Dear Mr Stourton and Mr Crawley,
This further e-mail should be directed to the producer but I do not have his address.
I scanned the last episode of Sunday – 16th of November, and found no content relevant to child abuse. The obduracy of the BBC in bringing forward the key facts in this most terrible crime fits with its illicit cover up of Thompson's knowledge that abuse by Savile was being investigated on good grounds by the Newsnight team before praise were then heaped upon this very devil.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11243459/The-BBC-is-still-ignoring-evidence-of-a-potential-cover-up-over-Jimmy-Savile.html
Miles Goslett is a close friend. We worked together on another case where truth lies buried. I know what extreme efforts he went to in order to squeeze some truth from Thompson. It is no surprise that the BBC is so far of course having been headed by a man of this low calibre.
It fits as well that the BBC is content to have priests and others on the Sunday programme without making any reference to our law. Only 'shame' and similar were uttered. Mr Oborne says it well …....a continuation of the moral squalor of the Patten years.
I have been taking advice from a friend who has a law degree and who dealt with abused children as a senior social worker. She agrees that this heinous crime is seldom brought before the law. She has established, for instance, that no prosecutions for the crime of concealment of evidence have resulted so far under Operation Yewtree. Concealment will be commonplace as with the current spate of allegations regarding the 'elite'.
There is no doubt that the BBC has a special responsibility to emphasise legal processes in this given its employment and projection of the most evil Savile for decades, and its employment of at least two other convicted abusers.
My friend sends me this link -
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/58/section/5
(1)Where a person has committed an arrestable offence, any other person who, knowing or believing that the offence or some other arrestable offence has been committed, and that he has information which might be of material assistance in securing the prosecution or conviction of an offender for it, accepts or agrees to accept for not disclosing that information any consideration other than the making good of loss or injury caused by the offence, or the making of reasonable compensation for that loss or injury, shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for not more that two years.
I consider that the BBC is complicit, to a large extent, if it does not emphasise our law in this and instead allows church people and those of similar ilk to utter platitudes instead of speaking as Christ spoke.
I ask for the sake of children that this most important subject, which is to do with the ruin of children's lives and often with the taking of their lives, be the centre of the Sunday programme quickly. Obviously, the paragraph above would be central. The listening public should know that if anyone believes that this crime has taken place, then their duty in law is to take it to the police. One of the many policemen who specializes in this morbid field should be on the programme, as well as a lawyer in the field.
The BBC, as public service broadcaster, has a clear duty to advise the public as to how individuals should deal with this under our law. If the BBC fails in this, it is guilty in endless sufferings.
For truth
David Halpin FRCS
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To be posted no my web site http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/
Suffer the children ......
Dear Mr Stourton,
I have 'listened again' to the broadcast of Sunday 2nd November. I had hoped that the BBC would treat discussion of this terrible crime with all vigour.
The Bishop of Durham added nothing as chairman of the National 'Safeguarding' Panel. Indeed he was evasive as you attempted to get firm commitments out of him. Vacuous words eg 'Quality assurance scheme in every diocese'.
Not once in regard to the sexual abuse of children were the police or
the law mentioned. When you discussed confession, the Bishop of Durham said he heard the confession of someone who had committed GBH. He would not absolve him and told him to go to the police. This was the sole mention of this word.
I would have thought my letter below was of sufficient concern for the BBC to make sure the follow up discussion had the crime and our law in centre place. I despair of the UK. Is this what those men sacrificed their lives for? The BBC has spent hours telling of it.
Please give me the e-mail address for BBC Complaints.
David Halpin MB BS FRCS
Dear Mr Crawley,
I see you were a Presbyterian minister. You probably agree with me that sexual abuse of a child is as great a sin as murder and that the millstone and the deep might still be the right punishment.
I have listened again to this segment (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04mh74z 35.12 > end). I noted a silent patch. I was shocked by the complacency of all participants.
Ms Lawrence - dynamics X4, relational abuse (really), Sentamu - shame and repentance , national safeguarding adviser, convoluted and complex 'dynamics', six reports within the 'church' so far, Archbishop Weilby - very significant legacy of unacknowledged abuse, 'shame and repentance' etc ec
At no moment was it said that sexual abuse of the child is a police
matter, and with sufficient evidence, it must be brought to the courts. Any shame felt by the CofE hierarchy is neither here nor there. The
abused have heard too much of this before, and from the church of St Peter.
Given that the BBC helped harbour the most evil Savile for many years, I am outraged that this discussion did not refer to our law at any time.
I suggest this e-mail is brought to the 'safeguarder' who is being interviewed next Sunday
For truth, reason and justice
David Halpin MB BS FRCS
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