – which I think was based on her PhD thesis – 'Jackie, A Study of Adolescent Femininity', which very effectively analysed the toxic messages conveyed to girls by that publication. It was also more recently admitted that the notorious problem page in 'Jackie', the Cathy and Claire page, while only publishing readers letters which were concerned with a crush on a teacher or a drip of a boy whom the reader was too shy to approach, was receiving letters from girls who were being sexually exploited or who were suicidal but there was a policy of ignoring those letters. They were deemed 'unsuitable' for inclusion in the magazine and furthermore no-one even replied to those letters privately. I was interested to hear about this, because my anti-Jackie friend and I used to discuss the possibility that people with serious problems were writing into 'Jackie' but were being ignored.
For many years the Editor of 'Jackie' was Nina Myscow, who later found fame and fortune writing offensive things in the tabloids and insulting the wanna-be acts on 'New Faces'. Perhaps Nina could let us know if those desperate readers whom we now know wrote to Cathy and Claire after being sexually assaulted named their assailants and if so were any of the people named known to the public as celebs?
The one thing that I did get wrong about 'Jackie' was my belief that it had a predominantly working-class readership. Because of the staggeringly bad 'careers advice' dispensed by Jackie – when girls wrote in expressing an interest in vet science or medicine they were always reminded that you had to be 'ever so clever to do that' and it was suggested that they should think about secretarial work or nursing instead, with no consideration at all that some of the readers will have been capable of achieving the A levels necessary – I presumed that 'Jackie' was aimed at girls in the sort of school that I attended, but I later found out that it did have a readership among girls who's parents had professional jobs as well.
Recent revelations about the sexual exploitation of teenagers – boys as well as girls – over the past decades by people involved with the pop music industry makes 'Jackie' and other teen magazines of the recent past even more worrying in terms of their uncritical promotion of an industry which was grossly abusing people whom those magazines were targeting. One reason why Jimmy Savile was considered untouchable was that he was running a racket in which youngsters were being procured for the sexual use of 'VIPs'. 'VIPs' including everyone from politicians to people involved with the music industry. Dafydd's gang in north Wales, which had links to Savile, served the same purpose. The trade in young people for the music industry went back years, before the early 1960s, which was how Savile became so influential, he pioneered it.
My post 'We've Been Expecting You…' mentioned the paedophile/trafficking ring in Leicester and the fact that Lord Robert Kilpatrick, the Dean of Leicester Medical School, colluded with it. Kilpatrick's wiki entry says very little about him, despite him having been such a big name in the medical establishment for so many years, so I haven't previously blogged much about him. However Kilpatrick's 2015 obituary published by 'The Scotsman' tells us more.
According to 'The Scotsman' Robert Kilpatrick was a 'much-respected reforming' President of the GMC, 1989–95 and 'was instrumental in encouraging doctors at all levels to listen to their patients'. Kilpatrick was such a reforming President that the GMC continued to fail to take any action at all against Dafydd et al or indeed Harold Shipman and were also in possession of a forged document purporting to be a letter from me after Kilpatrick had done all that reforming (see post 'The General Medical Council And Yet Another Forged Document').
In 1993 Kilpatrick published the first 'Tomorrow's Doctors' report, which provided a universal curriculum for medical students, 'recommending a greater emphasis on clinical and practical experience', which 'influenced medical training worldwide'. So what went wrong?
'The Scotsman' assures us that Kilpatrick was a 'towering figure in UK medicine', serving 'with distinction' as Dean of Sheffield Medical School, 1970-73, Dean of Leicester Medical School, 1973-89 as well as President of the GMC and of the BMA. So after concealing the paedophile gang that was operating in Yorkshire, in which Savile played a key role, Kilpatrick graduated to concealing the gang in Leicester which obviously had Leicester Medical School eating out of its hand from the day that the Medical School was established in Leicester University, which had been colluding with the gang for years (see post 'Gwlad y Menig Gwynion').
Finlay Scott was the GMC's Chief Executive during Kilpatrick's years and told 'The Scotsman' that: 'Robert was an outstanding clinician and President of the GMC. It was his energy and drive that got the legislation through Parliament on performance procedures in the profession'.
Robert Kilpatrick was born to a miner working in the Fife coal fields. He was a 'star pupil' at Buckhaven High School and at 16 he won a scholarship to Edinburgh University to read medicine. Being less privileged than many of his peers, he had to partly support himself and worked as a potato gauger and in local factories in the vacations. Kilpatrick was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship at Harvard. He returned to the UK in 1955, was appointed senior lecturer at Sheffield University and then became Dean of the Medical School. Kilpatrick was the first Dean of Leicester Medical School, 'where his pioneering spirit and thirst to educate and improve methods were immediately recognised'. He turned 'the fledgling school into a major force in the profession and it was soon hailed internationally'. I wonder how Kilpatrick achieved that then?
Even more intriguingly, Kilpatrick 'introduced a highly innovative medical course and through persuasion and charm found the funding to support the programmes.' So someone gave him dosh as well!
'Over the ten years of his stewardship he furthered the role of research…and improved patient care in all the Leicester hospitals'. So that's why the recent explosion involving Dr Bawa-Gharba and the death of her young patient revealed massive lethal failings throughout Leicester Royal Infirmary and negligence so serious that staff too frightened to be identified have stated that the hospital has been dangerous for many years but that this has been concealed (see post 'We've Been Expecting You…').
Kilpatrick became 'so esteemed within the medical profession that he sat on several important advisory commissions. In 1989 he left Leicester to assume the post of president of the GMC'. Dr James Earp of the Towers Hospital Leicester concealed the criminality of Dafydd et al in the autumn of 1987 (see post 'An Expert From England'). In 1989 the then biggest ever investigation into institutionalised child abuse was launched in Leicestershire. In April 1990 Leicestershire social worker Frank Beck was arrested for sexual misconduct in Leicestershire children's homes during the 1970s and 1980s. Beck spent the next eighteen months on remand and on 29 November 1991, following an eleven-week trial at the Leicester Crown Court, Beck was sentenced to five life-terms for sexual and physical assaults against more than one hundred children in his care. He was sentenced to a further twenty-four years on seventeen charges of abuse, including rape.
In their book, Abuse of Trust, Mark D'Arcy and Paul Gosling suggest that in 1977, Beck and a co-worker, Colin Fiddaman, killed a 12-year-old boy, Simon O'Donnell, by throttling him whilst he was being sexually abused, though the subsequent inquest into O'Donnell's death concluded that the boy had committed suicide after running away from a children's home run by Beck. In 1998, a former resident, Peter Bastin, stated that he witnessed Beck and Fiddaman removing what he believed to be O'Donnell's body from the home on the night before the child was found dead in a local factory. In the same year, Bastin was awarded a rumoured £50,000 compensation for the abuse and suffering he received from Beck.
Frank Beck maintained that he was innocent and had been fitted up. Beck was planning an appeal against his conviction when he was found dead in Whitemoor Prison on 31 May 1994. By 1994 the North Wales Police's investigation into the abuse of children in care in north Wales had concluded, finding 'no evidence' of a paedophile ring in north Wales/Cheshire and the Jillings Investigation into the abuse of children in the care of Clwyd County Council had been launched in Jan 1994.
Some children who had been in care in Leicestershire who named Frank Beck as their abuser also named Beck's friend, the Labour MP for Leicester North West, 1970-74 and Leicester West, 1974-97, Greville Janner. Janner denied everything. He was interviewed by the police in 1990 in the presence of his solicitor Sir David Napley, who was so certain that Janner would be charged that Napley retained George Carman QC. Napley and Carman had successfully defended Jeremy Thorpe, the Leader of the Liberal Party, when he stood trial for conspiracy and incitement to kill his former gay partner Norman Scott (see post 'My How Things Haven't Changed'). Janner wasn't charged, although years later the CPS admitted that there was sufficient evidence to charge him and no-one could explain why he hadn't been charged. Frank Beck was elected as a Liberal Party Councillor for Blaby District Council in 1983 and successfully defended his seat in 1987. Nigel Lawson was the Tory MP for Blaby, 1974-92 and was a Cabinet Minister in Thatcher's Gov't while Sir Peter Morrison, who was molesting children in care in north Wales, Cheshire and other locations, held a number of different roles in that Gov't.
The Frank Beck case led to the Kirkwood Inquiry, Chaired by Andrew Kirkwood QC. Sittings were held in secret to protect innocent third parties, but not all evidence was released to the public. Kirkwood also held a meeting with Greville Janner in private and an agreement was made that Janner's name would not appear in the Report. The Kirkwood Inquiry reported in 1993, was strongly critical of the management of Leicestershire Social Services during the 1970s and 1980s and of the conduct of several key managers as well as of the police. The Top Doctors were not criticised although it was known that mental health treatment of youngsters in care in Leicestershire had consisted of Top Docs having meetings with social workers not the children and advising the social workers on how to handle those terribly difficult children. Frank Beck abused children while giving them 'therapy'. Before Beck was convicted, two Directors of Social Services for Leicestershire, Dorothy Edwards and Brian Rice, gave Beck glowing testimonials and references.
It was while Frank Beck was held on remand that I was forced out of my job at St George's Hospital Medical School and told by Professor Nigel Eastman, who was providing a 'second opinion' on me, to go back to north Wales. In the spring and summer of 1990 and winter and spring of 1991 there were a number of attempts by Dafydd and the gang in north Wales to imprison me on the basis of their perjury. The Assistant Director of Gwynedd Social Services, Rob Evans, who was responsible for children's homes in Gwynedd and then mental health services, trained as a social worker after studying Social Sciences at Leicester University in the mid-1970s (see post 'I Know Nuzzing…').
Richard Webster, who rubbished Alison Taylor (see post 'Cottaging At Castle Gate' and 'Heart Of Darkness') and maintained that allegations of a paedophile ring in north Wales were a result of mass hysteria and false memory syndrome, said very similar things about the allegations of serious abuse of children in Leicestershire.
Meanwhile Robert Kilpatrick developed a 'towering reputation' after his huge successes at Leicester Medical School. 'The Scotsman' tells us that Kilpatrick's 'earnest desire to raise the profile and expertise of the profession never ceased. Many colleagues recall how he had the knack of choosing the right Whitehall mandarin to approach. With his erudite and compelling manner (always free of medical jargon) he delivered his case which was listened to by ministers and their advisers. Baroness Jay, the Labour leader in the Lords, spoke for many when she said: 'Sir Robert has been generous with his time and most courteous in answering detailed questions. In a way this bill is his Private Member's Bill.'
Kilpatrick knew that he was on to a winner with Baroness Jay then. Baroness Jay began life as Margaret Callaghan, the daughter of Jim Callaghan, the former PM. Jim and Audrey Callaghan both concealed and colluded with the organised abuse of children (see post 'Cry, The Beloved Country'). Margaret Jay is a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford – like Thatch and Shirl – and between 1965 and 1977 Jay held production posts within the BBC. She then became a journalist on 'Panorama', Thames TV's 'This Week' and presented the BBC 2 series 'Social History of Medicine'. Elwyn Parry Jones, a paedophiles' friend who grew up in Llangollen, worked as a journo for the BBC for years and was Deputy Editor of 'Panorama', 1977-85 (see post 'The Turn Of The Screw').
Margaret Jay 'has a strong interest in health issues', notably as a campaigner on HIV/AIDS. Jay was a founder Director of the National Aids Trust in 1987 and is also a Patron of Help the Aged. Between 1994 and 1997, Baroness Jay was the Chairman of the charity Attend (then the National Association of Hospital and Community Friends). In 2003, she was elected Vice-President of Attend.
After Blair's General Election victory in 1997, Jay became Health Spokesman and Minister for Women in the House of Lords. From 1998 she was Leader of the Lords. Jay retired from active politics in 2001. Among the numerous non-executive roles that she has taken on since retiring from politics, Jay was a non-executive Director of BT Group. She was Co-chair of the cross-party Iraq Commission (along with Tom King and Paddy Ashdown) which was established by the Foreign Policy Centre think-tank and Channel 4.
Margaret Jay's first husband Peter Jay was a friend of Dr Death and it was Dr Death who, in his capacity as Foreign Secretary, gave Peter Jay a job as Ambassador to the US. Peter Jay's mother Margaret (Peggy) Jay was a member of the GLC, so she will have known about the abuse of kids in boroughs such as Islington, Lambeth and Hackney as well as the abuse of kids from London Boroughs who were sent to children's homes in north Wales.
While in the USA, in 1979, Baroness Jay had an affair with the journo who exposed Watergate, Carl Bernstein. The Baroness didn't think to ask Bernstein to expose the role that her own parents had in colluding with the sexual exploitation of kids in care then. Not one to be outdone, Peter Jay then had an affair with the family's nanny, fathering a child in the process. Peter originally denied paternity, but I don't know whom he tried to blame. The Jays divorced in 1986 and the Baroness lived for a while with the Cambridge economist Robert Neild. In 1994, the Baroness married Top Doctor AIDS specialist Michael Adler, who had been Chair of the National AIDS Trust when she was its Director. Neither Adler or the Baroness have acknowledged that many of the young men who died of AIDS in the late 1980s/1990s were rent boys who had been kids in care forced into sex work (see post 'Apocalypse Now').
No wonder everyone 'listened to' Robert Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick became Lord Kilpatrick in Feb 1996. William Hague announced the North Wales Child Abuse Inquiry on 17 June 1996, although Sir Ronnie Waterhouse seemed to know that he would be Chairing that Inquiry during 1995.
The Baroness Jay of Paddington:
Frank Beck:
|The Lord Lawson of Blaby
|The Lord Janner of Braunstone
Marion Janner OBE with her 'support dog' Buddy, to whom Marion believes that she gave birth (see post 'Have The Lambs Stopped Screaming?')
The Royal College of Psychiatrists and the King's Fund are as deluded as Marion – they think that Marion has 'transformed patient care' in her capacity as a mental health campaigner. Somehow Marion has managed to adopt two learning disabled children, as well as give birth to that dog.
Robert Kilpatrick's superhuman qualities knew no limits. His 'constant activity' was achieved despite Kilpatrick suffering from type-I diabetes. He 'regularly had to inject insulin but he followed a strict exercise regime and walked everywhere, both in London and Edinburgh'. Kilpatrick retired to a house in Edinburgh from where he made occasional trips to London to speak in the Lords, principally arguing against euthanasia, although Kilpatrick knew that witnesses to the wrongdoing of Dafydd et al were being unlawfully denied NHS care for life-threatening conditions.
Kilpatrick was a keen golfer throughout his life. He was a member of Edinburgh's New Club as well as a member of the Royal & Ancient, 'which he loved for its friendship and tradition'. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club is now known as the The R&A. The Royal and Ancient had a male-only membership policy, this must have been one of the traditions which so endeared it to Kilpatrick. In 2012, former British PM Gordon Brown called on the club to abandon this tradition in favour of a non-discriminatory policy, as did Louise Richardson, the Principal and VC of the University of St Andrews. Louise Richardson was the first female VC of St Andrews, which caused a problem because the Royal and Ancient refused to let her cross their threshold what with her being in possession of ovaries, yet another tradition of the Royal and Ancient being that the VC of St Andrews should play a high profile role in the club. The policy was changed, along with the name of the club.
Professor Robert Bluglass, who concealed the crimes of Dafydd and the gang in the summer of 1989 (see post 'Enter Professor Robert Bluglass CBE'), was a student at St Andrews and is a leading light in their alumni network. It was in 1989 that the police investigation into child abuse in Leicestershire was launched and that was the year in which dear old Kilpatrick, being so esteemed, left his job of running Leicester Medical School to take up the office of Chair of the GMC.
Bluglass quaffing champagne at an Old Warwickians' dinner:
Lord Robert Kilpatrick in ermines:
In February 2015 The R&A's first female honorary members were announced. They included Princess Anne. In 2015, Lady Angela Bonallack became the first woman to take part in a match as a member of the club; specifically, she was the first woman to play in the club's annual match against the Links Trust. Lady Bonallack seems to have been granted this honour as a result of being married to Sir Michael Bonallack, Secretary of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, 1983-99 and Captain from 1999-2000. Sir Michael has also been President of the Golf Club Managers' Association, 1974–84, Chairman of the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland, 1976–81, Chairman of the Golf Foundation, 1977–82 and President of the English Golf Union, 1982. He is the current President of the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) and also served as President of the One Armed Golfers Society, the Professional Golfers Association of Europe and as Chairman of the advisory committee for the Official World Golf Rankings. Sir Michael is also President of the National Association of Public and Proprietary Golf Courses (NAPGC).
Michael Bonallack was given a knighthood in 1998. Presumably for services to golf-playing protectors of sex traffickers and paedophiles. In 1972, Bonallack was given the Bob Jones Award, the highest honour given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. He is a member of Augusta National Golf Club and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000.
Here's The R&A clubhouse. It beats the shack which doubles up as the clubhouse of the Bangor Golf Club, of which so many of the associates of Dafydd's gang are members (see previous posts):
Frank Beck's seemingly bomb-proof invincibility saw him fend off a continued escalation of complaints about him abusing youngsters, until finally, in March 1986, his career in Leicestershire was ended by a complaint of sexual abuse made by two male residential social workers who claimed that Beck had made advances toward them during staff supervision sessions. This time, Beck was suspended from duty and he subsequently handed in his resignation rather than subject himself to investigations under the Council's protracted disciplinary procedures and risk dismissal.
As the complaints rolled in about Beck, a senior solicitor for Islington Borough Council called Keith Vaz decided that he'd quite like to be the Labour MP for Leicester East and he was selected as the prospective Labour candidate for that constituency in 1985. At that time Vaz found a job as a solicitor at the Leicester City Council-funded Belgrave Law Centre. When Vaz worked for Islington Council, there had been a paedophile ring operating in the Council's children's homes. Before working for Islington, Vaz was employed as a solicitor to Richmond-upon-Thames Borough Council, while there was a paedophile gang operating in Richmond-upon-Thames. Vaz was elected as Labour MP for Leicester East in June 1987.
Vaz was recently placed under investigation by Parliament as a result of his shenanigans involving rent boys and the attempted procuring of drugs while he passed himself off as a washing machine salesman. The investigation was suspended when Vaz produced medical evidence from a Top Doctor.
My post 'Radical Leicester And Some Other Free Radicals' mentioned that while the welfare services ran a paedophile gang in Leicestershire, Sue Townsend, the staunch socialist, supporter of the NHS and chronicler of teenage angst that caught the hearts of the nation in the form of the Adrian Mole books, lived in Leicester and rented out rather poor properties which were never maintained to her tenants for rather high rents. Townsend was from Leicester, left school at 14 and worked in a series of casual poorly paid jobs. She married young and had three children by the time that she was 23, at which point her marriage ended and she became a single parent, enduring the hardship which she later wrote about at every opportunity.
Legend according to Sue states that one day her 13 year old son asked why they didn't go to safari parks at weekends 'like other families' and that it was this comment which began her writing that evolved into the Adrian Mole books, looking at life through the eyes of a teenager. Townsend then chose to 'research the world of teenagers' and started attending youth clubs as a volunteer organiser, which led to her training as a youth worker. She won't have been able to have avoided knowing what was happening to teenagers in care in Leicester. While employed as a supervisor at an adventure playground, Townsend went on a canoeing course and met her second husband Colin Broadway. Their relationship took a while to get off the ground because Colin was married to someone else so Sue didn't speak to him. She obviously didn't keep her legs crossed for ever though, because Colin was the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth. Subsequently, Townsend became pregnant twice more, underwent abortions, but later realised that abortions were 'wrong' so wrote about that as well.
Colin encouraged Townsend to join a writers' group at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, in 1978, when she was in her early thirties. Initially 'too shy to speak', she did not write anything for six weeks, but was then given a fortnight to write a play. This became the thirty-minute drama Womberang (1979), set in the waiting room of a gynaecology department. At the Phoenix, Shy Sue who couldn't speak or write became the writer-in-residence and 'Womberang' subsequently won the 1981 Thames Television playwright award.
During her time at the Phoenix, Shy Sue was mentored by several theatre directors including Ian Giles and principally Sue Pomeroy who commissioned and directed a number of her plays. Townsend was also introduced to William Ash, then Chairman of the Soho Poly (now Soho Theatre), who also played a significant part in shaping Townsend's early career. Bill Ash was a lifelong friend of Tony Benn and co-founded the Communist Party of Great Britain, which numbered among its members a great many people who knew about Dafydd and the gang in north Wales, as well as other organised sexual exploitation gangs, including the one in Leicestershire (see previous posts). Shy Sue met writer-director Carole Hayman 'on the stairs of the Soho Poly theatre' and went on to develop many theatre pieces with her and they later co-wrote two television series.
At the time of writing the first Adrian Mole book, Townsend was living on the Eyres Monsell Estate, near the house in which playwright Joe Orton was brought up. Joe Orton came from Saffron Lane, a disadvantaged part of Leicester who's residents were considerably stigmatised and known by other people as 'Saffs'. It was the Saffs who got it in the neck from the likes of Frank Beck and the Social Services. The Eyres Monsell ward is adjacent to Blaby, which is where Frank Beck was a Councillor.
Joe Orton used to comment that he was never allowed to forget that he came from the gutter. Joe Orton was gay and famously promiscuous from a very young age. He died at the age of 34 in 1967 when his partner Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned Joe to death with a hammer at their home in Islington before killing himself with an overdose of Nembutal, or at least that is what the official story was. There are many aspects of the account which don't quite add up and Joe and Kenneth will also have known the identities of some people involved in the gay/rent boy scene who really did not ever want that involvement becoming public (see post 'Radical Leicester And Some Other Free Radicals').
The first two published stories of Townsend's appeared in a short-lived arts' journal entitled 'magazine', in the editing and production of which Townsend was involved, featuring the character then still called Nigel Mole. Actor Nigel Bennett, a graduate of the University of Wales, had given Shy Sue 'help and encouragement' to persist with the work and sent the script to John Tydeman, the Deputy Head of BBC Radio Drama. The character first came to national awareness in a single radio play, The Diary of Nigel Mole, Aged 13¼, broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on New Year's Day 1982.
John Tydeman was Deputy Head, Radio Drama at the BBC from 1979 and then Head of BBC Radio Drama, 1986-94. He joined BBC Radio Drama in 1960 and was responsible for commissioning and directing the early plays of Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard. Tydeman had introduced the theatrical agent Peggy Ramsay to Joe Orton. After Peggy Ramsay died in 1991, Tydeman became a Trustee for the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, leading to his continued support for new writing after he left the BBC, particularly through administering the Foundation's annual grant to the Pearson Playwright's Scheme, originally the Thames Television Theatre Writers Scheme, of which dear old Shy Sue had been a beneficiary…
Someone at the publishers Methuen heard the Radio 4 Nigel Mole broadcast and commissioned Townsend to write the first Mole book, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, which came out in September 1982. The publisher insisted on the change of name because of the similarity to Nigel Molesworth, the schoolboy character who was a 1950s version of Adrian Mole, created by Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Willans. A month after Shy Sue's book's appearance it had topped the best seller list and had sold a million copies after a year. Adapted as a play, the stage version premiéred in Leicester and ran at Wyndham Theatre for more than two years.
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984) was reputedly based on Townsend's children's experiences at a comprehensive school in Leicester in the early 1980s. My post 'Radical Leicester and Some More Free Radicals' describes how people in teaching, teacher training and education in Leicestershire knew that there was organised abuse of children in the region. The Labour MP Lisa Nandy's mum and dad worked with people who were concealing the abuse of children in Leicestershire. Lisa's grandfather was Lord Frank Byers, who insulted Norman Scott so badly when Scott told a Liberal Party investigative panel about the harassment and threats that he had received from Jeremy Thorpe that Norman left the room and subsequently made a police statement (see post 'My How Things Haven't Changed').
Townsend's first two Adrian Mole books were adapted into a TV series, broadcast in 1985 and 1987.
So Shy Sue, the girl who grew up in Leicester, left school at 14 and lived with the Saffs, found that her career as a writer very rapidly took off after she found employment as a youth worker, at a time when Frank Beck and – according to most other people except for Greville Janners' children – Greville Janner, as well as others, were very busy molesting disadvantaged young people in Leicestershire. How did Shy Sue from Leicester, who's first attempts at the work which made her very wealthy and very famous seemed to equate to plagiarism of the Molesworth classics, so quickly grab the attention of big wigs in the theatre and the BBC? Shy Sue really hit the big time while huge efforts were being made to conceal the crimes of Frank Beck and co as people began to come forward alleging terrible abuse in Leicestershire which stretched back decades but had become particularly bad from the 1970s onwards…
John Tydeman's career took a turn for the better immediately after he gave Sue a helping hand as well.
Socialist Sue was so distraught at the ravages of Thatcherism that in 1989 she wrote 'Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State', a short book in the Counterblasts series. Sue did fantastically out of the welfare state, not only did she get the NHS treatment and care for her multiple health problems that the Saffs and kids in care so often didn't, but her tales of poverty and hardship were lapped up by the swathes of welfare professionals and people in the liberal media who knew some of what was happening to vulnerable people and kids in care at the hands of celebs and 'VIPs'…
The journalist Christina Patterson observed of Townsend in 2008: 'Her heart, it's clear from her books and a few hours in her company, is still with the people she left behind, the people who go largely unchronicled in literature, the people who are still her friends.' Unless of course they were Saffs and kids in care being repeatedly sexually assaulted and trafficked by Sue's social work colleagues.
It is quite extraordinary how frequently references to hearts are associated with those close to people who have concealed organised abuse:
Esther, who presented BBC's 'Hearts Of Gold':
Great Ormond Street Hospital:
The Pheonix Arts Theatre is now known as the Sue Townsend Theatre and in 1982 staged Sue's play 'Captain Christmas and the Evil Adults'.
The MP who currently holds the seat of Leicester South, the neck of the woods where Sue Townsend lived and where the Saffs still do live, is Labour's Jon Ashworth. Ashworth is the Shadow Health Spokesperson and bangs on endlessly about the marvellous Top Docs and Angels being in need of more dosh.
Ashworth grew up in Manchester, went to Bury College, then to Durham University and in 2000 served as National Secretary of Labour Students. In 2001 Ashworth began working for the Labour Party as a Political Research Officer, then worked as the Economics and Welfare Policy Officer, 2002-04. Ashworth was seconded to the Scottish Labour Party in 2003 to work on the Scottish Parliamentary election campaign where he worked closely with Gordon Brown.
In 2004 Ashworth was appointed Spad to Chief Secretary to the Treasury Paul Boateng. Ashworth was a busy campaigner in the 2007 Crewe and Nantwich by-election. In May 2010 Ashworth became Political Secretary to Harriet Harman. He was described as a 'key member' of Ed Miliband's team on the day after Miliband won the Labour leadership election. When Miliband won, he asked Ashworth to join his office as Head of Party Relations. In 2011 Ashworth sought selection in Leicester South and was immediately identified as the front runner and was backed by the major trade unions, including his own Unite, UNISON and the GMB.
Ashworth is married to Emilie, the former East Midlands Regional Director for the Labour Party. She was Labour candidate for Sherwood in the 2010 General Election, but could not hold the seat. Gordon and Sarah Brown attended their wedding on 3 July 2010 in Derbyshire.
I really am fed up of Jon Ashworth bellyaching on about The Cuts and how those who work in the NHS are flawless. So here's a few things for Jon to ponder on re his biography:
Manchester, where John grew up: Lethal mental health services, bullying and intimidation of whistleblowers; Dafydd's mate Dr Bob Hobson worked there and formed an outpost of the abuse empire in Manchester. Durham, where Jon went to university: on the patch of major paedophile ring linked to the gang in north Wales, which was concealed by Labour MPs in the North East, including Ernest and Hilary Armstrong and Mo Mowlam, for years. Scottish Labour Party, 2003: Jack McConnell, FM of Scotland, went to Stirling University with my best friend from school, who had her career destroyed and was targeted by gangsters at the same time as me, after I refused to shut up about Dafydd; McConnell knew about organised abuse in Scotland and I rather think that Lord Jack knew what was going on in north Wales as well and knew that someone whom he knew at Stirling was close friends with a witness. Paul Boateng, Ashworth's former boss: worked at lawyers Birnberg when Birnberg represented Mary Wynch against Dafydd et al for the first part of her legal action; Mary won, Birnberg dropped her, Mary was subsequently ruined by Michael Howard at the Home Office, despite winning her case. Crewe and Nantwich: centre of the Cheshire arm of Dafydd's gang, the seat was held for years by Gwyneth Dunwoody, a corrupt old bag who was married to an equally corrupt Top Doctor and they produced Tamsin, who grew up into yet another corrupt politician; all the Dunwoodys knew about the Westminster Paedophile Ring and the role of the NHS in concealing it. Harriet Harman, Ashworth's former boss: daughter of a Harley Street Top Doctor, who is as thick as pig shit and was involved with the NCCL when the NCCL was affiliated to PIE and fighting for paedophiles' rights. Ed Miliband, Ashworth's mate/leader: a goon who's Uncle Harry worked as a Top Doc at Guys and Tommy's with Dafydd's mates and who's dad knew about the Westminster Paedophile Ring as well.
Then Ashworth rocks up in Leicester, having had no previous links there, having been considering other seats. Leicester – site of a former paedophile gang which had close links to Westminster and was concealed by the NHS. Oh and Brown lives and works there as well, the Brown who, when Ashworth decided that Leicester was the place for him, had published with me on the abuses of the mental health services in north Wales and elsewhere. Jon Ashworth sought the nomination for Leicester when it became clear that Operation Pallial was going to re-open investigations into the abuse of kids in north Wales and that there was going to be a national inquiry into organised sexual abuse.
Unite, UNSON, GMB: unions with many members who have concealed or colluded with organised abuse.
Now for Christ's sake Ashworth, piss off, bugger off, sod off. I've got 10,000 documents and you haven't, all you can do is bleat about giving the Top Doctors more money. They are already among the most highly paid people in the country and the health outcomes for people in the UK are among some of the worst in Europe and it is nothing to do with Tory Cuts you big idiot. I've read some of your speeches re the NHS, your facts and figures are wrong, as are your conclusions but as you know nothing about the biomedical sciences that doesn't surprise me.
When I lived in Leicester in the autumn of 1987, as well as Sue Townsend, there was another local person who had become famous whom I was told still had a house in Leicester and jetted back and forth between there and his place in the US – the old crooner Engelbert Humperdinck. Girls/women of my vintage howled with laughter at Engelbert Humperdinck, but for the generation before us he was promoted as highly desirable. Humperdinck is not one of those who has been named and shamed in the recent spate of stories regarding ageing stars who stand accused of sexual misconduct, but when he was younger, Humperdinck was involved in a spat with the mother of his illegitimate child, who had to take Humperdinck to court to enforce maintenance payments.
Just months after I heard about Humperdinck owning a house nearby when I was living in Leicester, I was working at the University of Surrey at Guildford and one of the PhD students said that there had been an Engelbert Humperdinck concert in Guildford the previous night and because the students thought that the very notion of such a thing was such a laugh, some of them went. Humperdinck was described to me in a highly negative way, as it was explained that during the concert he kept trying to grab hold of the young female students to drag them up on stage with him for a grope-lite fest, whilst he refused the many offers of women in their 50s who had paid good money to go and see him because they were actually fans of his, rather than because they wanted to experience the spectacle of a ridiculous old crooner with an equally ridiculous name.
Humperdinck is a Roman Catholic who makes a point of trying to visit a cathedral when he is on tour wherever he is on the planet. I am not someone who believes that all Catholic priests are molesters, but the combination of Englebert, Leicester and Catholicism is worrying.
In August 2005, Engelbert auctioned one of his Harley Davidson motorbikes to raise money for the County Air Ambulance in Leicestershire. Sue Townsend was no doubt proud of him. In 2006, Leicester University awarded Humperdinck an Honorary Doctorate.
Theophilus P. Wildebeeste PhD (Leics):
The real Rollers bombshell came years after they had disappeared into obscurity when in 2000 Derek Longmuir, who had been the drummer, was convicted of possessing child porn, a great deal of it as well, after making some not very credible excuses as to why he had a house full of child porn (see post 'The Bloody State We're In'). Longmuir was by that time working as an Angel at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, having worked there since 1993. Longmuir began training as an Angel in 1990, after having done voluntary work at the Sick Children's Hospital in Edinburgh. Despite having a mountain of child porn in the form of photos, videos and floppy discs and having admitted making indecent photos of children at his home in March 1998, Edinburgh Sheriff's Court sentenced Longmuir to only 300 hours of community service. He was suspended from his job as an Angel but later returned to nursing.
The Rollers came from Edinburgh. The richest and most grandiose Top Doctors are to be found in London, but it is Edinburgh which has the traditional 'reputation' for medical excellence. Edinburgh medics see themselves as far superior to the vulgarians in London.
They do get things badly wrong in Edinburgh though, even in circumstances where one would imagine that the Top Docs would be taking extra care. In Oct 1988, John Smith complained of chest pains and went to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for advice. He was given an EEG and was told by the examining Top Doctor, 'whatever it is, we don't think it's your heart'. Smith subsequently suddenly collapsed, was briefly unconscious and spent three days in intensive care, then 'made a full recovery'. Over the next three months, Smith gave up smoking, lost three stone and began mountain walking. He returned to Parliament in Jan 1989. In May 1994, John Smith had a heart attack at his Barbican flat and was taken to Barts where Top Doctors 'could not revive him'. See post 'The Most Dangerous Man In The World – The Scottish Play'. One month after Smith's death, Matt Arnold, the Head of Bryn Estyn, died of an 'unspecified blood disease'. Four days after Arnold's death, Peter Howarth, Arnold's friend and colleague at Bryn Estyn and Paul Wilson, stood trial for sexually and physically abusing boys in care in north Wales (see post 'The Banality Of Evil').
A Top Doctor's opinion was sought for the purposes of sentencing Derek Longmuir, so presumably there is a Top Doc somewhere who does not have a problem with someone who owns a mountain of child porn working as an Angel.
Regarding those rumours about the Rollers having been sexually used by their manager Tam Paton. Tam Paton was gay and upfront about it but Tam Paton didn't live quite as most other gay men do. In 1982, Paton was convicted of gross indecency with two teenage boys aged 16 and 17, below the then-legal age of consent and he served one year of a three-year prison sentence. Paton was arrested on child sexual abuse charges in January 2003, but was later cleared of all allegations. In April 2004, Paton was convicted of supplying cannabis and fined £200,000. In 2003, the Rollers' guitarist Pat McGlynn reported an attempted rape by Paton in an Australian hotel in 1977 but police found that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. In 2009, Les McKeown said that Paton had raped him.
In 2016, in the wake of the publication of a book about Paton and his success story with the Rollers, it was alleged by Gordon 'Nobby' Clark, the original singer with the band, that Paton had attempted to persuade the Rollers to have sex with the then Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning, who in 2016 was jailed for 13 years for sex offences against children. Clark said the incident happened when Chris Denning was the band's promotions manager in 1971, while they stayed at Denning's home in Surrey. According to Clark, Paton told the band – whose line-up at the time included brothers Derek and Alan Longmuir, Neil Henderson and Archie Marr – that 'Chris would probably do more for us if one of us slept with him'. Clark stated that: 'Paton had drawers full of Quaaludes (a sedative marketed in the UK as Mandrax). There was cocaine and cannabis. They would use sleeping tablets to spike kids' drinks. Chris Denning was always there. He would come up from London especially. Whenever he saw a kid who was in a bad way from the sleeping tablets he'd be straight across. Then he'd drag them into one of the bedrooms.'
McGlynn told the author of the book – 'The Dark History Of The Bay City Rollers' – that Paton was 'drugging everyone he wanted to get his way with – drug them and abuse them. He was just an animal. Les [singer McKeown] pulled Tam off me a couple of times when he tried to rape me or he spiked my drink.'
The success of the Bay City Rollers led to the formation of another Scottish band in 1974 with a similar image, Slik. Slik were favourites of 'Jackie'. Slik were from Glasgow as opposed to Edinburgh but linked up with songwriters Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, who were writing for the Bay City Rollers. One member of Slik subsequently became a big name in more serious music circles and spoke of his embarrassment at being packaged in the way that Slik was – Midge Ure.
Ure enjoyed success with bands including Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids and Visage, but most notably as frontman of Ultravox. Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy was married to the daughter of light entertainment favourite Leslie Crowther, who objected so strongly to Lynott's drugs excesses that for a time Crowther wouldn't have anything to do with his daughter. Lynott was an alcoholic and heroin addict who collapsed at his home in Kew in Dec 1985. Lynott's wife took him to a drug clinic at Clouds House near Shaftesbury and he was then taken to Salisbury Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with septicaemia. Lynott died in intensive care in Jan 1986.
In 1984, Ure co-wrote and produced the charity single 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', which has sold 3.7 million copies in the UK. The song is the second highest selling single in UK chart history. Ure co-organised Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof. Ure acts as Trustee, and serves as Ambassador for, Save The Children.
St Bob has famously lost both his former wife, Paula Yates and Peaches, one of his daughters with Paula. They both died of drug overdoses. Peaches died from a heroin overdose and no-one could understand why because she had given it up ages ago. Paula died after being in the care of Top Docs for serious depression after her partner Michael Hutchence hung himself. Paula maintained that Hutchence did not kill himself but she was denounced as a mad grieving woman. Paula was found dead after a heroin overdose. Paula's friends all maintained that Paula had definitely given up heroin. Paula spent her early life in north Wales. She lived at Llandudno and went to the primary school in Rowen, the village where the family lived after moving from Llandudno, as well as to Ysgol Aberconwy and Penrhos College. Paula described herself as a groupie when she was young and also modelled for 'Penthouse' before she became famous.
When Paula was living in north Wales, Dafydd's gang were busy. Lord Wyn Roberts, the Tory MP for Aberconwy and Welsh Office Minister who concealed the crimes of Dafydd and the gang for years (see post 'The Cradle Of Filth'), lived in Rowen.
For more information about the deaths of Michael Hutchence, Paula and Peaches and the numerous inconsistencies in the explanations for those deaths, see previous posts.
Ure has been the Musical Director and performed at The Princes Trust Rock Concerts 1986,1987,1988, 2010 and 2011. He performed at Music for Montserrat, September 15, 1997, to raise funds for the Caribbean island which had been devastated by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and in 1997, Montserrat was practically destroyed by the volcanic activity. Ure himself lost a house that was destroyed in Montserrat.
On 24 July 1999, Ure was the Musical Director of the Wicked Women concert for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Charity held at Hyde Park in London. See post 'Oh Lordy, It's CR UK' for details of the large scale research fraud in cancer research.
One of Midge Ure's co-musicians was Steve Strange, who was born Steve Harrington, in Newbridge, Caerphilly. The family lived for a time in Aldershot and then moved back to Wales, to Rhyl. Steve's parents divorced and he moved with his mother back to Newbridge.
After attending a Sex Pistols concert at the Castle Cinema in Caerphilly in 1976, Harrington befriended the bass player Glen Matlock. He then arranged gigs for punk bands in his home town and befriended Jean-Jacques Burnel of The Stranglers before leaving for London where he worked for Malcolm McLaren.
McLaren was callous and highly exploitative, as was demonstrated by his response to the disaster involving Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungeon. McLaren knew a lot about the sordid sexual exploitation of young people in the music industry at the time, but is no longer here to tell us all about it, although McLaren's partner Dame Viv Westwood is. I am still waiting for Dame Viv to tell us all why some expensive Top Doctors went to the law to prevent Adam Ant aka Stuart Goddard from talking to the media and what happened to Stuart Goddard in an NHS secure unit after he had a breakdown that upset him and his friends so much. See posts 'The Bloody State We're In' and 'No One Is Innocent'.
McLaren and Dame Viv's son used to revel in describing himself as a pornographer but he dresses it up as art these days.
In the late 1970s, prior to the success that Steve Strange and Midge Ure had with the group Visage, Strange and Visage partner Rusty Egan began to make a name for themselves as a nightclub host and DJ respectively. In 1978, they began organising "Bowie nights" on Tuesdays at Billy's nightclub in Soho, before moving to the 'Blitz' club in London's Covent Garden in 1979. 'Blitz' became an essential location in the rise of what would become the New Romantic movement. Following 'Blitz', Strange and Egan then fronted the "Club for Heroes" in London in 1981, before moving to the Camden Palace nightclub in 1982 for two years, attracting major celebrities on a regular basis. Their next club venture, "The Playground" in 1984, was less successful.
Later in the 1980s, Strange went to Ibiza and became an integral part of the budding trance club movement and hosting parties for celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone. During the mid-1990s, Strange promoted nights at the Emporium nightclub in Soho, London.
In November 2006 Strange took part in, and went on to win, the BBC reality series for Children In Need, 'Celebrity Scissorhands'. He returned to the show in 2007 and 2008 as Assistant Manager/Image Consultant.
Steve Strange was bisexual and for many years was addicted to heroin. In later years he moved back to Wales, to Porthcawl, suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised in south Wales. In November 1999 Strange was arrested for shoplifting – he was caught stealing a Teletubbies doll for his nephew. In court, he was found guilty and given a three-month suspended sentence. On 12 February 2015, Strange suffered a heart attack while in Egypt and died later that day in hospital.
People in a position to name names re the sexual exploitation of youngsters in the 1970s and 80s really don't last very long do they.
Steve Strange had a very bad relationship with his dad, who killed himself in Rhyl. Steve Strange might have hated him, but if his dad did have difficulties, there'd have been no help for him in north Wales.
Strange was mates with Paula Yates.
Boy George worked for Steve Strange at 'Blitz'. By the late 1980s, George had been struggling with heroin addiction for many years. Addictions to other drugs soon followed. In 1986, Boy George was arrested for heroin possession as part of "Operation Culture." In 1986, keyboardist Michael Rudetsky was found dead of a heroin overdose in George's London home. Rudetsky's parents filed a death suit in Britain against George, seeking financial damages for their son's death. George won the court case against the Rudetskys and was not required to pay any damages. George lost another friend, Mark Vaultier, who overdosed on methadone and Valium at a party, George having never made it to the party, being arrested en route on suspicion of carrying drugs.
On 7 October 2005, George was arrested in Manhattan on suspicion of cocaine possession and falsely reporting a burglary. George denied that the drug was his. In court on 1 February 2006, the cocaine possession charge was dropped and George pleaded guilty to falsely reporting a burglary. He was sentenced to five days of community service, fined US$1,000 and ordered to attend a drug rehabilitation programme. On 17 June 2006, a Manhattan judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Boy George after he failed to appear in court for a hearing on why George wanted to change his sentence for the false burglary report. George's attorney informed the court that he had advised George not to appear at that hearing.
On 5 December 2008, George was convicted in Snaresbrook Crown Court, London, of the assault and false imprisonment of Audun Carlsen, who was a Norwegian who initially stood for a photography session with George, but on their next meeting George handcuffed him to a wall fixture, traumatising him and subjected him to violence. George's defence gave the effects of his long-term drug use as a mitigating factor. On 16 January 2009, George was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment for these offences. He was given early release after four months on 11 May 2009. George was required to wear an ankle monitor and submit to a curfew for the remainder of his sentence.
On 23 December 2009, George had his request to appear on the final series of Celebrity Big Brother (to be broadcast on Channel 4) turned down by the Probation Service. Richard Clayton QC, representing the Probation Service, said George's participation would pose 'a high level of risk' to the service's reputation. Clayton argued that if he used the show to promote his status as a celebrity and earn 'a lucrative sum of money' it could undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system.
Another one of Midge Ure's associates in the music business was Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet. Hadley was a big fan of Thatch and at one time, like the alcoholic wife beater Jim Davidson, aspired to be a Tory MP. I'm not sure why Hadley has given up pursuing that particular dream, he was hell bent on that for quite some time. Hadley enjoys telling everyone that he has never claimed benefits. I rather suspect that if he was ever in need of money, Hadley would be capable of doing something far more unscrupulous than claiming benefits. Hadley is the sort of aggressive unscrupulous person who describes himself as 'competitive'. Some years ago he appeared in a real life documentary which was a singing competition between 'stars', the prize being to give the winning star an even bigger break. As well as Hadley, an actress from East Enders featured who was by far the most talented of anyone on the show and seemed a really nice, generous, fair player. Hadley behaved appallingly and used every dirty trick possible to put this young woman out of action. Towards the end of the competition, she remarked 'Tony feels really threatened by me and he's going to do absolutely anything to win this.' I think that she just gave up trying because she just couldn't bear Hadley's naked aggression and near-cheating any longer. His behaviour was so bad that it would have warranted his removal from the show, but no, the big meathead won and was filmed gloating and banging on about his future as a Tory MP.
Perhaps Hadley would like to enlighten us about the drugs and trafficking scene of which he witnessed so much when he was singing those boring Spandau Ballet songs back in the 80s. Hadley grew up in the Islington area and his mother worked for the local District Health Authority. So Mrs Hadley will have known all about the paedophile/trafficking gang which operated in Islington and which was facilitated by the NHS in that area.
Lena came from the Isle of Bute, off the coast of West Scotland and had led a very quiet life until she was about nine. Her family seemed to do things like sing in pubs and other local venues and got her to do that as well, but when she was 'discovered' she was whisked off to London and paraded around TV studios, parties etc. I presumed that her parents went with Lena to London, but it transpires that they just took her there and stayed a few days before coming home, leaving her in the care of her manager, Dorothy Solomon, who very obviously had no idea about looking after a little girl.
Dorothy Solomon was the wife of Phil Solomon, the music industry executive who was co-director of Radio Caroline. Phil Solomon made his name and his money in the 1950s/60s and retired in 1970, but Dorothy continued working, 'managing' Lena.
Lena then never really saw her parents or Scotland again, she was being taken off to places like Japan and America and had her nose to the grindstone. There are numerous clips of interviews with Lena and they are gob smacking. When she was first interviewed after arriving in London, she couldn't cope with roads which had so many traffick lights, not having seen such roads before. Then there were all the interviews with horrid old showbiz men who were asking Lena questions that a lot of people wouldn't have felt were acceptable to ask a girl of her age. As Lena got older, she was interviewed on TV about 'being fat', about having anorexia and other weird topics for chat shows. It is very clear that there were what would now be called 'child protection issues' with Lena from the day that she left Scotland, God knows what was happening to her off camera.
Interviews with Lena's dad after her death demonstrated that he had no idea what a leucotomy was and I doubt that Lena knew either. She just knew that she felt terrible, had heard that some people who get depressed have 'an operation on their brain' which 'makes them better'. I cannot find any information regarding who referred Lena for such a procedure or what their rationale was. Before the leucotomy, Lena had been an in-patient at a rather whacky therapy centre in the US, run by people who were obviously out of their depth. After Lena died there were threats to take action against the therapy centre. No such threats were made towards UHW who had given a young woman a leucotomy, somehow killed her and had not told the truth about the circumstances of her death.
Lena died in Oct 1999, four months before the Waterhouse Report was published. The man who put Lena on her first steps to stardom was the presenter of 'Opportunity Knocks', Hughie Green, who was notorious for being sexually exploitative and was not a particularly pleasant character. Paula Yates was distraught when, as an adult, she discovered that Hughie Green was her real father, not Jess Yates, the man whom Paula had always thought was her dad.
Someone who knows the details of much of the wrongdoing detailed on this blog whom I have not blogged about yet is Clare Short, the Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, 1983-10. Short held the seat during the years when kids in care were being abused in Birmingham and being sent to children's homes in north Wales where they were abused and trafficked. Aston University is within the constituency which Clare held. Aston was a very troubled place from the early 1980s, as a result of the activities of the VC Sir Freddie Crawford, known as 'Thatcher's favourite VC'. Crawford's managerialism was so savage that Dr Ron Easterby, a former colleague of Brown's and member of staff who committed suicide, was said by his other colleagues to have been 'killed by the University' (see post 'The White Heat Of This Revolution'). Professor Elwyn Edwards of the Psychology Dept was inviting male freshers to his room for a 'welcome drink', greeting them in a silk dressing gown and propositioning them and complaints about this were not dealt with. Aston had one of the highest suicide rates among students of any UK university and within the institution this was attributed to the bizarre ideas of Dr Philip Cauthery, the student physician, who doubled up as a 'sexologist' and was a member of the Editorial Board of 'Forum', the sex magazine. 'Forum' was not a magazine which endorsed paedophilia, but it was discovered that paedophiles were using the small ads in 'Forum' to network and sell/buy child porn. Alastair Campbell used to write for 'Forum'.
Brown was forced out of his job at Aston unlawfully in 1995, two weeks or so after Sir Peter Morrison and Bing Spear, the corrupt mandarin who ran the Home Office Drugs Branch (see post Little Things Hitting Each Other'), were found dead within four days of each other.
Crawford's son was involved with drugs and crime and used to boast that he got away with anything because of who his dead was. He was found dead in an hotel in Israel, allegedly after a heroin overdose. After he stood down as VC of Aston, Sir Freddie was appointed as Chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which angered a lot of people because of Crawford's position as a leading Freemason.
All universities are dysfunctional, but Aston under Crawford was very worrying indeed. Clare Short never raised concerns about the activities of Thatcher's Masonic henchman.
Short was born in Birmingham to Irish Catholic parents from N Ireland. She was supportive of peaceful Sinn Fein initiatives, although she was never a supporter of IRA violence. Short attended Keele University for a short time. At that time there were a number of people associated with Keele University who had concealed organised child abuse. Alun Michael, the Labour politician who was later imposed as FM of Wales by Blair went to Keele University at about the same time as Short. Alun Michael was a Councillor in Cardiff when that Council ignored the abuse of kids in care in south Wales. Michael inexplicably resigned as Wales's FM when the Waterhouse Report was submitted to the Gov't (see post 'News From Sicily').
When she was eighteen Clare Short married a fellow Keele student, after she had a baby when she was seventeen. The couple's son was given up for adoption and did not make contact with his mother until 1996. Short discovered that her son was a Tory supporter who worked as a solicitor in the City of London. Short went public on her reunion with her son, as did Prezza when his wife Pauline's son who had been adopted many years ago contacted her. Both Short and Prezza and Pauline welcomed their children and it was good to see that everyone was so happy to be in touch. Although I am sure that what Clare Short and Pauline Prescott went through when they felt obliged to give up their babies for adoption was bad, neither Prezza or Short have uttered one word about the many kids in care who were abused, trafficked and had their children forcibly removed in even more traumatic circumstances.
Short completed her degree at Leeds University and then worked as a civil servant in the Home Office. She was for a time Private Secretary to the Conservative Minister Mark Carlisle. Carlisle was the MP for Runcorn (later called Warrington South), 1964-87 and Risley Remand Centre was in or near his constituency. Dafydd and the gang used Risley as their personal prison for decades and scores of young people, including kids in care, were found dead in the 'hospital wing' there. It was Carlisle who was wheeled out in a Commons debate in 1973 to answer questions about the horrific conditions, practices and deaths at Risley (see post 'Include Me Out'). The screw at Risley were violent and the prison doctor was corrupt and in cahoots with Dafydd and the gang. Clare Short will have had access to the full details and she has never ever said a word about any of it, although Short maintains that it was while working for Carlisle that she realised that she 'could do better' than many of the MPs whom she dealt with and thus decided to go into politics herself.
In 1983 Short was elected as MP for Ladywood, the area where she grew up. In 1983, when he was in his final year at Aston, Brown received his first murder threat, which I have now been told was related to what was happening to me at Bangor, as I had come to the attention of the trafficking gang. Our pleas for help after Brown was threatened were ignored by Aston and Bangor Universities and the Top Doctors. Brown spent as much time as he could at my house on Anglesey because he wasn't safe in Birmingham and as soon as he sat his finals he moved in with us in north Wales. After Brown returned to the midlands to take up a lecturing job a few years later, the man who threatened to murder him attacked Brown in daylight in Nottingham city centre and tried to fracture Brown's skull. He had previously nearly killed the old man who lived next door to him and the West Midlands Police admitted to Brown that Paul Bates was considered to be very dangerous.
Meanwhile Clare acquired a feminist following as a result of her campaign against 'Page 3' photos and became the go-to Labour politician for a quote on sexual violence against wimmin.
Clare gained some notoriety shortly after her election when she implied the Govt's Employment Minister Alan Clark was drunk at the despatch box. Clark's colleagues on the Gov't benches in turn accused Short of using unparliamentary language and the Deputy Speaker, Ernest Armstrog, asked her to withdraw her accusation. Clark later admitted in his diaries that he had been drunk as accused.
No-one mentioned that there were many MPs at that time who drank heavily and a few – such as Nicholas Fairbairn and Charles Kennedy – who's alcohol problems were so serious that they died as a result. I was told in the mid-1980s that there was one woman MP who was well-known for getting regularly completely plastered in the Commons bars – a Clare Short. I know that it wasn't at the despatch box Clare, but I received first hand witness accounts.
Alan Clark wasn't only a lazy drunk, he was a serial sexual harasser of women, including 'women' under 16 who could best be described as girls. He exposed himself to teenagers, he followed women around London whom he'd seen on public transport and liked the look of and he also had sex with at least two girls under 16. This is just what Clark himself admitted to. Clark's conduct was no secret. No MP, not even Clare, commented about it, although when Clark was doing all this, the press ran silly articles about him being attractive to the ladies. It was all a rather posher version of Dafydd. A pain in the butt who committed sexual offences and who was constructed as being a source of desire for those unfortunate enough to be bothered by him. Clark's offensive conduct only became a talking point when he had a public spat with a Judge – who was supposedly Clark's friend – after the Judge discovered that Clark had shagged his wife and two daughters, one of whom was 15. The UK press considered that Clark was 'one helluva guy', the three women involved were called 'old trollops' by one UK newspaper and the Judge became an object of contempt. Clark's snooty drip of a wife Jane referred to the Judge and his family as 'downstairs people'. Clark's diaries make reference to his relationship with these three women and describe how he impressed the teenagers into having sex with him by explaining that he was now a Gov't Minister and taking them for rides in his expensive car.
Remember Girls – Never Get Into A Car With A Thatcherite Employment Minister!
As Dafydd once said, 'Don't ewe think I was handsome?'
Alan Clark:
Another Minister for Employment under Thatch was Sir Peter Morrison…
In 1986, Clare Short introduced a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons which proposed banning 'Page 3' photographs of topless models in the British tabloids, which resulted in an outpouring of abuse in her direction from the press which almost equalled their abuse of the Windbag. One paper bought and published alleged photographs of Short in her nightwear from her ex-husband, although she stated they were pictures of somebody else's body with her face superimposed. Clare gave a definitive account of her attitude towards tabloid nudity and the negative role that pornography plays more generally in society in her introduction to the book Dear Clare (1991), which presents a selection of the many letters of support she received from women in response to her campaign. Those wimmin had no idea what Clare and the Windbag were keeping quiet about. The homes of my friends and I were bugged by the security services Clare, including our bedrooms, bathrooms and bogs. Brown found himself with a series of mad girlfriends who caused havoc whom we have now been told were working for the security services. All because, unlike you and the fucking Windbag, we would not keep quiet about the abuse of vulnerable people.
'Dear Clare – people tried to kill us you weak hypocrite'.
Furthermore I was told a few weeks ago that at some point in the past, photos were taken of me and other young women of which we were unaware, I was told by hidden cameras and that those photos were passed on. I think that I was supposed to have a trauma, but not only was I not surprised, but once you've had a bunch of gangsters trying to murder you and your friends and no-one, no-one at all, will help, some photos are neither here nor there, no matter how much of a liberty they were. I presume that the photos were taken in somewhere like the North Wales Hospital. They were after all running an abuse ring out there and I've never stepped into a photographer's studio in my life.
Short supported Prezza in the Labour Party Deputy Leadership election in 1988 and left the Socialist Campaign Group, along with Margaret Beckett and her caravan, as a result of Tony Benn's decision to challenge the Windbag for the Party leadership.
Prezza came from Prestatyn in north Wales and studied at Ruskin College, Oxford, at the same time as Peter Howarth, who later went to prison for sexual assaults on boys in care in north Wales. Matt Arnold, the Head of Bryn Estyn, taught at Ruskin when Prezza was there and Arnold was one of Howarth's tutors. For more details of Ruskin and its alumni, see post 'A Study In Tyranny'. Prezza was MP for Hull East in Yorkshire, 1970-2010. Yorkshire was the base of an enormous trafficking gang within which Savile played a key role. Savile was friendly with many police officers in Yorkshire and also had links to Dafydd's gang in north Wales.
Short supported Margaret Beckett and her caravan for the Labour leadership in 1994, against Blair and Prezza. Margaret Beckett has been the Labour MP for Lincoln, 1974-79 and has been MP for Derby South since 1983. There was a long-standing paedophile/trafficking ring in Derbyshire with links to the ring in north Wales. Some of those involved in the abuse of kids in north Wales were recruited from Derbyshire and John Jillings, who led the Jillings Investigation into the abuse of children in Clwyd, was the former Director of Social Services for Derbyshire. Jillings's Report was damning, but many felt when, many years later, the Report finally became public, that Jillings hadn't dared admit how bad the situation in north Wales was. Jillings refused to comment when he was asked if a paedophile ring was in operation in north Wales. See post 'It's A Piece Of Cake…'. Jane Tunstill, a member of the Jillings Panel, secured a Chair in Social Work at Keele University.
Beckett was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, 1992-94, under John Smith, when the North Wales Police investigation into child abuse in the region was taking place. One of Beckett's Shadow roles was for Health, 1994-95, while the Jillings Investigation was underway. Beckett was Lord President of the Council, 1998-01. One of the roles of Lord President of the Council is that of visitor for Bangor University. When Beckett was Lord President of the Council, the VC of Bangor University was the craven paedophiles' friend Prof Roy Evans, who did what the trafficking gang told him to do and promoted many of their associates to senior roles. Beckett's time as Lord President of the Council spanned Ronnie Waterhouse's writing of the Waterhouse Report and its publication.
In 1989 Clare Short raised the issue of abuse of police procedure and fabrication of evidence at the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, relaying concerns of Birmingham solicitors that many miscarriages of justice had taken place. It was eventually admitted that the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad had caused havoc and there were allegations of Masonic corruption. The Squad was dissolved and some of those who had been framed had their convictions overturned, including Ali Khan from Caernarfon. What received less publicity was that after Ali Khan had been awarded compensation, he was convicted of robbery and returned to prison. Ali Khan maintains that this was yet another fit-up as a punishment beating for daring to win against the West Midlands Crime Squad. I don't know the truth behind Ali Khan's allegations; the Khans are known as a 'crime family' in north Wales, but I do know that the West Midlands Police and the North Wales Police were corrupt and fitted people up, sometimes as a result of a joint enterprise. I had never heard of Ali Khan until the first occasion in 1986 on which Dafydd had me unlawfully arrested and when I was in the cells at Bangor Police Station I read the graffiti that Ali Khan had written and signed, detailing all the occasions on which he alleged that he'd been framed.
After the alleged clean-up of the West Midlands Police, Sir Ron Hadfield was appointed as Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police. He was in post from 1990-96. Immediately after retirement, Hadfield served as an adviser to the Waterhouse Inquiry, which says it all really. Another adviser to the Inquiry was Adrianne Jones, the former Director of Social Services for the City of Birmingham. Prior to becoming Chief Constable of West Mindlands, Hadfield had served with the Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Derbyshire forces. Hadfield was given a knighthood in 1995, after everyone had been reassured that there was no VIP paedophile ring in north Wales and when Hague et al were busy behind the scenes ensuring that the Public Inquiry which they knew would eventually be held would reach the same conclusion. Hadfield was International Vice-President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Clare Short was a member of Labour's NEC, 1988-1997, along with others who were allies of Dafydd and the gang, such as Gwyneth Dunwoody and Eric Heffer. Short was Chair of the NEC's Women's Committee, 1993-1996.
After Blair won the election in 1997, the Overseas Development Administration was given full departmental status as the Dept for International Development and Short was the first Secretary of State for International Development. She retained this post throughout the first term of the Labour Gov't and beyond the 2001 UK General Election into the second.
A few months after her appointment to DfID, the island of Montserrat (one of the UK's few remaining overseas territories) was devastated by a volcanic eruption which rendered half the island uninhabitable; when the 4,500 islanders asked for more help from the DfID, Short was reported to have remarked 'they will be asking for golden elephants next' and refused to visit the island. She was probably far too busy Chairing a Wimmin's Committee discussing topless photos to give a stuff about some poor sods who's land had been burnt to a cinder.
On 6 November 1997, Short sent a letter to Kumbirai Kangai, Minister of Agriculture in Zimbabwe, in which she stated that 'we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe.' She went on to write 'We are a new government from diverse backgrounds, without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonised, not colonisers.' Good to know that Clare experiences Genetic Oppression which absolves her from any temptation to make herself useful in diplomatically sensitive situations. In the same letter Short did, however, offer qualified support for land reform: 'We do recognise the very real issues you face over land reform… we would be prepared to support a programme of land reform that was part of a poverty eradication strategy, but not on any other basis.' This letter caused a rift with the Zimbabwean Gov't, which asserted that the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979 had contained a continuing pledge from the UK Gov't to assist in land reform. Well they could all sod off, Blair's Gov't of Diversity, Wimmin and Peter Mandelson didn't worry about matters historical and definitely wasn't interested in keeping things like promises.
In December 1997, Short signed the UK into the Ottawa Convention, banning the production, handling and use of anti-personnel mines. In 2001, she wrote that the 'ready availability of small arms has a direct and negative impact upon levels of crime and conflict in developing countries. We (the DFID) are supporting various peace building and disarmament initiatives.' The following year, she claimed that Britain was 'committed to combating small arms availability and misuse'.
Short approved of the NATO bombing of the HQ of Serbian state TV in which sixteen media workers were killed and sixteen others wounded, because the station was 'a source of propaganda'. As is Clare Short.
On 9 March 2003, Short threatened to resign from the Cabinet in the event of the UK Gov't going to war with Iraq without a clear mandate from the UN. This looked set to be a reprise of her previous resignation as party spokesperson during the Gulf War of 1991 as a protest against the Labour Party's stance, although in 1999 she had publicly supported the NATO attack on Serbia. However, on 18 March she announced that she would remain in the Cabinet and support the Govt's resolution in the Commons. Which resulted in a lot of wisecracks about Clare Short saying no when she meant yes.
Short remained in the Cabinet for two months after her decision to back the 2003 Iraq War. She resigned on 12 May. Her letter stated: 'In both the run-up to the war and now, I think the UK is making grave errors in providing cover for the US mistakes rather than helping an old friend… American power alone cannot make America safe… But undermining international law and the authority of the UN creates the risk of instability, bitterness and growing terrorism that will threaten the future for all of us'.
On 26 February 2004, Short alleged on the 'Today' programme that the British security services regularly intercept UN communications, including those of Kofi Annan, then Secretary General. Reacting to Short's statement, Blair said 'I really do regard what Clare Short has said this morning as totally irresponsible, and entirely consistent [with Short's character].' Is that why you appointed her then Blair?
Blair also claimed that Short had put British security, particularly the security of its spies, at risk. The same day, on 'Newsnight' BBC's Short called Blair's response 'pompous' and said that Britain had no need to spy on Annan. The only reason they had to spy on my friends and I Clare was to gather info to stop the trafficking ring that you, Blair and many others were keeping quiet about, but they didn't stop them or indeed the many bent politicians who knew damn well what was happening.
On 29 February 2004 Short appeared on ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. She revealed that she had been written to by the Cabinet Secretary Andrew Turnbull. Turnbull's confidential letter, which Short showed to Dimbleby, and which was quoted on the programme, formally admonished her for discussing intelligence matters in the media, and threatened 'further action' if she did not desist from giving interviews on the issue. Turnbull wrote that she had made claims 'which damage the interests of the United Kingdom' and that he was 'extremely disappointed'. The 'further action' referred to in the letter has been interpreted as threatening either Short's expulsion from the Privy Council (what was she doing in there in the first place?) or legal action under the Official Secrets Act. On 1 March 2004, a Downing Street spokesman refused to rule out such a step.
Andrew Turnbull will be after this blog next. Along with the Llangefni police (see post 'A Letter From The North Wales Police')….
Short also admitted that her original claim that Britain had eavesdropped on Annan may have been inaccurate. The security services were far too busy bothering us Clare. By the way, wasn't Kofi implicated in corruption?
In December 2004, Short was reportedly critical of US efforts to dispense aid to countries devastated by a tsunami caused by a massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean. She was quoted as stating that the formation of a group of countries led by the US for this purpose was a challenge to the role of the UN, which she believed was uniquely qualified for the task. The UN could go to the rescue as they had previously, with 'peacekeepers' standing by while people were butchered a la Srebrenica or exchanging food rations for sexual favours from 12 yr old girls…
On 12 September 2006, Short announced that she would not be standing at the next General Election, stating that she was 'ashamed' of Blair's Gov't. On Friday 20 October, Short resigned the Labour whip and announced that she would sit as an Independent Labour MP. After Gordon became PM, Short said that the change offered 'a new beginning' and hinted that she might re-join the parliamentary Labour Party if Brown changed the policies that had caused her to leave.
On 2 February 2010, Short appeared before the Chilcot Inquiry and repeatedly criticised Tony Blair, Attorney General Peter Goldsmith and others in the UK Gov't for allegedly deceiving her and other MPs in an attempt to obtain consent for the invasion of Iraq.
Short has condemned Israel as being guilty of "bloody, brutal and systematic annexation of land, destruction of homes and the deliberate creation of an apartheid system." She has also stated that "the EU and Britain are colluding in this operation and the building of a new apartheid regime" because they give Israel privileged trade access. Short has expressed support for a boycott of Israel, stating at the 2007 UN International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace that "The boycott worked for South Africa, it is time to do it again". She also told the conference that Israel is "much worse than the original apartheid state" and that Israel "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming".
Regarding the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Short stated that "Israel is out of control and our Government and the US is giving them a green light to continue" and that "Britain clearly now just backs President (George W.) Bush in whatever he does, in automatically backing Israel in breaching international law, in disproportionate attacks on Lebanon and attacks on Gaza".
According to 'The Guardian', Short accepted £1,580 worth of flights, hotel accommodation, food and travel expenses from Hezbollah-affiliate al Manar Television in Lebanon in 2008. Al-Manar was described by the US Gov't as a terrorist entity in 2006.
On 1 March 2011 Short was elected as Chairwoman of the EITI (the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) at the EITI Global Conference in Paris.
Since 2006, Short has been a member of the Cities Alliance Policy Advisory Board and subsequently chaired the Policy Advisory Forum, described as a "platform for public discussion, debate and knowledge sharing" on urban poverty and the role of cities.
Clare Short's second husband was Alex Lyon, whom she met when she worked at the Home Office and married in 1981. Lyon was the Labour MP for York, 1966-83, right at the centre of Savile-land.
Lyon was educated at West Leeds High School and UCL. He became a barrister and was called to the Bar at Inner Temple. Lyon was a member of the Bar Council and of the Fabian Society. He was a Methodist local preacher and Secretary of Leeds North West Constituency Labour Party. Lyon will have known the child molester George Thomas, who throughout the middle years of the 20th century was one of the UK's most well-known Methodists and who preached all over Britain (see post 'It Wasn't On Our Radar').
Lyon was Minister of State at the Home Office, March 1974 – April 1976, under that Home Secretary who was most helpful to Dafydd and the gang, Woy Jenkins (see post 'We've Been Expecting You…').
In 1971 Lyon introduced the United Reformed Church Bill, which became the act which created the United Reformed Church from a union of Presbytarian and Congregationalist churches in England and Wales.
Lyon lost his seat in the Commons on the day in which Short gained hers. Lyon then ran Short's constituency office and returned to the Bar for a short while until his health caused him problems. Lyon had developed Alzheimers and died in 1993.
In 2004, Clare published her book 'An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power'.
If Clare was deceiving anyone honourably, she didn't manage to put an end to some truly dreadful matters.
In 2006 an article in 'Femail' 'appeared about Short, entitled 'I've fallen in love again' – us ladies would be instantly drawn to such an article obviously – which detailed how Clare Short had now found happiness with her mate Mo Mowlam's with widower Jon Norton. Jon was the City banker who made himself so useful to the Labour Party when they decided to make friends with global capitalism rather than those who were being harmed at the hands of the Top Doctors. 'Femail' observed that Mo and Clare 'were two of a kind'. I expect that 'Femail' meant that they were 'Strong Feisty Wimmin' but I think that the they had a lot more in common in terms of being female politicians who made much of their status as Wimmin in a Men's World who were Fighting For Other Wimmin, while they ignored the role that the welfare services played in a pan-European trafficking ring in their own constituencies.
To return to the Labour Party in Wales ignoring Dafydd et al. In 1991 I was invited to join Ogwen Valley Labour Party, on the grounds that things had been very bad under Thatcher and would continue to be particularly bad for Wales under John Major, who had just been elected. I had been forced out of my job at St George's Hospital Medical School and had returned to live near Bethesda on a permanent basis. I was being arrested on a regular basis at the behest of Dafydd et al, the cases against me collapsed but of course no-one asked any questions. I knew that virtually no politicians were showing the interest that they should have been showing in what was happening to some people at the hands of the NHS and social services, but I had no idea of the degree of collusion with serious crime which was taking place.
I was invited to join the Ogwen Valley Labour Party by my neighbour at about the time that the North Wales Police launched their first investigation into the possibility of a VIP paedophile/trafficking ring in north Wales. This neighbour knew what was happening to me at the hands of the mental health services and was horrified. She showed me a great deal of support and friendship and dared challenge a member of the Arfon Community Mental Health Team over their mistreatment of me and another person who lived in our village. She was told that it could not be discussed because it was 'confidential'. This was at a time when the Arfon CMHT were telling my other neighbours that I was a danger to their children. My neighbour was working as a support worker for Cartrefi Cymru, in the 'independent housing' that had been provided for people with learning disabilities who had previously lived in Bryn-y-Neuadd, the long-stay hospital at Llanfairfechan and was frank in her opinion that the management of the 'supported housing' was so chaotic that it constituted abuse of clients.
I accompanied my neighbour to a few meetings of the Ogwen Valley Labour Party. It was certainly a very small party, there were only about six people at each meeting. Much time was consumed by things like 'the minutes', which I know have to be done, but did seem to take up a great deal of time. In 1991 in north Wales, the local economy had collapsed, a vicious trafficking gang dominated the region, the police were investigating, every category of vulnerable person was being grossly abused, the regional NHS was lethal and bankrupt and had the poorest clinical outcomes in the UK for many conditions and many local businesses were exploiting the people who did have jobs on a massive scale, including big companies like Euro DPC in Llanberis who had relocated to north Wales after being given huge business support grants from bodies like the WDA.
The Ogwen Valley Labour Party was Chaired by a man involved with the trade union movement but I can't remember if he was a TUC rep or a rep from a specific union. Their was only one cause which he maintained needed fighting in the area and that was a company called Thistle Trading on the Llandegai industrial estate in Bangor. The Chairman was very vexed about Thistle Trading and maintained that the 'ladies' – to be fair, the Chairman was about 65 and people of his generation would have talked about the ladies, as would many of the ladies themselves – who worked for them were being underpaid. He had declared war on Thistle Trading and he seemed to have had a degree of success. The ladies got a pay rise and were so chuffed that they were singing the Chairman's praises. Because I found the meetings so boring and because the Chairman was only interested in the sins of Thistle Trading and once he'd won that one he didn't see any other causes to fight, I stopped going to Ogwen Valley Labour Party meetings. My neighbour persisted for longer, but she too gave up because there didn't seem to be any action happening.
The ladies of Thistle Trading may have been underpaid, but kids in care in Gwynedd were being beaten, raped and forced to work for local businesses for as little as 30-50p/hour or no pay at all.
The Chairman of Ogwen Valley Labour Party never spoke to me or my neighbour and neither did the Secretary, although it was they who had begged local people to 'get involved'. I can't remember the Secretary's name, but I do know what she did for a living. She was a lecturer at the Normal College in Bangor. The teacher training college, which employed scores of people who colluded with the paedophile gang, including Dafydd Orwig, a Plaid Councillor who lived in Bethesda.
'We didn't know'. You bloody well knew what was happening to me because that neighbour of mine was terrified and was telling people.
The Windbag was Labour leader when the Ogwen Valley Labour Party prioritised the pay of the ladies of Thistle Trading above fighting a trafficking gang who were murdering people. The Windbag must have known the Chairman of the Ogwen Labour Party, he was obviously quite a big figure in the trade union movement in north Wales and Baroness Glenys Windbag came from Holyhead. But then the Windbag knew Tony Francis who was one of those facilitating the gang, as Francis used to remind his patients.
My neighbour's husband stopped speaking to me a few months later and never spoke to me again. I didn't know why, I hadn't fallen out with them and my neighbour carried on being perfectly friendly to me. A reader pointed out the other day that my neighbour's husband decided that I was best ignored after he got a job at the Psychology Dept in Bangor University. The Psychology Dept which for years had been dominated by Dafydd, but by then had been taken over by Professor Fergus Lowe, who used his knowledge of Dafydd's crimes to build his own empire after overthrowing Dafydd. The Psychology Dept was training clinical psychologists who were on placement at the North Wales Hospital Denbigh. The dungeon for Dafydd's victims was still in operation at the time.
Perhaps Dave Lane, who was a neighbour of two people who's lives were being wrecked by Dafydd and the gang and who subsequently purchased a house from another person who had been destroyed by the same gang, could let us know who threatened or bribed him and how. Before Dave Lane purchased the house from the man who had been destroyed by Dafydd et al, he rented a house from another man, Dave Hardwick. Dave Hardwick was a bit of a hippy and started up the Bethesda Food Co-Op. He was always very friendly and pleasant and had a son with mental health problems whom he was very caring towards and tried hard to support. When Dave Hardwick's son grew up, Dave went into nursing. Mental health nursing. Dave Hardwick became a senior Angel at the Hergest Unit. Dave was on duty when Angels were ordered to perjure themselves in an attempt to have me imprisoned. He also worked as a Charge Nurse on Taliesin Ward, where patients were being assaulted by the staff. Not by Dave, he was much better than the rest of them and he was never abusive. But he knew what the others were doing.
One of my friends has known Dave Hardwick for decades, from their hippy days. Before I left Wales, he told them that he hated working at the Hergest Unit because patients were treated so badly there and he couldn't wait to retire.
Now that the cracks in the NHS are canyons which cannot be concealed any longer by the usual methods, I was interested to discover that the GMB have sworn that they'll 'fight the Gov't' to ensure that the NHS gets the money that it needs, the latest few billion to plug yet another gap – on top of the pay rise for Top Docs and senior managers – being insufficient. I found this out because someone from the GMB has published an article on the website 'Open Democracy'. I do read 'Open Democracy' from time to time, because Dr Minh Alexander, a consultant psychiatrist who lost her job after raising concerns about patient safety, writes some excellent articles for that website, but sadly Dr Alexander is virtually a lone voice among many on 'Open Democracy' who maintain unproblematically that the NHS is as pure as the driven snow and all would be well if only it were given yet more dosh.
It is usually the BMA who are demanding the dosh, the Top Doctors having a rather more wholesome media image than other trade unions 'who hold the country to ransom'.
I wonder if the BMA have had to back off in the light of revelations that they have done some pretty disgusting things in the course of their duty of protecting the jobs and pensions of Dafydd et al? UNISON and UNITE are usually the unions coming to the aid of the NHS, rather than the GMB. Could the BMA have possibly done a little deal with the big wigs of the GMB and reached an agreement that it will be the GMB rather than the Top Docs with their gobs stuffed with gold who will 'fight for the money that the NHS needs?'
Lest anyone believe that the noble GMB would not be capable of such a sordid arrangement, I will remind them that David Basnett, who was the General Secretary of the NUGMW, 1973-86 – the NUGMW officially became known as the GMB in 1987 – and who served as President of the TUC in 1978, had a number of meetings with Thatcher's hatchet man Ian MacGegor during the NUM strike of 1984-85. In his autobiography, MacGregor observes that Basnett was 'quite approachable and open on the subject of the NUM strike' and that 'Basnett takes life very seriously and was really worried about finding a solution to the Scargill problem'. MacGregor met Basnett and Buckton because he agreed to meet a 'few of the TUC people' to 'discuss grounds for talks' and was delighted to discover that they agreed with MacGregor that the only problem was Scargill. MacGregor also met the Windbag 'for an introductory chat before the strike began'.
MacGregor claims in his autobiography that on the first occasion that he met Scargill after the strike was called, it was at Hobart House, the HQ of the NCB, which at the time had an NUM picket permanently outside. Scargill was refusing to cross a picket line, so to enable Scargill to enter Hobart House to meet MacGregor without upsetting the NUM by crossing the picket line, the picket was removed for that day. MacGregor claims in his autobiography that all this happened after 'pressure' from the Windbag. Not that the Windbag's bright idea came to anything; MacGregor grumbled that not only were the whole NUM executive in the room which MacGregor couldn't cope with, but MacGregor maintains that because of the timing of the meeting, he was in a relatively strong position with regard to holding out against the NUM.
Dave Basnett grew up in Liverpool and became the Regional Officer of the NUGMW in 1948. In 1955 Basnett was appointed national education officer, then in 1960 national industrial officer. In 1966, Basnett was elected to the General Council of the TUC. In 1970, he negotiated a settlement regarding a major dispute at Pilkington, which was the springboard to him becoming General Secretary in 1973. Trevor Jones, a leading light from Pilkington's off-shoot in north Wales, was a big ally of Dafydd and the gang (see post 'A Vampire At Glyndwr University!').
Basnett was General Secretary, 1973-86 and during that time, the union was involved with numerous mergers with smaller unions and became the GMUW. Basnett also sat on the National Enterprise Board and National Economic Development Council. In 1979 Basnett founded 'Trade Unionists for a Labour Victory' and spent much of next decade promoting conference between trade unionists and Labour Party members. Frustrated by the lack of progress – perhaps the Windbag could tell us why Basnett's initiative didn't lead to a Labour Victory – Basnett took early retirement in 1986. As with the Windbag and Mrs Windbag, Basnett's complete ineffectiveness didn't stymy him and in March 1986, Dave Basnett became Baron Basnett of Leatherhead in the County of Surrey.
Leatherhead is on the River Mole no less and the UK and Ireland HQ of Unilever plc are at Leatherhead. It was Unilever who bankrolled the expansion of the Psychology Dept at Bangor University under Prof Fergus Lowe, when Philip Lever aka Lord Leverhulme was Chancellor of Liverpool University, Dafydd's old alma mater, which at that time was still employing numerous people in senior positions who were concealing Dafydd's crimes (see previous posts).
Baron Basnett of the Wealthiest County in the UK died in 1989.
The GMB describes itself as 'a general trade union in the UK which has more than 631,000 members. GMB members work in nearly all industrial sectors, in retail, security, schools, distribution and the utilities, social care, the NHS and ambulance service and local government'. The GMB represents another group of workers as well which it doesn't boast about as much as it does its members who are NHS workers. The GMB represents sex workers and has since 2002 when the International Union of Sex Workers became affiliated to the GMB, four years before the Ambulance Service Union did.
The website of the International Union of Sex Workers tells us that not only does it have official recognition as the sex industry branch of the GMB – the GMB is divided up into different branches, eg. 'service industry', 'security industry' etc – but various services for sex workers are offered by the GMB including self-defence classes. Sex workers are subjected to violence, so if one is a union with members who are sex workers, self-defence classes could well be a good idea.
However, the International Union of Sex Workers supports the x:talk Project, 'which provides free English language classes to migrant sex workers in London'. How many members of the GMB know about this? Even among those people who take a liberal approach to prostitution, there will not be many who think that providing such a service is a particularly good idea. There is a considerable problem with migrants being tricked and/or trafficked into sex work and a hot spot for traffickers is London. Those free language classes could be a God-send to people traffickers. I have discussed previously on this blog how the GMB ignored and concealed child abuse and trafficking (see post 'Mary Turner – An Appreciation'), but those language lessons for migrant sex workers are taking the collusion with serious crime to a whole new level.
The International Union of Sex Workers website advertises another service as well – free advice and support on criminal prosecution from an 'award winning legal firm'. This is an 'automatic benefit of GMB membership', which can be acquired for £6-50/month. The website has a pdf which can be downloaded for sex workers who wish to join the GMB. Again, free legal advice and support could be a lifeline for sex workers who have been fitted up by the police – but what if it is a trafficker or a pimp who is being prosecuted? Furthermore, an award winning legal firm will not come cheap, the GMB will be subsidising that to a great extent.
The GMB's wiki entry tells us that membership of the GMB costs full-time workers £13/month. Which is rather more than the sex workers who are members of the GMB have to pay for their free legal advice. Sex workers who are not being trafficked and robbed will earn considerably more than most GMB members.
Not only have the GMB been spectacularly bad at defending the interests of most of their members who do work in the NHS or social care – the pay and conditions of the sort of workers who are likely to be members of the GMB, as opposed to the BMA or RCN, are dreadful and have been getting worse as those jobs are increasingly outsourced – but those members are now possibly subsidising people traffickers or the legal help given to sex workers who earn a great deal more than NHS workers. I am wondering if the GMB is one of the unions which as part of its pay packages for senior officers of the GMB provides private healthcare cover, as unions which represent senior NHS staff nearly all do now.
John Edmonds was the General Secretary of the GMB when the International Union of Sex Workers became affiliated to the GMB. Edmonds is an Oxford graduate. Surely he could have predicted this minefield?
The current General Secretary of the GMB is Tim Roache. His wiki entry describes him as a 'father and a husband'. He is also extremely gullible.
The GMB is one of three largest affiliates to the Labour Party and donates up to £2 million/yr to the Party, being the third largest union donor.
The Guardian Online continues to provide free PR for people who've been named and shamed on this blog. One of their recent offerings was a 'profile' of Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, who is a colleague of Professor Mark Williams, the man who perpetrated that research fraud which was Mindfulness when Williams worked as a clinical psychologist at Bangor, alongside those facilitating the trafficking gang in north Wales (see post 'The Biggest Expert Of The Lot'). Sarah-Jayne and Mark Williams received much money from the Wellcome Trust for their 'research' into Mindfulness and school pupils. Sarah-Jayne works at UCL where she is responsible for the, er, Wellcome funding programme.
'The Guardian' described Sarah-Jayne as an 'expert on teenagers brains' and just to ensure that we get the message, Sarah-Jayne was pictured fondling one of those layman's white casts of a human head and neck with the different regions of the brain sketched on it. I saw one for sale in a gift shop in Hebdon Bridge a few years ago. Not only has Sarah-Jayne carried out a major project with Dafydd's former colleague Mark Williams, but other colleagues of Sarah-Jayne's, including her 'mentor' Una Frith, trained at the Maudsley, along with yet more mates of Dafydd and Tony Francis who then concealed their crimes, as detailed in previous posts.
In 'The Guardian' interview, Sarah-Jayne talked about her own adolescence and her intense embarrassment when her father, Professor Colin Blakemore, was targeted by animal rights activists. Colin Blakemore was indeed given a terrible time, there were attempts to kill him. When Blakemore was being targeted I was still working in medical research and I remember even other people who were carrying out animal work maintaining that Blakemore was cruel and that his experiments could not be justified, including someone who had been a colleague of Blakemore's at Cambridge. Sarah-Jayne remembered worrying that her classmates were 'judging' her. Whether they were or not I don't know, but her teachers definitely were. Sarah-Jayne went to school in Oxford, everyone knew who her father was, well he's that clever scientist isn't he, OF COURSE Sarah-Jayne must go to Oxford for her psychology degree, particularly now that Oxford will be developing their huge research centre spearheaded by one Colin Blakemore, Head of the MRC…
People who were familiar with Colin Blakemore's animal research used to wonder how he got away with it all. Perhaps Sarah-Jayne who has been embarrassed all the way to those massive research grants and a Chair at UCL – which was where Fergus Lowe's mistress Professor Pauline Horne did her MSc before she changed path and went to do a degree in psychology at Bangor with Fergus and Dafydd (see post 'Feet In Chains') – could take us back to her teenage years and let us know.
Who are 'The Guardian' going to profile next? Dafydd himself? 'Lucille, the lady in my life' would make a nice feature…
BBC News Wales online reported that extra NHS funding is to be made available for 'specialist GPs' to provide services to 'trans teenagers' in Wales. By definition GPs aren't specialists, that is why they are called GENERAL practitioners. The BMA are supporting the plan. My how things have changed. Not only did many – if not most – BMA members used to be utterly hostile to transgender people, but the BMA gave their full support to Dafydd, who tried to encourage a teenaged boy to undergo gender reassignment surgery in 1991 because he was gay. The BMA also gave Dr Sadie Francis and her colleagues advice on how to best bring criminal charges against me or have me transferred to a secure hospital although they knew that they had lied repeatedly – including on oath – about me. At one point, Sadie doubled up as a gender identity expert in north Wales. Sadie did not know anything about gender identity, but then most of her colleagues didn't know anything about anything either. With the exception of David Healy, they were not very bright not very competent dysfunctional doctors who washed up as psychiatrists in north Wales because they very obviously couldn't make it in any other sphere. Their 'training' at most consisted of a short stint at the Maudsley, which was a highly dysfunctional institution itself and colluding with the abuse of vulnerable people (see post 'A Galaxy Of Talent') but more usually Mickey Mouse short 'courses' taught by one of the other paedophiles' friends in north Wales. According to Dafydd's gang, they were all experts in de-escalation skills, in borderline personality disorder, in dealing with dangerous patients, in CBT, in DBT, in 'psycho-social treatment for psychosis', in 'early intervention', in of course Mindfulness and latterly in gender identity problems. Their patients died while the experts ran a trafficking/paedophile ring. Sadie wasn't as downright obnoxious to talk to as many of her colleagues were and she wasn't covered in Brylcreem or dandruff, but she knew what the others were doing and she lied on oath and to patients, I suspect because she was ordered to do so by the big boys.
There is another gender identity expert in north Wales as well, who pre-dated Sadie's expertise – the dreadful Kenny Midence. For a long time, Midence was listed as the only gender identity expert in the whole of Wales. At least two patients told me that they felt that Midence breached professional boundaries and may even have been preparing them for a relationship with him. When they complained – not about him but about the chaos of the 'service' – in both cases Midence dropped them and cut off all contact. Both ended up suicidal. Midence does however have some rave reviews online. Midence seems to have been accepting 'referrals' from far and wide to carry out 'psychological assessments' on people who want to undergo gender reassignment surgery. They love him – judging from the comments left online, you just pop up to north Wales, hand your fee over and Kenny OKs a sex change. Kenny himself is a bit of a globe trotter and travels to Brazil and other such places for 'conferences'.
The last that I heard, Kenny was in a relationship with a female Angel, Jan Stanley-Smith, which surprised me a bit because Kenny Midence is more like someone out of the Village People than anyone whom I have ever met. Jan Stanley-Smith has worked as a mental health Angel in north west Wales for years. Jan worked in the old psychiatric wards in Ysbyty Gwynedd before the Hergest Unit was built, she then worked in Hergest, she worked as a lecturing Angel in the School of Healthcare Sciences in Bangor University when Dafydd's old colleague from the North Wales Hospital Denbigh, Ruhi Behi, was Head of that School and bullied her out of her job and then she joined the thugs of the Arfon CMHT. Like Dave Hardwick, Jan didn't directly abuse patients herself, but she worked with a great many people who did and watched them do it.
There is no real expertise in gender identity disorders in Wales. So presumably the dosh will be going to Kenny Midence to 'train' the 'specialist GPs' in one of the most difficult, sensitive conditions that a young person can experience and one that, if not handled very carefully, can have dreadful consequences.