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Life imitates Father Ted: Catholic priest in cocaine and Nazi video
Life imitates Father Ted: “Catholic priest is caught on video snorting cocaine in a room full of Nazi memorabilia.”
The Mail hones in on Father Stephen Crossan, 37, who “is said to have sniffed the class A drug through a £10 note at the end of a night of drinking beers and whiskey.”
A £10 note. None of the euro muck. The devil is in the detail.
The Sun takes up the tale:
Blowman Catholic: Nazi hoard priest snorts cocaine in shocking video
Father Stephen Crossan, 37, sniffed a large line of the Class A drug through a £10 note while chatting to a pal in a room containing Nazi memorabilia… Crossan has admitted taking drugs. He confessed: “It was just the one night and that was it. I do not have an issue with drugs.”
Does anyone still have issue with a man taking drugs?
A source said revellers went back to Fr Crossan’s house at 11am for seven hours after a party host asked them to leave. They were stunned to see Nazi memorabilia including flags, hats and an eagle with a swastika on a plinth on his mantelpiece.
We too are shocked – Nazi fans are supposed to have a cellar for their collections.
A source tells us:
“The house was lovely but we were stunned to see the Nazi stuff. It was all over the house. At one point Stephen put on a cap and did the Nazi salute. It’s shocking. He’s supposed to be an upstanding member of society. He shouldn’t be taking drugs.”
But the Nazi stuff is de rigueur. He replies:
The ex-prison chaplain said of the memorabilia: “I’m no Nazi. I collect historical stuff. There’s stuff there from every country.”
Well, the Nazis did like to travel…
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=462_1200628636
Posted: 29th, February 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Josh Mariner’s Stag Do fight: seedy strip joints, a RyanAir fork and a Sun reader offer
The Sun leads with a fight aboard a RyanAir flight from Luton to Bratislava. In “Mile High Clubbed”, we meet Josh Mariner’s Stag Do party, two of whom are having a row. Six of the country’s finest were removed from the plane when the plane diverted to Berlin. The highlight of this episode is the exchange between two of the men which features an absurd mix of EastEnders English, therapy babble and LA street gang wit.
Stagger 1: “You’re a fucking prick bruv. I hate you. No disrespect to her but I hate her. You think you’re fucking real? You watch then mate. You’re a fucking… Fuck your mum, your dad.
“I’m not afraid of you, I swear on my mother’s life. I’d rather stab you in the face with a fork. My name to you is Tom. I am gong to make you respect it. Keep talking… keep talking..? You’ve done it now, anything goes. I swear on my dad’s grave I’ll take you. I’m not scared of you. You are a wrong ‘un. Why shouldn’t I batter your face? You are a pussy. I wish you would get wrapped up by people bigger than you.”
The other man does a small-fingered wanking gesture with his hand. He slaps Tom. Tom throws a punch. It misses.
Stagger 1: “We are not in Southampton now. More coming Jamie, I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with you, you little wanker. I want you to know for the rest of your life every time we see each other…”
It’s brilliant stuff, worthy of a Bafta, or at least a writing job on Hollyoaks.
And, of course, as anyone whose travelled on RyanAir knows, everything ‘s extra. The fork, the one you’re gong to stab Jamie with, costs £4:50. It’s made of thin plastic, so you might also want to go for the spoon (£4:50).
Note: The Sun tells readers: “The Slovakian capital is popular with British stag parties where beer costs just £1 a pint and there are dozens of seedy strip joints and nightclubs.”
Which makes it the perfect place for Sun readers to go. You’ll love it!
Fights and forks extra.
Posted: 29th, February 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Donald Trump’s Latino fans are Twitter robots
Donald Trump’s Latino fans rally on Twitte:
Posted: 28th, February 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
The Jimmy Savile sex hunt: Paedo Peel and the only popstar who seduced a groupie
The Mirror has a BBC paedophile scoop: “World Famous singer seduced tragic BBC girl”. The “girl” was 15-year-old Claire McAlpine, who committed suicide. The superstar singer who “seduced” her is..?
David Bowie!
No. This one’s still alive. But the Thin White Duke did shag teenyboppers.
Reading on we’re told:
Tragic BBC girl was seduced by world famous singer – and pal vows to reveal name
Woman “vows” to reveal name of pop star her dead pal says she shagged. If you can’t see the holes in this one, get to the opticians pronto. And why wait to name him if naming him is worthy of a vow, a solemn promise? Time’s ticking. Get on with it. Before he dies.
Kelly Gold says her friend Claire McAlpine – at the centre of the Tony Blackburn scandal – was abused by a world famous singer who is alive today
No. The BBC is at the centre of the scandal. It sacked Tony Blackburn last week for his denial that the Beeb interviewed him about McAlpine’s claims made in her diary that a BBC DJ had seduced her. Now we get the story of the popstar who “abused” her.
It was a big shock to Rod Liddle, who quips in the Sunday Times:
I have to say that my reaction to the news that the BBC had sacked the disc jockey Tony Blackburn last week was one of profound shock. I thought he had been sacked in about 1986. It didn’t occur to me that he was still there, smarming away, a sort of cryonically preserved bad joke paid for by the licence fee. I began to wonder if that was the point of the corporation’s “secret memos” that were said to have led to his dismissal.
Something like: “We’re still employing Blackburn? How in the name of Christ did that happen? He was smash-the-radio-set obnoxious in 1971, even worse than ‘Stewpot’. Quick — someone fit him up for a historical sex crime and then we can get shot of him for good.”..
The BBC has defenestrated Blackburn mainly because he is no big loss to the corporation and it gives the impression that it is doing something, taking action.
Blackburn is accused of being less than copious in his response to allegations — made 45 years ago — that he seduced a 15-year-old girl called Claire McAlpine who later killed herself, leaving behind a diary claiming she had been “used” by a bunch of these horrible BBC disc jockeys.
Blackburn denies everything, point blank. And there is not a shred of evidence to implicate him in any wrongdoing, other than that diary. A police officer said of this diary at the time: “It would be ridiculous to connect anyone or anything in her diary with reality.” The young convent girl was a bit of a fantasist.
So, here’s Kelly Gold with her beckoning finger:..
…she believes the schoolgirl may have been stalked by pregnancy fears before she died from a pills overdose at her Watford home. Kelly also told how she watched her pal being led to Savile’s BBC dressing room at least twice.
Believes. May.
“I’d been to see Top of the Pops regularly and the guards recognised my Corona stage school uniform, so I didn’t need to sign in. We went into the changing rooms to get ready, and these young schoolgirls were transforming themselves into little pop queens…I knew what was happening to Claire. I knew what was happening to all of us, and what everybody who’s been at the inquiry has been saying. It was happening to Claire because she was the new kid on the block. We didn’t go there in the hope that we would be touched up. It wasn’t on our radar. Over the years I’ve thought about the alibi I gave her for that night and I wish I hadn’t. Within a couple of weeks she was dead.”
In other news in the Sunday Times:
IN 1973 the head of programmes at BBC Radio 1 summoned Jimmy Savile to a private meeting to discuss “serious” matters. Derek Chinnery, in the company of executive producer Doreen Davies, confronted Savile over rumours that had reached the ears of Douglas Muggeridge, the controller of Radio 1 and Radio 2, that the DJ had a sexual interest in young girls.
A relaxed Savile began the meeting with a joke and casually dismissed the allegations in much the same way as he would do throughout his life.
The significance of that meeting, however, goes far beyond Savile’s casual disdain; it illustrates how early in his career the rumours about his sexual behaviour reached BBC bosses and how they failed to act on them.
Which make you wonder at this news in yesterday’s Times.
A memo sent in 1971 by Tony Preston, the BBC’s assistant head of variety, claims that Blackburn “was interviewed” by himself and another official. Blackburn said that “the contents of these documents are untrue” and part of a “whitewash and cover-up”. A source close to the DJ said that Mr Preston, who has died, may have fabricated his claim to appear as if he had investigated the allegation. Dame Janet’s report shows that BBC lawyers told him he was “duty bound” to investigate.
That’s Dame Janet Smith, who has published a 1,000-page report on the BBC’s failure to stop sexual abuse.
In other news, over in the Star we read:
THE vile musings of sex monster Jimmy Savile can still be found on a BBC Top Of The Pops tribute site.
Scrub and scrub as it might the BBC cannot get that Savile stain out. That might be because the BBC’s scrubbers have badly stained hands.
But hold on – what’s this?
A big BBC tribute page to BBC Radio DJ John Peel. He’s the ‘national treasure’ who shagged 13-year-olds.
“Well, of course I didn’t ask for ID. All they wanted me to do was to abuse them sexually which, of course, I was only too happy to do.’ He complained that American girls had ‘this strange notion of virginity as a tangible thing which you surrendered to your husband on your wedding night. So they would do anything but s*** you’. Aged 26, in 1965, Peel married a 15-year-old American girl called Shirley Anne Milburn. He later claimed she and her family had lied about her age. They divorced in 1973. Some years later, after returning to the U.S., she committed suicide.
Good old Peely the Peelophile. He was hip – so he gets to Rest In Praise:
What an utter…
Savile appears in more places on the BBC’s website:
In other news: no good looking, fanciable or cool pop stars of yesteryear or today have sex with underage fans.
Fact!
Posted: 28th, February 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comments (2)
Shoplifter stole because only stupid people wait in line
To Florida, where Hope Hanak, 56, woman was allegedly tried to steal $500 worth of groceries from the Publix on Citrus Tower Boulevard.
Police said Hanak loaded groceries into reusable bags and went to the customer service desk to buy cigarettes. After paying for the cigarettes, she continued to walk out of the store without paying for the other items, according to the report. The total amount of items Hanak had in her bags was $508.75, police said. The store manager stopped Hanak, then called police. Hanak told police she had “just been been stupid and did not want to wait in line.”
Fair enough. Putting $500-worth of groceries through the tiles is laborious. The people stuck behind her would be tutting loudly and cause Hope no end of stress. Briskly walking off with the shopping was the sensible and selfless course of action.
The defence rests.
Posted: 27th, February 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Watch the 1970s BBC documentary: Man Alive – The Disc Jockeys
In February 1970 the BBC broadcast the documentary Man Alive: The Disc Jockeys. The series was edited by Esther Rantzen’s future hubby Desmond Wilcox. (More on them here.) The show focused on the new wave of BBC Radio 1 DJs.
As Paul Gallagher writes:
In Britain during those promiscuous 1970s, millions of youngsters were shocking their parents by going to bed with John Peel and waking up with Tony Blackburn… and his dog Arnold. The sound of the DJs could be heard everywhere—from cars, shops, kitchens, homes, factories, schoolyards and those dinky little pocket radios that everyone and their Mom seemed to have, dangling from plastic wristbands.
The music revolution of the 1960s really began with the arrival of cheap polyvinyl chloride in the fifties which meant record companies could mass produce singles and albums. Previously record discs had been made of the far more expensive Bakelite. The PVC revolution tied in very neatly with the incredible flourishing of young musical talent—and so the Swinging Sixties were born.
Suddenly youngsters wanted to hear music before they bought it, or even if they didn’t buy it. This gave rise to Pirate Radio. At the time the BBC was the only organization in Britain with the license to transmit radio shows. However a small loophole in maritime law allowed DJs to broadcast from ships anchored just outside UK waters. And so pop-pickers Pirate Radio was born.
In 1967 the BBC admitted defeat and launched Radio One—a youth radio station for pop music. Radio One became the biggest and most successful radio station in the country with generation after generation of youngsters learning their love of music or finding their inspiration to form bands from listening to the station’s DJs.
This BBC documentary from 1970 looks at the rise of the Radio One DJ and features Emperor Rosko, John Peel, Kenny Everett and Tony Blackburn—a rum bunch of four very different radio hosts. Condescending in tone throughout, the documentary voice over even has the temerity to suggest that sex with fans was one of the perks of working for the BBC—-shurely not:
Radio One belongs to the taxpayer and doesn’t splash princely salaries around for men like Emperor Rosko. He accepts the BBC’s shop policy of paying low wages as both sides know about the big big perks that can accompany the adulation of this new empire—British teeny boppers.
The interviewer then grills one poor little teenybopper about her infatuation with Emperor Rosko:
“I listen to him and I like listening to his voice and I get carried away” says one young besotted teenager about the subject of her adoration DJ Emperor Rosko:
“What do you mean you get carried away?” says Ms. Prim from the BBC
“I just hear his voice and I imagine him…” says adoring young fan.
“When you say you imagine him…you imagine him doing what?” continues our interrogator.
“Talking and smiling and…all the actions with it. It’s just good.”
“And where do you do your listen to this?”
“In the bedroom.”
It’s an interesting hour well spent and worth watching mainly to see the pure genius of Kenny Everett making one of his shows and to hear some of the mumblings of the man himself, John Peel.
Posted: 26th, February 2016 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment
Tony Blackburn must die: the BBC kills the messenger
Tony Blackburn is pictured at his home in Hertfordshire on the Times’ front page. Mr Poptastic has been sacked by the BBC. Why? Is it because the BBC is controlled by untouchable, self-serving elitists who have, as Blackburn says, “hung him out to dry’?
Kaya Burgess puts is beautifully:
Tony Blackburn has accused the BBC of “hanging him out to dry” and says he is suing the corporation after being sacked over evidence that he gave to a sex abuse inquiry. Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s director-general, said yesterday that the DJ’s dismissal severed the final link between the BBC and the individuals mentioned in a 1,000-page report on sexual abuse published yesterday by Dame Janet Smith.
The old and the unfanciable are gone. The BBC is targetting those who aren’t considered hip.
With any luck Blackburn will die before he can sue the BBC for making him into a “scapegoat”. Well, it’s not hard to imagine that’s what the BBC’s untouchables want. They’re all guilty in isolation when they’re dead; the crimes of the past wrapped in the wooden box and given to the other worms.
The report said that in 1971 a celebrity named as “A7” was accused by the mother of Claire McAlpine, a 15-year-old girl, of “seducing” her daughter, who later took her own life. Blackburn has revealed that he was A7 and denied the allegation. He said that the report made “no suggestion” that he was guilty of any misconduct, but said that he had been dismissed by the BBC because his recollection of the 1971 investigation “does not tally with theirs”.
Dame Janet’s report asserts that Blackburn was interviewed at the time by Bill Cotton, then head of the BBC’s light entertainment group, and by Sir Brian Neill, a QC who was investigating separate matters at Top of the Pops.
Blackburn said in a statement before the report’s publication: “I have repeatedly told Dame Janet and the BBC I was never interviewed by either man in this context and the BBC records are either very vague or have, conveniently, disappeared.”
You can read more on Clair McAlpine here.
The Star (page 4 and 5): Shamed BBC Turned blind eye for 50 years to VIP paedo Savile”
That would be the BBC that employed ‘national treasure’ John Peel as a DJ, a man who boasted of getting blow jobs from 13-year-olds.
And that eye was not blind. It saw.
The Mirror (front page): “Secret Been Memos that got DJ Tony Blackburn the sack”
The BBC is run along the liens of mid-sized Communist state.
The Mirror has obtained secret documents which led to the BBC sacking DJ Tony Blackburn. The veteran DJ, 73, was grilled by BBC bosses over claims he “seduced” a teenager dancer who later killed herself, the papers reveal. But the sacked star last night continued to insist the interviews never took place, despite documents to the contrary.
In one of the 1971 papers obtained by the Mirror, the BBC’s Assistant Head of Variety Tony Preston, told Assistant Solicitor George Derrick he and Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton had spoken to Mr Blackburn over the allegations made by 15-year-old Claire McAlpine.
He wrote: “As we expected, he has issued a flat denial. For my part, I must accept the situation, although I would be less than fair if I were not to record that his [Blackburn’s] recollection does not agree with the first thoughts of his agent.”
Preston, Derrick and Cotton are all dead.
Another note states: “Enquiries were duly made and two senior officials of the BBC interviewed the disc jockey concerned. The disc jockey denied categorically the allegation made.” The papers also reveal Mr Blackburn was interviewed again by Brian Neill QC between 1971 and 1972 as part of an inquiry into a string of scandals at Top of the Pops, where Claire was a dancer. The lawyer noted the DJ “told me that the girl had come to see him on several occasions and had invented stories for the purpose of getting access to him”. He added: “He said she seemed to him in a sort of fantasy world but that she had not made any sexual advances.”
As for Tony Blackburn:
Mr Blackburn was fired by Director-General Lord Hall this week, after a 49-year career with the BBC, over “inconsistent” evidence he gave to the Dame Janet Smith review. He continues to insist he was not quizzed by the two Beeb bosses. The veteran broadcaster, who has lost BBC contracts worth £200,000 a year, said last night: “I repeat what I told Dame Janet when I voluntarily gave evidence to assist her and the BBC. What I said in my earlier statement regarding the alleged meetings with Brian Neill QC and Bill Cotton 45 years ago still stands. Given Dame Janet Smith’s concerns of a culture of fear in coming forward at the BBC, the fact that I have been scapegoated for giving my honest account and best recollections of those events 45 years ago, which I felt was a whitewash, what whistleblower at the BBC would ever come forward when they see the way they have hung me out to dry?
“Sadly, today’s news agenda should have been about the survivors of abuse carried out within the BBC but, by sacking me, they have managed to take the focus off those who have suffered so much. My lawyers are now considering all statements made by the BBC about me today and we will be taking action.” He later said through his solicitor that the review “might well prefer the documentary evidence to his recollection”.
The Sun (pages 10 and 11): “Savile dressed as Womble to rape boy of 10”
Ah, the wholesome Wombles. Read more about them leering at young girls here.
BBC paedo Jimmy Savile wore a Womble costume when he raped a boy aged ten and sexually assaulted a girl of 12 in front of each other. The DJ struck in his dressing room minutes after he had finished filming a Top of the Pops pre-Christmas show in 1973.
The shocked lad “sat still like a statue” before Savile warned the pair: “It’s our special secret.” The attacks were revealed in Dame Janet Smith’s £10million, three-year report released yesterday in which she slammed the BBC for allowing Savile and pervert broadcaster Stuart Hall to abuse 93 victims… His youngest female rape victim was 13, the youngest male aged eight.
And:
Many fans were terrified into silence. Savile told one: “Don’t even think about going to the papers.”
He was right. Largely, they didn’t give a toss.
You might have seen the BBC documentary on Radio One DJs. Man Alive: The Disc Jockeys (February 1970). The series was edited by Esther Rantzen’s future hubby Desmond Wilcox. (More on them here.)
It features this section on Emperor Rosko.
“Radio One belongs to the taxpayer and doesn’t splash princely salaries around for men like Emperor Rosko,” says reporter Jeanne La Chard. “He accepts the BBC’s shop policy of paying low wages as both sides know about the big big perks that can accompany the adulation of this new empire – British teeny boppers.”
The interviewer, Jeanne La Chard, goes on to grill these innocent little teenyboppers about her infatuation with Emperor Rosko:
“I listen to him and I like listening to his voice and I get carried away” says one young besotted teenager about the subject of her adoration DJ Emperor Rosko.
JLC: “What do you mean you get carried away?”
Teen: “I just hear his voice and I imagine him…”
JLC: “When you say you imagine him…you imagine him doing what?”
Teen: “Talking and smiling and…all the actions with it. It’s just good.”
JLC: “And where do you do your listen to this?”
Teen: “In the bedroom.”
Posted: 26th, February 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Jimmy Savile and John Peel’s sex with underage girls will end the depraved BBC
When asked by a reporter in 2001 whether he was concerned if he would be remembered as a “conning pervert and abuser when he died,” Jimmy Savile replied:
‘If I’m gone that’s that. Bollocks to my legacy. Whatever is said after I’m gone is irrelevant.’
The reporter then asked if Savile was ‘into little girls’, to which the BBC presenter replied:
‘I’d rather not even opinionate on this. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to sort out the psychology of child abuse.’
Every day a new allegation emerges about Jimmy Savile. These allegations now cover 6 decades, and include allegations of the rape of children, mentally ill patients and the sexual assault of a disabled girl. The police are currently investigating over 300 lines of inquiry.
Savile’s attacks occurred in hospitals, clubs and the BBC. And it is the latter organization that is coming under considerable scrutiny by the police.
The question is how did the BBC employ such an individual, when there were known allegations against him? And what was the everyday culture at BBC that could allow Savile’s behavior to go unnoticed? Uncommented upon? Even tolerated?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 26th, February 2016 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Nominative determinism and Brexit news from Oliver Imhof
Is this further proof that the media hires people based on their names? More nominative determinism from Oliver Imhof:
Rotherham: when police and criminals collude to rape poor white girls
How does the media report on the imprisonment of three Hussain brothers – Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras? The men groomed and raped children for nearly 20 years in and around Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Some of their victims were aged 11 when their torture began.
This was a family business. The brothers’ uncle Qurban Ali was convicted of conspiracy to rape.
Their victims were forced to perform sex acts, often on several men at a time, and store guns and drugs.
‘Jessica’ was abused by Arshid Hussain when she was 14. She tells the BBC:
“At first he was really nice, he paid me compliments and took me to nice places. But then he started being very controlling, he isolated me and I wasn’t allowed to do anything without his permission. It became that the only person in my world was him. I remember my family was really trying to get me out of it – but I just thought they were against me. [Hussain] said it was because they were jealous and they didn’t want us to be together. I believed him.
“There were times when I actually thought he was going to kill me – that became on a daily basis. There were lots of people scared of the Hussains, not just children like myself. The police didn’t help – they just saw me as a child with an attitude problem. I was being mentally, physically and sexually abused. And they just left me with him.”
The Daily Star, which one supported the EDL, focuses on two other criminals:
“Sex Gangs: 2 Women Pimp Girls – Asian brothers raped kids”
Karen MacGregor, and Shelley Davies forced girls into the gang’s clutches. MacGregor – white; 58 – was convicted of conspiracy to rape. Davies – white; 40 – is guilty of false imprisonment and procuring a victim to become a prostitute.
The Mirror (Page 9): “Abuse victim ‘free; as five found guilty.
Jessica says the gang “might have had up to 2,000 victims”.
Mentions of anyone’s ethnicity in the paper’s report: none. To the Mirror, race played no part in crimes that went on for decades.
The Express (Page 2): “Facing prison, Asian brothers who raped girls”
Asian is a wide-ranging term. Would you call the victims’ European?
And speaking outside court Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, warned British Pakistanis against “burying our heads in the sand” over the problems of child abuse within the community.
Not Asian. Pakistani.
He said: “The sad reality is that in the case of on-street gang grooming, there is an over-representation of Pakistani men.
“Until British Pakistanis accept that this is a problem for our community we will not be able to eradicate this evil. Burying our head in the sand as the usual response is not good enough.”
Mr Shafiq, who said he was distantly related to some of the defendants, paid tribute to the victims who came forward and said he will never stop campaigning against “these evil people”.He said: “This is not a white conspiracy dreamt up by the far right, or victimisation of the Pakistani community, as some claim. This is a concerted effort by a minority of Pakistani men who have groomed, abused and raped young white girls.
“This is a form of racism and we shouldn’t hesitate to condemn it. Blaming or deflecting attention away from the evil men who carry out such actions is despicable.
“Just remember these were someone’s daughters or sisters. If you choose to ignore it then you are subjecting others to the threat of these groomers.”
Mr Shafiq also called South Yorkshire Police a “failed force” and called for officers who failed the victims to face justice.
Daily Mail (Pages 20-21): “Sex monsters who ruled a town”
How? Didn’t the police know?
At least 54 police officers operating in and around Rotherham are accused of turning a blind eye to more than a decade of horrific child abuse by gangs of Asian men. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating 194 allegations against officers who are said to have ignored the desperate pleas of terrified schoolgirls while they were being repeatedly raped…
The police ignored the poor and the young. They judged them to be willing victims, hard-nosed slags and slappers who knew what they were getting in to. That’s the allegation. The girls were worthless. Did police and thieves share a common view of the victims?
Victims say at least one constable molested girls. Others are said to have tipped off the grooming gang’s gun-toting ringmasters as to when their South Yorkshire colleagues were closing in…
MacGregor took in girls – all of whom were white – from children’s homes in the area, offering them a safe and comfortable living environment in her ‘Hansel and Gretal house’…
The court was told that one officer had sex with under-age girls, handed drugs to the grooming gang and tipped them off when colleagues were hunting for children in their possession. The constable denies the allegation. Another is said to have helped to broker a deal in which Arshid Hussain returned an abused girl to police on the promise he would not be arrested.
Any names?
Another police officer who was mentioned in the trial – Pc Hassan Ali – died last year following a road traffic accident in Sheffield.
A tangled web. A dead copper.
Pc Ali was told he was under investigation by the IPCC on the day he was killed. The probe followed complaints about his dealings with alleged child sexual exploitation victims.
Ali wasn’t on duty when he was stuck by a blue Vauxhall Corsa on January 28. He was dressed in plain clothes. his death, we’re told, is not suspicious. Look away. Nothing to see here. Move on.
No policeman has been arrested over the abuse of hundreds of children in Rotherham. Not one.
IPCC deputy chair Rachel Cerfontyne tells media:
“Our investigative work examining allegations about how South Yorkshire Police responded to reported child sexual exploitation in Rotherham continues to expand. This is complex work dealing with non-recent allegations and involving vulnerable and traumatised victims. We are committed to ensuring the allegations are investigated sensitively and thoroughly.”
The police don’t listen. They don’t hear. They tell. It’s not complex. It’s black and white. Sit the coppers down and question them. Did you know? If not, why not? Press ‘record’ on the tape. Take a statement. Treat them as you might a non-copper, a poor black man accused of a crime against a wealthy white woman with connections to top brass, say. Justice is blind, right?
The Times (front page): “Police conspired to protect Rotherham child sex abusers”
Andrew Norfolk writes:
Corrupt police and an influential politician fuelled a culture of impunity that allowed three brothers to “own” the town of Rotherham and abuse children until their crimes were exposed by The Times. One officer had sex with under-age girls, passed drugs to the sex-grooming gang and tipped them off when colleagues were searching for missing children, a court was told.
Another helped to broker a deal in which one brother returned an abused girl to police after receiving an assurance that he “wouldn’t get done”. The jury was told that Jahangir Akhtar, the former deputy leader of Rotherham council, also took part in the handover at a petrol station.
Mr Akhtar, the former deputy chairman of South Yorkshire police and crime panel, was a relative of Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain, who behaved for years “like a pack of animals” to pursue dozens of young girls before demanding sex, often with threats of violence.
The power of a free press:
No criminal inquiry into the brothers’ offending was launched until The Times revealed in 2013 that police and social services held, but had failed to act on, detailed intelligence that Arshid Hussain was among a small group of men suspected of sexually exploiting more than 40 under-age girls.
Less than two weeks later, Rotherham council commissioned an independent inquiry by Alexis Jay, a social services expert, which found that 1,400 girls in the South Yorkshire town were groomed and abused over 16 years. The offenders were “almost all” men of Pakistani heritage.
The racial go-between:
Seven defendants stood trial, including a white British woman who was likened in court to a fairytale witch. She was found guilty of pimping children. Karen MacGregor, 59, visited children’s homes, befriended girls and invited them to live with her. To repay her kindness they were expected to have sex with the Pakistani men she knew from her job in a taxi office…
To young girls “abandoned like Hansel and Gretel” MacGregor was a mother figure who seemed to offer a place of safety, Ms Colborne said. Once “inside that gingerbread house”, children were told that they had to “start earning their keep, ie, sleep with Asians”.
Now it’s time to focus on the police. Who knew? And why was it allowed to continue?
Suits you: Cameron invites shabby chic Corbyn to join the Bullingdon Club
When is a suit an expensive suit? That question to the Daily Mirror, which like most of us watched Prime Minister’s Question Time and heard David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn sniping at one another.
Mr Corbyn asked if the PM would be “writing another letter to himself, asking on behalf of his constituents asking for the health secretary to intervene and support his local NHS?” The prime minister was heckled by a Labour MPs as he made his reply. One shouted, “Ask your mother.”
“Ask my mother?” said Cameron. “I think I know what my mother would say. I think she would look across the despatch box and she would say ‘Put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem’.”
In the Mirror this becomes, “Millionaire David Cameron has launched a bitter attack against Jeremy Corbyn for not wearing expensive suits.”
In other Daily Mirror news: “Suits you sir! Supermarket suits enjoying record sales… but which are worth the money?”
The Sunday Mirror enlisted Gabriel John of London tailors October House, who has dressed stars such as England footballer Scott Parker and Olympic cyclist Mark Cavendish, to give his verdict on suits under £60 plus a dinner suit for £75. He said: “For the price they are not a bad investment.”
You don’t need to be millionaire to wear a suit. Style is timeless. The Mirror told us that:
Style has no age limit – as the winners of our Glamorous Gran competition clearly demonstrate. We asked our readers to nominate their stylish nans then asked you to pick our worthy winners. And Margaret Docherty was your favourite Glam Gran. She scoops £1,000 to spend at 50-plus fashion brand JD Williams and a 12-month contract with modelling agency Mrs Robinson, which specialises in maturer models.
And Corbyn is a bit of a toff, as the Mirror reported:
…despite many thinking he may snub the event, Mr Corbyn did in fact arrive at the event wearing an outfit that would not look out of place in a Bullingdon Club portrait. As he arrived at the banquet…
Jeremy Corbyn earns £125,000 a year and lives in Islington, where terraced properties sold for an average price of £1,331,997 in 2015. He could wear a suit in the Commons. But he chooses not to. With money comes choice to create your own image.
Posted: 25th, February 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Tony Blackburn, dead Savile and the death of BBC dancer Claire McAlpine
In front-page news billed as a”World Exclusive”, the Mirror brings news of Tony Blackburn, the BBC radio DJ of no little vintage. “BBC Axe Sex Probe DJ Tony Blackburn,” announces the dire headline, one seemingly written by an SEO expert for whom English is not their fist language. The headline can be unpacked in the first paragraph:
“DJ Tony Blackburn has been sacked by the BBC is a row about a sex abuse probe.”
Blackburn says he was never “quizzed” in 1971 over a “woman’s allegations” he’d seduced a teenager. The BBC’s report out today says he was. He says, “They are destroying my career and reputation because my version of event does not tally with theirs.”
Radio One Disc Jockeys take time off to push Jimmy Savile from Broadcasting House to Park Lane by bed, in aid of the Variety Club of Great Britain and the Outward Bound Trust. (L-R) Simon Bates, Dave Lee Travis, Tony Blackburn, Kid Jensen and Steve Wright.
The story continues over page 4 and 5, “Beeb bosses covered up ‘DJ seduced girl’ claims,” chimes the Mirror. The girl was 15-year-old Claire McAlpine. We’ve reported on her before. In 2012, the Press linked her death to the then Sir Jimmy Savile, who after death became ‘Jimmy The Beast”.
Last month the Daily Mail had more:
“Claire McAlpine, 15, killed herself after being abused by an unnamed DJ on the show [Top of the Pops] on 1971.”
On the same day the Sun led with the Jimmy Savile Report, a review by Dame Janet Smith, who concluded that the BBC “HID” news that Savile had “seduced” a 15-year-old dancer on BBC TV’s Top of The Pops music show. The paper adds: “Clair [sic] McAlpine killed herself weeks after the alleged sexual encounter.”
Back then Jimmy did it.
Now the torchlight falls on Blackburn’s 73-year-old face. The BBC has sacked him. He says he never seduced McAlpine. He says he’s a “scapegoat”.
Looking at the media’s scattergun reporting on the case of Miss McAlpine reveals a story laced with agendas.
PS: On 7th April 1971 the Daily Express had Jimmy Savile news (via Rabbitaway):
And:
Finally two more cuttings:
Such are the facts.
Posted: 25th, February 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Local news: York thug bites ‘teen’s fingernail’
It’s all kicking off in York…
Sadly, the story is not funny:
The victim was one of five 18-year-olds walking along Holgate Road in York, towards a birthday party when Callum Brown, 20, started shouting abuse at one of the girls from the other side of the road and followed them, said Andrew Semple, prosecuting.
Despite her boyfriend telling him to stop it and the entire group going down a side street to try and avoid him, Brown injured the girl he was insulting and attacked her boyfriend. The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC told Brown: “You quite viciously and deliberately bit two of his fingers. You clamped your teeth around them, causing deep cuts to the tips of his fingers and in consequence of that he suffered extreme pain and lost one of his nails as well.
Spotter: Brendan O’Neill
Mr Cherry arrested for public indecency at airport (photos)
To Nashville International Airport, Tennessee, where Eric Cherry is stood before the American Airlines desk. He wants to buy a ticket. But he can’t because police say he can’t buy a ticket whilst naked. They arrest him.
Tod Brilliant was there. These are his pictures. “So this just happened at Nashville airport,” says Tod. “I walked up to him and said ‘You’re amazing.’ He replied, ‘Thanks.’ Then they came for him.”
Cherry has been charged with public indecency. It is now known where he kept his money to pay for the ticket.
Posted: 24th, February 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
The Left hates Jews – any Jew who votes Labour is a Judenrat
In the FT, Simon Schama tells of “The left’s problem with Jews has a long and miserable history”. For those of you deny the rampant anti-Semitism on the Left, here’s a question for you: Why does Jeremy Corbyn grasp the oppression of every minority except Jews?
Schama writes:
Why is it somehow proper to boycott Israeli academics and cultural institutions, many of which are critical of government policy, but to remain passive in the face of Saudi Arabia’s brutal punishment of anyone whose exercise of freedom of conscience can be judged sacrilegious? Why is the rage so conspicuously selective? Or, to put it another way, why is it so much easier to hate the Jews?
Growing up in London in the shadow of world war two my pals and I talked about who might be the bad guys, should evil come our way. We agreed the Jew-haters would not wear brown shirts and jackboots but would probably be like people on the bus. It is not the golf club nose-holders we have to worry about now; it is those who, in their indignation at the sufferings visited on the Palestinians, and their indifference to almost-daily stabbings in the streets of Israel, have discovered the excitement of saying the unspeakable, making hay with history, so Israel is the new reich, and a military attack on Gaza indistinguishable from the industrially processed incineration of millions.
We used to say “Never forget”. Now Jews say, “Keep the bags packed and ready – it’s started again.”
And where will the Jews go?
Posted: 24th, February 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Madeleine McCann: Katie Hopkins finds ‘Maddie’ on the other side
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child.
Daily Star (front page): “Maddie: Parents ‘blamed'”
For what? Why? But whom? We soon get to know:
Katie Hopkins sparks fury by saying Maddie McCann’s parents ‘must share blame’
Katie Hopkins, for those of you blessedly not in the know, is a former contestant on The Apprentice TV show – the one on which ‘driven’ people try to win a job working for Alan Sugar in a Brentwood office block. Hopkins lost but did score a job belching ‘controversial’ opinions to deadline for the Sun newspaper and, remarkably, a TV show of her own. That all ended, meaning Katie now shouts exclusively on free-to-air Twitter.
The Star thinks her tweets worthy of its front page. Robin Cottle has created a story from a tweet:
She claimed Kate and Gerry McCann should take some blame for her disappearance.
Oh?
The 41-year-old also insisted the heartbroken couple did not “deserve” the £11million of taxpayers’ cash shelled out to search for Madeleine.
This is in the Star, which once libelled Kate and Gerry McCann.
One Twitter user wrote: “Katie Hopkins victim blaming the McCanns suggests people have no self control, the blame lies with whoever wrongly took what wasn’t theirs.”
Good grief. This story had not made any progress.
Another added: “Yes they made a mistake. Thousands do the same every day and get away with it. Cruel for Hopkins to rub salt in it surely. How did she become our moral guide?”
Answer: when the Star wanted cheap filler.
But some supported the outspoken celeb, with one saying: “Agree with absolutely everything @KTHopkins has said about Maddie’s disappearance, she’s only saying what the rest of you think anyway.”
Always useful when talking of “outrage” to report both sides of the shouting match.
Having seduced readers with a limp story on the missing child, the report takes a jerking twist:
Madeleine went missing during a family holiday in Praia de Luz, Portugal, almost nine years ago. Meanwhile, Hopkins announced yesterday that she was about to go under the surgeon’s knife to cure her epilepsy.
“Meanwhile…” Even the Dallas TV show (‘Meanwhile…back at the Ranch’) didn’t jump around like a demented kangaroo – which might very well be writing both the Star’s reports and Katie’s tweets.
She told fans she will “see them on the other side” and claimed not to be scared about the brain operation.
For those of you not on Twitter, ‘the other side’ is thought to be a reference to Facebook.
Posted: 23rd, February 2016 | In: Celebrities, Madeleine McCann, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Hillary Clinton v Apple and The San Bernardino killers
Hillary Clinton versus Apple and the San Bernardino killers:
Posted: 22nd, February 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Watch Louisiana’s Captain Clay Higgins message the gremlins, thugs, animals, punks and heathens
Louisiana’s Captain Clay Higgins addresses the gremlins, thugs, animals, punks and heathens:
Spotter: Tim Blair
The sublime beauty of ice braking up on Lake Superior near Duluth
On Lake Superior near Duluth, the thin ice is backing up. The effect is great. The noise of the ice cracking as it banks up is beautiful:
Two years prison for man who taped up dog and left it to die
This is good news from Canada. Michael Earl Hill, 32, who taped a dog’s muzzle shut, bound its legs and and left it to die in a field will spend the next two years in prison.
Court heard Monday and at Hill’s bail hearing the history of the 13-pound dog Hill abused. Jessica Hems and Adam Esipu had given the dog to Hill on Dec. 15 to surrender to the humane society. The couple had a newborn daughter who was allergic to the seven-year-old Patterdale terrier named Nos.
He’s banned from owning an animal for…25 years.
Young dolphin pulled from sea for selfies dies – maybe
To Santa Teresita, Argentina, where tourists are passing around a young dolphin. Everyone wants to pose for a selfie with the critter. Sky News says the dolphin “quickly overheated and died while out of the water. It was still being passed around by the beachgoers after its death and was later left discarded in the sand.”
BT cranks up the misery: “Baby dolphin dies after tourists drag it out of the ocean”
The Daily Record is less aggressive: “Young dolphin dies when it’s carried on the beach for people to stroke”
ITV says there were two dolphins.
All images come from a Facebook post by Hernan Coria. Other than that, the facts seem shaky.
Manchester Parents asked to stop smoking cannabis on the school run
Parents, grandparents, Uncle Cosmic, Worzel, Swampy and other guardians picking up children from St John’s Primary in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, are kindly asked to stop smoking cannabis at the school gates. Parents, says the school non-toking governors, should “set a good example” for children.
The school deputy headteacher, the nicely named Deborah Binns, has sent a letter to parents explaining the situation. It runs:
“We have had concerning reports that parents have been using cannabis around the school premises as they drop off and collect their children. This has been reported by parents and has been noticed by some of the older children. This is a serious safeguarding concern and if further complaints are brought to our attention, we will notify the relevant authorities.
“We have informed the community police service and they are likely to be keeping a close eye on the situation. Please respect our school as a place of learning and make sure you set an appropriate example within the community.”
Headteacher Jason Harvey adds:
“Our deputy head had a couple of concerned parents come in on Thursday morning and that’s why we sent the letter out. They have noticed it going on when they were bringing their children into school in the morning. We don’t know how many parents were seen using cannabis. We felt there was a need to send a letter to remind people that this is a place of learning and we are trying to set a good example for the children. We are trying to make sure that the school has a good reputation. There are lots of really, really great parents and we want everyone to remember that this is a school. I can’t legislate for people’s actions outside but this is a place of learning. There are things are appropriate and things that aren’t.”
Anyone who wishes to discuss matters further can contact the teachers in the pub, probably.
Madeleine McCann: The twins’ ‘secret’ that isn’t
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the child who vanished in 2007.
Daily Star (front page): “MADDIE: Twins Secret torment”
The twins are the child’s siblings Sean and Amelie. Kate McCann has “for the first time revealed” what the children, aged 11, “feel about their sister’s disappearance”. Not true. In November 2009, the Mirror told us:
Madeleine McCann’s four-year-old twin siblings are now slowly grasping the horror of her abduction, their parents revealed yesterday. Heart specialist Gerry revealed: “They’re saying, ‘When we find who took her we will fight them’. That doesn’t come directly from us saying that.
And right at the start, back in 2007, the Sun told us:
“MADDIE COME HOME – Amelie hugs Maddie’s cuddle cat.”
The story of what Amelie and Sean feel continues on Page 8. The headline declares: “Kate: Twins Want Sister Maddie Back.” Not really a shock that, is it. Kids can be unpredictable and cruel, but no-one really expected the headline to declare the children happy their innocent sister is not by their side.
Matthew Young writes:
Madeleine McCann’s siblings says they wants her back. Parents Kate and Gerry have told twins Amelie and Sean, now 11, all about missing Maddie.”
At 11, you’d suppose they also read about her on the internet and, maybe, in newspapers – although what any child is doing with the Daily Star is one for the health experts.
Eventually we hear from Mrs McCann, whose words gave the Star a front-page scoop. “There is nothing kept from them,” she says. “They still raise money at school for the Find Madeleine Fund, which is great.”
In no other newspapers are Kate McCann’s words mentioned, let alone turned into a front-page sensation. Is the Daily Star attempting to make up for libelling the McCanns by keeping their missing child’s name in the news? Or is it just lazy reporting?
Posted: 18th, February 2016 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (3)
Financial Times writer slams Hewlett Packard over advertising threat
When The Financial Times wrote a few words on Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, the company’s marketing chief, Henry Gomez, was upset by the article’s tone. He threatened to stop placing he company’s ads with the newspaper, warning that “FT management should consider the impact of unacceptable biases on its relationships with advertisers.”
Lucy Kellaway wrote back:
My piece was not biased and I fear you misunderstand our business model. It is my editors’ steadfast refusal to consider the impact of stories on advertisers that makes us the decent newspaper we are. It is why I want to go on working here. It is why the FT goes on paying me.
Over to you, Daily Telegraph.
Spotter and image via Boing Boing
The Left’s little problem with Jews: Oxford University offers a safe space for anti-Semitism
Members of Hashomer, a Jewish security organization dedicated to protecting pioneering Zionist settlements, pose with their rifles October 1, 1907 in the Upper Galilee during the Ottoman rule of Palestine in what would later become the State of Israel.
Alex Chalmers has quit as co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club. He resigned over the society’s endorsement of the censorious Israel Apartheid Week (IAW). He says “a large proportion of both OULC and the student Left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews.”
Not Israel. Jews. The IAW website’s stated aim is: ‘To educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns.’ Black South Africans who endured Afrikaner National Party rule might sneer. That was apartheid. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a grey zone. To see it in black and white terms is absurd and ignorant, or suggestive of something more sinister – an age old ‘little problem’ with Jews.
What motivates the politics of anti-Zionism today? Zionism was, in large part, created by European anti-Semitism. The Jews needed a place to be. They could not assimilate in Europe and Russia – the pogroms, Dreyfuss and State-sponsored racism had taught them that. The Jewish Question never vanished – it just relocated. Now righteous voices in those same Western nations that persecuted Jews demand – irony of ironies – the barbaric Jew behaves as civilised people should.
Chalmers accuses members of the Labour club’s executive of “throwing around the term ‘Zio’ with casual abandon… senior members of the club expressing their ‘solidarity’ with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians.”
Chalmers “says old-fashioned anti-Semites…find debates around Israel and Zionism to be a convenient mechanism for expressing their prejudices.”
Noni Csogor, chairperson of the OULC calls it “horrifying that Jewish students feel unsafe on campuses”, adding that the society’s executive committee would discuss “how to deal with the kinds of statements Alex mentions, and what concrete steps we can take in future to preserve a club that’s been a safe haven for Jewish students in the past.”
Csogor writes on Facebook: “I understand Alex’s position, but am looking forward both to running the events we’ve organized for the rest of the term, and to contributing to an ongoing discussion about the complex intersection of justice for Palestine and the safety of Jewish students… It’s not that everyone on the Left is an old-fashioned anti-Semite, but more that people are prepared to turn a blind eye. It’s very difficult to make people actually pay attention.”
Says Alex Chalmers (transcript via Guido):
“Whether it be members of the Executive throwing around the term ‘Zio’ (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon, senior members of the club expressing their ‘solidarity’ with Hamas and explitictly [sic] defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians, or a former Co-Chair claiming that ‘most accusations of antisemitism are just the Zionists crying wolf’, a large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews. The decision of the club to endorse a movement with a history of targetting [sic] and harassing Jewish students and inviting antisemitic speakers to campuses, despite the concerns of Jewish students, illustrates how uneven and insincere much of the active membership is”
What is it about Israel that upsets the Left so much more than any other country does? Anyone want to guess why it is that to the illiberal BDS campaigners, Israel is uniquely wicked?
Posted: 16th, February 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
