Two MPs Linked to Group Promoting Hampstead Satanic Panic

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.

Mackenzie

(Screenshot taken from The Needle, with annotation removed)