First charges in Richmond paedophile ring scandal

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Two people were charged last night by the Met Police after authorisation by the Crown Prosecution Service in the Operation Fernbridge investigation.

John Stingemore,now 71 and the former deputy manager of Grafton Close children’s home was charged with eight counts of indecent assault, one charge of conspiracy with others unknown to commit buggery and two charges of taking indecent images of a child .

Father Tony McSweeney, aged 66,then a trainee Roman Catholic priest was charged with three counts of indecent assault, three counts of making indecent images of children,one charge of taking an indecent image of a child and a charge of possessing indecent images of children.

An updated report is on the Exaro News website.

The assaults involve seven children aged between nine and fifteen in the 1970s and 1980s. Both accused will appear before Westminster magistrates court in September.

Police are continuing their investigation into Elm Guest House,Barnes where it is alleged that boys were sexually assaulted by VIPs. The manager of the guest house, Harry Kasir, was recently arrested by the Met police, for having indecent images of children on his computer.

For legal reasons it is not possible to make any further comment because of the pending trial – a point made by the CPS in a blog statement today.

However as Richmond Council are not on trial I think a number of Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors and former councillors in that borough have a lot of questions to answer .They all repeatedly denied to me that they knew anything about  any child sexual abuse in that borough. Without my original source none of this would have been reinvestigated by the police.

Crosby Textor reaction: You’re just a two bit blog

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managing director and business partner of Lynton Crosby

managing director and business partner of Lynton Crosby

Swift  and arrogant reaction to a rather critical piece today on Lynton Crosby’s  forthcoming libel action in Australia against Labor defence material minister, Mike Kelly.

A splendid exchange between Tom Watson and Mark Textor on Twitter followed publication.

  2. .@tom_watson pity about gross factual errors herein. Quoting 2 bit blogs now Tom? Poor old thing. Nite!

    3:04 PM – 21 Jul 13 ·

  3. @markatextor Oh, and if you don’t know the author of the blog, he’s @davidhencke. He’s very well known in the UK. Have a nice day now.

  4. @tom_watson @davidhencke couldn’t even get the name right. Lolz!

     3:11 PM – 21 Jul 13 ·
    Tweet text

  5. @markatextor I’ll let you get some sleep. It sounds like you need it.

Evidently Mark Textor’s sole objection to the piece was an error I made – which I am happy to apologise and have already corrected – mispelling his name –  substituting an e for an o.

The managing director modestly describes himself on the Crosby Textor website “As Australia ‘s most successful pollster and campaign strategist, Mark Textor is acknowledged as the most astute judge of public sentiment in Australia today.”

Indeed he may well be but I hope his clients who pay him millions get better advice than he gives himself. All I would say is beware of two bit blogs they sometimes can bite.

Will Lynton Crosby be downed by a man who felled a Somali warlord?

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Official Australian Government portrait of Mike Kelly MP, defence materials minister and twitter libel fighter

Official Australian Government portrait of Mike Kelly MP.

A perfect storm is gathering for David Cameron in the autumn. His Downing Street spin doctor friend Andy Coulson and Rupert Murdoch’s favourite News International employee, Rebekah Brooks, are facing trial for alleged phone hacking .Now Lynton Crosby, his Tory election strategist, looks likely to be embroiled in a libel action in Australia while the country is engulfed in an election campaign.

The two cases will overlap and will mean a very interesting examination of Crosby and partner Mark Textor’s election disputed ” push  polling” techniques to denigrate Labor opponents and might well provide a useful insight into how Crosby will try to get Cameron re-elected.

The case has been bought by Crosby and Textor against a Labor minister, Mike Kelly for tweeting as the Sydney Morning Herald  reported “”always grate [sic] to hear moralizing from Crosby, Textor, Steal and Gnash. The mob who introduced push polling to Aus.” This led to a libel suit on the grounds that it damaged their business and ” push polling ” is meant to be illegal in Australia. They also deny doing it.

They seek aggravated damages because they say Dr Kelly failed to apologise, used sensational language and published the tweet knowing it was false, or with reckless indifference to its truth or falsity.

But what is really interesting is the man Crosby is fighting. He is not the guy  you might think is an obvious Labor or Labour politician.

No the defence materials minister is something else. Crosby is taking on an Australian military hero – a rare case of a soldier turned politician. He has a  decorated military record. He has worked with the UN peacekeepers in Timor and hostage rescue in Kenya.

He was involved in the legal prosecution of Saddam Hussein and the execution of a Somali warlord after he was convicted of 31 murders. He also served with the International Red Cross in Bosnia.

The warlord  Hussan Gutaale Abdul  had attacked and killed 16 aid workers and repeatedly driven an armoured car into emaciated refugees awaiting food distribution He was arrested by an Australian patrol, held in a cage at Baidoa airport and later flown to Mogadishu to be held by US forces. He was found guilty of 31 counts of murder.

When the death penalty was pronounced  Gutaale physically attacked Kelly and Kelly wrestled him along the road to his place of execution.

For his bravery,Kelly became a Member of the Order of Australia for ” exceptional service or performance of duty”

Kelly told the Sydney Daily Telegraph :

“There was quite a bit of scuffling. I got attacked. He had always threatened he was going to take me with him if he went down. He jumped on me in the court room. I had to use my rifle to subdue him by buttstroking.”

He said a price was put on his head as a result of his work to bring warlords to justice: “There were continuous radio broadcasts calling on people to do all sorts of nasty things, to disembowel me. It wasn’t an office job.”

The cancerous Lynton crosby

The politically “cancerous ” Lynton Crosby

Crosby of course is none of these things. His previous life as a farmer’s son is sketchy but his main interest at Crosby Textor the company co founded with MarkTextor, is pretty vicious campaigning for right wing parties in Australia and the UK. Their client list is secret but the ones that have been disclosed involve tobacco, fracking and banking.

I don’t know who is going to win the libel action. But if I had a choice of buddies it would be Kelly over Crosby.

Kelly is brave and  has  been  fighting against evil dictators and war lords and trying to bring peace and stability to the world. Indeed he might deserve a place in the Imperial War Museum in Lord Ashcroft’s  roll call of military heroes.

Crosby seems to be solely motivated by money and is filling his boots with gold from a product that will  spread cancer world wide. No wonder David Cameron can’t give a straight answer to journalists about his involvement in dropping plain packaging for cigarettes.

Crosby is a cancer in the heart of Whitehall. He and Textor’s contribution to the world is to help increase cancer rates and damage the environment  for their own  private gain through a company that hides its clients from public view.

Murdoch eats humble pie over private comments at the Sun

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Rupert Murdoch yesterday rowed back from his private comments seen and heard by Exaro News and on this site  condemning the police, the judiciary and his admission that he knew all along about payments to police and officials.

In two letters to John Whittingdale, Tory chair of the culture, media and sport committee, and Keith Vaz, Labour chair of the home affairs committee, his strident comments became strangely muted.

The full quotes are in an updated piece on the Exaro News website and Channel Four News.

No doubt the media mogul, advised by his lawyer,realised that the leaking of his comments to arrested journalists had attracted too much attention, particularly after  the Met Police Operation Elveden  asked Exaro for a tape with his views.

Now he does not doubt the police’s professionalism and says any interpretation on his words that he knew about bribing official is ” wholly false”. This is after he called the police operation totally incompetent and said the Met Police inquiry was about ” next to nothing.”

Really. He was obviously not wanting to row back too much from the words he gave to his journalists – still complaining the investigation had taken too long and was ” disproportionate ” and admitting to raw emotion at the meeting.

But will this be  enough to get him off the hook. Will people really believe him?  It was definitely a repentant Rupe, but I suspect the humbling was only skin deep and I am not sure that it will get him entirely off the hook from the Met.

More seriously how will people in the US and Australia take this explanation. I think there is more to come.

Murdoch: I am hurt and betrayed by the leak at The Sun

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Rupert Murdoch: crying into his American beer

Rupert Murdoch: crying into his American beer

Rupert Murdoch has told  David Dinsmore the new editor of the Sun, that he has been hurt and betrayed by the leaking of his private comments to arrested journos at The Sun.

A report today on  Exaro News reveals that the man is devastated by the disclosures that he knew about the payments to officials which have now led to a string of his reporters and executives being arrested under the Met police Operation Elveden investigation.

Probably more devastating is the fact the disclosure of the audio recording has now led to the American media mogul being summoned to appear before Parliament and the police being sent the tape of his words by Exaro News. And pressure is expected in his adopted homeland the United States as the new liberated Tom Watson gets going again.

One is tempted as a fellow pensioner Rupert Murdoch to feel sympathy for the disclosure of one’s private thoughts when you reach the ripe old age of 82 and you can’t have any privacy at all.

But then one thinks of all the  distress faced by the Dowler family  after the hacking into Milly’s phone or  the feeling politicians and other celebs had when their private phones and e-mails were tapped. Perhaps the angst you are going through now might just give you a glimmer of what it is like for other people who have found themselves in this situation. There is still time to repent, Rupe!

Police arrest manager of Elm Guest House

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The former Elm Tree Guest House in Barnes Pic Courtesy: Exaro

The former Elm Tree Guest House in Barnes, south west London Pic courtesy: Exaro

Harry Kasir, the former manager of the  Elm Guest House  where it is alleged that young boys were sexually assaulted by VIPs, and politicians in the early 1980s, was arrested by the Met Police Paedophile Unit  yesterday.

The full story is on the Exaro News website. It is a significant development by Operation Fernbridge, which has already arrested and bailed two other people in connection with the 1980s scandal. They are John Stingemore, who ran Grafton Close, the Richmond Council children’s home, where it is alleged boys in council care were taken to Elm Guest House in Barnes. The other arrested person, Father Tony McSweeney,is a Roman Catholic priest.

The Met Police in a statement confirming the arrest  but not naming Mr Kasir, aged 69, said he had been detained on suspicion of having indecent pictures of children, He was bailed until September.

Previous stories on this site on Mr Kasir are  (https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/will-elm-guest-house-man-quit-britain/) and ( https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/police-raid-home-of-former-gay-guest-house-contact-in-paedophile-investigation/).

Justin Welby: An apology on sexual abuse is not enough

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Justin Welby: Apology not enough Pic credit: The Guardian

Justin Welby: Apology not enough Pic credit: The Guardian

The decision by the Church of England Synod spurred on by  Justin Welby and John Sentamu,  archbishops of Canterbury and York, to apologise for past sins of child sexual abuse is welcome. But it is not nearly enough.

The words are fine. They offer to apologise unreservedly” for the failure of the Church of England’s systems to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by its clergy and others and for the failure to listen properly to those so abused.

They add: “The sexual and physical abuse that has been inflicted by these people on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame for years to come.”

But as I reported on Exaro News  for an independent inquiry. Graham Wilmer, of the Lantern Project, calls for a Commission for  Truth and Reconciliation ( see http://www.ctruk.org.uk/)

They are big fears as the Stop Church Child Abuse put it : “is this a game, another in the decades of games played out in the public,to present a church responsive to its past failings and moving forward in harmony with survivors; until the next time, the next case that reveals further abuse, cover up and denial, and the inadequacy of effective procedures?” 

Unless there is a real rethink by all the churches and public institutions we are going to get nowhere. In my view from  limited investigations into historic child sexual abuse  the temptation to cover up abuse is enormous. Perpetrators  are often subtle, cunning and very plausible. They know how to get around systems – and are often helped by institutions that don’t want to face up to the shame of public disclosure.

We need to go much further and involve all churches including the  deeply reluctant Roman Catholic church to tackle what amounts to a tidal wave of historic abuse in this country with no fewer than four police investigations involving hundreds if not thousands of cases that have been uncovered.

That is why I am delighted  that Tom Watson, Labour MP who made the original allegations about a historic sexual abuse ring in Parliament is now  going to concentrate on pursuing this investigation – and will no longer be drawn into the time-consuming  battles that  are at present engulfing Labour’s campaign machine.

 

Murdoch: The Full Monty

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Rupert Murdoch: has he broken the law?

Rupert Murdoch: has he broken the law?

Exaro News have put up the last six minutes of the audio of Rupert Murdoch talking at the  meeting with arrested Sun journalists – bringing to 24 minutes the audio of the  private comments of  the News UK owner.

You can listen here – http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5033/audio-rupert-murdoch-fumes-rails-and-bangs-meeting-table .

It comes as officers from Operation Elveden  have requested Exaro News for the audio recording. Operation Elveden say they want the recording because ” We believe this meeting  may contain evidence of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office and we need to secure the best evidence.”

Exaro have said they are happy to supply these audio clips but they are now publicly available and the police can listen to them on Exaro’s website.

News UK the successor to News Corporation have denied these recordings reveal that Murdoch knew about the payments before the police investigation.

You can judge that for yourself.

The Murdoch Tapes: Fleet Street, Hypocrisy and the Police

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Are the Met Police on Operation Elveden interested in Rupert Murdoch’s comments? This seems to be the point of this blog which is highlighting that the audio ( there is no actual tape) has re-opened the whole issue of payments to police officers and public officials By Fleet Street for stories. I have also put this up as a summary of all the latest development and links to blogs and articles for those keen to follow events.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

MurdochLast month, Private Eye reported that Sun journalists had taped a meeting with Rupert Murdoch in March 2013.   The Executive Chairman of News Corporation was quoted as taking a supportive view of the position of arrested journalists.  This story was not followed up at the time.  It broke again this week when the investigative journalism website, Exaro and Channel 4 News claimed an exclusive on the story and released a transcript of the recording.

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How Rupert Murdoch’s practices bought a Sun executive to tears

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Rupert Murdoch: Did he look that at the end of the Sun meeting

Rupert Murdoch: Did he look that at the end of the Sun meeting

Exaro have today released the final section of the 45 minute audio of Rupert Murdoch’s meeting with arrested Sun journalists. It is a very poignant moment when Deidre  Sanders, the Sun’s agony aunt, reads out a  damning letter from the wife of a senior executive.

You can hear it at http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5035/audio-dear-deidre-rupert-murdoch-betrayed-us-the-sun . The feeling among Sun journalists that they have been betrayed  by a decision of the Management and Standards Committee to hand over mountains of material  to the Met Police and face a life with criminal convictions could not be more emphasised.

The meeting closes with a former Sun executive sobbing as Rupert Murdoch promises to stuff the letter down a lawyer’s throat. It makes awful listening. A tale of betrayal for people who have been loyal to the company for years while the Murdoch employee who sanctioned the release of the information and gave evidence to Leveson has been promoted to ” some fancy job ”  in the United States.

The audio recording serves as a warning to Murdoch staffers world wide, in Australia, the United States as  well as Britain. If he allows people on his beloved Sun to be treated like this, what chance will you have if anything goes  badly wrong  on your paper, radio or TV station in your country.