Pathetic: The Child Sex Abuse Inquiry’s slow response to stopping vital documents being destroyed

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New Zealand dame Justice Lowell Goddard : tardy action over documents pic credit: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

New Zealand dame Justice Lowell Goddard : tardy action over documents pic credit: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

It was revealed yesterday by the Goddard Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that it has only just got round to writing letters to the Cabinet Secretary, police, NHS, religious leaders and local government asking them not to destroy documents which could hinder their investigations.

The fine words from Lowell Goddard  requesting this and lists of categories  which must not be destroyed can be seen here. No one can complain about the scope of the letters. It is just that they should have been written months ago.

The home secretary,Theresa May made it clear months ago when questioned by MPs that she expected this to be done. But obviously those in charge preferred to take a more leisurely approach and spent the time trying to recruit at least 20 more lawyers instead.

Any sensible person  would have made sure that the letters went out immediately the first panel was set up. It should have been the first act of the secretariat to safeguard documents to prevent them going into shredders to save Whitehall and town hall storage costs. And I am told that at least two members of the old panel requested this be done at early meetings.

In this inquiry this is particularly important. Investigations by Exaro have already discovered that vital documents in inquiries go missing. And the inquiry by Peter Wanless  and Richard Whittam failed to discover key documents including the dossier sent by the late Geoffrey Dickens MP on paedophiles to the late  Leon Brittan, the home secretary. And that raised questions about the retention of documents as long ago as November last year.

So it is particularly galling to see how long it has taken the inquiry to act. There is a lot of stake here – VIP paedophiles will be desperate not to be found out and want to cover their tracks. By taking such a long time in such a high profile inquiry they have been given every opportunity to do that by this delay.

The European Court of Human Rights: A judgement that wrecks free speech

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The European Court of Human Rights has done itself no favours with bloggers by upholding an absurd  and  outrageous judgement making websites liable for any comment published on their sites.

As  I reported over a year ago the court had already ruled  that judges have made the extraordinary decision to hold news sites and blogs legally responsible for all the comments put up on their site even if they take them down after a complaint.
Effectively it meant that any offended party can pursue a news organisation or blog for any defamatory comment made about them EVEN after it has been removed from the website.
The ruling follows a dispute after a said to be respected Estonian news organisation,Delfi,ran a piece about a ferry company making controversial changes to its routes. The changes to remote Estonian islands attracted widespread criticism including an attack on their owners from anonymous bloggers who put comments on the site. A major shareholder in the company took offence at the comments and decided to sue. The website took them down but the owner decided to pursue the site – not the commentators – saying it should be legally responsible for checking every single comment before it is published..

Now the grand chamber of the court has upheld this absurd decision – saying that it is up to professional bloggers to legally check any comment before it is public – effectively saying they should act like Mystic Meg in predicting whether any comment is offensive. Not surprisingly this has attracted a vehement response in the United States and Europe who see the ruling as dangerous and damaging to free speech. Both the respected Inforrm blog and a US website Techdirt have issued particularly harsh criticism.

Techdirt describes the decision as a disaster for free speech and the decision as ” absolutely crazy”.

The only exceptions to this ruling appear to  be internet forums and people who run their websites as non commercial ventures or as the judgement says ” as a hobby”. The only reason for this is evidently the judges thought people with hobbies shouldn’t be expected to have to employ lawyers to check their every move. But ” freedom of expression” should not be confined to those who have hobbies.

The main effect according to one of two dissenting judges would amount to :” an invitation to self-censorship at its worst.”

Luckily the UK has a Defamation Act that does the opposite – putting the onus on the people who post comments not the website and has procedures to sort out a dispute.

But it would only take one wealthy, vindictive person angered by a comment to go to the ECHR citing this judgement. And then we would in for a battle between British law and the European Court ruling.

Frankly if Michael Gove, the justice secretary, got hold of this judgement – he would have a good case to damn the court. And in this case he would be right.

Who Dares Wins:Trident’s greatest enemy Jeremy Corbyn backs Trident’s greatest friend and winner Julian Lewis

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Julian Lewis. MP for New Forest East, Trident's greatest supporter

Julian Lewis. MP for New Forest East,
Trident’s greatest supporter

Update: Julian Lewis beat off rivals Bob Stewart and Richard Benyon to chair the defence select committee for the next five years. Final vote was  Julian Lewis 314 and Richard Benyon 242 after Bob Stewart’s votes were redistributed.

If it was a work of fiction about Parliament you would think I have lost the plot. But this year’s election for the defence committee has produced the strangest bedfellows. Jeremy Corbyn, feared Leftie Labour leadership contender,a darling with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and scourge of  renewing Britain’s independent deterrent has nominated  the most right wing Tory you could possibly find to chair the powerful Commons defence committee.

Jeremy Corbyn Mp, Trident's greatest enemy

Jeremy Corbyn Mp, Trident’s greatest enemy

He is backer of Julian Lewis, a passionate defender of the armed forces and the greatest defender of spending billions on  renewing Trident in Parliament. See his campaign link- he’s on a minesweeper to make his point.JL & HMS GLASSERTON (4) I am told this extraordinary situation has arisen because Leftie Jeremy and Right winger Julian share a joint passion that overrides their contrary views. Both of them want the issue of Trident properly debated  in Parliament – one to destroy any reason for having it , the other to make sure the penny pinching Tory government does not back track on spending money on it. Both are in their own different ways, anti-Establishment, and both believe in a thorough examination of the facts and proper probe into the defence budget is essential and they don’t trust more establishment Tory or Labour MPs to do a thorough job. And the amazing fact is that among Labour MPs Julian has also attracted support from the awkward squad. John McDonnell, another Labour Leftie  who also supports abolishing Trident has backed him. So has Kevan Jones, a shadow defence minister, well known for digging deep into any issue – even if he isn’t on the far Left of Labour. Among independent non establishment  Tories Julian has the support of Dr Liam Fox, Sarah Wollaston. and Charles Walker. Julian is standing against Richard Benyon and Bob Stewart. Full details on all the candidates are on the House of Commons defence committee website. Result on Wednesday.

Putting Lawyers First: Will the Child Sex Abuse Inquiry really benefit survivors?

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New Zealand dame Justice Lowell Goddard : Putting lawyers first pic credit: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

New Zealand dame Justice Lowell Goddard : Putting lawyers first pic credit: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

The extraordinary disclosure reported on the Exaro website and in The Sunday Times today that the Goddard Judicial inquiry into child sexual abuse will recruit a record number of in-house QCs and lawyers raises  more than just a few eyebrows.

It appears that Ben Emmerson, the QC who survived the cull that abolished the independent panel, will be interviewing for 20 more barristers – ten of them QC’s – this month This far outstrips the number employed for the Leveson inquiry into the press or the very long running Saville Inquiry into the  Northern Ireland ” Bloody Sunday ” atrocity.

It is not surprising that survivors – already excluded from the panel and any meaningful input into the proceedings – have reacted with fury. If you also take into account that every organisation from the police to local government, the security services to Whitehall and ministers, would want to bring along their own QC at public expense, you can see where the phrase ” lawyer fest” comes from.

And you have to add that most of the remaining shrunk panel are also lawyers or connected to the law. The remaining people are  Alexis Jay, author of the report last year on CSA in Rotherham; Drusilla Sharpling, barrister and former senior prosecutor; Malcolm Evans, professor of public international law; and Ivor Frank, barrister and advisor to the Home Office..Only Alexis Jay is not connected to the law.

If you compare the Goddard panel with the former Hillsborough Panel and the Gosport Independent Panel (I declare an interest I am a member) and you can see how the members come from diverse backgrounds with different interests. They are not predominately lawyers.

True it is clear that  Emmerson has asked for a wide range of legal expertise including specialists in child care, local authorities, public law and criminal law.But that is not the same as having a mix of people with different experience away from the law courts.

Indeed the whole process could end up as  being an intimidatory experience for any survivor wishing to give evidence.

Ben Emmerson: A Thomas Cromwell figure? Pic Credit: UN

Ben Emmerson: A Thomas Cromwell figure?
Pic Credit: UN

There is also a question about Emmerson himself. He is a very well-regarded human rights lawyer but he is also ( according to past members of the panel ) an arrogant and bombastic figure who might well create division rather than the healing process needed in such a sensitive area.

His powers of patronage are large and he appears to be creating his own Empire  Indeed in another century  a parallel could be drawn with Thomas Cromwell  – a brilliant lawyer and advocate for Henry VIII  (read Hilary Mantel’s excellent novels) who wielded enormous patronage. He ended up being beheaded for heresy and treason on Tower Hill. I am not suggesting such an ISIS style modern fate for Emmerson but the way this has been done suggests he is acting as a Cromwell type figure to Lady Goddard and Theresa May. His solutions may not be the right ones and one would not want  the inquiry to be not trusted as a result.

The other inquiries have  one public aim – putting the families involved first. The parallel aim for the Goddard Inquiry should be to put the survivors at the centre of its work. At the moment it is looking like that it is putting lawyers first – and  if lawyers are not careful, they will seen  by survivors ( if they have not already said so) as exploiting survivors for their own personal careers.,

Cutting councillors in Newcastle upon Tyne: A dangerous move to dilute democracy

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Newcastle: the first place to face serious cuts in its councillors? Pic Credit: Free Foto.Com

Newcastle: the first place to face serious cuts in its councillors?
Pic Credit: FreeFoto.Com

Most political activists know that by 2018 the Conservatives will have succeeded in pushing through boundary changes that will cut the number of MPs from 650 to 600 at a time when the UK’s population is rising.

Not so well-known is that there is a local government equivalent now under way by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England which is not being made nearly as obvious.

Papers circulating among councillors in the Newcastle upon Tyne reveal that the Commission is about to look at a series of big cities as part of an ongoing review of local ward boundaries. The bombshell, I am told, is, as a result, the number of councillors in the city could fall by a massive one-third – from 78 to 54. And that similar exercises could see reductions in councillors in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol.

The rationale behind the Commission’s interest is that changes in voter registration from households to individuals have seen a big drop in people registering to vote. Particularly affected are university students who used to be  registered  en bloc by the authority and now have to register themselves. Newcastle,Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol  and London all have huge student concentrations and registration has plummeted. Also  the growth in privately rented accommodation has seen people not always registering when they change address. Once there a ten per cent difference either way the Commission thinks it should review the authority.

It was the student drop that attracted the Commission’s attention to Newcastle. One ward,Ouseburn. saw figures down 30 per cent. But a registration drive saw this fall confined to four per cent.

Officially the Commission say they have no political motive – though it would hit Labour councils disproportionately – and only act if there are big changes in wards.

It told me:“ The Commission will intervene in authorities where 30% of wards have an imbalance of + or – 10% from the average elector: councillor ratio. This is how the Commission builds the main part of its programme.”

“The Commission has no view on whether the number of councillors should increase, decrease or stay the same for any authority. Each council is treated on a case by case basis and the Commission will make its judgment on the strength of the evidence it sees during the review process.”

It did confirm that big cities were being targeted:

” Several metropolitan authorities will form part of the Commission’s England-wide work programme over the next two years mainly because they have relatively high levels of electoral inequality between wards. ”

However documents circulating in Newcastle suggest differently. They reveal the council asked them to drop the review – because it did not meet the criteria( now only two out of 26 wards meet that figure) but the Commission refused.

The Commission confirmed they have cut councillors outside big cities citing   Stafford (-19 councillors), Suffolk Coastal (-13) and South Bucks (-12). They also say they have not cut councillors in Leicester, York, Bristol and Sheffield.

The one increase is in Hertfordshire which will have 78 councillors – an extra seat is being created in Hatfield in the constituency of Grant Shapps, the former Tory chairman. To be fair the councillors in North Hatfield appear to be a little under represented.

To me this suggests another agenda that it is totally not in keeping with government’s vowed policy to promote localism.

It fits more with an agenda of promoting city mayors to replace elected authorities, slashing local government  costs and  reducing accountability at a very local level.  Would a totally privatised London borough of Barnet need many councillors for example? I am not saying the Commission may have this agenda – more its political masters. But the Commission is not being entirely open about what is happening.You will find none of this information in this blog on the Commission’s website as it says it talks to local authorities ( presumably in private) first.

Luckily at least one Newcastle MP, Nick Brown, a former chief whip, seems to be aware of what could be happening and I fully expect him to start raising this in Parliament.I hope others will do so.

Vaz defeats Mactaggart in ight for home affairs chair

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Keith Vaz MP


Keith Vaz MP

Updated: Keith Vaz easily saw off Fiona Mactaggart for the chairmanship of the home affairs committee winning by 412 votes to 192. This will make him one of the ;longest serving chair of any Commons select committee as he will remain chair for the next  five years.

Keith Vaz, one of the more controversial Labour MPs, is facing a strong challenge for the chairmanship of the influential  House of Commons home affairs committee.The MP is being challenged by a former home affairs minister – the equally forthright Fiona Mactaggart. MP for Slough, and a doughty campaigner on human rights, civil liberties and race equality with strong views about prostitution -linking it to people trafficking and comparing the men who used prostitutes as little more than child  abusers.

The battle seems to have divided MPs – all of whom have a vote including ministers and shadow ministers – at next Wednesday’s elections.

The divide can be shown by the list of people nominating each candidate – which has to include political opponents – as well as people of their own party.

Vaz has been backed on the Labour side by Sir Gerald Kaufman, Jo Cox, Chris Evans, Mr David Winnick, Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck, Mr Chuka Umunna, Clive Efford, Ms Diane Abbott, Conor McGinn, Gareth Thomas, Mary Glindon, Steve McCabe, Tristram Hunt,  and Jonathan Ashworth .

Among Tories he is backed by Zac Goldsmith, who organised the all party pressure for the establishment of the child sex abuse inquiry, and MPs  like  Tories Chris Heaton-Harris and Nicola Blackwood, Scots Nat, Angus MacNeil. and Democratic Unionist,Sammy Wilson.

Fiona MacTaggart MP

Fiona Mactaggart MP

Fiona Mactaggart, is backed by Labour MPs, Margaret Hodge, Ian Mearns, Kate Green, Nia Griffiths, Jeremy corbyn, Jess Phillips. Bill Esterson, Alison MKcGovern, Liz McInnes, Rupa Huq, Daniel Zeichner, Gavin Shuker, ann Coffey, Diana Johnson and Yvonne Fovargue. Outside Labour she has got support from Tories, Daniel Kawczynski, Guto Bebb, ex home office minister,Damian Green, SNP member Tommy Shepherd; and SDLP member Mark Durkan.

Commons insiders say Fiona will have to campaign strongly to defeat Vaz who has been chairman since 2007 – and also been able to stand again because he has not served two full terms.

Internet trolls beware, your prison cell awaits

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With growing interest on the abuse of people on the internet, some amazing figures have emerged from the Ministry of Justice showing the huge rise in the number of prosecutions in the last decade.

I am indebted to the pay wall site of Media Lawyer for permission to reproduce much of their findings and to Inforrm blog who have also published the report.

Ten years ago just 143 people were convicted of the crime  to send “by means of a public electronic communications network” a message or other material that is “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.

Last year – the latest figure for convictions had soared to 1209 – an extraordinary eight fold increase.

As Media Lawyer reports:

“The previously little-used section [ Section 127 of the malicious communications act 2003] has come to prominence in recent years following a string of high-profile cases of so-called trolling on social media sites.

It can also cover phone calls and e-mails, and cases of “persistent misuse” which cause the victim annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.

Ministry of Justice  statistics show that 1,501 defendants – including 70 juveniles – were prosecuted under the Act last year, while another 685 were cautioned.

Of those convicted, 155 were jailed – compared with just seven a decade before. The average custodial sentence was 2.2 months.

Compared with the previous year there was an 18% increase in convictions under Section 127 but the number has dipped since a peak in 2012 when there were 1,423.”

The article adds:

” The issue of online abuse came under scrutiny after cases such as the targeting of Labour MP Stella Creasy, who spoke of the “misery” she suffered caused after a Twitter troll re-tweeted menacing posts threatening to rape her and branding her a “witch”.

Other victims of trolling have included campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and Chloe Madeley, daughter of Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan.

The MoJ figures also revealed a similar rise in the number of convictions under the Malicious Communications Act, which makes it an offence to send a threatening, offensive or indecent letter, electronic communication or article with the intent to cause distress or anxiety.

Last year, 694 people were convicted of offences under this Act – the highest number for at least a decade and more than 10 times more than the 64 convictions recorded in 2004.”

I have noticed  an increase – since this blog has highlighted  child sexual abuse – in the number of survivors who speak out and then find themselves the target of trolls – sometimes saying they don’t believe their story.

The government  will increase penalties. Media lawyer reports it will increase: “the maximum sentence for trolls convicted under the Malicious Communications Act from six months to two years and extend the time limit for prosecutions under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 to three years from the commission of offence.”

Obviously there has to be a balance between pursuing people and free speech – with the previous head of the Crown Prosecution Service now a Labour MP, Keith Starmer, saying there must be a ” high threshold” and people practising internet jokes should not be prosecuted. But what is disturbing -and I intend to return to this is that the abuse and misuse of the internet is growing  and there may be a case for even harsher penalties for the most persistent offenders.

Esther Baker child sex abuse allegations: A challenging case for Staffordshire Police

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Esther Baker

Esther Baker

The allegations of historical child sex abuse made by Esther Baker are going to be a big challenge for Staffordshire Police to investigate.

Her testimony  reported first on Sky News and developed in stories published at the weekend on Exaro News and in the Sunday Mirror make grim reading. I won’t repeat it all here.

What it suggests is that some 25 years ago a group of young girls – in Esther’s case as young as six – were taken into the deep woods of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire and  raped on numerous occasions  while a couple of police officers watched to make sure no member of the public stumbled upon such a scene.

She has been unable to identify any of the other girls – though she says they may have been six or seven of them and not all the same ones – and has until recently not been certain who all the assailants were. Some were alleged to VIPs, others were not.

But she has now told police that a former MP of repeatedly raping her not only there but at other places. He  is adamant that this is untrue and  insists that she has either fabricated this  or been manipulated by others to accuse him of criminal sexual acts he did not commit.

She points out to me that the first time she made the allegation it was to another survivor and was before she was being counselled by any organisation.

Staffordshire Police are at the moment nearing the end of a scoping exercise which has involved interviewing Esther seven times for hours before they proceed to a full investigation which  they have promised to undertake.

What has also emerged that quite independently two other women have come forward and made similar allegations against the same former MP. Unlike Esther these two women have not made their complaints public and still have to talk to Staffordshire Police in any detail about their allegations. Neither are known to Esther.

And to add to the complications a third survivor,  a man already talking to the Met Police, about allegations in Dolphin Square, London has identified from a picture of Esther as a child, her being there. She remembers being taken to London but had no idea where she had been taken.

All this is going to require a painstaking detailed investigation by Staffordshire Police which is going to take a lot of time and energy. It is a very good exemplar of how these allegations – which would have been dismissed years ago – are now being taken seriously by the police in the present climate. No doubt the naysayers would argue that these allegations  still should not be taken up because they sound so extreme.

But to clear up what looks like a hidden epidemic of child sex abuse that is being uncovered in this country Esther is entitled to a full and thorough investigation into exactly what happened in Staffordshire 25 years ago. And the police need to  track down  who is alleged to have carried out  such vile acts and bring them to trial.

Too expensive to reveal: The 2000 Whitehall emails on Just Solutions International

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The secretive and expensive world of the miniistry of justice

The secretive and expensive world of the ministry of justice

Earlier this year this blog disclosed how the Ministry of Justice had  quietly set up a profit making subsidiary with the aim of marketing justice to obnoxious and corrupt regimes like Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and has now been revealed Macedonia.

This disclosure caused some embarrassment and a lot of anger that the United Kingdom government should be bidding to profit from advising countries like Saudi Arabia who lash bloggers and hold street beheadings which the UK forcibly condemn should the Islamic State do the same. The anger is most eloquently expressed on the blog of lawyer David Allen Green who runs a superb commentary on his Jack of Kent blog.

Naturally I thought it  would be in the public interest to find  out exactly how this rather shadowy body had been set up and what was the ministerial drive behind it.So what better device than the  current Freedom of Information Act to ask the ministry the questions. That was last January .

This was my request:” I would like to request details of all emails and communications between ministers and officials held by the Ministry of Justice and NOMS regarding the establishment of Just Solutions International  under the present coalition government.”

it took the ministry exactly 28 days( the maximum under the act)  to decide that such a request was so broad that they sent me a letter saying they would refuse to proceed with it at all unless I narrowed its scope. They could have told me the next day if it was the case.

So on February 25 I sent an amended request:

“What I would like to request  are documents and communications ( by email) between officials and ( if any) between officials and ministers which led to the creation of Just Solutions International. eg pertaining to  the reason why it was set up and. its role within noms and the ministry.”

It took until late April ( way beyond the 28 day period) to answer with a lovely letter dated xx April 2015 . And guess what evidently Whitehall has so much material debating the creation of Just Solutions International that it is too expensive to send it to me.

According to the letter it exceeds the £600 cost limit and would take civil servants more than three and a half days to find them all.

As their letter says; “In this instance to provide you with the information we would be required to locate emails, which we have estimated exceed 2000, since 2012 which detail the creation of Just Solutions international.”

They have suggested I could narrow down the request a again either to a short time period or by named official ( I don’t have the names of all the officials anyway). However in the spirit of kindly co-operation I have narrowed down the time limit to one year and see if this yields any results. I await the reply  with interest though they have not given me the courtesy of saying they received the request yet.

I suspect that the officials don’t really want to release anything – because the whole volume of correspondence – seems to suggest to me that they had a lot to discuss about why and how this  private profit making company was set up. But there is no reason yet to give up and all the more reason to probe exactly what is behind an initiative that believes making money from dodgy regimes is an ethical revenue earner for the taxpayer.

Naysayers at bay:The damning child sex abuse figures that should make them think again

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Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk, who is co-ordinating the Operation Hydrant figures Ic credit: Norfolk Constabulary

Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk, who is co-ordinating the Operation Hydrant figures
Pic credit: Norfolk Constabulary

The disclosure by Operation Hydrant – the national co-ordination hub set up by the police to bring together all allegations of  historical child sexual abuse – this week  of a huge number of paedophile suspects should give any naysayer a shock.The figures are released on the National Police Chiefs’ Council website here should give massive cause for concern. There is a separate breakdown for Scotland here.

Basically they show that there are 1433  male suspects of which 216 are deceased Some 666 suspects related to institutions, and 261  are classified as people of public prominence.

Some 506 are classified as unidentified and 357 institutions have been identified within the scope of the operation.

The breakdown of the prominent people is 135  from the world of TV, film or radio,76 are listed as politicians –(it should be noted that these include local-level politicians, not just national figures); 43 are from the music industry and  7 are from the world of sport

Some 357 different institutions have been identified. These include:154 schools,75 children’s homes,40 religious institutions, 14 medical establishments,11 classified as being institutions in communities – youth clubs, community centres etc.,9 Prisons or Young Offenders Institutions, 9 sports venues and  28 other institutions (i.e. military, guest houses) In addition, 17 institutions are classified as ‘unknown’.

These figures come as a surprise even to journalists working on Exaro as they are higher than we  even thought.. But to anyone who has been campaigning to suggest that the almost every claim is based on ” false memory syndrome” or made up to claim compensation this should be a wake up call. Are they really going to say that all these people across the UK have made up these claims? This is just not credible.

Obviously the fact they are suspects means the cases are not yet proven but the perpetrators should stand trial if the police can gather enough evidence.

And when you think that probably each and every suspect has assaulted or molested often scores or more survivors – these are not after all long term relationships – the problem is severe. No wonder former CSA panel member, Graham Wilmer, of the Lantern Project, has told Sky News ” This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

These figures however are not just shocking- they raise questions about what sort of society the United Kingdom is now.

How come professional bodies from the police, social services, the NHS never suspected this was going on or possibly covered it up? How come the media both TV and print never discovered the scale of this at the time? What is going on now that we don’t know about?

It also raises questions about what sort of society we live in where it appears to be OK for minority to prey on children in this vile way? It raises questions for all religious orders – especially the Roman Catholic church where the issue of celibacy could be contributing factor to this problem.. From what I  know there is not  a religious order where they are not allegations of  child sexual abuse whether it is the Anglican Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses , the Methodists and the Mormons.

We also cannot wait EIGHT years for the Goddard Inquiry to decide what new arrangements are required for protecting children in the future.In case there is any doubt about what a horrific experience child sexual abuse is – read the judgement of the Supreme Court this week which lifted the ban on the publication of a book by James Rhodes, the pianist.

Classical pianist James Rhodes. Pic Credit: www.classicalmusic.com

Classical pianist James Rhodes.
Pic Credit: http://www.classicalmusic.com

This is an extract (Warning Strong Language) from the book read out in court:

”

“Abuse. What a word. Rape is better. Abuse is when you tell a traffic warden to fuck off. It isn’t abuse when a 40 year old man forces his cock inside a six-year-old boy’s ass. That doesn’t even come close to abuse. That is aggressive rape. It leads to multiple surgeries, scars (inside and out), tics, OCD, depression, suicidal ideation, vigorous self-harm, alcoholism, drug addiction, the most fucked-up of sexual hang-ups, gender confusion (‘you look like a girl, are you sure you’re not a little girl?’), sexuality confusion, paranoia, mistrust, compulsive lying, eating disorders, PTSD, DID (the shinier name for multiple personality disorder) and so on and on and on.

I went, literally overnight, from a dancing, spinning, gigglingly alive kid who was enjoying the safety and adventure of a new school, to a walled-off, cement shoed, lights-out automaton. It was immediate and shocking, like happily walking down a sunny path and suddenly having a trapdoor open and dump you into a freezing cold lake.

You want to know how to rip the child out of a child? Fuck him.

Fuck him repeatedly. Hit him. Hold him down and shove things inside him. Tell him things about himself that can only be true in the youngest of minds before logic and reason are fully formed and they will take hold of him and become an integral, unquestioned part of his being.”

Need I say more.