THE NORTH Wales
Child Abuse Tribunal cleared freemasonry of any involvement in coveing-up child
abuse.
But why did some
fascinating information about the brotherhood never come to light?
Why did the
Tribunal’s own leading counsel not declare that he was a mason?
And why was
there no mention of a police lodge during the public hearings?
Rebecca
Television
investigated the claim by the North
Wales Police that the North Wales Police
was "a mason-free zone".
THE NORTH WALES
CHILD ABUSE TRIBUNAL
There were three members of the Tribunal — Margaret Clough, chairman Sir Ronald Waterhouse and Morris le Fleming. The evidence suggests they did not come to grips with the role of freemasonry in the North Wales Police.
There were three members of the Tribunal — Margaret Clough, chairman Sir Ronald Waterhouse and Morris le Fleming. The evidence suggests they did not come to grips with the role of freemasonry in the North Wales Police.
THE WATERHOUSE
Tribunal set the tone for its approach to freemasonry right from day one.
In the very first
session the barrister for one of the groups of former residents of care homes
made an application about masonry.
The barrister, Nick
Booth, asked that “the Tribunal should keep a register of the masonic
membership amongst its staff, the members, its representatives and witnesses
who appear before it”.
He explained:
“The duty of
loyalty to a brother mason and his duty of impartiality if he is involved in
the administration of justice is not a new one and it’s one that’s very much in
the public eye, particularly at the moment.”
“The Tribunal will
be aware of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee which is
investigating the issue,” he added.
“Sir, I stress, if
I have not stressed it before, that I am not making any suggestion of
disreputable conduct, merely to put the matter beyond the reach of any possible
public comment which might undermine the public confidence in the Inquiry.”
The chairman of the
Tribunal, Sir Ronald Waterhouse, and the two other members of the Tribunal,
retired for a brief adjournment.
“It will not
surprise you that the application is refused,” said Sir Ronald on their return.
“As far as the
staff are concerned,” Sir Ronald said, “in so far as the application carries
any reflection upon the integrity of the staff of the Tribunal it’s repudiated,
wholly unwarranted; there is no evidence whatsoever to support any suggestion
that they have not acted with complete integrity…”
“The members of the
Tribunal are in this position: the Tribunal was set up by Parliament and the
members of it were appointed by the Secretary of State for Wales and the
[criticism of the composition] should be addressed through the proper
channels.”
GERARD ELIAS QC
The leading counsel to the Tribunal was silent throughout a discussion about a register of freemasons. He himself is a freemason and a past master of one of the most powerful lodges in Wales …
The leading counsel to the Tribunal was silent throughout a discussion about a register of freemasons. He himself is a freemason and a past master of one of the most powerful lodges in Wales …
He said that the
Tribunal’s own Counsel, Gerard Elias QC, was appointed by the Attorney General.
“Any criticism …
should be addressed through the usual Parliamentary channels,” he suggested.
Gerard Elias said
nothing during Booth’s application and he remained silent after Sir Ronald had
made the Tribunal’s ruling.
Yet both Sir Ronald
and Gerard Elias knew something that journalists reporting the Tribunal would
have wanted to know.
Gerard Elias is a
mason.
He’s a member of
perhaps the most powerful masonic lodge in Wales, Dinas Llandaf.
The lodge, which
meets in Cardiff, is made up mainly of legal professionals and members of the
Conservative party, although there are members from other political groups.
Another member of
the lodge, Gwilym Jones, was the Tory MP for Cardiff North between 1983 and
1997.
He was minister of
state at the Welsh Office when the Tribunal was set up.
Rebecca
Television has a
source who was close to the heart of the Tribunal.
This source says
Sir Ronald was aware of Elias’ Masonic membership.
Yet he too kept
silent about the fact that the Tribunal’s own Counsel was a mason.
(What happened at the Tribunal was in contrast to proceedings at the
beginning of Gordon Anglesea’s libel case in London less than three years
earlier.
HOW SUPERINTENDENT
GORDON ANGELSEY WON HUGE LIBLE DAMAGES
Gordon ANGLESEA who suddenly retired from the North Wales Police where he had been a
superintendent was exposed in the magazine Scallywag of abusing young boys at a children’s home in
North Wales. Read
more JUSTICE DENIED: SCALLYWAG MAGAZINE HOW THE TORY'S COVERED UP THE ...
http://google-law.blogspot.com/2012/10/scallywag-magazine-how-torys-cover-up.html?spref=tw
Private Eye, together with The Observer and HTV and The
Independent all exposed the sordid
details concerning the North Wales Police. And the monsters running Bryn Estyn
and Bryn Allen children’s homes and they
also mentioned Gordon Anglesea
On the 7th December 1994. ANGLESEA won a libel action and accepted
£375,000 in Damages. No damages for the abused children! So not
only had Gordon ANGLESEA raped and
tortured children from North Wales children’s homes but the Courts also awarded him what were at that time massive lible damages.
For the sake of those who believe
Gordon ANGLESEA was not a paedophile what they must accept is that he was definitely guilty of covering up for
prolific paedophiles with whom he went to lodge meetings and befriended in his capacity
as a Superintendent of the North Wales Police and as a friend of some of
Britian most notorious paedophiles. They must also admit he visited Bryn Estyn
Children’s home on numerous occasions .
The risks of being a prolific paedophile are nil if you belong to certain
police forces like North Wales because the whole criminal and civil justice
system will protect you.
The judge presiding over the libel case was Sir Maurice DRAKE. DRAKE told the court that he was a member of
an organisation to which Gordon ANGLESEA also belonged.
He did not mention freemasonry but the legal teams on both sides knew
which organisation he was referring to. Both the Judge and ANGLESEA were
freemasons. Drake did not prevent ANGLESEA’s
Barrister also a freemason from hounding and badgering the fragile witnesses all victim of horrific
abuse, sanctioned by the State, from an
early age.
No one ever questioned the way Drake
handled the case or the vulnerability
of the witnesses.
One Witness Mark Humphries who had been sexually abused
by Angelsey and others at Bryn Estyn
found the experience to traumatic and looing all hope of justice and hanged himself. A month later http://www.independent.co.uk/news/libel-case-witness-found-hanged-1571222.html and read http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/newsnight-and-the-bbc-might-have-screwed-up-but-the-real-victims-of-this-are-being-forgotten--again-8304858.html
ANGLESEA’s Barrister had
ruthlessly tortured the abused children now adults with being liars and deceivers as he fought to cover-up the truth
about State paedophilia and get himself a fat fee and his guilty client huge
damages. Read more
http://brynalynvictims.blogspot.com.ar/2013/03/north-wellian-chief-superintendent.html
Dinas Llandaf is
one of the 174 lodges in the South Wales Province.
South Wales is one
of the more open of the 47 provinces in England and Wales.
Every year it gives
copies of its annual yearbook to libraries and to any journalist who asks for
one.
The yearbooks list
the officers of each lodge and the current issue — 2009-2010 — gives
considerable detail about Dinas Llandaf.
For example, it
shows all the officers of the lodge and those members who have reached the
highest position – master of the lodge.
Gerard Elias is
shown as having been master in 1994.
(See the article Rebecca Televisions article Brothers
In Silk for more on the influence of Dinas Llandaf.)
THE NORTH WALES Province of freemasonry is a completely closed book.
It refuses to give
out copies of its yearbook and these come into the public domain only
occasionally.
In 1995 a copy came
into the hands of journalist Mark Brittain who was Editor of the North Wales Weekly News at the time.
He quickly spotted
a lodge called Custodes Pacis which was formed in 1983.
MARK BRITTAIN
The editor of a local newspaper when a copy of the North Wales provincial yearbook came into his possession. He identified a police lodge but found the chief constable unwilling to admit it existed. He was told many members of Custodes Pacis — it’s Latin for Keepers of the Peace — were serving or retired police officers.
The editor of a local newspaper when a copy of the North Wales provincial yearbook came into his possession. He identified a police lodge but found the chief constable unwilling to admit it existed. He was told many members of Custodes Pacis — it’s Latin for Keepers of the Peace — were serving or retired police officers.
Police lodges are
not uncommon.
Perhaps the best
known is London’s Manor of St James which at one point contained many senior
officers of the Metropolitan Police.
In 1995 Brittain
wrote to the recently appointed Chief Constable of North Wales, Michael Argent,
and asked him for an interview.
In his letter, he
also asked if the new chief was aware of the lodge.
Argent wrote back
to agree to an interview but told the journalist he could find no evidence of a
police lodge.
When Brittain met
Argent he told him he had evidence of the lodge’s existence and, after the
meeting, sent him the lodge entry from the 1995-96 yearbook.
Argent wrote back
in April.
He now admitted
that the lodge list “did indeed contain names known to me and my colleagues
although in each case they were retired from the force — in some instances for
quite a considerable period.”
Brittain wrote back
to ask if he was sure that there were no serving officers.
In May 1995 Argent
replied and said that further enquiries had been undertaken.
“I am reliably
informed," he wrote, "that whilst, as I have suggested to you in my
earlier letter, it consists mainly of retired police officers — certainly up to
superintendent level — there are only four currently serving officers."
"Three are
identified as constables and the fourth is either a constable or at most a
sergeant.”
Brittain says
Michael Argent’s story changed three times during this correspondence.
The man who was
chief constable when Custodes Pacis was set up in 1983 was David Owen.
When he gave
evidence to the Tribunal, he did not mention the existence of the lodge…
We wrote to David
Owen to ask him why he didn’t tell the Tribunal about the lodge.
He rang back to say
he didn’t want to answer questions.
In September 1997,
during the North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal hearings, Brittain wrote to the
North Wales police authority, which is responsible for the non-policing aspects
of the force.
The then clerk to
the authority, Leon Gibson, wrote back to say that the information about the
membership of Custodes Pacis had come from an unnamed lodge member.
Gibson added that
if the Chief Constable “remembers correctly, there were five, one sergeant and
four constables.”
Gibson was also the
chief executive of ANGLESEA County Council at this time.
He declined to
answer our email asking if he was a mason.
THE BARRISTER who represented North Wales Police at the Tribunal was
Andrew Moran, QC.
In his opening
address, he made it clear that the force felt masonry was an irrelevance.
He listed many of
the senior policemen who had played a role in the child abuse investigations
and said, “I am instructed to add, irrelevant though it should be, that none …
is a Freemason.”
He added: “Where
then, please, we ask is the masonic influence? Freemason[s] at the top of the
North Wales Police? There are none … Mason-free zone, we would say.”
ANDREW MORAN, QC
Declared North Wales Police "a mason-free zone" but didn't answer a letter asking if he was a mason himself ...
Declared North Wales Police "a mason-free zone" but didn't answer a letter asking if he was a mason himself ...
In this opening
address, he did an unusual thing.
He said none of
these people “is” a freemason and did not add the usual rider “or has been” when
dealing with masonic membership.
He therefore left
open the question of whether any of these senior officers had ever been masons.
The Report of the
Tribunal reported this statement with slightly different but highly significant
wording:
“At the outset of
the Inquiry Counsel for the North Wales Police stated, on the instructions of
the Chief Constable, that none of the current or former senior officers from
Assistant Chief Constable upwards during the period under review had been a
freemason and that the same was true of the relevant Detective Chief
Superintendents and Detective Superintendent Ackerley.”
(Ackerley was the
Superintendent who headed the major child abuse police inquiry between 1991 and
1993.)
We wrote to Sir
Ronald Waterhouse about how the word “is” had changed into “had been.”
He never answered
the question.
During the public
hearings of the Tribunal freemasonry was little discussed, as its report makes
clear:
“Although this
question was quite widely discussed in the press before the Tribunal’s hearings
began very few questions were asked about it during our inquiry and most of
them were put by the Chairman of the Tribunal to give appropriate witnesses an
opportunity to affirm or deny any connection with freemasonry.”
Rebecca Television sent a list of all the male barristers who
appeared before the Tribunal to the United Grand Lodge of England and asked how
many of them were freemasons.
We also asked if
the police assessor to the Tribunal, Sir Ronald Hadfield, and the retired
police officers who made up the Tribunal’s witness interviewing team were
masons.
A spokesman
replied: “I’m afraid I am unable to give you the information you require."
"We would only
do so if you were an official body making that request.”
When the Tribunal
reported in 2000, its verdict was clear:
“Freemasonry had no
impact on any of the police investigations and was not relevant to any other
issue arising from our terms of reference.”
THE MOST important known mason who appeared before the Tribunal was
retired North Wales Police Superintendent Gordon Anglesea.
Anglesea had won a
libel action against journalists who wrongly accused him of abusing children.
“Anglesea was
questioned also about his connection with Freemasonry,” said the Tribunal
Report, “because of an underlying suggestion that there had been a ‘cover-up’
in his case."
"He disclosed
that he had become a full member of Berwyn Lodge in Wrexham, in 1982, after
being a probationer in a lodge at Colwyn Bay from about 1976.”
“He had then
transferred to a new Wrexham lodge, Pegasus Lodge, in 1984 after a gap from
April to September, because it offered an opportunity for swifter advance in
freemasonry.”
The Tribunal Report
then says he remained a member of the Pegasus Lodge despite a directive from
the Chief Constable of the North Wales Police, David Owen, in September 1984.
This directive
stated:
“We must be seen to
be even-handed in the discharge of our office and my policy will be to say that
if you have considered joining the Masons, think carefully about how that
application might interfere with your primary duty.”
“To those who are
Masons I would say that you should consider carefully how right it is to
continue such membership."
"In the open
society in which we live that openness must be seen by all and must not be an
openness partially [clouded] by a secrecy where people could question true
motivation.”
During
cross-examination of Anglesea at the Tribunal, Tim King QC, representing former
residents of children’s homes, asked him if Owen’s directive had upset or
concerned him.
“Not whatsoever,
sir,” replied Anglesea, “I read that order two or three times and it did not —
I felt it did not affect my particular position.”
GORDON ANGLESEA
The North Wales police officer decided to ignore his chief constable's directive warning about freemasonry...
The North Wales police officer decided to ignore his chief constable's directive warning about freemasonry...
1984 was a
watershed year for the public scrutiny of freemasonry.
That year saw the
publication of Stephen Knight’s book The Brotherhood which followed
other press investigations such the 1981 Rebecca magazine
article Darkness Visible.
The same year
Metropolitan Commissioner Sir Kenneth Newman and Albert Laugharne, an assistant
commissioner, published The Principles of Policing which made it
clear that membership of freemasonry left officers open to suspicion.
“Thus an officer
must pay the most careful regard to the impression which others are likely to
gain of his membership, as well as to what he actually does, however inhibiting
he may find this when arranging his own private life.”
David Owen’s
response to these developments was to call a conference of superintendents
which decided to issue the directive.
Within a month of
Owen circulating it, the Grand Master of North Wales Province of Freemasonry,
Lord Kenyon, asked to meet with him.
The two men knew
each other well: Kenyon was also a member of the police authority.
The meeting took
place at Wrexham police station.
Lord Kenyon was
accompanied by the secretary of the province, Leonard Ellis.
Solicitors acting
for the masons wrote to the Tribunal in an attempt to get this narrative
removed on the grounds that it was irrelevant to the Tribunal’s work.
The Tribunal
rejected the attempt and its report described what happened when the Provincial
Grand Master came face to face with the Chief Constable.
David Owen told the
Grand Master that he had no intention of withdrawing his directive about
freemasonry…
“At this meeting
Lord Kenyon argued that the directive was totally misguided and asked that it
should be withdrawn and he mentioned that a police officer (unidentified but
not Anglesea) had been about to take the chair in a North Wales lodge but had
declined to do so because of this directive.”
LORD KENYON
The Provincial Grand Master tried to persuade the chief constable to withdraw his anti-masonic directive — and invited him to join the brotherhood.
The Provincial Grand Master tried to persuade the chief constable to withdraw his anti-masonic directive — and invited him to join the brotherhood.
“Owen’s evidence
was that he told Lord Kenyon that he had no intention of withdrawing the
directive."
"In response,
Lord Kenyon argued that the Chief Constable knew nothing at all about
freemasonry and suggested it would be appropriate for him to join a lodge, such
as the one at Denbigh, outside any area of his usual working activity, but this
invitation was declined.”
FREEMASON LINKS BETWEEN NORTH WALES AND DERBYSHIRE
POLICE
DAVID OWEN wasn’t the first chief constable Lord Kenyon had dealt with.
Four years earlier the grand master welcomed Sir
Walter Stansfield back to North Wales after he retired as Derbyshire’s chief
constable and brought his police career to a close.
Sir Walter had been
chief constable of the Denbigh force before the reorganisation which led to the
creation of the North Wales Police.
He was deputy chief
constable of North Wales in 1967 when he was appointed Derbyshire’s chief
constable.
When he left North Wales to take up the Derbyshire
post, he didn’t sever his links with North Wales.
He joined a new masonic lodge, Dyfrdwy, which met
at Ruabon, becoming its master a year later, in 1968.
In 1981 Rebecca magazine asked Sir Walter Stansfield why he had chosen to join a North
Wales lodge after he left North Wales Police.
Had he been a
member of a lodge in another part of the country?
Sir Walter didn’t take
kindly to being questioned on the subject.
He said:
“Who do you think
you’re talking to?”
He then denied
being Sir Walter Stansfield even though the telephone number he was speaking on
was listed in his name.
SIR WALTER
STANSFIELD
STANFIELD was chief constable of the Derbyshire force. He was also a freemason in North Wales. He wouldn't answer questions about his freemasonry ...
STANFIELD was chief constable of the Derbyshire force. He was also a freemason in North Wales. He wouldn't answer questions about his freemasonry ...
Sir Walter also
makes a cameo appearance in Martin Short’s book about freemasonry, Inside The Brotherhood.
After Sir Walter
left Derbyshire, the English force was rocked by the Alf Parrish scandal.
Parrish was
appointed chief constable in 1981 but soon squandered police funds for his own
comfort.
He was driven out
of office by which time it was discovered that he was a mason — as were many of
the police authority members who appointed him.
The key masons
belonged to the oldest lodge in Derbyshire, Tryian.
A provincial
yearbook obtained by Labour councillors in the mid-1980s revealed that another
member of the lodge was Sir Walter Stansfield…
Back in 1981, North
Wales Provincial Grand Master Lord Kenyon responded to increasing media
attention, by making a statement to
masons in the province.
“… we have nothing
to hide and certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but we object to having our
affairs investigated by outsiders.”
“We would be able
to answer many of the questions likely to be asked, if not all of them, but we
have found that silence is the best policy: comment or correction only breeds
further inquiry and leads to the publicity we try to avoid.”
THE NORTH WALES Child Abuse Tribunal report dismissed any suggestion
that Lord Kenyon had tried to promote the career of Gordon Anglesea.
The Report
concluded that “there is no evidence that Lord Kenyon intervened at any time in
any way on behalf of Anglesea.”
The Tribunal did
consider a comment made by Councillor Malcolm King, who was also a former
chairman of the North Wales Police Authority, that “there was speculation (he
believed) that Lord Kenyon had asked for promotion for Gordon Anglesea.”
“This was said by
Councillor King to have been based on a conversation overheard at a police
function; and that the speculation was that Lord Kenyon had advocated
Anglesea’s promotion ‘for the purpose of covering up the fact that his son had
been involved in child abuse activities’.”
This was alleged to
have related to an incident in August 1979 when Lord Kenyon’s son, Tom,
reported the theft of articles by a former Bryn Estyn resident while the two
men were staying at a flat in Wrexham.
The young man he
accused of theft was arrested and later given three months detention.
However, during the
course of the investigation police discovered a series of indecent photographs
in the flat which was owned by a man called Gary Cooke.
Cooke was later
gaoled for five years on two counts of buggery, one of indecent assault and one
of taking an indecent photograph.
Cooke claimed that,
after he was arrested and charged, Tom Kenyon came over and apologised to him
for what had happened and handed him a letter.
He added that if
Cooke agreed “not to say anything” he would have a word with his father to
improve Cooke’s chances in court.
Cooke says he gave
this letter to the police.
The officers who
dealt with the case say they received no such letter.
Cooke believed that
Tom Kenyon’s intervention shortened his sentence.
However, when
Superintendent Ackerley was carrying out his investigation into this case in
the early 1990s, he discovered that the prosecution file could not be found.
The Tribunal’s
investigators discovered that there was no evidence Cooke had been shown any
favour: he served a full third of his sentence.
In any case, the
Report added, Lord Kenyon had no influence with the parole board.
The Tribunal’s
Report conclusion was damning:
“We have received
no evidence whatsoever in support of this allegation and it appears to have
been merely a malicious rumour.”
LOST IN CARE
The massive 937 page report of the North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal described an anecdote about the Provincial Grand Master trying to get a promotion for Gordon Anglesea as a "malicious rumour". Yet the Tribunal's own staff had been to see the policeman who told them he was sitting next to the Grand Master when he made the comment.
The massive 937 page report of the North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal described an anecdote about the Provincial Grand Master trying to get a promotion for Gordon Anglesea as a "malicious rumour". Yet the Tribunal's own staff had been to see the policeman who told them he was sitting next to the Grand Master when he made the comment.
Councillor King was
actually combining two separate rumours here: the first that Lord Kenyon had
spoken up for Anglesea at a police function, the second that it was somehow
related to favours Anglesea was alleged to have done for his son.
The Tribunal should
have known that the first rumour, that Lord Kenyon had spoken up for Anglesea,
had substance.
The source of the
anecdote was Harry Templeton, a former constable and once the secretary of the
Police Federation branch in North Wales Police.
The reason the
Tribunal should have known about it was that two members of its own Witness
Interviewing Team, made up of retired police officers who were not from North
Wales, went to talk to Templeton.
Templeton told them
he had been to a function at the senior officers’ dining room at Police
Headquarters in Colwyn Bay and was sitting opposite Lord Kenyon who was present
as a magistrate member of the Police Authority.
Templeton told the
Tribunal team that Lord Kenyon had said that he was surprised Gordon Anglesea,
then a chief inspector, had not been promoted to Superintendent and that he
would see to it that he was promoted before he retired.
Templeton told them
he’d made a signed affidavit about the incident for a national newspaper.
Templeton also told
the Tribunal team there was another witness to the remark, Peter Williams, the
then chairman of the Police Federation branch.
Templeton never
said anything about Lord Kenyon’s advocating a promotion for Gordon Anglesea
having anything to do with Tom Kenyon’s case.
This suggestion, he
says, must have come from somewhere else.
When Templeton was
given these details of the Tribunal’s
findings in relation to this anecdote, he was shocked.
He says that the
two retired Tribunal detectives had not taken a signed statement from him and
he now feels there is a question mark about what they did with the information
he gave them.
We also spoke to
Peter Williams.
He said that the
Tribunal never came to see him.
He confirmed that
he was at the function with Harry Templeton in their official roles as Police
Federation representatives.
He recalls that
Lord Kenyon expressed his surprise that Gordon Anglesea had not been promoted.
He does not
remember him saying that he would see that it took place before he retired.
Outline of story by Rebecca Televison http://paddyfrench1.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/a-mason-free-zone/
Check out Pegasus and Berwyn Lodges.
ReplyDeleteFreemasonry is kindness in the home, honesty in business, courtesy in society, earnest in work, pity and concern for the unfortunate, resistance towards evil, help for the weak, forgiveness for the penitent, love for one another and reverence and love for God.
ReplyDeleteLast week i joined freemasonry northern Ireland.
Thanks for this article.
REBLOGGED
ReplyDelete