Syvret, the courageous and principled ex politician in Jersey who was imprisoned for his stance against injustice, and in defence of child abuse victims, has now had his blog taken down by Google which names the perpetrators of child abuse. He has left this message on Rico Sorda`s blog:
The Jersey Establishment’s Impossible War
Against Accountability.
The Jersey establishment are living – and thrashing around in – a world of the past – still trying to press the buttons and pull the levers and twiddle the dials of an apparatus that lays at their feet in a cratered smoking entanglement of wreckage. Their ‘machine’ is shattered and broken beyond all remedy, but still they prod it, hoping to make it work again, not accepting that it is over.
They still believe in a world of a handful of over-powered and unaccountable potentates - some publicly known – some not – where the “right words” amongst a couple of chaps, in the right circles – in Jersey, in London - could smooth over any problems – get the “machine” going – and massage any scandals from public view.
After all – with no separation of powers in Jersey – no effective checks and balances – and the same narrow grouping of mutually promoting and protecting friends on the dinner-party-circuit – all meaningful power was in the same little club. That’s how “The Jersey Way” has functioned for 800 years; ‘why should it not carry on like that?’
In truth, such an extraordinarily narrow, unaccountable and unhealthy concentration of power was long-obsolete in respectable democratic nations by the time the canker was really taking hold of the Jersey establishment in the 1970s - when the place first started to be awash with money from off-shore finance and the unrestrained decadence of absolute power really began to run wild. The Jersey authorities and the bosses who control them were already living in a feudal fantasy whilst the failures, corruptions and cover-ups - and the cover-ups of the cover-ups - grew and accumulated throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Even before the internet really arrived – in truth, so corrupt, so hubristic, so rotten, was public administration in Jersey, the fake surface of “respectability” was already fracturing, and the scandals were inevitably going to emerge.
But here cometh the 21st century.
An epochal change unparalleled in all of human history. For the first time ever, the power to control what the public do or don’t get to know – to control what the public can or can’t say – is out of the hands of entrenched elites. The power of ordinary citizens to find and publish evidence that rulers and governments don’t like has arrived with the advent of the internet, and the result has been seismic – bringing down regimes around the world.
The doomed last stand being made by the Jersey oligarchy against citizens media – against real journalism – against the internet – against evidenced facts and the exposure of corruption - is their war against reality.
Wars against reality only end one way.
The Jersey oligarchs and their protectors in London think that they can do what no corrupt regime around the world had been able to do – and keep embarrassing exposures about them off the world wide web.
My blog may have been taken-down by Google Blogger. But it - and all of the documented evidence it contains – will be up and available again somewhere on the world wide web in the coming days. And I know from the many messages I have had that many people welcome that.
For some years now, really for the first time in the entire history of this small island community, the ordinary people have been able to see the reality of our leaders – the stagnation and failures – the frequent lawlessness of our governance.
Not only have we seen it – increasingly, we understand it.
We understand the wholly corrupted nature of power in this community. People who are victims of the corruption – of the failures – of the crimes - of the cover-ups – have been able to have evidence exposed and have their testimony published.
That has only been able to happen because of Jersey’s bloggers – because of blogs like mine.Unfortunately for Jersey’s failed & unaccountable government, the genie is out of the bottle – and it can never be got back in.
We as a community have seen the facts – enough evidence, of enough scandalous corruptions and cover-ups – to see the true nature of our public authorities. We’ve seen it now – and we’re never going to forget it.
My blog – and what the previously powerless people of Jersey have been able to publish on it – the evidence we’ve been able to accumulate – the facts we’ve been able to expose – is an historic publication for the island. It marks an exposure of, and challenge to, traditional power in Jersey of a kind that’s never been able to happen previously. Not in over 800 years.
And I’m proud that my blog has attracted so many oppressive attacks & lunatic abuses. I’m proud that the blog is targeted by these suppressions – proud that it elicits so much fear and hatred from the powerful.
There are many people in Jersey – ordinary, vulnerable people – who have been the victims of corruption, oppression, violence, child-abuse, battery, rape, attempted murder – people who have been utterly failed, totally betrayed by Jersey’s public authorities - people who have been trampled and further abused by Jersey’s Crown prosecution and judicial apparatus.
For so many of those people – so many of my former constituents who approached me with histories of the most scandalous failures of the system – abuses – shocking violence - simply overwhelming horror-stories – and by no means all concerning child-abuse – for many of those people, my blog was the first – and in many cases the only – public outlet for what they had suffered.
Nowhere – ever – in any of Jersey’s traditional mainstream media – were the disastrous failures of the States – and the often horrifying criminal cover-ups by the Jersey system challenged and documented – as they are on my blog.
Documents – facts – evidence; corruption exposed – failures challenged – fake consensuses overturned – crimes cited – names named.
Just as real journalism in free Western countries is supposed to be.
My blog became – and is - a source of hope - of validation - of support, for many powerless people in Jersey. And I am very proud of that fact.
I’m proud that – with the support of others – I was able to do what Jersey’s establishment media failed to do for generations upon generations, and still fails to do.
No matter that the establishment who run Jersey with the support of London, have tried everything to smear, discredit and stop the blog – and have persecuted me personally, tried all they could to discredit me, and tried to break me with all kinds of absurd and biased oppressions, even imprisoning me; no matter that they have tried everything they possibly could to make the blog seem some kind of bad and shameful thing – no matter that these people continue to try and make me think of my work on the blog as “bad” and “wrong” – I know, we know – that publishing the evidence – publishing witness testimony concerning serious wrongdoing – is a good and creditable thing.
What I - and Jersey bloggers like Rico Sorda and Voice for Children do is good for powerless people – good for this community.
I’ve had many conversations with people who have suffered at the hands of the corruption, injustice, neglect and abuse that characterises power in Jersey. People should have been protected from such things. And when protection failed, the culpable should have been held to account - the wrongdoers should have been punished; justice should have been served. In so many cases in Jersey, that didn’t happen. The overwhelming motivation of Jersey’s stagnant public authorities has been the protection of those authorities - and the protection of the powerful.
My blog publishes the facts – the witness testimony – the documents – the evidence. I’m proud of that fact.
Many people have contacted me, upset that the powerful in Jersey seem to be concealing the truth again. I want people - whose stories are on my blog, and whose experiences inform so much of the blog – to know that their testimony – their brave whistle-blowing – their truth – will be restored, soon.
The internet gives us that power.
The power to share. To see. And to understand.
And to never forget.
I’m proud that my blog has given that power to so many previously voiceless people in Jersey.
Stuart Syvret
Ken Macintoch MSP has been blogging about GIRFEC:
Does your child need a "named person" in order to promote, support or safeguard their wellbeing? The Scottish Government is proposing just such a move, appointing a named person for every person under 18 in Scotland.
We debated the subject in Parliament this week and the Minister argued that such a person, typically a health visitor or a teacher, would help all families access services, information and support. Most of the children’s organisations such as Barnardo’s back such a move saying that taking a universal approach to providing children with a point of contact is in keeping with the GIRFEC principles, child protection based on Getting It Right For Every Child.
Now, I do not have a knee jerk opposition to state intervention, but I find myself questioning the need and the practicality of this measure. I am certainly not going to lay claim to being a perfect parent, but is this really the best use of tax payers’ money and teachers’ time? My main worry is that despite the best of intentions the whole exercise could end up diverting scarce resources away from the children most in need.
There are few people across Scotland who fail to recognise the need to protect and help our most vulnerable children. The national news is filled too often by stories of neglect and abuse and the all too horrific consequences with children dying at the hands of their own parents. At the same time, it is difficult to see how appointing a named person to look after for example each of my six children, will do anything to improve child protection or to prevent such deaths occurring again. I simply fail to follow the argument that by giving a health visitor or a teacher responsibility for let’s say 30 well brought up children, or even dare I say, not particularly well brought up children, that will help them recognise the one that needs support and intervention. The danger is that time spent filling in forms for 30 children who will never need any intervention is time that could be better spent on those children in desperate need of help. Resources diverted to children who are thriving, loved and nurtured are resources not spent on the neglected and vulnerable.
As far as I am aware, teachers already have a professional duty and an ethical and legal obligation to pick up on kids who are turning up late for school, badly fed, poorly dressed or otherwise showing signs of lack of care. The same duty applies even more clearly to health visitors. How does seeking assurance from those same teachers that the vast majority of children in their care do not need help in any way assist them in identifying those in danger of slipping through the net? Is there not an obvious risk of creating an administratively cumbersome and bureaucratically complex system but with no additional practical benefit? Will there be a file for every child? Who will keep that file? What happens when staff move on as they often do? At the very least we need to clarify what this additional duty as a named person will mean...
It is my understanding that the GIRFEC pilots have been viewed as successful and that the Education Committee is taking evidence on these very matters over the next few weeks and months...
http://www.kenmacintosh.co.uk/2013/10/02/are-we-getting-it-right-for-every-child/
One commentator had this to say about the pilot:
My sons education has been ruined by the GIRFEC system already up and running in the highlands. We are now picking up the pieces for a fed up 17 year old boy.
His health problems were complicated and varied. School took no notice of this, made him and us feel ridiculous for even expecting any help. After taking the highland education authority to arbitration we were given a very minimal amount of help.
The education authority sent a “family worker” to help us. After two 30 min visits I was told that my son would be taken into care if he did not return to school.
He has since had two emergency life saving operations .
So the named person is the point of contact who will assess the child`s needs, and share data with other agencies to facilitate and co-ordinate the services .
What services ?
"Since 2012, over 800,000 children have had their biometric data taken by the government in the United Kingdom via the school system. One 13-year-old girl is refusing to comply with the demands."
"In 31 percent of cases, the programs obtaining fingerprints or other biometric data from minors across the UK have done so without parental consent, according to Big Brother Watch. The civil liberties watchdog filed Freedom of Information Requests with over 3,000 schools. Less than half of those schools responded as required by law."
"The watchdog’s report states:"
"As we are now one term into the 2013-14 academic year, and expect the number of schools using the technology to have increased over the summer, and the secondary school population now above 3.2 million, if the number of secondary schools using biometric technology increased from 25% to 30%, more than one million children would be fingerprinted."
"A 13-year-old student at a school in Wales refused to submit to the data collection. Melody, whose last name is being withheld due to her age, doubted the school’s good intentions when it was declared that fingerprints were going to be collected from students in order to shorten lines in the cafeteria. A simple act of defiance was not enough for Melody, who discussed her idea for a one-person protest with her mother, Kirstie, over dinner. Her mother signed a form stating that she did not give consent for her daughter to be fingerprinted."
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/13-year-old-defies-big-brother-and-refuses-to-be-fingerprinted/article/370009
"Thousands of children with autism are being illegally excluded from schools in England, a charity claims. In a survey of 500 families, Ambitious about Autism found four in 10 children had been informally excluded from school temporarily, which is illegal.
The charity said children with autism were being asked to stay at home, miss school trips and activities and to attend lessons on a part-time basis."
"The charity said that as about 71,00 children have the condition, it could mean more than 28,000 children were subject to illegal exclusions across England. Schools in England must follow procedures set out by the Department for Education when excluding pupils, for example, a head teacher must notify parents of the period of the exclusion and the reasons for it. Ambitious about Autism suggests that schools may be resorting to informal exclusions - which could also mean refusing to allow youngsters to take part in social activities or school trips - because they are unable to support youngsters with autism."
"While schools have a legal right to formally exclude a child, this should be done only as a last resort, it argues, and plans should be put in place to ensure the pupil is still getting an education."
"One parent, Clare Moore, said: "I have lost count of the number of times different schools have rung and asked me to collect my son early or keep him at home because they could not support his needs."
"Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of Ambitious about Autism, said: "It is shocking so many children with autism are missing out on education. All schools are legally bound to provide quality full-time education to all pupils, including children with autism.
Asking parents to collect their children early or putting them on part-time hours is against the law and fails to address the underlying need for schools to make reasonable adjustments to include children with autism."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26135095
"A PAEDOPHILE doctor has been freed from jail after a parole board rejected a Scottish Government plea to keep him behind bars over fears he will attack children. Leslie Mitchell, 60, was jailed for four years in 2010 for trying to lure two girls, aged 10 and 11, into his car. The judge at the High Court said Mitchell had wanted to have sex with the girls and told him he might never be released from prison after imposing a new order that allows the authorities to hold a prisoner indefinitely."
"But Mitchell, who told social workers he had sexually abused other girls, got his sentence reduced on appeal and has been freed despite ministers’ opposition. The doctor, originally from Falkirk, now lives in social housing in nearby Bo’ness. In parole board documents seen by the Sunday Mail, ministers said there was not enough evidence to suggest he would not be a risk to the public."
"But Mitchell told the board he needed to go back into the community to "test" whether his rehabilitation had worked. And he admitted to his psychologist during a risk assessment shortly before his release that he had engaged in sexual activity with young girls three times in the last decade. Despite this, his application was approved by all but one of the parole board’s members."
"Mitchell, who worked in the casualty ward at Stirling Royal Infirmary, was jailed for at least four years in September 2010 after trying to lure two girls into his car. He had been convicted at Falkirk Sheriff Court in June 2010."
|Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: "It sounds like this individual has been able to persuade the parole board rather easily. Releasing this man as a road-test of his rehabilitation is not the kind of risk we should be taking. "Now that his release has been highlighted, the Scottish Government better ensure they watch him extremely closely. If he does reoffend, there will be some extraordinarily difficult questions to answer."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/paedophile-ae-doctor-leslie-mitchell-3127312
"A sociology lecturer is warning that a plan for the government in Scotland to assign an adult overseer for every child born in the country could lead to the targeting of perfectly good and careful parents. According to a report from the Christian Institute, a legal organization that fights on behalf of parental rights, lecturer Stuart Waiton is warning of the negative consequences of a plan up for a vote later this month."
"It will take very little to trigger an investigation into a child and from there a false picture can easily be arrived at," he said. Innocent issues such as what a child eats, or the views they express, could make "good parents fair game" for the "health and safety zealots, obsessed with risk management," he said."
"Aidan O’Neill told in the organization’s report that the scheme, in fact, might violate the European Convention on Human Rights, which says the state should respect "private and family life."
"He said the bill appears to establish that the "primary relationship" for children will be with the government, not their parents."
"WND reported that Will Estrada, director of federal relations for the HSLDA, believes the idea is an outgrowth of the general belief held by organizations such as the United Nations that government knows best for everyone."
http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/state-nanny-plan-makes-good-parents-fair-game/
Free church leaders have criticised the Children and Young People Bill and in particular the proposal that there should be a named person involved in the life of every child because this would interfere with the traditional role of the family.
The key issue is the right of parents to consent to an investigation into their private and family life. In the rest of Britain, the state has to prove that a child is at risk of suffering significant harm before ordering an investigation. But the "Named Person" proposal would remove that threshold so the state could investigate a family for any reason.
A similar scheme, called Every Child Matters, was tried in the Isle of Man several years ago. Public authorities were encouraged to report even the slightest concern to children’s social care. In the first year, referrals to children’s social care increased by 500 per cent, but there was no increase in the average number of children on the child protection register. Over-referral then led to a huge problem with the employment and retention of social workers due to the increased workload.
The island’s social care minister told a select committee of the Tynwald in July that the government would never use a similar scheme in the future. The committee has publicly stated that over-referral of children to social services threatens the protection of children at risk of significant harm because of the difficulty of finding the needle when you make the haystack enormous. If the Isle of Man can learn from its mistakes, then so can Scotland.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/letters/children-at-risk-1-3301281
"A loving mother was spied on by teachers and accused of making up her child’s autism after she demanded more help in the classroom. Jenny Lockley was suspected of having Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) – in which sufferers fabricate illness in a child to draw attention to themselves – because she insisted her son Sam had needed support."
Nursery school teachers dismissed three diagnoses of autism, one by a world-renowned doctor, and put the 39-year-old through an experience she described as a ‘witch hunt’.
Mrs Lockley is just one of dozens of parents of autistic children who have contacted The Mail on Sunday saying teachers or social workers have accused them of fabricating their offspring’s disorder.
This is despite statistics showing there are only about 64 cases a year in Britain of MSBP, while one in 100 children are thought to be autistic.
It is also despite the fact that the label MSBP has been discredited but has still been used to cover-up vaccine damage.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2554867/The-schools-spy-Munchausen-Mums-Teachers-accuse-lying-childrens-autism-attention.html
"The story of what happened to the UK professional Lisa Blakemore-Brown when she voiced her concerns about vaccines, has all the intrigue and drama associated with an Agatha Christie crime novel. The sad reality is that this has not been written as a work of fiction but to expose the horrific facts surrounding her case and the efforts made to cover up vaccine damage in children."
"Her case began when a number of unsubstantiated complaints arrived at the offices of the British Psychological Society attacking the professionalism of the leading educational psychologist and expert in autism Ms. Lisa Blakemore-Brown. Instead of backing their psychologist as one would expect, the BPS backed the complainants and accused Ms Blakemore-Brown of being paranoid. On each occasion she won her case, one complaint turning out to be based on a forged document and the final complaint being lodged by a support group heavily funded by a drugs company. Despite her spectacular wins however, she not only lost her home but she has had her career totally sabotaged."
http://medicalmisdiagnosisresearch.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/the-professional-assassination-of-autism-expert-lisa-blakemore-brown/
"The suicides have turned Bridgend-a working-class former mining town of some 39,000 people near the western shore of South Wales-into a place of palpable sorrow and dread. Nestled in a valley and often shadowed by dark clouds and thick fog, the town cannot escape the specter of so many unexplained deaths, and authorities there are desperately trying to prevent copycats. Two years ago police asked the media to stop covering the suicides, which has led many to believe the death toll is higher. An officer at the Bridgend police station told a reporter for PEOPLE, "I'm not allowed to talk about it. It would be my job." And the South Wales police department declined to comment beyond saying through a press officer that "we do not believe the deaths were linked."
"The absence of concrete answers or plans on how to control the deaths has led to wild speculation: Could the deaths be the work of a serial killer? Could there be a suicide cult? Did the victims-most of them normal kids, many with solid plans for the future-make some kind of secret pact to meet on the other side? Prior to the news blackout, police insisted there was no evidence of such a cult or pact. Yet there is no denying the connections among the victims or the feeling each hanging somehow triggered the next-an unstoppable contagion that has left locals terrified. After her husband's death, "If my son was late getting up, I was petrified, and he felt the same way about me," Michelle, a schoolteacher's assistant, says of her son, now 19. "I still wonder sometimes what am I going to find upstairs."
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20595753,00.html
Dr David Healy is a psychiatrist and author who has written a post about the Bridgend suicides. He raises the point that coroners often do not take heed of the medications, such as antidepressants, that the deceased person had been taking. Yet it is known that many drugs can trigger suicidal tendencies and this has been demonstrated by him in trials of healthy individuals.
In the England and Wales there are roughly 5000 suicides in roughly 60 million people per year. This would until recently have led to around 2000 hangings per year, 34 hangings per million people per year, 3.5 per 100,000 people per year.
Bridgend in South Wales has a population of 40,000. The greater Bridgend area has a population of 130,000. There should be 18 hangings per 100,000 people over a 5 year period, 24 per 130,000 per year.
In recent years however in both the US and UK there has been a rise in the number of hangings so that this mode of death now accounts for 50% of cases. If this applies in the Bridgend area, we might expect 28 hangings per 130,000 over a 5 year period, roughly 6 per year.
There were in fact 79 hangings in Bridgend between January 2007 and February 2012. The hangings continue unabated, so the true figure may be in the 90s. This means there have been 16 per year – an excess of 10 or more hangings per year.
The police could find no evidence to link the deaths but according to the coroner it was the sensationalist reporting by the media that was causing copycat suicides. One link that was ignored was the fact that many of the deceased young people were on antidepressants.
Having coroners refuse to keep a public record of drug intake and browbeat the media into keeping silent seems like the worst of all possible worlds.
http://davidhealy.org/left-hanging-suicide-in-bridgend/
A laptop computer containing sensitive data about looked after children was stolen from a member of a fostering and adoption panel in Edinburgh. Among the files on the computer were minutes from dozens of reviews regarding children removed from their families by social services.
Edinburgh City Council, which operates the fostering system, admitted the laptop data had not been encrypted.
Foster parents spoke of their concerns over the theft. Reviews of parents are carried out periodically and involve discussing how the fostered children are settling with the family, along with any behavioural or medical problems.
One foster parent told the Evening News: "The council got in touch and said the minutes of dozens of meetings were contained on a laptop which had been stolen, and there may have been a data protection leak. From what we understood there could have been several years’ worth.
"We got the impression that they were supposed to be very hot on confidentiality. You can’t discuss certain things with your neighbours, so it’s somewhat ironic that this has happened at their end."
http://www.scotsman.com/news/investigation-as-foster-worker-s-laptop-containing-children-s-details-is-stolen-1-2531014
It appears that lessons are not easily learned. Again councils and care agencies have been criticised for failing to safeguard personal data. Local authorities and independent fostering and adoption agencies are not always adequately protecting the information on their computers about looked-after children.
An investigation by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) found "highly sensitive" information about children and adults is routinely emailed between independent agencies and local authorities for the purposes of arranging care placements without encryption safeguards being put in place.
The information includes the medical history, marital status, relationship information, employment, criminal convictions and religious beliefs of the prospective foster carer/adopter; as well as medical history, birth parent information, placement history, educational achievement, behaviour issues and ethnicity details for children awaiting a foster carer or adopter.
Last year, the ICO issued two councils with penalties totalling £150,000 after sensitive information about the care of young people was lost by children’s services.
http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1141973/councils-care-agencies-fail-safeguard-personal
Given that the GIRFEC approach in Scotland involves gathering data on all children, even before a child is born, and continuing with the data mining for 18 years after the birth, the amount of information in files is going to be enormous. Apart from a consideration of the other issues which opponents express about the GIRFEC Bill, past experience informs us that whenever there is data to play around with, not only is the data exchanged between officials not always accurate - but keeping that data secure cannot be guaranteed.
