Who started Hoaxtead, and why?

As a blog, we try to balance our coverage between the day-to-day events and personalities involved in the Hampstead hoax, and the larger picture: what’s this thing really all about?

Recently, we’ve turned our attention to the vexing problem of “who started this thing, and what on earth were they thinking?” It’s not a question we can address lightly, as Hoaxtead is a bit like a swamp: once you wade in, you start getting tangled in the weeds. So many people seem to have had a hand in the thing, it can be hard to keep the personalities straight, let alone work out their roles or motivations.

However, over the past few months, certain patterns began to jump out at us.

According to the blog Order of Truth, Belinda McKenzie has form for promoting hoaxes, to her own benefit:

According to ex-members of the (9/11 truth) campaign, McKenzie, Machon, Shayler, and a couple of others formed an inner-circle within the Highgate Hub who were responsible for the majority of decision making, including finances. Some of the former members allege that there seemed to be little money for promotional work but plenty for ‘celebrities’ in the 9/11 movement from the UK and from abroad – particularly the USA.

This ties in with other campaigns McKenzie has been involved with. She places herself in a position within some ‘inner-circle’ and treats it as a sanctum where only the chosen few are deemed worthy to make decisions, contribute to the cause, or be privy to future plans.

Another side venture of McKenzie is to hold ‘talks’ at her Highgate home and charge people to attend and listen to ‘leading figures’ in the UFO/extra-terrestrial movement.

It was the same with the Holly Grieg campaign. McKenzie placed herself close to the source (in this case being Ann and Hollie Grieg) with only a few others (primarily Robert Green and long-term associate Brian Gerrish) as part of the core.

McKenzie has also been involved in the ‘Starchild Project’ in the USA. This project claims to have discovered a skull of extra-terrestrial origin. In fact, the skull is from ancient burial grounds in Mexico, and is one of many found in the area. The misshaping of the skull occurs because of the burial practices at the time. DNA testing has proven that the skull is of human origin.

An interesting fact in all of the three aforementioned cases where McKenzie has been involved as a campaigner, she has had significant control of finance. In the 9/11 ‘truth’ movement she was in charge of funds, in the Hollie Grieg campaign she was in charge of funds, in the Starchild Project she was in charge of funds. In each case there is a distinct lack of financial accountability and transparency.

So it should come as no surprise that in June 2014, as the Hollie G. hoax was on its last legs, Belinda announced that “the really active part of the Battle, what I call my ‘Special Operation’ is about to commence. I mentioned this a few weeks back and asked for volunteers willing to allow me to inform you & hopefully enlist you VIA YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS”.

Why via postal address only? Well, if you’re about to embark on a project for which you could conceivably be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, would you want to leave a digital footprint behind?

Belinda is no amateur: she knows all about how the police can search your home and seize your computers and phones if they suspect you’ve been up to no good online. She’s seen it happen to enough of her underlings.

And why would she go to all this trouble in the first place?

If we surmise (and admittedly it’s a leap at the moment, without concrete evidence) that Belinda and/or Sabine had recently met a woman with two beautiful children, who just so happened to want to block her ex-husband’s access to their kids, permanently if possible, the picture becomes clearer.

Clearer still when we factor in Araya Soma, a close friend of Abraham’s ex-girlfriend in Glastonbury, and a member of the ‘truther’ community that included Belinda, along with Kevin Annett, Brian Gerrish, and others. Araya took a leading role in Hoaxtead early on, acting as a spokes-person for Abe and Ella; and it’s not implausible that she introduced them to Belinda in the first place.

To Belinda, Ella and the children must have looked like manna from heaven. We can almost imagine the £££ signs popping up in her eyes as she looked at them and assessed the situation. Pretty, bright, well-spoken kids…angry, desperate mother…controlling boyfriend with an axe to grind…so much potential there.

As a McKenzie friend, Belinda was used to losing hopeless cases in court, but using them as jumping-off points for her ‘campaigns’—seemingly quixotic attempts to ‘save families’ or ‘rescue children’ or ‘stop ritual abuse’.

Of course the campaigns were never really about any of those fine motives, any more than Iran Aid was about saving Iranian orphans. The campaigns were simply a justification for passing the begging bowl.

RD’s kids would be the perfect poster children for the campaign to end all campaigns: they would embody the battle between good and evil, God and Satan; they’d be trotted out (on video, of course) like little trained seals, describe whatever horrors Abe could make them recite, and people’s hearts would melt.

And as we discussed in yesterday’s post,

Once people saw the images of two adorable children describing the most foul abuse possible, all Abrella, Belinda, and Sabine would have to do would be to sit back and watch the donations start pouring in. A caring yet gullible public could be counted upon to keep hitting those ‘Donate’ buttons ad infinitum.

And despite Abe and Ella’s bungling of the initial phase in September, in November 2014 there was a flurry of activity as the promotional plan was launched.

Sabine prepared for her info’ leak by placing Ella’s extended statement on her Google Drive. Charlotte Alton Ward changed her name, shut down her Conspirituality blog, and released her blockbuster best-seller, Illuminati Party. And Belinda announced the founding of the Knight Foundation (with its prominent ‘Donate Now’ buttons);

It’s an ugly picture: four adults cold-bloodedly planning how to wring maximum profit from the suffering of two young children. In fact, it’s barely plausible—and yet, when you know who’s involved, it’s suddenly a great deal more plausible than the story Belinda, Sabine, Abe, and Ella tried to foist off on us.

In the end, it all came down to greed.

And as the philosopher Horace once pointed out, the person who is greedy is always in want.