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Tuesday, 26 November 2013

HOW THE JERSEY ESTABLISHMENT SILENCES THOSE WHO BLOW THE WHISTLE ON CHILD ABUSE AND INJUSTICE. AN EXCELLENT PIECE FROM BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH'S MARK METCALF

The article I adapt below is the copyright of and kindly made available by the excellent UK magazine 'Big Issue in The North' and Mark Metcalf. I will attach a direct link to the magazine as soon as have it - assuming I still have IT access after our latest court battle at 10am Tuesday morning 26th November!
 
Meanwhile, thanks once again to Mark and his editor Kevin for regularly keeping an eye on the on-going struggle to drag Jersey democracy and its 'judicial' system into the 21st Century.With further UK coverage on the Jersey 'justice' system and our own battle coming up shortly Keep the Faith that one day the Bald Truth about the cover-ups will shine through!
 
Deputy Trevor Pitman 
 
‘Gagging’ claims as Jersey court case gets under way

 

An MP fears the victims of child abuse on Jersey will be “gagged” if the establishment on the island is successful in bankrupting and disqualifying from office two local members of parliament.  

Shona Pitman and her husband Trevor have represented the St Helier parish since 2005 and 2008 respectively. Both have expressed their concerns about child abuse on many occasions. Jersey’s child abuse scandal first surfaced in 2007, following which 192 victims and 151 abusers were identified during a police investigation. Seven people were successfully prosecuted.
 
An inquiry into child abuse on the island was due to have started this autumn but had to be delayed due to the overseeing judge suffering a heart attack. Visits by Jimmy Savile to a children’s home on Jersey will form part of the inquiry. The Pitmans believe the island’s Law Office has not pursued evidence against abusers. They have attempted, with backing from other parliamentary members and campaigners against child abuse, to get justice minister Lord McNally to “ensure good governance”.

Damages  

This drew a muted response from the Lib Dem peer who replied: “Jersey has its own justice system so we can’t really interfere.” The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, who is head of the Privy Council – which acts as a court of appeal for Jersey – has also refused to get involved.
 
Last year, the couple sought damages for defamation against the Jersey Evening Post (JEP) and the Broadlands estate agency, which placed a cartoon advert in the paper in 2008. The Pitmans alleged this was intended to portray them as money-grabbers who had entered politics for personal gain.
 

John Lyndon Le Breton, the senior jurat in the case, was a friend of the newspaper’s (owning company) director and vice-principal of an exclusive fee-paying secondary school where, for indecently assaulting teenagers, paedophile Andrew Jervis-Dykes was given a four-year sentence in 1999. Colleagues of the guilty man refused to co-operate with the police and Le Breton wrote in support of him.
 
Le Breton subsequently sat on other child abuse cases but has since retired. The Pitmans lost their case after the defendants successfully argued the cartoon referred to the fact that the plaintiffs would be able to obtain a mortgage worth four times their joint salaries.  

Defamation  

The Jersey parliamentarians were left owing around a quarter of a million pounds in costs to their lawyers and the two defendants. This week the Pitmans will appear before the Jersey Appeal Court in an attempt to overturn an earlier decision that they have exhausted the time period in which they can appeal against the defamation decision.
 
They are representing themselves and need to win or face being declared bankrupt. Unlike in Britain, this will mean they are disqualified from elected office. Their home and jobs would be lost. The Pitmans argue: “The establishment and JEP want us to be forced out of politics.”  

Earlier this month, the Pitmans unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent the JEP publishing a story about threatening letters that had been sent to the lawyers for the JEP and Broadlands, as well as a prominent individual in the original defamation case and the Jersey politician Sean Power, who has previously criticised the Pitmans in the JEP.
 
The Pitmans accused the JEP of “yet another smear” and argued the letters had been sent to undermine them in the lead-up to their appeal. The newspaper; deputy editor, Andy Sibcy, has refused to comment on the Pitmans’ accusations or their claim that the letters had nothing to do with them. The incident has led to no police arrests.  

Abuse allegations  

Birmingham Yardley MP John Hemming has taken a keen interest in events on Jersey and it was his intervention that helped remove the 500-day ban on American journalist Leah McGrath Goodman from visiting the island and investigating child abuse allegations.
 
Hemming has recently supported Stuart Syvret, Jersey’s former health minister, who was jailed for contempt of court after he refused to remove online allegations about four islanders. The Data Protection Commissioner brought the case against Syvret. None of the four has attempted to sue the former politician for defamation. Hemming has named the four individuals in an early day motion in Parliament and called Syvret’s jailing “an affront to freedom of speech”.  

This is the second time Syvret has gone to jail. In 2010 he published a confidential report into suspicious deaths at Jersey’s General Hospital. In both case cases, Syvret has argued there has been a “cover-up”.

Hemming has now expressed his “fears that the establishment in Jersey are using legal proceedings to disqualify the Pitmans from their role in the island’s parliament”. He added: “This has the effect of gagging victims of abuse as fewer people can speak out on their behalf. I very much hope they are successful in their appeal.”
                                                                                                                                                                         MARK METCALF
 
 

 

 

22 comments:

  1. Trevor.

    Good to see "outside" media taking an interest in the Jersey corruption as the local State Media bury it (or cut microphones off).

    Of course if your name was "Bailhache" you could publish a Press Release and the local State Media will accommodate you in peddling it unquestioned.

    Who exonerated THE DEAN?

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  2. Hooray justice has been done you fuckin spivs

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  3. Please please please do not turn your back on politics after your shafting by the court todayt. Unemployable hate warped Intranet trolls will have nobody to fill their empty lives with!

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  4. This example of real journalism (hope Jerseys comedians are observing) really sums up how Jersey works.

    Fail to keep quiet about what goes on, worse still speak out and you will be fcuked over no matter how long it takes the establishment to do it.

    We will never be free until people open their eyes to what is going on and demand some action.

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  5. A disgrace that you had to parade your private life in an attempt to get justice, and those media vultures licking their lips pursuing you outside the courthouse.

    The cartoon was not funny, particularly as it was clearly part of a smear campaign against you and Shona.

    Media reporters would not find it funny to be on the receiving end of such a campaign, but then they are not likely to be, at least under the present régime and as long as they continue in their lickspittle roles.

    I hope you will get some justice at the end of this but at this stage the damage is irreparable.

    Can only admire you both for your fortitude (testicular and ovarian).

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  6. The JEP Comment today knows how to kick you when you are down.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous.

      Do not worry for us - we are very much not 'down'. Well, if we are 'down' we are certainly not out. The editorial is actually very funny. 'Every court' has dismiseed' the facts in our case apparently?! Really?

      OK so three 'learned' judges have attempted to we-write history on the failings of Jurat John Le Breton and his looking the other way on evidence of abuse with the quite mind-boggling attempt to lie to people that there are no criticism of this patheticly flawed individual in the Sharp Report - this instead of facing up to the truth which would expose the 'justice' system and those who control it spectacularly. Yet the fact of the matter is this.

      With the on-going rise of the citizens' media/internet lies from bullies like dear Mr Not So Bright and the Jersey Evening Pravda - and even Appeal Judges deliberatly not doing their job - cannot be buried. The Truth - the Bald Truth will win out in the end.

      Probably explains why Not So Bright whines like a baby about the apparent 'onslaught' the Filthy Rag has been subjected to in the editorial referred to above.

      I repeat - we are not down or beaten by a very long way. Drive us out of politics. Keep the smear campaign going. Do their worst. We will just do our best (to paraphraze Churchill) to ensure - eventually - these types of abuses of both victims of abuse and anyone who dares stand up to the bullying come out on top in the long run.

      I'm already looking foward to it. Just as important with my mum's present hospitalisation this all puts pathcetic bullies like those behind all of this into true perspective. They are, quite frankly, less than nothing within the bigger picture.

      Probably why they are so unhappy and so embittered.

      Delete
  7. BIG IAN IS BACK ONLINE !

    http://therightofreply.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-pitmans-get-some-more-of-jersey-way.html

    Ian's in-your-face "Shock Jock" style is not to everyone's taste but he has put a huge amount of time and effort into documenting travesties on this island.

    His archiving of selected "Jersey Evening Propaganda" articles is a public service in itself and is valuable to today's islanders and tomorrow's historians alike.

    Some of us would prefer if he put his works on "chemtrails" and global issues on a separate linked blog as this could detract from the value and impact of his local work.

    Anyways we were worried, and it is great to have the indomitable Rough Diamond back :-)

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  8. Just came in to a lovely drunken rant from Stella Hanning-Hayworth-Bampot. Now I know this creature is completely addled but now it is trying to drag the dead into its field of abuse. Too much time on Politcs Jersey with Free Abuse?

    Indeed, the maggot is trying give the impression that we have said that the death of Shona' best friend - a fantastic young woman the cyber coward just happened to also have bad mouthed and abused in the past - had died during the April 20012 trial process.

    Of course we have said no such thing - she died twoyears into our proceedings at the tragically young age of 36 - but you know Stella.

    Not content there the revolting little drunken inadequate even rants that I apparently do not give many hours to looking after my mum! Sick - this maggot certainly is. Indeed, having organised a break to Sark late this past Summer - somewhere we had taken my mum a number of time as she got older - that this in some way means I 'haven't cared' for her!?

    Really, how do people get as sick and twisted as this creature? I know it is widely said that its own family regard Stella as an embarassment due to its abuse of others and being so workshy but even then...

    Actually may be good to have more time to help bring this cowardly saddo to the justice it has been allowed to dodge for years!

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  9. Talking of the sad trolls home patch
    The JEP CENSORED my last comment on this thread as they do not like the 'Fuhrer' to be contradicted. So I resubmitted @18:10 - Let's see what happens when they know they are being watched :-)
    ----------------------------
    REF
    www.thisisjersey.com/news/2013/11/25/bailhache-report-on-dean-should-be-public/#comment-394955

    No further disciplinary action is being taken beyond the Deans two month suspension and his public apology.
    An apology which was insincere if lessons have not been learnt !

    So sorry to bring historical fact into this again, but to quote the Dean himself:

    www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-22328641

    Dean Key said: "I regret mistakes that I made in the safeguarding processes and I understand that, upon reflection, it would have been more helpful if I had co-operated more fully with the Korris [safeguarding} Review."

    How exactly is the club member now "cleared" and "exonerated" according to Mr. Bailhache ?

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  10. Do you know if the police have let the letters case go cold?

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    Replies
    1. What 'case'? My bet is there never was a 'case'.

      We know it was a scam so how could anyone be caught and prosecuted for it.

      Of course, when you also have alleged 'victims' getting these alleged 'letters' and being so scared they immediately....didn't go to the police they...

      passed them around the lawyers office - thus ensuring that countless fingerprints would be on them - thus ensuring the police could not track anyone down pursuing a 'case' becomes a non-starter doesn't it.

      No one will ever be prosecuted for this. It will be a bit like cowardly drunken thugs who threaten ex-girlfriends whilst a police woman listens in then...nothing happens.

      Come back Graham Power and Lenny harper - please!

      Delete
  11. Most official reports such as the Sharp report that are critical of individuals go through a number of drafts. Those criticised, and their lawyers, frequently succeed in watering down the initial (more critical) drafts.

    So, the question is, are there any draft versions of the Sharp report that are even more critical of various individuals? I have no idea if there are or not, but the question needs to be asked. Surely these will have to be disclosed to you, and the reasons for the changes explained, in court? Can you ask Stephen Sharp - not for the document itself (he wouldn't be able to disclose it) but simply the answer to the question about the number of drafts?

    It's not hard to imagine multiple evolving versions of this report. You should ask both the Education Minister and Mr Sharp the same question - how many versions, including all the drafts?

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    1. When the Education Committee politicians of the day were first allowed to see the Sharp Report they were told they had to sit in a room and read it but could not take it away!

      Of course, years later 'media' like the JEP got hold of a copy but they just suppressed it. Maybe they knew that one day a man who was now a Jurat and named in the report for looking the other way on evidence against a child abuser would be useful?

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  12. Had another hate-filled rant from the troll. Could not publish it - too sickening.

    Attacking a now dead young woman whose only crime had been to dump him earlier in life because he used to beat her up and steal her wages. Once while she was in hospital!

    Hope this coward's partner knows what danger she is in further down the road.

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    Replies
    1. Judging by the flurry of drunken abuse seems the truth clearly hurts, eh Stella? Only a matter of time before the full facts come out about your life of abuse and bullying.

      Delete
  13. Hey - I have a new friend. he calls himself 'Richard Batho'.

    He seems to get off on writing childishly insulting e-mails. I get the impression 'Richard' is very lonely.

    Not to mention being very upset that some of us do stand up against abusers and cover-up merchants.

    Being a nice guy and always being keen to help people I am letting people know in oder that if they know 'Richard' they can look in on him to see if he is alright.

    Might also be good to publish his e-mail address so anyone who has the time can look him up and make friends with the little chap.

    There. Good deed for the day done.

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  14. Having a few technos. Will try to get blog up later this evening.

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  15. Trevor

    You write that "with the quite mind-boggling attempt to lie to people that there are no criticism of this patheticly flawed individual in the Sharp Report"

    Is this statement by the judge that Le Breton is not criticised in the Sharp report on the record anywhere?

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