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How much evidence is there of long term high level UK paedophile ring?

Another positive development reported by Exaro.

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"...the same former Conservative cabinet minister..."
 
nino_savatte said:
I think many of us have suspected the government was trying to scupper the abuse inquiry.
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5448/home-office-mandarins-are-seeking-to-subvert-abuse-inquiry
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I can't see it simply in those terms. A very large part of the story involves victims, certain panel members and others having a go at each other, and displaying everything from a complete lack of trust to counterproductive personal defensiveness.

There are some good, or at least understandable, explanations for this, but its a complication that is rather hard to solve in a country where there is already a sizeable gap between how the elites decide to deal with things, and what people including some victims want to see happen.

There are some bloody good reasons why some victims cannot sustain the levels of trust necessary to make progress. Quite what can be done about it quite the question, given that some victims were damaged by past experiences to the extent that it will be impossible to satisfy them, even if we had some kind of brilliant open inquiry that really wasn't afraid to leave no stone unturned.
 
As the politics surrounding the inquiry becomes ever more clotted I think we need to be a little more sensitive to the politicking that is going on. Saying that 'mandarins' are trying to bounce May into a course of action is itself a political intervention. Neither we nor Exaro (and nor I'd imagine the independent panel members) have any real idea how the meeting with opponents of the independent panel which is being complained about was set up. It might have been May's own idea - there have been instances where she seems to be trying to defuse and incorporate criticism by 'consulting' it. (Seemingly the exact opposite of what she is often accused of in relation to this inquiry. But then those complaints often have as their sub-text 'I haven't been consulted'). Putting it in the way the Exaro article claims some of the independent panel members are, as the fault of devious obstructive 'Sir Humphries', is all part of the attempt to persuade May to do what they want. Whether or not there is any truth to the suggestion is not the fundamental reason why it is being said.

I think we have also long since reached the point where it's necessary to be a little more careful in distinguishing between victims of abuse and the representatives and 'champions' of victims of abuse. While it would be great if we could accept that all of the latter are motivated by selfless considerations and are being honest in what they say, sadly that would be hopelessly naive.
 
Exaro have certainly been consistent in writing pieces that give the impression of mostly supporting the inquiry in its original format, and the panel as is. They are making little attempt to tell the whole story on this front.
 
elbows said:
I can't see it simply in those terms. A very large part of the story involves victims, certain panel members and others having a go at each other, and displaying everything from a complete lack of trust to counterproductive personal defensiveness.

There are some good, or at least understandable, explanations for this, but its a complication that is rather hard to solve in a country where there is already a sizeable gap between how the elites decide to deal with things, and what people including some victims want to see happen.

There are some bloody good reasons why some victims cannot sustain the levels of trust necessary to make progress. Quite what can be done about it quite the question, given that some victims were damaged by past experiences to the extent that it will be impossible to satisfy them, even if we had some kind of brilliant open inquiry that really wasn't afraid to leave no stone unturned.
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I can and I'm seeing this purely in terms of how power is being exercised at the highest levels. Given the amount of power and influence held by the security services and the close relationship they enjoy with the Tory party, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that highly placed civil servants and others will do all they can to delay, prevaricate and obfuscate in order to frustrate any attempt to get at the truth and put the guilty in the dock. The establishment doesn't want an inquiry. That is something on which all of us can agree.
 
nino_savatte said:
The establishment doesn't want an inquiry. That is something on which all of us can agree.
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No, I can't agree with that either!

There are stages where the establishment fights against such things, but if the smell doesn't go away then they eventually have to move on to a phase of having some kind of inquiry so they can do that thing with the narrative where they 'draw a line under events of the past'.

I am not for a minute suggesting that such a strategy involves a full and frank disclosure of every aspect of the truth, as opposed to the deliberate narrowing of the scope of inquiry. But in order to achieve even its minimum requirements as far as enabling the line to be drawn, at least a certain standard of credibility is required at the offset. But when it comes to this abuse inquiry, they have been unable to gain sufficient momentum before credibility is undermined at these early stages, forcing repeated attempts to salvage the credibility before the main event. I partly put it down to the particular ineptitude of the current regime, along with the timescales involved, the nature of the offences, the way victims have been failed historically, and the levels of fear that the prospect of certain revelations going public probably foster.

Perhaps my relatively relaxed attitude towards this issue is down to the fat that at this point I'm far more interested in the police investigations, since these are the ones that may in theory bring specific people to account. I'd rather any inquiry not get far into its work before the justice system side of things concludes.
 
elbows said:
Its never been clear to me what people think the likes of Charles Napier actually knows. Certainly we get headlines from time to time that he might hold the key to unlocking some huge network, but I've never heard anything that really points in that direction. The nature of his offending doesn't seem to involve politicians, so I assume its PIE stuff that holds the most interest. Certainly as treasurer he may know some interesting things, but for me in many ways a lot of the PIE stuff is easy repeating of tabloid stuff past, as opposed to a key to unlocking high-level abuse.

Links to Peter Righton are the other possibility of interest, but aside from the Righton stuff being a major part of the Tom Watson speech that launched the westminster side of the post-Savile story, its not clear to me where this angle is supposed to lead either. I suppose from what we know so far it looks like there could be a story here about paedophiles within various institutions trying to help each other out, and it is very important that this be looked at properly. But there are certainly limits to our assumptions on this front, not least because yet again we are dealing with people who were prosecuted in the past, so clearly were not receiving utter immunity by virtue of having powerful mates.

I'll throw the above stances away in a heartbeat if something interesting emerges, but I have no particular reason to think it will.
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Quoting myself from late December because the victim known as Darren, across multiple Exaro articles, links Napier to Righton and Righton to trafficking people for Dolphin Square abuse. So there is the kind of alleged detail about links that I said I'd never heard at the time of the above post. The level of political interest in Righton makes more sense if this was the setup, but its too early for me to confidently claim that this is the missing link - I don't have the investigative powers to even begin to do it justice and find it highly unlikely I can glean anything further from internet research on this one for now.

My normal instincts would still be to get into some of the detail of what Darren is saying, and see what further questions or possibilities it raises. But in this case I don't think I can do it properly, not without potentially insinuating things that are unfair to Darren and others. I can say that I'm not comfortable with the level of detail Exaro have published on this one - when Exaro came up in this context before I defended them on that point, but not this time. Because there does seem to be a heck of a lot of details published that are the kind of thing the police could use to check whether fresh victims stories match details given by previous victims. Do I really need to know the details about different rooms at this point?
 
elbows said:
No, I can't agree with that either!
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You do surprise me! :D

There are stages where the establishment fights against such things, but if the smell doesn't go away then they eventually have to move on to a phase of having some kind of inquiry so they can do that thing with the narrative where they 'draw a line under events of the past'.
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This doesn't exclude the very real possibility that they can sabotage the inquiry process. Some victims are afraid to come forward because they rightly fear reprisals. The perps believe themselves to be above the law. For decades these people have abused and murdered children for their pleasure. This belief comes from their privileged positions and the sense of entitlement that comes with those positions. They will do all they can to interfere with both the inquiry process and the police investigation.

I am not for a minute suggesting that such a strategy involves a full and frank disclosure of every aspect of the truth, as opposed to the deliberate narrowing of the scope of inquiry. But in order to achieve even its minimum requirements as far as enabling the line to be drawn, at least a certain standard of credibility is required at the offset. But when it comes to this abuse inquiry, they have been unable to gain sufficient momentum before credibility is undermined at these early stages, forcing repeated attempts to salvage the credibility before the main event. I partly put it down to the particular ineptitude of the current regime, along with the timescales involved, the nature of the offences, the way victims have been failed historically, and the levels of fear that the prospect of certain revelations going public probably foster.
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Ineptitude? There have already been two attempts by May to install a chair. I would suggest that her selections were flawed from the outset. She knew exactly what she was doing by nominating Butler-Sloss and Woolf.
 
Lots of possibilities there, some of which I have plenty of time for and others somewhat less so. What I can't do is treat those possibilities as facts.

I can be plenty cynical about the political classes without buying into the idea that May appointed those people knowing that there would be a backlash which would result in them being unable to do the job.
 
elbows said:
Lots of possibilities there, some of which I have plenty of time for and others somewhat less so. What I can't do is treat those possibilities as facts.

I can be plenty cynical about the political classes without buying into the idea that May appointed those people knowing that there would be a backlash which would result in them being unable to do the job.
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That's not quite what I was saying. May knew that Butler-Sloss and Woolf had close connections with the establishment. How could she not know? She knew these women would be unpalatable to the members of the panel. Her class always looks after their own. That alone suits those who were responsible for the murders and abuse of children (especially the security services). I recall what she said when Woolf was forced to stand down and I paraphrase "No one will be suitable because they all have a connection to the establishment". I found that rather revealing.
 
Children's Home Sex Abuse Accused Found Dead

A former children's home manager has been found dead weeks before he was due to stand trial over alleged historical sex abuse.

John Stingemore, 72, was found at his home in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on Wednesday afternoon.

Police called to the property following concern about his health found him collapsed and he was declared dead at the scene.

Sussex Police said the death was not suspicious.

A post-mortem examination has yet to take place and the case has been passed to the coroner.

Mr Stingemore was due to stand trial next month at Southwark Crown Court charged with a string of indecent assaults on children.

The charges came following an investigation into alleged abuse at Grafton Close Children's Home in Hounslow, west London.

The home is at the centre of Operation Fernbridge, a Met police probe launched last year into an alleged VIP paedophile ring operating out of the Elm Guest House in Barnes, south London.
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nino_savatte said:
That's not quite what I was saying. May knew that Butler-Sloss and Woolf had close connections with the establishment. How could she not know? She knew these women would be unpalatable to the members of the panel. Her class always looks after their own. That alone suits those who were responsible for the murders and abuse of children (especially the security services). I recall what she said when Woolf was forced to stand down and I paraphrase "No one will be suitable because they all have a connection to the establishment". I found that rather revealing.
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Thanks for the explanation, sorry for misunderstanding it earlier.

I didn't find that comment revealing because we know what form inquiries take in this country. Thats also why I'm not sure about the idea they are trying to scupper the inquiry - they are simply trying to have the usual sort of inquiry on their usual terms, involving the usual sorts of people. I apply the same to the choice of panel members, they are also the usual sort of people - people who may not all be establishment themselves, but are considered 'responsible members of society' who might from time to time challenge the establishment on certain levels, but certainly not on others. I'll have to double-check but it didn't seem to me that panel members were the ones leading the charge against the choices of chair either. Some of them might of complained about chairs later, but they didn't start momentum on that front and so I disagree that May knew her chair choices would be unpalatable to the panel.
 
Also one of the biggest rifts that has formed is between certain panel members and some victims/victim support groups. The latest instalment of that particular saga seems to involve the panel cancelling a listening event with survivors because of complaints that there is insufficient support available for victims who attend, and the panels continued jitters about the future of the inquiry:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/...nquiry-panel-cancel-listening-event-survivors
 
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Plus the panel now being discredited in the eyes of some victims and their representatives is not, in my opinion, a direct result of obvious and deliberate government deeds.

The fact that some victims have been damaged by past abuse and coverup in a manner that makes it very hard to satisfy them now. Even if the establishment had good intentions (I'm not suggesting it has such intentions) they would find it hard to satisfy this group, so the actual reality falls well short and means that inquiries and structures need to have systems in place to support the people and deal with their complaints, concerns and lack of faith as best as can possibly be managed.

But no, one or two members of the panel responded very poorly to the accusations and abuse that they got, often online. And then compounded matters further by coming across as overly keen to defend their own personal honour and place in society and on the panel, along with the reputation of the panel as a whole, when it looked like the inquiry and panel in its current form may be replaced.
 
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So I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd be far more likely to agree that our official inquiry systems are not well suited to delivering justice to victims or winning their trust, than the idea that this particular one has been deliberately setup to fail at the earliest of stages.
 
teqniq said:
Children's Home Sex Abuse Accused Found Dead
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Doh. I suppose its not terribly shocking because earlier in the legal process there were doubts as to whether he was fit to stand trial due to some serious health problems, although they did eventually decide he was fit to stand trial. Having said that its too early for me to assume he died from poor health, but it still makes news of his death less shocking to me even if it doesn't tun out to be the cause of death.

With the information available publicly so far I think its a bit hard to say whether we've definitely been robbed of any potentially interesting links to the high-level paedophile stuff as a result of Stingemores death. We know of at least one victim who alleged abuse at both Grafton and Elm, but I don't think we know whether Stingemore was alleged to have anything to do with a link between the two places, rather than 'simply' abusing people at Grafton. We know that this victim is the same one that was told by the CPS that they were going to drop certain charges against Stingemore, that he was the only victim who alleged abuse at Elm, and that the Elm investigation was being handled separately and it was too early to say whether there would be prosecutions on that front. I believe this is the CPS charge dropping decision that Exaro campaigned against and that was eventually reversed but I've forgotten the precise details of that right now. I think one of the dropped charges was related to conspiracy, so I can't rule out the possibility that something interesting may have emerged at his trial. I think there is a priest still due to go on trial in relation to Grafton so the death of Stingemore may not suddenly result in many previously unreportable things becoming reportable.
 
It's beyond parody. The Coleman Experience blamed the Joos for most things. It hasn't posted anything for weeks. Rumour has it they were shut down and I shan't weep.
 
bluescreen said:
It's beyond parody. The Coleman Experience blamed the Joos for most things. It hasn't posted anything for weeks. Rumour has it they were shut down and I shan't weep.
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TBF, we "front wheel skids" (as one of the commenters on that vapid stream-of-consciousness dot-joining exercise called us) are pretty perfidious.
 
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