CHAPTER 51
SOME RANDOM UNRELATED THOUGHTS
In a week when even the BBC has apologised and paid out a lot of your, the licence payers’ money for the disgraceful conduct and a series of blatant lies and libels by one of their top ‘journalists’ to get a sensational and “exclusive” story, and then covering it up at the highest levels in management for over a quarter of a century, I browsed through other organs of disinformation and junk ‘exclusive’ stories. In some cases “Exclusive” apparently means ‘appearing in no more than five other papers’, (rather like the definition of “top secret” meaning “tell no more than twelve”)
I focussed on some of the nonsense, including lies and libels published over the past 14 years, which continue to be covered up, denied, or simply ignored.
But first an Update.
In Chapter 50, “February 2022, A Quiet Month for Madeleine Watchers” I relate the extraordinary series of unfounded allegations and accusations made by Jon Clarke, owner, editor and journalist the Olive Press, levelled at me in a series of e-mails.
They included a totally false suggestion that I had identified the location of his house and thereby exposed him, his wife and children to some unspecified danger. I showed how Clarke himself with his wife had done exactly this as an obviously very necessary part of their property rental business, centred on the house in question, and sent Clarke, his wife and his two lawyers the documentary evidence, with the suggestion they they might like to take the appropriate steps themselves.
I have of course received neither acknowledgement nor reply from any of them.
But my attention was drawn by another researcher, to the fact that rental house is now tagged on maps.google with “Permanently closed”. This is a strange and ineffective way of anonymising it, unless of course it genuinely is permanently closed.
All very strange, and for anyone still remotely interested, intriguing. Or perhaps not.
***
Back to the nonsense.
My browser alerted me as always to the ever-absorbing Olive Press.
Many years ago, before tabloid journalists were roundly rebuked and shown to be ignorant, uneducated, scientifically illiterate, inaccurate, and apparently incapable even of basic and cursory research, they published on a fairly regular basis totally invented stories about burglaries where the house/apartment/camper van/tent had allegedly been filled with anaesthetic gas to facilitate the crime.
The story has a long history, and as recently as the expensive foray with their invented company ALPHAIG into the McCann case, Cowley and Edgar were solemnly and ridiculously invoking chloroform as the active stupefacient.
Proving, if any ever doubted it, that they were ill-educated charlatans without an ‘O’ level or CSE in Chemistry between them, and with no access to modern means of research. But far more seriously, that they had not taken into account that both their clients did have this knowledge, one having even been a Junior Registrar Anaesthetist, and that both would immediately realise the “Fund” was being defrauded. The contract was terminated shortly after this.
But the Olive Press and other tabloids ran nonsense stories of this type over several years, until finally the Royal College of Anaesthetists issued their statement dismissing the stories as ludicrous fantasy for all time. And the sequence of stories faded away with a whimper. REF 1
But never one to pay much attention to anything as mundane as Facts, some years after this the press including the OP ran yet another two similar stories, one allegedly involving Richard Hammond and a second two pensioners in Spain. The issue was assigned to the cat-litter tray with due contempt.
Interestingly the Broadsheets queried the ”official story”. It seems the OP did not. REF 2. REF 3
Now again we have something different but strangely similar as you may observe.
In the edition of 13th July 2022 the OP reports “Four women report being drugged intravenously at Pamplona’s San Fermín festival.”
I will give the full text so that readers may savour the delicious ironies (and marvel at the trademark strange syntax) REF 4
“Four women have come forward after apparently being injected by strangers with drugs during San Fermin on Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
“The victims went to the emergency services in Pamplona reporting symptoms of dizziness and feeling as though they were about to lose consciousness.
“The first case allegedly took place on Saturday night, with several more reported about 2am.
“The four women stated that they felt disorientated after feeling a prick in their arm in what they described as a sensation similar to the feeling of being administered an injection.
“Police said they were taking the reports extremely seriously and advised anyone who suspects they are the victim of drugging or who felt dizzy or disorientated to seek medical assistance immediately.
“In recent months there are have been a number of cases of women reporting they had been drugged intravenously.
“In October of last year, a spate of druggings at nightclubs in the UK were reported across several cities, with victims being injected with unknown substances.
ENDS
As Tanner once notoriously said “I’m not making this up, you know”
I hardly know where to start.
Intra-venous. Means into the vein.
As opposed to intra-dermal, meaning into the skin, sub-cutaneous, meaning under the deeper layer of the skin, or intra-muscular, meaning into the muscle.
There are many other names for different injection sites, which are specialised and of no importance here.
But twice the OP insists it is Intravenous. Into the vein.
Anyone who has ever given blood for transfusion, had some taken for a blood test, or had a drip set up will know of the time and the skill required to find and visualise a suitable vein and then to puncture and slide the needle accurately and almost horizontally into it. There is a whole profession devoted to exactly this. Phlebotomists.
A drug administered in this way has a very rapid effect, as it is circulated to the entire body and particularly to the brain within a few heartbeats. Anyone who has had general anaesthesia will understand.
But the OP insists this was done to no fewer than four women, we may suppose given the time frame at a night club or dance hall, on the penultimate night of one of the most famous and well attended Fiestas in Spain. And that they then sought medical attention from the emergency services.
Is it not more likely that even if it happened at all, it could have been intramuscular, like the COVID and any other vaccination jab, into the deltoid or any other conveniently exposed muscle.
If it happened. To receive an injection involves a considerable degree of cooperation, at its most basic that of keeping STILL, and not twisting away as a natural reflex to the adverse stimulus, which can in turn cause tissue damage and acute pain.
We are told that the cases in the UK involved “unknown substances”.
Would not a medic in A&E when presented with this set of “facts” take a blood sample and send it immediately and urgently for analysis to identify the substance before the patient were considered for discharge ?
Then we are told that they felt “dizzy and disorientated”. That is surely the whole point of going to a night club after a entire day in the sweltering heat of July in Spain, watching bulls being run though the town and then ‘played’ and killed in the bull-ring, refreshing yourself constantly with the obligatory cerveza or vino tinto, before having a late dinner and being picked up by some young men in dashing uniforms of white T shirt and white trousers, with the red sash and neckerchief, and taken to the local discotheque, there to be spun round on the dance floor and bought drinks all night, before having to make a decision about where (and with whom) to sleep.
The music and the spinning and flashing lights are themselves capable of making most people ‘dizzy and disorientated’. Other ‘herbal substances’ are not unknown at these venues.
Is the OP once again pretending knowledge by giving too much detail and using specialised vocabulary, with the exact opposite effect when it is shown to be erroneous ?
There are dangers in detail.
One of the features regularly encountered when guilty persons try to exculpate themselves is that they have rehearsed the ‘story’ so many times that they add far too much detail, and fill in what they perceive as gaps which might be fatal to their account.
We have looked at this before, and have observed the many instances
“9:04 by his watch” being one of the first and most obvious.
No one would look at a watch in those circumstances when going to check a child, and no one would then make a mental note of the time to the nearest minute.
“after pudding” or ‘before the coffee” would have been perfectly intelligible. Even “I suppose a bit after nine’ would have been acceptable
But “9:04 BY HIS WATCH” is ludicrous, and clearly an invention.
A skilled detective will not ask too many questions at the start.
She will invite the witnesses or suspects to tell the story in their own words, and will not challenge even when something is said which is blatantly wrong.
The attention to detail comes in when the subsequent statement is analysed.
In one allegation against Brückner the victim was said to be clear that her assailant had a cross-shaped scar on his left thigh. Eventually the legal process allowed an inspection of his body by a medical practitioner, and one assumes a Scenes of Crime photographer to record anything found, or NOT found.
The nature of highly detailed evidence of that sort means that IF Brückner had such a scar he might, but only might be the person involved. If he didn’t he definitively wasn’t.
[SPOILER ALERT. – – – He didn’t. ]
Nor has he had facio-maxilliary and orthodontic surgery. But Clarke is so determined to frame his latest suspect that he seems to be convinced this must have happened to fit him into the photofit and very detailed description of the buck teeth and overbite given by another victim/witness in another case.
Indeed the whole of the past 14 years has, for Clarke and several others, been a question of imagining – but without detail – what happened, deciding who did it, and then looking for, or inventing, scraps of evidence and ‘sightings’ which can be interpreted or manipulated to support that pre-conception.
The more old fashioned way is to gather all the available evidence – of course including what the victim says – even if there are different “versions” from the same witness – and then seeing what it indicates, deducing from it a theory or theories about possible scenarios, and then testing each in turn to see which stands up to rigorous destructive criticism.
With Clarke things are different
MURAT : It must be him because . . .he has a glass eye, [he doesn’t] and speaks Portuguese
HEWLETT: It must be him because . . .he is a foreign itinerant. And dead.
MONTIERO: It must be him because . . . he is foreign and black. And also dead.
UN-NAMED FAMILY: It must be them because. . . they have a blonde girl called Maddie
(and even though I knew it wasn't her I printed the story anyway)
GERMAN at Alcossebres: It must be him because . . .he is foreign and has a VW van and a blonde girlfriend.
and now
BRÜCKNER: It must be him because he is foreign (see above) speaks German, once had long hair, and has convictions.
We must remember that in not one of these cases was there a single shred of evidence that any of them had done IT, largely because no one, not the PJ, not Grange, not the BKA, not M3, not Oakley International, not ALPHAIG, not the McCanns, not the Tapas 7, and not any of the hundreds of journalists and commentators, bloggers or tweeters, nor anyone else in the press, including Clarke himself, have ever been able to spell out coherently what IT actually IS; what happened; or how and when IT was or could possibly have been accomplished.
After 14 years of investigation that seems still to be the case.
Elsewhere in his book Clarke inserts a few more names, for reasons of his own. (Perhaps in case one of them ends up being convicted of something, when he will be able to say “I told you so”)
REID: conveniently dead
and then
NEY: It must be him because . . . (see above and fill in as necessary)
But here Clarke lets his guard slip when Ney is eliminated and he eloquently and revealingly uses the phrase . . . “It was so disappointing” [“MY SEARCH FOR MADELEINE: One Reporter’s 14-Year Hunt To Solve Europe’s Most Harrowing Crime". (Available world-wide on Amazon, in Print and Kindle editions, price £10.99.) at p. 63.]
In 2012 Clarke published an ’exclusive’ about a man and child seen on a flight to Ibiza. Complete with photo. He did not apparently contact the PJ or Grange in the first instance but sent it to the Sun, Mirror, Star and Record, who syndicated it to 12 countries, whose own tabloid gutter press went to work on the story and published the photo of the little girl who was definitively NOT Madeleine.
In his book he comments on this, not with a sense of shame or with an unreserved apology for the unwarranted intrusion on privacy, but with the strangely worded phrase – even for Clarke – that he was “delighted … when Mitchell … praised the sighting”. [op.cit. p.59]
Quite what this is meant to convey is far from clear, but we may deduce that it reveals Clarke’s true motivation.
What he was eventually paid for this nonsense will never be known. But clearly in his murky and unprincipled world a third-hand unconfirmed story, complete with a photo of someone else entirely is worth a lot of money. As it was for Clarke with Kidman and Murat, both of which disgraceful episodes he details in his book without a hint of remorse for his actions.
It may be that by not reporting the sightings to the police he may hope he cannot be accused of Wasting Police Time. Except with Murat, obviously, and he can always blame Lori Campbell for that, since he is clearly still frustrated and furious with her having taken all the “glory” for framing him. [op.cit. p.24]
For the record three of his victims received libel damages, though notably not from Clarke, who is able to off-load his Libels to his paymasters.
Kidman £undisclosed but donated to a Children’s Charity, Murat £600,000. Malinka £ 100,000
***
When we try to work out what happened to Madeleine Beth McCann, we must recognise that is not a simple Cartesian proposition “cogito ergo sum” I think therefore I am.
IT doesn’t work like that. We cannot argue from bogus philosophical principals
‘Madeleine is not in bed, therefore she must have been abducted by a predatory paedophile’
and yet that is the intellectual level to which the Abduction acolytes and apologists have sunk.
Answering a question with a question does not make the first question go away. It simply doesn’t answer it, and by not so doing encourages listeners to repeat it, or to assume that the refusal to answer bears some hidden significance.
GM used this tactic outside the Court in Lisbon, Portugal, in February 2010 when asked a perfectly simply question by a perceptive journalist.
Journalist: What evidence do you have that there was an abduction?
KM: I know, I was there. I found my daughter gone. I know more than you do.
GM Where… where is ... where is… where is the child ? What other explanation can explain why she’s not here?
YouTube video at 7:05. REF 5
Neither of which, with respect, answers the question.
The question remains unanswered, even after 14 years.
********
CLARKE SABOTAGES PROSECUTION CASE, AND LETS BRÜCKNER WALK FREE ? [EXCLUSIVE]
It is now eight months since Jon Clarke posted an article advertising his book from ABC, the renowned Spanish Newspaper on his FaceBook Page.
As we noted in Chapters 48 and 49 the article and the Muckrack entry associated with it state unequivocally that Clarke received the phone call alerting him to the missing child “that VERY day” [3/5/7], and that he arrived in Praia da Luz in “the early hours of the morning” or in his own words, quoted verbatim “at 1:30 am”.
As we have calculated that puts the time of the phone call at around 8pm
He has been questioned about this detail, and has refused to answer, even characteristically resorting to “whooshing’ perfectly sound questions from the page.
A further question was posted a few weeks ago, and so far it remains on display. Unanswered.
So I preserve it here. REF 6
Since my last post was "whooshed", I shall again ask the simple question. Do you stand by the content of this article and the Muckrack entry by Sn. Madueño associated with it , or not?
As we noted in Chapters 48 and 49, it is of the utmost importance to know the truth about this.
If it is wrong and misquoted or a misunderstanding, or simply an excess of braggadocio, then Clarke should say so, and finish the matter.
If he does not then Grange, the PJ, the BKA and now particularly H. Fülscher and Brückner will surely take an interest.
H. Fülscher might even subpoena Clarke to appear as a defence witness.
Let us spell out why.
IF the prosecution insists that the McCann’s and Tapas 7’s time-line is correct and that the ‘offence’, whatever it was, took place on 3/5/7 between 9:25pm and 9:28pm, and that the first phone calls to the police were made after 10:00pm . . .
THEN evidence that a phone call about a missing child was received about 8pm kills the prosecution case stone dead on Day 1 of the trial . . .
BECAUSE what is alleged against Brückner clearly did not and COULD NOT have happened. It is 14 years too late for the McCanns and Tapas 7 to change the timelines. Any of them.
The trial cannot proceed, and Brückner walks free, even if he did IT.
If Clarke can understand that he may realise he has a duty to tell the truth, on this occasion at least. The evidence he has put into the public domain thus far may be the key to the release of a man whom clearly he believes to be Guilty.
He is trapped. Only the truth will set him free. Wahrheit Macht Frei.
1 https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/news-and-bulletin/rcoa-news-and-statements/statement-alleged-gassing-motor-vehicles
Statement on alleged gassing in motor vehicles
Despite the increasing numbers of reports of people being gassed in motor-homes or commercial trucks in France, and the warning put out by the Foreign Office for travellers to be aware of this danger, this College remains of the view that this is a myth.
It is the view of the College that it would not be possible to render someone unconscious by blowing ether, chloroform or any of the currently used volatile anaesthetic agents, through the window of a motor-home without their knowledge, even if they were sleeping at the time. Ether is an extremely pungent agent and a relatively weak anaesthetic by modern standards and has a very irritant affect on the air passages, causing coughing and sometimes vomiting. It takes some time to reach unconsciousness, even if given by direct application to the face on a cloth, and the concentration needed by some sort of spray administered directly into a room would be enormous. The smell hangs around for days and would be obvious to anyone the next day.
Even the more powerful modern volatile agents would need to be delivered in tankerloads of carrier gas by a large compressor. Potential agents, such as the one used by the Russians in the Moscow siege are few in number and difficult to obtain. Moreover, these drugs would be too expensive for the average thief to use.
The other important point to remember is that general anaesthetics are potentially very dangerous, which is why they are only administered in the UK by doctors who have undergone many years of postgraduate training in the subject and who remain with the unconscious patient throughout the anaesthetic. Unsupervised patients are likely to die from obstruction of the airway by their tongues falling back. In the Moscow siege approximately 20% of the people died, many probably from airway obstruction directly related to the agent used.
If there was a totally safe, odourless, potent, cheap anaesthetic agent available to thieves for this purpose it is likely the medical profession would know about it and be investigating its use in anaesthetic practice.
14 July 2014
2
Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tv-presenter-s-family-robbed-by-gas-thieves-lkn6wlw03
HEADLINE Richard Hammond’s family ‘robbed by gas thieves’. [note the inverted commas]
“The knockout gas burglars of Saint-Tropez are either callous criminals or a myth fuelled by the accounts of traumatised victims.”
Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/02/richard-hammonds-family-robbed-sleep-amid-fears-saint-tropez/
“Fears are emerging that Saint Tropez's knockout gas burglars have returned after Richard Hammond's family were robbed in their sleep.”
But then further into the article the Telegraph observes
“Experts have doubted the claims, saying gasses such as ethers and chloroforms would cause coughing and spluttering to anyone exposed to high doses. It would not be possible to pump high enough concentrations of alternative gasses, such as nitrous oxide, through an entire villa to knock victims out for long enough, some experts have said.”
3
Olive Press
EXCLUSIVE: GANG GAS BRITISH EXPAT PENSIONERS BEFORE LOOTING HOME AND TORCHING CAR AFTER USING IT FOR MORE ROBBERIES IN SOUTHERN SPAIN
John and Jacqueline A, 72 and 70, had their car stolen from outside their house, after they were gassed at night by brazen thieves.
“I’m a light sleeper and our dog barks at the slightest noise so police are 100% sure we were gassed.
Outside Lisbon Court 10 Feb 2010
At 7.05 onwards
Reporter: What evidence do you have that there was an abduction ?
KM: I know, I was there. I found my daughter gone. I know more than you do.
GM Where… where is... where is…. where is the child ? What other explanation can explain why she’s not here ?
6
https://www.facebook.com/jon.clarke.3745