If you were a senior police officer and you found that the head of a charity, claiming to help sex abuse victims, was accused of raping a vulnerable girl, would you put two and two together and decide this needed serious investigation?

Especially if, then, a second woman claimed she had been raped by the same man?

And then, if you suspected that both were False Accusers, as so many are, would you simply stop your investigation there? Or would you consider it your responsibility to investigate further?

Likewise if you were the Crown Prosecution Service, would alarm bells ring out? Would you think - these are probably two more False Accusers (there are thousands of them) but, since the man does run a charity for vulnerable abuse victims and admits he did have sex with one of the accusers, perhaps we should investigate him, and his “charity”, further?

And if you were investigators for the Catholic Church, examining the backstory of someone appointed to a Commission on Sex Abuse by The Pope himself, and you discovered this man had dragged a vulnerable abuse victim into a public toilet and admitted using her for sex - claiming to have been drunk and that she was consenting, although she immediately accused him of rape - would you strongly suggest he should NOT be allowed onto any Inquiry calling for sex abuse victims to come forward to meet him?

Indeed, if you were on that Commission, and eventually heard about this, would you not, unanimously, decide to throw him off the panel?

My problem with all this is - why on earth would a commission NOT censure him publicly and inform the media, in order to avoid other innocent abuse victims from being drugged or plied with alcohol and raped in a public toilet?

Answer: because the man would squirm and wriggle and deny and make excuses and blame The Pope himself, somehow. He would say "I did not commit a crime" and, to be fair, he'd be quite right. Being the victim of a False Allegation is not a crime. Neither, technically, is having drunken consensual sex in a public toilet. But, if the partner is a young abuse victim and you are the Head of a Charity for Abuse Victims it must be seen, at very least, as a slight error of judgement.

Why would Manchester Police NOT investigate his charity - there could be other perverts working there, hiding in plain sight? Why would the CPS NOT say - hang on; this stinks?

Answer: because police only investigate False Allegations if they are SO blatant that the media will criticise them for failing to do so (“Nick”, also known as Carl Beech, also known as Stephen in a NAPAC backed TV documentary). Because, if it is discovered that police assisted witnesses, they, too, could fall under the spotlight (although “independent” bodies tend to absolve cops doing so - like saying “credible and true”). Because police and CPS want to keep those on the side of False Accusers on their side too, increasing conviction rates and budgets and getting promotion.

Why would the media, discovering all this, continue to book such people onto shows like Victoria Derbyshire as “spokespersons” for the abused? Why would charities, finding this out, allow such people to continue to work for them?

Well, that is, indeed, a can of worms. Especially if, for example, the teenage son of someone accused of rape, had been a witness of the abuse, had contradicted his father’s admission in a sworn statement, in a possible attempt to allow Dad off the hook, and now works for those very mainstream media outlets that his Dad hypocritically appears on, himself?

ITV and BBC must be quaking at this moment.

And those other employees of the charity, who might have something to conceal themselves, must be quaking too.

I wonder how the two women who falsely accused the man of rape - one oral, one vaginal - must be feeling at this moment?

They are unlikely to be hauled before the courts, as Carl Beech was, because police and CPS seem not to prosecute False Accusers much - see the previous suggested reasons, and examine such cases as Danny Day’s involvement with David Bryant, causing an innocent man to spend years in jail and effectively killing his wife. Cliff Richard’s False Accuser (and his Enablers) are allowed to walk free, to commit other crimes. Paul Gambaccini’s are still out there. Ditto my own False Accusers. Hundreds of others, making millions in media interview fees and compensation cash, are still free to shout MeToo whilst “spokespersons” for “victims” pop up on TV saying “False Allegations are “vanishingly rare”. I bet some of those False Accusers who “got away with it” in the past are busily repeating - and improving - their attempts. I bet many innocent people in prison find their False Accusers have tried it before.

Innocent people are still jailed, prosecuted, wrongly convicted. Whilst guilty criminals walk free, enabled and assisted by police, lawyers, CPS, media. After all, it’s a “great story” and what is there to lose, especially if the person is dead, like Michael Jackson. Who can disprove the lies? And there is money to be made. Loadsamoney. Would Jeffrey Epstein be getting all this attention had he been a penniless plumber?

Very rarely (Carl Beech; Jemma Beale) a False Accuser who is so mad and foolish crosses all the lines, is blatantly guilty and gets sent to prison but even then, they are announced as “the exception that proves the rule” instead of being seen as they really are - the tip of the iceberg; the iceberg called the False Allegations Industry.

It is very hard to find proof of lies, especially historical ones. And liars are very good at wriggling out of it by expressing remorse, throwing bricks and insults at their accusers, ducking and diving. And, intimidated, those in charge tend to evade confrontation.

Just as the Church is accused of avoiding problems if priests really DID abuse someone, learning from years of wisdom, the Enablers are far better at squirming away from the spotlight. They know how genuine abusers escape. They use the same words. The same excuses. And they probably train potential false accusers in “how to appear convincing”.

I see Cardinal George Pell’s appeal failed. I wonder who trained his false accusers? The living and the dead. I wonder who condemned Jimmy Savile, early on (after his death). I wonder who early supported Carl Beech or Esther Baker or Danny Day.

I’m not saying charities are training grounds for Enablers. I’m not saying Inquiries become honey pots attracting vulnerable potential victims to wolves in sheep clothing. But it is possible, is it not? I’m not saying the media, generally, hates carrying stories that prove their past Exclusives false (did you notice how few times Savile was mentioned amongst the Carl Beech lies?).

But I am saying that Karma has a habit of coming around and biting people on their bottoms.

We can expect resignation (at great personal financial cost) from all association with NAPAC “because I’d hate to stop genuine victims of abuse from seeking help because of my foolish indiscretion”. Remorse is such a valuable asset. Let’s hope Saunders also adds to that, when it happens, as inevitably it must, he strongly suggests that “NAPAC as well as the NSPCC are thoroughly investigated to see whether there are many other abusers working there who take advantage of vulnerable victims by plying them with drink or drugs before dragging them into a public toilet and abusing them, whilst “making sure” they are consenting, and then denies accusations of rape using all the excuses and tricks successfully employed by past abusers over previous decades”.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7391713...molested-victim.html

www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/ab...-seeks-papal-meeting

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-49350013

Good grief. What a grubby business.

I know Johnathan likes karma but I think we need to stick to the evidence here. Everyone 'believing' things is what got us into this witch hunt mess in the first place.

Firstly, is Peter Saunders really a victim of abuse or a victim of False Memory Syndrome? Moor Larkin implies the latter:
jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2013/06/th...tence-of-memory.html

Moor believes Saunders' allegations have evolved over time to take in more and more people and suggests that FMS may be to blame.

Also Moor's post suggests that NAPAC has implied that it is better for the occasional innocent person to go to prison than for significant numbers of abusers to go free. If true, this is clearly of relevance to the allegations against Saunders as he states he is innocent of an alleged sex offence. Indeed he says words that could be implied to mean he was the victim of one:

"Describing the drunken encounter, Mr Saunders told The Mail on Sunday: ‘She pretty much took me into a cubicle and she performed what they call a sex act on me. I was too drunk to stop it.’"

Saunders is implying that this incident was another occasion where he was a victim of an unwanted sex act, albeit as an adult not a child. What is the truth here? What does the evidence show as opposed to what we all 'believe'.

Johnathan, and the Daily Mail, state that the woman Saunders had sex with is a victim of abuse. Do we know if anyone has been convicted of abusing her? Saunders is suggesting she made a false or mistaken allegation against him. Is Saunders suggesting that her allegation(s) against another person (or people) are true, but the one against him is false or mistaken? Or is he saying that he does not know if her other allegation(s) are true and therefore he does not automatically believe her?

Finally, Johnathan's post alludes to a second allegation. He also talks hypothetically about someone being thrown off a Catholic commission into child abuse.

The Daily Mail story is only talking about one allegation and refers to Saunders being thrown off IICSA not anything else. Saunders has stated that he was thrown off the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable People for criticising its lack of progress and going to the press:
Question: 'You were suspended because you were criticising the lack of achievements of the Commission.'
Saunders reply: 'I was.'
Link:

politicalcritique.org/world/eu/2018/we-n...with-peter-saunders/

I know everyone is wound up about issues like this. I too am scared about how the concept of due process has vanished into thin air. But just the facts please, Sir.

I don't suppose there is any hope of Johnathan telling us how he knew about the Daily Mail story re. allegations about Saunders in advance of it appearing?

Also, why does Johnathan think the Saunders story will help the Pell appeal? Was Saunders helping the complainant in some way?

Remember, you can't fight a witch-hunt with a witch-hunt. Whatever it is you are trying to repress will just come back again. Saunders, Beech, Esther Baker. What if they all actually believe what they are saying? Take it from me, the world is full of otherwise sane people who believe things which are not real to anyone else-they hear things other people cannot hear, they remember things no-one else can remember. It's all real to them. For them, the fantasy or nightmare becomes real and the real becomes a lie. There are hundreds of thousands of people who live for part of their lives in a waking dream. Try witch-hunting that!

Anonymous wrote:
I don't suppose there is any hope of Johnathan telling us how he knew about the Daily Mail story re. allegations about Saunders in advance of it appearing?


I was wondering about that too...

Lest I forget...

Two really good posts there, Anonymous (although surely that should be Pseudonymous?). Thanks.

Of course it is extremely complicated Anon.

I'm waiting to see how the Saunders' revelation features in the Australian media seeing Saunders was absolutely lauded there when he attacked Pell (despite never meeting him).

Saunders claimed Pell was a "psychopath" and Pell demanded an apology.

The timing was atrocious..just Pell asking for that apology led the Oz media to dig in and eviscerate Pell.

Whatever happened between Saunders and his victim (I refuse to call her anything else now that he admitted it happened)..numerous men have been jailed upon the claim their victim was drunk and taken advantage of.

There needs to be an inquiry as to how the case was investigated. Was Saunders in a privileged position because of who he was?.

two high profile alleged "victim advocates" have now helped promote the Carl Beech accusations ..Saunders and McKelvie.

One claims he was abused by priests and it has simply been accepted and repeated ad infinitum.

Yet he has been unable to cite a court case over it.

One claims he was a former male prostitute, drug addict and physically beat people up.

The media helped these two in their vocal careers..now it's unraveling. Let them now do their job.

## and the British legal fraternity stills seems like deer caught in the spotlight by allowing creeps and fantasists and bent cops to run rings around them.

The only one speaking out is Daniel Janner QC.

Dear Anonymous (why?) - there are many aspects of this I cannot reveal; it may endanger other innocent people. I can only hint or suggest though I may well have solid proof including admissions. And there are some parts I can only suspect - example: I have no proof or evidence that Saunders "assisted" the Pell False Accusers (I use that term carefully as the majority were thrown out or retracted claims and can therefore be described as False Accusers). But I have had several people tell me that he did, that he wanted to "get" Pell and many other priests and bishops.

I think I am attempting to move the spotlight onto the Enablers - those who, for a variety of reasons, assist False Accusers.

It is about time people understood that the vast majority of allegations are either exaggerated or invented.

What I am really trying to get back to here is the concept of due process in all cases. I believe that the notion that all allegations must be believed no matter what is leading to a situation where the police/courts become paralysed. This will either lead to the decriminalisation of abuse or a very authoritarian system where the need for evidence is dispensed with.

The facts seem to be that both Saunders and the alleged victim were drunk. If drink can undermine a female's ability to consent, surely the same can be said for a man. It would be absurd to argue they both 'raped' each other. In actual fact Saunders has implied he is a victim of sexual misconduct in this case too. So we have an allegation and counter-allegation, neither of which has been proved. Also and most importantly, Saunders was never convicted of rape and the alleged victim was not convicted of sexual misconduct either. Therefore, both are innocent.

If NAPAC want to continue employing him now, it is up to them. It is a charity and if donors decide his conduct should not be forgiven, they can stop donating. Caveat emptor, no need for a witch hunt. If juries, judges and journalists were foolish enough to be influenced by the demagoguery of Saunders then, again, caveat emptor. The only solution to this problem is people learning to assess evidence rather than deciding what they want to 'believe' for emotional reasons. There will be more innocent victims of false allegations, and more actual abuse victims who get ignored due to the backlash before we get to that point.

I don't like Cardinal Pell much either, but there's insufficient evidence that he is a child abuser. Maybe, though, while he is sitting in prison he could reflect about how sexually repressive religions/ideologies tend to lead fanatical inquisitions and false allegations...

Dear Anonymous - you are quite right; we all feel the "you will be believed" mantra is appalling and has lead to numerous wrongful convictions. We all also believe in Innocent Until Proven Guilty (and, in my 2001 case, even after).

The point is - Saunders has made a career out of saying false allegations are rare and helping accusers (be they false, true or in between) make money from this. He now admits to quite disgraceful behaviour, taking advantage of a vulnerable abuse victim (or so she claimed) and not admitting in his numerous appearances on TV, radio and committee that he has had as many false allegations against him as he had (claimed) abusers.

And perhaps worse is that police and CPS, with as much "evidence" as they have had against numerous other, now convicted, men, decided "not to prosecute".

The entire situation is appalling and helps us reveal just some of the anomalies in the current system.

This paints that 2008 Saunders incident in a different light:

www.nickryan.net/exhibition/survivor.html

For all the posturing and tv interviews of Peter Saunders, he knew that this was in his "closet", he helped to create this whole debacle of VIP abuse.
In a parallel to Carl Beech's CSA offending one does now wonder about some of the other "players" involved and whether their motives were to cover up their own crimes.

One thing that is a fact: Mark Watts' article is very inaccurate, full of misleading information regarding Beech's trial and should not be regarded as genuine criticism of the criminal justice system. Watts was nowhere to be seen on the issues of disclosure, false allegations etc when those failures of the criminal justice system suited Beech, Baker etc in fact Watts was actively seeking false allegations to occur. That's why his attempt to flip sides now is so offensive to many who saw what was going on.

All he is now interested in is attempting to claim that Carl Beech was innocent. Beech isn't. Clearly isn't either. Beech's offending was calculated, manipulative, devious and planned for a long time imo.

The fact that Beech only started disclosing in 2012 after two events occurred suggests that in no uncertain terms: 1) he had employed a private investigator to check that his stepfather Ray was dead 2) he waited until a big case broke [Savile] to use his allegations. That is all before Exaro's involvement. Here's what I think happened: Beech was gay, he struggled with his own sexuality throughout his life, his obsession with young boys being part of that problem. He also had a sham of a marriage because his doting mother was deeply religious and later a vicar (and the diocese safeguarding officer!). He only started with the stories of "abuse" after receiving initial counselling in the late 1980s/early 1990s at the behest of NHS occupational health. He received such around the same time as the fateful counselling of Carol Felstead, also a NHS nurse. It is entirely possible that counselling introduced the concept into Carl's head.

As for Ray Beech, Carl only lived with Ray as a child for 8 months. Carl retained Ray's surname, if he wanted to escape from "Beech" as he claimed why didn't he simply change his surname?
I also believe that Carl was a difficult child whilst he lived with his stepsiblings and Ray. He was likely, because Ray was in the army on the receiving end of some 1970s style child management but that doesn't mean that he was sexually abused. I think Carl used all of this as an excuse, he couldn't cope with Ray having hit him as a child, [I'm not saying Ray was right to hit Carl if he did so] and was a mummy's boy through and through.

Watts' article misinforms on so many things but here are the bullet points:

1 - It was agreed between prosecution and defence that Beech had been researching the likes of Dolphin Square PRIOR to the Exaro articles appearing but that research possibly happened very shortly after Beech initially met with Mark Conrad and/or Peter McKelvie. That research including in May 2014 Dolphin Square. The dates were clear from Beech's computing devices. Watts would have everyone believe that Beech only looked at Dolphin Square material AFTER reports on Exaro.

2 - Beech was the one on trial not Harvey Proctor or the other prosecution witnesses. There was no material in the searches of the properties which could've been entered into evidence in the trial anyway as it is clear to the public now that those searches were most likely illegal based on falsehoods presented to a judge.

3 - Third party evidence in Operation Conifer was not relevant to Beech's defence as he was not PERSONALLY involved in the same allegations made by others. It was inadmissible for that reason. Furthermore Operation Conifer had rejected Beech's allegations.

4 - The jury were not misled on 1,2,3 above.

5 - Beech's CSA convictions [although he was yet to be sentenced at the time] were highly relevant to his offending of PCJ/Fraud. At the same time as him making allegations of CSA against others, he was committing very gross, very serious acts of child abuse via his images and voyeurism offences. His mens rea was therefore partially to cover up his own offending, to make that point to the jury for consideration of their verdicts the convictions had to be revealed to the trial.

6 - Beech ran away. When faced with multiple CSA charges he ran away to Sweden, created new identities for himself and tried to escape justice. When he knew his CSA trial was coming up he stayed in Sweden instead of returning for it. At that point he made himself LOOK guilty not only of the CSA offences but other crimes. He did himself no favours and only has himself to blame ultimately, however there were others who had remained in contact with him throughout. Quite clearly Watts' article is to deflect attention away from some of those too.

In summary Watts is therefore clutching at some very broken straws. His stance that Beech suffered a miscarriage of justice is, in my view, completely misleading, inaccurate and dishonest. There are many cases in legal history of miscarriages of justice, however based on what was heard at Newcastle Crown Court I personally believe that Carl Beech was given the correct verdict, around about the correct sentence [bearing in mind Jemma Beale's sentence]. His case was not one which fits into the disclosure crisis either, the material that wasn't given to the defence was clearly already known about by Beech prior to the trial and the defence could've requested it much sooner.

There was a great deal of grandstanding by his defence team, as well as some by the prosecution, however that grandstanding was dealt with in the correct way by the judge in my view. Whether there are other loopholes that justify Beech's appeal application remains to be seen.

Whether Beech believes his stories or not, they were false. He took them to the extremes of reporting them to the media, the police and as such allowed himself to be put in the position where his own perversions turned into crimes of perverting the course of justice etc. There was no evidence supporting his claims of physical injuries, therefore no evidence supporting his original claims to Wiltshire Police either. Thus his fraud charge stood up as well. As those injuries don't exist and clearly don't exist, any attempt to introduce the material that Watts has claimed should also have been introduced is also a moot point because the counter to that line of defence was clearly going to be "but those injuries don't exist".

Watts also tried to silence any critics of the people actually making the false allegations,with the assistance of many including malicious complaints to the police to have critics arrested/charged on trumped up allegations. He further that part of the problem, wanted to promote the falsehoods, I know as I personally fell foul of some of his own conduct in early 2017. So I have some personal insight into his methods and also his motivations.

People like Watts are only interested in their own agendas, not justice or truth and his mirroring of that to blame others is part and parcel of his own games. The fact that he was able to spend 2 months in Newcastle yet seemingly isn't professionally employed as a journalist should be raising questions in itself. I'll be very surprised if the police spotlight hasn't now turned on him and his friends, because you can bank on something: the police don't like being shown to be fools. His article is designed in some ways, in my view, to deflect that attention.

Various posters above are correct that facts should trump belief in police investigations always, however that also applies to journalists and the public too. We need a free press to report truths, what we don't need is a free press which takes the likes of Beech's stories simply at face value. Watts and Exaro were not in the truth camp. Never were, never will be in my view because instead of their mantra of "holding power to account" they ended up only "holding themselves to account", they broke the 1st rule of journalism: don't become the story. Watts' article and his disinformation are further attempts to do precisely that, he's an attention seeking journalist who cannot stand being corrected. We [as a society] need less of those and more of those who ask more searching, difficult questions rather than simply believing.

Those who assisted Beech and others should now have to face the music, the "enablers" as JK calls them, however that's only going to happen if we stop believing everything those "enablers" continue to say too.

Anonymous wrote:
What I am really trying to get back to here is the concept of due process in all cases. I believe that the notion that all allegations must be believed no matter what is leading to a situation where the police/courts become paralysed. This will either lead to the decriminalisation of abuse or a very authoritarian system where the need for evidence is dispensed with.


Yet another good post from Anonymous, thanks.

We now have Salem-style trials in the majority of the work that UK criminal courts do. Alarm bells should be ringing, but most people just cannot believe how bad the situation really is - until it happens to them or someone they know.

However, the Carl Beech trial and now the situation with Peter Saunders telling us to believe all accusers (except his own) could help. They highlight the irreconcilability of #believethevictim with fundamental legal principles of fair trial and presumption of innocence.

There's a simple, 2-step fix for the whole sorry mess.

1) Create a requirement that the occurrence of a crime must be established as a matter of fact. If there is no more than an accuser's assertion that a crime occurred, then there is no case to answer.

2) Create a requirement for evidence indicating that a defendant committed the crime thus established. If there is no more than an accuser's assertion, there is no case to answer.