#Cookie : Queen Mum's Mum Was French Cook !

Fury over book's claim that Queen Mother and her brother were born to family's French cook

Extraordinary claims that the Queen Mother’s real mother was her family’s French cook are to be made in a sensational new book.
Aristocratic author Lady Colin Campbell says the domestic help may have been ‘an early version of surrogacy’ for both Elizabeth Bowes Lyon and her younger brother David.
The cook, an ‘attractive and pleasant Frenchwoman’ called Marguerite Rodiere, gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth because her own mother Cecilia, who already had eight children, was unable to have any more.

Elizabeth with her mother Cecilla in 1923. It has been claimed in a new book that a cook gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth because her own mother was unable to have any more children

According to Lady Colin, this explains the unflattering nickname ‘Cookie’ given to the Queen Mother by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The astonishing claims are contained in ‘The Queen Mother, The untold story of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, Who became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’, on sale next month.
The publication of the extracts could not have been more ill-timed, as the Queen on Friday held a service of remembrance for her beloved mother to mark the 10th anniversary of her death.

Held at St George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle, it was attended by almost every senior member of the Royal Family and saw glowing tributes paid to the former Queen and her daughter, Princess Margaret, who died just a few weeks earlier.

The allegations immediately came under fire from royal experts.

Elizabeth Bowes Lyon at the age of seven. The Queen Mother's exact date of birth in August 1900 as the fourth daughter of Lord Glamis, later 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, has always been disputed

Hugo Vickers said: ‘It is exactly ten years to the day that the Queen Mother died and I do not think it very nice at all to be promulgating these kind of theories at this time, particularly when the Queen has been celebrating her much loved mother’s life at Windsor today.
‘Lady Colin Campbell has been pushing this bizarre theory for some time in conversations etc. and I have to say I think it is complete nonsense.

Elizabeth and her brother in 1904

'You only have to look at pictures of the Queen Mother and her mother to see that they are related.’
Royal author Michael Thornton said: ‘I suppose that Georgie Campbell, whom I have known for many years, was faced with the same difficulty confronting all biographers of the Queen Mother: namely that everything of importance has already been said, leaving it difficult to find anything new to say.
‘But I have to say that I utterly disbelieve this claim on her part, and without DNA evidence to support it, there is absolutely no way now of proving it.
'I think it is unfortunate to publish this allegation in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year.
'It is bound to distress the Queen, and most particularly the Prince of Wales, who was devoted to his grandmother.’
The Queen Mother’s exact date of birth in August 1900 as the fourth daughter of Lord Glamis, later 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, has always been disputed.
It also remained unclear whether she was actually born in the back of a London ambulance or the family home, St Paul’s Waldenbury, in Hertfordshire.
Another puzzle has been why the Queen Mother, born the Honourable Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes Lyon, was given a French middle name.

In U.S. author Kitty Kelley’s notorious book The Royals, published in 1997, she suggested the Queen Mother was the daughter of a Welsh maid who worked in the family’s castle in Scotland.
But Lady Colin, who has herself had a colourful life after being raised as a boy during her early years in Jamaica, says the mother may have been another member of the household.

Elizabeth with her brother in 1915. Another puzzle has been why the Queen Mother, born the Honourable Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes Lyon, was given a French middle name

She writes: ‘For the fact is, royal and aristocratic circles had been alight for decades with the story that Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, while undoubtedly the daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, was not the child of his wife Cecilia, nor was her younger brother David, born nearly two years after her on 2nd May, 1902.
‘The two Benjamins, as they were known in the Bowes Lyon family (in a Biblical allusion to the brother of Joseph, who was himself the product of a coupling between his father and his mother’s maid) were supposedly the children of Marguerite Rodiere, an attractive and pleasant Frenchwoman who had been the cook at St Paul’s Waldenbury and is meant to have provided Lord and Lady Glamis with the two children they so yearned for after Cecilia was forbidden by her doctors from producing any more progeny.
‘Hence the nickname of Cookie, which the Duke and Duchess of Windsor took care to promulgate throughout international society once Elizabeth proved herself to be their most formidable enemy.’
In the book – the first chapter of which has been published on her U.S. publishers’ website – Lady Colin, says Cecilia Glamis never recovered from the death in 1893 of their eldest child Violet.
She writes: ‘Claude Glamis had no problem fathering children, as his wife Cecilia had proven eight times over. Nor did she have problems producing healthy, happy, good-looking and charming children.

Lady Elizabeth with her parents and the Duke of York in January 1923 shortly before they got engaged

‘However, one of the tragedies that periodically happened in those pre-antibiotic days, might well have been the root of the problem.’
Violet died of heart failure following a bout of diphtheria, less than three weeks after Cecilia had given birth to her youngest son Michael.
According to Lady Campbell: ‘Lady Glamis was an exceptionally loving mother who lived primarily for her children.
'Already emotionally vulnerable following the latest birth, she was devastated by the death of this child whom she always said was “beautiful” and admitted to her dying day to missing.’

Lady Colin continues: ‘The fact is, she suffered a severe nervous breakdown from which she never entirely recovered.
‘She would always remain fragile, both physically and personally, and while she recovered sufficiently to resume her role in Society, she was prone to nervous attacks which incapacitated her for the remainder of her life.’

From left: Queen Mary, King George VI, Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) holding Princess Anne, Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip) and Queen Elizabeth ('Queen Mum') holding Prince Charles

The author says that some people did know the truth surrounding the Queen Mother’s birth, chiefly her brother-in-law, David.
‘As King Edward VIII, David had access to all the information about Elizabeth’s secret which was not so secret in aristocratic and royal circles.
‘When he discovered, to his horror, that Elizabeth was actively scheming with his own courtiers to undermine his position as king and prevent him from marrying the woman he loved, he used the wealth of access at his disposal to circumvent his own private and deputy private secretaries and obtain sight of the documents, which confirmed that Elizabeth had been born, not of 4th August as supposed, but on 3rd August at St Paul’s Waldenbury to Marguerite Rodiere.’

Lady Colin continued: ‘The Duke of Windsor always maintained that he would never have revealed Elizabeth’s secret had he not discovered at the time of the Abdication Crisis, through Lord Beaverbrook, that Elizabeth was behind the scurrilous and utterly untrue rumour that Wallis (Simpson) had learnt secret sexual techniques in a bordello in China, and it was this which was the secret hold she had over King Edward VIII.

The publication of the extracts could not have been more ill-timed, as the Queen on Friday held a service of remembrance for her beloved mother to mark the 10th anniversary of her death

‘Once he knew this to be true, however, he felt justified in rumbling the sister-in-law who had a secret of her own, and one, moreover, which had in his view, more merit than the one she had invented about his beloved.’
Lady Colin says that’s why thereafter, Elizabeth was known as Cookie.
She writes: ‘For those who asked, as I did when I was a late teenager, why she was being called by that nickname, there was always a member of the Windsor circle willing and able to recount how the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Empress of India, Queen of Canada, Australia, etc,etc, was not even legitimate, but the daughter of the 13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and St Paul’s Waldenbury cook, Mademoiselle Marguerite Rodiere.
‘Whether this was indeed the case, none of us will ever know definitively unless DNA studies are done on Elizabeth and Cecilia to establish whether they shared a genetic link.’
Royal biographer Michael Thornton said: ‘It actually doesn’t make any sense. I did investigate all these rumours while I was researching Royal Feud, and I found absolutely no hard evidence whatever to support them.’

Surrogacy and the upper classes

It was not unusual for the upper classes to use 'surrogacy' arrangements to create large families

It was not unusual for the upper classes to use ‘surrogacy’ arrangements to create large families, the book claims.

In the days before antibiotics, child mortality rates were high and sole male heirs stood a good chance of being killed in a war.

As a result, Lady Colin claims it was important that aristocrats left a ‘spare heir or two’, and sometimes enlisted the aid of their domestic staff.

‘The grander the couple, the more likely that there was a serious problem, for great estates were entailed upon the title, meaning that a peer could not leave his property to whom he pleased,’ she said.

‘The aristocracy was filled with horror stories about widows and daughters of great peers living in penury while some distant cousin was lording it over them.’

Lady Colin refers to the time when George VI allegedly took offence to the growing friendship between the young Princess Elizabeth and ‘Little Porchy’, who later became Lord Carnarvon.

According to Lady Colin, the King is alleged to have said: ‘Young Porchester is charming, but there is no possibility of my condoning a union between a daughter of mine and a butler’s son.’

Writer who revealed the 'secrets' of Diana in first warts-and-all account of marriage to Charles

Lady Colin Campbell was brought up as male until she was 18

Colourful biographer Lady Campbell first annoyed the upper classes with her explosive 1992 biography of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Called Diana In Private, it was the first warts-and-all account of her disastrous marriage to Charles and came out shortly before Andrew Morton’s controversial biography.

Lady Campbell, also known as Georgie Campbell, later published a second book, The Real Diana, which revealed more shocking ‘secrets’ including a string of alleged affairs. Scandalous at the time, the book was derided by royal experts.

In 2004 she claimed Diana and King Juan Carlos of Spain had had an affair during a cruise in August 1986.

She wrote: ‘Diana did it to make Charles jealous, but it didn’t work. Charles couldn’t have cared less.’

Born in 1949 into the Ziadie family, one of Jamaica’s most influential clans, Lady Campbell was first registered as a boy, George William, due to a physical defect.

She continued to be brought up as male until she was 18, when she had an operation to correct the defect.

She spent much of her early life in  the U.S. and later worked as a model in New York, where she was regarded as a society beauty.

She moved to Britain after marrying Colin Campbell, younger brother of the 12th Duke of Argyll, but the union lasted only 14 months.

A newspaper later claimed her husband had not known about her physical history when they married and that some of his friends alleged that he had married a transvestite.

Lady Campbell successfully sued every newspaper that implied this, and blamed her ex for selling the story.

She said at the time: ‘It was awful. It is offensive beyond belief. It was rape.’

Seven years ago she was forced to pulp her book about a ruthless murderess after the world’s richest widow, Lily Safra, threatened to sue her.

She re-published her book Empress Bianca with certain tweaks, insisting it was fiction.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123012/Queen-Mother-Fury-books-claim-her-brother-born-familys-French-cook.html#ixzz1qisi46mm

#MI6 Gareth Williams : Who Murdered Him ? - Some Claim To Know And The Reason Why !

Barrister for Murdered spy Gareth Williams from Angelsey told the Inquest into his murder that the suspect who murdered Gary was an " unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, and perhaps evidence was removed from the scene post mortem by an expert in those dark arts.”

The family did not know if the “third party” might have belonged to a British or foreign agency”

Those whose feet have not walked in dark corridors , or met people in car parks and tube stations may find Gareth’s life intriguing. But Gareth’s work was far from intriguing mostly it was commonplace only his special gifts adding any glamour to it.

Gareth was destined to walk in the poorly paid and secretive corridors of rather boring organization that snoop on other people.

But suddenly his life took a new turn which found him on secondment to the firm (MI6) and then to the agency (CIA).

At a high level meeting in New Mexico Maryland Gareths fate was sealed but Gareth did not know that he had become a pawn in a bigger game.

Brilliant as he was only years of experience in the inner worlds of intrigue and deception could have alerted him to the danger

The facts so far revealed that he had been living for 11 months at 36 Alderney Street Pimlico a Mi6 Safe House. After returning from the States on the 11th August he spoke to his sister Ceri in London. That was the last time Ceri Spoke to her beloved brother 10 days later he was discovered dead in the safe house after Ceri failing to get an answer to her telephone calls alerted the police.

Once his death was discovered person or persons unknown decided to tell the media and then lots of different factions went into operation. The cover-up squad put out that he died in bizarre sex game and we heard an array of more lurid and imaginative ideas designed to obfuscate the truth.

The truth is that the apartment looked unlived in and undisturbed Garth was tidy but not that tidy. The Phone direct to MI6 had not been used and the surveillance cameras were missing.

Someone had deliberately made the death bizarre by putting Gareth alive onto a large red North Face Bag with his feet and hands squashed in a most uncomfortable position behind his back,. No-one would willingly get into that position, the bag was then padlocked and his living body placed n the Bath, He would be unable to escape but there were no signs of a struggle. The door to the apartment has been locked from the outside.

FBI agents have questioned baggage handlers at Washington's Dulles International Airport. None of them recall loading a large North Face holdall of the type in which Mr Williams's decomposing body was later discovered in the bath of his flat.

CCTV camera tapes at the airport have been subjected to FBI "Face Recognition" analysis to establish if Mr Williams arrived alone for his departure flight – or whether he was at any stage accompanied by the Mediterranean looking man and woman being sought by the Metropolitan Police.

Agents have also searched an apartment in the US used by Mr Williams close to the offices of the NSA, in a bid to establish if his death presents a threat to their own national security.

As we revealed in earlier reports Gareth was working in the USA trying to brake a code which so far has been broken by no-one on earth we also revealed that his death was not a British Affair.

This is a carefully orchestrated death and exposure which is part of a secret intelligence war being played out across the United Kingdom and the globe.

spiked story is based in London, England, United Kingdom, and is a Reporter for Allvoices.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11834007-who-killed-gareth-williams

#MI6 #Hakluyt : A Death In #China And The Very Secretive Mayfair Company Full Of Spooks.

The tone of discretion and unbridled corporate wealth is set by Hakluyt’s official website. It comprises precisely one page, with space only to list the firm’s three business premises and telephone numbers.

Head office is naturally in Mayfair, in Upper Brook Street, while the Manhattan branch is on Park Avenue, and in Singapore the company can be found at Raffles Place.

No other information is forthcoming. You click in vain for chummy little biographies of “team leaders”. There is not a hint of anything so vulgar as a corporate mission statement.

The reason for this is that if you have to ask what Hakluyt does, you will not be in a position to pay its extravagant fees for corporate and strategic intelligence. More importantly, Hakluyt does not welcome the sort of publicity it has garnered worldwide this week after the mysterious death of one of its occasional investigators in a Chinese hotel room.

Heywood, a gregarious old Harrovian and Mandarin speaker with a well-connected Chinese wife, was found dead in November last year in his hotel room in the megalopolis of Chongqing. Though he was a light drinker, British consular officials seem to have accepted the local authorities’ claim that his death was due to excessive alcohol in his blood.

Seemingly they did not quibble when the body was swiftly cremated, and his mother told the Daily Telegraph that her son had died of a heart attack.

There the matter might have rested but for a startling Chinese political scandal that has since erupted.

For a Westerner, Heywood had become extremely close to the local Communist chief, a flamboyant populist called Bo Xilai. He was friendly too with Xilai’s wife, and seems to have helped their son, Bo Guagua, gain admission first to Harrow School and then to Balliol College, Oxford (from which he was sent down temporarily for idleness).

Last month the Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun claimed to have quarrelled with Xilai when he told him of his suspicions that Heywood had been poisoned.

Wang then sought asylum at the US Consulate.

Much more sensationally, Xilai, regarded as a rising Chinese political star, was abruptly stripped of his Communist party posts, and has since disappeared from view.

Yesterday former Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane called for British police to fully investigate Heywood’s death.

It is extremely dangerous to delve too deeply into the murky, corrupt and nepotistic world where Chinese politics and big business intersect. Heywood may well have paid with his life for crossing that line.

Hakluyt was founded 17 years ago by Christopher James, a former SAS and MI6 operative, and Christopher Wilkins, a businessman who had served in the Welsh Guards.

The links between the company and MI6 have always been strong. Spies preparing for retirement are approached discreetly in St James’s clubs and asked if they would like some lucrative freelance action to top up their pensions.

"One person familiar with that world regards Hakluyt as “a convenient rest home for MI6 men” and suggests that "once an MI6 man, always an MI6 man".

Hakluyt regards itself as operating at the top end of one of the capital’s most lucrative service industries. It has the most impressive list of big corporations, with particularly close links to the big oil firms.

The company attracted unwelcome publicity in 2001 when it emerged it had used an undercover agent known as Manfred to penetrate environmental groups targeting Shell and BP. Fouad Hamdan of Greenpeace Germany said at the time: “The bastard was good, I have to admit,” which Hakluyt will have taken as a compliment of sorts.

The atmosphere in the Mayfair head office is discreet, formal, heavily biased towards former MI6 men, in large proportion ex-public school. It is a highly civilised office environment at odds with the twilight world in which its people in the field have to operate.

Apart from MI6, Hakluyt recruits from impeccably connected government people and big business. Its international advisory board includes a former US senator and an Australian foreign minister, and it rarely recruits to the board any diplomat who did not make ambassador.

The boom in the emerging BRIC economies has created huge opportunities for global businesses based in London, but great risks too. Many companies do not instinctively understand the perils of joint ventures in China or Russia, so Hakluyt will be paid to find out if a potential partner can be trusted.

“We are there to answer specific questions — what the real agenda is, who is in whose pocket and what is the role of certain people,” was how one former senior executive described the work in a rare interview in the FT.

Reports are compiled in London using information from the field provided by well-connected operators like Neil Heywood, who had done this work for Hakluyt on a freelance basis over the years — though not in the city where he died.

One unanswered question is who Heywood was working for at the time of his death in Chongqing.

Hakluyt maintains that he was not working for them on a specific project, but given the links between the two organisations, it cannot be ruled out that he might have been working for MI6.

This could explain why the British government appears to have raised Heywood’s death with Beijing only after the Wall Street Journal broke the story this week.

Lib-Dem MP Norman Baker has long been suspicious of links between Hakluyt, MI6 and government.

Yesterday he declined to comment on Heywood’s death or Hakluyt because he is now a Coalition minister, but as a backbencher before the election he put down a series of written questions about Hakluyt’s cosy relationship with government.

Baker focused on specific meetings between Hakluyt, ministers and officials at the Foreign Office, the department that oversees MI6.

The answers, available on the Hansard website, variously explain that such details were not held centrally, or that finding the information would cost more than a “disproportionate” £750. Baker drew his own conclusions from that obfuscation.

Hakluyt yesterday appeared keen to distance itself from the murky circumstances of Neil Heywood’s unexplained death.

A spokesman said his relationship with the company had been “fleeting” and “passing”.

And asked if Hakluyt employees were contractually bound to sever their links to MI6 on taking up employment in Upper Brook Street, he replied: “We would have no comment on that.”

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/london/mi6-a-death-in-china-and-the-very-secretive-mayfair-company-full-of-spooks-7603151.html

#MI6 Gareth Williams :Did MI6 agents 'specialising in dark arts' kill spy in bag? New evidence emerges sparking fresh questions from the victim's family

Gareth Williams's family believe a third party was either present when he died or broke into his home afterwards to destroy evidence

• Crime scene forensic scientist’s OWN DNA was found on Mr Williams’s hand
• Relatives wanted to know why the alarm was not raised when Mr Williams  failed to turn up at work - by then his body was badly decomposed for analysis
• It also emerged that a Mediterranean couple police wanted to speak to were irrelevant to Mr Williams’s death

Mystery: The naked and decomposing body of Gareth Williams, 31, was found locked inside a holdall in the bath of his home in Pimlico, central London, in August 2010

The MI6 spy whose body was found locked in a sports bag may have been killed by a secret agent, his family said yesterday.
Their barrister suggested a sinister cover-up had left them with no way of knowing how and why Gareth Williams died.
One theory is that he died at the hands of a colleague. Another is that a foreign agent killed him because of his espionage work.
The discovery of the body in his flat near the Secret Service headquarters in London sparked a 20-month police inquiry that has drawn a blank.
At a public hearing yesterday, it emerged that the flat may have been swept clean of evidence, with no fingerprints or DNA anywhere.
It was also revealed that – far from being a back-office worker – Mr Williams had just completed training for deployment on operations.
Other revelations included:

• An expert seeking signs of forced entry said he was hampered because the front door had been taken from its hinges and locks removed;
• Pathologists still cannot agree on how Mr Williams died. The 31-year-old suffered no visible injuries and could not have locked himself in the bag according to police;
• DNA found on his hand that police rated as highly significant was in fact left by a bungling forensic scientist.

The unclothed body of the super-fit maths prodigy was found in a large padlocked North Face bag in the bath of his Government-owned Pimlico flat in August 2010.
The codebreaker from Anglesey, North Wales, had links to London's bondage and gay scene and it had already been suggested a sex game, possibly with a colleague, may have had a tragic end.
But Westminster Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox was told yesterday his grieving family fear whoever is responsible expertly covered up the evidence.
Their barrister Anthony O'Toole rejected the conclusion of an internal MI6 inquiry that Mr Williams's death 'had nothing to do with his work'.

Suspicions: Relatives believe a third party was either present when Gareth Williams died or broke into his home afterwards to destroy evidence, lawyer Anthony O'Toole said

Mr Williams, pictured riding his bike, was found dead inside a body bag similar to the one pictured, right

He said: 'There is a high probability that some third party was in the flat when Gareth was placed in the bag. Evidentially there seems to be no trace of an unknown party in the flat.
'Our impression is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts or secret services.

 

More...

• 'We just want the truth': Agony of murdered Anni Dewani's family after her husband's extradition to South Africa is temporarily halted on mental health grounds
• ‘It was an act of pure, unexpected violence’: Wife of wealthy Russian banker gunned down outside executive flat speaks out

'Or perhaps evidence has been removed from the scene post-mortem by experts in those arts.'

Mr Williams was nearing the end of a one-year secondment from the GCHQ listening station to the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in Vauxhall, London.
Dr Wilcox was told a wide-ranging and highly sensitive police inquiry has left many questions unanswered over the circumstances of his death.
Experts believe it would have been 'difficult, if not impossible' for Mr Williams to lock himself in the bag but can find no evidence of anyone else being present.
His body was found curled in the foetal position in the 140-litre black and red holdall with the keys to the Yale travel padlock beneath him. Pathologists found no evidence of injuries or that he attempted to fight his way out. It remains possible that his dead body was put inside the bag.

Last images: Metropolitan Police released CCTV of his last known movements at Holland Park tube station

Questions: The family want to know why the alarm was not raised when Mr Williams failed to turn up to work and why it took his sister Ceri, pictured left at his funeral, to ring police to make them aware he was missing

Dr Wilcox said that whether Mr Williams was alive inside the bag and locked it himself 'was at the very heart of this inquiry'. She may order officials to recreate how he could have got inside it at the full inquest which is due to take place next month.
Experts have been unable to agree on exactly how Mr Williams died, favouring asphyxiation or hypercapnia, a catastrophic build-up of carbon dioxide in the blood.
Their work was hampered by the heavily decayed state of his body and his MI6 colleagues face questions over why they did not raise the alarm earlier.
It also emerged yesterday that Scotland Yard detectives spent almost 20 months pursuing a DNA trace on his body that was left by a clumsy forensic scientist.
The chief executive of LGC Forensics will be hauled before the inquest to explain the astonishing blunder which was discovered only two weeks ago.

Red herring: It also emerged that a Mediterranean couple police wanted to speak to were irrelevant to Mr Williams's death

The inquest also heard that a Mediterranean couple who called at Mr Williams's block had nothing to do with the case. Detectives released e-fits of the couple and have now traced them. They were looking for a friend's house.
The inquest heard that Mr Williams's family were unhappy about several aspects of the inquiry, including the role of counter-terrorism officers who dealt with MI6 and GCHQ staff. They have raised questions about who ordered a second post-mortem examination and what happened to Mr Williams's possessions held in a work locker.
The family also want to hear more details about the nature of his work but MI6 representatives said disclosing the information could endanger national security.
Dr Wilcox attacked police for delaying the handover of evidence and questioned why the names of some witnesses had been withheld. She said some sensitive letters had gone missing. MI6 has applied for several of Mr Williams's colleagues to give evidence anonymously and from behind screens.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2122792/Secret-agents-specialising-dark-arts-covered-death-MI6-spy-holdall.html#ixzz1qfzK5bUd

British Corruption :New police corruption alleged in secret report

Friday 30 March 2012


Andy DaviesHome Affairs Correspondent


Exclusive: Corrupt police officers are accused of deleting intelligence reports from the national police computer on the orders of criminal gangs in a secret report passed to the Leveson inquiry.



The confidential report produced by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in 2008, found that private investigators, linked to organised criminals, used corrupt serving and former police officers to delete intelligence records from law enforcement databases and access details of police operations. The report has been seen by Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies.

The eight-page report, which has been passed to the Leveson inquiry into police corruption and media ethics, warns of "rogue" private investigators "providing organised crime groups with counter-surveillance techniques" and attempting to discover the identities of informants and witnesses under police protection.



The details in the report entitled "Private Investigators: The Rogue Element of the Private Investigation Industry and Others Unlawfully Trading in Personal Data" have never been disclosed publicly before, because the report is labelled "exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000".

Soca analysed five UK Law enforcement operations leading up to 30 September 2007. The report says: "Four of the operations provided examples of corrupt individuals including serving and former police officers, a bank employee, employees in a communications service provider, a public service employee, and a HM Prison Service Employee. All of these were used by private investigators to facilitate access to information."

The former head of anti-corruption at the Met Police, Bob Quick, told Channel 4 News: "There were occasions where cases involved officers removing evidence, destroying evidence.

"This was infrequent but when it occurred it was serious. There were indications that that relationships existed with private investigators and ex-police officers who were suspected of corruption."

"If police operations against serious criminals are being undermined then that's very significant for justice and safety in this country."

It is not clear what action has been taken in the wake of these findings. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Keith Vaz MP, told Channel 4 News on Thursday: "What we will have to do, and I will discuss this with colleagues on the committee, is to call in the then Home Secretary (Jacqui Smith) to ask whether or not she knew about what was going on, and certainly ask Soca to come in because this is signed off by Soca - they're supposed to be there to protect us from serious and organised crime. "

"If they knew that there was this widespread deletion of information, and the connection between private investigators and police officers who were involved in inappropriate action, it's very important that they come before the committee and explain themselves, as a matter of urgency."

The confidential Soca report details illegal acts by (unnamed) private investigators which go far beyond the sphere of privacy, describing how criminal gangs used private investigators to access police computers, enabling them to see - and even delete - evidence linked to live cases.



Under the heading Perverting the Course of Justice, the report records two operations providing:

"examples of private investigator activities which threaten to undermine the criminal justice system, as follows:

a. accessing the Police National Computer to perform unauthorised checks;

b. accessing internal police databases including those containing serving officers' private details;

c. unauthorised checking of details of vehicles involved in surveillance on PNC (Police National Computer);

d. accessing details of current investigation against a criminal or criminal group;

e. checking premises and vehicles for technical equipment deployed by law enforcement;

f. identifying current law enforcement interest in an organised crime group;

g. deleting intelligence records from law enforcement databases;

h. providing organised crime groups with counter-surveillance techniques;

i. accessing their own or associates' recorded convictions;

j. attempting to discover identity of CHISes (Informants)

k. attempting to discover location of witnesses;

l. attempting to discover location of witnesses under police protection to intimidate them;

m. accessing DVLA databases."



Currently there is no regulation of the private investigation industry, despite the fact that the Private Security Industry Act 2001 allowed specifically for licensing to be introduced. Anyone can undertake private investigative activity regardless of skills, experience or criminality. No one knows how many private investigators are operating in the UK. Estimates vary between 2000-10,000.

Soca warned the Home Office in its 2008 report: "The ability of the investigators to commit such criminality is supported by the absence of regulation in the industry, an abundance of law enforcement expertise either through corrupt contacts or from a previous career in law enforcement, easy access to specialist experts and abuse of legally-available technology."

A Home Office spokesperson told Channel 4 News: "We are considering whether to regulate private investigators. In the meantime they are subject to the law on intercepting communications like everyone else."

It is not known what Lord Leveson intends to do with this report of much wider police corruption than he is currently investigating.




http://www.channel4.com/news/new-police-corruption-alleged-in-secret-report

 

#MI6 Gareth WillIams Inquest : Examines Locked Bag

Family lawyer says family believes someone "specialising in the dark arts" was in Gareth's flat or removed evidence.


An inquest into the death of an MI6 officer is to examine whether the spy was able to lock himself into a sports bag in which his body was found.

Gareth Williams, 31, originally from Anglesey, was found in a padlocked bag at his London flat in August 2010.

Whether he locked the bag from inside is at the "heart" of the case, Westminster Coroner's Court heard.

Two experts agree it would be difficult if not impossible for him to lock the bag, a pre-inquest hearing was told.

Coroner Fiona Wilcox told the hearing she would like a practical demonstration in court of how a person could get into a sports bag and lock it up from inside.

Family lawyer, Anthony O'Toole, told the court that a post-mortem examination was ineffective because the body was so decomposed.

Dr Wilcox also said that a Mediterranean couple sought by police over Mr Williams's death was a "red herring".

The inquest will hear from Mr Williams's colleagues from MI6 and the GCHQ, toxicology experts and bag expert as well as a statement from his sister.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17562112

http://thedisclosureproject-steelmagnolia.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/gareth-williams-murder-exclusive.html

#MI6 Gareth Williams Inquest: Live Tweets From The Court Room

Coroner orders demonstration of how someone can get into sports bag for inquest into spy Gareth Williams bizarre death

Family lawyer describes as "bland" MI6 conclusion that Gareth's death was not connected to his job

https://twitter.com/#!/JonClementsITV

The Perfect Murder

http://thedisclosureproject-steelmagnolia.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/gareth-williams-perfect-murder.html

Murder descibed as a 'neat job'

http://thedisclosureproject-steelmagnolia.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/gareth-williams-murder-exclusive.html

#Ukraine #OksanaMakar :Ukranian teen who posted harrowing hospital bed video describing how she was gang-raped and set on fire dies from her injuries

• Tragic Oksana Makar dies from severe burns and lung damage
• Medics had amputated one of her arms and both feet to keep her alive
• Her rape attack caused nationwide protests in Ukraine against police corruption
• Police initially released two suspects accused of savage attack

A Ukranian teen who was gang-raped, dumped in a ditch and set on fire has died days after she posted a tragic online video revealing her ordeal.

Oksana Makar bravely told from her hospital bed how she was raped, strangled and burned by three men in a savage attack which stripped off 55 per cent of her skin.
Her harrowing hospital video, filmed by her mother, emerged after medics had been forced to amputate one of her arms and both her feet in a battle to keep her alive.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

 

Harrowing: In the video, Oksana Makar, 18, looks in pain as her mother, Tetyana Surovitska, urges her to describe her horrific ordeal by saying 'a couple of words to Ukraine'

Painful: The fire stripped off 55 per cent of her skin and surgeons had to amputate one of her arms and both her feet as they tried and eventually failed to keep her alive

But after a two-week fight for life, health officials in Donetsk said Oksana, 18, died today of severe burns and damage to her lungs.

The rape attack on Oksana shocked Ukraine with its cruelty, and also caused nationwide protests against corruption after police initially released two of the suspects who had powerful connections in the region.

In the 1:19 minute video clip which emerged earlier this month, Oksana looks distraught as her mother, Tetyana Surovitska, urges her to describe her horrific ordeal by saying 'a couple of words to Ukraine'.

She starts to describe the attack, but then breaks off looking visibly upset and says she can’t.
The fire stripped off 55 per cent of her skin and surgeons had to amputate one of her arms and both her feet as they battled to keep her alive - her bandaged shoulder can be seen on her right side.

Tragic: Oksana Makar claimed before she died she was gang-raped, dumped in a ditch and set on fire by three men

When questioned as to what punishment her attackers should receive after the March 9 attack, the teen replies their testicles should be cut off and fed to dogs.

Two of the suspects were Maxim Prisyjnikov, 23, the son of the regional administrator, and Artyon Pogosyan, 21, the son of the regional prosecutor, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.

When her mother asks her how she will survive, the blonde-headed young woman says: 'How I will live, I will live. That’s all.'

Her mother has been criticised for posting the video online with many users suggesting it was insensitive to her daughter asking her to recount her harrowing experience publicly when 'she is clearly distraught and in pain.'

Miss Makar starts to describe the attack, but then breaks off looking visibly upset and says she can’t.

Bare necessities: Women's rights group Femen protest naked outside the state prosecutor's office in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev to demand tough punishment for three men accused of raping and set alight an 18-year-old woman

Ms Surovitska has already been accused of spending fundraising money for her daughter's care on herself, as well as charging reporters for interviews.

'Look at me. Do I look like a rich woman?' she said in an interview with a Ukrainian website, Gazeta.ua.

The shocking case sparked mass protests across Ukraine and naked campaigners led protests over the sloppy nature of the police investigation and the perceived leniency with which the suspects have been treated.

Some Members of Parliament have called for Ukraine to bring in the death penalty for the accused, with one even suggesting the alleged rapists be castrated.

The 18-year-old claims she was invited by Prisyjnikov and Pogosyan to their friend Yevgeniy Krasnoshek's apartment, where she was allegedly raped.

Outcry: Campaigners were also angry at the perceived leniency handed down to the arrested men, two of whom were initially released over 'lack of evidence'

They tried to strangle her to death before wrapping her in a sheet, dumping her in a pit at a construction site and setting her alight, it was alleged in the Kyiv Post.

Miss Makar was found barely alive the following day by a man who heard her moaning. After undergoing surgery, she was finally able to recount her ordeal to police.

She regained consciousness on Friday, but doctors induced a coma and moved her from a hospital in Mykolayiv to a burn treatment center in Donetsk.

In an interview with Gazeta.ua after the attack, she said: 'I could not feel my body. At first, I was screaming for help.

'But there was nobody there, I began to pray. I thought I had died. I remember it all as if in a fog.'

The three suspects were arrested, but two of them were released later that day due to lack of evidence, according to the Mykolayiv prosecutor’s office.

Prosecutors say they did not question Miss Makar because she was not conscious despite her mother insisting she was able to speak.

But anger erupted across the country when a chief police officer confirmed two of the suspects were sons of former government officials, one of whom apparently appeared in a YouTube video calmly describing the attack.

Women's rights group Femen staged a topless protest in front of the general prosecutors office in the capital, Kyiv, chanting 'Death to the sadists!' and 'Execute the b****s!'

The demonstrations led Ukrainian President Yanukovych to order the general prosecutor to oversee the case and on March 13 the two men were re-arrested and all three suspects were charged with attempted murder.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2122091/Oksana-Makar-dead-Ukranian-teen-posted-video-describing-gang-rape-dies-injuries.html#ixzz1qWez5WMZ

#Leveson Inquiry: #Baggott AND #Leicester Police Did They Know Maddie was An Abused Child - BUT It Had Nothing To Do With How She Died ? Questions That NEED Answers From This Corrupt Country !

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/leveson-matt-baggott-paedophile.html

Rupert #Murdoch Leads A Pirates Life Of Organized Crime !

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/leveson-murdochs-pirates-now-on-u-tube.html

#EU : Is Cameron Pulling Out Of The EU ?

With the NHS now well on the way to privatisation where does this leave ex-pats who rely on the NHS in Spain and Portugal and cannot afford private health insurance ? There is a LOT of talk that by the end of the year Cameron will pull out of the EU all together which explains this propaganda piece from the Goveremnt 's mouthpiece the Torygraph.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8963947/Eurozone-crisis-Foreign-Office-plans-evacuation-of-expatriates.html

#Twitter Libel Case - High Court judgment: Chris Cairns v Lalit Modi

 http://bit.ly/GS3M7o

#Carcinoid :Detective Denise We Wish You A Sweet Farewell . R.I. P.

http://www.detectivedenise.co.uk/

The last tweet from Denise, March 21st telling us she was back in hospital.

https://twitter.com/#!/DetectiveDenise

Charla Nash : Chimp Attack - Charla Two Years On After Receiving Face Transplant

Despite losing her eyesight, lips, nose, and hands in a vicious attack by a rampaging chimpanzee in 2009, face transplant recipient Charla Nash says she feels at home in her new skin.

The brave 58-year-old woman, who nearly died in the horrific mauling, told the Hartford Courant exclusively that she feels no different than she did before the attack.

‘I just feel like it’s my face,’ she said. ‘It’s just not working real good.’

Brave face: After a full face transplant, chimpanzee maul victim Charla Nash is making a remarkable recovery and is gaining feeling in her new face

 

 

Slowly but surely: Pictured before the attack, left, before the transplant, centre, and after, right

 Ms Nash, a single mother from Stamford, Connecticut, told the Courant that she’s regaining movements in her face and can express herself with various motions.

‘Every day, my muscles get better,’ she said. 

Sandra Herold, who owned the 200-lb chimp Travis, died of an aneurism in 2010. Ms Nash said that if she could say anything to her former boss and friend, she would say she is ‘sorry that all this happened. And, nothing we can change now.’

 

However, she added that Herold was ‘a trouble person’ that was more worried about her pet – who was shot and killed after the attack – than she was of her.

 

In past interviews, Ms Nash revealed that having a new face allowed her simple human pleasures – she has regained her sense of smell and can eat again.

Recovery: Six months in, Ms Nash showed off her face transplant surgery. Surgeons spent 20 hours re-building her features

Reconstruction: In the attack, her eyes, nose, and lips were mauled off

She is even regaining sensation in her forehead, cheeks, eyebrow, and nose.

But most of all, she’s learning how to smile. ‘It creases up here,’ Ms Nash told the Courant as she pointed at her mouth.

In the interview, Ms Nash also spoke of long years of rehabilitation, and the hope of regaining some semblance of independence.

'I have to depend on a lot of help. My life depends on really not being alone. I used to be very independent.'

-Charla Nash

‘I don’t know what the future’s doing (sic) to bring… so I don’t get my hopes up,’ Ms Nash said, though she added that she wants to progress far enough that she can again ride horses and live in her own house.

She said she misses simple things – like being able to bargain hunt, bask in the sunshine, or even look at her 20-year-old daughter, Brianna.

‘I have to depend on a lot of help,’ she said. ‘My life depends on really not being alone. I used to be very independent.’

She also gets phantom pains in her hands, despite the fact that they were removed after the 2009 attack.

 

Haunting image: Ms Nash is seen posing with the chimp a year before the attack

Courageous: The survivor first revealed her mauled face on the Oprah Winfrey show; before the surgery, she kept a veil over her face

Transplants added in surgery later had to be removed because of dangerous complications.
In an interview with ABC 7 last month, Ms Nash – who likes being called Charlie – said she doesn’t want anybody’s pity.

Furious George: She was attacked by 200-lb chimpanzee Travis in 2009

‘I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me,’ she said. ‘I want to be like everyone else.’

There are very real financial concerns as well. Her surgery, care, and rehabilitation have cost millions.

 According to the Courant, there is a $150million case pending against the state of Connecticut for allegedly not protecting its citizens from an unsafe creature.

One state employee reportedly wrote in a memo that Travis’ attack was ‘an accident waiting to happen.’

‘I hope that I do get my day in court,’ she said.

She has been told by doctors that she needs to work on bulking up, as she is still quite thin for her 5ft 10in frame.

Ms Nash, who was blinded in the 2009 attack, was fitted with brown glass eyes and hopes to get a double hand transplant after the first one failed.
She received a revolutionary full-face transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston nearly two years after the attack.

The operation – performed by a team of more than 30 surgeons and nurses – and subsequent recovery were widely covered. 

Prior to the surgery, she hid her face under a veil, saying that she chose to wear it ‘so I don’t scare people.’


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2119474/Charla-Nash-Astonishing-progress-chimp-attack-victim-2-years-receiving-face-transplant.html

#FOI #Parasite #Queen #Elizabeth tried to use state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace

 


http://ow.ly/9NsfW

The Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster, documents disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to "adverse publicity" for the Queen and the Government.

Aides complained to ministers in 2004 that the Queen's gas and electricity bills, which had increased by 50 per cent that year, stood at more than £1m a year and had become "untenable".

The Royal Household also complained that the £15m government grant to maintain the Queen's palaces was inadequate.

In search of more money-saving schemes, the Queen's deputy treasurer wrote to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to ask whether the Royal Household would be eligible for a grant to replace four combined heat and power (CHP) units at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

He asked: "Community Energy can fund up to 40 per cent of the capital costs of implementing a community heating scheme... Since we are already grant-in-aid funded [the Queen receives £15m a year for the upkeep of her palaces] we would like to know whether the Household [would] be able to benefit from these grants. I look forward to your comments."

Click the following links to see the Palace request for a poverty grant: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7

Under this scheme administered by the Environment department, schools, hospitals, councils and housing associations have been awarded £60m for heating programmes which benefit people on low incomes.

Taxpayers already contribute £38m to pay for the Royal Family. Yet some of the buildings which would have benefited from the energy grant were occupied by minor royals living in grace and favour accommodation on the royal estates. Surprisingly the Government offered no resistance to the proposed application and cleared the way for the Queen to take advantage of the handout.

But by August 2004 the documents show that Whitehall officials had changed their minds and poured cold water on the whole idea. In an email sent to the Palace it was diplomatically explained that the funds were aimed at people on "low incomes".

The official wrote: "I think this is where the Community Energy Funding is directed and ties in with most allocations going to community heating schemes run by local authorities, housing associations, universities etc. I also feel a bit uneasy about the probable adverse press coverage if the Palace were given a grant at the expense of say a hospital. Sorry this doesn't sound more positive."

The Palace had more joy when it sought permission to find a more affordable contractor to supply the Queen with her gas and oil. Documents show that the Royal Household's gas bill had risen from £319,000 in 2002 to £526,000 in 2006. Electricity had increased by an even bigger margin, jumping from £249,000 to £513,000 over the same period.

In an email to the DCMS, palace officials wrote in September 2005: "As mentioned [in our telephone conversation today], the commercial market position for utilities has become untenable with price rises of over 50 per cent when we went out to tender last year ... The position is that all our contracts for gas and electricity will mature on 30 September 2006. I do not want to go out to tender next year and find the prices have risen significantly again but, given the recent position of energy markets, I suspect that they will."

In its proposal the Palace suggested a move towards a wholesale contract under a single tender with Inenco which also serves the gas and electricity needs of the Prison Service and Channel 4.

But ministers were concerned that by using a single tender, rather than going to the open market place, the Palace might be in breach of EU contracting rules which govern deals worth more than £306,753. The issue centred on whether the Royal Household was a "public sector contracting authority" for the purpose of the EU regulations.

Preliminary advice from the Treasury was that the Royal Household was a public body but the Palace argued that it wasn't.

The Whitehall memo concludes: "If they [the Royal Household] are convinced of their view, and since we have no definitive advice to the contrary, then they can proceed."

The switch was finally approved by DCMS officials who noted that the new contract will "undercut" traditional fuel companies by 6-8 per cent. If they had thought of it two years earlier, they could have saved £144,000.

Last year thermal imaging technology, used to identify and measure energy waste, showed heat pouring through the closed curtained windows, the roof and cracks in the walls. A team of energy surveyors labelled the Palace "shocking and appalling", the biggest "central heating radiator" in the capital and gave it a score of 0 out of 10. St James's Palace was in 12th place in the survey of 170 buildings with a score of only five out of 10.

Her Majesty didn't get the money - so who did?

Fife Council £1,591,043

Develop the Dunfermline community heating scheme – 300 households and four public buildings – using waste heat from the Lochhead landfill site.

Birmingham City Council £1,354,699

A new heat network linking six public buildings including Aston University, a children's hospital and court buildings.

Torridge District Council £600,144

A new heat network, utilising heat from the existing Holsworthy Biogas power plant to connect 52 council houses and five public buildings.

Highland Council £800,000

A new heat network serving a primary school and over 200 homes on the Minafua Estate. There is potential to include biomass at a future date.

Falkirk Council £983,730

A new heat network to link five tower blocks of more than 400 homes. There is scope for expansion by connecting four further towers.

University of Wales £535,000

Refurbish existing network to serve teaching and research buildings and halls of residence at Swansea.

London Borough of Islington £653,702

A new heat network connecting 900 homes and three public buildings,comprising a school, swimming pool and leisure centre.

Home Housing Association £35,000

A new heat network connecting 26 homes, replacing individual storage heaters at Stafford Court, West Durham.

Dungannon & District Housing Association £90,000

A new scheme using a wood-fired boiler – using a local woodchip supply – to serve 35 purpose-built flats.

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council £35,000

Replace coal-fired boilers serving three public buildings with biomass, using prunings produced by the Council's own tree work.

Department for Constitutional Affairs £84,000

Connect the Combined Courts Building in Nottingham to a existing network.

Birmingham Heartlands Hospital NHS Trust £403,000

Expand the hospital's existing network to the maternity unit through theaddition of absorption chilling.

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospital NHS Foundation Trust £1,394,498

To augment the hospital's existing steam network with a new low temperature hot water network to utilise low grade heat.

Eastleigh Borough Council £100,000

A new heat network connecting council civic offices and a leisure centre.

Highland Council £1,380,000

A new woodchip-fuelled plant serving 540 dwellings in Pulteneytown, Wick, Caithness. The plant would also serve the local hospital, secondary school, swimming pool, library and more than 1,000 additional homes.

Home Housing Association £29,500

A new heat network connecting 22 dwellings in Manor Court, Cockermouth, by replacing individual storage heaters.

Kingston (upon Thames) Hospital NHS Trust £455,000

Supply heat via an existing network to 139 new dwellings, comprising 75 low cost dwellings and a combination of nursing homes and sheltered residences.

Read Mary Dejevsky: Has the US Constitution had its day?