Westminster paedo ring

Allegations like these have been a mainstay of the far right for decades. The idea is that a group of Jewish establishment figures (including almost every Jewish MP from the 1970s onwards) have been conspiring to abuse and murder white British children. It's an unsubtle retread of the blood libel.

blimey.
i had no idea of the supposed connection.
i read these accusations/stories, and have never ever made such an association.
and yes, i have lead a very sheltered life.
thank you for explaining.

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, named in underage 'sex slave' lawsuit over claims of forced sexual relations

Alan Dershowitz and Ghislaine (daughter of Bob) Maxwell also accused and deny any wrongdoing. Prince Andrew does seem to have a litany of unsavoury friends, though.

Interesting story, but nothing to do with the Westminster paedo ring allegations.

The idea is that a group of Jewish establishment figures (including almost every Jewish MP from the 1970s onwards) have been conspiring to abuse and murder white British children

There's nothing antisemitic about the Westminster paedo ring allegations as far as I can tell. Some of the names on the Elm Guest House list are/were Jewish, sure, but plenty are not.

The fictitious antisemitic / homophobic allegations have existed for many years. They may be independent of the current set of accusations to some extent but when people say "oh there have been rumours about X, Y or Z for ages", that's often where they come back to.

Interesting story, but nothing to do with the Westminster paedo ring allegations.

I'm aware, it was a "I don't know where to put this so I'm putting it here"-thing, at least related in a people in high places being accused of this etc

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30938755

well that's convenient for him.

Got himself off the hook there you mean?

William Hague paying tribute in the Commmons right now, which seems a quite ridiculously short-sighted thing to do.

going to be interesting reading the tributes.

xpost

William Hague paying tribute in the Commmons right now, which seems a quite ridiculously short-sighted thing to do.

Nah, unless he really went to town, I think they have to take the qualified risk there, send out a safe pair of hands, otherwise their silence turns into a story in itself. Tabloid press has got a pretty free pass for its gushing tributes to Savile when he died, even though they now claim 'everybody knew, we just couldn't risk the legal battle'.

Yeah maybe, in which case they send out the guy whose political career is already basically over. Still wouldn't want to be that guy though when it all comes out.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/leon-brittan-abused-children-westminster-5038101

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-tory-leon-brittan-photographed-5037869

do i need to know more about jeffrey epstein or can i go about my life w/o

Ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor denies any role in Westminster abuse ring

Key Westminster Figures In Child Abuse Papers

gosh, how unfortunate that they're all dead

Ben Fellows, a former child actor, is currently in court for perverting the course of justice over allegations he made about Kenneth Clarke.

There are some absolutely astonishing allegations being made in court right now, the most lurid of which is Fellows' claim that the former Head of the Met's paedophile unit told him that he was aware of a porn film starring Joanna Lumley. Even if that were true I don't really understand what bearing it would have on anything.

Pretty sure Thatcher is going to be named in those papers too but unless they can say why, it isn't much help. Can highlight the dead ones as they can't sue for libel.

If it transpires that Thatcher both knew about this and covered it up then that is the biggest political revelation/scandal of most of our lifetimes, right there. If it isn't already. I'm really surprised this isn't front page news more often as it stands.

Sort of vaguely curious as to how they even went about setting up a covert paedophile ring in the middle of Westminster, it's not the sort of thing you can put on the House of Commons notice board. And there must have been people who weren't directly involved who had an inkling what was going on.

Sir Peter Morrison was very close to Thatcher.

Presumably it was like a 77 private board type arrangement ?

(x-post)

Hah

This is pretty far down the news pages of the bbc and the guardian. It's not even on the opening "splash" page of the guardian. Wtf are they so shy about? The bbc Ireypticence can understand, somewhat.

Er. *The bbc's reticence I can understand, somewhat.

It's on the front page of The Guardian website now. There's no story to tell from the Sky "revelations", though. Unless they can show the context in which the individuals were named (which has not been disclosed) there's barely any point in reporting it.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/03/ted-heath-child-abuse-investigation-police-watchdog-ipcc

This seems extraordinary:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/06/sex-abuse-claim-against-leon-brittan-began-as-joke-bbc-report

The police are effectively telling Panorama not to broadcast the episode given the risk of jeopardising ongoing cases. Panorama are telling the police that vulnerable witnesses were coached into making dubious allegations.

So it seems my speculation upthread may have been correct? (Except that it wasn't a case of childhood false memory syndrome rather than someone making stuff up as an adult.) Or is this "David" some other person than the "Nick" mentioned in the earlier stories?

Oh, okay, sorry, this was mentioned later in the article:

It is understood that David is not the same person as Nick, whose allegations are still being investigated by Operation Midland detectives.

Multiple people have named Leon Brittan though haven't they? This strikes me as extremely dodgy and I'm not really sure what Panorama is up to here.

Well, like I said upthread, there's a long history of child abuse claims leading to hysteria and false convictions, so I'd think it's the duty of journalists to find out whether such allegations have a solid basis? In the US many innocent people spent years in jail before it became apparent the evidence against them was based only on the child "witnesses" being manipulated into giving the answers their interviewers wanted, and/or false memory syndrome, so their convictions were overturned. Paedophilia is real thing and should be taken seriously, but sadly false accusations and "paedo hysteria" are something that can happen too, so that needs to be taken into account as well.

this is the most comprehensive thing I've found setting out the allegations against Brittan:

https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/the-long-strange-saga-of-leon-brittan/

there are some intersting articles on that site criticising the conduct of Exaro news, for example:

https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/on-the-harvey-proctor-allegations/

https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/on-janes-allegation/

Janner dead

Danjuk has chosen his words carefully.

it seems somewhat suspicious that met have chosen the moment that everyone's attention is being diverted by post-budget tory implosion to announce this:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/21/last-living-suspect-harvey-proctor-vip-paedophile-ring-inquiry-will-face-no-charges

Exaro has folded.

they didn't publish much eh? was p much Westminster paedo focused and there hasn't been a lot of developments in that of late

Yes, it started out as an investigative new site with a broader remit but seems to have been just focused on this for at least a year.

I've seen some speculation that Exaro's folding could be related to the Henriques inquiry into the police's handling of Westminster paedo allegations, which may well be critical of Exaro + the police's relationship with them. I think they had financial problems as well, though?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716348/Janner-s-family-warn-child-sex-inquiry-flawed-s-revealed-star-witness-probe-lied-abuse-care-home-boss.html

Doubts about Tony's reliability are especially significant because, although 33 people have now claimed Janner abused them, for many years he was the only accuser. They suggest that the decision not to charge Janner was not an 'Establishment cover-up', as some have claimed, but a determination on ordinary legal grounds.

On January 29, 1991, Tony went to a local police station to spend the whole day being interviewed about Janner.
This was when he made his claims about Barbara Fitt.

After the interview, the police passed the allegations about Mrs Fitt – who was still running Station Road – to the social services department, along with a copy of Tony's statement. In the summer of 1991 a panel of senior managers noted her exemplary record and decided to take no further action, determining that the claims were bogus, a complete fabrication.

Mrs Fitt told the panel she thought Tony may have been seeking 'revenge' because she had been responsible for having him moved in 1974, after the incident with the six-year-old.

this seems concerning, though it would be helpful to know how the panel came to the conclusion that the allegations against Fitt were bogus, and obviously it could be the case that his account of abuse by Fitt was fabricated but his account of abuse by Janner was true.

Fitt also mentioned here ("Mr A" = the accuser referred to as "Tony" in the Mail article)

https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/decision-not-to-arrest-greville-janner-in-1991-then-attorney-general-and-dpp-need-to-answer-questions/

Mr A claimed that weekly trips had been arranged for him to the MP’s London home and to the Holiday Inn by Barbara Fitt, then Officer-in-Charge of Station Road children’s home, Wigston, Leicester, though conceded that this would have been impossible with the first visits, as Fitt had only taken over the home four months before he left it.

TBH I assumed Exaro was funded largely by someone who cared a lot about this and basically nothing else, to the point of monomania.

seeing reports that Goddard has quit as head of the csa inquiry?

the Times is alleging that Goddard quit after "she was warned by a senior official over her frequent use of racially derogatory language", including claiming that Britain has so many paedophiles "because it has so many asian men"

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/786678658182291456

also, the Henriques inquiry into Operation Midland has apparently been completed, but the police have not said how much of it will be published, if any?

jings

Sir Edward Heath would have been questioned over sex abuse claims if he was alive when they came to light, police have said.

Wiltshire Police launched Operation Conifer in 2015 when the former PM was accused of historical child sex abuse.

The Conservative politician would have been interviewed under caution over seven claims, including the alleged rape of an 11-year-old, they said.

No inference of guilt should be drawn from this, police stressed.

The allegations include one of rape of a male under 16, three of indecent assault on a male under 16, four of indecent assault on a male under 14, and two of indecent assault on a male over 16.

The earliest, dating from 1961 when Sir Edward was Lord Privy Seal, alleged he had raped and indecently assaulted an 11-year-old boy in London "during a paid sexual encounter in private in a dwelling."

Another two of the seven claims relate to "paid sexual encounters."

The Sir Edward Heath Foundation called the report "profoundly unsatisfactory".

There was that credible testament from the lady who said she saw 11 children from Haute de la Garenne go out with Heath on his yacht, but only 10 returned.