The unlikely combination of combative Times columnist David Aaronovitch and the tragic pop star Amy Winehouse drove traffic to my blog last year.
I doubt either have met each other but in different ways it reflects the present obsession with controversial names and celebrity culture.
The Amy Winehouse blog is three years old and is a travelogue based on the fact that I found myself and my wife staying at the same tourist complex in St Lucia that acted as a retreat for Amy when she was chilling out from drugs. I suspect the film about her has driven the traffic but the blog got over 1500 hits last year – 50 per cent more than the combined total of the two previous years taking it to nearly 2700 hits.
David Aaronovitch’s critique of my journalism in The Times led to 3537 hits when I decided to respond – though it was eclipsed by my critique of Dominic Lawson’s take on the Leon Brittan alleged child sex abuse scandal which attracted 6447 views.
Interest in the case of child sex abuse survivor Esther Baker was reflected in two high scoring blogs- at 2674 for an analysis of the challenge facing Staffs Police in investigating her case and 2096 when the first arrest was announced.
The scandal over former justice secretary Chris Grayling seeking contracts from the despicable Saudi Arabian justice system – which this blog and Tribune broke- was a big highlight – with 4250 hits when his successor Michael Gove faced court action and 2795 when the story originally broke.
Otherwise the biggest hits were reserved for the attempt to get rid of the Speaker, John Bercow, on the last day of Parliament – with 3933 on a piece criticising William Hague’s botched action in changing the election rules and 2497 on the midnight email to MPs from Julian Lewis MP which alerted everyone to the dodgy deal.
The most controversial blog has been my reporting of a Northern Ireland judge’s decision to compensate a paedophile for a campaign against him by one of his victims -comments were both virulent in their hatred and support for the judge.
Altogether the number of hits recorded by WordPress on my blog – 127,725 were down from 182,000 the previous year. I also wrote fewer blogs as I was away some of the time. But this is not the full story as the blog is getting increasing additional traffic from Linked In, Facebook and is now run on Byline.com so I am not longer sure how many hits I am getting any more.
WordPress also records I have had hits from 155 countries. Over 80 per cent (107,000) is from the UK but there were over 7,700 from the United States and over 1000 each from Australia, Ireland and France. I have had just one hit from Iran, Syria, Armenia and the Turks and Caicos Islands to name but a few.
The blog’s rating on http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/ has gone up from number 62 to number 50 on the top independent bloggers This partly reflects my twitter following increasing to 8085.
For a small one man blog however it is gratifying that so many people are interested – given I do no promotion.
Westminster Confidential 
Aaaargh!
“Not to repeat the silly mistakes of last year” – clearly not the chosen New Year’s Resolution, as here you go again, getting it spectacularly wrong (again), Hencke-style.
“The most controversial blog has been my reporting of a Northern Ireland judge’s decision to compensate a paedophile for a campaign against him by one of his victims…”
Really? Being a supposedly responsible journalist you will no doubt have checked this ‘fact’ before publishing; could you please point your loyal readership in the direction of something which might back-up this statement?
My understanding is that rather than being a ‘victim’, the judgement referred to a life-long criminal (with an easily-checked past of using the gullible press to divert attention away from his own criminal activities) who recently ‘achieved’ his 97th conviction.
(Perhaps he broke the 100-barrier over the festive period, who knows?)
Having been banged-up no less than 20 times and having 4 convictions for indecency are clearly no obstacle to being a ‘paedo vigilante hero’ & all-round diamond geezer in Hencke-world – he’s clearly a ‘campaigning’ saint! Perhaps you should invite him to come and live next door to you…
Christopher Hitchins knew what he was talking about – see the soggy-kneed Danczuk for recent confirmation! – when he wrote:
“Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.”
Sleight of hand, look over there, not over here…
P.S. “I doubt either have met each other…” Bloody hell, man, make an effort!
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As I was saying the report was controversial.. and so it proves. re your last point re a meeting between Aaronovitch and Winehouse , have you no sense of humour in the Canary isles?
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Controversial has nothing to do with it. Factual inaccuracy has. Your article is simply, plainly & provably wrong, as you should accept.
You state that there was “a campaign against him by one of his victims”. No, there was a campaign against him by a man with almost one hundred convictions – NOT a victim.
Playing up to the screeching nutters once again, pretending that a poor victim had been stopped from ‘campaigning’… rabble-rousing, nothing more. Obviously your story is weakened when the ‘hero’ is shown to be a rotten apple (with multiple convictions for indecency) and not, in fact, a ‘victim’ at all – so you ignore the inconvenient truths and plough on.
One wonders if this is a technique you employ regularly in order to bolster a tawdry tale.
[I was marvelling at the word-soup more than anything re the last point.
It seems fairly certain that if ‘either’ had met the ‘other’ then, er, the ‘other’ one would have met/been met too… redundancy. Also, ‘have met’ – when one of the two is already dead? ‘Had’ would be an improvement, or better still – “I doubt they (ever) met.”
Perhaps you could offer Joe a job as your editor, keep him out of trouble (for a while at least) & prevent him from hitting that ton? Howzat for an idea?!?]
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As an Anna Raccoon supporter I notice you take a passionate interest in my posts on child sexual abuse and paedophiles but on nothing else whether it is Lawrence of Arabia, the flood maestro’s money or Jeremy Corbyn. I wonder why you are so obsessed with this subject.
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So, instead of accepting your error you have chosen to launch what I can only imagine you believe to be a personal attack? Incredible.
What is this obsession of yours with Anna Raccoon? You have brought up the subject several times now – care to explain why? The website no longer exists, and I’m baffled by what being a ‘supporter’ might entail anyway. I think you may have gone a little mad…
Floods? I commented about them elsewhere just the other day. Corbyn? More interested at the moment in watching the established Spanish parties renege on their solemn promises & try to cobble together a coalition – any coalition – just to keep Podemos (the Spanish Corbynistas, sort of) out of power; the Establishment protecting its own interests…
But why on earth are you trying to throw mud at me by pretending to even wonder what draws me to your articles about your “secret VIP paedophile ring” when you know full well?
I have commented on the present article as I was gobsmacked to see you getting the Facebook-tale wrong (again) having only recently been prodded into responding to the original article (again) on receiving a notification that someone else had just done the same. If you recall – and you really ought to, given that this happened only a couple of days ago! – you published the outpourings of a mind that thought that if a man’s mother – a “bitch” – had only “swallowed the father’s load” (i.e. the ejaculate) then the “fucking trash” would never have been born (or alternatively he “should’ve been aborted or stillborn”).
Crikey! And you’re wondering about THIS commentator’s interest?!?
Further, taking you back to the beginning – refreshing your memory as you know all this already – my interest was originally piqued when I serendipitously spotted what seemed to be a flashing-red warning-light hanging over the entrance to that ‘Elm Guest House Boy Brothel’ story of yours and brought it to your attention. Perhaps it is now YOU who should be answering some questions; in particular, why did you & Exaro persist in touting (and allowing to be touted) nonsense which you knew to be just that?
What led Zac Goldsmith MP to laud you in Parliament whilst referring to an imaginary photograph of Leon Brittan? The man whose ‘activities’ had raised my alarm was, of course, Chris Fay’s co-scribbler/fantasist & he actually named the photographer (of the non-existent pics) as the man against whom he had waged a long vendetta after losing a tug-o-love & who has nothing whatsoever to do with Elm.
Incredible! A man now tipped to be the next Mayor of London (and possible future leader of the Tories/the UK) referring to a photograph that doesn’t exist, taken by a man that wasn’t there, briefed by David Hencke… and you’ve got the nerve to question ME?!? Ho ho ho! What a cheek!
My trouser knees are in fine fettle, thanks. I’d worry about your own, if I were you – they are starting to look a little threadbare.
P.S. Writing Jimmy Savile articles (!) on Exaro, sharing a byline with an ex-NOTW “journalist”, is not the way to go about patching anything up – neither knees nor reputations.
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Well well. You shouldn’t be surprised that you are being questioned. By the way, the blog is being well liked by other people particularly on my semi private Facebook page.
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It’s not me being questioned as I have answered – it is you, and you have not. Cat got your tongue?
By the way, talking about people being obsessed with the subject whilst being the owner of a site (this one) that has ‘sexual abuse’ listed TWICE under ‘Categories’ makes you look a little daft (or dafter still).
(You even added a little full-stop in front of one to push ‘sexual abuse’ to the top of the list – your number one trending-topic! Remind me again, who is obsessed?)
And what does this mean?
“By the way, the blog is being well liked by other people particularly on my semi private Facebook page.”
What blog? Why should I care about a bloody Facebook page, semi-private or otherwise?!? If the ‘people’ there are anything like the ‘people’ you attract elsewhere then I’m resolutely uninterested in their mad opinions. Here’s an idea, though: give me the ‘secret password’ and I’ll snoop around, print a few messages off & send it back to Exaro: bingo, another ‘explosive’ scoop (word used advisedly).
Maybe spilt it into three or four articles so as to increase its journalistic worth – ho ho ho!
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Dear Ms Bandini: of course you are quite right to take Mr Hencke to task for his lack of sub-editing skills, (sloppy punctuation, for one thing) and I must say I do admire the standard of literacy in your own contributions: you know how to use a hyphen, and when, which is a rare thing these days, despite the proliferation of double-barrelled surnames, isn’t it?
On the other hand, I fail to see why you are so keen to discredit the work of a highly respected journalist, who is so clearly only trying to do the right thing, and fairly report the allegations of those who claim to have suffered abuse of the most repellant nature.
Your reference to Jimmy Savile is interesting: are you one of those deluded people who thinks he was innocent of all the charges levelled against him? Or are you perhaps spreading disinformation, in line with a broader agenda?
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Dear Srta. Victor: why would you wish to ignore the factual inaccuracy & instead choose to concentrate on Hencke’s word-murder? The former is important, the latter merely disappointing (for a professional journalist).
I do not share your apparent belief that ‘clearly trying to do the right thing’ accurately describes the actions under discussion. I have provided examples which you are, of course, free to disregard; leave them next to the abandoned bucket and spade (which are on a level approximately 15cm above your head).
Having a MP spouting lunatic, fabricated rubbish is indeed a hell of a way to discredit oneself, but Hencke can explain his own behaviour to you as I’m afraid I can’t help you out on this one.
Your reference to Jimmy Savile: no charges were ever levelled against him and I can therefore be quite certain that he could be neither ‘guilty’ nor ‘innocent’ of them (as they did not exist). Are you perhaps referring to the ‘allegations’ made only after his death, in line with a broader agenda? [Rhetorical, believe me.]
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Ah Bandini Now we have it. All those from Duncroft, Stoke Mandeville, Broadmoor and the BBC have made up these allegations against Savile waiting until his death to defame him when he couldn’t sue. You must be missing your friends who share your agenda on Anna Raccoon ( why has this website closed?).
The most compelling evidence that a story might be true for a journalist is when people who do not know each other and have never met start making similar allegations. Unless of course you believe there is a collective mass hysteria across the whole of the UK picking on innocent celebs and politicians just for the hell of it. I suspect you do but sadly child abuse is much more common than anyone would like to think. The evidence gathered by the police of the number of people viewing and sharing child abuse images across the internet at the moment proves that – unless you are going to say the police have made this up as well.
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What an astonishing statement for you to make! A dynamite establishment-rattler, no less:
“All those from Duncroft, Stoke Mandeville, Broadmoor and the BBC have made up these allegations against Savile waiting until his death to defame him when he couldn’t sue.”
For a second I thought you must be accusing ME of holding that view, but the only way to misinterpret what I have written in such a way would be to do so deliberately, and the only reason to do THAT would be to try and shift the attention away from your own failings, which I have detailed! Ho ho ho! Truly woeful… and cowardly.
I see you once again choose to publicly indulge your bizarre obsession with Anna Raccoon – it’s like watching someone live-tweet their descent into mental illness. I offered my opinion as to the likely reason for the site’s disappearance a mere three or four days ago, which makes your question a mere three or four days later – “why has this website closed?” – cause yet further concern over the state of your puzzled noggin:
https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/judge-bans-a-facebook-page-exposing-paedophiles-and-awards-20000-damages-to-convicted-sex-offender/#comment-17126
I’m afraid I am unable to improve on my earlier suggestion, having neither met nor spoken to Anna Raccoon since that posting. (This is, perhaps, unsurprising as I have never met nor spoken to Anna Raccoon in my life.) But please, do carry on with your Raccoon-based comedy-routine – it’s toe-curlingly good!
Can I make a suggestion? As someone who professes to be an investigative journalist – and as someone with an almost ‘stalkerish’ monomania on the theme – why not pull your finger out and INVESTIGATE the bloody subject if it interests you so? This is after all what you are so good at, right? But back to Savile…
“The most compelling evidence that a story might be true for a journalist is when people who do not know each other and have never met start making similar allegations.”
Tra-la-la-la-la, and they all fall down…
The Savile-industry was launched off the back of a group of ex-Duncroftian internet-users who met – ‘virtually’, if they had not already done so in the real world – and communicated, collaborated, shared ‘n’ refined, revised & cooked-up some scorchers.
Some of the later claims that came when the compensation-tap was opened do indeed share similar characteristics – characteristics that had already been widely diffused by the glorious British Press: he stank of cigar smoke, he wore a tracksuit, etc.. Compelling stuff!
However, the ‘similar allegations’ to which you refer must surely not include the abuse of 2-year olds, the abuse of dying patients, Satanic ceremonies, ‘lone-wolf’ attacks, group attacks, physical attack, sexual courtship over a long period of time leading finally to ‘full sex’, blink ‘n’ it’s gone 30-second ‘speed-rape’, male, female, people of indeterminate sex (or who changed their sex), vulnerable children, un-vulnerable adult professionals, etc., etc..
The only ‘similar’ characteristic shared by those in the above list is that that bloke off the telly – already presented as being undoubtedly and unquestioningly responsible for crimes which I bet you can’t even now remember* – was behind them all, and for one reason or another the hundreds (thousands?) of victims had all – to a (wo)man – not bothered to report to the appropriate authorities. [See later reply to Victor for exceptions.]
The superficially-convincing argument that if there are hundreds of post-death accusations then they MUST be true can be swiftly tipped over on its sorry arse by countering: “Can it be true that literally hundreds upon hundreds of victims of serious crime (or witnesses to same) didn’t think to do a damned thing about their allegations until it was far too late for justice to be served?”
We can even bypass the appropriate authorities: several years before his death Savile was directly challenged on television by Theroux over the ‘paedo rumours’. My God, imagine watching the gurning greaseball spinning a line knowing that your relative had been abused by the man as a poor child that lay dying… I have no doubt whatsoever that I would NOT have done NOTHING. And you?
(The police kept one anonymous green-ink letter from a nutter for years & years – where were the rest of ’em? Where?)
* One of those original ‘Exposure’ paedo-tales goes like this:
– 1968. 15-year old becomes involved with Savile.
– 1974. She’s still with him.
– 197? In her “early twenties” the relationship ends (allegedly, and if there even ever was one!).
– Her “personal” photos of Savile include one where he wears a t-shirt which can be seen – by the eagle-eyed! – elsewhere in the same dreadful programme: Savile wears it to meet Margaret Thatcher at No.10!
– It could not have been before December 1979, and if it were any later than that we might even be looking at a ‘crime’ that span three-decades (60s, 70s and 80s).
– This was brought to you via the Duncroft forums where stories were told & the British Press approve this message. Open up ‘n’ swallow…
P.S. I see you’ve now edited the ‘Categories’, so as to seem less… obsessed.
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Looking forward to 2016… its obvious that the Irving’s of this world haven’t a clue what is quietly coming together.
Big smile David
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Bandini: outing yourself as a Savile apologist was rather a foolish move, and automatically discredits any accusations you put forward. Charged or not, Savile’s history of appalling abuse has been documented by hundreds of victims, acknowledged and condemned by various bodies and authorities – and even acknowledged by relatives. You cannot accept the allegations as true, however, it seems, knowing better than they, and remain unable to be certain of his guilt, yet you happily accuse an MP of “spouting lunatic, fabricated rubbish”, clearly certain it is “lunatic, fabricated rubbish”. Certainty, in other words, in your scale of values, is something subjective, and applied according to your own preference.
Quite why you waste so much time trying to dismantle the case against child abusers is puzzling. Also puzzling is why you discuss the issues with such disdain for grammatical error, yet think it acceptable to resort to language of such vulgarity, referring to sexual practices in terms that are hardly appropriate in the sensitive context of discussing the abuse of children.
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Victor: your tiresome falling-back on boring old terms such as ‘Savile apologist’ tells me that you are incapable of intelligent debate & therefore unworthy of much of my time.
(So is Hencke, of course, but he is a ‘somebody’ whereas you, I’m afraid, are a nobody. So I’ll be quick…)
What I have written can be freely fact-checked and confirmed by anyone with the energy to do so – try doing that with Exaro/Hencke! But I’m guessing you’ve never even bothered to read any of the documents upon which you base your “hundreds of victims” assertion, so…
One of those ‘victims’ – to pick almost at random from the rich bounty of madness in which you’ve invested – is the following:
“On Christmas Day 1987 Victim 51 was being nursed in a two-bedded room and Savile bought her an extra present which was a foam rubber model penis. Savile said to her “wouldn’t you like to see the real thing?””
That’s it. Nothing more. That’s one of your “hundreds”, numbers repeated ad infinitum. Oh hang on, there IS more:
“Even though Victim 51 was 30 years of age and married she was distressed about the incident.”
Bless! Let’s pray that Victim 51 makes a full-recovery.
Grammatical error? No, factual inaccuracy. ‘Lies’.
Vulgarity? I’m assuming you are referring to the quotes I included from another commentator on this site – see the link in reply to Hencke. Perhaps direct your concern to the site-owner who sees fit to publish the filth? It seems to attract damaged brains…
(And back to Savile – and the relatives who have “acknowledged” his abuse – you might want to have a good read of the former opinion of the relative who Exaro now threaten to base their ludicrous Savile/Heath-yarn upon – same link. The ‘white plate’ to be placed upon the un-visited grave of a dodgy internet news agency…)
Finally, this: “… happily accuse an MP of “spouting lunatic, fabricated rubbish”. Yes, that’s correct, helped along by Hencke and Exaro. We could argue over “spouting”, “lunatic” even, but not the “fabricated rubbish”. That is what it was & what it was known to be. Direct your questions to the man of silence, unwilling (as he is unable) to counter the serious accusation. Do you think any of 2015’s blog-readers belong to the investigating authorities? I really do hope so…
¡Adiós!
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How embarrassing, I forgot to refer to the most promising opportunity for charging Savile:
A two-year police investigation.
Dreadful accusations of choir-girl being kissed – with a tongue!
Savile interviewed, nothing found – no further action.
The complainant has offered so many versions of the tale that it is hard to keep up. In fact, ‘complainant’ is a bit of a misnomer as despite giving post-‘Exposure’ interviews claiming that she had wanted a prosecution to go ahead, the police dug out her statements & showed her that her memory had failed her (during the intervening 3-years!); she had very definitely NOT wanted to press charges. She had ‘misremembered’ to the press…
“Subsequently Ms F’s signed statement was shown to her where it states that she was unwilling to support police or court action. She accepted this and that her memory was incorrect about how she felt at the time.”
This might make us ask what on earth was going on, but having an internet-using Duncroftian-sister can lead to confusion for all!
(By the way, there is another iteration of this tale which veers so far from the ‘original’ as to be obviously a DIFFERENT one… but it can’t be, surely, as having a different choir-girl-with-a-sister-at-Duncroft also subjected to a kiss must be a coincidence too far. Who knows? Who even cares?!?)
Right-o, that’s yer lot!
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Cheer up, Bandini, it seems the light of your life is due back shortly at The Justice Gap.
Battersea Bridge Road?
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Ah, there you are Owen!
I mentioned ‘The Justice Gap’ already in our round up of ‘a year of Danczuk’ already linked-to above. Heartfelt commiserations over your humiliating – but totally predictable – defeat, eh?
(Danczuk reportedly took £5k from The Sun for ‘confessing’ his penchant for young fillies – the same poisonous rag that ‘outed’ him in the first place! Er, and another £1k+ in a grubby deal for setting up snaps with tabloid snappers… etc., etc.. To think that some would have us believe that he is “magnificent”!)
You appear confused, however, as the ‘light of my life’ is in fact due back shortly from the final act of a almost never-ending festive season: the exchange of gifts amongst ‘las amigas invisibles’. After that, we’re off for lunch with her mum!
Battersea Bridge Road? Is that an anagram or are you asking me on a date, or summat?!? Er, no thanks Owen, I’ll resist the ‘clarion call’ of your achy breaky heart if it’s all the same!
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What a curious conversation!
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Here’s a curioser curiosity – one that soon you’ll be in a position to examine in your role as ‘special contributor’ to the upcoming Exaro ‘debate’!
In what we are told to believe was the crusader Meirion Jones’ ‘blocked attempt’ to ‘expose’ Savile, Jonesy failed to play the trump-card he kept hidden up his cuff: all the while as he battled heroically against a disbelieving BBC-management (to have the dead man’s corpse brought to justice) he held an ace – his own father had been working at the scene of the crimes, Duncroft!
An imaginary conversation between Jones & Rippon:
R – “Meirion, I’m not touching this shite! Our sources so far are just the women and a second–hand briefing…”
J – “Pete, the story is strong enough! Alright, I haven’t bothered interviewing my aunt or anything, but we don’t get on, so…”
R – “Bloody hell, Meiri, I’m not convinced. Okay, so he’s dead & we can say what the hell we like, but still… is it ethical?”
J – “What it IS is great television, Pete! Besides, the CPS suspiciously dropped the case!”
R – “‘Fraid not, Meiri; despite what YOU’VE been telling me the case was dropped due to lack of evidence. They’ve just told me so.”
J – “Shit! Wait… Hang on… Let me just speak to the ex-Surrey copper who’s helping us produce this.”
R – “Alright, get back to me – but make it good!”
[ – Later – ]
J – “Pete, we’ve found something! All those forumites have rustled up a letter from the police – the Surrey Police! You can’t argue with that…”
R – “Great work! Let’s have a look at it…”
J – “Er, well… you see… er…”
R – “Well?!?”
J – “Can’t you just take my word for it, Pete? C’mon…”
R – “I want to SEE that letter!”
J – “Okay, okay! Here you go.”
R – “Meiri, you look flustered; go and have a lie down while I get this astonishing turn up for the books checked out.”
[ – Jones ages visibly while Rippon rushes off. Rippon returns – ]
R – “Meirion, what the hell kind of game are you trying to play here?!? The police tell me that the letter is a FORGERY! On out-of-date Sussex Police notepaper!”
J – “Ah, jeez, Pete! What do you want? We’ve read e-books galore & passed many an afternoon browsing Friends Reunited – isn’t that enough? Remember, I was THERE and saw it all!”
R – “Yes, Meirion; if you recall you ‘saw’ Savile there four years before he ever set foot in the damned place! I’m binning it unless you have someone reliable to back this story up. Well?”
J – “But we’ve got the Duncroft e-authoress who first coincidentally bumped into Savile when she was coincidentally on holiday years earlier, on Jersey it was, Haut de la Garenne coincidentally! It’s an astonishing tal…”
R – “NOT HER!!!”
J – “But Pete! Please…”
R – “Meirion, unless you can find me someone who doesn’t have problems remembering her own age, who doesn’t have a forged letter in her hand, and who hasn’t been collaborating online with others to fill in the gaps in her memory then I’m afraid this is going nowhere.
If only you had a close family member – a parent, say – who had worked at Duncroft & could back any of this up…”
J – “…”
R – “Then that’s the end, and that’s that!”
Would you perhaps be able to squeeze an answer out of Jones as to why he showed such extraordinary reticence in ‘revealing’ his dad’s time spent working at Duncroft? Kill that cat!
Meiow!
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Actually as you will find out soob it was much wider than Duncroft
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… which would make Jones’ failure to play his trump-card all the more puzzling.
The story of the century, slipping from his grip & he said… nowt!
Your lack of curiosity is a curiosity in itself. Why don’t you ask him?
What kind of ‘investigative journalist’ wouldn’t?!?
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Apologies to you once again, Bandini. I assumed that as an expert Savilologist you would have recognised the alllusion to the premises described as a paedophile brothel that police paedophile unit officers observed Savile frequenting in 1964 and where two men were arrested and prosecuted and one jailed for two years for pimping Duncroft absconders. I’m glad to be able to remind you though I’m sure you’ve got very good grounds for disputing the evidence of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary:
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-03-12/documents-reveal-savile-was-known-to-police-in-1964/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/swinging-sixties-pop-group-attended-5469452
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/top-sixties-pop-band-visited-jimmy-savile-paedophile-brothel-flat-31124802.html
Don’t worry, I quite understand if you’re not into chasing up my links.
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Bandini, I’m sorry to disappoint, I can’t even manage to follow your posts let alone your links. I really am not worthy. Interesting to see you so coy about Battersea Bridge Road.
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Let’s see what ol’ Mr Webster had to say about the adjective ‘coy’, Owen:
– having a shy or sweetly innocent quality that is often intended to be attractive or to get attention. [Perhaps by sticking a question-mark at the end of a three-word sentence?]
– not telling or revealing all the information that could be revealed.
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Bandini: your remarks serve only as further exposition of your own psychological flaws – or a carefully constructed persona serving another purpose. Either would be equally distasteful.
Your need to feel intellectually superior, evident narcissism, and lack of response to what are, to anyone else, clearly distressing and sensitive issues, says it all. There was no need to repeat with such relish the remarks made by another commenter (nor feel the need, rather oddly, to explain to us exactly what it meant, as if we would not know …), nor quote Hitchens, but clearly you relish such an opportunity.
The fact that you do not find the example you choose to give of Savile’s reported behaviour objectionable, and even make fun of it, demonstrates yet again a total absence of empathy with those who are or were the victims of sexual abuse. That is unforgivable.
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Owen, in response to your nuttiness above (“Apologies to you once again, Bandini. I assumed that as an expert Savilologist you would have recognised the alllusion to the premises described as a paedophile brothel that police paedophile unit officers observed Savile frequenting in 1964 and where two men were arrested and prosecuted and one jailed for two years for pimping Duncroft absconders…”):
Repeating the word ‘paedophile’ over and over is a sure sign that you are determined to find what you are looking for rather than what is really there. I’m genuinely amazed that you are attaching importance to this load of old crud, but for your benefit let’s have a recap of that material…
When Spindler appeared with his scrapbook – to the obvious bemusement of Lucy Manning – he made several quite ridiculous errors.
“This is a book that only came to our notice from a retired officer. It’s in fact headed ‘The Paedophile Collator’s Book’…”
No it’s not, Pete! It’s called “The ‘Shady’ Book”. At a much later date someone scrawled ‘Paedophilia Collator’s Book’ across it in a big marker-pen (in the same hand as the dates it supposedly covered – 1963 to 1981; unless whoever wrote this had the ability to see into the future – unlikely, surely – we can be sure that the mysterious book was NOT so labelled when an entry allegedly regarding Savile was made.)
Spindler refers to “the paedophile unit in 1963” – oh dear! Was there really such a unit? This collection of newspaper clippings & other scraps flying all over the place was, if anything, related to what would have been ‘the vice squad’: homosexuals, gambling, pornography, prostitution, etc.. Shady goings on – hence the bloody name!
(You might notice the reference to ‘homosexuals’ and ‘coloureds’, but you won’t see anything about children.)
The book is of unknown provenance. You really are clutching at straws when someone’s collection of clippings – pasted into a book for recording illness with flour & water – is passed off as something official:
“This type of material is never going to be uploaded onto an intelligence system, the book itself has probably been kept for posterity reasons within the ‘paedophile unit’…”
“Probably”, Pete? Perhaps you could have simply asked the ‘retired officer’ to clarify! Still, at least he admits it was never going to be let anywhere near their ‘intelligence system’. Small mercies…
Now, about those links & that “paedophile brothel flat” – where in God’s name do they get this rubbish?!? They fall into the same trap as yourself (or they ‘set the same trap’, perhaps) of elbowing the words ‘child’, ‘girl’ and ‘paedophile’ into the mix, with no attention to detail whatsoever. Pay close attention (because they hope you won’t) with the following Mirror-bullshine:
“Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary revealed that a man was jailed for two years for pimping two children’s home girls staying at the flat in Battersea, south west London.”
‘Children’s home’? Really? Ah, they mean the Duncroft Approved School – not a children’s home at all. And what do they mean by ‘children’ anyway? Everyone is confused about this, and we don’t help ourselves by referring to young women as ‘girls’ (I too am guilty of this) or male prostitutes as ‘rent boys’. Given the tone of their tale – a paedophile brothel – we might at least expect them to be referring to persons beneath the UK age of consent, under 16 in other words. Are they?
Spindler, back with Manning who seems eager to be allowed to touch the blessed ‘ledger’ – no chance! – speaks of “four older juveniles named… used by absconders from Duncroft Approved School”. (In the only reference in which Savile is said to appear they are described as “four older girls”.)
“The Duncroft Approved School was established in 1945 in the former Duncroft Manor on Moor Lane, Staines, Middlesex. The School, which was run by the National Association for Mental Health (NAMH, known as Mind since 1972), could accommodate 34 Senior Girls aged from 15 to 17 and who were classed as intelligent and emotionally disturbed.”
How old do you think those absconders were, Owen, those ‘older juveniles’, those ‘older girls’? And what do you think they might have been sent to Duncroft for in the first place? (Hint: ‘Immoral behaviour’ could land a gal in the Duncroft clink.)
I suggest that the “two children’s home girls” were probably 16 or over; if they had been younger the Mirror would simply have told us their ages instead of resorting to word-games.
I therefore suggest that your ‘paedophile brothel’ story is a crock. (There is no reference to paedophilia in the ledger’s entry upon which this shady tale is based, by the way – that big felt-tip would have been too obvious here!)
Of course, Hencke – being a fantastic investigative journalist – could dig out their ages for us, if he was so inclined. I bet he doesn’t, though! Just like he won’t ask Meirion Jones to explain himself – why ruin a lucrative story?!?
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Really Bandini, you are beside yourself. Lie down on a Canary Island beach or take a cool swim.
I am however close to producing a new story. I shall be interested to see how you react when it comes.
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Looks like rum and cokes are still too cheap in Playa de las Americas.
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Will it be coming “soob”? I’ll have the usual headshake / groan / chuckle-combo ready ‘n’ waiting…
Maybe instead of churning out yet more rich, creamy words to butter people up with you should concentrate on resolving some of the previous died-without-a-trace tales that are decomposing in a corner of the Exaro stable. A list would take too long, but off the top of my head:
July 2014, and the “lid” was going to be blown off something. Presumably it was blown so sky-high that it now orbits a yet-to-be-named planet at the outer reaches of our universe, as not even with the Hubble telescope can it be spotted.
Given the age & condition of the super soaraway source we might have expected a little more urgency. How about cracking on with this instead?
Or maybe you could track down some of those Rolls-Royce chauffeurs who spent their working lives parked up outside Elm Guest House? Here we have possibly the only group of witnesses who could a) be expected to come forward (as they have a legitimate excuse for being there) and b) who could convincingly confirm that THAT is where they were (having driven Lord Snooty and pals to the place).
No luck with this either? You don’t say…
Nah! Let’s needle Jimmy Savile’s nephew instead, ’til he ‘remembers’ that Shergar was servicing Her Majesty the Queen while Ted Heath played that music from ‘The Omen’ on a xylophone made of children’s bone. How the champagne flowed… and the blood!!!
Recommended reading:
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-stories-deceive
You’ll be involved in an article like this one day; I doubt you’ll be writing it though!
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You are getting desperate Bandini.
Shame on the day Sir Phillip Dilley resigns as chair of the environment agency, due to exposure by the national press and in a small part by one of my posts outlining his other activities. But I forgot, it must be a fake story if it appeared on this blog.
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Are you employing Savile’s alleged balancing act, thinking – wrongly – that your good deeds will cancel out the bad?
Oh, the irony!
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Bandini, I thought the mark of the Raccoon “brand” was this meticulous analysis of the original sources. You seem to have been led astray by the temptation to spin the reports I cited, so to help you this link will take you to the original of the HMIC report “Mistakes Were Made”. I think close analysis of this will show that you’re not always careful enough even in your reading of reports. Equally you might reflect that your speculations suffer from the same flaw of supposition that you find so fatal elsewhere. And most poignantly you might wonder why the Metropolitan Police’s Paedophile Unit would consider this ledger relevant to their task.
Click to access review-into-allegations-and-intelligence-material-concerning-jimmy-savile.pdf
See Section 5, pages 19 and 20
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Yes, Owen, I had already read the report. You mention above a ‘paedophile brothel’ and further claim that ‘police paedophile unit officers observed Savile frequenting’ the place; as I evidenced this is a tabloid-fantasy not borne out by the facts.
The report makes NO mention of any brothel. None whatsoever. And certainly not a ‘paedophile brothel’!
They state that: “The MPS has discovered an intelligence record held by its Paedophile Unit, dating from approximately 1964” – and you leap to the wrong conclusion; if you had read the report carefully you would see that the ‘ledger’ only turned up in 2012, and is NOW held by said unit.
The ‘shady ledger’ is of unknown provenance; it is not known who its “creator” (singular) was, nor where it’s been all this time, nor even really what it was.
The laws on prostitution can throw up similar anomalies to the recent Danczuk-case where, legally speaking, he could have engaged in sexual activity with the 17-year old, but risked breaking the law if the photograph he requested had been ‘indecent’; whereas any absconder could legally have engaged in sexual activity from the age of 16, they would have been breaking the law by ‘selling themselves’ before the age of 18. (I’m not ‘in favour’ of prostitution of any kind, by the way, but I guess you’ll choose to believe otherwise…)
Despite a justified loathing of that ‘magnificent’ creep Danczuk, I’m not joining in the ridiculous chants of “nonce” and “paedo” which have been flung his way. They are as baseless as your claim that Jimmy Savile was frequenting a paedophile brothel. Seeing as lazy ol’ Hencke doesn’t seem disposed to help you dig out the details can I suggest a trip to St Pancras for a rummage through the archives? You have the dates, and you should have no trouble settling the matter.
(By the way, a few years after the date in question Savile ‘frequented’ a humble bed & breakfast in St Pancras, a couple of days a week when he was working in London – Elsie the chambermaid took messages for him, bless her soul. If any prostitue had happened to take a room there with a client – not impossible to imagine – would the boarding-house have become a ‘brothel’? And if she had been aged 17 would it have become a ‘paedophile brothel’?)
“Given that the next reported allegation against Savile was over 30 years later, it is unlikely that much could have been made of the previous information…”
And even there they get it wrong – there is NO allegation (of criminality) against Savile made in the 1964 ledger. None. Let us know how you get on with the microfiches, eh?
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Bandini, because you bring the defence lawyer’s perspective to bear on every point at issue, you distract your own and your reader’s attention from the general picture. I think the simplest thing for me to do is, with David’s grace, reproduce what HM Inspectorate of Constabulary have to say on the subject.
As far as I’m concerned there is no obvious reason why I should quibble with HMIC’s decision to treat the ledger and its content seriously and not dispute the details of the men charged on the basis of their involvement with the Duncroft girls (backed by the facts of charges and a court conviction). We don’t have full information about the girls – unless you are specially privileged – so whatever you may have to say in that regard is your own speculation.
As far as I’m concerned adults taking advantage of emotionally-disturbed adolescent girls in care is abuse and whatever different opinion you may have, that’s no more than your opinion to set alongside mine.
So here’s what HMIC had to say, for you to dispute however you please.
HMIC (2013) “Mistakes were made.” – page 19
5. The Metropolitan Police Service
The 1964 MPS ledger
5.1 The MPS has discovered an intelligence record held by its Paedophile Unit,dating from approximately 1964. The record reads as follows:
“BATTERSEA BRIDGE ROAD, (WA) – 4 older girls & youth named [name] (?
Homosexual) live at – Jimmy SAVILLE (sic) well known disc jockey frequents –
used by absconders from DUNCROFT APP SCHOOL”
A second entry on the page opposite reads:
“DUNCROFT APP SCHOOL – Absconders – Vice Ring.
[Name] ….living on
(sic) immoral earnings of [names of two females identified as DUNCROFT girls].
2 yrs imp.
[Name]…Charged with [name] as above, also further charged with harbouring
[female‟s name] – failed to appear…on 20/10/64 having estreated his bail &
thought to be in Holland.
[Name], [address]. At CCC (Central Criminal Court) on 5/11/1964. Charged with
living on (sic) earnings & procuring [two female names]. Found NOT GUILTY.
No connection with [name and name] above, but all DUNCROFT girls.
The address (sic) used by [name and name] were [address given].
All men were coloured.
[Name of female] (ex-Duncroft) introduced the girls to the men concerned.”
5.2 We have not seen evidence to suggest that any investigation was carried out as a result of that intelligence.
5.3 It is difficult to assess the significance of the 1964 MPS ledger, given that so little is known of its provenance. However, its existence suggests that, by 1964, Savile was known to MPS officers investigating sexual offences against children.
5.4 The second series of entries in the 1964 MPS ledger is the first known reference to Duncroft School28 and we develop our concerns about the school later in this review.29
[note] 28 Duncroft School was located in Staines, Surrey. It was established as an approved school in 1949 under the administration of the National Association for Mental Health. In 1972, it became a community home and it closed in 1980. The management of Duncroft became the responsibility of Barnado’s in 1976. Duncroft School re-opened in 1982 under a different administrative regime. At the time the 1964 MPS ledger was created, the School was under the MPS force area. Boundary changes in 1999-2000 meant that, thereafter, the School became part of Surrey Police force area.
[note 29 on next page]
—
HMIC (2013) “Mistakes were made.” – page 20
5.5 It is understandable that enquiries have not revealed the creator of the 1964 MPS ledger. Given that the next reported allegation against Savile was over 30 years later, it is unlikely that much could have been made of the previous information, even if had been made available, but nonetheless it would have provided useful background information to those officers who dealt with the 2003 allegation.
5.6 The 1964 MPS ledger is not recorded on INI or PND.30 This is consistent withour understanding that the existence of the ledger only became known at the start of Operation Yewtree in 2012.
5.7 The circumstances of the recovery of the 1964 MPS ledger suggest that it had not been reviewed for a substantial period. It is almost certain that the details contained in the ledger were not transferred onto later digital recording systems which the police service began to introduce in the 1980s to retain intelligence information.31 As a result, those who later searched the more modern intelligence systems would not have been alerted to the ledger’s existence as it remained in hard copy form only, and indeed appears to have been archived.
5.8 We have considered whether the MPS had an opportunity to intervene and halt Savile’s offending in the 1960s. We cannot say for certain, but on the basis of what we know now, there appears to have been, at the very least, an opportunity to investigate his behaviour then, although it is impossible to say whether such an investigation would have led to Savile’s prosecution.
[note] 29 Paragraphs 11.5 – 11.9.
[note] 30 PND is an IT system which allows the police service to share access and search local force information on a national basis. It provides forces with immediate access to up-to-date information drawn from local crime, custody, intelligence, child abuse and domestic abuse systems. PND was released in two phases: the first release was in June 2011 and only allowed a search under the “person” field; the second release was in May 2012 and allowed a wider search, including a search of information contained in the “events” field.
[note] 31 The MPS computerised its records in 1994.
Savile is dead. He can’t be convicted. Let the dead bury the dead, it’s those he abused, or compo-seekers as you so charmingly prefer, who have my sympathy. Not that you seem to consider a tonguing by Savile abuse, or anything much else not caught on CCTV.
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How tedious you are, Owen!
No luck finding a reference to a ‘paedophile brothel’, then? You know, what YOU described as those “premises described as a paedophile brothel that police paedophile unit officers observed Savile frequenting in 1964”. You could read the report a hundred times – it won’t help you. You saw & believed what you wanted to believe – how creepy!
The Savile entry does not even refer to prostitution (or any crime) and we have to jump to a different page (of the loose-leafed scrapbook) to make a connection to such. You ignore the fact that, for all we know, we could be speaking about a different address. You ignore the fact that the ‘ledger’ itself states that there is ‘no connection’ between some of the un-named individuals whose entries you have conflated to construct your ‘paedo brothel fantasy’. How would that work, then? Never mind…
You have no interest in following up my suggestion which could have settled the matter – you don’t care about the truth. For you, the chance of ‘connecting’ Savile to a place he would not visit for a full DECADE is proof of… well, God knows what.
You state that: “As far as I’m concerned adults taking advantage of emotionally-disturbed adolescent girls in care is abuse…”
I would agree, and I would go further: so far as I’m concerned ANYONE taking advantage of anyone else is ‘abuse’ (of one kind or another). However, let’s call a spade a spade & be PRECISE about what is being alleged.
“Not that you seem to consider a tonguing by Savile abuse…” Oh dear, Owen. Is this a reference to the various versions of the ‘choir-girl with a sister at Duncroft’? It was investigated – two years. There was no evidence. She did not even want the investigation to continue (as I’ve already pointed out on this very page, something she ‘forgot’ when blabbing to the press, something about which the police had to remind her).
Do you know how she came to meet Savile, Owen (according to one of the versions)? Why, she’d written a letter to him at that TV programme of his, what was it called? Oh yeah – ‘Clunk Click’… Wipe the sleep from your eyes, man!
(If the incident had taken place I would consider it ‘inappropriate behaviour’, not a serious incident. As it had been investigated & dismissed while Savile was still alive I find the post-death attempt to find him ‘guilty’ to be desperate barrel-scraping. Mind you, there are those who wish to label a 30 year old woman receiving a humorous gift of a joke penis 30 years ago a ‘victim’ – you are becoming a ‘humorous gift of a joke’ yourself, Owen.)
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Bandini you really lay on your nastiness with a trowel. You obviously can’t take people who disagree with you.
Owen is someone who is trying to find out the truth and has a perfectly reasonable point of view and doesn’t have to be insulted for holding those views. I am aware he has been a critic of me for NOT investigating links of child sex abuse with current politicians who failed to act at the time. But I wouldn’t dream of insulting him in the way you do.
Also you seem to think you can insult me on other websites sympathetic to your point of view suggesting that I might be am is untrue and you haven’t a shred of evidence to back it up.
You obviously have a very a serious problem yourself if you have to say such things about other people – or you really are a nasty, embittered soul. I feel sorry for any person who has live with you if you carry on the same way as you do on the web.
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I have always been perfectly civil with people – until they themselves resort to nasty smears (paedophile, abuser, alcoholic even). You are guilty of this yourself, as many others are now discovering. And you are now supporting someone – Owen – who seems to be suggesting that someone with cancer (and pneumonia) isn’t really ill at all – let’s talk about ‘nastiness’, eh?
“Owen is someone who is trying to find out the truth and has a perfectly reasonable point of view…”
No. His ‘perfectly reasonable view’ that there is any mention whatsoever of a ‘paedophile brothel’ is simply false. It is untrue. It is not, therefore, ‘reasonable’. That’s how logic works. If you want to help him dig out the bloody information for him – put him out of his misery.
“Also you seem to think you can insult me on other websites sympathetic to your point of view suggesting that I might be am is untrue and you haven’t a shred of evidence to back it up.”
You lost me there, I’m afraid. But I have ‘insulted’ you here, on your own site, pointing out your errors, refusal to correct mistakes, downright fabrications & smears. Any chance of seeing a ‘shred of evidence’ to back up – say – your bogus tale about Leon Brittan posing for a photo at Elm Guest House, David? No? Did Goldsmith know he was lying?
Worry less about insults & more about the law. It has long arms.
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Owen, “too cheap” is a curious concept – are you a cane-twirling toff who would seek to deprive the lower orders of their daily ration? Regardless, I don’t as a rule drink carbonated soft-drinks.
I’ll leave you to peruse the 1964 newspaper archives, shall I? Do get back to us with those ages, won’t you? When you’ve done that, here’s a bit of background for you:
https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/430915/6/daddy-im-on-the-run
Duncroftian lass goes on the lamb, ebook-style! A smart cookie, she was reading “Dostoevsky’s nineteenth century works based on Russia’s social inequities and lifestyles” at 14! She’s had enough of school by the time she’s 15, as was common, and opts to leave in favour of working. She still has time for those hip new sounds, though:
“Sometimes pop groups were travelling to concerts and stopped to give me lifts. That was always fun. I travelled with the Kinks, the Rockin’ Berries, the Rolling Stones and the Hollies. There was always lots of flirting but I never followed up with any of the young stars I met as none pursued me with anything other than sexual intentions.
I wanted them to be interested in me as a person, not as a body!”
A lucky escape, eh? Bloody paedos everywhere! Anyway at 16 she nicks a jacket, is convicted & gets sentenced to… Duncroft! But she doesn’t want her free-spirited wings clipping so goes on the run, dropping acid on a backpacker’s jaunt around Europe, apparently with dopey old dad’s permission. I’ll leave you to read the rest to see if she pops in dahn Battersea Bridge Road way or not!
(Her name might ring a bell. That of her one ‘friend’ certainly should. It’s good to talk…)
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Bandini I’m afraid 272 pages is a bit too much for me to work my way through at the moment. You seem to have read Ms Jewell’s account. I note from her biography that she enjoyed a spell in the Canary Islands. Are you telling me that she was the current lady friend’s predecessor? Your style is so impenetrable it’s hard to be certain what you’re saying most of the time, so I’m guessing that you’re trying to hint that her one friend at some stage of her account was in fact you? So you even though you only have electronic contact with the “Anna Raccoon” author you do know or have known other Duncroft girls? Perhaps you’d clarify.
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Maybe I used to work there with Meirion Jones’ dad, Owen – it could easily have slipped my mind (just ask Meirion)! Ho ho ho!
(No, I don’t know any ‘Duncroft girls’, you total nutter!)
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Bandini, I apologise for any confusion of mine caused by your inability to say what you mean. Aspirant lawyers such as you appear to be are best advised not to indulge the impulse to elaborate and obscure.
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One might waste a lot of time trying to reason with “Bandini”, especially in regard to his manic defence of Savile, but there is no point – he cannot admit he is wrong, or focus on anything that is not in line with his own obsessive interest, which would appear to be denouncing any evidence of abuse, by anyone, at any time. It is a curiously, and unexpectedly, naive view of the world. If not the utterly cynical calculation of someone trying to cover his own tracks, or those of his patrons.
References to ‘fillies’ and ‘the women’, sniggering at suggestions of assault & dismissing such incidents as of no consequence: this says it all, really: misogyny, at the very least. Really rather sad – were it not so offensive.
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His views on young women seem to have a lot to be desired
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He seems to suggest that emotionally-disturbed adolescents in care are fair game for the caring adult. Perhaps understandable when you’re part of a gang led by a woman who thinks that the age of puberty is the point at which children no longer require protection from the advances of adults. And if you’re part of a group that’s comfier worrying about how Jonathan King is coping with being arrested on charges of sexual abuse or providing Tom O’Carroll with a platform for promoting the PIE agenda than it is with treating victims of abuse as more than “compo-seeking allegators”, I guess you’re not really into understanding the concepts of vulnerability and exploitation.
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Victor, very fortunately before the “Anna Raccoon” author decided to remove her entire blog, posts and comments, from the internet, she persuaded the School of Social Work at Edinburgh University to archive and study her and her fellow contributors’ oeuvre.
Dr Mark Smith, colleague of the “Anna Raccoon” author’s friend Professor Vivienne Cree and like her an adherent of the “Moral Panic” school of approach to the study of “historical” child sexual abuse, fortunately succeeded in obtaining an Urgency grant of £37,000 of public funds from the Economic and Social Science Research Council that is enabling him to preserve the author’s work for posterity.
I believe the eventual aim is to allow interested researchers access to this source of valuable reference materials that would otherwise have been lost to social science when the blog ceased to exist.
The author insists that her main concern is not paedophilia but nevertheless many of the posts and comments, on subjects ranging from Jimmy Savile to Duncroft School and from the Pied Pipers of Paedo Panic to Pitcairn Island, contain informative observations on the subject.
Our friend Bandini is only one of the more prominent contributors. I’m grateful to him for this opportunity to draw your attention to a resource with which David is obviously familiar but which you don’t yet seem to have come across.
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Battersea Bridge Road is another subject that crops up. As I remember the author’s observations on the subject appeared well-informed if occasionally rather emphatic but sadly they’re no longer available until and unless Edinburgh University decide to publish them.
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Owen is once again misinformed over the disappearing blog (but at least refrains from referring to that solid-gold hard-drive he was blathering about previously!).
Work is being done, apparently, to return the site to life. Until then…
http://www.socialwork.ed.ac.uk/research/grants_and_projects/current_projects/securing_a_data_set_on_allegations_of_sexual_abuse_made_against_the_former_disc_jockey,_jimmy_savil
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Do we know, Owen, why Ms Racoon removed her blog from the internet?
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Victor, she gave no explanation, just took the lot down and left her protege to continue the blog with apparently no advance warning. None of the coterie of commenters appeared concerned that she had just upped and taken the whole of the blog away. Somewhat astounded by their attitude I put my foot in it by asking what had happened to the content and made the mistake of suggesting that her action rather contradicted her professed principles by saying that she had “got” public funds to get her work and that of all her contributors recovered (another silly mistake in a spur-of-the-outrage comment) and hosted, instead of saying that she and her associates had secured public funding for the archiving and study of the blog materials.
Outraged by my comment, the author turned up in person in Petunia Winegum’s comments and accused me of using her married name in order to cause her surviving family trouble with the revenue authorities after her impending death. She said that she wanted to spend her last few weeks in peace and quiet, untroubled by unpleasant people like myself. She has referred on her blog to her lengthy illness with cancer and an apparent wonder drug she had recently been describing seems not to have been as effective as hoped. (This is as best as I can remember, the text has all gone with her).
She then vanished, leaving Petunia Winegum to continue his replacement Tap Room blog at the Anna Raccoon website. Shortly after, coinciding with Winegum’s promotion of his own e-book, the Tap Room went the way of the Anna Raccoon blog, with this time a “Maintenance” placeholder notice displayed. That may have been put up by the domain owner or by the host, but enough time has passed to suggest that “maintenance” is not going to be completed soon.
That all said, the Anna Raccoon author has now popped up again, with a number of other fellow-members of the official F.A.C.T Supporters Group, as a contributor to a new magazine being published by The Justice Gap blog – “Proof magazine: Justice in a time of Moral Panic” – http://thejusticegap.com/proof-magazine-justice-in-a-time-of-moral-panic/ (as rather obscurely publicised already by Bandini).
Her subject won’t be too hard for anyone here to guess: the title is “Innocent Until Proven Dead”. You can’t keep a determined woman down.
Most of her old friends are around there, Simon Warr, David Rose, Mark Barlow and Mark Newby, Mark Smith, Ros Burnett, Barbara Hewson, etc. but with a couple of surprising newbies – someone called Alison Saunders and a Peter Garsden.
Either a swansong or a statement of preference, I guess.
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Owen, you “put your foot in it” by lying through your teeth, if you remember:
“Odd, when she got £35,000 of taxpayers’ money to have her crashed hard disk repaired on the grounds that her research needed to be preserved in the public interest.”
Remind me how that worked out – you naughty little fibber!
As I previously helped you out with your struggle to perform even the most cursory research on your big computer, I think I’ll refrain from doing so again while you continue to propagate bunkum. Suffice to say, however, that “she gave no explanation” is 100% incorrect – a detailed explanation is available, if only you weren’t still using Netscape over a dial-up connection!
Further, I have to draw you up on the following: “accused me of using her married name in order to cause her surviving family trouble with the revenue authorities after her impending death.” That did not happen. You are – once again – lying, Owen. Why on earth would you invent such rubbish?
Regarding that article “rather obscurely publicised already by Bandini” – I suggest you rewind a little and see who has repeatedly raised the subject: Hencke, yourself & assorted nutters. I have only ever responded to questioning from the deranged obsessives. Another ‘fact’ that you won’t be letting get in the way of a fictional narrative thrust…
The article shares a title with an already published piece (which you could read, if you weren’t so woefully inept); assuming that the upcoming one is the same/related/updated you can look forward to a ‘clarion call’ for the legal-profession* to stand up, speak out & challenge the terrifying legal manoeuvring that permits even those investigated for fraud to hide behind the curtains when it suits them, appearing on a TV-sofa when it doesn’t – and anyone daring to question them risks prosecution. It’s a shame you can’t see farther than the end of your nose, Owen, but thank God others can.
*Or even a journalist! A real one, that is…
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Bandini, I wasn’t lying – I made a mistake, which I admitted, tried to explain and apologised for. It was in the same spirit of puzzled exasperation in which I criticised David. He replied to me decently and courteously. I became the butt of your manipulative sour wit.
In your world everyone’s actions are subect to the worst possible interptation except for Savile’s.
The Anna Raccoon author didn’t offer an explanation until she replied angrily to my comment.- again, in the absence of the text removed by her, I should ad “as far as I remember”.
You were the one who made a joke about Savile’s “tonguing”. I simply didn’t think this was an appropriate subject for your dismissive joke. I wasn’t challenging your presentation of evidence.
You really do warp and distort everything to suit your purpose.
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Owen, I come bearing gifts!
I’m so excited that you receive the good news as soon as possible that I don’t even have time to mention that your explanation above bears no resemblance to your previous excuse for ‘mistakenly inventing a fantastical story about a non-existent emergency-repair of the world’s most expensive hard-disk drive (with which there was no problem whatsoever)’ – there’s simply no time!!!
So, let’s quickly return to those “premises described as a paedophile brothel that police paedophile unit officers observed Savile frequenting in 1964” – I will borrow Spindler’s big felt-tip pen to draw a big fat line under the matter – are you ready?
Now being in possession of additional information, I can definitively state that:
– as suggested, the different entries in the ‘ledger’ (on separate pages, remember?) do indeed refer to DIFFERENT premises.
– the entry which refers to Savile does NOT refer to the same premises as those involved in a prosecution for living off immoral earnings.
– the entry which refers to Savile makes NO mention of prostitution/prosecution of any kind, and certainly not child-prostitution.
This is fantastic news which must surely bring a beaming smile to your face – the terrible tale in which you had believed turns out to be false in every particular. To recap:
The ‘premises described as a paedophile brothel’ were NEVER described as such (not even as a run-of-the-mill brothel) and the ‘police paedophile unit officers’ (who did not even EXIST in 1964) did NOT observe ‘Savile frequenting in 1964’!
I hope that this serves as a reminder to opt for a more cautious view when relying solely on partially-reported sensationalist crap from the UK’s journalistic falsifiers of truth: it’s genuinely hard to think of a more complete destruction of the tale-in-which-you-believed.
Would you like some more details? Well, I’m sorry Owen, but you’ve bitten this hand once too often – you’ll have to rely on your ‘real’ media-pals (who, perhaps understandably, preferred you did not come to know what you now know).
I return my honest sword of truth to its sheath, a blade dulled by so much snicker-snackering through the falsehoods.
I retreat, Owen, graceful in victory.
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Bandini, I made a very silly mistake in the heat of the moment, exasperated by the way that the Raccoon author had removed all the material which however unreliable was at least a useful reference point. I remembered my immediate reaction to the original Andrew Rosthorn story in which the author fed Rosthorn the story about how she’d approached Vivienne Cree to recover (or some similar word I’ll leave you to retrieve again since your original retrieval has gone along with the rest of the blog) and archive the content of the blog, which was that she’d lost the material and was getting someone else to recover it.
Well, I was wrong and I got egg on my face, rubbed in with enthusiasm by you when you found a copy on the internet of the Rosthorn article that I’d previously seen at Lancashire Life but seemed to have been taken down along with all Rosthorn’s other articles at what must have been some time close to the time the author was deciding to take down her blog.
I couldn’t find the article so when I was called up about my mistake I wasn’t able to confirm. But you’ll remember I gave you the search words I remember that had helped me find it in the first place. I told you roughly what to look for. And then you came back with your contemptuous rubbishing of my internet competence, don’t you remember, for your own benefit acknowledging your own vastly superior competence.
You then worked the situation for as much as you could extract from it. At least the author’s rage at me was genuine. Yours was as pumped up as you could make it. You’re an unpleasant little manipulator but fortunately the way you manoeuvre other people into being feeds for your performance artistry is so blatantly obvious that it quite sabotages the bogus bravura.
Apologies to David, Victor and anybody else who’s bothered to read this for a waste of more time.
I’ll end my reply to you there as obviously I don’t have access to the same privileged sources that you have that enable you to know so much more about BBR than even HMIC.
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To go back to the original question Victor asked, Bandini, why did the author take away all the blog material so that no-one could read it?
I don’t question that she’s ill, the buscopan episode and its developments convinced me of that, but that’s no real explanation for her taking the whle blog down. If she didn’t want to be bothered by the likes of me and other people who challenged her views she could simply have closed comments, which is what other bloggers do. She must have had some other reason for wanting to put the content out of reach of followers of her blog.
While you play word games about the physical nature of your relationship (in the most general sense), you’ve never denied that you’re in some form of contact with her. So can you offer any real insight into what happened? (A simple no will do if that’s the case, journeys to Birmingham via China not necessary)
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Bandini, whoever you’re quoting with your reference to ‘mistakenly inventing a fantastical story about a non-existent emergency-repair of the world’s most expensive hard-disk drive (with which there was no problem whatsoever)’ it’s not me, you know that, and to imply that it is me is straightforwardly dishonest – as so often. I’ve never not seen anyone else make this comment but I assure you it wasn’t me and I had no previous knowledge of it until now. Where did you get it from?
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Bandini, rereading and trying to puzzle out what you’ve been on about, I suspect what that what you’ve done that left me baffled is to rephrase what I did say at the time “Odd, when she got £35,000 of taxpayers’ money to have her crashed hard disk repaired on the grounds that her research needed to be preserved in the public interest.”
That I did say, based on my mistaken understanding of what Rosthorn had reported and without access to the original, as I explained at the time. I think I was probably replying to you using the same exaggerated register that you’d used in demanding an explanation from me. I can’t recreate the whole exchange as I don’t have it to hand like you do. But I acknowledge that I did say what I’ve repeated in the first paragraph above. I’m sorry that I lost track of what you were saying. I acknowkledge what I said, but not the spinning of what I said in your paraphrase.
Bandini, let me say it again, for what it’s worth to you and the author of Anna Raccoon. I apologise for my original mistake. I don’t apologise for still finding it difficult to understand how her libertarian principles reconcile using her friends to get public money spent on an academic archive of her blog with her determination not to leave it accessible to people who might want to check the accuracy and ethical underpinning of her output that they dispute.
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Sorry, David, for clogging up your comments. I accept that Bandini has the right to challenge me on what I said. I’ve tried to make good my original mistake and apologise for it. But I don’t apologise for remaining cynical about Bandini’s reasons for orchestrating his own outrage.
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Owen that is OK but I was becoming concerned at the intemperate language from Bandini. He could have made his points without without resorting to accusing people of being inept etc. As for the issue I am afraid I disagree with his analysis of Savile and very shortly more evidence will emerge.
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Bandini, I’m aware that getting down in one issue I don’t get round to responding to other points you raise, and you did make some serious points about the ledger and Battersea Bridge Road.
You assert that the two different entries in the ‘ledger’ that you’ve been trying to rubbish refer to different premises and that the entry which refers to Savile doesn’t refer to the same premises as those involved in a prosecution for living off immoral earnings. You don’t offer a consultable source for your assertions. You seem disinclined to disbelieve reported allegations in principle, even when the source is identified. I don’t have access to your source, so how can I comment?
For whatever reason the observers responsible for the entries on facing pages don’t specifically record that Duncroft girls were present at more than one location in Battersea Bridge Road. The second entry which notes charges and a conviction gives redacted address details. Neither you nor I are privileged to have had access to those redacted details. HMIC did.
You point out that the entry which refers to Savile makes no mention of prostitution/prosecution of any kind, including child-prostitution. Again, it’s pointless for me to comment since it’s only your assertion that the two entries are unrelated.
For the time being, the fact is that at the end of the HMIC investigators’ inquiries they chose to quote both entries (ignoring all the other contents of the ledger) without considering it necessary to warn that they were not linked and that only the first was relevant to the Savile investigation. So I still have no reason to doubt that both entries were relevant to the issue of the allegations of failure to follow up reports of Savile’s suspected abusive activities.
I think I remember the author of the Anna Raccoon blog reporting on the blog that she had actually been at the Battersea Bridge Road property and her claiming that it comprised two separate flats. I’m guessing that your knowledgeable source may in fact be the author of the blog, correct me if I’m wrong and it’s access to relevant posts still on the internet somewhere or retained by someone else. Perhaps you could check back and tell us how the layout of the premises is described and what else the author told her readers about the situation there. If you’re unable too disclose your source then I’m afraid all it is is just another uncorroborated narrative.
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David, thanks for the forbearance. Sadly Bandini seems to feel a compulsive need to put other people down.
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And interesting to see that archiving of blog is being carried out by team including Carolyn Hoyle, wife of Journalist David Rose, eh what?
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Ah I wondered why I was starting to get hits on this again after a long while. Where is this archive.
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“His views on young women seem to have a lot to be desired” – David ‘Pro-writer’ Hencke
Ho ho ho! Priceless wordsmithery from ‘the master’ of the un-honed sentence – a classic, even! Freud would have you on his couch before you could say:
“It was Convict Joe what done it, it was Convict Joe!”
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Surprising you compare Savile’s good deeds to mine over the environment agency story (which at least even you accept is true) In your world all Savile’s deeds were good, he was only led astray by underage girls who made up stories about him.
So the comparison that an occasional good story outweighs all the bad rubbish does not exist.
I also see you prefer your rum neat rather than with any fizz.
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Allusions to:
– an excessive alcohol consumption (actually within the UK Government guidelines until they changed a few days ago)
– unsavoury opinions about young women (false)
– raccoons, canaries & God knows what other beasts of land & air…
An impenetrable ‘logic’: as I don’t drink fizzy drinks you believe I drink rum (neat!); it’s honestly not difficult to see how you get everything so, so wrong, and so, so often…
The repeated falling-back on emotive buzz-words – “underage girls who made up stories about him”, eh? No, not ‘girls’, certainly not ‘underage’, but middle-aged women who have been shown to have lied. Middle-aged internet-users like the following, for example:
“Toni Townsend, 54, who attended the school in 1972, said: ‘Jimmy treated Duncroft like a paedophile sweetshop. He used to take his pick of the mix.'”
How would she know? She was long gone by the time he turned up, but bonus marks for airing the ‘sweetshop’ meme! Another:
“Miss Webb, who attended Duncroft from 1971 to 1973, said it was after this that she told the headmistress what Savile had done.”
I’m afraid not! Again, we have someone ‘misremembering’ to the press! She never met him, not unless there was a Duncroftian portal through space & time hidden behind the blackboard! Incredibly, the same article that unleashes these made-up fantasies includes – almost!!! – the rug to be pulled from beneath the myth’s feet:
“She [Meirion’s aunt] was introduced to Savile in around 1973 by the mother of one of her pupils.”
Aaargh! So close! It was 1974, and neither Toni nor Kathy are being truthful, are they, David Hencke? But you carry on with your dissembling, the transparent deflection from your own shortcomings over all that “bad rubbish”. I’ll wait…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227086/They-angels-Headmistresss-cruel-dismissal-girls-abused-Jimmy-Savile-claims-told-to.html
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Any analyst would have a field day with you, “Bandini” … and Freud would be most interested in your comment, of course, as a perfect demonstration of the principle of ‘projection’.
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Victor [sic], tedium is your medium.
Writing with a straight-face that “he cannot admit he is wrong” while ignoring Hencke’s stubborn refusal to do just that – see first comment far, far up the page! – is tragic. You’re trapped in an abusive relationship & you can’t even see it.
Get help!
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Hard to follow the sequence of this lunatic monologue of yours, Bandini, so I shall leave a comment at the end, and start another thread.
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Well, Bandini, I imagine that ‘the ladies’, as you no doubt would describe them, would probably agree that most men are incapable of admitting they are wrong.
But clearly your cock-eyed views, as expressed here, and elsewhere, suggest that you are so much more wrong than the rest of us.
And I’m not sure you are in any position to judge what constitutes abuse, to be honest.
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The only note of interest in all of this, in the end, Bandini, is not in what you have to say, but the way in which you say it – and the reason for which you say it.
The tedium is, as you say, in the medium, and in this case, the medium is the message.
Wonderful to see you refer to ‘the simple sword of truth’, as used to such ill fated consequence by Jonathan Aitken. I hope that the trusty shield of British fair play will, as it did with him, come back to wallop you on the head, and knock some sense into you.
In the meanwhile, one can only speculate why you are so obsessed with this sordid topic: is it because you have perhaps been the subject of unfair accusations? Are you acting on behalf of a third party, or agency? Or are you doing this out of boredom, to while away the hours in exile, precariously poised on a bar stool in Tenerife? Can you really not find a cause more worthy of your time and efforts than the rehabilitation of Jimmy Savile?
The world is full of terrible injustice, and inequality, and here you are wasting time on such offensive, pointless nonsense. Find something more useful to do with your life.
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Hencke, Owen & Victor –
In the space of one ‘short’ – ahem! – page we have established the following points:
1) that the writer & host of this site – David Hencke – is unable to admit to his own errors. He would prefer to smear those correcting his many falsehoods than face up to them. He has failed. (Astonishingly, none of the succeeding words – thousands of ’em! – would ever have been written had he done the decent thing.)
2) that there are those who claim that others who dare to challenge the Savile-myth – “those deluded people” – have an ‘agenda’, are ‘apologists’, etc..
However it has clearly been seen that, for example, the Savile-industry was launched off the back of claims, many of which can be proven to be FALSE. They are false because the laws of the university do not bend, not even for middle-aged women tapping away on the internet.
3) that the magnificent UK press is complicit in perpetuating lies which it KNOWS to be lies. When it suits, the police/CPS join in.
4) that the world is full of people who prefer a good story to the unvarnished truth: the subject of a supposed ‘paedo brothel’ on Battersea Bridge Road (a subject I’d never spent more than five-minutes thinking about previously, so ‘thanks’, Owen!) which the ‘paedo squad’ spotted Savile ‘frequenting’ has been DEMOLISHED. It is untrue.
5) despite the above, there are STILL those who break out in a Vicky Pollard-style strop: “Yeah, but… yeah but… yeah but yeah!” Okay, so THESE accusations have been shown to be false, but all the others simply MUST be true (and woe betide anyone daring to question them!).
Who exactly is following an agenda here, and who is interested in the truth?
6) there are those who can dish it out but can’t take it. I’ll say it again – I have always been polite up until the moment I am insulted, smeared or have my motives questioned. (To the casual reader it may not seem so, but then they will not be aware of the previous shit hurled my way by the suddenly-delicate snowflakes who start whining when their daft assumptions are reduced to dust by that most useful of tools: the facts. It’s not so very long that Hencke, for example, was publicly trying to ‘smear’ me by suggesting that I might have some connection to an ancient order of religionists or summat – what, pray tell, was the idea behind that? Never mind, as now he’s opted for the old ‘fond of a drink’ & ‘I fear for the woman with whom he has lived in a monogamous relationship for over a decade’… pitiful (but no longer ‘pitiable’) dissembling. (You deserve a punch on the nose for the last one, Hencke.)
7) oh, lots more besides! I can’t be bothered. This cult-like group-think of the members of a ‘semi-private’ club is more than I can stomach. Enjoy yourselves! Indulge your fantasies! Work yourselves up into a frothy lather!
Coda: fantastic timing! “Back to life, back to reality…”
http://annaraccoon.com/2016/01/15/release-the-booze-hound-from-anonymity/
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No, Bandini, it wasn’t David who made the reference in passing to the availability of rum and coke in Tenerife, it was me, as you a jokey explanation of the extravagance and incoherence of your comments. Whatever else you are, you’re a ripe old humbug. When it comes to smear you’re an old master, and if you had any insight into your condition you’d perhaps be able to understand why you end up getting yourself banned at so many other sites whose owners don’t have the patience David has shown. You need help.
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Sorry, I left a surplus “you” into “as a jokey explanation”
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Owen, if I am “banned at so many other sites” could you please provide a list? This is certainly news to me! If you are unable to do so I’m afraid I’ll have to consider it to be a malicious lie.
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Bandini
Just for the record your attack on the Quakers is completely unfounded and based on false understanding by yourself. I mentioned it to you because I have attended Quaker meetings myself and was aware that your email address at sandyfoundation happens to be same name of a Quaker Foundation in the States. And far from being some obscure religious cult the Quakers were sufficiently mainstream to found Pennsylvania named after William Penn near to me in Buckinghamshire. So it is you that should be punched but as I believe in non violence which is part of Quaker philosophy you won’t. From your reaction, it is not yours.
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Hencke
I made no “attack on the Quakers”! What on earth are you on about now? The little I know about them suggests they are decent people for whom I have the greatest respect. Let’s rewind, shall we?
In an attempt to smear me rather than face up to your failings you wrote that:
“Your email address seems to be either connected or imitate an early Quaker movement promoted by William Penn and you appear to be living abroad or using a server in Spain…”
The mysterious ‘server in Spain’ could be explained by the fact that, er, I live in Spain – a fact which I brought to your attention from day one, as true when I first told you (2013) as it still is now (2016)! By suggesting that I seemed to be ‘connected’ or ‘imitate’ a religious group from the year sixteen-hundred & something seems to me to be justification for writing that you suggested “that I might have some connection to an ancient order of religionists or summat”. Er, because that’s exactly what you did.
Do you buy your spades in bulk?
P.S. Your new-found aversion to violence is touching, but coming as it does in the context of your support for a life-long criminal with his own conviction for same – and let’s not forget the multiple convictions for indecency, either – a little unconvincing! You remember – top of the page – the man you wrongly stated was a ‘victim’.
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Did you mean the laws of the universe, Bandini, rather than the university? Or is that the University of Life? I find it hard to believe you are an alumnus of any academic institution, with such blatant inability to follow any evidence based, objective evaluation of fact.
You flinch at the thought of middle aged women tapping away ‘on the internet’. Yes: quite right. Women – and ‘fillies’ – should know their place, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom, and not object to what they see as abuse, but you dismiss as insignificant or untrue allegations.
It beggars belief that while so dismissive of the mountain of evidence regarding Savile et al, you claim to be so incensed by jokes about how much coke you take with your rum, or being accused (as you see it) of being … a Quaker? Not sure where that comes from, but rest assured – no one would believe that.
Now I suggest you retreat to the shadows, where you belong, and give some thought to the direction of your life’s journey.
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NeedleBlog and the old Icke Savile fora come to mind straight off the top of my head and that’s all the time I’m going to waste on your self-obsessive grandstanding. You want I should be bothered about you considering me a malicious liar? Go sell a time-share, you old fraud.
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You are mistaken, Owen.
I have never been banned from the Icke forum! Where do you get this ‘information’?
Bearing in mind that that site is aimed at people who believe in the most deranged nonsense imaginable – where it is considered acceptable to make the gravest of accusations despite the total absence of evidence – I think that one would have to really be off the nutter-scale to earn a banning!
I don’t visit the place. I haven’t so much as glanced at the asylum for well over a year – not even for entertainment purposes. You are misinformed. Now that I think of it, though, the owner of the other site you mention WAS indeed banned from there!
And it is true that THAT intemperate individual took umbrage when challenged to justify the lie – for that is what it was – that he had ever explained anything to me over the matter under discussion: his involvement in the gestation & propagation of invented rubbish which he very tardily & unconvincingly accepted was just that. (The Goldsmith rubbish as mentioned above, totally coincidentally.)
I’m not sure if I’m banned or not – I don’t visit. I was told I had previously been informed of a ban when I hadn’t, but was still allowed to comment when I generously brought to the owner’s notice a potentially libellous post – a genuine mistake on this occasion, one which was quickly corrected.
(I continue to await the rabbit-in-the-headlights’ publication of the publicly-announced result of a ‘two-year investigation’ in which he was going to clear himself of involvement in a ‘conspiracy’ & which I had hoped would have explained the dishonesty mentioned in the paragraph above; it was coming “next week”, supposedly, but that was in May of 2015 and still no sign of it all this time later! Maybe my impatient reminders caused a banning? Oh well!)
So, as I said Owen, you are once again mistaken. The owner of THIS site has recently stated that I was not banned here, so the non-appearance of, for example, the following must have been down to gremlins in the works and nothing more:
Now, if there’s nothing else I can help you straighten out I’ll be off to read the following from the excellent Bartholomew’s Notes:
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Bandini, given the choice between having to pretend I’m interested in your self-justifications and accepting that you consider me a malicious liar, I willing to slope off along the line of least resistance. Whatever. But you still haven’t substantiated your source who refutes HMIC’s treatment of the two ledger entries concerning the Battersea Bridge Road building as being linked.
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Well now Owen….you say “Neither you nor I are privileged to have had access to those redacted details. HMIC did” but you see I have such privileged access.
I have it under the http://content.met.police.uk/Article/Making-a-subject-access-request/1400005855548/1400005855548 Met Subject Access – because I was named in those redacted details. The Met have confirmed that I only have a connection to one of the addresses -and sorry to disappoint you, it’s not the one involving any form of prostitution – paedophile or otherwise! Ipso, there are two addresses!
I was advised of my right to make such a request for the full information by the first journalist that this tawdry tale was peddled to – regrettably the story was later printed by the Mirror, even though several other newspapers had investigated it and turned it down by that time.
The Met Access response is now in the possession of Edinburgh University, who will make it available to accredited researchers – and no, I’m not going to put it on the internet – apart from anything else, it contains my date of birth, and details of the four very respectable secretaries who lived in that apartment – one of whom happened to be Don Arden secretary.
I can’t imagine why Savile would have visited that apartment, I never met him, but assume it might have been something mundane like dropping off a contract to be signed……
Sorry to spoil a corker of a story for you, and equally sorry that my health has put you to so much inconvenience – if it’s any consolation, it’s put me to far more inconvenience.
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Susanne/”Anna”, thank you for attempting to clarify the details, though I’m afraid I’m still not that much clearer now. The Met have told you that the intelligence log recorded your connection with one of the flats and not the other, and it was not the one where the pimp, the absconder to the Netherlands and their acquitted associate lived. The flat that you were connected with was the one where Don Arden’s secretary lived along with three other innocent secretaries.
OK, there was no formal link between the presence at the Battersea Bridge Road property of one Dunscroft girl and the group that were believed and in one case proved to be living off the immoral earnings of two former Duncroft girls.
But surely the odds of pure chance linking occupants of the two flats at the same address in South London through a school out in the Home Counties must be quite sizable? Could you once again be offering us the truth but not quite the whole truth? Were there any other connections not recorded in the intelligence log that might have caused girls from Duncroft, whether or not they knew one another, to find themselves under the same communal roof and absconders from the school to be upstairs and downstairs unknown to one another?
Can you suggest why the police mentioned the flat where you were as being “used by absconders from DUNCROFT APP SCHOOL” in the plural? That suggests that you weren’t the only absconder who spent time in Flat A. Are you sure that the other girls who passed through the flat like you had no connection with “the pimp upstairs”? And would one
Another intriguing point you may be able to clear up in relation. “The absconder to Holland” was charged with harbouring a female person. The wording of the log entry concerning the two female individuals procured by “the absconder to Holland” implies that this person was not one of those two but like them was a Duncroft girl. The use of the word “harbouring” suggests that this person was not officially supposed to be living on the premises. Would this have been another Duncroft absconder? Would she have been, like the two others connected with Flat B, vulnerable but nevertheless over the age of consent, although perhaps not of an age to be engaged in commercial sexual activity? Or was she in fact under age? Puzzling. Why was the entry headed “DUNCROFT APP SCHOOL – Absconders [sic] – Vice ring”?
To get back to the nub of the matter, the Savile connection, the use of that word “frequents” implies that Savile called by at the property a number of times. Weren’t the other occupants of Flat A a little surprised that Savile kept calling at the home address of Don Arden’s secretary south of the river on business? Was the reason for his visits never established? Do we know whether Savile did in fact have a contractual relationship with Arden, the so-called “Al Capone of Pop”? And why did the HMIC investigation accept that the observations relating to both flats concerned Savile if he was only popping in and out downstairs as you believe?
As I say, thanks for the clarification, but I’m afraid it leaves me with still more questions than answers about the illicit activities going on at 204? / 240? Battersea Bridge Road, the nature of Savile’s “frequenting”, and the random concentration of Duncrofters under the communal roof. I’m wondering how many other Duncroft girls may in fact have spent time at Flat A and Flat B (whether or not their stay on the property was contemporary with yours). Is there more to the place than met even your sharp eye?
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Bandini, your contribution in August was clearly not published because of a ban on your commentary as such, but on an editorial basis, because – how can we put it tactfully? No: we can’t. Because it is utterly deranged. Rather than waste your time with this idiocy, you quite clearly would be much better off sitting in a cupboard under the stairs, wearing a tinfoil helmet and arranging, at your earliest convenience, to get a check up, from the neck up.
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Victor, all’s well for Bandini. He’s being cared for elsewhere. His invisible friend seems to have made another recovery and has opened up Anna Raccoon for business again, restoring the contents of her blog after after airbrushing her former amanuensis Petunia Winegum out of the picture and expunging all recent comments, including those relating to her disappearance.
I’m not sure whether more of the earlier content has gone – without devoting several months to a detailed perusal the only way to know what she’s chosen to remove would be to ask Edinburgh University Social Work Department to carry out a comparative analysis.
I think this is her understanding of what’s meant by meticulous respect for sources. How dare we call it censorship or remember how her Ian Parker-Joseph and Andrew Withers, her former associates in the Libertarian Party, were forced to take down their narrative relating how the Anna Raccoon author’s actions when she tried to join their party came close to destroying it?
What a circus the likes of the Anna Raccoon author and the members of her entourage like Bandini put on for us. If only the substance was real entertainment rather than the misery of damaged lives.
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Anyhow, now that much of the AR Blog has been restored, even though Bandini seems to have upped and offed back to where he came from we now have the link restored to the AR post about the time the author spent at 240 Battersea Bridge Road, Flat A – http://annaraccoon.com/2015/04/07/savile-battersea-some-facts/
Her account appears on the face of it consistent with Bandini’s unnamed source. It’s commented on by “Ian R. Thorpe” in the comments underneath, who elaborates on the link with the “Mogul of Music” Don Arden’s connection with the Battersea Bridge Road flat, and also by “Sally Stevens”, the author’s fellow Old Duncroftian supporter in her Savile campaign.
It was obviously a complicated situation and a complicated story but in the end I still don’t see grounds for dismissing the HMIC “Mistakes Were Made” report’s apparent treatment of the two ledger entries as linked and relevant.
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It looks like history repeats itself.
The ongoing story of how the circus managed to arrive at the camping ground where it is now can be found here, as told by the principal protagonists: https://winegumtelegram.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/glass-houses/#comments
Our little Canary friend is singing his lungs out in the foreground there, using his eloquent recitatif to salute you, David, as “Dirty Hencke” and me as “a bedazzled chump”. Victor, you have the good fortune not be the beneficiary of his lilting charm.
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Owen even worse than on the latest AR blog Bandini has called for me to prosecuted so I can ” sweat in the dock” and AR describes me as a parasite who should faced criminal proceedings over the Met Police investigation on Bramall which I have never written a word about. These people are completely deluded. They also describe one of the survivors as mentally ill which I do know is totally untrue. They really show their true colours on their own sites.
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Hencke, you bubble nut! Can’t you get a single thing right?
I did not refer to you by name, and AR did NOT refer to you as a ‘parasite’; in a reply to someone who thought Bramall’s accuser should be prosecuted I wrote that:
“I’d rather see those journalistic parasites – who feed off the mentally ill with vampiric gusto – sweating in the dock.”
It was a general point not limited to ‘Nick’ & I stand by it. I’ve said as much HERE, where I’ve also referred to you by the comical nick-name ‘Dirty Hencke’, so I don’t know why Owen is ‘snitching’ about it as though he’d discovered something incriminating – what a boob!
That name came from listening to the appalling Zac Goldsmith’s laudatory speech in Parliament – already mentioned above, not going away – when his pronunciation of your surname (owing to being born with a pair of silver-plated plums in his mouth, I suppose) made me chuckle; the image of a tissue/tissue of lies seemed particularly apposite. Handkerchiefs may also be employed to mop the brow, of course.
Anyway, I don’t know why you all waste so much of your precious time on this “completely deluded” individual, if completely deluded I am. What a way to spend your weekends!
P.S. Emphasizing that you have never written a word about Bramall could be seen as an attempt to distance yourself from Exaro’s wondrous output. However, you are mistaken as you HAVE written about Bramall; you may not have NAMED him, but that is something else entirely. An example:
“He told Exaro that officers “are very serious” about investigating his allegations that two former Conservative MPs – including an ex-cabinet minister – and other VIPs sexually abused him as a boy at Dolphin Square and other locations.”
Your article goes on to blow the lid off that other pressing matter when it is ‘revealed’ that he “also recognised the address that used to be Elm Guest House in Barnes”, news which must have been greeted with high-fives galore at Exaro HQ! What a break!!!
“Take them down!”
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David, just think yourself lucky you’re not Karin Ward or Meirion Jones in the Raccoon House. They mock reality shows but that’s the sort of outfit they’ve turned themselves into. As to be expected the author can’t see how Petunia Winegum has done her a favour by pointing out how toxic the Anna Raccoon brand has become in the eyes of anyone who’s looked at her blog at all closely, with all its relentless mockery of survivors/victims, giggling character assassinations of anyone championing them and the cosying-up to paedophile friends (ringing up Jonathan King to check that he wasn’t upset at being charged really took the biscuit). She’s so carried away with her own cleverness, egged on by the fanboys, that she can’t see what an unfunny parody she’s turned the whole set-up into.
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“Snitching about something incriminating”, Bandini? No, just flaring my nostrils at more ripe cheese.
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Owen, and David: I think your mistake was to engage with this fool in his tedious, endless, ‘straw man’ arguments. He will never be persuaded by reason, and it is a waste of time to try. This is the nature of trolling. You will note that if one refuses to play his game, and ask broader questions about his motivation, he is unable to respond, and runs off to play elsewhere.
Oh: and this might amuse you, from an ‘Urban Dictionary’: an interesting definition –
“Deep Bandini” =
Big trouble, tight spot, or deep shit.
The phrase originated as a euphemism for being in “deep shit”.
The word “bandini” comes from the name of the Bandini Fertilizer company in Los Angeles.
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The Urban Dictionary is always a comforting resource in times of need. However I’m afraid I disagree with you, Victor, about the usefulness of engaging with the likes of Bandini. I don’t think anyone has any hope of him seeing reason, but it’s good for the views of the regulars at the Raccoon Arms to be aired in the light of day.
The Anna Raccoon author is one of the leading lights of the survivor-trashing industry. She gets quoted by outsiders who get find themselves impressed by the verbal pyrotechnics in her posts and don’t get to appreciate the unpleasantness stirring below in the comments. So it’s not such a bad thing when the likes of Bandini come along to act as a pop-up patient advice leaflet. His intoxicated keenness to mock David’s tolerance is his own Achilles heel.
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Bandini and his like are ‘useful idiots’ – whatever their motives for doing what they do. But only dangerous when taken seriously: so better not to, I think, and leave them to talk at each other, in that peculiar subterranean world they seem to inhabit.
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Seeing as the owner of this site sees fit to use his Twitter-account for this…
… I’m sure he won’t mind me pointing out that, er, no I am not “big on Anorak” (whatever that might mean), that I have never “claimed to be a moderator on Guido Fawkes blog” (unlikely – it’s a site I never visit), nor am I a “#McCann #scammer” (a subject about which my only public pronouncement has been that I’d be keeping well away).
So, the usual impressive ‘research’ from the ‘campaigners’, bless their withering souls!
P.S. More gremlins in the works it would seem, as notifications are not always being sent out (when ‘Victor’ comments, for example).
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Bandini, you have a wonderfully modest way of insisting on my lack of internet sophistication compared with yours, but even I can see that that Tweet was not sent by David but by someone called I’m theLaffin Gnome, replying to a question about your identity from someone called Buried News and copying David in to his reply.
How intriguing, though – someone who hasn’t come across you before!
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