It seems that, in the age of the internet, lots of people making similar allegations about a well-known person who drove a car makes that person a child abuser.

Mail on Sunday: Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes 'covered up by the Establishment'

Article concludes: "Times writer and ex-Tory MP Matthew Parris dismissed the allegations, saying: ‘If Heath was a child abuser, I’m an aardvark.’"


Chief Constable Mike Veale reinforces position on Operation Conifer further to recent and continued speculation

Barristerblogger: Wiltshire Police is acting like a public relations tool for David Icke (an excellent blog, in my view)

It seems to me that the police are being played for fools and are trying to save face. I wonder how many of the people who have made allegations about Edward Heath have had their computers/phones, etc. checked to see where they've been online, e.g. to see if they've visited sites where allegations against Edward Heath have been made, thus enabling them to come up with similar stories.

I can't reply to you now, after you suggested we are being watched.

I was working in the UK when Heath was the PM, there were rumours about him then. He really was creepy, but then he did his job well enough.

History has moved on, and I don't see the point of blackening his name any further, unless you were a victim, of course.

This guy is dead for almost 17 years! He can't even defend himself / allocute.
What the heck?

A friend of mine worked for him as a researcher back in the days concerned.

He guarantees nothing could ever have happened. Mainly because of the 24/7 security Heath was under.

It was the time of those nice IRA people and their lovely friendly irish bombs and guns.

Too many people would have known about it, if it had been true. And too many of them would have had a vested interest in bringing him down if they had known.

Regards


Ian

	Quote:	Sbrinz
	I can't reply to you now, after you suggested we are being watched.

I wasn't aware of doing that!


I thought this part of the blog was interesting too:


"In Mr Icke’s world almost every public figure is a villain, and virtually all politicians are crooks if not lizards, although a possible exception seems to be made for Vladimir Putin (who, confusingly, in the real world actually is a crook, if not a lizard). It is true that if you delve back to 2009 Icke told us that Mr Putin was “illuminati controlled” (together with the snide, supposedly important, and false, information that “his mother was a Jew”), but in recent times the many stories about Russia on the Icke website have contained no reference to Mr Putin being controlled by reptiles. Instead, when you click on stories about Russia or Russian actions you are often taken seamlessly to the website of RT.com, the Kremlin funded propaganda site. Whatever Mr Icke’s view of Putin in 2009, his website has since become, through such links, an outlet for Russian Government official propaganda."


I wonder how Icke is funded. If the Russian authorities want to undermine democracy in the West, it might make sense for them to encourage Icke-type nonsense, along with the far right and fake news.

There certainly was that joke doing the rounds:

Q: What separates the men from the boys on Morning Cloud?

A: A crowbar.

I believe this was a recycled version of a similar joke about Mountbatten and HMS Kelly.

Back on topic, I find the allegations rather unlikely.

It's as if past innuendo is now being taken deadly seriously. Just crazy. It beggars belief that dozens of adult victims of crime would have failed to report crime by an unrelated individual to the police for decades, or that even a handful would have gone to police and been turned away or not had their visit recorded. Same with the Savile allegations, in my view, though the general consensus now seems to be that he was creepy. So creepy that people watched his TV shows and gave him money for his charity fundraising.

Really? He committed treason by joining the common market. He did so without even having a referendum.

I would agree, speaking thankfully, most thankfully, as someone who has never been subject to such abuse, that it is hard to understand why the victims didn't come forward. But they don't. Because they are afraid, ashamed, disgusted, in denial... and a myriad other emotions that mere words likely don't do justice.

Children especially. I've witnessed the aftermath, had kids disclose stuff to me well after the fact that broke my heart. People don't tell because...they don't know that they can, or how to. Some don't have anyone to tell. It's the shitty, shitty truth. And the perpetrators probably count on this. Use this. Trading on whatever power, perceived or real, that they may wield.

The "truth" of everything may never be known, but there has been enough documentation of widespread cover-ups and blind-eyes being turned worldwide in numerous cases to not dismiss this any more. Complacency is everywhere. Just because "it's never happened here " does not mean that it never will. Just because someone has a public face, it doesn't follow that there isn't also a private one. Saville was creepy. But, and here's the rub, he also had money and power. And other powerful people were invested in him.

To my way of thinking it's a societal shift, just like the shift from PTSD not existing (WW1 soldiers being shot for cowardice rather than being treated with compassion etc) to being all too real and there being treatment and support for those afflicted. It's too easy to say "pull yourself together and move on" when you're not the one shattered by the experience.

There shouldn't be a time limit on justice either.

I think you're wrong about Savile. It wasn't just that people thought he was creepy, it was that people knew what he was up to (admittedly maybe not to the degree he was) but did nothing about it. Heath, on the other hand, gave the impression of being, and probably was, simply a cold fish.

With Savile we're supposed to believe:
- he committed crime against hundreds over decades and only one person reported him to the police, then withdrew their complaint, the police keeping a record of this (source)
- the establishment (Queen, politicians, reptiles, if you believe Icke) knew about criminal behaviour and covered it up
- the police knew about criminal behaviour and covered it up
- people knew about or suspected criminal behaviour and did nothing
- no-one told, until one whole year after he died and ITV's airing of allegations from former pupils of an approved school, one of whom had given the BBC a fake police letter (source), another of ITV's 'witnesses' being a self-confessed conman (Wilfred De'Ath), the BBC interviewing another former pupil of the same school, who had served a year in jail for falsifying cheques (source), the police investigating his own great niece for fraud (source).

I think it's fantasy and a scam. The BBC were talking about compensation the minute the ITV programme was over.
Before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaalHDhvu0U
After: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU9Z0YJ7vSo

I think you're a little naive. Watch Spotlight. The Catholic Church covered atrocities up for decades.

I have also actually shaken hands with both of them (not at the same time, I hasten to add). And met Saville more than once.

Saville always was just... creepy. Personally, back then I thought the wierdness might have been because he was covering up being "in the closet". But people did seem to protect him because of all the good work he did for charidee... Helping all those sick kids...

Heath? Normal. (Well, normal for a politician). I was 15 or 16 when I met him and at no point did I feel there was anything odd.

Not a scientific poll, I grant you. But gut feel sometimes wins.

Regards


Ian

If it's naive to be sceptical, perhaps it is more intelligent to believe that there was a giant wall of silence from adult victims of crime by one person for decades combined with a giant conspiracy of silence from witnesses/bystanders/police/politicians/Queen, etc concerning that one person.

I'm no supporter of the Catholic Church but wouldn't be surprised if people were also trying to pump it for cash with false allegations.

Regarding people who look a bit weird and possibly 'creepy':

Vilified for a murder he didn't commit, now he's a privacy crusader

"Christopher Jefferies doesn't look the way you might think. In 2010, when he was arrested for the murder of Joanna Yeates, and saw his character traduced by an insinuating barrage of libel in a tabloid press that was yet to see its ferocity curbed, there was an unspoken supposition that lay beneath it all: well, he looks the type. Had a 40-year-old family man with neat hair and a suitable expression of concern been suspected of the crime, the speculation might have been somewhat restrained. But Mr Jefferies, a retired English teacher who lived alone, combined the prissiness of a polo neck with eccentrically unkempt white hair and a shabby old coat. Under the deranged scrutiny of the media, he had the misfortune to arrange his face in such a way that he appeared to be smirking. This, in the eyes of his tormentors, was enough."

What would the value be, for the Kremlin, of destroying the reputation of a politician who has been dead for almost 20 years?

This is an open minded question. Not a rhetorical one.

Try to put yourself in their shoes, if possible.

There was a Catholic parish near Philadelphia, where close family friends went to church. Really close friends - my mom's best friend from high school (who I refer to and think of as an aunt) and her family, Ive known them my whole life. Aunt D's son was an alter boy when he was young. Many years later it came out that the priest had been molesting kids. The son (my 'cousin'), was questioned if he had experienced anything and said no, he knew nothing about it. Many more years passed. He eventually admitted that something had happened, that he had been molested.

Long story short, he hung himself just last week, leaving behind 2 teenage sons of his own.

RIP cousin J.

Of all the reasons that it would be difficult to report the abuse years later, we can now add to that the fear that they won't be taken seriously and will be treated like gold diggers.

Thanks Reb77

Agree. So easy to abuse kids, they blame themselves and keep quiet out of shame/guilt. Back then if any did tell an adult they were told to be quiet, what good will come of speaking out.. so kids that did speak out were not protected but instead were failed by a society that hushed it up. Look at the UK Footballers who have recently brought to light the disgrace of the all powerful FCs in the 70/80s who got kids & parents to sign agreements not to speak out.

Abused children brought up in a society which systematically failed to protect thousands of them, ingrained in their minds the need to keep it quiet and we wonder why it wasn't recorded or dealt with appropriately? It was endemic, so no surprise the establishment/ the police colluded to keep the powerful protected. The Catholic Church abused so many children in Ireland 20s up to 80s, but it was far too powerful to take on and everyone in Ireland knew it.

If we don't believe a 40 year old who has the courage to speak up about the horrors of abuse as a child, how will we ever believe a a 4 year old?

No wonder so many don't speak up.. or take years/decades to do so

To encourage distrust in mainstream politicians and "the establishment", thereby undermining democratic stability. If you think they're all a bunch of reptiles, why bother voting for them, why not spend your time listening to David Icke/RT instead?

The case against Savile is totally believable -- in fact, watertight. Not so for Heath, IMO.

I know that life constantly throws up surprises, but I'd be astonished if Heath had been a serial child abuser. He was quite a remote man with a very low-key social life beyond his loves of conducting orchestras and sailing.

More to the point, as an ex-PM, especially one who had served at the height of "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, he had 24-hour police protection/supervision, even long after he'd retired from politics. Call me unimaginative, but this doesn't strike me as an ideal arrangement for a raging paedophile.

I would have thought that being sexually abused was considerably worse than being suspected of being a gold digger. I don't think the chancers, i.e. those who have not been abused and have made up a story, should be allowed to hold a metaphorical gun to the heads of the genuine victims, as in "believe me, or they get it".

I am sorry to hear about your cousin.

We are surviving victims of a false accuser and wrongful conviction. Our family is in trauma.
Spiked online: False allegations - a stain on justice
Barristerblogger: The shocking case of David Bryant reveals the fallacy that we can always spot a liar