A little before Christmas VFC had the opportunity to talk exclusively with US journalist Leah McGrath Goodman concerning Jersey's on-going Child Abuse Inquiry and related matters.
Regular readers will recall Ms Goodman was previously BANNED from the UK, and Jersey, after it became apparent, to the authorities, that she was investigating atrocities committed against children at Haut de la Garenne and elsewhere on the Island. After a hard-fought BATTLE her visa was restored, and indeed has recently been renewed.
In the interview (below) Ms Goodman discusses her observations on the Jersey Child Abuse Inquiry, thus far, subjects include; the naming (or not) of living suspects including two alleged prolific offenders on the Island who have been named in the "regulated" media but, contrary to the Inquiry's own RULING, are NOT being named by the Inquiry. We discuss the links between the Jersey Child Abuse and that of the UK and how it should form part of the over-arching CSA inquiry being (or not) formed by the UK government/Theresa May.
For those wishing to give evidence to the Inquiry they can do so by making contact with it HERE.
Rico Sorda is trying to promote this rubbish on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteThis woman's opinion on how Jersey's Inquiry into historic child abuse means absolutely nothing.
She is irrelevant.
So, this woman is "irrelevant", eh?
DeleteIn this comment your international readers can see just how inadequate, incompetent and lost the Jersey Establishment are.
This woman is the Senior Writer and Finance Editor of an intentional journal - USA-based magazine Newsweek.
She's a published & authoritative writer on the international oil-markets, and a voice in international current affairs.
Your commenter - by way of contrast - is quite possibly an habitual drunkard living in a back-alley - with a gambling addiction and a drooling propensity to making semi-coherent intoxicated, threatening phone-calls.
I'm sure 99.9% your readers possess the ability to see immediately just which of those two is the "irrelevance".
Stuart
Sorry VFC but I really don't understand why you still indulge the infamous troll posting these ridiculous comments.I mean how can an internationally respected US journalist be 'irrelevant' with a readership clearly dwarfing the 10,000 or so sales of the fast-fading Filthy Rag? Leah's opinion and input is very significant with regard to what will finally be written in the history books. Individuals such as Leah, Stuart Syvret, Lenny, Graham, the Pitmans, Rico and your good self will be able to hold your heads up as having been on the side of right and stuck with the victims no matter what. In contrast just what I wonder will this troll so obsessed with undermining justice and the abuse victims be able to say? Not least I would think to his children?
DeleteI do not believe for one minute that Leah Goodman is as popular in Jersey as these bloggers think.
DeleteShe is the first journalist that young people in Jersey have ever acted out their own parody YouTube video to so does that make them all trolls?
No but it does make LMG relevant.............As do you.
DeleteAnon @14:46 The reason I let some troll comments through is to demonstrate the agenda of the troll(s) and the strength of their argument.
DeleteThe comments are all about attempting to discredit those, like Stuart Syvret and LMG, who support Abuse Victims/Survivors. Readers will note that t(he)y will not comment on any of the alarming facts contained in the interview. I have faith in my readers intelligence who will see that, for some people, it's more about protecting paedophiles and discrediting those who are attempting to bring them to "justice."
Why do you accuse people who do not support Leah Goodman as being protectors of paedophiles, where is your logic in this offensive accusation?
DeleteBecause this woman has said many things about Jersey that has nothing to do with child abuse but is highly damaging and inaccurate and it just seems weird that you turn a blind eye to it.
Where did I accuse people "who don't support Leah McGrath Goodman" as being protectors of paedophiles?
DeleteHave you made any comments on the alarming facts contained in the interview?
Do you think the Jersey Establishment are getting the message yet? That none of this is going away?
ReplyDeleteStuart
Are the alleged twos initials ML & DW?
ReplyDeleteProbably best not to confirm nor deny at the moment.
DeleteShould have mentioned that the COI should be given the opportunity to name them before others do. They WILL be getting named (I am told)
DeleteGet it off your chest then.
DeleteThey have been - and sure will be - again.
DeleteAnd some others.
The question is, does anyone involved in running the CoI yet see just how much difficulty they've engineered for themselves?
The lawyers should have done their homework before taking on the Jersey contract.
Stuart
Naming people on a blog is not a substitute for putting people on trial in a real court of law.
DeleteThis illusion that the 2 run concurrently is really stupid.
Indeed - indeed. I agree entirely.
DeleteWhich is why Jersey must finally gain the proper rule of law.
Stuart
No, it means that people should pursue their accusations through the correct channels and not rely on blog tittle tattle to get their messages across.
DeleteThere are one or two problems with that assertion.
DeleteFirstly, Jersey does not - in fact - have the "proper channels". What passes for a law-enforcement and judicial system in this island is structurally unlawful; simply not compatible with English or ECtHR case-law.
Secondly - I don't rely upon "tittle-tattle." Rather - I rely upon the direct witness testimony - as told to me face-to-face - by many of my then constituents - several of who shook and wept as they recounted the savage batterings - or rapes - they suffered as children.
So much similar-fact evidence.
So much obvious human suffering.
So much damage.
Stuart
If you are convinced that the judicial system is structurally unlawful in Jersey then that's that.
DeleteIts a classic excuse I hear from people who have fallen foul of the system though.
No - that's not "that's that".
DeleteIt is the established, openly declared, public policy of the relevant UK authorities that they have ultimate responsibility for the effective application of the ECHR - and for the rule of law - and for the proper administration of justice - in the Crown Dependencies such as Jersey.
On the plain facts - the current Jersey arrangements do not meet those requirements - and are, clearly, ultra vires.
Thus the relevant UK authorities are breaching their own policy, and breaching the UK's ECHR obligations - and are themselves therefore in an ultra vires position.
But more viscerally than that - more humanly - we have decades of people who suffered appalling abuse as children - often life-wrecking abuse - and many, many, many of them - and their friends, and others - tried the "official channels" - they went through the "established processes" - made complaints - to child-protection staff - to civil servants - to the police - to the local media - to the Jersey judiciary - and in oh so many of those cases - the victims were not only failed though incompetence - but were actively ignored, rejected, silenced - and in some case oppressed - indeed, quite possibly worse.
And even more simply than that - if your "system" can actively and overtly oppress THE Police Chief - and THE Social Services Minister - THE two champions in the system that vulnerable children should ultimately be able to rely upon - then - plainly - the "system" is not lawful; the "official channels" simply do not work.
That is a fundamental breakdown in the very rule of law.
And the UK authorities are responsible for that - and will be held accountable.
Stuart
7 years you have been saying the same old stuff about how the UK is coming in to sort Jersey out yet nobody in Jersey's justice system seems remotely interested in your threats.
DeleteEven back to when Jack Straw was Secretary of State for Justice you claimed you were going to sue him as the evidence was so big and that was 5 years ago when you waltzed off on a 'legal' asylum bid.
Don't you think its getting a bit boring?
Hmmm.....the role of Jack Straw, eh? Funny you should mention that....
DeleteStuart
Fair play to VFC for allowing some of these comments through though.
DeleteNobody joining Dooley's vigil tonight?
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your new blog posting Stuart.
ReplyDeleteCrikey is his blog still going?
Delete5 days on and not one riff of a reference to this woman's views on historic child abuse anywhere else but on this paranoid blog.
ReplyDeleteSays it all.
I’ll tell you what is “paranoid” and what “says it all” is anybody who would bother to search the Internet for the references in the first place! You clearly haven’t searched Facebook and Twitter.
DeleteWhy would people want to search Facebook for news stories?
DeleteIts social media and Twitter is dead, so many accounts that people have set up but never use.
Blogging RIP, the dog has had its day and has passed away.
ReplyDeleteSo why do you keep reading them and commenting? Surely you have nothing to worry about!
DeleteSome of these anti comments have the rank smell one might associate with the type of troll caught out threatening to ruin the career of a woman just because she is married to a well known and very well researched blogger. Not to forget threatening to kill an ex girlfriend. Hardly something to worry about.
ReplyDeleteJersey has its own nasty troll who accuses others of defamatory and nasty remarks about himself on the Internet but has been successfully prosecuted and found guilty of making a very disturbing telephone call. How does such an individual with an unbalanced mind appear as a witness in a trial set against Stuart Syvret for speaking and writing the truth about the same individual ? The same person who now writes all over the poorly moderated JEP internet comments section as Chatterbox, Graham1987 and several other avatars.
ReplyDeleteHis comments normally contain personal attacks but very little actual supported factual information. He is very good at muddying the waters and taking the emphasis away from the topic title the true definition of trolling.
His favorite targets recently Rico, Sam Meznec,Pitmans, and of course Stuart Syvret, are the amongst the good people that attempt to speak the truth. He may be given far to much publicity as someone who pretends to be real but writes in several female and male voices so is a little difficult to track.
To show how bright he is, and following his normal sad behavior, when a Syvret story appears in the JEP he goes into overdrive in the comments section but again trips over his muddled brain and as a defender of the establishment writes,
" his farfetched accusations of cover ups have never been proven because in reality it would need to involve 100s of people."
He inadvertently has written the truth, start at the top and work down with Ogley, Lewis , Walker , Mike Pollard, Lundy and Mick Gradwell who refused to attend or speak to a scrutiny panel refusing and refused to come back to Jersey.
How low will the establishment core fall to seek support and online help from a misguided and sad individual that in a true judicial democracy would cause a miss trial ( Syvret ) as an incompetent and unreliable witness proven by his miserable actions published by Rico Sorda and VFC who publish fact not bile .
I keep on seeing the word troll on this blog as a label for anonymous people with personal views that go against some bloggers on this and the JEP website.
ReplyDeleteIn a week where Freedom of Speech has been raised on literally every news channel it is starting to sound as if some people cannot cope with critical views against their own.
Freedom of speech and having an opposing opinion is not quite the same as uttering death threats, continually trying to damage people's lives, jobs and families by spiteful and unwarranted attacks on those intent on uncovering and exposing the truth on all matter of subjects, yes, from child abuse to the freedom of speech Stuart Syvret is not freely allowed.
DeleteA difference of opinion should be a literate and explanatory view which enables a reader/listener to respect and accept another's viewpoint. Trolls are usually incapable of this sort of rationale and just resort to dirty tactics which most people can see right through and furthermore ignore. Truly a waste of time and effort.
Annon @ 12:02 must be a troll. How can he, she, or it, compare this most recent Freedom of speech tragedy to local, well meaning, well informed blogs?!
ReplyDeleteDear VFC,
ReplyDeleteAs the absurd troll keeps on adding more desperate comments on the JEP Syvret story, one would hope the police with their new IT specialist and appetite for justice would be growing extremely uneasy as should Emma Martins the Data Protection head.
If democracy and Justice are well, healthy and alive in Jersey ( Syvret claims it is very poorly ) then why is there no re-trial regarding his supposed data crimes trial ?
It works like this. If a witness is found in fact, to be unstable and not trustworthy as in the man who for years has been a malicious and lying troll and hounded Rico's wife on the internet and elsewhere, and spoke as a tax funded witness against Syvret's at his trial, should there not be a retrial and possible perjury charges levied. To put it simply the witness is unreliable.
The claim from the troll witness was that lies had been spread about him on Syvret's well-read blog breaking data protection laws. However recent events before and after indeed have confirmed Syvret's claims to be absolutely true. The question then is obvious, is Jersey law so different to UK law and has Jersey over-reached or ignored basic law, because Syvret is so obnoxious towards the Jersey justice elite and system.
This means that Jersey courts are quite comfortable to accept statements from confirmed petty criminals for malicious and threatening phone calls and those that have personality problems which clearly means dubious justice, which is an appalling state of affairs. How is the problem of an unreliable witness dealt with in the UK ? Time for a re-trial in Jersey, this time in open public court ?
Daily Mail.
Criminal convictions in 25 cases are to be re-examined over concerns about evidence provided by the undercover Sun on Sunday reporter Mazher Mahmood.
The re-examination of 25 old cases follows a judge’s decision to halt the Contostavlos trial because he said there were “strong grounds for believing Mr Mahmood told me lies” and “had been manipulating the evidence”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1291240/Judge-blasts-CPS-police-blunders-saw-1m-murder-pl
People seem to be barking up the wrong tree here.
DeleteWhether the material Syvret wrote online was true or false is not the issue, he accused somebody of multiple murder ffs.
It was the fact that he wrote data about people which went against their rights under data protection law that got him into trouble and he refused to recognise those rights.
These claims that he can order re-trials and its all down to the accuracy of what he wrote online are nonsense.
The "Judge made" DATA PROTECTION LAW.
DeleteThe States approved this Law and it follows UK and European Law.
DeleteBring it up with your local States Member if you don't agree with it but Syvret's general attitude towards the Court as a whole on any law is hardly respectable anyway.
The law approved by the States and how it was (ab)used in this particular case is explained in the link above.
DeleteFrom a non legal person.
DeleteGet a proper qualified lawyer to agree with this and demand changes to the law.
I wait with bated breath.
@Anonymous15 January 2015 at 16:59
ReplyDeleteWe are barking mad over here to put up with this charade, dodgy witnesses and secret trials the truth and nothing but, is way down the priority list.
So as an example,a journalist does a story, fully evidenced and researched in the public interest and writes about ( as an example ) a senior civil servant taking brown envelopes in a corrupt deal to facilitate a big development, then the same journalist gets arrested for naming the corrupt person because he broke data protection laws in Jersey and ends up in prison and bankrupt through legal fees, and you call that justice.
Different, should the journalist was wrong anf have the wrong information,but of course, as a fail safe make it a secret Jersey trial. Is that what you call justice ?
This just sounds like sour grapes.
DeleteThis blog's attitude to the law just shows how un-influential it is in the real world.
DeleteMoaning about data protection law and writing attacks against members of the public who choose to use it only shows toy throwing and sour grapes to me.
Nobody involved in any case of data protection will be remotely bothered about what this blog or Syvret thinks.
“Nobody involved in any case of data protection will be remotely bothered about what this blog or Syvret thinks.”
DeleteSo it’s only you who’s remotely bothered then?
Couldn't care less but this same stuff gets repeated over and over, going back what 4 years?
DeleteIt just proves the argument that by moaning or writing about something online it changes nothing.
What do you hope to achieve out of this without actually getting somebody in authority to question and amend the law?
If nobody in the States is prepared to do that then the Law must be right.
There is nothing wrong (that I know of) with the law as agreed by the States. it’s how it is, seemingly, able to be abused by what looks to be a corrupt, and politicised “justice” system.
DeleteGetting off the subject of trolls. It was said today at the COI that the police were told about Saville in 2008, Yet Harper is quoted as saying if he had known about Saville he would have prosecuted him. Does this mean some police were keeping this from Harper, or does this mean Harper is not telling the truth?
ReplyDeleteSupposing what has been reported as being said at the COI is correct my guess would be the former. Lenny Harper has been the subject of numerous smear campaigns and accused of many things by many people since he opened up the Jersey establishment's pedophile network. I don't think anybody could credibly accuse Mr. Harper of protecting pedophiles. Although it probably wouldn't stop some people giving it a go.
DeleteGiven that Mr Harper retired in August 2008 trying to attach any blame to him (as we know the odd mad troll and disgraced Jersey media might well do) holds no water at all. What is significant here is that it appears Savile's victim definitely DID tell the regime of WArcup and Gradwell - but was not listened to. Now here are genuine questions for the States regarding the activites of the pair brought in to trash the investigation.
ReplyDeleteTo the person submitting a comment attempting to smear Mr Harper and asking why he hasn't given evidence to the COI.
DeleteMr. Harper HAS submitted a substantial amount of evidence to the COI and is waiting to be called as a witness. Mr. Graham Power QPM has also submitted a substantial amount of evidence and too will be waiting to be called as a witness.
Can the same be said for Mssrs Gradwell and Warcup?
What are you talking about? Harper and Power should have just let all of this lie and swept victims under the carpet like their predecessors had done for years so that those at the top could pretend Jersey is whiter than white and so not damage our image for finance. Gradwell and Warcup were brilliant. Real Jersey Way coppers.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great news if Power and Harper are called to give evidence. But will the powers that be allow it?
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it Mr. Power, and Mr. Harper, WILL be called as witnesses and both are more than willing to appear as witnesses. Again can the same be said for Messrs Gradwell and Warcup?
DeleteWhen are they both coming over and can we meet them?
DeleteAre you saying that Gradwell and Warcup have refused?
ReplyDeleteMerely asking the question will they appear as witnesses? A brief look at a short history of MICK GRADWELL one wouldn't be surprised if he refused to turn up or if he was to be arrested under Operation Elveden.
DeleteI read the link in the above comment and I would say if Gradwell stepped foot on Jersey after leaking secret police information to a journalist he should be arrested on the spot. He might even use the fear of being arrested as an excuse not to give evidence.
DeleteTo put into perspective this is what former Acting Chief Police Officer David Warcup had to say about Mick Gradwell's leak(s)
Delete"Leaking of information to the media is something which can, as I say, seriously undermine criminal inquiries and the consequences could be quite serious. That is not serious to you or I or others, it is to the victims of crime who will not get justice through the courts."
Questions remain after Mr. Warcup's statement; Did victims of abuse not get justice because of the actions of Mick Gradwell?
LINK.
You intend to blog about any different in 2015?
ReplyDeleteWith just a very swift glance at some of the last 50 Blogs published on here the subjects include.
DeleteChild Abuse, the St. Helier No.1 (re)election, referendum debate, unelected States Members, Equality March/Parade, women in politics, appointment of judges, State Media, Curtis Warren, Scrutiny, La Moye prison, and many other subjects. So I’m not sure I understand your question?
Trailer of exclusive interview with Stuart Syvret on his return from London #CSAinquiry MEETING.
ReplyDeleteThanks VFC I'm looking forward to the full interview.
DeleteI find it amazing from the mainland that we allow this farce re the autonomy of Jersey to carry on for a moment longer. On the mainland some of us ARE watching, and as your are all citizens of the UK (and not just when it suits you) it's high time all our laws and taxes apply to you too. Who give a TOSS about ancient tradition - that appears to include gross and persistent abuse of very vulnerable children, with links to the mainland. It is quite clear, regardless of the extent of the abuse, that the system in Jersey is not fit for democratic purpose. Time to reel it all in, you get a council like the Isle of Wight and an MP in Westminster. Then the British people might get some accountability from part of the UK. There ought perhaps to be a petition of people in the island, and on the mainland, to change the archaic and unacceptable status of Jersey. Abuse of children has been endemic in UK institutions for decades, time it was rooted out so that it never happens again. We don't want a situation where some ersazt entertainer can come to a UK island and abuse our children (yes ours not yours) as he has in other parts of the UK. We don't want them traded to and from the island to Dolphin Square, N Wales, Islington or any where else there to be raped, beaten, abused maybe even murdered. If you deny that's happened in Jersey then you are either lying or stupid. CLEAN UP JERSEY.
ReplyDeleteAnother UK reader. One of your "Anonymous" contributors sounds like a member of the Jersey establishment. Lots of people running scared now and with every reason to be. Excellent blog. Keep up the good work. Truth will out.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read this blog for quite a while and having now done so, I am disappointed that you still allow one must be one maybe two trolls to divert attention away from the title, which is for anyone who has forgotten " Leah McGrath Goodman Discusses Jersey Child Abuse Inquiry." - I agree with her, those names need to be reported.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, you ought create one blog thread entitled Trolls Paradise and direct all troll posts or those off subject (by a large margin - such as this part of my post), so they can talk to each other or themselves and anyone interested in their views can still read them and leave everyone else to discuss the real facts.
reblogged
ReplyDelete