Bartholomew's Notes

From the website of Northumbria Police:

Northumbria Police has released a statement in relation to social media reporting on an attack that happened in Hendon [in Sunderland] last year.

Chief Supt Ged Noble, the Southern Area Commander at Northumbria Police, said:

“Reporting on social media about a complaint of a serious assault in Peel Street Hendon last year has grossly misrepresented the facts… On receiving the complaint, Northumbria Police made early arrests and conducted an extensive investigation. Officers sensitively gained the complainant’s recollection of the event, secured CCTV footage, interviewed independent witnesses and obtained DNA and other forensic samples.

…“The CPS took the decision that no action should be taken, in accordance with the evidential test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.

“The complainant has been informed of her right to appeal that decision… It is disappointing that the victim is now having to endure a situation where the case she was involved in is being subjected to entirely misleading reporting, based on unfounded information, via social-media outlets…”

The “serious assault” is actually an allegation of rape. Last September, it was reported that a young woman had awoken “with cuts and bruises”at a strange address after a night out, and that six men had been arrested; a few weeks later, a fuller account of the allegations in the Daily Mail revealed that the suspects were “a gang of six migrants from Iraq, Syria and Bahrain”. The Mail report also had details of a “far-right” protest march “involving the Sunderland Defence League”, during which the property had been attacked and two unconnected Asian men assaulted.

More recently, the allegations have been publicised by former EDL leader Tommy Robinson via Ezra Levant’s Canadian Rebel Media website, which now employs Robinson as a contributor. However, contrary to Northumbria Police, the complainant does not seem be “enduring” the attention – instead, she has (informally – see update below) waived her right to anonymity, given an interview to Robinson, and appears to be actively involved in marches demanding “Justice for Chelsey”. According to what she told Robinson, a rape exam “uncovered two counts of semen, one of them inside her body”, and it is further alleged that police failed to speak to a witness who saw the suspects attempting to restrain the complainant as she fled the property in a distressed state.

Robinson used his recent appearance on the Daily Politics Show to draw attention to the case, citing a web address that has been registered by Levant and that redirects to a relevant page on The Rebel. Robinson believes that the police have failed to investigate properly because the suspects are Muslims, and his supporters complain that there is a media “blackout” in place.

Robinson has been keen to stress that the protests reflect the feelings of “the community” in Sunderland. Perhaps this is so, but the far-right appears to be an organising presence. In particular, an activist named Billy Charlton is heavily involved, and Robinson can seen posing with him here. It is difficult to believe that Robinson is unaware that Charlton has a history with Combat 18, and difficult to to understand why someone who frequently complains bitterly that he is mischaracterised as far-right would be willing to overlook such an association.

Further, this context of far-right involvement is probably why the media is wary of continuing with the story. The prior coverage in the Mail shows that there is no squeamishness about running a story that might stoke up resentment against migrants or Muslims, but for the most part not even other conservative outlets are touching it – Paul Joseph Watson is on board, but there is nothing even on Breitbart, while commentators who railed against old police failures to tackle “grooming” in places like Rotherham haven’t (so far as I have seen) said anything about it either.

UPDATE (16 May): The Sunderland Echo has a follow-up piece, which includes a quote from John Dilworth, acting Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS North East. According to Dilworth, there was a “thorough investigation” by police, and that only one of the suspects was referred to the CPS. The Echo adds:

The Echo understands that the CCTV and forensic evidence gathered significantly undermined any assertion that the complainant had been kidnapped or drugged, or that multiple assailants had been involved in an attack of the nature being suggested online.

Further:

We have received numerous inquiries asking why we have not covered the gatherings that have taken place in Sunderland city centre.

However, the woman at the centre of the case has, on more than one occasion, contacted the newspaper to insist nothing is reported about the matter.

She said: “I’d like to make this clear that I do not give any permission for any stories to be wrote about the incident that happened in Peel Street several months back.”

The article goes on to explain that complainants in sexual allegations have legal anonymity, and that “the anonymity remains unless the alleged victim signs a written waiver allowing her anonymity to be lifted.”

This is curious: the complainant has clearly consented to her name and face being used for a public campaign, and she was happy enough to be identified by Robinson and Rebel Media. Yet she apparently hasn’t “officially” waived her right to anonymity, and she doesn’t want other media to write about the case. This is of some significance, given the claims of a “media blackout”.

UPDATE (June 2017): In a new video, Tommy Robinson has introduced “top lawyer” Daniel Berke, who has agreed to represent the complainant in pushing for a case review, for a reduced fee. Berke has been in the media previously (sometimes misspelt as “Daniel Burke”) – he successfully defended Nigel Evans MP in 2014 and Rolf Harris just last month.

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From Yahoo News:

Controversial right-wing activist Tommy Robinson has defended his actions after he confronted members of Muslim counter-extremist group Quilliam at their London headquarters.

Footage posted on YouTube earlier this week shows the former EDL leader attempting to confront Quilliam senior researcher Julia Ebner after alleging that she referred to him as a white supremacist in a newspaper article.

…He told the BBC [Daily Politics] show: ‘The doors were open, I was very polite. I walked in with one cameraman and asked a simple question…

‘In the last two weeks I’ve had to go to four different companies’ premises who have all run headlines that are complete lies.

‘This is about working class people at home who have been pigeonholed as extremist, as racist and as far right when they’re not. They’re genuine concerns and fears.’

Robinson’s account can be seen in full here, and Ebner’s article is available here. Qulliam famously led Robinson out of the English Defence League in 2013, although their relationship has since soured.

The confrontation at the Quilliam office (described as a “raid” by Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz) has been posted online as part of a series of videos called “Troll Watch”, in which Robinson travels around challenging people who he claims have misrepresented him. Those receiving visitations have included my friend Tim Fenton, who had Robinson banging on his door and demanding explanations at 10 pm. Robinson subsequently accepted an invitation to talk to Peter Jukes (curator at Byline Media, which publishes some of Tim’s writings), although he did not respond to a specific scheduling proposal and no more has been heard from him on the subject.

It is true that terms such as “far-right” and “extremist” are often thrown around quite loosely and vaguely, when Robinson can come across on screen as reasonable and even personable.  However, although Robinson appears to have outgrown the controversial baggage of his EDL origins and brushes with the law (unexpectedly), his media profile and influence remain dependent on a corrosive political milieu that, in broad terms, can be described as “alt right”.

Specifically, Robinson is now a reporter for Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media, a Canadian media venture described in a recent profile by Jason Markusoff in Maclean’s as “the angry, hate-filled, unapologetic and surprisingly successful ‘Breitbart North'”. This first came to my attention when he appeared on the scene following the Westminster attack; presumably, Rebel Media are financing his “Troll Watch” travel and production costs.

Markusoff’s profile describes how Levant has built up the site over the past two years, and he relates a controversy involving one particularly notorious contributor, Gavin McInnes:

Behind The Rebel paywall last November, McInnes’s show featured a chummy interview with Richard Spencer, the white nationalist leader who coined “alt-right” and had days earlier ended a group conference with a “Hail Trump!” shout that some attendees met with Nazi salutes. In the segment, Spencer said they were having fun, being “a little provocative.” McInnes then asked: “I work for a Jew named Ezra Levant. How much does that make your blood boil?” Spencer replied: “It doesn’t make my blood boil at all. The fact that a Jew—he’s a neo-conservative, as I understand… the fact he has you on, you’re kind of pushing things in our direction in your own way. The fact I’m on here and we can talk respectfully, that’s great.”

Levant took a relaxed view of this, and a few weeks after the above was published he similarly laughed off as “some off-color comments” an anti-Semitic tirade by McInnes (on McInnes’s own website) that was praised by David Duke. Levant’s pose is that he trusts his contributors to make their own judgments, but, as Markusoff notes, he took a different approach when Michael Coren wrote a newspaper column that he didn’t like: Coren’s involvement with Rebel Media was promptly terminated. Coren – who interviewed Robinson sympathetically more than once for the now-defunct Sun-TV – has subsequently denounced Levant’s indulgence of McInnes, and Levant has responded by describing Coren as a “leftist”.

It is not a great surprise to see that Levant is currently on Twitter promoting a “fake news” doctored image which appears to show Emmanuel Macron sitting at the feet of Angela Merkel, or to see Levant using the alt-right insult “cuck” to describe its significance.

The point here is not to say that Robinson is “guilty by association” – the issue is not “guilt”, or how he sees himself, but his position within a political movement that regularly deploys smears and conspiracy theories to fearmonger and to whip up hate. Robinson uses Levant’s operation for exposure, and Levant’s operation gets new audiences because of Robinson’s pre-existing support base. The same goes for Robinson’s association with Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones’s British collaborator.

Robinson’s new position also allows him shift away from questions about his alliances as an activist by referring to his role as a journalist. Thus during his Daily Politics Show appearance, Robinson dealt with a question from Andrew Neil about Paul Golding and Britain First by stating that

I’ve reported on a Britain First demonstration, as I’ve reported on Muslim demonstrations. I’m now doing reporting for Rebel Media, so of course I’m going to go to these organisations.

However, this photo and commentary suggest that his association with BF is rather closer than that.

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From the Daily Mirror:

A Tory candidate has claimed she healed a man who was deaf in both ears through the power of prayer.

Kristy Adams, the Conservative candidate in Hove and Portslade, said she laid her hands on the man’s ears and said: “Be healed in Jesus’ name.”

When she removed her hands, she claimed, he could hear without his hearing aids.

…Mrs Adams, who was involved in Theresa May’s campaign against modern slavery, spoke of the healing at the King’s Arms Church in Bedford in 2010.

…The church is an offshoot of social justice organisation The King’s Arms Project, which was formed in 1989 by Tory peer Baroness Stroud.

More accurately, then, Adams claims that “Jesus healed a man who was deaf” – an important distinction, even though it is sometimes blurred by high-profile Christians who specialise in “faith-healings”.

Adams’s account of the healing appears in a 2010 audio interview on the church website, which the Mirror has re-posted. She says that it occurred while she was part of a Christian team witnessing at a New Age health expo in London in 2009; another member of the team was a Jewish evangelist named Stuart Cohen (“his passion is to see Jewish people come to God”), who “had hearing aids in both ears and I just thought that wasn’t right.” She prayed for Cohen’s healing, after which they were both amazed to discover that he could now hear without the hearing aids.

Christians of course generally believe that God can answer prayers, but when someone makes a strong claim to have witnessed or been part of a supernatural intervention, there is bound to be reasonable scepticism, which in turn may lead to doubts about judgement and credulity. Also, the very idea of faith-healing raises questions about the status of the disabled in certain strands of Christianity (why wasn’t it “right” for an evangelist to have hearing aids?), and giving people unrealistic hopes of healing can be unwise and cruel.

However, a sneering soundbite from a Labour figure that also appears in the Mirror article seems to me to be unwarranted:

Labour MP Paul Flynn said: “Egads. Can we get this on the National Health?

“I think they’ll probably make her the science spokesman if she does get elected for the Tory party. She seems up to their standard of unscientific science.“

But all Adams has done is to relate an experience as she remembers it. She did not claim to have scientific proof, and the story – dredged up from 2010 – is not part of her election campaign or political profile. For outsiders, her belief about what happened may seem odd and exotic, but I wouldn’t use it as the basis for claiming that Adams is therefore “unscientific” or would be unable to be a competent MP. Like Adams, Flynn is also currently running for office (that “Labour MP” designation is not currently correct, as there are no MPs during election season), and mocking someone for believing that God can heal illness through prayer seems to be a pointless fight to pick.

The King’s Arms Church was also at the centre of controversy in 2010, when Philippa Stroud was standing for election. I discussed this here and here.

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From the Lusaka Times:

…Nigerian Prophet T.B. Joshua [has] declared his intentions to leave Nigeria and relocate his ministry to the nation of Israel.

Joshua disclosed that he had just returned from the ‘Holy Land’ after holding meetings with three prominent Israeli mayors of Jerusalem, Tiberias and the Jordan Valley.

According to the cleric, they offered both land and facilities in an area around the biblical site of the Sea of Galilee for the Nigerian Pastor to organise meetings for international pilgrims.

…According to the cleric, the invitation to Israel came due to the growing popularity of Joshua’s television channel Emmanuel TV, which is especially known on YouTube.

…Statistics from the Nigerian Immigration Services revealed that six out of every ten travelers to Nigeria go to The SCOAN [Joshua’s church – the The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations], with countless local businesses and hotels in the area relying on the church activities for their sustenance.

The report comes with photos of Joshua shaking hands with Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat and with Idan Grinbaum, billed as “Jordan Valley mayor”  – the latter is actually head of the Emek HaYarden Regional Council, which covers western Galilee and the northern Jordan Valley (the Council is one of two entities that is also known as the “Jordan Valley Regional Council”; the other administers an area in the West Bank). Nigerian pilgrimage is big business, and carriers and handlers compete for contracts with the country’s Christian Pilgrim Commission.

Forbes has described Joshua as one of the “The Five Richest Pastors In Nigeria“, and his followers include politicians in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. However, despite some endorsements from other pastors (such as the late neo-Pentecostal evangelist Bill Subritzky), he is a highly controversial figure who has been rejected by many of his peers for allegedly “mix[ing] Christianity with occult practices”. He also makes extravagant claims to supernatural predictive powers, which he purports to prove by releasing heavily edited videos of old sermons after disasters and such; and in November, there was mockery after he attempted to explain away a prophecy that Hilary Clinton would win the US election.

For some reason, though, God apparently failed to warn Joshua about the state of a guesthouse owned by his church – the building collapsed in 2014, killing dozens. Joshua tried to explain away the negligent construction by blaming a “strange aircraft” nearby.

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(Amended post: I originally failed to notice that the WND author had conflated Somali-Americans with Somali refugees)

From WND:

An outbreak of measles is sweeping through a community of Somali refugees in Minnesota and the growing number of cases may be starting to test the limits of the Hennepin County healthcare system.

…Dr. Andrew Bostom, M.D., an academic internist specializing in general internal medicine who has also authored several books about the history of Islam, said Muslim communities often prove difficult to convince that vaccinations are appropriate for their children.

“The case against vaccinations is first an Islamic one,” he said, citing a 2011 article by Dr. Majid Katme, spokesman for the Islamic Medical Association in the United Kingdom.

“We are giving our innocent children haram [forbidden] substances and harmful chemicals that destroy their natural immune systems, causing disease, suffering and death,” Dr. Katme wrote. (1)

The article, by WND‘s Leo Hohmann, was originally titled “Measles Outbreak among Somali Refugees Stretches Minneapolis Health System”, but this has since been amended to “Quran Blamed in New U.S. Disease Outbreak”.

It should be noted that other reports refer to “Somali-Americans” rather than “Somali refugees”, and it seems more likely that this is the case: from the rest of Hohmann’s article, it seems that he has chosen to portray the patients as “refugees” in order to promote Donald Trump’s thwarted travel restriction proposals.

It is the case that measles vaccination rates among Somali-Americans in Minnesota are low – but this is something that is local, and that has happened over the past ten years. It’s theoretically possible that Majid Katme’s view about what is “haram” may have played a role, but if so, neither Hohmann nor Bostom provide any evidence of it, and I’m doubtful.

A more immediate cause appears to be first-hand contact between Somali-Americans in Minnesota and the discredited Dr Andrew Wakefield. Of course, a community might have been predisposed to welcoming Wakefield’s anti-vaccination theories due to a pre-existing religious objection to vaccines, but this seems unlikely to be the case here given that in 2004 the vaccination rate among Minnesota-born Somalis was at 92%.

Ironically, it may be that Somali refugees are better protected: although some vaccine resistance has been reported in Somalia, the authorities have run vaccination programmes without without encountering serious problems. More generally, although Islamists have opposed vaccines in some parts of the Muslim world (as blogged here), the mainstream Muslim view, as expressed by the Islamic Advisory Group for Polio Eradication – and apparently endorsed by the OIC – is that “routine childhood vaccinations” are “a life-saving tool which protects children” and that vaccination “fully conforms to Islamic rulings.”

Somali-Americans in Minnesota are far from being the only group to have shunned the measles vaccine: in one particular case in 2005, a returning missionary from Romania brought measles to churchgoers in Indiana. A subsequent study confirmed that the patients had been concerned “about adverse events, particularly related to media reports of a putative association between vaccinations and autism”.

WND has sent out mixed messages on the subject of vaccines; on the one hand, it has run pieces by a libertarian named Phil Elmore with titles such as “Don’t Buy the Vaccines-Autism Myth”, and in February 2015 it published a column by Ben Carson stating that “there is no substantial risk from vaccines, and… the benefits are very significant”. However, the site’s more typical output has been fearmongering headlines such as “Measles Vaccines Kill more than Measles”, which was followed by “Stunner! Whistleblower Claims Feds Hiding Vaccine-Autism Link” and “Big Pharma-CDC Lie On Vaccines” (among others).

Further, in 2007, WND‘s tie-in print publication Whistleblower ran a special issue on “Scary Medicine: Exposing The Dark Side of Vaccines”. Contributors included one Dr Sherri Tenpenny, who is on the board of directors of the “International Medical Council on Vaccination”. The council has a website, which includes among its resources… the very screed by Majid Katme quoted by Hohmann and Bostom!

UPDATE: ABC News has run a piece on the issue, under the headline “In Minnesota’s Worst Measles Outbreak, a Battle of Beliefs over Vaccines”. It includes the following:

On Sunday, a nonprofit group that has questioned vaccine safety held a meeting for the Somali community [in Minnesota] to advise them about their rights to decline vaccinations based on their beliefs.

Patti Carroll, the director of outreach for the non-profit group called the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota, said the goal was to inform parents of their rights and that they could decline recommended vaccinations even during an ongoing measles outbreak.

…Mark Blaxill spoke at the meeting on Sunday, aimed at parents in the Somali community, according to ABC affiliate KSTP, and told parents they could refuse vaccinations and still have their children attend daycare and receive benefits.

WND re-published the first three paragraphs of the article, and provided a link for the rest. However, WND has also changed the headline; while the ABC News report refers to “Somali Minnesotans”, WND headlines the article as “Somali-Muslims at Center of New Vaccine Battle” – thus maintaining the bogus refugee and religion angles while implying that Minnesotans of Somali birth or heritage are not “really” Minnesotans.

Footnote

(1) Katme actually used the spelling variation haaram, and “forbidden” appears to have been in the original source:

We are giving our innocent children haraam (forbidden) substances and harmful chemicals that destroy their natural immune systems, causing disease, suffering and death.

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*UPDATE (17 May): In a new video, Robinson claims that his visitation in fact occurred at 8.43pm

At Zelo Street, my friend Tim Fenton reports on an unwelcome visitor:

…[T]here was loud and persistent banging at the front door, high-intensity lights were shone into the front windows, and when I went to see what was kicking off – it wasn’t going to be an election canvasser or the Witnesses at 2200 hours – one of those high-intensity lights was shone into my face as [former English Defence League head man Tommy] Robinson introduced himself.

He wanted to ask me one question. He claimed I had “written lies about him“. He would come back, and keep coming back, until I answered him, which suggests someone has sufficient time and money on his hands to keep on making 300 mile round trips to Crewe on the off-chance of finding someone at home. After the front door was shut in his face, the hammering and shouting continued.

The confrontation was a stunt by Robinson in association with Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media – in recent weeks Robinson has been making numerous videos in the company of one Caolan Robertson, who heads the UK branch of Levant’s operation. In March, Rebel Media gleefully reported on Robinson’s negative reception at a London Stand Up To Racism rally; and earlier this month, Robinson (civilly) doorstepped a student who had used Twitter to call for his murder. Robinson has also visited a newspaper office to air grievances about being labelled “far right”, a video of which is in the works.

In Tim’s case, it seems (although this is something we must infer) that Robinson objected to being called a “racist bigot” in a blog post from 8 April in which Tim criticised the Spectator for running a soft-ball interview with Robinson by James Delingpole. For the record, I don’t think that Robinson is racially prejudiced, but his continuing activism against Islam is characterised by sensationalism and inflammatory interventions – as was seen when he showed up at the scene of last month’s Westminster attack. And while I wouldn’t want to reduce someone to the most regrettable thing they’ve said or done, the fact that he was filmed joking about the Anders Breivik massacre while drunk a few years ago does not leave an impression of moderation.

However, Tim is hardly the first person to describe Robinson with the “R” word – it’s something that he gets a lot, as he lamented to James Whale in January. From an earlier video, it seems that Robinson visited Crewe while en route to Dewsbury, but even so, such an extensive detour seems a somewhat disproportionate reaction given Robinson’s profile. Tim’s blog has only ever mentioned Robinson a couple of times over eight years, and so far as I can see there is nothing by Tim on Robinson among his writings for Byline Media. It’s a surprise that the post even caught Robinson’s notice, let alone that he would feel the need to research the author and travel in pursuit of him. Oddly, Robinson kept referring to Tim as “Paul”, which is a given first name that he doesn’t use. It’s as if Robinson had only a vague idea about who he was off to meet.

Perhaps Tim’s post was brought to Robinson’s particular attention by someone – Tim has annoyed a number of tabloid and right-wing media figures over the years, and there have been intimidatory consequences in the past – examples include an abusive and intrusive attack blog (anonymous, but praised by Delingpole) and a series of anonymous letters from a supposed “Blog Complaints Commission”.

Of course, though, going after Tim also serves a more general purpose for Robinson, demonstrating to other potential critics that they risk family intrusion and doxxing. This was not a serious attempt to “engage” or remonstrate over a grievance – it was a gratuitous and thuggish stunt at an unreasonable hour for the benefit of a fan base (whose unpleasant social media effusions in response to it are noted in Tim’s new post).

UPDATE: Robinson published his video on 17 May; for some reason, he puts quote-marks around Tim’s name, and he describes him as a Guardian journalist. But Tim has never written for the Guardian, although he’s been quoted a few times and was even interviewed once.

UPDATE 2: On the question of whether Robinson can legitimately be called “far right”, a post by Joe Mulhall for Hope Not Hate draws attention to some pertinent associations:

Pictures have emerged of [Robinson] and Caolan Robertson having drinks with Britain First leaders Jayda Fransen and Paul Golding.

It seems that, rather than for any concern over the extreme tactics deployed by BF, Yaxley-Lennon’s previous reticence to cooperate with the group was the result of his “beef” [quarrel] with former BF leading member Jim Dowson. In a recent Q&A video he called Dowson “a grass” [informant]…

I previously blogged on Golding and Dowson here. Britain First is an offshoot of the BNP – in an interview with Andrew Neil, Golding explained that he had left the BNP over corruption, rather than because of an ideological rethink.

Mulhall also notes that after the confrontation at Tim Fenton’s house, Robinson (Mulhall refers to him by his legal name of Yaxley-Lennon) “then proceeded to storm the offices of a South Wales newspaper alongside George Llewelyn-John of The New Brit and Rebel Media.”

The New Brit appears to be Caolan Robertson’s venture, running parallel to his Rebel Media work – also involved is Jack Buckby, of Paul Weston’s Liberty GB party (blogged here).

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From the Daily Mail:

The farce over the Sir Edward Heath child abuse inquiry grew yesterday as it emerged that a member of an independent panel scrutinising the probe has been paid to help on the case.

Dr Elly Hanson, a clinical psychologist who specialises in abuse and trauma, received £2,025 for advising Wiltshire Police about two individuals who have made allegations against the late Tory prime minister.

The force subsequently asked her to join a panel of four looking at all aspects of the Operation Conifer probe to help police chiefs ‘consider the ongoing proportionality and justification for the investigation’.

The report goes on to add that Hanson denies any conflict of interest.

It is not known for sure if the “two individuals” she was asked about pertain to the Satanic Ritual Abuse claims against Heath or some other strand of the investigation, but it’s a reasonable assumption: another expert consulted by police stated last week that the SRA claims were “the core strand” that Wiltshire Police “wanted to use to prove Ted Heath’s guilt”.

Further, Hanson is actually a specialist in “Dissociative Identity Disorder”, a diagnosis that implies memories that have been repressed due to trauma, usually childhood sexual abuse. We know that the Heath SRA accusers were a “group” of women, and that the main accuser underwent recovered memory therapy in Canada.

It seems unlikely that Hanson would have advised the police to exercise caution: just last month she gave a presentation at a conference organised by the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD), where other speakers included Peter Garsden, a firm believer in the “sacrifce of children” by “secret societies” (as blogged here) and three members of the Ritual Abuse Information Network and Support (RAINS, previously blogged here).

Supposed “recovered memories” have formed the basis for numerous allegations  of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Some background here is provided by by Jeffrey Victor in his 1993 book Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend:

MPD [Multiple Personality Disorder, the old name for Dissociative Identity Disorder] psychotherapists are faced with an ambiguous problem in need of a clear explanation… The Satanic cult legend serves as a substitute for “hard news”, that is, a substitute for a decisive discovery of a cause for the ambiguous symptoms of Multiple Personality Disorder… There is good evidence that MPD patients have a chameleon-like, manipulative personality and feed therapists the kind of stories they feel therapists want to hear. (p. 93)

Further:

The “survivor” stories were first given credibility when leading MPD psychiatric authorities publicly professed belief in their plausibility. This happened at the firat national conference of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality disorder, in 1984. Once authority figures lent credibility to the stories, the process of consensual validation, operating through the psychiatric communication network, reinforced the credibility of the stories. In this network, normal open and public scientific criticism and dispute is discouraged.

…Believing therapists have been articulating the Satanic cult legend in great detail for years, since the mid-1980s, without publishing any empirical research findings in juried scientific journals where the findings can be subjected to scientific cross-examination. (pp. 93-94, 95)

I speculated on how such networks may provide a link between old SRA claims and new false sex abuse allegations against public figures in the UK here.

It is perhaps also relevant to note that at the start of 2016 Hanson gave a presentation at an exhibition called “The Wall of Silence”, which was created to highlight the testimonies of child abuse survivors. One of the exhibition’s promoters, a nurse named Sue Crocombe, believes that Heath must be guilty of sex abuse, and the exhibition blurb makes special reference to “powerful people” supposedly being involved in child sex abuse. This is based on the testimony of the exhibition’s “exemplar” survivor, a man who has made extravagant allegations against politicians.

UPDATE (March 2021): A related op-ed by Richard Hoskins has since been withdrawn by the Mail on Sunday as part of a libel settlement after a claim was brought by Hanson. Her legal representative is quoted in Press Gazette:

“Contrary to what the article alleged, Dr Hanson had not organised the [Wall of Silence] event, did not know Beech would be attending when she accepted an invitation to speak, and, Dr Hanson believes, learned that fact either shortly before or on the day…

“She met Beech at the event, speaking briefly with him in person for the first – and only – time that day for a couple of minutes…”

Further:

“Dr Hanson did not in fact express a prejudicial view about Sir Edward Heath prior to joining the Operation Conifer scrutiny panel, as the article also alleged…”

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Friday’s Today programme on BBC Radio 4 included a segment on Wiltshire Police’s sex abuse investigation into the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, focusing on Richard Hoskins, a criminologist who (as Rachel Hoskins) went public in November with concerns about how the probe was being conducted. A number of allegations against Heath, who died in 2005, appeared in tabloid newspapers in 2015, as I discussed here; Hoskins revealed that the investigation also included a remarkable claim of Satanic Ritual Abuse, involving not just child abuse but also murder.

The interview clarifies that, according to Hoskins, the SRA claims are the “core strand” of the investigation, rather than just being an outlier. Hoskins was asked onto the programme after it was announced that two people who had been arrested in relation to the inquiry have now been released from bail without charge. The arrests had been announced in November following criticism of the investigation, although they are believed to have occurred some weeks beforehand.

Details of the arrests are scarce, although it has been reported (a) that they “related to child protection and not perverting the course of justice”; and (b) that the two individuals “did not know Sir Edward and had never met or worked with him or in politics”. The Sun refers specifically to “two men”, although that may just be an assumption.  In my opinion, it is very likely that the two arrests relate to the SRA allegations, first made against them by a family member some years ago and now resurrected in the context of the investigation into Heath (as discussed by me here).

A full transcript of the interview is given below, with some annotations. The audio begins at 2 hours 33 minutes into the programme, and the interviewer was Mishal Husain. I’ve highlighted the “core strand” comment.

Transcript

I’ve investigated something like nearly 200 criminal investigations over the last 15 years, and so I’ve developed an expertise in the area of ritual crime [1]. So, I’m well-known for working in this area. And Wiltshire Police found that they thought there were elements of ritualistic crime within this enquiry.

And what did you find when you started looking into the evidence available?

Well, I was presented with two large dossiers, one on the Wiltshire Police investigation and another on the historic Westminster VIP paedophile enquiry. The reason that I had both dossiers is because there were overlaps and people named in one enquiry were named in another. And as I looked into it, I found a series of very questionable evidence, and so I began to probe into that. I approached the whole thing with an open mind, as I always do, but I began to find that the evidence didn’t look strong to me.

Why not?

Well, there were issues here about how the evidence had come to light in the first place, and as with the Westminster VIP paedophile enquiry, where we know it all went back to one sole source, Nick [2], there was an issue here about the way that the evidence in the Wiltshire enquiry went back to, effectively a sole source who had recovered memories from the 1980s [3]. So, this immediately led to me making comparisons, valid comparisons with the 1980s Satanic Ritual Abuse panic.

Just explain what recovered memories are.

OK, well this is where people who have gone through trauma regain memory that they have blocked out. And that’s a genuine thing, it does happen. The trouble is the role of some psychotherapists, and we have to say “some” here, especially under hypnosis, as happened in this case, leads to questions when we’re dealing with criminal cases.

And you thought that that meant this was not credible, the evidence before you.

I am certain that the evidence was not credible, with which I was presented, because there were serious question marks – which I can’t go into all the details here, because some parts of the report remain confidential – but there were serious question marks about the way the memories were recovered.

But in itself the evidence was fantastical. We were… I counted I think 21 murders apparently that had taken place, some of which involved Edward Heath in broad daylight in English churchyards, on English church altars. There were sensational accounts of ritual orgies and drinking blood and suchlike, and I do think that just as which happened with Nick on the Westminster enquiry, had people just taken a step back and said “hang on a second, is this really likely?”. they might have stopped and paused the investigation at that point.

And you told Wiltshire Police this?

I did. I produced a 160-page report after two months of very solid work. As I always do I approached the case with a very open mind, I tackled all the evidence, but my conclusions were pretty damning. And that did not go down well with Wiltshire Police.

What did they say?

Well, the response initially, and this was after I’ve produced something like 200 case reports over 15 years, was something I’ve never encountered before, which was that I apparently was questioning the credibility of witnesses. Well, yes, I was, effectively. But of course that was never my aim. I mean, I myself am a victim of historic sexual abuse, so I – and someone got about 10 years for it – so I have no axe to grind at all, quite the opposite. But we’re dealing here with evidence, and if the evidence looks sketchy then we have to ask the questions. And I did.

Wiltshire Police were uncomfortable with that, they did not take my recommendations forward, which were to submit the report – I was not asking to go public, I suggested the report should go to the Chair of the Historic Abuse Inquiry, the Home Affairs Select Committee, the Chair of the IPCC and the Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner. These were not outlandish recommendations at all. I felt that those stakeholders in the public interest must know about this.

And the police say that what they put before you, the evidence which you decided was not credible was only a small part of what they had.

Well, I’m afraid that Wiltshire Police are wriggling at every single turn here, and, whenever one part of their investigation falls down, this is their fallback, they’re saying “no, but there’s another strand”. So now we have a situation where two witnesses have been cleared, and again they are going to say, “well, but that was only one strand”. The fact is, and I had this briefing with the police before we started, I was briefed on all the different strands of the investigation. This was the core strand that they wanted to use to prove Ted Heath’s guilt.

But it’s not impossible that there are other strands, and they are, as recently as yesterday, sticking to the fact that they believe all of this is worth investigating. They say this remains a live and ongoing investigation with a significant number of allegations made by a number of separate individuals.

Well, the police have been on a fishing trip with this. They – I think, outrageously-  stood outside Ted Heath’s house and called, basically, for people to come forward. Now, of course there’s a balance here. We know that with historic cases we do need to get people to come forward if there’s a genuine case of abuse. But they have been on a fishing trip, some of it has clearly been quite absurd. And the investigation so far, has cost, up to the end of last month, of £1, 142,000. This is not, I think, for the police to decide now, whether this goes forward. I think in the public interest somebody has got to say “it’s time to call a halt to this”. There’s no credible evidence, nothing has stuck on Ted Heath, and that was the point of this investigation.

They’ve had two years, which is not as long as other investigations have been given.

It’s still a hell of a long time, with 21 officers involved working on a case in which they have so far not found one single scrap of hard evidence.

Why did you go public with all of this? Because by doing so you went against the agreement that you signed, and you won’t be able to do future work like this for police forces.

Well, that’s a decision that I myself have taken. In fact, individual police forces are still approaching me, because they seem to appreciate the work I’ve done previously. But as a member of the National …

Have you not been removed from the National Crime Agency list of approved experts?

No, I took myself off the National Crime Agency database of experts. It was my decision, because I was so appalled, frankly, by the response of Wiltshire Police, to a report that was a serious piece of academic research. I was not asking to go public, I was asking it should go to the various agencies, who deserve to see this information. In fact, the Historical Abuse Enquiry have called for my report, and they have now received it.

You’re very convinced that there is nothing to be found in relation to these allegations. How can you be so sure that there aren’t people out there who need to be brought to justice for something that happened?

Well, there is a balance here, and obviously we don’t want to go back to the situation with Jimmy Savile, where things were covered up. But I think, there is a balance, and if after two years of investigating, nothing solid has been found, and my understanding is that there is nothing solid on Ted Heath, then, for the sake of his reputation – and  don’t forget, other people have been besmirched in this process, like Lord Brittan, who went to the grave never knowing his name was cleared [4] – and with the extent of public money being spent, then someone has to draw a line. Now, of course, if there are genuine strands, and there are real people who have been through the trauma of abuse, which I know all about, then that must of course be investigated. But this is totally disproportionate. That’s the problem here.

Notes

[1] Most famously, Hoskins was involved in the 2001 “torso in the Thames” investigation. Hoskins has also highlighted the issue of the abuse of African children accused of witchcraft, as I discussed here.

[2] This is a reference to the Operation Midland fiasco, discussed in further detail here. As I mentioned just yesterday, there are a number of child sex abuse activists who can be described as “Operation Midland Truthers”, who continue to assert their confidence in the accuser known in the media as “Nick”. Some of these activists/vigilantes have expressed contemptuous views about Hoskins, making mocking references to his apparently temporary transgender status as Rachel Hoskins and nasty insinuations about past family bereavements [UPDATE 2019: Nick can now be named as Carl Beech, and his claims have been found to have been fraudulent. More details here].

[3] Details about the therapy that the Heath SRA accuser underwent some years ago appeared in the Toronto National Post in January, and were discussed in further detail by me here.

[4] I discussed the investigations into Leon Brittan here.

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From Wednesday’s London Times:

Barrister ‘made death threats’ to student

Police have issued a harassment warning to a barrister amid allegations that she waged a campaign of online bullying, abuse and “death threats” against a law student and another lawyer.

…In a 22-page complaint to the standards board, seen by The Times, Mehul Desai, a student at Nottingham University law school, claimed that he had “received death threats and abuse over the phone” from Ms [Barbara] Hewson.

…The dispute allegedly grew out of Mr Desai’s support for Sarah Phillimore, a family law barrister at St John’s Chambers in Bristol. Ms Phillimore is a well-known campaigner on child protection issues who has frequently crossed swords with Ms Hewson on social media over their opinions on investigations into alleged historical child abuse.

…Ms Phillimore told The Times that, “following months of serious and frightening harassment” by Ms Hewson, she registered a complaint with the police. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that on March 1 “a 55-year-old woman was issued with a harassment warning”.

Such warnings have no legal standing and do not establish wrongdoing, but are used by police as a response to allegations of low-level harassment. There has been no finding against her.

That detail about so-called harassment warnings having “no legal standing” comes in the 11th paragraph of the article, 440 words into the story. The existence of the harassment warning is also the focus of a very brief preview blurb that appeared on the bottom of the front page of the print edition: “Police have issued a harassment warning to a human rights barrister after claims that she engaged in the online bullying of a law student and another lawyer.” The story itself was the lead item on page 5.

The story as presented in The Times is a mess, and it has brought joy to a social media crowd that has actually been subjecting Barbara Hewson to a campaign of trolling abuse and personal intrusion. Facts are distorted and misrepresented, and important context is missing that the authors – Jonathan Ames and Frances Gibb – could have checked out without requiring comment from Barbara.

Background

First, a disclosure: I’ve met Barbara socially a couple of times and we get along. As such, I refer to her in this post familiarly, by her first name. I don’t agree with all of her views or ways of expressing herself, but I expect she gets that a lot.

Most controversially, she believes that the age of consent should be reduced to 13, and she has criticised some prosecutions that relate to “historic” allegations of abuse on these grounds. On these points, I concur with Matthew Scott’s criticisms, which can be read here. The Times article refers to Barbara calling “for the age of sexual consent to be substantially lowered”, but for some reason it doesn’t clarify that this means “reduced to 13” – one suspects the authors opted to be vague in the interests of sensationalism.

Barbara’s perspective has brought her into conflict on social media with a number of campaigners against child sex abuse, and she has not shied away from scathing rhetoric just because some of these campaigners themselves identify as victims – I noted her dispute with Andy Woodward in December. As I wrote then, many of these campaigners are quite reckless in their embrace of conspiracy theories about “VIP abuse” and are vicious in their pursuit of those facing allegations or those deemed to be insufficiently credulous. Some might fairly be described as “Operation Midland Truthers”, and they are particularly incensed by Barbara’s references to the false accuser “Nick” as “Toxic Nick” [UPDATE 2019: Nick can now be named as Carl Beech, and his claims have been found to have been fraudulent. More details here].

The feud with Phillimore, meanwhile, goes to back to debate over family courts.

The “harassment warning”

The Times cover blurb conflated the so-called “harassment warning” that emerged from the Phillimore dispute with the allegation of the “death threat” made by the student – this misleading effect is amplified by the opening paragraph, which lumps together Phillimore’s complaints and those of the student.

As I’ve discussed previously on this blog, a “harassment warning” is formally called a “Police Information Notice”. It is a mechanism by which police inform someone that a complaint of harassment has been made against them, and it warns them that if the complaint is true, then they should desist from continuing with such behaviour or risk prosecution. However, they precede rather than follow any investigation.

The problem with PINs is that they sound far more formal than they actually are. PINs are “issued”; recipients supposedly “have” a PIN, in the present tense, as if they “have” a criminal record. Also, despite a specific recommendation in the Henriques Report, the Metropolitan Police continues with the rhetoric of “victims” rather than “complainants” – thus a largely derivative Daily Mail article (“By Xantha Leatham for the Daily Mail and Katie French for Mailonline“) based on the Times story also includes a police statement:

‘The victim, a 46-year-old woman, alleged she had been harassed via a social media network (Twitter) between August 2016 and January 2017. 

‘The allegation was passed to officers in Islington to investigate. 

‘On 1 March the alleged suspect, a 55-year-old woman, was issued a harassment warning. The victim was informed of this outcome.’

In fact, however, a PIN is nothing more than “words of advice” written on a bit of paper – and those “words of advice” may be based on incomplete or even fictitious information. And, as I documented here, police forces seem confused about their status.

Phillimore’s complaint

The ongoing feud between Barbara and Phillimore was previously reported by Ames in The Times in January; and in early February, he and Gibbs referred jocularly to a “‘handbags at dawn’-style dust-up”. The was also a piece in Legal Cheek.

It is the case that Barbara has referred to Phillimore in crudely abusive terms, but the context here is two public figures engaging in a bitter debate. There is nothing in Barbara’s Tweets that would give Phillimore reasonable cause to feel frightened. There is also an extravagant element to her allegations: for example, she Tweeted about a family member, Barbara referred to this Tweet, and Phillimore then announced that Barbara is bringing her family member to the attention of  a “large audience of unrepentant paedophiles”.

Phillimore and the trolls

Phillimore has also undermined her complaint with a series of jocular interactions with accounts that troll Barbara with abusive comments. One particularly vicious account is anonymous, and it is largely dedicated to subjecting Barbara to a sustained stream of highly personalised abuse and mockery that goes far beyond Barbara’s uncivil comments about Phillimore: for instance, the account mocks Barbara’s Irish heritage, and has made gratuitous references to a family bereavement. Phillimore has expressly encouraged the account to “enjoy… freedom of speech”. Such a statement, which would obviously needle and goad Barbara while spurring on a troll, are not consistent with a credible complaint of harassment.

The “death threat”, and a “skinned cat”

The Times led on the claim of a death threat based on the allegation appearing in a complaint to the Bar Standards Council – this is flimsy, given that the student doesn’t appear to have been able to get the police to take his complaint seriously (he is complaining bitterly about this on Twitter).

Further, it should be noted that the student’s range of complaints is extraordinary. In his Twitter bio, up until recently he described himself thus:

Hewson Abuse Survivor (HAS): 11/03 forced in2 twitter, abused, blew whistle, Harassed 12-2.19am, complaints excluded uni, pedotrolled, 3xhackd, cat skinned

He has since removed “cat skinned”, but his Twitter feed includes a photo of his cat with a large gash on its back and tail, along with a letter from a veterinarian practice about treatment. For some reason, the letter has been partially redacted – some details are missing, and if there is a date on the original it is not visible on the posted version.

Does his extraordinary allegation that Hewson arranged for someone to “skin” his cat appear in the document he submitted to the BSB? If not, why not? And if it did, why didn’t Ames and Gibbs draw attention to such a remarkable claim?

Reading through his Tweets, he seems to veer between saying he was “frightened” by Barbara (an email arriving at an unsocial hour described like a phone call in the middle of the night) and boasting about how he might mete out violence against paedophiles.

Conclusion

I doubt that The Times would have run with the “death threat” headline simply based on the student’s word: instead, it was given extra weight due to Phillimore’s separate “bullying” complaint. Thus two weak claims were combined to make a supposedly strong claim, worthy of a prominent position in the UK’s newspaper of record.

Complaints to police and the BSB have served as a media strategy – and those now tasked with assessing their merits ought to take that into consideration.

UPDATE: Police dropped the complaint on 11 May 2017. Barbara has shown me a letter from Leicestershire Police dated 30 May 2017, which quotes the case worksheet (emphasis added, ellipses in original):

The original report of harassment was reviewed…… and found no evidence within the report that we could progress. ……….. there is no evidence to support Mr Desai’s allegation of social media harassment…. Suspect Hewson will be updated no further action will be taken.

Despite the 30 May date, however, for some reason her solicitor did not receive it until September 2017.

UPDATE 2 (24 May 2019): The Daily Mail has conceded that the allegations are untrue:

An article published from 12 April 2017 reported allegations made in The Times that the barrister, Barbara Hewson, was responsible for sending anonymous threats to a law student, including death threats, persistent nuisance phone calls, sending him pictures of his address and his daughter, and details of his ex-partner’s address. The report of these allegations was repeated on social media. However, we now accept these allegations were untrue, and have agreed not to repeat them, pay damages and apologise to Ms Hewson for any distress caused.

The notice is also carried on the website of her legal representatives.

UPDATE 3 (10 December 2020): The Times has now settled a legal case brought by Barbara. Here is the retraction:

An article published in April 2017 (and until recently online) headed “Barrister ‘made death threats’ to student”, reported on a complaint made to the Bar Standards Board against barrister and writer Barbara Hewson, alleging that Ms Hewson or someone acting on her behalf had made death threats and persistent nuisance calls to a law student and sent him pictures of his daughter, his address and details of his ex-partner’s address. We also reported that a similar complaint against her had been made to Leicestershire police. Neither the Bar Standards Board, nor Leicestershire police pursued the complaints. We accept Ms Hewson’s assurances that the allegations made in the complaint against her were not true and have agreed not to repeat them and to pay damages to her for libel.

Further details are on the website of the media law firm 5RB.

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From Mark Taylor, in conversation with Jim Bakker on the Jim Bakker Show:

All through history our presidents have been taking orders… from people behind the shadows… And how what you’re seeing now come forth is someone who’s not going to be doing that…

God has his timeline, the enemy has his. This has totally wrecked the enemy’s timeline….

They were trying the Islamization of America by 2021 according to one author of a book that just got released… There were like seven phases he listed, and these seven phases have already been completed. So it was 2021. I looked at another researcher, who was on the Freemason side, and he was coming up with 2021, he had cracked the code.

Mark Taylor came to prominence last year, when the radio conspiricist Rick Wiles and Charisma News decided to publicise his claim to have received a message from God while watching Donald Trump on TV, that Trump would be president.

Taylor now presents himself as someone with special spiritual insight into US politics and global affairs – in November, he and Wiles were looking forward to “tribunals” in which “divine justice will be meted out” against associates of Hilary Clinton, described as “participants in occult practices”. Although Taylor hasn’t apparently received any further specific messages from God, he suggests that it may be significant that God spoke to him 2021 days before Trump was elected.

It’s not clear which books he is referring to his above comments about 2021, but it seems likely that his knowledge of the “seven phase” plan comes from one Andrew Thorp King, who in early 2016 published a column on the Birther website WND entitled “2021: The United Shariah States of America”. Writing as if in 2021, Thorp King describes a USA in which ISIS is now in charge, and in which “Christians, homosexuals, atheists and especially the Jews” are subjected to mass extermination. A few months later, Thorp King published a novel, Blaze: Operation Persian Trinity, in which Iranian machinations are thwarted by a “retired CIA assassin and spy” with the inconspicuous name of Blaze McIntyre, who “struggles with warnings of a biblically prophesied war”. The novel was published by WND‘s self-publishing arm, World Ahead Press, and comes with a blurb from Islamic Antichrist author Joel Richardson.

Thorp King’s own interest in the “seven phase” plan comes from Al Zarqawi: Al Qaeda’s Second Generation, a 2005 book in which a Jordanian reporter named Fouad Hussein interviewed a number of figures associated with al-Qaeda. The book is available only in Arabic, but its outline is known in English through a 2005 review in Speigel Online. Phase Four was predicted for 2010-2013, in which “al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments”, while in Phase Five “an Islamic state, or caliphate” will be declared between 2013 and 2016. Phase Six is “total confrontation” from 2016, followed by a vaguely defined “definitive victory” in 2020. There are also references to conflict in Syria

Thus, 12 years after 2005, we can read into this outline a prediction of the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS. However, the emphasis here is on “read into”. Dramatic and complex political changes in parts of the Arab world cannot be explained simply by evoking “al-Qaeda” or even Islamism more generally, and the Islamic State hardly represents the kind of caliphate – either in size or character – that al-Qaeda wants (despite the possibility of a future merger). The pathway to “definitive victory” by 2020 is unexplained, although Thorp King’s column envisions the USA being taken over by Muslims living in the country.

A rough outline and wish-list put forward al-Qaeda in 2005 has now apparently become a supernatural “code” by which neo-Pentecostal Christians can understand the role of malign spiritual forces in global affairs – although both sides appear to be on the same page as regards Phase Six, the “total confrontation”.

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