Tag Archives: Buckingham Palace

The Establishment went to extraordinary lengths to protect this child sex abuser

Hubert Chesshyre: Not Of the Normal Criminal Element.

It seems remarkably reserved of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to suggest that heraldry expert Hubert Chesshyre was given “preferential treatment” after he was found to have committed two specimen counts of indecent assault against a child.

The perpetrator had been made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 2014 but by the time he was accused, the following year, he was found to be suffering from dementia and unfit to plead. How convenient.

A trial of the facts led to a unanimous verdict that he had committed two specimen counts of indecent assault against a child, with a third ordered to lie on file. But because he had been found unfit to plead, he was awarded an absolute discharge. How convenient.

Later that year, the victim approached the honours and appointments secretariat at the Cabinet Office, requesting that Chesshyre’s honour should be rescinded. He was told to contact Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse (as the honour is the gift of the Sovereign).

Reid received help in drafting his response from Thomas Woodcock, Garter Principal King of Arms, the senior officer of the College of Arms, of which Chesshyre was a member for 40 years  – and said that, as Chesshyre was given an absolute discharge, “it would be wrong to submit a recommendation to the Queen”. How convenient.

After an intervention from the victim’s MP, Jim Dowd, the forfeiture committee recommended the Queen remove the honour. But the victim did not learn of this until five months after the decision because the forfeiture committee was considering “representations and new information provided to it by Chesshyre’s brother on his behalf”. How convenient.

The committee took the almost unprecedented decision not to publish the forfeiture in official journal of record the London Gazette, in “reflection of how the case had been handled and, to a lesser degree, in light of Mr Chesshyre’s ill-health”. How convenient.

The failure to publish confirmation of the forfeiture had made it difficult for the victim to bring Chesshyre’s abuse to the attention of prestigious organisations of which he continued to be a member, so they saw no reason to end their association with him. How convenient.

Buckingham Palace has said it does not comment on individuals, but that it has reviewed its processes and changes have been made to reflect lessons learned. We are not informed of the nature of those changes. How convenient.

And a government spokesman has said the forfeiture process is confidential and it would be inappropriate to comment on individual cases. How convenient.

So it seems a convicted child abuser got off free as a bird because the government and Buckingham Palace conspired to hide his guilt.

And all the inquiry could say was that Chesshyre had received “preferential or exceptional treatment … because of their status and contacts, regardless of the known involvement of child victims”.

Is that good enough?

I think the victim deserves a grovelling apology, at the very least, from the bureaucrats who hid the facts of his abuse from the public and other organisations. Don’t you agree?

Source: Child sex abuser given ‘preferential treatment’, says damning report | Child protection | The Guardian

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Why should you and I pay for Buckingham Palace renovation? We don’t live there

161119-buckingham-palaceThat’s right – the public purse is being opened to pay for a £369 million renovation of Buckingham Palace. Why?

The Royal Family is worth a fortune and the money could – and should – be spent on things that are far more important to the national good.

But this just shows how twisted Tory morality is. Faced with a choice between the national interest and paying more money to people who are already filthy rich, they hand the money to the monarch every time.

People are responding, as they generally do, creatively. Here’s Brian Bilston’s poem, They’re Renovating Buckingham Palace, with apologies to AA Milne:

161119-renovating-buckingham-palace-poem

Prefer your satire visual? Try this:

161119-queen-theresa-may

Or, indeed, this:

161119-queen-buckingham-palace

No doubt the Royal Family will sail through this situation with their reputation untarnished, because the British people see to have a remarkable blind spot when it comes to them.

But then, the decision to give away our money wasn’t made by the royals – it was made by Theresa May and that gang of fawning toadies, the Conservative Government.

Please sign the petition calling on them to tell the Queen to fix up her own gaff.

Buckingham Palace is about to be given a £369m refurbishment. Tax payers are paying for it. The Crown and its estates should be made to fund its own renovations.

There is a national housing crisis, the NHS is in crisis, austerity is forcing cuts in many front line services. Now the Royals expect us to dig deeper to refurbish Buckingham Palace. The Crown’s wealth is inestimable. This is, in a word, outrageous.

Source: Make Royals Pay for Palace Renovation | Campaigns by You

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Protesters clash with police on march against austerity

[Picture: Huffington Post]

[Picture: Huffington Post]

Violence marred the Million Mask March in London – with the clashes apparently started by British police.

But you should not expect to see the spectacle reported on the news as the BBC and other right-wing media seem to have put their heads in the (proverbial) sand and, once again, failed to report anything that might indicate the British people are not happy with their government.

Thousands of people took to the streets, many wearing what is now seen as the symbol of protest against austerity cuts imposed by the rich – the Guy Fawkes mask made famous by the graphic novel ‘V for Vendetta’.

[Picture: Million Mask March London Facebook page]

[Picture: Million Mask March London Facebook page]

Comedian Russell Brand, who has called for non-violent revolution, was spotted at the London protest.

Inevitably, someone had to spoil it and it seems the police were the aggressors.

According to the Huffington Post, an eyewitness said: “They [the police] started shouting move back, move back, but we had nowhere to go. The police started pushing us, screaming ‘move back, move back’. There was a fire on the right hand side of the monument [the Victoria Memorial near Buckingham Palace] and people started throwing things.”

The HuffPost reported: “The event is part of a Million Mask March, with similar protests being held in cities around the world. A Facebook page promoting the protest called for Anonymous, WikiLeaks, the Pirate Party, and Occupy to “defend humanity”.

“‘Remember who your enemies are: Billionaires who own banks and corporations who corrupt politicians who enslave the people in injustice,’ it read.”

If any Vox Political readers were at the march – or at any of the many others around the world – please tell us about it. Let us know what the mainstream news reporters aren’t telling us.

Hapless Jeremy proves yet again what a… Hunt he is

Not the right kind of tree-hugger: This is an artist’s impression of what Jeremy Hunt looked like, hiding behind a tree to avoid being seen going to a meeting with Rupert Murdoch.

It is not a good time to be Jeremy Hunt.

“When is?” I hear you cry. Fair point. The reactions of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh certainly seem to have put the Health Secretary in a state.

He was at a smart Buckingham Palace event, arranged to thank everyone involved in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, which took place while he was Culture Secretary. He decided this was the moment to put his greatest talent on display.

Clearly, it wasn’t his wit. No, I refer to his talent for making a faux pas – or, in English, a bloody fool of himself.

“I read about a Japanese tourist who said afterwards how wonderful our Queen must be to take part in that, as they would never get their emperor to jump out of the plane,” he told Her Majesty. Faced with an irrelevant comment about a completely different event, she paused, smiled politely, shrugged, and moved on.

Then the Duke of Edinburgh turned up. You may remember he had quite a rough time during the Diamond Jubilee, contracting an infection that hospitalised him for several days. As a result, he probably saw most of it on TV but – clearly – the then-Culture Secretary hadn’t made the slightest impression on him as the first thing he said was, “Who are you?”

Hunt managed to spit out some information about his current job, and that he was Culture Secretary during the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, only to have the Duke respond: “Well they do move you people on a lot.”

We are led to believe Mr Hunt was embarrassed by the whole episode. What makes it worse is that he might have gained a bit more recognition if he had mentioned some of the other public disasters in which he has been involved.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls: Mr Hunt’s bell-end landed in a passing lady’s lap. Oh dear.

Perhaps he should have said, “I’m the fool who went ringing a bell to announce the start of the Olympics, only to have the end fall off and hit a passing lady in the lap”?

Or: “I’m the twit who arrived at a meeting with Rupert Murdoch – a gentleman with whom I have long-standing ties, even though he’s being investigated by an official inquiry ordered by my government – but, finding a multitude of press photographers there and not wanting to be seen publicly with the head of NewsCorp… hid behind a tree. One that was too narrow to stop them from spotting me.”

At least he had the good taste not to mention the moment when James Naughtie mispronounced his surname, live on national radio. The use of the C-word would have been beyond the pale.

(Although, it might have won him the recognition he wanted from the Duke).

Perhaps David Cameron would have been better off introducing into his Cabinet some faces that were more recognisable?