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jamesrobertson648 of the Crimes of Empire blog has published a post that claims Justice Pauffley’s Judgement over the Hampstead satanic cult case is invalid, because it’s quote “Not Factually Correct.”
Since I have been spammed this link in the site comments and on social media, I’ve taken the time to consider the article extensively. It is rife with irrational thinking and assumptions of a cover-up without supporting evidence, the overall argument is weak because of a fallacious premise, and the key claim is disingenuous and lacking important context.
It seems believers will accept anything they are fed with no critical thinking whatsoever.
Dodgy Premise
The Judgement is Not Factually Correct and Should Be Considered Invalid on this Basis.
Why should it? This demonstrates an “argument from fallacy.” It posits that because an element of the Judgement may contain incorrect information, that must mean the whole judgement is “invalid.” To truly assess the overall validity of the Judgement, the author would have to consider the validity of every point made and whether the overall body of valid to invalid points still supports the conclusion – as we’ll see, it does, and the so called “incorrect” information is simply the author’s out of context nit-picking.
Cherry Picking
The Judge states that both children “did indeed withdraw their claims, all of them.”
James’ key issue is with this statement:
The record of the police interview actually indicates that contrary to the Judgement’s claims, witness G never did retract his claim relating to the sexual abuse at the swimming pool. It did not happen, so the claim that the judgement makes and one of it’s underlying foundations is factually incorrect.
This is way overstated. The swimming pool allegation has been cherry picked and removed from the wider context of the boy’s retraction, giving it undue importance. He retracts that he was abused or harmed by his father in any way, that there was any killing of babies or dancing with skulls, any secret rooms in houses or the church, that he’d been to a teacher’s house, and that he ever saw any real or “plastic willies.”
Eventually the author concedes that while the boy did in fact say none of it was true, that this was a situation where “he allowed himself to be bullied into a semi blanket retraction.”
This is nonsense! The so called “semi blanket retraction” comes after all of these very specific retractions, so it’s not blanket at all.
It was originally alleged that upwards of 50 people were involved in abuse at the swimming pool, during the middle of the day. The incident is said to have happened in a toilet cubicle, meaning 50 people all squeezed in together, or they lined up outside to take turns. Does that make sense?
So on the one hand we have a broad range of specific retractions and a more generalised retraction. Of his father the boy says “No, he doesn’t even hit me. He’s really nice.”
And on the other hand we have one extremely implausible allegation that seemingly slipped through the net. Considering the sheer amount of allegations made in this case, is it even feasible that the children would retract every single one individually?
Wouldn’t insisting on several occasions that he’d never been harmed by his father or sexually abused by anyone, encompass the swimming pool allegation? Especially when he says that the mother’s partner Abraham Christie forced him to accept lies about his father?
The phrase clutching at straws comes to mind.
Irrational Claims of “Bullying”
The retraction came in the third interview, by which point there was a positive rapport established between the police interviewer and the boy, who was clearly very comfortable in the presence of the friendly adult and their surroundings. This is evident from the very beginning of the recording as they go over the rules that have to be legally outlined each time. The interviewer asks the boy if he can remember what they are. He says “no lying,” and “speak loud.” The interviewer says that speaking loudly isn’t one of the rules, but “maybe we should add that one in?” The boy responds with an infectious smile and chuckles “Ok.” A few moments later when the interviewer explains that if he doesn’t understand something he just has to say, the boy nods in agreement and confidently replies “and if you don’t understand you tell me.”
I won’t link to these interviews for legal reasons and to protect the identity of the child, but lots of people have watched them, and suggesting this is anything other than a calm, friendly, and even jovial atmosphere, is a gross misinterpretation!
It’s been widely speculated that the boy must have been forced in to a retraction shortly before the recording, but a scared child, that has just been bullied, is not going to be smiling and chuckling!
Like the majority of claims made by believers, this is based on nothing more than an implausible scenario they’ve made up out of thin air, with no supporting evidence.
Abraham’s Abuse Emerges
The author’s cherry picking of the swimming pool story distracts from the whole context of the interview. Only a few minutes in the boy begins detailing psychological abuse suffered at the hands Abraham Christie. He didn’t need any “bullying.”
“Abraham, he like accused me … when he said ‘does your dad hurt you? Does he hurt you really bad?’ I said no he doesn’t, but he says ‘YES HE DOES!’ He accuses me.”
“And then what happens?”
“He says ‘YES your dad does hit you really hard,’ and I say no he doesn’t hit me hard.”
So right away, before even retracting any allegations the boy begins explaining the dynamic of Abraham insisting that the father was abusive when he wasn’t. There’s no “bullying” to get him to say this, he divulges it freely.
The interviewer then asks: “Ok, we talked in two other interviews before didn’t we, was what you told me the truth? All the stuff about the babies, and the church and all that?”
“No” the boy strongly shakes his head, “the babies … no, well there is some of the babies killed yeah,” he says, clearly conflicted.
“Ok, are you sure?”
“Yes, but not much, not every single day, not like that.”
Again there is no bullying here, the retraction has already started. When somebody retracts a lie it takes time to let it all out, there’s often a back-peddling and a clinging on to certain aspects of the story. Even children have egos and can also feel ashamed and embarrassed about being caught in a lie. Couple that with the fear generated by Abraham’s abusiveness, the child is being very brave. It just goes to show how much he trusts the interviewer.
“I heard you watched a film Zorro,” says the interviewer. “And there was someone killed on there wasn’t there? Because of the way it sounded, it sounds to me similar to the way you told me about the babies, so that’s why I was wondering – are babies actually killed, or is it something you’ve been made to say?”
“Yeah it’s something I’ve been made to say.”
“So are babies being killed?”
“No not much, but there is yeah, but not much.”
“By who?”
“By my dad, not much.”
“Are you sure? it’s ok, if it hasn’t happened it’s ok,” he reassures the boy. “As long as we talk about it now.”
Emotion comes across the boy’s face: “I lied about .. no, he made me say it.”
“Let’s be clear, are babies being killed or not?”
“They’re not … HE MADE MY SAY IT!” says the boy assertively.
“Who’s he, who made you say it?”
“Abraham.”
“How did he make you say it?”
“When he asks me ‘is any baby killed?’ I said no there isn’t. And he says ‘YES THERE IS!’ and he’s like accusing me, of me helping my dad killing babies.”
This is consistent with the first part of the retraction, it’s the same dynamic between the boy and Abraham.
At this point it’s important to realize that the role of the police interviewer is to discover the truth. If he simply sat there in the third recording after finding nothing at the church and other locations, and allowed the boy to make a claim without asking specifics or challenging him on contradictions, he wouldn’t be doing his job. Asking who what when how, is an integral part of the interview process. And when the revelation of Abraham’s abuse emerges, encouragement and reassurance is important, so the boy can open the flood gates.
If you compare what the boy is freely divulging about Abraham’s abusiveness, to the calm interview techniques of the policeman, who is bullying? And based on the boy’s rapport with the interviewer, is it really plausible that he could be “bullied” so easily in to an elaborate retraction if the original allegations were true?
Retracting a lie is an emotional process, that needs some encouragement. If you’re a parent, have you ever caught your child in a lie and encouraged them to tell the truth until it all comes spilling out … “Sorry mummy I lied” *sob sob sob.*
To conflate this process with bullying from the interviewer is to completely misunderstand his motive.
It also assumes the original allegations are true. At this stage the investigation had not found any corroborative evidence whatsoever. It seems unravelling a lie is being deserpately misinterpreted by the author as bullying to retract, because he has nothing else left to confirm his belief.
This also demonstrates the circular reasoning fallacy on the part of the believers. Because they believed the original video allegations at face value, they believe that the lack of corroborative evidence is a cover-up, and the unravelling of the lies are bullied retractions. Yet at no stage along the way have the believers ever presented any evidence for their belief. It’s an irrational chain reaction of unsubstantiated speculation.
“Ok, and what about all these secret rooms in these houses and places?”
“No, not much, there is, not much not much.”
“Have you ever been in a secret room in any of these places?”
Shaking his head: “Well it’s not kind of secret really.”
“Shall we start with the church, you told me there was a secret room …”
“There is, no there isn’t no there isn’t, Abraham he tried to make me say it.”
“I went to that church and I just wanted to understand where it was, because you said it was in the nursery, in the toy room, and then you go in to another door in the toy room. Is there a door really in that toy room?”
Shaking his head and getting emotional: “No because he tried to make me say it by going on and on and on, I said there isn’t there isn’t there isn’t, but he tried to make me say it. He accuses me, it’s not nice.”
… “And then you told me about lots of other things that happened about baby skulls and people dancing … does that happen?”
Shaking his head “no…because do you know what happened? When he accused me of killing babies he says ‘WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE SKULLS, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE BONES!’ He will really shout and I couldn’t think of nothing, so I had to like say, straight away I had to say like ‘THEY WERE DANCING.”
So in other words Abraham would forcefully demand an answer from within his deranged fantasy and the children would quickly think of anything to keep him happy.
“And what about the swimming pool, lots of people in this disabled toilet …”
“Da da da yeah, that’s true.”
“Even though you said you was only four and you hadn’t been to that school?”
“They have like, they were friends, the teacher, I knew when I was four years old because my sister was in the school.”
“So what we’ll do we’ll try and sort out what’s true and what’s not true. So the babies is not true, so no babies are being killed, there’s no baby skulls, the secret rooms, are there any secret rooms?”
The boy continuously shakes his head no.
“What about with the wardrobes?”
“No!” he says assertively. “No that’s not true, Abraham made me say that, he says ‘where is the secret room?’ My dad is the main person doing the sex, so Abraham accuses me of saying he gots the most secret rooms.”
“So have you been to a house of your dad’s with secret rooms?”
“No,” shaking his head.
The boy then retracts that he’s ever been to a teacher’s house because “he’s my teacher, no, he’s my sister’s teacher,” and there would be no reason to go there. He had previously described the house as being at a certain street address, which turned out to be a block of flats upon investigation.
He also says that he lied about the plastic willies and that he and his sister never touched, it was just Abraham who “accused” them. “We actually never touched, I know it’s against the law and we never touched.”
“None of it’s real.”
He says that Abraham insisted that they had been sexually abused despite their denial.
The interviewer then brings up the medical findings of bruising, and asked how the boy got a hurt ear.
“Abraham slapped me … in Morocco. He slapped me as hard as he could.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because he said ‘YES YOU’RE LYING!'” referring to the secret rooms.
The interviewer then asks “has your dad ever done anything that you don’t like?”
“No, he doesn’t even hit me. He’s really nice.” The boy then gets excited about the thought of his dad. “I remember the first time we went shopping and he bought some food for us, and we ate … and he gave us ten pounds for our pocket money.”
Conversely the boy then reveals the disdain he has for Abraham.
“Do you like Abraham?”
“I HATE HIM!”
“When I call him Abraham he says ‘DON’T BE RUDE, CALL ME PAPA’ even though he’s not my dad! He used to make us call him uncle hemp, then he got me in trouble and said ‘don’t be rude, call me papa hemp.’ He’s not even our dad.”
As the interview draws to a close there is a clear sense of relief from the boy, after he was finally able to get this all off his chest. In fact when the interviewer leaves for a moment he tells the boy to think of any questions he wants to ask. He is then shown with a big beaming smile. If you’d just been bullied to lie, you aren’t going to be overjoyed are you?!
When the interviewer returns the boy is excited about his question.
“Go on then, what’s your question?”
“Is Abraham ever going to see me again? Because I don’t want to see him again.”
The boy says this while smiling, freedom is in sight, he may not have to go back to his abuser!
Gross Misrepresentation
The boy went in to the interview comfortable and happy, he immediately began to disclose the aggressive and deranged behaviour of Abraham Christie to the interviewer, whom he clearly trusted. He consistently disclosed multiple occasions where Abraham would forcefully insist his dad was abuser until he agreed, and explained how Abraham hit him for denying the allegations. He retracted the allegations in a generalised manner – “none of it’s real” – and individually, including that his father never abused or harmed him in any way, that there were never any babies killed or dancing with skulls, that there were never any secret rooms in houses or the church, that he never visited a teacher’s house where he was abused, and that nobody ever sexually abused him with real or plastic willies. Some of this was corroborated by the police investigation, and the medical findings ultimately determined that he fell within “possible normal variant.”
The boy was relieved as the testimony drew to a close, and was visibly smiling at the possibility that he would never have to see Abraham again, who he said he hated. Conversely he showed excitement at the thought of his “really nice” father and shared a happy memory of going out for food and getting pocket money.
I cannot stress enough what a gross misrepresentation author James and other believers have made of this retraction interview. To prop themselves up on a moral high ground, claiming to be truth and justice seekers, who just want to help the children – is so incredibly foolish it hurts. They should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves!
As to the claim that Justice Pauffley’s “Judgement is Not Factually Correct and Should Be Considered Invalid on this Basis,” well it’s just not true. It is far more contextually valid than any of James’ unfounded and paranoid speculation and assertions.
Shame on you and shame on anyone that blindly shares the link without engaging even a modicum of critical thinking!
Justice Pauffley’s Judgement in the context of this case is simply her opinion based on the evidence she is privy to. This opinion does not necessarily have any direct impact on a possible future criminal trial, where the evidence would be re-examined, and presented along with any new evidence to a jury. Right now police are trying to find Ella Draper and Abraham Christie to continue the criminal case, though their absence is a pretty strong sign of guilt.
The children are now safe with foster carers.
