In the Mail, naming numerous paedophile Ministers but Don Hale, the newspaper Editor who read the dossier but had it seized by Special Branch, says "it was 30 years ago so I can't remember the names". Just the kind of trivial thing we'd all forget I suppose. Sometimes I wonder...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2693635...ranch-heavy-mob.html

Wasn't Don Hale the editor of the Matlock Mercury - the man responsible for the freeing of Stephen Downey (by continual publicity and examining the "evidence")- who had been convicted of murdering Wendy Sewell ?

the hysterics seem to think that MI5 or Special Branch seize something it proves the claims.
But it could be they are preventing a deliberate plot to bring down innocent people.

Yes but wasn't exploding Babs, related by drink to passive-trumpet victim Roy, deemed conflict of disinterest by The Establishment behind the fridge, beyond the fringe?

DownING, ITK: yes indeed and a terrific job Hale did too. But I do sometimes think people become addicted to media attention.

In The Know wrote:
Wasn't Don Hale the editor of the Matlock Mercury - the man responsible for the freeing of Stephen Downey (by continual publicity and examining the "evidence")- who had been convicted of murdering Wendy Sewell ?

Don Hale, who is now 61, was in 2001 voted Journalist of the Year by What The Papers Say — an award normally reserved for reporters from the national media — for a brilliant campaign as editor of the Matlock Mercury in which he helped clear the name of a man who had wrongly been jailed for more than 20 years for a murder he did not commit.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697947...r.html#ixzz37vMimGLZ

Not someone who would get over excited JK ?

hedda wrote:
the hysterics seem to think that MI5 or Special Branch seize something it proves the claims.
But it could be they are preventing a deliberate plot to bring down innocent people.

a false "plot" would not bring down the innocent ... it would soon be exposed.

... and when did the police (at this level?) actually work to prevent a (civil) crime from happening? - we have libel laws that are just as effective for civil matters.

I'm more convinced by my theory that once people get a taste of acclaim they tend to reinvent stuff in order to get more praise. And surely Don, a decent hack, would not have let this lie dormant all these years? I re-iterate - nobody forgets names in a dossier like that (unless they get Alzheimers - or never really saw anyone worth mentioning).

Possibly .... I wonder if he still has the "D" notice ?

sorry, forgot link -

At this point, the officer produced a document, signed by a judge. It showed that his previous remark about not printing the story had not been a request, but an order. The document handed to Hale was a D-notice — a relic of wartime censorship that could be served on newspaper editors, allowing the Government to block any story that threatened national security.

‘If you don’t comply with this notice, we will arrest you for perverting the course of justice,’ the detective barked. ‘You will be liable for up to ten years in prison.’

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697947...r.html#ixzz37vY6AqY9

whilest on the subject -

Labour peer allegedly raped 4 year old 40 years ago !

... but the police got the wrong contact details - so have reported themselves to the IPCC ! (you couldn't make this up, could you?)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698139...our-decades-ago.html

In The Know wrote:
sorry, forgot link -

At this point, the officer produced a document, signed by a judge. It showed that his previous remark about not printing the story had not been a request, but an order. The document handed to Hale was a D-notice — a relic of wartime censorship that could be served on newspaper editors, allowing the Government to block any story that threatened national security.

‘If you don’t comply with this notice, we will arrest you for perverting the course of justice,’ the detective barked. ‘You will be liable for up to ten years in prison.’

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697947...r.html#ixzz37vY6AqY9

whilest on the subject -

Labour peer allegedly raped 4 year old 40 years ago !

... but the police got the wrong contact details - so have reported themselves to the IPCC ! (you couldn't make this up, could you?)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698139...our-decades-ago.html

Is there any hard evidence? Or just his word?

Pattaya wrote:
Is there any hard evidence? Or just his word?

I haven't read the entire story, Pat (they are all starting to sound very very similar aren't they?)

Person makes vague complaint to police. Huge publicity in press. Person's evidence enhanced by detail obtained through media. You couldn't make it up! Well, Max Clifford did, 14 years ago. A clever man. Though not quite as clever as he thought.

MI5 , Special Branch a law unto themselves.

Unless you are prescribing to the hysterical claims of Exaro who are bullying MPs into joining their pedo campaign. They claim the above 'seize' "dossiers" for other reasons.

I predict : these 'inquiries' will come to nothing.

## incidently one of Hale's tales (and full marks for his previous campaigns to release an innocent) was beaten up by tabloids re a "Tory grandee with a young boy video" with full frothing at the mouth except...when you got to the last paragraph Hales said basically "I knew the man well and it wasn't him in the video"!

but who cares about details?