Conspiracy sites Name Gordon Brown ''Paedophile''

[dave]

Okay well again I can’t reply to everyone but to try to address the key points:

Whilst there may not be enough evidence to launch a criminal investigation in the Hollie Grieg case (for whatever reason that may be, and there is much real evidence of maladministration and shoddy police work, deliberate or otherwise), such circumstantial evidence as there is should surely make people think twice before casually dismissing the whole affair as ‘nonsense’. I agree that with so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ it is common for people to get carried away and make assumptions based purely on what circumstantial evidence may remain after the event, but that is the nature of the beast. It is surely naive to imagine that there are not people in the world, acting alone or collectively, who do not indulge in illegal or nefarious behaviour and then seek to cover their tracks, and who will quite naturally not leave huge swathes of ‘evidence’ lying around for all and sundry to pick up and run with. This is where I have a problem with the approach that most of you seem to hold to.

As individuals you are naturally not all singing from the same hymn sheet. Some say “It's not a case of concluding that allegations are utterly without substance, more that the allegations are of such a nature that some amount of evidence is needed before those allegations should be thrown around in public” which seems reasonable (to a point), whereas others are using more emotive language – referring to the story as “nonsense” and somehow conflating the allegations against Gordon Brown with “David Icke's reptile fantasy” and that rather presumptuously and hypocritically, from someone who is accusing me (as a typical ‘conspiracy theorist’) of confusing a number of different things!

I agree that “circumstantial evidence is extraordinarily tricky stuff” and of course I do not advocate “(convicting) someone of a crime based on no evidence…(or thinking my) own personal belief/opinion is enough to form a conclusion on an issue”. However, in law, the burden of proof is not always required to be 100%. In other words, hard, incontrovertible substantiation of an allegation is not always available, especially when a criminal has gone out of his/her way to obfuscate or destroy evidence, or (as is likely in this case) when a victim is not able to provide reliable testimony. This does not exonerate us from drawing our own conclusions though and common sense and an ability to make a judgement based on the balance of probabilities is sometimes the best approach to getting closer to the truth. In this case, either the perpetrators have covered their arses successfully, or it is all a storm in a tea cup – we will probably never know. However, I do come back to this matter of the Sceptical approach being one that, sometimes in my view unreasonably, seems to be rather entrenched and myopic when it comes to this mantra of ‘hard evidence’ and is therefore prone to the fallacy of ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’.

As I said, it is important to take on board the fact that when people are behaving in a way that is likely to illicit censure from other law abiding folk, they are not going to leave a calling card, or post details of it up on Facebook.

One of you says that “Skeptics don't deal in absolutes”, and then goes on to talk about there being ‘no evidence’ in the case of Holly Grieg. This is disingenuous to my mind. There is plenty of ‘evidence’ but all of it circumstantial and impossible to prove, just as it would be in a case where alleged perpetrators have been diligently covering their arses. To coin a phrase, there is a palpable ‘smoking gun’, so why are some people on this thread resorting to such base tactics as accusing those who wish to flag it up as being sexual perverts and or lunatics?

This seems to me to be an extreme reaction which I believe points to an almost neurotic desire to cling to some kind of dogma and which I find highly suspect, and unconducive to rational thought.

As I mentioned before, some Sceptics need to be aware that this desire to be presented with ‘evidence’, can sometimes blind them to the possibility that the smoke on the horizon is actually indicative of the presence of fire, even though they may be sitting comfortably in their ivory towers haughtily demanding to be shown the proof.

As for the “required standard of evidence, having (to) come from a reliable source” this again is surely a circular argument. Are you all credulous enough to believe that the news that we are drip-fed through the mainstream media gives us a complete and unbiased picture of what is happening in the world? Surely we should be evaluating news from other sources in the interest of balance, and the idea that we should casually reject news from an alternative source (read: “conspiracy site”) is frankly arrogant and dangerously naïve in my view.

There are many well researched books that are mainly publicised or reviewed on such sites, because in my view, the mainstream media tends to be very ‘dumbed down’ and tends to shy away from subjects that may give rise to uncomfortable truths. The person who says that “a claim simply having appeared on a conspiracy site is…frequently enough…to make a claim (not) worth researching elsewhere” is not a sceptic, but a cynic.

I’m sorry to say that in some of the posts on this thread you would be very hard pressed to differentiate between the two.

In cases where there are such serious allegations, surely we should thoroughly examine all the evidence, along with our consciences, before dismissing such stories as these as being the product of the over-productive imagination of the alleged victim. Failure to do so may result in the sceptics approach providing carte blanche for every crooked politician and criminal with the gumption to barely cover his or her tracks…

[Croydon Bob]

referring to the story as “nonsense” and somehow conflating the allegations against Gordon Brown with “David Icke's reptile fantasy” and that rather presumptuously and hypocritically, from someone who is accusing me (as a typical ‘conspiracy theorist’) of confusing a number of different things!

Have you read this thread? I didn't make the connection between these things. The nutters you have chosen to side with made the connection. This thread title accuses Gordon Brown of being a paedo, so if you want a serious discussion about a real case then this isn't really the place to make your stand against the rational people.

If I wanted to be kind to you I'd suggest you are trying to be disingenuous in accusing me of the very thing I was arguing against, but you're probably just too thick to understand.

[tolman]

If there's insufficient evidence to even start a criminal investigation of anyone, let alone have any confidence that there's enough for anyone to be found guilty, especially in the case where allegations can be of the 'mud sticks' variety and double-especially in the case where well-known people are being 'linked' with an investigation for no obviously good reason, one does have to wonder about the value of making allegations public and having people trying to repeatedly draw attention to them.

One also has to wonder at the motivation behind people continually trying to draw attention to them.


The person who says that “a claim simply having appeared on a conspiracy site is…frequently enough…to make a claim (not) worth researching elsewhere” is not a sceptic, but a cynic.
Nice bit of dubious quoting there, dave.

What I said was

As for the required standard of evidence, having it come from a reliable source is the first hurdle. That means that a claim simply having appeared on a conspiracy site is not enough, and in fact, is frequently barely even enough or not enough to make a claim worth researching elsewhere.

Which admittedly would have been better if I'd finished editing it properly and ended up with the intended, though similarly-meaning:

As for the required standard of evidence, having it come from a reliable source is the first hurdle. That means that a claim simply having appeared on a conspiracy site is frequently barely even enough or not enough to make a claim worth researching elsewhere.

Either way, that has a quite different meaning to your misquotation.

I didn't use the words 'frequently enough' together, and the obvious accurate reading of my words was that if a claim only appears on conspiracy sites, that may not be enough justification for paying attention to it.

Your misquotation implied that I suggested that the appearance of a claim on a conspiracy site was often sufficient to disqualify the claim from being considered irrespective of whether that claim may be being made in more trustworthy places.

To be honest, if that's the way you approach 'evidence', maybe you should quit while you're ahead.

Now, I'll admit that *some* people who have comprehensively dumped all over their credibility in the past can add a kind of 'negative credibility' to a vague claim, or maybe make me double-check my facts even if I agree with them, working on the assumption that judging from history, they're probably wrong, but that wouldn't be likely to make me doubt something that was also being talked about by people with greater credibility.

[Pebble]

To coin a phrase, there is a palpable ‘smoking gun’, so why are some people on this thread resorting to such base tactics as accusing those who wish to flag it up as being sexual perverts and or lunatics?




I cannot see smoke let alone a gun in sight. I have read an enormous amount of innuendo, gossip, overblown theories - but precious few facts.

I suspect Hollie was abused - but have never seen anywhere any evidence to confirm this - vague unsubstantiated statements about STD's is all.

I am unclear why the family left Scotland even though the original alledged perpetrator (the father) had left the country. Certainly no evidence of ongoing harrassement or threat has been presented - fears have been expressed but that may have many sources.

While Hollie is indeed in all probability 'honest' this does not make complex stories apparently extracted from her under poorly managed conditions by adults with an agenda of their own, credible.

The only evidence I have seen of conspiracy is claims by those who feel that charges should have been brought asserting that there must have been a cover up.


Have you anything susbstantial to bring to the table - or is that it? If this is the level of real evidence it does not merit investigation, indeed the evidence for the original abuse has now been so contanimated by those around Hollie as to make her evidence in that regard unreliable.

[dave]

I cannot see smoke let alone a gun in sight. I have read an enormous amount of innuendo, gossip, overblown theories - but precious few facts.

You call it gossip, innuendo, overblown theories, others see it as circumstantial evidence - it’s a matter of perception which is the point I am trying to make throughout i.e. that FACTS will be very hard to establish in a case like this – I would be grateful if you could address this point more adriotly.


I suspect Hollie was abused - but have never seen anywhere any evidence to confirm this - vague unsubstantiated statements about STD's is all.

Medical records are confidential as we all know, but why would anyone make this up? Agreed, it doesn’t prove anything unto and of itself but is another ‘smoking gun’ that you cannot or will not acknowledge because there is nothing but unsubstantiated statements to back it up. If the medical record was made public, I suspect that you would find another way to denigrate this.


While Hollie is indeed in all probability 'honest' this does not make complex stories apparently extracted from her under poorly managed conditions by adults with an agenda of their own, credible.

What evidence do you base these assertions on? A reference or url would be appreciated.


The only evidence I have seen of conspiracy is claims by those who feel that charges should have been brought asserting that there must have been a cover up.

Yes, because of the large amount of circumstantial evidence surrounding the case.


Have you anything susbstantial to bring to the table

Have you?

To the other responders, Tolman I apologise if I have misquoted you but I assure you that this was done in the interests of brevity rather than an attempt to misrepresent what you said. I think the gist is still there nonetheless and I believe that this policy could lead to a person overlooking potentially vital information purely because it is not disseminated through mainstream channels and may if unchecked foster a certain kind of smug complacency and be prejudicial to a thorough investigation of a given case.

I only made reference to the ‘David Icke’ comments because I believe that they were not germane to my point. Sorry if you thought that was unintelligent but I’m trying to establish whether, in the Sceptical viewpoint, there is some gradation possible in the assessment of evidence where some wrong-doing is suspected, as there would be say in a court of law. Does the prerequisite for solid, substantive and irrefutable evidence actually hamper the open investigation of the possibility that something has been perpetrated and then covered up by those in positions of power? Or does the lack of such evidence conclusively establish that there is no case to answer? The latter is to my mind quite an illogical position to take, given that hard evidence will undoubtedly have been deliberately destroyed or obfuscated by the perpetrators. I feel that to ignore this ‘inconvenient truth’ is to perpetrate a lie of omission.

This goes to the heart of the ‘conspiracy’ issue to my mind. It seems as though the debate is often dominated by uncompromising zealots on both sides, both of whom are mired in their own ideological/philosophical dogmas and deprived by this of a more pragmatic view of the world…just my opinion and would like to engage in the debate around this point if at all possible.

[tolman]

Medical records are confidential as we all know, but why would anyone make this up?
People can make things up for any number of reasons, and when it comes to gossip, things can also end up 'becoming made up' as a matter of being passed from person to person and misremembered or improved in the process.
Not that either of those things always happen, but they are possibilities that are hard to discount out of hand.


Agreed, it doesn’t prove anything unto and of itself but is another ‘smoking gun’
I'm not sure you understand the normal usage of 'smoking gun'.
You seem to be trying to apply it to any claimed item of circumstantial evidence, when in fact it really describes an extremely significant or even conclusive piece of evidence which typically points specifically towards a particular person.


To the other responders, Tolman I apologise if I have misquoted you but I assure you that this was done in the interests of brevity rather than an attempt to misrepresent what you said. I think the gist is still there nonetheless
So you're saying your inaccurate and significantly misleading quoting was basically accurate enough for you?


and I believe that this policy could lead to a person overlooking potentially vital information purely because it is not disseminated through mainstream channels and may if unchecked foster a certain kind of smug complacency and be prejudicial to a thorough investigation of a given case.

When claims of people being criminals in nasty conspiracies are made by the kind of people happy to throw around claims of criminal involvement of large groups of people in terrible conspiracies, it's hardly surprising if the first thing many people wonder is how much is just being made up.
For instance, the kind of place that would welcome people happy to accuse a large chunk of a city's emergency services in complicity in 9/11 or the death of ex-royal Diana just because it makes their theory seem less impossible to them is the kind of place I'd be likely to be cautious about trusting.

Seriously, just look at the complete load of shite the sites referenced in the first post of this thread promote, and then ask yourself why anyone would trust any 'evidence' they claim exists.

If that's anyone's fault, it's not mine for being a cynic, it's theirs for supporting people talking bollocks.
If the pub down the road had developed a reputation as the 'Bullshitter's Arms', I'd be foolish not to be more cautious about believing things I only heard there than things I heard elsewhere as well.

Also, if the issue was one where my opinion didn't seem likely to matter, I have a perfect right not to be interested in it even if I thought there may be something in it.

It's an entirely rational position to take that I am neither a policeman nor Sherlock Holmes nor Woodward or Bernstein nor Batman, and to leave criminal investigation to people who are, only choosing to look at details in cases where I choose to have an interest.
Having any number of people jumping up and down telling me that "I should be interested in this!" isn't likely to work even if they look relatively sane, since I'm someone who decides for themselves what to be interested in.

Ultimately, if there is actually a case to be made, the only way to get it taken seriously is to get the law or the proper media interested.
If people can't do either of those things, they lose, but that loss, however sad it may be in the case where a crime has actually been committed, is hard to unbundle from the principle that even in cases that get to trial, it's better for N guilty people to be declared innocent and go free than for an innocent person to be found guilty.

In cases that don't even seem likely to get to trial, in general it wouldn't seem right to endlessly speculate about whether one or other person was guilty, since that seems to be treating them worse than someone found not guilty.

[Admin]

I agree that with so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ it is common for people to get carried away and make assumptions based purely on what circumstantial evidence may remain after the event

What event?

Without evidence of the event there's no way you can know that 'the event' occurred.

This assumption, that 'the event' occurred, is implicit in your faulty reasoning throughout. You are making the assumption that 'the event' occurred. You have begun with a conclusion as if it were factual yet there's no possible way you can know it - this is one of the hallmarks of conspiracy theory thinking.


but that is the nature of the beast. It is surely naive to imagine that there are not people in the world, acting alone or collectively, who do not indulge in illegal or nefarious behaviour and then seek to cover their tracks, and who will quite naturally not leave huge swathes of ‘evidence’ lying around for all and sundry to pick up and run with. This is where I have a problem with the approach that most of you seem to hold to.

Of course people commit crimes etc. and cover their tracks. No one is suggesting otherwise. However, that doesn't mean that every accusation made against someone and there's no evidence to support it that the evidence has been successfully removed - the accusation could simply be false.


This does not exonerate us from drawing our own conclusions though and common sense and an ability to make a judgement based on the balance of probabilities is sometimes the best approach to getting closer to the truth.

How could you know that you're getting closer to the truth when there's no evidence available to establish what the truth actually is?

You're basically back to saying that when there's no evidence to analyse, what we should do is rely on our own personal opinion/belief/gut instinct to determine the truth. Convicting witches springs to mind.....


However, I do come back to this matter of the Sceptical approach being one that, sometimes in my view unreasonably, seems to be rather entrenched and myopic when it comes to this mantra of ‘hard evidence’ and is therefore prone to the fallacy of ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’.

You're seeing the wood when there are no trees there.

This current debate really rests on the difference between your and our approach to forming conclusions on issues.

We say that in order to establish a good, justified conclusion on an issue, what we need is some good, reliable evidence so that we can be sure that our conclusion is correct. You're saying that you can form a conclusion without evidence and still be justified in assuming the conclusion is true because you think it is.

How would you like it if a web page were published claiming that "Dave is a paedophile" and the 'evidence' in support of this was the author's personal opinion?

In other words, how would you like to be on the receiving end of your own approach?

I bet you'd be calling for "solid evidence" in that scenario!

How would you feel if the author replied, "there was solid evidence but Dave has destroyed it, as you'd expect. Which just goes to show that Dave really is a paedophile"?


As I mentioned before, some Sceptics need to be aware that this desire to be presented with ‘evidence’, can sometimes blind them to the possibility that the smoke on the horizon is actually indicative of the presence of fire

Smoke is evidence of fire. What you are advocating, however, is that a lack of smoke is evidence of fire.

Your point does not address the issue.


In cases where there are such serious allegations, surely we should thoroughly examine all the evidence

Absolutely! But what evidence?

[tolman]

Smoke is evidence of fire.
Though, being strictly accurate/pedantic, smoke is only circumstantial evidence of fire.

Only yesterday, when torture-testing a circuit board, I had a few definite instances of smoke being made, but no scrap of fire.
Though I guess that is magic smoke, so maybe it doesn't count?

[Admin]

Smoke is evidence for fire - it doesn't mean that fire caused the smoke however (that would be the Affirming the Consequent fallacy).

[Matt]

OK first I want to clarify my position.

I don't know if the accused are guilty or not. I am however appalled by the quality and substantiation of some of the arguments presented. When I point out that a particular argument is rubbish, that doesn't mean that I'm asserting that the conclusion is false. I still don't know.

For example, someone might point out that on a take away menu they have a portion of spiced wedges are item 1, chicken wings are item 2 and jalpeno poppers are item 3. They then point out that item 6, a platter to share contains the wedges wings and poppers and so the item numbers for the wedges, wings and poppers added together must come to the item number for the platter. This is clearly fallacious reasoning. From that logic alone I'd have no good reason to believe that 1+2+3=6. However just by dismissing the rubbish reason for believing that 1+2+3=6 I can't conclude that the opposite is true. Just because the reason being given is bogus I can't conclude from this bogosity that 1+2+3 does not equal 6 either. Without further information the answer is unknown.

Of course further information is available as early as infant school and we all knwo that however fallacious the reasoning in this example it has happened to reach the correct conclusion.

To assume otherwise is called Argument from fallacy.

This applies in the same way to my earlier contribution to this thread. If someone suggests that:
1) Certain high profile politicians have not graced such low profile allegations with a response.
2) This implies their guilt

This is the fallacy of affirming the consequent whilst such a course of action might indeed be a consequence of guilt, it might equally be a consequence of competent PR advice. We all recently saw such advice being given in hindsight to William Hague.

When I point out that fallacy in this argument that concludes the guilt of these parties you should not infer from this, that I'm therefore asserting their innocence. (Except in as much as the legal nicety of the presumption of innocence)

Similarly is has been argued that since Holly contracted an STI, that since medical examinations confirmed sexual activity, that since she received compensation, it is therefore certain that all the people named by her did indeed abuse her.

This too is poor logic. Accepting for the moment that the reported STI and the medical examinations are fact, this only proves that sexual activity occurred. Factor in her age and vulnerability then sexual abuse looks certain. However none of this tells us anything about the identity of her abusers.

Again when I point out that fallacy in this argument that concludes the guilt of these parties you should not infer from this, that I'm therefore asserting their innocence. (Except in as much as the legal nicety of the presumption of innocence)


If you make an a priori presumption that the parties in question are indeed guilty of operating a paedophile ring that you will tend to make the shrill accusation that I'm defending paedophiles. This in turn fails on two counts.

It is an appeal to emotion. Good rhetoric, but poor logic. Even child rapists deserve a fair trial.
It relies on an a priori assumption. As far as I'm concerned the subject of my defnece are an unknown quantity, they may well be pedophiles but eqaully without that a prioiri assumption they may well be innocent victims of anything from a deliberate smear campaign to the well intentioned effects of recovered memory syndrome.

We then run up against an argument common to most if not all conspiracy theories. If there's a cover up then we don't expect to see much in the way of good quality evidence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence goes the well rehearsed aphorism. In fact it would be more correct to say that absence of evidence is not proof of absence. Whatver paucity of evidence is expected from a claim the burden of proof is still not shifted. In Bertand Russel's famous example he suggested a celestial teapot orbiting in outer space too small and too far away to be seen. The circumstantial evidence that indeed we do not see such a teapot does not make that case that such a teapot exists.

We can always criticise the quality of evidence being presented. Heck we could make a case that the entire universe was created last Tuesday with every memory and artefact that seems to date from before that time being a fabrication. You want to take it far enough and you can doubt pretty much anything.

However what's more important is how the quality of evidence compares to what should be expected.

So when were told by a poster here that Robert Green has reported that Anne Griegs has said that Holly Grieg made a statement to the police. We can indeed check what the poster is saying. Robert Green has said that, by there our opportunities to verify this further seem to dry up.

A better quality of evidence might be if we had a copy of Holly Greig's signed witness statement.

We would still have doubts about the reliability of a single witness but it could lay to rest any problems with misreporting and Chinese whispers.

The question is whether we have the expectation that this should be available. Does the possibility of a cover up explain why we're not hearing the accusation in the witnesses own words? Does respecting the sensibilities of a victim or the privacy of the accused explain why a copy of this statement has not been made publicly available?

I think perhaps it might. To expect a primary source in this example might be expecting too much.

What about corroborating secondary sources? Is it a touch unexpected that all the information we have is filtered through Robert Green? Here my gut feeling is that this is somewhat suspicious. Might this be explained by pressure being brought to bear by a powerful elite? We certainly have heard that a BBC documentary on the case was pulled but again our only source for this information is Robert Green. Might the explanation for a lack of corroborating secondary sources equaly be that Green is making more of this story than the facts will actually bear?

Both explanations for the lack of a corroborating secondary source are viable.

So what about other items of evidence. The contraction of an STI, do we have anything but Robert Green's word that this happened? What STI was it? Is there other documentary evidence of this that we can see? If not has anyone else seen and reported on this documentary evidence?

The medical examination, the compensation payment, the committal to psychiatric care same questions?

I'm not claiming that Robert Green is spinning a story from whole cloth. But let me weave an alternative suggestion.

Hollie Grieg was indeed abused by her father. Her father in keeping with a number of other abusers spun various tales to keep his abuse secret. Somehow or other inducing a young and otherwise vulnerable victim to believe that various figures of authority were complicit in the abuse and so that complaining would have no effect. Yet the abuse did come to light and Hollie named her abuser. Perhaps solely from her fathers suggestion but perhaps too with a bit of unintentional guidance she went on to name further people who in fact were not abusers.

Anne and Hollie reported the abuse including the real abuser(s) alongside those they were understandably mistaken about. From there the investigation went downhill. The police managed to confirm the abuse but not the abusers. In such circumstances the prosecution found they could not make a convincing case against any of the named individuals.

Anne of course would be frustrated and parental loyalty would certainly explain her sticking with her daughter's story 100%. A campaigning journalist with a leaning towards conspiracy theories embelishes the story. My scenario is of course some I've just made up. But it fits the circumstantial evidence just as well as Robert Green's version of events.

[Matt]

As an example of how primary evidence may differ from secondary or even tertiary sources, whilst I was looking for details about Robert Green I encountered this page.

http://www.annaraccoon.com/madeleine-mccann/robert-green-hollie-greig/

Very interesting especially what appears to be the so called conclusive medical evidence that Hollie was engaged in inappropriate sexual activity.

This was apparently presented to the Greg Lance Watkins (a seasoned paedophilia campaigner) by Anne Grieg as documentary evidence of her claims.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9NU5fJ7cJ3Q/Swi9HMKrwhI/AAAAAAAAAFY/alV2PFtfcFo/s1600/Z1.jpg

I've deciphered what I can.


Hollie MACKIE (23.11.79), 1 CRAIGTON ROAD, MANNORFIELD, ABERDEEN
Pupil at Beechwood School

Following our telephone call I write to give a a little background on Hollie. For the last 2 or 3 years Hollie has suffered from -------- ------------ with occasional urinary frequency and lower abdominal --------- Multiple MSU's have shown no infection until the one taken last year --------- examined her thoroughly in school on 4 occasions over the last - years and have never found any abnormality on abdominal nor vulval examination apart from what Dr White's SHO reported as sebaceous gland hypoplasia in August 1990. She also had slight perianal redness in May 1989 after return from Brazil where her symptoms had been worse and similar to those of a friend who has some parasitic infection.

There have also been concerns about Hollies sexuality. Mr and Mrs Mackie asked me about the sexual behaviour of children with Downs Syndrome --- ----- of fertility and the possible need fort contraception when I saw them in -----------. More recently staff at Beechwood have been concerned that when Hollie is playing sexually with other children she shows marked pelvic thrusting suggesting that she has some sexual experience that be inappropriate for a girl of her years. The school wrote to Mr and Mrs Mackie about this a couple of weeks ago.

When I saw the parents in school on the 22nd this was because of concerns with her hip. Although I was asked about the urinary infection her parents did not comment on the letter from the school. Hollie had her period at the time and it did not seem appropriate to take the discussion further at the time. Incidentally she has only been having her periods for the last couple of months and on the positive side Hollie is showing good overall progress at school and she has never given any indication in discussions to my knowledge, of her being exposed to inappropriate sexual experiences.

Yours sincerely.



So by the accounts being presented here we have an STI that could only indicate sexual activity and a doctors examination which definitively confirms this. In the primary source this STI turns out to be a urinary tract infection which does not necessarily indicate sexual activity and the doctors conclusion of inappropriate sexual activity taking place turns out to be entirely the opposite.

Go instead to what appears to be a primary source (though I'll freely admit that I haven't double checked the provenance of this image) and we see marked differences.

[Pebble]

Great piece of detective work Matt.

What concerned me was: "--------- examined her thoroughly in school on 4 occasions over the last - years and have never found any abnormality on abdominal nor vulval examination.."

What on earth are people doing 4 vulvar examinations on a young girl in a school for? Is there an assumption being made that because she had learning difficulties she would not understand how inappropriate this is? To then express concern about her interest in the genitals (I assume from what is written) of the other children seems baffling - after all they have just trained her to do this!

[brianp]

Great work Matt. Having had a similar condition myself, I think the second sentence of the letter reads:

"For the last two or three years Hollie has suffered from pain on micturition with occasional urinary frequency ..."

[Pebble]

You call it gossip, innuendo, overblown theories, others see it as circumstantial evidence - it’s a matter of perception which is the point I am trying to make throughout i.e. that FACTS will be very hard to establish in a case like this – I would be grateful if you could address this point more adriotly.

Wrong gossip is not evidence, to comprehend the difference look at Matts' posts above.


Medical records are confidential as we all know, but why would anyone make this up? Agreed, it doesn’t prove anything unto and of itself but is another ‘smoking gun’ that you cannot or will not acknowledge because there is nothing but unsubstantiated statements to back it up. If the medical record was made public, I suspect that you would find another way to denigrate this.

So by your reckoning if anyone says that someone else has had a sexually transmitted disease it must be true, since no one would make such a thing up! Looking at the evidence presented as proof of this (see above), it is clear that someone does not understand the difference between a UTI and an STD. It is not uncommon for people to believe that cystitis (a bladder infection) only occurs in sexually active girls - this is however, not true.



What evidence do you base these assertions on? A reference or url would be appreciated.

http://www.paltelegraph.com/eng/columnists/peter-eyre/4757-scottish-government-cover-up-of-hollie-greig-part-1-how-it-all-came-to-light.html

In June 2000, Mrs. Anne Mackie, as she then was at the time, following a violent outburst by her husband Denis Charles Mackie, was told by her daughter Hollie, who has Down's Syndrome, that she had been raped and sexually abused by her father and brother Greg. The abuses by her father had been going on for fourteen years. Since Hollie was just six.

Anne went with Hollie to Bucksburn Police Station, Aberdeen, to report the crimes, moving out of the family home, of course.

Late that summer, in August, Hollie revealed that her attackers extended far beyond her father and brother. Denis Charles Mackie had shared his young daughter with members of a paedophile ring operating in Aberdeen, including a Sheriff Graeme Buchanan, a police officer, Terry Major and Hollie's own carer, Helen Macdonald.

Very poor quality evidence I know, however since this is biased from the campaigners side, it is reasonable to suggest that this is as strong as the evidence gets. So a mother who has been physically abused, uses her daughter to get rid of her abusive husband. Did Hollie really claim abuse? Did she simply say what her mother fed her because she too was frightened by the abuse of her mother? etc.

The broadening of the allegations occurred not during a controlled interview process, but at home with an angry mother and probably others.


Have you?



You fail to understand the basics here - you are making the claims - you produce the evidence that there is anything other than gossip and innuendo.

[Matt]

Great piece of detective work Matt.

It's no false modesty to say that it wasn't really. It's not like I filed a freedom of infromation request. It's not like I tracked down the Grieg family in Shrewbury via the electoral records and requested their authorisation on a subject access request for their medical files and police records. All I did was a bit of unskilled Googling that anybody with an interest in the case would be able to do.

Anyone who said they thought that a full investigation was warrented but didn't do at least that much investigation of their own, demonstrates how cheap it is to talk.

I suspect that Icke and at least the competant amongst his cronies are already aware of this document and have reasons of their own to dismiss it or reach a different conclusion. I've seen former ally of the Greigs, Greg Lance Watkins described on the Hollie Demands Justice website described as "the Hollie campaign's chief in-house disinformation agent, working directly for the establishment paedophiles themselves".
http://www.holliedemandsjustice.org/mi5-trolls-and-disinformation-agents

Certainly I can't claim Greg Lance Watkins as an unimpeachable source. Much of what he writes is sheer lunacy. The letter in question looks real but if GLW is not all he claims to be then maybe the provenenace is not quite what he says. Whilst GLW has been venomously attacked by "Hollies Army" as they call themselves, the letter does not seem to be denied, but neither do we have corroberation that this is what Anne Grieg believes is firm documentary evidence of Hollies assualt.

[John Revolting]

This is all getting way to complicated.

It's pretty simple.

If person A has been sexually abused by person B, then why isn't person A testifying against person B in a court of law?

Secondly, if person A has a case, why haven't the media taken it seriously? A credible case of child abuse against Gordon Brown is going to shift A LOT of newspapers and give a TV anchorman the scoop of the year.

Obviously these guys have looked at the same questionable 'evidence' that I have seen and come to the same conclusion. It's a non-story.

[Pebble]

It's not like I tracked down the Grieg family in Shrewbury via the electoral records and requested their authorisation on a subject access request for their medical files and police records. All I did was a bit of unskilled Googling that anybody with an interest in the case would be able to do.

Accepted, however, the Greig campaigners have made it their mission to overload all on line sources with what they consider to be their message. So like a propaganda machine, it is no longer possible easily find anything remotely resembling source documentation. I certainly had not managed to track down this letter with my unskilled googling - even if its provenance is not verifiable.

[John Revolting]

It's fairly obvious that the 'campaigners' are far more motivated and angry than the alleged 'victim'. Funny that. It's screamingly obvious they are just looking for any old excuse to lynch Gordon Brown. Paedophillia is about the most serious crime you can pin on someone's reputation.

Brown is no more a paedophile than he is an alien space creature.

[panama]

... than he is an alien space creature.

Funny you should say that...;)

[John Revolting]

Funny you should say that...;)

Yes, I know about these non-existent reptillians that hate-mongers keep spouting off about. It strikes me as really odd that all these so-called aliens and child abusers are rich people, politicans, members of the church or members of the royal family. You don't see any working class socialist reptillians working down the coal pits - It's not like the old days.

Where is this ridiculous rulebook, where all aliens have the same political mindset and keep themselves hidden at all times? Why have none of them decided to go on the Jonathan Ross show for a laugh? Or bob about in Loch Ness to confuse tourists? Why are there no aliens with a sense of humour? Or aliens who are outgoing and fun-loving, opposed to secretive and evil?

I'll tell you why - Because it's utter NONSENSE! THERE ARE NO REPTILLIANS!

Sorry. Rant over.

[polomint38]

You don't see any working class socialist reptillians working down the coal pits - It's not like the old days.

That's because the reptilians closed all the coal pits in the 80's http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff73/Polomint38/Groucho_Marx_Emoticon_by_JakarNilso.gif

Sorry couldn't find Karl Marx emoticon, so Groucho will have to do. :undecided:

[John Revolting]

That's because the reptilians closed all the coal pits in the 80's http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff73/Polomint38/Groucho_Marx_Emoticon_by_JakarNilso.gif

Sorry couldn't find Karl Marx emoticon, so Groucho will have to do. :undecided:

Exactly my point. Am I supposed to accept that an entire race of alien beings are all into shit like Magret Thatcher, Tesco, war, ruthless capitalism & anything deemed to be destructive or evil.

Where are all the hippy aliens these days?

It makes no sense.

[Croydon Bob]

Where are all the hippy aliens these days?

They were so busy getting stoned that they missed the flying saucer to Earth?


Actually the human loving imaginary aliens are out there too: http://www.zetatalk.com/

[John Revolting]

They were so busy getting stoned that they missed the flying saucer to Earth?


Actually the human loving imaginary aliens are out there too: http://www.zetatalk.com/

They seem nice and friendly. They look like the sort of naive, gullible aliens who would get suckered by a cold-call selling double-glazing. So why haven't they popped in for a cuppa?

The Jehova's Witnesses are running a better PR campaign and they are arguably weirder.

[Croydon Bob]

They seem nice and friendly. They look like the sort of naive, gullible aliens who would get suckered by a cold-call selling double-glazing. So why haven't they popped in for a cuppa?

They've signed an exclusive deal to only save mankind from the impending apocalypse by channeling through Nancy Lieder (that's a great surname she has there, contains a clue as to the honestly of her claims). Why would an alien race travel all this way to save us and then communicate in a clear way, like by appearing on TV or something? That would allow us all to hear the message, when they could alternatively do it by speaking telepathically to one nutter who then sets up a website that 99% of the world's population never even hear about.

Your problem John, is that you have a brain. Stop using it and you will find that the reptiloids, Zetans, etc, all start to make much more sense.