Operation Spade and Operation Midland: It just gets worse and worse

Operation Spade and Operation Midland:  It just gets worse and worse

• – Crime and Parliamentary affairs correspondent TIM HICKS reports on the latest grave developments in the investigation of the JACONELLI/SAVILE paedophile-ring.
  

~~~~~

Operation Midland

In a very sad development, the Metropolitan Police has issued a statement that they are investigating the possibility that three children that were a victims of a high level paedophile trafficking ring may have been murdered.  Latest Mirror Report here

The investigation into these alleged offences is now codenamed Operation Midland.

Mr John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, Notts has separately alleged that two other people who worked in a children’s home, were murdered as they were about to reveal information about the ring.  Daily Star Report here.  According to the article, Metropolitan Police detectives are searching for the Dossier of high-level paedophiles allegedly passed to the Home office making allegations of a high-level child-sex ring in the 1980s.

The North Yorks Enquirer suspects that Peter Jaconelli may be one of the persons named in the dossier.

We know that the ring led by Peter Jaconelli that operated in Scarborough and Whitby also trafficked children.  These investigations seem to be centered on London, so we can only hope that these alleged offences did not involve a child from North Yorkshire.

Press comment on all ongoing police operations available here by codename.

Operation Spade – Canada

In October 2010.  Officers from the Toronto Police Service (TPS) investigated allegations about a man who was alleged to have been disseminating paedophile pornography via the Internet and mail.  This led them to a huge international paedophile network in over 50 countries.  This became Operation Spade.  As well as successfully conducting the Canadian end of the investigation, the TPS perfectly conducted the international liaison aspect, expertly liaising with Police Forces around the world to ensure that children being abused in other countries were also protected.

Almost 350 people were arrested internationally including six law enforcement officials, nine religious leaders, 40 school teachers, three foster parents, 32 children volunteers and nine doctors and nurses.  One US Government Official committed suicide after he was arrested and 386 children were stated to have been rescued from abusers.

The investigation was led by Inspector Joanna Beaven-Desjardins, of the TPS’s Sex Crimes Unit, a most formidable and dedicated detective who is a credit to her service.  Inspector Joanna Beaven-Desjardins said: “It’s a first for the magnitude of the victims saved,” and “The amount of arrests internationally, also a first.”  Toronto Police comment here

Everywhere, that is, except North Yorkshire . . .

Operation Spade – Germany: Another high level paedophile cover-up.

In Germany, the Federal Criminal Police Office was informed by the TPS of a list of suspects in October 2011, there was a delay of thirteen months, even though it must have been known that one of the alleged paedophiles was using an email address of the Deutscher Bundestag (German Parliament).  Several downloads of nude material of boys of the age between 9 and 14 had been made by a German MP, Herr Sebastian Edathy.

Edathy announced his resignation on February 7, 2014.  Two days before his home and offices were searched by Police.  He had apparently been tipped off about the investigation and consequently had time to destroy any incriminating evidence that may have existed, thereby rendering the search useless.

On the 14th of February 2014, Hans-Peter Friedrich, resigned from the ruling CDU–SPD coalition government in response to imminent investigations into incidents during his tenure as Federal Minister of the Interior (German equivalent of Home Secretay).  Friedrich was accused of betraying state secrets to SPD party heads about information showing Edathy’s link to a globally-operating child-pornography syndicate and plans to investigate him.

Although not relevant to North Yorkshire, we have included it here because it shows that high-level paedophile cover-ups involving Police and politicians do occur.  Although in Germany at least, high level paedophiles eventually pay the price.

Operation Spade – North Yorkshire: Incompetance, corruption, cover up and misuse of police resources.

North Yorkshire is one of three Police Forces that has referred itself to the IPCC over its failure to act on information received from Project Spade in 2012.  BBC report here.

Of the fifty-plus  foreign Police Forces and fifteen UK Forces known to have received information from the TPS as part of Operation Spade, North Yorkshire is one of only three Forces that failed to deal with the information properly – putting it in the worst performing 4% of Police Forces world-wide.  This follows on from:

• The revelations by the North Yorks Enquirer that North Yorkshire Police had protected a major paedophile ring in Scarborough led by the senior Conservative politician and Mayor Peter Jaconelli and including Jimmy Savile, which raped and sexually abused children, and enticed them into prostitution for many years. BBC Investigation which forced NYP to open Operation Hibiscus here.

• The cover up engineered at the highest level of North Yorkshire Police. NYE Investigation here

• The news that a Detective Sergeant has been served with a misconduct notice over allegations that he had not properly investigatied information about Jimmy Savile, after NYP said that it had no information or intelligence on him:   NYE Article here

The North Yorkshire Police Force Intelligence Bureau (FIB) fails again

Some time ago, I wrote to North Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mullilgan in the following terms:

North Yorkshire Police have now conceded that in fact it had intelligence on Savile and Jaconelli at least in 2002, 2008 and 2009.  In the wake of the revelations in the BBC Inside Out Documentary, that Cross did not even bother interviewing the witnesses before she whitewashed the allegations and exonerated North Yorkshire Police from any responsibility for allowing Jaconelli and Savile to offend openly with the full knowledge of North Yorkshire Police.  It is now explicitly clear that North Yorkshire Police Force Intelligence Bureau had explicit intelligence that it should have passed on to Surrey and Sussex Police, but did not.  The Cross report now stands completely quashed.

I am also concerned that although North Yorkshire Police had explicit Intelligence about Savile and Jaconelli, it was not passed on.  This is a catastrophic failure of intelligence analysis and dissemination.  It appears that either the Force Intelligence Bureau is a shambles, incapable of conducting basic intelligence processes, or it is corrupt and withheld information to protect criminals from arrest. 

It appears to me that information was passed from the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (now part of the National Crime Agency) to North Yorkshire Police Force Intelligence Bureau and should then have been passed to the Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit for investigation.  The latest news that North Yorkshire Police was one of the very few Police Forces in the world that could not process information from Operation Spade, would now seem to completely vindicate my concern expressed above.

North Yorkshire Police Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit (PVPU)

Highly embarrassing for Police & Crime Commissioner Mulligan is the news that following the review of the Force Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit by North Yorkshire Police (article here) Mrs Mulligan said she had been reassured that North Yorkshire Police has good systems to deal with victims of abuse.  It now transpires that her Force is incapable of properly progressing a child protection investigation, is in the lowest performing 4% of Police Forces in the world, being outperformed by almost every other UK Force and foreign Police Force, including incidentally those of Mexico and Greece.

Is this incompetence, mismanagement or corruption?

Well, the leader of the Force Protecting Vulnerable Persons Unit is Detective Superintendent Heather Pearson.  In 2012, the Chief Constable was Tim Madgwick (now Deputy Chief Constable) and the Chair of the North Yorkshrie Police Authority was Councillor Jane Kenyon-Miller. In 2012, I revealed that Councillor Kenyon-Miller had committed criminal offences in the United States and the UK, in connection with a major tax fraud she had pulled off on the United States Government.   Full Belvedere Computers Inc fraud investigation here

To cover this up, Councillor Kenyon-Miller abused her influence with North Yorkshire Police to try and have me framed for harassment.  North Yorkshire Police allocated a team which eventually consisted of the Deputy Chief Constable, Detective Superintendent Pearson, two of the top detectives in North Yorkshire Police, the Force Solicitor and then specialist Counsel to the investigation of me. The pinnacle of this bungled operation was a letter from Detective Superintendent Pearson stating that I was a suspect in a harassment case for which she could produce no evidence, demanding I take down all articles relating to North Yorkshire Police from the internet, including the one revealing Councillor Kenyon-Miller’s part in the Belvedere Computers Inc tax fraud.

The CPS subsequently confirmed that there was no case to answer.

When Deputy Chief Constable Madgwick wrote to me confirming that I had been cleared, he nevertheless confirmed that North Yorkshire Police would continue to seek to have me arrested.  Based on the size of the files I was shown by the detectives, it appeared to me they had been at work for some weeks on my case, when their time would have been better spent following up on information received from Project Spade.

We will not know how many paedophiles in North Yorkshire escaped prosecution as a result of this allocation of specialist CID resources away from child protection to Kenyon-Miller protection.  Nor will we know how many children in North Yorkshire were abused as a result of the failure of North Yorkshire Police to process intelligence, execute its duties properly and focus on arresting paedophiles, not journalists for exposing facts it would prefer to remain hidden.

North Yorkshire Police was responsible for the six most important failures to arrest Jimmy Savile. These were:

1. The failure by Police Officers that served in Scarborough and Whitby to arrest Jaconelli – although his offending was common knowledge in Scarborough going back to the 1950’s- which would surely have led the Police to Savile.
2. The failure to arrest Savile as a result of allegations, made by witnesses to the NYE, that Scarborough Police had received about Savile going back to the 1970’s.
3. The failure to properly investigate information it now admits it received from a 15-year-old girl in 2002 regarding Savile.
4. The failure of North Yorkshire Police to investigate allegations about Jaconelli it received in December 2008 and January 2009.
5. The failure by the FIB to pass on the intelligence held on Savile to Surrey Police in 2007, instead giving him a clean bill of health, which ensured the failure of the Surrey investigation.
6. The failure by the FIB to pass on intelligence to the Metropolitan Police Operation Yewtree in 2012, on Savile and Jaconelli.

Returning to Operation Spade: This operation was a success because Inspector Beaven-Desjardins and her team followed up meticulously on one lead and it led to the destruction of a huge paedophile network and was supported by an efficient intelligence unit.  If North Yorkshire Police had done the same with any of the complaints it received about Jaconelli, they would also have wound up a major paedophile network.  However, this would have revealed that Jaconelli had been protected by North Yorkshire Police and no doubt led to the arrest of Police Officers – something that North Yorkshire Police will simply not entertain.

This consistent failure led to misery for thousands of children over many years, as Jaconelli and Savile committed rape, abused children and enticed them into prostitution, with the full knowledge of all the authorities including Scarborough Police.

It now appears irrefutable that North Yorkshire Police is still not capable of processing intelligence or conducting paedophile investigations.  The Police & Crime Commissioner is completely ineffectual in addressing this issue.  Nor will NYP investigate allegations of abuse and Police misconduct impartially in respect of the Jaconelli paedophile-ring; preferring instead to try to intimidate journalists out of bringing to light evidence of blatant Police corruption – corruption that it would prefer was hidden forever.

 Operation Hibiscus update

Operation Hibiscus is the investigation into the Jaconelli paedophile-ring that operated in Scarborough and Whitby with the full knowledge of North Yorkshire Police and has been running since April 2014.  It is led by Detective Superintendent Steve Smith, who is the Director of the Force Intelligence Bureau. It has been running for seven months and has not reported yet.  We suspect this is because of the amount of information it has generated.

The North Yorkshire Enquirer has recently passed information to it concerning a former Police Officer who was a paedophile.  It is co-operating fully with the investigation.  In the meantime, North Yorkshire Police is continuing to threaten me with arrest for commenting on North Yorkshire Police operations.

North Yorkshire Police and Police & Crime Commissioner Mulligan were given sight of a draft of this article and offered the opportunity to comment but, in the event, did not.

Nor would they provide an up-date on Operation Hibiscus.