Bartholomew's Notes

Accusations trace back to fraudster in mid-1980s

(Revised and updated)

Introduction

In 1991 a journalist named Tim Tate produced a book called Children for the Devil: Ritual Abuse and Satanic Crime. It included a quote from Dominic Walker, at that time an Anglican vicar in Brighton:

The people who come to me tend to be referred from other areas. I listen to what they have to say ; usually it does comprise the same sort of details – child abuse, murder, drugs, prostitution. I sit and talk with them quietly and individually. Quite often these people will tell me the names of those they say were involved. Sometimes they are the people who control the groups, other times they are the names of famous or highly respected people. A number of survivors independently gave the name of a particular MP as being involved. I don’t believe there was any collusion in their stories because they were separated by some long period of time.

Have I ever passed on the information I have been given ?

No I have not.

I do not believe that would have been proper.

I’ve sourced this quote second-hand from a blog called The Needle; however, the text brings up a result for Tate’s book in Google Books (although it’s “No Preview”), so I’m reasonably confident that it reflects the original.

The quote has now come under renewed interest, with three now-dead MPs being named.

The Sunday Times and Leo Abse

The first name to emerge was that of Leo Abse; details were reported by Tom Harper in the Sunday Times on 22 March:

Leo Abse, the flamboyant, late Welsh MP, is being investigated by police on suspicion of child abuse.

Documents from South Wales police reveal that allegations against the long-serving politician, who died in 2008 aged 91, are being examined by another force.

The investigation is understood to centre on an alleged “politicians’ network” involving Abse’s close friend George Thomas…

Such accusations against dead politicians are currently widespread. The report continued:

The Sunday Times has also established that a Church of England review into historic sexual abuse has has passed Abse’s name to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, a Metropolitan police inquiry into an alleged VIP paedophile network.

Dominic Walker, the former Bishop of Monmouth, has told senior clerics that Abse was named by three alleged adult survivors of abuse whom he counselled when he was vicar of Brighton in the 1980s. Walker also named two Conservative cabinet ministers who have not been publicly linked to the scandal.

…Walker was questioned by Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham who is leading the Church of England review, after the discovery of a book from 1991 in which he is quoted as describing counselling sessions with adult survivors.

Some of these details were brought out from behind the paywall in a derivative article by Wales Online. 

I suspect that Harper deliberately avoided mentioning Tate or giving the title of Tate’s book in order to downplay the sensationalising and contentious “Satanic” context to the original abuse claims.

The Mail on Sunday and Enoch Powell

More details emerged the following Sunday in the Mail on Sunday – and this time the paper was happy to run with the headline

Enoch Powell is named by bishop in sex abuse probe: Scotland Yard to investigate satanic abuse claim

According to the story, by Glen Owen and Brendan Carlin:

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, who first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

…Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations of satanic rituals – often involving the abuse of children – were widespread.

Oddly, this article makes no mention of the 1991 book or of the Sunday Times report about Leo Abse; however, the MoS‘s sister paper, the Daily Mail, has followed up with a more expansive piece by Arthur Martin:

Enoch Powell accused of satanic sex abuse: Bishop of Durham gave his name to Met detectives 

…The Right Rev Butler was given the politicians’ names by Dominic Walker, former Bishop of Monmouth, who heard the allegations when he was a vicar counselling in the 1980s.

Mr Walker told senior clerics that Abse was named by three abuse survivors whom he counselled when he was a vicar in Brighton in the 1980s.

He also passed on the names of two former Conservative cabinet ministers, who have not yet been publicly linked to the scandal.

Enoch Powell served in the cabinet for a year, but this report suggests his name should be treated as being in addition to the “two former Conservative cabinet ministers”. I suspect this is down to sloppy reporting, but taken at face value it means that we’re now up to four supposed names from Walker. Meanwhile, a piece by Cahal Milmo in the Independent goes even further:

It is understood that the Rt Rev Walker first heard the claims when he was counselling young adults as a curate in the 1980s and claims were made that an unknown number of MPs had been involved in satanic cult-type abuse.

It is understood the allegations against Mr Powell came from a single individual.

First Leo Abse and two unnamed Conservative cabinet ministers. Then Leo Abse and Enoch Powell, plus  two unnamed Conservative cabinet ministers. And now “an unknown number of MPs”.

The Times and Willie Whitelaw

A third name emerged via David Brown at The Times the day after the MoS article:

The Church of England has told Scotland Yard that William Whitelaw, the former home secretary, and Enoch Powell were accused of being members of a political satanic abuse ring.

The allegations of the politicians’ involvement in child abuse emerged during counselling by a vicar of a youth in the 1980s. Leo Abse, a long-serving Labour MP, was also named.

Although there was no evidence to support the claims, the church authorities felt compelled to send the information to Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged establishment involvement in child abuse.

Derry Mainwaring Knight

It appears that the actual story is about the three figures of Abse, Powell and Whitelaw. Which is where it turns out that the hapless hacks have all either ignored or suppressed a vital piece of the story: that the three men were previously accused of Satanic abuse in 1986 by a fraudster named Derry Mainwaring Knight.

A sceptical website called Swallowing the Camel posted an account in 2011. Knight had approached a vicar in the village of Newick, East Sussex, with a story of his supposed involvement in a Satanic sect and a request for cash:

…He wanted to destroy his own devil-worshiping sect from within. He wanted to rid himself of demonic possession. He wanted to pay off his debts to cult members, so they could no longer hold sway over him. He wanted to bring other Satanists out of occult slavery. He wanted to destroy unholy Satanic regalia. To do all that, though, he would need funds. Major funds.

Over the next several months, members of St. Mary’s Church and other area residents donated a staggering sum (over £300,000) to Knight’s anti-Satanic crusade. The county high sheriff gave over £83,000 pounds. The wife of millionaire Tory MP Timothy Sainsbury ponied up nearly £120,000 pounds. Anthony David Brand, Lord Hampden contributed a Rolls-Royce with state-of-the-art communications equipment so that Knight could continue to pose as an affluent Satanist-about-town. The bishop of Lewes wrote a letter on Derry’s behalf, requesting donations for his “necessary work”. In November 1983, Reverend Baker secured a £25,000 loan from a Christian charity and handed it over to Knight.

The gravy train came to a halt in 1985, when it was realised that Knight was a conman. He was arrested, and put on trial for fraud in 1986:

…his trial defence strategy was to declare himself a member of a cult called “The Sons of Lucifer” and bring out shocking testimony that would blow the lid off Satanic doings at the highest levels of English society. He “outed” two Tory politicians (William Whitelaw, Enoch Powell) and one Labour MP (Leopold Abse) as cult members.

Knight was subsequently jailed. His accusations later resurfaced on-line; a conspiratorial-minded posting on the subject appeared  at uk.politics.misc in 2001 and has been archived by Google Groups. Knight’s accusation against Whitelaw is also cited in David Icke’s book The Biggest Secret, which was published in 1999.

Did the people who came to Walker for counselling in nearby Brighton ever have contact with Knight, or hear of the allegations he raised in court? If so, Walker’s observation that the accusations against Abse came from three “independent” persons loses significance. And was the “single individual” who accused Powell perhaps Knight himself?

The Church of England makes a statement

The various reports have prompted the Church of England to release a statement:

In June 2014 one of the Church of England’s safeguarding advisers contacted the Police with information concerning individuals against whom allegations had been made to a priest in the 1980s. The allegations concerned Members of Parliament who were alleged to be members of a Satanic cult in connection with the trial of Derry Mainwaring Knight who was convicted for fraud in 1986.

…[I]t is untrue to say that the Church of England proactively placed these allegations into the public domain. Rather this occurred through a story published by the Mail on Sunday on 29 March 2015.

The Mail on Sunday approached the Communications Office of the Church of England on 27 March 2015 seeking confirmation that the name of Enoch Powell was part of a conversation in the 1980s in relation to ritual satanic abuse.

The extent of the Church of England’s actions in this matter has been to pass these allegations to the police and to confirm to media outlets who approached our Communications Office that we had done so.

The statement also makes clear that the Church of England is not in fact conducting a review. The unnamed author of the post at The Needle blog (1) apparently brought the 1991 book to the Bishop of Durham’s attention in late 2013, and there’s a good chance that this is what prompted him to ask Walker about it and then pass the information to police.

The Church of England statement does not explain how the Leo Abse story came to the Sunday Times, but it does shed new light on how the Mail on Sunday operates. It’s unlikely that MoS hacks would just happen to phone up the Church of England on the off-chance that it might know something about Enoch Powell being a Satanic paedophile; surely, we must assume that someone at the paper saw the Sunday Times Leo Abse story, made the connection to Knight (or had it pointed out to them), and then saw an opportunity to produce a story about Powell along the same lines. Ditto The Times and the inclusion of Whitelaw’s name.

It looks to me that the name of Derry Mainwaring Knight was kept out of some stories deliberately. Why would that be, if not to obscure the story’s discredited provenance?

We may also ask whether the Sunday Times kept Powell and Whitelaw out of the 22 March story on Leo Abse because the paper knew that, like the “Satanic ritual” element, such claims would render the story less credible overall.

Simon Heffer attacks

The Church of England’s handling of the allegations has come under an excoriating attack by Simon Heffer. Writing in the Daily Mail, Heffer thundered:

…It is not just that the bishops who have made these accusations are behaving in a remarkably un-Christian fashion by putting this smear into the public domain. But that they do not appear even to have engaged what passes for their brains, or consciences, before behaving in this grotesque and offensive fashion.

…Their consciences should have told them that to make such an outrageous allegation about an enormously distinguished public figure who cannot defend himself, and which would cause the deepest distress to his family and friends, was the height of mischief and irresponsibility.

It is disgraceful and destabilising for clergy to behave in this way, and the Church needs to investigate those responsible for this smear and take action accordingly.

But it now appears that his complaint that Powell was “smeared” ought to be directed to the MoS, which dredged up the story and presented an incomplete account. Perhaps he could make this subject the theme of his next Daily Mail column.

Epilogue

And as the story heads out into the fringes, here’s how a wretchedly garbled version continues to spread: a website called Don’t Panic tells us that

The Reverend Butler says the claims were made by colleagues who had counselled Powell’s victims, who suffered his abuse at the Elm Guest House.

Appendix

Walker’s religious ministry has had a particular focus on spiritual “deliverance” (exorcism) from demonic powers; I recall seeing him on discuss the subject on TV in the early 1990s. At the time of the quote in Tate’s book he was also concerned about Satanic groups. A 1990 book by Gordon Thomas, entitled Enslaved: An Investigation into Modern-day Slavery, has the following:

…In 1989 there were an estimated one hundred thousand cult members, with London as their main centre. Sizeable groups were centred on the city’s Notting Hill and Camden areas; smaller ones existed in Bloomsbury, Wimbledon and Ealing. Other covens met in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and Brighton. So serious was the problem in the seaside resort, that Canon Dominic Walker, Vicar of Brighton, had set up a team to fight Satanic activities. They had so far dealt with fifteen hundred cases ‘of occult oppression’. Walker feared that, as the year  2000 approached – heightening interest in not only Christian belief at the dawn of a new millennium, but among Satanists too – Britain would  see an increase in paganism and a return to that time ‘of fear in a world where God was  far away and the earth was abandoned to demons.’

Note

(1) The post is described as being by “a man Tom Watson MP described as a ‘noble retired child protection officer'”; this appears to be Peter McKelvie. My thanks to Bandini in the comments below.

UPDATE (2 April): More today.

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From the Ham&High (a local paper for Hampstead and Highgate in London):

Police have confirmed they are hunting a number of individuals wanted in connection with the case that saw an “evil” mother [Ella Draper] take part in the torture of her own young children to force them to invent allegations of child abuse.

…Dozens of innocent inviduals have seen their names and addresses published online alongside the untrue allegations and spread across the world, prompting fears of vigilante attacks. Many of those named have received abusive phone calls and death threats since the material became widely spread over the internet in February.

…The Ham&High has learnt that Ms Draper and Ms Sabine McNeill, her legal “supporter”, are included on their wanted list.

I’ve written about the case a couple of times previously: the claims are outlandish, and include not just industrial-scale sex abuse but also child sacrifice, the cooking and eating of babies, dancing around skulls, and the creation of baby-skin shoes that are supposedly worn by cult members. According to believers, hundreds of people are implicated over many years, but the whole thing was cloaked in secrecy until the two “#whistleblowerkids” spoke out at the prompting of Draper’s partner – a man who just happens to have a criminal record “for drugs offences, violence and dishonesty”.

McNeill is currently out of the country; with characteristic bombast, she claims that she has been designated as a “terrorist”. She has continued to promote her accusations on social media and via fringe conspiracy sites – a week ago she appeared on Bastion Radio’s Sunday Night Show, in discussion with conspiracy theorist Tony Gosling (hosted by Mike West and Kai Holloway), and her claims have also been discussed and promoted by Brian Gerrish and Mike Robinson at UK Column.

This all seems somewhat fringe and strange, so it’s perhaps worth noting that McNeill has in the past enjoyed the confidence of two Members of Parliament: John Hemming and Austin Mitchell. NcNeill co-runs an organisation called the “Association of Mckenzie Friends”, which supposedly supports parents in family courts; her partner here is the coincidentally-named Belinda Mckenzie, a 9/11 Truth activist who was formerly David Shayler’s landlady.

A writer using the name “Gojam” and writing on a site called The Needle appears to have a screenshot of headed paper in which Hemming and Austin are listed as “patrons”; from the visible heading and first line, the document is apparently a press release concerning the Hampstead accusations. I haven’t been able to verify the screenshot independently, but there’s no reason to doubt its authenticity and the two MPs are on the Association’s website as having been involved with the organisation’s launch. Gojam seems to have followed this up:

John Hemming MP withdrew as patron of The Association of McKenzie Friends on 22nd January 2015.

Despite trying I have been unable to reach Austin Mitchell MP to ascertain whether he is still a patron of this group

Of course, Hemming and Mitchell can’t be blamed for later erratic behaviour by someone whom they supported in good faith, and some past reports about McNeill’s campaigning in relation to family courts give no obvious cause for concern. However, some material on the Association’s website ought to have raised alarm bells, for example concerning Hollie Greig. The presence of a certain Terence Ewing as advisor ought to have been queried, too, for reasons that Gojam explains.

There was also a fiasco involving McNeill and Hemming in 2011, when Hemming was persuaded to support a woman named Vicky Haigh. Haigh had coached her 7-year-old daughter to make false allegations of sex abuse against her (the child’s) father as part of a custody dispute; an associate named Elizabeth Watson ended up being jailed for contempt of court for publicising the accusations despite a court order. Watson maintained that she had merely “investigated” the matter, and that the publication of her claims had been made without her permission by McNeill. Hemming, meanwhile, publicised Haigh’s case in the House of Commons, prompting a rebuke from John Mann MP:

“A gung-ho attitude to the breaching of court injunctions on the floor of the House is foolhardy and irresponsible,” he said.

Unity at Ministry of Truth has more about Haigh, Watson and Hemmings here and here.

If it is the case that Hemming and Mitchell have lost confidence in McNeill and the Association, they ought to say so publicly, rather than quietly backing away. Their past involvement has given McNeill a measure of credibility that she would not otherwise have enjoyed, while their public repudiation may help to dampen down the current vigilante atmosphere, which has seen protests at outside Hampstead church during which churchgoers have been subjected to vicious verbal abuse.

Failure to act would raise the unfortunate suspicion that while the MPs were happy to lend their names to a cause that appeared worthy, they are less keen to follow through with a more difficult course of action that is now required.

(Screenshot taken from The Needle, with annotation removed)

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WND reports on an End-Times prophecy book from Carl Gallups:

“Final Warning” is just shy of being one of the top 100 books sold on Amazon.com on any subject. And Gallups’ tour de force on prophecy and biblical analysis is now the No. 1 Bible Study and Reference book for the New Testament as well as the No. 1 bestseller on eschatology.

Gallups is also receiving an enthusiastic reception on Christian media. “The Jim Bakker Show” will feature Gallups all week. The nationally known host called “Final Warning” an “epic book” and “one of the greatest books in our day.”

During an interview with Gallups, Bakker said of “Final Warning”: “If you will get this book you’re going to be better prepared for what’s coming! You need to read this book, it’s going to put a lot of what’s going on in perspective.”

Bakker has a sideline selling overpriced survival food products and other paraphernalia, and so any book that plays on fears about the future is going to be welcome to him. But if WND‘s boasts about Gallups’ sales reflect reality, it’s a remarkable achievement for someone whose approach to  the Bible is eccentric in the extreme.

The same article has an example:

 The author of the blockbuster “Final Warning: Understanding the Trumpet Days of Revelation” believes there is a strong case that Saddam Hussein was a figure prophesied in the book of Revelation.

Gallups points to Revelation 9:11, which reads: “They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.” Gallups notes, “The words Abaddon (Hebrew) and Apollyon (Greek) translate to ‘destroyer.'”

Gallups says the figure in question does not need to be a supernatural being but simply “the messenger of destruction.”

“The person in question would appear to be known as one who is bent on destruction – perhaps even known by the very title of ‘The Destroyer.'”

…As Gallups notes, “Saddam” was not a name given to the Iraqi leader, but an epithet he adopted before he grabbed power. The word is derived from the Persian word meaning “crush.”

According to Gallups, ‘”Saddam Hussein’ is best translated as Hussein-Who-Crushes-Obstacles or Hussein-the-Destroyer.“

This is a bold attempt to wring some extra mileage out of the late Iraqi dictator; some of us remember Charles Dyer’s The Rise of Babylon: Sign of the End Times, which placed Saddam within an “End-Times” scenario to coincide with the First Gulf War in 1991 – that book got an update in 2003 (in time for the second round), but now languishes out of print.

Gallups explains:

“The fifth trumpet, perhaps, paved the way for the sixth. With today’s news, we see the deep and profound relationship between these seemingly disparate periods of history, as the Destroyer who unleashed the first Gulf War has his tomb damaged by the very destruction he helped to unleash in the form of ISIS.”

The sixth trumpet prophesied in Revelation is a great war to take place in the area of the Euphrates River – the very region where ISIS is most active and arguably the geopolitical center of the contemporary world. Gallups says there is a great deal of evidence to suggest the sixth trumpet of Revelation may be near at hand.

This – as ever – is of course a farrago of nonsense. First, the Book of Revelation is steeped in symbolism and allusive images which make the text obscure to the casual reader but also highly malleable for self-proclaimed “prophecy experts”. “Abaddon” is a personification of destruction, just as the “Whore of Babylon” is a personification of spiritual evil and the “Four Horsemen” personify destructive forces. Nowhere is “Abaddon” a “messenger”, and there are no details that parallel anything in Saddam Hussein’s life.

Second, Saddam’s name (actually given to him in childhood by the uncle who raised him) means “he who confronts” or similar. If he was supposed to be “Abaddon”, why not just use that name? The root abatu also appears in Arabic as abada, meaning “to exterminate (someone)” (1).

Gallups first came to wide attention 2009, when he posted a YouTube video in which he claimed that the Bible names Barack Obama as the anti-Christ (although he’s since hinted that he was being satirical). After that, he formed a close association with WND, and he went on to publish a book through WND called The Rabbi Who Found Messiah: The Story of Yitzhak Kaduri and His Prophecies of the Endtime. This book claims that an elderly Kabbalist who died in Israel in 2006 had secretly accepted Jesus, and that this fact has special End-Times significance. Apparently the book has an Israeli enthusiast named  Zev Porat, who has used it to evangelise ultra-Orthodox Jews and also Muslims; earlier this month, WND reported that Porat had taken the book into a mosque in Akko.

When not pontificating on the End Times, Gallups is also an enthusiast of Birtherism, in particular working with Mike Zullo, an associate of Sheriff Arpaio.

Note

(1) Meïr Max Bravmann, The Spiritual Background of Early Islam: Studies in Ancient Arab Concepts, page 332.

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From the Daily Mail:

…At morning service at the church attached to Christ Church primary school yesterday [Sunday], parishioners were confronted by a group of between 20 and 30 of [Ella] Draper’s supporters, who hurled abuse at them and held up their mobile phones to film them as they arrived.

‘Paedophiles,’ screamed one of the protesters. The group — or ‘mob’, some might say — were eventually moved on by the police.

Some of those who attended the church service were left visibly upset by what happened. Remember, this was a Sunday morning in genteel Hampstead.

Draper, as has been widely reported, coached and coerced her two young children into making lurid videos in which they made extravagant claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse against their father and individuals associated with the school, church, and locality. The children alleged not just child sex, but also the ritual murder of babies, brought in from other parts of the world. They further claimed that babies are cooked and eaten at a nearby fast-food outlet, and that a shoe-repair shop makes baby-skin shoes for cult members.

I noted the case a couple of days ago, and how these bizarre fantasies had been spread online in particular by two associates of the mother: Sabine K McNeil, who has form when it comes to blundering into custody cases, and Belinda McKenzie, who is David Shayler’s former landlord and heavily involved with conspiracy mongering and Truther activism in the UK.

Videos have now been posted to YouTube that show the mob outside the church, and it’s an extraordinary sight. They include the most vocal protestor, an American named Christine Ann Sands, screaming the children’s first names, so in deference to a court order that forbids re-publishing this detail there is no link on this site.

At the start of the first video, Sands is shown “binding the demons” at the church, and she also calls on Jesus. However, I doubt that this reflects any specific religious affiliation – she goes on to accuse the churchgoers of “fucking children”, which most Charismatic/neo-Pentecostal Christians would regard as unacceptably coarse. She also references the “murder of Princess Diana”, and like McKenzie she’s known primarily as a conspiracy theory activist. Sputnik News has a profile from 2013:

Christine Ann Sands one of the chief organizers and one of the few public faces of Anonymous spoke to the Voice of Russia, in an exclusive interview, about the Million Mask March, Hacktivism, WikiLeaks and the truth movement. According to Ms. Sands the American people have been hijacked by evil forces that were behind the 9-11 attacks and that continue to control the US government, the media and political parties… Ms. Sands says the people know something is wrong and this is where those fighting for truth such as Anonymous, Occupy and WikiLeaks come in. Massive marches and demonstrations are planned for November 5, 2013, in defense of the truth.

Sands has also – perhaps inevitably – appeared on RT (Russia Today), explaining her involvement with the Million Mask March. Her association with Anonymous appears to be contested, though, with some sites disavowing her.

However, the crowd around Sands at the church did not look like Anonymous or Occupy types: rather, the chance to abuse innocent churchgoers by accusing them of the foullest of crimes seems to have appealed to a number of affluent-looking, middle-class and middle-aged women. This is far cry from the “Paulsgrove woman” council estate anti-paedophile hysteria that we saw in Portsmouth in 2000.

And as with the Satanic Ritual Abuse panics of the 1980s and 1990s, there appears to be a religious element: one of the other protestors, a Scottish man, raised his arm, closed his eyes, and led a prayer delivered in a way that would be instantly familiar to anyone who has attended an evangelical Christian service. His words:

… Lord Jesus, just open up this time of prayer among these good people who have gathered in protest against what is happening with these children, associated to this church and the local primary school… Lord, we call on good police officers, who know what’s going on. We call on the police officers who have been told by their senior officers to stop this investigation. Lord, just empower these people. People worried, they need their jobs, need to pay their mortgage. Lord, just open their eyes… Lord, just expose this sinister circumstance, Lord.

Applause and cries of “yes” from the crowd.

UPDATE: Also present among the protestors was a certain Neelu Berry, who previously took part in protests organized by Belinda McKenzie outside the High Court. Berry spends her time attempting to arrest judges, and she has also issued an indictment against “Mrs. ELizabeth M.A. Battenberg/MountbattenWindsor”.

UPDATE 2: The posters on a forum here and here have further details on Berry and some of the other protestors, who apparently subscribe to “Sovereign Citizen” beliefs. I always thought of this as an exclusively American movement, which I wrote about here; apparently, it has broader appeal. One poster notes that a video statement by the children’s mother, in which she repeats her allegations, also includes nonsensical content relating to “commercial liens” and such; this pseudo-legalese rhetoric is identical to examples of Berry’s writings.

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From the website of Afzal Amin, the Conservative Party’s prospective parliamentary candidate (at least for the next few hours) for Dudley North:

Today’s [i.e. Sunday’s] allegations are part of a much wider story which has been grossly misrepresented and present an inaccurate picture of the reality of what was happening. The Mail on Sunday has provided small snippets of over 27 hours of sensitive meetings between Tommy Robinson and I which have led to a manipulation of events.

While the meetings were intended to be private and discreet, I made sure I involved Chief Superintendent Chris Johnson from the start and I made clear, which is evident in the recordings, that I refused to do anything illegal.

…At the second meeting it was Robinson who proposed the idea of staging a march at our third meeting [sic], this was a surprise to me and after some discussion I saw some merit in the potential to build bridges through negotiation and so I agreed it was worth discussing further. I recognised this as an opportunity to promote better community cohesion between various communities, particularly in Dudley because it would lead to face to face discussions between communities and an increase in awareness of the other. It would serve as a confidence building measure.

Had Amin ended with “However, I now realize that I made a mistake, and so I now intend to stand down to avoid being a distraction ahead of the election”, we might not have believed him, but he would perhaps have created enough wriggle room to be able to depart from public life with a scrap of dignity. At least, interest would have died down.

Instead, though, he appears to believe that he can ride out the storm and continue as the candidate despite evidence out of his own mouth that he proposed a scenario which would have seen him taking credit for defusing a situation that he had colluded in generating behind the scenes. In an interview with the BBC, Amin himself used the word “stage management”, which is more of an admission than he appears to understand.

And that’s before we get onto other aspects of the fiasco: Robinson recorded Amin agreeing with a proposal that Robinson would pay EDL activists to canvas on his behalf and “we’ll sort something out between me and you”, thus getting around election law; Amin also promised that the scheme would

bring the English Defence League out of the shadows into the mainstream political debate.

…And if I win my election in Parliament, you’ve got a very strong, unshakeable ally who is going to work hard to get you involved in all the institutions of the State and get you the exposure you need and the people in Parliament need to us… Like I said from the very beginning, 95 per cent of what you want to campaign against, we’re with you.

Amin claims he was referring here to white working-class voters, rather than the EDL, but that defies the plain reading. There’s also an unfortunate moment where Amin jokes that he’s “not a Paki”.

It is the case, though, that although Amin’s meetings were “private and discreet”, they were not secret: Amin met Robinson and the current head of the EDL, Steve Eddowes, in public locations, and Amin was observed at one restaurant with EDL figures (presumably those two) in February. One recorded meeting, according to the Mail on Sunday, took place on Monday 16 March, with a recorded phone-call following. According to Eddowes:

‘I was really disappointed in the man. I’d met him earlier this year and was really impressed. To me he ticked every box with his British Army background and seemed like a man of real integrity but when I left that meeting on Monday I felt like I wanted nothing more to do with him.’

The Mail has pixallated Eddowes’ face in a photo of him talking to Amin, although Eddowes has appeared in the media previously.

The affair also raises a question about Robinson’s continuing role within the EDL: Amin asserts that Robinson “remains the leader”, despite his slickly choreographed “exit” from the group in October 2013 with the help of Quilliam. I thought this rang true; however, speaking to LBC this morning, Robinson explicitly denies this is the case. Instead, he explains, he was asked by Amin to facilitate meetings with the EDL leadership, which he agreed to do “for the greater good”. Robinson has acknowledged that he may now be “recalled to prison”; his early release conditions following a conviction for mortgage fraud apparently included non-involvement with the EDL.

Robinson’s LBC interview also includes further extraordinary allegations, which he says can be supported by taped evidence. In particular, he says that on 9 March Amin introduced him to his “money man”, who Amin said is worth “£60 million”. According to Robinson, this Birmingham-based individual is a Labour voter with 25 businesses, including poultry and hotels. One of these hotels, according to Robinson, had been raided by police looking into child grooming allegations, and the man mentioned having links with individuals in Luton whom Robinson described as “gangsters”.

For some reason, the money man’s brother supposedly confided to Robinson that Amin, as Member of Parliament, would be in a position to intervene with the Chief Constable in cases of further police interest. Robinson described the plan as “infiltration” and a “Trojan Horse”. He also claims that the “money man” and Amin both shook hands with David Cameron  – at Cameron’s initiative – at a Conservative Party meeting.

There have also been a couple of spin-off stories. Firstly, Channel 4 has a new claim from another source:

Channel 4 News has also spoken to a Muslim campaign group called MPAC who are claiming Mr Amin asked them to “attack” him for “being in the army” as it would help his “political career” and make him “look like a moderate”. The group say they found it shocking he was seemingly willing to manufacture a story. 

But if the group was so “shocked”, why did they not speak out before now? And why would Amin think for a moment that MPAC would want to help?

Secondly, Robinson has said that he first met Amin in 2013 via Quilliam. This is uncontroversial and unsurprising – Amin and Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz share a similar perspective on a number of issues (although Nawaz is Liberal Democrat), and they know each other. However, a somewhat unpleasant website called Mushy Peas has attempted to generate a bogus sense of intrigue by screenshoting a Tweet by Nawaz from early 2014 in which Nawaz mentions having dinner with Amin in a Lebanese restaurant. The author, a certain “Monkey Magic”, claims that the Tweet has now been deleted, and that Maajid must therefore be “ashamed” of something. The trouble, though, is that the Tweet has not in fact been deleted – the accusation is a complete fabrication.

Noises from the Conservative Party suggest that Amin will be removed as candidate within the next few days. However, he retains one supporter: former Conservative MP Louise Mensch. Referring to Amin’s reference to Chief Superintendent Chris Johnson, in her judgement:

If statement is correct in regards to police approval, possible huge libel could have happened here.

This appears to be something of a minority view.

UPDATE: Amin has since resigned from the Conservative Party. He has also published another account of his version of events, at the Huffington Post:

As for the issue at hand, Robinson, of course, won’t release the recording where he first proposed the idea of holding and later cancelling a march as a way of creating a catalyst for engagement. He was more than happy to release a recording of me clarifying the sequence of events to the EDL chairman, Steve Eddowes, to make it seem I was proposing the idea to Robinson himself. This was the fifth meeting with Robinson and the third in which Eddowes was involved. My words spoken here were summaries of our previous discussions as part of the overall community building exercise, 90% of which appears nowhere in their secret recordings. Such selectivity is what has built this grossly inaccurate picture.

Once again, Amin seems to be in denial about what the footage shows. Whether Amin is indeed “clarifying the sequence of events to the EDL chairman” or, as the recorded context appears to suggest, coming up with the idea himself, the fact remains that his “community building exercise” would have been a charade in which the public would have been misled about the likelihood of a march taking place and Amin’s role in defusing the situation.

Amin also dismisses Robinson’s “money man” story as “ludicrous”, and he claims that Robinson attempted (and failed) to get money from him by raising the subject of his mother’s illness and the welfare of his children. There’s also this very unlikely detail:

…Nor will he admit his crisis of faith when he came out of prison last year, and how his inner turmoil almost led him to accept another faith. I questioned what he told me of his abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and his strange inclination towards trying halal meat.

Why this odd phrasing “another faith”, when it’s obvious that Amin intends to convey the suggestion that Robinson was pondering accepting Islam?

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False accusations included claim that “all the cult members wore shoes made of baby skin produced by the owner of a specified shoe repair shop”

From the Daily Telegraph:

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From WND:

The blood moons tetrad is a mysterious astronomical occurrence discovered by a Seattle-area pastor who postulated beginning in 2008 that it might portend spiritually significant developments for Israel and the rest of the world because of its appearance on the biblical “feast”days of Passover and Tabernacles.

But, in a new movie called “Four Blood Moons,” San Antonio mega-pastor John Hagee, author of a New York Times bestselling book about the “blood moons phenomenon,” claims he is the discoverer.

…The discovery, however, was made by pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries of Bonney Lake, Washington, seven years ago…

“Mark Biltz has given Hagee the benefit of the doubt for too long” said Joseph Farah, chief executive officer of WND.com and WND Books, giving his opinions. “He overlooked a grave slight by Hagee in the way he handled his book – not crediting Biltz as the man who discovered the blood moons phenomenon…. The truth is, Biltz had thoroughly researched and presented the blood moons, and Hagee brought nothing new to the subject – treating it, comparatively, in the most superficial way in his own book… This is one of the definitions of plagiarism – misrepresenting the work of someone else as your own.”

I wrote about Hagee’s book Four Blood Moons in October 2013; I noted that Hagee had jumped on Biltz’s bandwagon and asked why Hagee hadn’t realised the supposed significance of the “blood moons” himself in any of his previous “end times” potboilers, given his supposed expertise. Details of the new film of the same name can be seen here; according to the blurb:

FOUR BLOOD MOONS combines scripture, science, history and big-screen live action spanning centuries, including previous similar lunar occurrences and the earth-shaking changes around them. It also examines our current four blood moon cycle—and its possible meaning for Israel, the Middle East and the world.

An array of historians, religious scholars and commentators appear in FOUR BLOOD MOONS and offer their insight—filmmaker, speaker and author Dinesh D’Souza; radio host and author Dennis Prager; and noted author and historian David Barton to name just a few.

The trailer portrays Columbus in 1492, alongside sentimental reconstructions of the foundation of modern Israel and the Six-Day War; apparently there was a “blood moon” in 1493, which was significant because “Spain’s rulers had expelled all Jews and Columbus had discovered America, an eventual haven for the Jewish people”. In reality, of course, Jews expelled from Spain settled in other parts of Europe and North Africa, but Hagee wants to link the USA and Israel has having some sort of divinely ordained history. The trailer also has shots of scientists in protective clothing, doubtless to play on fears over Ebola: in October, Hagee warned that the disease was God’s judgment on America for Obama’s Israel policies.

At the time when the book appeared, WND was happy to promote it as a way to raise interest in Biltz’s theory, which Biltz was expounding in interviews and sermons. WND then published a book by Biltz in 2014, entitled Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs, for which Farah provided a Foreword.

WND continues:

…Asked if he got any inspiration from Biltz, who had chronicled in detail his findings on the blood moons four years before sharing them with Hagee in 2012, he responded: “If you read my book, it opens when I’m in Washington on a speaking tour for the night to honor Israel. Pastor Biltz is the sponsoring pastor… And he asked me, ‘Have you ever considered the stars as having a spiritual significance?’ And I said, ‘Well, other than what’s written in the word of God, no.’ He said, ‘Well, I think that God is using the stars as recorded in the book of Genesis to communicate with us.’… We then went home and I got on my computer and started looking up blood moons. And I really didn’t find anything until I plugged in the issue of 1948 and blood moons. And there popped up the NASA statement about the blood moons appearing in the history of Israel.”

In a rare acknowledgement of the need for accuracy, WND points out that “there were no blood moons in 1948… The blood moons tetrad confirmed by NASA’s website took place in 1949.” I’ll add that while NASA’s website has statistical data on lunar eclipses, I’m willing to take a bet that there has never been any statement relating to “the history of Israel”.

This year’s lunar eclipses appear to have sparked widespread apocalyptic fervour, despite the fact that their supposed important has to be loosely extrapolated from a Bible verse about supernatural disturbances:

I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.  The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

That’s from Joel chapter 3, and it is quoted by Peter in the Book of Acts as an explanation for the events of Pentecost. A tetrad of regular lunar eclipses on Jewish feast days is not discussed anywhere. It should also be noted that the eclipses will not be visible in Israel, although one enthusiast believes that the North Pole is has special spiritual significance; Charisma News reports:

“The concurrence and rarity of this natural event, together with the times in which we live, indicates the finger of God,” said Gidon Ariel, an Israeli Jew and co-founder of Root Source, an online platform where Christians can learn Jewish concepts, ideas and thought, and more deeply understand the roots of their faith.

A total solar eclipse at the North Pole on the first day of spring occurs once every 100,000 years. For it to occur on the first day of the first month of the biblical calendar year is, however, entirely unprecedented since this is only the year 5775 according to Jewish tradition, meaning that there has never been such a solar occurrence in human history.

Root Source founders Bob O’Dell, a devout Christian, and Gidon Ariel, an Orthodox Jew, are both calling all Christians and Jews to join them for two minutes of prayer as a response to the solar eclipse… “I will be praying Isaiah 11:9 for two minutes at the Western Wall in Jerusalem at 12:18 PM local time,” Ariel said.

WND is also promoting another numerological “End Times” theory as complementary; this is Jonathan Cahn’s teaching on the The Mystery of the Shemitah, which strongly infers that the US is headed for disaster in September 2015, as part of a supernatural seven-year cycle:

The first shaking is 9/11. Second shaking is the economic collapse. When does it happen? It happens in 2008… The greatest day happened at the end of September 2008. It was the greatest stock market crash in the history of America.

However, not all conservative Christians are on board, and a site called Berean Call has railed against “fearmongering false prophets”. This prompted a rebuke from Farah:

The criticisms also appear to be a breach of the biblical admonishment in Matthew 18:15-20, Farah said. That scripture says “if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” In other words, tell him in private, not in front of the whole congregation or, in this case, in front of the world on the Internet.

Unless, of course, your brother is competing against you with a rival End Times book on the same apocalyptic theory.

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From the Times and Democrat (South Carolina, emphases added):

Several potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates are expected in West Columbia this Saturday for the “S.C. National Security Action Summit.”

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who have all been mentioned as potential 2016 presidential candidates, will be in attendance.

…Others to participate in the public forum include Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, former commanding general of U.S. Army Special Forces and Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence; Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.

…The summit is hosted by the conservative news website Breitbart News, the Center for Security Policy and High Frontier.

High Frontier has the partial line-up here, and Breitbart has some streams from the event which show that Newt Gingrich also took part; due to transport problems, Jindal sent a video message. I’ve browsed a few of the talks, there were few surprises, with speakers complaining about the Obama administration’s approach to “Global Jihad” and the need for Muslim leaders to speak out. Boykin warned that Obama should not be granted his request for AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) against Islamic State, on the grounds that he doesn’t understand the situation, but he avoided the religious and rhetorical extravagances that have characterised some of his previous attacks on Obama and Islam.

The line-up was a mix of politicians, conservative activists (such Phyllis Schlafly and Anne Corcoran) and individuals with creditable claims to expertise in particular areas. The chair of High Frontier – which describes itself as “the nation’s leading non-government authorities on missile defense issues including missile defense, arms control, nuclear weapons, and strategic systems” – is Henry (Hank) F. Cooper, who has an impressive CV. Here’s an outline bio from the official website of the Missle Defense Agency of the US Department of Defense:

Ambassador Henry F. Cooper
Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization
July 10, 1990 – January 20, 1993

Ambassador Henry F. Cooper is [sic] the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C. He was appointed to this position by President Bush on July 10, 1990, and is the first civilian Director.

…In November 1983, Ambassador Cooper was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In that capacity he was responsible for backstopping all bilateral negotiations with the Soviet Union related to strategic and theater nuclear matters and chaired the Assistant Secretary-level interagency group responsible for developing U.S. Space Arms Control policy options.

Cooper’s son Scott Cooper was also included on the line-up, although his claim to expertise is somewhat more of a stretch:

Scott was in the travel industry on 9/11/01, thus experienced first-hand the impact radical Islam has had on our country.  From 2006 – 2010, Scott’s experience in the banking industry, he witnessed heavy middle-eastern influence into our banking system. These two experiences caused him to begin studying the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into our republic.

Other speakers who might be called “high-level” included George H. Baker, who previously “led the Defense Nuclear Agency’s EMP program, directed the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s assessment arm, and served as a member of the Congressional EMP Commission Staff”; Peter Huessy, “former National Defense University Foundation senior defense consultant”; Peter Vincent Pry, “Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and Director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, both Congressional Advisory Boards”, who “served on the Congressional EMP Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission” (1); and Admiral Ace Lyons, who was formerly “Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Senior U.S. Military Representative to the United Ntions and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.”

However, expertise on Islam was rather more problematic – Gaffney is himself a demagogue who has indulged conspiracy theories about Obama being a secret Muslim, and he was joined by John Guandolo, who I wouldn’t regard as a creditable figure (for reasons discussed here). There was also an obscure retired police officer named David Bores, who “has been diligently educating American’s in multiple venues about the threat of Islamic Law to our Constitutional Republic.”

UPDATE

(1) Pry’s associations look more marginal when examined close up; a 2011 Atlantic article explains:

EMPact America, the group that hosted [a] conference at Niagara Falls, has been on a lobbying blitz in recent weeks to pass the SHIELD Act. The bill, which is backed by the Congressional “EMP Caucus” (yes, such a thing exists) is intended to protect the electrical grid of the continental United States from the effects of an EMP attack. EMPact America even produces a weekly, hour-long radio show devoted entirely to the issue, with recent guests including former CIA Director James Woolsey and Congressman Trent Franks. What sort of response have these warnings gotten so far? In Washington’s nuclear arms control circles, where I’ve spent the past few months working as part of my research on the Iranian nuclear program, they’re not really taken seriously.

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A rather rambling conference blurb (bear with me) from Russia soft-power outfit the St Andrew the First-Called Foundation:

The contemporary international practice of world order structuring apparently does not correspond to the rational publically acceptable norms required to foster global mega-scale projects. The growing number of public actors, experts and researchers start sharing the view that such requisite ingredients of globalization as “universal human values and rights”, the pre-set standards of tolerance and political correctness (or rather political comfort) are conducive to distortion of factual historical memory and to the entrenchment of a narrow group of beneficiaries of the current transformations. These developments lead to the growing desovereignization of national and international economic and financial processes.

The title of the conference was “European choice: Globalization of Re-Sovereignization”; topics included “Globalization is not only economical process, but the politics aimed at creation of the new world order” and “the historical interaction between the European countries (particularly Switzerland) and Russia is a resource for sustainable cooperation in future”. The event was co-hosted by the Geneva Press Club, whose president, Guy Mettan, is President of the Joint Chamber of Commerce Switzerland-Russia & CIS.

Of course, it’s obvious why Russia’s supporters are sniffing at “pre-set standards of tolerance”, and the media has focused on the host’s inevitable opining on teh gaye; over to Reuters:

Traditional family values need to be supported against activism by the gay minority, and the idea that gays were suppressed in Russia was “a trick”, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

“We should not rape nature because of ideological, political or individual preferences,” said Russian Railways boss Vladimir Yakunin, who was hosting a conference in Geneva to promote his foundation, the Endowment for St Andrew the First Called.

Asked if he was afraid of gays or of an open debate about gay marriage, Yakunin drew applause and shouts of “bravo” from the audience with his response.

“Practically, if Reuters, or yourself, will show me the man who gave birth to a child, then the question is obsolete,” he said.

Reuters adds:

A brochure from the conference, on the “sanctity of motherhood”, called for “socially responsible media” to resist attempts to redefine the family, which it said were “an irresponsible manipulation of the most profound parts of the human nature”.

It’s not immediately clear what “the sanctity of motherhood” has to do with “Globalization of Re-Sovereignization” and “sustainable cooperation” between Russia and Switzerland, and I checked to make sure I was reading about the same event. I suspect that “sanctity of motherhood angle” refers to a related programme of that name, which is under the direction of Yakunin’s wife, Natalia Yakunina.

Other participants included Anee-Marie Lizin, Honorary President of the Senate of Belgium, and Walter Schwimmer, Ex-Secretary General of the Council of Europe; Schwimmer is a long-term collaborator with Yakunin, and he Co-Chairs the World Public Forum, which is funded by the St Andrew Foundation.

Yakunin was previously in the news in January, when he attended a Holocaust conference in Prague; the EU Observer said that his presence was “to the great embarrassment of the Czech government”, given his close links with Putin. The Prague Daily Monitor explained that Yakunin was present “at the invitation of the European Jewish Congress”, whose president Moshe Kantor is “a Russian billionaire who reportedly has close links with Putin.” However, the report also noted Yakunin’s links with the Czech Republic’s president, Milos Zeman:

Yakunin is a founder and organiser of the [World Public Forum] Rhodes discussion forum at which President Milos Zeman compared the war in Ukraine to a flu last September.

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From WND:

LEONARD NIMOY’S EPITAPH: ‘ISRAEL IS A MIRACLE’
In failing health, actor narrated movie about Jewish state’s godly link

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes the case for his nation’s security before Congress Tuesday, actor Leonard Nimoy is still speaking about the miracle of Israel in a movie he narrated not long before his death.

The movie, shown on television from coast to coast, is called “The Miracle of Israel,” and connects the strange and seemingly supernatural events surrounding the Jewish state’s founding and survival over the last 67 years.

…Some say they are proof of prophetic fulfillment that has and will continue to impact the world as it moves toward the Last Days, explain the filmmakers.

The key words here are “actor narrated”; the documentary – which first aired last year – was a gig, like Orson Welles narrating the movie of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth in 1979.

Nimoy expressed his own views on Israel in a fundraising letter for Americans for Peace Now in 2011, in which he argued in favour of a two-state solution:

 I’m a strong supporter of APN and the work it does. It is a leading voice for Americans who support Israel and know that a negotiated peace will ensure Israel’s security, prosperity and continued viability as a Jewish and democratic state.

…In April, a group of 50 prominent Israelis, including the former heads of the Mossad (Israel’s CIA), the Shin Bet (its FBI), and the military, issued a call for two states for two nations. Their plan includes a Palestinian state alongside Israel with agreed-upon land swaps. The Palestinian-populated areas of Jerusalem would become the capital of Palestine; the Jewish-populated areas the capital of Israel.

It’s clear that Nimoy’s approach is secular and pragmatic, and that he does not regard Israeli control of Gaza and the West Bank as necessary or desirable. By contrast, the Miracle of Israel documentary looks forward to the building of a new Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and its line-up of speakers (which includes the sanguinary Walid Shoebat) are supporters of a “Greater Israel” in which Palestinian areas were “restored” to Israel by God in 1967.

The documentary is a product of Jewish Voice Ministries. According to a blurb, the organisation

has been working to reach Jewish people through the broadcast of the television documentary on secular stations. The documentary, narrated by Leonard Nimoy, provides a historical snapshot of the Jewish people, and also includes views on Messianic and Last Days’ prophecy.

The film’s evangelistic purpose is made clearer on the Jewish Voice Ministries webpage at GOD TV:

This program will educate and inspire thousands of Jews and Christians to support Israel during this critical time in history. It will also bring the good news of Yeshua, Jesus to your Jewish family members, friends and neighbors.

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