Tag: murder

  • Pimp My Hummer – Rapper Tupac’s 1996 Hummer ‘Eliminator’ For Sale For £333,333

    Pimp My Hummer – Rapper Tupac’s 1996 Hummer ‘Eliminator’ For Sale For £333,333

    Matthew Steeples reports on the sale of a £333,333 ‘pimped’ 1996 Hummer H1 that rapper Tupac Shakur bought just a month before he was gunned down and killed in a 1996 BMW 750iL leased by the ironically named Death Row Records just as his alleged killer goes to trial

    New York born rapper and actor Tupac Shakur – also known as ‘2Pac’ and ‘Makaveli’; born as Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971 – was well known for his love of flash motors and often featured them in his music videos. Whilst the black 1996 BMW 750iL he was shot in on 7th September 1996 is currently being hawked by Celebrity Cars Las Vegas for an astounding £1.3 million ($1.75 million), another of his vehicles is due to be auctioned later this month at a much lower sum just before a suspect in his slaying is finally due to go on trial also.

     

    Purchased new on 16th August 1996 by the All Eyez on Me star and convicted sex offender just a month before he died in a Las Vegas hospital on 13th September that year, Bonhams will sell what was described in 2016 by Page Six as a “fully loaded” Hummer H1.

     

    1996 Tupac Hummer H1
    Made popular after prominence in TV footage during the Gulf War conflict and Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming the first civilian to purchase one, the AM General Humvee – originally known as the HMMWV – was launched to the public in 1992 and later retroactively renamed the H1. Early versions were basically 7’2” fender to fender in length demilitarised HMMWVs that had been adapted to adhere to federal road use requirements. Later versions were far more luxurious. The most extreme included a double decker, stretch limousine version of a H2, as featured in ‘The Steeple Times’ in October 2012.
    Tupac in Hummer H1
    Accompanying the auction listing for the 23rd January sale, Bonhams include a black and white photograph of Tupac Shakur in the vehicle.
    Tupac in Hummer H1 waving
    Another image of the star shared widely online shows him waving from his blinged up beast.
    Tupac 1996 BMW 7 series murder car Death Row Records
    The 1996 BMW 750iL in which the rapper was shot on 7th September 1996 has been repeatedly offered for sale at sums quite frankly ludicrous. It currently is priced at £1.3 million through Celebrity Cars Las Vegas. On the fatal night, Shakur had been in Paradise, Nevada to attend the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand. He had been accompanied by his manager and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight and after the fight as they headed to the Death Row nightclub, Club 662. Stopped by police first at 11pm on Las Vegas Boulevard, but released without a ticket, the convoy in which the BMW travelled was subject to rapid fire on the passenger side from a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac sedan at 11:15pm. Shakur was struck four times whilst Knight was hit by shards only.
    Tupac Rolls-Royce Corniche IV
    The rapper had an extensive and varied car collection that included a ‘daily driver’ Rolls-Royce Corniche IV that the website 2PacLegacy.net declared as being something he was “quite proud of” and was “often seen driving.” After his death, however, his mother Afeni Shakur remarked: “I discovered he had next to zero, next to nothing. I discovered that the home that he had thought that he had just bought, was not his. I discovered that the Rolls-Royce that he was so proud of and that he loved so much, was not his. And since they were not his, I didn’t want any part of them.”
    The music video for 2Pac featuring Dr Dre’s ‘California Love’ (1996), part of the ‘All Eyez on Me’ album, featured a number of Hummers including the one to be auctioned by Bonhams.

    The 6.5-litre, turbo diesel V8 engine beast of a motor was customised for Shakur and features such things as an external PA system with three sirens, a twelve disc Clarion sound system, Sony GPS, a central tyre inflation system, air conditioning, rear sliding glass doors, privacy glass, Dick Cepek off-road lights, diamond plated bumpers and a 12,000 pound winch. Rather brazenly, ’Eliminator’ is proclaimed in large white lettering in the space above the rear driver’s side fender.

     

    After the star’s untimely demise, the vehicle was was appraised at £55,500 ($75,000) in his estate’s inventory, kept in storage for several years, offered in a ‘Picture Me Rollin’ sweepstake in 2003 and then sold in 2007 to Havenotz Entertainment owners Sardar ‘Candyman 187’ Khan and Yaasmyn Fula.

     

    Fula’s connection to the vehicle is relevant in that she was the mother of Shakur’s godbrother Yafeu ‘Yaki’ Akiyele Fula; an Outlawz hip-hop group member nicknamed ‘Kadafi’ in honour of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. ‘Kadafi’ had also been in Las Vegas on the night of Tupac’s murder, was questioned about the crime by investigators and then was himself shot and killed in New Jersey just two months later in November 1996. He also was seen ‘cruising’ in the Hummer with his godbrother in in Los Angeles during the short period that Shakur owned it.

     

    Subsequently owned by a Canadian collector, the H1 “complete with a very aggressive front guard” was put up for auction in April 2016 for £74,300 ($100,000). The very last car purchased and pimped up by Shakur achieved a punchy £250,446 ($337,114), but that sale subsequently collapsed. It was reoffered at the same reserve in August that year and came with a California plate ‘YAKNPAK’ honouring both Tupac Shakur and Yafeu Fula.

     

    Classic.com report that recent prices achieved for 1996 Hummer H1s have ranged from £30,400 to £81,700 ($41,000 to $110,000); Bonhams will sell this mammoth military-esque motor on 23rd January 2026 at their Scottsdale sale at The Westin Kierland Resort and Spa and have set a very ambitious estimate of £277,800 to £333,333 ($375,000 to $450,000).

     

    Duane Davis Tupac Shakur murder trial
    Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis finally goes on trial for his alleged role in the first-degree murder of Tupac Shakur on 9th February 2026. He has pleaded not guilty and has been held in prison without bail since his arrest on 29th September 2023. In an interview with ‘Rolling Stone’ in March 2025, Davis declared: “I’m innocent. I ain’t killed nobody, never did ever kill nobody… I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f**king grandson’s football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids… God got my back, and God will see me through this. He had my back with cancer, I survived the streets, and the FBI. That’s a big accomplishment for a man from Compton.” He previously told ABC: “I shouldn’t have said nothing. I’m innocent, man.” For context, ‘Rolling Stone’ added: “Prosecutors have argued that Davis was a longtime member and leader of group within the Compton, California Crips street gang. According to his indictment, prosecutors argued that Davis orchestrated Tupac Shakur’s murder and provided the .40-caliber Glock. Authorities claim the murder was retaliation after Shakur got into a physical altercation with Crip gang member Orlando Anderson inside a casino after a Mike Tyson fight on Sept. 6, 1996, hours before the deadly shooting.”

    Meanwhile, on 9th February, an actor Duane Davis – also known as ‘Keefe D’ – is due to finally face jury trial for the murder of Tupac Shakur after having been charged in September 2023. Davis, who has played minor roles in Diggstown, M.A.N.T.I.S., Psych, S.W.A.T. and Team Knight Rider, is an uncle of the alleged shooter Orlando Anderson. He is also the author of Compton Street Legend, a book about the crime which his defence now claims “is based on self-serving statements made for financial gain” rather than an admission of guilt.

     

    Follow Matthew Steeples on X at @M_Steeples and The Steeple Times at @SteepleTimes.

     

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    Further pictures of the 1996 Hummer H1 to be offered at auction by Bonhams:

  • Talking Claudia Lawrence – ‘Crime Suspect’ on Talk TV 2024

    Talking Claudia Lawrence – ‘Crime Suspect’ on Talk TV 2024

    Matthew Steeples on discussing the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence fifteen years ago in York on TalkTV’s ‘Crime Suspect’ with esteemed former detective Peter Bleksley

    Earlier this month, I returned to News UK’s headquarters next to The Shard in London to be a guest, for the second time after appearing in February to discuss the ongoing Madeleine McCann case, on Peter Bleksley’s deservedly respected TalkTV Crime Suspect show.

     

    This time focused on the fifteenth anniversary of the literal ‘vanishing’ of a 35-year-old chef named Claudia Lawrence in the Heworth area of York, I appeared alongside the renowned criminologist and author Professor James Treadwell, the former police inspector and visiting lecturer at Leeds Trinity University Martin Holleran and the journalist and author of Gone: The Disappearance of Claudia Lawrence and Her Father’s Desperate Search for the Truth Neil Root.

     

    Aired first on TalkTV’s terrestrial and YouTube channels on the 5th April, the 21:22-minute version on the latter has been viewed nearly 130,000 times to date and focused on the key question: “Could there still be someone out there who knows what happened to the 35-year-old chef?”

     

    Aged just 35 at the time she disappeared into thin air on either the night of 18th March or the morning of the 19th March 2009, here is a case in which North Yorkshire Police – to date – have performed over 48 video recorded interviews under caution, but come to utterly no conclusion.

     

    Having similarities to the case of the also ‘vanished’ Australian Marion Barter in that no real evidence of her having ‘existed’ after the 19th March 2009 has ever come to light, I focused my commentary on Crime Suspect on the media portrayal of Claudia Lawrence and asked: “Would she have been made out to have been promiscuous and a drunk if she had been a man?”

     

    As has also been pointed out by Joan Lawrence, the likely victim of murder’s mother, who has subsequently received an OBE for her efforts in bringing about the passing of the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 – which modified the law in order to allow the appointment of guardians for the affairs of missing people – the “intense” and “vicious stories” about what might have occurred helped nobody.

     

    In Claudia Lawrence: A Mother’s Story, a four-part series first aired on the BBC in March this year, the problems of allowing untruths about what actually occurred to be spread is further explained, but what is now required is for a community to come together and to finally realise that it is time to put aside past allegiances. It is time to do justice for this missing-for-fifteen-years lady and her family.

     

    To watch the full-length version of the Claudia Lawrence ‘Crime Suspect’ programme on TalkTV, click here.

    Follow Peter Bleksley on Twitter at @PeterBleksley, Martin Holleran at @Future110, Neil Root at @NEILROOTWriter and Professor James Treadwell at @James_Treadwell.

     

    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 and watch his current nightly show on YouTube at 8.30pm daily.

     

    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.

     

    The YouTube version of the show; for a longer version first shown on TalkTV’s terrestrial channel, click here.
    On Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “It’s been 15 years since chef Claudia Lawrence vanished into thin air in Heworth, York. What do you think happened to her?” He added the hashtags: #ClaudiaLawrence #Heworth #York #Yorkshire #chef #missingpeople #missing #vanish #vanished #murder #accident #death #strangecases #ClaudiasLaw #anniversary and offered four options. 78.7% of respondents favoured the answer: “Killed, someone she knew” whilst only 6.5% believe that she “disappeared” seeking a “new life.”
    Claudia Lawrence vanished
    Claudia Lawrence was born on 27th February 1974 in Malton in the North Riding of Yorshire. She vanished on either the evening of the 18th March 2009 or the morning of 19th March 2009 in Heworth, York. She has never been seen or heard from again since.
    Claudia Lawrence disappearance mind map
    A mind map produced by Matthew Steeples about the case. Whilst it is just a starting point, it illustrates the links between different members of the community of Heworth, York and the presumed victim of murder most likely. It is now time for members of that community to think of justice and reexamine their allegiances; time has passed and surely now, it is time for those that clearly know to finally tell the truth about what occurred on 18th March 2009.
    Crime Suspect Peter Bleksley James Treadwell Neil Root Matthew Steeples Martin Holleran
    ‘Crime Suspect’ aired its programme about the vanished-likely-murdered chef on 5th April 2024 with Peter Bleksley as host. The daughter of a solicitor and town mayor has been missing now for over 15 years and not one trace of her has been found to date.
    The Nag's Head Heworth
    During the programme, there was much discussion of Miss Lawrence’s activities at a pub just six doors from her home, The Nag’s Head in Heworth, as well as at other hostelries she frequented.
  • Julian Sessé, ‘The Belgravia Butler’ (1906 – 1970, murdered by meat cleaver)

    Julian Sessé, ‘The Belgravia Butler’ (1906 – 1970, murdered by meat cleaver)

    • 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.

     

    Given also that a National Archive lockdown on documents relating to this case was orchestrated for 97 years on 1st January 1973 with a record opening date of 1st January 2071 and a review date of 2021 that changed nothing, is something still being hidden regarding this case? After all, this murder occurred in the home of Lord Bernstein, a very powerful Chagall collecting business titan with links to Sir Alfred Hitchcock and a man once part of the Ministry of Information. We join John Hopkins of Scotland Yard Confidential and wonder if “the real truth” of what happened to “kindly” Julian Sessé on 19th December 1970 will ever actually be known.

     

    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.

     

    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.

     

    Scotland Yard Confidential butler murder Belgravia Julian Sesse 1970
    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.”
    Julian Sesse murderer Mustapha Bassaine convicted
    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].”
    32 Wilton Crescent Belgravia London SW1 murder
    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.
    Steven Berkoff Granada Television Lord Bernstein
    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.’
    32 Wilton Crescent Belgravia Mark Heathcote Sarina Abramovich
    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.
  • Essex Police – GUILTY As Charged In Jeremy Bamber Case

    Essex Police – GUILTY As Charged In Jeremy Bamber Case

    As Essex Police are found guilty of failing to refer a 2020 complaint by Jeremy Bamber, could his case be sent back to the Court of Appeal?

    Essex Police are widely known for bungling investigations. Aside from very clearly bungling the investigation into the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock at the home of the disgraced ‘entertainer’ Michael Barrymore, this 3,842-officer strong force has now been exposed for having mishandled complaints in the Jeremy Bamber White House Farm murder case.

     

    With news that the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has found the force guilty of breaching their statutory duty by not referring 29 serious complaints to them about the case comes proof yet again of disgraceful incompetence at the very least and far worse potentially at the very worst.

     

    Responding on Monday this week from His Majesty’s Prison Wakefield, 62-year-old Bamber told the Daily Gazette and Essex County Standard’s trainee reporter Daniel Rees:

     

    “I think the report is strong enough to assist the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) to get my case sent back to the Court of Appeal, I am hoping in the next six to eight weeks.”

     

    “Essex Police has failed in its statutory duty in not investigating these complaints and not sending this matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.”

     

    “These are serious complaints. I have sent this complaint to Essex Police, the Attorney General, the Home Office, the CPS but everyone has blanked me and has done nothing. I never expected the IOPC to come out so strongly and say Essex Police failed in their statutory duty.”

     

    “They have dismissed me so many times. It has been 38 years but this is the endgame – I genuinely believe that.”

     

    Going further, in comments shared in the Mirror this morning, Bamber added:

     

    “I firmly expect that the freedom that was so unjustly taken from me will soon be restored.”

     

    “After 36 years it can now be proven with absolute certainty I did not burn my dad with the rifle barrel or the rifle’s sound moderator, as my trial jury were misled into believing.”

     

    Unsurprisingly asked for a response, “Essex Police declined to comment on the matter.” Shame on them for yet again trying to sweep this serious matter under the carpet. May Jeremy Bamber – a man who has never waivered in stating his claim that he is innocent of the 1985 slayings of his adoptive parents, his adoptive sister and her two sons at their familial home at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex – now finally get the review of his case that he truly 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.

     

    To learn more about the case, click here to view the official Jeremy Bamber Innocence Campaign website.

     

    This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “As the Independent Office for Police Conduct is found guilty of failing to refer 29 serious complaints about the Jeremy Bamber case, will he be cleared and freed?” By 11:30am on Wednesday 17th May, the majority of respondents favoured the answer: “Yes; about time too.”

    Some questions Essex Police plainly need to answer regarding this case… Including some new ones that could lead to to the exoneration of jailed for 36 years and still protesting his innocence Jeremy Bamber

    • What happened to a suicide note allegedly left by Sheila Caffell that was initially referenced by police and then disappeared?
    • Why did Sheila Caffell not have rigor mortis when officers discovered her body?
    • Why was blood still gaping from Miss Caffell’s body when it was found?
    • Why was the bible found by the body of Miss Caffell not used in evidence and why was that bible destroyed by police also?
    • Why are there different accounts about how many bodies were discovered on the ground floor of the farmhouse?
    • How could Jeremy Bamber be the killer if police officers repeatedly detected movement inside White House Farmhouse whilst he was stood with them outside?
    • Why was the silencer supposedly used in the shootings not discovered immediately when police entered the residence?
    • Why did scratch marks supposedly made in the kitchen of the house by that silencer not appear in the first photographs taken at the crime scene? How were they actually made in order that they appeared in later imagery?
    • How could Jeremy Bamber be the killer if he made a phone call from his Goldhanger home 3.5 miles away moments after his father had called police from White House Farmhouse to say that his daughter had “gone berserk” with a gun?
    • Why did Essex Police hide hundreds of thousands of pages of key documentation including police logs and crime scene photographs from being shared during both the 1986 trial and the 2002 appeal?
    • Could the AGA be responsible for the burn marks on Nevill Bamber and if so, why did Essex Police move bodies at the crime scene?
    • Why did Essex Police so push the narrative of Jeremy Bamber’s former lover and known thief Julie Mugford given they knew shew had been sold her story for £25,000 to the now defunct News of the World with the payment to be received only if he was convicted?
    • Why did Essex Police not investigate why other relatives supported the narrative of Jeremy Bamber as killer given those very relatives only benefitted financially based on Jeremy Bamber’s ultimate conviction?

     

    White-House-Farm-Pages-Lane-Tolleshunt-DArcy-Maldon-Essex-CM9-8AA
    The scene of the murders during the night of 6th and 7th August 1985: White House Farm, Pages Lane, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Maldon, Essex, CM9 8AA.
    Nevill-and-June-Bamber
    Jeremy Bamber’s adoptive parents, Ralph and June Bamber, and the grave where they are buried. Could he finally be exonerated of their killings in 2023?
    White-House-Farm-kitchen-AGA
    In November 2022, Phillip Boyce – who has worked on high profile investigations as a forensic scientist for over 30 years –claimed that Essex Police could have “changed the evidence” in the case by moving the body of Nevill Bamber before official photographs of the scene were taken. If true, the three burn marks on Mr Bamber’s back would not have been inflicted by the hot end of a rifle but instead by his dead body being left lying against the AGA and its hot handles instead causing the burns. In photographs taken by police, shown to the trial jury at Chelmsford Crown Court in 1986, Nevill Bamber was instead seen slumped over an overturned chair in the kitchen.
    Bedroom
    One of the bedrooms at the farm; a truly horrific scene that will go down in history as a murder most horrid. If it is proven that Jeremy Bamber was NOT the killer, this case will also go down in history as one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice.
    True-Crime-Newsquest-Jeremy-Bamber-November-2022
    On 24th November 2022, the new True Crime Newsquest mini-series ‘White House Farm murders – Is Jeremy Bamber Innocent?’ featured in an article by Jody Doherty-Cove. In it, Tom Dalby, a reporter on the Colchester Gazette and Essex County Standard, is quoted to say: “The support Bamber gets in prison – in 2017 he told us he [got] about 100 letters per week from supporters, 500 Christmas cards. There is this level of support he still gets from people locally… There are people who are very clear he is innocent.” In the programme also, former detective Mark Williams-Thomas quotes Essex Police Acting Chief Detective Michael Ainsley as having written in 1985: “On my return from annual leave, I obviously enquired as to the situation with the murders… [I was assured] the evidence indicated that Sheila [Caffell] was responsible.”
    Destroyed-evidence-Sheila-Caffell
    In April 2020, ‘The Steeple Times’ reported that “further questions about the conduct of Essex Police [were] raised as it [was] revealed they destroyed the bible, nightclothes and pillows that were found with the victims at White House Farm on the night of the 1985 murders. The 20th March 2000 letter from the Criminal Cases Review Commission to Glaisyers Solicitors LLP and Sheila Caffell is truly a shocking example of a bungling balls-up.
    Bible-Sheila-Caffell-destroyed-evidence
    The clearly left open bible next to the body of Sheila Caffell was photographed by Essex Police, but was then not submitted as evidence and destroyed. A supposed suicide note also disappeared and countless other evidence was clearly tampered with. “What motivation did those processing the scene have to do this?” is a question that Essex Police and prosecutors have repeatedly failed to answer.
    Peter-Tatchell
    Veteran human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, a longtime supporter of Jeremy Bamber, tweeted about the case on 7th March 2021. He remarked: “Is this [the] greatest miscarriage of justice?” and previously in 2017, he wrote to the then chief constable of Essex Police, Stephen Kavanagh, to highlight the “grave injustice” of the force’s withholding and destroying evidence with regard to the White House Farm murders.
    Michael-Ainsley-evidence
    Jeremy Bamber’s legal team have alleged that the senior investigating officer in the case, Michael Ainsley, took documents relating to the case to his home in 2010 and destroyed them in spite of “knowing there was an active appeal underway.” Surely, now, it is time for a reinvestigation of this case at the very least if faith in the British justice system is to be retained.
  • Binned Barrymore – Michael Barrymore Insults Memory Of Murder Victim Stuart Lubbock

    Binned Barrymore – Michael Barrymore Insults Memory Of Murder Victim Stuart Lubbock

    In pretentiously posing for pictures as-if-dead, utter berk Michael Barrymore yet again insults the victim of murder at his Essex bungalow Stuart Lubbock; this rotten ratbag should be binned

    After yet again illustrating himself as an utter shameless scumbag last August when he shared letters from the late Diana, Princess of Wales, Michael Barrymore has yet again proven himself an utter cretin by filming himself posing as if dead and throwing himself into a bin.

     

    Shared on TikTok, the footage of this feckless fool is nothing but an insult to the victim of the poor father of two murdered at his home on 31st March 2001, Stuart Lubbock.

     

    Responding online, respected journalist Alexis Parr condemned the footage as “weird” whilst others suggested “Michael’s lost it again” might come to be the analysis of this reprehensible ratbag best known for rolling around on the floor off his skull with the convicted racist Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben.

     

    Shame on Michael Barrymore; may he be forevermore cancelled.

     

    Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.

     

    Justice for Stuart Lubbock – The people who need to man-up and tell the truth about what happened at Michael Barrymore’s home on 31st March 2001

    Michael Parker (AKA Michael Barrymore) – Allegedly loudly said: “I need a f**k” in a taxi as he left the Millennium Nightclub to return to his home, the scene of the death of Stuart Lubbock. Barrymore later lied to a coroner’s court about facilitating drug taking at his house on the night in question also.

     

    Barrymore claimed to have been first to have discovered the body of Stuart Lubbock at 5.45am, called his manager Mike Brown before the ambulance arrived and then left the premises. He admits that was “wrong” and also bizarrely told Piers Morgan that in spite of “knowing others were hiding secrets about what happened to Mr. Lubbock” that “I am not going to say their names. I just hope they are brave enough to come forward one day.”

     

    Mike Brown – Agent of Michael Barrymore. Called to the property before emergency services arrived.

     

    Kelly Campbell – Had met Michael Barrymore for the first time on the night of the incident. Claimed not to have been aware of what happened.

     

    James Futters (sometimes spelt ‘Futers’) – A paper boy turned chef. Described as “a local from the village” and a “friend and neighbour of Barrymore.” Claimed to have been the first to discover the body with Simon Shaw and stated: “[It was not] Michael Barrymore and not Jonathan Kenney [who found him].” Later, of him the Evening Standard reported: “Barrymore offered James Futters a white powder on his finger saying: ‘Do you want to try this?’ Mr Futters told the inquest that he leaned forward and licked the powder.”

     

    Claire Jones – Then aged 17. Had met Michael Barrymore for the first time on the night of the incident. Claimed not to have been aware of what happened but told the police that she “saw Barrymore rummaging through drawers and changing his clothes before police arrived. When he left the house, he had a ‘bundle of material’ under his arm,” according to the Evening Standard. “She added: ‘Jonathan (Kenney) was rushing through the bungalow before the ambulance and police arrived. I got the impression he was hiding something.’”

     

    Jonathan Kenney – Estate agent, drag queen and Michael Barrymore’s then lover; later arrested on suspicion of murder but never charged; known for having a “record of violence.” Claimed to have been the first to have discovered the body and is now aged 50.

     

    Justin Merritt – A dustman from Essex. Later arrested on suspicion of murder but never charged. Later paid £30,000 by the News of the World for an interview in which he stated Barrymore had “rubbed cocaine on Stuart Lubbock’s lips shortly before he died.”

     

    Kylie Merritt – Sister of Justin Merritt. She also alleged Barrymore “rubbed cocaine on Stuart Lubbock’s lips shortly before he died” (curiously in the wake of her brother selling his account of the night).

     

    Simon Shaw – Described as “a local from the village.” Michael Barrymore supposedly “ran off” to Mr. Shaw’s house to “buy himself thinking time [for two hours] before he was questioned by the police [at 7.49am].”

     

    In addition, others, who’ve never been identified could also have possibly been present. If they were, they should come forward or be named by those listed above.

     

    Jimmy Savile and Michael Barrymore worshipping
    The disgraced entertainer pictured ‘worshiping’ Sir Jimmy Savile in the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house in January 2006. Of the late paedophile, at the time, the self-centred ex ‘Strike It Lucky’ host disgustingly declared: “When he came in I was blown away because it’s him and he never lets you down. I didn’t think seeing Jim and hearing Jim talking and being so personal and kind to me. I started to well up in there and thought here we go.”
    Michael Barrymore Roydon bungalow
    The scene of the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock on 31st March 2001: Michael Barrymore’s then home, 4 Beaumont Park Drive, Roydon, Harlow, Essex, CM19 5HB. The property was most recently sold for £1.33 million in 2017 whilst Barrymore had paid £392,500 for it in 1998 and was forced to sell it for £802,000 in 2005 to cover costs related to his bankruptcy.
    Eights suspects of murder of Stuart Lubbock
    The eight people who went to party on 31st March 2001 who didn’t die. Why won’t any of them tell the truth and why has one of them changed his name?
    Jonathan Kenney
    Jonathan Kenney – a now 51-year-old – was the ‘entertainer’s’ lover at the time of the killing. He is now said to be a coach driver, resides supposedly in Cheshire and has most curiously changed his name. One is left wondering why.
    Michael Barrymore Stuart Lubbock
    Michael Barrymore disgustingly pretending to be Hitler (left) and victim of rape and murder at his home, Stuart Lubbock (right).
    Michael Barrymore, Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben
    Michael Barrymore pictured rolling around on the floor off-his-skull with the convicted racist bigot Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=-1wRAvqXOos&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesteepletimes.com%2F&source_ve_path=MzY4NDI&feature=emb_logo
  • Horror In The Hamptons… 2020 Coronavirus Crisis Ransackings v 2022 Cost-Of-Living Crisis Riots in This Ritzy Resort

    Horror In The Hamptons… 2020 Coronavirus Crisis Ransackings v 2022 Cost-Of-Living Crisis Riots in This Ritzy Resort

    Whilst the Hamptons was the scene of “bidding wars” and “supermarket spats” over £275 bottles of Chablis during the 2020 coronavirus crisis, it’s become the scene of socialites being arrested in “wife beaters” for assaulting “glampin’ workers” in the 2022 cost-of-living-crisis

    There’s always been something about the Hamptons that attracts big spenders and badly-behaved berks.

     

    Here is a set of tony townships rife with money, mystery, mayhem and murder and further proof of the madness of this privileged place came this week when Libbie Mugrabi – a soppy “socialite” resident best known for bizarrely once comparing herself to the late Diana, Princess of Wales – opened up to accuse her workers of “glampin’ in the Hamptons” when she got arrested for allegedly violently attacking them.

     

    Setting the scene, during the summer of 2020 coronavirus lockdowns, “überwealthy” residents of this southern fork of Long Island hired nightclub bouncers to “prevent others from using their roads.” To “protect [their] health,” they “compounded” – “buying [up] two and even three seven-and eight-figure homes on the same street, grabbing up surrounding acres for family members” – in order to avoid others.

     

    At the time, Vanity Fair’s Stephanie Krikorian mused of “bidding wars” and “tears,” whilst, to the New York Post’s Jennifer Gould, founder of “upscale supermarket chain” Citraella Joe Guerra lamented: “I had one customer spend $8,000. You know when you see someone with a full shopping cart? Now they have five… [They buy] pretty much everything they can… Instead of asking for one or two steaks on a tray, a customer will buy the whole tray. Then they’ll move on to shrimp, and buy all the shrimp, and then they’ll buy all the salmon steaks. Instead of asking for a slice of lasagna, they’ll buy all of it. Then they’ll buy all of our root vegetables… Business is insane.”

     

    When not “ransacking grocery stores in epic shopping sprees,” these very wealthy folk were to be found at what they themselves termed “quarantine mansions” and many of them did exactly the opposite to what was deemed sensible.

     

    These irresponsible brats threw “Covidiot super-spreader parties” and even worse, in one instance – which has become one of The Steeple Times’ most popular ever stories – a self-declared “power broker” and “well-regarded [estate] agent” named Jonathan Davis got into a serious spat. His crime? This “privileged, preppy prat” and Nest Seekers employed realtor became a “pesky squatter” in a Sag Harbor “dream home” that he supposedly utterly trashed. Here was not a property agent helping a landlord, but instead one seemingly robbing them and wrecking their residence instead.

     

    Confronted by Inside Edition’s cameras in June 2020, Mr Davis raged: “I’ve got no comments except: GET ORF THE GROUNDS!” whilst the landlady to whom he owed thousands, Paula Rosado, responded: “It’s horrific. It really is just horrific… This has been a complete nightmare for us, for our family emotionally and financially…. [His German Shepherd dogs] tear apart [everything] and urinate all over rugs and couches [sic].”

     

    Of him, one fellow agent, Zachary Belil, later commented to The Steeple Times: “The kid is a little freak. He tried suing Compass for no reason” whilst social butterfly Lynn Wyatt added: “I dealt with him once. He has no manners and is an arrogant little f**k. Zachary Belil is a realtor I’ve heard good things about and though I have never dealt with him, I back him up – Jonnie Boy is a FREAK.”

     

    Whilst Jonathan Davis is astoundingly still employed by Nest Seekers at their Bridgehampton office, Libbie Mugrabi has taken up his mantle and featured late last week in a New York Post article by Michael Kaplan as an “arrested socialite” after the Southampton Police Department had “charged [her] with menacing, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon” last Tuesday.

     

    Ms Mugrabi – the ex-wife of “billionaire art collector” David Mugrabi and a woman known for having described her marriage as a “gilded cage” during “New York’s nastiest divorce” in 2020 – Kaplan reported, got cuffed after attacking an “unnamed housekeeper” on 31st July “with a mop handle and a knife, and broke her cellphone” at her 10,000 square foot house in Water Mill.

     

    Ordered now to appear in court on 6th December, Mugrabi showed no sign of remorse and raged to the paper:

     

    “They should have been doing work on my house, but not living in my house. The night I came home, a lady was in my guest room – she was supposed to have been let go. I went to use the bathroom, saw her, and I got scared to death.”

     

    “She started throwing stuff at me. She threw a cellphone and the bottom of a stringy mop at me. She was screaming like a crazy person and threw a bible at me.”

     

    Turning to the “attack allegation leveled against her,” she conceded: “I’m not aggressive physically. I’m aggressive with my voice.”

     

    Her mother, Jane Scher, who claims to have met the staff in question on another occasion, added: “These people had taken over Libbie’s house… They were in the pool and the hot tub and wouldn’t even give me a cup of coffee. I thought they had a better life than I do… Libbie told them to feed me. They gave me some kind of soup with ginger. It tasted OK. I was starving.”

     

    Of the conduct of the police who arrested her, Mugrabi raged:

     

    “[They] were aggressive for no reason. They attacked me and handcuffed me. I said they were twisting my wrist. They said: ‘It’s OK.’ I asked to read me my rights. They said: ‘We don’t read rights for this.’ … I don’t know what I did in Southampton except pay my taxes.”

     

    Her friend, fashion consultant Marko Matysik, who was present during the 22nd November arrest and “watching from the terrace at the time,” whined:

     

    “Next thing I knew, Libbie was in handcuffs. She was wearing a wife-beater and hot pants. I grabbed as many of her handbags and hand luggage as I could [in case she needed anything inside them] and got into the chauffeured Suburban and followed the police car…. They were very happy to have her in the jailhouse.”

     

    Concluding, Libbie Mugrabi ignored the cost-of-living crisis that so many around the world are currently enduring. Instead, she moaned that after the “commotion” of the arrest she’d been forced to “postpone” a trip to Miami and had instead spent “some town in her Upper East Side townhouse.” The somewhat shamed but clearly not ashamed socialite finally bleated: “I had Thanksgiving in New York. I definitely would not have had it in the Hamptons. Right now, I’m scared to go there.” Now, get those damned violins a-playing.

     

    Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.

     

    Pictured Top – The ritzy residential resort of the Hamptons attracts billionaires with bulging bank balances because of its idyllic charm (top), but it also appeals to brash Botoxed braggarts like Libbie Mugrabi (bottom right) and her mother Jane Scher (bottom left).

     

    David and Libbie Mugrabi
    Libbie Mugrabi (pictured with her billionaire ex-husband) showed her clear belief that she’s always the victim when she told ‘Page Six’ in June 2021: “I had the same thing as [the late Diana, Princess of Wales] – I got married young. She was told what to do and wear. And so was I. You’re under control and under a rein. It doesn’t matter what’s fair or what you deserve… After divorce, you can breathe, free of the gilded cage. I married someone who thought he was better than me.” She got her ‘plastic-not-fantastic look’ in spite of having had a father who was a plastic surgeon and a mother who was a nurse.
    Brock Pierce and Libbie Mugrabi
    After her divorce, ‘Lovely Libbie’ briefly hooked up with Brock Pierce (pictured with her left and right in his acting days) – a former child actor who had appeared in Disney’s ‘The Mighty Ducks’ and who ran as an independent candidate in the 2020 United States of America presidential election. That didn’t last. “I didn’t know anyone at my wedding” at one point further admitted mother-of-two turned “trucker hat-seller” Ms Mugrabi before she arrogantly added in another of many self-grandiose interviews: “My artist friends compare me to Peggy Gugenheim… She was fast and furious and drove in her own lane and no one could keep up with her.” Of subsequent relationships, she’s first to admit they’ve been equally disastrous. “I got robbed by so many people since I got divorced. I’ve been robbed like 10 times… I’m open and I’m free, and I’ve had some really creepy people around me. Now I’m being much more careful. I’ve never been 41 before with money and all this stuff. It’s like a rebirth. You have to relearn everything,” she added. There’s maybe hope for this ridiculous woman yet.
    During their multi-million divorce in December 2018, things got very “nasty” between Mr and Mrs Mugrabi. Of the pair, unnamed ‘sources’ close to the couple tellingly remarked: “I didn’t know people like us did this… [Libbie and David] met in Aspen and six months later they got engaged… In those days, she was the sweetest, so nice… [David’s family] tried to take her in… They were living the highest life you can imagine: A lot of staff. A lot of nannies, a lot of cleaning people and chefs. Two homes, a lot of drivers and the [Mugrabi] family airplane… Libbie is a big fashionista. [David] didn’t like paying for that.” Of her having employed a personal secretary, “family friends” were supposedly “flabbergasted” and observed: “What? ‘Little Libbie’ who doesn’t even know her way around Bergdorf’s? I think [David] created a monster.” He most definitely did.
    Libbie Mugrabi
    In an undated video about her “brand” (whatever that might actually be), Libbie Mugrabi bragged: “The brand is since the pandemic and life change [sic]. It’s just happy, kind and cool, funny, spread love brand [sic]. For girls, for dogs, for women, for men, but it’s geared all towards growth; female empowerment but it can be used by blokes too.” She then banged on about ‘Tatler’ magazine having called her a “glamorous divorcee” – which she termed “nice, erm, kind” – and added: “I came up with the French version: ‘Divorcée glam’” – but failed to mention her alleged penchant for attacking her staff with mop handles and knives and breaking their mobile phones.
    Jonathan Davis Nest Seekers pesky squatter
    Jonathan Davis of realty firm Nest Seekers developed notoriety during the 2020 coronavirus lockdowns not for helping his clients in the Hamptons get places to live. Instead, this rotten realtor became known as a “pesky squatter” who allowed his dogs to urinate and destroy a house he supposedly owed many thousands of dollars in rent on.
    David Yelland tweet
    Former editor of ‘The Sun’ David Yelland delighted in the story of the arrested socialite yesterday. On Twitter, the veteran newsman observed: “Here’s a splendid out of season Hamptons socialite story to cheer us all up… Libbie Mugrabi claims she is victim of housekeeper and Hamptons cops.” He clearly wasn’t out to show this birdbrained Botox advertisement any sympathy.
    Watermill home assault scene
    One of the “gilded cages” in the Hamptons that a woman who believes herself like the late Diana, Princess of Wales calls home and the scene where Libbie Mugrabi allegedly assaulted one of her staff with a mop handle and knife in July this year.
    Jean Shafiroff
    In a similar show of out-of-touch behaviour, in March 2020, another self-appointed Hamptons “philanthropist and socialite,” Jean Shafiroff, told the ‘New York Post’ that she was normally “accustomed to dining out on a nightly basis” whilst at her home in the ritzy enclave. The paper continued: “In the face of the coronavirus, she has taken the unfamiliar step of cooking for her husband, daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend. And it’s not been cheap. ‘I’m spending $300 to $1,000 a day on food and supplies,’ she said. The money goes toward chicken and salmon steaks, some of which she freezes, as well as for cleaning supplies and food for her dogs. ‘I even bought the drugstore out of all its dental floss. I wanted to make sure I had enough, along with extra toothbrushes, soap, toothpaste and body lotions,’ she said. ‘If I have to be quarantined, I better look nice.’ Shafiroff also is buying canned goods like the rest of America, but only out of an abundance of caution. ‘I can donate them later,’ she said of the items like Progresso chicken noodle soup and Del Monte peas and carrots – brands ‘I had never heard of before.’ How the other half live; previously, in September 2017, Mrs Shafiroff wailed to ‘Page Six’ about how she’d been attacked by bees at the Hampton Classic horse show. In spite of not actually being stung, the attention seeker told the paper: “I tried to stand still and let them fly off but they wouldn’t get off my face. I was terrified. They must have liked my perfume (which was Nanban).” ‘Page Six’ concluded: “Bystanders tried to help the swarmed socialite by swinging at the bees who eventually buzzed off.”
    Thomas Gilbert Jr Lila Chase Chevy Chase
    “Gym-bodied and catalogue-model-handsome” Thomas Gilbert Jr. personifies “the Hamptons gone bad.” In 2013, this Princeton graduate and son of hedge fund manager Thomas Gilbert Sr., founder of Wainscott Capital became the primes suspect of throwing a Molotov cocktail into his former roommate Peter Smith’s 300-year-old Sagaponack family home and burning it to the ground; in January 2015, he sent his mother out to get a sandwich and then shot his dad dead with a .40-caliber Glock pistol. Imprisoned to life with an earliest release date of April 2044, prisoner 19A3615 is now said to be dating Lila Chase, the niece of the actor Chevy Chase. An extra also in the 2013 short film ‘And After All,’ Gilbert Jr. was described as “delusional,” is said to have “avoided New York’s JFK airport at all costs” as he viewed it to be “severely contaminated and faked suicide during his trial by claiming he’d swallowed a battery. On being taken for an X-ray, he was found to be holding a battery over his stomach. It’s lucky that this lunatic and the definitely delusional Libbie Mugrabi didn’t meet; the pair might have gotten on like a house-on-fire.
    Libbie Mugrabi
    What’ll little miss ‘Divorcée Glam’ do next? Apologise? Unlikely… This motormouthed menace will more likely be found ranting and raving to yet another media title than mopping up her own mess. This Marie-Antoinette like woman might be an aspiring “extravagance knows no bounds” Barbara Amiel type figure, but she’s clearly not got the brains, brawn or beauty to pull off even that look. Next!
  • Glued To Grimsby – News Tends To Stick In This Grim Fishing Port

    Glued To Grimsby – News Tends To Stick In This Grim Fishing Port

    As the story of a man who glued himself to a desk in a NatWest in Grimsby is declared “breaking news,” we delve into some other odd things that have gone on in this decidedly grim fishing port; they include it being the birthplace of the ‘Neighbours’ actress who played the bumptious busybody Mrs Mangel and home to the scissor stabber who used to be dresser to Sarah, Duchess of York

    ‘Grimbarians’ – the decidedly dopey denziens of Grimsby – have a habit of doing curious things. Aside from being the place where the crackpot crazy dresser to Sarah, Duchess of York turned stabber Jane Andrews grew up and supposedly again has resided since leaving the clink (and is hopefully kept well clear of scissors, cricket bats and kitchen knives), it’s a place, as The Steeple Times reported in January 2021, where a resident named Andy found an Argos sign attached to his house on New Year’s Day that year.

     

    Reported on at the time by the clearly on-the-ball, always-got-a-breaking-news-story-on-the-boil GrimsbyLive, Andy told the rag: “I’m keeping it up though I think, it is a bit funny isn’t it? I might just treat it as a bit of a late Christmas present.” He amusingly concluded: “I’ll have to set up my own click and collect.”

     

    Noted as being home to a legendary P.E. teacher named Amy Monkhouse, who the BBC describe as having “won numerous titles in the world of bowls,” Grimsby was also where the actors John Hurt and Vivean Gray – better known as ‘Mrs Mangel’ in Neighbours – were born. Now, this once thriving fishing port – which was home at one time to Maxine Carr, the sidekick of the Soham murderer Ian Huntley – is once again on the map and this time its notoriety is set to stick because of a bit of glue.

     

    Featured yesterday in the Facebook group ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ after becoming “breaking news” in, you’ve guessed it, the fount of all knowledge that is GrimsbyLive came a vital story titled: “Man glues himself to desk in Grimsby NatWest bank. His wife has been watching on from the side.”

     

    Written by not one but two journalists, Luke Green and James J. Turner, this clearly vitally important piece of reporting emphasised the seriousness of what had occured and continued:

     

    “At around 3pm this afternoon (Thursday, November 17th), a man reportedly glued his arm to a table in the bank on Victoria Street. Officers from Humberside Police are already on the scene dealing with the matter.”

     

    “It’s not yet known why the man has done this although it is believed to be linked to some sort of dispute with the bank. Witnesses say his unimpressed wife has been watching on from the side.”

     

    Going further and clearly realising the vital need for updates on this ‘serious situation,’ Green and Turner audaciously added:

     

    “One man said: ‘I was very surprised to see him glued there, it’s not what I thought.’ Another customer said: ‘I didn’t realise that’s what had happened, that’s not what I expected.’”

     

    “GrimsbyLive has contacted Humberside Police and NatWest to find out more.”

     

    “This is a live blog. Follow the latest updates in the blog below…”

     

    Hold the front page; there’s someone glued to it.

     

    Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party (and nor was any glue was used in its creation).

     

    What an idiot
    Clear ‘journalist’ in-line for Pulitzer Prize James J. Turner later returned to his groundbreaking feature to add an update. It read: “One woman that came into use the bank said: ‘What an idiot.’” Prophetic.
    Evil murderer Jane Andrews (pictured left running with Sarah, Duchess of York in attire not exactly suited to such and pictured right in more recent times looking like what one social media user described as “a right old slapper”) is one of the better-known people to have resided in a town that took its name from a Danish fisherman. After battering her poor partner, Tommy Cressman, to death with his cricket bat and a kitchen knife, she went on the run before residing in London with the self-declared friend of the pompous “red socked fop” tw*t Sir Christopher Meyer, Basia Briggs, during her trial in 2001. Later, after being thrown in the clink for life after her conviction for murder, this wicked woman escaped from East Sutton Park Prison in Kent but did not even get charged with absconding.
    Whilst Elton John waxed lyrical about Grimsby in his song – with lines including “there’s nothing to compare with my Grimsby,” “Grimsby, oh, a thousand delights” and “I miss your magic charm” – one visitor remarked of it: “The place just stinks of fish.”
    “He who sang in the bathtub as the economy collapsed,” former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, was brought up in the port town whilst “Brexit means Brexit, my deal means a deal” Theresa May visited in March 2019 to declare: “I need the support of those who, like me, voted remain… Leaving with a good deal is much than leaving with no deal… The British people have already moved on… So, let’s get it done.” Unsurprisingly, her tenure as Prime Minister ended just a couple of months later.
    Vivean Gray (1924 – 2016) – better known as the actress to have played the gossiping busybody Nell Mangel in ‘Neighbours’ between 1986 and 1988 – was the daughter of a Grimsby fish and chip shop owner. She never married or had any children, lived in Australia for some years from the 1950s onwards and then returned to England to Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex where she is said to have “lived a quiet and private life.”
    In February 2015, a UKIP politician named Victoria Ayling from the port town responded to a comment from a Green Party member by asking: “What happens when renewable energy runs out?” This clearly dimwitted dunce had previous been slammed after film a video with her husband in which she raged: “We must basically [re]patriate those that shouldn’t be here. That’s not quite policy yet. Maybe I should soften it a bit … OK, send them back… OK, I just want to send the lot back, but I can’t say that.”
    Bull Sand Fort Humber Estuary
    Clearly though some people do love this town on the Humber Estuary. In July this year, a derelict Second World War sea fort that had been intended for conversion to an ‘Island of Hope’ for detoxing druggies, sold for 880% above its £50,000 guide price and hammered down for £490,000 at a Savills auction.

    Twitter reacts to the ‘NatWest Gluer’…

  • A Profiteering Prat – Michael Barrymore

    A Profiteering Prat – Michael Barrymore

    Michael Barrymore shows no contrition in the wake of the 21st anniversary of the rape-murder of Stuart Lubbock at his home and instead shamelessly returns to TikTok for yet more personal profiteering

    Disgraced ‘entertainer’ Michael Barrymore – a man who admits to knowing something but still says nothing that could help bring justice after the 2001 rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock at his Roydon, Essex bungalow – has had an astonishing 178.3 million views on his TikTok page.

     

    On Friday, taking to Twitter, the heartless Bermondsey born 69-year-old known also for rolling around on the floor drunk with the convicted racist bigot Marie-Claire, Baroness von Alvensleben, shared what he called “a lovely story” about how he’d met up with a “boy done good” named ‘Christopher.’ He remarked on how he’d met up with this individual 22 years after he’d appeared on his Kids Say The Funniest Things show in 2000 – their first encounter being just months before the assault and killing of a then 31-year-old Lubbock that took place at his very own home.

     

    Bragging first that the TikTok clip of the child he had described on the show as “quite intriguing” had already had 14 million views, the creepy cretin then followed with a second missive featuring images of ‘Christopher’ today – including one of him hugging said individual in London’s Hyde Park. It is nothing but cringeworthy.

     

    Shockingly of this tawdry clip shared just days after the 21st anniversary of Stuart Lubbock’s untimely death, Metro’s Louise Griffin declared: “The presenter shared a very welcome update” before adding: “Fans were thrilled by the unexpected reunion.” In doing so, Griffin simply showed herself to be a reprehensible woman completely lacking in sympathy for the familiies of victims of rape and murder.

     

    Subsequently shared on Saturday by Metro on Facebook with an equally reprehensible quote reading: “Well this is just lovely,” Griffin’s article was met with adulation by some of his fans, but rightly called out by many others. It is shameful and wrong to celebrate this maggot-not-a-man who to this day refuses to cooperate in attempts to get justice for a father-of-two who was brutally slayed at his very own residence.

     

    In June 2019, Barrymore – whom ran away from the scene of the crime before police arrived on that fateful morning in 2001 – arrogantly told Piers Morgan:

     

    “I had nothing to do with Stuart. I am innocent. I am not 99.9% innocent. I am 100% innocent and I am entitled to walk around with my head held high for the rest of my life.”

     

    “I didn’t facilitate him taking drugs. I was advised [to stay silent] by lawyers at the time. You don’t have to answer in a coroner’s court. I can see lots of things in hindsight. I’m not making excuses. I f**ked up. I f**ked up. What more do you want?”

     

    In 2018, Sir Brian Leveson ruled at the Royal Courts of Justice that Barrymore – whose birth name was Michael Parker – was one of only three people with the window opportunity at the party to commit the assault and murder.

     

    Going further in 2020, Essex Police attempted to rejuvenate interest in the case and pointed out:

     

    “Stuart Lubbock was a young father and much-loved son who remains at the heart of the case. His family want answers and we will continue to do all we can to bring those responsible to justice.”

     

    “On 31st March 2001, nine people attended a party at Michael Barrymore’s house. One of them, Stuart, ended up being violently sexually assaulted at that party.”

     

    “Someone at the party was responsible for what happened. Someone knows that happened. Other people arrived at the scene in the houses after Stuart’s death. Individuals at the party might have told others what happened.”

     

    “We would urge people who do have information to come forward. 19 years is a long time, loyalties change and it’s never too late to do the right thing.”

     

    Pictured top – A smugger-than-smug Michael Barrymore with his ‘friend’ Christopher in London in April 2022 (left); Stuart Lubbock, a victim of rape and murder at Barrymore’s then home on 31st March 2001 (right).

     

    Jimmy Savile
    The disgraced entertainer pictured ‘worshiping’ Sir Jimmy Savile in the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house in January 2006. Of the late paedophile, at the time, the self-centred ex ‘Strike It Lucky’ host disgustingly declared: “When he came in I was blown away because it’s him and he never lets you down. I didn’t think seeing Jim and hearing Jim talking and being so personal and kind to me. I started to well up in there and thought here we go.”
    Twitter 1 MB
    In typically smug fashion, the Bermondsey born berk made out his TikTok clip to be a “lovely story” whilst not declaring that he simply shares these moronic moments in order to make yet more money. Instead, why doesn’t he do something decent for once in his sorry existence and help get justice for the children and other relatives of the late Stuart Lubbock? Shame on him.
    Twitter 2 MB
    Hugging a young man who looks to be about the same age as the victim of rape and murder at his Roydon, Essex bungalow in 2001, Stuart Lubbock, does not make this disgraced ‘entertainer’ appealing in any sense. It just shows him to be still to this day completely out of touch with reality. Shame on him.
    Metro Facebook
    ‘Metro’ reacted to the upload by declaring: “Well this is just lovely.” What on earth is wrong with them? Have they no sympathy with the victims of rape and murder? Shame on them also.
    Karen Blade
    Campaigner Karen Blade, a lady clearly dedicated to justice, responded: “Some of the usual ‘bring him back’ and lots of ‘never in a month of Sundays.’ #justice4stuart.” We salute her.
    Facebook 1
    Responding to ‘Metro’s’ Facebook post, some shared their thoughts on how much they loved the former TV presenter. Others, rightly pointed out that the man born Michael Parker “has no shame” and that he is an “absolute wrong’un.” One went as far to pointedly ask: “Was [Jimmy] Savile your second favourite presenter by any chance?”
    Facebook 2
    Going further, another named Pete Hill suggested: “Charge everyone who was in that house that night. Won’t take long for the truth to come out.” Though that will sadly never occur due to the time lapse and the missing evidence, he is spot on and Daniel Lees, equally, was right to say “shame on you” of ‘Metro’ for “trying to reputation-wash” for the former ITV presenter.
    The scene of the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock on 31st March 2001: Michael Barrymore’s then home, 4 Beaumont Park Drive, Roydon, Harlow, Essex, CM19 5HB. The property was most recently sold for £1.33 million in 2017 whilst Barrymore had paid £392,500 for it in 1998 and was forced to sell it for £802,000 in 2005 to cover costs related to his bankruptcy.
    Michael Barrymore Christopher hugging Hyde Park
    Pictured hugging, ‘Christopher,’ a man who is now about the same age as the victim of rape and murder at his home in 2001, Michael Parker should be ashamed of himself. He isn’t and continues to claim his innocence. If so innocent, why doesn’t he come forward and name the names of the men who committed rape and murder on the 31st March 2001 at his Essex bungalow?

    Justice for Stuart Lubbock – The people who need to man-up and tell the truth about what happened at Michael Barrymore’s home on 31st March 2001

    Michael Parker (AKA Michael Barrymore) – Allegedly loudly said: “I need a f**k” in a taxi as he left the Millennium Nightclub to return to his home, the scene of the death of Stuart Lubbock. Barrymore later lied to a coroner’s court about facilitating drug taking at his house on the night in question also.

    Barrymore claimed to have been first to have discovered the body of Stuart Lubbock at 5.45am, called his manager Mike Brown before the ambulance arrived and then left the premises. He admits that was “wrong” and also bizarrely told Piers Morgan that in spite of “knowing others were hiding secrets about what happened to Mr. Lubbock” that “I am not going to say their names. I just hope they are brave enough to come forward one day.”

    Mike Brown – Agent of Michael Barrymore. Called to the property before emergency services arrived.

    Kelly Campbell – Had met Michael Barrymore for the first time on the night of the incident. Claimed not to have been aware of what happened.

    James Futters (sometimes spelt ‘Futers’) – A paper boy turned chef. Described as “a local from the village” and a “friend and neighbour of Barrymore.” Claimed to have been the first to discover the body with Simon Shaw and stated: “[It was not] Michael Barrymore and not Jonathan Kenney [who found him].” Later, of him the Evening Standard reported: “Barrymore offered James Futters a white powder on his finger saying: ‘Do you want to try this?’ Mr Futters told the inquest that he leaned forward and licked the powder.”

    Claire Jones – Then aged 17. Had met Michael Barrymore for the first time on the night of the incident. Claimed not to have been aware of what happened but told the police that she “saw Barrymore rummaging through drawers and changing his clothes before police arrived. When he left the house, he had a ‘bundle of material’ under his arm,” according to the Evening Standard. “She added: ‘Jonathan (Kenney) was rushing through the bungalow before the ambulance and police arrived. I got the impression he was hiding something.’”

    Jonathan Kenney – Estate agent, drag queen and Michael Barrymore’s then lover; later arrested on suspicion of murder but never charged; known for having a “record of violence.” Claimed to have been the first to have discovered the body and is now aged 50.

    Justin Merritt – A dustman from Essex. Later arrested on suspicion of murder but never charged. Later paid £30,000 by the News of the World for an interview in which he stated Barrymore had “rubbed cocaine on Stuart Lubbock’s lips shortly before he died.”

    Kylie Merritt – Sister of Justin Merritt. She also alleged Barrymore “rubbed cocaine on Stuart Lubbock’s lips shortly before he died” (curiously in the wake of her brother selling his account of the night).

    Simon Shaw – Described as “a local from the village.” Michael Barrymore supposedly “ran off” to Mr. Shaw’s house to “buy himself thinking time [for two hours] before he was questioned by the police [at 7.49am].”

    In addition, others, who’ve never been identified could also have possibly been present. If they were, they should come forward or be named by those listed above.

     

    Eight suspects murder of Stuart Lubbock
    The eight people who went to party on 31st March 2001 who didn’t die. Why won’t any of them tell the truth and why has one of them changed his name?
    Jonathan Kenney
    Jonathan Kenney – a now 51-year-old – was the ‘entertainer’s’ lover at the time of the killing. He is now said to be a coach driver, resides supposedly in Cheshire and has most curiously changed his name. One is left wondering why.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wRAvqXOos&t=2s
  • Shame On Michael Barrymore’s Supporters

    Shame On Michael Barrymore’s Supporters

    Elizabeth J. Bond returns to the case of the murder of Stuart Lubbock, debunks myths about what happened that night and slams Michael Barrymore and his shameful supporters

    It has recently come to my attention that the disgraced TV personality Michael Barrymore still has a number of high-profile friends and supporters. They include Fiona Phillips who has repeatedly defended him on social media – both before and after the 2020 documentary on the death of Stuart Lubbock at Barrymore’s Essex home aired.

     

    Even worse are boorish broadcasters Alex Belfield and Steve Allen. They have both attacked Stuart’s late father Terry, accusing him of not being able to accept his son was gay and of “droning on” about this tragic case.

     

    Some might say that such comments are best ignored. However, this is the wrong approach to take as Phillips, Belfield and Allen are people with a considerable following and influence. It is also important to debunk certain myths about what happened that night once and for all. These have unfortunately been repeated as gospel in the press and even in the documentary, which did a major disservice to the case by going with The Body in the Pool as a title.

     

    In essence, there are three main facts that everyone should be aware of.

     

    FACT 1 – STUART LUBBOCK WAS NOT FOUND IN THE SWIMMING POOL

     

    A recording of the 999 call to the emergency services can be heard here. It’s an extraordinary thing to listen to, especially the part where the caller moans to the operator that this happened on the one night he’d been out in four years, but please note the following exchange:

     

    Caller: A fella’s drowned in the pool.

    Operator: Are they still in the water, there?

    Caller: No. We’ve got them out.

     

    Indeed, when the ambulance arrived, the body was lying beside the pool – not actually in it. This means that NO independent witnesses ever saw Stuart in the pool, and we only have the word of Barrymore and the others present that he was found there.

     

    So, can we trust their testimonies as reliable?

     

    The short answer is: “No.”

     

    Virtually none of the witness statements concurred with each other.

     

    To cite a few examples, Barrymore claimed to have found Stuart’s body in the pool, while Simon Shaw stated that he was the one who made the discovery.

     

    Barrymore also asserted in television interviews that he saw Stuart floating face-up. Yet Jonathan Kenney said that Stuart was face-down. At one point, Kenney went on to say that he and Kylie Merritt managed to drag Stuart out of the pool, but Shaw testified that he and James Futers were the people who retrieved the body from the water.

     

    None of this adds up. We must therefore seriously ask ourselves whether Stuart was ever in the pool at all. Or was this a ruse to cover up the true cause of Stuart’s death?

     

    I urge people to stop saying Stuart was found in the pool. Not just because he wasn’t, but also because it’s important to firmly close the door to the idea that Stuart died following a swim which went wrong.

     

    Which brings us to….

     

    FACT 2 – STUART LUBBOCK DID NOT DROWN

     

    Stuart’s body was subjected to a number of examinations. Of those, only the first one conducted by Dr Michael Heath named drowning as a cause of death – perhaps because Heath had (wrongly) been told that Stuart had been found in a pool. However, the authorities were not satisfied with Heath’s conclusions, hence why further post-mortems were ordered.

     

    Indeed, Heath’s competence as a doctor has been called into serious question. As at the time of writing, he is under investigation by the General Medical Council for a catalogue of errors in several other autopsies. In one instance, a family feared that they had been given the wrong body because Heath’s report contained so many mistakes – including mention of a gall bladder, even though the relative in question had hers removed some years prior.

     

    In any event, none of the other pathologists thought that Stuart had drowned. What they did all agree on was that he had suffered horrific internal injuries. For the benefit of Alex Belfield, I’ll state here that Stuart was not gay. On the contrary, he was well-known locally as a “ladies’ man”.

     

    However, even if he had been gay, there is absolutely no way he could have consented to the act which produced those kinds of injuries. The fourth pathologist, Professor Jack Crane believes that they were serious enough to have induced a heart attack and been the real cause of Stuart’s death. Moreover, the second pathologist, Professor Chris Milroy identified ‘petechiae’ on Stuart’s face, which were consistent with restraint and strangulation while the attack was carried out.

     

    I make no claims as to who was responsible for Stuart’s murder, but there is no doubt that the case has been hampered by the guests maintaining a wall of silence about what occurred that night.

     

    And, in particular…

     

    FACT 3 – BARRYMORE HAS DONE NOTHING BUT HINDER THE INVESTIGATION WITH HIS ACTIONS

     

    In an interview with Piers Morgan, Barrymore stated that the Lubbock family deserve proper answers. This is ironic as none have been forthcoming from him. From the very beginning, Barrymore’s antics have obstructed rather than helped the investigation.

     

    Not only did he flee the scene before the emergency services arrived, but he refused to answer any questions at the inquest. Even worse, when Stuart’s internal injuries were revealed, Barrymore insisted that they had not been inflicted at his house, but by a nurse at the hospital. This was subsequently proven to be nonsense – but he succeeded in derailing the inquiry for two years while police had to investigate his ridiculous claim.

     

    That’s before we get on to some of the lies he’s told – from his assertion that he couldn’t swim (strongly denied by his late ex-wife, Cheryl and others) to giving evasive and contradictory responses when asked whether drugs had been taken that night. Or the fact that he actually sued Essex Police for arresting him, in a failed attempt to gain £2.5 million in compensation.

     

    Above all, if Barrymore genuinely wants to help, then why has he blocked everyone who mentions Stuart Lubbock from his social media accounts? This includes the official @Justice4Stuart Twitter account, The Steeple Times, and Stuart’s ex-wife, Sue Homan.

     

    As Sue herself has said, the disgraced entertainer could assist by simply retweeting an appeal for information, but to my knowledge, he has never done so. A look at his Twitter feed reveals a man more obsessed with reviving his career via TikTok than anything else.

     

    Again, I stress that I make no claims as to who exactly is responsible for Stuart’s murder, but I certainly question why anyone would continue to support Barrymore, given his disgraceful behaviour.

     

    The likes of Fiona Phillips, Alex Belfield, Steve Allen equally need to take a long, hard look at themselves. Shame on the lot of them.

     

    Roydon bungalow
    The scene of the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock on 31st March 2001: Michael Barrymore’s then home, 4 Beaumont Park Drive, Roydon, Harlow, Essex, CM19 5HB. The property was most recently sold for £1.33 million in 2017 whilst Barrymore had paid £392,500 for it in 1998 and was forced to sell it for £802,000 in 2005 to cover costs related to his bankruptcy.
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  • From ‘TwIt Girl’ to ‘InstaIdiot’ – Lady Victoria Hervey

    From ‘TwIt Girl’ to ‘InstaIdiot’ – Lady Victoria Hervey

    Dumber than dumb non-entity Lady Victoria Hervey morphs from ‘TwIt Girl’ to ‘InstaIdiot’ in a series of Instagram posts about her mucky madam mate Ghislaine Maxwell; she charmingly labels one victim she doesn’t even know a “complete whore” and another she claims to actually know a “drug addict slut and a f*ck up”

    True to her predictably pathetic form, in a series of messages and stories on Instagram, pompous prattling pillock Lady Victoria Hervey has gone and stuck her cloven hooves in the proverbial yet again. Here, today, we present a supposedly aristocratic woman who mocks victims as “money hungry” whilst shamelessly taking wonga for media interviews herself.

     

    Exposed by the journalist Lisa Tait of The Prince & The Pervert podcast on Twitter on Sunday, 45-year-old Lady Victoria – a wack job woman who has been on every news channel known to humanity banging on about Ghislaine Maxwell’s case in spite of not even having been called as a witness in that case and having previously claimed not to have even seen her so-called “friend” since 2018 – made herself out to be some kind of expert on the December conviction. Frankly, anyone rational realises this former bit of “toff totty” would have been about as much use giving evidence in that New York courtroom as a chocolate teapot.

     

    Indulging in totally uncalled for and utterly vulgarly styled victim shaming, ‘Lady Herpes’ announced that she “could not do with the sob stories” and suggested that though she is of the view that “Ghislaine is obviously not a saint,” the victims themselves number a “complete whore” (whom she claims not to actually know) and a “total money hungry drug addict slut and a f*ck up” (whom she does claim to actually know).

     

    Previously herself branded “unpleasant” and “a right snob” by the by contrast lovely and sadly late Tara Palmer Tomkinson, when realising she wouldn’t be winning any argument with the clearly intelligent Ms Tait, Lady Victoria – who also believes “charming, very well-liked guy” Jeffrey Epstein rejected her because she “was too old” (even he likely actually just couldn’t stand her) – then helpfully concluded: “I am so over this.” She then chucked the remainder of her toys out of her pram; whether that included one of ‘Grubby Ghislaine’s’ dinner party dildos remains unknown.

     

    Lady Victoria Hervey Ghislaine Maxwell Shizue Nobuta
    Mouthy moron Lady Victoria Hervey with the since convicted sex trafficker and abuser Ghislaine Maxwell and a handbag designer named Shizue Nobuta at a party hosted by Tamara Beckwith in Hollywood, California on 25th February 2004. In a documentary in June 2021, Lady Victoria claimed the pension pot plunderer’s decidedly deviant daughter liked to get more personal at dinner parties and would “demonstrate how to give a blowjob” to girls present, herself included.

    ‘InstaIdiot’ Lady Victoria Hervey’s Instagram Stories

    Here are just a few of this noxious nitwit’s Instagram posts and missives – complete with her (unedited by us) appalling grammar, punctuation and spelling. They clearly illustrate that this wastrel woman’s aristocratic family didn’t bother to provide her with access to an exactly stellar education and amongst them are:

    • “This was about to go Live on Lorraine last week. Please can someone let me know what the age of consent is in the UK. I thought it’s 17. Some of these stories sound like a case study of Regret turning into Revenge. This story has been so blown out of proportion. Or has it. Nobody knows.”
    • “People are literally murdering people in LA and getting out of jail. It’s a real life gotham city blood bath. I know Ghislaine is obviously not a saint and should pay back the trauma caused to her ‘victims’ but lifetime in jail for touching a girls tit 20 years ago and taking them on yacht, private jet and shopping trips. Come on. This has become a witch hunt. Thoughts on this? What does she deserve?”
    • “And while I’m here I may as well let out some other thoughts. That Virginia Roberts is a complete whore. She was no innocent girl. At 15 she ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning. She’s just a ghetto opportunist whose seriously mixed up. I really genuinely wanted to feel bad for these girls but the trial gave us nothing.”
    • “And yes drinking yourself into hospital doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a whore but it shows how mentally unstable you are.”
    • “I just can’t with the sob stories. Virginia was a classified train wreck. She wanted to go on those trips. In fact she’d do anything to be invited. During the recent trial her friend said she texted her after prince andrew and was boasting about it. Money hungry girls like her do not help the real people going through human trafficking.”
    • “You cannot compare Virginia to the character in my friends movie totally different girl was literally kept in a cage. Virginia was living the high life. I’m so sick of these me too girls cashing in and ruining it for the girls that really do need help and are desperate that are being killed and tortured.”
    • “Basically you cannot question a victim in today’s climate. So even though Virginia was of age and clearly became a co conspirator herself, we in the public are not allowed to question her or her motives.”
    • “Would she be suing these people if they were broke and molesting her in a trailer park? Which by the sounds of things she was dropping her knickers in al sorts of places. I also knew one of the other ‘victims’ who was also a total money hungry drug addict slut and a f*ck up. I’m so over this.”

    Lady Victoria Hervey Virginia Roberts Giuffre
    Bird brained Lady Victoria – whose Motcomb Street, Belgravia shop closed with estimated debts of £350,000 in 2001 – has recently been sharing Instagram stories in which she calls Virginia Roberts Giuffre a “complete whore” and suggested she was “dropping her knickers in all sorts of places.”
    Lady Victoria Hervey offensive message
    In a comment on another post, the late 6th Marquess of Bristol’s daughter predictably misjudged the importance of what is quite possibly the most significant sex trafficking scandal in decades given it involves, amongst others, three Presidents of the United States and the Queen’s “favourite” son and declared: “This story has been blown out of proportion… People are literally murdering people in LA and getting out of jail. It’s a real life Gotham City blood bath.” In response, one is simply left asking: “What planet is this washed-up wastrel on?” and wondering: “Is she on acid?”
    Lady Victoria Hervey Hollywood nonsense
    Lady Victoria hasn’t exactly shown herself to be up there on the rational scale whilst using Instagram. In one previous post, she banged on about filtering out “good versus evil” and “The Cabal” and claimed that Hollywood – where she lives is known for having threesomes and party crashing – is “like a bunch of mk ultra zombies [sic] walking around” and full of “dark satanic cults.” If that was actually true, it would be the perfect place for her.

    What Do Social Media Users Make Of ‘InstaIdiot’ Lady Victoria Hervey?

    Twitter users really do truly dislike the ultimate ‘TwIt Girl’ and of her in recent days comments have unsurprisingly included:

    • “Scurvy Hervey.”
    • “You’ll never see Lady Victoria on Mastermind.”
    • “Lady Victoria Hervey – A horse faced bint that makes me feel happy to have been born a mongrel without privilege.”
    • “Lady Victoria sounds like anything but a lady… Sounds more like a slag.”
    • “She’s been cocked more times than John Wayne’s gun.”
    • “How much publicity and TV time has ol’ Lady Victoria Hervey had out of this whole Ghislaine Maxwell sh*t? She’s swiftly becoming the new Paul Burrell.”
    • “Lady Victoria Hervey has been close to Ghislaine and Epstein, Ghislaine’s business partner Jemma Kidd, Prince Andrew and Flavio Briatore.”
    • “She is embarrassing herself with her bile and viciousness.”
    • “Has she any moral or ethical fibre in her body?”
    • “Unbelievable. Honestly, I can’t believe how much entitlement breeds stupidity and ignorance.”
    • “May I present Lady Victoria, friend of Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew. Apologist as well… Look how she spoke about a CHILD. This why survivors rarely come forward.”
    • “Lady Victoria Hervey… Normalised Jeffrey and Ghislaine’s network of girls and young women.”
    • “She’s a dickhead. Lady Victoria, friend of Ghislaine Maxwell. Apparently, Maxwell just touched a tit. Oh really, truly.”
    • “Lady Victoria Hervey… Sounds like a complete idiot implying that all men have impulses they cannot control FFS.”
    • “What a thoroughly disgusting Knightsbridge piece of trash. What a gutter-snipe. Drag a lump of cocaine through Harvey Nichols and you never knew what you’ll find.”
    • “She’s vile… Like perhaps Lady H needs to be looked into more. She clearly sounds like she knows ‘exactly’ what has [been] happening enough to make vile disgusting judgments.”
    • “Did you ever see Lady Victoria Hervey dashing in and out of the palace while she was dating Andrew? She has some very strident views.”
    • “She called Ghislaine Maxwell ‘scapegoat’ and the photo of Andrew and his victim ‘stupid.’ How out of touch with reality is she?”
    • “Tara Palmer Tomkinson was a nice girl and she had this numpty’s number.”
    • “It’s very simple. Lady Victoria is very, very, VERY thick.”
    • “Dear Lady Victoria Hervey – You’ve been skint for years, you use your title to bum around the world as a ‘guest.’”

    Lady Victoria claims to have dated Prince Andrew in 1999, but according to ‘The Sun,’ quite predictably, “romance failed to blossom.” Twenty years later, attempting to cash in on her decidedly brief encounter, this tedious twerp went on ‘Good Morning Britain’ and tried to defend the royal. As was to be expected, she didn’t exactly excel in that role either.