Category: EDITORIAL

As it is revealed that the latest ‘search’ of a reservoir connected to ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann has produced no new evidence, Matthew Steeples asks: “Isn’t it time to stop wasting vast sums and to simply close this case?”

“They do it almost every year for a free holiday to Portugal” was what what Twitter user surmised of news that the recent search of a reservoir near Praia da Luz has produced nothing in the search for what might have happened to ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann – a British girl who simply ‘vanished’ into thin air on 3^rd May 2007.

Another, surmising the joke of an organisation that the Metropolitan Police – a force that couldn’t even work out what was wrong with its 999 line yesterday – truly is went further. They added: “Rumour has it that one of the police officers on Operation Grange now playing off single-figure handicap and welcomes pro-am invites.”

With further criticism ranging from “the extravagant interest in contrast to other case feels spurious” and “Portuguese police should take Kate McCann back to Portugal (without [the] organ grinder husband) to answer the police questions she refused to answer the night Maddie went missing,” here is a case most curious that has now cost the British public purse alone over £14 million ($17.8 million, €16.4 million or درهم65.5 million) via funds allocated to a London based crime room.

Reported as an ‘exclusive’ by The Sun yesterday under the headline “MADDIE ROADBLOCK,” the paper’s Aliki Kraterou suggested:

“Cops have spent the past two weeks analysing items discovered during the search in the Barragem do Arade reservoir in Portugal, 30 miles from where three-year-old Madeleine went missing.”

“Sources close to the case say none of the items have thrown up any new clues… Despite using some of the most high-tech forensic kit available none of the items have proved to be of use. It feels like a bit of a roadblock has been hit.”

Given that this three day “scour” of a reservoir has again produced no proof that the evil, vile rapist Christian Brueckner as having no provable link to this matter, isn’t it simply now time to reallocate the money wasted to actually searching for missing people capable of genuinely, actually being found?

Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

A message from our editorial team – Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus and the cost-of-living crisis impacts our advertisers.

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Missing Madeleine – Questions STILL without Answers… £14 million wasted on Operation Grange… Why continue? Why waste more? Why not help others?

Many questions about what happened on the evening of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remain. Some that have been highlighted by the press and discussed online include:

• Why did Kate McCann refuse to answer 48 questions put to her by the Portuguese police?

• Why were certain records of phone calls on the evening of the disappearance “whoosh-clunked” from the memories of the phones of Mr and Mrs McCann and the ‘Tapas 7’?

• Why were relevant mobile phone records never handed over to the authorities in spite of them potentially being useful to the search?

• Why did the couple not use the babysitting service on offer in the holiday resort on the evening of 3^rd May 2007 when they went out on the razzle dazzle with friends?

• Why was the door to the apartment – which opened directly onto a public highway – left unlocked with three children aged under three years old alone inside?

• Why did a British sniffer dog sense the smell of a corpse in a cupboard in the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappeared?

• Why did a sniffer dog also supposedly sense the smell of a corpse in a vehicle hired by the couple a month after the disappearance of their daughter?

• Why did the McCanns repeatedly try to discredit the work of the sniffer dogs and their handlers?

• Why did Mr and Mrs McCann go jogging and play tennis in the days after their daughter’s disappearance?

• Was it acceptable for Mr and Mrs McCann’s mortgage to be paid by the fund established to search for their missing daughter?

• Why have the McCanns attempted to ‘gag’ anyone who disputes their version of events – most especially Gonçalo Amaral?

• Why, given over £14 million has been spent on this search to date, has nobody come forward with any sighting of ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann given the very, very substantial rewards on offer?

The scene of the wasteful May 2023 search – Barragem do Arade reservoir near the town of Silves in the Algarve, about 25 miles (40 kilometres) from Praia da Luz where Madeleine disappeared aged three from her family’s holiday apartment on 3^rd May 2007…

Missing Maddie – A story that simply does NOT make sense and a tale of a misallocation of resources when countless others remain missing…

As ‘Prince of Darkness’ Peter Mandelson gets sucked further into the scandals of the Ponzi scheming paedo Jeffrey Epstein, isn’t it time that Sir Keir Starmer got a bloody grip and sent him packing?

Sir Keir Starmer is standing in front of an open goal. Similarly to where Tony Blair was in 1997, he faces the ‘modern day John Major’ –a man sinking in sleaze and scandal in the form of blubbering school boy-like Rishi Sunak – and yet instead of kicking into it, this blithering buffoon still fails to score.

Today, with news that one of his close advisors, The Right Honourable The Lord Mandelson PC, has for the third time been dragged into scandal comes proof that Sir Keir simply is a man of, at the very least, very poor judgment. Baroness Thatcher, as PM, excused Alan Clark’s “naughtiness” including bedding not only a judge’s wife but also his two daughters and Sir John let his slug-like old mucker David Mellor off for his sexual antics, but, it must be remembered, such occurred in the days before social media’s rise to prominence.

MORE TO FOLLOW….

Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

A message from our editorial team – Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus and the cost-of-living crisis impacts our advertisers.

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Pictured top – Ex Barclays CEO Jes Staley (left) and (top right and bottom right) Peter Mandelson with Sir Keir Starmer and Jeffrey Epstein.

Seven Questions Lord Mandelson Ought To Answer…

In January 2009, Peter Mandelson called Jeffrey Epstein in the Palm Beach Stockade (jail) that Mr. Epstein had inhabited after pleading guilty to procuring a minor for sexual abuse. This phone conversation was reported by UK national broadcaster Channel 4 on the Dispatches programme aired in October 2019.

During the phone call, Mandelson sought Epstein’s assistance to set up a meeting with Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase & Co. The sex offender referred to Mandelson by a nickname (‘Petie’) during the conversation.

“I must say I was astonished that a British cabinet minister at that time, probably the most powerful man other than the Prime Minister, was calling Jeffrey in jail to make an appointment, to seek an appointment with a very powerful banker in New York,” a whistle-blower subsequently told Dispatches.

Accompanying an iPetition – which has been signed by nearly 2,800 people since it was posted in December 2021 – someone named Petra Malkovich asked seven questions. They were:

How can it be justified that Lord Mandelson called a convicted child abuser in jail?

In 2012, Peter Mandelson declared in a statement posted on the website of the TerraMar Project, an ostensible charity set up by Ghislaine Maxwell with financial support from Jeffrey Epstein, that he was “supporting” Ms. Maxwell’s organisation. U.S. law enforcement contend that the TerraMar Project was a fake charity slush fund for victims of Maxwell-and-Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

How can it be justified that Lord Mandelson publicly supported Ghislaine Maxwell’s alleged ‘fake charity slush fund’ for victims of sex trafficking?

On December 27^th 2005, Peter Mandelson took part in a shopping trip with Jeffrey Epstein in Saint Barthélemys (photos published by the Daily Mail on August 30^th 2019).

Peter Mandelson by this time had “known [Jeffrey Epstein] for several years, having previously once visited his Caribbean island for a holiday – when neither Epstein nor any of the girls were there,” the Daily Mail reported. Mandelson’s partner was also present for the earlier visit, according to eyewitness Cathy Alexander.

How can it be justified that Lord Mandelson socialised in person and discussed business in person with Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions [refer also to the events below]?

On a date falling after August 2006 and before June 30^th 2008, Lord Mandelson paid a social visit to Jeffrey Epstein at the sex trafficker’s mansion in Paris [see the photo above].

At some point during this rendezvous in Paris of unknown duration, Mandelson and Epstein celebrated a birthday together – seemingly Epstein’s (Epstein was born on January 20^th, which could point to the photo having been taken in either January 2007 or January 2008).

Epstein and Mandelson were joined for this birthday celebration by an as-yet-unnamed individual described in the press as an Epstein “staff member.”

How can it be justified that Lord Mandelson socialised with Jeffrey Epstein at the sex trafficker’s Paris residence after Epstein had already been charged with a sex crime (procuring a woman for prostitution)?

In March 2011, Virginia Roberts (now Virginia Giuffre) told the Mail on Sunday that Peter Mandelson had visited Jeffrey Epstein at his New York townhouse near Central Park, attending a dinner party with the sex trafficker. “I assumed they were in business together,” she recalled.

How can it be justified that Lord Mandelson socialised and/or discussed business with Jeffrey Epstein in the same building from which Mr Epstein was operating his sex trafficking, paedophilia and blackmail operation with Ghislaine Maxwell, with minors routinely sexually assaulted on the premises by Mr Epstein?

In January 2001, Peter Mandelson joined his friend Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic theatre in London, becoming an Associate Director in or before this date (Daily Telegraph, January 5 2001). Spacey had joined the board of the Old Vic Theatre Trust 2000 just a few weeks earlier, in November 2000.

In 2002, Ghislaine Maxwell, another of Mr. Spacey’s close friends, accompanied the Hollywood star on a private tour of Buckingham Palace led by Prince Andrew. Mr. Spacey was using his tenure at the Old Vic to serially sexually assault young actors – at least 20 – with most of the allegations relating to the period up to 2009.

How can it be explained that Lord Mandelson was so closely involved with Kevin Spacey and the Old Vic during the period of widespread sexual abuse concerned, yet encountered no reports of these recurring serious sexual abuse episodes involving his friend and colleague?

In or before 2013, Peter Mandelson was brought on to the board of the Alfred Herrhausen Society of Deutsche Bank, according to a July 14 2013 report in ‘Der Spiegel’ of Germany. The report identified Anshu Jain as the executive responsible for Mandelson’s appointment. Deutsche Bank executives approved Jeffrey Epstein as a client in 2013 and then kept working with him.

“[In 2013] Deutsche Bank was aggressively expanding its U.S. wealth management business under its new co-chief executive, Anshu Jain… Deutsche Bank executives ignored repeated red flags, including suspiciously large cash withdrawals and 120 wire transfers totaling $2.65 million to women with Eastern European surnames,” the New York Times reported.

Subsequently, Mr Jain “was forced to step down from the top job at Deutsche Bank after a series of regulatory mishaps.” In 2017 Mr Jain was hired by Jeffrey Epstein’s next-door-neighbour, Howard Lutnick of Cantor Fitzgerald, whose sister, Edie Lutnick, was (in common with Mandelson) a prominent self-declared supporter of Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘TerraMar Project’ charity.

How can it be explained that Lord Mandelson was closely involved at Deutsche Bank with the rogue DB executive who was financially enabling Jeffrey Epstein in the exact same period?

Will “are you OK?” and “are you really OK?” become the two defining questions of 2023 asks a very much unenthused Matthew Steeples

Blubbering bore Dr Ranj Singh is quite the opposite of the queue jumping blaggart bore Holly Willoughby; he, in fact, is far more and should go down in history as nothing but a blatant bandwagon jumping bore.

Writing for The Guardian this morning, the dippy doctor – who seems to be all too keen to join ‘the club’ frequented by the likes of Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry and Alexa Chung –  embraced self-centred, selfishness whilst on his promotional tour for his bag of bilge How to Be a Boy book and declared:

“I don’t just casually inquire: ‘Are you OK?’ I go the extra mile and ask: ‘Are you really OK?’ This simple question serves as a powerful reminder to myself to delve deeper into the wellbeing of others. It urges me to push past surface-level responses and genuinely listen, to really understand the emotions and challenges that someone may be grappling with. It compels me to embrace kindness.”

Clearly clinging to the coattails of Willoughby, who asked exactly the same tripe when returning to ITV1’s This Morning after the whole scandal of Phillip Schofield had imploded, here is a berk-not-a-boy who also moaned about his “own struggles” with “stress, anxiety and burnout.”

Going further Dr Singh bleated: “And as an adult… I may bear the scars, but I also have the skills and insight to know what to do and how to deal with it.” Perhaps this prized pillock could write that on a postcard. Perhaps also, he could then post it to Phillip Schofield.

Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

A message from our editorial team – Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus and the cost-of-living crisis impacts our advertisers.

If you haven’t already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by supporting our work via Patreon.

Matthew Steeples suggests ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ crooner Sir Elton John should stick to tinkling on the ivories and shut-up about the liar and deceiver Phillip Schofield

One can always rely on the land of olive oil loving Sir Elton John and his titleless ‘Call Me Lady John’ hubby David Furnish to stick his oar in and to do just so when he’s about to say “Goodbye!” (until the next time he desires a top-up on the wonga-wonga front) is indeed highly predictable.

This time, prior to bashing out a few of his tunes – and don’t get me wrong, I do think he’s exceptionally good at that – at Glastonbury, the Tiny Dancer hitmaker has gone all Cliff Richard. This time, he’s to be found whining about the treatment of the confirmed liar and deceiver of both his former employers and his own family, the pugnacious queue jumper Phillip Schofield.

Before heading off to “tinkle on the ivories” in a muddy field in Somerset, Sir Elton – who also, it seems, has yet to have headed off on a private jet for an annual moan-athon about the meddling media at his “art riddled” £15 million ‘Yellow Palace’ near Nice with the mendacious meddler formerly known as Meghan Markle down – has shared his thoughts on the ‘Mr X’ scandal at ITV1’s This Morning and raged to the Radio Times:

“I feel that the Phillip Schofield thing has been totally homophobic. If it was a straight guy in a fling with a young woman, it wouldn’t even make the papers.”

Sir Elton is, of course, wrong; the scandal of ‘Schofegate’ is not about homophobia, but instead, in fact, about a liar and a deceiver who decided to tell blatant porky pies to his bosses about his relationship with a young chap he first met when that young chap was aged somewhere between 10 and 15 years old (depending on which sources you believe).

This, also, is a scandal about a self-declared “veteran” tellybox host who also conducted a sexual relationship with that youngster in the very dressing rooms on ITV’s premises and continued thereafter to tell porky pies about such until he was finally about to be exposed. If anyone else – straight, gay or there otherwise – had done such in their workplace, they’d quite rightly be fired. Today, bandwagon jumping media hater Sir Elton and his soppy sidekick David Furnish might do well to be reminded of just that.

Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

A message from our editorial team – Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus and the cost-of-living crisis impacts our advertisers.

If you haven’t already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by supporting our work via Patreon.

That the policeman turned peer Lord Paddick is moaning about “working conditions” in the £342 per day allowance paid House of Lords is laughable and ludicrous suggests Matthew Steeples

A minute, it seems, in the age of social media, is now a long time in politics and this morning with news that – if he’d not quit before he’d gotten pushed – Boris Johnson would have been chucked out of the House of Commons for 90 days for his lies comes proof that too many were fooled by this charlatan for far too long.

Yesterday, however, elsewhere on Twitter, another politician proved himself utterly ludicrous when he whined and whinged about his working hours being too long. In spite of being able to access a daily allowance rate of an astonishing £342 per day for sitting from 11am only, former policeman turned prattling pillock Lord Paddick moaned:

“Last night I got home from @UKHouseofLords 4 hours earlier than the night before…10:30pm instead of 2:30am. 11am start today, predicted 10pm finish, plus all the preparation time. I’m 65, many colleagues are older. This is unsustainable. So tired.”

The openly gay Liberal Democrat and one-time I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! contestant then added:

“My point is, you cannot expect to have proper scrutiny of the government under such circumstances.”

Showing himself as completely out-of-touch with a public living with the catastrophic calamity of the cost-of-living crisis, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service between 2003 and 2007 was met with deserved public outrage.

Of a Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London who saw his share of the vote slip from 9.8% when he first stood in 2008 to just 4.2% when he stood for a second time in 2012, the former Tory minister Steve Norris observed: “You were happy enough to take the peerage, Brian. Bit rich to start complaining about the workload when you’re only in your mid-60s. You could retire, but of course you’d keep the title.”

Others, going further added: “Cry me a river!” whilst one, going by the name Jay, raged of a man known for somewhat curious views on narcotics: “Is on he on drugs or something?” Clearly illustrating that Lord Paddick – whom took a fee of sum unknown from The Mail on Sunday in February 2023 and also recently declared a contact with the “Are you OK?” folk at ITV Studios – has made an utter berk of himself, another, Russell Hart, pointedly added: “If you haven’t got the mental and physical capacity, maybe you shouldn’t be sitting in a law setting chamber.”

Turning back to the equally work-shy Boris Johnson being quite rightly condemned and being made out as a ludicrous liar and a disgraceful deceiver akin to Phillip Schofield, on the BBC News channel this morning, respected journalist Sir Max Hastings – a onetime supporter turned now dedicated critic of the former Prime Minister – declared:

“What has happened to Boris Johnson is a result of his own conduct… The ‘Trump defence’ or the ‘Berlusconi defence’… I called him ‘morally bankrupt’ in The Times the other day.”

“I think it is a moment of truth for the Conservative party and the British people? Do we want to go the Trump route, the Berlusconi route, where we’re guided by celebrity culture?”

“I think it is vital for the future of the Conservative party and the British public that we say that: ‘The truth matters’… I don’t hate Boris Johnson, he is what he has always been, the dog who does what he does to the British lamppost.”

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

A message from our editorial team – Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus and the cost-of-living crisis impacts our advertisers.

If you haven’t already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by supporting our work via Patreon.

Twitter reacts to Brian Paddick’s ludicrous and laughable tweet…

Matthew Steeples argues that the acid tongued Aussie Amanda Platell should put a sock in it and apologise for her disgraceful attack on the lovely lady that is Amanda Holden

Acid tongued Aussie harpy Amanda Platell once described Twitter trolls as “evil” in spite of herself repeatedly referencing her thankfully now croaked paedophile chum Rolf Harris as a “dear friend” and a “kind and generous man.”

Beyond evil Harris’s victims – amongst them children as young as just 7-years-old at the time he raped and abused them – most certainly would not agree with that, but as is typical for pugnacious Platell, this warbling wack job had to weigh in on the matter of the sordid Phillip Schofield scandal; a scandal that involves a “boy” the now disgraced 63-year-old telly box twerp met when he was somewhere in the range of just 10 to 15 years old.

In launching a completely uncalled for attack on the lovely lady that is Amanda Holden, always angry Platell – who nastily declared that “the real gay marriage bigots are its intolerant supporters” in the Daily Mail in March 2014 and blubbed that creepy Christian crooner Sir Cliff Richard didn’t “deserve [a] lurid trial by television” in August that year – has today shown herself again as totally out of touch. In her thankfully only once weekly column, this tyrannical tripe teller raged:

“Only someone with a very cold heart could have made such fun of Holly Willoughby when she appeared on the ITV sofa on Monday.”

“Solo, without Phillip Schofield, her This Morning co-host since 2009, Holly began by asking: ‘Firstly, are you OK?’ Clearly she wasn’t, as her normally smiling face was frozen with fear. After the departure of her friend and colleague Schofield, she had been left to carry the can.”

“Then up popped Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden, also a famous fabulously rich TV presenter, brutally mocking her.”

“Talk about sisterly compassion. Holden took to Instagram, put on a white outfit mimicking Holly’s frock on the show and, in an awful parody, smirkingly asked: ‘Firstly, are you OK?’ and then repeated the phrase on her radio show Heart FM.”

“Which just leaves you thinking, why would you want to kick a good woman when she’s down?”

“Holden’s behaviour was disgraceful. She’s a professional hard-working mum just like Holly. Surely there might have been a scintilla of feeling in her heart. Doesn’t appear so.”

“Your actions and words on social media tell a different truth — and it’s about someone who’s frankly quite nasty.”

“She deserved sympathy, not humiliation by Holden. It’s no coincidence Amanda resembles actress Rachel McAdams… who played gleefully vicious Regina in hit movie Mean Girls.”

Poisonous pen Platell – whose many other ‘historic offences’ include having claimed that the grubby groper and now ex-MP Charlie Elphicke was being subjected to “blatant injustice” after his “step too far” conviction in September 2020 for sexual offences – is the only one who has repeatedly acted disgracefully. It is time for Lord Rothermere to act; it is time for Lord Rothermere and DMGT to sack the vilest villain. That villain? Amanda Platell.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

Artist parades work depicting Prince Harry in Jonathan Aitken “sword of truth and shield of justice” type fashion as the rabid ranting royal arrives at the High Court in London reports Matthew Steeples

Pugnacious pillock Prince Harry’s arrival at the High Court in London this morning was not without incident. After successfully managing to avoid a “near catastrophic” car crash, but unsurprisingly not managing to hit speeds of 80-miles-per-hour-plus in his rather ritzy Range Rover as it trundled slowly through the city’s traffic either, the Duke of Sussex found himself confronted by tonnes of ‘paps’ and just a trickle of ‘fans’ outside the building’s entrance.

Also joining the merry ‘throng’ he so loves to hate, an elderly gentleman paraded up and down with a canvas. It was presumably painted by his very own fair hand and featured the mendacious menace formerly known as Meghan Markle depicted as a woman in a wedding dress on a donkey. Accompanying this total ‘ass’ in an image that wouldn’t look out of place for sale on the railings of Green Park on a soggy Sunday, hapless hubby was shown shoeless, in a loin cloth and wielding a spear.

Whether the ‘artist’ intended the weapon included to reinterpret King Charles III’s second son’s Jonathan Aitken-style “sword of truth and shield of justice” battle with The Guardian from back in 1995 is unknown, but it certainly did the job of portraying a royal headed into battle.

As the aforementioned OAP went back and forth, the snappers snapped and the Twitterati went wild. One social media user, observing of the spectacle, remarked in Line of Duty style: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey!” Another added: “I think it’s fair to say this man and his Mary and Joseph canvas are upstaging the Prince Harry trial!”

Supporters of the magic mushroom, cocaine and booze loving renegade royal, however, took great umbrage at the jovial jester outside the court house. One especially delusional example – supposedly called ‘Maya’ and tweeting under the handle @franzicake – raged: “Surely this is causing civil arrest? Arrest [the artist] like the police did with the anti-King Charles III placard holders. #PrinceHarry #CharlesTheCruel #racistroyalfamily #WeStandWithPrinceHarry.”

In court itself, aside from whinging and whining, very predictably, ‘HazBeen’ – who was at one point told to “speak up” by Mr Justice Fancourt – answered any question he didn’t like with a standard: “You’d have to ask the journalists.”

Goodness knows what is to follow from this pathetic pillock but whatever he says will only reveal that this donkey-like dickhead has yet to realise that, like Jesus, when you’re in search of a manger, it’s best not to upset the hostelry host. It is indeed time now that Prince William’s brother piped down instead of playing up. It is indeed time also that he instead put his donkey out to pasture; it is indeed time as well that his marauding maniac wife did the same. Enough simply is enough; Prince Harry has today already failed with the court of public opinion; we can only now hope the court of Mr Justice Fancourt will deem just the same.

For those wishing to follow developments in the case of HRH Duke of Sussex v Mirror Group Newspapers Limited, The Guardian’s Jim Waterson is serving-up a ‘live’ commentary from inside the court. Whilst cameras are not present, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a fly on the wall as the blubbing bore Prince Harry spills his guts and finally gets the grilling he so deserves?

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

The Most Gingery Bits… Parts of the 49-page witness statement to the court from the Duke of Sussex:

“You start off as a blank canvas while they work out what kind of person you are and what kind of problems and temptations you might have. They then start to edge you towards playing the role or roles that suit them best and which sells as many newspapers as possible, especially if you are the ‘spare’ to the ‘heir’. You’re then either the ‘playboy prince’, the ‘failure’, the ‘drop out’ or, in my case, the ‘thicko,’ the ‘cheat,’ the ‘underage drinker,’ the ‘irresponsible drug taker,’ the list goes on.”

“As a teenager and in my early twenties, I ended up feeling as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes that they wanted to pin on me mainly because I thought that, if they are printing this rubbish about me and people were believing it, I may as well ‘do the crime’, so to speak. It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a ‘damaged’ young man, into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers. Looking back on it now, such behaviour on their part is utterly vile.

“I always felt as if the tabloids wanted me to be single, as I was much more interesting to them and sold more newspapers.”

“The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages (in the same way as they have me) and then having given her a ‘nightmare time’ three months prior to her death in Paris, makes me feel physically sick and even more determined to hold those responsible, including Mr Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behaviour.”

“Unfortunately, as a consequence of me bringing my Mirror Group claim, both myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan, who was the Editor of the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004, presumably in retaliation and in the hope that I will back down, before being able to hold him properly accountable for his unlawful activity towards both me and my mother during his editorship.”

“I had just turned 20, and like most 20 year-olds, I wanted to go out and socialise. However, everywhere I went, the paparazzi seemed to turn up even though efforts were always being made to conceal where I was going.”

“I had to walk out, hold my head high and just try to push past and get in the car. On rare occasions I even hid in the boot…”

“The paparazzi had me surrounded, their arms in my face. They don’t take photographs like you’d expect, it’s just their arms stretched out pushing a button, taking hundreds of photographs all at once with the flash in your face. I couldn’t even see where I was going. As I reached the car, I could hear taunting, I was being egged on for a reaction, knowing I’d been out and had a few drinks. A camera hit me across my nose as I was opening the door, I turned, grabbed the nearest camera to me and shoved it backwards.”

“I always wondered, when walking into a room of unknown people, whether they had read all these stories and what judgment they had already formed based on what they’d read in the tabloids Whatever advantage people claimed I had by walking into a room as ‘Prince Harry’ was immediately flipped on its head, because I was facing judgments and opinions based on what had been reported about me, true or not. I expected people to be thinking ‘he’s obviously going to fail this test, because he’s a thicko.’”

“Having seen me grow up from a baby (being born into this ‘contractual relationship’ without any choice) and scrutinised my every move, the tabloids have known the challenges and mental health struggles that I have had to deal with throughout my childhood and adult life and for them to then play on that and use it to their own advantage, I think is, well, criminal.”

“I have never been the named account holder for any mobile that I have had and have almost never received a phone bill.”

“I remember on multiple occasions hearing a voicemail for the first time that wasn’t ‘new,’ but I don’t remember thinking that it was particularly unusual – I would simply put it down to perhaps a technical glitch, as mobile phones were still relatively new back then, or even just having too many drinks the night before (and having forgotten that I’d listened to it).”

Twitter reacts…

On International Missing Children’s Day 2023, Matthew Steeples reminds readers of missing children whose cases aren’t getting the disproportionate resources misallocated to that of the search for Madeleine McCann

Today is International Missing Children’s Day and though I don’t generally have time for days-for-this-and-days-for-that – for God’s sake, there’s even a World Tripe Day, an International Carrot Day and a World Toilet Day – given The Steeple Times’ support of the families of several missing youngsters, we once again highlight their stories.

At a time when Metropolitan Police officers have been sent to ‘observe’ yet another search of a reservoir in Portugal by Portuguese officers at the behest of German authorities that was last scoured in 2008 in the pointless £14 million already wasted Madeleine McCann case, the public ought today be reminded that there are many other cases that could actually be solved that utterly disgracefully get little-to-no assistance.

Having moved from supporting a ‘charity’ in the mid 2000s named Parents & Abducted Children Together (PACT) that I later discovered allocated more of its resources to the pay of its founder, the then Lady Meyer, than to searching for vanished children, I came into contact with others who’ve tirelessly searched for their lost children and brothers and sisters. They did so without seeking fame and fortune; they did so out of genuine care and dedication to discovering truth.

Today, if you have time take a moment to find a way to support those out there who go missing each year. In February this year, iNews reported that “170,000 people are reported missing ever year” and that “there are 353,000 reported missing incidents every year.” Of these, “nearly 215,000 are children.” It’s not just Madeleine McCann who remains ‘missing;’ there are hundreds of thousands of others.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

Pictured Top (left to right) – Missing without trace for far too long and leaving families lacking closure; Luke Durbin, Ben Needham and Martin Allen.

Martin Allen (born 19^th October 1964)

Martin Allen disappeared in London on 5^th November 1979 aged just 15 and though his brother, Kevin Allen, tirelessly campaigns keeps the case in the public eye as much as he can, he disgracefully gets little to no help from the Metropolitan Police.

The son of a chauffeur to the Australian High Commissioner and a resident in a cottage in the grounds of the Australian High Commission in Kensington, London, grammar school educated Allen was last seen heading towards the Piccadilly line platform at King’s Cross station. In spite of various suggestions leading nowhere and the case being closed in the 1980s and a detective telling the Allen family “that there were ‘high-up people involved’ and that they should stop talking and ‘not take it further because someone will get hurt,’” the investigation was reopened in 2009. Evidence deemed lost was ‘rediscovered’ even in 2015 and in 2016, the paedophile gang leader Sidney Cooke was questioned under Operation Malswick.

Martin Allen has now been missing for 43 years, 6 months and 19 days. His parents are both now deceased and sadly still to this day, his remaining family still await to discover the truth.

Luke Durbin (born 4^th December 1986)

Luke Durbin from Hollesley, near Woodbridge, Suffolk went missing aged just 19 after a night out with friends in Ipswich. After after being unable to afford to pay for a taxi home at about 4am, this grocery store worker was last seen on CCTV wandering around the town centre in the early hours of the 12^th May 2006.

Durbin had left his new motorbike and personal belongings, including his mobile telephone, at his friend’s house and no trace of him has ever been found since. A silver or white Volvo 440 – possibly registration M206 LYE (which was “either registered to a false name and address or on false plates” according to the ‘Missing The Missing’ YouTube channel) – seen also on camera in the close vicinity of Durbin’s last location at the time of his last sighting has never been eliminated from enquiries. Suffolk Police have stated that they “sadly believe Luke was unlawfully killed,” and though a £20,000 reward was offered and multiple arrests made, no progress has been made in solving this disappearance.

In subsequent years, Luke Durbin’s mother, Nicki Durbin, has tirelessly continued her efforts to find her son and taken a job working on the Missing People helpline to help others in similar situations. She also operates a Twitter account and an email address [email protected] highlighting the case and keeps alive the hope of one day solving what the Ipswich Star terms: “One of Suffolk’s most enduring mysteries.”

Ben Needham (born 29^th October 1989)

Since her then twenty-one-month year old son Ben Needham went missing on the Greek Island of Kos on 24^th July 1991, Kerry Grist-Needham has tirelessly campaigned to try and find him. Unlike with other cases, little help has been given by the authorities or charities.

Born in Boston, Lincolnshire, Ben Needham was, at the time, staying with his maternal grandparents at their home in the village of Iraklis, near Kos town and though there have been hundreds of sightings of boys matching his description on various Greek islands, he has never been found.

Missing now for 31 years, 9 months and 12 days, searches by South Yorkshire Police occurred in 2012 and 2016, but sadly did not result in the discovery of any substantive evidence.

Matthew Steeples suggests after yesterday’s E. Jean Carroll verdict confirmed ‘The Donald’ Trump as a sexual predator, it is time for the 45^th POTUS to explain the true links between himself, his wife and Jeffrey Epstein

“I have one of the great memories of all time” once claimed sexual predator President Donald Trump.

In due course, illustrating this to be akin to the “fake news” he so often has raged about, the one-time property tycoon stated: “I don’t know Prince Andrew” in spite of being photographed with him – with amongst others fellow sexual predators Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell – in 2000 and 2019. He had also previously observed of King Charles III’s younger brother: “He’s not pretentious. He’s a lot of fun to be with.”

The 45^th POTUS – whose Slovenian born wife Melania Knauss allegedly met the since croaked Ponzi scheming paedophile Epstein before she met her current hubby – shockingly yesterday became the first American president ever to be convicted of sexual abuse.

Turning to Epstein – on whose ‘Lolita Express’ Trump flew on at least once occasion and whose name featured in the infamous ‘Little Black Book’ – the Mar-a-Lago, Florida based 76-year-old contradicted himself in 2019 in claiming: “I’m not a fan.” He had previously enthused: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy.” Going further, using the exact same words he’d said of Prince Andrew, he then added: He’s a lot of fun to be with” and creepily crowed: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Now forced to pay his victim, a former Elle columnist and registered Democrat named E. Jean Carroll, damages of £4 million ($5 million, €4.6 million or درهم18.4 million) after he was found guilty of sexually abusing her in the New York department store Bergdorf Goodman, ‘The Donald,’ as could only be expected of someone completely off his not-so-merry rocker, came out fighting. “The verdict is a disgrace; a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time; absolutely a shame,” the clearly deranged lunatic raged.

The wannabe 47^th POTUS then returned to type and remarked, in a similar fashion that he did of both the Duke of York and Jeffrey Epstein previously, “I have absolutely no idea who this woman is.”

Now, as he faces yet more sexual misconduct allegations, glowing orange faced Trump – a man accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, including non-consensual kissing or groping, by at least 25 women since the 1970s – should finally tell the truth about how close he truly was to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and also answer as to whether Melania Knauss was trafficked by them. Sadly, Donald Trump being Donald Trump, of course that’ll likely never happen.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

Pictured Top – Sexual abuser Donald Trump, potentially sex trafficked Melania Trump, sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein and sexual abuser Ghislaine Maxwell looking to be very much enjoying one another’s company.

Donald Trump’s many, many jolly encounters with his supposed ‘never a friend’ Jeffrey Epstein in pictures…

Twitter reacts to Matthew Steeples’ poll about what will follow next…