Thursday, 19 September 2013

FRAMED! - part 31

He called Angela Shaw on 17 January and a meeting was arranged between her, Brian and Bell at Charter Chambers in John Street, London.
Brian secretly recorded the meeting. We believe that it shows that Bell was not ‘playing with a straight bat’ and that he was wholly negligent in his handling of this case to Brian’s detriment. We leave you, the reader, to reach your own conclusion.
The meeting commenced at 5.30pm. Note the time: it suggests that the meeting – held at the end of a day – was merely ‘fitted in’. A proper meeting had not been scheduled.
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On 27 January 2010, Brian attended Southwark Crown Court with his friend Geoffrey Bacon. Brian had prepared an overnight bag for prison. He was determined that he would rather go to prison than say that he was guilty of an offence he knew himself to be innocent of.
The indefatigable Geoffrey Bacon sat impassively in the public gallery. He had shown himself to be a true friend. He was upset that Brian had been found guilty of an offence he knew his friend to be innocent of, and he was also upset that he had not been called as a witness.
Brian was not sentenced to prison, but was served with a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (or SOPO).
This Order was somewhat comical in reality. Brian was ordered not to seek the company of any young person under the age of 16. (He never did seek such company).
It was ordered that he could not visit, reside or spend the night in a dwelling where an unsupervised person under the age of 16 [excepting grand-children] lives, unless authorised by a Police Officer from the relevant Public Protection Unit.
It was ordered that he must not seek any work – paid or unpaid – which would bring him into contact with under-16s.
It was ordered that he must not use any computer or similar device for accessing the Internet in order to access chat rooms, send instant messages or file swapping, except for the purpose of employment.
It was ordered that he must not seek employment using any other name than Brian Pead.
He was placed on Probation and told that he must attend weekly counselling sessions in London and be placed on a sex offenders’ treatment programme.
Brian refused to attend such a programme. They wanted to video him. He said he is not a sex offender and that any videoing of him would be a breach of his human rights. He informed Probation about police corruption. They did nothing.
Until 31 August 2011 when he had sent out numerous letters to the Prime Minister, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Minister for Justice, the Home Secretary, the Lord Chief Justice, all the justices of the Supreme Court and their ilk.
On that night eight police officers and five vehicles surrounded his house, climbing on the back roof of his house, smashing down his back door with a sledgehammer and arrested him because he failed to attend probation immediately after his father had died.
Our account ends here - almost. The third part of this intriguing trilogy can be found in Emily Birch Went to Church. This true crime account tells the gripping story of how Emily Birch was used as a decoy to get her grand-father in prison, where Brian’s cellmate was none other than celebrity gangster, Dave Courtney. The two men had a lot to discuss. Brian had been held on remand of the witness intimidation of his own grand-daughter, who had never been a witness in any trial. The evil perpetrators of the Hillsborough cover-up were continuing to pervert the course of justice in an attempt to prevent Brian Pead from speaking out ...

But now we come to the final piece of this particular jigsaw. Each Court keeps a register of cases, as you might expect. There is no record for the ‘trial’ in which Brian Pead found himself. It was, as you may have already suspected, just smoke and mirrors designed to prevent him from revealing the truth about child abuse in Lambeth.
The page opposite shows the trials that Loraine-Smith was involved in. Note that on 4 November 2009 he presided over R. v Stephen Smithey and on 12 March 2010 he presided over R. v Denise Bohannan.
There is no mention of Brian Pead’s trial which commenced on 14 December 2009. His book from Hillsborough to Lambeth was the subject of two gagging orders against it. The website www.allaroundjustice.com which highlighted the police corruption in this trial was taken down unlawfully by the Government.
The website http://lambethchildabuseandcoverup.com was also unlawfully removed from the internet, despite being hosted in Slovakia, which is outside of the jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales.
Brian Pead was, and is, an innocent man.


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Afterword 1

On Valentine’s Day (February 14) 2013, Brian travelled to the National Children’s Home offices in Hackford Road, Stockwell, London. The charity had been re-named Action for Children. Brian was seeking his file for the five years he spent in the home.
His file was an informative document and he was able to take it away with him. It raised more questions for him than it answered.
He was not allowed access to the files belonging to his brothers, even though Action for Children claim that anybody can access these files in the name of research.
His own file contained no photographs and yet he knew that it ought to have done. Certain names and paragraphs had been redacted from certain documents. He had, in September 2012, been studying the redacted files on the Hillsborough website and he formed the view that redaction is usually used to ‘hide’ information. Sometimes this is because some people, for example, do not wish for their name and/ or address to be made available to the world, but on other occasions it is because those in authority have something to hide from the world.
In 1869, the Reverend Thomas Bowman Stephenson, together with Francis Horner and Alfred Mager, founded a children’s home for orphans and abandoned children in a disused stable in Lambeth.
In 1871, the Lambeth home was given approval by the Wesleyan Methodist Conference and moved to Bonner Road in Hackney.
In 1913 a new branch was opened at Harpenden and it was possible to transfer the whole community of 350 children from London to this new flagship branch.
Hackford Road, Stockwell, by the way, is in the London Borough of Lambeth
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Afterword 2

On Monday 20 May 2013, the BBC Panorama programme ‘Hillsborough – How They Buried the Truth’ went out at 9pm. Brian Pead sat and watched it with a friend – he cried. The tears were not just for the death of 96 innocent people, but for the death of justice. His tears were also for his grand-children. For his daughter. For the life he once knew. Brian’s tears of sadness were also tears of anger – at the institutionalised corruption that had taken place in the cover-up that was Hillsborough.
As a Liverpool fan and author of five books on the entire history of the club from 1892, he was present on that fateful day. He had lived with the corruption for almost a quarter of a century.
On Wednesday 22 May 2013, Brian came across a piece of writing by the Radio 5Live presenter, Colin Murray, in the Metro newspaper on his train journey from Southend Central to the Royal Courts of Justice, to seek remedy against Lambeth Council for his unlawful dismissal in July 2007.
The words touched Brian immensely. We reproduce them here, and acknowledge the copyright of both Colin Murray and the Metro newspaper:

“… I didn’t watch it, not initially. I’d had a good day and I knew that would end the minute this programme began, so instead I enjoyed dinner with my family, took in a film, and only pressed play once those I love were safely in bed.
Now I sit here, at 3am, after viewing BBC Panorama’s ‘Hillsborough - How They Buried The Truth’, and I can’t think about anything else. Again. Quite honestly, I’m thinking about what it would be like if my wife went out tomorrow and never came back. And if for almost a quarter of a century to follow I’d have her memory spat upon and besmirched by those in positions of power who are meant to protect us and uphold our collective principles. And I just want to punch the wall in anger.
I’m thinking about how any human being can look at a pitch strewn with the dead, the dying and the wounded, a nearby temporary morgue filling up with bodies, and already be hatching a plan to pin the blame on those very same corpses in order to save their own skin.
I’m thinking that anyone who can do this must have no soul to speak of, and no conscience to answer. I’m thinking about those left behind, and how they’ve managed to not only keep fighting for justice, but have done so without lowering themselves to the same gutter level as those who have denied them the right to bury their loved ones with dignity and in peace.
And I am not sure I would be able to summon the grace they possess, or be able to show the self-restraint they’ve displayed.
I’m thinking about how my words cannot even begin to describe the suffering felt by those who lost friends and family that day, and I wonder where they’ve found the courage to continue in the face of such despicable lies. I’m not sure I could have.
I’m thinking, with two inquiries charged with finally unearthing the real story of the worst day in the history of British football, that I don’t want to ever have to watch a programme like this week’s Panorama again.
That I want to stand in front of the Hillsborough memorial at Anfield in the near future and touch it in the knowledge that, at last, the truth has been written forever in history, and not to walk away from it knowing those who caused this avoidable tragedy continue to get away with it scot free.
I’m hoping that the bastards responsible are having as much trouble sleeping tonight as I am…”
© Colin Murray                     © The Metro

Brian Pead innocently went to work one day and sacked a female teacher who was grooming girls. As innocent as going to a football match.
A part of him died the day he was unlawfully sacked by Lambeth Council.
A part of him died the day he no longer saw his daughter.
A part of him died the day he no longer saw his grand-children.
A part of him died the day his father died and the police considered charging Brian with his father’s death – despite the 91 year old dying of natural causes.
A part of him died the day he buried his father and no other family members were present because of the lies perpetrated by the police at the highest levels and because the police had intercepted the invitations to his daughter and nephews to attend their grand-father’s funeral.
A part of him died when his reputation was besmirched by those in positions of power who are meant to protect us and uphold our collective principles.
A part of him died as he fought to get the truth to his beloved grand-children.
A part of him died when he learnt that Scotland Yard had been hatching a plan to prevent him from exposing child abuse in Lambeth.
A part of him died with the pain and the suffering of the loss of his loved ones.
A part of him died with the knowledge that those responsible for his demise are attempting to re-write history and are getting away with it scot free.
Parts of him died until there was just one part left …
… the part that fought tenaciously to be heard amidst the injustice and the lies and the corruption and the scandal and the defamation and the stench of evil …
… the part that said, “I know that I am innocent. And I want to stand and look in my grand-children’s eyes and know that the truth has at last been told to them.”



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Afterword 3

On Wednesday 12 June 2013, Brian’s sixtieth birthday, he travelled to Ambrose Lane, Harpenden in Hertfordshire with Michael Bird, the co-author of from Hillsborough to Lambeth. It was a warm and bright day, though occasional clouds passed silently in front of the yellow-orange sun.
Now owned by the Christian charity Youth with a Mission, the National Children’s Home at Highfield Oval in Harpenden today looks very much as it did in the 1950s. Large Edwardian houses had been built around a green. Forming part of the circle of buildings around the green were a small factory, an administrative block, a chapel - built with funds from Joseph Rank - and a hospital.  Born in 1854, Joseph Rank was the founder Rank Hovis McDougall, one of the United Kingdom’s largest food production and flour-milling businesses.
Like Livingstone and Stanley, Brian and his friend went exploring. Behind one of the houses was a small orchard, where Brian would often wander as a child and where he believes he found his love of nature. To the left of the orchard was a large grassy field where he and Michael Bird walked before entering the wood where Brian would also wander half a century ago. The woods resonated with bird-song and Brian’s heart was filled with joy at such a “beautiful cacophony” - as he describes it.
Emerging from the bluebell-carpeted woods where the sun illuminated the gossamer-thin yellow-green leaves, they went from house to house in the warm sunshine and were intrigued by the foundation stones they saw on each building. It appeared that the majority had been laid on Wednesday 30 October 1912 at a grand ceremony in which local dignitaries and officials of the National Children’s Homes had been present.
Brian and his two brothers were admitted into the Harpenden branch of the National Children’s Home on 29 January 1956. Brian was aged 2½.
For what was termed ‘medical research’ reasons, the children in the home were photographed. From the front. From the side. From the rear.
Naked.
In his book, Philip: A Strange Child, Dalkeith Publishing, 2007, Philip Howard describes his experiences of the ‘medical research’:
“…Our regular visits for the Growth Study Tests every few months were welcomed by most of us. An entire morning off school was something of a treat. The tests took about two hours. There were not that many of us in each group, but as we were all seen individually, although there were several staff involved, much of the time was waiting to be seen.
The tests took place in one part of the main hall; this part of the hall was kept locked, other than on the days of the medical tests, because of the specialised medical equipment used only for our measurement tests. […]
As well as our measurements, photographs of our body stature and growth were taken from our front, back and side. These were done naked […]
If a few of us were embarrassed at times, it was when the staff touched parts of our body during the tests. When it came to standing up for the photographs, on occasions a few of us experienced erections.
With the others occupied with their own part of the test, it was generally only the staff that witnessed our embarrassment…”

As authors and researchers, we found this account highly disturbing. Without any melodrama whatsoever, we were forced to ask many questions about this ‘medical research’. Why were the children photographed naked? What happened to these photographs of the naked children? Where are they currently stored? Who owns them? Why was each child seen ‘individually’? Why did staff touch parts of the children’s bodies when they were naked?
Why were parents not informed? Why were parents not present? Did parents give consent to have their children photographed naked? Were parents given a copy of the photographs?
Who authorised the taking of naked pictures of pre-pubescent and pubescent children? Had authority been given at the level of the Committee of the National Children’s Home, the Education Authority, or Ministerial level?
How many pairs of eyes saw these photographs? Was this ‘medical research’ merely a cover for child pornography some 40 or 50 years before the internet existed?     
Back in July 1956, Brian was 3ft 2 inches tall and he weighed 2 stone and 6 lbs. The file that he obtained in a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request from Action for Children contained a comprehensive list of his height and weight measurements throughout his stay in the Harpenden home.
At the age of 5, Brian’s sexual abuse at Highfield Oval started. His childhood had been stolen from him and his awareness had been raised to a state of high alert – he saw things most boys his age did not see, he felt things they did not feel, he knew things they did not know. This boy ‘of superior intelligence’ who ‘could be reasoned with’, who was ‘ clean and tidy for his age’, who was a ‘leader’ and who was ‘popular with his peers’ (all comments made about him in the Home) was 3ft 7½ inches tall and he weighed 3 stone in July 1958, a month after his fifth birthday.
The foundation stones had been laid in 1912 approximately 3 feet from ground level.
It is evident that Brian’s eye level was in line with the foundation stones.
On each of the foundation stones were the names of people who were associated in one way or another with the National Children’s Homes.
On each of the foundation stones were the names of the places that the people who were associated with the National Children’s Homes came from.
On almost every one of the foundation stones was the name of …
… Lambeth.


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