‘Private Eye’ called out for publishing classified adverts from wacko wannabe “Village Elders” with a penchant for “amusing kids” and an actual crackpot crazy who tried and failed to kidnap Princess Anne in London in 1974
The latest edition of Private Eye contains an especially creepy classified advertisement. A link to it was sent to us by an especially beady eyed reader. It states:
Couple (60s) seek position as Village Elders in a community. Skills include knitting, martial arts, book-keeping, business advice, vegetable growing and amusing the kids. Any location worldwide but must speak English. No remuneration needed. Text 07486 434079 for more details.
Aside from the Jimmy Savile-esque vibes that the throwaway inclusion of “amusing kids” gives off, the fact that two sixty somethings of sex undefined want to move utterly anywhere for utterly no payment seems a little beyond weird. Whilst calls and texts from The Steeple Times to the number for the knitting and martial arts lovers listed were not answered, what’s the betting on these wannabe “Village Elders” being successful in their quest for their wacko wants? We wouldn’t go below 999/1.
The advert posted by the wannabe “Village Elders” that will likely not result in them achieving the placement they desire.
Elsewhere in the same magazine’s classified section is an advert placed by another oddity named Ian Ball. It doesn’t exactly share a great deal of detail, but simply offers:
‘To Kidnap a Princess’ by Ian Ball noveltokidnapaprincess.co.uk
For the majority whom unsurprisingly don’t immediately recognise this somewhat ordinary sounding name, this is the very same Ian Ball who attempted to kidnap Princess Anne on 20th March 1974 on Pall Mall in London, but who only succeeded in injuring a number of bystanders with a series of shots. Ball failed in his attempt – which was later bizarrely ‘justified’ as a “publicity stunt” and an attempt to raise £2 million from a ransom that he claimed he intended to give to the NHS – and subsequently pleaded guilty to attempted murder and kidnapping. John Hazan QC, defending, claimed his client was “mad” and had been “led by a voice of either his late father or God.”
Top: The attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne in March 1974, as reconstructed in the 2006 ITV drama ‘To Kidnap A Princess’. Bottom: Failed kidnapper Ian Ball snapped arriving for his trial and the Rolls-Royce in which Princess Anne travelled on the night of the attempt to abduct her.The advert promoting Ian Ball’s book.
Ball – who also goes by the pseudonym ‘Anthony Stewart’ – was subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia and detained in mental hospitals for 45 years until his release in 2019. In August 2025, he laughably claimed the late Queen Elizabeth II had been the “ringleader” of a plot that led to him being wrongfully jailed and told the Daily Mail: “I’m an innocent, sane man… The whole idea of performing the hoax was to get the publicity so I could write my autobiography and I expected to get £10,000 in royalties.”
Going further, on the website linked to from the online version of the weekly magazine, most certainly beyond bonkers Ball rages whilst promoting his tall tale tome To Kidnap a Princess:
“The author spent 45 years locked up in Rampton and Broadmoor criminal lunatic asylums, after being convicted of the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne.”
“Throughout his stay in the asylums he was in constant conflict with the psychopathic screws and criminal doctors.”
“The abuse resulting from the conflict was born with a remarkable stoicism and with an astonishing positive attitude. Such resilience was due, mainly, to the author’s efforts in applying his hilariously unique and wry sense of humour to the situation.”
“Although the authorities did everything to try and break his spirit, the author remains unbowed and eventually prevails.”
In light of the highlighting of these two clearly crackpot advertisements, perhaps Private Eye might henceforth implement a better procedure to vet those taking space in their classifieds. Paraphrasing what Princess Anne is said to have exclaimed on being ordered out of her chauffeur driven Rolls-Royce by her wannabe kidnapper Ian Ball that dark night in March 1974, the chances of such are probably to be found in the land of “not bloody likely!”
A Belgian born butler to the bastion of business Lord Bernstein – chief of Granada Television – was brutally murdered in a mansion in Wilton Crescent, Belgravia, London just before Christmas in 1970.
The closeted victim, Julian Sessé, was savagely slayed with a knife and a meat cleaver by a much younger bisexual gigolo, Mustapha Bassiane.
Bassiane subsequently fled to Morocco and then got snared when he audaciously returned to Europe in 1972; he was sentenced to life in prison in 1973 and deported back to his homeland 11 years later.
The ‘Scotland Yard Uncensored’ podcast recently covered this little known case, but failed to mention the strange fact that The National Archives have records on the case closed until January 2071; who is actually being protected here and why?
London’s Belgravia is renowned for its associations with power and privilege and as some might say, where there’s money there’s quite often muck, meddling, murkiness and murder.
Whilst the infamous 7th November 1974 murder of Sandra Rivett – the nanny to the children of Lord and Lady Lucan – at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, SW1 has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons, a sadistic slaying four years earlier on 19th December 1970 at another ritzy residence nearby is one that has been largely forgotten.
The victim in the particular case in question, it was noted in a recent Scotland Yard Confidential podcast by John Hopkins, was “a kind and generous man in life,” but one who was “shamed and shunned after his own brutal murder.” In this day and age, such a clear cancellation would quite rightly be called out as an utter outrage and especially at a time when the Metropolitan Police are so deservedly under fire for their appalling levels of misconduct.
On the tragic Saturday night in question in 1970 and just before London revelled in the arrival of a ‘White Christmas’ just six days later, 64-year-old Belgian butler Julian Louis George Sessé was senselessly beaten and brutally murdered with a kitchen knife and meat cleaver. Here was a crime that involved a butler to the rich and famous, but a crime also that was quite the opposite of those crimes orchestrated by the notorious ‘Killer Butler’ Archibald Hall. For those yet to know of him, Hall – who was also known as the ‘Monster Butler’ – mercilessly robbed and murdered in the same part of Belgravia later in the 1970s. Perhaps there could be something in the water of that part of SW1…
Unlike self-serving monster Hall, “dedicated” Sessé had worked at a 5-bedroomed mansion at 32 Wilton Crescent, just off Belgrave Square “for decades.” His end was to come that snowy evening when he was mercilessly slaughtered sometime after 11pm in a basement grace and favour flat that he occupied in the home of his very well-known employer Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein – the buccaneering bastion businessman and chairman of the Granada Group and Granada Television.
Described as “tall and distinguished” and always “neatly dressed in pinstriped trousers and black jackets,” neighbours argued this particular butler to be “the perfect servant.” Grey haired Sessé was lauded by the owner of the nearest ale house to 32 Wilton Crescent, The Grenadier, as “a quiet and respectable customer.” Here, indeed, was an example of someone who would not wanted to have brought any “shame or stigma” upon his master and mistress.
Alone that night in the vast and imposing 32 Wilton Crescent mansion whilst Lord and Lady Bernstein were away on holiday in the West Indies and with other staff having been given a “leave of absence,” homosexual Sessé most unfortunately decided to take advantage of something akin to “whilst the cat’s away, the butler might play.” He invited a “drifter-like” 26-year-old unemployed Moroccan nurse named Mustapha Bassaine to ‘visit’ his “cosy apartment” and clearly anticipated a night of fun and frollicks. The two clearly closeted – but for very different reasons – men had met prior and money had previously been exchanged for ‘companionship’ and sexual activities, it was later noted.
That night’s ‘pairing’ represented anything but a ‘relationship’ of equals and was one instead where the elder man expected intimacy with the former whilst the younger believed he could rinse the latter of as much money as possible. Given “pock marked” faced Bassaine was a dastardly deviant and diminutive desperado who’d been out drinking with his girlfriend prior, it was to be a meeting that was never going to end well.
Sessé was said to have been of the view that “money that exchanged hands be called a ‘gift,’” but was similarly described as not being under any delusions about what he gained from the “clandestine” encounters he had with various young men. He was a man with ‘friends’ with similar attractions, but in the wake of his death, his family and most associates clammed up and denied knowledge of such preferences. As loyal as the butler, relative and friend had been, it seemed that that was sadly never repaid by those he should have been able to have expected to have remained closest to him.
After a delivery driver and a part-time cleaner failed to find signs of life and several days of out-of-date newspapers on the doorstep of 32 Wilton Crescent on Monday 21st December, the latter called Lord Bernstein’s secretary, a 24-year-old named Miss Hazelwood. She then opened up the property and discovered a scene that Hopkins described as having “shocked her to the core” in the basement. Naturally scared witless, the secretary dialled 999 and the police process began.
Blood was said to spattered everywhere. It was all over the living room and all over the kitchen, but it was in a bathroom – most bizarrely locked from the outside – that the body of Julian Sessé was discovered draped in an equally bloody bath towel. The poor unfortunate’s throat had been cut and aside from multiple stab wounds to his head and chest, his stomach had been slashed open. A knife and a meat cleaver were bizarrely located by officers in the bowl of a latrine and given the “high profile” of the house owner, the case was “quickly passed to Scotland Yard.” Scandal, after all, would be something that the likes of Lord and Lady Bernstein obviously would rather avoid.
Detective Superintendent John ‘Ginger’ Hensley – who had previously been involved in the investigation of the vicious 1966 Shepherd’s Bush policemen murders by Harry Roberts – took the case and the next item to be found just happened to be the bloodstained trousers of the man presumed to be the killer in a washing machine. They were clearly not the trousers of the much larger Sessé and with a wardrobe in his bedroom ajar, it was thus determined the murderer likely fled in a pair belonging to his victim.
Evidence of foul play was everywhere and no attempt had been made to clean up. It was noted by Hopkins that it “all seemed wild and confused” and with no sign of forced entry and letters that indicated Sessé’s ‘activities’ with other gay men including paying for sex, Hensley is said to have immediately surmised it a “crime of passion” rather than a simpler robbery gone wrong.
Shortly thereafter, a pathologist determined that Sessé had partaken in sexual intercourse not long prior to his demise and found the cause of his death to be shock and loss of blood following a frenzied attack with both the knife and the meat cleaver. His demise would have not been instant and wounds to the body suggested that this was a man whom most definitely courageously fought back.
As police inquiries proceeded, few friends and associates were willing to divulge information. This, after all, was an era where to be seen to be gay was still the ultimate taboo. Though one local vaguely cited a “foreign looking man” having been seen outside the house at the time of the murder most horrid, all leads had alibis and even Sessé’s very own family made it clear that they knew nothing of his sexuality. The family went as far as to add that that they simply “did not want to know.”
Given these factors, here was a case that initially seemed headed to join a long list of unsolved murders, but a breakthrough came just days later on Wednesday 23rd December. On that date, police were contacted by an Irish waitress named Jean Fitzgerald from her home in Anson Road, Tufnell Park after she’d “spent days and nights wondering about the case.” The 22-year-old claimed to have met Sessé through her bisexual boyfriend and stated thatmhe had arranged to go to meet the butler at 32 Wilton Crescent after the couple had been for drinks in the West End late on the fateful night in question.
Allegedly, Bassaine had told his girlfriend that he would “visit Sessé to try and get some money off him.” She admitted to police she was “not a fan of her partner’s activities with other men,” but “understood that he usually got well paid for his ‘services.’” Hopkins went further and surmised that this “somewhat timid woman, but one with fire in her eyes” had an excuse for overlooking the ‘activities.’ That excuse was: “Besides, we always needed money.”
During questioning, Fitzgerald stated that she had gone home after being in the West End alone late on 19th December as Bassaine had left her to head over to Belgravia at around 11pm. She further shared:
“We paid the rent on the apartment between the two of us. He got money in another way when he was unemployed. Sometimes he gave me money but I don’t know where he got it from. He said something about going out with ‘faggots,’ having drinks with them, and getting money from them. He showed me a picture of Mr Sessé and told me that the butler often gave him money.”
Bassiane did not return home that night, but instead called Fitzgerald the next afternoon. He asked her to come to Sessé’s apartment, but she declined. Of why, she subsequently reminisced:
“I thought it was very strange that he wanted me to go there. He wanted me to go for a drink [at 32 Wilton Crescent] and he got mad when I said no. I was afraid of Mustapha Bassaine because he was very depraved at times and I was afraid that he would beat me like he had done before.”
After his girlfriend’s refusal to attend, Bassiane himself returned to Anson Road drunk and cried as he told Fitzgerald that he had argued with his ‘friend.’ She noted that he was wearing clothes he had not worn before – including trousers and a jumper that were “too large for him” – and “assumed they belonged to Sessé.” Going further, aside from noting her boyfriend’s shoes were stained with blood and that he had scratches on his hands, she suggested that she was so scared of Bassiane’s mental state that she was fearful to go to bed. Instead, she sat up all night with him, she continued.
“He arrived with a bag full of drinks and fruit and showed me a watch, a camera and a ring that he told me were Christmas gifts that Julian had given him. On 22nd December, he threw some clothes and some papers in the trash and told me that he had to go to Morocco immediately because his mother was sick. He bought an air ticket and went by plane. He had no difficulty paying for the ticket in cash even though he had no money when he went to Julian’s house over the weekend.”
Despite being supposedly penniless and potless only a couple of days earlier, Mustapha Bassaine flew to Casablanca on 23rd December after having paid the then not insubstantial sum of £44 in cash for a one-way ticket. He also exchanged a further £50 in cash for Moroccan Dirhams and after giving Jean Fitzgerald his Moroccan familial address, requested she send any newspaper cuttings that mentioned his name there. Allegedly, according to the Irish waitress, he also mentioned having seen newspaper reports about the murder at 32 Wilton Crescent and added “he couldn’t understand how anyone could have done such a thing to a man as nice as Julian.”
Though police officers questioned whether Fitzgerald could just be another ‘spurned girlfriend,’ some of the details mentioned made Hensley take her more seriously than the many cranks who call in when crime occurs. A search of bins in the neighbourhood followed and resulted in the aforementioned bloodstained shoes and trousers being found.
Justifiably, Bassiane – who turned out to be the son of a high ranking official in the Moroccan Foreign Office – was either a man too stupid to dispose of the items of his crime or he was someone who had a plan and didn’t think he needed to be bothered about the consequences of the DNA on them. Meanwhile, fingerprints found in the couple’s Anson Road flat matched fingerprints found at 32 Wilton Crescent and thus here was a man who rose straight to number one on the list of suspects.
Ten days after the murder, police issued an international warrant being for Musapha Bassiane’s arrest, but there was a major problem for Scotland Yard as Britain had no extradition treaty with Morocco. It seemed, given the key suspect had already ‘flown the nest,’ as long as he stayed in his homeland, Bassiane was a safe fugitive from justice. This was a situation similar to that involving the billionaire playboy Farouk Abdulhak in the more recent 2008 ‘Murder in Mayfair’ of Martine Vik Magnussen; getting someone back from a country like Morocco then or Yemen now is, in fact, nigh on impossible.
In addition, in case Fitzgerald had either got it wrong about where her errant bisexual lover was travelling to, or was instead covering for him, a police watch was put on her Anson Road flat in case he decided to return. Of course, aware that this young Irish girl was of no further use to him, the grubby, grifter never, ever did revisit that address but found himself safely hidden away in his homeland.
Meanwhile, with their holidays over, Lord and Lady Bernstein returned from their tour of the West Indies – where they had visited either Barbados or Bermuda or perhaps even both (depending on which reports you believe) – shortly after Christmas. Funeral arrangements were made for Julian Sessé, but only a small number of people were said to have attended a service at St Mary’s Catholic church in Cadogan Street, Chelsea. The deceased’s place of burial remains presently unknown, but it is said that his clearly embarrassed family “refused” to attend the service in what can only be perceived as move most spineless.
Separately, on returning to 32 Wilton Crescent, though Lady Bernstein identified that a sum of £80 was missing from the desk in her bedroom, a search of the house discovered that no further familial property had been stolen. By now, however, it seemed that the aforementioned watch, camera and ring and perhaps further money taken by Bassiane to the Anson Road apartment had actually been stolen instead from his victim.
In spite of all of this relevant new information, the judicial process was opened and postponed no less than eight times. According to the person in charge of the criminal investigation, a Mr Gavin Ilurston, “the investigations were not finished.” The reasoning for such is definitely something worthy of question still to this day.
Hensley, however, knew exactly where Bassiane was in Morocco and “through Interpol asked other the police of all European countries in Europe countries to be prepared” in case the suspected killer appeared. Eighteen months later, he got again lucky when he and his colleague Detective Sergeant Bernard Davis were informed that the on-the-run deadbeat was planning a trip to Germany and the Netherlands.
“Handlebar moustached” dimwit Bassaine was arrested on 28th June 1972 after police in Holland detained him for immigration offences in Rotterdam. Given the fugitive from justice had been on Interpol’s list as wanted for murder, if he’d simply stayed in Morocco, he would not have ever been caught, but here instead was a feckless fool clearly beyond arrogant who thought himself above the law.
By 10th July 1972, with extradition paperwork complete, Mustapha Bassiane was transferred to the custody of Davis and shackled to him and flown to London. A flight attendant, Hopkins in the conclusions of his podcast shared, requested the shackles be removed for the duration of the journey, but Davis was most definitely not going to allow any opportunity his captive to escape for a second time. The unshackling was rejected and once in London, it was straight off to a remand prison until trial for the man suspected of the murder of Julian Sessé.
On 8th February 1973, Bassiane’s trial began at London’s ‘Old Bailey’ Central Criminal Court. Akin to form, he pleaded not guilty and though admitting to having spent the evening with Sessé, argued that “the butler was in fine health when he left on the Sunday morning.”
Turning the cards on his by then ex-lover Fitzgerald, Bassiane told the court that she “flew into a wild jealous rage” and threatened to “harm the old man and hurt the old bastard… She threatened to smash his face.” He added that “the same day Jean Fitzgerald had gone out and he had not seen her until the afternoon. She was shaking and had told him she was sick.” His basic and somewhat bizarre line of defence – given the substantive forensic evidence against his own person – was that it was her and not him that had committed the ‘crime passionnel.’
Unsurprisingly, the jury did not believe this “fierce tempered” killer and Mustapha Bassiane found himself sentenced to life in prison on 12th February 1973. He also received a concurrent sentence of two years for stealing £80 in cash from Lady Bernstein’s desk – a sum that was about equivalent to a month’s average wages at that time, but most definitely not a sum worth killing for.
Before sending him down, the judge in the case slammed Bassiane. Judge Forbes is said to have told the court: “This was a brutal murder. The sentence has been the product of evidence in which there is no doubt. Your attempt to place part of the blame on Miss Fitzgerald has received the treatment it deserves.”
It is unknown what became of this murdering monster after he was deported in 1984. Mustapha Bassiane had served just 11 years of his life sentence in the UK; a term that surely was far from long enough for such a brutal and evil murder and a crime committed in a country where young men who proclaim their innocence like Mark Alexander and Omar Benguit have rotted in prison for 13 years and 18 years respectively in spite of a clear lack of evidence against them.
Turning to other thoughts post-sentencing, Hopkins shared in his podcast that Hensley believed Bassaine had tried to blackmail the butler and killed him when he didn’t comply. He also suggested that “hapless” Fitzgerald could have been implicated if she had gone to the mansion that night and concluded “her distrust of his motives may have just saved her from a dark fate” at 32 Wilton Crescent. Would her lover have killed her there also or would he have set the place up to pin the blame on her? Thankfully, given she saw sense, no one will ever know.
If still alive in 2023, Mustapha Bassaine would be 79-years-old; Julian Sessé, on the other hand, would be long dead, but if he hadn’t met his noxious nemesis that night in December 1973, he’d probably have gotten to have enjoyed a long, happy and fulfilled retirement. The ‘Belgravia Butler’ perhaps should have been more careful, but he most definitely didn’t deserve such a sordid end.
Pictured top – No image of Julian Sessé can be found on the Internet (left); 32 Wilton Crescent (top centre) and the late Granada head honcho Lord Bernstein (lower centre); killer Mustapha Bassaine in the only known image available of him (right).
Listen to the ‘Scotland Yard Confidential’ episode about the slaying of ‘The Peer’s Butler’ by clicking here.
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.
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The story of the December 1970 slaying at 32 Wilton Crescent features in a 37:02-minute March 2023 episode of the excellent podcast ‘Scotland Yard Confidential’ – which can be listened to as ‘A Spotify Original.’ The description for the episode reads: “In December 1970, Julian Sessé, the long-serving butler to Granada TV Chairman, Lord Bernstein, was found brutally murdered in his basement flat in Belgravia. With little hope for a successful investigation, and two murder cases already on their books, local police quickly handed the case to Scotland Yard. Evidence gathered from the flat revealed that the elegant 65-year-old butler was in the habit of picking up younger men and entertaining them at his home. He was discreet and private in these affairs, and his personal acquaintances were equally secretive. Was his killer a stranger or a friend? And how would detectives trace him if no one was willing to talk? It fell to Detective Chief Superintendent John ‘Ginger’ Hensley to crack the case of the Peer’s Butler. Learn more about your ad choices.”In an edition of ‘The News’ on 16th February 1973 that reported on Julian Bassaine receiving a life sentence for the slaying of Lord Bernstein’s butler, other articles included one about a Burton’s Court, Chelsea, SW3 resident having had £1,100 fur coat stolen “while she was having her hair done” and another listing TV licence fines awarded to residents of Draycott Place, Sloane Court West, Lyall Streeet, Margeretta Terrace, Sydney Street and Swan Court. A tragic story of a mother and baby found dead in a bedsit in Onslow Gardens, SW7 was referenced on the same page along with an ex-Grenadier Guardsmen being found dead after a fit in a ‘super loo’ at Victoria Station, SW1. A tale of a drunken man being fined after throwing a bottle through a Kings Road boutique, the Little-Big-Horn was one of the day’s more light-hearted pieces of coverage; Thomas Patrick Canon of Redburn Street, SW3 told the judge: “I am terribly sorry for what I have done, but had no recollection of it. All over the weekend I have asked myself what reason I had to do it and I can’t come up with any answer. I have been thinking it was a nightmare. I wouldn’t like it, neither [if that had been done to a shop I owned].”The scene of a murder most horrid on the 19th December 1970 – 32 Wilton Crescent, Belgravia, London, SW1X 8RX. Beyond the then owner Sidney Bernstein (formally titled The Right Honourable The Lord Bernstein of Leigh in the County of Kent, 1899 – 1993), others who have have variously lived or have connections to the likely now worth upwards of £40 million residence have included Gilbert Heathcote, 9th Baronet (in 1941) and a lady named Sarina Abramovich (circa 2015 to 2016). Ms Abramovich was subsequently (in 2021) 432 Park Avenue, New York based and shares a surname with the former Chelsea Football Club owning, one-time Putin supporting billionaire Roman Abramovich, but it is unknown if they are related. A statue of Sir Robert Grosvenor KG stands just opposite 32 Wilton Crescent and others to have lived on this most tony of streets have included the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Lord Randolph Churchill, Quentin Crewe, the Grand Duchesss Charlotte of Luxembourgh and Demetri Marchessini.Essex born and Jewish, Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein was lauded as “the dominant influence on the growth and development of commercial television” by the British Film Institute. Twice married and a father of three, his business interests included amongst other things a circuit of 60 cinemas and theatres, motorway services stations and a hugely profitable television rental business. He was a lifelong friend and partner of Sir Alfred Hitchcock in film production and turned Granada Television into a huge commercial success; he was portrayed by Steven Berkoff in the 2010 BBC one-off drama, ‘The Road to Coronation Street.’Sarina Abramovich is listed as being connected with 32 Wilton Crescent in 2015 and 2016 in documents relating to imports and exports. Whether she has any connection with the property now is unknown and records relating to the building remain shrouded in mystery. The Heathcote family were connected with the house in the 1940s when Mark Heathcote, 10th Baronet was born there in 1941.
As ‘MeGain’s’ bestie Omid Scobie claims Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’) is “on a watch list” with the “good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard” and the “Fixated Threat Assessment Centre” also, the popular YouTuber reports him to the police herself
Whilst the Duchess of Sussex was quite rightly forced to apologise to the Appeal Court in London for making a misleading statement – which the BBC described as her (rather conveniently) having “forgotten events” – in December, it seems her number one PR peddler, the wretch that is Omid Scobie has turned his attention to the popular ‘Yankee Wally’ YouTuber Sadie Quinlan and isn’t allowing her to forget her own past.
Yesterday, in an 11:09-minute YouTube upload that has been watched over 17,700 times and ‘liked’ by 3,500 already, Quinlan shared a tweet from Scobie that described her as a “racist” and “deranged criminal.” He went further and claimed: “Don’t even waste a second on what that deranged, racist criminal thinks. Leave it to the good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard, whose Fixated Threat Assessment Centre have [Sadie Quinlan] on a watch list.”
Understandably upset by the harsh words of this so-called “royal editor” for Harpers Bazaar and self-proclaimed New York Times “bestselling author,” Quinlan – who made clear she had no prior knowledge of how Scobie could know of such a listing – decided to respond by herself calling the Metropolitan Police.
She remarked: “The last thing you need Omid Scobie is somebody calling you ‘deranged’” and added: “I am not a criminal. I shall take this absolutely all the way I can. When that lovely police officer rings me back next week from the Fixated Threat department, I am going to take it to the highest level.”
Of two others she believes have connections to such matters, Quinlan added: “Let’s have the bloody lot. I’m watching you and I’m going to make charges against you if I can… I’m coming for you… I am absolutely tamping [Welsh adjective meaning ‘extremely angry’] mad.”
The lesson to mouse-not-a-man Omid Scobie and his associates here should be laid clear: If you give it out, expect it back – especially when you take on the force to be reckoned with that is ‘Yankee Wally.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvOmZpLg0wY
The tweet by Omid Scobie, posted on Twitter on 19th February 2022 at 7:11pm, in which he described Sadie Quinlan as a “deranged, racist criminal.”In August 2020, the ‘Daily Mail’ shared that plastic-not-fantastic Omid previously worked at gossip magazine ‘Heat’ and partied with the ‘glamour model’ Jodie Marsh. They mentioned how somebody had “airbrushed” Meghan Markle’s “entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia… to include more flattering details days before her romance with Prince Harry became public” and illustrated the ‘Finding Freedom’ author’s “drastic transformation” in two very different photographs. Mr Scobie is someone who most definitely would like his past forgotten, but curiously he doesn’t want to allow Sadie Quinlan to have hers forgotten.Illustrating himself to be anything but a real journalist, “influencer” Scobie told the ‘Women in Leadership Publication’: “A casual follower be forgiven for thinking that royal news is just fizzy commentary on the pomp and soap opera of The Firm” in their spring 2021 edition. He self-importantly added: “Reaching millions on Twitter has also enabled my own views and advocacy to travel further” and concluded: “I want to do everything I can to ensure that individuals from every background can get a seat at the table.” Here is someone far from a journalist; here, in fact, is someone who should just be called out as the Duchess of Sussex’s PR peddler.An analysis of Omid Scobie’s Twitter feed clearly shows that a large proportion of his followers are a bit like himself: FAKE.The Duchess of Sussex – pictured giving the clearly far more dignified by far Duchess of Cambridge a right old glare – likes to stir the pot. One of her chief pot stirrers is most definitely Omid Scobie – a poison pen pest described by Nikolay Kalinin in ‘The Steeple Times’ in July 2021 as “a washed-up, childish clot” and someone with “no legitimacy in the media industry.”
When he’s not bragging about wearing Balenciaga, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior or sharing photos of his dog, Yoshi, on his Instagram account, the ‘Finding Freedom’ author constantly bangs on about how he believes the royal family to have racist elements. His speculation is rarely supported by anything other than unnamed sources that give his suggestions little to no credibility.
Sadie Quinlan (AKA ‘Yankee Wally’ responds to Omid Scobie calling her a “deranged, racist criminal”
“All my content is found on the public domain with just my own views and opinions and I do follow the fair use and the fair dealing guidelines”
“I think this tripped me over the edge… They can get their just deserts. Scobie wrote this in reply to whatever her name is, Amanda @MattaOfFact.”
“I like it Amanda I thought you did a fabulous spiff of me and if gets you a bit of extra money after your ten grand from your gopher Lee and whatever money you manage to scrape from your Patreon. You’ve got every begging bowl on the Internet opening and waiting for the money, haven’t you? So, make a bit of money off me, my pleasure, fill your boots.”
“But anyway, Scobie replied to this and this is what he said: ‘Oh dear. Don’t even waste a second on what that deranged, racist criminal thinks. Leave it to the good folk at South Wales Police and Scotland Yard, whose Fixated Threat Assessment Centre have her on a watch list.’”
“Right, OK, so I thought to myself it’s got to be done. Now, you know what I say and I’ll say it again and I’m an absolute manic about it. Do not waste police time. Don’t do it. If you’ve got a little problem, your neighbour is giving you gyp, banging on a wall, wait until the next day and ring 101. Don’t dial 999. Don’t ring the police unless it’s urgent.”
“Having said that, who am I to judge what is urgent and what’s not, but you’ll find that yours truly will take an awful lot of s**t before I ring the police. Because, well, well this is the way I was taught.”
“I even apologised to the police officer today saying that somebody could be needing them a lot more than me. He said, erm, in his London accent: ‘Well, don’t worry about it Sadie,” erh.”
“Anyway, let me tell you what happened. So I see this and I’m thinking: ‘One step too far, one step too far.’ So, then I go looking online for whatever the Fixated Person’s thing is and I found all this information.”
“So, I’m thinking, I don’t wanna [sic] ring the police. I do not want to ring the police. So, yes, I can give them that [sharing a screenshot of what information is required], I can give that, I can give that, I’ve got a passport, I’ve got a licence, so I will do that, I do that.”
“Right ‘o. OK and then I got the number for Scotland Yard so I thought maybe I’ll ring them and ask them because I couldn’t find a number for the Fixated Threat people and I didn’t, at the time, see where I could fill in a form.”
“So, I’m on the phone waiting now. This is Scotland Yard. I took a screenshot the minute that they answered at 11:43am. You can see the time at the top there [sharing another screenshot], 16:36 so it is not even an hour ago now and then I found a form that you could fill in on that webpage that I just showed you and so I wrote down everything that I could.”
“Meanwhile, 25 minutes on the phone to Scotland Yard. ‘I’ve been told I’m on your list. It’s all over Twitter and also it has been claimed by Omid Scobie, a journalist, that I am on your ‘watch list.’ I am horrified.” I couldn’t put it all in one, so I scrolled.”
“’Please can you confirm this as a matter of urgency, if this is true? And if it is, why? This has upset me beyond words and I am also extremely cross at the insulting nature of Mr Omid Scobie’s claim. I look forward to your reply ASAP.” Then I said: “Regards.”
“Now, while I was in the middle of filling all this form in, though it didn’t take me long, Scotland Yard answered the phone to me, so then I am on the phone to Scotland Yard and, erm, they answered at around about 4:30pm and I was on the phone to them until about quarter to five.”
“And I spoke to an absolutely, and I’m not just saying this, he was so kind to me because I was almost crying. I was beside myself, I have to be honest because, I mean, erm, I’m not trying to get sympathy here, but I can’t bloody walk. How am I going to stalk anybody? And if I can’t walk, do you know how hard it is for me to post a letter? I’ve got to beg the postman, if I catch him when he delivers a letter. I can’t get out to the postbox, so as far as malicious letters and stuff, everything I do is online.”
“So, they answered the phone and I spoke to him and I explained and he said: ‘Well, you’ve hit lucky today, Sadie.’ I said: “Oh, why’s that?’ He said: ‘Well, because I’m covering here on the main switchboard, but my main job is in the Fixated Threat department.’ Ha ha ha… On my life, on my life, that’s his job. Ha ha ha…”
“So, he asks for my name, my date of birth and all the other things, my address and off he went and he came back and he said, and by now I am crying and I said: ‘Look, I’m worried sick about this.’ I said: ‘I’m not a stalker’ and he said: ‘We’re going to ring you back about this, Sadie,’ he said: ‘And who was the person that made this complaint?’”
“I said: ‘I believe it is Omid Scobie, but it could be somebody else. It’s on Twitter.’ He said: ‘Here’s a reference number.’ Here we are. He gave me his number, the policeman’s number and a reference number and there’s the ‘umpty’ [sic] form and that’s where you can get it if you want to fill it in.”
“So, erm, I’ve haven’t rung South Wales Police yet because I think Scotland Yard is all I need because I’ve looked at this Fixated Threat thing and it’s all based in London Metropolitan Police. So, I thought no, I’m not saying that the Welsh are organ grinders. Not the monkey, the organ grinder. Yeah, Metropolitan Police will be the organ grinder and we are the monkeys, I know that.”
“So, I’m waiting now to hear from them, probably next week and, erm, that’s that. So, I’m not letting this go because, what, what I don’t like, I’ll tell you what I don’t like: I’m not a racist, I can make jokes about people with black skin if I want to. Like, Ricky Gervais. If you don’t like it, don’t bloody listen to me.”
“I am not a criminal anymore. I am an ex-criminal. I’ve paid my price to society twenty bloody years ago.”
“Scobie, you, don’t throw stones unless your own house is clean and what’s the other one, er, ‘deranged.’ Now that, now that hurts because when you’ve been to a psychiatrist for the best part of ten years after you’ve been made homeless and God knows what and you are antidepressants and you’re doing OK thank you very much. And I can hold, I can string a sentence together, I can think coherently and there’s been times, and I don’t mind telling you, I wasn’t able to do that.”
“So, when somebody calls me ‘deranged,’ it kind of, it kind of trips a switch and it’s an angry switch because when you’ve worked hard on your mental health, when you’ve worked bloody hard to get your mental health back to normal, the last thing you need Omid Scobie is somebody calling you ‘deranged.’ That is very, very harmful and to call me a ‘racist’ is wrong. I’ve told you: My son-in-law is the same colour as you.”
“I am not a criminal. I shall take this absolutely all the way I can. When that lovely police officer rings me back next week from the Fixated Threat department, I am going to take it to the highest level.”
“And there’s two other people I’m after too. I’ll tell you who they are now. You [sharing a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Unstoppable-Chi, @dumielauxepices], Lorenzo, I know, you. I know it’s you that busted me in the beginning. It’s you that got into the ‘me-we’ group and it’s you that exposed my criminal past for all to see.”
“You hide in the shadows, you little creep. You hide in the shadows and you pop up with some really cruel things. You have been stalking me because you know more about me than what I know myself. I’m watching you, I’ve been watching you for two years, but now been as we’re going to bring it all out in the open, let’s have the bloody lot. I’m watching you and I’m going to make charges against you if I can.”
“And you [sharing a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Gin Perdide, @GPerdide], you little bastard. Who are you? You were watching me. Everytime you talk about me, you put the word ‘criminal,’ ‘convict,’ ‘madam.’ You’ve got a, I don’t even know who you are, but I’ll tell you what, I will get Twitter to find out who you are and anybody else who keeps calling me a ‘criminal’ or a ‘racist’ or ‘deranged.’”
“Those three things are like red rags to a bull and my birth sign is Taurus the bull and my birthday is the same day as the Queen. We are built with the same steel backbone. I’m thirty years younger than her. God bless her and I will come for all of you, but meanwhile, meanwhile, you can just sit there and s**t yourself quietly and I’ll be coming for you.”
“Thanks for listening everybody. I’ll be back later. Honestly, this will wash over me. It’s just right now, I am absolutely tamping [Welsh adjective meaning ‘extremely angry’] mad.”
In her uniquely chirpy ‘Yankee Wally’ style, in the description box, Quinlan added
“Sorry, I forgot to say Cheerio!”
“Now you’ve seen me at my worst…. Or, have you?”
“It’s very hard for me to keep an even keel when someone’s upset me so badly.”
“People that have mental health problems, never ever get them totally ‘fixed.’ They are usually suppressed with antidepressants and antipsychotics. I’m on huge doses of both.”
“But, when Scobie has the audacity to call me ‘deranged’ … It triggered me in a way only other sufferers can understand. “
“Heck, I have not worked with therapy counselling psychiatrists and drugs for 20 years to be diagnosed as DERANGED!”
“#omidscobie said a very very bad thing. and he will learn not to verbally abuse those who are not as strong as him
“And everybody else whose insulted me. You will all be made accountable.”
“I LOVE MY ONLINE FRIENDS DEARLY and I will defend you too.”
“CHEERIO!”
Responses to Omid Scobie’s vexatious tweet about Sadie Quinlan
Is overindulged prig Carrie Johnson about to be thrown under the bus along with her Abba loving groupies Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone? Is this the end of the road for ‘Carrie On Regardless’?
It seems Carrie Johnson could be about to receive a dose of her own medicine and possibly a summons to speak to the Metropolitan Police even also.
“What Carrie wants, Carrie gets” is supposedly a mantra that the Prime Minister’s wife and those around her operate by and until now, the former Miss Symonds has got everything she desires. Be it £30,000 of organic nosh from Lady Bamford’s Daylesford Organic, £840 a roll wallpaper grubbily grabbed from Lulu Lytle’s frankly ghastly emporium and £2,900 a pop gowns by fashion designer Christos Costarello, here is an overindulged modern day Marie Antoinette whose extravagance knows no bounds.
Prone prior to moving to Downing Street to chucking red wine over sofas and dancing to Abba with her ‘Chatty Rat’ clatterfart chum Henry Newman – whom she has described as “one of my four favourite people” – the current Mrs Johnson was this morning dragged deeper into the mire that is ‘Partygate,’ the Mail on Sunday reported.
According to an unnamed source who spoke to the paper’s Glen Owen and Dan Hodges, on the night of Dominic Cummings’ departure on 13th November 2020: “There was the sound of lots of banging and dancing and drinking, and a number of Abba tracks – including a triumphalist Winner Takes It All.”
Going further, the Mail on Sunday added: “The Metropolitan Police could now investigate the party as part of its probe, and call on Mrs Johnson to provide written evidence.”
“Civil servants in the building at the time were advised by officials to go to the Downing Street flat to apologise for not sufficiently supporting the Prime Minister’s then-fiancée. ‘They were ordered to go up and kiss the ring,’ one said.”
Pictured top – Obsessed with nobody but himself Boris Johnson and his overindulged current wife, Carrie, deserve to be derided. Whilst ordinary people were unable to see their relatives even due to the lockdowns his government forced upon them, these two cretins partied on regardless.
The former Carrie Symonds previously worked for Oceana, a charity with strong links to the now convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, in the past and has links to individuals connected to the far-right Traditional Britain Group. Her shockingly poor judgment is clearly worthy of question.The Prime Minister’s wife counts alleged ‘Chatty Rat’ and Abba fanatic Henry Newman as her “best friend,” according to Dominic Cummings. When the possibility of having to fire him over leaks arose, Boris Johnson reportedly said: “If Newman is confirmed as the leaker then I will have to fire him, and this will cause me very serious problems with Carrie as they’re best friends… [pause] perhaps we could get the Cabinet Secretary to stop the leak inquiry?”‘Princess Nut Nut’ – as she has also been deservedly branded – invited only a few guests to her wedding to Boris Johnson. Amongst them was “Tory hunk” Josh Grimstone. The ‘Court of Carrie’ is all about control and this 28-year-old “top-notch aide” was rewarded rather nicely in spite of being someone known best for just taking his top off. Grimstone is on a pay packet of between £80,000 and £84,999, according to Cabinet Office records.Boris Johnson protests too much about whether he partied or not. That he has now tried to have Dame Cressida Dick and the Metropolitan Police try and slow down the process of the investigation into ‘Partygate’ speaks volumes about his clear lack of a moral compass. That his current wife is now being dragged into this is evidence that he’d literally throw anyone under the bus to save his own sorry skin.
As ‘The Sun’ hints that she was a madam in London in the 2000s, we ask why wasn’t the 1994 Met Police investigation into what went on with high-class hookers at Ghislaine Maxwell’s South Kensington Mews house not taken further?
Now deservedly under fire and slammed as “incompetent and obstructive,” Dame Cressida Dick DBE, QPM became a police constable with the Metropolitan Police in 1983 and “within 10 years was promoted to chief inspector,” according to The Guardian.
Dame Cressida’s life prior to joining the rozzers was gilded. Oxford born and educated in the “leafy” environs of “the successful academic battery farm” Oxford High School and an alumna there of Ghislaine Maxwell, according to The Times, “Britain’s (current) top police officer” went on to the Dragon School whilst the ‘Bouncing Czech’s’ decidedly deviant daughter progressed through various educational establishments.
Curiously, both women also later came to share having studied at Balliol College, Oxford in the early 1980s. Though it remains unknown if their paths crossed on any other level subsequently, we again today remind readers that in 1994, Ghislaine Maxwell’s home between 1989 and 1997, 69 Stanhope Mews East, South Kensington, London, SW7, was placed under surveillance by the Metropolitan Police on the suspicion that someone was running a high-class brothel from that very address.
69 Stanhope Mews East, South Kensington, London, SW7 5QT was the subject of a covert surveillance exercise by the Metropolitan Police in 1994 whilst under the ownership of the pension pot plundering ‘Cap’n Bob’s’ decidedly deviant daughter. Very young ladies of a certain type were seen coming coming and going during the period and it was suspected by neighbours that the house was being operated as a high class whore house run by a smart looking madam.The current occupants of 69 Stanhope Mews are clearly sick of media attention and in spite of the mews house being on a public highway recently placed a “no photography or video recording” sign in their window. They also have a problem with dogs peeing on their plant pots.
“I was visited by officers from the Met Police in 1994 whom asked to use a bedroom in my property and to install a camera at the window to monitor the house diagonally opposite, 69 Stanhope Mews East.”
“I was not told at the time who the person concerned was, but I now realise it was Ghislaine Maxwell who was the owner of that house. I recall seeing very young girls coming and going from that building very often.”
“The officers remained for a week and then I heard no more about what happened next. All I knew was that a brothel was being operated from there and that the police wanted to close it down. They could have caught this evil woman then, but maybe her friendships with powerful people like Prince Andrew helped ensure her criminality was swept under the carpet.”
In this photograph, taken on 22nd November 2000 at the Red Cube nightclub in London, Ghislaine Maxwell sips on a cocktail as she stares at three women she was allegedly controlling.
Now, with The Sun yesterday running the headline: “SHOCKING: Ghislaine Maxwell took three girls to target wealthy men at party attended by Prince Charles” in 2000 with a photo to accompany as evidence, it seems pertinent to again enquire as to result of the 1994 investigation as the paper effectively hints that since croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s one-time lover was not just a procurer for him alone.
In a report by journalist Michael Hamilton, an unnamed broker who attended the after-party at the Red Cube nightclub for a screening of Charlie’s Angels in the presence of the heir to the throne encountered Maxwell there with a bevy of blondes.
Of the incident, The Sun stated:
“The unnamed broker said he is ‘appalled’ at the thought of Maxwell rubbing shoulders with guests.”
“He added: ‘The three girls came up to me and a friend and were being very flirtatious. They were in their late teens or early 20s.”
“One, who is on my right in the picture, seemed to be the leader and was asking us if we wanted to buy them drinks or go on somewhere. The girl on my left was quieter and more nervous. And the girl at the back was East European and also quiet. It seemed their questions were all to ascertain our wealth.”
“None of us were interested and – after a few minutes when that became clear – they were ushered away by Maxwell.”
“Our source, who found the snap while clearing possessions, added: ‘Maxwell, seemed to be shooting daggers at the girls – annoyed that they were spending too long with us and moved them along. We saw Maxwell walk with them into the crowd. She seemed to be in charge.’”
“‘My friend and I talked about whether they might be escorts. It is shocking when I think back to that night, considering what I’ve read about Maxwell and Epstein. Obviously, she hasn’t been found guilty in her trial, but some of the claims are horrible and shocking.’”
Clearly given her already known longstanding connections to Prince Andrew, Miss Maxwell would most definitely have been on the radar of both the police and secret services in Britain from the 1980s onwards. We thus ask again: Why was nothing done about what was clearly going on at 69 Stanhope Mews East in 1994 especially given since that Maxwell allegedly “cared and befriended Minor Victim 3 in London, England, between about 1994 and 1995?”
In 1995, according to Wikipedia, Dame Cressida was transferred to Thames Valley Police, where she eventually became the chief superintendent and area commander for Oxford before returning to the MPS in 2001 as a commander.
Pictured top – Currently incarcerated alleged mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell and currently deservedly under fire Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Dame Cressida Dick DBE, QPM were educated at Oxford High School at the same time. They both subsequently attended Balliol College, Oxford in the early 1980s.
Matthew Steeples suggests that Met Police chief Dame Cressida Dick is not fit for purpose and must finally now resign
Dame Cressida Dick DBE, QPM shouldn’t be in charge of a bus ticket, let alone the nation’s capital’s police force. Here is a woman who spends her time moaning about the BBC’s Line of Duty drama series – which she claimed “absolutely outraged” her – rather than actually solving crime; frankly, she’s proved as useful as a chocolate teapot and now, today, I again call for her to just go.
Armed officer Wayne Couzens – who was indicatively nicknamed by colleagues at The Met ‘The Rapist’ yet nothing was done about him – has now pleaded guilty to the murder of Sarah Everard in March. How did his boss respond? With what The Sun quite rightly called out as “vapid assurances [that] lessons [have] been learned across the board.” Going further they added: “The people to blame for this predator being on the streets should be held to account,” whilst we add: SHAME ON HER.
Condemned also by the crusading blog From The Hornets Nest also last week as “presiding over our crime-riven city” and protected by a “pernicious, masonic like influence,” any respect there ever was for Dame Cressida Dick is well and truly gone. She now needs to finally do the only thing left to her: RESIGN and clear ‘orf.
Dick has also been criticised over the botched the Metropolitan Police’s handling over investigations into child sex abuse, their fruitless £30 million investigation into the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan (pictured) and her force’s handling over the use of stop and search of those of black and other ethnic minority backgrounds.In 2018, this ludicrous woman blamed rising crime in London on social media rather than a lack of proper policing. She told Fiona Hamilton and Rachel Sylvester of ‘The Times’: “There’s definitely something about the impact of social media in terms of people being able to go from slightly angry with each other to ‘fight’ very quickly… It [social media] makes it harder for people to cool down. I’m sure it does rev people up.”
The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis’ decision to refuse to stand down over police handling of a vigil for the late marketing executive Sarah Everard – murdered in cold blood by one of her very own officers – provided proof of her arrogance. “No, I’m not considering my position,” she curtly commented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elSZtYkRQyY
After the shooting of the entirely innocent Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 by her officers, Dick did anything but take responsibility. She remarked of it: “The events of that day stay with one; I think about it quite often. It was a traumatic period. It was an awful time for so many people, obviously and most of all Jean Charles’s family, the people who were there when it happened, the firearms officers, the surveillance officers.” In response, de Menezes family called for her to be brought to book and quite justifiably later opposed her subsequent promotion.
Summing up how out-of-touch with reality she truly is, Dame Cressida stated of her force: “We’re not institutionally corrupt.” Her comments came after the failed £30 million investigation into the murder of Daniel Morgan was quite rightly condemned due to those involved most definitely being aided and abetted by corrupt Metropolitan Police officers. It is now time for her to consider her position and RESIGN.
Toothy tea leaf Angela Gulbenkian admits stealing £1.1 million and pleads guilty as fellow art crook Inigo Philbrick remains in the clink also
“Grifter heiress” Angela Gulbenkian once mused “life is art” on her Instagram page, but for her, after putting in a guilty plea “to scamming collectors out of art they never received,” she might opt to change that to “life is prison.”
Branded an “ultimate deceiver” alongside the equally audacious art broker Inigo Philbrick in The Steeple Times last June after legendary Chelsea interior designer Jane Morris of Percy Bass called out the crook for conning her firm also, Gulbenkian yesterday admitted two charges of theft at Southwark Crown Court.
Married to the great-grandnephew of the British-Armenian art collector and oil baron Calouste Gulbenkian – father of the legendary Nubar – this wicked wench used her surname to give herself a “veneer of respectability in her work as an art advisor” supposedly. She even used a fake familial foundation email to back up her “shady dealings” and exploited Instagram in a manner similar to Philbrick’s dopey baby mama and Made In Chelsea whining warbler, Victoria Baker Harber.
Sadly, however, for the many victims of this bleach blonde bimbo turned art lifter, it seems that those who handed Gulbenkian over a million pounds will find it hard to recover their funds according to Artnet. In an email provided to them, Metropolitan Police officer Duncan Graham declared: “A confiscation order was made for the amount stolen. At present no assets are present within the UK to realise this confiscation.”
Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Christopher Marinello of Art Recovery International, who is representing one of private jet loving Gulbenkian’s victims, added:
“[The plea] was not too surprising to us because we had her dead to rights. She signed a stipulation of settlement in 2018 where she acknowledged owing the money that she stole, and that she was going to pay it back, but of course she defaulted, so the trial would have been very quick.”
“We pursue these fraud cases vigorously, and I think it’s the only way you can do that. The art world is seeing a rise in fraud and we went after Gulbenkian and anything and everything she touched. We think that the way to take on these fraud cases is to be relentless, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Angela Gulbenkian (née Ischwang and deservedly nicknamed ‘Awful Ange’ by a former friend) – who has been on remand since being extradited from Portugal after failing to show up at court in May 2020 – will be sentenced on 28th July. She will subsequently potentially face trial over separate charges in relation to a case involving the sale of a Warhol portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at a later date. Long may this grubby grotbag rot!
Birds of a Cell – Bearded bullshitter Inigo Philbrick, a wannabe ‘Talented Mr Ripley,’ and toothy tea leaf Angela Gulbenkian share not only a love of art, but also the pleasures of the pokey currently. Philbrick, like ‘Awful Ange,’ was quite deservedly “grabbed” after he sought to evade justice by hiding out in Port Vila, Vanuata, South Pacific in June 2020 and then flown “under instructions from the FBI” to the United States of America. He now faces charges of theft, misappropriation, borrowing money against artworks he did not even own and selling overlapping shares of artworks and has been branded a “pillock” and “Ponzi schemer.” His victims number the Reuben family and art columnist Kenny Schachter.The crimes of both Gulbenkian and Philbrick have involved the works of pumpkin sculptures designed by Yayoi Kusama.A socialite who traded on the name of the late, great Nubar Gulbenkian and the billionaire family of the same name, ‘Awful Ange’ thought declaring “life is art” appropriate. Now, though this monstrous mess will quite rightly languish in the pokey for quite some period, members of the public should be warned that she is someone to most definitely avoid. Period.
As #FindMaddie trends once again on Twitter for no apparent reason, ‘The Sun’ rehashes a stupendously stupid story about a psychic claiming the ‘missing’ child will become a famous singer in 2022 or 2024
This morning, however, yet again, The Sun thought it relevant to share that the continually discussed since 2007 topic was again trending on Twitter. They did not report of the £12.5 million in public funds so outrageously misallocated and wasted on a search for a poor bairn with a wonky eye that would have been found by now if it could have been found at all given the huge rewards offered, but instead returned to the tale of yet another psychic.
This time, the red-topped rag commented:
“Last year US police psychic Fia Johansson said Maddie was alive and living in Koln, Germany.”
“She said: ‘She’s alive, I can see that she is in Germany. She has no clue about her other family. She was very little, she doesn’t remember anything about the family.’”
“Johansson claimed the missing girl may be reunited with her family in 2022 or 2024 when she will become a famous singer.”
One is simply left asking: “Is this a good use of journalistic resources and why, instead, doesn’t The Sun devote their energies to helping other families of missing people in their searches for their lost loved ones?”
The time has come for this pointless search to be ended and it is time for the Metropolitan Police officers assigned to a case they’ve failed to solve to be reassigned to other tasks.
A Freedom of Information request by ‘The Sun’ in October 2016 led to British police revealing that they had followed up on 8,685 alleged sightings of Madeleine McCann in 101 countries. Goodness only knows how many more bogus sightings have attracted their attention since. Now is the time to put a stop to this fruitless search and to instead dedicate precious resources to the search for missing people who there genuinely is a prospect of actually being found.Elsewhere on Twitter, one user claimed that an image of a child they believed to be a remarkable likeness for Madeleine McCann had been shared on TikTok. @EmoEmms moaned: “This dude on TikTok literally has proof that Madeleine McCann is still alive and in Portugal and people aren’t doing sh*t, I’ve got chills down my spine, that is definitely her same chin nose cheeks everything.”
Missing Madeleine – Questions STILL without Answers
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 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 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?
As the ‘Mirror’ publish yet another “nothing new” story about ‘missing’ Madeleine McCann, Matthew Steeples suggests: “Why not instead allocate some coverage to other missing people?”
In July last year, the MailOnline ran a ludicrous story suggesting that “a new witness has come forward to claim that Madeleine McCann is alive and living with a German family on the Algarve.” They did not name this supposedly beady eyed individual, but suggested “she saw the by-now teenager in a supermarket just 40 miles from where she disappeared speaking German.”
Unsurprisingly like most ‘leads’ in this curious case, this far-fetched suggestion never resulted in any further developments and now, this morning, it’s been the turn of the Mirror to muddy the waters yet again.
Note Nothing New McCann 2021 – Gerry and Kate McCann pictured out running in the days after the ‘disappearance’ of their daughter. Soon thereafter, claiming the Portuguese police were “setting them up,” the couple fled back to Britain.
Aside from banging on about a note left in a staff message book at the resort, the paper shared that Mr and Mrs McCann have recently declared on Facebook: “We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”
This morning, I counter: “Why don’t the Mirror and MailOnline and others stop printing such drivel and why don’t they instead help the thousands of other families of missing people who get little to no assistance instead?”
Missing Madeleine – Questions STILL without Answers
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 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 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?
Martin Allen vanished without a trace in London on 5th November 1979 aged just 15. Though his brother, Kevin Allen, has kept the case in the public eye as much as he can, he gets little to no help from the Metropolitan Police. Again today, I ask: “Why isn’t money from the public purse allocated to solving this case and thousands like it and why, instead, has fast approaching £13 million been allocated to a case that has not been solved in 14 years?”Luke Durbin disappeared aged just 19 in Suffolk in May 2006. In spite of his mother’s tireless campaign to attempt to find her vanished son, why don’t the police devote more resources to the search for him?Ben Needham, then aged just 1, disappeared on the Greek island of Kos on 24th July 1991. He has been missing for over 29 year and in the time since his mother, Kerry Needham, has shockingly come under attack from supporters of the family of Madeleine McCann. Of this in October 2015, she commented: “It feels like a personal attack on me. It is deeply, deeply hurtful. I have myself had massive amounts of slanderous abuse from supporters of the McCann campaign in the past but I have never taken that personally. It’s freedom of speech. But it is getting the names of two missing children out there which is really important.”
Gerry and Kate McCann rake in £773,600 of private money in spite of admitting there is “nothing much to report” 14 years into the fast approaching £13 million public funded investigation into the dubious ‘disappearance’ of their daughter Madeleine
Not content with having garnered over £12.5 million in public funding for the police investigation with a further £300,000 top-up likely to come soon, it has this week been revealed that Gerry and Kate McCann’s privately administered fund now has an astonishing net worth of £773,629.
Whilst last week, Dr and Mrs McCann told the Mirror that they “still believe in miracles,” in a post on the ‘Official Find Madeleine Campaign’ Facebook page the particularly pugnacious pair also had to admit of the investigation: “Nothing much to report.”
Previously, a ‘friend’ (‘unnamed,’ of course, as is so often the case with anyone speaking on behalf of those close to the case of missing Madeleine McCann) of Dr and Mrs McCann remarked:
“Kate and Gerry know the police investigation cannot go on forever.”
“When [the police investigation] is shelved, and if there is no result, Kate and Gerry will use money in the fund to continue the hunt.”
“That is what it is there for. They paid for their own team of private investigators initially and when the official inquiry ends they will do so again although in the past it has proven to be extremely costly.”
Today, again, we ask: “Why does so much public money continue to be wasted on an investigation that has achieved nothing in 14 years and why is another £300,000 about to be given from the public purse when other missing person searches get little to nothing? Why is this disproportionate allocation of taxpayer funded resources allowed to go on?”
The Money of McCann – Ben Needham, then aged just 1, disappeared on the Greek island of Kos on 24th July 1991. He has been missing for over 29 year and in the time since his mother, Kerry Needham, has shockingly come under attack from supporters of the family of Madeleine McCann. Of this in October 2015, she commented: “It feels like a personal attack on me. It is deeply, deeply hurtful. I have myself had massive amounts of slanderous abuse from supporters of the McCann campaign in the past but I have never taken that personally. It’s freedom of speech. But it is getting the names of two missing children out there which is really important.”The Money of McCann – Luke Durbin disappeared aged just 19 in Suffolk in May 2006. In spite of his mother’s tireless campaign to attempt to find her vanished son, why don’t the police devote more resources to the search for him?The Money of McCann – Martin Allen vanished without a trace in London on 5th November 1979 aged just 15. Though his brother, Kevin Allen, has kept the case in the public eye as much as he can, he gets little to no help from the Metropolitan Police. Again today, we ask: “Why isn’t money from the public purse allocated to solving this case and thousands like it and why, instead, has fast approaching £13 million been allocated to a case that has not been solved in 14 years?”
The Money of McCann – In September 2018, Ben Needham’s mother Kerry quite rightly told ITV1’s ‘Loose Women’ that “it hurts” that so much money has been allocated to the search for Madeleine McCann whilst so little has been given to aid help other families find their missing relatives. She added: “[Madeleine] deserves to be found, but so does Ben. We haven’t had a fraction, I’ve had to fight alone as a single mum and try to get the help that Ben deserves… I don’t take anything away from anyone who’s got a loved one who is missing, but every single one deserves to be found.”
