Moral Panics & the Police Service by Les May

APART from the disastrous Operation Midland investigation into the lurid claims of a ’toffs’ paedophile and murder ring which resulted in substantial payment of damages to those accused and whose reputations were ruined, the police service has a pretty good record in dextrously handling the various ‘moral panics’ which beset us from time to time.

It kept out of the witchcraft stories of Geoffrey Dickens MP, he of the famous ‘dossier’ which he handed to then Home Secretary Leon Brittan. Whilst the NSPCC made a fool of itself over ‘Satanic Abuse’ and would now like us all to quietly forget its role, the police service avoided deep involvement. More recently it emerged with a great deal more credibility than Simon Danczuk with its investigation into his claims about the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View school.

A quick arrest after the murder of Sarah Everard has ensured that, whilst politicians from all parties pledge their desire to ‘do something about violence against women’, the police service has been seen to be doing its job.

But what do you do when a lot of schoolgirls anonymously share their claims of ‘sexual harassment’ on a website? Does anyone really want to have to interview all these girls and the lads they are accusing, with the ever present possibility that at the end of the investigation someone will have to declare that some of the claims are really ‘porky pies’ encouraged and made possible by the anonymity of the WWW? So what to do?

I know; lets wheel out a senior office who talks about ‘victims and survivors’, code for ‘we believe you girls, just as we said we believed Carl Beech’s claims that led to Operation Midland’, that should divert any criticism that we don’t take these claims seriously, then let’s get into Pontius Pilate mode and suggest a public inquiry to sort out the mess.

QED

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The Benefits of 20-20 Hindsight

by Les May

OSTENSIBLY Simon Danczuk’s 2014 book ‘Smile for the Camera’ is about the sexual peccadillos of his predecessor Cyril Smith.  But a careful reading shows that the intent was to so closely associate Smith’s antics with the Liberal-Democrats that the party became permanently unelectable in Rochdale so securing a safe Labour seat for Danczuk for as long as he wanted it.

It is something of an irony that the major casualty from the fall out from all the hares that Danczuk set running in the book is Richard Farnell, until recently Leader of Rochdale Council and a supporter of Danczuk long after the latter had reached his ‘sell by date’ as an MP.

Perhaps fearing that it will suffer in the May elections from the bad publicity the Labour party has suspended Farnell after the report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said he had lied to the Inquiry.

It should however be pointed out that the report is quite liberal in its criticism of quite a number of the people trying to make decisions about how to deal with what was happening at Knowl View in the years around 1990.  Paul Rowen, who followed Farnell as Leader of the Council after May 1992, Ian Davey, Director of Social Services and Diana Cavanagh, Director of Education, are all criticised to varying degrees, which makes it all the more surprising that at one point the report refers to ‘some of Rochdale Council’s beleaguered officers’.

Twenty-twenty hindsight is wonderful thing especially when viewing events from a distance of a quarter of a century or more.  The sheer volume of detail presented in the Report of the Investigation makes it appear unlikely that any one person could have grasped the complexity of the issues at the time.

No doubt we shall be told ‘lessons will be learned’ and we shall hear even more of the new mantra of ‘safeguarding’, which seems to be a codeword for taking even more children into care when the money might be better spent on supporting their parents in their own home. Some of the children taken into care after the Middleton Satanic Abuse panic ended up at Knowl View for a time.

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Farnell’s Danczuk Moment?

by Les May

AFTER the publication in April 2014 of the book which Matthew Baker appears to have written and Simon put his name to, Danczuk was the ‘go to’ man for all things to do with sexual abuse.  No-one bothered to check whether his stories were true or just so much hot air. Leicestershire police discussed aspects of the investigation into Greville Janner with him.  Aspects which later appeared in a national newspaper. (see Appendix)
Once he got into his stride he was ‘Mr Rent-a-quote’ for comments on the Labour leadership and when Corbyn became leader in September 2015 he had a lucrative sideline dishing the dirt in articles in the Daily Mail.  And then on the last day of the year after a few ill considered ‘tweets' it all unravelled.  From then on it was downhill all the way.  The slow slide back to the bottom of the heap had begun. In just 2 years he converted a 14,000 majority into a vote of less than 900.
The problem for politicians is that once the ball starts rolling downhill the once friendly press is happy to give it an occasional push to keep it moving.  The stories may have nothing to do with the job of being a politician, but they go to build a picture of someone who dos not deserve the voter’s trust.
Now I don’t think that Richard Farnell was entirely fairly treated at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). It appeared to me that he was treated as a hostile ‘witness’ which did not seem to be necessary if the intention was to elicit the facts.  But that being said, his claim that he knew nothing of the unsavoury events at Knowl View special school is, to say the least, implausible. But was it his Danczuk moment?   Is it enough to start the downward slide to being an electoral liability?
How long before the press notice that Knowl View wasn’t the first time that things went badly wrong on Farnell’s watch.  As Oscar Wilde put it in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’,  ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness’.
Those with long memories will recall the Middleton Ritual Satanic Abuse scandal which resulted in 21 children being taken into care and in 2006 a substantial payout by Rochdale MBC.  Northern Voices pointed out in 2016 that this occurred when Farnell was Labour Leader in an article dated 21 January, but no-one seemed to notice.  Perhaps it is time for someone to ask him what he knew about this fiasco.
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/councillor-farnell-relaxed-about-danczuk.html 
Farnell has a choice he can ‘fall on his sword’ and go gracefully, or he can face the prospect of a less than favourable report from IICSA just before the 2018 local elections.  If he decides to stay he may face the prospect of some Labour members feeling unable to campaign whilst he is still Leader.

Appendix
25 August 2015
Chief Constable
Leicestershire Police Force Headquarters St Johns Enderby Leicester. LE19 2BX
Dear Sir,
I refer to statements made by Simon Danczuk MP in the House of Commons on 23 June 2015 and recorded in Hansard Column 214WH. I have extracted below the portion of his statement which I believe raises matters of concern about the actions of your force.
Quotation starts:
'I know the police are furious about this, and rightly so. Anyone who has heard the accusations would be similarly outraged. I have met Leicestershire police and discussed the allegations in some detail: children being violated, raped and tortured, some in the very building in which we now sit. The official charges are: 14 indecent assaults on a male under 16 between 1969 and 1988; two indecent assaults between ’84 and ’88; four counts of buggery of a male under 16 between ’72 and ’87; and two counts of buggery between 1977 and 1988. My office has spoken to a number of the alleged victims and heard their stories.'
Quotation ends.
Taken at its face value this suggests that Leicestershire police discussed with a third party, who though an MP, does not represent a constituency within the Leicestershire police area, matters of a confidential nature relating to a police investigation. I draw attention to the fact that Mr Danczuk specifically used the word 'discussed' suggesting that information was passed to him by the police service rather than that he was simply questioned about information which he might hold which was relevant to the police investigation. The detailed information regarding the nature of the charges in the remainder of the statement suggests that this interpretation is correct.
Even if it is considered appropriate to discuss these matters with Mr Danczuk the question arises as to why he was apparently not instructed that these matters were confidential. Mr Danczuk's choice of words in the first two sentences of the above extract could leave the impression that by not instructing him that the matter was confidential the police service was attempting to use an extra-judicial method to bring pressure to bear upon the
Director of Public Prosecutions. I stress that I am not making such an allegation.
The apparent failure to instruct Mr Danczuk that the discussions were confidential extends to an article in the Sun newspaper of 24 June 2015 headed 'Lord Janner "Raped kids in Parliament" claims Labour MP Simon Danczuk', and in which the matters discussed with him by Leicestershire police were repeated. As Mr Danczuk had made his claims under Parliamentary privilege he gave himself, and the Sun, protection against being sued for libel. On 24 July 2015 Mr Danczuk received a payment of £10,000 from the owners of the Sun for an article he had contributed to. He declined to say which article the cash related to.
If this payment does relate to the Sun article I believe it raises further questions about the wisdom of discussing material relating to the Janner case with Mr Danczuk without instructing him that the matter was confidential.
I am arranging for a copy of this letter to be sent to the Home Office because I think the concerns raised are applicable to similar discussions between other police forces and MPs who may use parliamentary privilege to make the discussions public.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Les May

The Curse of Danczuk’s Book

by Les May

JUST how thorough is the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse going to be?  Press reports, which we must assume follow what was said at the Inquiry, refer to Rochdale Alternative Press. This is a mistake lifted straight from Simon Danczuk’s book where neither he, nor his co-author, Matthew Baker, could be bothered to check that the correct title was Rochdale's Alternative Paper (RAP). If anyone at the Inquiry is relying on this book then we shall still be as much in the dark about what really happened at Cambridge House and Knowl View as we were before the inquiry started

The purpose of this Inquiry should be to determine the facts.  That does not appear to be what is happening. The lead counsel, Brian Altman QC, seems to be trying to tell a story worthy of someone acting for the prosecution in a criminal case. We are told Smith’s knighthood ‘conferred a veneer of respectability and power’ and that this afforded influence over child welfare cases at Rochdale council.

This may or may not prove to be the case. Judging by the infamous, but fictional, ‘Satanic Abuse’ cases from 1989, RMBC child welfare workers were entirely capable of making a mess of things on their own.  But could we please have the facts and save opinions until after the evidence for this statement has been produced?   However often they are repeated opinions and assertions aren’t facts.

Opinion, supposition and an urge to ‘tell a good story’ have bedevilled almost everything that has been written about Smith, Cambridge House and Knowl View special school since Danczuk was ‘handed the story on a plate’ in 2012.

The essay in which in which Manchester Guardian editor C. P. Scott wrote the words ‘Comment is free, but facts are sacred’ is still worth reading today.  Pity about that unfortunate lapse in 1979 when like the rest of the press it ignored the RAP article.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2002/nov/29/1

(If you find it difficult to activate any of the links on NV pages press the left mouse button and drag the cursor over the link, then press the right mouse button and select copy from the menu which appears.  This can then be pasted into your web browser, e.g. Firefox.)

Councillor Farnell Relaxed About Danczuk

Rochdale Council Leader Praises Geoffrey Dickens a Damaged ex-Tory MP

'MR. Danczuk has a lot on his plate at the moment!' blandly declared Richard Farnell, the Labour leader of the Council at last night's full meeting of Rochdale Council at Rochdale Town Hall.  He  was answering a question from Councillor Andy Kelly, Liberal Democrat, about his support for the member of Parliament.  Dismissing Councillor Kelly's question as 'irrelevant', Mr. Farnell continued: 

'I support any member of Parliament who works hard for this Borough.  I remember working with Geoffery Dickens (a former local Tory MP for Littleborough & Saddleworth)...  Simon Danczuk trounced Councillor Kelly...' at the General Election.

Councillor Andy Kelly had asked that as Simon Danczuk had been suspended from the Labour Party 'can you (Richard Farnell) support his actions?' 

Mr Farnell is now clearly relaxed about the furore surrounding Simon Danczuk MP, but that was not the case in  June 2014 when he told the journalist Jennifer Williams of the Manchester Evening News that:  'Rochdale is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons and I will not allow a tiny minority of people to drag us down'.
 
Alas, unfortunately for Richard Farnell, the Geoffrey Dickens comparison is not the best choice either, for when Dickens was a Tory MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth in 1990s, he had been a cheer-leader for one of the most expensive incidents in our recent local history: that is the discredited Satanic Abuse scandal in nearby Middleton.  Richard Farnell was himself leader of Rochdale Council from 1986 to May 1992 and was in office when social workers and police from Rochdale raided five homes of working people, and took 21 children into care on the now discredited ground that they had been subjected to ritual Satanic abuse.  The plight of the 'stolen children' was given extensive coverage by reporters of the Mail on Sunday, and after six months of investigation it was found that the false Satanic abuse scare had destroyed five families.

 The Satanic abuse scandal in the Rochdale area of Langley council estate, Middleton, involved social workers who falsely claimed that working class parent had indulged in Satanic rituals with their own children and placed the children in the care of the local authority.  In two cases this involved sending two lads to Knowl View, an institution which is now itself under investigation.  Ultimately, when the false claims of Satanic abuse on Langley and elsewhere came to light in the 2006 , the Rochdale Local authority had to pay heavy price.

 Geoffrey Dickens, when a local Tory MP, must take some responsibility for what happened on the Langley Estate with regard to the Satanic abuse scandal in the Rochdale area and the cost to the council when the injustice to the parents became apparent.  Richard Farnell may have a point in linking Simon Danczuk Labour MP to Geoffrey Dickens Tory MP, in that they both represent rather bizarre colourful creatures in politics:  both have proved expensive to the public purse in that there was a high local cost to the rate payers in the panicky politics Geoffrey Dickens' promoted locally in Rochdale and there is an ongoing cost to everyone in the way Simon Danczuk conducts himself both with his lavish expenses and with his demands for seemingly endless public enquires into historic sexual abuse.
 

 Both Danczuk and Dickens have been bizarre and rather larger than life politicians, who went in for extravagant claims. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4595158.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4602302.stm

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/jan/12/childrensservices.uknews

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/satanic-abuse-the-truth-at-last-1018638

TUC Conference Chief Attacks Rochdale MP

Child Sex Abuse, Simon Danczuk & 'Wrong Party' Claim

 YESTERDAY at the Conference of Trade Union Councils in Crewe, following a debate on Child Sex Abuse, the Chair Steve Gillan of the Prison Officers Association commented:

'I do have sympathy for anyone who has Simon Danczuk as an MP.  Because I think that he is in the wrong party.   Taking money from the Daily Mail, and that his wife is little better...' 

This remark, which was not challenged at the conference, would have met with sympathy among many delegates who would identify themselves on the radical wing of the Labour Party, and hostile to Tony Blair.  Nor did anyone contradict a contribution to the debate in which Mr. Danczuk was strongly attacked for using the campaign against child abuse to make political capital for himself and taking payments from the Daily Mail and its right-wing editor Paul Dacre.  At least one of the delegates was from Danczuk's own constituency party.   

A contribution from a delegate from Tameside TUC addressed the problem of  moral panic in relation to child abuse saying:  'We don't want more pious proposals on the issue of child abuse, we want proper research.'   

At the Trade's Council Conference Mr Danczuk stood accused of not employing proper research methods when doing his book on Cyril Smith 'Smile for the Camera', and of failing to answer his critics when asked to explain himself. 

Mr. Danczuk is supporting the alleged right-wing Blairite candidate Liz Kendall in the Labour leadership contest for which nominations close today.   

It was pointed out that Rochdale had been the centre of three separate sex abuse scandals:

• The Satanic Abuse Scandal in 1990:  for which social workers were blamed
• The Asian Grooming Scandal in 2012:  for which social workers were also blamed.
• The claims of a covered-up by Council Officers at Knowl View residential school for boys in 2014.

It was claimed that Simon Danczuk's 'misleading book' had delayed local investigations into child abuse in Rochdale.  It was also claimed that he was using the situation to prolong the agony for the victims in order to profit politically and financially.  The former local MP Geoffrey Dickens for Littleborough and Saddleworth was  also attacked for being a cheerleader in the Satanic Abuse scandal, that led to working-class children being separated from their families and, in some cases, placed in residential homes like Knowl View. 

The motion from Suffolk TUC on child abuse calling on the TUC to, among other things, 'strengthen legal ... support for whistle-blowers' was carried.  Another motion from South Yorkshire TUC entitled 'Rise of the Far Right & their manipulation of the Child Sexual Exploitation scandal' was also carried by the Conference.

Satanic Scandal comes back to haunt Middleton

THIS last week's revelations by Northern Voices, Paul Waugh and Simon Danczuk have not just hit Rochdale, but the 1990's Satanic scandal in Middleton has come again to the surface in the claims of the culture of 'cover-up'.   The people of nearby Middleton have been reminded of the time police alighted on homes on the Langley estate in the 1990s to snatch children from their families who were falsely being accused of Satanic abuse.  In all 21 children were taken from poor working-class homes in the early 1990 by police and social workers.

Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, now claims that there was a cover-up and newspapers like the Middleton Guardian had to fight a gagging order which led to a long legal fight that cost £120,000.  In the end the paper won, but it took until 2006, 16-years after the first lot of kids were taken away, before the Middleton Guardian could give an account of the dodgy 'interview techniques (that) led social workers to suspect parents were engaging their children in Satanic Abuse rituals'.  According to the Guardian:  'No evidence of Satanic abuse has been revealed and their harrowing ordeals led to some of them being kept in care for up to 10 years.' 

The identities of the children and the social workers were only brought out after a legal challenge kicked-off against an injunction which gagged the media after the case got going.  This case demonstrated the crazy nature of some aspect of the theory of social work.