O Brother, Where Art Thou ?

Righton is now long dead. But Napier is not. Now 68 and living with his mother in the West Country, he could prove a vital witness to the unfolding police inquiry into child abuse on a massive scale in this country.

Both men were linked to a shadowy organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange which campaigned in the 70s and 80s for what they called the age of “child love” to be reduced to four.

Righton was a founder of PIE, Napier its one-time treasurer. Righton, incredibly, was also one of Britain’s leading child protection specialists.

But when police raided his house in Evesham, Worcs, in 1992 they found not only hard-core child abuse images from Amsterdam but a “quarter-century of correspondence” between paedophiles in Britain and around the world.

The probe led police to the kitchen of a flat in South London where they found a letter from ‘Napier – who had a child assault conviction 20 years before – boasting of his life in Cairo as a”British Council teacher.

He bragged of easy access to young boys and how he could send obscene images back to Britain in diplomatic bags.

The Mirror

spotlight

Leon Brittan is the latest victim of the paedophile amnesia that’s sweeping through Westminster. This is what he said when asked about the Geoffrey Dickens paedophile dossiers by Paraic O’Brien from Channel 4 News.

I’ve asked Paraic O’Brien to confirm whether he asked Brittan about one dossier or two, because there was one in 1983 alleging a paedophile ring involving Buckingham Palace, the Foreign Office and the civil service, and another in 1984 alleging child abuse in a children’s home and a paedophile TV executive. How strange that Mr Brittan could forget such sensational allegations.

Two other recent victims of Paedo Amnesia were Keith Vaz MP and Lord David Steel.

Keith Vaz could not recall anything about Elm Guest House or Grafton Close children’s home despite being Richmond Council’s Solicitor and Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate at the time.

Former Liberal leader Lord David Steel wrote a letter to…

View original post 58 more words

Roger Pincham, The Liberals, And St James School.

It is very odd, to say the least, how often St James school, run by the School of Economic Science , a strange cultish organisation which preaches a hybrid of Hindu philosophy, meditation, and socialist economics, keeps cropping up.

I first became aware of the School of Economic Science when comments left by former pupils on the SES Forum were brought to my attention. These comments, detail allegations of physical and psychological abuse as well as sexual voyeurism during the 1970s and 1980s.

Then, several weeks later after seeing a tweet posted by Murun Buchstansangur which contained the image of a newspaper article reporting on a number of missing boys, it was brought to my attention that one of those missing boys, Vishal Mehrotra, was also a pupil at St James. As I pointed out here , Vishal Mehrotra went missing on the very day of Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding, which coincidently was the same day a ‘Kings and Queens’ party was held at the Elm Guest House. Some of Vishal Mehrotra’s remains were discovered in 1982.

And now it’s been pointed out to me, in response to my last article which asked what exactly senior Liberals knew about Cyril Smith and his child abusing, that the chairman of the Liberal Party from 1979 to 1982 was Roger Pincham, who also happens to have been the Chair of the Board of Governors of St James Independent Schools between 1975 and 2007, and is I believe still a governor there now.

Anyway, here is Roger Pincham’s wikipedia page, which rather amusingly reads as though it’s been written by himself. I particularly liked the bit which reads ” Roger Pincham is included in an informal shortlist of four most compelling Liberal orators of the latter decades of the 20th century.”

Hmmmm……..

What Did Senior Liberals Know About Cyril Smith ?

I should state at the onset that I believe that the torrent of allegations levelled at the Lib Dems over the last week in the MSM has a great deal to do with a certain by-election taking place in Eastleigh today. Both the Labour party and the Conservatives have far more dirty linen yet to be washed in public than the Lib Dems. Nevertheless, it is a fact that while senior Conservatives and Labour politicians have yet to be outed in the MSM for their own child abuse and the subsequent cover-ups, Cyril Smith has been acknowledged  by the police as a child abuser and so it’s understandable that the Lib Dems are facing questions at this time.

Given that Cyril Smith’s name has appeared in connection with the ongoing Operation Fernbridge investigation into sexual abuse of boys at the Elm Guest House, I would hope that the only reason why the documents requested by solicitors acting on behalf of victims of Cyril Smith have not been handed over is because the Lib Dems are instead fully cooperating with the active investigation. Certainly that is the only forgivable explanation.

If that is the case then Nick Clegg should publicly say so. If that is not the case then the negative inference that the public will draw after reading the story below will be appropriate and justified.

Nick Clegg has been accused of ignoring alleged sex abuse victims of the late Liberal Democrat MP Cyril Smith by failing to respond to formal requests for help.

The deputy prime minister has been sent two letters by a solicitor’s firm that represents four men who say they were attacked in the 1960s and 70s by the MP for Rochdale, who died in 2010.

The letters, the first of which was sent seven weeks ago, asked for the release of files from the Liberal Democrat and former Liberal chief whips’ offices following the suspicion that Smith’s propensity to abuse was common knowledge among senior politicians. Police believe he was a prolific abuser of boys and should have been charged more than 40 years ago.

The Guardian

Ripples Of Hope.

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events……It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” – Robert Kennedy

 

Everybody Knows !

By Chuggy

Make Gentle The Life Of This World

On April 4th 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead.

That same night, New York Senator Robert F Kennedy was due to give a speech in Indianapolis, he decided to change his planned speech and break the news. The police had warned him that, as he would be speaking in the heart of an African American ghetto, that they would not be able to guarantee his safety and that on hearing the news, the crowd might riot.

He went ahead anyway.

He wrote brief notes himself on his way to the venue, and delivered the short speech without drafts or prewritten words.

This short speech, possibly one of the greatest speeches ever delivered by any politician, was made while standing on the back of a flatbed truck.

All major US cities experienced riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination, only Indianapolis remained peaceful.

What Next For MWT ?

I wonder who he could mean ? Is it the senior Tory ex-cabinet minister, the world famous pop star or the Junior Minister that he and Tom Watson were discussing here ?

What next for the man who exposed the myth? Williams-Thomas says he is working on four big projects, adding that for one (“which is huge”) he is looking into allegations involving sexual abuse by “a very significant individual” at Elm Guest House in south-west London.

The Guardian

Father Tony McSweeney.

Earlier this month on February 6th, Operation Fernbridge arrested two men, hopefully the first of many. They were John Stingemore who up until 1981 was the Officer in Charge of Grafton Close children’s home and Father Tony McSweeney, a Roman Catholic priest of St George’s parish in Norwich. Both men have been bailed pending further inquiries until April.

Operation Fernbridge is investigating allegations that children in the care of Richmond council and other local authorities were taken to Elm Guest House and sexually abused by men including VIPs. Grafton Close is believed to be one of the children’s homes involved. It is understandable therefore that the Fernbridge police would wish to ask John Stingemore some questions as he was the head of Grafton Close during part of the period they are investigating.

But what of Father Tony McSweeney ?

Tony McSweeney was, during the time in question, training to be a priest at Guildford. He was very good friends with John Stingemore and during school holidays he used to stay at Grafton Close children’s home and help out. I know that many readers will have been unaware of this connection to Grafton Close but I think you’ll agree that it’s reasonable, given that connection, that the Fernbridge police would want to ask him some questions about events around that time.

Also, I’m sure you’ll all be interested to know that Father Tony McSweeney is a published author. He co-authored the rather snappily named ‘The Scout Fire and Folk Song Book: A Collection of Songs for Use at Camp Fires and Folk Concerts’, published by the Scout Association in 1977. I think this is a picture of it.

Available on Amazon 99p+P&P,

There weren’t that many copies left when I looked. So, hurry while stocks last.

 

I’m With The Picture Editor.

Paraic O’Brien on Twitter

How could any self-respecting picture editor resist ?

Leon Brittan Speaks !

Paraic O’Brien on Twitter

Well, that’s all right then.

Move along, nothing to see here…….

Career Advice For Cardinal O’Brien.

Times, as everyone knows, are hard and as Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigns I’m sure we’ll all wish him well in whatever career direction he decides to take.

But what career options are there for a man with religious training ?

Here are my top three.

Lion Tamer

 Harold Davidson, the Rector of Stiffkey , was defrocked at Norwich Cathedral on 21 October 1932, on charges of immorality, after which he exploited his notoriety by making a living in various forms of seaside entertainment.

 In 1937 Davidson worked in Skegness, where he was billed as “A modern Daniel in a lion’s den”. He would enter a cage with a lion called Freddie and a lioness called Toto, and talk for about ten minutes about the injustice he felt had been done out to him. On 28 July, he was moving through his act when he accidentally tripped on the tail of the lioness, the lion attacked and mauled him.

He died from his injuries.

Totalitarian Dictator

In 1894, when Joseph Stalin was sixteen, he received a scholarship to attend the Georgian Orthodox Tiflis Theological Seminary in Tbilisi. Although his performance had been satisfactory, he was expelled in 1899 after missing his final exams.

Stalin became leader of the Soviet Union from 1922  until his death on 16 October 1952. In those 30 years as leader he is thought to be responsible for between 40 and 60 million deaths.

Evolutionary Heretic

 In 1828 Charles Darwin attended Christ’s College, Cambridge, and studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican parson but despite doing very well in his exams in 1931 he later that same year, on 27 December 1831, set sail on The Beagle.

Almost 30 years later Charles Darwin  published ‘On the Origin of Species’, on 24 November 1859. One of the most important scientific books ever to go into print, it rocked the religious institutions of Great Britain and the world.

So it would seem that the potential career paths for former Cardinal Keith O’Brien are many and varied.

I’m hopeful that readers will come up with other examples which I can add to this list.

Harold Davidson

Joseph Stalin

Charles Darwin

Cardinal O’Brien: ‘Hypocrite Of The Year’ ?

Only last November the gay rights organisation Stonewall named Cardinal Keith O’Brien as ‘Bigot of the Year’ for his homophobic rants.

But following the allegations levelled at him by three priests and one former priest, that he made ‘inappropriate’ advances toward them, perhaps he should be proclaimed ‘Hypocrite of the Year’.

The gay rights group Stonewall has refused to back down after it provoked a furious reaction by naming the Scottish Catholic leader Cardinal Keith O’Brien as its “bigot of the year”.

The Catholic church condemned the award as an attempt by Stonewall to vilify its critics. Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, and the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, urged the campaign group to drop the category entirely, arguing that branding people “bigots” was counterproductive.

Davidson, who won Stonewall’s politician of the year award at the same event on Thursday night, said equalities campaigners ought to be seen to use “generosity, tolerance and love” to promote their cause.

The Guardian

Cardinal Keith O’Brien Resigns

Following allegations made in the press yesterday, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who was due to fly out to Rome and join the conclave which will choose the next Pope, has resigned.

Cardinal O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, was due to be the only British representative at the papal conclave.

Three priests and one former priest had made an official complaint to the papal nuncio’s London office. They decided to go public because they felt it improper that Cardinal O’Brien should attend the papal conclave.

As, I’ve said on many occasions before on The Needle, when a name is made public, it is often the case that others, who had previously thought themselves alone, are more likely to come forward and it may well be the case that the bravery of the four priests who had the courage to go public, might have encouraged others with similar experiences to come forward.

Below is one of the news stories from yesterday.

The four complaints against Cardinal Keith O’Brien alleging “inappropriate acts” were given to the pope’s representative in the UK, Antonio Mennini, in early February.

They arrived at the papal nuncio’s London office, delivered by a trusted intermediary from the cardinal’s diocese, a few days before Pope Benedict XVI stunned the Catholic world with his decision to resign.

The earliest of the allegations, which are denied by O’Brien, dates back to 1980. That complainant, who is now married, was then a 20-year-old seminarian at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange, where O’Brien was the rector and his “spiritual director”. The statement claims he made an inappropriate approach after night prayers.

The Guardian

Dear BBC Trust

Republished with permission

This is a genuine email exchange

Relief Sculpture

Sunday, 18 November, 2012

To: Tristan – trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

Dear BBC Trust,

I wonder if you can help me with an enquiry about the relief sculptures on BBC Broadcasting House in Langham Place. I was wondering what the meaning of this sculpture is :

A naked long-haired man with a cigar, with two young girls who are hitching up their skirts.

It reminds me a bit of the Pied Piper. An odd, motley-dressed man, associated with music, who gained the trust of those in charge and lured the children away to his lair, where he had his way with them.

Thank God nothing like that could ever happen at the BBC!

What does this sculpture represent, please?

Kind Regards, –

Mr Marlowe

RE: Relief Sculpture

Monday, 3 December, 2012 16:54
From: Tristan – “Trust Enquiries” <TrustEnquiries@bbc.co.uk>

Dear  Mr Marlowe

Thank you for your email to the BBC Trust. I am responding as a member of the Trust Unit which supports and advises the Chairman and the Trustees.

I note your enquiry regarding one of the external sculptures by Eric Gill at BBC Broadcasting House.

The particular panel you refer to is over the entrance to the east side of the building, and represents “Ariel piping to children”.

There is more information about the sculptures and about Broadcasting House in general here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/key…ng_house.shtml

I hope this is helpful.

Yours sincerely

Tristan

BBC Trust Unit

RE: Relief Sculpture
Monday, 3 December, 2012 19:45

To Tristan
“Trust Enquiries” <TrustEnquiries@bbc.co.uk>

Dear BBC,

Thanks very much, that’s very helpful. Eric Gill was a bit of an odd fellow, judging by his wiki page – a paedophile who was into bestiality and incest. Goodness gracious me!

I must say, I think it’s awfully brave of the BBC to display full-frontal images of naked children created by a paedophile on its headquarters, especially given recent…well. you know. Other, more timid institutions would have removed them by now, but the good old BBC won’t be cowed and is proud to display its cultural heritage. Well done, BBC! I trust that the BBC Trust are united in common purpose to weather whatever storms may come its way in the near future!

Kind Regards

Mr Marlowe

p.s. Congrats on the new DG – no doubt he will renew the sense of common purpose at the Beeb.

Eric Gill’s Wikipedia page

Murdoch: A Journalist Of Integrity.

No, not Rupert, his father Sir Keith Murdoch.

Born in Melbourne in 1885, Keith Arthur Murdoch became a journalist first with The Age and later with The Sydney Sun. During World War I he was based in London  as managing editor of the cable service run by The Sydney Sun and the Melbourne Herald. He was asked, in 1915, by the then Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, to travel to the Middle East to check on concerns that had been raised about the Australian troops that had been stationed there. In August of that year, while in Egypt, he sought and received permission to visit the Australian troops at Gallipoli and report, subject to the normal wartime restrictions.

“The agreement he signed specified that he was “not to attempt to correspond by any other route or by any other means than that officially sanctioned” and during the war he must not “impart to anyone military information of a confidential nature…. unless first submitted to the Chief Field Censor.””

Quickly, Keith Murdoch discovered what other war correspondents already in situ were all too aware of, that the Dardanelles campaign was a disaster and that the truth was being covered up by the military censors. The Daily Telegraph war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, asked Keith Murdoch to carry back to London an uncensored report to hand directly to the British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith so that he could be appraised of the real situation on the ground.

However, Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the Dardanelles campaign in Turkey, discovered this plan and Keith Murdoch was arrested by Military Police in Marseille and the letter was confiscated. On his return to London on September 21st he made straight for the Australian High Commission and wrote his own letter to The Australian Prime Minister. He wrote:

‘The conceit and self complacency of the red feather men are equalled only by their incapacity. Along the line of communications, especially at Moudros, are countless high officers and conceited young cubs who are plainly only playing at war. …appointments to the general staff are made from motives of friendship and social influence.’

This letter found it’s way via the British Cabinet to the British press and at last the true situation in Gallipoli began to be reported. Sir Ian Hamilton was removed from his post and as a direct consequence of Keith Murdoch’s actions Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, who was responsible for the planning of the amphibious Dardanelles campaign was forced to resign.

Keith Murdoch went on to have a prestigious career in journalism before dying in 1952.

~

Those, as you can see, are mighty big boots to fill and it has often puzzled me how his son, Rupert Murdoch got lost along the way. At what point did the journalistic passion to expose the truth and to hold power to account evolved into a business enterprise which ruthlessly exploited the power of the media, a power seemingly coveted for it’s own sake ?

I’ve read that Rupert Murdoch is very proud of his father and so, as you have read, he should be but one is left to wonder if he will ever fill those boots that were bequeathed to him, whether that inherited journalistic instinct might triumph yet over grubby business motives.

What would Keith Murdoch have done if he had come across a story that involved institutional child sexual abuse and establishment cover-up ?

Primary Source Wikipedia

The MSM Playing Catch-Up

Geoffrey Dickens MP

It’s very difficult sometimes to decide whether to post a link to an MSM story on the Elm Guest House at this time. On the one hand they are so lamentably behind the alternative media at this stage that I don’t think anyone who has been following this developing issue will learn anything new from reading the story below from The Independent but on the other hand this is the first story published for while in the MSM and I know that there are some people out there who will only believe something is true if it is in the MSM.

So, if for no other reason than to put the article on the record for what it is, here it is.

A burly veteran of scores of amateur boxing bouts, the Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens was best known during his bustling 16-year career in Parliament as a pugnacious right-winger who supplied “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” quotes to the tabloids.

Eighteen years after his death, however, the backbencher’s reputation as a political lightweight is being revised in the wake of a Scotland Yard investigation which is exhuming a scandal long buried in the Westminster of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.

New evidence suggests that Dickens stumbled upon an Establishment paedophile ring in the early 1980s – and that his efforts to expose a cover-up left him in fear of his life. Dickens told fellow MPs that after warning of the existence of the network, he had received threatening phone calls and been burgled twice. He also claimed he had been placed on a “hit-list”, he told the House of Commons in a little-noticed speech.

The Independent

PS, I’m still having difficulty finding a good photograph of Geoffrey Dickens MP, if anyone has one could they pass it to me. Also, it’s nice to see Dickens’ Wikipedia page has grown considerably in the last 2 months, I hope his family know that he is getting the recognition now that he, perhaps, didn’t get while he was alive.

The South African Magistrate

While I’ve been trawling the Pollard Review I’ve also been listening to the South African Magistrate in the Oscar Pistorius case.

What a windbag!

He’s charged with deciding whether to grant bail or not.

And yet he sounds like he’s summing up at the end of a trial.

I guess he’s milking his moment in the international limelight.

If I was a South African I’d be embarrassed by that Magistrate.

He’s still going…………What a prat!

Edit: 2 hours after he began, we finally find out the Pistorius has been granted bail. 1 million Rand (£73,500)

What Did Paxman Say ?

As we pay the wages of all the BBC staff, shouldn’t we have a right to know what they say ?

Remember, Jeremy Paxman knew he was speaking on the record. He didn’t say anything that he wasn’t prepared for the rest of us to know.

.

Some of the redacted (censored) text can be found here

The BBC Thought About Stealing ITV’s Thunder

Just before the ITV broadcast, the BBC considered ‘revisiting’ the ‘material’ they had.

.