'Darren': Another Country, Another Planet

POLICE probing a VIP child sex abuse ring faced serious questions last night as a vulnerable man at the centre of allegations said North Korea offered him asylum.

The 39-year-old, who uses the name Darren, says he was assaulted by Tory politicians at a central London flat.

He also says he was forced to take part in a satanic ritual at the French Embassy and claims to have been abused by Peter Righton, a former member of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

But Darren now refuses to co-operate with the Met or Suffolk Constabulary after his case was dropped following an 18-month probe.

It came after he refused to hand over medical records when he was asked about a history of mental health issues...

Darren now says only North Korea believe his story and have invited him to live out his years in Kim Jong-un’s murderous regime...

The Sun.

Panorama's The VIP Paedophile Ring: What's The Truth? is on BBC1 tonight.

PS 'Darren' has now fallen out with Exaro News, the main pusher of his absurd fantasies.

@ExaroNews just to say your behaviour lately towards me and others has been controlling and manipulative, wrong + morally reprehensible

— Darren Thornham (@DarrenCSAS) September 26, 2015

BBC News.


PPS Another man, 'David', tells Panorama he made up the charges against Leon Brittan as 'a joke suggestion at first', and was egged on by campaigners,

Update: David Aaronovitch in The Times on the appalling behaviour of self-appointed witchfinder general (and now frighteningly Labour deputy leader), Tom Watson, and his current silence.

George Michael: Careless Whispers

A former prison officer has admitted selling information about singer George Michael's time in prison to the Sun newspaper for £2,000.

Amanda Watts, 43, from Suffolk, pleaded guilty to one count of misconduct in public office and was told a prison sentence was "inevitable".

The Old Bailey heard that details of Michael's time in Highpoint Prison in 2010 led to five stories in the Sun.

Watts, who was arrested under Operation Elveden, will be sentenced next month.

Judge John Bevan QC told her: "You should understand the fact I'm bailing you until [16 October] is to enable you to make appropriate arrangements.

"A prison sentence is inevitable. I'm sure you understand."

The court heard she received £2,000 for the information she gave.

Operation Elveden is a Metropolitan Police investigation into alleged inappropriate payments by journalists to police and other public officials. 

BBC News.

Ms Watts was being paid around £400 a pop for such fascinating stories as what George may have had for lunch on his first day inside, pasta and chips, possibly.

Correction: The above pastagate story was (I think) from another leak when George was at Pentonville, Amanda Watts was a prison visitor at Highpoint. Soz.

VIP Paedophile Ring: Whatever Next?

A POLICE investigation into claims of murder by a VIP paedophile ring has been halted after detectives could find no evidence to support the allegations.

Officers from the Suffolk force became so worried by the behaviour of the “witness” who made the claims — known only as Darren — that they have referred his son to social services.

Darren has now said that he will no longer co-operate with the police. He had previously given lurid accounts of two incidents in which he claimed people died at the hands of a paedophile gang that included a senior Conservative politician.

His claims have been given widespread coverage in newspapers and on the internet. In July he was interviewed for an Australian television documentary, the 60 Minutes programme on Channel 9, during which he named a Conservative MP as being part of the gang.

The declaration that there is no evidence to support Darren’s claims is another setback to the campaign by the new deputy Labour leader Tom Watson and others to show that a paedophile ring once operated at the highest level of the government.

Last week it was reported in the Daily Mail that police had “grave doubts” over allegations by a second witness, known as “Nick”, who claimed to know of three murders by the gang, but officers could not find a “shred of credible evidence” to substantiate them.

In addition, a source has told The Sunday Times that Operation Midland — a separate investigation by the Metropolitan police into the alleged Westminster ring — is “going nowhere” because detectives can find no evidence to corroborate the stories of witnesses... 

Sunday Times.

Ho hum...

Operation Elveden: Keep Taking The Tabloids

I applaud legal fightbacks from famous people whose privacy is trashed, and relish the satire of Homer Simpson’s “if they didn’t want people pawing through their garbage and saying they’re gay, they shouldn’t have tried to express themselves creatively”.

There is plenty to dislike about British tabloids. They squawk confected outrage, they oversimplify, they pry into complicated private miseries, they do mean stings, some did hack phones. They cozen people in crisis to make fools of themselves. They are obsessed with the wobbly bits of women’s bodies, yet turn on a sixpence to deploy outraged Aunt-Agatha prudery whenever it suits them. They are capable of misjudged campaigns leading to real danger, like Rebekah Brooks’s name-and-shame paedo fiasco. They are sometimes racist, frequently homophobic, almost always sexist.

But they are vivid, economic forces of communication, and some headlines are brilliant (“How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea?”). They do expensive investigations. Their ease with the grittier end of society, their fellow-well-met pubbiness creates matey fellowship with coppers, prison officers, hospital porters, soldiers: people whose officer classes we definitely ought to know about.

The tabloid hack has no respect for authority, rules or notices; blags in, nips through windows, lies to get a story worth getting. Many have been well worth it, and picked up gratefully by the soft clean hands of the “quality” press and television.

Tabloid readers are not stupid. They don’t believe everything, they don’t approve of all exposés, they give generously to appeals, they smell injustice and callousness (as The Sun learnt the hard way, over Hillsborough). They just want bite-sized information, straightforward language and an irreverent laugh. Sometimes they are offered beautifully succinct political information, more useful than some cerebral analyses.

And though the red tops often deserve an outraged libel suit and contumely, they did not really deserve the targeted, legally dubious, vengeful and institutionally snobbish attacks of Elveden. As Lord Macdonald admitted: “It is simply obvious that there are circumstances in which it can be in the public interest for journalists to pay for information.” ...

Libby Purves, The Times.

S'pose so, yeah, sort of...

The Sun: We Never Forget

'Ex-CPS head Sir Keir Starmer (right) in London on Saturday'.

Great to see The Sun (On Sunday) covering yesterday's Save The Black Cap protest.

Strange they only mentioned it in a piece about their current whipping boy, the former Director Of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, now standing as a Labour Party PCC.

A FORMER chief prosecutor piled pressure on his successors last night as he blasted their £20 million witchhunt against journalists.

Sir Keir Starmer and CPS chief Alison Saunders were accused of making an “error” by hauling reporters into court.

Their predecessor Lord Macdonald spoke out after three more Sun newsmen were cleared of paying public officials.

It means 48 charges against Sun journalists probed by Operation Elveden as part of would-be Labour MP Sir Keir and Ms Saunders’ crusade have resulted in ZERO convictions...

The comments risk overshadowing Sir Keir’s bid to become Labour MP for the London seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Yesterday he joined locals protesting at the closure of the Black Cap gay pub in Camden.

Poor show by The Sun for not managing to shoehorn in another mention of Greville Janner this time, though.

Only connect...

Or am I reading too much into this?

The Sun: It Was The Sun Wot Won It!

The Sun.

Why oh why are the Crown Prosecution Service spending millions of public money going after decent honest journalists in pursuit of the truth and letting establishment nonces off the hook!!??? etc etc.

PS: This piece by Katie Hopkins, I'd Use Gunships To Stop Migrants, hasn't gone down very well...

Cue inevitable/intended Twitterstorm - Do people not realise that controversy is the currency of columnists like Katie?

Hopkins, Dinsmore and Murdoch must be pissing themselves.

Sack her? Bet she got a pay rise.

Oh, and comparing this appalling attention-seeking article to the Nazi holocaust or the Rwandan genocide is a little bit OTT.

Update...

Sun On Sunday: You couldn't make it up etc etc.