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    Recognise their place in the system and care for them

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    VILLAGE IS about nothing if it isn’t giving space to whistleblowers. Reflecting this, the magazine has several times illustrated articles with a cartoon whistleblower, cheeks inflated to bursting, typically to no political avail. It’s a good image for the magazine in general, Village’s frustrated sympathy is nearly always with those prepared to blow and it remains confounded by official concealments. The success of the whistleblowers covered by Village in getting the recalcitrants held to account has been variable. George McLoughlin figured on the cover of the last edition of the magazine for his insider allegations that the Workplace Relations Commission is systemically biased against employees but there was no pick-up by other media or the body politic. Meanwhile he is enmired in a miasma of legal actions with his employer, itself the WRC, about its failure to renew its contract with him after his retirement. Village has gone nuts about diverted funding at the long-dysfunctional Irish Red Cross, about a heavyweight Ansbacher cover-up, about Jonathan Sugarman, about the abuse of its dominant position in the market by Ireland’s biggest company – CRH, about the illegal dumping of 10 million tyres in the Donegal bog, about corruption in local authorities around the country, led by a former county manager in Donegal, about the role of MI5 in promoting compromising paedophilia in Northern Ireland; all to little avail. There’s a vague glamour to whistleblowing. It has been the centrepiece of works of art from Henrik Ibsen‘s ‘An Enemy of The People’, (1882) and Nobelist Halder Laxness’s ‘Independent People’, (1934) to Elia Kazan’s ‘On The Waterfront’, (1952) and Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Erin Brockovich’ (2000). But the glamour mostly attaches to journalists. Unless they’re from Village. Englishman WT Stead is considered to be the founding father of investigative journalism and the inventor of the sensationalism that gave rise to tabloid newspapers. His famous investigation into the trafficking of young girls in 1885 earned him a jail sentence but precipitated passage of a law raising the age of consent, and indeed Shaw’s play ‘Pygmalion’. Journalistic whistleblowing became a phemonenon with Emile Zola who was convicted by a French court for criminal libel for his campaign to establish the innocence of Jewish army officer Albert Dreyfuss of passing secrets to Germany in the late 1890s. Nellie Bly, a pseudonym used by journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman around the same time, famously feigned insanity as part of her 1887 undercover exposé of the Women’s Lunatic Asylum in New York City. But modern investigative journalism took forensic shape in 1960s Britain. From Ludovic Kennedy’s 1960s re-examining of cases such as the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley to Harold Evans’ 1970s exposé of thalidomide in the Sunday Times to Pilger and Hitchens and the crusades of Paul Foot on James Hanratty hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder, journalists in Britain have in a de facto sense acted as whistleblowers even if there is scant legislative protection for them. They are never legislatively classified as whistleblowers. These journalists attained a measure of respect, especially among the cognoscenti. We should nevertheless be clear that with the demise of the likes of Don McCullin and Peter Hitchens and even ‘Prime Time Investigates’ and the rise of the plutocratic oligarchs in the press, that intrepid investigation is under threat and in decline. The underlying characters who break from their peers to tell tales on their institutions, that’s a different matter. Most of them finish up destroyed. An excellent recent book by NUIG academic Kate Kenny, ‘Whistleblowing: Towards a New Theory’ (2019, Harvard University Press), makes the case that journalists make life more difficult for whistleblowers by spotlighting them and making them targets for scrutiny “We see this clearly in the recent media obsession with well-known whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning in which more attention is given to the individuals, their private selves and their personalities than to the information they report“. There is much literature on the dynamic and motivation of whistleblowing. Elements of vanity are often to the fore, proponents are rarely comfortable team players. Antagonists can often have a field day at their expense. Indeed though you’ll mostly recognise one when you see one in fact there are divergent views as to who should be classified as a whistleblower in the first place. Certainly an employee but what about a consultant or an associate or an independent journalist? Does criminal behaviour lose you the status? And what sectors? Certainly blowing the whistle on crime, terrorism, national security, and corruption are protected in most jurisdictions. Beyond that there is a definite ambivalence, reflected in official inertia. This is manifest in the fact that legislation is not in general effective and the whistleblower may expect to be subjected to what the literature deems reprisals or retaliation. This typically means internal disciplinary sanctions on a spectrum from an informal warning to dismissal on fabricated grounds. Bullying, harrassment, termination of career prospects or employment and threats are common but some have paid even higher prices. A notable such casualty was journalist, Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia, who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption, targeting widely from the Prime Minister to the Mafia, in Malta. She was killed last year by a car bomb. Her experience was the worst but nearly all whistleblowers suffer for their stance. This is shown by a review of the best known. Before his recent eviction and jailing for skipping bail, Julian Assange was forced to seek refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy after facing an investigation by Swedish prosecutors into rape offences centring on his refusal to use a condom or have a STD test with two woman he stayed with while he was giving talks in Stockholm in 2010. Meanwhile, the US is applying for his extradition. Assange is not charged with anything related to Russia or Russiagate or even with breaking a law. Assange is charged with being in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning “to commit computer intrusion” over the Collateral Murder

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  • Sleeping rough

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    Agency Capture Part 1: Homelessness

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    by Mannix Flynn The root cause of the homelessness crisis in Ireland is the broken housing system. Ireland does not have a public housing system to meet the needs of the society. The biggest mistake was the decision by Labour’s Joan Burton  to cut social housing spending by 72% between 2008 and 2012 (€1.38bn to €390m), but Rent Supplement levels, rising rents, easy evictions and reduced welfare rates for under-25s all represent serious policy failures. It is four years since the Fine Gael government introduced ‘Rebuilding Ireland’, their insincere and uninformed strategy to reduce homelessness. Nearly every single month for that period the number of homeless people has gone up.  Even though there are over 180,000 vacant dwellings – excluding hoilday homes  – in Ireland, there are now around 9000 homeless people across Ireland. The number of homeless families has increased  115% in the last five years of economic ascendancy. More than one in three people in emergency accommodation is a child. However, this number does not include ‘hidden homelessness’ – women and children staying in domestic violence refuges or people who are sleeping rough. In November 2019, the official rough sleeping count confirmed 92 people sleeping rough in Dublin, with an additional number in the Night Café, without a place to sleep. Accountancy firm Mazars found there were more than 75 housing and homelessness service-providers in Ireland. In 2019, a total of €170 million was spent providing temporary and emergency accommodation for the homeless, an  increase of 19 per cent over 2018. The numbers of homeless accommodated in hotels and B&Bs increased by 15.6 per cent from 2,282 in January 2019 to 2,638 in  December 2019.  €80.16 million was paid to hotels and B&Bs; €70.26, an increase of 16% over 2018, was paid to homelessness charities for temporary and emergency accommodation, including family hubs; €19.9 million was paid to ‘other’. Hotels received payments totalling €56.6 million to provide temporary and  emergency accommodation. 19 Dublin hotels each received payments in excess of €1 million. One hotel received payments of €4 million-€5 million There are nearly 3000  homeless adults in private temporary or emergency accommodation in Dublin – which is more than in charity-run facilities, according to the Department of Housing. Fr Peter McVerry, the anti-homelessness campaigner, recently told the Dublin Inquirer he was surprised by that distribution. In Glasgow most homeless people have their own rooms yet, apart from the Iveagh Trust, most homeless hostels for single people in Dublin accommodate people in shared rooms or dorms. The conditions in most of Dublin’s temporary and emergency accommodation and hostels are simply appalling.  They are ghettos  staffed by untrained individuals with no real understanding of the homeless and the traumas they’ve been through, acting ad hoc.  Of the respondents to a 2018 Dublin Inquirer/Amárach survey of homelessness-hostel users, 61 percent said noise levels and privacy were “poor”, and 40 percent said cleanliness was “poor”. Of the 126 people surveyed, over 90 percent said they had witnessed drinking or drug-taking at one-night-only hostels, and 89 percent said they had experienced bullying or intimidation. 38  percent of those surveyed said staying in one-night-only hostels had a “very negative” impact on their physical health, and 41 percent a “very negative” impact on their mental health. Survey respondents used hostels run by Depaul, Peter McVerry Trust and Iveagh Trust most frequently. The Depaul hostel on Little Britain Street was rated highest, and Peter McVerry Trust’s emergency accommodation was ranked lowest.  Although a captive media rarely gets beyond parroting the incoherent mantras of the middle-class worthies who front these pampered institutions, officials have admitted to me that they themselves are deeply disturbed with the appalling management of facilities that they were spending nearly €170m annually on, but which are not inspected or properly regulated and the rights of whose users remain unclear.  I remember one incident where an untrained staff member gave a homeless client the wrong medication which resulted in a complete breakdown of the individual and the person being sectioned by the Garda who had to be called in to restrain the individual who had such a bad reaction to the wrong medication. But none of this is recorded and nothing is ever done about it. Until recently charities that ran hostels would say that they have their own standards in place. But it was never clear whose role it was to ensure these standards were high enough, and adhered to. Neither Peter McVerry Trust nor Cedar House Crosscare Homeless Shelter responded to queries about quality-control in hostels. These queries included what oversight is in place to monitor standards, how many times their hostels had been inspected in 2018, whether they gathered feedback from their users, and what measures were in place for addressing complaints. Depaul and Focus Ireland did respond to the queries. A spokesperson for Depaul referred to the DRHE’s National Quality Standards Framework. Focus Ireland adopted a full set of “standards of customer services” around 2008 according to Mike Allen, director of advocacy. It carries out “detailed customer-satisfaction surveys” every three years, he said. For “customers who have disengaged with our services”, the charity calls them six months later, asking questions including about quality of service. Some of those surveyed also mentioned the Iveagh Trust hostel, even though it isn’t a one-night-only hostel. Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for Iveagh Trust, told the Dublin Inquirer the Iveagh Hostel differs from other hostels in Dublin because all residents have their own individual room and are free to stay for as long as they choose. Having single rooms “affords a level of privacy and significantly reduces the potential for issues to arise between residents”, said Fitzpatrick. This is key to the future of homelessness services. If you provide decent facilities you get better results for users, local authorities and the public. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DHRE) is provided by Dublin City Council as the lead statutory local authority in the response to homelessness in Dublin. It was set up to provide accommodation and support for those falling into homelessness. DHRE is an ambulance without wheels. It

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    Carl Beech and the ‘Useful idiots’ at the BBC. The incompetence of the BBC has now made it a pawn in the cover-up of VIP sex abuse. The darkest forces in MI5 and MI6 are the true beneficiaries of its ineptitude.

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    By Joseph de Burca. Introduction. The documentary on the liar and fraud Carl Beech raises the most serious questions about the competence of the BBC which broadcasted it on 24 August. For years Beech masqueraded as the survivor of a VIP sex-abuse ring that allegedly engaged in the rape, torture and murder of children. During his charade, Beech enjoyed the attention of the mainstream British media and a now defunct website called Exaro. Meanwhile, the reporters who gave Beech acres of publicity ignored the existence of genuine victims of sex abuse. Some even misreported what they said. The BBC documentary on Beech did not reveal a single new fact of any relevance and was a pointless exercise from a journalistic point of view. All it has done is cast doubt on the credibility of genuine victims of sex abuse such as Richard Kerr. Instead of devoting its massive resources to a meaningful inquiry into the issue of actual VIP sex abuse, the BBC has now produced two documentaries on Beech. Village magazine has produced an online book which describes the role of MI5 and MI6 in the exploitation of children in Ireland and Britain in the 1970s and 1980s for those who would like to look beyond the output of the BBC and the Murdoch press. It begins at The Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. Chapters 1 – 3. One question about Beech was raised repeatedly during the BBC documentary, namely why did he lie? Yet, having raised this extremely important question, it did not provide anything resembling an answer. Instead, it offered speculation and bewilderment. Significantly, none of the speculation touched upon the possibility that Beech was a player – and a well-paid one at that –  in a plot by a cabal determined to convince the public that VIP sex abuse was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. Once he had achieved his goal, it was his plan to start a new life in Sweden with his financial rewards. The media had not published a single picture of his face and had only referred to him as ‘Nick’. Then he was thrown to the wolves by his erstwhile colleagues, discredited and sent to prison. Now, even if he were to reveal that he was part of a plot to discredit claims of VIP child sex abuse, his credibility has crumbled and no one will ever believe a word of what he has to say. If this is actually what has happened or close to it, the BBC has served the cabal’s purposes admirably. Intelligence services have a term for people who advance the agenda of those they oppose without realising they are being manipulated: they are called “useful idiots”. 1. THE USEFUL IDIOTS AT THE BBC Last year the more excitable elements of the British media went into something of a frenzy after the conviction of Beech by a Newcastle jury. Beech, a former NHS manager then aged 51, was convicted for perverting the course of justice, i.e. telling the police a pack of lies. He was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Beech’s deceit related to the existence of an alleged murderous  VIP paedophile ring based around Westminster involving Jimmy Savile, the former British prime minister Ted Heath (1970-74), and others. Beech’s allegations prompted a £2million Scotland Yard inquiry. Beech claimed he was a survivor of an “establishment group” which including politicians, military figures and spies. Absurdly, he claimed the group kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered  boys in the 1970s and 1980s. This had triggered an ill-fated police probe that ended without a single arrest being made. The BBC broadcast did not attempt to answer any of the questions which Village  magazine and other publications raised last year. It did not even ask: Who funded Beech’s lavish expenditure in Sweden; Why did the police treat Beech as a credible witness when it was obvious he was a liar; Who was the “high-level” figure who told the police not to look at Beech’s laptop computer for two years, something that permitted him to engage in the crime of watching child pornography during that time period. 2. WHO FUNDED BEECH’S EXPENDITURE IN SWEDEN? Beech planned to make a new life for himself under an assumed identity in Sweden. He was in the process of arranging this while his lies were unravelling and he was facing a slew of criminal charges in Britain.  He purchased a riverside property in the village of Overkalix near the Artic Circle in the name of Stephen Anderson. Yet, the BBC did not bother to ask: Did he have a passport in the name of Stephen Anderson? Did he have fraudulent legal documents in the name of Anderson? If so, how did he acquire them? Did he get them from MI5, MI6 or another government agency? What documents did he use in the purchase the house in Sweden? The BBC did not raise the issue of his funds apart from mentioning that he had received the sum of £22,000 in compensation for his alleged abuse. That sum, however, could not possibly have funded his lavish lifestyle. The BBC did not make that important fact clear. Even if the BBC lacked the wit to raise the mystery surrounding Beech’s wealth on its own volition, the issue was already in the public domain. The Daily Telegraph reported last year as follows: “Seemingly flush with cash [in Overkalix], Beech, who was given £22,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in the wake of his claims of abuse, did not hesitate to pay 450 Krona (£38) for a haircut, £84 for a tin of paint, or £1,350 to fix the air conditioning in his car”. The Sun reported how the house cost £17,000 and that Beech planned to buy a “large house across the road plus several cabins by the riverside, including a luxury villa”. A local plumber called Patrik Elemalm has revealed how he installed a new bathroom and renovated the pipework for £4,500.  According to Par Andersson, the budget for the villa was £85,000. The BBC also

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    Tune into BBC 2 tonight. From Jimmy Savile to Carl Beech, the BBC’s lamentable coverage of VIP sex abuse.

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    By Joseph de Burca. The BBC has a lamentable record insofar as VIP sex abuse is concerned. It allowed Jimmy Savile prey on children for decades while countless officials knew what he was like. Johnny Lydon (aka ‘Johnny Rotten’ of the Sex Pistols) was shut down when he tried to expose Savile. If Lydon – a complete outsider –  knew he was a child molester, it is not hard to imagine how many people inside the BBC also were aware. Why the BBC really covered up for Savile is still a matter for conjecture. The most likely answers are deference to the British Establishment and the malign influence of British Intelligence, especially MI5 which is attached to the Home Office. Savile was a friend of the Royal Family, Margaret Thatcher and other VIPs. Savile was also part of the various overlapping VIP abuse rings which were being exploited by Britain’s intelligence services for various nefarious reasons. The BBC continues to turn a blind eye to evidence of VIP sex abuse. Grotesquely, it enjoys a reputation for quite the opposite, especially in light of its tepid interview of Prince Andrew late last year, saved only by Andrew hanging himself through his hubris. During that interview, Prince Andrew was not asked about his friendship with Lord Greville Janner and Alan Kerr, a teenage male prostitute that Janner had introduced to him at a performance of the Prince and the Pauper in the 1980s. See The Prince, the pauper and the paedophile peer: the dangerous questions the BBC failed to ask. BBC 2 is about to broadcast a documentary on Carl Beech (9.30 tonight). Beech is the conman once known only as ‘Nick’, who has somehow managed to convince the British public that VIP sex abuse was a figment of his imagination. People who have defended the reputation of former British Prime Minister Ted Heath have claimed that the conviction of Beech last year for his lies was a vindication of their position. This is illogical. Logically, if Heath is to be deemed innocent of child abuse simply because Beech included him as part of his litany of lies, Jimmy Savile must be innocent too as he was also included in Beech’s output. The case against Heath was made by the Wiltshire Police after a very thorough investigation. Its commendable report can be found online.See also Does ‘Nick’s’ conviction mean Jimmy Savile and Ted Heath are innocent? Yes, if you work for the British tabloid press. By Joseph de Búrca Last year,  Village  magazine examined Beech’s background and put forward the case that he is a lot more than a mere fantasist. On the contrary, he appears to have been either used or exploited or employed by a cabal which is determined to convince the British public that VIP sex abuse did not take place. There are very serious questions to be answered about the large sums of money which Beech acquired. The acid test will be to see if the BBC documentary asks questions about:  Beech’s motives (was he is a paedophile himself, and part of the cabal which wished to protect VIP paedophiles) the motives of the police officers who afforded Beech credibility (when all the evidence pointed against Beech having any);  the source of Beech’s income (which was sufficient to purchase a house in Scandinavia where he planned to flee) Meanwhile, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has turned out to be a monumental failure. One of the many reasons for its failure has been its point-blank refusal to interview a string of living witnesses who could have provided it with evidence of VIP sex abuse. Combined, it would appear that the cabal behind Beech, the BBC and the IICSA have persuaded – and will continue to persuade –  the British public that VIP sex abuse did not exist. The former Tory MP Harvey Proctor may feature on the BBC documentary. Beech alleged that Proctor had been involved in child murder. That was a lie. Proctor never murdered anyone. He did, however, exploit teenage rent boys. He was convicted for this in the 1980s. If he is interviewed by the BBC, will Proctor provide a full account of his dealings with teenage male prostitutes, or simply focus on his reaction to Beech’s false murder allegation? Will Proctor provide details about: The rent boys he abused? Will he be asked if he paid rent boys on other occasions? Will he name other MPs who exploited them? Will he explain what steps – if any – he took to ensure that the rent boys he exploited had not been groomed and abused in orphanages or care homes earlier in their lives? Will he be asked why he thought the rent boys let him and others abuse them if not on account of poverty? Will he name the restaurant where he took one particular now high profile teenager from Northern Ireland for a meal and describe the full nature and background to his contact with this individual? Will he be asked about his views on the exploitation of impoverished and disadvantaged teenage prostitutes by adults? A balanced documentary would address these isssues as well as the motive behind Beech’s campaign of lies. The purpose of the documentary should be to strip away the lies and refocus on VIP sex abuse. The main beneficiary of Beech’s campaign of lies was MI5 and MI6. The BBC and MI5 and MI6 have a long fraternal history. The BBC was used by the various branches of British Intelligence during World War II in its operational activities. While it is difficult – if not impossible – to take issue with the use of the BBC during World War II as a propaganda tool to help suppress the Nazis, it should be noted that the deep symbiosis between the two organisations remained in place during the Cold War and beyond. MI5 was permitted to vet all employees at the BBC until at least the 1980s. The

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    What are the Garda doing at evictions?

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    The presence of gardaí at evictions may lead tenants to believe that they have no choice but to vacate their home. By Conor Doyle. Video footage emerged last Thursday of the latest iteration of what’s become a familiar scene. Men, dressed head to toe in black, with dark glasses and face coverings (although on this occasion not balaclavas, because perhaps conveniently Covid-19 masks are now mandatory) pouring into a private residence to carry out an eviction, with gardaí present. In the video, three gardaí can be seen informing the tenants, the majority of which are foreign nationals, that they have no right to be on the property. But Garda have no function at a private eviction, except in cases where there’s a criminal act – or a credible threat of a criminal act – taking place. And furthermore reports are claiming that the eviction was illegal suggesting their primary role should have been to defend those who were victims of a serious illegality, the tenants. So why were they in fact here? The exact reason why the gardaí first arrived is unclear. Some reports, including in The Journal, claim it was the tenants that called them for assistance. A legal representative for An Garda Síochána (AGS) told The Journal on Thursday that gardaí were dispatched to the scene to “prevent breaches of the peace and ensure the safety of all persons involved” and that “no injuries occurred and no damage was caused”. When the storm of marauding and intimidating black-clad men had blown through, the tenants, eight of whom were foreign nationals, were left out on the road with their belongings. Many of the tenants had been living in the property for years. One tenant, Theresa Chimamkpam told The Irish Times that she’d lived there since 2011. She said she was “terrified” and that her home was boarded up, rendering her homeless. With the help of housing activists and solicitor Gary Daly, who’s representing the tenants, they were able to regain access to the property. Daly said there is no legal document which would form the basis for a lawfully authorised eviction. The video footage shows a man arguing with tenants, claiming that he gave notice on Facebook seven days beforehand. However of course, a message on Facebook is not a valid form of notice. And 7 days is not the appropriate notice period. Daly also said that to the best of his knowledge, the Garda were not in possession of a court order or an order from the Residential Tenancies Board to authorise the eviction. Housing activists Dublin City Housing Action told The Journalthat tenants’ belongings, including laptops, were damaged as they were being removed. Photos of further damage have since surfaced on Twitter, from Irish Times Journalist Jack Power and others. The photos show smashed toilets and walls partially torn down. If it is the case that the Garda were called to the scene by the tenants, the pertinent question is why they can be heard telling the tenants “you have no right to be here” and “as far as we’re concerned you’ve been given notice”. Especially if it’s true that they had not seen any documentation that would authorise the eviction. Last Thursday, the ICCL wrote a letter to the Garda Commissioner, asking these questions. Sinéad Nolan from the ICCL told me: “Garda shouldn’t be present unless there is a crime taking place or the very real threat of a crime. A culture has grown up in Ireland where Garda sometimes arrive at evictions to uphold public order, however this isn’t really a good legal reason to be there”. Deputy Commissioner John Twomey had called for an urgent review of the events at Thursday’s eviction. Deputy Twomey also said there’s a criminal investigation being carried out into the damage caused. The call for review seemed to come off the back of the Garda becoming “very aware of the current public discourse around an incident on Berkeley Road”. It seems their position has changed from we came to keep the peace and no damage was caused. One would wonder whether it was the “current public discourse” that caused the sudden change of stance and thus introspection from the Gardaí. “We think last week’s protest got so much attention because those tenants were well connected in activists groups and were able to access their support networks on social media etc”, Sinéad Nolan continued. “We worry there are other evictions being carried out under the radar”. This Garda introspection will come in the form of a ‘lessons learned report’ according to Deputy Twomey who unconvincingly said that the Garda is a “learning organisation”. However, this isn’t the first time the Garda have had to learn from such an incident. In 2018, the ICCL wrote a similar letter in relation to an eviction on North Frederick Street. On that occasion Gardaí could be seen wearing face coverings resembling balaclavas and protestors were evicted, with several arrested and injuries sustained. In the aftermath, Garda commissioner Drew Harris claimed that Garda had learned lessons and that balaclavas were not the correct form of dress. But modern history shows that lessons don’t really seem to be a ‘thing’ for the Garda. “What happened last week would seem to suggest that the lessons that needed to be learned, weren’t”, Sinead Nolan continued. “I mean, it’s a low bar to set but obviously it’s good that they weren’t wearing face coverings”. . Also perhaps ironically, on this occasion they should have all been wearing face coverings in the form of Covid-19 face masks, whereas only two out of the three were. The Garda claim that their attendance at these evictions is to ‘keep the peace’. However, with the damage caused last week and the injuries sustained in 2018 while gardaí were present, questions arise as to exactly what their motivation for attending these evictions is. Or perhaps more specifically, what or who they are there to protect. If information from solicitor Gary Daly is correct, it would appear that some of the Garda turned up to

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    Traduced (updated version): John Hume was the victim of a campaign of character assassination perpetrated by the British Secret Service, MI6, and was placed under MI5 surveillance in Dublin with the assistance of the Gardaí.

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    By David Burke. UPDATE: See also Just declassified UK memo on John Hume reveals interest of PM John Major’s top civil servants in “possible press stories regarding John Hume’s private life”. John Hume was the victim of a campaign of character assassination in the early 1970s perpetrated by British spies. It was spearheaded by an individual called Hugh Mooney, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, who once worked as a sub-editor for the Irish Times. Mooney belonged to the ‘Special Editorial Unit’ (SEU) of the Information Research Department (IRD). It was responsible for the production of black propaganda. Mooney’s boss was the IRD’s Special Operations Adviser, Hans Welser, a veteran of the WW2 Political Warfare Executive. The IRD was part of the Foreign Office and worked closely with the British Secret Service, MI6, which is also attached to the Foreign Office. The IRD operated from a building in London called Riverbank House. Although Mooney worked at Army HQ Northern Ireland under the cover title of ‘Information Adviser to the GOC’, official documents show that in 1972 he was reporting to the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at Stormont – not to the GOC. This means that his activities were known about at a very high level. Prior to his attack on Hume, Mooney had worked in Bermuda where his colonial and racist side had come to the fore, a story for another day. Mooney and his associates sought to depict John Hume: as part of a communist conspiracy to turn Ireland into Europe’s Cuba; as a supporter of the IRA; as a fundraiser for the IRA; as a thief who stole charitable donations; as a man for whom a warrant had been issued for his arrest in 1972. There may have been other smears which have not yet been detected. Unintentionally, Her Majesty’s spies and their colleagues in the British Army also made his task of achieving peace extraordinarily difficult at key moments in his career, such as those of Bloody Sunday in January 1972 in his native Derry. Rogue elements inside MI5 also plotted with the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) to tear down the 1974 Power-Sharing Executive of which Hume was minister for commerce. This left Hume without a reliable source of income for a number of years and could have forced him to abandon politics for a job outside of it. Throughout his career he was placed under surveillance, something that was tantamount to treating him as a subversive. In the 1980s the Gardai in the Republic of Ireland helped MI5 bug some of his conversations. A house where his deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, stayed in 1983 was also bugged by the Gardai. In the 1990s MI5 opposed his discussions with Gerry Adams. Hume was a towering political figure of immense courage, foresight and integrity. Boris Johnson has paid him a lavish tribute, praising his “strong sense of social justice” and saying that without him “there would have been no Belfast or Good Friday Agreement”. Despite Johnson’s fine words, the Tories did their best to stand in Hume’s way during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In fact it is not an exaggeration to say that they made his life hell. HEATH IN THE 1970s: Ted Heath served as Tory prime minister, 1970-1974. He sent his black propaganda operatives to Ireland to conduct dirty trick campaigns in the early 1970s. It was they who ran the smear campaign against Hume. Ironically, it is Heath’s legacy which is in now in tatters while Hume’s has never soared higher. Heath’s reputation was destroyed by a report published by the Wiltshire Police in 2017 about his abuse of boys, one as young as 14. THATCHER IN THE 1980s: Margaret Thatcher, Tory PM, 1979-90, let MI5 (attached to the Home Office) spy on Hume in gross violation of his human rights. Some of this surveillance was carried out in the Burlington Hotel in the Republic of Ireland with the assistance of the Republic’s special branch. The first steps of the peace process were taken in the middle of Thatcher’s premiership in 1986 when a back channel was opened between Gerry Adams and Charles Haughey via Fr. Alex Reid. Haughey ‘s Northern Ireland adviser Martin Mansergh was a pivotal figure in the process. Thatcher’s battery of spies do not appear to have had any inkling of what was afoot. Had Thatcher discovered this development, it is – to put it mildly – likely she would have denounced it. The Haughey-Adams process was so secret that even John Hume did not know about it when he entered the process later and expressed disbelief when he finally discovered this fact. MAJOR IN THE 1990s: Thatcher’s successor at 10 Downing Street, John Major, PM 1990-97, was not supportive of the next phase of the process which became known as ‘Hume-Adams’. In 1993 and 1994 key elements of the press in the Republic denounced Hume’s dialogue with Adams, in particular Conor Cruise O’Brien who wrote for Ireland’s Sunday Independent. O’Brien was close to a number of dubious intelligence figures such as Dame Daphne Park, a self-confessed MI6 dirty tricks expert and David Astor, one of MI6’s most important assets in the media. O’Brien knew them through the British-Irish Association (BIA) which Astor had helped set up in the 1970s, and which Park co-chaired in the 1980s. It was Astor who appointed O’Brien as editor of The Observer. Haughey considered the BIA a British Intelligence front and forbade Fianna Fail figures (such as Brian Lenihan) from attending it. How much O’Brien was influenced by his friends in the British Establishment is an imponderable. Major, who had an exceptionally close relationship with his spymasters, was not supportive of what Hume, Adams and Dublin were trying to achieve either. Eventually, Bill Clinton had to intervene to twist Major’s arm and move the process forward. Still, MI5 tried to derail it. Haughey’s successor as taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, 1992-94, became so concerned about the hostility of MI5 that he told Major

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    Who is afraid of Richard Kerr?

    by

    Malicious and unfair assaults on the credibility of Richard Kerr, the Kincora whistleblower, are nothing new. The most concerted effort to undermine him so far was one perpetrated by sinister individuals posing as journalists who attempted to get him to join forces with the now notorious conman Carl Beech. This occurred when Beech was featuring prominently in the mainstream British media as ‘Nick’ and was holding himself out as a victim of VIP child sex abuse when he was nothing of the sort. Beech was later exposed as a liar and a fraud. Richard realised from the outset that Beech was a complete fraud and refused to have anything to do with him. Village has argued that Beech was a plant all along who was constructed from day one to be exposed as a fraud and taint genuine victims of VIP sex abuse. Village’s analysis can be found at: Does ‘Nick’s’ conviction mean Jimmy Savile and Ted Heath are innocent? Yes, if you work for the British tabloid press. By Joseph de Búrca Another dirty trick is to assert that Richard has made a claim when he hasn’t. Judge Anthony Hart was tripped up repeatedly by his reliance on press reports containing errors. Hart relied upon articles about Richard which appeared on the Internet. Some of them had misreported what Kerr had said. As a judge, Hart should have known better than to have relied upon hearsay and dross from the internet in his egregious and woeful 2017 report on Kincora. Worse again, Hart himself conjured an allegation out of thin air that Kerr had claimed that he had been abused by Sir Maurice Oldfield, the former head of MI6. Kerr never made such an allegation. The supreme irony is that Hart claimed elsewhere in his report that Richard had not in fact made any allegation about Oldfield abusing him. Bizarrely, one of ‘Nick/Beech’s’ allegations was that he too had been abused by Maurice Oldfield. Kerr decided that he was not going to have anything to do with Judge Hart after some tentative engagement with the clown. In light of the multiple errors Hart made in his lamentable report, Kerr has been vindicated. A third line of attack is to claim that Richard must be making up stories after he releases new information. Why? Well, because he had not made the disclosure previously. This presupposes that all interviews that Kerr has ever given were intended to be comprehensive biographical accounts of his entire life. Suffice it to say Kerr has not attempted to provide anyone with a full biographical account of his life. It would probably take a book containing 100,000 words to describe it in a way that would do justice to it. Another factor in all of this is trust. As Richard is at pains to explain to anyone who talks to him, a severe symptom of his post-abuse syndrome is a lack of trust in people. This is a symptom common to most abuse survivors. Hence, it should be apparent to any intelligent journalist, writer or researcher who has conducted even the most elementary preparation for an interview with a sex abuse survivor that trust must be built up over time. One figure in the UK with an overblown view of his own importance has attacked Richard simply because he was not given chapter and verse on his life when he established some tentative contact with him. Fear is also a factor in hesitating about making certain disclosures. Richard encountered brutes like John McKeague, a sadistic Red Hand Commando/UVF terrorist, not to mention the fact that he he has been beaten up by RUC and English police officers to shut him up about what he knew about Kincora. McKeague was a vicious serial killer who enjoyed torturing Catholics in UVF ‘romper rooms’. Yet another factor is the suppression of traumatic memories. Irish legislation makes a specific exception for victims of sex abuse who wish to take a legal action later in life. The normal time limits do not apply to sex abuse victims where they are found to have been labouring under a psychological disability which prevented them taking litigation at an earlier stage in their life. Time only begins to run when they emerge from such a psychological disability. This legislation was based on advice furnished to the Irish government by psychologists and experts in the field of sex abuse trauma. There is similar legislation in other jurisdictions. There are many stories yet to come from Richard including one involving a cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government. In addition, Richard has yet to name the well-known TV star who abused him in London in the 1970s. The individual in question is still very much in the spotlight. Indeed, he has appeared all over the British media in the last number of days. See: How the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring Trafficked Boys from Belfast to MPs and a TV star in Britain Richard has also been subject to intimidation. He was sent a letter purporting to be from the Ulster Freedom Fighters (i.e. the Ulster Defence Association) which Village magazine has published. Most assuredly, it was not sent by the UFF, rather by individuals with a vested interest in convincing the public that the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring never existed. The threatening letter can be read in full at Careless about Kerr Bearing all of the foregoing in mind, a new video has just appeared on the Internet which features some photographic material provided to the producers of it by Richard. Unfortunately, a number of errors have crept into the video. Since a clown cast from the same mould as Judge Hart could yet be appointed to look at Richard’s case at some stage in the future, it is important to nail these errors before they take root. In fairness to the producers of the video, some important issues have been raised in it with which Richard Kerr takes no issue and indeed are based on revelations which

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