FRAMED! - part 2

2

 

On 12 December 2006, Brian received a letter from Barry Gilhooly outlining the allegations made against him by Maryn Murray:

“…Dear Brian Pead

Disciplinary Investigation

I write further to our meeting on Friday 8th December 2006 and Claire Cobbold's letter dated 8th December in relation to your suspension from work at the Open Learning Centre for Vocational Studies.

Your suspension is pending an investigation into allegations of gross misconduct including the following:

1. Irregularities in not following procedures when students taking exams;

2. Inconsistency in the treatment of particular students;

3. Inappropriate language to a student;

4. Not adhering to Council Recruitment and Selection procedures;

5. Unfair treatment of staff members;

6. Causing distress to members of staff through inappropriate management style;

7. Bringing the Council into disrepute whilst attending a play.

These allegations will be investigated by a senior Lambeth officer and a Human Resources Officer. Further details will be sent to you by the beginning of next week…”

Despite promises with regard to his being sent details of the allegations ‘next week’, Brian did not receive such details until late January 2007. Perhaps the most intriguing allegation against him was that of “…bringing the Council into disrepute whilst attending a play…”

Brian had attended the play in May 2006, some seven months previously. No complaints had been made. Why should they have been? All he had done was to attend a play with his female companion. Nothing untoward had occurred, so how could he have brought the Council into disrepute?

It transpired that Murray had allegedly authored an 8-page document in which she made a number of spurious allegations against Brian Pead. These allegations included one that he had been masturbated by Ipek Yўlmaz whilst attending the play at the White Bear Theatre in May 2006 and that they had engaged in ‘…sexual acts…’ in the theatre. (These other alleged acts were never specified.)

Let us assume that this incident did, in fact, occur. It would raise a number of questions. Why weren’t the police called? Why did nobody report this to the Director of the play, or Theatre manager? Why was the Pub manager not informed, since the White Bear Theatre is actually housed in a back room of the White Bear public house? Why were Pead and Yўlmaz not arrested for ‘outraging public decency’?

Those would be the most urgent questions surrounding such an incident. However, a whole new set of questions arises internally within the OLCVS. Annabel Field, a member of Brian’s staff who acted in the play, never once made a complaint about such an incident. She had ample opportunity because just two weeks after appearing in the play she left London and moved to Bath to follow her dream of becoming a full-time actress. This would have provided her with an excellent opportunity to report the incident because she had moved out of London into relative obscurity since she did not leave a forwarding address.

Had, as Murray claimed, Field relayed the ‘masturbation incident’ to Murray the week following the Saturday night that Pead attended the play, then why did Murray not report the incident? She, too, had ample opportunity to inform Barry Gilhooly, Lambeth Human Resources or any number of consultants to Lambeth. She was, after all, particularly close to Paul Waters, a father of four daughters who dressed as a woman and called himself Ermina as he moved around Lambeth schools. Why did Murray wait some seven months before informing Lambeth of this alleged incident? And why did she wait until after she had herself been dismissed?

Both Brian Pead and Ipek Yўlmaz denied that the incident ever took place. Given that the theatre had no stage and that the actors moved around the floor, given that the audience on the night consisted of around twenty people and given that the lighting in the theatre is particularly strong, it is impossible that such an act – had it actually occurred - would not have been seen by others.

Yet no-one came forward to make a statement alleging that the incident had occurred, apart from Murray after she had been dismissed.

What was also particularly worrying was Murray’s mind-set when composing the report in which she claimed that Brian had engaged in ‘lengthy conversations with attractive vulnerable, female pupils’. Note how Murray described the female pupils as ‘attractive’ – the very same word used by Anya Hiley. What are the chances of an Afrikaans-speaking woman using the precise terminology of a native English-speaker?

It is a matter of public record that the pupils at the OLCVS were vulnerable and that, in the main, they came from chaotic homes. Examples of problems that Brian had to deal with included a female pupil whose mother had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, a female pupil who had had two pregnancies (both terminated) by the age of 14, a female pupil whose father beat her, a male pupil who was unsure of his sexuality and an anorexic male pupil. Several pupils either had drink or drug problems themselves or came from homes where the parents had such problems.

It is inevitable, therefore, that a man aged 53, with considerable experience of life and a counsellor and a caring Head Teacher, would take it upon himself in that role to meet with pupils to discuss their home lives and how it impacted on their education. Head Teachers (both male and female) engage in conversations such as this every day.

Yet, in the 8-page report, Murray was sowing the seeds that when Brian Pead met these female pupils (she, like Hiley before her, had apparently not noted down all the conversations he had with male pupils) the conversations were somehow sordid. This allegation was made worse by Murray describing the female pupils as ‘very attractive’ or merely ‘attractive’ or, when she wished to make a different point, ‘unattractive’.

That Lambeth took this ‘report’ seriously is another matter at this stage.

Murray attempted to claim that Brian had favoured two ‘very attractive’ female pupils by allowing them to take an exam early. In both cases this was shown to be false with reference to the list of entrants produced not by Pead but by the Examination Boards themselves. In one case, the records demonstrated that one female pupil did not even sit one part of the Maths examination as Murray alleged she had and in which Murray claimed the ‘attractive’ female received ‘preferential treatment’ from the Head Teacher!

Other allegations included that Pead had mistreated his female staff. He had been managing people from the age of 18, some 35 years ago. In all of that time he had never encountered any investigations into his management or behaviour. He had been working in schools since 1982 when he entered what was then known as Avery Hill College, now part of the University of Greenwich, to train as a teacher of English. A requirement of the course was that students went on ‘teaching practice’ in various schools so that they could learn how to teach ‘at the chalk face’.

Thus, between 1982 and 2006 (some 24 years), there had been ample opportunity for similar allegations to have been made against Brian by pupils, parents or members of staff. No such allegations were ever made in almost a quarter of a century.

Yet Murray’s report – almost certainly not authored by her alone – was then sent to most of Brian Pead’s staff and to Anya Hiley who was not even a member of his staff, but who was close to Murray.

Murray’s report was sent to these people prior to them being interviewed by Cathy Twist, the interviewing officer and prior to Brian being provided with a copy.

By providing the staff with a copy of all of the allegations against Brian, Lambeth conducted a process which was flawed ab initio – from the beginning. No Local Authority – which owed a duty of care to its employees – could claim that the interviewing process was impartial once it had sent copies of a significantly biased report to staff prior to interviewing them.

Brian Pead was not interviewed in connection with the allegations against him until 19 April 2007. On 2 April 2007 he had been replaced by Ginni Bealing, who described herself in a Newsletter to parents as ‘the new Executive headteacher of the OLCVS’.

That Brian had been replaced as the Head Teacher whilst still only under suspension was confirmed in an OfSTED report dated 11 January 2008. The inspection was conducted by Greg Sorrell and his team. On page 3 of the 11 page report, Sorrell states: ‘...since April 2007, the centre has been led and managed by the executive headteacher [Ginni Bealing]...’

Why, then, did Lambeth Council replace Brian before he had even been interviewed regarding the allegations against him? Does this not suggest that the entire interview process was flawed and that it could only have one possible outcome – that of finding Brian Pead ‘guilty as charged’?

Why would the local authority put itself in a position where it was wide open for a claim by Brian for unfair or wrongful dismissal?

Between January and April 2007, the original seven allegations against him had grown to fifteen, some of which appeared as merely repetitious of previous allegations.

No teacher or Head Teacher is universally liked by his or her colleagues or his or her pupils and their parents. Brian Pead is a strong character with firm opinions on education, psychology and classroom management. He accepts that he made ‘enemies’ in almost a quarter of a century in teaching. A weak teacher struggling with classroom control might well observe Brian and feel animosity against him for having excellent classroom control. Using an analogy with football, this is a bit like a Championship striker observing Lionel Messi’s excellent skills in the penalty box and disliking the Argentine genius for being a better player. In all walks of life, a better practitioner is going to encounter jealousy or dislike from his or her less able colleagues.

Yet, in almost a quarter of a century, Brian Pead never had such allegations made against him, even by colleagues whom he knew not to be warm towards him for whatever reason.

He had always been interested in the psychology of education and also in counselling, and during his time as a secondary school teacher, he ‘counselled’ thousands of pupils without a single complaint being made against him. He had been on numerous school trips both at home and abroad, all of which would provide any number of opportunities for unlawful encounters with pupils had he had such a propensity. He had embarked upon private tutoring and, again, this presented no problems for him.

On 19 April 2007, Brian Pead was interviewed by Cathy Twist, the investigating officer for Lambeth, for the first time. Pead took along Alex Passman, an Employment lawyer.

Twist at first refused to allow the presence of Alex Passman because he was not a bona fide GMB union representative and Pead was not a member of the GMB. However, both Brian and Passman argued that the latter was an employment law specialist and, as such, the Head teacher was entitled to seek assistance from just such a person in what was, after all, an employment law situation. Twist reluctantly allowed Passman to continue.

At the end of a long day, Passman and the Head teacher de-briefed in a local coffee house. Passman told Brian that he was being set up, and that Lambeth were likely to find him guilty. Twist didn’t allow any of Passman’s rebuttals to the allegations and the lawyer said that this was absolute nonsense, adding that there was something incredibly strange about this case.

Despite Brian presenting Cathy Twist with robust evidence demonstrating that not only was he innocent of the charges against him, but also that Murray had authored the report after he had dismissed her for grooming young girls and racism towards young black male pupils, Twist dismissed all of Brian’s claims. The investigation process was drawn out and in July 2007 he attended four separate Disciplinary Hearings, the final one being on 30 July.

On 31 July 2007, Brian received a letter from Judith Hare, Chairwoman of the Disciplinary Panel, in which it stated that he was guilty of ten of the 14 charges against him. Between the investigation process and the disciplinary process, the charge relating to alleged masturbation in the theatre was mysteriously dropped with no reasons being provided to the Head teacher.

Brian knew that he had been set up – just as employment law specialist Alex Passman had predicted. He appealed the decision and an Appeal committee was established, headed by John Readman, now with Hull Council.

This was yet another re-run of the two previous processes. Brian demonstrated that he could not be guilty of the allegations against him, but he lost the appeal.

He then decided to take Lambeth Council to an Employment Tribunal. He was given a date of 14 January 2008 – some two years after he had been unlawfully suspended.

In September 2007, whilst still undertaking his counselling course at CPPD, a house was sold at 62 Days Lane, Sidcup. This house was on the opposite side of the road from Brian’s house, but not directly opposite. It was at an angle of approximately 22.5°. A family had previously lived there for almost 15 years, but moved away into the country.

Brian and his neighbours noticed that four females had moved into the property. They appeared to be aged around 20-25.

Again, Brian noticed that this seemed somewhat odd. The property had been a family home for decades and had suddenly become a ‘buy-to-let’ when such properties were not bringing people the returns they often hoped for.

What became even more odd was that the female in the front bedroom would often close the curtains at one window at night and yet leave the curtains open on the other window. Looking from Brian’s house, the open curtains were at the left-hand window.

Brian was in the process of a complete refurbishment of his house which included a new flat roof and so he had scaffolding erected which covered the entire front of the wide property. Three of the scaffold poles and a ladder ran in front of Brian’s bedroom window which was also at the front of the house.

His bedroom window was directly opposite a concrete pathway leading from the street to the Community Centre of the Holy Redeemer Church in Days Lane, which came under the guidance of the Reverend Nicholas Kerr. The Community Hall was used at all hours of the day and night.   

Since Brian’s front bedroom was the only clean room in the house during the refurbishment which included taking down every ceiling, removing every floor and knocking down and creating walls, he would retire to his bedroom to occasionally watch television whilst sitting on his bed.

On one occasion, whilst looking at the television, he noticed out of the corner of his eye a light come on in an upstairs room in the house at 62 Days Lane.

He noticed that the curtains were closed to the right window, but that they remained open on the left-hand window. A man such as Brian Pead – who was reading the Warren Commission report into the assassination of President Kennedy at the age of 11 – was drawn to this anomaly. Who would do such a thing? If you have gone to the trouble of closing the curtains at one window, why would you not close the curtains at the next window, especially as only three feet of wall separated the two windows in that bedroom?

As such thoughts went through his mind he noticed the female start to sway her body as if she was a stripper. She ran her fingers through her hair and over her breasts and began to undress.

  Again, Brian Pead noticed this odd behaviour. His initial reaction was that this was some form of ‘show’ for the young men who lived at 87 Days Lane, next to Brian’s house and almost directly opposite the students’ house. Glen and Jenny Meeking had three eligible sons (and a daughter) aged between 20 -25.

Brian’s initial hypothesis was that this was simply a ‘show’ to draw their attention to this female.

He thought no more of this oddity until about a week later when the same kind of show was repeated. Being something of an analyst and a builder, he began to work out that the young men at 87 Days Lane would not be able to see these ‘shows’ because the window directly opposite their house had its curtains closed, and because the female always stood inside her bedroom at an angle facing Brian’s house.

As bizarre as it sounded, it occurred to him that this 20-something was putting on ‘shows’ for this 50-something. She became increasingly brazen, stripping off her clothes and then dressing again. Her actions were not simply those of someone taking off one outfit and then putting on another before going out. Her actions were a deliberate ‘show’, and appeared to be designed to entice Brian into some kind of reaction.

This was precisely at the time that he was reading a good deal about psycho-sexual matters as part of his Advanced Diploma in Humanistic Integrative counselling course at CPPD and also at the same time that he was looking closely at a website known as Faceparty.com.

Brian mentioned the odd pattern with the curtains to a neighbour, Ellen Stanley, who lived next door to the Meekings at 85 Days Lane. A widow of approximately 70 years, she and Brian got along very well and he often found her unemployed grand-son, Brett, some work at his house. ‘Nellie’ as she was known, told Brian that she had noticed the odd pattern with the curtains over a period of weeks and that she had also noticed many different men ‘coming and going’ in and out of the house.  She had also said that she had once seen ‘a gun’ being held by someone up in the window, but that she wasn’t sure if it was just a prop for a show of some kind.

Brian consulted with the Reverend Nicholas Kerr who lived in the Vicarage next to the church. Nicholas Kerr confirmed that the students had had to be spoken to about their behaviour and late night parties.

Brian mentioned this to Glen Meeking at 87 Days Lane, and he confirmed that he, too, had seen many different men coming and going and that the females often held late-night parties.

In October 2007, Brian wrote a note to the female in the upstairs bedroom. He thought long and hard about the tone of such a note, since he did not want to cause distress at all, but merely to draw the female’s attention to the fact that she could be seen undressing at the window in the event that she was not aware of the fact.

He posted the note through the door one evening and left his name, address and mobile telephone number, should the female need to discuss the matter.

Brian felt that that would be the end of the matter. How wrong he was!

The incidences increased. The curtains remained closed to the right-hand window and open on the left-hand window.

As is his wont, Brian concluded that the female, whom he later learned was known as Elizabeth McIntyre, must have some form of narcissistic personality disorder in which she needed the attention of men by undressing in front of them or flaunting herself to them. He is not a man to judge, but merely to understand.

What had previously been a weekly or fortnightly occurrence became an almost nightly occurrence. To Brian’s mind, this did not make sense. He believed that almost any female, upon being told that she could be seen from the road whilst undressing, would simply close the curtains each time. But, night after night, whether there was a ‘show’ or not, the curtains would remain open at one window and closed at the other.

The ‘shows’, which commenced in September 2007 continued as Christmas merged into the New Year. Paralleling these displays was Brian’s continued investigation into the activity on Faceparty website and his reading and studies on the Advanced Diploma course.

On 9 January 2008, Brian commenced employment as a qualified counsellor at Off Centre in Hackney, east London. He had passed the Enhanced Disclosure element of the Criminal Records Bureau checks. The post was for 3 days a week: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. His hours were to be between 10am and 6pm with the exception of Tuesdays when he would work from midday until 8pm. Christine Mead, the Interim Manager at Off Centre added, “…I am so pleased you are joining us…”

She had previously called him to provide feedback after his interview in December, and stated that she and Nicola Noone had “felt extremely comfortable” around him, that he was suitably qualified and possessed a good deal of life experience which would prove invaluable in his post as a counsellor.

One of the features of this entire story is the large number of people who – upon encountering Brian Pead – speak of his ‘obvious’ intelligence, his friendliness and the fact that they regard him as a ‘genuine person’. Strangely, they were only too ready to deny their own instincts about him, however, when the police concocted the story that he is a sex offender in an attempt to discredit him and his research.

In the UK today, it is relatively easy for the police to create documents or photographs which ‘prove’ to people they are trying to manipulate that the person they are discussing is a ‘sex offender’ – a label which includes females and teenagers. A teenaged boy of 16 who sleeps with his fifteen-year-old underaged girlfriend is, in law, a sex offender. That both parties might well believe that they are in love is immaterial in the eyes of the law, so determined is the British government to create hundreds of ‘sex offenders’ for political reasons.

A man of any age who rapes his wife is also a ‘sex offender’.

With knowledge gained from his cases, Brian Pead firmly believes that he can produce documents, create websites and blogs, a Twitter account and destroy a person’s comfortable existence within 24 hours by ‘proving’ that the person is a ‘sex offender’.

The UK Government and the Police have secret agenda which uses ‘sex offending’ as a means of social control. By ensuring that most decent families are constantly looking over their shoulder amidst concerns about ‘the guy next door’, the Government and the Police are free to perpetrate crimes themselves, rob families of taxes, reduce unemployment benefit and basically keep families fearing the worst and keep the focus of their attention away from the wrong-doing by MPs and Police. While families are busy trying to maintain a home, keep their children safe and put food on the table, all manner of crimes are perpetrated by Government, local authorities and the Police – all agencies of the State which are there – allegedly – to support families.  

On 14 January 2008 Brian travelled to the South London Employment Tribunal in West Croydon. He represented himself. Lambeth arrived with a barrister and a phalanx of council executives, fourteen in all. This in itself taught him a lot. He knew that Lambeth Council would not be sending so many executives without reason. By sending such a large number, Lambeth were showing that they were rattled by Brian’s claims against them.

In representing himself, Brian’s opening submission was that the case centred on Murray’s dismissal for racism and the grooming of female pupils.

At this point, the Judge – Mrs Anne Martin – called a halt to the proceedings (without saying why) and arranged a new date (25 February 2008) some six weeks hence.

It was clear to Brian and his friends who knew about the case that these issues were at the core of Lambeth’s concerns.

On the evening of 14 January 2008, Brian returned home and went online. He was sent a request on MSN and randomly added the person – an occurrence which happened on a relatively regular basis.

Little did he know at the time how important that random act was to prove in his life.

On 28 January 2008, the person whom had been added as a contact on 14 January contacted Brian at 16:13:30. It is important to note here who was doing the chasing. It was a person purporting to be a 14-year-old girl. ‘She’ had just been in a chatroom and randomly asked for money for sex, stating that ‘she’ was 14.

This immediately drew Brian’s attention. Other members of the chatroom asked how could she really be 14 if the Terms and Conditions on the website clearly and unequivocally stated that no-one under 16 could access it. Other people told her to ‘leave if you are really 14 and accessed your mum or dad’s account.’ Yet others wanted to ‘smoke her out’. Someone suggested it was the police. The alleged 14-year-old left an email address and a few people added ‘her’ on MSN, including Brian.

One or two people asked this person what she was doing claiming to provide sex for money. This was not, it must be stated, to procure any sexual services, but to merely understand what on earth was going on. Brian was amongst this small group of people who asked such questions.

Asking questions of someone purporting to be a teenager offering sex in return for money is an entirely different proposition from actually asking a real teenager for sex in return for money.

Within just a few minutes of the conversation on MSN having begun, Brian called upon all his instincts gathered over more than half a century. He intuitively felt that this was most definitely not a teenager and not even a female. At this point he believed it to be an adult male, probably middle-aged.

It is a common phenomenon in counselling that a counsellor will ‘play along’ with a client’s story in order to build confidence in the working relationship. Sometimes, this ‘playing along’ will last for several weeks or even months, until such times as the counsellor feels that the client is emotionally robust enough to have his or her story challenged. Brian understood that it is bad practice to undermine a client’s story or belief system until there was something solid to replace it with. One consequence of poor practice could be the cause of a breakdown in the client.

Brian’s father had taught him as a very young man that “…If you give ’em enough rope they will hang themselves…” and with these strands in his mind, he began smoking out this person. He was deep into research into child sexual abuse, and his instincts told him that this was not a teenager and, if not a teenager, then what was this person’s ‘game’? What was he (or she) trying to achieve by entering an adult website and claiming to be a teenager after money for sexual favours?

Brian found this encounter odd for a number of reasons. Firstly, he could not understand how a real 14-year-old girl could access the website when the Faceparty management clearly stated in its Terms and Conditions that no-one under 16 could become a member.

Secondly, it had not been lost on him that when he had previously attended the Employment Tribunal on 14 January, he had been given the email address of the person who had now contacted him claiming to be an under-aged teen.

Nor was it lost on him that this was appearing to mirror the allegations in Murray’s report.

The person claiming to be a teenaged girl first contacted Brian on 28 January 2008, just five days before he attended a weekend course on child sexual abuse. This topic was firmly in his mind due, in the main, to his own abuse and also to the reading material on the Advanced Diploma course which had a distinct bias towards the psychosexual element of counselling.

It became almost immediately obvious to Brian on 28 January 2008 that the person claiming to be a 14-year-old girl was not, in fact, a girl at all but an adult claiming to be a teenager. Having studied at great length the mind-set of sex offenders, he knew that posing as a teenager was a common ploy of such offenders.

There were several reasons why Brian knew that this alleged ‘girl’ was an adult.

The principal reason – apart from the fact that the Faceparty management claimed that those under 16 could not access the website – was the way in which the person used a form of texting in order to ‘chat’. This person had adopted a strange habit of ‘chatting’ by omitting vowels from words ‘she’ typed to make it look as though ‘she’ were a genuine teenager. To some extent, many people use this form of language when texting. But this was not the usual omission of certain letters that many people adopt when texting (for example, by texting ‘Satday’ or even ‘Sat’ for the word ‘Saturday’) but this person omitted all the vowels, so ‘she’ would type ‘Strdy’ for ‘Saturday’.

In the conversations between Brian and the alleged female, ‘she’ sometimes typed ‘hav’ and on other occasions typed ‘have’. Similarly, she sometimes typed ‘wht’ and then ‘wot’; sometimes ‘name’ and then ‘nam’; sometimes ‘mor’ and then ‘mre’; sometimes ‘nmbr’ and then ‘numbr”; sometimes ‘goin’ and then ‘gng’. To a man who loves language, who is an author and a counsellor and who notices words and spellings in the way that most people do not, Brian noticed these alarming inconsistencies.

In his book Word Crime (Solving Crime through Forensic Linguistics), Continuum, 2009, Dr John Olsson discusses in chapter one the case of the murder of Julie Turner in 2005 in Sheffield.

The case revolved around text messages which were sent from the victim’s mobile phone after she was dead. The killer’s intention, of course, was to make it appear as though she were still alive.

Dr Olsson explains in this fascinating chapter how he analyses the grammar that a person uses, their spelling and punctuation, their choice of vocabulary and much more. He explains that all of these individual elements help to explain something about a person, their level of education, their motives and their feelings.

In much the same way that Brian Pead does. He listens intently to the words a person uses, the force with which the person utters the words, the rhythm of their words and says “Each time you open your mouth, you are telling me something about you, your character, your past, your hopes for the future even if the content of our conversation has nothing directly to do with what you are really telling me below the level of the dialogue.”

Dr Olsson is the same. Whether the word is written or spoken out loud, it will eventually reveal (if the sample is sufficiently large enough) the character of the person using or writing the words. Words, to people like Dr Olsson, Brian Pead and others are like fingerprints to the police. To Olsson, Pead and others they form part of a person’s very DNA or psyche.

On an elementary level, a working-class person hearing a ‘cut-glass accent’ might well believe that the other person is educated, been to university and is a lawyer or doctor or member of the ‘aristocracy’. All of these assumptions might well be true – or they might not be. The working-class person would need a larger sample group of words to really learn whether the ‘cut-glass accent’ belongs to an educated person or not. Sample size is an important element of linguistic identification.

Similarly, most people would recognise what is often referred to as ‘police register’: “…I was proceeding down the road in a northerly direction…” becomes in ordinary-person speak “…I was walking/ driving north…”

Dr Olsson has built an entire career on forensic linguistics. Brian had studied language all of his life – since he developed a severe lisp after being sexually abused in the children’s home and where he received speech therapy in order to improve his ability to communicate. The repetitious use of sounds burned into his brain to remain there ever since. It gave him a love of language and a greater-than-average knowledge of how language is acquired and used and its key to a person’s character.

In Word Crime, Dr Olsson writes (page 10) that “…It may be more accurate to refer to phone text language as a hybrid mode: it has properties of both written and spoken language…”

This is something that Brian was acutely aware of. For this reason, amongst many other reasons, he knew that this was not a 14-year-old girl but an adult or adults purporting to be one.

For the record, Julie Turner’s lover was found guilty of her murder based on his use of a simple full-stop where most people would use a comma (if at all). There were, of course, other reasons why her lover was found guilty, but his use of a full-stop in place of a comma was such a rare event that the jury found him guilty of Julie’s murder.

As a former teacher of English, Brian Pead had read (and marked) literally thousands of essays written by 14-year-olds in his 23-year career which provided him with a significant corpus (or body of language) with which to become acquainted with the ‘average’ 14-year-old’s use of language and punctuation.

As an author of nine books at that time, as someone who is programmed to notice such oddities, as someone who at that time was closely studying the mind-set of sex offenders, and as someone who has studied psychology and linguistics closely for all of his adult life, Brian Pead was drawn to this person claiming to be a 14-year-old girl in the way that Gary McKinnon was drawn to hack into the Pentagon website to see whether there was evidence of aliens or UFOs. In the same way that McKinnon needed to know, Brian needed to know if his instincts were correct. He believed this person to be an adult male, probably middle-aged.

Another way in which he believed that he had encountered an adult and not an under-aged girl was through the phenomenon of what psychologists call ‘transference’.

In effect this is what occurs when two (or more) people engage in dialogue. Transference ‘...refers to an unconscious process in which the client projects on to the therapist both positive and negative qualities belonging to another significant person in the client’s life and behaves towards the therapist as if he or she was that person...’ (Ernesto Spinelli, 1994)

Counter-transference is that which arises in the therapist as a result of the client’s influence on the therapist’s feelings. Counter-transference can be reactive (syntonic) or proactive (illusory). Reactive counter-transference is a counsellor’s emotional response to what the client brings to the encounter (in counselling-speak, this is often referred to as ‘the client’s stuff’). Proactive counter-transference is a counsellor’s emotional response based on what the counsellor him or herself brings to the encounter (his ‘stuff’). Some counsellors – Brian included – often referred to it as ‘your shit’ or ‘my shit’. Knowing the difference between whose ‘shit’ is getting in the way of the relationship usually makes for a more positive relationship.

When engaging with this person claiming to be an under-aged girl, Brian Pead wore his ‘counselling hat’. In effect this meant that he provided a blank canvass and allowed the other person to project whatever he wanted to on to Brian as the ‘counsellor’. For this reason, he felt that the ‘girl’ was an adult male.

His intention was to ‘smoke out’ the person with a view to reporting ‘her’ to the management of the Faceparty website.

He engaged in conversation about this ‘girl’ with others on the website and both he and a female friend and another male friend asked several challenging questions about what the person was offering in exchange for money.

The differing answers seemed to demonstrate that this person was not at all genuine but either an imposter (such as a police officer acting as an agent provocateur – which is illegal) or this person was a sex offender posing as a teen.

This person was too keen in claiming that she was ‘only 14’. Furthermore, this person was too eager to provide ‘her’ mobile number and asking Brian to call it (he didn’t). This person was also too keen to ask for Brian’s mobile number in order to meet. He had no intention to meet this person, so he provided a false telephone number.

In the very early exchanges of this MSN conversation (after the ‘girl’ had entered the Faceparty chatroom), the alleged female continually asked Brian for his profile on Faceparty. He stated at 16:27:14 “…Do you have a picture of you to send me to prove you’re not a fat old man of 90?...” and ‘she’ replied that ‘her’ photo was indeed ‘her’.

Brian replied, “...A photo doesn’t prove it’s really you … it’s just a photo…”

The alleged female asked again for Brian’s Faceparty profile name, but he was already highly suspicious of this person and making notes about ‘her’ as they ‘chatted’ on MSN. At one point she asked “…Hv u gon?...(Have you gone?)” because he was taking his time in replying. He was actually making notes in the way that a psychiatrist might make notes about a patient whilst actually ‘in conversation’ with a patient. In order to disguise his real motives he apologised for the delay in responding and claimed that he had been busy answering other messages from other people.

The alleged female asked again for Brian’s Faceparty profile name and he again did not provide it, saying “...You haven’t told me your Faceparty profile either, but that’s where I will have got your email address from…”

‘She’ replied, “…OK…”

For reasons which will be explained later, this was what is known as tacit consent. ‘She’ did not refute the fact that ‘her’ email address was on her Faceparty profile.

At 16:53:22, ‘she’ asked again, “…Y u nt tell me ur profil den (Why didn’t you tell me your profile then?)…”

At 16:54:04 Brian replied, “…I didn’t tell you it because you’re so not genuine…”

In all counselling situations, especially in those sessions based on the Gestalt approach, there will come moments in any dialogue whereby the counsellor (or, indeed, the client) will have to name the ‘elephant in the room’ – the unspoken feeling or feelings which both participants are often aware of but which, up until the moment that it is actually named, remains unspoken or unacknowledged.

Many clients and several counselling colleagues (and even former pupils and former teaching colleagues) state that the one quality they most admire about Brian Pead is that he is ‘very real’. He does not bullshit. He ‘says it as he sees it’ and often ‘says it as it is’.

He is not into the silly mind games or ‘verbal dances’ that most people engage in. He says that he “…can’t be arsed with such crap…” and it makes for a powerful practitioner. In his days as a teacher, his pupils used to love his lessons because he always told them what he expected from them, they always knew where they stood and although pupils would occasionally try to break through the strong boundaries of secure support that he created, they always returned to the ‘status quo’, knowing that their own growth and development rested on their ability to ‘toe the line’.

His clients, too, who had often built their entire life on bullshit or masks (defence mechanisms) fed back to him that they had grown enormously by working with him because he stripped away the mask and the bullshit and got to the ‘real’ issues and dealt with them. He did not usually waste time by analysing what both he and the client knew deep down were masks created to hide ‘the real self’.

And so, at 16:54:04, Brian Pead ‘named it’ – “…you are so not genuine…” 

A full three minutes later he then ‘goes for the jugular’ in a Gestalt way by saying, “…Shall we swap mobiles then … I’ll call you and you can prove you’re genuine that way … then I’ll tell you my profile etc etc…”

So, to be clear, not only has he ‘called her’ on the issue that ‘she’ is not genuine, but he then suggests that they swap mobile phone numbers so that he can prove that ‘she’ is not genuine.

At 16:58:36 he asks “…How comes you’ve only got one picture on your profile?...”

‘She’ replied: “…Cos I jst dne it nd dnt go thr much…(Because I’ve just done it and don’t go there much)…”

Notice that the ‘girl’ did not refute Brian’s claim that ‘she’ had only one picture on her Faceparty profile because this will become an important issue in a later chapter.

At precisely 17:00:00, ‘she’ asks, “…wots ur nmbr nrd I will call u…”

Notice here how ‘she’ moves between obvious ‘textspeak’ by removing vowels from ‘number’, yet spells out the words ‘will’ and ‘call’ in full. Brian Pead noticed this contradiction, which the vast majority of the population might miss altogether. But he began his writing career at the age of 7 when he won a trip to Whipsnade Zoo, and commenced his first book at the age of 14.

At the age of 11, his History teacher at Hinchley Wood Secondary School, Miss Gowers, commended him on his “depth of research” and a year later he was studying the Warren Commission report into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

At the age of 12 he began a love affair with Liverpool Football Club, not because they were a successful team and won the FA Cup for the first time in 1965, but because he was mesmerised by Bill Shankly, and knew and understood the group psychology employed by the legendary manager.

It would be helpful for the reader to note that at the age of 5½, Brian had been tested by a psychologist and deemed ‘of superior intelligence’.

It is important to bear these facts in mind as the ‘conversation’ on MSN draws to a close.

The ‘female’ – whom Brian Pead has just told is not genuine, wants his mobile number.

Now, had this been a genuine teenager, ‘she’ would no doubt have issued a list of expletives in Brian’s direction. Alternatively, she might have quickly left the conversation. But it is extremely doubtful that a genuine ‘teen’ – having been described as ‘not genuine’ – would then want Brian’s mobile number. What purpose would it serve?

Forty-four seconds elapse and Brian has failed to respond with a mobile number – he is buying time to think what his next move will be and he is continuing to make notes about this strange experience on MSN – which, it should be remembered is with a person who added him on MSN on the very same day as his first Employment Tribunal hearing.

At 17:00:56, the alleged female types: “…bye den…”

At 17:01:30, Brian responded with “…Hold on…” and at 17:01:46, the ‘female’ typed: “…I hav 2 go spk lata. (I have to go, speak later)…”

At 17:01:49, Brian provides a false mobile number.

At 17:01:55, the ‘female’ asks for his Faceparty profile again, but Brian leaves the conversation, which has lasted for 47 minutes – the longest of the five conversations between the parties.

One of the requirements of the Advanced Diploma course that Brian had almost completed was that participants were obliged to maintain a personal learning journal, or PLJ.

The PLJ had to be made available each week for lecturers to read through if they wished.

The idea of the PLJ was for students to keep random notes about their feelings or experiences about the course, the reading material or just about his or her experiences of life whilst undertaking the course.

The PLJ was not a diary. It was not a log book. It was a collection of notes about a student’s personal learning. Brian’s PLJ sometimes contained jottings about his feelings on consecutive days rather like a diary. But it was not a diary.

He commented on this MSN conversation in his learning journal, which was available for his tutors at CPPD to read whenever they wanted to. Were Brian to be genuinely after sex from a 14-year-old girl, why would he have included such a detailed account of this bizarre conversation for his tutors to read?

Furthermore, his PLJ also included details of the strange occurrences in the bedroom at 62 Days lane, Sidcup. Again, were he really engaging in masturbation every week over a period of nine months, why would he include details of the bizarre behaviour he had noted in the house across the road?

The police would no doubt put a spin on it and claim that he recorded these details in order to draw attention away from himself, but that assertion has no basis in fact, as the following chapters will demonstrate.

It is important to note that Brian first encountered the ‘girl’ in a Faceparty chatroom and then the conversation moved to MSN messenger.

The word ‘then’ in English is usually employed as an adverb. It can also be used as an adjective (as in the then headmistress or even as a pronoun as in Until then, let’s stay here.)

When the word then is used as an adverb, it has several different uses.

One of those uses is to indicate what happened next in time, space or order or immediately afterwards (as in He went to the restaurant and then to the pub.) To labour the point – which is necessary for this story – it is clear from the example just given that a man went to the restaurant and immediately afterwards he went to the pub.

In the same way, Brian encountered this alleged female in a Faceparty chatroom and immediately afterwards encountered ‘her’ again on MSN.

The encounter had been a seamless transition from Faceparty to MSN.

This fact – that there was a two-step encounter - will have tremendous significance in following chapters.