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The last couple of days has seen a flurry of excitement after the release of some Gov't papers from the National Archives. Being a nerd I really enjoy such things, so I caught up with as many of the stories as I could.
It was revealed that in 1992 Sir Richard Lloyd-Jones, the Permanent Secretary in the Welsh Office, wanted John Major to hold a Cabinet meeting in Wales and wrote a letter suggesting this to Andrew Turnbull, Principal Private Secretary to Major, explaining that there were two buildings in Cardiff which were grand enough to host the Cabinet. Andrew – now Lord – Turnbull told Richard Lloyd-Jones to speak to Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary. The request was refused.
Sir Richard Lloyd-Jones was Permanent Secretary at the Welsh Office, 1985-93. So Sir Richard was the most senior civil servant there whilst children in care in north Wales were raped, buggered, beaten, starved, forced to labour in local businesses for no pay, trafficked to London and Brighton as well as to locations in Europe to work in the porn and sex trade and were found dead in questionable circumstances. Sir Richard was in post whilst care workers from north Wales were appearing in Court charged with physical and sexual assaults on children yet whilst the Welsh Office's Social Services Inspectorate failed to inspect some of the children's homes at all over a period of years and only undertook the most cursory inspections of others. Sir Richard was at the helm when serious complaints about the social services and mental health services in north Wales were either ignored or dismissed out of hand. He was in post when I – as well as other people – were unlawfully arrested and incarcerated in the psychiatric wards of Ysbyty Gwynedd and the North Wales Hospital Denbigh by Dr Dafydd Alun Jones, Dr Tony Francis (Dr X) and the staff of Gwynedd Social Services. Sir Richard ran the Welsh Office whilst it employed the corrupt lawyer Andrew Park, who held in-depth discussions with and advised the mental health services as to how to gain a High Court injunction against me and then subsequently prosecute me for allegedly breaching that injunction, although Park himself acknowledged that they were perjuring themselves because I had not committed the offences as accused. Sir Richard ran the Welsh Office when it employed Professor Robert Owen as its Medical Ombudsman. Robert Owen was appointed to investigate my complaints about the mental health services and then collaborated and colluded with Alun Davies (the manager of the Gwynedd mental health services), Dr D.G.E. Wood (the corrupt GP who had initially referred me to the mental health services) and others from Gwynedd Health Authority without my knowledge – some of the phone calls and correspondence were taken at and sent to Owen's home at Colwyn Bay. Owen then asked Professor Robert Bluglass and Dr Colin Berry to investigate my complaint – every part of my complaint involving Tony Francis and Gwynedd Social Services went uninvestigated, Dafydd went unchallenged despite telling bare-faced lies at the inquiry and Bluglass could not bring himself to admit that Dafydd had broken the law repeatedly, although Bluglass received oral and written evidence from staff at the North Wales Hospital testifying that he had (see post 'Enter Professor Robert Bluglass CBE'). No action of any sort was taken against Dafydd although a 'discussion' was held with him. I later found out that Bluglass had worked and co-authored with close colleagues of Francis and Dafydd.
At the time that I complained about Gwynedd and Clwyd Health Authorities, the Welsh Office – under Sir Richard – had sent in a management team to Gwynedd Health Authority as a result of the serious mismanagement and dire financial situation that prevailed. The chaos was such that it was discussed in the Commons (see post 'A Visit To Gwynedd Archives').
Lloyd-Jones ran the Welsh Office whilst Alison Taylor repeatedly blew the whistle on the abuse of children in care in north Wales and was dismissed from her job as a social worker by Gwynedd County Council. He ran the Welsh Office when Mary Wynch won leave to sue Dafydd, Clwyd Health Authority and Risley Remand Centre and was in post when they fessed up and agreed to pay Mary compensation (see post 'The Mary Wynch Case – Details'). Sir Richard was still in post when they all then refused to stump up the compensation as agreed.
This civil service mandarin spent years concealing the most serious criminality. He stepped down the year after five witnesss to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal were killed in a firebomb attack (see post 'The Silence of the Welsh Lambs') and after allegations of a paedophile ring operating in the north Wales children's homes involving politicians, civil servants, members of the security services, police officers, doctors, lawyers and others had appeared in the London-based media. In the year that Sir Richard stepped down, the North Wales Police – who conducted the investigation into the abuse despite allegations that some of their own officers had been involved – concluded that there was no evidence of a paedophile ring in north Wales/Cheshire. In the same year the demands for a Public Inquiry into events in north Wales grew and in the following year the Jillings Investigation into the abuse of children in care -but only in Clwyd – since 1974 began.
Lloyd-Jones had been concealing crime at Welsh Office level long before he became Permanent Secretary. He joined the Welsh Office as Under-Secretary in 1974 and remained in that role until 1978. He was then Deputy Secretary until 1985. So Sir Richard was in one of the most senior positions at the Welsh Office when Mary Wynch was unlawfully arrested, imprisoned and fleeced of her property by Dafydd and his partners in crime at Risley Remand Centre. He will have been involved in the earlier cover-ups regarding the abuse of children in care and patients at the North Wales Hospital under the Secretary of State in Wilson's and Callaghan's Govt's ie. John Morris. Lloyd-Jones then continued the cover-up under Thatcher's Secretaries of State ie. Nicholas Edwardes, Peter Walker and David Hunt.
Sir Richard, like Dafydd, is now elderly but he is still with us. Sir Richard – can you tell us anything about the lobotomies, the deaths, the abductions and the underground chamber where patients were confined at the North Wales Hospital? Like me, you will have known about it all.
Richard Lloyd-Jones began his career in the civil service in 1957 when he entered the Admiralty. He was Assistant Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, 1959-62 -Lord Carrington. Richard Lloyd-Jones will therefore have known Admiral Sir Alec Bingley.
Sir Alec had a long and distinguished career in the Royal Navy. During World War II he was Commander-In-Chief of the home fleet. Subsequently Bingley was appointed Fifth Sea Lord and in 1954 Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Air). In 1958 he became Flag Officer, Aircraft Carriers and in 1959 was appointed Commander-In-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet and Naval Commander of the Allied Forces in the Mediterranean in 1959. In 1961 Bingley became the Commander-In-Chief of Portsmouth and Allied Commander-In-Chief. He retired in 1963. Sir Alec's wife Lady Juliet was the daughter of a Top Doctor and became a medical social worker. In 1972 Lady Juliet became involved with the National Association of Mental Health (MIND) and was appointed Chair in 1979. Sir Alec and Lady Juliet's son William concealed the criminal activities of Dr Dafydd Alun Jones et al in north Wales as well as the serious abuse of patients in Moss Side/Park Lane/Ashworth Hospitals for many years from the early 1980s onwards whilst he was legal officer and then legal director of MIND and continued to conceal the criminality when he was Chief Executive of the Mental Health Act Commission (see post 'Security, Security').
Dr T. Gwynne Williams, the lobotomist at the North Wales Hospital and Dafydd's partner in crime, spent years as a surgeon in the Royal Navy whilst Sir Alec occupied very senior roles in the service. Jim Callaghan, whose Gov't concealed the wrongdoing of Dafydd and Gwynne by utilising the talents of Sir Richard Lloyd-Jones, also liked to flag up his Royal Navy credentials. Callaghan joined the Royal Navy in 1942 but in 1944 was hospitalised with TB in the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, near Portsmouth. He was discharged from the Navy and assigned to duties in the Admiralty in Whitehall no less. Whilst he was on leave, Callaghan was selected as the Parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party for Cardiff South – Callaghan beat the future Speaker of the House child molester George Thomas aka Lord Tonypandy to win the nomination. In 1945 Callaghan then did a brief stint with the East Indies Fleet and after VE day returned to the UK and won a landslide victory in Cardiff South in the 1945 General Election.
Callaghan's wiki entry states that he was the last Prime Minister to be an armed forces veteran and the only PM ever to have served in the Navy. Although it sounds as though Callaghan didn't actually see much active service – he was in hospital or in Whitehall ingratiating himself to influential folk in the Admiralty for much of the time and when he did see active service he seems to have carefully kept himself out of danger. Which is exactly what he did throughout his political career. Could it possibly have been the case that old Callaghan was one of those with connections to MI5 or MI6 who was under suspicion of using those connections to conceal the paedophile ring in north Wales/Chester and the links to the Westminster Paedophile Ring?
Between 1969-70 Richard Lloyd-Jones was Private Secretary to Harold Wilson's Cabinet Secretary, Burke Trend. Burke was an alumnus of Merton College, Oxford and after graduation joined the civil service. For most of his career Burke served in the Treasury, but he was Cabinet Secretary under Harold Wilson and then Ted Heath, 1963-73. Burke received a peerage in 1974 and also became Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.
In the 1970s Burke led an investigation into allegations of penetration into the British security services from before World War II to the 1960s. Burke concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations. Thank goodness for that, it's not as if we would ever want irresponsible people concealing criminal behaviour or even the murders of the victims of a paedophile gang working in the security services.
Burke's son Michael Trend was educated at Westminster School and Oriel College, Oxford. He worked as a journalist for the Times Literary Supplement, History Today, the Spectator and was the chief leader writer for the Daily Telegraph, 1990-92.
Trend was Tory MP for Maidstone and Windsor, 1992-97 and then for Windsor (after the constituency was renamed and reconfigured), 1997-2005. Michael was elected in the General Election of 1992 – which saw the retirement of Sir Peter Morrison who had been the Tory MP for Chester and who was abusing kids in care from north Wales as well as elsewhere. 1992 saw the distributing of peerages to many who had concealed organised child abuse. Just days after Michael was elected, the five witnesses to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal were murdered by that firebomb.
Michael Trend was Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive of the Conservative Party until 2000. He was Chair of the party's International Office until Sept 2005. Trend is said to have participated in 'extensive democracy building work with in the former Soviet Union and in Africa'.
In Dec 2002 Michael Trend agreed to repay £90k to the Commons after wrongfully claiming. In Feb 2003 he was found guilty of abusing the allowances system. Trend was briefly suspended from Parliament and did not stand for election again.
Lloyd-Jones was Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, 1970-74. The Secretary of State for Defence was one Lord Carrington. At the time, the British Army had been sent into N Ireland and the troubles were well underway – as was the concealing of the abuse of children in the Kincora Boys Home in Belfast, allegedly by Whitehall civil servants, Army Officers and others. The Secretaries of State for N Ireland during those years were Willie Whitelaw and Francis Pym. Whitelaw concealed the paedophile gang in north Wales for years in his capacity as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party and as Chair of the Tory Party as well as in numerous other roles and he concealed the abuse of children at the Kincora Boys Home in Belfast. In July 1972 Whitelaw met an IRA leader in Minister of State Paul Channon's house in Chelsea for discussions (see post 'Is The Party Over Yet?').
Richard Lloyd-Jones was Chairman of the Civil Service Benevolent Fund, 1987-93 and a Trustee between 1993-2000. He sat on the Advisory Committee on Local Gov't Staff Transfers (Wales), 1993-94 and on the Local Gov't Staff Committee for Wales, 1994-97. Lloyd-Jones was a member of the BBC General Advisory Council, 1994-96 and of the Commission for Local Democracy, 1994-95. He was Chairman of Age Concern Cymru, 1999-05 and President, 1996-99. Lloyd-Jones was involved with Age Concern England from 2000 until either the present day or very recently.
Margaret Hanson, the Vice-Chairman of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board was Chief Executive of Age Concern for North East Wales, 2004-14. Hanson previously worked as a social worker for children and families in Cheshire, whilst the paedophile gang that also operated in north Wales was active in Cheshire. Hanson was also a Councillor in Cheshire and Mayor of a Cheshire town. Hanson's husband David Hanson is MP for Delyn and was also a Councillor in Cheshire whilst the paedophile gang was busy. David Hanson was PPS to Tony Blair from 2001 whilst the surviving witnesses to the wrongdoing in north Wales were threatened, harasssed and prosecuted on the basis of the paedophiles' friends perjuring themselves (see post 'The Most Dangerous Man In The World – Part II').
Richard Lloyd-Jones was Vice-Chairman of the Prince of Wales Committee, 1993-96 and was a member of the Prince's Trust, 1996-99. He was a member of the Court of the University of Wales, 1995-2000 and the National Museum of Wales, 1996-99. Lloyd-Jones was appointed a member of the Court and Council of Cardiff University in 2004 and is either still there or was until very recently and was Vice-President of the University of Wales Cardiff, 1993-04.
Lloyd-Jones was a member of Groundworks Methyr and Rhondda Cynon Taff, 1996-present day (or until very recently) and has been President of Welsh Council of the Ramblers Association, 1993-2011. Sir Richard's wife Helen is Chair of the Ramblers Association and was previously a member of the Countryside Council for Wales.
Between 1999-2005 Sir Richard was Chairman of the Fishguard International Music Festival. At one point Lloyd-Jones made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission when The Times erroneously stated that 'Folk at the Fish' was part of the Fishguard Festival. The Times amended its records accordingly after Sir Richard made representation. What a pity that Sir Richard did not show as much concern about a vicious paedophile gang with links to organised crime which imprisoned and murdered its victims whilst it operated within the services for which he was responsible.
Sir Richard was Chairman of the Arts Council of Wales, 1994-97.
Richard Lloyd-Jones went to Balliol College, Oxford. As did a few others who have been outed on this blog.
The man to whom Sir Richard wrote to suggest a Cabinet meeting in Wales was Andrew Turnbull, who in 1992 was Principal Private Secretary to John Major. Turnbull was appointed Principal Private Secretary to the PM in 1988 and initially served under Thatcher. Turnbull will have known about Sir Peter Morrison's activities and a great deal else. He was in post when Morrison was Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party and whilst Morrison organised Thatcher's failed leadership campaign before she resigned in Nov 1990.
Turnbull was educated at Enfield Grammar and Christ's College, Cambridge. After working as Principal Private Secretary to the PM Turnbull was appointed Permanent Secretary at DEFRA. He then occupied the second highest ranking civil service post in Gov't, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, 1998-02. Turnbull was then appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, a post which he held until 2005, whilst Blair was PM.
In recent decades the two most senior civil service posts in Gov't – Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service – have been filled by the same person. Turnbull filled both roles, as did his successor Gus O'Donnell. The role of Cabinet Secretary was created in 1916 by David Lloyd George and it was a controversial move at the time. The Cabinet Secretary is responsible for the organisation of the Cabinet Office and for providing support to the PM and Gov't as a whole. When Turnbull succeeded to the dual role in Sept 2002 Blair asked him to focus on the management of the civil service. Tom Bower's book 'Broken Vows' discusses Blair's lack of understanding of the machinery of Gov't and his desire to basically exclude the civil service from the process of Gov't in some detail.
In Feb 2004 Turnbull wrote to ex-Minister Clare Short admonishing her for her media statements alleging that British intelligence had intercepted communications from others, including the Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan. Short made Turnbull's confidential letter public and rebuked Turnbull for allegedly allowing the Gov't decision-making machinery to crumble during the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War. Short suggested that the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had been 'leant on' to provide advice that the war would be legal. Short also alleged that Turnbull was responsible for the inadequate Cabinet scrutiny of Goldsmith's legal advice. In March 2005 Turnbull revealed that Goldsmith's opinion re the legality or otherwise of the Iraq War was one page long.
Turnbull received a peerage in 2005.
Turnbull gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry in Jan 2010.
In 2006 Turnbull was appointed Chair of Zambia Orphans Aid UK and in 2007 he became a Senior Executive Advisor with Booz Allen Hamilton. Turnbull is a Trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. In 2011 the Foundation issued a report in Turnbull's name claiming that global temperatures were 'on a plateau' and which called for more scepticism on global warming.
Turnbull is a Governor of Dulwich College and has been Chair of the Board of Governors since 2009.
Turnbull was succeeded at the Treasury and then as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service by Sir Gus O'Donnell.
When Lloyd-Jones wrote to Turnbull suggesting a Cabinet meeting in Wales, Andrew Turnbull suggested that he should speak to Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary.
Robin Butler was the Mr Big of the mandarins who concealed serious crime. Butler went to Harrow School, spent a year teaching at St Dunstan's in Burnham-on-Sea and then went to University College, Oxford. Butler joined the Treasury in 1961 and remained there until 1969. He held a succession of senior roles and in 1969 was seconded to the Bank of England and several City institutions.
Butler was Private Secretary to Heath (1972-74) and Wilson (1974-75), Principal Private Secretary to Thatcher (1982-85) and Private Secretary to Major and Blair. He does not seem to have been Private Secretary to Callaghan – there will have been a reason for that but I haven't yet found out what it was. Butler was Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service, 1988-98, whilst both Major and Blair were PM. It is obvious from Butler's CV that he will have known all about Sir Peter Morrison – Morrison was a Minister whilst Butler was Principal Private Secretary to Thatcher – and the associated chaos in north Wales. Documents also show that Butler and Margaret Thatcher knew about the allegations that Cyril Smith was sexually abusing children. Butler knew about Jimmy Savile as well because Thatcher was warned by civil servants that giving Jimmy Savile a knighthood could backfire very badly as a result of aspects of his 'private life' – Thatch continued to lobby vigorously for Savile to be knighted and in 1990 it happened.
Whilst Butler was Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, the constant cover-ups into the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal took place, including the Waterhouse Inquiry, as well as the murders of the five witnesses days after the 1992 General Election. Butler presided over the civil service whilst the Department of Health allowed chaos and criminality to reign in the NHS in order to conceal organised child abuse as well as the associated abuse of mental health patients and whilst the DoH also ignored endemic research fraud and misconduct. No-one has ever admitted what was going on in the NHS whilst Butler was at the top of the Civil Service, but the rotten culture which Butler was clearly part of became evident as a result of other matters.
An article in the Independent in July 2004 written by Paul Vallely discussed a few of Butler's high points. Vallely reminded readers that during the Scott Inquiry into the covert sales of arms to Iraq by the British Gov't, Butler had confirmed that he found it acceptable for Ministers to be 'selective about the facts' and to give 'an answer that is not the whole truth'. In 1994 Robin Butler was appointed to investigate Neil Hamilton and others regarding the business of the cash in brown envelopes from Al Fayed – Butler cleared Hamilton. Hamilton was then foolish enough to sue the Guardian over the allegations that he'd accepted cash in return for questions – Hamilton lost the case, he was declared bankrupt and subsequently lost his seat. Hamilton was the Tory MP for Tatton, the neighbouring constituency to Sir Peter Morrison's and Neil and Christine Hamilton attended social events with Morrison and members of his constituency association. Morrison's abuse of under-aged boys was openly discussed by members of the association and by constituents (see post 'I Want Serious Money Now Please'), so it is very unlikely that the Hamiltons had not heard about it. Neil Hamilton was not the only Tory MP caught up in the cash for questions scandal. The others involved were Tim Smith (who resigned after admitting that he had been bribed), Sir Michael Grylls, Michael Brown – and Sir Peter Morrison.
Robin Butler was given the task of investigating the allegations that Jonathan Aitken had received a bribe in the form of payment for his stay at the Paris Ritz by the Saudis whilst he held secret meetings with Saudi arms dealers regarding commissions. Butler cleared Aitken and Aitken returned to the Commons boasting that Butler had cleared him. Aitken then launched an ill-judged libel action against the Guardian which resulted in Aitken being jailed for perjury – because he had lied about funding of his stay at the Ritz. His bills had indeed been paid for by someone else. People who were Saudis.
Butler himself described the Scott Inquiry 1992-96 as a 'long nightmare' but explained that as a civil servant 'you just do not give the full information…It was half an answer. Half the picture can be true'. It was obviously such rationale that allowed Butler to fail to admit that a vicious paedophile ring was on the loose in north Wales, that witnesses were being framed and imprisoned by Top Doctors and in some cases murdered by persons unknown and that the whole machinery of Gov't was utilised to keep a lid on this.
Butler was so close to Harold Wilson that Marcia Williams aka Lady Falkender – who famously had an unfathomably complex relationship with Wilson that was subject to much speculation – tried to have him sacked. Butler was also very close to John Major, particularly in the last few months of his premiership – when Major's Secretary of State for Wales William Hague was setting up the Waterhouse Inquiry. Sir Peter Morrison had been found safely dead in his house having 'fallen down the stairs' some months previously.
Robin Butler guided Blair into Number 10 regarding Whitehall protocol and initially was a big mate of key figures in New Labour. Butler was such good mates with Mandelson that in the summer following the May that Blair was elected Butler gave Mandy a bottle of peach champagne. The honeymoon didn't last long – which was hardly surprising with the marriage being between Grade A bastards who had all put their heads together to conceal corruption in high places, serious sex offending and murder – and within eighteen months Blair had fallen out with the civil service.
Butler told his friends that his key mistake in the first year of Blair's Gov't was to sign Orders in Council allowing Jonathan Powell (Blair's Chief of Staff) and Alastair Campbell (Blair's Press Secretary) to give orders to civil servants despite being political appointees. This violated the line between elected politicians and impartial civil service – as much as one can be called impartial when a key priority is to conceal the deaths of people whom if they had lived and been listened to could have put a lot of people (including a few politicians) in prison for a long time. Butler's Orders in Council permitted Alastair Campbell to Chair a planning meeting with civil servants and intelligence chiefs over the '45 minute' dossier – famously sexed up by Alastair – which led Britain into the war with Iraq.
After Butler retired in 1998 he was given a peerage – he sits as a cross bencher.
Butler was the Master of University College, Oxford, 1998-08. He was a non-executive director of the HSBC Group, 1998-08 and Chair of the HSBC Global Education Trust.
In 2004 Butler Chaired the Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Butler Review – the review of the use of intelligence in the lead up to the 2003 Iraq War. Butler concluded that some of the intelligence re WMD was 'seriously flawed'.
As befits someone who has done so many favours for so many scumbags in high office, Robin Butler clocked up a great many gongs. The one that I noticed first was Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), awarded in the New Years Honours of 1988. Gwynedd social worker Alison Taylor contacted Thatcher herself on 17 Jan 1987 and told her of the abuse of children in north Wales. Alison was suspended later on in that year and on 3 Nov 1987 was sacked by Gwynedd County Council. Butler was in line for another prize before too long. He was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 1992 Birthday Honours. The lucky winners of the 1992 Birthday Honours were announced on 13 June 1992. By that time my career had been destroyed, as had the media careers of two close friends who knew what had happened to me in north Wales, my housemate had been killed in a car crash which had left her boyfriend – another one of my friends Who Knew brain damaged and paralysed – but most importantly of all from the point of the paedophile gang those five other pesky witnesses had been murdered by the firebomb. In April, which will have been just about when the list of those to be honoured was set in concrete. Unfortunately for the paedophiles' friends, one of those in the building which was firebombed survived the blaze and voiced his belief that witnesses to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal were being murdered. He was found dead in suspicious circumstances some time later after having given evidence against John Allen, the sex offender who owned and managed the Bryn Alyn Community, days before he was due to receive a payment from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
Butler picked up his peerage in Feb 1998 – Sir Ronald Waterhouse had heard evidence from the few survivors of the north Wales children's homes by then and had trashed all of them. Some people had collapsed whilst giving evidence, others had developed mental health problems and yet others had been unable to walk out of the hearing unaided. No wonder Ronnie maintained that they couldn't be believed.
On 23 April 2003 Robin Butler was awarded the Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter (KG) and in 2004 he became a member of the Privy Council. By April 2003 the mental health services in north Wales were at an advanced stage in their plans to fit me up for 'threatening to kill' Alun Davies, the manager of the Hergest Unit. Numerous Angels had lied in statements to the police and the corrupt judge Huw Daniel was ready with the planned hefty prison sentence – I'd been warned by the police and solicitors to expect seven years. When I returned for the next hearing the charge of threatening to kill was withdrawn – Huw Daniel obviously wasn't expecting this and became very irate indeed. I was instead charged with a Public Order Offence for telling Alun Davies's secretary that he was a fat idiot – which I did do and had always been happy to admit to having done. I was later told that the charge of threats to kill had been withdrawn after a member of staff at the Hergest Unit had contacted someone – presumably the police or the Court – and told them that they had witnessed the discussions held at Ysbyty Gwynedd amongst the Top Doctors, nurses and managers ie. the fat idiots, re the plan to frame me and had stated that they would go public on the abuses taking place in that hospital if I was charged. See post 'Interesting Happenings In The Legal System' for the details of the bizarre sequence of events and happenings in Court.
Last summer I discovered that just after the date in 2004 on which I was pleaded guilty and was sentenced under the Public Order Act for telling Alun Davies's secretary that he was a fat idiot, someone had illegally amended the PNC so that it showed a conviction for 'violent disorder' on my record and somebody in Chester Court had forged a certificate of indictment stating that I had been convicted of 'violent disorder'. I contacted the legal division of the North Wales Police about this matter months ago but I have heard nothing. See posts 'Even More Confusion Regarding Those Legal Conundrums' and 'An Update On Those Legal Conundrums' for details.
Oh well, what does it matter – perjury, perverting the course of justice, misconduct in public office, mass murder, what does it matter as long as Lord Butler of Serious Crime in High Places has bagged his place on the Privy Council.
A Feb 2004 article in the Guardian stated that Butler 'consistently showed deference to those in power'. And to a gang of paedophiles as well.
I'll leave the last quote about Robin Butler to Lord Peter Hennessey, the 'constitutional expert': 'Robin Butler is a crown servant who knows the importance of keeping a proper demarcation between ministers, career civil servants and special advisors'.
Robin Butler is a member of the Anglo-Belgian Club, of Brooks, of Beefsteak and of the Athenaeum, a club popular with Top Doctors. Jimmy Savile was a member of the Athenaeum, he was introduced to the club by Cardinal Basil Hume.
Butler's boss John Major knew a great deal about the wrongdoing in north Wales and organised child abuse. Major had been a Councillor in Lambeth before becoming an MP, whilst Lambeth had a huge problem with the abuse of children in care and Major had also been a junior minister in the Department of Health.
Robin Butler was succeeded as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service by Sir Richard Wilson – his name is not widely known among laypeople, unlike Cabinet Secretaries Robert Armstrong (see post'Lord Robert Armstrong'), Butler and Gus O'Donnell. Richard Wilson was Secretary to the Cabinet and head of the Home Civil Service from Jan 1998-2000.
Richard Wilson was born in Glamorgan, attended Radley College, 1956-60 (he is now head of the Governors at Radley) and then read law at Clare College, Cambridge, 1961-65. Wilson was called to the Bar but entered the civil service rather than practice as a barrister. His first post in the civil service was Assistant Principal in the Board of Trade in 1966. Wilson served in a number of departments, spending 12 years in the Dept of Energy where his responsibilities included nuclear power, the privatisation of Britoil, personnel and finance. He headed the Economic Secretariat in the Cabinet Office under Thatcher, 1987-90 and after two years in the Treasury was appointed Permanent Secretary in the Department of Environment in 1992.
Wilson was Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, 1994-97. So he was in post when the attempt by the mental health services to fit me up on the basis of the perjury of an Angel – Bridget Lloyd – occurred and he was also in post when Michael Howard ruined Mary Wynch.
Richard Wilson received a peerage in 2002.
In Sept 2002 Wilson became Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He has been a non-executive director of the British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, was or still is Chair of C. Hoare and Co, was or still is a non-executive director of Xansa plc and was or still is Chair of the Board of Patrons of the Wilberforce Society.
As well as a peerage, like all the most effective concealers of the wrongdoing of the paedophiles' friends, Sir Richard Wilson has clocked up the requisite gongs. He received: a CB (Companion of the Order of the Bath) in the New Years Honours of 1991 – by which time I had been charged with serious offences on the basis of the perjury of the Top Doctors and was well on the way to being hounded out of my job as was my friend who worked at the Royal Television Society and who had wanted to make a documentary about matters in north Wales; a KCB (Knight Commander) in the New Years Honours of 1997 – the cover-up which was Waterhouse had been orchestrated and was underway; and a GCB (Knight Grand Cross) in the New Years Honours of 2001 – the Waterhouse Report had been published and the protesting voices yelling 'massive cover-up' had been ignored.
Richard Wilson concealed considerable wrongdoing whilst he was Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, but the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office who preceded him and who was in post between 1988-94, Sir Clive Whitmore, has even more explaining to do.
Before Whitmore was Permanent Secretary at the Home Office he had served as Thatcher's Principal Private Secretary, 1979-82. So he too would have known about Jimmy Savile and about Peter Morrison – who was Lord Commissioner of the Treasury whilst Whitmore was Principal Private Secretary to Thatcher.
Whitmore was Thatcher's Principal Private Secretary whilst Thatcher was bullying and falling out with her Cabinet – as detailed in Charles Moore's account in his biography of Thatcher concerning the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands. Charles Moore maintained in his book that on one occasion Lord Carrington turned to Sir Clive Whitmore and said 'if I have any more trouble with this fucking stupid petit bourgeois woman I'm going to go'. Which was probably a most accurate summary of the essence of Thatcher. Carrington did of course resign from Thatcher's Cabinet after the invasion of the Falklands in 1982. Although Thatcher made enough political capital out of the war with Argentina to win the next election, it was acknowledged at the time that the Argentinians had given a number of warnings that they were going to invade the Falklands but the Gov't failed to respond. In 1980 Nicholas Ridley, the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for the Falkland Islands, had told Commodore Cavandoli that Britain had little interest in the Falkland Islands because they were not a wine-growing region like Bordeaux. Ridley did have a reputation for putting his foot in his mouth – after the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise, he made a comment in the Commons about implementing policy with its bow doors open (the Herald of Free Enterprise sunk which resulted in loss of life because it set sail with its bow doors open). Ridley had to resign from his position as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 1990 after he made comments about the EU being a 'German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe' and followed this up with a reference to Hitler.
Whitmore was then the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence until 1988.
Whilst Whitmore led the Home Office he presided over a great many dreadful things. In north Wales the framing and wrongful imprisonment of the former children in care and mental health patients – including me – as a result of corruption on the part of the police, Risley Remand Centre, the north Wales mental health services and the high security hospitals as described in my post 'Security, Security' was happening. Former kids in care were being found dead on a regular basis and complaints of abuse usually went uninvestigated.
On 15 March 1992 the North Wales Police carried out dawn raids in and around Wrexham. Sixteen men and one woman were held – all but one person had worked at Bryn Estyn. The police stated that no child porn was found and no evidence of a paedophile ring. By the end of the day the police had released 12 of the 16 people who had been held. They were all released without charge. Of the four others, only one person made any admissions. This triumph happened three weeks or so before the General Election.
In other regions of the the UK, things were going badly wrong as well. The allegations of the serious abuse of children in care by the Leicestershire social worker Frank Beck had finally been investigated (Beck was imprisoned) but somehow the allegations against Greville Janner went nowhere, although Janner was interviewed by the police in the early 1990s and a file was sent to the DPP. Janner was interviewed in the presence of his solicitor Sir David Napley and Napley was so certain that Janner would be charged that he had already retained George Carman QC. After the imprisonment of Frank Beck it was admitted that the response of the police to the complaints against Beck had been negligent and wholly inadequate. I will be writing more about the Frank Beck case in another post soon.
One thing that the Home Office had to handle whilst Whitmore was Permanent Secretary was the Hillsborough Disaster on the 15 April 1989 and the aftermath. It has finally recently been admitted that at Hillsborough it was the police who were largely responsible for the deaths of many people, that the police systematically lied about the behaviour of the football fans, that lies were told to the media in order to smear the fans – including those who had died – and that the media faithfully published those lies (most famously Kelvin McKenzie at the Sun). Just to ensure that everyone got the right message the police then fabricated witness statements and perjured themselves. It has taken nearly 30 years for the truth to be admitted regarding events at Hillsborough.
So I was most interested to find in the archive of the Hillsborough Independent Panel – Disclosed Material and Report, a copy of a note written by Sir Clive Whitmore dated 7 July 1989. The file states that this note was sent to the Secretary of State – which at the time was Douglas Hurd – regarding the progress of the [Lord Justice Peter] Taylor Inquiry [on Hillsborough] and when it was expected to be completed. The file records that Lord Justice Taylor's Interim Report was published in Aug 1989.
In the note Whitmore documented that he had spoken to Lord Justice Taylor and a Mr Whalley on 4 July about the progress on the Inquiry and that Taylor had told him that the Report might not be ready until early August. Whitmore went on to note that Taylor had confirmed that the Report wasn't going to say anything concerning the arguments for or against identity cards for football supporters. He reported that he was fairly certain that none of Taylor's recommendations will be of a kind which would require physical work at grounds before the start of the next football season. Whitmore stated that Taylor expects the interim findings to deal with matters such as crowd control and the content of safety certificates. Sir Clive observes that there is no pressing need for a statement to the House and that there may be an advantage in a low key reception involving simply a press statement. Whitmore noted that Taylor did warn him that the interim report is likely to be critical of the South Yorkshire Police and to a lesser extent the football club. Whitmore ends by saying 'we will need to consider carefully what we should say on this aspect once we have the text of the report'.
The following words/phrases were underlined: 'early August', 'identity cards', 'crowd control', 'critical of South Yorkshire Police' and 'to a lesser extent'.
Although the note is dated 7 July 1989, the official stamp showing receipt of the letter is dated 10 July 1989. The note was sent to: Lord Ferrers, Mr Chilcot [this name is highlighted], Mr Moriarty, Mr Boys Smith, Mr Turney, HMCIFS, Mr Mower, Mr Goddard, Mr Watts, Mr Lidington.
There is a copy of Lord Justice Taylor's Interim Report in the archived file. It is addressed to Douglas Hurd who was Home Secretary at the time. The Report is dated 1 August 1989 and it has Peter Taylor's name on it – but not Peter Taylor's signature. There is just 'Peter Taylor' typed next to the date. Every Inquiry that I have seen has the signature of the Chair and the Panel on it next to the date.
It is crystal clear from Whitmore's note that Peter Taylor didn't expect to have his report written until early August – so it would not have been ready for submission on 1 Aug 1989. It is also clear from Whitmore's note and the phrases that were underlined that Taylor was going to mention a few things in that report that Whitmore seemed rather sensitive about – so senstive that people were going to have to consider their public response once they had the text of the Report.
I think that the reason why Peter Taylor didn't sign that Report in the archive was that Peter Taylor hadn't actually written it. It seems to me that the Home Office under Douglas Hurd were conducting business the Gwynedd Health Authority and expert medical witness way – they had commissioned a report and publicised that, they knew what they wanted in the Report so before Peter Taylor had submitted it they wrote one of their own. Perhaps they amended it once Taylor had sent them his Report – who knows, because there is no signature on the Report there is no certainly as to who wrote which bits or when.
There are people who can tell us what went on, even if Douglas maintains that he knows nuzzing – Sir Clive Whitmore obviously. But one of the people to whom Sir Clive sent his note will know who drafted Taylor's Report for him – Mr Lidington.
Mr Lidington is David Lidington, who is currently sitting in Theresa May's Gov't as the Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor. Between 1987-89 Lidington was a special advisor to Douglas Hurd in the Home Office and when Hurd became Foreign Secretary in 1989 Lidington moved with him to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
So David Lidington was the gofer at the Home Office when Dafydd, Tony Francis, two junior doctors at Ysbyty Gwynedd, someone at Risley Remand Centre and the Mental Health Act Commission all had a little plan to frame me for attempting to stab a doctor – which unravelled because a nurse who was sitting in the room as I carried out this murderous attack made a statement to the police admitting that I hadn't tried to stab anyone. Risley Remand Centre was under the domain of Douglas Hurd. There were constant allegations of brutality towards inmates and even inmates dying because no-one had answered bells when they had rung for assistance. The Waterhouse Report details how the Waterhouse Inquiry had sight of a letter sent from Risley Remand Centre in support of Nefyn and June Dodd, the managers of Ty'r Felin children's home in Bangor – who were under investigation for child abuse – allegedly written by a former resident of Ty'r Felin which had been sent to Lucille Hughes, Dafydd's mistress and the Director of Gwynedd Social Services. Sir Ronald Waterhouse confirmed that the letter had not been written or sent by the former resident of Ty'r Felin as purported.
So as well as beating up the inmates and leaving them to die by witholding medical attention, someone in Risley Remand Centre – under the control of the Home Office – was forging documents and colluding in elaborate plans with Top Doctors to frame people who had complained about them. And someone in the Home Office was forging Reports from Lord Chief Justices. And David Lidington knows something about it.
You are the Secretary of State for Justice Lidington. You do know how illegal these matters are. Furthermore, Nefyn Dodd was not only abusing the kids in Ty'r Felin himself but he was trafficking them down to London to be used for prostitution – one boy from Ty'r Felin turned up in the now infamous Dolphin Square (see post 'Are You Local?').
David Lidington is the Tory MP for Aylesbury – he was elected at the 1992 General Election. Days before the five witnesses to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal were killed by that firebomb.
In 1994 Lidington was appointed PPS to Michael Howard. Just as Howard stuffed over Mary Wynch leaving her ruined. In 1994 there was yet another attempt to fit me up and imprison me – Bridget Lloyd, an Angel with the Arfon Community Mental Health Team, alleged that I had made threatening phone calls to her and made a statement claiming to be so frightened of me that the Health Authority had given her a personal alarm to carry with her at all times lest I murder her in cold blood. The Court was also told that I was a danger to her young children. I didn't know that Bridget Lloyd had young children. Bridget knew that I didn't know that as well – just before making the statement to police that she was in fear of her life from me, Lloyd sent a memo to the Top Doctors and managers at Ysbyty Gwynedd stating that she'd only ever met me once, many years ago and that I wouldn't recognise her if I saw her.
Tony Francis wrote a report for the Court – for their consideration for WHEN I was found guilty, stating that I should be transferred to a forensic team with a view to being placed in a secure unit.
I was acquitted. There were no apologies and no investigation into the perjury.
In June 1997 Lidington was appointed PPS to William Hague, the leader of the Opposition. Months previously William Hague had organised the whitewash that was the Waterhouse Inquiry.
In June 1999 Lidington became the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Deputy to Ann Widdecombe. Widdecombe has connections to the Tory Party in Wales, in particular the Anglesey Constituency Conservative Party – which contains a number of Top Doctors (see post 'Doris Karloff – Honest About Her Expenses But Not Much Else'). In Sept 2001 Lidington was appointed Shadow Finance Secretary to the Treasury and in May 2002 Shadow Minister at MAFF. When Michael Howard became leader of the Tory Party Lidington was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for N Ireland. Lidington didn't thrive under Cameron at first and in July 2007 was demoted. However after the General Election of 2010 Lidington became Minister for Europe. In Aug 2016 Lidington was awarded a CBE in Cameron's resignation honours – for his services 'to Europe'. Well the paedophile gang in north Wales were trafficking the kids to Amsterdam and the south of France as well…
When Honest Vicar's Daughter Theresa became leader she made Lidington Leader of the Commons and on 11 June appointed him Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor. Well with a track record like David Lidington's in what other post could he possibly be more useful in the face of all these allegations of paedophiles in high places and the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse falling apart?
David's a greedy sod as well. In May 2009 the Daily Telegraph revealed that Lidington claimed nearly £1,300 for his dry cleaning and claimed for toothpaste, shower gel, body spray and vitamin supplements on his second home allowance.
On one occasion Lidington's local paper the Bucks Herald criticised him for claiming £115,891 in expenses – approx double his salary.
Lidington's shameful CV starts from the very beginning. He went to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and whilst there was Chair of the Cambridge University Conservative Association which, in the previous generation, had supplied Thatcher with her Cabinet – who concealed Peter Morrison's abuse of children in care in north Wales – including Ken Clarke, John Selwyn Gummer, Michael Howard and Norman Lamont. So Lidington was following in the footsteps of the Greats. Did you perhaps get to know some of them whilst you were at Cambridge David? I'm sure that the corrupt old bastards who were prepared to ignore suspicious deaths for the sake of Peter Morrison's continued participation in sex parties with kids in care were invited back to their Alma Mater to dispense their wisdom and recruit the next generation of complete scumbags. Lidington was Deputy President of the Cambridge University Students Union and before doing some very dirty deeds at the Home Office for Douglas Hurd, he worked for BP and Rio Tinto.
Douglas Hurd was Tory MP for Mid-Oxfordshire, 1974-83, then for the same constituency when it was revamped as Witney (Cameron's future constituency), 1983-97. He was a key member of Thatcher's and Major's Cabinet and is Patron of the Tory Reform Group.
Hurd's father Lord Anthony Hurd was the Tory MP for Newbury, 1945-64. His grandather, Sir Percy Hurd, was the Coalition Conservative MP for Frome, 1918-23 (part of Lloyd George's Lib-Con Gov't) and then Tory MP for Devizes, 1923-45). Hurd's son Nick has been Tory MP for Ruislip-Northwood and Pinner since 2005 and in 2010 became Minister for Civil Society. Another son Thomas works in the Diplomatic Service.
Hurd went to Eton and then Trinity College, Cambridge where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society.
In 1952 Hurd entered the Diplomatic Service and in 1966 began his political career. He became Principal Private Secretary to Edward Heath – a civil service position rather than a political appointment.
In 1979 after Thatcher won the General Election Hurd was appointed Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Following the 1983 General Election Hurd was moved to the Home Office, where Willie Whitelaw was Home Secretary until June 1983 and then Leon Brittan succeeded him. Between 1984 and 1985 Hurd was Secretary of State for N Ireland. We are told that Hurd's diplomatic skills paved the way for the signing of the Anglo-Irish agreement, although Hurd left the post one month before the agreement was signed. In the light of what was going on at the Home Office when Hurd was Home Secretary and Lidington was his minion – forged documents, the fitting up of innocent people who had dared raise concerns about the movers and shakers behind the Westminster Paedophile Ring – one can only imagine how Hurd used his 'diplomatic skills' in N Ireland. There'll have been all those murders that Hurd will have used in his bargaining and the kids in the Kincora Boys Home as well who were being abused by Whitehall figures and members of the British Army. Peace in our time then Douglas?
After ensuring that the truth about various murders and terrorist atrocities as well as the child abuse at Kincora was never to be told, Hurd was appointed Home Secretary in Sep 1985 in the wake of Leon Brittan's demotion to the DTI. Meanwhile the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and Macguire Seven and God knows how many other innocent people sat in prisons because Douggie and his mates didn't dare let on what they had all been up to at the Home Office for many years. In 1987 a Home Office memo acknowledged that the Guildford Four were unlikely to have been terrorists but stated that was not sufficient grounds for an appeal.
Hurd was seen as a 'safe pair of hands' at the Home Office and his tenure there was considered 'uncontroversial'. That judgement might change if anyone takes a close look at the paperwork concerning Peter Taylor's Interim Report which was written by someone who wasn't Peter Taylor. Hurd himself expressed concerns that the Prison Service wasn't working effectively – well somewhere along the line the plan to have me banged up in Risley went pear-shaped and that forged letter which was sent to Lucille Hughes was identified as a forgery, so someone at Risley wasn't carrying out their duties to the standards required by Douglas. As for those attempts to set fire to my house Douglas, I can only echo the words of Peter Cook in his 'biased judge' post-Jeremy Thorpe trial satire – they couldn't even carry out the simplest murder plot without cocking the whole thing up…
Note to David Lidington: David – Dafydd and the paedophiles' friends were definitely nasty enough for you to have played ball with, but they weren't very bright and Dafydd was barking mad. If you are serious about silencing/killing absolutely everyone who were witnesses to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal, you need to commission some rather more competent criminals – because Brown, me and two of our friends have managed to survive.
In 1988 Hurd set up Crime Concern, an organisation that aimed to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour by offering training opportunities to young people. The young person who received the best training opportunity from Douglas Hurd was David Lidington, other young people went to prison or had all opportunities removed. Crime Concern merged with the charity Rainer in 2008 to form an organisation called Catch22. Er – was someone having a joke at Douglas's expense?
As a sideline Douglas writes spy thrillers. I think that this blog is rapidly evolving into one, but without the 'fiction' element. Or indeed the 'thrilling' bit – it's not quite so thrilling when it's you that is being targeted by a bunch of Top Doctors and their associates who are running a paedophile ring for the benefit of Douglas's colleagues…
In Oct 1989 Douglas replaced John Major as Foreign Secretary. When Thatch was ousted in Nov 1990 Douglas ran for the Tory Party leadership – his campaign was predicated on his reputation as a 'safe pair of hands' 'law n order' Home Secretary. Major won the leadership and Hurd returned to his post as Foreign Secretary, where he remained until 1995.
Hurd was Foreign Secretary whilst Yugoslavia imploded. Hurd argued against sending military aid to the Bosniaks – in opposition to US policy – and he resisted pressure to allow Bosnian refugees into Britain. Hurd described his policy as 'realist'. Just like letting a paedophile gang run a reign of terror in north Wales. The poor relations between European and US leaders delayed a co-ordinated response to the horrors taking place in Yugoslavia so rather a lot of people ended up being brutally murdered thanks to the diplomatic skills of that safe pair of hands Douglas and others.
After his withdrawal from front line politics, Douglas went to Serbia to visit Slobodan Milosevic, on behalf of the NatWest Bank no less, of which Hurd was Chairman, 1995-99. The Bosnian Gov't threatened to charge Hurd as an accomplice to genocide, but nothing came of that. People like Douglas don't go to prison, the cells are reserved for the victims of paedophile gangs who supply kids to politicians or for junior academics who work out that something very nasty is going on which seems to be propped up by the highest echelons of the medical establishment…
Whilst Hurd was Foreign Secretary he allocated £234 million pounds in aid towards the funding of the hydroelectric dam on the Pergan River in Malaysia – building started in 1991 and concurrently the Malaysian Gov't just happened to decide to purchase £1 bilion worth of British made arms. In March 1994 a UK Gov't Inquiry was launched regarding this and in Nov 1994 the High Court of Justice ruled the actions of Hurd unlawful, because all that dosh that he liberated for the building of the dam was not for the economic or humanitarian benefit of the Malaysians.
In 1997 Douglas was given a peerage. The Waterhouse Inquiry had been arranged by then, Peter Morrison and God knows how many witnesses were dead, Dafydd had retired from the NHS with the contract to provide substance abuse services for north Wales in his paws alongside an agreement that none of the very serious complaints against him would ever be followed up (see post 'The Evolution Of A Drugs Baron?'), so I don't expect that Douglas ever expected to hear the words 'north Wales paedophile ring covered up by people at the highest levels of Gov't with connections to the security services' ever again.
In 1997 Douglas became Chair of British Invisibles (now 'International Financial Services London') and in 1998 he was Chair of the judges for the Booker Prize.
In Sept 1999 Hurd was appointed High Sheriff of Westminster Abbey. Douglas has been a long-standing and active member of the Church of England. Which of course now takes the safeguarding of children very seriously, things have changed/not like the 70s/couldn't happen now, we've got Douglas Hurd and Elizabeth Butler-Sloss on board.
Douglas Chaired the Hurd Commission, which reviewed the roles and functions of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Hurd was Chair of the Advisory Council of something called FIRST, an 'international affairs organisation'. I cannot find out anything about it, so it is probably incredibly sordid, even by Douglas's standards.
Douglas is Patron of the Burford School-Uganda link.
Hurd has been married twice – the first time was in 1960. He and his wife separated in 1976 and divorced in 1982. His former wife Tatiana observed that 'politics don't mix with marriage'. The combination obviously works for some people though, because in 1982 Douglas married Judy Smart who was his former Parliamentary secretary, who was 19 years his junior. Who will have known about the appalling things in which Douglas involved himself. Judy died of leukemia some years ago.
Hurd's son Nick is married to Clare, the daughter of Michael Ancrum aka the 13th Marquess of Lothian – Ancrum is currently the only Marquess in the Lords. When Ann Widdecombe was toadying her way up through the ranks of the Tory Party as described in her autobiography 'Strictly Ann', she spent a great deal of time ingratiating herself to Ancrum and his family and friends. Ann was really impressed with how posh they all were. Ancrum was called to the Scottish Bar in 1979 and worked as an advocate until 1979, when he was elected Tory MP for Edinburgh South. In 1987 Ancrum was elected Tory MP for Devizes. He took over the seat from Sir Charles Morrison, brother of Sir Peter, who was busy with the kids in care in north Wales at the time. The Morrison family seat and estates are in Wiltshire. Ancram was Chair of the Tory Party, Oct 1998-Sept 01. Which neatly covered the duration of the Waterhouse Inquiry and its aftermath.
Ancrum and his wife Jane – the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, Widdecombe knew all about the aristocratic in-laws – are Roman Catholics and Jane is Patron of the Right To Life Trust. A right that wasn't enjoyed by some of the witnesses to Peter Morrison's activities Jane. Ancrum went to school at Ampleforth – the place that now lives under the shadow of more and more allegations about the conduct of the monks toward the boys there. Ancrum might not have been one of the more sensitive kids at Ampleforth though – whilst he was at Christ Church College, Oxford, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club.
Wikileaks revealed that Ancrum was Chair of Le Cercle, a rather mad and sinister 'foreign policy think tank' concerned with 'international security' which numbers some rather mad and sinister people among its membership. Jonathan Aitken was involved with it.
Hurd's daughter-in-law Catherine (known as Sian), Thomas Hurd's wife, died in unclear circumstances in 2012. The family were living in New York City – Thomas Hurd was coming to the end of a three year posting with the UN Security Council – when Catherine fell to her death in the early hours of the morning from the roof of their house. She had climbed up a ladder and through a hatch to reach the roof. She and Thomas had gone to bed about midnight and Thomas woke up in the early hours, found that she was not beside him so went off to look for her. He found her body in the garden between 3-4 am. The inquest heard that Catherine had suffered a 'sudden nervous breakdown' in 2007 from which she recovered quickly and didn't discuss at length. Before she died she had seemed fine and no-one had any idea at all that she was at all upset about anything. Catherine did not leave a suicide note and because she fell to her death in the middle of the night no-one saw her fall, so there were no witnesses. Catherine's father is a Top Doctor who gave evidence at the inquest that the small quantities of very mild benzodiapines that she had recently taken could have caused an 'altered mental state'. Thomas stated that at the time of Catherine's death they were about to move house and had packed up their belongings and that could have been distressing. Yes, one valium and my goods packed up into a few boxes and I too am prone to climbing up ladders and through hatches into roofs in the small hours and chucking myself off roofs. The coroner returned an open verdict because I don't think that there was an option of a 'what the hell has gone on here' verdict.
The names of both Thomas and Douglas Hurd appeared on the internet as suspected MI6 operatives. The allegations were of course nonsense and the fact that some very improbable names appeared on the list alongside them meant that it was all the work of a 'poorly informed amateur', not a disgruntled MI5 or MI6 employee as some people claimed. And there's no evidence of a paedophile ring involving Westminster figures which was concealed by people who worked in the Home Office either.
Thomas's brother Nick – the Tory MP – previously worked as an advisor to Tim Yeo who was Tory MP for Suffolk South, 1983-2015. Tim Yeo was PPS to one Douglas Hurd between 1988-90, when Hurd was Home Secretary. I came across Tim's name a few days ago when I was reading documents concerning the Leicestershire Child Abuse Scandal (there will be a post naming some more of the people involved in the Leicestershire Scandal soon). In 1992 after the shit hit the fan in the wake of Frank Beck's conviction and imprisonment, one Tim Yeo was the junior Minister in the Department of Health who was responsible for residential children's homes. Despite the mountains of evidence that emerged from Frank Beck's trial that the children's homes of Leicestershire had been rife with the serious abuse of children and the evidence pouring in from Islington, Lambeth and north Wales that the abuse of kids in care was a major problem, Tim decided not to implement a policy of reviewing children's homes from which children were regularly running away although it was felt by many advisors that this would highlight homes where sexual abuse of children was a problem.
Between 1980-83 Tim Yeo was Chief Exec of the Spastics Society, now known as Scope. There was a problem with abuse of people in the care of Scope…David Hanson worked for Scope 1982-89. I will be returning to Tim Yeo in a future post – Tim who had to resign from John Major's Cabinet in the wake of those revelations about his five mistresses and illegitimate children.
Douglas Hurd's father Anthony Hurd married Stephanie Corner. Stephanie's father was a Top Doctor, a surgeon called Edred Moss Corner. Edred Corner's own father was a Top Doctor in Yorkshire, but Edred was born in London and went to school at Epsom College. Edred read medicine at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and did his clinical training at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. After qualifying, Edred worked at Tommy's and Leeds General Infirmary. He established a successful Harley Street practice and was on the staff of Great Ormond Street Hospital as well as of Purley and Wood Green Hospitals. Edred was also surgeon to Epsom College. He was Vice-President of the Medical Society of London and a member of the Harveian Society, as well as a leading light in the BMA. Edred sat on the Board of Advanced Studies at the University of London.
One of Edred's esteemed works was the volume 'Diseases of the Male Generative Organs'.
Edred had a touch of the Sir Charles Evans about him. Like Sir Charles, Edred was a Top Doctor who was a keen mountaineer. Like Sir Charles, Edred was clobbered by a neurodegenerative disease mid-career which stopped him from continuing to practice as a surgeon. Whereas Sir Charles Evans was given Bangor University to play with as a booby prize when he retired from surgery, Edred was given a job as superintendent of a convalescent home. Edred had three children, two daughters and a son. One of Edred's daughters married Douglas Hurd's dad, but my antennae certainly started twitching when I found out who Edred's son – Hurd's uncle – was. He was Edred Henry Corner, a very well known tropical botanist who was Professor of Tropical Botany at Cambridge, 1965-73 and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College from 1959.
So Prof Edred Henry Corner will have known Prof Greig-Smith, the plant ecologist who was a Professor in the School of Plant Biology at Bangor University – where I did my first degree! When I complained about Gwynne the lobotomist and his highly inappropriate conduct. The man who referred me to Gwynne the lobotomist, the corrupt GP Dr D.G.E. Wood, ran the Student Health Centre and was the first person to subject me to a barrage of threats when Brown and I complained about the lobotomist. Wood was married to Dr Chris Wood – she was a lecturer in the School of Plant Biology! My housemate, who was killed in a car crash shortly after I started discussing with her what was happening to me at the hands of Wood and his colleagues, was a PhD student in the School of Zoology. Ann's former boyfriend Geoff was left brain damaged and paralysed in the crash – Geoff had been in the front passenger seat. Geoff was one of Greig-Smith's Masters students! Some weeks before Ann was killed, D.G.E. Wood told me that he always recognised Ann's car because it was a white VW Beetle which had big pictures of choughs on it.
No-one actually liked Prof Greig-Smith, but they were all very frightened of him. He was the biggest name in plant ecology in the UK and effectively invented quantitative ecology. Grieg-Smith trained at Cambridge and still had many mates there. It was the presence of Greig-Smith in the School of Plant Biology which was entirely responsible for Bangor having such a good reputation for botany in those days. There was much bad feeling in the year that I graduated because a mature female student who was a personal friend of Greig-Smith was given a First – some of the lecturers let it slip that no-one felt that her work was worthy of a First but she was a friend of Grieg-Smith. She was then offered a place to do a PhD with D.G.E. Wood's wife! This lady was married to a man whom Wood et al considered worth getting to know – he was Ian Kennaway, the Director of Regions for the National Trust. In 1990 Ian Kennaway founded and was the first Chairman of The Friends of Czech Heritage. A Patron of The Friends of Czech Heritage is Greg Hands, who has been the Tory MP for Chelsea and Fulham since 2010. Greg Hands was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and then became Minister of State for International Trade, working with Secretary of State Dr Liam Fox. Fox is of course a Top Doctor and a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Fox has been the Tory MP for North Somerset since 1992. D.G.E. Wood's family are from the north Somerset area and Wood went to medical school at Bristol University. Wood has held many senior offices in the Royal College of General Practitioners. Liam Fox was elected to Parliament days before the five witnesses to the wrongdoing of Wood and his colleagues were killed by the firebomb. Between 1993-94 Fox was PPS to Home Secretary Michael Howard – who at the time was finishing off Mary Wynch…
Greg Hands is now Minister for London.
As for Gay Kennaway, the recipient of the ill-deserved First in Marine Botany all those years ago – I was going to put out an appeal for her to tell us what she knows, but Burke's peerage states that she died earlier this year.
A paedophile ring and a prostitution racket exposed – you never thought that it would get this embarrassing did you Wood?
Prof Greig-Smith died in 2002. He had a son, Peter. Peter Grieg-Smith was a Top Doctor in Liverpool.
Douglas Hurd is the Patron of the pro-EU European Movement. Now there's a bit of ammo for the Brexiteers…
Back to Sir Clive Whitmore of the Dept for Encouraging Forged Documentation. Sir Clive did well for himself on the gongs front. He was awarded a CVO in the new Years Honours of 1983, a KCB in the 1983 Birthday Honours and a GCB in the 1988 Birthday Honours.
In 1995 Sir Clive turned up as Chancellor of De Montfort University. In 1995 Brown was hounded out of his job at Aston University but managed to get another job – at De Montfort University.
Before I fled north Wales, when my lawyers were collecting witness statements from the people who were brave enough to testify to what they had seen happening to me at the hands of the NHS and social services, all the people involved were subsequently threatened or harassed. Brown provided one of the statements. A letter subsequently arrived at De Montfort University, informing the senior managers that Brown was a 'known paedophile' and had committed many offences when he worked at Aston University but hadn't been caught (see post 'A Nasty Ludicrous Poison Pen Letter'). (So he could hardly have been a 'known' paedophile then could he?) The letter was signed Sylvia Grenalda. Brown and co did they all could to trace Sylvia, all databases were searched, but there was no trace of her. Sylvia, where are you? We need you to come forward!
Obviously the wrongdoing at the Home Office didn't start with Hurd and Whitmore – Leon Brittan was Home Secretary prior to Hurd and unlike Hurd whom many people do not realise was overseeing the forging of documents and framing of the victims of crime, Leon Brittan hasn't got a reputation left to lose. Brittan has been the subject of allegations of the rape of a young woman as well as the sexual abuse of children. I don't have evidence that he was guilty of any of that but by the time that Dafydd et al had started trying to fit me up with the assistance of Douglas Hurd's bunch at the Home Office, I was fully aware that this sort of thing had been going on for a long time. This was how Dafydd et al routinely conducted business – it was why they were so affronted when I challenged them about it. Brown has always been a lot more savvy than me and when in 1987 Dafydd tried to threaten me with incarceration in Risley Remand Centre if I didn't drop my complaints about him and then when that didn't work tried to bribe me, I commented to Brown 'how on earth has he got the nerve to do this?'. Brown replied 'because he's done it before and it's worked'. Spot on Brown, you were quite right. But even Brown didn't know how bad this lot were and just how high up their corruption went.
Another little anecdote. Someone else heard some of the phone conversations between Dafydd and me and knew what was going on – Brown's brother. Brown's brother accompanied me to the North Wales Hospital Denbigh one day to make enquiries when my letters and complaints were just ignored. A near hysterical administrator stated that Dafydd wasn't on the premises and they didn't know when he next would be – neither did anyone know where he was. So we went back to the car – to find Alun Davies parked immediately behind us. Davies then trailed us bumper to bumper right off the grounds and down the road. Some months later Brown's brother had a nasty experience. He was standing outside a motorway service station late at night, by himself, in the garden bit near the motorway slip road and a car with a number of men in drove straight towards him at break-neck speed and tried to run him over. Very fortunately he was next to a hedge – he literally jumped into it. He told me what had happened days later – it was a tale of do you know someone definitely tried to kill me the other night and I don't even know who they were….
Davies: after Brown's brother nearly died in a motorbike crash caused by someone driving into him carelessly some months later, he and his wife left the UK. They have been abroad ever since. There will be no clue on this blog as to what names they are using or where on the planet they are you worthless piece of crap.
The Home Office under Brittan was later revealed to have been thoroughly rotten. Thatcher was using the police as her own private army and there were many high points, including he Battle of the Beanfield in June 1985 when the police beat up New Age Travellers – including women who were holding babies and young children – and smashed the windows of their vehicles for the hell of it; the dismissal of appeals from the high profile victims of miscarriages of justice; the intimidation of the Manchester University students by police officers which was so serious that one of the students fled to Europe; the stream of innocent people in south Wales who were framed by the police only to be released years later on appeal – many of the serious crimes for which they were framed remained unsolved; the violence of the police towards striking miners and the framing of some of the pickets for offences; the rampant corruption of drug squads across the UK.
Another celebrated event of the Leon Years was Geoffrey Dickens MP compiling a dossier of Westminster figures whom he claimed were involved with the serious abuse of children. Dickens maintained that the people behind this had links to organised crime and were also involved with child porn and big time drug dealing. Geoffrey Dickens was so pissed off at the lack of action that he threatened to name some of the people whom he alleged were involved in the House. Dickens was roundly mocked, denounced and accused of anti-semitism by a Greville Janner. Leon subsequently 'lost' the dossier, claimed that he couldn't remember a number of crucial facts relating to the dossier, then did remember a few things. The dossier did not turn up and more recently it was discovered that quite a few files from the Home Office relating to the alleged abuse of children by Westminster and Whitehall figures had gone for a walk.
So who was the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office whilst the police beat up who they wanted, framed people when they felt like it and when files with the names of members of the Westminster Paedophile Ring – which of course had never existed – disappeared? It was Sir Brian Cubbon.
Cubbon was Permanent Secretary, 1979-88 and served three Home Secretaries – Willie Whitelaw, Leon Brittan and for a time, Douglas Hurd. In old age Cubbon joked that the Home Office must have been fit for purpose at the time because he and the three Home Secretaries were all 'Trinity men' (as in Trinity College, Cambridge). They all concealed a gang of paedophiles as well.
Cubbon's CV matched that of Robin Butler in terms of always being at the scene. After Bury Grammar School and Trinity College, Cubbon joined the civil service. He joined the Home Office during the last months of the Attlee Gov't and was then seconded to the Cabinet Office, 1961-62 when Macmillan was PM. No doubt Cubbon knew about the weekends at Cliveden where teenaged call girls, Russian spies and Gov't Ministers enjoyed themselves. In 1968 Cubbon was appointed Private Secretary to Jim Callaghan – who most certainly when he was PM concealed child abuse in north Wales – when Callaghan was Home Secretary. Cubbon was at the centre of the action in 1969 when the balloon went up in Ulster – Cubbon was at the Home Office at the time, which was responsible for N Ireland. The Home Office was also directly responsible for the management of Approved Schools such as Bryn Estyn and Axwell Park in Gateshead. In 1969 child abuse was flourishing at Axwell Park under Matt Arnold and Peter Howarth – both of whom were transferred to work at Bryn Estyn in 1973 where they established a truly impressive regime which was one of the hubs of the paedophile gang busy in north Wales/Cheshire.
Cubbon moved to the Cabinet Office in 1971 and in 1976 was appointed Permanent Secretary in the N Ireland Office. In July 1976 Cubbon was caught in a bomb blast in Ireland which killed the British Ambassador to Ireland Christopher Ewart-Biggs and Cubbon's Private Secretary Judith Cooke. Cubbon was responsible for orchestrating the maintenance of direct rule from Westminster in the absence of a political settlement, whilst Merlyn Rees was Secretary of State for N Ireland. Merlyn Rees's next post was Home Secretary in Jim Callaghan's Gov't – during which time he concealed the paedophile gang in north Wales (see post 'The Most Dangerous Man In The World – Part III').
Prior to the 1979 General Election, it was speculated that if re-elected Callaghan would make Cubbon Cabinet Secretary. In the event Thatcher won the election and made Robert Armstrong Cabinet Secretary – another man who knew a great deal (see post 'Lord Robert Armstrong'). Armstrong had been Permanent Secretary at the Home Office and Thatch appointed Cubbon to take his place, to work alongside dear old Willie Whitelaw. Who had concealed the paedophile gang for years and continued to do so.
In April 1982 when the Buck House intruder Michael Fagan found himself sitting in the Queen's bedroom having a chat with her, Cubbon suggested to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir David McNee that he should resign. McNee later described this as 'improper and impertinent behaviour'. I've been quite taken with the notion of impertinent behaviour since last summer when I received a copy of a completely mad letter that Dafydd had written concerning my presence in Ysbyty Gwynedd in June 1988. Dafydd had experienced the trauma of being asked by me when he was going to respond to my complaints and as a result he wrote to the Assistant Director of Nursing at Ysbyty Gwynedd demanding that I should be held on a ward, not allowed out and guarded at all times. The Assistant Director of Nursing had written a polite letter back to Dafydd, explaining that to do this would not only be unwarranted but illegal. Dafydd fired off a furious completely irrational reply, accusing this man of 'gross impertinence' and recommending that someone should face disciplinary action because I had actually asked him to explain himself (see post 'The Blog Post That Was Hacked Can Now Be Read'). In the weeks following Dafydd's crazed demands, the psychiatrists in Ysbyty Gwynedd formed themselves into a Secretariat. Tony Francis appointed himself the Secretary of the Secretariat and they spent much time and trouble writing to each other as well as to the MDU, the BMA and the senior managers of Gwynedd Health Authority, formulating a method as to how they could have me transferred to a secure unit. Even the Mental Health Act Commission were involved in the Cunning Plan. It was of course all predicated on them claiming that I had violently attacked numerous people – which their own lawyers had reminded them that they had no evidence for. Tony Francis even wrote to the Dr D.J.C. Davies, the Chief Administrative Medical Officer for Gwynedd Health Authority, demanding that they pay his travelling expenses for his visits to the MDU – the Health Authority was happy to oblige.
In 1986 Cubbon had to handle the fall-out over the comments of the Chief Constable of Manchester, James Anderton, who publicly stated that people with HIV/AIDS were 'swirling around in a cesspool of their own making'. At the time police corruption in Anderton's force was endemic and some of that corruption was assisting Dafydd and the paedophiles (see post 'Top Of The Cops').
In 1979 Thomas Tyrell-Kenyon spent the night at the Crest Hotel in Wrexham with a boy in care in north Wales. The following morning Tyrell-Kenyon alleged that the boy had robbed him and called the police. The boy was sent to a detention centre. The boy's social worker recorded on his file that he was known to be having homosexual sex with Tyrell-Kenyon. Tyrell-Kenyon was not charged with any offence. In 1993 Tyrell-Kenyon died of an AIDS related illness. Tyrell-Kenyon's father, Lord Lloyd Tyrell-Kenyon, was a member of the North Wales Police Authority, a Magistrate, a member of Clwyd Health Authority and a Flintshire County Councillor. The boy – well a man by now – gave evidence to the Waterhouse Inquiry that Tyrell-Kenyon had used him for sex on many occasions.
When Cubbon was asked in recent years about the business of Leon losing that dossier concerning organised child abuse that Geoffrey Dickens had given him, Cubbon stated that he had 'no recollection at all' of the Dickens dossier.
Cubbon helped start Haklynt, a company 'supplying foreign political and commercial information to corporate clients'. He Chaired the Disaster Emergency Committee from 1989. In 1995 Cubbon served on the Press Complaints Commission and in 1996 was the PCC's Charter Commissioner.
Cubbon was also active in the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Thatcher's Principal Private Secretary, 1985-88 was Sir Nigel Wicks. Sir Nigel's main interest is the accumulation of enormous amounts of money, so he probably got on with Thatcher very well. Wicks went to Beckenham and Penge Grammar School and joined BP in 1958 when he was 18 years old. Whilst at BP he did an London University MA with Portsmouth College of Technology (now the University of Portsmouth). In 1969 Wicks joined the Treasury and was seconded to the PM's office as Principal Private Secretary, 1975-78. He worked for Wilson, then Callaghan. Wicks then moved to the British Embassy in Washington DC where he was the UK's Executive Director of the IMF and IBRD, 1983-85.
Wicks then worked as Thatch's Principal Private Secretary. Whilst Sir Peter Morrison was Minister of State for Employment, Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister of State for Energy. Throughout this time, the Welsh Office concealed the abuse of children in care and the abuse of mental health patients and the serious crime associated with this, which involved the Home Office. I doubt that Nigel was that concerned – not when there was dosh to be made.
Nigel then returned to the Treasury as Second Permanent Secretary, responsible for International Finance, where he remained until he retired in 2000.
Following his retirement from the civil service, Nigel was Chair of CRESTCo until in 2001 it merged with Euroclear, of which Wicks was Deputy Chair, 2002-06, then Chair. He was a non-executive director of Morgan Stanley, 2004-07 and of the Edinburgh Investment Trust from 2005.
Between 2001-04 Sir Nigel was Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Who better to hold that position than a man who played a central role in concealing a paedophile gang which trafficked children to Europe for sex work and murdered people who blabbed?
In 2005 Sir Nigel Chaired the panel appointing the initial members of the newly-created Judicial Appointments Commission.
In 2007 Sir Nigel was appointed Commissioner of the Jersey Financial Services Commission and in 2012 he became the Chair of the British Bankers Association.
No wonder those kids died.
Nigel's collection of gongs consists of: CBE in Callaghan's Resignation Honours, 1979; CVO in the 1989 New Year's Honours; KCB in the 1992 New Year's Honours; GCB in the 1999 New Year's Honours.
The shitbaggery found among Principal Private Secretaries to the PM has a long and fine tradition. Sir Kenneth Stowe was Principal Private Secretary to Wilson, Callaghan and for a short time Thatcher, 1975-79.
Kenneth Stowe attended Dagenham County High School and then Exeter College, Oxford. He joined the civil service as an Assistant Principal in the National Assistance Board and in 1956 became a Principal. In 1958 Stowe was seconded to the UN Secretariat in New York. Upon his return he became the Press Officer to the National Assistance Board and justified the refusal by successive Gov't to pay pensions to the over 80s who had been excluded by the National Insurance Act of 1948. Stowe became an Assistant Secretary in 1964 and remained in the machine when the National Assistance Board merged with the Ministry of Health in 1966 and in 1968 when the DHSS was created.
In 1970 Stowe became Assistant Under-Secretary at the DHSS and then in 1973 he joined the Cabinet Office – whilst Heath was PM – at Under-Secretary level. In 1975 Wilson's Principal Private Secretary left No 10 and Cabinet Secretary John Hunt proposed that Stowe should replace him. It was considered an unusual appointment – Principal Private Secretaries usually come from the Treasury or at least have Treasury experience. Stowe had spent virtually his whole career in the DHSS and the departments which preceded it and had no Treasury experience at all.
Sir Kenneth is described in glowing terms in his obituaries as completely loyal and the man who kept the Gov't running smoothly, although a few things did slip through that he was unable to stop. Such as Harold Wilson's 1976 Resignation Honours, the 'Lavender List', thus called because it was alleged to have been written by Wilson's weirdly sinister Political Secretary Marcia Williams aka Lady Falkender on the tinted notepaper that she was known to favour. The Lavender List included some very unwise choices, even by the standards of the UK honours system – such as Joe Kagan, the man who manufactured Wilson's favourite brand of raincoat and who later went to prison for fraud and Sir Eric Miller, a property magnate who committed suicide less than a year later whilst the subject of a criminal investigation. The civil servants who saw the Lavender List were horrified and put their faith in Stowe to ensure that some of the names were removed. They weren't. Which just confirmed many people's suspicions that Wilson was a crook and Marcia Williams knew so much that he didn't dare upset her.
Stowe was central to the negotiations which led to the Lib-Lab in 1977 between Callaghan and David Steel and drafted the agreement between them. Stowe attended the regular dinners that Callaghan had with Len Murray of the TUC and business leaders to discuss economic issues. As things disintegrated during the Winter of Discontent 1978-79 many insiders maintained that it was Stowe who held the Gov't machinery together. Stowe personally conducted negotiations with Len Murray.
Whilst Stowe worked for Callaghan, Sunny Jim was chuffed to be invited to join the Athenaeum, the club favoured by Top Doctors – of which Jimmy Savile was a member, having been introduced by Cardinal Basil Hume. Callaghan accepted the invitation and was then shocked to receive a hefty bill. He paid it nonetheless and then took Stowe to the Athenaeum.
Stowe inducted his successor Sir Clive Whitmoor into the job after Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979 and then took up the post of Permanent Secretary at the N Ireland Office. In that post Stowe had to manage the Troubles and events such as the hunger strikers in the Maze Prison. In late 1980 Stowe made a list of gestures that Thatcher's Gov't might make to end the hunger strikes in the Maze. The list was passed to IRA contacts via an MI6 agent – the MI6 agent waited in Stowe's official car to receive the list, such was the fear that he'd be kidnapped. Not that Thatcher's Gov't ever talked to the IRA of course.
In 1981 Stowe returned to the DHSS as Permanent Secretary. He remained there until his retirement in 1987 and for much of the time worked with Secretary of State Norman Fowler. So Stowe was at the very top of the DHSS when the abuse in the children's homes in north Wales was concealed, whilst Dafydd was sued by Mary Wynch but kept his job and continued to illegally imprison other people, when psychiatric patients were being fitted up and sent to high security hospitals, whilst the London medical schools busied themselves with research fraud, whilst St George's Hospital Medical School employed a key player in a pan-European paedophile ring as their Professor of Paediatrics – you get the picture. I have detailed the crimes often enough by now.
Stowe's obituaries make for interesting reading. His Guardian obituary – written by Dennis Kavanagh the political analyst and Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool – stated that Stowe was 'motivated by a commitment to public service' and that there was an 'acute sense of crisis in the British Gov't in the 70s; at various times administrations seemed barely able to cope and some lost their heads'. Which was barely surprising really. However old Stowe was never in a flap. No of course he wasn't – he had so much dirt on absolutely everyone that he could control the whole lot of them. Stowe had worked in social security and health for years, he knew exactly what was happening to the great British public at the hands of those who care and then he went to work in the Cabinet Office with the politicians who would do just about anything to keep the gory reality quiet.
We are told in one of Stowe's obituaries that Stowe was 'one of the first to identify the problems of the NHS' – the problems included the power of the medical profession, the drug companies running rings around the NHS regarding the pricing of their drugs and the expensive generous early retirement NHS scheme which was costing the Gov't a packet and which resulted in the beneficiaries of early retirement returning to their former jobs to double their money. Did Stowe actually remedy any of these things? No. They're still happening today. Stowe could have stopped it virtually overnight. The arrests of Dafydd, Tony Francis, Robert Blugass, Chris Hunter and the rest of them as well as their accessories would have put the Gov't in the driving seat of the NHS and the abuses would have come to an end. But because there were politicians and civil servants abusing some of the kids who were being trafficked for sex, Stowe the loyal public servant put himself and his colleagues first. They all remained in clover, as did the Top Doctors – the kids in care and the patients were shafted.
My suspicions about the methods that Stowe, King of the DHSS, used to wield power were confirmed when I read that Stowe was the 'master of disclosure and discretion'. Translate as 'blackmail and bribery'.
What is recorded as Stowe's greatest triumph during his time as Permanent Secretary at the DHSS? It was the HIV/AIDS public education campaign of course – the success of which was attributed to Stowe and Norman Fowler. It is recorded that Stowe, with the Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong, arranged for Willie Whitelaw to Chair a special committee therefore spurring on the AIDS/HIV campaign. I explained in my post 'Professor Prestigious And His Associates' how the dreadful Sir Donald Acheson, Chief Medical Officer, had to spell out in words of one syllable to the Cabinet that their colleagues who were having sex with rent boys were now very much at risk from an infection for which there was no treatment and would kill them. That was the reason why this mad, hypocritical Gov't which was virulently homophobic but made allowances for Peter Morrison and many others supported a public education that initially appalled them.
Stowe kept busy after he retired. He Chaired the Carnegie UK Trust's Inquiry into the Third Age, 1989-93; he served on a commission set up by Mandela to establish a civil service in Africa; he Chaired the Thrombosis Research Institute; was Director of the Chase Children's Hospice; and in 1997 when Blair was elected, Stowe Chaired the Working Group from the voluntary and community sector on the compact with Gov't and the Treasury Group on funding the voluntary sector.
Sir Kenneth was also Chair of the Institute for Cancer Research at the Royal Marsden, 1987-97.
There is an Angel who has done very well indeed out of the Institute for Cancer Research. That is Professor Dame Jessica Corner. Dame Jessica was the Institute's first nursing academic, the first nurse appointed to a Chair at the Institute! Dame Jess is currently PVC for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Nottingham University.
So what path did the Dame take to reach these heights? She began life as an Angel in London, worked at the Royal Marsden, then in 1990 either began or received a PhD at/from Kings College, London. The Dame spent many wonderful years at Southampton University. That's the Southampton University that contained so many of the paedophiles' friends in senior positions and at which I and someone from Aberystwyth University had such a bizarre experience with in the late 1980s (see post 'Professor Prestigious And His Associates'). In 2005 the Dame was seconded to Macmillan Cancer Support and in 2008 she returned to Southampton. Between 2010-15 the Dame was Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Southampton. The Dame is described as a 'world leading expert in cancer and palliative care'. The UK has some of the worst outcomes in Europe for cancer and UK palliative care is dreadful. The Dame is an advisor to Macmillan Cancer Support and to the NHS. In 2012 the Dame was a member of the PM's Nursing and Care Quality Forum; she is a member of the Dept of Health's Cancer Reform Strategy for England and Chairs the Patient Experience Working Group.
I wonder of readers might have noticed the Dame's surname – Corner. Er – remember Douglas Hurd's famous grandfather Edred Moss Corner, the surgeon? And the plum jobs that all members of Hurd's extended family seem to bag for themselves? Could the Dame possibly be one of the clan? I bet that she is – cancer research is ridden with research fraud, malpractice, nepotism and huge professional snobbery from the Top Docs towards the Angels. Angels don't become Professors at the Royal Marsden or Dames for being excellent Angels or outstanding cancer researchers – but they'd have a bloody good chance if they were relatives of Douglas Hurd who had sat in the Home Office whilst they were still Angels and concealed a mountain of crap. Particularly as one of the offenders – David Lidington – was also rising to high office. He was Minister of State for Europe in 2014 when the Angel became a Dame.
Whilst we are on the subject of Family Fortunes, I note that the flattering obituary of the git that was Kenneth Stowe was written by a man called Kavanagh. Edred Moss Corner's son the botanist Edred Henry Corner married a Sheila Kavanagh. I have no idea if there is a connection, but we're not talking meritocracy here, nepotism is the order of the day. The Top Doctor Edred Moss Corner divorced his first wife in the early 1950s yet retained custody of the children, although he was in poor health and too busy to look after them, a la Dafydd. It's the Top Doctors up to no good again… Edred Moss then married his children's nanny. Edred's son the botanist Edred Henry seemed to have carried on the family tradition of being dysfunctional – Edred completely rejected his own son John K. Corner when John was 19 years old. John never saw his father again but later wrote a book about him.
So John Hunt the Cabinet Secretary who suggested that Wilson appoint Kenneth Stowe as his Principal Private Secretary played a blinder. But then John Hunt would. John Hunt was one of the most powerful Cabinet Secretaries that there has been – he was described as 'an imperialist who relished expanding the power of his remit' with 'an uncanny mastery of procedure and ability to steer meetings to the conclusion he wished'.
Hunt served as Cabinet Secretary under Heath, Wilson, Callaghan and Thatcher. He went to Downside School and then to Magdalene College, Cambridge. Hunt served in the Navy during the war – just like Jim Callaghan did. He joined the Cabinet Office in 1972 as the Deputy to Burke Trend and succeeded Trend in 1973 and spent six and a half years as Cabinet Secretary before retiring. Guess what? Even John Hunt failed to stop the Lavender List, although he was described as being 'particularly close to Wilson'.
Hunt ended up in the Lords where he was very active. He Chaired the European Communities Committee of the Lords and in 1994 was instrumental in producing a report on fraud in the EU, which he estimated cost £5 billion pa. He was highly critical of the Council of Ministers for not stopping it.
John Hunt came from Minehead – so he will have known all about Jeremy Thorpe (see post 'My How Things Haven't Changed'). Thorpe was something to be negotiated with in the Lib Lab pact – as I'm sure were Cyril Smith, Greville Janner, George Thomas and a few other people. Hunt was a Roman Catholic – the only Cabinet Secretary to have been a Catholic. After Hunt's first wife died he remarried – in 1973. He married Madeleine Charles – the widowed sister of Cardinal Basil Hume, to whom it is said, Hunt became a 'discreet and valued counsellor'.
Early on in his career Hunt was given the advice by a senior civil servant to 'go for a position in the pivotal centre of the Gov't machine'. Hunt was such a wily operator that when he took a few days off work in the mid-70s, Harold Wilson joked that Hunt was probably arranging for Basil Hume to become the next Archbishop of Westminster. Guess who became the next Archbishop of Westminster?
John Hunt picked up his peerage in 1980. Just after Thorpe was found not guilty of attempting to murder Norman Scott.
In terms of the corruption that existed at the Home Office throughout all the years that the above account spans, the presence of one civil servant alone suggests that there was a massive, long-standing problem – Bing Spear, who was employed by the Home Office Drugs Branch. Bing Spear was employed as a Drugs Inspector in the Home Office from 1952 until he retired in 1986. For decades he held very senior roles at the Home Office and he was Chief Inspector of the Drugs Branch. Any reading of Spear's conduct both in and outside of his work leads to the conclusion that he was almost certainly corrupt, involved with the supplying of Class A drugs and was probably an addict himself. Bing Spear was notorious – his behaviour stood out a mile. There is no chance that all these mandarins did not know what Bing Spear was doing. For more details of Spear and the corrupt Top Doctors that he protected, see post 'Little Things Hitting Each Other'.
Other papers released from the National Archives the other day include papers relating to the radioactive gas cloud from Chernobyl that passed over Wales in April 1986. There was chaos because most of the Cabinet were on holiday or overseas. The Environment Secretary at the time was William Waldegrave – after this sterling performance Waldegrave was later given the job as Health Secretary. In which post he showed exactly the same level of contempt for Wales.
Papers released from the National Archives also show that Andrew Turnbull had written a memo with advice to the Kinnocks – it was widely believed that Labour would win the General Election in 1992. The advice included telling the Kinnocks that they would need to spend more on clothes. Well they've ended up living like kings anyway, I'm sure that the First Family of Troughing spend quite enough on clothes. I'm not sure how the Tories did win in 1992 – there will no doubt have been the most appalling catalogue of dirty tricks used and events in north Wales will have played a major part because reports of the paedophile gang had begun appearing in the London-based media. Kinnock and co knew about the paedophile ring in north Wales and Peter Morrison but they said not a word. I suspect because they'd all been keeping quiet about George Thomas down in Cardiff…
One document that was released from the archives was a letter that Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, had written in September 1987 to Senator Mooney in Ireland. Paddy had made the observation that 'the British system don't know how to spell the word JUSTICE never mind dispensing it'. At the time that Paddy was writing that letter, I had narrowly escaped being imprisoned for attempting to stab that doctor in Ysbyty Gwynedd. The plot went as high as the Home Office.
Radio 4 broadcast a programme yesterday in which they discussed the 1992 papers that had been released. This blog's old favourites were interviewed, including Charlie Falconer. Falconer banged on about how in 1992 he was still working as a barrister and there was a crisis of confidence in British justice after so many people had to be released on appeal after spending years in prison for crimes that they had not committed. That's right Charlie – and as far as concealing the abuses and miscarriages of justice associated with the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal was concerned you and Blair continued the process that caused such bad PR for the Tories. But you wrapped it up in the discourse of 'human rights', 'service user involvement' and 'supporting the NHS'.
Interesting though the latest releases from the National Archives are, the National Archives have a habit of retaining the best stuff until we're definitely all dead. Papers relating to the North Wales Hospital Denbigh and even the Mental Health Act Commission are closed for decades to come as are the papers on the Birmingham Six. Whilst reading about Ashworth Hospital for my post 'Security, Security' I found that huge quantities of papers relating to the Ashworth Inquiries – including the interviews with the Top Docs – are closed for the best part of the next 100 years.