European Psychiatry and Satanic Ritual Abuse Conspiricism

From the latest Private Eye magazine (link added):

The Eye has been alerted to an article that appeared last year in the peer-reviewed European Psychiatry, the official journal of the European Psychiatric Association, titled “The Satanist Cult of Ted Heath: Ethical Implications of Authority Compromise”. It was based on a conference paper delivered at the 24th European Congress of Psychiatry in Madrid by Dr Rainer Kurz, a chartered occupational psychologist.

Kurz states the Satanic Grocer scenario as fact to an audience of mainstream psychiatrists and in a peer-reviewed journal – which makes one wonder what respect his peers have for corroborative evidence.

The main source he cites is an Essex body-builder called Chris Spivey, who also believes that the murder of Lee Rigby was a government-organised hoax. Of Spivey’s online post naming 235 supposed members of Heath’s satanic cult, Kurz writes: “No indications were found that would throw the veracity of the document into doubt”

I: Heath, Spivey,  and the “Helen G.” Document

The publication in European Psychiatry is actually conference abstract, and as such one would not expect a rigorous peer-review. Even so, it is odd to see such a title receive an academic imprimatur of any sort – the journal is the the official organ of the European Psychiatric Association, published by Elsevier and available online via Science Direct.

The presentation itself is available via Kurz’s page on ResearchGate. Spivey’s list is actually an upload of a document that has been around for some time; no author is named, but it was apparently compiled by the Ritual Abuse Information Network  & Support (RAINS) organisation, based on the testimony of one “Helen G.” – SAFF (the Sub-culture Alternatives Freedom Foundation) has also highlighted the existence of the list (and provides the only searchable copy of it), as evidence of RAINS’s gullibility and Evangelical fanaticism. I previously noted the document here, as a possible source for new “historic” allegations against celebrities.

On Heath, the document states:

Ted Heath. Former Prime Minister. Homosexual but not exclusively, where children are concerned. He has been mentioned by at least 5 SRAS, none of whom know each other. Several have described long finger nails. Am told that he wore false claws added to his nails, with which he clawed his child victims. He died in 2005. The cult held their own funeral on 31st July – 1st August 2005.

I previously wrote about the Satanist allegations against Heath here, and more general abuse allegations against him here.

Kurz states in his presentation that Spivey suffered “persecution by state powers” after the posting: this appears to refer to Spivey’s 2015 conviction (later confirmed by an appeal court) for harassing Lee Rigby’s family with postings that accused them of complicity in the supposed “hoax” of Rigby’s murder by two Islamists on a south London street in 2013.

However, Kurz does not rely solely on Spivey’s website: he also commends an episode of UK Column, an online conspiracy broadcast hosted by Brian Gerrish. The particular episode features Gerrish in conversation with Wilfred Wong, an Evangelical “Child Protection Campaigner” whom I discussed last year. Kurz’s conclusion is that

extreme abuse ‘Death Cults’ with Daesh-like practices appear to be well-established in the UK and continue to operate with ‘de facto’ impunity.

II: From Heath to Hampstead and Norwich

Kurz’s Ted Heath paper was presented at the 24th European Congress of Psychiatry of the EPA in 2016; this year, he presented a sequel,  “From Hampstead to Norwich: Ritual Violence or Coaching?”, in which he waded into the Hampstead Satanic Ritual Abuse claims. The allegations were concocted as part of a custody dispute, but according to Rainer a judge’s ruling dismissing the claims was “extremely unsafe”. In support of this, he again turns to stuff he found on the internet, in this instance the conspiracy blog Aanirfan.

However, there’s an unexpected twist: the “Norwich” part of his title refers to the case of Marie Black, who was convicted of running a paedophile ring in 2015 and is currently serving a life sentence. Suddenly, Kurz discovers some scepticism:

One allegations was that Marie ostensibly put a baby that her friend had ‘run over’ into a bag, carried it into her house and made her children drink its blood! What is the credibility of these allegations when the friend did not own a car and did not have a driving licence either? No baby was reported missing and no dead baby was found. Without any physical evidence a criminal case ensued against 10 defendants most of whom were members of Marie’s family while the remaining 30 ‘alleged abusers’ were not even interviewed! In extremely dubious circumstances Marie and two former partners were found guilty of sexual abuse.

There are some grounds for concern about the Black verdict, from what can be gleaned from media reports, although one should of course be cautious with such limited information: six defendants were acquitted; lurid SRA-type allegations were not substantiated; the way that social workers coaxed the allegations from children was controversial; and Black was perhaps not well-served by her legal representation (1). The Chief Constable of Norwich Police described the case as just “the tip of the iceberg”, although the force doesn’t seem to have located the rest of it so far.

There was also an odd disconnect with a previous story about how Black and her partner had moved to France to avoid overzealous social workers: the journalist Christopher Booker wrote sympathetically about her plight in the Daily Telegraph in 2012, but although he was critical of the allegations during the 2015 trial he seems to have avoided the subject since the convictions.

But why would such doubts be shared by someone who is very ready to believe the most outlandish SRA claims? Black forcing a child to drink blood is beyond credibility, yet we are to accept a narrative about Hampstead that involves baby-eating and the wearing of baby-skin shoes. The contrast is bizarre.

There is, though, an explanation, to be found in Kurz’s views about the UK’s family court system: he recently expressed these on the David Icke-associated Richie Allen Show (blogged here), under the title “Family Court Child Smuggling Is A Cover For Satanic Ritual Abuse”. He also describes himself on LinkedIn as a “volunteer” for Ian Joseph’s “Forced Adoption” website; Josephs was profiled in the Mirror in 2014 as “Millionaire helping pregnant women flee UK to avoid babies taken into care”, and he has also himself appeared on The Richie Allen Show to discuss the issue.

Black was one of those Josephs assisted, and this seems to be basis on which her case is presented by Kurz as evidence of a corrupt system rather than as an exemplary example of the reality of organised child sex abuse. (2)

Footnotes

(1)

Black has twice been refused leave to appeal. In the first instance, she was represented by Richard Hendron, who was rebuked by the judges for his tardiness in bringing issues to the attention of the court (“simply not the way that anyone who wears a wig and gown as a barrister of this country should behave” – Hendron appears to have concurred, and is now a journalist; and his twin brother Henry Hendron doesn’t seem to have fared much better in his legal career, either).

The second hearing, a few months later, rejected her claim that she had been “bullied” into not giving evidence in her own defence:

…they rejected her claims, insisting it was made “absolutely clear” to Black that the decision whether or not to testify was hers alone.

Mr Justice Spencer said the court was “not remotely persuaded” there was anything negligent or improper in her trial lawyers’ handling of the case.

He added: “Quite the reverse, from everything we have heard and read it is apparent that they valiantly and skilfully defended her in accordance with the best traditions of the bar…”

(2)

As noted by the Hoaxtead Research blog, Josephs’s activism also brought him into association with Sabine McNeill and Belinda McKenzie, whose “Association of McKenzie Friends” was created to support parents in family courts. Belinda McKenzie – formerly David Shayler’s landlady – is a 9/11 Truth activist, and the two women did much to promote the Hampstead allegations (blogged here). Josephs has since distanced himself from these particular claims.

The Hoaxtead site also notes that one of the defendants in the Norwich trial is Facebook friends with Brian Gerrish – this is Carol Stadler, who was convicted of actual bodily harm, but not of sexual abuse. However, I doubt that there is any personal link – Gerrish has thousands of friends, and I expect it rather reflects her support for Black during her time in France in 2012; Gerrish has also spoken of the “corruption” of family courts.

Stadler’s husband Anthony Stadler was also a defendant; he was acquitted, and as far as I am aware he is the only acquitted defendant to have made a public statement since.