Apparently, brave Mark risked his career and his finances, when he embarked on his dead man destroying, campaign. His career as an 'investigative journalist' that is. Mark's a tad coy about his previous career as a copper, no one seems to know for sure why he left a job he loved, or for how long he was a Detective constable. But, here's something we do know for certain, he was a constable in 1997 and part of a team that arrested this man
Stark had come to St John's in 1995 a year before his previous school, St Paul's in Sussex became entangled in it's own child sex abuse scandal.
For some reason, Surrey Police in 1997 hadn't asked Sussex any questions about the 1996 case, although the latter did confirm that Stark was not in any way involved.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/body-in-sea-thought-to-be-child-porn-teacher-1243446.html
Post exposure, Thomas bragged about the Stark case as being one of the two most important moments in his Police career, the other one being Jonathan King ! Wikipedia has him leading the investigation ! Stranger still, Thomas appears to have briefed his local press about the case, hardly a role normally associated with an ordinary constable.
It seems Surrey Police had been concerned for his welfare at the time of his death issuing an appeal, how things change !
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/police-reassure-school-over-porn-4861013
Thomas reflects on his part in one music teacher's downfall on twitter, in July 2011, three months before Jimmy Savile's death and around the time him and Meirion Jones film involving interpol is featured on Newsnight
But, what's even more interesting is the fact that a certain law firm has already won £30,000 damages in 2011 after a choir master is convicted in 2009. The school ? St Paul's Cathedral School, and the lawyer pursuing the civil case ? Yes, it's her guys and gals
No bleating about 'closure' back then, it's all trauma and ongoing counseling for this poor man
From The Argus Sussex local paper dated 2nd March 2011.
Liz has her sights on another St Paul's school in 2014
Prestigious indeed, for St Paul's in Barnes, London is only George Osbourne's old school. And worse still, who should be assigned to lead the investigation (Operation Winthorpe) but the man who DIDN'T investigate Sir Jimmy but found him guilty anyway,
And worse still, just down the road from St Pauls
Apologies if this blog post sounds like an entry to exaro news' write a guest blog for us, competition. It's just happened that way, mainly because of St John's as a matter of fact because, even fresher claims have been received about it too !
Claims that were apparently made to the Police in 2012 !
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/chethams-sex-fiend-michael-brewer-2038174
Mr Brewer continues to protest his innocence after being jailed for six years in 2013. Five years after he graced our screens in a hugely popular show Last Choir Standing !
Bodies to the left of him.
ReplyDeleteBodies to the right of him.
Into the valley of death, rode the brave crusader journalist.
I have wondered if Stark's death was what led to the resignation. Stark's funeral was attended by 100's of people. He had friends. Who was leaking all the info to the press about what Stark "might" have done long before he'd even been arrested. That a year or two may have drifted by is nothing significant in cop procedures as we saw with Jimmy being investigated for two years (to what end?). It's also the case that Spindler, when he was "Internal Affairs" said outright that it was "pragmatic" to let errants coppers resign rather than discipline them. That last is probably an ironic tribute to the power of the Police Federation.
It fits the Yewtree MO and is the sort of public rumour/innuendo machine that does drive innocent folk to suicide. The terrible things is that having taken their own lives, perople like MWT will then imply that this very suicide is "proof" of their guilt. It's a real horror.Here be Monsters.
Even sicker is the outrage Dux expressed when Ling (Chetham) killed himself before being extradited to UK. Words cannot express how much I loathe these evil people !
DeleteI always thought the strangest part of the Brewer/Andrade trial was the conviction of Brewer's wife, Hilary. There was at least similar fact evidence against Brewer, relating to him having performed similar acts with another young woman, but if there was anything indicating Mrs Brewer was a bisexual molester, it certainly wasn't reported in the media. A charge of rape against her was dismissed but she was convicted of a sex assault that immediately preceded the supposed rape, even though the evidence in both cases the same, viz Andrade's uncorroborated allegation. The assault was supposedly initiated after a porn film-like dialogue, during which Mrs Brewer asked Andrade if her (Brewer's) breasts looked convincing. Mrs Brewer had had a breast operation, but it was a reduction, not implants, so the question seems strange. At some point, Mrs Brewer managed to force Andrade upstairs, even though she was then a fully-grown woman of 18, not a child.
ReplyDeleteThe conviction has always made me uneasy, but in the controversy over Andrade's suicide , inevitably no-one looked any closer.
When I get a minute I'll read up on this as I too found the inclusion of Mrs Brewer in the story, a tad strange. Also the bit about the late Ms A not initiating the police investigation. Interesting case, did FA need or want to go through that trial ?
ReplyDeleteFA probably didn't want to go through with it. I do wonder who her therapist was and what sort of methods were used to get her to "remember" the abuse. Perhaps she realised at some level that these stories were false, but had got herself into such a mental bind that suicide seems the only escape. But, of course, to the press it was the abuse that caused her to take her own life.
ReplyDeleteIts similar to the suicide of Mark Humphreys, who was one of the Bryn Estyn allegators. He was deeply depressed, alcoholic and his marriage was collapsing; but according to the press, none of that mattered and his supposed abuse at the care home was the sole cause.
Her 'friend' told the police according to this
DeleteViolinist Mrs Andrade had not gone to the police herself to make historic allegations about Brewer, from Selly Oak in Birmingham.
In 2009 she had confided in Mrs Williams, whose daughter she was teaching to play the violin. Opera singer Mrs Williams told the police.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/376687/Friend-is-devastated-over-death-of-music-teacher-abuse-victim-Frances-Andrade
I was very sorry to see pianist Paul Lewis join in with the Chethams witchhunt brigade early on. Music schools are of course of hotbed of talent, competitive hoped for futures and obsessional neurosis. Can give rise to so many disappointments and misplaced resentments in addition to the usual crushes and mesalliances. No doubt the limits of learning were sometimes transgressed irresponsibly or illegally in a foregone era. But hardly think this is normally a suicidal matter decades on. The Bryn Estyn suicides might be best viewed through the lens of how unstable people were being probed for narratives and under what expectations. The earlier 1992 report by Lord Williams into the disturbances at Ty Mawr and suicides gives a clue. As for the music schools - where is their FACT?
ReplyDelete