Jimmy Savile : Credit: BBC clip
CROSS POSTED ON BYLINE.COM
On the day Dame Janet Smith finally promised to publish her findings into the activities of paedophile Jimmy Savile in the BBC Exaro has published the main points in her draft report which examined and analysed what happened at our major broadecaster.
The report is a devastating critique of the BBC’s culture in the 1970s and 1980s where ” talent” was ” untouchable”, managers were ” above the law” and there was a heavy drinking culture among top executives.
Her report outlines multiple rapes and indecent assaults on girls and boys, and incidents of “inappropriate sexual conduct” with teenagers above 16, all “in some way associated with the BBC”. Altogether there were over 60 victims and possibly up to 100 people had heard rumours about his activities, but nearly all at shop floor rather than managerial level.
“Three of Savile’s victims were only nine years old.”
Many BBC employees told Smith’s “review” that they had heard about Savile’s predatory sexual conduct, but feared reporting concerns to managers. But Smith accepts a series of denials by senior figures that they were aware of Savile’s sexual misconduct.
Most of Savile’s rapes, attempted rapes and more serious sexual assaults took place in his flats or caravans, she says.
“However, I heard of incidents that took place in virtually every one of the BBC premises at which he worked. These included the BBC Television Theatre (in connection with Jim’ll Fix It), at Television Centre (in particular in connection with Top of the Pops), at Broadcasting House or Egton House (where he worked in connection with BBC Radio 1), Lime Grove studios and various provincial studios, including Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow.
Exaro reveals today how Smith’s draft report:
- reveals how BBC employees were too afraid to report Savile to managers;
- says that BBC people fear blowing the whistle more than ever today;
- exposes a BBC culture where celebrities were treated with “kid gloves” and managers drank heavily;
- warns that “a predatory child abuser could be lurking undiscovered in the BBC even today.”
We also publish the key extracts from the Smith report’s summary and conclusions, and from its damning chapter on the BBC’s management culture.
I will comment about this in a later blog but the revelations as anyone can see are wide ranging and very substantial.
Westminster Confidential 
Jimmy Savile Newsnight journalists attack BBC over ‘anti-victim’ Panorama investigation
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/jimmy-savile-newsnight-journalists-attack-bbc-over-anti-victim-panorama-investigation-a6685456.html
NEED I SAY ANY MORE?
BBC PAEDORAMA SAYS IT ALL
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WHAT IS UP WIT YOUR BLOG DAVID? I POST THEN IT DISAPPEARS
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/jimmy-savile-newsnight-journalists-attack-bbc-over-anti-victim-panorama-investigation-a6685456.html
Jimmy Savile Newsnight journalists attack BBC over ‘anti-victim’ Panorama investigation
BBC PAEDORAMA SAYS IT ALL…
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Does Exaro’s source give any indication why it has taken the BBC so long to publish The final Smith report?
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NO but in the public domain the claim was that this was at the request of the Met in case it prejudiced investigations. I couldn’t find any case in the report that could be affected and now the Met have withdrawn their opposition.
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Every pedeofile should be tagged for the rest if there live’s. Death just avoids being charged with such crimes.
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Another scoop! Cannot wait to see Exaronews regular in a slot on Al Jazerra network. Dubai is very nice David.
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Regarding the following article dealing with the McAlpine-case:
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5752/inquiry-slams-bbc-over-response-to-suicide-of-totp-girl-15
(The writers are Hencke, Varley-Winter & Herr Flick. I note that other Exaro articles dealing with the Smith Review include also the name of Tim Wood, ex-NOTW hack, although this one does NOT. I shall return to this later.)
In a blistering attack on the piece I can explosively ‘reveal’ that not only Exaro but also Smith herself – at least based on the leaked draft – are astonishingly misinformed.
As they collectively scratch their heads over the behaviour of the BBC (44-years ago…) & wonder why the outcome of their investigations was “pre-judged” they miss out some startling details:
– the death of Claire McAlpine came at the end of a long campaign by Murdoch’s NOTW against the BBC, specifically TOTP (coincidentally Murdoch had a competing programme he wished to establish).
– McAlpine had appeared in the gutter-press BEFORE her suicide.
The above might explain some of the reticence on the part of the BBC to give the claims much credence (and let’s not forget that – as the Exaro-piece confirms – McAlpine “after making the alegation withdrew it” anyway).
But let’s not stop there – there is more meat on the bone and to help us nibble it I shall refer to a scribe with whom Hencke et al will be familiar – Peter Jukes. Prior to Savile’s death this tragic story was trotted out by Jukes in his Murdoch-bashing book, ‘Dial M For Murdoch’. (2011)
In that all-too-easy modern manner of cutting ‘n’ pasting (often without checking facts, nor correcting errors) he ‘reveals’ a quite different tale from that now presented by Exaro & Smith. And it’s thanks to copying those errors – in this case, mis-spelling the girl’s name – that we can make a good guess as to from where he lifted his ‘research’:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/09/01/the-life-and-crimes-of-a-global-goebbels/
“After acquiring the News of the World in London in 1971, Rupert discovered another diary, while he was campaigning against a popular BBC TV show, Top of the Pops. His paper accused its stars of “promiscuity” with young dancers in the audience. One of these was Samantha MacAlpine [sic], aged 15, whose “leatherette bound book”, according Murdoch’s news desk, “could well blow wide open the scandal at the BBC”. The day after this report, Samantha MacAlpine [sic] committed suicide.”
She died on a Monday.
(The same source might have been useful in establishing the truth over who it was that suggested she had died a virgin: “As is the Murdoch style, the evidence from the inquest was kept from the readers. Also suppressed was the statement of the forensic pathologist, that in his opinion, Samantha had died a virgin.”)
Never mind, though – at least Smith & Exaro have now ‘revealed’ the truth that others have long sought to establish, namely that Jimmy Savile had nothing to do with the death of Claire McAlpine. I’m not sure if that makes them ‘Savile apologists’ or not!
Oh! I nearly forgot! The NOTW-connection, and the bitter irony of having a NOTW hack working with Exaro to attack the BBC – just like in 1971 (when it led to the death of a girl whose name they sometimes struggle to even spell correctly).
Fleet Street’s finest!
P.S. The false story seeking to blame Savile for the death has appeared in rags from the Mail to the Telegraph, and features in the ‘acclaimed’ book by Dan Davies – later turned into an ‘acclaimed’ stageplay – all to be lauded by the likes of Meirion Jones & the Wrecking Crew of Modern British History.
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Yes it is clear it is not Savile but it is also clear that the allegations were against another person and it wasn’t properly investigated. The most interesting fact is that Dame Janet Smith has decided to include it in her report.
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Given that Smith has decided to include in her report the devestating detail that in the 1970s – in front of a television audience of approximately 15-million people – DJs would surround themselves with girls (as though this were something no one noticed – oooh!, those naughty camera angles!) I wouldn’t draw too much significance.
[Although much footage has been either lost or deliberately destroyed it is still possible to view just about every DJ who ever appeared on TOTP behaving in a similar manner to Savile around young women. Were she to have written a report on Benny Hill I imagine she would have been outraged by the ‘hate-crimes’ against the old of age, the bald of head, the big of bosom… pathetic.]
Perhaps more interesting is what she chose to leave out – the contradictory opinions of those who worked on the shows who flatly dispute the claims of degenerate wantoness: she refused to hear their stories.
Also, the allegation you say “wasn’t properly investigated” was withdrawn by the allegator – it’s there in your article. What should be being investigated is the role of gutter journalists – from the 70s to the present day – in fabricating, inventing, and covering up when it suits them to do so.
A bit too close to home?
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Yes I am afraid you are going to have issues with Dame Janet Smith. Her report emphasises that top BBC execs should have taken much more notice of what was published in those terrible tabloids, the Sun, the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror at the time and been aware of what was going on. But I am sure you will be remonstrating with her to rewrite her report to clear Savile. I bet she can’t wait to hear from you.
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Oh, Hencke you nutter, your comments are like sunshine on a rainy day!
Are you really suggesting that the filthy rubbish usually invented out of thin air & produced by such journalistic heavyweights as Trevor Kempson & Clive Cooke (as in this case) should have been paid more attention to, or that I or anyone else should pay attention to someone (Smith) who thinks along these lines?!?
Ho ho ho! I can’t stop laughing! I really can’t!
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I was reporting what Dame Janet has said not what I had said.
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… which is why I was careful to word it the way I did (that little word ‘or’).
Regardless, it’s great to see how Fleet Street’s finest are once again having a field day, knocking out article after article, throwing the blame elsewhere & getting all the bloody facts wrong (again).
Incredible what mileage you can get from the corpse of a 15-year old – an impressively strong stomach must be a prerequisite for obtaining the old ‘press badge’; that and a total absence of the morals so fraudulently claimed to be being upheld.
Me? I need a bucket by my side to read the poison.
R.I.P. Claire
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No words for this hypocrisy:
A ‘clarion call’, eh?
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Having come through all the sound and the fury, I’m left none the wiser why Bandini thinks Dame Janet Smith ill-informed when the account of her investigation suggests that she informed herself as carefully as was possible in the circumstances.
She details how badly the BBC handled the situation drawing on the record of what they wrote at the time. To most decent people the Trethowan letter would have seemed as self-servingly unpleasant as it does with hindsight. The BBC records show very clearly how members of the public making complaints would have been liable to encounter patronising disbelief rather than a determination to get at the truth of their allegations – that’s something relevant to your rhetorical interpretations at the Anna Raccoon blog about the alleged failure of victims to complain about abuse.
For whatever reason you’ve made it your vocation to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of complainants alleging abuse – victims of abuse, as most of them seem to have been. In order to make your point you’re inclined to manipulate source texts and turn them on their head, quoting excerpts out of context that betray the meaning of the source.
Your misuse of Henriques prompted me to read the original report. Your misuse of Smith (and the writers of the Exaro article) prompted me to read the article. Here again, as so often, the connection between the source and your version of it is tenuous if that. You are the archetypal unreliable narrator. Stick to the time-share hustling, it’s a more ethical business.
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Here you come again, Owen, with your shared-with-Hencke obsession over Anna Raccoon! If I were her I’d be considering an imminent installation of a panic-alarm.
If you wish to start a debate ‘over there’ would you make the ‘brave choice’ to continue it ‘over there’?
If I may remind you, you commented on an article dealing with the Janner/Henriques report – an article which contained a link to said report in its very first line – without having taken the time to read it yourself. You jumped to two wrong conclusions – complete inventions of your fevered mind – and I politely pointed out that the report itself flatly contradicted you. You conceded the point in the most reluctant manner:
“It seems likely I was wrong in believing that Janner would have had a home in the constituency. Surprisingly to me, I haven’t found any mention of one. My mistake.”
Aye, YOUR mistake, and no need to thank me for ironing out the creases in your cranium! Astonishingly, you had the front to suggest that I & others should ‘read the report’ – the report I had already read, which you hadn’t, and that I’d used to correct your fantastical imaginings! This is tedious, Owen – please up your game if you wish to engage seriously as at the moment I feel as though, in some strange footballing competition, Barcelona FC (stellar attacking line-up of Messi, Suarez & Neymar) have been drawn against Cruddington Arthritic (owner, manager & captain – Owen).
I’m nutmegging you with facts & you’re boring me with ineptitude.
http://annaraccoon.com/2016/01/20/janner-and-the-henriques-report/#comment-18205726434424622
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Bandini, you’re a phony, selectively quoting and distorting my reply to your Anna Raccoon post. Still, it’s good to have you playing around with my own words rather than have to check a third party reference – I don’t need to look somewhere else to see what tricks you’re up to.
I didn’t see any reason to continue our exchange over at the Anna Raccoon blog comments. When you challenged me I checked back with Henriques’s report and I found my assumption that Janner would have a home in the constituency contradicted by the statement of a Janner aide. I pointed out that Henriques was critical of the police’s failure to investigate or even query unsupported statements made by Janner and the parties close to them while statements by the Complainants that were backed by other people’s testimony were disregarded and discredited.
I observed that you were doing just the same and I urged anyone reading my comment not to take what you or the blog’s author reported Henriques as saying at face value or even accept what I said, but to read Henriques for themselves. The “context and colour” of Henriques that the blog’s author claimed to be providing in her post were actually her selective spin of what he had said and effectively contradicted the gist of his observations.
You suggest that people who have issues with the Anna Raccoon blog are obsessed by it. I’d say puzzled, shading into disturbed. Your cosy little gathering over at the famous “Paedo Friends’ Parlour” is looking more and more like a project aimed at promoting scepticism about the claims of victims of paedophiles, prominent and otherwise, convicted as well as unconvicted.
It’s a very odd set-up, held together by the author’s maliciously clever posts and cemented by the malevolent comments of Bandini and his friends, with the assistance of a press agent feeding the blog author’s views verbatim into respected journals like Tribune, archivists employed by a university social work department, and even a couple of pet expert paedophiles on hand to inform the conversation.
Make as much fun as you like of those who question and criticise the “colour and context” you all help bring to the table, just don’t kid yourself that we don’t see just what you’re up to.
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[Duh! I left a comment mistakenly referring to Peter Jukes’ book as ‘Dial M For Murdoch’; the correct title is, of course, ‘The Fall Of The House Of Murdoch’.]
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Well said, Owen. In truth, in this case the devil is not in the detail, but in the wider picture, and what you refer to as the ‘project aimed at promoting scepticism about the claims of victims of paedophiles, prominent and otherwise, convicted as well as unconvicted’ … Clearly Bandini, Racoon, and their gang have their own reasons for trying to discredit any accusations of abuse – or they are doing it to order. Either form of motivation is equally repugnant.
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Victor, that’s where the real interest lies – are they doing it for their own reasons or to order – or both? My guess is that eventually we’ll learn which and a lot of questions will find an answer.
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Owen, your nonsense is laughable:
“Bandini, you’re a phony, selectively quoting and distorting my reply to your Anna Raccoon post.”
Er, quoting usually is ‘selective’, and anyway I included a link to the article/comments for others to judge for themselves. (You, on the other hand, returned HERE to continue your obsessive rant about a topic unconnected to that under discussion.)
You are committing that most heinous of crimes – being dull. Have a read of the following instead, and then give Hencke a nudge to see when we can look forward to Exaro’s long-overdue thundercracker – ‘My Evil Uncle Jimmy & The Ted Heath Connection!”
Fire up that kiln! Let’s glaze the plate…
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I see you are up to your usual insulting self. Btw Dame Janet doesn’t think much of the ” evidence” your friend
Anna Raccoon had to say re Duncroft. There is draft criticism of her in the report as well.
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Yes, yes, yes, but when will we see the ‘Evil Uncle Jimmy’ article?!?
(I’m not bothering with the Exaro articles on Smith – too many ‘selective quotes’ with too many hyperlinks, but I’m surprised to hear that she’s blathering away about Duncroft and Anna Raccoon! The mind truly boggles…)
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Understand far too many stories for you to read!
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Aye, I don’t doubt that there’ll be plenty of ‘stories’ in there!
Where’s this ‘draft criticism’ then? Exaro’s feeble justification for publishing bits ‘n’ bobs was that the ‘delay tortured survivors’ – you really have a thing about ‘torture’, don’t you? – so you won’t be wanting to prolong the agony, surely?!?
P.S. Don’t forget to speak to Meirion Jones, eh?!? The familial connection he chose to hide from his superiors…
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Dear Reader,
While we wait for Hencke to search for the information mentioned above (which may take a while, as it will no doubt involve the clicking of at least a dozen hyperlinks!) we can amuse ourselves by reading Smith’s criticism – not a draft! – of that irresponsible internet news agency:
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News must go by carrier pigeon to the Canaries it has been up since Friday.
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I can’t see the ‘draft criticism’ forest for the ‘excessively hyperlinked’ trees!
Just stick it up here! Let the whole world see!
I’m genuinely interested to know what form this ‘draft criticism’ of Anna Raccoon might take: will Smith be “extremely disappointed”, claim a “breach of confidence”, or point out how “particularly irresponsible” & “appalling” her behaviour has been (all of which she does with Exaro!)?
Pidgeons & canaries, or geese & ganders? Let’s see those devastating words!
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You’ll have to wait for the official publication. Exaro didn’t think it warranted such importance to include in our leaked extract with so much other stuff in it.
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Continuing the avian-theme: chicken!
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Dodging the issues again, Bandini. Thank your little friend for the unsolicited gift, I suspect it may prove useful.
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Oh and Bandini, you seem not to have noticed that I am in fact continuing to press you “HERE” on a topic that is the one under discussion. For your benefit, I’ll repeat, “Having come through all the sound and the fury, I’m left none the wiser why Bandini thinks Dame Janet Smith ill-informed when the account of her investigation suggests that she informed herself as carefully as was possible in the circumstances.” The reason for my reference to the exchange at the PFP was that here just like there your comments are undermined rather than confirmed by reading your sources.
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And having concentrated on how deliberately misleading you are about Dame Janet Smith and Sir Robert Henriques, I shouldn’t leave your schoolboy silliness about David Hencke out of the picture either. Wherever you can misinform you do. We can rely on that if nothing else.
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“Thank your little friend for the unsolicited gift…” – no idea what you’re talking about, Owen, quite literally no idea…
“I am in fact continuing to press you…” – ho ho ho! Are you indeed?!? Perhaps less ‘pressing’ and more reading would have saved you the effort, as as I wrote above:
“Perhaps more interesting is what she [Smith] chose to leave out – the contradictory opinions of those who worked on the shows who flatly dispute the claims of degenerate wantonness: she refused to hear their stories.”
I’m talking about the people who worked on the shows she was ‘reviewing’ who wished to help her with the following (from the Terms of Reference):
“[To] investigate the extent to which BBC personnel were or ought to have been aware of inappropriate sexual conduct by Jimmy Savile in connection with his work with the BBC , and consider whether the culture and practices within the BBC during the years of Jimmy Savile’s employment enabled inappropriate sexual conduct to continue unchecked…”
It seems fairly obvious that to carry out the above she ‘ought to have’ spoken to all those involved!
Anyway, you seem a little confused over what the Smith-thing is: it is/was a ‘review’, not an ‘investigation’. In much the same way that the police never really investigated the alleged crimes, merely assuming them to be true, Smith would seem to have picked up their billy-club baton and ran with it – incredibly slowly & wonderfully lucratively – towards the finishing-line.
I, like many others, would have welcomed a thorough investigation of many aspects of those alleged crimes. Here’s one, for example, that perhaps Hencke could raise with Meirion Jones (after dealing with the paternal-link to Duncroft, of course!):
– after the Newsnight piece was dumped due to the flimsy nature of the ‘evidence’ (unreliable witnesses, a forged letter, etc.) the former police constable with whom Jones was already working took the dodgy dossier of dubious drek over to ITV & produced an ‘award winning documentary’.
(So successful was it that MWT now describes himself as an ‘International Peabody’, an accolade which does not even exist – what a card!)
– with particular reference to Smith – and Savile’s alleged activities at the BBC – one of those original complainants makes much of her suffering there, in 1969. We are shown a photograph which is said to show her in the arms of her abuser at this time, her face smudged out to hide her identity.
– thanks to the stirling efforts of Moor Larkin we can be sure of one thing: the photograph was not what it was presented to be, was taken at a time at least two-decades after the moment which it was said to have captured, and was obviously ‘artificially aged’ by being converted to black & white and having its quality reduced.
– a thorough investigation by Smith (or the police, or ANYONE) might have taken the time to positively identify the people making these claims and their true backgrounds, ages and motivations.
– as it is, you are told to ‘shut up’ and just… believe. What you are believing is a lie.
So, then, let’s have Hencke ask Meirion Jones how he feels to be associated with something so blatant & disgraceful as the following photograph (most definitely NOT from 1969!):
Can I hear Owen revving-up his best Vicky Pollard-impression? Remind me again, who is “deliberately misleading”?
But who cares anyway? And what difference does it make? Let’s read instead this heartwarming story – from the BBC! – of how people can become ‘confused’, ‘disorientated’ and ‘accidentally’ veer from the path of truth – whenever the offer of easy cash, fame, or just attention comes their way:
“Hundreds of [lying] people have come forward to claim they bought a winning National Lottery ticket, worth £33m, which has yet to be identified.
According to organisers Camelot, those [hundreds of liars] coming forward said their ticket was lost, damaged or stolen.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35407046
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com.es/2014/10/couch-potato.html
P.S. Some “schoolboy silliness about David Hencke”? Nah, just this from the Dame:
“For the avoidance of doubt, no reliance should be made on the reports [from Exaro] circulating today [21st January 2016].”
P.P.S. For the love of Christ, what the HELL is this?
http://exaronews.com/articles/5769/janet-smith-clashes-with-dj-a7-over-abuse-inquiry-at-bbc
“The unnamed DJ is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, Claire McAlpine, who committed suicide a month later.”
Hencke, please clearly state WHO is accusing the DJ of ‘rape’. Your name is on the article – are YOU accusing him?
“Following Claire’s death, the News of the World ran a front-page story that linked her suicide to her association with TOTP.”
I have explained WHY they did this further up the page. You have no excuse whatsoever for perpetuating this grave-dancing rubbish. You truly are beyond salvation, and I hope she strikes you down with a ball of disco-lightening from up on high.
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Really Bandini. it is clear that your view in your mad world is that Jimmy Savile was totally innocent in all 60 official reports covering the NHS, Broadmoor, children’s homes, schools et/. Indeeed I expect you believe that child sex abuse doesn’t exist. Perhaps you’d care to name the cases you believe are true where people have been convicted in the courts. Or are they all miscarriages of justice as well?
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Don’t be ridiculous – of course child sex abuse exists. You want a list of cases?!? Try the newspapers – every single day. More distracting dissembling…
I have never said that Savile is “totally innocent”. But unless you are being precise about what it is you are accusing him of, neither can I say whether I believe him guilty. Did you bother reading the “60 official reports”? I very much doubt it.
The McAlpine-tale which you are now shamelessly putting your name to – and you’d better buy yourself a pack-horse to help carry all the bad karma you’re storing up – was, until very recently, blamed on Savile by the same media-ghouls that now wish to sell us a different tale (still based on the corpse of a 15-year-old girl). Some people disputed his ‘guilt’ in this case – and were proven to be correct.
Given that I’m communicating here with someone involved in perhaps the stupidest tale of the century – Evil Uncle Jimmy, Bramall, Heath & Proctor – and that this pile of stinking filth could bamboozle both the press & the police (“credible & true” – ho ho ho!) you and your fellow scribblers are in no position to lecture me about what is true & what is not.
Now, if you wouldn’t mind, please state clearly WHO is making the accusation that the DJ raped Claire McAlpine. Your name is on the article, so if you can’t answer it is either because you’ve made it up or are making the accusation yourself; which is it?
“The unnamed DJ is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, Claire McAlpine, who committed suicide a month later.”
(Dear Reader, let’s see if Hencke makes the ‘brave choice’ to answer the simple question! It’ll only take him a second, and then he can get back to rehearsing his questions for Meirion ‘Son of his Father’ Jones.)
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If anyone is guilty of using the death of a young girl for their own purposes, it is you, “Bandini”, and as for storing up karma: your own projection yet again betrays you, as does your use of language.
The way in which you relish references to ‘corpses’ and sexual abuse, and the glee with which you ‘analyse’ your own straw man arguments with such a cool and calculating posture of ‘objectivity’ says more about you than your pathetic point scoring ever will.
To you, winning one of those arguments is more important than what is at the core of your repellant campaign: the normalisation and defence, by default, or by purpose, of the sexual exploitation of children.
There is no need to say any more.
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Scroll up the page, Victor, and you’ll soon see who is exploiting the girl’s death – the same people responsible for it. Are you deaf to my ‘clarion call of truth’?
Now, where’s Hencke disappeared to? I’m sat here twiddling my thumbs, waiting for him to ‘reveal’ who HE states is accusing – yoiks! I nearly wrote his name!!! – the DJ, ‘A7’, of raping Claire McAlpine.
Has Hencke turned a particularly unmellow shade of yellow (again)?
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Bandini
If you want an answer to your question all you have to do is get on the Exaro website and get the pdf dealing with the case and you will find out. You may also find somewhere the reference to Anna Raccoon which we didn’t bother to include in a story. I am sure you are capable of doing that yourself. i am not going to repeat what has is already up on the site.
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Bandini writes:
The pdf has now been studied, and as expected I find that contrary to what you state above, there is in fact NO criticism, draft or otherwise, of ‘Anna Racoon’ [sic]. No wonder you didn’t want to post it here – it simply didn’t exist!”
Page 16 of our PDF says her evidence from Duncroft witnesses contradicts what is on her site
You can download the PDF from here: http://exaronews.com/articles/5763/janet-smith-s-review-key-extracts-and-exaro-story-thread
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“Page 16 of our PDF says her evidence from Duncroft witnesses contradicts what is on her site”…
No, it does not. It says that:
“The account [A14’s] given in the blog [AR’s] contradicts most of what the other Duncroft witnesses say about Savile.”
That is completely different, and in fact ‘contradicts’ what you have written here. Neither is it in anyway a “criticism” of Anna Raccoon, which you falsely claimed Dame Janet Smith had made.
God’s teeth, man, lay off the neat rum!!!
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Rubbish she couldn’t find a single thing that stood up Anna Raccoon’s case from her witnesses. In fact they contradicted everything she said.
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For God’s sake, this is pitiful!
“Rubbish she couldn’t find a single thing that stood up Anna Raccoon’s case from her witnesses. In fact they contradicted everything she said.”
Where on earth do you get that from? It’s certainly not on page 16…
Do you not understand the meaning of the word ‘most’? Smith states:
“The account given in the blog contradicts most [that is ‘most’, as in ‘not all’] of what the other Duncroft witnesses say…”
So what Smith actually means is this:
‘Witness A14 provided an account, published by Anna Raccoon, which is not shared by the majority of other witnesses from Duncroft, although obviously IS shared by some.’
That’s all! There is no criticism, and “everything” being contradicted is YOUR invention. What a surprise – different people relating events of 40 years ago do not entirely agree with one another! (The real story might be ‘why so many DO agree, what with them having spent so much time collaborating in internet-forums?’…)
A serious question: are you arriving at these bizarre conclusions under your own steam, or is someone handing them to you on a (white)plate?
[For avoidance of doubt here below is the sum total of Smith’s AR-related ramblings, as revealed in Exaro’s pdf.]
“Other former pupils of Duncroft have come to the Review’s attention as potential witnesses. Some allege or wish to allege abuse by Savile not only at Duncroft but also on BBC premises, putting their evidence squarely within my Terms of Reference. In each case, the Review has sought permission from the police to interview the
women but, in several cases, permission has been refused. I do not feel that I can hold up delivery of this Report indefinitely in the hope that this embargo will be lifted, so I have decided to write such an account as I am able on the evidence presently available to me.
The fact that I have not been able to speak to a number of former pupils of Duncroft has raised difficulties because I have not been able to establish sufficient clarity on the extent to which Duncroft pupils were the subject of sexual abuse by Savile on BBC premises. I have heard from two former Duncroft pupils – C30 and C37 – but have also had to take into account other publicly available evidence, first that provided by one former pupil who has caused much of her association with Savile to be put in the public domain through a website operated by Anna Racoon in a series of blogs entitled The Origins of Savilisation. These constitute an account of how Savile was introduced to Duncroft and how it came about that he visited regularly… The thrust of this account is that Savile came to Duncroft because of his friendship with this girl (whom I shall call A14) and her parents and that he always behaved impeccably. The account given in the blog contradicts most of what the other Duncroft witnesses say about Savile.”
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Poor Dandini, loyal sidekick to ‘Prince Charming’: always the understudy, never the hero, lurking in the wings – the curtain falls.
As for your ‘clarion call of truth’, better return it to the same prop department as Jonathan Aitken’s trusty sword.
The show is over.
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I just sat through the first three-minutes of the Exaro ‘debate’ and can take no more.
In under 60-seconds the completely untrue ‘fact’ that Meirion Jones’ Newsnight-report was “blocked” is given another airing. And then we have the same rubbish from courageous Connew, that lifetime tabloid hack who was too busy with ‘summat to do with celebs’ to do anything worthwhile, yet now seems to imagine himself a real journalist! Well, in such company, maybe…
Being eager to hear Hencke make the ‘brave choice’ to challenge Jones over his failure to bring his own father’s employment at the institution where he claimed Savile was running amock (Duncroft) to his superiors’ attention – those he’d now like us to believe ‘blocked’ his Friends Reunited-based ‘investigation’ – I cheekily fast-forwarded to the ‘special contribution’.
What a disappointment! Had he sought refuge in some Dutch courage (or neat Canarian rum) to ease those public-speaking nerves? The colour co-ordinated pink shirt & face combo is Exaro-standard ‘proof’ that this must have indeed been the case – ‘guilty!’
I had a hard time hearing what was being said, the microphone technique leaving much to be desired. In fact, the speaker’s head was bobbing about like a nodding dog seen through the back window of a 1970s’ Ford Cortina. As the Reverend Hencke’s arms flailed wildly, the soundman groaned, and attention wavered…
So, if anyone could point me in the direction of the precise minute in which the difficult topic is tackled, I’d be forever in your debt.
P.S. If the Midland-case IS abandoned, as press-reports are now claiming it will be, will the ‘lid be blown off’ that shady internet news agency, Exaro?
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What a shame, Bandini, that you did not attend the debate in person, and offer your own interesting views on this issue. I am sure we were all very disappointed not to meet you. But then, the challenge of being faced with the real experience of survivors, and the evidence of those who have investigated their stories, would have been too much reality for you, wouldn’t it?
I wonder what sort of shirt you would have worn, at such an event, underneath your rainmac? I imagine it would have been a rather off colour sort of garment, with noticeably grimy collar and cuffs.
As for your re-writing of the history of the BBC’s suppression of the Newsnight feature: it is beyond comprehension, except that in the upside down, inside out world that you and your sort inhabit, truth is fiction, and fiction truth. Must be a great comfort to you, in the middle of the night, if and when your conscience troubles you.
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“29 October: Jimmy Savile dies.
Early November [i.e. a few days after he dies]: A Newsnight investigation into Savile [the cold dead corpse bravely] begins. Reporter Liz Mackean and researcher Hannah Livingston make contact with former Duncroft pupils [via the interweb].
1 December: The Newsnight editor Peter Rippon emails reporter Meirion Jones telling him to stop working on other elements of the investigation because it is NOT STRONG ENOUGH without confirmation of the CPS angle and saying that he (Rippon) will pull the editing.
Jones emails himself the “red flag email” in which he sets out what he sees as the consequences for the BBC if the story does not run [but inexplicably fails once again to mention that his father was a teacher at Duncroft].
5 December: Surrey police confirm that they investigated “a historic allegation of indecent assault … alleged to have occurred at a children’s home in Staines in the 1970s” and that they referred this to the CPS.
9 December: The CPS informs Jones it decided not to prosecute Savile because of LACK OF EVIDENCE and NOT because he was old or infirm [flatly contradicting the story they’d been fed based on a forged letter doing the rounds between the collaborators].
Rippon and Jones meet and Jones tells Rippon that HE ACCEPTS THE DECISION that he is not to pursue the story any more.”
The emphasis & notes in brackets are mine. That’s from The Guardian, by the way, so it simply MUST be true! You could of course take the time to read-through the masses of released information yourself if you are unwilling to take their word for it. In fact, I urge you to do so.
But tell me, Victor, if you were a television producer & I were to present you with some scribblings off the internet (which clearly show people ‘remembering’ events about which they’d previously had no knowledge until their ‘memories’ were given a helping hand – although even then they’d struggle dreadfully recalling their own ages & still manage to incorrectly identify the supposed ‘scenes of the crime’) backed up by a false story of the CPS capitulating due to Savile’s age which, when checked, was revealed to be just that – false – and the collaborators had been trying to palm the rubbish off thanks to a forged letter on out-of-date police stationary (coincidentally from the same force where one of my ‘investigators’ had unexplainedly resigned several years previously) & several members of my own family had worked in the establishment around which the forumites creative-writing ink now flowed (although I neglected to mention my own father’s role there) do you think you’d be ‘green-lighting’ the report? Or would you, perhaps, decide to ‘block’ it?
Don’t ‘suppress’ your opinion, now, will you?
Conscience? I certainly won’t spend the rest of my life fearing every knock on the door is the police coming to ask me all I know about a suspected attempt to pervert the course of justice! Ho ho ho!
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Well even if his father was a teacher there, so what! Surrey Police decided not to bring any charges against anyone anyway. red herring!
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So what indeed! Let’s see:
– ace investigative journalist, Meirion ‘Wynner’ Jones, pitches a story to his boss based in part on HIS recollections of the time he spent at Duncroft as a snot-nosed kid.
(It’s true his own memory turned out to be – ahem! – a bit fuzzy: he was years out when it came to the dates Savile was actually there, but let’s leave that to one side for now.)
– Jones has further links: his aunt was the actual head of Duncroft, which he obviously mentions. (That’s the aunt he never bothered contacting, of course!)
– Jones’ own mother’s time at Duncroft is similarly ‘revealed’ to the BBC heirarchy.
But! The astonishing detail that his own father was employed there just slipped his mind! As a teacher!!! Ho ho ho! What, even when he was ‘battling’ to rescue his shoddy tale in light of all the obvious warning-lights flashing like billy-o (as detailed above) it just never occurred to him to mention it?!?
Imagine if the rubbish was broadcast, Rippon and Jones slapping each other on the back, someone walks by and says: “Well done, Team Newsnight! By the way, Meiri, wasn’t your dad a teacher there?”
You could’ve heard a pin drop – though obviously not the penny!
Red herring? Red faced more like.
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Who cares Bandini.
Will say Peter Rippon showed very good judgement when he commissioned my scoop on the head of the Student Loans Company hidden tax avoidance. Later won an award for it for Exaro.
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My God, man, try and muster a little dignity!
What on earth has an unrelated ‘scoop’ got to do anything? You’ll be bragging about your 100-metres breaststroke award next – most unbecoming.
As you are led, jelly-legged, up the steps to the scaffold the last thing the poor hangman will want to hear is such unrelated wimpering, so make your final meal a bottle of Ron Arehucas Reserva 7 Años & save the bluster for St. Peter.
Comedy fans might enjoy reading Herr Flick’s swollen-chested prattle about Hencke’s award, as it came several years ago when that shady internet news agency was a quite different beast:
“We soft launched 7 months ago and the intention is that Exaro will become a subscription paid site. The long term plan for Exaro is to pitch to City professionals and an audience who are used to the idea of paying for good information. If you want to know what is going on around defence contracts in the Middle East [and VIP-peado rings some time last century], then you have to read Exaro. We are not a general consumer product and are therefore specialised.”
Here’s the best bit, though:
Exaro has “Guardian journalists working alongside former News of the World hacks. And they tend to get along!”
Aye, like a house (of cards) on fire!
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TgzQkfn1WbQJ:www.gorkana.com/fr/actualites/entreprise-and-finance/article-sur-lindustrie/gorkana-meets-exaro/+&cd=5&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es&client=ubuntu
P.S. Rippon would have been informed at the earliest opportunity if your own father had been deeply involved with, say, the Student Loan Company which you were investigating, now wouldn’t he? [Rhetorical]
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Your ignorance of how journalism works is breath taking. Shock, horror,a Guardian journalist works alongside one from the News of the World. So what! In the Commons lobby journalists from all papers work alongside each other along with growing number of one line outlets on the same stories. Journalists switch jobs from one news organisation to another and no one would bat an eyelid.
What if my father had worked at the Students Loans Company when I uncovered a story there the editor would look at the facts of the story and if there was relative there it would be irrelevant.
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Apologies, I made a mistake: that should have been Arehucas Reserva 12 Años, NOT 7.
Journalism? I learnt all I needed to know almost 30-years-ago: Guardian ‘Journalist of the Year’ writing rubbish about Jimmy Savile & kids at the BBC for the Murdoch-press… spooky prescience, eh?!?
(25’56” if the link doesn’t work properly)
Re Pa Hencke – the editor would have ‘looked at the facts of the story’ being in receipt of ALL the facts; ‘all the facts’ would include your familial-link to the tale, as you well know. Save it for San Pedro, no one else is listening.
P.S. Now that the ‘Evil Uncle Jimmy Ate Ted Heath’s Hamster In An Underground Swimming Pool’-article will never likely see the light of day, would some kind soul ‘leak’ a ‘draft copy’ of it to me for a laugh?
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Yes: precisely: so what, poor Bandini – scrabbling around in the dust for more distractions – if his father were a teacher at the establishment in question? It makes his interest in the subject more relevant, and probably rather better informed. As for your nonsense about the reason about the Newsnight feature being pulled, oh come off it, I don’t think for a moment even you really believe that. Or …perhaps you are ‘misremembering’ the past? Has someone been planting false memories in your muddled head? I do hope not. That would be an explanation, of sorts, but one of infinite pathos. I feel moved to tears.
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Staines – that’s not far from Walton, isn’t it?
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NO. Both are in Surrey and quite near to each other
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Did Savile ever pass through Walton on a Hop night?
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Dunno but I am sure Bandini will declare him innocent if he did.
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Great ‘dot-joining’, fellas!
The geographical closeness of Duncroft Approved School to the Walton Hop Disco is undeniable evidence, nay ‘proof’ of whatever mad fantasies are running – constantly, it would seem – through your hive-mind!
Hencke – I was a bit miffed that you didn’t put up my hilarious ‘invent a caption’ pic of Ho Ho Hogan-Howe, but as you are keeping the chuckles flowing with your sidekick (here on the David Hencke Forums) I won’t complain.
P.S. Wasn’t the Walton Hop only a half-marathon jog away from Dolphin Square? And Elm Guest House!!! Ye Gods, it’s all true!!!!!
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Bandini, it is up to my discretion what I publish on my own blog as you well know. Anyway you had plenty to do yesterday with your latest rant on Anna Raccoon’s site! I am surprised with your output you don’t set up your own free blog but perhaps you are worried you won’t be so widely read.
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Hardly a rant, Hencke, just helpfully exposing the dream world that David believed to be true:
http://annaraccoon.com/2016/02/07/necro-nonce-policing-and-sir-bernard-hogan-howe/comment-page-1/#comment-18205726434425839
If you dispute my conclusions you could chance your arm over there, where you seem to regularly lurk in the shadows (ready to pounce on any half-finished drinks when their owner heads off home, perhaps?).
I don’t worry about being “widely read”, by the way; the News of the World was widely read…
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Yes so I noticed though you may be nearer Peter Pan’s Never Never land with your analysis
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Hencke, my ‘analysis’ related to David’s erroneous belief that a Daily Mail article stated that ‘three men had been arrested in connection with Elm Guest House’. If you wish to dispute this, why don’t you do so NOW, in plain language & not that slippery journalese aimed at pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes (like the Cahalan article)?
I’ll even do the hard work for you – just copy & paste this and add your name to it – simple!
“The Mail article dated 26th July 2015 refers to three men arrested in connection with Elm Guest House (and is correct in doing so).”
Let’s see who’s living in Neverland, eh readers?!? Don’t hold your breath…
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he is tight. `They were three people arrested in Fernbridge investigation – Kasir ( the former owner). Stingemore and MacSweeney. One was released without charge, one died before his trial and the other is / was in jail though he was not charged with anything in the end about the guest house but was in connection with the children’s home and Bexhill.
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No no no! The article refers to a “former civil servant” & two accomplices:
“He told detectives the man first approached him at a London museum and enticed him back to his house. He went on to abuse him over two years.
The alleged victim also claimed the man introduced him to two others, who also abused him.”
They are the three people arrested in the article, whom David believed were ‘arrested in connection to Elm Guest House’. They weren’t.
(As the article was written six-months after Stingemore died surely not even Exaro would try and suggest that his corpse had been arrested and bailed until October – a further four-months of cold-storage for the proto-Janner!)
If you recall I tried previously to squeeze a drop of (true) information out of you regarding Stingemore/MacSweeney [sic] when, after Stingemore dropped dead, and completely contradicting everything Exaro had previously said, it was ‘revealed’ (or ‘claimed’) that Stingemore would, had he lived, have been facing Elm-related charges after all. You were less than helpful.
However, the live tweeting of McSweeney’s trial revealed the astonishing detail that the ‘investigative journalists’ of Exaro hadn’t even realised that Stingemore had previously been accused, investigated, tried & convicted for child abuse – that child being the recipient of compensation from the local authority (from memory). A run-of-the-mill (I imagine) confidentiality clause was spun by yourselves as being an attempt to silence the victim or summat, making you all look pretty inept when the facts presented themselves in open court – he’d been compensated for the abuse he’d suffered when in the care of the state.
What a cover-up!
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Ah I see different cases.
On your last point it was not a revelation to Exaro about Stingemore’s past. We knew about it but by law if we had published this once he had been charged we would be rightly done for contempt of court – prejudicing the accused before a jury trial. This would also have applied to any evidence to be brought out against MacSweeney because he was connected to Stingemore.
In your rush to condemn Exaro you seem to ignore the rights of an accused man to have a fair trial.
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Ah, different cases then!
Exactly the point I was making to David in my ‘analysis’: the wretched journo had woven various stories together to fool the unthinking reader into believing he had just read something he had not. It’s a trick I imagine must be taught to students on their very first day at ‘press school’; I’m at a loss to understand what ELSE they are taught – fact-checking being noticeable by its absence.
On your last-but-one point I’m really not sure which would be less humiliating: to admit to not having done basic background checks on the principle players in your story, or to have done those checks but ‘ignored’ the information in order to spin a load of tat about ‘secret payments’, etc.
I’ll invite your readers to trawl back themselves through those articles & Twitter “bombshells” to see how a “not much to see here, then”-story was squeezed for every last drop of mock outrage by Exaro & its proxies… here’s a taster that bears your name (prior to Stingemore being charged):
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4827/richmond-council-made-hush-payment-to-victim-of-sex-abuse
“… secretly paid compensation… …suggests that the London borough of Richmond-upon-Thames was aware of allegations that boys in its care were sexually abused in at least one of its children’s homes and at Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London, but failed to investigate properly.”
You then go on to quote from the suicide note of the man whom, as a boy, had suffered abuse at Stingemore’s hands. You fail to point out that the ‘voice’ heard in that note comes from the person who had received compensation for said abuse, and who had already seen his abuser – Stingemore – successfully prosecuted.
Hush payment? What a load of rubbish.
And on your LAST point, you are simply wrong; I was in no “rush to condemn Exaro” at all, and stupidly hung in there even when I should have listened to those alarm-bells ringing – never again. Fair trial? Ho ho ho! Do me a favour!
P.S. Back to your Claire McAlpine story – did you manage to chat with Jukes about the clashingly different versions you and he managed to produce? It’s strange seeing him listed as an Exaro-contributor when his story flatly & resoundingly refutes your own in every particular & pipped you to the post by several years!
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Do you ever step back, Bandini, and ask yourself why it is you and your peculiar set of self congratulatory playfriends who congregate around the Racoon blog, and mock the victims of abuse with such desperate enthusiasm, feel so driven to this subject? You worry about others arriving at the gates of heaven, and what scrutiny they might face, yet seem to have no concern about fetching up to face St Peter with a history of being an apologist for celebrity child abusers. Might be time to start searching your conscience, if you have one, and make peace with yourself, if not with the Almighty. Otherwise it seems certain you are destined for the Other Place, where of course you will most probably prefer the malodorous company awaiting you, in eternal damnation.
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Hencke, perhaps you’ll also now return to justify the following:
“Btw Dame Janet doesn’t think much of the ” evidence” your friend Anna Raccoon had to say re Duncroft. There is draft criticism of her in the report as well.”
We already established that there was in fact NO criticism of AR in the draft report, and now we have the real thing we can see that AR is not even mentioned, let alone made to feel the wrath of DJS. Please do explain!
One thing she DID ‘think much of’ was the evidence of the ‘girl who brought Savile to Duncroft’, whose story previously appeared on the site with which you appear obsessed:
“I have no reason to doubt her evidence that, while she was at Duncroft, Savile behaved impeccably in her presence.”
Why not pop in here…
http://annaraccoon.com/2016/02/25/the-dame-janet-smith-review/comment-page-1/#comment-18205726434427109
… to explain yourself?
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Another OTT piece from the mad world of Bandini put up to entertain some of my other many commentators. Notice how he omits to disclose the abject apology from Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, to all those Savile and Hall abused and Dame Janet’s heartfelt concern for survivors and treats someone who tries to help survivors as a waste of space. I think readers will know where he is coming from a Brit living abroad deriding those whose lives have been made a misery.
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Too scared to publish my OTHER earlier comment, Hencke? You know, about ‘A7’… collar itching, is it?
And I’m not sure what is ‘OTT’ about calling you out (as the young folks say) on your factually-inaccurate nonsense. Huddle behind the Dame’s well remunerated ‘heartfelt concern’ like a coward if you like, but she wasn’t too impressed with YOUR concern for anyone, was she?
In fact, don’t you see the irony in falsely claiming criticism of AR by DJS – something she does not do – only to then see pages 140 & 141 dedicated entirely to a fierce criticism of Exaro & yourself?
If you wish me to accept her words you’ll also have to accept that you are “appalling”, that you lied about the Met embargo being false, that you acted only for commercial gain “without any thought for the interests of the many victims” and your “selfish decision to publish led to individuals being identified.”
Are you referring to yourself as that “someone who tries to help survivors”? Ye Gods…
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Bandini
You do write a load of nonsense in your self obsessed way.
1. Your earlier criticism of Meiron Jones saying he failed to tell the BBC that he had a family connection re Duncroft is rubbish – in an interview with Press Gazette he talks about his aunt who worked there and how he told the BBC. So so much for your claims he had kept it hidden!
2, Your knowledge of the law of libel and rape is lamentable but then you are living abroad so you probably ignorant of the situation.
The law on rape says anybody under the age of 16 even if they gave consent to sex it is a statutory rape. The girl in question was 15 and it was her mother, now dead, who made the complaint to the BBC as you well know.
As for you relishing a libel case over this you should realise that before publishing the story and indeed all the stories on the report Exaro employed a senior media libel lawyer to approve every word. This is standard practice in any professional media organisation.
Finally I note in a private email you are keeping a file on me because of this – you won’t need it after next January because the new British defamation law bars anybody bringing a case after 12 months.
Finally you are very excited that Dame Janet attacked Exaro. So what? It goes with the territory if you are a journalist. News is something someone doesn’t want published, everything else is advertising.
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Hencke
You do write a load of nonsense in your attempt to flee from your catalogue of errors.
1. As anyone who had bothered to read what I have written here about Jones – or anyone else who has paid even the slightest attention to the documentation released by the various inquiries would know – his ‘family connection’ via his aunt was never obscured. I never said it was. In fact, I clearly pointed out that this aspect WAS known to his superiors!
You have constructed a straw-man argument but I’m once again nonchalantly flicking a Swan Vesta your way: what he FAILED to do, despite ‘battling’ to save his precious expose, was mention to anyone that his own FATHER had worked at the very place he claimed was a den of iniquity.
2. I freely confess to knowing little about either rape or libel laws. However, I have to wonder if you haven’t been handed some very bad advice by your “senior media libel lawyer”, as it was my fuzzy understanding – backed-up by a cursory search – that the ‘statutory rape’ label is applied to incidents involving children UNDER the age of 13 (i.e. sex with a 12-year-old is rape).
It is, of course, possible to rape someone of ANY age, but the case we are discussing (described as a “seduction” by the mother, a claim that was later withdrawn anyway) would, I would have thought, be considered ‘sexual activity with a child under the age of 16’.
Even to accuse someone of THAT crime you’d be advised to have evidence more compelling than a clipping from the NOTW (as they scrabbled to save their own skins over the role they themselves had played); to accuse someone of RAPE – as YOU have done, no one else had ever made this accusation – was beyond foolish.
The ‘file’ you say I am keeping is simply my record & proof of the information which you had at your disposal, and when you had it, and your failure to correct your errors. I did advise you, at the earliest opportunity, to amend/remove that article – your incredible stubbornness is going to be your downfall.
[By the way, my loathing of rotten journalism isn’t limited to just yourself. When your source, Esther Baker, had her case & surrounding issues – relating to Lantern, I think it was – badly misrepresented in the press thanks to, at best, ‘sloppiness’, I stated publicly that I hoped she would complain & have it corrected. That doesn’t mean I am a ‘believer’… but one thing I do ‘believe’ is that the press should not lie, fabricate & invent rubbish.]
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Bandini
Just to put you straight on what is officially regarded by the Home Office as child sexual exploitation you may care to know that the government is currently consulting on a new definition to come into force on April 1 this year. It reads:
‘Child sexual exploitation is a form of child abuse. It occurs where anyone under the age of 18 is persuaded, coerced or forced into sexual activity in exchange for, amongst other things, money, drugs/alcohol, gifts, affection or status. Consent is irrelevant, even where a child may believe they are voluntarily engaging in sexual activity with the person who is exploiting them. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact and may occur online.’
You’ll notice that whether the person consents or not is irrelevant and the age limit in England will be 18 – not even 16.
As regards our lawyer – the person is also engaged by national media – so is remarkably well qualified.
And I am afraid despite your malicious and mendacious attempt – so you say – to contact A7’s lawyers to bring a case against Exaro nothing has happened.
And as I have not covered the case in my blogs I have nothing to take down. Indeed the only person who has brought it up on my website is you – and also under the new defamation act people who post the comments are legally liable for what they say not the owner of the blog. We can solve it by simply taking down your comments if we are pressed by lawyers and ask them to pursue you.
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Ho ho ho! Pursue me?!? Go right ahead!
Once again you dissemble – this time by referring to an ongoing consultation which has no bearing whatsoever on the current definition. I assume by doing so you are tacitly admitting your previous mistake.
There is nothing ‘mendacious’ about myself nor my actions. I am not dishonest, neither do I lie. The truth is, Hencke, that if I saw YOU being falsely accused of rape (with the added inference of being responsible for driving a child to her death) I would bring it to your attention. And I would hope that you sought redress.
Regarding ‘taking down’ stuff, I advised you to contact Watts to have the article carrying your name either removed or amended – from the site of Exaro, not here.
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Bandini you better contact Mark Watts yourself if you believe that.
However unlike you our lawyer did not have rely on Google before making a judgement on what could be reported as an accusation of statutory rape. And furthermore it is rather perverse to go to the lawyers ( if you did I don’t even know the name of the law firm) of a person reported anonymously and not identified and say they should sue someone unless you are some sort of nutter.
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Hencke, where did I say I would be going to A7’s lawyers? Being such a ‘nutter’ I am unable to recall doing any such thing (but maybe I was on the neat rum at the time, eh?).
I certainly suggested I would be bringing it to the attention of his representatives, which, being a man of my word, I did. What they choose to do is their business, and one shouldn’t fall into the trap of those nutters on the ‘net who believe that a failure to bring a case for libel (when a mad claim is made) is proof that there ‘must be something in it’ (the mad claim).
For example, I’m aware of an award-winning journalist who has had the most serious claims made against him – fabricating evidence & perjury, for a start – which he has apparently not sought to ‘rectify’ by suing for libel. Let us not draw unwarranted inference from this as that course of action is often a shortcut to the poor-house – even for the innocent!
Back to A7 – why the reticence over using his name? His identity is known & so I see little point in this charade. And I have to bring you up on the idea that he was “reported anonymously and not identified” – no, his identity WAS known then, and it most certainly is now! Front-page news, no less.
Further, this: “… making a judgement on what could be reported as an accusation of statutory rape.”
No, you did not REPORT an accusation, you MADE an accusation (of ‘rape’, not ‘statutory rape’). Two quite different things. No one else had alleged that A7 had raped a girl of 15-years-of-age. Ever. You could not, therefore, ‘report an allegation that had never been made’…
Let’s hope your top media libel lawyers know what they’re about, eh? Or that ‘A7’ is busy frying bigger fish:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12175389/Tony-Blackburn-to-launch-personal-libel-action-against-BBC-director-general-Tony-Hall.html
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What representatives? His only representatives are his solicitors in this case – his agent at the time actually contradicted what he told the investigation about his whereabouts.
Just to make it clear your assertion that it was obvious who A7 was at the time the article was published is completely wrong. The article was written and lawyered precisely to ensure that nobody could identify who it was- they could only try and guess like you claim to have done. If you read it properly you would realise it refers to a disc jockey- not a BBC disc jockey, not a presenter, not even a well known disc jockey. You might be surprised to know that lots of people went to TOTPS as guests at the time including other disc jockeys!
The fact that he has chosen to name himself and the director general of the BBC has chosen to identify him as A7 has nothing to do with the article and you would be a nutter if you suggested that.
Yes it is sad that some people have decided to waste 20 years of their life accusing me of various terrible things which are not true – even when the people involved have moved on years ago. You seem to be going the same way.
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Hencke, I can only repeat what I stated previously regarding bringing it to the attention of his representatives (after you showed no appetite for retracting/amending the article).
And yes, it WAS known who A7 was.
I knew who A7 was. Others knew who A7 was.
Not much more to say on this but if you think the piece was “lawyered precisely to ensure that nobody could identify” its subject then I am afraid you were very much mistaken; not even the top media libel lawyers get to decide who knows what or when – they are not gods.
Regardless, Tony Blackburn IS now known to all as the subject of your article & this obviously DOES have ‘something to do with’ things! Call me a nutter, by all means, but I’m not guilty of writing “terrible things which are not true”. No one put a gun to your head – you exercised free-will.
P.S. ‘Guardian Lies’? I never had time to properly dive in, so can’t really offer an opinion other than this: someone capable of writing ‘terrible things which are not true’ even a single time [see above] is not a person in whom I’d place much faith in the witness-box.
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You are still missing the point and obviously don’t understand why professional media outlets are very careful to consult good libel lawyers when they write contentious stories. It doesn’t matter a damn whether you knew about this ( actually I seem to remember you thought it was Savile until this story was published). It is whether someone can prove that this article identified him and the phrasing in the article did not. It happens on newspapers every day when they write difficult stories.
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No, Hencke, I never thought that Savile raped Claire McAlpine (for God’s sake!). There was not even an allegation of rape until you made it, so how could I have?
I would be happy to take the stand to swear on oath that I was aware the article referred to Tony Blackburn. Will that suffice? No one has ever accused ME of perjury, by the way…
What “professional media outlets” do or do not do hardly applies to Exaro now does it? Ho ho ho! You set that one up!
Finally, ’cause it’s Saturday, it is you who misses the point: you penned an article in which the whole world now knows it is Tony Blackburn who you accuse of raping a 15-year-old (without any evidence whatsoever).
Do you stand by what you wrote, or not?
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Absolutely and at the moment your fantasy of being called as a star witness for A7 has zilch chance of happening.
As for your point on Exaro it is a well financed and resourced organisation capable of defending itself and me if it comes to it. It already has in one case and we won.
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The person who appears to be obsessed with Anna Racoon, Bandini, to the point of the most toe curling infatuation, is – you, poor old boy. Perhaps you have retired to Tenerife to live in self imposed exile, and mend a broken heart?
Congratulations, anyway, to you both, on finding perhaps one of the few people, other than Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse, with whom Savile appears to have behaved ‘impeccably’.
But how curious that you have not a word of sympathy for the victims of this odious man’s behaviour, nor are prepared to acknowledge the volume of evidence of his criminal career, as presented in Dame Janet Smith’s review.
Not that it matters: today is the day for victims and survivors, not for those who cynically exploit and perpetuate the myth of Jimmy Savile’s ‘innocence’.
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That’s the giveaway, Victor – the relentless mocking of the idea that anyone could ever be telling the truth about abuse by Savile. The balance of the evidence doesn’t matter, all that counts is the individual doubts and discrepancies. Along with the opportunity to extract some “fun” from the complications of costume-wearing and Savile’s state of sexual arousal (“Lighten up, Owen”, I can hear Bandini’s faux-jovial voice counseling me).
This is the sort of stuff the Department of Social Work at Edinburgh University consider worth £37,000 of social work research funding.
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I am wondering in an age of austerity why the ESRC is spending this money on this stuff when there are far more worthy projects it could use public money
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What’s even more peculiar is that a university department of social work training considers the blog of a group campaigning so vociferously in support of the innocence of a notorious abuser like Savile to be so important to their work.
The explanation appears to lie somewhere close to the Edinburgh University Social Work department’s enthusiasm for the “Moral Panic” analysis (/dismissal) of public concern regarding child sexual abuse.
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Bandini: your ‘straw man argument’ is a straw man argument.
You are nothing more than a bully in a virtual playground, absurd – and yet grossly distasteful.
In regard to your career as a Savile apologist, quite why you feel the need to smear those trying to expose the injustices perpetrated by a serial rapist, and merciless abuser of vulnerable women and small children, is a mystery – or perhaps not.
And in regard to ‘A7’: it is really quite extraordinary that you claimed to be so worried about the reputation of an anonymous person that you, Bandini, with your impeccable sense of moral outrage, felt obliged to alert his legal representative: how did you know, at that stage, who the person was, let alone the identity of his lawyers?
We must ask again why you spend so much time meddling, and trying to muddy the waters, and distract attention from the exposure of alleged child abuse? Rather a peculiar hobby. Have you not thought of trying to divert your energies into something more positive?
David is right: clearly you are no more than ‘some sort of nutter’ – or lackey of interested parties: sad, but dangerous too, to anyone foolish enough to take you even slightly seriously. Fortunately that would not account for anyone with a modicum of intelligence, or sense of decency.
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All you are doing, “Bandini”, whoever you really are, is exposing your own game here: playing the man, not the ball, and constantly moving your maliciously motivated campaign to try to discredit an investigative journalist, and anyone else who asks perfectly valid questions, to defend those who stand exposed now, or at risk of such, and liable to be accused of terrible crimes against children, and young women. Whether you are doing this to protect yourself, or by order, is the really interesting debate: the only other alternative explanation is an equally unpleasant one – a coward who enjoys the voyeuristic thrill of engaging in this sort of subject, whilst hiding safely behind the curtain.
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