Belinda funded Zimbabwean teen’s embassy escape

A few weeks back, we reported that Belinda McKenzie had involved herself in the case of a young teenager from Zimbabwe. Because there is an injunction in place against naming the boy or his mother, we realised that we could be in violation, and removed the posts a few days after we’d put them up.

At the time we noted that ex-MP John Hemming had become involved in the case, and had made a couple of media appearances to bang the drum on behalf of the boy and his mother, who were holed up in the Zimbabwean embassy, unable to leave due to a protection order placed on the boy.

We had heard that the boy and his mother had somehow made an escape from the embassy, and had made it back to Zimbabwe; however, until recently we had no idea how this might have happened, nor what had preceded it.

Then we discovered a very interesting bit of email correspondence which had been published on a site called FreeLists. The emails seem to have been placed there by Yolande Lindridge, an associate of Belinda and Sabine’s, whom the mother had originally asked to be her McKenzie friend:

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016

Dear Yolande
Thank you very much for the great effort. I can only echo what you have written. Yesterday we had a talk with Mr John Hemming, to try to see if there is any way he can intervene on our behalf.

We are considering approaching him again today, with the request that he attends via video link the hearing tomorrow, since both my son and I have no legal representations and he could act as my son’s Litigant Friend.

It would also be good if you likewise were able to attend via video conference as my Litigant Friend.We had to let go of our Legal Aid solicitors because they were representing the interests of the establishment instead of our interests.

It appears that in as part of her assistance to the mother, Yolande was attempting to have the media injunction on the boy’s name lifted, and was in touch with various news outlets in hopes of brokering exclusive rights to the story.

However, on 28 April, Yolande sent an email to the Supreme Court that read, in part:

….At 18.04 on 26.4.2016 I received on my mobile a photo of [the boy] and his mother with broad grins on a train.  Then a minute later was the message from [the mother] “Will update you, Keep cool.”.  I had no idea where they were, other than on a train, and waited to hear more. 

Yesterday morning [the mother] phoned me;  she told me that the Acting Ambassador at the Zimbabwe Embassy had telephoned the police on 26.4.2016 after they had left the Embassy, so I assumed that the police would be monitoring their mobiles to track them down. 

At 11.13am yesterday (27.4.2016) I received a message from [the mother] “We are boarding”.   At 11.33 I received a photo of [the son] and his mother sitting on a plane waving with broad grins on their faces.  I have heard nothing since. 

But when [the mother] phoned me yesterday morning she told me that they were in a hotel and that they had the attached Fee Exemption Form and that [the son] was going to sign it and get it scanned in the hotel, so I contacted Belinda McKenzie and she kindly agreed that when the forms arrived that she would go to the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday to get [the son]’s C2 application issued and served.

About 15 minutes later, John Hemming wrote to the mother:

I thought you were avoiding this being public until you find out what the courts’s decision is. It hasn’t gone directly to Sutton or the court, but it has been emailed quite widely.

The mother responded within about 20 minutes:

We are shocked to read this. We are not yet even in Zimbabwe so she  is placing us at risk. We do not understand why she did this. We are shocked.

Within the hour, Belinda chipped in:

I am quite surprised by this too, I was speaking with Yolande at around 10pm last night and she gave no hint she was going to do this! I thought we’d agreed to stay quiet until you are safely home and that I will take any further directions directly from you, ie. re. putting an application into the court if you so wish so concluded that she would do the same. By late yesterday evening it had in any case become clear that the police do not wish to question either of us, it would be a classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted!

I still do think though that it was right that Yolande raised your plight at the CSTBH [Children Screaming to be Heard] conference as at that point you were still in the Embassy and in danger, hence my giving up my speaking slot to her. But the situation has changed dramatically since your escape and we should be taking a back seat at this point IMO.

Nevertheless Yolande has done a huge amount of work on your case and is to be warmly commended for that.

I just hope something good will emerge out of this latest situation and out of all you particularly [your son] have suffered… 

Waiting to hear final good news from you!

Belinda

Later that day, the mother wrote to Belinda:

We are not yet home but will no longer share what we are going through for fear someone like Yolande will rush to break the news. [My son] is disappoited [sic] as he wanted to be the one to break the news.

I do not believe in the explanation Yolande gave. I hope she stops going on and on about the [family] and our lives.

Yolande did not help us to escape, so she should be the last person to disclose this.

I appreciate all the support Yolande has given us but I expected to be consulted or warned before going public with this. I hope she achieved what she wanted.

All we want right now is to get home and rest and please do not steer up ore [sic] trouble in the UK before we get home.

The next day, 29 April, Yolande responded to the mother:

I am not a liar, and I will not be called a liar by you.  If [your son] was disappointed in me why did he message me at 22.50 last night?I have only just read this and so I will copy [your son], John Hemming and Margaret into the emails that I have sent you today as I am no longer prepared for you to undermine me and not respect me for what I have done for you and [your son].

Does [your son] realise that a newspaper wants to publish his story?

A day later, the mother wrote to Yolande:

I think we need a bit of a break from each other right now. All these messages are from Thursday or earlier but were in outbox due to poor connection. He did not send you anything last night. He will also not send you a message soon because his McKenzie friend is John. Please stop copying John and confusing him too.

I am tired and need some rest from this drama so do not write about anything other than a must communicate case re the case and please not about what is happening in the UK about other cases.

Thanks for respecting my request.

Also do not continue to talk about our case without our permission. If anyone wants to discuss us or write ahout our story then you know my email. Do not share [my son’s] email please.

I appreciate all you have done for us.

We believe that in common parlance that’s know as ‘the brush-off’.

There are a couple more snippy emails that we’re excluding here for brevity’s sake, but in an email dated 3 May, the mother dropped a bombshell:

….I am trying to get both us us settled here and that is not easy. We literally have run out of funds now and I am trying to see how we can make ends meet and how I can settle the bills related to his return. That is a challenge I am trying to deal with now that is why I have not even had the chance to write to Belinda or anyone else about what has happened since we arrived. They are all not complaining and when I get the time to do so, I will update them from the time we arrived. So please do not try to push me to move at your pace because I have pressing issues to deal with now. We got almost nothing from the fund raising initiatives apart from the money we got from Belinda and David for the tickets.

Say what? Belinda and David Edmond Efthyvoulou (who was copied on this email) funded the mother and son to flee the UK, against the wishes of the court? Fascinating…as is Yolande’s response:

After I sent you the email below yesterday at 4.15pm I re-read your email below identifying that Belinda and David had financed the cost of your travel tickets.  As I was concerned for those of us you have left behind and so I messaged both Belinda & Sabine then did some research myself. 

My concerns currently are that Belinda is at risk of arrest, in a blaze of publicity, maybe David too?

I have excluded John Hemming from this email group for reasons that will become apparent as I no longer believe that he wants what [your son] wants ie his story told;  all of us who do the voluntary work that we do – do it for the child first and foremost.

1   John Hemming’s reputation here is for refusing to help English parents in a similar situation to yours, and you are Zimbabwean

2   John Hemming approached you a few months ago fishing for information but
did nothing to help

3   John Hemming acted on his own initiative when he appeared on ITV and BBC
and spoke about your situation without speaking to you first

4   I alerted you that John Hemming was going to come back on board to help after being messaged by Yxxxxx Exxxxxxxx, the Daily Mail Researcher and paid police informer who works closely with Tim Haines, who works in John Hemming’s Office (see Facebook for the connections between Yxxxxx and Haines);  you will recall the undermining email that Yxxxxx sent to the Supreme Court et al

5  John Hemming has not written anything to the Supreme Court in support of [your son]’s wish to have his story told here in the UK

6  John Hemming’s facebook shows his employers as being the LibDems

7  John Hemming’s facebook makes no mention of your case

8  John Hemming, on his own initiative (no directions from you), passed your email with the Zimbabwe News Item from last Friday to Tim Haines to post on facebook

9  It was Yxxxxx who alerted me via facebook messenger to a news item in the Zimbabwe Press but he mentioned a different newspaper to the one posted by Tim Haines

10 Tim Haines told me he was barred from the Children Screaming to be Heard Conference because of his attacks on Belinda and Sabine;  Tim tried to find out from me via Facebook messenger if I had broken the law by speaking on behalf of you at the Children Screaming to be Heard Conference

11 Tim Haines has been spreading lies for months on facebook about why Sabine was motivated to leave the UK last year to live in Germany

12 Tim Haines has reproduced on his wall the photo on Maya Birdwood-Hedger’s wall of me, Terence Steele, Terence’s girlfriend, Maya, Juliana & Bhupesh Patel at the Children Screaming to be Heard Conference – he quotes what Maya said about them and makes no mention of me

13  Tim Haines has posted that Terence Steele/Canosa has not seen his adopted daughter since 2013, but we know that that the LibDem-run LB of Sutton wrote to Terence offering him one contact session with his adopted daughter the same day (20 April 2016) that he handed 4 LB of Sutton councillors the letter that I wrote for you;  in this country it never happens that 3 years after no contact and a child is adopted that the adopters suddenly want the child to see their father, aided by the LB of Sutton

14  John Hemming’s legal adviser is Bill Bache (as per John Hemming’s dated website 22.4.2016);  this is a clear conflict of interest between you and him

15  In the interview of you and John Hemming the advice seems poor ie there is no mention of the jurisdiction issue that entities you both to massive compensation

16  John Hemming’s advice to [your son] during the videoed hearing on 22.4.2016 re Mr Justice Mostyn appears to have led to the Court of Protection for [your son], via an Emergency Hearing before Mr Justice Mostyn at 10.30am on 27.4.2016 – thus thwarting all [your son]’s claims for compensation

17  It is Yxxxxx Exxxxxxxx who said on facebook that you were helped to leave the UK and that you have been paid off by the LibDems

18  John Hemming is employed by the LibDems, when he told you that the LibDem run LB of Sutton refused to let him mediate with them on your behalf, was he lying?

19  John Hemming, and all MPs are freemasons – their loyalty first and foremost is to fellow freemason ie [name redacted], as is already proven in your case

20  I alerted you to the fact that Hoaxtead Research has been publishing about your case, I saw 3 separate articles undermining you, me, Sabine & Belinda – Tim Haines posts in that group in support of anyone who undermines Sabine & Belinda

21  John Hemming emailed me recently that he started to distance himself from Belinda and Sabine before the Hampstead Research case that led to Hoaxtead Research.

22  John Hemming wants to give witness evidence at Sabine’s trial in July

23  In one article posted on Hoaxtead Research there was a detailed analysis of your website including that it is registered in the name of Faria Goromonzi

24  Hoaxtead Research closely monitor Sabine & Belinda, taking screen shots of everything – including that on Belinda’s Knight Foundation website she was raising money for you to go into her bank account – Hoaxtead Research allege that this is one of Belinda’s money making scams

25  Yesterday there was no sign of the Hoaxtead Research articles about your case, they had been removed.  The fund raising via the Knight Foundation is no longer there.

26  Yxxxxx told me that a Greek solicitor runs Hoaxtead Research, I believe – in light of the above – that the postings about your case have been removed at the request of the Metropolitan Police and that arrests are a possibility. [Hang on, this blog is run by a Greek solicitor? We thought we were run by RD!—editor]

The email that you sent yesterday in response to mine clarifying my concerns for Belinda & David, without me telling you about them, worries me as this email has now disappeared from my computer.  Due to the scale of your scandal emails will be hacked, phone calls listened into and mobiles tracked; I know because of what happened to me.  I don’t believe that because you have made a monkey out of the Metropolitan Police and the Courts that they are going to let the matter drop here in the UK.

It appears from this that Yolande was not aware that Belinda and David had funded the mother and son’s escape, and that she was worried about the consequences, with good reason. (It’s also gratifying to know she’s a regular reader here, and pays such close attention to us.)

Belinda responded to Yolande later the same afternoon, echoing her clear dislike and distrust of Hemming:

Thank for this, great to have such a fast and meticulous mind on the case!

The close catalogue of John Hemming’s doings in this affair is especially valuable, have never trusted this individual or his staff. A friend reported visiting his parliamentary office and she spotted a manual of satanism on Tim Haines’ desk. She commented as to why Tim had such a publication? He laughed it off as if just a bit of fun, no one takes this stuff very seriously.

Well OK but not OK.

Yes of course they were/are both FMs and probably worse.

FMs? It took us a while to realise she meant the dreaded Freemasons. We wonder whether Hemming knows how Belinda feels about him?

Finally, on 5 May, Yolande wrote to the Supreme Court once again. Following a long preamble, she wrote:

…On Tuesday morning, 3.5.2016, Mr Justice MacDonald took the initiative to have a hearing in case ZE15C000253 today at 10.30 in Court 39 at the RCJ saying that he had learned that [the mother] and her son were now in Zimbabwe, unusually from what I have seen of Mr Justice MacDonald, this judge has decided to discuss the Media Restriction Order without having received a Sealed C2 application although John Hemming, [the son]’s McKenzie Friend, advised [him] to make this application hours before [the mother] and her son fled the UK. 

[The son] and his Mum asked me to fill out the Fees Exemption Form to facilitate John Hemming’s C2  I now know that this was the last legal work that I did for them before they fled the Zimbabwe Embassy on 26.4.2016.  On 27.2016 in the morning I got a phone call from [the mother] who told me that she was with her son in Amsterdam, she told me that the Acting Zimbabwean Ambassador had phoned the police the night before to report them missing;  so I knew that the police would be monitoring our phone calls. I was surprised to hear that they were in Holland due to Port Alerts and I had guessed wrongly that they would be in Switzerland. 

[The mother] told me that her son was very happy as he had just had his first shower in 3 weeks (due to being in the Embassy). She told me that they had just missed their flight the night before and that they were going to fly out that evening on a Kenya Airways Flight to Nairobi and that a few minutes later she was going to get the hotel to scan the signed Fees Remission Form that I had prepared for [her son] and email it back to me for me to get the C2 application form wanted by John Hemming issued. 

I alerted Belinda McKenzie so that she could go to the RCJ at lunch-time on 27.4.2016 to get the forms proceeded but the promised email never came and then came a photo from [the mother] and her son on a plane waving that morning, so I thought that they had got an earlier flight to Nairobi via Kenya Airlines.  I checked online to see flight times and saw that if they made their connection that they would be back in Zimbabwe by 11.30pm that night, or if they missed their connection they would be back in Zimbabwe by 9.30am on 28.4.2016.  I was therefore surprised to read a posting on facebook from Tim Haines, who works with John Hemming to see a link to [the mother]’s website which stated that they had travelled through 9 countries to get back to Zimbabwe on 28.4.2016.

I read last year that some Africans living in the UK were stealing expensive cars to order and transporting them to Africa, but the UK police tracked the cars through their route and then worked with the African Government to get the cars returned; and I am fully aware that mobile phones are tracking devices and so warned [the mother]. …I know that [the son] wants his voice heard and his experiences via the LB of Sutton publicly shared, but he has no voice now he is back home in Zimbabwe as his mother legally speaks for him until he is 18.  I read out [the son]’s text messages to me whilst I was at the Children Screaming to be Heard Conference on 23.4.2016 when I addressed the audience after the Conference Organiser introduced me as “Yolande” and that I was going to speak about [a famous person]’s grandson….

Julian Assange has been trapped in the Ecuador Embassy for nearly 4 years, so questions have been asked as to how [the mother] and her son were able to escape after just 21 days and with Port Alerts in place throughout the European Union and yet they allegedly travelled on genuine travel documents through 9 countries….

This is an excellent point: it’s one thing to know who funded their escape, and another to know who helped them manage to evade the authorities throughout Europe en route to Zimbabwe.

…I believe that the following people who have helped [the mother] are now at risk of arrest in a blaze of publicity ie myself, Terence Steele, Belinda McKenzie, Sabine McNeil and David Edmond….

I do not believe that when Belinda McKenzie and David Edmond gave donations to [the mother] that they were aware that this money would be used to finance what is a crime here ie the international abduction of a child by paying towards flights.  [The mother] yesterday has changed her appeals for money to reflect that.

This glimpse behind the scenes reveals an ugly picture: Belinda turning against John Hemming; McKenzie friends trying to make use of yet another case to create a media sensation; Belinda and David funding an international abduction.

Yolande clearly realises that Belinda and David’s role in this case could cause serious legal repercussions for them all, and is trying to be proactive in approaching the court to let them know that she knew nothing about it.

A smart move on her part, but we wonder how Belinda took it? Our guess: not well.

---

If you’re interested in reading the judgement regarding this case and the Reporting Restriction order attached to it, it has now been released on Bailii: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/1371.html