The UK child abuse scandals -- and a very disturbing video

Robin Ramsay's quirky-but-important online magazine Lobster has published a long, sensible and even-handed report by Tim Wilkinson on the UK child abuse scandals. It's very much worth reading, even if it is in pdf form.

When I tried to address this topic back in 2012, Google censored the post -- the only time such a thing has happened in the history of this blog. My text was hidden only from British readers. If you live in the United States, and if you go here, you will see my words; if you live in the UK, you will see something else.

(British readers may want to explore the wonderful world of proxy servers.)

Why the censorship? I had quoted a published piece which leveled an accusation against a close associate of Margaret Thatcher. I can't give the man's name in this post, for fear that Google's hatchet may strike again. Let us call him AMcA. Wilkinson offers the name in full, and does not seem to think that he is guilty.

Whenever the topic of organized child abuse comes up, people inevitably make reference to the "Satanic panic" of the 1980s. But there is no panic here. I have seen no signs of public hysteria -- in fact, most members of the British public seem uncomfortable with the topic.

Spiked, an influential British website, dismisses all such allegations out of hand.

The Spiked orthodoxy finds ‘moral panics’, ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘anti-science attitudes’ wherever criticism of the rich and powerful is voiced. Most of the claque of regular Spiked contributors have no credentials beyond the vicious circle of mutual support they provide one another, amplified by an echo-chamber of proliferating think-tanks, publications and discussion groups.

We see much the same dynamic in this country, especially when "respectable" liberal publications try to keep certain ideas off the list of permissible debate topics. (For a good recent example, see our discussion of Jacob Siegel's piece in The Daily Beast on Syria.) 

Wilkinson brings up the Kincora child abuse scandal, which was revealed to the world, in large part, by a British Army whistleblower named Colin Wallace. We have referenced both Wallace and Kincora in previous posts.

Also ‘around for decades’ are the revelations of Colin Wallace, an impeccable witness who, at very considerable cost to himself, brought to light sexual abuse in the Kincora boy’s home in Northern Ireland, involving politicians and protected by the Security Service. Thanks to Wallace, these events received some limited exposure; but while no-one seriously contests them, their implications are not discussed in polite society. It appears that Knox Cunningham, aide to Conservative ex-PM Harold Macmillan, was among a number of well-connected visitors to the home, and that some children were trafficked as far afield as Brighton in the South of England to be abused.

Other homes in Northern Ireland, housing children under the age of 16, and other politicians and senior Establishment figures have been implicated. Wallace has offered to tell all if granted legal authority to do so. Both he and others state that blackmail was part of the purpose of facilitating the abuse.

The Kincora scandal occurred during the Troubles, when a home for orphaned boys fell into the clutches of a thoroughly evil individual named William McGrath. He also ran a bizarre paramilitary organization -- a cult, really -- called Tara. The allegation is that McGrath, under the direction of a clique of MI5 agents, provided boys to powerful individuals in the British establishment, who would then be susceptible to blackmail and manipulation.

This is a key issue: it is clear that security services have been heavily involved in these events, and it is equally clear that child sexual abuse is very useful to those who, like them, are in the blackmail business.

One obvious example is that of party whips. In 1995, Tim Fortescue, recalling his career as Conservative MP and whip, reported that a member of his party who faced ‘a scandal involving small boys’ would ask the party whips to help hush it up. As Fortescue put it, ‘we would do everything we can because..…if we could get a chap out of trouble then he will do as we ask forever more.’

Even the mysterious death of David Kelly contains a link to this underworld. The official inquiry into Kelly's death resulted in a number of documents being posted to the web, including "a bizarre and cryptic document concerning child abuse, the presence of which has never been officially explained or even mentioned." A BBC executive suggested that this document was included to send a signal to one of the investigators, who had a dark secret in his past. Well, that's one way to make sure that an investigation comes to the "right" conclusion!

Is "Papa Kills Babies" a straw-man? If organized pedophilia is real, and if it has been used to blackmail the political establishment, then a cover-up becomes mandatory. One excellent diversion tactic was described by none other than the man I have called AMcA, the Thatcher aide. A long time ago, he wrote a book about Machiavelli which contains this fascinating passage:

‘First, create a situation where you are wrongly accused. Then, at a convenient moment, arrange for the false accusation to be shown to be false beyond all doubt. Those who have made accusations against both the company and its management become discredited. Further accusations will then be treated with great suspicion.’

Wilkinson calls this the "straw-man" tactic.

In this light, let us here take note of a very disturbing video which appeared on YouTube earlier this year and quickly became the subject of widespread controversy. "Papa Kills Babies" features footage of a young boy and girl discussing abuse and murder at the hands of a secretive cult. (The original uploader would appear to be someone named Henry Curteis, about whom I know nothing.)

Google removed this film, just as it had censored my original post about AMcA. Google also removed another video which discussed "Papa Kills Babies." (The makers of this latter work have accused Google of being "communists," which is a funny accusation to hurl against a corporation.)

The original has been re-uploaded here, although I do not expect to see it stay in that place forever.

The obvious questions: Is this video a hoax? If so, what kind of a hoax?

Most viewers will see reasons to doubt the authenticity of this presentation. The kids are clearly being coached. They parrot phrases that no child would use extemporaneously -- phrases that have obviously been drilled into them by others. ("Face our urge"? Seriously?) The kids even repeat a famous line from Dune: "Fear is the mind-killer."

The same two kids star in a another video, which you can see here: "I ate babies, and I feel really weak about it, really weak."

(At one point, the little girl says that she has read Frank Herbert's Dune. I cannot believe that someone so young could get more than a few pages into such a book.)

I have to admit that these videos seem ludicrous. If the videomakers desired credibility, they should have offered full accounts of how these interviews came to be, and why the children were taught to say phrases that are clearly not of their own invention.

If these videos are fakes, they could prove useful to anyone who wants to see the current UK investigations into organized pedophilia laughed off the stage.