Conservative MP Frances Maude is the guardian of transparency in David Cameron's Conservative Party. Aside from the fact that the Conservative Cabinet falsified meeting minutes to hide its internal dealings with the political charity Common Purpose, there seems to be a darker shadow lurking behind the Conservative Party's transparency, especially when it comes to child abuse. Let's get to the dark heart of the British government.
On 21 June 2015, the Sunday Mail published an exclusive interview with the National Crime Agency on its front page and a two-page supplement. With the shocking headline “Crime Chief: 750,000 Men Want Child Sex”, the article stated that according to statistics and evidence held by the National Crime Agency, around 750,000 British men are interested in child abuse. It also claimed that one in 35 men could be a child abuser, adding that this is all part of “human nature”.
Wanting to know more, we called the NCA and asked where we could find the sources of their statistics and evidence. Since the NCA and its investigations were at the heart of columnist and foreign correspondent Ian Birrell's exclusive story, it seemed like a pretty simple question. The woman in the media was very polite at first, but we were surprised at how quickly she responded. The answer to our question, “Where can I find the NCA's statistics and evidence?” was, “They're readily available online.” “Where?” we asked, and she coldly replied, “They're readily available online.”
I immediately Googled “750,000 male paedophiles in the UK” but nothing concrete came up. I explained this to her and she, with a distinctly cold attitude, told me to “find it for myself” – a strange response given the NCA has made extensive public releases of its statistics and evidence. Surely the NCA can easily access their own data, right?
Undaunted, we called the Daily Mail and asked to speak to Birrell himself. The editor on duty was initially polite and apologised for being unavailable. We explained that we were trying to get the facts behind the Mail on Sunday's paedophile story, in particular the statistics that hadn't been in Birrell's exclusive. The woman was also coldly adamant: “I've spoken to you before and it didn't work out. We're not going to discuss this.” The Mail also seemed sensitive about the lack of statistics.
Not to worry, the friendly Daily Mail told us that CEOP, the government's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, also has statistics. We called CEOP and, lo and behold, a woman from the NCA answered. We were surprised, and so was she. She kindly explained that CEOP is part of the NCA and that “you can find the missing information online”.
Bears in America's national parks are known to be aggressive in targeting backpackers for food. Not to be outdone, we called the London office of Karen Bradley MP. As Under Secretary of State for the Prevention of Abuse and Exploitation, Karen is a Conservative minister who cares about children. She has featured prominently in Birrell's article and has apparently lent weight to his exclusive on British male paedophiles. There's no way she knows where the statistics are.
The number of times we got no response from her phone number made us hungry and determined as bears. We emailed and asked if we could provide source statistics for the article. No response. Oh, no.
What a shocking silence, especially considering in Birel's article she states “We (the government) have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat alongside terrorism and organised crime – one of the greatest threats of our time.” In the age of ISIS, this is heavy stuff!
Feeling like hungry grizzly bears, we emailed Birrell himself, via his very smart website, to ask where the statistics came from. Time passed. No reply. Oh no. Perhaps he was busy writing another speech for Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.
So it got us thinking: Why is it so hard to find source statistics for a massive exposé that says at least 750,000 British men have a penchant for child abuse? Wrong? Unlikely.
I also wondered why the NCA's media representative was so quick to say that the statistics were online. If the NCA had collected the statistics and evidence, they would surely have been happy to share it. But it seemed like she already knew that those statistics weren't there. They were just buried somewhere online…
UKColumn started spreading the word that something was wrong. We covered it in UKColumn News, we tweeted about it, we posted on the UKColumn website, we sent emails, we spoke to people, and we pointed out that if the statistic of 750,000 British men was correct, then the split was roughly 50:50, so there were around 750,000 female abusers as well – a staggering total.
So imagine our surprise when the latest Mail on Sunday published an article by Rachel Johnson entitled “Female teachers 'seducing' boys is no laughing matter – it's brutal abuse”, in which the lovely Rachel passionately explains how she was shocked to discover that child abuse is not “just a male thing”. She also refers to National Crime Agency statistics, saying “After all, the NCA has just suggested that 3% of the male population are potential child abusers – which means the taint of the so-called 'dark field' – the experts' ominous term for people with a sexual interest in children – amounts to around 750,000 men.”
Rachel cleverly buttressed the NCA's story and added comparable figures for women, all based on statistics that had never been published before.
Pausing to think for a moment, the UKColumn team had the impression that the NCA, Birrell, the Daily Mail, Karen Bradley MP and Rachel Johnson herself had stoked fears and led the public to believe that child abusers are all around us. In fact, they went even further than that by implying that child abuse is, well, just part of human nature.
With Westminster and our politicians under considerable pressure following accusations of child abuse by members of Parliament and even the Palace of Westminster itself being used to carry out the abuse, we have investigated further. Who exactly is Rachel Johnson?
Within minutes we knew her. According to helpful Wikipedia, she is… “The daughter of former Conservative MEPs Stanley Johnson and Charlotte Johnson Wall, and of prominent barrister and President of the European Commission on Human Rights, Sire James Fawcett. She is also the sister of Conservative MP Boris Johnson and Conservative policy chief Jo Johnson.”
For example, was the media used to “spread the dirty news” to divert growing public attention from the parliamentary paedophilia scandals – Cyril Smith, Elm Guest House, Dolphin Square, Leon Brittan, Ben Fellowes and the allegations against Lord Janner – and claim that “child abuse is human nature and that 1.5 million British men and women are into it”? So no need to worry about a few elder statesmen, it's all history and, yes, everyone is on to it?
We'll leave you to ponder on the child abuse statistics that no one can provide and what they actually mean. Perhaps we should just leave it at that thought that Alison Saunders, the head of the Child Abuse Prevention Agency, was able to protect Lady Janner from justice, but this same woman not only put on trial, but also imprisoned and put in solitary confinement, child abuse victim and whistleblower Melanie Shaw from Nottingham Beachwood. Forget that Melanie was traumatized with PTSD after years of abuse in state custody and required a full-time psychiatrist to deal with the trauma.
One only needs to understand the scale and perniciousness of child abuse, and the abusers in power, to understand the dark heart of the British government – and those who try to cover it up.
