Abe and Ella and Steve and Finbar: The pocket tape

One of the lesser-known characters in the bizarre melodrama of Hoaxtead is a man called ‘Finbar’, whose role is somewhat unclear.

His last name is never mentioned, and he makes an appearance in only one video.

One of our long-time commenters recently put together this video, in which he’s pulled together the sound track from the Finbar video.

It is Tuesday, 08 Sept 2014, just after 2 pm. Finbar has just been recording A inside the house. They are interrupted, and he jumps up and presumably shoves the phone in a pocket while it is still recording. It’s best to use headphones while listening to this one, as the sound quality is muffled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHC3LdQWvk&w=854&h=480a

Finbar whispers, “Yeah, yeah, good, good…” as though to himself.

Abe says, “Just keep your mouth shut…” then mumbles something inaudible.

A child’s voice (G?) asks, “Is it really bad?” and both men hasten to reassure him. “No, no, it’s not bad,” Finbar says. Abe interjects, “It’s what we expected”.

“Exactly”, says Finbar, “it’s why I’m here and he’s here”.

Abe repeats, “It’s what we expected”.

The child asks, “So one of them are…” but is drowned out by the two men: “Ahhhh!”

Finbar yells, “Rock and roll!” and then he and Abe both shout, “We know! We know!”

“Ha. All right?” asks Abe. “He’s all right,” Finbar responds.

Abe says, “And they were telling him all about M.E., M.E., M.E.”

Finbar asks, “What’s M.E.?” and Abe shouts, “Me!”

With a chuckle, Finbar says, “Well, they can have me too”. At this point Ella enters the room, and she and Finbar greet one another.

What’s this all about?

Just off the tops of our heads, we’d suggest that Abe (and Finbar?) had started off with a plan, and are now concerned that something has come up to derail it. They shout excitedly, as though trying to convince themselves that all will be well.

Abe sounds nervous as he says, “They want to talk to me. I wonder why they want to talk to me”, and then “It’s him. It’s him, who we suspected, S.T….” The child exclaims, “Steve!” and Abe confirms, muttering, “It’s him, it’s him, it’s him.”

Ella interjects, “They were really pressurising me today”.

But Abe is on his own track: “It’s him. We know it’s him.” The child says, “I think I know what, it’s both of them. Fat lady and Steve…” but Abe goes on: “He likes, he doesn’t like babies. He likes boys. Steve, Steve likes boys. He came for F******” (referring to Abe’s teenage son).

Finbar says, “Who’s that, the cop?”

Abe replies, “Yeah, he came for F*****”. And he didn’t get him because of me, right, he didn’t get him because of me…and now, he sees I’m here again, another child case. Well, I keep turning up. He keeps turning up”.

“Strange”, says Finbar.

What’s this all about? Who is Steve, and why would he have come for Abe’s older son?

We believe ‘Steve’ refers to DC Steve Martin, who was the police officer involved when Abe assaulted F*****…and who coincidentally has been assigned to deal with the Hampstead case. Abe keeps muttering over and over, “It’s him”, as though he can’t quite believe this unexpected turn of events.

Ella’s contribution: “They were really pressurising me today” seems to confirm this, as it sounds as though the police had begun to ask her some tough questions.

Abe mulls over the horrible coincidence of having this case—for which he’d had such high hopes—being handled by the cop who knows him to be a child abuser: “Now, he sees I’m here again, another child case. Well, I keep turning up. He keeps turning up”. And note that he’s already begun as he means to go on, accusing DC Martin of ‘liking boys’. Clearly, anyone who does anything against Abe must be a paedophile.

“So he knows everything?” asks Ella.

“Oh, he knows, yeah”, Abe says. At this point his phone begins to ring. It’s his ex-brother-in-law, Jean Clement Yaohirou. “One moment, everyone keep cool”. Abe puts on his telephone voice: “Hi, Jean-Clement, how are you? I’ve got…erm…I tell you….” and then as an aside he says, “G, come with me”. In a small voice, G says, “Bye, Mum”. Abe continues: “I’ll be back in a minute, Mum (meaning Ella). You have a meditate and we’ll sort it all out, you’ve got the key.”

Finbar mutters, “Strange days, strange days. I’m going to keep my shoes on”.

Ella tries again: “He was giving me pressure, those guy, today…the policeman”. Then, “We went out yesterday, to second house. G showed it”.

Finbar says, “It might be a good idea if you get somewhere else”, to which Ella responds, “Sorry?” He repeats: “If you could try and move somewhere else….”

Ella asks, “Meaning where?”

“Anywhere”, says Finbar.

“Out of the country?”

“This place isn’t safe. It’s the country…it’s in the institutions…it’s…away”.

Ella responds, “We knew that. We knew that. We were discussing this yesterday, just we were really like…yesterday. I am going to pack a bag”.

Finbar says, “And then ask Abraham, he’ll say the same.”

Ella continues, “…away, in about two, three days…yesterday…we talked about it”.

Finbar tries to sound upbeat: “Okay, everything is going to be cool. Well, we are going to make sure everything is going to be…cooler”. More loudly, he says, “That’s why I’m here, and that’s why he’s here, all right? I’m going to put on my shoes in case I need them, all right? I’m going to put my shoes on in case I need them”. There’s the sound of a door opening, and then he asks, “Who is Jean Clement?”

Ella whispers something, and Finbar says, “It’s all going to get fixed.”

The video ends with the sound of a zipper, and then a quick shot of Finbar’s shoeless foot.

We can infer from this that Finbar is familiar with Abe and Ella’s story, but isn’t close enough to them to know who Jean Clement is. Finbar seems to view his job as ‘fixing’ things for Abe and Ella, though how he planned to do this (aside from putting his shoes on) we cannot say.

This video does cast some light on Abe’s continuing animosity towards DC Steve Martin. He recently posted something about DC Martin being an Nth-degree Freemason or something, so clearly he still feels compelled to attempt to smear the cop who had the misfortune of encountering him on two separate child abuse cases. We’re sure DC Martin thinks very highly of him, too.

It also shows that Abe and Ella must have been on tenterhooks all last fall, and were already preparing to make a run for it—their sudden departure when the police arrived in February now looks a great deal more planned, doesn’t it?

But the video also raises multiple questions:

• Who took it?
• Whose phone was it on?
• How did it get released?

And of course, the big question: who is Finbar? and what was his role in all of this? So…many…questions….