STOP PRESS: skymadeupnewsandfilth tonight hails its success in causing the suicide of a middle-aged woman whom it had hounded. Her offence was to react online to the huge tapestry of lies, evasion, bluster and bullying that is Gerry McCann.
WHO DOES THIS HORRIBLE WHINING CUNT THINK HE IS?
Portugese police/gipsies/child molesters/killed this woman, wotsername. She may well be dead but of course Cilla and I are the real victims.
Mr McCann told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that, while he had
not seen the @sweepyface tweets, online abuse had caused his family “severe
distress”.
“I think we probably need more people to be charged,” he said.
That is: We think people who question our account of events are criminals.
Gerry McCann wants to cleanse the entire fucking Internet of any words critical of him and his horrid Mrs, Cilla, and is assisted, currrently, by parliament, by the Metropolitan Police and by filth like this,
MARTIN BRUNT, ONE OF SKY'S FILTHIEST
FROM TODAY'S DAILY TELEGRAPH:
A woman who was widely condemned in the media for allegedly writing abusive tweets about the parents of Madeleine McCann has been found dead.
The body of Brenda Leyland, 63, was found in a hotel room in Leicestershire on
Saturday. Police are not treating her death as suspicious.
Last week Sky News identified Mrs Leyland as the author of a Twitter
account named @sweepyface, which had been used to post abusive messages
about Kate and Gerry McCann.
The broadcaster confronted her in her home village of Burton Overy, in an
exchange that was shown on air on Thursday.
Mrs Leyland, reportedly a mother-of-two, was asked why she was attacking the
couple and responded that she was “entitled to”.
She was informed by reporter Martin Brunt that she had been reported to the
police and that officers were considering an apparent campaign of abuse
against the couple by her and other online “trolls”. She responded that was
“fair enough”.
Mr Brunt said he had later been invited into Mrs Leyland’s home where she told
him she had questions for the McCanns but hoped she had not broken the law.
Residents in Burton Overy told the Leicester Mercury that Mrs Leyland had
“fled the village” after she was photographed on Thursday afternoon.
Villagers said they were “totally surprised” to learn that she had been
sending the messages but said they were “worried for her safety”.
Tweets from the @sweepyface account had said that the McCanns should suffer
“for the rest of their miserable lives”.
Sky News said the tweets from the account were “not the worst” of the abuse,
with other social media users posting death threats.
Mrs Leyland was widely condemned in the media.
McCann told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that, while he had
not seen the @sweepyface tweets, online abuse had caused his family “severe
distress”.
“I think we probably need more people to be charged,” he said.
Too fucking right we do, Gerry, only not the ones you mean, for the majority, those outside the charmed circle of MediaMinster, probably all think of you in a manner of which you would not approve.
Time for a backlash. From people unconnected to Gordon Brown and Kirsty Wark, from people who do not routinely abandon a three-year old and two two-year olds in a strange room, in a strange town, in a foreign country, from people who would never dream of paying-off their mortgage from charitable donations. Time for a backlash. From decent people.
42 comments:
The cringing attitude of all UK media in the face of the McCanns' PR machine is entirely shameful. This has a truly sinister aspect and has an inexplicable element of high level state involvement to it which I have always found inexplicable, beginning with the appointment of Clarence Mitchell as their spokesman; didn't he work for Brown? The recent ridiculous and presumably very expensive bumblings of plod when they hijacked the resort to dig it up are another mystery.
mr tdg was saying, a few days ago, that he felt the media, vis a vis Iraq and Syria, were echoing the voice of the people; regarding the McCanns, I feel that they are doing the opposite, that, regardless of skymadeupnewsandfilth, a national referendum on the McCanns' parenting would find them sorely wanting; either that or my reading of a large section of those commenting about them online is wrong. And it isn't, they are figures of hate and derision. Nor have I ever met anyone who believes their version of events or approves of their conduct or that of their henchmen. It is certainly a mystery, mr bungalow bill, that we are cudgelled and browbeaten into believing the unbelievable, accepting the unacceptable and now threatened with the prosecution of independent, rational thought. is there any chance of a private prosecution? mrs woman on a raft? Anyone? It would certainly be high on my Lottery Winning Wish list.
WHat do they know, that they are protected so well and so rapidly? Another seemingly robust lady - doubtless not without fault - taking a hasty exit and silencing the tumult. Something is very strange.
Aye, something is happening here, but we don't know what it is, do we, mr mongoose?
I saw a few seconds of the deceased on telly and she seemed, y'know, alright. We must hope that her exit raises a different kind of tumult.
This needs to get to a proper court of law (in the UK - OK don't laugh - not Portugal). I'd like to see the McCanns sue someone for libel. Crowdsourcing the defence should get a good QC who could tear their flimsy charade to shreds. Pity Mrs Leyland couldn't take it (apparently).
I agree with others that there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.
How do you do crowdsourcing?
Mr I: at my age I should know better than to use a word like "crowdsourcing" - what I mean is putting up a web site or facebook site explaning the issue and inviting people to contribute. I'm sure such a thing would get around very quickly and be supported financially.
Right, thanks, mr mike, that's worth thinking about, maybe try one of dedicated McCann basher blogs, if they are still up. I wonder if skymadeupnewsandfilth are challengeable, too.
Why though, Mr Ishmael, has the power of the media been turned upon this woman? Not being unkind but she was a complete somebody/nobody just like the rest of us prattling in cyberspace. There was no risk of anything extra. She had not Jesus on the mainline to show the truth. So why?
There is much else in the news to keep us busy is there not? Why must this woman be chased so by the mightiest media complex on the planet? And it isn't just because she's dead that it is news. Other twittering, blogging, even simple commenting wastrels do not get door-stepped by senior TV commentators. So why her?
Mr mongoose: the answer is "pour encourager les autres". It just happened to be her.
The question is: who is coordinating this?
Was she killed?
Mr I: well if she was killed, it would be a sophisticated op, likely MI5. In years gone by, I would have said anyone suggesting such a thing was mad; now I'm not so sure.
As I said, a lot more to this than meets the eye.
As mr mongoose says, why was the most powerful media complex on Earth interested in this lone woman, if not as part of something else, mr mike? McCann, himself, says he had neither read nor complained about her and there are websites far more damaging to the McCanns than a Twitter account could ever be.
skynews website has no word ofsympathy much ;ess contrition for "the woman who abused the parents of Madeleine McCann." Quite pleased with itself, it seems.
Mr I: then who set sky news onto this?
Mr I: PS
Someone was monitoring websites/blogs re the McCanns.
Someone identified this vulnerable woman.
Someone set the hounds at sky on her.
Who has these resources?
Dear Ishmael,
Congratulations! Bloody fine piece about the slimy McCanns.
I used to have a limited interest in this case until I watched Richard Hall's in-depth expose on Richplanet.net.
After 10 minutes any person with any sense would realise who dunnit.
The continuous change of story by the McCanns is an eye-opener. The "important" people wheeled-out to defend them and the complete power of the controlled media machine at their disposal is unbelievable.
Baron
What's also interesting is that BBC and presumably the rest of the media are pleased to conflate the 'Twitter abuse' of this woman (now deceased) with death-threats that the McCanns have allegedly received.
Now, I can well believe that there are any number of folk who don't buy into the McCann's version of events and the world is full of nutters but who, seriously, would want to make death threats against the McCanns?
I'm reminded of that family - I had to google the name - Philpott. They'd been on TV whining that they were a sponger family of ten who were entitled to a bigger free house. Next thing you know, their house was burned down. Even then, no mater how enraged you were with their grasping self-proclaimed 'right' to endless amounts of other people's money, you cannot imagine anybody being so insane as to burn their house down 'to teach them a lesson'. And so it proved.
Death threats against Blair and that cunt Campbell I can understand. They lied and lots of people died as a result. That's not in question. That's a fact.
Death threats against the McCanns? I say - bullshit.
This old dear was targeted exactly as others have said. Pour encourager les autres. Jesus, look, if they would do that to some eccentric old lady imagine what they'll do to me if I don't wind my neck in.
Cunts.
I don't know what the true story is with the McCanns. I've done the same as them. ie left the kids in a hotel room and got fucked-up with booze outside/around the pool. But Jesus, if I'd been caught out in the way they claim to have been caught out (ie kid abducted in our absence) I would die of shame and self-recrimination.
By contrast, their approach seems to be that attack is the best form of defence.
Every press report which I have seen on this matter describes this woman as Troll who abused McCanns, not as mother or wife or even woman but Troll. And not a word about press intrusion from Hacked-Off's Hugh Grant or Sienna Wotsername or Lord Prescott of Pies, Jags and Trollops. This, mr jgm2, is the work of the Devil.
Methinks those folks who joined the stampede to offer support, both financial and resource, to aid the no fault pleading, will rue the day.
Him doing his own PR these days can only quicken his popularity expiry date.
One can only guess where this pair on the antipathy scale.
It’s not a search for the girl anymore…leave that to the polis….fuckin’ debacle that it is….
No..I’m going after the people who ask too many questions..
If the truth of this story ever sees light of day…well I’m doubtful that that will happen any time soon.
To quote Macbeth…”I’m so up to my neck in this shit, that to go back would be as tedious as going forward…”
Very much Macbeth, although I would venture that there is a role shift - Gerry doing Lady Macbeth's goading and coaxing, Cilla equally bad but more hapless and fatalistic, he always looks twisted and truculent, she always looks doomed.
As you say, the child seems irrelevant somehow, now. It has become, the Gerry'n'Cilla show, Insanity feasting upon itself. Be sure your sins will find you out..........
The troll - someone all right thinking people can happily look down on without reading anything that they have written.
I wouldn't waste a second of my life reading twitter and apparently neither did the two good doctors in this case.
I would like, just once, for Cilla or her ghastly looking husband to say that they understand that people criticise them for leaving their children alone and unprotected in a foreign country even though it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I shan't be holding my breath - personally if I felt that I were responsible, even slightly, for such a thing happening I hope that I would find a hole to climb into and never show my face in public ever again rather than appointing a PR manager to control the narrative.
Murky and squalid, as you say. Compare and contrast the Jacintha Saldanha case; will any of their media brothers and sisters be excoriating sKYnews for provoking this lady's death the way they did those Australian prank artists? Short odds the headline in months to come will read "McCann Troll Suicide Inquest - No Case to Answer for Heroic Sky Reporter."
verge.//
We're as susceptible as anyone - bulding up motives, assuming situations and calculating sentence. Who are Sky's cutomers - who really gives a flying fuck what they report other than us? FFS, I don't give the Liberal Democrats as much brain time as this and then am meant to wonder why people don't give a fuck about politics.
Without prejudice (canny fuck) and without speculation - who gives a fuck if someone kills their own kid? Just because it's news or tabloid - it happens all the time. More surprising thing is that it's news at all. Bless Anna Raccoon for her alternative.
Have a chum of a chum who's got a warrant out for his arrest for doing total hacking on people in the boozer and shouting 'paedo' at top volume through Facebook - bad shit, man.
The thing i'm struggling with and the thing that is a bit fucking ropey is 'who cares?' - ain't my kid, not my niece - even if it was, maybe she was a cunt, maybe she got a bit tantrummy and someone panicked - shit happens. Not saying parents own kids but all that guff about 'they're a gift' is certainly not true of some of the spawn I see and considering the only damage is family (their friends won't investigate, yet) then, yer know, fuck it.
We're getting bullshitted. I'm absolutely sure that a lot of top level politics is blackmail - fair play; however - for Lord Robertson of Pig Ugly to sign off warrants is by far the more important than a couple of Scousers gobbing off.
I remember back in the day when Mr Stanislav used to 'troll' and it took me a couple of years to work out that what these fucks are up to isn't even closely associated with a good fisk, pwn or artistic blog - these fucks aren't trolls, they're just chav fucks. "Ha ha - i've just sent a death sentence to some fuck I'll never meet - yay" - pricks.
It's the Dr David Kelly thing over again - something only becomes important when it isn't because some cunt kills themselves - fuck 'em, they're were always a cunt - newsflash? Bollox.
I dunno, if you're gonna troll someone then it requires style, a it of fucking effort and a motive wouldn't go astray - anything else is just sport and should be redifined. Am sorry about some miserable old bitch topping herself but, yer know, all out of tears. She was the victim but at her age she should have known better so, err...
I'm in no way saying leave Gerry & Cilla alone, am just saying they are proper low rent and they can probly go fuck themselves.
That's very refreshing mr dick and perfectly valid, thanks. But even accepting, as I do, your scolding of the national hypocrisy surrounding the disappeared McCann child, her relative insignificane, there still remains the suborning, by unkowns, of due process and realistic appraisal and that is a threat to us all. The fact that Gerry McCann can, just for instance, marshal the Metropolitan police in a vain attempt to prove his own worthiness is an outrage.
As mr shoulders says, above, this stopped being about the kid long ago and has become an uneven struggle between Decency and state-sponsored Villainy, The McCanns are certainly low-rent but they have friends in very high places.
Perhaps their media careers weren`t paying the mortgage (no Strictly Dance Macabre yet ?) and having already plundered the charity then, no doubt with some greasy ambulance chaser decided to shake people down through libel actions.
And that, mr verge, is why we call it skymadeupnewsandfilth; a nurse, suicidally unhinged by media intrusion clutched to the bosom of her tormentors' cousins but a chippy pensioner - who, from what I can see merely expressed an opinion - called Monster. We should join in a moment's prayer for the painful and terrifying death of Rupert Murdoch.
The mortgage, mr yardarm, was the first thing to be paid from the charity pot, their own family members being the trustees; remember Gerry's sister, Philomena Fishwife?
Indeed Mr Ish..she is the tragi-figure in this. We await on our lofty perches for the inevitable. Cracks showing?…. still no signs.. The child is a long time lost and the music should not be playing anymore but it still does. The couple used the media and PR to put forth their case. Now the media use them as and when necessary. Their longevity as a meedja pet project is remarkable.
The mcanns are at war with any who would question them. The capture of an enemy…big news…suicide…more big news and no questions asked.
From the very outset all those years ago it became a missing persons case..no need for the criminal justice system of Portugal to get involved…thanks awfully old chap…we’ll take it from here.
That applecart has never been righted.
Re: private prosecution - AFAICS they have not actually done anything for which they can be prosecuted here. That would leave a complainant to bring a charge they knew would fail, simply for the PR value. I doubt if that is consistent with the values of Ishmalia.
However there is an increasing trickle of private prosecutions by people dissatisfied with the police response. The investigation is the first cost although the presenting lawyers also will not come cheap.
In the Philpott fire case, for example, the police said they had over 100 officers working on it, and that is without counting the civilian support staff, fire staff, and CPS. That gives an idea of the resources involved.
On the subject of friends, I point out this inconsistency. The story broke in the last days of the Blair premiership (child vanisishes 3 May 2007, Blair resigns 27 June). Grabbing a chav's child is part of the urban mythery of what happens in theme parks, but nobody ever expected a child of the gilded classes to go missing. Blair may have seen himself in the role of hero, hoping to carry the child home triumphantly in front of the cameras. As the days dragged on and people began to ask about whether parents on the piss would be so kindly treated in e.g. Wolverhampton, Blair realized this was a bad news story and scuttled away from it.
When Brown came in, he did not pick up the thread. It was the McCann PR team which shouted that he was obliged to do so. The madblind bear was tugged along by the ring in his nose and made to dance his sorrow for them.
I am not sure they have all that many friends now.
Mrs WoaR - I seem to have it in mind that Blair made his career on the back of the dead Bulger kid as he must have had (check with Mr Google....)the shadow home office brief and that faux concern gave him the springboard for leadership after the Jock alcoholic died of a massive coronary.
I used to be an intelligence analyst for our local cops and the Shannon Matthews tribute act was a proper massive operation - 100s of bloody officers doing overtime and stuff.
Whatever we may think of the McCann's - you'd think they'd do well on Alan Sugar's Apprentice show for their entrepreneurial skills...
All good fun. Over on the Daily Jihad they've left the comments open on the sad deluded death of the loony twitterer which is a little bit macabre, really. I mean - i've not read the commentards but FFS, it's a modern day Tyburn Hill without the ticket price. Bbbbrrrr.....another step on Ruin's highway I guess.
(soz for re-posting - seemed to have disappeared.....)
Strange, isn`t it, that an obscure person could blow a raspberry on social media and a ton of bricks come down on her yet Theresa May bleats she needs yet more powers to silence Islamonutters who call for Jews and gays pigs and for them to be stoned. Nothing can be done about these hate preachers without more power to Big Brother.
May is a hypocrite and liar. And what the fuck are Rupe`s minions doing ? Pity Missing Madelaine didn`t have a phone, they could have hacked it.
Totally agree with you on the need for Rupe to report to the Dark Master ASAP. When the time comes and Rupe realises his billions mean fuck all he`ll be shitting himself and squealing like a girlie. Maybe it`s already begun.
I never much cared for the late Dennis Potter or his horrid TeeVee shows but I was always impressed by him describing his fatal cancer as a Rupert, after the filthy old bastard; that is exactly what Murdoch is, he and his stooges, notably Thatcher and Andrew fucking Neil, but numbering, now, in their thousands, shit like Martin Brunt and that hissing old reptile, Kay Burley; Jeremy Clarkson, the silly old tart, Portillo; Michael Spit, Toilets Maguire, hundreds upon hundreds of celebrities, entire police forces and successive cabinets, all infected, attacking such healthy cells as remain. And it's not just here, is it, Fox News even worse than Sky and the PBC put together. Fuck him, maybe the Chinese doxy gave him a dose.
I had not expressed myself properly, mrs woar, I was also wondering if Brunt could be criminally responsible.
Snotty, I remember his bloated posturing almost verbatim, he was simply speaking to the Portugeezers, to make sure they were doing things properly. As if he would know how to do anything properly; as if UK clear-up rates were anything other than risible.
Do you know any details of the seemingly permanent secondment from government, by Snotty, I believe, of Clarence Mitchell, and who pays his salary?
Mrs Woar: are you saying that if a British subject commits a crime (child neglect or worse) outside the country, than that doesn't count in the UK?
It is one of the tactful purposes of this place to remember without sentimentality the death of the innocent, as it was with Jason Swift, and the repugnant pantomime surrounding Madeleine McCann in our disgusting media does entirely the opposite, dishonouring her with every piece of fraudulent tat. How does the self-serving circus surrounding the parents (largely engineered by them) and the relentless emotional posturing of their apologists, including the police, do anything other than disservice to Madeleine's memory?
http://burson-marsteller.eu/about/leadership-team/#profile.clarence.mitchell
He is currently a key division leader at Burson Marsteller. I would imagine that if he still acts for the McCanns then it would be on the basis of B-M sending their charity an invoice, although he might do it as a favour because of their role in his career.
The full profile, see link, also says that he is now ppc for Brighton Pavillion and will contest the seat on behalf of the Conservative Party.
Mitchell said that he resigned from the civil service after the initial secondment and that private finance rather than the charity or government were paying his wages. I don't know who that was; my guess would be one of the PR agencies. This still leaves open the question of why this couple but not others were able to receive corporate funding. There may have been a money-go-round whereby the agency secured government contracts in return for their support. I have no evidence of one.
There is a sense in which Mitchell has never worked for the McCanns. Rather, he was there to wrangle the media so that what ever else happened, it would not reflect badly on the government. Mr DtP rightly draws attention to the contrasting responses of the Conservatives under Major to the Bulger and then the Dunblane killings. The Conservatives were seen to have lost the plot. (Excluding, for a moment, darker theories).
When Blair had to face a test at the Soham killings (2002) he would not have been encouraged by the fuggle the police made of it. They were within a squeak of losing the case. Two officers had been swept up by Operation Ore, delaying the trial and immediately fuelling theories that the police had been colluding with Huntley to destroy evidence and cover up that he had been procuring for them. One of the officers, dear God, turned out to be a vampire who had managed to get himself made the family liaison officer.
When young McCann disappeared it would also have been seen as a test of government acting on behalf of citizens abroad. Remember that the long-running Nat West Three extradition case had damaged the government by letting it be seen as the US's biatch, despite Blair's suppport for them in the Iraq war, unable to protect its own people.
Mitchell was dispatched to take over from the first PRs (acting for Mark Warner, and doing a good job) to get the media response and the family as organized as possible. It was an unusual and high-profile role which offered him an opportunity to add unique experience to his CV.
Nobody wants to talk about this but any competent PR would also be standing by with a plan just in case they turned out to have something to do with it. A feature would have been to make sure that it did not reflect badly on the government. Hence, if he had to, Mitchell would be expected to act as an ablative shield.
Despite what you may think of PRs, this cannot have been an easy job. Doctors are generally hell to work for since they insist on knowing best, even when they obviously don't or they would not be in this hole.
@MrMike
It depends on the offence. There is a subject called conflict of laws which deals with the dispute over whose law shall prevail. Does home-law travel with the citizen, like his passport, or does the law of the locality prevail? Current areas of dispute include homosexuality and bribery.
We have specific laws about child sexual exploitation which now make it possible to prosecute people, even those just passing through, for offences committed else where. However, neglect is subject to local interpretation.
Older readers will remember that Butlin's offered a chalet patrol which allowed parents to go to the dance hall and have a drink while infants were in their cot.
Mumsnet simply would not try it now. Many of them would not even accept baby-alarm monitoring service if they were downstairs in a hotel dining room, a situation partially analagous to being at home, although at home one would not have unknown staff and guests. The current Mark Warner brochure for the resort shows that they still offer this service if parents want it.
The family were made to feel they were on a safe campus. It was difficult for them to see themselves as behaving in a parallel fashion to a parent walking in to Mrs McCann's surgery and saying that they often went to the pub with friends but popped back home every 15 minutes to check the kiddies. This might have triggered a social services referral back home. People like the McCanns make referrals; they are not subject to them.
WOAR; has put forth the entirely plausible theory the investigation of the Portuguese authorities was steered in a direction that was useful to the incumbent govment.
Surely almost…is it a decade...? later the exploits of a supposedly professional policeforce…interviewing…digging…interviewing…digging…pointing at places..tanning…and APB’ing suspected suspects of all nationalities and creed…the words stock and laughing spring to mind.
The story has become a national pastime. It’s an illistration of just how much medja dictates
Funny how time slips away, I had forgotten large chunks of that period, mrs woar, and even if I hadn't I would not have been able to stitch them all together, thank you.
At one point, Operation Ore, in tandem with US lawnforcement, was said to be looking to prosecute 8,000 UK cyberbeasts, including many from the juridical, medical, political and ecclesiastical elites; I have heard very little of such a clean-sweep.
The question of his home law travelling with the national is moot at the moment, with Moroco Man, travelling in the belief that his destination was still that frequented by Burroughs et al, peopled by delicious kif-dazed boys, only to find that his proclivities were illegal and imprisonable; he and his should be grateful that he was quickly released, shut the fuck up and choose future destinations more carefully.
But that is a digression, although people, like this chap and the late Mr Hemming should take more care.
"The family were made to feel they were on a safe campus." Well, you know that I inhabit a universe of infinite paranoid possibilities and maybe because of that no-one has ever persuaded me to reinquish the care of any child for whom I was responsible; doctors, one assumes, GPs especially, would be more aware than I of accidents, misadventures and misfortunes to which infants are vulnerable on their own, to say nothing of the dangers presented by third parties. No, this typical Gerry McCann wheedling and whining.
I had not heard the Butlinsesque home campus defence before but even if that assurance had been given it was specious as any sensible person would deduce immediately; despite Gezza's bluster, their apartment door opened straight on to the street, despite his bleating it was not in their line-of-sight, add to that his contradictory statements as to whether the shutters were closed or open - how could he get this wrong? - and factor in the foreign location and its transient population and any reasonable person would deem him neglectful, regardless of any resort's assurances. The McCanns' behaviour is simply incompatible with being at home and down the garden while the kids are in bed.
I know that you only note this defence and are not its author.
Thanks for the Mitchell link and indeed, for all the information....................continues
..........continues
I have been reminded, with reference to Martin Brunt, of the Eggshell Skull Rule - if you hit someone on the head and he dies of that blow due to the abnormal thinness of his skull then whether or not you meant to kill him you are guilty of his murder.
On the PBC news, the other day, some bloated slug of a meeja correspondent implied that skymadeupnewsandfilth knew more about Brunt's victim than, in decency and out of respect, it could reveal, what this turd meant was that Brenda Leyland was a nutter, anyway, and woulda topped herself sooner or later.
I will post that bit of case law, further on up the road.
I have heard very little of such a clean-sweep.
Ore was a debacle because the police insisted on lying from the very beginning. A number on a list can mean one of three things: the person was after the prohibited material, the person was buying legal material, the person was a victim of credit card fraud.
The police presented it as if Landslide was the entry page for only one purpose; this was a flat lie and was shown to be so when the BBC inadvertently published a grab of the opening page.
The prosecutions collapsed in to a shambles when the lead expert witness was discredited because he had lied about his qualifications. He now stalks round with an air of injured innocence and presents himself as a crusader for truth, but he was prepared to mislead judges in the early cases. The police turned on him and prosecuted him for lying about his status. He complains that it was them who told him to tell fibs. My hanky remains dry in my pocket.
The upshot is that even the secure convictions - and there were plenty to be had - are being overturned because of sloppy, lazy, greedy, investigation. Even those rotten with guilt can now claim that they only admitted an offence because of pressure brought unfairly, even when it was as fair.
As regards Butlins, it has to be factored in that leaving children in the chalet was a standard practice by hundreds - maybe thousands - of working-class people. In the context of a generation who may have spent time as a baby in the war nurseries, and the separations in the NHS nursery and child hospital units, the parents were already atuned to the idea.
This long link is the best academic one. David Kynaston is regarded as a reliable historian of the period.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/koq3cu7
There are various Butlin's memory boards where people attest that they either used the system or knew of it. One, a Redcoat, confirms that the service was popular but that he would not have regarded it as secure enough for his own children.
http://www.butlins-memories.com/forums/showthread.php?7232-Baby-Crying-In-Chalet
The only point I am making is that the concensus opinion now can be shown to have been divided previously.
With hindsight it seems obvious that children should not be allowed to go off playing on bomb sites, but Mary Bell was able easily to lure her 3 and 4 year old victims who were apparently without adult supervision. Now, I think, there would be much more comment on that aspect.
Thanks, mrs woar, haveta run, the noo, back in a bit.
Post a Comment